food

I have a new love and it is fish.

Buying fish has always kind of scared me. It's complicated, what you should and shouldn't buy, ethically and for health reasons. And yes I know, I could print off one of those cards and carry it around but things seem to change an awful lot which is really just an excuse for I haven't and I know myself enough to know I won't.*

And now I don't have to.

Because here is the Sustainable Oyster & Fish Supply Store. It's the supply house for the Whalesbone Oyster House on Bank Street. I've never eaten there, though Michael and I did have a gossipy glass of wine there once.

I was walking home up Kent, a way I normally don't walk and I don't know why I was. But there was this Whalesbone sign. It didn't look like a restaurant. Did they...? Was it...?

There was a flyer in the door.

They did open a wholesale place, and it was occasionally open to the public. What did they have? They have fish and oysters, select fish and oysters, caught in sustainable ways.

Last week, Shelley and I walked in. There's a small open space, with counters to your left and right. No fish anywhere. We looked to one counter, looked to each other. Looked back. I had the thought to flee in the face of not knowing what to do.

"You're here to shop?" the man behind the counter on the left asked.
"Yes?" we both said.
"Well! You shop in the fridge!" He gestured grandly behind him at the claw handle in the white door on the white wall between the shelving units.

And you do. You go into the fridge, you say "I would like that kind, please" and they grab a big piece of it, plap it on the cutting board on the left hand counter, and you say "I would like that much please." And they cut it with their very sharp knives and they take maybe some extra bones out and they talk to you lovingly about how you should cook it to bring out the flavour.

They love working there.

Today I bought my second piece. Last week was a nice piece of Lake Erie pickerel. I pan fried it, added a little pepper, not much else. It didn't really taste like much, strangely, but the texture. Man. I'm not much of a texture person - it has to be something for me to notice, either way, and this was something. It had heft and bite, a bit of squeak. My mouth was entirely happy.

Thank you, fish.

I decided to do something fancier tonight. Since I was staying in all night, I knew I could take my time. I blanched some rapini, made some quinoa, sliced some red onions, chopped some garlic. I poached the troll-caught wild alaskan salmon in some of the broth I made last night, I sauted the rapini in olive oil, garlic and red chili peppers.

It was fucking amazing. The bitter greens stood up to the very dense salmon, the chilis gave everything a bit of a bite, a different zip from the liberal sprinkling of pepper on the fish. The stock gave every bite a faint fennel scent. The quinoa gave some spring to everything.

Thank you, Whalesbone.

I am never buying fish anywhere else again. Most definitely not from the Hartman's with their oft-unanswered fish phone and their fish-stinking stinky fish and their employees who look bored to damn death of fish. It may be slightly more expensive at WB, but not by much, and it is a couple of dollars well spent.

You know what they're also doing at Whalesbone Supply? They've ripped up a third of the parking lot and they're putting in a garden to supply the restaurant. You should walk by before they put the fence up, not long after they plant on Sunday. The rows of black earth are beautiful.

*Also I know I could be a vegetarian. I think it's a great choice to make, and I have been one and I enjoyed it. I still eat mostly vegetarian food. But I am not one anymore, by conscious decision, so I try to eat meat consciously too.

It's been an exhausting few days. Only 5 hours sleep a couple of nights in a row, with a cat who seems bound and determined to make the last two hours of sleep intermittent. Last night I just crashed out at about 10, and tonight I think I'll do the same. And tomorrow night. And maybe the night after too.

Between the lack of sleep and writing, I'm finding myself without a whole lot in the tank. That means more lists for you.

1) Meditation Is Stressing Me Out

I'm halfway through the mindfulness clinic. I'm finding it interesting, and I think I'd probably get a lot more out of it if I actually engaged with the homework. Some of the homework is a half hour of breathing or body scan meditation. I'm cool with that, obviously, I think it's a good thing to do. But I don't have an extra half hour. That half hour comes out of food prep, or physical activity, or hanging out with friends (email included), or writing and blogging. I don't want to give up a half hour of those things.

Also, it's in Vanier. You know what I hate? It's not Vanier, which I'm sure would be a nice place to live if you never had to leave it. Because getting there and back nearly drives me to distraction. The 12 is the bus from hell, as far as I'm concerned. It's either late or runs a different route and always has at least one person on it who is entirely and loudly obnoxious.

