Getting Sauced

 I had a few neighborhood friends come over recently to make applesauce. We called it "getting sauced" for a few reasons. One was the butterscotch cider. There's been antipasto parties and stitch n' bitch sessions and the latest, Posh Applesauce. I have made applesauce with my sister-in-law Janette and my mother at different times, now it seems I am the only one left holding the apple. Requests for my applesauce for family dinners have turned into expectations that I'm happy to oblige. 

The dutch do have a thing for apples in all forms it seems. The apple takes such precedence in their world, thereby their language, that their word for potato is aardappel - meaning earth apple - cute huh?  I have been making this since 1997 when I adapted a recipe in a Martha mag. i confess I liked her mag at the time because it was new (to me) as were the recipes, and projects (not that I made any).

Now it seems the world has been martha'd up and it can't escape her gaze.

Great as a filling in Crepes (as long as its chunky), or with potato latkes (esp ones with green onion), smashed roots and porkchops, bangers and mash, porkroast, you get the idea.

Posh "Appel"sauce

Makes about 7 cups - freezes well - fine in fridge for a few days

• 18 McIntosh apples, (about 6 pounds), peeled, cored, and quartered - no other kind of apple will do
  
• 1 cup apple cider – and a bit more
• 1 large cinnamon stick
• 1/2 vanilla bean (split into two quarters)
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger (I do two)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (if you don't have, don't worry)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg - approx.
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mace (if you don't have, don't worry)
• 1/2 cup sugar, or to taste (for kids I do more)
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 

1. Pour apple cider in small to med stock pan. Add cinnamon sticks and the 2 vanilla bean quarters. Turn up heat on stove to medium-ish to allow a simmer.

1. Meanwhile, peel, core and cut apples into quarters – add them in batches as you peel them to the simmering cider. Give them a stir every so often (like after you add a few more apples) using a wooden/bamboo/material of your choice spoon to break things down a bit. Then about half way through peeling, add the ginger, cardamom, nutmeg, mace, sugar, and lemon juice.
2. Add more apple cider, sugar or spices as you see fit.

4.      Finish adding last apples and stir and pay attention – make sure these last apples cook and break down a bit, but leave them in chunks to give you chunky applesauce. Remove vanilla pods and cinnamon sticks.

She'll be arriving around a corner near you

 It's January. This means that in my mind's eye the calendar flips up and I am at the top of a long line of 12 months spiralling down to December. I can't see Jan 2011. So, what do I see shortly down the line after those piles of snow? I see spring. And if you had the hiking biking friends I have, you'd crane your neck past your love of snow and see spring too. Maybe some of you have my friends or people just like them.

There is nothing lovelier on a Spring Sunday morning than going for a hike in the wild, wily woods of the Carolinian Forest in Southern Ontario - with wild friends, and the makings for tea and scones. We made the tea with my handy dandy mini hiking stove. I am not smug about that at all.

I think we were able to burn some grass that gave a pleasant, meeting-of-the-minds-by-the-river type experience.The Scones went down well, though we have been known to stop for a 3 eggs and bacon breakfast on our way back. One is ravenous after such a morning.

Thats Andrea to the left, Jaye in the middle and Kendra the hankerchiefed on the right (see pic above)

Here a few pics of our findings:

Trillum (white) and wild columbine (red)

A "grow where you're planted" finding

Shrooms. should take a guidebook next time to see what we could do with them...

Leaving Almyra

I lived with my friend Almyra and a few others in Toronto for a summer or two in the late eighties (we were Camp Counsellors at Scott Mission's summer kids camp) and also in the Mount Hope house with Bettie, Val and for a while, Andrea. Mount Hope was the absolute opposite to Toronto - the only exiting thing going on in Mount Hope was happening in our house, and maybe the Hamilton airport in our backyard.

Almyra's mother used to have a little Christian Bookstore in their basement in Beamsville, and I remember feeling like I was in heaven down there amongst the books (ha). Some of you may remember those Paidea press books - soft cover - had parables and other stories with really '60s/'70's esque graphics?

