I hate it when bloggers write this: 'I want to thank you all for waiting so patiently.  I know it's been hard.  I'm pretty sure that this blog has become a big part of what gives your life meaning.  You've probably been waiting with bated breath (for the meaning of that phrase check here).  I didn't mean to spurn you or to shut you out.  It's just, I was busy.'  Whatever people.  We don't really care that it's been 2 weeks since you posted.  We like it when you do but we're not dying when you don't.  Suck it up and move on.  Having said that, I have had posts to put up here but I just couldn't get to it... because, well...

I went with 89 boys (ages 9 - 12) on tour to Ottawa.  We did 3 concerts, 1 Mass and 1 national anthem in 3 days.  That's a lot of singing for these guys.  We performed at a national choral symposium called Podium - which is a huge honour for these boys.  We went to the Museum of Civilization in between.  We performed our National Anthem in the Rotunda of our Parliament buildings.  In case you were wondering, getting 89 boys and accompanying teacher/chaperones through security in one piece isn't nearly as stress free as it sounds.  We also managed to fit some mini-putt and go-carting in there too.  All in all it was a pretty big deal for these young boys.  They were happy and exhausted by the end of the weekend.  As fun as it all was it was beyond exhausting.  I've been finding that this week at work I'm fine for the morning but by the afternoon I hit a wall that it's really hard to peel myself off of.
To add insult to injury, D has left for 10 days off to Europe.  One of the bands he plays in is doing a tour of France/Germany/Holland.  Lucky.  I'm home with the kids juggling work and end of year concert craziness.


I've decided not to get stressed out.  I've told myself that it's just that easy.  If I tell myself that I'm not getting stressed out then I won't.  I'm not thinking about my garden and all the crap that I haven't gotten to yet.  I haven't freaked out that my tomatoes aren't planted or that I haven't gotten my potatoes started - a project that I really want to get into.  I'll keep you up on that one.  I'm just rolling with the rhubarb that is sitting in the fridge looking forlorn and the recipe binder that contains all those gorgeous rhubarb recipes is still closed and on the bookshelf.  It's all going to happen.  It's just going to have to happen on a different timeline than the one that I would like to have.  I've decided to stay positive.


I've looked at the computer.  I've gone through the motions of checking some things and doing some recipe research and all that but I haven't even had the energy to think about putting the fingers to the keys and getting some words out.  Until now.  This weeks food box brought me two beautiful bunches of locally grown asparagus.  Gorgeous.  It also brought some more stinging nettles, baby leeks, baby spinach and fiddleheads but we'll not go into all that just now.  I saw this recipe in my favourite BBC GoodFood magazine and decided to try it out.  I think that honestly I would add a little more flavour to the boullion/broth - maybe an extra cube of boullion or a little dijon or both.  That kind of thing - and a little extra parmesan.  The recipe though turned out well and it's beyond easy.  Just do a little saute, stirring, throwing in oven and stirring again.


Baked Asparagus and Stinging Nettles Risotto adapted from BBC GoodFood Magazine
serves 6 - 8

4 cups Stinging Nettles (or spinach), stems remove and coarsely chopped
25 or so asparagus (two small bunches) with the hard bottom part taken off
1/2 cup onion (I used baby leek) chopped or diced
2 rashers bacon, diced
2 1/4 cups arborio rice
4 1/2 cups warm boullion (I used veggie)
1 cup cream
1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp oregano
2 tsp salt
pinch pepper
1 tsp pepper sauce (optional)
1 cup parmesan, shredded plus a little extra to sprinkle on the top

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Get a large, shallow baking dish out (I used a large 9x13 pyrex dish) and ready.
Heat a large pot over medium heat and saute together the chopped nettles, bacon and the onion in about 3 tbsp of the oil of your choice for about 4 - 5 minutes.  Turn the heat off.  Mix in the arborio rice, stir a little so that the rice is coated well.  Pour the rice mixture into the baking dish.
In another bowl mix together the heated boullion, basil, oregano, salt and pepper.
Pour the boullion mixture into the baking dish and stir well to combine everything.  Carefully place the baking dish in the heated oven and bake for 15 minutes.
Remove the baking dish from the oven.  Give everything a good stir.  Add in the cream and the parmesan (reserving a little parmesan to sprinkle over the top) and stir again to mix.  Place the asparagus over the risotto mixture.  You can get creative here but I was in a hurry and went the easy route.
Sprinkle with the reserved parmesan cheese.
Bake for another 15 minutes.  Check that the rice is done.
Cool slightly and serve.

