Farmhouse breakfast

My blue heaven. Blueberries, peaches, chewy whole grain toast with feta and dark wildflower honey, scrambled eggs, strawberry jam, coffee and rooibos tea…and a petite angel who prepares it all for you with love.

We're home now, after a beautiful drive through farmland and mountains. Home to our well-tended cat and garden, grateful for good neighbors and friends here, too.

More pictures and stories to come, including a visit to Cooperstown (not far from where I grew up) and my first fact-to-face meet-up with friend and writer Marly Youmans!

Fruiterie & Charcuterie

Visits of the Heart

Recently we had a wonderful visit with my dear blogger-friend Marja-Leena and her husband Fred. They were in Montreal for five days, loosely arranged around a business trip for Fred, and we were able to spend quite a bit of time together. Although Marja-Leena and I have been online friends for a long time now, we'd never met in person. For the two of us, it was a chance to continue and enlarge the conversations we've had in writing – oh, so much easier in person! – about our lives, about art, travel, qarrtsiluni, mutual friends, gardening — even rocks! An extra joy and surprise of our meeting was that our husbands also got along like old friends, and the four of us ended up feeling extremely compatible in whatever combinations we found ourselves. Like us, Fred is an avid bike-commuter and rider, so it was fun to compare notes with him about the differences and similarities of cycling in Montreal and Vancouver.

Dodging rainstorms, we managed to show them a lot of our city and life, and they were the best sort of visitors: enthusiastic, considerate, generous, curious, and good sports to boot. After a final dim sum lunch in Chinatown, we reluctantly said goodbye, and J. and I are now looking forward to a return visit on the west coast sometime. (It's probably good not to do this too often, though, because I'm afraid we piled on the calories!)

Marja-Leena and Fred took more photos than we did, and it's also really nice to see Montreal through their eyes, so I'm going to recommend that you go over to her blog to take a look. But here's a photo of the four of us from the Jean-Talon market, graciously taken by a fellow from the adjacent stall. Inside the white wrapper of the package Marja-Leena is holding was a beautiful white-and-purple orchid plant she gave me as a present.

As you can see, the weather was cool and wet — nothing unusual for
these Vancouverites — but today is beautiful and I'm heading outside
to my own garden and tomatoes pretty soon.

Fleurs

Pick one up. Go on. There are no spines on these, but you'd better spread your fingers wide; each one is bigger than your hand and weighs a pound or more.

When I saw this mound of artichokes at Sami's the other day, it was like stumbling on a field of exotic flowers, each one more lovely than the next. Most artichokes, of course, are green – like the specimens to the far right of this photo. But these all had that dark purple blush, and they were enormous and perfect, so of course I had to take a few home.

In the checkout line, a Quebecois man came up to me and asked, "Madame, what are those and how do you cook them?" I thought all French people ate artichokes! But of course I didn't say that, but explained how to prepare and steam them (for a long time, until the leaves separate easily from the stem and the flesh at the base can be scraped off easily with your teeth) and how to make a simple sauce for them (no hollandaise for us anymore; I usually use lowfat yogurt with extra lemon juice and maybe a little extra olive oil, or else just olive oil and lemon juice whisked together.) 

Our artichokes did take a long time to cook in their steam bath. We ate them cold the next day…and the one after that, because each artichoke was too big to finish in one sitting. They were delicious, but much more beautiful in their raw abundance than on our plates.

Malukhiyah

Wishing a blessed Ramadan to all my Muslim friends and readers.

