Monthly Archives: August 2013

Recipes from The Sheep Are Out…

It is my pleasure to announce that The Sheep Are Out… now has a working Recipe Index.

If you are interested in any of the recipes posted on this blog there are a couple of ways that you can access them. You can click at the recipe link at the bottom of an individual post, or you can use the Recipes menu at the top of the blog. If you click on the Recipes menu it will open up the Recipes page, or you can select one of the recipe categories (such as Main Dishes, Vegetarian or Desserts) from the drop down list. Once you have accessed the page for the recipe category you are interested in you will find an alphabetical list of all posted recipes and their associated blog posts.

Since this is a relatively new blog I have not yet had the chance to post many recipes, so some of these categories are currently (and regrettably) empty. I am working on this and will be adding more recipes with new posts.

The Recipe Index is a new feature for this blog, so it is possible there are some bugs that I have not worked out yet. If you have any troubles, please let me know.

Bon Appetite!

Marie

When in Rome… Or Nanaimo…

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One of the fun things about moving around a lot (three states and two countries in the last six years) has been discovering local food favorites. For those that know me this should not be much of a surprise. Food places make up most of my landmark references and anyone asking me how to get anywhere will likely be led by directions to make turns just past certain restaurants or food markets. In fact, when travelling (abroad or domestically) I often try to find time to go to one of the local grocery stores. I love to see what foods are unique to a place, and I can often find gifts for friends and family that travel well and are light weight.

I have also found that when attempting to become a part of a community, one of the best ways of winning over the locals is to try (and try to recreate) one of the foods that is special or unique to that place. When one of our best friends was doing fieldwork research in Illinois she stumbled upon the Horseshoe Sandwich. The Horseshoe seems to be any sort of meat protein (ranging from shrimp to ground beef and anything in between) served open-faced on Texas toast (why this was in Illinois I have no idea), covered with a liberal coating of French Fries and a cheese sauce.

When living in Indiana, the closest thing to a local dish we could find was the Tenderloin Sandwich. This was sadly not as unique as the Horseshoe. The Tenderloin consists of a thin slice of pork tenderloin that has been pounded, breaded and fried to within an inch of its life. The finished product is more like cardboard than food. The tenderloin is then served with a little mayonnaise on indifferent bread. If you want iceberg lettuce and out-of-season tomato on your sandwich then you order the “works.”

Unfortunately I did not fare much better in Iowa. I had some amazing food at the homes of friends and in some great restaurants, but what Iowans seem to be most proud of is “food” that can be fried on a stick. This is found at just about any local community fair, but is produced in spades at the Iowa State Fair. Famous for its mammoth butter sculpture of a cow, this year the fair’s website boasted 60 stick-bound food-ish items with new options appearing each year. While living in Iowa they were proud to introduce fried butter on a stick, deep fried bacon, as well as fried pink lemonade. Don’t ask.

With the move to Vancouver Island I was initially focused on eating anything that swam in the ocean. After five years of living in land-locked Midwestern states, I was all about celebrating fish especially salmon. However, great salmon and seafood are not unique to Vancouver Island, but are hallmarks of the entire Northwest Coast of both Canada and the States (Please don’t call that nation “America” as that tends to get me in big trouble with my Canadian neighbors. We do all live on the North American continent after all…). My quest to find a special food that is unique to our new city led me to the Nanaimo Bar.

Little Man trying to score a nanaimo Bar

Little Man hoping to score a nanaimo Bar.

For my State-side readers, “Nanaimo Bar” refers to a wonderfully rich dessert, not to the “bars in Nanaimo.” While there is some debate about where the Nanaimo Bar originated (some try to claim them for the States. Check out wikipedia for more details.), the bars are largely considered to be a local delicacy and are jealously celebrated as a part of local culture. At its most basic rendition a Nanaimo Bar is a layered cookie with a chocolate and coconut graham cracker crust, a vanilla cream middle, and a top layer of chocolate. There are numerous variations on this theme with people attempting to put their own spin on the bars with flavors that pair well with chocolate, like peanut butter, raspberry jam or espresso. Nanaimo Bars have become so tied to local culture that there is a permanent exhibit in the Nanaimo Museum dedicated to this dessert. The exhibit is flanked by two Nanaimo Bar-shaped stools for people to sit on and contemplate the displayed recipe and local lore. Stools and recipe tea towels are available in the museum gift store. The Nanaimo Tourism Council has even published a Nanaimo Bar Trail Guide that includes all things Nanaimo Bar, marking not only the best places in town to try one of the bars, but also themed pedicures, soaps, cupcakes, cocktails and the list goes on.

