Caesar Salad Dressing

This recipe is from my friend Steve, it was his family's and I've been making for 20 years. My girlfriend Elana specifically requests it whenever I visit. The key and secret ingredient is the anchovy paste. You may think that you don't like anchovies, but in this, you love them. This is my staple at pot lucks and barbecues. It goes with everything. I wash the romaine and have it ready in the salad bowl, and then bring the dressing in a jar and toss upon arriving. It is old school, it uses an actual raw egg yolk. Anchovies and raw eggs. I know, I know, it could kill you. 

Anchovies in jar or in paste (tube)

Caesar Salad Dressing
 
1 egg yolk
1 clove garlic crushed
1 tsp anchovy paste*
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp dijon mustard
salt and pepper
2/3 cup olive oil
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
 
In a blender mix everything but the oil and cheese. I often use a hand blender. While blending, add the oil slowly. Then dump in the cheese and blend last. (I use the Kraft grated parm). Keeps in the fridge for 1-2 weeks.

*You can find anchovy paste in a tube in the grocery store, refrigerated in the deli section usually. If I don't have anchovy paste, I throw in a few whole anchovies.

Devilish

When the days get longer and the lights are on, boy do those chickens start laying eggs. I love making devilled eggs to use up those dozens, and here's my recipe, which I love to make in the cuisinart. My secret ingredients: a LOT of dijon mustard and a little bit of Lee Kum Kee's chili garlic sauce. After the filling is mixed in the cuisinart I put it in a baggie and cut off the tip, then pipe in the deliciousness. I decorate with colourful jarred objects that I have in the fridge, capers, pickle pieces, olives, pickled red peppers, dill.

10 eggs hard boiled, peeled, and carefully cut in half, pop the yolks into the cuisinart (or bowl)
1/3 cup of mayonnaise
big tablespoon of dijon mustard
1/4- 1/2 teaspoon of Lee Kum Kee's garlic chili sauce

Playa del Carmen

We had to get out of Dodge. I mean this winter has been something else entirely. Snow storm then deep freeze on a cycle of  never ending repeat. So we went to Secrets Capri in Playa del Carmen. The place was lovely and the people running the place were wonderful. The food was excellent, and by that I mean, I got to eat fresh fruit and vegetables and fish tacos almost every day, my ultimate favorites. Went into Playa del Carmen itself, and got bottles of vanilla and sombreros from Walmart, a rash shirt for J (made in Mexico) and some maracas from a local shop. Got delicioso cream from Aldo which I could seriously eat every single day of my life. Swam in the ocean every day and went for very long walks on the beach, and watched the pelicans dive for fish. J snorkeled a bit and ran into a sting ray. This is what the hotel looked like:

Here is Sadie in her new sombrero.

Poems for a funeral

A while ago my friend B asked me what poems I thought would be nice for him to read at his Granny's funeral. I suggested three, and decided to post them here so that I would not lose track of them.

The first is from the insert from a record that my father gave me, the words to Time to Sleep from Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs, by Hermann Hesse. The recording was made in 1978, sung by the great Kiwi soprano star Kiri Te Kanawa, (which I think is even more beautiful than Elizabeth Schwarzkopf's recording). The words are gorgeous in this translation from the original German.  

Time to Sleep

Now the day has wearied me,
All my gain and all my longing
Like a weary child's shall be night,
Whose many stars are thronging.

Hands, now leave your work alone;
Brow, forget your idle thinking,
All my thoughts, their labour done,
Softly into sleep are sinking.

High the soul will rise in flight,
Freely gliding, softly swaying,
In the magic realm of night,
Deeper laws of life obeying.

This one, Do not stand at my grave and weep, is also lovely, by Mary Frye. it is one of J's favorites.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush.
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

And from my friend S, who loves this Tom Waits song, Green Grass. The first stanza gets me every time.

Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me
Lay down in the green grass
Remember when you loved me

Come closer don't be shy
Stand beneath a rainy sky
The moon is over the rise
Think of me as a train goes by

Clear the thistles and brambles
Whistle 'Didn't He Ramble'
Now there's a bubble of me
And it's floating in thee

Stand in the shade of me
Things are now made of me
The weather vane will say...
It smells like rain today

God took the stars and he tossed 'em
Can't tell the birds from the blossoms
You'll never be free of me
He'll make a tree from me

Don't say good bye to me
Describe the sky to me
And if the sky falls, mark my words
We'll catch mocking birds

Lay your head where my heart used to be
Hold the earth above me
Lay down in the green grass
Remember when you loved me



This last poem, by Garrison Keillor, is about a cat. I heard him read it on NPR.  I sent it to my parents when our sweet cat died (here she is below), and have since sent it to  friends, in sympathy for the loss of their pets. 