Anyways, Almyra comes to visit family and friends in Canada every year or two from her perch in Luxembourg. This summer we were lucky to have her. She rented a cottage by Long Point on Lake Erie for a week with some of her family at the end of August.

I took this shot as I was leaving (long point, and her) to go back home.

We never end up with enough time together, but we take what we can get. She is a photographer. Frequent memories of her include a camera dangling from her neck. I wonder what she thinks of this one.

She has an eye, as they say.

Squirrelling away Gingerbread

Mr. Black Squirrel is squirrelling away our gingerbread house.

He has allowed grey squirrel a few bites.

We are glad for it as we only eat the candy off anyway.

I do hope it will bode well for his digestive system.

The wire cutters are laying there as I used them to cut some branches for Xmas as I could not find my garden clips. Every electrician's daughter knows how to re-purpose wire cutters.

Communist Mo'town

 

Linda and I, on our semi-annual girls night in Detroit trip, between venues, heard (machine) gunfire.

We were sitting on a bench in the centre square, drinking some fine french roast after a dinner in "Greek Town " (rather American-remade Greek nostalgia-town). We looked to the locals, who happened to be skating on a rink in the square - they looked inquisitive, for about 20 seconds, then proceeded to skate again. We sipped on, taking our cue from the relaxed skaters, though we did wonder if they were hardened Detroit folk, or if they indeed were as naive as we were...another round of gunfire.

This time some skaters hopped the fence and walked towards the area of the sound...other folk on the sidewalk were doing the same...so we slunk over, not wanting to be an obvious target...and we discovered a movie set. Set guys told us it was a remake of Red Dawn.

\

If you know Linda at all, you will understand why she made me take a photo of her holding up an entire tank on her left palm.

Linda seems rather cheerful about communism in America, or is it just that she is the centre of the photo?

This is a photo of the River from our hotel room. The Rennaisance in the GM centre (?) - tres mo'town

This is the pic for 2007, before we entered our 40's, so we look awfully young. We seem to be holding on to eachother for support, probably because we knew we were lucky to be alive (story will remain untold)

This is Cliff Bell's on Park Ave. A lovely live Jazz/Swing Bar that we end off our evenings with. The music and food are fantastic, so is the ladies powder room - all Zebra striped carpet and wood.

In 2007, we stumbled upon Cliff Bell's after leaving Collossus, a neat little bar a few blocks over (we were escaping the advances of a racist Mississipi doctor who paid our tab). We went to Collosus before Cliff Bell's again this year, but no tab paying man available. We did have our dear little grey-pony-tailed bartender make us up a custom drink - lime, mint, melon...still can't figure out the ingredients completely, and it was really really good.

Note to Linda: the Marlin recipe:  i forgot to include lime...we'll have to go back next year and get the actual recipe. (do you call them recipes?)

If anyone has a conference in Detroit, or Sarnia (ha) Nov '10, do join us...

florida '09

I looked through my old drafts and found this one  - Florida'09.  never published it. I Will now. We are destined for same place this March '10...but one of the cottages with 2 bedrooms - Ez has made it clear he will no longer sleep in a walk-in-closet. Here's my old post:

We went to Florida for March Break March 13-22 2009. We will keep doing it till the novelty wears off i think. There is something about the not-so-very luxurious and cheap holiday in the sun. Began florida trecking last year  in the panhandle thinking we'd avoid the big Tack that is the mainland of Florida. But it was a little cooler (temp) than we wanted, and the pools were not heated, a bit of a ghost town (but still very interesting and nicer than staying home). So this year we opted for Gulf side, in an old Florida styled '50s cottage, 30 seconds from the beach, a pool and spa shared with other cottagers. We embraced the ticky tack of Florida and fell in love. We have been in grieving mode since we got back. This week is better, (no more lingering over photos), but I am still wearing flipflops in the house, when I am cold I just suck it up.