Pooh Bear enjoying the Nanaimo Bar exhibit at the Nanaimo Museum.

I had heard of these bars before moving to Nanaimo, since Dave had tried a couple on the mainland (aka Vancouver). They were almost always a disappointment, tasting only of intense sweetness. Then when we first moved to Iowa we had a little party at our place where we served a number of dishes that were regional specialties from the different places that we had lived (Yes, Utica Tomato Pie was there as well, but that is fodder for a different post). Dave prepared Nanaimo Bars as the party dessert, but these were different from those that I had sampled before. While still rich and sweet, you could also taste the vanilla, almonds, chocolate and coconut in Dave’s version. I was hooked. He has since made them a couple of times, including most recently at this summer’s Hopwood Family Reunion. The pictures of Dave making the bars (and Little Man trying to score one) come from that event.

When Dave made the first batch in Iowa, he had done some internet research and combined multiple recipes to create his perfect Nanaimo Bar. Then as I was doing a bit of internet research for this post I discovered that what he had created was incredibly similar to what is largely thought to be the most authentic Nanaimo Bar recipe. In 1986 the city of Nanaimo hosted a contest for the Ultimate Nanaimo Bar and the winner was Joyce Hardcastle. It is her version of the Nanaimo Bar that is the closest to what Dave put together as well. Unknowingly Dave had stripped out away of the “unique” add-ins and found his way back to the classic version.

As I mentioned above, Dave’s most recent reason for making Nanaimo Bars was as a special dessert for the recent Hopwood Family Reunion. These are worlds away from the first bite of a Vancouver bakery’s Nanaimo Bar that I had on the mainland, and they will continue to be a part of special celebrations with our family. Just remember that a little goes a long way. A small square with good coffee or tea is a great dessert. However, since we just had them this summer it is going to be a good couple of months before I want to have one anywhere near my vicinity. One of Dave’s young cousins found out the dangers of Nanaimo Bar proximity at the reunion. One night we were all up late playing a get-to-know-you-better game on the deck of the cabin. A number of desserts had been brought out to munch on while we played. One of the teenage cousins had the luck (good or bad) of having the plate of Nanaimo Bars sitting directly in front of him the entire night. We lost count of how many bars he ate, but it was a substantial number. So be warned, these things are good.

Chef Dave getting his ingredients for Nanaimo Bars.

Dave’s Nanaimo Bars

Nanaimo Bars are famously three-layered cookies, with a graham cracker base, a custardy center and a chocolate top. Dave’s version is intensely chocolaty with the added richness of coconut and almonds. For the reunion Dave doubled the batch and therefore used a larger baking dish as is seen in the accompanying pictures. A small square with a cup of black tea or coffee is divine.

Ingredients

Cookie Base:

1 ¼ c. graham cracker crumbs

1 c. unsweetened flaked coconut

½ c. almonds, toasted and finely chopped

2/3 c. unsalted butter

1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ c. sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

Custard Filling:

2 c. powdered sugar

2 tbsp. vanilla pudding mix

3 scant tbsp. cream

½ c. unsalted butter, softened

Chocolate Topping:

8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate (not chips)

4 tbsp. butter

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Prepare an 8-inch square baking dish by buttering it and then lining it with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Be sure to leave an inch or so of overlap on two sides to serve as a handle to help remove the bars once they are firm.

Make the base:

In a large bowl stir together the graham cracker crumbs, coconut and almonds. Set this aside.

No rolling pin at hand, so Dave used the next best thing to crush the graham crackers.

The combined graham cracker crumbs, coconut and finely chopped almonds.

In a saucepan melt the butter with the cocoa powder and sugar. Remove the pan from the heat and temper the beaten egg by adding a few spoonfuls of the hot chocolate mixture to the beaten egg and whisk like mad. Tempering heats the egg gently so that it hopefully will not scramble when you add it to the mix. Once you have beaten in the few spoonfuls of chocolate mixture to the egg, then pour the egg mixture back into the pan with the chocolate and again whisk like mad. Pour the chocolate and egg mixture into the crumbs and stir until combined.

The sweetened cocoa and butter mixture for the cookie base.

Tempering the eggs so that they do not scramble in the cookie base.

Dave showing off his smoothly tempered cocoa and egg mixture pouring into the graham cracker crumbs below.

The combined cookie base mixture.

Pour the crumb mixture into the prepared baking dish and press it down evenly in the pan. Bake the base in the 350º oven for 10 minutes and then cool it on a rack.