In Memory of Our Cat, Ralph
When we got home, it was almost dark.
Our neighbor waited on the walk.
"I'm sorry, I have bad news," he said.
"Your cat, the gray-black one, is dead.
I found him by the garage an hour ago."
"Thank you," I said, "for letting us know."
We dug a hole in the flower bed
With lilac bushes overhead,
Where this cat loved to lie in spring
And roll in dirt and eat the green
Delicious first spring bud,
And laid him down and covered him up,
Wrapped in a piece of tablecloth,
Our good old cat laid in the earth.
We quickly turned and went inside
The empty house and sat and cried
Softly in the dark some tears
For that familiar voice, that fur,
That soft weight missing from our laps,
That we had loved too well perhaps
And mourned from weakness of the heart.
A childish weakness, to regard
An animal whose life is brief
With such affection and such grief.
If such is weakness, so it be.
This modest elegy
Is only meant to note the death
Of one cat so we won't forget
His face, his name, his gift
Of cat affection while he lived,
The sweet shy nature
Of this graceful creature, who gave us
The simple pleasure of himself.

Finnish Pulla

My mother is an awesome Finnish Pulla baker, and I thought I'd document. She has made this hundreds of times, from this ancient cookbook.

Here is the English translation

Sugar 1 cup

1 ½ tsp Salt

Yeast 1 tbsp

Milk 500 cc (=2 cups)

Butter 250 g (this works out to 1.08 cups- 1 cup of butter is 227 g)

Flour 3 L (=12 1/2 cups)

Raisins ~ ½ cup

3 tsp Ground cardamom (she says make sure it's ground, not powdered) 

1. Put 1 full tbsp sugar and 1 full tbsp yeast into 1/3 cup warm tap water, and wait for 5 minutes or more for it to dissolve and foam up

2. crack 2 eggs into mixmaster bowl fitted with the dough hook. Put 3 full tsp ground cardamom on eggs and beat together a little.

3. Heat up 500 cc milk with sugar, 1 ½ tsp salt to 35 celcius- warm to touch. Pour over eggs and beat together with hand whisk (Mixer turned off, bowl down).

4. Using the dough hook of  a Kitchen Aid mixer,  mix in about 2 L flour, start with 1.5 L. Melt 250 g (1.08 cups) butter in a microwave and add to mixing bowl. Keep adding flour until 2-3 L total - until the dough holds together and comes off the sides of the bowl, and doesn’t stick to your fingers at all when touched. Smooth and elastic. Kneads a long time to become whole and elastic.

5. Fill stockpot with very warm water and put mixer bowl into bath, cover with a tea towel and allow 1 hour at least to rise.

6. when the dough rises over the top of the mixer bowl,, spread counter top with a little flour, turn out dough and knead into long log. Cut into 6 pieces. Roll out each piece, flatten and can at this point sprinkle with raisins (not too much- use enough to see between the raisins). Close dough over top the raisins, knead into long ropes. Cross 2 ropes over each other, crossing over each long strand until a braid is formed. When dough is into braids, place on a baking sheet, cover with a clean tea towel, and allow to rise.

7. brush generously with a beaten egg, and sprinkle with pearl sugar if you want them decorated as they are below. Bake 350 for 25 minutes. Let cool before cutting.

Minus 26 Morning

It was -26C yesterday morning on the farm. I mean: come on. The donkey and 2 horses grow some thick winter fur, but our new horse Ginger is 22 and has very fine hair, so J bought her a blanket, which looks to me like a horsey snowsuit.

After feeding and watering the chickens and horses, we made ourselves a grand slam breakfast.

For reasons that I don't understand, considering the weather, the chickens are laying a lot of eggs, but they freeze overnight. J brought in half a dozen eggs that were frozen as solid as cue balls, and mostly cracked. The dogs get the cracked eggs, in fact yesterday Chloe ate a total of 13 eggs.

The chickens were huddled under the heat lamp.

The geese were smoking in the barn.

The tractor with the snow blower attachment on the back, to plough out the 1 km lane way

  Sadie out on the frozen Tundra

Finnish Mushroom Pastries

I made these with my mother and have been eating them for lunch with soup. Finnish comfort food.  A hot cup of beef bouillon goes well with them, as we used to have, when I was a kid. They are delicious. The pastry is outstanding, flaky and flavorful. They are traditionally made a Christmas time, which is why we have them left over now. Delicious. 

Joulu Torttu (Christmas Flake Pastry)

3 dl   (1 ¼ cups) whipping cream

300 g   (1 1/3 cups)  butter

6 ½ dl (2 ¾ cups)  white flour

1 tsp baking powder

Whip cream until stiff. In separate bowl, whip butter until white. Mix together using a mix master. Mix baking powder with flour then mix into butter/cream, don’t over mix. Pat into a disk, wrap in Saran, and chill.

