The Glue of my Childhood

When I was a kid, things were different.

We didn’t have all kinds of packaged foods for lunch. It was simple sandwiches. Peanut butter was the most common filling.

I know what you’re thinking. “Here she goes. Next thing she’ll be telling us she walked uphill to school both ways.” But seriously, 40 years ago, a peanut allergy was rare and peanut butter was a food that fit in everyone’s budget.

I was a Skippy kid. Back then Skippy was a popular brand. It was the one with the peanut on top. We had Kraft, and Jif, and a few brands that were unsweetened, but that was about it.

I remember a brand whose jar had the jelly already in it too. It looked cool with its stripes but my mom convinced my brother and I that it was better to choose your own jam each time.

It could be said that nostalgia makes foods taste better, but the foods of my childhood feed my soul. The comfort of sticky peanut butter and jam, or banana slices between soft fresh bread, is like a warm blanket. And the exact nature of that sandwich is a very personal thing.

The finer points of a PB and J could be discussed in the lunchroom for days on end. Which kind of jam was your favourite? What kind of bread? And, of course, what kind of peanut butter? Smooth or crunchy?

I like smooth peanut butter, with raspberry jam on sourdough for a sandwich, and crunchy with bananas on brown toast.

You can’t buy Skippy in B.C. anymore. I have to stock up when we go to the U.S. in the summer (Walmart sells a one-kilogram tub for people like me). Here at home I use the Dark-Roasted Jif now, and the natural stuff for baking.

Which one is your favourite?

You can buy many more kinds of nut spreads now, too. There are cashew and almond butters galore, and even hemp butter. I wonder if the rise of nut allergies helped inspire these innovations.

The world is a smaller place now and lunch boxes show that from their contents. Sandwiches are less common as more ethnic foods have become familiar. You can eat anything from soup to nuts, as the saying goes, and even the nuts can be a new variety.

Nutella is now a popular condiment, perhaps more common for breakfast than lunch but just as dear to the hearts of European folks as our peanut butter is to us.

Did you hear about the riots in France when a grocery chain put Nutella on sale? The news video showed people pushing and shouting their way to the display to stock up.

I don’t want to see peanut butter riots, but I do hope my soul food doesn’t disappear into the annals of history. I wonder if the inflation of food prices will bring nut butters back into the fold? I know it will be staying on our grocery list.

Good old sticky peanut butter really was the glue of my childhood. It helped hold me together as I grew into an adult, and that feeling on the roof of my mouth as I eat it now has the same value as a cozy hug.

Excuse me now while I go put the toaster on. I have a hankering.

Calling all souls

I have talked about the strong feelings of change that many of us feel at this time of year: the changing colours and weather seem to bring a sense of melancholy to some, restlessness in others. Historically these tumultuous feelings have been linked to the holidays of the season.

For those who believe in the Druidic or similar philosophies that link themselves to the seasons, the time around the autumn Full Moon and the equinox are said to be when the barrier between the netherworld and ours is at its most fragile. Souls may pass back onto our side during this time.

You might be familiar with Hallowe’en and the pagan roots of donning a costume to scare away bad spirits. Or perhaps you know of its predecessor, Samhain (pronounced “sah-win”), the Gaelic festival celebrating the end of the harvest season. There is also the Catholic All Saint’s Day. All of these have a connection to souls who have departed our world.

Perhaps this mystical element is what gives Hallowe’en its edge. There is something crazy about it, encouraging excess and silliness. On any other day of the year, who would tell their kids to gather as much candy as they could carry? When else would you entertain the idea of donning green face paint and a pointy hat, or wings and sparkles in your hair? All Hallow’s Eve is the time when anything goes.

For most of us, Hallowe’en is a fun day to dress up and have a somewhat reasonable excuse to eat lots of crazy candy. Everyone is encouraged to get into the spirit of things (pardon the pun).

Kids can often dress up for school that day, or at the very least will be attending some sort of neighbourhood gathering at a mall or community hall if they don’t go trick-or-treating door to door. Perhaps they dress up as what they want to be when they grow up, or maybe its their favourite character in a movie or book. Everyone deserves to feel like a superhero at least once in their lives, don’t you think? 