The baked cookie base is cooled here on an impromptu cooling rack of an upside down muffin tin.

Make the filling:

In a medium bowl add the powdered sugar and pudding mix. Then stir in the cream and softened butter. Beat until smooth. Spread this over the cooled cookie base.

Make the topping:

Using a double-boiler, or a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water, place the chocolate and butter over low heat and stir until both are melted and smooth. Spread this evenly over the custard filling and refrigerate the baking dish until the chocolate topping is firm.

The completed but uncooled Nanaimo Bar pan.

Just before serving, take the dish out of the refrigerator and let it stand on the counter for 5-7 minutes so that the bars can be cut without shattering the chocolate. Lift the bars from the baking dish by pulling up on the parchment or aluminum foil “handles.” Peel the paper or foil from the bars and place them on a clean cutting board. Cut the bars into 16 squares (4 cuts horizontally and 4 vertically) and place them on a serving plate.

For the reunion Dave made a double batch of the bars so the pan is larger than the one described in the recipe.

Dave’s Famous Nanaimo Bars… be careful if you sit too close to the serving plate.

The bars can be stored in an air tight (and cousin-tight) container in the refrigerator for 2-3 days or frozen for up to 2 weeks.

Click on the following link to open a separate page with the recipe for easier printing.

Nanaimo Bars

A Pooh Bear Needs Honey

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In a previous post (Culture Shock) I wrote about the Immigrant Welcome Center, part of the Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Center (CVIMC). That is where I was told that there was a name for everything that I had been experiencing in Canada, and that name is culture shock. Doh! I was also told that I am an “immigrant.” Now how did that happen? It shouldn’t be a shock. I am in the process of “immigrating” to another country, I am not Canadian, I am an immigrant. But I resisted that label. I want to be home, where ever and whatever that is. On the advice of the CVIMC staff I signed up for fieldtrips with the center in order to meet other immigrants and maybe make friends. The first outing that CVIMC was doing was to a local honey farm, Fredrich’s Honey, in the nearby town of Cedar. If you have any spare space for a late summer read, this is a good one.

Not that we could have left the house without him, but particularly since Little Man and I were going to a honey farm we had to bring along Pooh Bear. To keep him out of trouble, Pooh Bear waited in the car while we were learning about bees. Before anyone tries to report me for animal endangerment, Pooh Bear is a teddy bear not an animal. He is, however, almost “real” in the Velveteen Rabbit sort of way. The important thing for our story is that I didn’t want Little Man or Pooh to get any ideas about balloons and little gray storm clouds. I’ve learned from experience that Little Man has a good arm and can launch his teddies with surprising speed and accuracy.

Little Man and his tether.

Partly because of the way the trip was structured and partly because I was preoccupied trying to keep Little Man out of trouble I didn’t have as much time to chat with my fellow immigrants as I would have liked, but I did start on the road to friendship or at least to having people recognize my face when I come by. That was a good first step, and I’ll write more about this at another time. In the meantime, let’s talk honey…

Visitors asking Margaret questions about bees, beekeeping and honey.

The “farm” itself is mostly an occupied farm house with their Honey House shop located up the hill from their home. For our “immigrant experience” we were met by Margaret Friedrich, a wonderful woman who is an immigrant from Ireland herself, though her experience in Canada began back in the 60s. She and her husband, Theo, have been in the honey business ever since, and now her son and daughter-in-law are learning the ropes. For anyone interested, Fredrich’s Honey also conducts workshops on beekeeping. You can also read a bit about the ups and downs of urban beekeeping in a book I mentioned in a previous post by Novella Carpenter about urban farming in Oakland. Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer is an amazing story about her own experiences as a farmer in the middle of urban sprawl and ghetto as she raises pigs, all sorts of fowl, and yes, bees in a small midtown apartment.

An empty beehive. It will be added in to the active hives if a swarm is found to fill it.

Margaret is an amazing trove of bee-based knowledge. Some of it I had heard or read about before, but other parts were new. For the case of their “farm” the bees were currently up in the mountains since it is summer time and that is where the water is. They will come back in the winter, stay through spring when everything blooms, and then make their move again. I was a bit distracted by Little Man during much of Margaret’s presentation, but that was to be expected. I had him on a short leash, literally. Little Man has a much beloved tether that he wears when out and about in crowded outside areas, like large zoos, farmers markets and fairs. People often laugh or scoff at the leash, but I do not care. It keeps him safe, it keeps him with me, and he loves it. So there! J Normally at a place like a small farm with so few people I wouldn’t use the leash, but in this case I wanted to keep Little Man a safe distance from any fascinating bee hives, or other things that a toddler should not be sticking his hands into. Did I mention that Little Man likes to run around trees and get hopelessly tangled in his lion leash? Yes… that was much of my morning.

