So, in honour of autumn, inspiration (thanks Veronica!), and poetry I so love, here is one of my favourite poems about the season:

"To Autumn"

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, 
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
   Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

-John Keats (1820)

This orchid was a deep purple with at least nine full blooms, spotted in silver, and deep green leaves resting in subtle arches. It was like a monument to orchids everywhere.

I killed it. No, no, wait! I didn't kill it. I tried so very hard, did everything I thought I was supposed to, but it dropped its flowers, and then it drooped, and then the leaves shriveled. And then I went for help. After much research and advice from others, I have learned several things about orchids, the most important of which is this: bathrooms are not actually a great place for them to live. Apparently the dramatic temperature changes really affect the plant. Okay, so no more bathroom.

Today, I embarked on what I'm calling in my head, The Great Orchid Revival. I have done some major research, and I believe (please don't crush my dreams) that I CAN bring this orchid back to life.

I started by cutting off the dead leaves, repotting it in orchid bark (instead of the moss in came in), and placing it in a proper orchid pot with holes in the side for circulation. Next, I gave it a ten minute soak in a orchid-food-laced water solution, and now it's drying on the counter.

I will keep you updated as to my success (or non-success) during this project.

All orchid-related advice is MUCH appreciated!

However, with the dark winter continuing on as it is (Hello windy, dark, and hail-ridden day outside my window), I've been battling with my own little darkness inside. Lethargy. I've been having a hard time getting a meal together at 5:30pm, when it's dark like it should be 9pm, and I'd rather order Chinese food than exercise my creative culinary mind. Steve's noticed, and he asked me to find a way to motivate myself.

Enter: meal planning!

Actually, I've found this exercise incredible liberating. On Monday I flipped through some cookbooks, made a few lists, and went out to the grocery store. At first it didn't seem any different that usual. I bought food, brought it home, stocked the fridge and cupboards, and then wondered what to make for dinner. Except there is a difference! I had all the ingredients I needed for three excellent dinners ready in the fridge.

I went to Steve and said, "Darling, tonight you get to order your dinner like you would in a restaurant. Tell me what you'd like. Here are your choices:..." You should have seen his face light up.

I went with a theme for my meal planning this week: Chef Michael Smith. Steve and I sort of adore him. 

We first started watching Chef Michael Smith on the Food Network, and bought a few of his cookbooks because we liked his food philosophy. We especially enjoyed his Chef at Home show, because he focused on creating delicious at-home meals with very little pretentious-ness. He encouraged his viewers to experiment with the ingredients they had, and to wander from the recipe if some idea took hold. He also taught basic skills that most cooking shows glaze over, like: how to make a basic vinaigrette, how to properly cook pasta, how to cut an onion, etc. We learned so much from watching his show, and made many an excellent meal.

Then, in 2010, my father took a position working as a dining room manager in the Athlete's Village of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. My father spent his days making sure that all the athletes' dietary requirements were met, and working with the kitchen to ensure this occurred. The kitchen's head chef? Michael Smith. Steve and I were naturally excited by this, and we grilled my father with questions about the talented chef. My father described him much as he is on TV: intelligent, gracious, focused, a hard-worker, big laugh, and kind to everyone, whether it be an athlete, a media person, the CEO of the Olympic committee, or a dishwasher. 

My father asked Michael to sign our cookbooks, and I even sent him a copy of my book, Island Kids, for his own children to enjoy. It was a great little bit of connection to the chef, and hearing stories about him from my dad made me respect him even more. 

I'm pleased to be cooking all Michael Smith recipes for dinner this week. 

The menu for this week:

For breakfast I chose a "feature smoothie" that I'll do each morning this week: loganberries, a peach, two nectarines, a splash of orange juice, and some yogurt.

For lunch, I gathered together a selection of veggies and cold cuts (sources from our local deli). It's sandwich week! I've been putting together some yummy selections of turkey, zucchini, and kohlrabi clubs. We don't eat a lot of bread here (and I don't eat any), so Steve is feeling spoiled with a sandwich every day.

For dinner, I drew on my favorite of Chef Michael Smith's books, Chef at Home. Here's the plan:

Monday: last minute dinner at the MedGrill with our business partners to discuss a new project

Tuesday: Maritime Clam Chowder

Wednesday: Chicken and Mushroom Stew

Thursday: this is always Mexican night at a friend's house

Friday: Roasted Tomato Penne

My mother would be proud: no red meat, and even a vegetarian meal! (My parents are vegan).

