Culinary Confessions

Last Spring I was asked to write a piece for Tidings, the University of King's College alumni magazine. The assignment was broad: write about a food adventure. Every day is a food adventure, from baby food explosions to candlelit sausage stews on the propane stove during a hurricane. There are stories in every mouthful; the question is which mouthful is rich enough to share? I decided to turn the assignment into something more of a food confession. Read on, or click on the Tidings website where you'll find the story complete with a beautifully immortalized zampone.

The five course meal starts out strong. Fragrant, amber-coloured stock fills

a shallow, white porcelain bowl. Fresh pillows of gnocchi and slivers of

garlic scapes swirl within. Next comes a warm plate featuring what looks

like a thick slice of sausage nestled within a spoonful of soft, puréed

lentils and a touch of zucchini pickle. The sausage, made from pork,

cinnamon, nutmeg and Parmesan cheese, is encased in a thick, cream coloured

casing. I scoop out the filling with my fork, and top it with helpings of

lentils and pickle. The combination of flavours – tart, sweet, salty but

fresh – and textures – creamy, with a little pickle crunch – are incredible.

As the filling is devoured, its casing falls limp like a thick ring of bacon

fat onto the plate. The chef is my friend Larry, who grows his own

vegetables, makes his own cheese and raises turkeys, ducks and chickens.

When the course is finished, he looks at my plate, crestfallen. As a fellow

food professional, I have broken a tie that had bound us together. I am no

longer brave in his eyes, no longer authentic, no longer a practical eater.

I’m just a squeamish city girl who eats high on the hog.

The dish is called zampone, a speciality of Modena, Italy. To make zampone,

Larry shaves the pig’s trotters of excess hair with bic disposables. He then

bones and washes them and fills them with a rough sausage called

cotechino. The whole thing is oven braised for 4 hours, sliced into

thick rounds, and served with a lentil purée. The word zampa means paw; a

large trotter is called a zampone; a small one is a zampino. Zampa, zampone

or zampino; I just… can’t do it. There I’ve said it. In fact, if I had a

postcard handy, I’d post a secret: I can’t handle a little pig’s foot with

a few short hairs still attached.

While I’m at it, I may as well add: really red blood sausage grosses me out.

Sweatbreads? No thanks. I could never knowingly eat horse or dog. And don’t

even get me started on durian.

I am a grateful eater. Food, prepared for another, is the sweetest gift.

Especially Larry’s food, which is lovingly prepared from start to finish. He

knows where every bit of his food comes from; in fact, the pigs that offered

up their trotters for this meal are his neighbours. I believe in ‘nose to

tail eating’ in practise, but have trouble with execution. It’s hypocritical

of me, but I’m learning that personal taste and food politics collide in my

mouth.

These culinary confessions have made me vulnerable. Uh oh. Hopefully Larry

will have me back.

The Lunenburg Farmers' Market*

The Bounty

clockwise, from left:

lisianthus from Maple Grove Greenhouse and Farms, beets, carrots, basil and cherry tomatoes from Glad Gardens Family Farm,

Pain au chocolat and those delicious ? jam-filled oversized-french thumbprints from Boulangerie La VendÉenne, and finally, perfect peaches from a nice guy who let me try one first

*Every Thursday from 8-noon at the Lunenburg Community Centre, May 14th till October 8th

**Missing from photo: fat scallops from Evan's Fresh Seafood

HOME: Three Sisters, Three Views

Beverley Cameron, Susan Sutherland and Sandra Brownlee are sisters.

They were raised in a home filled with beauty - on a budget. Their

mother, Vivien, made centrepieces from nature. Her dishes sparkled.

Pops of colour filled each room, from a simple chair slip-covered

in purple corduroy to a lime green, mohair blanket folded across

the back of a sofa. Their father, Marshall, believed in a beautiful

front door. A table large enough to accommodate unexpected guests.

A comfortable bed. Both parents worked outside the home, but this

didn't preclude them from being homemakers. They lived in many

homes when their children were young, but the message was always

the same: come in and sit down, we were expecting you.

One of their favourite houses was on the Bedford Highway. It had a

cherry tree beside the house and a long, narrow, sunny kitchen. In

mid-summer when the tree was filled with fruit, eleven year old

Sandra would climb on top of the scratchy roof and pick fat, red

cherries. Her twin sister Susan made cherry pie pastry in the

kitchen below. Older sister Beverley sat on a kitchen stool with

pencil and paper, drawing the scene : the garden beyond the kitchen

window, a bowl full of glistening fruit, a younger sister rubbing

flour and shortening together with her fingers.

The sisters are grown now and their parents have passed away. But

on any given day you can still find them at home, celebrating the

beauty of the everyday.

It wasn't meant to be a Job-like, biblical adventure that day in May. The sky was blue, the air was hot, and we were sailing - sans enfants - in the Gulf of Mexico. But our water supply had just run dry. The head was broken. I had to pee. Oil spill loomed off in the distance. And to make matters worse, we were covered in love bugs, and not the Jonas brothers kind.

