Tuesday's Salad

Tuesday's salad was purple cabbage and cucumber garnished with cashews and pumpkin seeds, drizzled with peanut dressing. This morning I made oatmeal cookies with spelt flour, hemp seeds and flax for Ules.

I spent the morning drying oregano we dug out of Catherine's garden to make room for more bee plants. It will do nicely in bathtub teas with rosemary and eucalyptus oil for flu and cold season.

Ullie and are are giving our seal of approval for the cheesecakes at Mobius. My intel says the next flavour will include bananas. Peter is cheesed off he can't eat them because he is lactose intolerant.

A Week of Salads

In an attempt to get back on the healthy eating wagon I am going to make a special salad every day this week. Monday's salad was mango (I picked a really good sweet/tart one from East/West), cubed cucumber, peanuts and mint leaves with a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Easy peasy pumpkin squeezy.

I tried another recipe for puffed grain cake: 1/3 cup butter, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup raw agave, 1/3 cup hemp, 1/3 cup chia, 3 tbs cocoa, 3 cups puffed millet. These proportions make it easy to remember, but I am going to keep cutting back the sugar and see how low I can go and still make it stick together.

Grab Some Kleenex and Watch This

Full Tilth

We're getting right into the full swing of gardening season. Oh soil and sunshine, how I have missed you! Had the pleasure of watching Catherine's new doggy napping in the sun by her busy beehive. Pure bliss! Looking forward to a manure run tomorrow--never thought I would be writing those words. Choices is having a big sale on garden soil and amendments. I've got to get some soil to get my tomatoes in pots. Planted bean seedlings yesterday in my garden beds and bean seeds at city hall with the students.

Today I made a refreshing blend of lemon verbena and black tea. Have been snacking on ancient grains bread from North Van and Choices' hemp humus. Very grounding. Oh, and have I mentioned the gorgeous chocolate cheesecake at Mobius coffee shop? The crust is one of the best I've ever tasted AND it's GMO free, which is very cool.

Offical Puttering Day

I love days when you can just putter around the house--potting up plants, ironing fabric for a workshop, and making puffed amaranth squares in your panties. I think I have the proportions right: 1/3 cup butter, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup, 3 tbsp cocoa, 1/4 cup chia seeds,  1/4 cup hemp seeds, 1 cup puffed amaranth and about 2.5 cups puffed millet. Moreish.

A Relaxing Soak

I spent the day prepping for my herb workshop at Sunset Community Centre (between 10 and noon tomorrow). Tonight I made myself a bathtub tea sachet with epsom salts, rosemary, sage and lavender. What a nice way to relax and soothe aching muscles! Thanks to Jean and Catherine for their special contributions to the ingredients. I like the sachet because it means you don't have to clean little bits of flora out of the tub, as you do with bath bombs. One of my tips is to use butter muslin, not cheesecloth, because cheesecloth can be very cheap and fall apart when you wash it and the muslin keeps the small bits in, but is woven loosely enough to let the ingredients steep.


I've just read a piece of Australian crime fiction--a book called Truth by Peter Temple. This is prose peeled back to the bones. It's very macho, POV driven, hard core fiction. You'd think I'd hate it, but the plot did propel me into the novel and it took some work, but I gradually was able to enter into his prose. There are parts of the story I love: the image of the protagonist's father taking a stand to protect his home from a raging fire. He's joined by his sons for some thrilling action. I also like the part where he visits the mother of a murder victim and helps put in her vegetable garden, then he gets pissed off when her rich neighbors help themselves to the fruits of his labor. There is a vulnerable core to the main character that makes the story very human and the way he sees and describes the essence of his surroundings is very powerful.

The boys are playing Magic downstairs.

Chocolate Trip

Well, Peter is in Belgium getting us some chocolate. People are asking what else he is doing there. Do I really care? Kidding. Ules is freaking out about his homework. I keep telling him to break it down into smaller tasks. He seems to feel better after verbal describing what he has to do. I have a daunting couple of days ahead myself. Gardening, teaching, talking, singing: all my favorite verbs besides eating, reading and sleeping.

I have been watching episodes of the Swedish Wallander (not the Brannagh version) and really enjoying them. One of the main actors actually committed suicide before the series was over--a huge tragedy. She was suffering depression and trauma after being in that tidal wave in Thailand a few years back. She played Wallander's daughter.

I also have developed a fascination for the Kathy Reichs produced show called Bones. I'm not a big fan of her books, but the tv series has grown on me. I think it's amazing how much you can tell about a person from their skeleton and I like the comparison between the psychological and anthropological methods of solving crimes. I enjoy the character of the geeky artist/computer programmer. I also like the humor and the sex!!! Oh, and did I mention the cute outfits the women get to wear?

What have we been eating? Green kale sausages from Whole Foods (fail), turkey sliders, asparagus, and a Bananas Foster milkshake which Ullie is researching for French class.

The big red oriental poppies are blooming and our neighborhood smells of lilacs.

Purple Basil

Every time I have to go to Welk's for something I am tempted to buy a little plant. Today I bought a little purple basil plant for a couple of bucks. He has some new canning jars in the store. They are beautiful.

Smoothie of the day: purple kale, kiwi, ginger, coconut water and orange.
Breakfast: eggs scrambled with goat brie, wilted kale, and turkey sausage
Lunch: Shaktea's Firenze baguette and Assam (Dumni)
Dinner: Peter's pasta
Snack: Matcha Buzz cookies--a recipe I am working on

Potting up marigolds in the back porch, the scent of wet potting soil in the air and CBC comedy on the radio: that is my happy place. Stephen Harper celebrates one year in majority government: that is my sad place.

Writing: Four recipes from my childhood and how I have adapted them with a little help from my friends.

Watching: Callan--Engaging cold war spy drama from Britain, complete with a boss who is oddly androgynous and rolls his r's a lot.

Reading: a cookbook my mom made for me with my grandmother's recipes and photos.

Thinking about: Do teachers have a right to scrutinize what children do on the weekend? Is this the new Big Brother?

Business and schools are structured with a bias to extroverts. Will we look back on this as a form of institutionalized prejudice?