Though today I left the clinic feeling worn the fuck out anyway. So maybe, when I eventually got on the bus, wasn't actually so loud that I had to close my eyes and plug my ears and concentrate on my breath going in and out of my nose. Just another crazy lady on the bus. But at least my crazy was quiet.

2) I'm Hoping It's Short

Part of the reason I left feeling worn out is because I'm having one of my intermittent periods of Severe Body Hatred, and it cropped up fiercely in the first round of meditation when we were sitting cross-legged for 20 minutes during which it felt like someone was slowly inserting a white hot rod alongside my right scapula.

The SBH, however, started with the fact that I've gained about 15 pounds over the winter. I can tell myself all I want that it's fine, that I'm a healthier weight now, that I like round curvy bodies, but what I can tell you is that I am frustrated by my new body. My clothes don't fit it properly. I was used to my old body. I liked my old body.

It's not just the weight though, because I also remember quite clearly weighing more than this and being happy with it. I've been through this before, this shift from skinny to thin, and I've always had this reaction when I'm getting used to the new state. What it tells me is that if I have to talk myself down from the "I'm fat!" reaction, then our world is some fucked.

So if it's not just the next size up, what is it? My damn shins. I can't run any more and I am FURIOUS with how unfair that is. It makes me feel like throwing a tantrum, in fact. It's not like I was a marathon runner, or was graceful or fast or anything like that. I shuffle along like an old lady. But god, it kept me sane, it kept me in my body and my brain working reasonably happily along with it.

Until it broke my body, at any rate.

I can shift to biking, I know. But it's not the same. The seagull apocalypse is a blur when you're going by it at bike speed. Same with smells, the sound of the water. If I do it enough times, it will eventually becomes a part of me the way my shuffling was. But it's hard to make that kind of transition. It's always hard to make new habits. But I'm feeling crazy, and I know this kind of crazy will be fixed by two runs in the outside and a couple yoga classes.

Which I haven't started back on since the tattoo. Sunday though. I'm almost healed.

3) Triple Purpose

Composting at the organic gardens was a revelation to me, revealed by one Black M. I ran into her one day, a bag full of garbage, and asked her where she was going.

"To the compost," she said.
"Man, I wish I could compost," I replied. "But there's no place to put one at our house."
"No, us either. I'm taking it to the garden over on Rochester."
"What?"
"Yeah, they have huge bins there. I take my bag over, dump it, and then they have a garbage bin right there for the bag."

It was like a light from heaven shone down on me. I've been doing it ever since, though I have a tupperware container in my fridge, since there is a hell of a lot more room in my fridge than on my counters. Depending on the day of the week, there's sometimes more compost in our fridge than edible food.

Although, as I discovered not long ago and long long long after I should have, you can make vegetable stock from your compost.

Vegetable stock is like iced tea. As Jennifer has quoted, it's three ingredients! Why would you buy a weird smelling chemical that you stir water and ice into when you can pour water on a tea bag and add ice?

And really, when consider that ice and water are pretty much the same thing, it's only two ingredients.

Like veggie stock. You can agonize over low sodium or high sodium or what all chemicals are in what stock, or you can pay a zillion dollars for a wee organic cube that you have to add two measly cups of water to, or.

Or, you can put one part of your garbage in a pot and boil it in two parts water.

Don't throw out those squinchy mushrooms you forget what you were going to do with! Put them in a pot! Dig out the fennel trimmings and the onion bits out of the tupperware! Wash off those coffee grounds! Why not this apple core too! And sure, why not one of those perfectly good green onions that you know will be in the compost in a week because you hate them. And that carrot is edible, possibly, but very hairy. In you go, carrot.

I cannot tell you how thrilled I am about this. My only problem is that there's only so much vegetable stock one person needs.

I'm in full travel mode today. Not too long ago, M-C asked me if I were looking forward to my trip, and I was so wrapped up in the details and the planning that I had to say, No, not really, but I'm sure I'll be excited when I get there.

Oh. In case you've forgotten, or I haven't mentioned, I'm leaving tomorrow for 10 days. Berlin first, then Dublin for a couple days, then a resort outside of Dublin for a conference for a few more days.

To mimic my scattery day and brain, then, I present you with the following miscellanea.