Yesterday we had to go to the northeastern part of the city, near Anjou to pick up a package, and on the way back we decided to stop at Sami's, a well-known Montreal wholesaler of fruits and vegetables. Sami's is an Arab company, with one large warehouse-like store at the Jean-Talon and another major warehouse in the Chabanel district near Marche Central. But when we walked into this east-end store, we couldn't believe our eyes. The photographs don't begin to convey the vastness of the warehouse, or just how much produce was on display in these towering piles. We had almost no money, and Sami's only does cash transactions, so we pooled all our coins and finally found a cash machine so that we could take advantage of the stop. Extra-virgin olive oil for 4.99…vine-ripe tomatoes for 99 cents a pound…yellow peppers for 1.35…

Sami's also carries all the roots and herbs needed in the cooking of the African and Latin American communities, as well as Middle Eastern ones. I love seeing the stacks of fresh mint, piles of parsley and dill, thyme tied into great bunches. Yesterday, though, I was stopped by this display of leaves and their name in Arabic: "malukhiyah" – these are the Egyptian mallow leaves that are the basis for special dishes loved by Egyptians, Syrians, and Lebanese, and it is this leaf that my father-in-law was always asking for, but I never found. We brought him a frozen package once, but he, of course, dismissed it as inauthentic. If he were alive now, I'd bring him fresh green almonds and malukhiyah, try to follow his directions for cooking the herb with chicken, and endure the insults when he tasted it. Instead, all I could do was to picked up a sheaf of leaves, crushed one and hold it to my nose, and then gently put it back onto the pile like an offering.

Yesterday I began writing about him again; it's time to pick up the pieces of that story and fill in the blank areas: he'd be 100 years and two months right now. I see him clearly in my imagination, eating malukhiyah and gazing out at the Mediterranean, lost in contented thought.

(Does anyone here know how to cook malukhiyah, or have memories of eating it? I'd love to hear from you if you do.)

FIsh Friday: Grilled Fish, Romagna Style

If all the subsequent recipes come out as well as this one, we will be very very happy eaters up here.

My first recipe comes from Marcella Hazan's "Essentials of Italian Cooking," the Italian equivalent of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." This 1992 volume combines two earlier books, and I like it very much for its simplicity and comprehensiveness, and the emphasis on the best, absolutely fresh ingredients. Regardless of where we all live, the world has become much smaller, and it's possible now to find ingredients that were unavailable or even unknown when I was learning to cook several decades ago. However, there's nothing exotic about this meal – it's the essence of summer, with an Italian twist.

According to the author, this is how fish is often grilled in Romagna, on the northern Adriatic coast. It couldn't be simpler, and although I've cooked marinated fish steaks before, the secret here is the inclusion of bread crumbs during the marinating process, which hold the marinade and then form a delicious crust on the outside of the fish. You can use a whole fish or, as I did today, fish steaks – this was a very nice 1-pound piece of swordfish. I served the grilled fish with an Italian potato salad (potatoes cooked quickly, cut in 1/4 inch slices, tossed with 3 T red wine vinegar, kept at room emperature and then tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper before serving); quickly boiled green beans with olive oil and lemon peel, also at room temperature; and fresh tomatoes with basil, balsamic vinegar, and a little bit of sugar. Add a chilled white wine and a little bread to sop up the juices and you'll be in fish heaven.

So: first wash the fish steaks in cold water and pat them dry with paper towels. Sprinkle them with quite a lot of salt and pepper. In a flat dish (I used a pyrex pie plate) whisk together 1/4 cup good quality extra-virgin olive oil and the juice of half a lemon, plus some finely chopped fresh rosemary, or 1/2 teaspoon dried. Put the fish into this mixture and turn it over a couple of times. Now take 1/4 cup plain, fine bread crumbs and coat the fish on both sides – pat it onto the fish so it will stick, and carefully turn the steaks over and do the same thing to the other side. The crumbs should absorb some of the oil. Now let them sit for 1-2 hours, turning them once and re-patting the crumbs to form an even coating.

When you're ready to eat, preheat a charcoal grill or a broiler – I used our regular electric broiler in the stove – and let it get hot – 15 minutes for an inside broiler, white ash on charcoal or wood. Grill the fish 4-5 inches from the heat, basting with any leftover marinade – I cooked these 3/4" steaks 5 minutes on the first side, 4 minutes on the second. Serve immediately, garnished with more rosemary sprigs or lemon slices if you want. It was the most succulent swordfish I've ever tasted, and J. agreed!

