Using it up, wearing it out, making do and doing without in a little city in the North Atlantic. Stickin' it to the man, one crazy DIY project at a time.
Another beautiful day, another impromptu lunchtime picnic on the grass outside The Rooms. Charlie-Bear is all about the polar bear in the museum, and it is essential that we visit it at least once a week. Our Rooms family membership has already paid for itself. Every time we go there, C-Bear expresses astonishment that the polar bear hasn't eaten the arctic hare in the Labrador tableau. We have a whole routine now.
This trip always involves a visit to the grocery store first for provisions, so that we can have a quick lunch sur l'herbe before we have to head home. The baguette at the grocery store is pretty bleh, as you can see from Joodles' expression here.
Or maybe we're just spoiled because we haven't bought grocery store bed in such a very long time. Yay for St. John's having actual bakeries, here in the 21st century.
The landscaping at The Rooms is pretty lame, but there's a marvelous human-made rolling hill (it has some kind of meaning, but I'm not sure what). C-Bear had an excellent time rolling down it, just like Miss B used to do when she was his age. It made me a little misty, actually. All that stuff about them growing up too fast is so very true.
After all this, I decided that we should have another picnic for supper, since it's a sin to waste a beautiful St. John's evening. So I fried up some more chicken (I really don't make fried chicken very often, it's just that my mother-in-law keeps bringing club packs of chicken legs to our house, and what the heck else am I supposed to do with them?). And I made some caprese-type salad, with havarti, because I didn't have any bocconcini. Actually, I made individual salads in jars, because everyone on the internet keeps packing salads in jars and it looks so nice. I also made little peach and cherry cobblers in jars. Because that also looks nice. See?
Awaiting for their little biscuit hats.
All baked and blushing at the family picnic. Note jar of whipped cream in t background. Oh, yes.
Gone so soon? Oh, but you must come visit again, peach-cherry cobbler!
So yes. Salads in jars. Salad dressing in a jar. Mini-cobblers, and whipped cream in jars. Bread in a bag, but butter in a jar. Chicken in a glass casserole. A big jar of water for the grown-ups, and a little jar of water for Charlie-Bear (Joodles got to bring a sippy cup). What aesthetic pleasure! The napkins and the real cutlery and plates and all. Too bad the thing weighed a flipping ton. And, you see, this is the problem with packing a nice-looking picnic. You practically need a mule to bring it into the park for you. I think we forget that all the people lounging on the grass in those French paintings had attendants to drag their baskets around for them, and that the picnics in magazines are professionally styled. It's a good thing we found a spot close to the road, is all I'm saying.
It was a lovely picnic, though. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I expect I will. Except I think I'm done with fried chicken for a while.
Dear friends in Canada and the US, I know that you are roasting in your own juices right now (except the Pacific northwest, apparently - ah, coastal living). I do not envy you. But I made you an iced coffee. I hope it helps.
Drink plenty of fluids, you guys, and, if it gets too bad, book a ticket to St. John's, because we've got icebergs coming.
Yesterday, I was talking with another mom downtown, and we got on to the topic of the skewed representation blogs give of people's lives.
Especially when it comes to how much of a mess their houses are.
You guys know that I just crop out the mess, right? It's a very therapeutic kind of escapism, this bloggery, where all the things I like about my home are enlarged, and all the dried-on Rice Krispies and unfolded heaps of just-washed diapers and mismatched shoes deposited at intervals down the hallway just get cropped away. It's very soothing.
And, because I know I do it, I just assume everyone else does it, and that just beyond the frame of the beautifully-lit, perfectly-composed photo there's a puddle of spilled tea half wiped up with soggy tissues, or scraps of crusty dried-up grated orange cheddar cheese, or a pile of dented and peeled and broken and mysteriously hairy crayon stubs. I have to believe that everyone else lives this way, or I'll go completely mental.
But, in honour of truth, I'll show you what my living room floor looks like right now.
And, amid all this, Charlie-Bear is playing with his trains on top of an upturned laundry basket, the contents of which are strewn on the couch and floor.
I got to play photographer for my stepfather, Andrew, this morning. He needed some photos for an article he's working on, and he asked me to take a few shots of some rather interesting marine technology industry people. Between people shots, I snapped a few pictures of the harbour.