The adults are not to be left out of the festivities. Many parents go to great efforts to decorate the house and dress up for the visitors to their door. My dad worked in the media business, and so one year he and some of his audio technicians created a scary soundtrack of sounds to play as the neighbourhood kids came up the walkway.

This was similar to the sounds on the tape that played that fateful night. My Dad hid the player in the milk chute by the front door.

The only problem with my Dad’s nefarious plan was that it was so scary, lots of kids turned around and ran away. The upside was that my brother and I got mini chocolate bars in our lunches for a couple of weeks.

Even the candy served at Hallowe’en steps outside the boundaries of normal goodies. Many Hallowe’en specialties are rarely seen at other times of year.

My first Halloween bucket was a pumpkin like this one, but round. It was really hard to get the candy out once it got full.

• Popcorn balls? The urban myth is that these first occurred naturally in the late 1800s when extreme Nebraska weather at the end of the season caused them. First, extreme heat made the kernels pop right on the cobs in the fields. Then heavy rain caused the sorghum syrup in the stalks to leak out and stick the popcorn together. This can’t be disproven, as apparently the evidence was eaten by a swarm of locusts very soon after it happened. 
• How about another treat from the 1800s, Candy Corn? Did you know that it was originally marketed as “chicken feed”? (I bet that person didn’t find much success in a marketing career.)
• You might not have bobbed for an apple if you aren’t as old as I, but do you like candy apples? They were invented in 1908 by a New Jersey candy maker who melted down cinnamon candies to dress up apples, since they were a popular fall food.
• Caramel apples came later; they were the brainchild of a Kraft employee in the 1950s who was trying to find a way to use up leftover caramels that didn’t get sold at Hallowe’en. (I never did really like those little caramels, but that was probably because they got stuck in my braces.)

There are the grown-up costume parties too, where everyone gets to unleash their inner self – whether that be a princess, a minion, a Transformer or a sexy nurse. I for one like the idea that once a year we can show an alter ego and not have to offer any explanation. There may be treats at those parties too, and all kinds of crazy punches; most of us can remember a “witch’s brew” from some Hallowe’en party that might have left us feeling like we really did cross over to the dark side when we woke up the following morning.

You don’t need me to find a recipe for a witch’s brew or Jello shots – I’ll leave that part of the partying to you. My contribution is a gentle one to celebrate this time of connecting with all souls.

I’m going back to another Medieval tradition, when people went door to door asking for food in exchange for prayers made for loves one who had departed the world. Those giving food would often give out Soul Cakes, a sort of scone or biscuit that was often studded with dried fruit or raisins. They would feel good sharing food and knowing that someone was thinking of their lost loved ones. The person getting the cake was thanked for their good spirit with some sustenance.

Like most traditions, there is no one recipe or right way to prepare Soul Cakes, but the recipe I’m sharing is one that pays homage to the symbols we love at this time of year.

Soul cakes offer a bit of variety in the treats offered for this time of year.

I know some of you would rather snuggle up with a friend and watch a horror movie to celebrate, but what can I say – this is my foodie version of the holiday. Extra points are given for those who dress up when they share their cakes.

They don’t keep very long, so find more friends or make new ones to make sure these treats aren’t wasted. This is not a time of year you want to be messing with karma.

Recipes across the miles

In an age when technology allows us to find out almost anything with a Google search, it may seem odd to think of exchanging recipes personally with someone. But I will admit I still enjoy the chance to get a personal recipe from another cook, in their own handwriting. I have more than a few ingredient-stained pages glued in an old journal that I still cherish as one of my favourite cookbooks. It is not just the bits of ingredients on the page that adds to the magic of cooking the recipes and tasting them again and again. I think herein lies the true root of soul food.

This weekend I am making a recipe I call Best Friend Banana Bread. It’s an old favourite, one that comes from  one of my best and longest-held friends, a soulmate who currently lives in England. This recipe is one she sent to me on airmail paper about 30 years ago, as one of her favourites. In those days she was living in her home country of South Africa, and had just started a family with her new husband and daughter (my goddaughter). It’s a wonderful combination of health food and decadence, and I love it for that as well as how it reminds me of my darling friend.

