Tag Archives: Vancouver Island

Rainy Day Cookie Picnic

Last week, as we got closer to the end of January, it felt like Little Man and I hadn’t been outside for any run around time in forever. Having grown up in a semi-arid desert, I still tend to be a bit cat-like going outside in the rain. Meaning it’s not my favorite thing. This day, however, I had had enough. It wasn’t raining (yet) so I bundled Little Man and myself up, grabbed his scooter and my bag full of empty egg cartons and headed off into the drizzle.

As we started off down the road, Little Man scooted alongside of me and commented that there was an awful lot of drizzle. It had, in fact, turned from drizzle into a light rain. By the time we’d made it up the hill to the house with the egg stand outside their fence, the light rain was a little less light.

Around this time Little Man started asking for a snack and I told him that we could have the cookies I’d brought with me for a snack when we got down the other side of the hill to the little lake. He thought that was a great idea and declared that we would have a cookie picnic in the rain. So empty egg cartons deposited, and new full egg cartons retrieved ($3/dozen for local farm fresh eggs… yup! No need for eggs from the more… questionable sources of the mega stores for us), we were off down the road again.

Little Man imagined that we were going over a waterfall as we walked downhill, tracking whatever villain was supposedly rampant that day. We had also picked up our neighbor’s friendly dog for the walk. She often chaperoned us on our walks in the neighborhood, and Little Man considers her to be his dog. Or at least a dog on loan when we go for walks.

Finally at the little lake, we sat down on a tree trunk bent into a perfect bench for the two of us, water soaking into our pants but neither of us cared. Then cookies in hand, we sat on our sodden tree, gazed at the water falling into the lake, and chatted about camping thoughts for when the weather warms up a bit. For this mom, it was a perfect rainy day cookie picnic.

Our selfie reflection in the lake. I love seeing Little Man’s Pooh Bear head and the dog paws on the dock as well.

Our Rainy Day Cookie picnic. A toque goes a long way to making it OK to sit out in the rain. 🙂

Lumberjack and Lumberjane

25th Post and Counting…

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This is my 25^th post on The Sheep Are Out…, a blog about our lives on Vancouver Island. We’ve lived on the island for about 3 ½ months, and are starting to get a feel for the area. We’ve wrangled sheep (and our toddler), explored the ocean coastline, played in what feels like a myriad of parks and playgrounds, and begun a quest for the best fish and chips in the greater Nanaimo area. We feel closer to family (at least our north-of-the-border family) and farther from friends; though that equation is starting to shift as we are making friends here now too.

Little Cowboy touring his new acreage.

As inevitably happens with any move, it starts to feel impossible to have lived anywhere else. We know where things are in the house… mostly (please don’t ask for anything in any box in the basement). We know where to go in town for great sushi or for Little Man’s favorite fried rice. We know which grocery stores carry the foods we want, which gas stations are the fastest to get in and out of, and where we most want to go when we have the rare chance for a baby sitter. In short, we are starting to find our feet.

We all know who’s the boss here, right?

In honor of this 25^th post, the recipe I am sharing with you is for what I’ve named the Manic Monday cocktail. Right after the semester started for Dave, there was a Monday that left us both a bit frazzled around the edges. It was one of those days when it feels like the wheels are just about to leave the track, but you might be able to hold on for just a moment more. To celebrate that crazy day being over, I made these Manic Monday cocktails and we toasted the survival of our own little tornado of crazy.

End of a long day.

In the spirit of joyful survival; to all of our friends and family that we’ve found here; and to our friends and family who we would love to come and visit… Cheers! May your home feel like home. May your days be filled with family and friends. And may you come visit us soon!

Manic Monday Cocktail

Makes one cocktail

Ingredients

1 ounce dark rum

1/2 ounce orange liquor

1/2 ounce lemon juice

1 ounce mango juice

Ice cubes

Optional: lightly sweetened citrus soda

Directions

Put all of the ingredients into a cocktail shaker and secure the lid.
Shake vigorously until the metal shaker gets nice and frosty.
Strain the ingredients into a rocks glass with new ice. This is a great opportunity for ice spheres if you have the forms.
Optional: Top the cocktail with about an ounce of a lightly sweetened citrus soda if you want something a bit brighter. I love the extra sparkle on a hot evening, but if I want to taste more of the mango then I just keep it simple.

P.S. For those of you who would prefer an alcohol free cocktail, and let’s face it sometimes it’s nice to serve a fancy drink without the booze, try mixing equal parts of mango juice, orange juice and the sparkling lemon soda. Delicious, refreshing and a special treat for those who can’t have or don’t want the alcohol.