Tools of the trade. Little Man wanted the bee keepers hood in a bad way.

The Honey House was admittedly my favorite part of the trip. It is open year round, so anyone can come and purchase Fredrich’s honey and other bee-related products no matter what season. I bought a lovely large jar of wildflower honey, and Little Man was given his own tiny jar of blackberry honey. One of his and Pooh Bear’s favorite snacks is honey toast. I will remind him of our visit to the farm each time he gets to bring out his little jar.

Little Man inching his way towards and active hive.

Little Man inching his way towards an active hive.

Fredrich’s Honey rotates in different types of honey throughout the year as different plants come into bloom. Later this fall they will have a Fir Tree honey that I must go back to try. I am a huge fan of tree syrups; maple is my favorite but Indiana’s Shag Bark Hickory syrup is a close second. It is lighter in color than maple syrup, but is not as sweet and has a light smoky finish. Always up for new tastes, I am excited to try a tree pollen-based honey. I also want to call soon to see if they have any dandelion honey in stock. This honey is not produced by their bees and they were out of stock when I visited, but woman at the Honey House described it as rich and dark, gotta try it!

Two younger visitors in front of the Honey House.

My final purchase from Fredrich’s Honey was a pair of two beeswax candles. The scent was of warm honey and bees; not cloyingly sweet and definitely not artificial. The candles smelled like what I want “home” to be. Now I just need to find the box with my candle sticks in it so that I can enjoy that scent in the evenings while I write. Maybe it’s in that large stack over under the stairs? Oh bother…

Pooh Bear’s dream… honey toast for life.

Ladies and Gentle-Chickens!

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OK, I’ll admit it… I’m totally turning into a farm-geek. Harvesting and gathering your own food is just plain fun (particularly since we were not involved in the hard work of prepping the garden or planting anything… just reaping the benefits). It’s like Easter egg hunting. Digging through the potato hill, not sure if there is anything left until your hands start raking in the ruby red tubers. Little Man loves pulling up root vegetables, especially beets. He grabs the leafy greens and then leans back with all of his might until either the root gives way or the greens do. I have had to start restraining myself at the farm garden, always reason to come back tomorrow. We have free reign in the garden, but it is not our’s and I don’t want to abuse our privileges there. Even so I often find myself making excuses to go back to the garden or asking Little Man if he wants to go say “hi” to the chickens just so that I can say “hi” too.

After “shopping” in the garden

My favorite thing to do is gather eggs. There is something about walking into the chicken coup, the scent of sweet hay and a little bit of chicken funk, but it just makes me smile. Novella Carpenter in her hilarious discussion of urban farming in an Oakland ghetto (Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer) describes chickens as the gateway animal to urban farming. After a couple of weeks living on the farm I can totally see her point. We plan on staying here for quite some time, but when we do eventually leave… don’t tell Dave, but I would really like to be somewhere that we could have chickens.

Speaking of Dave, a couple of days ago he came home from working at the university to be greeted by a happy toddler who invited him to go say “hi” to the chickens. We went to take the short cut to the chicken coup through the back yard, which Little Man calls the “hair cut.” He heard us call the short path to the garden behind our house as the “short cut,” but didn’t know the word so now it is “hair cut.” Usually when Little Man greets the chickens he says “Helloooo Laadiessss.” Today was different. He walked up to the coup, threw his arms wide and yelled “hello ladies and gentle-gnomes!” Dave and I smiled at each other and in unison said “good evening ladies and gentle-chickens!”

We went into the coup and were greeted by Little Man’s “ladies.” Our plan for the eggs was built on yesterday’s botched brunch. Little Man, while trying to hold it together in a marathon grocery shopping expedition said that he would like pancakes for brunch. I made a rookie mistake and promised my beautiful, curly-haired boy that he would have pancakes… and then we got to the restaurant 30 minutes after they stopped doing breakfast. Oh bother! So to atone for my error, dinner that night was a pancake breakfast. Specifically we had pancakes made from a Bauder Camp recipe (I miss those cocktail cruises!), homemade turkey sausage patties and oven-roasted home potatoes. I’ll share those recipes at another time. For our purposes in this post I am going to share the recipe that came the day after our pancake breakfast for dinner. We ended up having a good amount of sausage and potatoes left over, and in our house that can only mean one thing… frittata.