I grew up downtown, and everything about the harbour - the sun on the water, the cold wind, the salty ocean smell (and sometimes some less savory fragrances), the sound of ropes creaking, the bellowing horns of the ships - is dear to me. I don't spend as much time puttering around there as I used to. It was nice to have an excuse to visit.
(This last shot is of the building where Hubby C and I met and fell arse over kettle in love. I was a receptionist for a federal government office, he was a communications intern. Ah, the romance of it all!)
The rapid transition from "freezing" to "sweltering" (well, "sweltering" in St. John's terms, at least), has shocked my brassicas into bolting. If that last bit made no sense to you, I explain it all in my Root Cellars Rock post this week. Go, read it, then come back.
Anyway, my rapini was looking like it was ready to jump out of its bed and make a run for it. Something had to be done. It was an early, but satisfying harvest.
This being another gloriously beautiful summer day, it seemed only right to cook outdoors. And so the best grilled pizza of all time was born. I used Jamie Oliver's basic pizza dough recipe from Jamie's Italy. For some reason, that recipe isn't on his website, but this one is no doubt lovely, too. The one I used has no oil, if that makes a difference. Anyway, any recipe you usually use for pizza in the oven will also make lovely pizza on the barbecue, I'm sure. I've done it with packaged grocery-shop naan bread, and that's worked out delightfully. Whole wheat or spelt or sorghum flour... follow your pizza dough dharma, people.
Here's how you make a pizza on the barbecue. Heat your coals to "inferno." Shape your dough by stretching it, and by pressing it with your fingers. I find this makes a much nicer texture than rolling does. It's better to make several smaller pizzas than to try and make one huge one, because you're going to have to flip your dough when it's halfway cooked. I made three 10-inch-ish ones (I cooked one first for the boys, then the other two), shaping the dough in the kitchen and stacking it between layers of waxed paper.
Now, carefully lay your dough rounds on the grill, and close the lid for two or three minutes, until the bottom of the dough starts to turn nicely brown. Keep peeking, because once it starts, it goes fast. Flip your pizza base over, and add whichever sauce and toppings you like, quickly so that you don't singe your knuckles. You need to have this all prepped and ready to go in advance, so it's fast, fast.
(The boys had storebought tomato sauce and mozzarella on theirs. Lame. But they devoured it, so woo!)
[Edit: I failed to mention that, once your toppings are on there, you close the lid and let them heat through/soften up/melt for another four or five minutes. You would have figured that out, though, I'm sure.]
We also had a salad of local farmers' market greenery, augmented with chives, chive flowers, and sorrel from the garden.
It's raining right now, but it's beautifully warmish. As in, "not freezing." The past four days - count 'em, four - have been spectacular. The kind of days that cause everyone in town to walk around, grinning madly, and saying, "See, this is why I love St. John's!" And it's true. The weather's a total bitch for half the year, but the other half is phenomenal.
Yesterday, after a beautiful morning in the back yard with a friend and her lovely daughter, I decided the men and I should enjoy a picnic supper in the park. A proper one, like in books and movies, with fried chicken and potato salad. So I chucked some chicken thighs in well-salted buttermilk to soak, made some potato salad, baked a little strawberry-studded cake, sliced some tomatoes into wedges, and packed a basket with all our food, plus napkins, proper cutlery and plates, and jam jars of ice water. Oh, and the salt shaker and pepper grinder. I cooked the chicken as Hubby C got the boys ready, and quickly packed it in a glass casserole lined with a tea towel and brown paper (to absorb the grease), wrapped that with more tea towels, and placed it in the top of the basket, covered with a folded tablecloth. When we got to our picnic spot, the chicken was still hot and crispy and juicy, and I was chuffed indeed.
It was the first time we've done anything like this, and I'm determined to make it the first time of many. Charlie-Bear was so excited. We play picnic at home all the time, but a real picnic (pronounced "pic-mic" now and forevermore) was just too cool. As we laid out our food on the tablecloth, he declared, "This is the best pic-mic I ever saw!"
Joodles discovered that he likes tomatoes. Which is good, because I have 21 tomato plants this year, between my place and my mom's, and if they do well I might need someone to help me out.
