Christmas in Vancouver, 2010

It is always exciting to add more place mats to our dining room table, and always just a bit sad to remove them later.  We are now back to just two, but we have many happy memories of there being 3, 6 and even 7 mats positioned tightly at our little table.

It was a treat to have everybody here for Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day, three big Canadian holidays.  The weather could not have been more soggy and wet, nor more grey.  We kept assuring Julia that we really are surrounded by mountains, but none could be seen.

Aaron arrived Tuesday evening, looking fine for having just crossed the continent. On Wednesday, we visited the northern edge of Chinatown to stock up at Sunrise, our favourite green grocer on Gore.  The selection and prices are the best in the city, far as I can tell, and their tofu is sold throughout the city.  We had a substantial lunch at a new Chinese vegetarian restaurant on Main Street.

Aaron then started cooking in the kitchen in which, decades ago, Janice let him be involved as soon as he was able to reach the counter by standing on a chair unassisted.  Here he is making a peanut sauce to go on some pot stickers (though I could be mistaken because by now our many meals are becoming a blur in my memory).

Stephen took Thursday off and Vivian got off work early, so they were here by late afternoon, in time to head off to the new and far larger Chinatown in Richmond, B.C.  Each time they visit Vancouver, we have an all-you-can-eat sushi feast, turning the ordering chores over to Steve, who actually recalls some of the Japanese names for fish.  There were also ample things for Aaron to eat.

Julia also worked on Thursday, and then headed to the airport for her long flight via Toronto.  She arrived much later that evening, more like 2:00 Friday morning.  Stephen, Vivian and Aaron wisely stayed up to meet her at the airport.  I also intended to go, but wanted a cat nap first, so I set my phone alarm for 1:00 so that I would wake up in plenty of time, but alas, I set it for p.m. rather than a.m. and slept straight through.  I only woke up when hearing people returning, so I was able to welcome an exhausted but happy Julia to our home.

Friday (the day of Christmas Eve) began with some stove top espresso coffee (even for Aaron), a whole bodum of decaf for Steve, lots of my home-grown mint tea for Vivian, rolls and breads Steve picked up at his favourite Vancouver French bakery, and fruits to ease the conscience.

Then we headed off to the Granville Island market, an obligatory stop for all tourists and serious cooks.  Julia decided to take some B.C. salmon back to her roommates.  This is packaged for travel and will satisfy customs in most countries.

One vendor was a great salesman, offering his various hot salsas:  tomatillo, pineapple, mango, etc.  We enjoyed sampling and figured they would be a nice addition to our growing list of Christmas appetizers.

Then the six of us continued riding in "Ruthie", Steve and Vivian's 1995 (?) Buick, to revisit the Sunrise grocery and vegetable store.  It is bewildering to see so many many kinds of tofu (might not eight suffice?), mushrooms, and greens. They had the best selection of crisp apples we have seen this month. 

Steve and Vivian kindly made dinner for us on Christmas Eve, featuring creamy polenta with their homemade tomato-mushroom(s)-basil etc topping, some Himalayan lamb sausages, a mushroom-sweet pepper dish, gigantic green salad, olives, fruits, etc. 

Then the Scrabble commenced, which is when I usually quietly drift off.  Friendly but competitive disputes over words could not possibly be solved by our ancient dictionaries (most of which are in other languages), so Julia turned to her trusty laptop to consult the latest official Scrabble Online dictionary.

I should have taken a better photo of the board but did not want to interrupt the concentration.

Meanwhile, I started making my Christmas Swedish tea ring dough in order to let it rise overnight.  I got up a bit early (comparatively), finishing it with brown sugar, soaked raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and melted vegan margarine.  I like to do all of this while playing some Christmas CDs quietly with the kitchen doors closed.  This is my own time to remember songs from my youth.  Steve is invariably the first to rise.  He likes to find a Starbucks for his first decaf, and hopefully a newspaper, but Canada takes Christmas very seriously and there were no new newspapers to be found.

Julia picked up several pomegranates at the market and showed us how to extract the seeds without creating a mess.  These crunchy seeds offer little explosions of flavour that go well with the tea ring.

Aaron showed Julia two of my photo annuals, another way to introduce her to a bit of his life in France and Vancouver.