Started to drive south after Caleb's hockey game on a friday night. Made good time. Early morning found us driving through the mountains of Virginia in the dark and in the brain-fog of auto-pilot. Must make a driving CD for next year ( i have no ipod). I can only take so much Kentucky blue grass and Crooning Christianese. McDonald's coffee in America must not have any caffeine... Stopped in West Virginia rest area around 3:30 am, as I could not take it any longer, bug eyed...knew we'd be in peril if I didn't...hmm, A few planted palm trees...looks like we are still heading south so we are not lost. Robert kept sleeping/snoring under the high pressure sodium lighting of the ultra safe rest stop - along with many other Ontario plated people. I tried to rest, which, though not fully sleeping, was better than driving. Rest Stop areas are patrolled and heavily populated so even though we were in gun country, we felt fine as most of the guns were drawn on our behalf.

Robert and I took turns driving and sleeping all morning.
Entry into Florida. Looks like Georgia. Ends up being a long long drive down 301, but nice for the markets and orange groves and fruitstands.


Getting hotter in the van but cannot bring ourselves to put on air conditioning. Late afternoon entry into Tampa and we are surprised at how the concrete jungle never abates into real jungle. ever. super hiways right down to the beach almost. There is no let up of concrete and planted palms. American paradise always includes planted palms and the ever ready, ever car -friendly concrete.

Get to Indian Shores which is on a key on the Gulf across Tampa Bay ...on a very fast hiway. Bottoms out onto the Gulf Blvd. which is the only major road on the key that runs from Clearwater to St. Petersburg and PasseGrille. It is saturday night, and it is as busy as Lundy's lane Niagara falls, eveyone over 60 and under 31 are cruising. We are a bit shocked but park in front of our cottage, unload a bit and go over the bridge to the beach. Ahh. Jonah turns around and says, Huh, just like all the other oceans we've been to.

He and Caleb are eager to go inside and watch sports on TSN on the foldout futon. We don't have Cable or a dishwasher at home, so when on holiday, they are luxuries to be enjoyed to the fullest. I don't really find the dishwasher an addition to my holiday, however. I locate hotodogs, pop, cheap Corona's and lime, OJ and milk at a corner store. Bliss. We took two gianormous boxes of cereal over the border, as well as some ground coffee beans in prep for an easy first morning. We all sleep. Wake up to a quiet Gluf blvd. It remains lazy and quiet for the rest of the week. Phew.

We have our own bedroom with palm bushes brushing up against the front window, Caleb and Jonah our teenagers have the open conept living room/kitchen with a mattress and Futon, Ez had the walk-in closet which we retrofitted into a bedroom with a mattress. He made a point of saying that  in case we wanted to live here instead of Oakville, (he was making plans) he wouldn't want this bedroom forever. Here is a pic of the sleeping cottage as I drive off to Winn Dixie for groceries Sunday morning after I had coffee on the beach. I begin to relax.

Winn Dixie girl does not allow me to buy my carefully chosen alchol products of Corona or wine before 11 am as it was Sunday...some Florida law leftover from the dry days of prohibition and deep south temperance movement no doubt. No alcohol before 11 so you can come to church at least soberish and no hair of the dog while hung over. I decided it was just as cheap at the local variety store as I did not want to wait for an hour and a half. Bought 5 striped beach chairs. Watermelon and subs for lunch. we sat on beach on our new chairs, soaking in the warmth. We realized that night that more sunscreen and umbrellas are in order.


Ezra did not sit on his chair once that week, not even to eat. He was too busy creating things in the sand. castles and forts and moats mostly. He enjoyed letting the increasing tide lap them up. We learned to park our chairs and umbrella right inbetween the pool and the beach. perfect.

Jonah is oblivious to Robert's Hulk routine...

 

Thats some sort of palm shaped evergreen - soft and lush.

Robert fished all week and caught baby sharks he threw back, and then there was this guy (below) that always showed up when he saw people manouvering sticks in the water - smart, hungry birds that adapt easily to new environs.

