Remembrance of Things Past

British War Time Poster

"There are very few men and women, I suspect, who cooked and marketed their way through the past war without losing  forever some of the nonchalant extravagence of the Twenties.  They will feel, until their final days on earth, a kind of culinary caution: butter, no matter how unlimited, is a precious substance not lightly to be wasted; meats, too, and eggs, and all the far-brought spices of the world, take on a new significance, having once been so rare.  And that is good, for there can be no more shameful carelessness than with the food we eat for life itself.  When we exist without thought or thanksgiving we are not men, but beasts" 
 --M.F.K. Fisher  How to Cook a Wolf - 1942

When I read MFK Fisher's book How to Cook a Wolf nearly twenty years ago, it was the seed for my belief that "food and fuel" and it's abundance, cannot be taken for granted.  Her book described strategies for feeding the soul through a very tough time in history.  She described, with humour, how to stretch limited and rationed ingredients and still make good food. Also, how to conserve energy while you were cooking, because you didn't know if the power would be cut off, or a blackout would ensue, or your supply of cooking fuel would end before the next ration book would come.  My mother, knew these things intrinsically, because she lived through that war. For me, it has been a learned behaviour to respect food and fuel, because they are a finite resource and shortages still exist today for may people across our globe.

Today is our Day of Remembrance in Canada.  In honour of wars past, and to respect that in war torn countries today, food is a sacred resource, I am preparing a recipe from Fisher's book from the Chapter How to Pray for Peace.  Here is the recipe, as it is written:

Quick Potato Soup

1/4 pound good butter 

4 large potatoes

4 large onions

2 quarts whole milk

salt, pepper, minced parsley (if agreeable)

Melt the butter in a large kettle, or in fireproof casserole in which the soup can be served.  Grate the clean potatoes into it. (I like to leave them unpeeled, but the soup is not so pretty unless chopped fresh herbs, added at the last, change its natural whiteness enough to hide the bits of brown skin....)  Grate the peeled onions into it....or slice them very thin.  Heat the mixture to the bubbling point, stirring well.  Then reduce the heat, and cover closely for about ten minutes or until the vegetables are tender but not mushy, shaking the pan now and then to prevent sticking.  Add more butter (or chicken fat) if it seems wise.  Heat the milk to the boiling pot but not beyond, add slowly to the pot, season and serve.

On the stove

I have edited this recipe for modern times and a smaller batch below:

2 oz of butter

3 large potatoes peeled (the size of a baked potato) or 1 1/2 lbs

1 onion (size of a baseball) about 1/2 lb

1 litre of 1% milk

Use a very heavy bottomed pot with a lid, to prevent burning.  If you have a good non stick pot with a lid, use that.  The grated potatoes thicken the soup so you don't have to use flour.

I suggest that you dice the onions small instead of grating, and then saute first in the butter in the pot until soft. (over medium heat, about 10 minutes.  Turn down the heat if the onions start to brown)  Then, I added the grated potatoes, and stirred,  then covered and cooked, until the potatoes were done.  Because I have reduced the butter, I added  4 oz of water to the potatoes and onions, to ensure they didn't stick to the bottom of the pot while they were cooking. Lower the heat so that they do not burn on the bottom. Taste your potato and onion mixture to make sure the potatoes are cooked and not starchy tasting.  I microwaved the milk until very hot before adding to the cooked mixture. You can heat through the finished soup on your stove top, but do not turn on high and do not walk away.  It cannot boil.  I added about 1 tsp of salt and a few grinds of pepper.  If you like, you can add a powdered chicken or vegetable base to the soup instead of salt.  (1 tbsp)

Recipe Cost  $2.75 for 6 large bowls.  46 cents each. 

Keep the wolf from your door

Eggless in Edmonton

Simple Morning Pleasures.

I have spent the last 20 years grumbling that my various and sundry offspring were philistines when it came to food.  When they were smallish, they would sooner have pasta with no sauce, and hotdogs, than anything that we could whip up in the kitchen. The oldest child, to his credit, was a more adventurous eater, and claimed at a very early age that clam chowder soup was his favourite.  The middle child, was a master at clamping his jaws shut and not eating anything that didn't pass his smell test. We were so jaded when the third boy came along, that we were convinced that there was a conspiracy afoot to make sure we didn't eat anything interesting again.  When the 2 youngest reached the fine old age of 17 and 19, they magically started eating.......well....things.  "Would you like to try pasta with spinach and chicken?"  They reply, "I think I will try that!" We had been released from the gulag!

That brings me to the subject of eggs.  I always have eggs in my fridge, because I am a last minute baker.  On weekend mornings, I usually wake up fairly early, and may....or may not decide to make muffins. This morning,  I mixed up my dry ingredients, went to the fridge for the eggs and milk....and found the egg spot empty. Expletives bounced around the kitchen like ping pong balls! 