A frittata is like a large omelet, but it’s even better since you don’t have to flip or fold it. That means it can be easily turned into a fast, delicious dinner. I have included a link to the frittata recipe below, and it is based off of the left overs that we had in our house that evening. You don’t have to make a pancake breakfast for dinner in order to prep for this meal the next night… but it’s a great excuse to do so.

One “trick” I use for frittatas is something that I learned from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites: Flavorful Recipes for Healthful Meals cookbook. To make a frittata that provides four servings (the leftovers are great the next day!), I start with eight eggs. If the eggs are small I might add another to round it out. The trick is to only use four whole eggs and four egg whites, ditching four of the yolks. My brother is moaning right now, but by getting rid of those yolks I can decrease the amount of fat and bad cholesterol in the dish. Dave and I are both a bit rounder than we would like, and lowering overall bad cholesterol in our diets is another goal. So there you go. You can keep or ditch those four yolks as you see fit. I haven’t found any loss of flavor, richness or overall awesomeness in my frittatas since I started doing this.

One last frittata trick… Many of the recipes that I’ve read and seen demonstrated on TV require that you get out an extra plate, flip the darn thing when it’s mostly cooked onto the plate, and then invert it again into the skillet to finish cooking. It looks simple on TV. I’m sure my issues with this have been a result of a lack of patience or my overall clumsiness, but I have burned my hands and splattered my stove (and countertops… and cupboards…) enough that I gave that technique up. Instead, I cover the frittata pan with a lid immediately after I add the eggs. This lets the top set up through the steam released from its cooking. Once the eggs are set up nicely I remove the lid, sprinkle on a bit of grated cheese and pop the thing under the broiler for a minute or too to brown it up. That way you get the crispy browning of the top that you would otherwise miss from not flipping it. No more burned fingers (or at least less), no more messy stove and surrounding area (or at least less), and the resulting frittata is stunning in its caramelized cheesy glory.

Sausage and Potato Frittata

Left over roasted potatoes and sausage patties for the frittata

The frittata flavor base of onions, roasted potatoes and sausage

The flavor base after adding the smoked paprika, my favorite spice

After adding the egg mixture put a lid on the pan to help cook the top

Once the top is almost set, you can add the cheese

The top is almost set and I had run out of cheese to grate. Luckily I did have slices of Colby.

The finished product. Be careful with broiling your frittata. I have been known to walk away from the oven and “caramelize” my frittatas more than intended.

Best kitchen helper ever!

The Start of a Family Reunion

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“Where’s Dad?”

“He’s out cutting branches to fix the table.”

“Right now?”

His helper smiles and raises his shoulders.

So here’s the back story. About 20 wonderful, crazy Hopwoods have gathered at Dave’s family cabin in the interior of BC for a reunion. Today is the first day we are all together, and this is the first evening. Everyone is tired and hungry, but smiling. The cooks have been hustling all evening. Auntie Erin and Dave are setting the tables so we can all eat together on the deck. And we’re missing a white plastic table.

“Where is it?”

“Behind the cabin.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It has no legs.”

“It has no legs?”

You see where this is going. Apparently the plastic table legs were somehow plastered into the newly renovated basement’s ceiling. I had questions about this too, like they were “what” and “where”? There is a time and a place for such questions, but this was neither.

So… recap… Hungry people. No table. Back to our opening.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’s out cutting branches to fix the table.”

“Right now?”

Papa Hopwood fastening the “table legs.”

Papa and his accomplice leveling the legs

Now cut to an image of Little Man’s Hopwood Papa with an electric saw, a plastic table top, and a bemused nephew cutting off the bottom of the branches so that the table will sit well. There’s still debate as to who measured the tree wrong for the correct table height. Papa claims it wasn’t him, and based on his track record I’m inclined to side with him. Dave’s Dad is the kind of man who can literally do anything. There are few stories about him that surprise me anymore since you know that the most outlandish option of the story is exactly what will happen. Can he leap tall buildings in a single bound? Why yes, yes, he can.

The completed table enroute to dinner

So at this moment when everyone is hungry and tired, but happy… when that happiness could switch to whining at a moment’s notice because of the before mentioned hunger and travel exhaustion… Papa Hopwood went scampering up the mountain behind the cabin to harvest some table legs. Dave’s mom, who was also one of the hard working cooks, took one look at what her husband was up to, didn’t bat an eye. She went right back into the cabin before she could say what she really thought. Papa Hopwood drilled the branches into the table, re-leveled them to make them a more appropriate table height, and away we went with dinner.

