Le Sandwich: Croque Madame with Dijon Béchamel Sauce

Sometimes a sandwich can make your life.  True story.  And it doesn't have to be a particularly fancy one, piled high with vegetables and herbaceous spreads.  Honestly, just give me good meat and good cheese, tucked between good bread with a little bit of butter and mustard.  Forget the tepid tomatoes.  Forget the lettuce unless we are pulling out the stops and feathering in some arugula.  I like it simple.  Mainly because of all the time working in professional kitchens these past 16 years lunch often consisted of that:  good meat, good cheese, good bread, wolfed down while leaning against a counter.  This is the kind of stuff they don't show you on reality TV cooking shows.  (Oh, if there had been cameras following me around all these years, the tales I could tell).  Even at home with all of the time and ingredients available to me, I honestly just want some sort of combination protein and cheese sandwich, be it bacon and brie, tuna and cheddar, turkey and Swiss and more often that not I want it hot and toasted, oozing cheese all over the plate.  Only this time, eaten while seated. 

Coconut Chia Pudding with Bluberry Ginger Compote

"One could not get enough of the nimble air.  Every morning I wakened

 with a fresh consciousness that winter was over."  ~ Willa Cather

Well my friends, we made it.  Another winter finished and into the books.  I know, I know, there's still snow on the ground and flannel sheets are still on the bed, but for all intents and purposes, spring is here.  Hallelujah praise the lord.  And I just did a few jumping jacks, scaring the bejeezus out of the cats.  Spring is my most favourite season.  I love the whole reassurance and resurgence that comes with it.  Just like the blades of green beginning to poke through the earth, so do new ideas, dreams, intentions and goals.  Not only is it the equinox today, but a super moon and a solar eclipse.  There are good things happening up there in the cosmos and timing couldn't be better for a little system restart.  What do you want to do with all of this rebooting energy swirling around you?  

On the Cusp: Grapefruit & Olive Oil Pound Cake

"Just say yes and you'll figure it out afterwards."  ~ Tina Fey

Cusp.  I like that word.  It's defined as the point of a crescent, like the moon, and a point that marks the beginning of a change.  Like, Renée is on the cusp of a new era.  Holy shit.  The past couple of weeks, well, the past month really, have been really terrifying and exciting.  I did something either totally brave or bonkers, though I'm leaning towards the former:  I left my job without another full time job to replace it.  Bold, ballsy, bad ass.  I did it.  Not a decision that came easily or quickly - impulsiveness isn't quite my style - but one I brewed over the past few months especially.  I won't bemoan the reasons for leaving, though I know we've all been in situations that aren't working, be they professional or personal, and the time comes when a departure is required, if for nothing else than our happiness.  

Braised Lentils and Chickpeas with Kale & White Wine

I love me a good challenge.  It seems like every so often I take a deep breath and do something tremendously brave that both excites and terrifies me, and no doubt keeps my mother awake at night.  Sorry mom!  I've gone and done it again, and fingers crossed I'll land on my feet like I always seem to do.  More on this little shake up in a future blog post when I'm ready to spill the beans, but until then you'll just have to hold your horses.  Speaking of challenges, I've entered a recipe into another Canadian Lentils Recipe Revelations Challenge and I'm super excited for you to try it.  White wine, paprika, kale, it's a one pot little wonder that will have you licking the pot.  Or wait?  Is that just me?

Roasted Carrot, Parsnip & Thyme Soup from Brown Eggs and Jam Jars. Plus a Giveaway!

Brown Eggs and Jam Jars.  Isn't that just the catchiest name of a cookbook ever?  Thanks to lovely Aimée Wimbush-Bourque of Simple Bites fame, you now have another cookbook you must add to your collection.  Thanks to the generosity of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, I'll be giving away a copy of the book to one lucky reader.  I hope it's you!  If you don't win (sorry!) one click on Amazon, and away you go!

For the Lovers: Meyer Lemon & Lavender Polenta Cake

"Love is a fire.  But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house,

  you never can tell."  ~ Joan Crawford

 

Oh, that Joan.  But isn't it the truth?  When we fall in love we never know how it's going to turn out.  Perhaps it will only last 5 days, or if we're one of the lucky ones, 50 years.  All those butterflies and gushy smiles at the beginning often end with painful wails on the bathroom floor.  Not speaking from experience or anything.  But that's the chance you take when you enter into a new relationship - it can go either way - but the main thing is you want to take that chance.  You need to take that chance.  For a life without risk isn't a life worth living.  Maybe you'll have a fantastic few days together and never see their face again, or maybe you'll have heaps of grand kids who come over every Sunday and bake cookies with you.  That's the thing about life.  You just never know.  So for all of you out there taking another chance on love, this one is for you. 