I always like to see Vivian take a nap here, it means she is on holiday, relaxing, briefly crashing.  Nobody reads newspapers quite like Steve.

For her contribution to Christmas dinner, Janice made each of us a small salade composée with greens from her winter garden.

Our friend Harold joined us for the Christmas feast, which had quite a few non-traditional dishes.  I remember Julia's stuffed portobello mushrooms, Aaron's tofu and his dumplings made from scratch with Asian bok choi. The Seattle crew brought various homemade pickles and pickled veggies, and added some fried polenta with mushroom topping.  We also had baked yams and apples, peppernata, the 'Mennonite' cranberry/orange/apple relish (though with far less sugar), Vivian's roasted fennel, Aaron's roasted chestnuts, etc.  We topped it off with a leisurely sampling of 7 different chocolates selected by Aaron.

The next day, Hans joined us for our Boxing Day feast, but I was a bit under the weather and now see that I neglected to take any pictures.  Using Steve's and Vivian's homemade sauerkraut, I made a traditional Alsatian choucroute with smoked pork chops, "Mennonite" sausage, juniper berries, Riesling and bay leaves in the afternoon while the youngsters went hiking and then played some disc golf.  Their new way of making and canning sauerkraut is a winner, so I am thinking we may need to pay a visit and can some for ourselves during cabbage season.  I also made my tarte tatin.


Boxing Day concluded with another game, Settlers, I believe, but it was my turn to go to bed early.  In the photo you can see Steve's decaf, Vivian's sparkling water (they brought and finished off a whole case), and expressions of deep concentration.  Janice tells me that she lost each and every game but enjoyed the competitiveness and interactions.

This morning, Steve and Vivian rose early (5:15), had a quick breakfast (which for Vivian was still more choucroute) and drove straight to Seattle and to their respective jobs.  The Philadelphia crew then had breakfast with us (oatmeal with lots of nuts, etc., and I juiced the rest of the oranges).  We checked flight plans one more time, and were at the airport by 9:15 a.m.  Philadelphia just had its first major snowstorm of the season, so there were canceled flights on Boxing Day, surely a peak day for travel.  But Aaron and Julia are experienced travelers and young enough to go with the flow.

So now, it's back to two rather lonely-looking place mats . . . .

The Days Are Getting Longer

The ground is covered with snow and we're told to expect 12 to 16 more inches of it before the night is through, so I've turned my mind to warmer days ahead and the seedlings I'll want to start this spring.  Lately we've been feeling that our "potato-tomato" strain has been slowly changing due to cross pollination.  I want to get back to the original type of fruits that Eric Troyer gave me some 25 years ago and asked him for suggestions.  He didn't have anything to give me at the moment but told me that I could get seeds that are of the exact same strain from Amishland Heirloom Seeds:

http://www.amishlandseeds.com/amish_mennonite.htm

The entire site is well worth reading.  I learned some new methods that I'll put to use this spring in the Seed Starting & Growing Tips section which explains why I'm accumulating a rather large bag of crushed egg shells in the freezer.  The strain I need is called Red Brandywine Tomato (Scarce Local PA 1889 Heirloom).  There are other varieties here that I want to try along with some Amish Mennonite strains of vegetables.  Here is the tomato menu:

Thanksgiving in Seattle

Vivian and Stephen offered their Thanksgiving feast a week early so they could attend their sister-in-law's wedding on the east coast.  For us, one of the highlights was seeing Yuri again.

But first, the calm before the storm.  We had a light lunch, topped off with getting the first crack at the day's cheeses.  Steve knows how much I enjoy cheeses: the harder, the better; the softer, the better; the stronger, the better. 

This year's homemade pickles go well with the cheeses.  People would eat all the pickles Vivian was willing to put on the table.

Yuri is getting teeth very nicely, growing like a weed, and by now is likely ready to crawl.  We noticed how much stronger his back and torso were than in August, reminding us of how quickly children develop.

Neither man nor dog showed fear, just curiosity.

 

After all of the stimulation, it was time to recharge the batteries for the next round.

Yes . . . we can

The west-coast response to Uncle Mark's wonderful preserving this fall . . . Vivian and Stephen have been busy freezing and canning.  Here we see pickles, which everybody enjoys who comes to one of their meals.  Beans and various veggie broths, etc. make up the rest.