Filling:

Fry in butter: 1 grocery package (a pint) of mushrooms diced fine and 1 medium onion diced fine.

Mix in 1 cup of cooked rice 

Salt and pepper

A beaten egg to bind ingredients

We also fried a little ground beef (about 1/2 cup) and added to the mixture this time. 

Roll chilled dough on floured surface. Make sure it doesn't stick. Cut circles and put 1 tbsp of filling, fold to make into dumplings. Brush with egg wash. Bake 350F for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Wakefield Barn Painting

Well happy new year everyone! I have been meaning to post but fell behind a bit.

This is a painting I did of our barn. It's from a photo, done in class, with my teacher Chui, who himself paints like a great master. I am so lucky to have him as a teacher, and of course to have had a Dad that also painted so beautifully to inspire me. I have 10,000 hours to get there, still.

The painting is done with a brush, in oils. I was using cold blues and cold browns for the barn and the fence, and Chui told me that the fence where the sun was shining on it was yellow. I mixed the grey the way my dad taught me (blue + white until the right value, then add orange bit by bit for grey- less for cold, more for warm) and then I put in some cadmium yellow, and Chui said "non!... jaune" and he really meant it- warm, cadmium yellow. He took my palette and brush and painted on the yellow fence board, and the sun shone.

In places, he said, you have to exaggerate the color. The roof where the sun is shining is a very warm grey- underneath is a strong orange that Chui also added, when he was correcting my work.  The hills are white with quite a lot of cadmium red in there to warm it up, the shadows are cold blue, and the sky is a warm blue- ultramarine blue and white with some cadmium yellow and a tiny touch of cad red. 

Chui is Chinese but speaks French also. 

"Pas peur!" (go for it he says, as he will fearlessly paint up a storm).

"Il faut tojours comparer" (the colors with eachother- don't paint  sections in isolation without comparing warm/cold dark/light with the rest). Find the darkest part, and then compare the rest to that. And the warmest, and so on.

Favorite Finnish Things

Time to take a vacation from the cold and fly to Finland for a mental vacation. This is the view from my uncle's cottage. 

When in Finland I love:

Helsinki's Kappelli Restaurant- it really is a converted chapel. Last time I was here I had caribou meatballs with dill. Yum.

The view from the Ateljee Bar at Sokos Hotel Torni 14th floor. Came here with my bfff  (best Finnish friend forever) Minna, for a glass of champagne.  

View from the ladies room!

The Fazer Restaurant at Stockmann's department store.

Fazer is THE finnish bakery. So fresh and good.

Cafe Ekberg in Helsinki. I want to sit here and read the paper and write postcards forever.

The Ekberg fresh shrimp sandwich, piled high with shrimp, dill, lemon and mayo. These sandwiches are everywhere, and they are so so good.

And lunch of fish, potatoes and morel mushroom sauce with friends

The Marimekko, Aarikka, Arabia and Iittala sections at Stockmann's

Chanterelle mushrooms from the forest, Arabia Mumin mug, black licorice, yogurt, rye crisps, foot cream, beer, beet salad, Fiskar cheese cutter, vitamins

Hamburger in a deep fried bun, my favorite junk food EVER. To get really decadent, can put a sausage inside... OMG it's both a hamburger AND a hot dog

Vintage coffee pots, 230 Euros. (Ours got burned in a camp fire a long time ago, ugh!)

I love that they put cupboards above the sink to dry the dishes, close the cupboards and the dishes are done, drying and put away all at once.

Check out the history of this Finnish invention here

 I love that when they construct new buildings, they protect the trees, instead of cutting them down.

I love Finnish Saunas- this one is my uncle's

Home made fish soup with dill, and delicious dark rye bread

I love Finland

Paintings From Photos

A diary of paintings from photos. This was from my first lesson, a copy of Monet's La Pie (The Magpie). Chui's corrections fixed this up big time. I was paralysed in front of the canvas with the book with the photo propped up  next to me, and Chui would come by, tell me to mix the cobalt blue with white for the snow shadows, and I would tentatively dab at the canvas. He would then emphatically say "pas peur!" take the brush from me, and paint it down. "Comme ca!" I had some fun painting the sun coming in through the fence, and that eggshell sky. I saw Monet's original masterpiece at the Musee D'Orsay; and stared for a long time- it's truly beautiful.

Our field with horses in the fall. The one lying down didn't make it into the painting, as he looked sort of dead. Though that's Jake, he was just napping.

Our neighbor's farm

At Montebello:

A hideous attempt at the St. John's harbour with the icebreaker the Louis St. Laurent

And our neighbour's house