Searching For Saskatoons

If you ask anyone who grew up in rural or small town Saskatchewan about Saskatoon berries, they have a story to tell.  I'm not talking about the conveniently cultivated U-Picks, where you park your car, grab your basket and head towards your allotted row.  Oh no.  I'm talking about wild Saskatoons - those grown on bushes along river banks, in coulees and on hilly farmland across the Canadian prairies.  For generations, the Saskatoon berry has been a hardy prairie food source.  Aboriginal tribes picked, dried and pounded the berry with dried bison meat to create pemmican, the preserved staple of their diet.  Settlers too relied on this nutritious berry to provide essential vitamins.  Fruit from the western species Amelanchier alnifolia resembles a blueberry, but anyone who has braved the prairie heat and countless mosquito attacks in July can tell you they taste nothing alike.  Saskatoons have a musky, almost almond-like sweetness; the sophisticated older cousin of the blueberry. Their deep purple skins and juice stain the hands as you deftly pick off the gnarled bushes.  It can be a battle, because of the bugs and the heat, but you pick, filling up one pail and then another, because there is nothing quite like the wild Saskatoon berry.  Baked into juicy pies or preserved in jammy jars of the darkest purple, I swear you can taste their history in every bite.  

I grew up picking Saskatoons, as did my mom and her mother before her.  In late July, we would get together with my Auntie Jean and my cousins and drive out to Where The Saskatoons Are.  Finding wild Saskatoon berries is largely by word of mouth.  Someone tells someone where there is good picking, and the directions go something like this:  go south down the gravel road until you cross a bridge, turn east at the old Miller place then go another two miles until you see a clump of trees.  Searching for Saskatoons is always an adventure.  We were stuffed into a mini van, squished and stuck together like sweaty sardines, Duran Duran on the radio.  Once the berry bushes were spotted, we were sprayed heavily with bug repellent and each given a four litre ice cream pail and told to pick, not eat.  As if.  More berries went into our gobs than our pails, proof being the purple teeth at the end of the day. Those Saskatoons that did make it into the pails were accompanied by twigs and leaves.  Not child labour at its finest, we were then set free to run around and scare off all forms of wildlife except the chickadees who stuck around, cheering us on.  Our moms, the two sisters, picked pail after while while they confided and laughed with each other. My Auntie Jean had the best laugh.  Loud.  Goofy.  Happy.  From the depths of her belly, it would come out and grab you.  Hers was contagious.  And then it was gone.  On a frigid January morning in 1988, the small airplane she was on crashed, leaving her children without a mother, and my mom without her best friend.  After the untimely passing of someone so dear, life is never the same.  It goes on, but the absence of the departed lingers long after their light has gone out. 

I don't recall picking many Saskatoons after my Auntie Jean passed.  By this time I was into my mid teens, and summer afternoons were likely spent chasing boys and sunbathing.  Fast forward to my 20s and I was living in big cities, going to University, the dusty gravel roads a long distant memory.  In my 30s, I picked a few times.  Friends of a friend knew of a spot.  That's how it goes, you see.  Now, I live in the city named after the berry, but oddly enough I have yet to discover where the wild Saskatoons are.  It's my intention this summer to find a clump of Amelanchier alnifolia bushes, perhaps along the winding South Saskatchewan River.  Oh but so many factors are at play for successful picking.  There must be enough rain in June to yield a juicy berry, that is if they have been fortunate to survive the common late spring frost.  If they've survived the frost and drought and birds who like them too, Saskatoons hang heavily, in purplish black glory for a few weeks every year.  If I'm successful in finding such a treasure, I'll be doing what generations of prairie women before me have done.  My hands, stained and sticky will slide the inky berries into the ice cream pail secured around my waist with a belt.  If I listen closely, over the buzz of the mosquitoes, perhaps I'll hear the long ago echo of children playing and sisters laughing.  The chickadees, cheering me on.