The newly fixed “kids” table. You don’t think we were going to risk eating on that one, do you?

For this evening the cooks were working on a DIY pizza bar with all of the fixings. They had brought prepared sauce and pizza dough (white and whole wheat) from a local pizzeria. They were delicious!

P.S. By the way, from what I could tell that table with the impromptu branches for legs… did not wobble. Not even have a little bit.

Culture Shock

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The other day I was “diagnosed” with culture shock by a very nice woman at the Immigrant Welcome Center (part of the Central Vancouver Island Multicultural Center – CVIMC). Mind you this was after a day of multiple, very polite no’s from an assortment of Canadian institutions ranging from driver’s licenses to health insurance and back again. I can do nothing until my paperwork for Permanent Resident status is filed. Even hearing about the CVIMC was a fluke as a nice fellow immigrant in line for a driver’s license recognized our stunned looks and suggested we go to there for assistance. I didn’t want to go to the CVIMC. I didn’t want to be an immigrant. I just wanted to be “home.” Once at the CVIMC I nearly lost it after hearing about a few more no’s that I would soon encounter. This is when the woman kindly told me that there is a term for what I was experiencing and it is called culture shock. Now she had my attention.

For an anthropologist to be diagnosed by someone else as suffering from culture shock was both embarrassing (that I didn’t notice the “symptoms” in myself) and enlightening. It would never have occurred to me to think about my experiences in Canada in that light. For any of my former students who might be reading this, it feels like all of my past exams where I’ve asked questions about culture shock have come back to bite me in the… well, you know.

For any readers who are not former students, or for my students who slept through that lecture and therefore missed those questions on Exam 1, let me explain. Culture shock is defined as “a syndrome precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all your familiar cues” (Golde 1986:11 in Delaney). This disorientation can result in “frustration, [as well as] repressed or expressed aggression against the source of discomfort, an irrational fervor for the familiar and comforting, and disproportionate anger at trivial interferences” (Golde 1986). Welcome to my life in Canada. In the classroom this is where I have a fun discussion with my students sharing now humorous experiences they have had while traveling. Invariably there are stories about things going wrong in foreign bathrooms, about never eating with your left hand in Morocco (or insert any Middle Eastern country name there), about how when traveling in Great Britain you should always look both ways before crossing the street (Americans often look the “wrong” way and then step out into full traffic), and recently an increasing number of stories from students experiencing culture shock while serving with the military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The culture shock story I always share is from my first field season as an archaeologist in Turkey. The region that I specialize in is so far south and east as to be almost Syria or Iraq depending on the direction you are facing. This is one of the reasons why I am not actively in the field at the moment… one of the reasons. While I LOVE traveling in Turkey and Istanbul is one of my favorite cities in the world, at the time that this culture shock experience took place I was a long way from Istanbul and not feeling much Turkey love at the moment. I had been in the field for eight weeks, was exhausted from the relentless excavation work, worn out by the 140 degree heat that literally felt like you were in a convection oven (hot air blowing down on you from the sky as well as radiating up at you from the hot stone streets), and I had just gone to the internet cafe to find that I had no emails from friends, family or boyfriend (Dave!). Basically I was in an all around foul mood. I was also dressed in conservative Muslim style out of respect for the culture, which in this case meant I was wearing a long, flowy skirt, a button-up shirt with sleeves that covered my elbows, and a head scarf that covered my hair. I was a portrait of modesty. However, I am also 6 ft. tall and fair complexioned amid a sea of very short, very tanned, dark-haired Turks. You could put me in full hijab, head to toe black veils with a niqab face veil, gloves, the works and I would still stand out like a sore thumb on the streets of Diyarbakir. Or perhaps more like a Darth Vader strolling through the bazaar shopping for cute head scarves.

All of this leads up to me walking back from the Diyarbakir çarşa (covered bazaar), feeling home sick, and walking past a Turkish man heading the other direction. As he passed me, he gave me a quick look over, up, down and back around, and said “Allah, Allah, mashallah…” Did I mention I was in a foul mood? He’s lucky it took me a minute to figure out what he’d said. A rough translation is basically “OMG, forgive me for what I was just thinking.” I was so tired, and so tired of trying to be respectful just to get ogled and treated like a circus freak (or at least it felt like that at the time), that if he had been closer I cannot vouch for what I would have done. At the time I fantasized about having a full New Yorker Matrix-esque reaction involving all sorts of martial arts moves that even if I had wanted to I could not have pulled off. Remember the part about culture shock and “disproportionate anger at trivial interferences?” Yeah…