I took a few photos of the food, but really, it's nothing that fancy. The fried chicken was really fried - I soaked it in buttermilk, with salt and pepper, all afternoon, then took it out and let it sit for about twenty minutes in beaten eggs (with more salt and pepper), then tossed the pieces in flour with salt, pepper, paprika, thyme, and a couple pinches of sugar. I fried the pieces on both sides until they were golden, then popped them in the oven at 350F, on a rack (which was on a baking sheet, natch) to finish up cooking. I've never been able to cook chicken pieces all the way through in the pan without the skin becoming too dark, so finishing up in the oven is my strategy. When chicken thighs have been soaking in buttermilk all afternoon, then dipped in eggs and fried in oil, you really don't have to worry about drying them out.
The cake was from this Smitten Kitchen recipe. It's the third time I've made it (twice with strawberries, and once with rhubarb), and I think it's going to be my all-purpose summer-fruit-user-upper cake from now on. So simple. I used buttermilk in place of milk-milk, and, for the picnic, I baked it as two rectangular cakes in two loaf pans instead of as one big round, because there was no sense bringing a full cake to the park for just the four of us. The other rectangle is in the freezer now. I didn't get any cake shots at the picnic, so here's a staged one.
I can't wait to try the same recipe with peaches and plums. I would like to try it with yellow corn flour, too, for a gluten-free option. The original recipe gives an option to replace half the flour with barley flour, which is much lower in gluten than wheat flour, and I'm looking forward to giving that a try, too, when I make a fancy flour run. While Miss B is now able to eat all the gluten she likes without any issues, I'm definitely eating too much. I don't think I have a sensitivity as such, but too much white flour isn't good for anyone.
The other fantastic summer event of the last week was the Great Caplin Caper we had on Sunday. Caplin (or capelin, depending which dictionary you use) are small fish, like smelt, that come to shore on the east coast of Newfoundland to spawn every year. They're food for the humpback whales, so when the caplin come in, the whales generally follow, and we get some pretty incredible shows.
The end of the caplin's life cycle comes when it spawns, then throws itself on the shore, flaps around a lot, and expires, becoming food for seagulls. If you catch the caplin before they die, though, you can take them home and have a great big meal and participate in one of this area's most famed traditions. When I was a kid, my father and his friends would gather around to a feed of caplin, pulled from the ocean less than an hour earlier. They're only little small things, so people fry them up and eat them whole. Some people gut them, others don't bother, especially when they're particularly small, as they are this year.
So anyway, last Sunday we decided to go to nearby Middle Cove beach to look for whales, as Charlie-Bear is crazy about whales, and we have promised him that we'll take him to see some before the summer is out. We ran into a friend and his boys there, and we were having a lovely time, when Hubby C noticed that the caplin were, as we say here, rolling. I was about to go back to the car to find a bag so that we could bring some to my mother, when Hubby C said, "That's okay, I'll use my hat." Said hat is a slightly beaten-up straw one, and can be seen here. The next thing I knew, there was a frenzy of delighted hat-based inshore fishery, with Hubby C and our friend's older son scooping up fish in their hats, while I hung on to Joodles, and Charlie-Bear hung on to my leg, terrified, saying, "I don't like those fish!" Fair enough: there is definitely something unsettling about being ankle deep in fish flapping about in their death throes. If he becomes a vegetarian, I'll be pretty sure I know what triggered it.
I had been carrying a tote bag with me, which was hastily emptied of its contents (a bottle of water, a notebook, and a pen) and filled with fish. We brought some to my in-laws, who were delighted, and gave some to my mother. We had some for supper Sunday night, but neither of us is overly fond of caplin, really. So now we have a load of caplin in our fridge that needs to find a home fast. If you're in St. John's and you're reading this now, come get some caplin! Please! Take it away!
For all that we're now stuck with a lot of fish we don't want, the experience of seeing the caplin roll is truly incredible. Someone I know posted this video on Facebook, and it captures the event beautifully. I'm not sure who the person is who made the video, but thank you. (Warning: this is about dying fish, so if you're squeamish about that kind of thing, you might not want to watch it.)