I've started watching this show called 'Luther'.  It's a BBC show.  As you might have read in earlier posts, I've stopped watching a whole lot of tv.  I've got netflix and I don't mind paying for my tv if I really want to watch something.  Otherwise, cable tv at the moment is just not giving me what I'm looking for.  Now the BBC is something completely different.  If that's what tax supported tv is all about then I'm in.  All in. 100%.  It's a good think that I don't live in the UK because I'm 90% sure I would get pretty much nothing done other than keeping my couch company while I watched tv.
Either way, Luther is about a dude... ack, I'm not going to get into the whole thing now.  You can look it up.  I'm blown away.  It's providing me with all kinds of teachable moments.  Deep thoughts.  Words to ponder.  I don't really know if it's meant to do that or if it's just where I am in life that is causing some things to resonate deeply for me.  In the last episode of season 1 (which I just finished) Alice, this brilliant sociopath/friend of Luther's, rhyme's off the finding of some or other study that she has read about which kind of blew me away.

Three self delusions most people hold to:
1. Implausibly positive view of themselves.
2. That the future will be better for them than evidence of the present can possibly justify.
3. That they have far more control over their lives than they really do.

Number 3 was profound for me.  Number 2 wasn't far behind but Number 3 was the front runner.  I started thinking about what would happen if we all stopped trying so hard to control our lives.  To gain more control, to feel in control.  In fact, one of the major goals in life for me up to know would have to be gaining control.  It's a big part of what defines me - probably all of us.  But what if it's a delusion or a facade.  When you think about it, the things that we do to 'gain control' really just isolate us.  The only way that we could be truly in control would be to live in a vacuum.  What would happen if we accepted that a whole lot of things were beyond our control and just lived our life without the worry.
I know that the whole thing seems kind of bleak but I'm not going for a defeatest kind of thing here.  The opposite is what's in my head.  Something liberating.  Something that doesn't confine me to searching for this illusive 'control' thing.  That frees me to just 'be'.  After reading this book about how seeking to 'control' our food supply and therefor moving from a hunter/gatherer society to an agrarian one has had permanent and damaging effects on our DNA or psyche and our environment, I'm completely willing to believe that 'control' is just an illusion.  However, unlike the brilliant,sociopathic and paper-created 'Alice', I have a full life with kids and jobs and stuff and it's getting in the way of me lying in the grass to think at the moment.  This conversation is going to be rolling around in my head for quite a while...


It's spring and in spring ferns start to grow and if you are a heartless forager then you pick those fern strands before they have a chance to become something inedible.  They taste amazing and probably make you DNA correct itself or something but they taste great so who cares.  Just be warned that when you eat a lot of asparagus your pee really smells weird.  So if you pee and you think that maybe you've come down with some terrible disease because the smell is so overwhelmingly weird and disturbing then just ask yourself if just maybe you had some asparagus say about 2 hrs or so before that.  If so... don't worry, You're Fine.


Asparagus and Fiddle Head Pasta adapted from 'Simply in Season'
serves 4 - 6

4 cups fiddle heads (any brown parts of the stems removed)
3 cups asparagus (bottoms removed and then cut into 1 1/2 inch sections)
1/2 cup onion
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup milk (I mixed regular milk and some cream together)
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup parmesan cheese, shredded
5 cups pasta (I used penne - rigatoni would be nice too) cooked al dente, drained and set aside
1/2 cup reserved pasta water

Heat a largish pot over medium heat, add a little oil.  Add in the onion, the asparagus and fiddleheads.  Turn the heat down just a little.  Stir regularly so that it doesn't burn and turn down the heat if necessary.  The asparagus and fiddleheads should sear just a bit.  This should take about 7 - 10 minutes.
In a bowl mix together the eggs and milk using a whisk until the eggs are completely mixed into the milk.  Add the lemon juice and salt to the milk mixture.
Once the asparagus/fiddleheads mixture is seared sufficiently turn the heat down to low and add in the milk/egg mixture.  Stir well.  Allow the mixture to heat for another 5 minutes or so.  Do not let the mixture come to a boil.  Add in the parmesan cheese and let the sauce heat for another few minutes to let the cheese melt.
Once the cheese has melted add the cooked pasta and toss with the sauce.  Add in the reserved pasta water just until the sauce get to the consistency that you are happy with.
Serve immediately.  Sprinkle with a little more parmesan and/or chili flakes if you choose.