That is a story that I share with my class whenever we first start talking about culture shock. As horrible as culture shock can be while traveling, for me it has always been balanced out with other good travel experiences. Great people I meet, the fantastic kindness of strangers, an unexpected lunch in a lush garden that looked like what I imagine the Garden of Eden to have been, swimming in the Euphrates River, and other fun memories. But I’m not travelling now, and in fact once I file my paperwork for Permanent Resident status I will not be allowed to leave the country until that is finalized. Also, we’re talking Canada here people, not Turkey, not Lebanon, not Spain, not someplace that looks or sounds or tastes all that different from what I used to call “home.” This is a place where I never even considered experiencing culture shock, but I do feel like I’ve been stripped of all of my familiar cultural cues (see previous posting about not being able to figure out driving speeds/distances, temperatures, etc.), and I do find myself struggling to not respond with irrational anger at simple situations. Culture shock without the benefit of having fun travel experiences to round out the struggles.

So now I find myself in the odd position of being an immigrant. I don’t know why I have resisted that title so much, but I have. And in the meantime, one of my best places for making friends is among other immigrants. The woman who “diagnosed” me stated another glaring fact; that when you move to a new place and don’t have any friends you are more likely to make friends with other people who also want to make friends. And guess what, it is often other immigrants who have no friends and want to make new ones. Last week Aiden and I went with the Immigrant Welcome Center to visit a bee farm in nearby Cedar, and this week we’ll be touring a local lake and nature center. I am looking forward to sharing Canadian culture shock stories with others who are going through the same thing.

-next day-

After writing this post, the very next morning Little Man was singing one of his own songs. He LOVES music, and will sing and play whenever he can. Little Man is still getting the hang of dancing, but he loves to play guitar on just about anything he can find, from a fork, to a piece of drift wood, to a plastic leg from his toy barbeque, he rocks out all the time. He also likes to use all of those things to drum around the house. Two of his favorite places for drumming are the living room front window ledge or the living room table. He often signs along to his pounding… I mean drumming… but most of the time he sings made up words or just yodels at the top of his little lungs, which can be quite impressive.

Then this morning, after writing about culture shock the night before, Little Man started drumming and singing at the top of his lungs in the living room while I was getting ready. Suddenly I realized that I could understand the words he was singing; three words repeated over and over again with joy. I figured I must be hearing what I wanted to hear because of what I’d been writing the previous evening so I asked Dave if he heard the words being sung. Dave stopped for a moment and with a big smile said “yes, he’s singing ‘too far away.’”

What happened is that just before Little Man started singing this morning, he was talking with Dave and asking if he could go to his beloved day care provider’s house in Pella, Iowa. He misses her and her daughter very much and asks about them often. So this morning Little Man asked Dave if he could go over there to play and Dave said that unfortunately no, he couldn’t go since they were “too far away.” Then Little Man went out to the living room, picked up his “drum sticks” and started playing and singing “too far away” over and over again. I was near tears, but Little Man was smiling, singing and playing with reckless abandon. Joy and sadness together.

Swy-A-Lana Walking Pier and Harbourside Playdock

Are These Even Edible?

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Sorry for the delay in posts. We just got back from a week’s vacation/family reunion with Dave’s family. I’ll write more about that later. For now, let’s get caught back up…

View of the pasture and surrounding forest

So not only are we living on a farm, but all of Vancouver Island is a massive gorgeous forest. We have seen a number of eagles, an otter crossing the street, and a seal hanging out at the crabbing dock looking for a handout. But mostly there are plants, plants, plants everywhere. And my son is afraid of every single one. He throws his bouncy ball into the grass that has tall dandelions, and he squeals if his hand has to get too close to one. We were on Vancouver Island University campus today, walking on some of the trails through the trees while Dave unloaded boxes into his new office. As Little Man and I were “trail blazing” he would squeal if a branch had the audacity to cross the trail. If he had to maneuver too close to a dangling flower, he squealed. If his mommy took a leaf and tickled him behind the ear while he walked, he squealed. Hence the rub, by being so cute when he squeals at the greenery I’m inspired to cause more squeals.

Little Man surrounded by plants. The background is part of a neighbor’s garden.

Little Man also must contend with various gardens up and down our street. At the end of the street live two dogs that he loves to visit, and they have a lovely garden that I like to visit. The next house over has a prolific garden whose owner consistently presses bulging shopping bags full of English cucumbers and zucchini at us. Needless to say I walk past that house as often as possible. There is also our house, which does not have its own garden yet, but we do have the farm garden more or less in our backyard and we have been granted free access for whenever we want. All of these visits cause more squealing from the short member of our family, and chuckles from us. Poor boy…

Little Man and myself walking to the “store” aka farm garden.

