29 August 2010 by pat.

Steve stopped by briefly this afternoon on his way over to the spit for a bike ride.

While here, we talked about this and that, jobs, software, travel, food…

And while talking about food, we started talking about eggplant. What to do with eggplant? Other than the standards (baba ganouj, grilled eggplant, moussaka) what do you do with it? I’ve used it in spaghetti sauce (it pretty much disappears: thickens the sauce a bit, but doesn’t hold together).

While continuing to catch up on my RSS feed this afternoon, I ran across a description of eggplant terrine and the photos look delicious. Vegetarian gourmet terrine, recipe in Marc Vetri’s book. I found the recipe on Google Books.

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27 August 2010 by pat.

How’s that for a subject line to push all the buttons?I attended a seminar by Lorraine Johnson at the Brick Works, back in July, on just that subject. Lots of food for thought, and lots of books to consider getting, including:

• Identifying and harvesting edible and medicinal plants  - Steve Brill
• City Farmer - Lorraine Johnson
• Peterson Field guide to edible wild plants

It was a fact-filled morning, discussed fruit, veggies, and mushrooms, and included some things I hadn’t even considered. We’re at the northern edge of the Paw-paw’s range (Carolingian forest), and it seems they were never commercially grown because there wasn’t much of a way to save them — they don’t transport well, they don’t stay fresh long — so they never caught on big with the population. I’d only heard of them in a southern play that got used a lot in scene study classes (can’t even remember what it was called! about 3 sisters).

She described it as very tropical looking… like a small mango, and with an interesting taste, like banana and pineapple and custard all together. To me, it sounds like it should be ice cream at the very least, and probably would make a good cream pie flavour.

These days, we can refrigerate or freeze fruit, which wasn’t available back when.

So it was interesting to hear Lorraine talk about them, and what’s needed to actually get harvestable fruit in the fall.

The tree, which under the most optimal conditions, can grow up to 30 feet tall, is more likely to max out at about 10-15 in our climate, so a medium-height shrub. And they grow slowly. It needs filtered light in its early years, and then full sun when it is established. It doesn’t like wind; it does like high humidity (sounds like Toronto summers!)

The one problem? Lorraine said 3 trees are needed for cross-pollination.

Hey, who says they all have to be in one yard? Given the size of downtown backyards — about 17 feet across, maybe 20-30 feet deep, if three neighbours got together and each planted one, there’d be plenty of paw-paws to go around. Sounds like fertilization is mostly through insects (but not bees). So they can’t be too far apart. Most insects aren’t known for long-term memory.

It’s hard to find them in garden centers now, because there isn’t demand. And there isn’t demand, because people don’t know about them. So it’s kind of a vicious circle. But just as the whole 100-mile diet thing really got started with two writers reporting for the Tyee, maybe Lorraine can start things up here… she told a bunch of us, and if we each tell a bunch of people, and can collectively get people to plant them, then we’d bring back a tree that’s almost been completely extirpated from our ecosystem. And who knows what else that might help?  Definitely the zebra-swallowtail butterfly!

More info about Paw-paws here.

I think it sounds like an interesting project… some garden centres may carry them: Lorraine mentioned Grimo, in Niagara.

What do you think?

Posted in Urban nature, Home gardens, Food, grown, Food, SOLE food | No Comments »

27 August 2010 by pat.

So it seems that, now that I’m blogging, I occasionally get asked my opinion on things. I’ve been asked to write positive things, and do a link exchange (said no). I’ve been asked to taste things. To that, I said yes. But that I wouldn’t promise I’d blog about it, and I wouldn’t promise to say positive things about it.  Despite those caveats, Lassonde Canada wanted to send me the different flavours of *ahem* Flavür (wow, I’m glad I’m on a Mac and could find the umlaut).

I got home this afternoon, and a Purolator box was on my front porch. I opened the box to find another box, this one with pretty pictures and marketing speak about it being samples. I opened it, and took the bottles outside and photographed them.

I’ll tell you what they taste like as I work my way through the samples. Right now they’re in the fridge, cooling.

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19 August 2010 by pat.

Two pictures I took while in Nova Scotia visiting my sister are now up for sale over on FinerWorks. Both are of sailboats in the fog, and prints on canvas.

Foggy Harbour, Three Boats

Foggy Harbour, Two Boats

Posted in Photography sales and marketing, Photography | No Comments »

15 August 2010 by pat.

Wondering why my blog posts have been so few and far between?

I’ve been rehearsing for Agnes of God. I’m playing Mother Superior. Tijuana Layne is Agnes, and Cathy Young is Dr. Livingstone, the psychiatrist.

The show runs tonight (Aug. 15) and next weekend (Aug. 21 and 22), at Nobody Writes to the Colonel, 460 College St. at 8pm. Tickets are $20 at the door.

Hope to see you there!

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

10 August 2010 by pat.

I bought and froze a cornish hen (little chicken) a while ago, and thawed it on the weekend to eat.

Didn’t get around to eating it. Must cook it, and can then choose to either (a) feed actress and stage manager this evening while we run lines or (b) freeze it once cooked.

I had some leftover fat and drippings from an organic chicken I roasted for an earlier rehearsal, so that went into the roasting pan along with half a lemon in the cavity, two anchovy strips on top, and all my leftover cherry tomatoes that needed to be cooked up (I halved them, and sprinkled them around the bird). Oh yes, and oregano over all.

Now it’s in the oven roasting. I’m cooking it at 300F, and may cook it to the point that I can pull it apart with a fork and then serve it and the tomatoes on top of some grilled polenta.

Posted in Food | 1 Comment »

5 August 2010 by pat.

I’ve got rehearsals at my house this week for Agnes of God (if you’re in Toronto, come to see it! I’m playing Mother Superior).

We’ve been starting at 3:30 in the afternoon and working through until 10:30 or 11:30 at night. Some days I prepare an easy dinner for the cast, so we can eat between running lines and actual rehearsal. Yesterday I roasted a naturally raised chicken that I bought at Meat on Queen (corner of Queen E. and Jones). I kept it simple: took an organic lemon, cut it in half and put that in the cavity, and rubbed kosher salt and cracked pepper into the skin on the outside. Into a 450 oven that I reduced to 300F, and roasted for an hour and a half, basting regularly.

Along with it I made a potato salad. I took new potatoes (and boiled them in the microwave oven — the silly thing has a potato setting that I find very useful). When they cooled, I roughly chopped them into fork-sized hunks, and added a bunch of sliced celery, halved cherry tomatoes, chopped manzanilla olives stuffed with pimento, and capers. For a dressing, I used a manufactured Greek-oregano-and-feta low fat dressing, and globbed a bunch of that onto it, tossed everything, and let it refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving. It made for a yummy salad with lots of flavour, and I had some of the leftovers for breakfast this morning.

Now, had I known the people and their tastes better, I might have added some chopped hard-boiled egg and anchovies into the mix… Alas, not everyone’s an anchovy fan. Good thing I left the anchovies out. One person’s face puckered when I talked about them later (in the context of strips of anchovy arranged on a roasting chicken).

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