Surfacing: is it fresh or salt water?

My absence here, other than the space filled by Herr Mozart, has been due to busyness, at first, then fatigue, and then a bit of depression. I hope I'm coming out of the latter, or pulling myself out, would be more accurate, since that's what it feels like. I figured I might have some trouble once we got up here and had time to think, and it happened. Now I hope the determination to be and feel OK will continue.

Yesterday we had a lovely visit from fellow blogger and New Hampshire-ite Margaret Evans Porter (Periodic Pearls) (above) and her husband, who were in Montreal for their annual summer trip; the beautiful Ontario yellow plums made yet another appearance at lunch on our terrace and Margaret and I talked about writing and blogging while our husbands took photos and ate olive bread from the local bakery, chicken salad made by yours truly and a green salad made by J.,  with a chilled Quebec rose followed by Arabic coffee, fruit, and homemade almond-hazelnut biscotti. Yumm.

The day's food-and-blogging theme continued in the evening when we went to see "Julie & Julia." Having grown up with Julia Child on TV, and her cookbooks as a kind of bible of technique when I first had a house of my own and the desire to learn more in the kitchen, I loved it.  Today, thinking about how Julie cooked and blogged her way out of her doldrums, I wondered if cooking and blogging at least one recipe per week might be a good and restorative project for me in this food-crazy, food-abundant city. Classic French food is, of course, one obvious option, but in our cholesterol-challenged household that might not be the, um, most prudent choice. ("One can never have too much butter…")

 

Last week, while registering a car at the motor vehicle bureau across the street, we discovered Norref/Odessa, a relatively nearby entrepot (warehouse) of a major fish distributor and wholesaler. They have everything, fresh from the ships: whole and filleted poisson; every kind of fruits de mer (shellfish) you could want; and lots of prepared and specialty items like my favorite bright green seaweed salad. I've wanted to explore fish cookery in more depth for a long time, and in addition to Julia's classic books I have a large number of ethnic and seafood-specific cookbooks, pplus, fo course, all the resources now online. This affordable and beautiful poissonnier is the missing link, so perhaps that's what I'll concentrate on — but in general it seems like an international focus would be the most appropriate for Montreal – what do you think? A different ingredient or country each week? If any of you readers have other ideas, let me know – what would YOU like to cook and/or eat?

Meanwhile, music continues to console. I'm working on Bach's 5th Partita, which is a new one for me, and it's coming along.

Rosemary Two Ways

The night we arrived back in the city, we had a visit from our friends V. and R. They brought gifts: a rosemary cake baked by V., which she calls her "wake-cake" because "rosemary is for remembrance." It was moist and delicious, with a spring of rosemary embedded in the top crust and the whole thing dusted with crystallized sugar. (There’s a tiny bit left — and teatime is coming up.)

Then R. held out his hands, which contained a round paper box. Inside was a nest of fresh herbs, plucked generously from their garden, and in the curled green nest were two opened hazelnut burrs, looking like green sea anemones – not to eat, but to admire. The herbs — tarragon, sage, rosemary and thyme — begged to be used in their freshness, so the next day I added some parsley and dill, some sauteed mushrooms, onion, and walnuts, with saffron, lime and spices, and turned them into a favorite Persian dish, kuku sabzi, a kind of oven-baked frittata. Kuku is the persian word for these sorts of baked egg dishes, and sabzi means herbs, which are eaten in great quantities in that wonderful cuisine. Iranians will tell you that the best herbs, with the most flavor, are grown in the sea air on the sides of their mountains, and from the dried samples I’ve tasted I think they may be right. But these Montreal-grown herbs made a wonderful kuku, which we ate fresh from the oven with yogurt and tomato salad, and then the next day sliced cold inside pita sandwiches. Delicious!