Last night was the Maritime Clam Chowder and if you like seafood, you MUST make this soup! I've made several clam chowders in my cooking-life, but none compare to this version. Chef Michael suggests using grated baking potatoes and unsweetened condensed milk to create a thick, hearty broth without use of a roux. This method worked wonderfully! The thick white broth was loaded with bacon and clams, and I added cut potatoes and carrots for good measure. I seasoned it with fresh rosemary and cilantro. A must try!

Steve hugged me.

I'm sort of excited to plan next week's meals, and I like this idea of having a theme. Maybe next week I'll do all Chinese dishes, or I could break out my sushi-making skills and we could rock Japan. Then again, maybe I'll just keep on this Michael Smith track. It's going great so far!

Eat well and be kind to others.

If you're not already familiar, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau is a children's book first published in 2003 by Random House. The story follows twelve-year-olds Lina and Doon, who have, as is custom in the City of Ember, just finished their school education and received their assignments. Ember is a dim, run-down city, where the only light comes from hundreds of lamps hung overhead the buildings. There is no sun, no moon, and no way out. As Lina and Doon settle into their new assignments (Lina is a Messenger and Doon works in the Pipeworks fixing the city's plumbing), they become aware that not all is right in Ember. The lights overhead sometimes mysteriously go out and stay out for minutes at a time. There are rumours that the storage rooms underground are running out of canned food, dried goods, and most worryingly, light bulbs. Driven by fear and a love of their city, Lina and Doon follow clues to discover the secret of Ember, why the lights are failing, and whether or not there really is a way out.

Having come to this book with the movie already in my memory, I was at first surprised by the language level the book is written at. The book is definitely directed at a younger age group than the film; perhaps a 9 and up age group. That said, while the writing is simple, it is also beautiful, rich in imagery, and concise. Even as an adult, I easily fell into the rhythm of the story, and ultimately, I think the simple vocabulary of this book worked to its advantage by allowing the story to carry the narrative, rather than the prose. Whether your 9 or 90, this book is an easy, and also lovely, read.

One of the things I appreciate about The City of Ember is that it's a very real story. Though the author is gentle about it, there are some great tragedies in the story that do reflect the realities of becoming an adult. Though Lina and Doon are not expected to be adults at their age, the reality that Ember is falling apart and that the deep darkness they experience every night may soon become permanent, forces the kids to grow up pretty quickly. Yet, even as they make difficult decisions, they retain their child-like faith that everything will turn out fine against all odds. My favorite aspect is that Lina and Doon make mistakes, and they don't ask for help when they should--and later they sure wish they did.  I have said here before that I covet books with entirely child-driven plots (no adults to rush in and save the day), and while this book is child-driven, it stands out because it allows the children to make some mistakes and overcome their own character traits, such as pride and greed. It's a fabulous way to illustrate a coming-of-age story using an exciting, mysterious setting.

My only complaint about the book is that on several occasions, the author employed the use of a deus ex machina--this is fancy literary speak for: "things were going bad, it looked like Lina and Doon would fail, and then suddenly a completely unrelated event occurred and the day was saved." Basically, it's a moment when you really feel the author's hand. It's hard to avoid these moments, but I will say that I think DuPrau could have avoided them if she'd wanted to. Grumble, grumble...

Last note on the book: cover art. Wow. The single image of the light bulb with the word "ember" is so striking. Certainly the sort of image that would catch my attention on a shelf full of books.

A little on the film: I never cease to wonder why film-makers make certain changes to book adaptations. For example, in the film version, Lina and Doon are older teenagers, rather than twelve years old, and I do understand that this allows the film to reach a much broader spectrum of audience. However, Doon and Lina's parents play a larger role in the film, including a failed plot to escape the city fifteen years earlier, and leave a set of resources for the teens that allow them to meet success. In the film, this addition almost serves to discredit the teens' abilities, by creating a story in which Lina and Doon walk in the shadows of their adult parents. In this way, the book is much more encouraging and empowering to kids, while the film seems to say, "Yeah, teens can do stuff, but they still need the help of adults." 

The film is worth watching. It has a more complicated plotline than the book, and it has certainly sensationalized many aspects of the climax, but overall it's well done. The film-makers do a nice job of creating Ember, and the casting was great. Visually, it's a beautiful (and sometimes frightening) film.

The biggest difference between the film and the book: the book was scarier. Even though the book is directed at a younger age-range than the film, there are several scenes in which the lights go out. During these scenes, the sense of doom is overpowering, as the characters experience a total lack of light; the darkness is so complete that the whole town is forced to stand still and wait, and wait, and wait. Those scenes go on forever, and the threat of that total darkness, indefinitely, creates much tension. However, for the singular reason that scenes of just black would be boring, the film-makers chose to only "dim the lights" in these scenes, so that Ember with its lights out is sort of like a dark night on the prairies. You can still see the character's faces--people could still function if this was their reality. It removed much of the fear behind the lights going out. It robbed the film of tension.