I am so delightfully full right now.  I got so excited by what I saw on my plate that I had to take a picture of it and put it here for you.  It was a spur of the moment kind of thing.
I'm feeling so blessed by spring.
And not exactly looking forward to the next 72 hours of my life but I'm drowning my sorrows in this absolutely gorgeous taco that I made for dinner tonight.
I had two of them to be exact... not that you were asking.
I don't have a recipe for you.  I mixed some carrots and spinach (the fridge is kinda bare at the moment) and cooked it with some drained and rinsed red beans.  I added some cooked rice that had been leftover.  I spiced the lot all up with chipotle and chili powder and coriander and the like.  A little salt and little garlic and it's all done.
Some tortilla shells that I picked up at the Mennonite farm place the other day.  Plain yogurt, cheese and - to top it all off - some shredded carrot, thinly sliced cabbage and radishes.  Drizzled with a little homemade pepper sauce (which is beyond awesome BTW) and roll it up.  It's a beautiful thing.  Supper.
See... next 72 hours all but forgotten about.

I had a funny conversation with someone I'm close with recently.  We were talking about how she is dealing with our family member's illness.  How she's doing her best to cope and how little things like me bringing baking by brightens up their day.  That's nice.
Then it got a little weird because she starting telling me about how other people aren't really doing enough - I can hear that.  Really I can.  I also understand the other side of that coin though.  She then went on to explain that she purposely does not ask people for help - family or otherwise - because she wants to sit back and see who comes and helps of their own accord.  Because they care so much and it's so important to them.  Now again, I understand the argument I really do.  I just think it's dumb.
We don't ask for help.  We don't ask for anything if we can and then we get sick or we age or something happens and no matter whether we like it or not, we have to ask for help.  We have to rely on others.  So we're gonna have to get over it and it might as well be sooner rather than later.
I also think that most people are more than happy to help out.  Especially when there is an honest need and when the help is truly appreciated.  The problem is that we all get busy.  We're busy doing all kinds of crazy things.  We're busy living our lives.  Jobs.  Classes.  Homes.  Families.  Friends.  Cooking.  Working out.  Listening to music.  Reading.  You get the idea.  I think that most of us are willing but we don't have time to try and figure out what somebody needs and then go and do it for them.  It's not that we don't care it's just that it's so much extra work when we have to guess.
I, more than anyone, knows how hard it is to ask for help.  I'm terrible at it.  Really terrible.  Sometimes I simply don't know what to ask for even though I know that I need something.  I think that it's bred into us or something.  Like we'll be exposing our weakness or failure or something if we have to ask for help.  In principle though I think that it's important that we don't just wait until help is offered in order to ask for it.  It keeps us separated from each other, this not asking.  It denies people the opportunity to get to know me a little better or maybe in a way that they didn't know me before.  And it just feels good to be able to help someone else.  It's sharing not just giving... 'cause you get so much back.  I've got to give that some thought and learn to take my own damn advice.


On another note, my freezer is really dwindling now.  We are down to corn, peaches, blueberries, a few bananas and 1 portion of pesto.  I'm not feeling bad about it, it's a good thing.  Getting ready for the new season.  So when I saw this recipe originally for blueberries I thought that I should just try mixing it up a bit.  I chopped up some peaches as well and threw them in.  I suspect that raspberries would do nicely here as well.


Blueberry and Peach Buttermilk Cake adapted from Alexandra's Kitchen
makes 1  9 inch square cake

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup + 1 tbsp sugar
1 lg egg
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 cup mix of blueberries and peaches (peaches should be peeled and diced)
2 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease or line a 9 inch square baking pan and set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in the egg and continue to beat until fluffy and well combined.
Add in the vanilla and mix well.
Add in the flour mixture and buttermilk in alternating batches.  Beginning and ending with the flour.  Take about 4 alterations with the flour.
Batter should be quite stiff.
Mix in the fruit and stir just until mixed.  Stir gently.
Pour the cake batter in the baking tin.  Smooth out the batter.  Sprinkle with the remaining 2 tbsp of sugar.
Bake for about 35 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool for about 7 minutes before removing from the cake tin.