Here we are at PasseGrille - a little walk-thru burgers, fish and fries deal right on the beach, such a lovely spot. We drove further south one day to see if there were secret spots that were even better than what we found. Came up empty, but satisfied that we had already found THE spot. Will surely return to it next year.

Some places we'd drive by had a number of closed hotels and such. I particularly loved this two story classic motel - flamingo pink, planted palms, old sign advertising the luxuries to expect (colour tv!) Parking lot up front, beach out back.

The two oldest often skim boarded the afternoons away while their parents read, swam, fished and drank Corona and observed their progress. I should take a blender next year for limey frosty blendy drinks.

One evening we went into the concrete wilds of Tampa - Robert and the boys sat in the sweet seats I bought for them at a Leafs/Lightning hockey game (the cheapest Leafs seats I will ever find) while I went into the old Tampa harbour to Ybor City - Tampa's latin quarter. It was St. Patrick's Day. I had a beer across from this place and observe the street life get greener and wilder. Lucky for me I was wearing my green scarf - I had offers of free beer. Ybor city was very nice and vintagey feeling. More brick than concrete.

We rented boats with Robert's brother and family one day (they happened to be in St. Pete's about 30 min down the key) and we explored a few islands, one that reminded me of Gilligan's Island as it was lush and rather preserved other than the abandoned military buildings from another century - of course this is probably what 10, 000 other Canadians think when they get there too.

Everything in Florida is so combed over that they call one island Shell Island as you can actually find a few shells the size of your palm there, if you dig around. I just leave them be, esp. if there is something still living in it, but I will pick up some tiny little remnants and rest them under the mirror in our bathroom - a reminder of our relaxing vacation but also a reminder that we too are colonists, taking over Florida for a week or a season with thousands upon thousands of others - using it all up , using up all the goodness until it no longer has one single palm tree that was not planted by human hands. Thank goodness for nature reserves and the everglades. But we intend on visiting the everglades next year -  Can't keep humans away, trying to touch everything. I am conflicted with my kitschy love for Florida. It is such a monument to manufactured paradise, and yet, I find that endearing, hopeful somehow - the brash hope of America. Maybe I will be able to put my finger on it next March. Robert, somehow, has put his fingers on it already.

Finding one's place

This is Ruby, our boxer. She manages to find the most comfortable positions in the house at various times of the day. This photo was taken late morning, as the sun is at its most intense in the livingroom. As you can see she has sacrificed some sun for the ability to lay her head on a pillow - she is usually found, however, by the fireplace, roasting her belly until she is panting. The only person that manages to nap even half the time she naps is Robert, who is currently napping after a long snowy skate with our youngest, Ez. We have a rink fashioned from frozen water sprayed on the tennis courts (and some wood framing) in the park across the street. Free fun. Close fun. Neighborly fun. If we ever considered a move somewhere else, that rink and that park and my neighborhood would cause serious pause. And Ruby would have to find new spots.

Muggery

i love mugs. maybe its my love of whats inside them - hot coffee, steaming hot chocolate and soothing tea. mmm.

ok. confession. i think i am a mug snob. My sister would understand. This becomes quite clear when i am at over at friend's places and a warm steaming mug of coffee is placed before me, in a stir-scratched grey-white John Deere mug. i look up to see if there is some playfulness, surely, some coment that the dishwasher is running and they're down to the dregs at the back of the cupboard, but nothing is said. My host lifts her mug to her lips, and without any self-consciousness, takes a sultry, life-giving sip from a Hacker's Life Insurance mug.

