We're Going Camping!

Yes indeed, my family and friends have managed to pry me away from my garden for the next few days.

After all, what could be better than sleeping in the back of the truck in bear country, huddling in a screen tent so as to foil the hoards of mosquitoes that have recently descended on us (I'm allergic to bug spray) and cooking supper over an open smokey fire?

Truthfully, I can think of plenty of things that are more fun, but if that's what it takes to spend some time with good friends for a few days, then I'm game to do it.

We are camping with our good friends Lorne and Nicole and their boys, something we did annually when our kids were young (Several other families came along as well) and we all have many good memories of those days.

It was always Morgan's birthday (this year it's Jesse's 18Th birthday!), it always rained, we always played golf in the dark around the campsite and the last morning's brunch was always bush pies made with all the left over bits of food with pie filling bush pies for dessert. Yum!

Unfortunately not all the kids can make it, but most of them can and we are all looking forward to making new memories and driving a new group of campers batty as we bash golf balls from one end of the campsite to the other, each of us armed with flashlights to locate the ball that disappeared into the night.

See you when we get back!

Good Food

It's odd really, how we can forget what truly good food tastes like.

You'll be eating bacon and eggs and remark in passing that somehow bacon doesn't taste the way it used to but that's as far as you get. If you think about it at all beyond that, you will probably assume that you are romanticising memories from your youth.

I first realized what good food was supposed to taste like when Tamara and the big Guy visited several years ago and took Henry and I out for supper to a very nice restaurant.

While enjoying an amazing meal it occured to me that this was what God had intended when he gave us food to eat!

Each year Tamara and the Big Guy would visit and we would try out a new restaurant and each year I became more and more interested in the difference between the food we ate there and what I made at home.

I became fascinated with cooking shows and became obsessed with the idea that if only I could learn to cook like a real chef I would be able to enjoy this marvelous food at home every day.

Over time, as I came to learn more and more about what goes into the food we buy at our local grocery store, I came to realize that unless I went back to basics and started buying local food in season that had'nt been processed to within a inch of it's life I would never eat truly good food at home.

And so a Quest began. . .

Good friends of ours moved back to Holland recently and just before they left we had them over for Sunday lunch.

Wanting to serve something special for dessert I decided to serve fresh strawberry shortcake.

The strawberries came from a local, organic, U-Pick farm where Ev, her husband and youngest daughter and I picked one drizzly Saturday morning.

I sliced them, sprinkled them with sugar and threw in a small piece of vanilla bean and left that to sit overnight.

The strawberries were served on freshly baked sweet biscuits with a crunchy sugar crust and topped off with whipped cream.


If you live on the west coast where locally grown fresh fruit is readily available, you won't understand how truly delicious that strawberry shortcake was. . .

If you live in Edmonton where fresh local fruit is not so easily come by and you generally settle for cardboard flavoured fruit. . .

Well all I can say is. . .

It may be more work, but oh, it is sooo worth it!

Yummm!

A Garden Update

A quick post for my sisters. . .

Here are a few pictures from my little veggie garden. . .

Mind you, Lisa will be here in a few weeks and see it herself.

Now if only flights from Vancouver to Asia come through Edmonton and Tamara has a one day layover. . . .