We have shared many great recipes over the years. I sent her my Mom’s Brown Sugar Shortbread recipe, and she sent me the one for South African Milk Tart. In my movie catering days, her recipes for bobotie and carrot cake were favourites with the crews I fed. And when she brought her family to Canada so we could share Christmas together, they were amazed at my husband cooking turkey in the BBQ, and they loved his French Canadian traditions of tourtière and bûche de Noel. Food was one of the ways that kept us connected across the miles and it added to our shared memories when we could get together.

I spent a week in England at my friend’s house 8 years ago this weekend, to catch up and join in the celebrations for her 25th wedding anniversary and my goddaughter’s 21st birthday. It was amazing to think that we had been friends almost 30 years, since my first trip to Europe. We hadn’t seen each other for 7 years, and yet as soon as I arrived, we sat down at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and some biscuits and picked up where we left off like it had been last Sunday. I could feel my soul filling up like I had stopped in at the gas station. All week long we savoured moments, many of them around the table.

My husband and her husband shared time at the stove – hers loves to cook, and with mine being a chef the two of them are often engaged in a sort of kitchen chat. It’s a bit like that Actors Studio show, where you have this interview/conversation between an expert and an admiring and not unknowing layman. Martin shared some of his secret spice blends on that visit, and he got to see a pheasant prepared for a weeknight dinner like it was chicken. The grand finale was the men cooking Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict for the group of 12 staying at the house – all hot and perfectly cooked!

Martin is at the stove behind Vic and Chris, who are calmly assembling plates – impressive, no?

The results were served hot and with bubbly, no less!

After coming back home, I felt as though I had been replenished. I posted some new recipes in the archives for her husband Vic to try – poached eggs in red wine sauce is one I know he found interesting! And Martin became a new lover of Sticky Toffee Pudding; he used Merle’s similar recipe for the South African Cape Brandy Pudding as a starting point for his own recipe which he now cooks for clients.

We met again in person a few times over recent years while they travelled but I was ever so grateful that we had a chance to stay with them in Senegal where Vic was stationed up until the end of 2019. It was another lovely opportunity to share recipes and time around the table, reminiscing about the many memories we have made together. We ate delectable African seafood and sampled coconut and mango jams with the French pastries available in Dakar, courtesy of the colonists. Merle and Vic spoiled us again. 

The kitchen continues to be one of the best places to stay in touch across the world it seems, and I like the idea that our friendship might help warm some other hearts as well. Martin and I are hoping that when the world gets back to some kind of regular existence, we can finally host our friends in our kitchen here in the Okanagan and toast to our fantastic history across the miles.

two soulmates, out on the town (London, 2013)

We’ve still got it, even after all these years! (Senegal, 2019)

Hallowed eves of old

I don’t think of myself as old. I often think of myself as a big kid, never quite having grown up. So many memories of how much fun I had as a child are still so vivid in my mind.

I wonder, is the imagination still an active organ? With images supplied for almost everything today, where is the chance for mystery and magic? Hallowe’en is a perfect example of that. I do hope people can still enjoy a good old-fashioned scare.

My dad was a good-natured fellow, but he was also the youngest of four children with two much older brothers. From the stories he told my brother and me, he was scared plenty of times thanks to his vivid imagination, his sister’s equally healthy creative mind and his brothers’ ability to sound really creepy.

The anticipation of what might be under the stairs or behind the door or lurking “out there” in the dark is the scariest part. Apparently studies have shown that we can come up with much scarier things that we will see on a screen. I know I have. I hated the dark as a kid. I am still not fond of it; I just learned how not to think about it.

Gathering a pillowcase of candy while skipping from house to house all dressed up, yelling “Hallowe’en Apples!” – it was good entertainment with a suitably cool reward. But now that I am a big kid, I like to know the story behind the tradition.

Perhaps it is the respectful tone of the day that I admire. Even if one isn’t interested in pagan rituals, it’s hard not to appreciate all the thought that goes into them.