This is what we did on Mother's Day... went for a walk.

It's Mother's Day this weekend.  To be honest it's not something that factors heavily on my radar.  Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate my own Mom like crazy.  I'm sure that she wanted to (and probably should have) pound us through a wall on more than one occasion.  I'm positive that she got pretty tired of trekking me off to skating and piano lessons.  Let's not even go into how many hockey practices and games that my brother was involved in.   She was probably pretty tired of the 'get yourself downstairs to that piano and practice' routine as well.
She was pretty patient with us though.  We thought we were getting away with things when we probably weren't.  While she was teaching piano after school we were NOT doing our homework but watching tv instead for example.  When I told her that my brother J and I had to go out and run an errand it was really to try and find the 'thing' (don't even know what it was called) that I knocked off Dad's car while going around a corner.  J came with me to help me and we found it because he had his head stuck out the window and saw it lying on the grass at the side of the road.  Thank Jeebus.  She probably knew.
When we went to a friends place and left late but still made it home for curfew because we drove at speeds on the highway that would make any mother's heart stop... she probably knew.


My Mom should be comforted by the fact though that in spite of all the stupid things that we did we always loved and never wanted to worry or hurt her.  We knew when we were being stupid (also something that she would be comforted by I think) and we always appreciated that we didn't get the 'you're being so dumb right now' card shoved down our throats.


I'm sending my Mom and My Mom-in-Law flowers today.  They deserve it for bringing up D and I.  My own expectations around Mother's Day are pretty much zero.  I don't need anything except a quiet day.  Kid #2 already gave me his card because he made it at school and couldn't wait until Sunday and quite frankly didn't understand why he would need to.  That's cool.  Kid #1 says that she would like to make me breakfast in bed but I'm dubious about that even coming to pass.  D won't be doing anything and since he's not my kid I'm cool with that.
Thanks Mom for somehow knowing.  Enjoy the flowers and have a great day.


Pear Upside Down Cake adapted from Ezra Pound Cake
makes 1 8x8 inch square cake

Topping/Bottom:

1/2 cup butter (salted or unsalted.  either is fine)
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 med/large pears cored and sliced about 1/4 inch thick (I used ones that I had canned)

Cake

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 lg eggs
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg and cardamom
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Place the butter and brown sugar in the bottom of a 9x9 inch square cake pan.  Place the pan in the oven until the butter and sugar have melted together.
Remove from the oven and stir just to mix.  Line the bottom of the pan with the pear slices overlapping if and when needed.  In my opinion you can't have enough pears.  Set aside.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cardamom together in a bowl and set aside.
Combine the milk and vanilla together and set aside.
With a mixer (or by hand ;-) mix the butter and sugar together until it's light and fluffy.  Add in the eggs and continue to mix until it's well combined and fluffy.  Add the flour mixture and milk mixture alternately beginning and ending with flour.  Should take about 3 additions for the flour.  Mix well after each addition.
Pour the cake mixture over the pear/butter mixture.
Bake for about 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Remove from oven and immediately invert onto a serving plate.
Feel free to serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

I'm sitting and typing this while dripping wet.  That's how much I love you and love doing this blog.
Whateve's right.
Where have I been and what have I been doing? Well, get ready for it sob*sigh*cry*blah*blah*... here it comes.
Non stop I tell you.  May and I aren't fans.  We don't get along and if May was a person we wouldn't be hangin'.  It's busy and frustrating and relentless.  There.  I've said it.  So while I get ready to go on tour and prepare choirs for weddings and get kids ready for auditions and take my own kid to endless rehearsals and concerts and write down endless notes on the calendar for school outings and festivals and dance recitals, I also managed to get in a little bit of time with D.
We spend some time at a friends b'day party... this is my kind of party.  That's D in the background wearing the orange shirt.  He hadn't started playing yet and I kinda missed filming that part - Duh!


I took some time to walk around by myself and get some crackin' shots of trees and things.  I'm playing around with my iPhone camera so bear with me.


I made some wicked Pear upside down cake which I'll be sharing with you in a day or two.

I downloaded some music that actually seems to keep my legs moving.  Embarrassingly, it's heavy metal. But great heavy metal.  "Who controls the past now controls the future. Who controls the present now controls the past. Who controls the past now controls the future.  Who controls the present now.'  Just sayin'


I went out with T.  We caught up and he bought wayyyyy too much wine.  We ate ourselves silly and it was a ton of fun.  We totally lost track of time and stayed out way too late on a school night.  I was a wreck the next day but it was totally worth it.