I'm excited to receive the next three books in the City of Ember series: The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, and The Diamond of Darkhold. I've ordered these books from Tall Tales Books, my favourite children's book store here in Victoria. More City of Ember to come!

Pockets by Jennifer Armstrong was first published in 1998 by Crown Publishers Inc. This children's picture book is stunningly illustrated by Mary GrandPre. You can still purchase this book on Amazon.ca, though you'd be hard pressed to find it at a decent price. It is, after all, an out-of-print book. I was lucky enough to receive my copy as a Christmas gift from my best friend, Gems. I'll have to ask her where she found it, but she told me that as soon as she flipped through, she knew it was for me.

The story of Pockets is simple. A mysterious woman shows up in a rural town, heartbroken. The villagers take her in on the condition that she fulfills the role of village seamstress. At first, the woman is content to fulfil the villagers' simple requests for plain, bland clothes, but as her heart heals, she starts to add a rather odd feature to her client's garments. The women embroiders the inner pockets of the clothes with colourful, vibrant scenes, hidden within, but tangible to the touch. As she embroiders, the woman's work starts to affect the plain townspeople, and it changes their world, irrevocably.

Pockets is one of the most vibrantly illustrated picture books I have ever seen. I am a huge fan of heavily saturated illustrations, like the work of David Wiesner and Juan Wijngaard. However, I also love simple images, like the wordless stories created by Suzy Lee. In Pockets, the illustrations seem to bridge both these styles by showcasing the rather bland reality of the villagers' with the mysterious woman's incredible, colour-saturated imagination. Each page is a gift.

Even better though (from this writer's point of view, anyway), is the writing. Rather than describe it, I'll share with you the opening paragraph:

"A slim schooner of a woman, driven by strong winds and a broken heart, floundered barefoot across the eastern plains until arriving at the edge of a village. Here she cast out a line and collapsed over the tiller. Some people found her in the morning, asleep in her gale-torn clothes."

Rich, eh? Just teeming with visual language, and some excellent metaphorical use of verbs and cliche. I love it. Love, love, love. I can't get enough of her style, which mixes metaphor so easily, and is nearly over-saturated with imagery and pun. Beautiful.

Armstrong also has a fabulous imagination, and offers some pretty unexpected moments, like when it's revealed that "the local tailor had only just died of his greed for bacon and blood sausage," or when the villagers convince the woman to "put on a dress as wan and lifeless as a November pond." How awesome are those two sentences?? Again: love, love, love.

As a serious advocate of beauty and imagination, I highly recommend Pockets to any person who loves the written word, visual feasts, tiny stitches, imaginative women, and unconventional love stories.

These two recipes are from Food and Wine Magazine (one of my favourites!), and they turned out so well, that I thought I would share them with you.

Summer Squash Pizza with Goat Cheese and Walnuts

The amazing part is that, for the pizza, I used an Udi's Gluten Free Pizza Crust, and it was AMAZING. The actually Udi's crust instructs you to bake the pizza for 8-10 minutes at 350, but the recipe I used said to bake for 5 minutes at 500. Normally, gluten-free crusts are mediocre but nothing to write home about (or in this case, blog), however, baking the crust at that high of a heat created the best flat-crust pizza I have every had. Crispy, salty and sweet, and the perfect compliment to its toppings.

Also, because I'm quite sensitive to dairy products, I used Soya's "mozzarella" cheese substitute. Surprisingly, this also worked great. The soy-based cheese doesn't have the same elasticity as regular mozzarella, and subsequently, held the toppings on without making eating a piece a nuisance (mmm...stretchy cheese...). While I think this pizza would be excellent with real mozzarella, I would suggest also trying other mild, white cheeses, such as a young white cheddar or a mild havarti.

Also note, this pizza is vegetarian!! Use Soya cheese, and it's vegan, too!

Green Bean and Roasted Red Pepper Salad

I had never roasted red peppers before, having been under the impression that this was something best left to professionals. However, it turns out that it's easy and well worth it! Just throw your peppers under the broiler (no oil, just plain), and don't forget about them. A few turns later, and you have the most vibrant, juicy peppers ever. 