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Did you know how wonderful lemons are? You probably did, because how could you not, but still, add this to your list if it's not there already.

Lemons are amazing de-stinkifiers.

I bought a couple of cheap-o life brand travel-size body wash containers to empty out and put my unscented expensive hippie shampoo and conditioner in. When I opened them up and dumped them down the sink, I was verily assaulted by a terrible stench. Of what, I don't know, but it was born in a lab and should have stayed there.

Running them through the dishwasher helped, but not by much. Every time I stood by the sink, next to the containers drying in the dish rack, I'd think, what is that godawful smell? I never have, oh. Right. Shit. I can't use those.

But I didn't have anything else to use.

Last resort? I put them in a deep narrow pot, juiced half a lemon and poured it over the containers, sloshed them around in the juice while I boiled some water, and then covered them with the water and left them to sit until everything was cool.

Voila. No more stench. Like some kind of miracle.

++

We got leeks!

I raked the front and back lawn today and Patty came over and planted the leeks she had been growing in containers, because leeks don't like growing in containers. Who knew. There is now one square foot of a vegetable I don't like in my front yard, and I couldn't be more pleased.

Plus, it was also satisfying to do some physical labour. It's not like I sit around all the time, but the activity I generally get is activity for the sake of it. Running doesn't really serve a purpose other than keeping my heart rate low and my endorphins up, though I suppose those are both useful. Yoga is slightly more productive, what with the growing inner peace, yada yada.

But moving a pile of rocks from one side of the yard to another? It was there, and now it is there. The fruits of my labour. Very satisfying.

++

If you haven't been reading Ickaprick & Ironpussy, today's post would be a good way to start.

Fuck me, that's good blog.

++

Door to door, it's going to take me almost 20 hours to get to where I'm going. It shouldn't have to, but because part of it's a work expense, I ended up going to Berlin by way of Dublin, by way of Newark (because I couldn't get a direct flight).

I'm not looking forward to that, which is maybe why my excitement for the whole thing hasn't been turned up to 11.

But I'm prepped. My knapsack is packed as lightly as possible, and I've got: stuff to wash my face and brush my teeth; trail mix I made yesterday; ear plugs; blindfold (though when it's to wear so I can sleep on the plane, I call it an "eye mask"); other food to keep me going through airports, where it's incredibly hard to find anything edible if you don't eat wheat or dairy.

Shelley and Steve, who will meet me at our German apartment, have been forewarned. I've been promised a cup of tea and a nice dinner and a very quiet first night.

++

Speaking of not eating wheat or dairy, the food that I made to take were Jennifer's Chickpea and Spinach Triangles.

I had mushrooms what needed eating, so I sauteed them with the onions before adding the rest of the ingredients.

Fuck me, that's good food.

The reason I had mushrooms is because I was going to make a pizza, but then figured these would transport better. Then I went and made them into half-moons instead of triangles, and made them also too big to fit into any of my tupperware.

Anyone have any long tubular tupperware they want to give me so I don't have to use a stolen plastic fork to eat my probably destroyed delicious half-moons out of the bag in which they were probably destroyed?

Don't worry, I won't wait up.

++

There's probably more, but there're still dishes to do and I'm going to take a stab at being well rested before I work a full day and then spend 20 hours in transit.

How does it happen? That two days could disappear just like that. It was a crazy busy weekend. Crazy busy good, but it's 11 pm on Sunday, and I haven't gotten that much accomplished.

Not that I know what I wanted to accomplish.

What I do know is that I want to accomplish some sleep in short order.

So, the highlights reel:

• delicious tapas, martinis, lips
• breakfast and paper, my server grinning happy to see me, singing "She'll have the don fran" to the kitchen staff
• honey filled tea and chat with my Shelley
• holding my own during a busy floor shift at venus envy
• Roho's kale, Steve's potatoes, squash in general
• yoga, where my teacher was thrilled that I could do a full lotus, and I was thrilled with my new mat
• delicious sandwich at the Wild Oat
• discovering that I haven't lost my touch driving in snow, standard transmission be damned.
• massage, "No wonder you had a migraine. That knot in your back? The two in your neck? Your jaw? No wonder."
• delicious soup, lips

I've been wanting to make a lentil loaf for several months now, for reasons, well, the short version is that I played the lentil loaf trump card in a spontaneous game of "Who's the Deepest Lez?" and won pretty handily.

