tucking in

Posted on episode 208

Short: Pour Over Coffee

Maybe it was obvious, but those little coffee pods had their moment… and that moment has passed.

At least, it has for me…

And maybe it’s also obvious, but picking up a cheap little pour over cone (for roughly half the cost of a box of pods) has me making my afternoon cup in a much different way lately.

Sure, it takes a few more minutes and has a little bit more cleanup, but the results are fantastic.

I’m gonna need to dig in and write an article on this topic… when I have a bit more to say on my experience ditching the single-serve machine and migrating to something a little more manual.

Posted on episode 203

Potluck Impossible

As the sun sets this evening I’ll be partaking in a strange and magical event that has become rare elusive these past eighteen months: a small housewarming party.

A dozen or so (fully vaccinated) friends and I are converging on the newest abode of one of them to sit and chat and eat and chat some more.

And as per usual, the most daunting part of the occasion is spending my Saturday afternoon trying to figure out what kind of dish I should bring along for shares with everyone.

The time honoured tradition of a potluck-style party has stumped many who have planned attendance at gatherings of any size. Bringing a sharable dish to someone else’s event is seemingly simple, but cooking for a crowd can open up a whole host of contemplations and considerations.

I mean, lately I’d bake up a big loaf of sourdough to accompany some other contribution. But not only did I put this off and run short on time, I had put it aside as an option this time because the hostess has lately taken up her own sourdough habit after I re-invorgated her access to a starter.

So, what to bring?

Inevitably, some folks will show up with something tasty and simple, like a deli plate or a vegetable platter, and maybe a bottle of wine tucked under their arm. These are staples and great additions, but one always risks being the second or third one to show up with an “oh… another cheese ball!”

At least one person is bound to have stopped on their way over for a takeaway solution, like a bucket of fried chicken from the drive-thru or a tray of spring rolls from the local dim sum. This is always a hit, and I would never complain while always eating my share of these offerings, but deep down I feel like it would be a bit too much of a shortcut to match my desire to cook or prepare something personal.

The option that I do envy is the person with their special dish.

THE dish.

That thing they always bring to parties. The plate or bowl that never fails to appear in their potluck parade. Their speciality. You know the one.

I don’t have one of those.

I want one of those.

I want that go-to. I want to have a potluck platter with which I always show up at parties.

I want a plate that I unveil to knowing nods, a tray that is cleared before the night is over or a bowl that is scraped clean as people argue politely over the last morsel. I want to bring the kind of thing for which people ask me the recipe and to which I smirk and say, “I’ll send it to you” but never do because it’s THE thing I bring and don’t want to spoil it for myself.

It can’t be too spicy. Many people like heat, but it frightens just as many others away.

And the serving-size commitment level needs to be low, allowing guests to try a bite and then go back for a second or third helping. Forcing a full slice or a portion that takes over a quarter of one’s plate turns potential samplers into skeptics.

This hypothetical dish of mine also needs to be some kind of side that can hold its own across different food themes. We’ve all encountered that one dish that is inexplicably out of place among everything else, the one that tastes great but somehow just doesn’t quite belong.

I want to have one of those recipes to which I always turn when the invite comes through, something that I know I can pull together in a couple hours and do my part for any party.

It might not be an impossible potluck search, but I haven’t found that dish yet. My dish.

Not yet.

So tonight, yet again, I’ll probably just bring a…

Posted on episode 186

Raspberries I Have Loved

It’s probably something to do with the unusual heat, but all my berries are coming ready about two weeks earlier than usual this year.

Our fridge is already full of saskatoon berries (some of which are destined for a fate of pie later this morning) and over the last couple days I’ve spent nearly an hour in the thorny brambles of my raspberry bushes plucking the tasty red berries from their hiding spots.

Weeks, literally weeks, after we moved into our house over sixteen years ago, I dug a small hole into the newly graded soil of our backyard and planted a root-ball of a raspberry cultivar.

All those years later, after ups and downs, good seasons and bad, incidents with wafting herbicides, a sad pruning mistake by my wife many years ago, and many attempts to train and constrain the patch, I have a plot of land that’s roughly, consistently, five square meters in size and densely packed with raspberry plants.

We pick and eat them fresh. We pluck pail-fulls that become pies or other pastry deserts. We drop them into cereal or on ice cream. We share them with th neighbours. We live for a short month on the bounty of garden raspberries that for a brief moment seems endless and plentiful.

Until it’s suddenly gone.

Gone, and we are stuck buying expensive little plastic clamshells of never-quite-the-same farm berries usually imported from California or Mexico, achingly dulled by their long trek to the Canadian prairies.

That trip from the backyard is so much shorter, so much fresher. And always a summer treat, even if it is a couple weeks ahead of schedule this year.

Posted on episode 185

Saskatoon Berries Bonanza

According to thecanadianencyclopedia.ca “Saskatoon takes its name from a Cree word for the sweet, fleshy fruits, which were of prime importance to Aboriginal people and early settlers. On the prairies, saskatoons were a major ingredient in pemmican.“

In my small suburban yard, I have four saskatoon bushes, bushes that thrive as native shrubbery is wont to do, and bushes that each year fill our summers with weeks of fresh fruit literally off our doorstep.

We are in the heart of those few short weeks right now.

Out both my front and back door, these ten-foot tall berry trees are draped abundantly with blueberry-sized purple orbs of sweet, nutty, berry goodness.

We gather as many as we can, even as they slowly ripen through late July and early August, dropping them into our breakfasts, harvesting a handful as a snack, overflowing baking bowls for muffins and pies, and generally eating as much as we can for the too-short season.

If you ever find yourself visiting the prairies of Canada and looking to sample a food that many Canadians feel is a food that defines us locally, go ahead and try the poutine, enjoy fried handful of dough that we like to call “beaver tails” and don’t let anyone tell you that maple syrup is the one true Canuck cuisine.

Instead, set your heart on a slice of saskatoon berry pie, sample a bit of saskatoon preserve on your morning sourdough toast, or just go for a walk in the woods and pick a handful of these local sweet treats from the mid-forest foliage of trees that grow wild everywhere.

I’d save you some, but I don’t think they’ll last.