Is the mug not sacred? You draw upon it with your lips, there is a triangular connection - from mug, to lips to soul - according to the Scriptures of Corroeli, the mug expresses your inner topography, an other worldly vessel to contain hope for the day. I always go for the thin porcelain ones of delicate blue glazed see-throughness, the rough hewn mugs of a potter's wheel who's roughness you can feel b and recently, I have been tempted at Florida gas stations to buy a name mug with Marcy on it, with classic kitschy abundance-of-exotica designs :a palm tree, a flamingo and a white crested turquoise ocean. how neat and lovely a world can be. a mug is a pining, an insistance that a better world is just around the corner of your coffee break.

blogquizme

Thanks for the quiz mmichele...not sure if I'm doing this right...

Step 1: Respond and rework — answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, add one more question of your own.

Step 2: Tag other bloggers to do the same.
Here are the questions:

1) What are you wearing right now? yoga pants, my favorite silver ring, red chinese flipflops and my old grey hoodie

2) What is your biggest fear? that there is a god as the OLD/NEW testament describes (scary)then I'm in trouble.

3) Do you nap a lot? Only when I'm pregnant and that aint happenin

4) Who is the last person you hugged? my friend Kendra who always holds on longer than i do and i always feel amused by my inner northern european

5) What websites to you visit when you go online? Motherjones, kijiji

6) What was the last item you bought? timbits, ahem.

7) What’s the last book you read? Loving Frank - about Frank Lloyd Wright and his affair with Mamah so and so. I liked it, actually.

8) Learn something new about yourself lately? yes. i think some people are intimidated by me and this never fails to surprise me because i can be so lame

9) Has a celebrity’s hair cut ever influenced your own hairstyle? Julia Roberts in the early nineties, who, I think, happened to have MY hair

10) What is one skill you wish you had, but don’t - I wish I could do many things, like get up and clean the house without much mental pain, take technically good photographs (I have an eye, but no hand)

11) What was the last movie you watched? watched Bolt with Ezra, being 8.5, he LOOOOOVED it, enjoyable to hear him laugh

12) What is the luckiest thing that ever happened to you? meeting Robert at a lame party

13) If you had a whole day to yourself; no work, commitments or interruptions what would you do? I'd bike into T.O on the lakeshore,early, have breakfast at Sunny's grille on the lake, Go to the Art Gallery of Ontario (of which I am a member who hardly goes), stroll about, eat lunch somewhere cheap and good, maybe for Pho, read a book in the sun at that sunroom where I got Pho with friends once, go to the ceramic museum after that, end day at St. Lawrence Market to buy veggies and meat for dinner, home on the train with bike on board, reading another chapter...

14) Is there a major goal you have that you haven’t yet achieved? own a cafe, develop a thesis/research area for cultural studies masters/phd, grow a living roof, get rid of belly, accept belly, live in a place where I can sleep in a hammock all year in a two-room cottage with a wild garden (ok, as soon as nest is empty, thats where I'll be...10 years tops.)

16) What is something that those in blogland might not know about you? Amongst other things, I tell grown men to get down to their birthday suits for a living...

17) Where have you travelled recently? Florida the tacky and beautiful - has all the Gulf of mexico and America the malled and walled have to offer

18) What do you do to relieve stress? Laugh. drink wine or tea. escape in fiction. or face reality head on. walk. yoga.

19) If you could change one physical trait about you what would it be? More elegant neck

Slumdog millionaire: them, us, we.

Truth is, we're all the same. we all want to survive, we all kill and steal and cheat to get there.

It's just that, when you are poor, what you do is obvious and incarcible, illegal... what you do to survive, and often what you have to do to survive, seems so shocking and dirty...to those who observe it on a screen, a newspaper, from the sidewalk...

When you are protected by your privilege, what you do to survive is subtle, covered up by policy and cushioned by self-protectionist laws...and the "ways of the market"... and when not justified by suitable law...well, white collar crime seems so inocuous, so clean...so well hidden under nice and tidy.

When we watch slumdog and think of ourselves, our culture perhaps, as better, it is because we are blind by our privilege, because it is made to seem natural, a given, not something earned by colonial greed and massacre, no , we earned it, we are worth it. we are wise capitalists, just like Jesus...