The large crock on the lower right is for making sauerkraut, one of Vivian's favourite treats.  We gave them our shredder (after throwing away two spoiled batches) and another crock.  But this special crock has a lid with a seal which lets the fermenting gases escape without introducing foreign bacteria (which is where my method went astray).

 The lovely shelves were made by me (Evan) in Vancouver in October 1975 from teak or cedar (?) crating some foreign students had abandoned in the basement where we were renting (UBC married housing).  We had just moved here, Janice was Very pregnant and we needed some more shelves for supplies for the coming baby (Aaron).  I made the shelves rather crudely but sanded them, and Janice varnished the shelves.  That afternoon, Aaron was born.

Late Fall Ramble

We had a hard frost the first week of November that withered most of the garden plants but left a number of unripened tomatoes.  Three of them were turning color so we put them in a brown paper bag with an apple.  The apple gives off ethylene gas which hastens ripening and worked well enough to give us a few end of season grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and a tomato salad.  They weren't as good as vine ripened but still tasty and left us feeling a little smug to have cheated the cold a bit.

Once washed, we had a meal of fried green tomatoes in a cornmeal batter 

dotted with Louisiana Hot Sauce inspired by one of our favorite cookbooks,

White Trash Cooking.

I bought a pickling mixture at the grocery store and processed several pounds of green

tomatoes with it.  They got very mushy and tasted disgusting.  That is now known as the Mal-Pickle Experiment and became a component in our compost pile.

I did find a good recipe that made sweet bread and butter type pickled tomatoes

and put up several pints for later.

Different subject:   Cooks Illustrated, a cooking magazine Frank turned me on to years ago, came up with a bread making method that produces a magnificent crust, one that the "crust lady" in our house highly approves.  A dutch oven and it's lid is heated in the oven at 500 degrees for 20 minutes, then removed.  Quickly put a loaf on parchment paper into the dutch oven and cover with the lid, return to the oven reducing the temperature to 425 for 20 to 30 minutes.  Remove the lid and continue baking for another 20 minutes.  Remove the loaf and place it on a cookie rack to cool.

Remember those very hot Thai chili peppers (lower right) that we grew this year? 

I use them with the hottest parts, the seeds and inner membranes removed.

 I sent a large bag of them to Florida with Amy's folks to give to Dave Sylvester, who loves all things hot, as a thank you for the Tuscan tomato seeds he had given us .  Gordy said Dave was very pleased and proceed to sit down with a martini and eat every pepper one after another popping them in his mouth like M & Ms!  Wow!

Remembering Dad--November 30th

[Photo by Janice and processed by Amy]

Mother's Easter feast of 2008 is worth remembering.  This Easter Sunday photo brings together things Dad dearly loved:  family, faith and food.   

Dad, we miss you, especially today.
Love from us all

 

The Hills' Annual Visit

I have enjoyed the posts that you all have blogged in the past few months.  It's especially nice to see Yuri getting a little bigger day by day.  My last entry here was back in August so there's a little catching up to do.

Amy's folks, Gordy and Pris, and Uncle David and Aunt Beverly made their annual trek up to the North Fork for the 14th year in a row, tied to the striped bass migration heading south.  After a weekend here they fished off Nantucket for five days then came back down for two weeks of fishing here.  The weather was very windy with some rain, but when it was good enough to go out, the fish were there.

Most of these photos were taken by David and Beverly

Lunch with Grandma Kreider's Tomato Soup

Gordy and I replacing corroded rail joints

      

                             

Amy and Uncle Dave and Aunt Bev   

                               

                       

The traditional all red lobster dinner

Gordy and Dave spend a day or two every visit fishing with Peter Minnick just off the Montauk Point Light.  Peter is deaf but can understand everything that is said if he can see you speak, and he speaks nearly as well as any hearing person.  He's been a teacher at a school for the deaf for many years.  When  Peter is fishing with his back to Gordy, Gordy signals him by tapping the deck... one tap, fish to the left, two taps fish to the right.  

Gordy and Peter

They stay overnight in the house Peter has lived in since he was a boy.  It was built in the mid 1700s,  the beams are exposed again and beautiful.  Two years ago the house was raised and a basement was built underneath it.  As a child Peter's bedroom was the third floor of the windmill.

One of David's delicious stripers.  

I made fish stock from the four pound

head of this one.