At the time I was joking. I've never eaten lentil loaf in my life, only laughed at its existence.

But there it was, lodged in my brain like a dried legume. I found what I thought might be a decent recipe, gathered the ingredients. Tonight was the night.

It had been in the oven for 10 or so mintues by the time Jennifer arrived. I cleaned, she knit, we chatted about our days, and dates, and girls, and boys, and apartments. We ate salad.

When I took the loaf out of the oven at 35 minutes to spread the remaining tomato paste over it, the top layer kept coming up. I allowed as how we might be in trouble.

Indeed. 10 more mintues in the oven did not make my loaf more moist. Jennifer was entirely kind, ate her slice all up, and suggested that mushroom gravy does wonders for just about anything.

Halfway through our dinner, M-C came downstairs.

"Hey M-C," I said, which is how I start 90% of my conversations with her. "There's some lentil loaf on the stove if you want some."

"Lesbo loaf! Really? You made it!?"

"Help yourself."

"Well. I dunno. Nah." She paused by the counter, almond milk in hand. "Well, maybe a little. Though I'm not sure I know what to do with it."

"You put it in your mouth, M-C."

"Riiiiight, right. Thanks for the tip."

She cut herself off a wee slice, put it in a bowl.

"I should warn you though," I said. "It's a little dry."

This isn't a blog post so much as a convenient way to remember the deliciousness I made for brunch New Years Day.

8 fairly thick slices spelt/kamut bread from Wild Oat
5 eggs
3/4 c soy milk
1 T vanilla
1/4 t baking powder
3 or 4 bananas
3 bosc pears
brown sugar
allspice
nutmeg
cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 450 F.

Mix eggs, soy milk, vanilla, bkg pwd. Pour over bread. My suggestion would be to pour the mixture over the bread in one layer, so each piece can soak up as much as possible. Put in the fridge overnight.

In the morning, cut up the fruit. You can use any fruit you want, really. The original recipe callled for frozen strawberries. Mix the fruit with as much sugar as you want, with as much of the spices as you want. Always use only a little bit of the allspice and nutmeg - cinnamon should make up the bulk of your spice mélange.

Lightly grease a pan big enough to lay the bread out flat. Spread the fruit out on the bottom of the pan. Lay the bread over top of the fruit. If there's any extra egg mixture, pour it over top of the bread. Sprinkle with more cinnamon, or cinnamon sugar if you're feeling decadent.

Bake for 20 or 25 minutes. Or for 40 if you, perhaps, turn the oven off by mistake mid-way through.

All day I was craving a baked apple. The season, is my guess. My chilled office, another.

When I was a kid, I went through food periods. There was the summer sausage and mustard sandwiches for most of grade 5. I stripped that down to just mustard sandwiches for most of grade 6. The baked apples didn't last that long, but I made them enough times that I still remember what my mother's coring knife felt like in my hands.

Do like this:
- cut the core out of an apple, from the top, leaving the bottom intact
- into this party pouch, stuff butter and brown sugar and cinnamon and raisins
- bake at 350 till the butter and sugar stuff is well mixed, and the apple is as soft as you like it
- let it cool down, since hot butter is hot

But for one, I don't have any butter in the house and for two, I mean really. Just because it involves fruit doesn't mean it's healthy. And I know it's dessert and blah blah blah, but I mean, really.

I turned to our friend, the internet. I found a recipe for baked pears. I fucked around with it.

Like this:
- quarter and core pear
- put it in a shallow baking dish with some currants
- stir together apple juice, a bit of lemon juice, nutmeg and cinnamon
- pour over pears
- bake at 350 till the pear is as soft as you like it

And you know how it turned out? Unsatisfying.

Why I thought that juice, even when it is two kinds of itself, could be a reasonable substitute for butter and brown sugar, I don't know, but I had a visceral wave of disappointment when I pulled the dish out of the oven and the sauce wasn't rich and caramelly.

I hadn't even known I was still expecting that.

Anyroad, I ate the pear, which was a good pear. I ate the currants, which were good currants. I poured the now mulled apple juice into a glass and added a shot of whiskey, which is really the most satisfying part of no longer being a kid.