At its heart, Hallowe’en comes from the ancient celebrations of the harvest – the end of the growing season and all its life, and the coming of the darker, winter season with its shorter days.

Festival of the Fires is Ireland’s oldest festival – a celebration of Irish culture, art, heritage, music, ceremony and sport which has been held at the historic Hill of Uisneach for over 1,400 years.

Legend has it that this transition is when the veil is thinnest between the worlds of the living and the dead.

• Wearing a disguise or costume was a way to avoid being recognized by evil spirits.
• Food was also put out, or possibly given, to spirits as a way to placate them. Today we call that trick-or-treating.
• Carving pumpkins today is done because of a fellow named Jack who tried to outsmart the Devil, if you believe the legend. Jack was left to wander the earth with a hollowed-out turnip lit with a lump of burning coal as his lantern.

I come from a childhood full of mist and smoke and fairy dust. The legends I learned made the world I lived in even more special. I hope the children out there tonight will find something special as they gather their treats. They deserve to have a good old-fashioned scare, and to believe in something bigger than all of us.

May your soul be safe under the light of the Blue Moon.

New and improved! – but if it ain’t broke…

I tried multiple times over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend to post a collection of my kitchen pics. Each and every time, I was foiled at the last minute with the message “There was a problem with your post. Please try again later.”

The whiz kids over at Facebook have been “improving” things, putting together a new look and working towards integrating Instagram and Facebook so we “can manage them together for a smoother experience”.

With no reason as to why my post would not complete, I can only assume that by not already jumping into the new format (which I don’t want to do anyway), I am bucking the system.

I can get used to changes, and I understand technology advances and we have to go with the flow for the most part. But to me this is like being forced to use an alternative ingredient in a recipe when I like the original combination just fine. I don’t want avocado brownies, I want brownies with brown butter and melted chocolate!

Does anyone else feel this way? Am I the only one who doesn’t want to adapt every time something shifts? Couldn’t we have the option to stick with a classic now and then? You can have your avocado brownie, I just want mine the regular way.

In the spirit of traditions and preserving something of nostalgia, I am posting my pictures here. Perhaps this is a sign that I should be blogging more and stepping away from Facebook as a Gourmande. I just hope there will still be some engagement.

Brunch on the deck in October! Talk about the good life #blessed

There is nothing like garden tomatoes, basil and greens to honour the hard work spent in the dirt. It was worth every blister, callus, broken fingernail and tired muscle.

A year ago this weekend we headed to Morocco for the trip of a lifetime, our 20th anniversary celebration. We won’t be travelling to exotic places anytime soon, but we can bask in the flow of their flavours.

One of the great things about travel is coming back to appreciate what we have at home. Pairing a favourite #BCwine from Tantalus Vineyards with an exotic meal was the perfect foundation for the evening.

This time of year is all about preserving the bounty – we have frozen and dried and canned – chutneys, compotes, sauces, pickles… It will cheer us during the dreary days in winter.

Baking sourdough bread has become my meditation. This lovely addition to my collection of accessories for the baking process makes me smile every time I use it – thanks, Your Green Kitchen

The last fruit to be harvested is the quince. I know when they are ready when they seem to glow from within.

Ella has a great nose for ripe fruits and veggies. She helped me choose the pumpkins for our Thanksgiving dessert.

Thanks to the wonderful team at Paynter’s Market for such delicious ingredients! 😋

Thanks to Mumsy for such a great recipe –her pumpkin cheesecake tastes as good as I remember from my childhood!

Having only two people at our table, a Thanksgiving feast was not practical. The last big cooking task then, was to mix the Christmas cake ! I chose Mary Berry’s recipe this year, having seen her make it in lockdown.

This was a full family effort, with everyone there in spirit. I managed to have a group call with my brother and his lady in Vancouver and my mom in Mexico. We all made our wishes as I stirred the batter, and shared virtual hugs – and a few nostalgic giggles – to seal the deal. The crowning glory for the cake was the Courvoisier cognac that came from my late Daddy’s liquor cabinet.