What haven't I done?
 - Cleaned my bathroom or swept my floors for starters.
 - Watched much tv except for this and this which have convinced me that if I lived in the UK I would pretty much just only ever watch tv.
 - Sat down to sift through my ideas for a new project at work that I really do have ideas for and need to put into black and white in order to start making sense of it all
 - Stepped into the toy area of our house... and I'm not going to for just a little longer.

I think that you get the picture.  I'm going to go and dry myself off now.  The rain and I played together twice today.  Once when I rode my bike home from work and the second time when I went out for my run.  Soaked twice... it was fun.  Thanks May.

How did it come to this?
I ask myself that question a lot.  When I hear certain news stories, read people's Facebook status updates, watch tv.  I was laying on my couch yesterday trying to decide what to do next.  Before switching on what has to be the world's stupidest movie and the biggest waste of my time in a long while, I had the tv on.  For the few minutes that it was on I saw a Canadian talk show host interviewing a woman in suburban Toronto.  This woman was talking about her lawn... her grass.  The grass on her front lawn(!).  She was explaining that a tree had been removed leaving uneven grass and a bare patch on her front lawn.  She needed advice from an expert so that she could once again have the best grass on her street(!!!!).
At first I thought it must be a joke.  But the show seemed to be taking things further by having a expert work with her.  This woman was absolutely sincere and in earnest about her lawn.  She was completely committed to having the best grass on her street.  And then I thought, 'How did it come to this'.
Who in hell cares whether you have the best lawn on the street.  Grass is something I consider just filler between my door and the sidewalk.  I know that it's not the best use of the space and I completely understand that it sucks the earth of it's good stuff.  Damn.  Dig up the lawn and put veggies in there.  At least it's productive.
But seriously, why do we care.  Does it honestly say something about me as a human being if I have the best grass on my street?  Or if I have the worst grass?  I don't think about people that way at all.  I don't ever wonder what their lawn looks like or if it's the best lawn or if maybe I should consider not talking to them anymore if it's the worst lawn.  I guess that it just never occured to me that the grass on my lawn was something worth competing over and/or making an effort with.


D was telling me about a visit he made to a friend a couple of days ago.  They were having some lunch and hearing these weird noises coming from outside.  Deciding to go for a walk along the beach after lunch they left the house and discovered that the weird noises (which had been going on for some time now) were being made by someone using some machinery to remove dandelions from their front lawn. Wow.  Dandelions are actually useful and grass isn't.  This person was spending a lot of time to get a great but useless lawn and removing truly useful stuff in order to do it.  I'm astonished.


Well after that whole revelation I was exhausted and had to refuel with some of these cookies.  It was truly important.  I suppose that the time I spent making these cookies could have been spend outside pulling up my dandelions or trying to repair the holes in my own grass that have been made by racoons or squirrels digging for grubs. But the truth is that I don't care.  I don't care about whether my grass is awesome because there are so many really important things in my life that I don't have time to worry about my grass.  Cookies however are another matter entirely.


Chocolate, White Chocolate Chunk Cookies adapted slightly from Eats Well With Others
makes about 30 smallish cookies - 24 med. sized cookies

8 oz very dark or bittersweet chocolate
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1 tsp vanilla
3 lg eggs
3/4 cup white chocolate, chips are a good quality bar cut into coarse chunks

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler (you can just simmer a little bit of water and place a heat proof bowl on top - but not touching! - the pot).  Set aside to cool slightly.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Line two cookies sheets with parchment or a silicon baking mat.  Set aside.
Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in bowl and set aside.
Add the sugar, espresso powder and vanilla to the chocolate mixture and mix well.  Add in the eggs one at a time and whisk well after each addition.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the chocolate mixture.  Do it in about 3 batches mixing well after each addition.  The batter will become quite thick.
Add in the white chocolate chips/chunks and mix well.
Scoop the dough onto the cookies sheets using about a tbsp of dough for each cookie.  These cookies don't spread very much so they can be fairly close together.
Bake for about 10 - 11 minutes or until they look just a little under baked.
Cool the cookies on a wire rack.
Stores well for about 3 - 4 days.