Love Apples

 

A friend (with the encouragement of her blog-pusher, me) has recently started a wonderful new blog, Love Apples, devoted to food. But it’s not like any food blog I’ve ever seen – no recipes, at least not yet; no restaurant reviews; no "this-is-the-way-the-hip-eat" trendiness: just an account of one attentive woman’s love affair with the foods themselves — the mushrooms, the aubergines, the shellfish, the herbs — and with the growing and stalking and savoring: the sensual pleasure that comes from really paying attention with more than our tongue. Not surprisingly, the author is a Montrealer, but one who travels often and widely. Her photographs are a perfect accompaniment to the words, and together they are a daily celebration of beauty, pleasure, and exploration. I hope you’ll make it a habit to drop by and see what she’s offering each day, and leave her some comments to let her know you’ve shared this virtual feast.

Poutine et Paris-Brest

Sunday afternoon, as we were heading toward a birthday party in east Montreal. The city cleans the streets with twin graders, huge snowblowing machines the size of combines, and giant dump trucks that cart the snow away.

Blizzards have nothing on us: we’ve been consuming enough calories to survive on an ice floe. Saturday night, romanced by a beautiful but very cold evening, we decided to have supper at La Banquise – a lively 24-hour Montreal favorite always filled with young people, which is fairly close to our house. The specialty is…poutine, (scroll down to the third entry) and for the first time in three years, we deliberately ordered some and actually ate it, washed down with a bottle of Cheval Blanc. For those who don’t know this delicacy of Quebec, it is a generous pile of expertly-cooked French fries, covered with gravy and cheese curds, plus other toppings, ranging from onions and bacon to foie gras. I ordered lasagna and some very good asparagus soup; we shared the two entrees (the poutine and the lasagna) and the dessert, which was a small, deliciously intense brownie. Then we went for a long walk, and returned home about the time our faces had become stiff, our fingers had been curled into little balls inside our gloves, and we had lost feeling in our noses.

Thus fortified, and feeling guilty, on Sunday morning we had a very light breakfast of coffee and fruit, and went off to the cathedral. It was already snowing lightly. When we walked out after the coffee hour, four inches had already fallen and the pace of the storm indicated it was going to increase and keep on like that for a long while. We had been invited to a surprise 50th birthday party in the afternoon, so we called to make sure it was still on, since the birthday girl and her partner were traveling from far out in the country – "Oui," her father said, "pas de problem."

So we stopped first at our favorite florist, on St. Urbain, where I picked out a bouquet of salmon-colored roses and blue agapanthus, and then we drove slowly through streets in various stages of being kept open or becoming snowed-in, to a neighborhood of small detached homes in the eastern part of the island, the heartland of Quebeçois Montreal.

 

We found a parking place of sorts on the already snow-filled street, and went up the drifted steps. It was a wonderful party. There were only five anglophone guests among the twenty-five or so who had gathered- two women originally from western Canada, and the two of us, and a next-door neighbor whose parents had been French and English, but both Catholic. We were immediately warmly embraced by our friend’s family, who we’d never met before, and the champagne flowed as generously as the buzzing French conversation, which to our surprise we could follow and contribute to fairly well. Then came a fantastic lunch, with more wine, followed by a huge Paris-Brest, our friend’s traditional birthday "cake" – essentially a giant, flat cream puff filled with hazelnut cream and dusted with powdered sugar.

Night had fallen, and the guests bundled up and made their way out the door — into the scene in the video at the end of this post. That’s my husband at the end, walking toward our car. The plastic tunnels along the street are typical winter car-ports, erected temporarily all around the city neighborhoods where people have the luxury of a driveway. This is not a wealthy neighborhood, but the warmth inside the house was just as intense as the cold outside. It was a happy afternoon for us, and we were awfully pleased to be invited and included in the occasion – and to find our comfort level with the language had really improved quite a bit. I can tell not only from our better ability to communicate and understand, but from the fact that we weren’t totally exhausted at the end of the afternoon!

It was still snowing when we went to bed.