In short order, what you see here became the veg half of Curried Vegetables with Dahl.*

*Oh, except not the scraps in the compost tupperware.

Since its inception, The Blue Menu from President's Choice has sorta upset me, but my unease has been amorphous. Until today and the two bite brownies.

I always knew that the Blue Menu from President's Choice had to be at least a little bullshit. They talk a good game, right. More of: fibre, more omega-3. Lower: calories, sodium, fat. I'm not going to argue that.*

The website sets out their mandate: "Our great tasting PC Blue Menu products offer healthier options without sacrificing the flavours you love. The big blue menu on the front of each package shouts out why the product is a better choice so that making better choices is simple!"

Yeah, if your choice is other Two-Bite Brownies, for sure. The Blue Menu version is really pretty low in fat, considering - 54 calories from fat, which is less than 10% of recommended daily fat for a 2000 cal/day diet.

This is, of course, assuming you eat one serving as defined by PC: two small brownies. They don't come in a package of two. They come in a package of about 12. Perhaps people who work for President's Choice are better at controlling themselves than I am.

What really gets me is that these fuckers are nearly 37% sugar - 14 g of a 38 g serving. That's a fuck of a lot of sugar. The USDA recommends no more than 32 g of sugar per day for a 2000 cal diet.** So if you're only going to eat just over 4 of those brownies per day, you'll be fine. If you only eat two and read the labels on every thing else you eat to watch for hidden sugar, you'll be fine. If you don't drink pop or alcohol on the same day as you eat that one serving of brownies, you'll be fine.

So fine, whatever, there's lots of sugar in brownies. That's hardly a surprise. And Loblaws isn't lying. These brownies are healthier than other brownies. But come on. Their marketing team must know how easily humans slide from "the healthier choice" to "the healthy choice" to just grabbing the blue package from the baked goods shelf, and eating treble the serving amount because Hey, lookit, they're low in fat, it's a miracle what they can do with food these days.

What pisses me off is this: the bastards must know that people will be total suckers for junk food they can eat and feel less guilty about. Chips will always turn a faster buck than tinned tomatoes. There is a lot of potentially healthy stuff in the Blue Menu - canned vegetables with less salt, steel cut oats, etc. etc. - but if they're honestly serious about healthier choices, why does the Blue Menu even have "Cookies and Crackers" or "Frozen Desserts"?

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I think Loblaws shouldn't sell Cookies or Crackers or Desserts. And I don't think people have to go on no sugar, no fat, no fun diets to eat well and stay healthy. I just think it's wrong when companies work to fool people into thinking that an item patently unhealthy for you might just be the opposite if it's got a blue label slapped over its sweet sweet face.

*This is because I'm leaving Soy Protein off the list. I don't get why it, in and of itself, is on the same level as, say, more fibre and lower sodium. Especially considering some of the recent brouhaha about soy products. But that is not the axe for grinding gripped tight in my hands right now.
**It's a bit more complicated than that, which is why I included the link. Check p. 36.

That nutritionist I've been seeing? I'm going to stop that foolishness.

I started because my rosacea seemed to have gotten noticeably worse over late summer and early fall, and it's just no fun to look in the mirror and think, blotch blotch blotch.

He's a really nice guy, but fucking pill happy. I ended up saying yes to a few things I should have said a resounding no to, one of which was getting myself hooked up with this fancy pill company. The supplements seem very high quality, but I'm taking a bazillion of them a day. And by a bazillion, I mean a number so high I am actually embarrassed to tell you and I refuse to take them in front of other people.

He's also the one who told me to quit coffee, which was a dumbass suggestion.

I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. I eat well. I exercise regularly. I try to be conscious of my posture. I get tipsy reasonably often, but off a couple glasses of wine or a couple of beers. Shelley teasingly called me her pure friend the other day. On a day to day basis, I treat my body pretty well.

And I fucking love coffee. Love it. I love the smell, I love the taste, I love the momentary high. Fuck decaf. It doesn't smell as good, it doesn't taste as good and of course, no high.

Q: Why, why, why, when I am not feeling so great mood-wise, should I give up a simple thing that causes me little harm and brings one helluva lot of brightness to these dreary days?

A: Shut the fuck up and hand me that bodum.

Last Friday was my first cup of caffeinated coffee after something like two and a half weeks, and my god. Smartest decision I've made in ages.