This is what justifies our lifestyle pursuits, makes us feel better when we want a good deal, when we buy cheap goods made cheap by cheap labour, materials and methods.
I do this.

we are good, no? we are good. therefore whatever we do, what our market does, what our culture does, what our history books say ,what ever, what ever we do, whatever we believe...

We are really tourists in someone else's land. perpetual tourists, touring around, consuming the best like kings and queens, the best is made an every-day commodity, luxury is the everyday, our mouths open for more... we are hungry, always hungry, as are they.

contain me

i have recently fell in love with tupperware. mmm, i love the colours - the jewel tones, the oranges, the lime greens and fuschias, mmm, the way it makes my life so so so much bettah.

An organized life is a better one, no? I never ever thought i would succumb, never thought i would fall this low. When i was 19, fresh after i broke up with a long-time boyfriend, i swore up and down that i would never ever EVER be the suburban housewife collecting place-settings, going to tupperware parties... the casseroles, the endless detailing of little nothings,the gossip, the fretting over chaos, the upgrading of tiles, the matching sets.
the smoothing down of the apron.

ok. so i have cooked way too many casseroles in my day, i have upgraded tiles (well, from '50s pink, which i regret replacing in a way...) but i have no placesettings, and i still savour what can come of chaos, yet, tupperware? have i gone over the edge?

but i am smitten. i truly am, with the most stereotypical housewife marker of them all.

it might have something to do with the fact that i am no longer taking courses. This past December I finished all the requirements for my undergrad, finally. Grad pending June '09. From having one's time filled with deadlines, research, the reading of primary texts, the schleping from class to class to, well, to nearly nothing is quite an adjustment.

I had a void of time to fill, a lack of projects, a lack of focus and what was staring me in the face, all day long, everyday? the sagging, sad insides of my kitchen cupboards, whenever i reached for that snack, those many snacks i'm afraid...

when i was busy in school, i didn't really notice how i became the poster-child for a tupperware make-over.

my friends took me by the hand, my uber organized, detail-oriented friends who feel a real, palpable guilt when failing in the household department (what does that feel like?) we entered the tupperware lady's room dedicated to perfect, lovely shelves stacked full of glossy, glorious tupperware.

i felt my first twang.

i am trained to be a critical theorist, to critique the signs, the signifiers of imbedded cultural value, the seduction of marketing, the fetishizing of objects. but i could not penetrate this one. i wanted to curl up into a ball and tuck myself inside a servalier bowl set, i wanted to nestle my cheek up against the modular mates , i wanted to caress the silky crystalwave divided dish.

When Annette Tupper Ware took us upstairs to see her tupperware lined cupboards i could have had a stroke. I was swooning. i think even Annette herself thought i had gone too far.

two weeks later i found myself in my kitchen with a very large box full of moulded plastic. you might think this is the moment that the bubble burst. um, no.

I lovingly unwrapped every piece, filled them with oatmeal and flour and pasta and rice and cereal and juice and spices and stacked the servalier bowls into a shining, sparkly jewel of a plastic pyramid. Every morning for at least a week i opened and shut and opened my cupboards, relishing in the tidyness, the containment, the lack of leaking spices, the winking array of smartly stacked colour. i ordered a motely crew of colour, no matching sets - my only deliberate, calculated, dissent in my plastic compliance.

true, things are better organized. true, my oatmeal and rice won't risk getting those mealy bugs any more. true, the cumin is contained and won't leak over the stove whenever i open the cupboard. true, my baking pull-out drawer is shwank. but i can't help but wonder what got over me and why i am still in love, why i had coffee with Annette Tupper Ware last week, why the servalier bowls are still in pyramid form on the counter. Maybe i better go back to school, get that masters, or go to work. maybe i just need some structure, given to me, solid with a lifetime warranty.

Boundaries are cozy, parameters hold you close, and the meal solutions-to-go-pack is on sale come September. Annette? sorry for that time i put my head on your shoulder. but i have to say, you are the queen.