One of the first times we went “shopping” in the farm garden behind our house also happened to be a weekend when Dave’s parents were visiting. On this particular occasion, Dave, his mom, Little Man and I were in the garden, harvesting a head of cauliflower that was almost overblown. While we were out there and Little Man was squealing at the pepper plants, Dave’s mom commented that the cauliflower leaves looked incredibly similar, almost identical in fact, to collards. I took a second look as well, and the huge leaves fanning out from around the cauliflower stalk do look just like collards. Now mind you I have no experience with collards “in the wild,” but if these cauliflower leaves were off the plant, tied together with a rubber band and put in a bin at the grocery store, they would look just like collard greens. This led to her next question; are cauliflower leaves edible?

Cauliflower is in the foreground with brocolli just behind.

A little internet research later, and yes, cauliflower leaves are in fact edible. Even more impressive than the fact that they are edible is that they are delicious. I have found that cauliflower leaves are more bitter than collards, which I don’t mind, but if you are not fond of that particular flavor you can just cook the leaves for a longer period of time like in traditional southern recipes for collards.

Brocolli from the garden. The leaves are just as delicious as the head itself.

The overall internet opinion about harvesting cauliflower leaves is that you likely want to wait on harvesting the leaves until the cauliflower head itself is harvested, or at least leave some leaves on the plant that can protect the head. Before the cauliflower head is harvested the leaves can be tied up around it for protection from the sun and insects. Once the head is harvested, the leaves are fair game. This also allows you to eat more from the entire cauliflower plant, rather than simply harvesting the head and then composting everything else.

Another little beauty whose leaves you can eat is broccoli. This should not have been too surprising to me, but I am still learning my way around the relationships of the plant world. Apparently collards, cauliflower, broccoli and kale are all related. Who knew?

The one bummer side to this information is that if you do not grow these plants in your own garden or do not have access to them through a farmers market, you will likely have a hard time finding access to the leaves. While I have not yet grown them myself, it sounds like cauliflower and broccoli are relatively easy plants to grow. Or at least so say my gardener friends on the street. If you have space for a planter on your deck or front step, you likely have enough space to grow a couple of these for yourself. We got to the island a bit late in the planting season for me to have started some of my own cauliflower this year, but I am going to get some lettuces and kale going in containers later this week.

Harvesting potatoes… Little Man’s favorite vegetable to pick.

But first, back to the cauliflower leaves. Once we learned that they were edible, I started plotting ways that they could be used. Our cauliflower leaf harvest coincided with the gathering of a batch of potatoes and peas from the garden as well. Then I came across a Pintrest picture of a gorgeous potato and pea curry. I thought that the julienned cauliflower leaves would be an amazing addition to this curry, so I tried the link… and I’m still not sure what language that is. Perhaps something Eastern European? I have a little bit of experience with a number of languages (not enough to be fluent in anything but English), but for this recipe I could not even recognize the word for onion. So I gave that recipe up for lost and instead used the picture itself as inspiration. After combing through a number of different recipes on the internet and my own cookbook collection I came up with this Curried Potatoes and Peas with Cauliflower Leaves recipe. When I came up with and tested this recipe I was not yet blogging so I don’t have lovely pictures of the process yet. I promise to get back to that and will load those once I have them.

Picture of the curry that inspired my Curried Potatoes with Peas and Cauliflower Greens recipe

Curried Potato, Peas and Cauliflower Leaves

This recipe was inspired by the gorgeous produce I found in the farm garden, and given shape by an online picture of a gorgeous curry. This has some hints of Indian influences through the spices, but is more reliant on preblended curry powders that you would not find in “authentic” Indian food. If you cannot find cauliflower leaves, please feel free to substitute them with collard greens or another sturdy green of your preference. The recipe also calls for peas. When I first made this I used fresh peas from the garden. Frozen peas work well too, but you do lose some of the sweetness and texture of the fresh produce. Lastly, a delicious way to boost the protein in this vegetarian dish is to add quartered boiled eggs at the end with the peas. This is done in some traditional Indian curries, and works wonderfully with this recipe. In fact, that is exactly what I did the first time I made this dish and Little Man gobbled them up. Serve this over basmati rice or with flat bread to soak up all the rich, spicy broth.

Curried Potatoes with Peas and Cauliflower Leaves Recipe

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