Spring Fiddleheads

My aunt Sandra served dinner to the nieces last week. I love going to her home. Sandra is hospitible. She smiles when you walk in. She takes your coat. The table is always set. She doesn't mind when I roam around and take pictures of her life.

And, like her home, her food is full of colour, love and flavour. If you look up on the stove, you'll see a red, cast-iron covered dish. Inside are fiddleheads. The red, the green, the flavour, the memory... Her mother, my grandmother, grew up in the Miramichi, where fiddleheads were a -fleeting- harbinger of spring. Like her mother Viv, Sandra soaks them in cold water, lifts them into a colander, then rinses them again. Then she steams them until tender and adds salt, pepper and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Lemons, of course, weren't abundant along the banks of the Miramichi back then. Viv used a dash of vinegar instead. Either is delicious.