This recipe rocked. The combination of the crunchy beans, tender peppers (bursting with flavour), and sharp red wine vinegar was complex and yet, sort of simple in a back-yard-BBQ-worthy sort of way. Depending on how you presented this dish, it could be a 5-star side dish, or a BBQ main. I think it would also make an excellent condiment, piled on top of broiled sausages.

What makes this particular recipe so unexpected is the mint. For the most part, this recipe is savory, but the fresh bursts of mint that permeate the dish bring it from yummy and different to something truly spectacular.

This recipe is also naturally gluten-free and vegan.

I hope that some of you try these recipes and let me know your thoughts.

Cheers!

Last night, over several glasses of mediocre wine, Gems, Briga, and I finished making the wedding invitations. This lovely tree is the stamp we put on the front of each invitation. Can you guess which is the original image? I think I went a little overboard with photoshop...

Today, I bought envelopes! Hey, at this rate, this wedding may ACTUALLY get planned. :)

Today, redeeming a Groupon that we bought last January, the bunch of us headed over to Sea Cider for a "cider flight": my parents, my Aunt Avril, Steve, myself, and Gems. I knew there would be cider and cheese, but I was quite pleased with the scope of this experience.

We each tasted ten ciders: six regular ciders ranging from sweet to sharp; three boozy still ciders; and one hot mulled cider. We were each given a description sheet that included each of the cider we would be tasting, and then suggested what should be paired with each tasting. This sheet was particularly helpful, as we were better able to pair our tastings with the lovely tray of food that was also included: brie, blue cheese, chorizo sausage, three types of bread, an amazing chutney, candied salmon, and peanut brittle. All the flavours we needed to bring out the best in these ciders.

So, yesterday at around 10am, Steve, Gems and I piled into Growler, and headed past Sooke. It was Gems' request. As a child, she spent her summers playing in the warm pools, left behind from winter rivers, that run along the logging routes of Port Renfrew. Her grandparents owned a cabin there. And though the family cabin was sold nearly ten years ago, Gems is still drawn to Port Renfrew. We said, Sure, we'll go, for the drive. We planned to drive The Circle Route: west past Sooke and north to Port Renfrew, then east on a twisted (but newly paved) road that runs south of Lake Cowichan, until hitting the town of Cowichan, and returning via Duncan and the Malahat. We calculated that this trip would take about five hours.

At 9am, Gems' called Port Renfrew's lone hotel to inquire about the weather. Port Renfrew is the rain capital of Vancouver Island. It gets roughly 4 meters of rain per year. The weather forecast called for rain, and we waffled on whether or not to embark on this adventure.

"Did you check the Weather Network," said the rather gruff hotel clerk. "Because they don't have a beacon up here. They just use Victoria's weather. Anyway, the last three days have been crap, but today it's okay. Come on up."

We stopped for coffee in Sooke, and heeded this sign:

We fueled Growler with gas and ourselves with coffee. Steve conceded to let us both sit in the back, and we began our chauffeured trip into the west. 

It's breathtaking. I forget that the ocean is right there--just to our left and between the trees. It's so easy to go about my day, most days, and forget that I live on an island, and that my daily rhythms are still influenced by the beat of the waves that I often don't hear over my own busy thoughts or the car radio. On this trip, we didn't turn the radio on. Not once.

We stopped in Jordan River to watch the surfers. I'd never seen such huge waves in real life. Of course, I'd heard that you could surf in Jordan River and Tofino, but I couldn't have imagined how the water propels each tiny, black surfer forward, and how every time one falls, there's a moment of fear before a black dot pops up between the blue.

The road to Port Renfrew is windy and littered with pot-holes. Not the ideal conditions for a lowered car. But in the few straight-aways, we flirted with the wet roads and took it all the way, and between the switch-backs, Gems and I squealed with glee as Steve dodged divots and laughed, maniacally, to himself.

We got the idea a few hours in, when Gems mentioned that Port Renfrew is just south of Botanical Beach. I had heard about this famous beach, and all the beauty that lies there, but I'd never been. It didn't take much convincing. We hit Port Renfrew, drove straight through, and took poor Growler off the beaten track, up into the Provincial park. We were not prepared for Botanical Beach and how mysterious, dangerous, and beautiful it could be.

I wish I'd had an audio recorder, because it's the sound that hits your first. Even from the parking lot, a kilometre hike from the beach, you can hear the distant crashing of the waves against the rocks. But no adjective--not crash, beat, bash, or boom--can describe how it feels inside your body, as you hike closer and closer to the sea. Nor that first moment, when the trees open up and you see the water bombarding the black rocks and your brain makes the connection: that frightening sound is the hammering of water on stone. It is at the same time chilling and astonishing.