I  used to have my egg inventory in control.  I was never caught eggless.  Recently, the middle child has discovered scrambled eggs.  All the years of making eggs on weekends, and he would never eat them.  But, when a friend shows him how to make scrambled eggs, he is suddenly a convert.  He is now making scrambled eggs....... EVERY MORNING!  Even son # 3 has jumped on the band wagon and is scrambling away before going to school. Now that the great egg misconception of the 80's, with all of it's evil cholestrol has been put to bed, I don't admonish them about eating so many eggs, as it is better than sugary cereal, but I have been caught without eggs more times than is acceptable.  No more baking on a whim.  No more devil may care muffins or quickbreads.  I have been robbed!

This morning, my ever gracious husband drove to Sobey's at 7:50 a.m. just to make my complaining stop. He brought back 2 dozen.  Later we went for groceries and bought 3 dozen more.  That makes 5 dozen! You would think we were farming a section of land with a family of 12. 

I made my muffins.  Vanilla Pear with a Streusel topping. They were sublime.

I Double Dog Dare You

Lamentations about early snowfall, cold weather and a crappy week at work were still echoing throughout the house. Looking out from our kitchen window, the trees were still green, and snowflakes were gently falling.  The leaves had not had time to turn their cheery shade of yellow, and now were too frozen to fall.  We even made the National News, the broadcaster saying it has been the coldest Thanksgiving in the west in fifteen years. Fanfriggin'tastic!  

We were planning our Thanksgiving Feast, unsure of how many people would eventually be at the table. It is usually in the neighbourhood of 8 to 12.  We will prepare the usual suspects......turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and mix it up with different vegetables. This year it's spaghetti squash from the brother-in-law's garden, sweet potatoes and farmer's market cauliflower.  Desserts are an opportunity for creativity, as long as we follow the code of having something that is "not creamy" for one of the regular guests. That is always easy, because we usually make two desserts.

Two of the remaining dishes from our OKFWW throwdown are: 

Pecan Crusted Chocolate Pate

from Cellar Door Bistro

Photo from Jennifer CK

Pear and Almond Galette 

from the Naramata Inn

Photo from Jennifer CK

We will do a "Twofer" on the same plate. 

We have been making chocolate pate for over twenty years, as it was on our restaurant menu "back in the day".  We will garnish it with a black currant coulis from our very local (backyard) currant crop.

The Pear and Almond Galette would have to be re-imagined, as we had only our memories to go on. 

We used small forelle pears, and packed the cored cavity with homemade almond paste. These were placed on a square of puff dough and then baked in a very hot oven.

We think we did OK.  There were plenty of mmmmmmm's around the table. 

Thanksgiving Dinner has changed from when we started preparing them for the extended family.  Our little boys are now men, and the sippy cups have turned into beer bottles. The conversations around the dining room table have changed, but the conviviality has not.  When we were cleaning up the mountain of dishes the next day, we looked at each other and  said "still worth it?"  Yeah......we have a few more years left in us!

We Were Taking A Break

My husband and I had decided to take a break.  Not a Ross and Rachel kind of break, but a break from our OKFWW throwdown of duplicating all the dishes we ate in Penticton.  We had just done 3 dishes on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday was our day of rest.  We would rest on our laurels until next weekend.  Then, we looked at the weather forecast on Sunday afternoon.  FROST!  Here in Edmonton, our frost free days, the measure of what can grow in our region, are zealously watched.  We will cover up plants in the spring and the fall, just to keep stuff in the ground for as long as we can.  We had a big frost in the first part of June this year, so our garden was behind before it even started.  We have a delightful assortment of old bedsheets, that we press into action during these nights, and passers' by who may not be gardeners probably shake their heads and say....."those people are deluded.  They should just go to the store to get their veggies"

So, here we were on Sunday afternoon, with a dilemma.  Cover or pick?  We looked at the calendar, and then the long range forecast, and said   "There is a time when you have to throw in the bedsheet.  It's here".

So, we picked.  Four peach boxes full of tomatoes in varying states of ripeness, our peppers, 1 beautiful eggplant and 4 squash blossoms!  Three kinds of beets and the shallots........ 

I brought the basket of vegetables inside and there they were...... the squash blossoms.  We knew it would be next August before we saw another squash blossom, and one of our target dishes, from our dinner at the Naramata Inn  was

Garden Beets

Goat Cheese foam, squash tempura,

mustard vinaigrette

Naramata Inn Version

We hauled our sorry asses into the kitchen and started cooking.

We had 3 kinds of baby beets, golden, regular and chiogga.  They went into a pot to cook

We sent son number 3 to the store to get radish sprouts

We made a vinaigrette with Vinegar Works Apricot Vinegar, canola oil and grainy mustard

We made a goat cheese foam by stick blending chevre and whipping cream together
We made a light tempura batter
We bickered as we put it together

This is our creation.   It's a keeper (again)