Click here for a printable version of the Manic Monday Cocktail.

A Season of Blackberries

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OK, so it’s possible that I might have gone a little overboard with the blackberry love recently. It’s hard not to on the island. On Vancouver Island in August it is a common occurrence to see cars pulled over on the side of the highway, not because they are broken down or in need of assistance, but because people are out there picking blackberries. Then you start to see people with ladders on the sidewalks to get to the higher branches, people buried in bushes at the back of supermarkets, people with berry buckets everywhere. Once you can recognize what the bushes look like, you realize that the parts of the island that are not covered with forest are instead covered with blackberry bushes. The bushes line the highways and roads, the train tracks, they pop up next to telephone poles, they grow beside bus stops, and they are all over Vancouver Island University campus.

I started jealously watching specific areas around town where I’d spotted the bushes, waiting for when the locals had decided that the berries were ready. Then I would pounce… literally if I had to. It wasn’t until after the family reunion that I started noticing people’s cars on the side of the road with people embedded and ensnared in the bushes greedily picking berries. Then it took some time for us to be able to coordinate our schedules when all three of us could be out there harvesting. While Little Man was willing, he is not actually much help picking blackberries… or picking anything for that matter. When he has “helped” Mommy pick tomatoes in the farm garden he tends to use the precious fruit like a hard thrown bocce ball. I have to move fast to get the fruit from his little hands into my basket. And that is without the extra bonus of all the blackberry thorns. So on each of our forays to pick berries Dave’s primary task has been keeping Little Man out of the road, out of the bushes and more or less out of trouble. For Dave’s efforts he has been rewarded with blackberry scones, muffins, and yes, a blackberry cocktail. I’m sharing the blackberry muffin recipe at the end of this post. For the other two, you’ll just have to keep posted. 🙂

For our own harvesting, we first tried a spot along the road that takes us down into town. The area is largely forest, but there is a little turn around area and I’d seen cars and berry pickers there in the past. While we made a pretty good haul that day, it wasn’t quite what I had hoped since the people I had spied earlier did a good job of clearing out the berries. Our next attempt was right outside of Dave’s building at VIU. These bushes were full of gorgeous, bursting ripe blackberries. So Dave chased Little Man who was chasing the bunnies, and I picked berries as fast as I could. Blackberry harvesting is not without hazard, the bushes snagged my jeans, my sleeves and my hair. I would bury myself deep into a particularly nice area of the bushes counting on my clothing to protect me (more or less) from the thorns, just to find that I couldn’t get out again. But any scratches, and there were quite a few, were well worth it.

I have to admit that not only do I love picking and eating blackberries, but with every freezer bag I put away I feel like that’s also money in the bank. Each bag that I freeze for future use is one more bag of berries that I don’t have to buy at the store, and as I mentioned above I use berries in everything from salads to pancakes to baked goods to drinks. Did I mention that I love blackberries? Normally this time of year would find me scowling at the stacks of beautiful fresh blackberries in the stores, priced at a level that was hard to justify in our grocery budget. This year it found me ensnared in bushes, and I am still finding thorns in my jeans. If you also find yourself in a place where blackberries do not grow wild (and free of cost) but still want to try out the muffin recipe below, please substitute the blackberries with any berry that you do have access to, frozen or fresh. Blueberries or raspberries would be great in these muffins. Speaking of blueberries, I’ve been told that they are just now coming into season here…

A couple notes about blackberry picking safety:

First, although the berries grow incredibly well along the train tracks, NEVER pick berries there. Not only is it dangerous with the trains using the tracks, but the tracks are routinely sprayed with herbicide to keep plants from growing there. That means that the berry bushes have been sprayed too. Not good eats.
Second, although it is tempting, never pick berries low to the ground. There are animals out and about that like to mark their territory. Just imagine the height of a neighborhood dog’s hind quarters and remember that urine soaked berries are to be avoided.

Blackberry Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients:

1 ¾ c. whole wheat flour

¾ c. rolled oats (not quick cooking)

½ c. brown sugar, packed

1 tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 c. milk

1/3 c. plain yogurt

1 tbsp. canola oil

2 eggs

1 c. blackberries or other berry, frozen or fresh

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400º. Line a muffin pan with papers or lightly oil it.

In a large bowl stir together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In a small bowl whisk together the milk, yogurt, oil and eggs until well combined. I tend to use good quality skim milk and fat free yogurt here. The yogurt adds a richness to the muffins, and replaces the oil that would otherwise be required.