According to Wikipedia, Upon reaching maturity the lovebug spends almost its entire adult life coupled (in copulation) with its mate, hence its romantic nicknames. The male and female attach themselves at the rear of the abdomen and remain that way at all times, even in flight.

They were making love on every surface: the boat, our hair, between my toes, the empty water bottles. Perhaps a little BBQ would help? But where was the BBQ? It wasn't in the fore cabin or the bins in the stern. It turned up much later tangled up with a life jacket. But no propane tank. It appeared under the spinnaker, stuffed beneath the bow. Searching, needless to say, is not an easy task with love bugs in your eye lashes.

Finally, with wine glasses in hand, we sailed up into a warm wind to the sound of burgers sizzling on the grill. A sailboat barbecue is a beautiful - yet precarious - sight: a small metal sphere suspended off the edge of the boat, attached by a small fist gripping the rail. Salty wind adds flavour. A touch of ocean spray adds spice.

As I brushed a love bug out of my lip gloss and took a sip of wine, I heard that tell-tale sound of sailing equipment malfunction - plop! The propane tank bobbed only for second before it sunk beneath the surface of the Gulf. Then it was gone. Lonely, raw burgers sat abandoned on the grill. We weren't feeling like tare tare.

Our fine captain finished the burgers off that night on the stove in the kitchen down below. We ate them at dusk as the boat motored towards the St. Pete Beach draw bridge. Our berth was just on the other side, and the last opening was minutes away. Needless to say we had given up on the overnight expedition. No toilet, no water, no propane and too much love drove us away.

But it was the best twice-cooked burger I had ever tasted. And a little love-protein never hurts.

Easter

Easter Sunday in Sherbrooke village seems like lovely, distant memory. It was warm and sunny. Purple hyacinths dotted the ground. The kids collected eggs in t-shirts. Today, 2 weeks later, it's snowing.

I'm going to relive that day through the menu; food has a magical way of transporting you to a place, time and temperature. The meal was a group effort, with Larry Fogg and James Wilson at the helm.

Larry's warm brandade with homemade baguette

Trout terrine with grilled scallops

Grilled leg of lamb with salsa verde

Potato and fennel gratin

Gilly's chocolate tart

Larry's salt-washed cheese

*Brandade is a puree of salt cod, olive oil and milk, sometimes called Brandade de Morue ('morue' being the French name for salt cod). Brandade is a specialty of the Languedoc and Provence regions of France, particularly Nîmes. Similar preparations are found in other Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Portugal and Spain where dried salt cod is also enjoyed.^[1]

I've just come from a morning with Jane, my gardening mentor. I found her outside giving her perennials a good drink of water spiked with fertilizer. She says they're really hungry right now after the long winter. April is the time to quench their thirst.

As I hung on her every word this morning, it occured to me this is how new cooks must feel. what does blanch mean? how do I chop and onion? what does simmer until 'done' mean anyway?

I'm encouraging Jane to write me a recipe on how to garden: step by step, day by day, season by season. She could start with what I understand - her compost. Beside her sink is a porcelain pot where she collects eggs shells, coffee grinds and peelings. 'Organics from the beginning of the meal, not the end,' she says. When it's full she takes it to the big composter in the backyard, where it turns into lovely, rich, black soil. She scoops it out and sprinkles it on her flower beds.

'Spread it gently over the soil,' she tells me, 'as if you were putting beautiful pearls on a woman.' Or truffle shavings on tagliatelle? Yes. She's speaking my laguage. There's hope for me yet.

birthdays.

I would like to say that Luke's 6th birthday was filled with pure goodness like homemade cornbread served with flame roasted chilies:

But the truth is, this is what we had for dessert:

And followed by this the next day:

Due to overwhelming requests, here are the recipes:

Cornbread:

Based on a Lucy Waverman recipe from The Globe and Mail, Jan 12, 2008

1 cup yellow cornmeal

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 cups grated old cheddar cheese (I mixed in feta and parmesan, that's what I had)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup sour cream

1 cup creamed corn

3 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350f. grease a 9x9 baking dish, or in my case, an oven proof fry pan (cover the handle with foil if it's not oven proof). Stir all ingredients together, reserving 1/2 cup cheese for topping. Spoon batter into baking dish. Add chillies for fun. Bake for 45 min until golden and just cooked through.

Storm and Clone Trooper Birthday Cake:

1 slab cake from the superstore, iced in white, black and grey icing

random collection of storm and clone troopers, washed and dried

sparkles for effect

Little Bear chocolate and whip cream pie:

(directions from Luke: mom, I'd like to have a chocolate pie with cream on top, the kind that goes up and up, you know, like the one on Little Bear)

1 store bought pie shell, baked blind and cooled.

1 package chocolate pudding, cooked, cooled then spooned into shell

cool whip, in the dispenser (I didn't even know cool whip came in a can!)

sprinkles

So easy.