The dry ingredients.

The dry ingredients combined.

The wet ingredients.

The wet ingredients combined.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just long enough to combine. You do not want to over mix the batter since that results in tough muffins. This batter will look a bit more wet than muffin batter usually does. Don’t worry, it’s supposed to. Let the batter sit for 20 minutes. This will let the oats hydrate, soaking up some of the extra liquid.

Everything combined. It will look too wet until after it has rested for 20 minutes. My sushi timer is set, now the waiting begins.

After the 20 minutes of resting, add the berries to the mixture and gently fold together. Divide the batter amongst the muffin cups, and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until they are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean (except for any blackberry juices it might encounter).

After the batter has rested, add in the berries. Now you are ready to go.

Tasty batter in the pan…

Tasty muffins out of the oven…

Let the muffins rest in the pan for about 5 minutes, and then remove them to a rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

Cooling muffins on the rack. This is when Little Man realizes a treat is coming.

Little Man in the background asking “‘Nack time?”

Blackberry Oatmeal Muffins

A Day Off in Wine Country

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Recently after a particularly tough week of adjusting to Canadian life, Dave surprised me with a special vacation day. We used to do this for each other from time to time in upstate New York as graduate students. We would plan dates and then whisk the other person off for a day of surprises planned just for them. These were not expensive events, but were carried out on the shoe string graduate student budgets that we had. The very first “Surprise Day” was when we were dating and I took Dave on a mini-golf date. This included a short walk down the street to a local restaurant with a ½ price happy hour. While I remember that we had a good time overall, the most memorable part of this date was the weather. Gale-force winds that literally tore the astroturf off of the course while we were playing; golf ball-sized hail that bounced off the road and off our heads; and rain blown so hard from one direction that we were drenched on one side and bone dry on the other. This made the “short walk” down to the restaurant a bit more challenging (and glamorous) than originally planned. Then of course after our snacks we had to run back up the road through the rain. Later we would learn that our mad dash was more impressive than we had originally thought, since moments after we ran by an electrical pole it was struck by lightning. I just thought the electricity in the air was from being with Dave. 😉

My boys…

We used to do “Surprise Days” as often as we could, but they have become a bit more infrequent as we have moved across states and international borders, and especially with Little Man’s arrival. So it was extra surprising when Dave said we were having a day off and I wasn’t allowed to know the plans. Heaven to not have to plan anything, not even diapers to bring along! Dave’s “Surprise Day” was a tour of some of the local wineries on Vancouver Island. This was also reminiscent of our time in upstate New York, when we would drive up to the Finger Lakes, visit a couple of wineries, have a nice lunch, and enjoy the scenery while we tried as hard as possible to ignore the pressures of graduate school that were waiting for us back home. This Surprise Day was our first attempt to recreate that experience here on Vancouver Island; and of course it was made a bit more “adventuresome” with Little Man.

In front of Averill Creek Vineyards.

Little Man was not as impressed with the beautiful scenery or wonderful wines as Dave and I were. And there was the moment of panic when he had a fleeting moment of freedom from the stroller and made a wild dash for expensive bottles of wine on display. He has fantastic taste in which bottles to grab, but thankfully no damage ensued. It was a fantastic day. We couldn’t ask for better weather. Bright blue sky, warm but not hot, and an amazing view of cedars and ocean at each winery we visited. Dave did good.

Averill Creek Vineyard and their picnic friendly patio.

I talk about some of the wines and food that we ate on this trip below. Please note that I am not a food critic, but I am sharing and remembering our experience of that day. The preferences are mine and Dave’s alone, and are likely quite different than your’s would be. Please try the wineries that we visited and see what you think. You won’t be disappointed.

This is the order of where we visited:

Averill Creek Vineyard

6552 North Rd., Duncan, B.C. V9L 6K9

(250) 709-9986

http://www.averillcreek.ca/

This was my first taste of Vancouver Island wines and it was also my favorite winery of the day. The winery itself is gorgeous and has an amazing patio where you can sip wine by the glass or the bottle. Visitors are welcome to bring a picnic for the patio, or you can also buy locally sourced cheese and chartecurie from the tasting room. We are definitely bringing a picnic next time!

Favorite Wines:

Foch, Eh! – This is a low-tannin red made from their Marechal Foch grapes. Marechal Foch are apparently a specialty of this region, and this bottle was a great representation of them. We bought a bottle specifically to share with Dave’s parents, and are looking forward to a chance to break it open.

Pinot Grigio – It was a bright, warm day and I truly enjoyed the whites that I tried. This one had a nice, clean citrusy finish. I’m looking forward to going back and having a glass of this on their patio with our picnic.

Cherry Point Estate Wines

840 Cherry Point Road, Cobble Hill, BC, V0R 1L3, Canada

Phone: (250) 743-1272

http://cherrypointestatewines.com/

This was our second winery and my expectations were high since we had just come from Averill Creek. Their wines were good, and we had a nice time talking with one of the owners who was justifiably proud of the recent awards they have won. Our favorite part of the visit, however, was their bistro. Dave and I shared their Tapas Plate and Little Man had an amazing Grilled Cheese Sandwich. The kiddo food is not listed on the menu, but we asked if they had children’s options and they came up with a couple of options on the fly. The tapas plate included: a fresh beet salad, pickled garlic, mushrooms, mussels, shrimp, pulled lamb shank, olive tapenade, cheese, and an apple compote. This paired excellently with the wine by the glass that Dave and I had. He had the Forte, which was rich and tannic. While I had the Bête Noire, full of fantastic dark fruit flavors with a light finish.

Favorite Wines:

Bête Noire: This was my favorite wine from Cherry Point. It is in a Rioja-style and is almost inky in color, but the finish is light.

Forte: This was Dave’s favorite wine from Cherry Point. It also was a strong, rich red that paired very well with the tapas plate. In terms of comparing this to the Bête Noire, the Forte has a richer overall feeling on the palate and has a strong finish as well.

Wine and bread at the Cherry Point Bistro.

Our tapas plate at Cherry Point Bistro. We devoured it!

Tapas from the side… Yes, we love food photography even with our phones.

Little Man’s Grilled Cheese Sandwich. He’s lucky our meal was so good. The sandwich is such that even an adult would be happy to have that as a meal.

Venturi Schultze

4235 Vineyard Road, Cobble Hill, BC V0R 1L5

Phone: (250) 743-5630

http://www.venturischulze.com

This winery was a bit hard to find, but the search is definitely worth it. They are a “beyond organic” winery and have produced small batch excellent wines for over 20 years. For our visit the daughter of the original vintners was working in the tasting room. We learned a lot about organic wines and their creation that day. It was in this winery that Little Man got loose and things almost turned disastrous. In terms of great wines, this was our second favorite winery of the day. They also produce amazing balsamic vinegars.

Favorite Wines:

Brut Naturel: It was a warm day for our visit and my favorite was their sparkling Brut Naturel. It was not overly dry, and was extremely refreshing after a hot day of touring.

Millefiori: It was hard for Dave to corral himself into admitting just one favorite from this winery. In the end I think that the warmth of the day and the refreshing character of the Millefiori won him over. This is not a sweet white at all, but it also is not overly oaky like some intense (and beloved by me) Chardonays.

Twenty Two Oaks Winery

#1-6383 Lakes Road, Duncan, BC V9L 5V6

Phone:(250) 701-0385

http://www.22oakswinery.ca/

While Dave was fascinated by the names of the ex-hockey player owners, I was less impressed with the wines and the story of their ugly bulldog wine labels. This is a relatively new winery, and things could turn around for them quickly. However they are not on my list of wineries I want to visit again, or labels that I will search out in the wine stores.

Favorite Wines: not so much…

Deol Family Estate Winery

6645 Somenos Rd. Duncan, BC, Canada

Phone: 250-746-3967

http://www.deolestatewinery.com/

Deol Estate Winery was our last winery to visit that day and it was one of our favorites, at least in terms of the number of bottles purchased. Do not let the exterior of the winery deter you. The parking lot and surrounding buildings looks more like an area where restaurant delivery trucks should be off loading product. The tasting room itself is nice, but the woman pouring our tastings was nice and knowledgeable. This is a winery that I would love to go back to; I just wish that its surroundings were more inviting.

Favorite Wines:

Blanc de Noir: This was my favorite wine from Deol. The woman running the tasting room said that the wine embodied the flavor of honey; and it did but not in a sweet way at all. It was a light, crisp wine that left the lingering taste of honey without its cloying sweetness. She had me at “honey.”

Somenos Red: This was Dave’s favorite wine from Deol. It is a rich, deep earthy red. Not overpowering, but something very nice to sit back and sip in the evenings on the arbor bench… which is just what we did.

Marechal Foch: This was an excellent example of the Marechal Foch grapes that are characteristic of this region on Vancouver Island. It embodied all of the best characteristics that we were beginning to recognize from our visits to the different wineries.

Little Man’s favorite part of the day… running wild with Mommy.

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.

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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