Recipes for Trouble

Let’s talk picnics, shall we?

I’ve been picnic-ing since my birthday in May. That picnic was luxurious: croissant, olives, baguette, duck pate and a selection of rich, fancy cheeses from La Fromagerie, the snobby cheese place in my ‘hood. Me, my sister, and The Girlfriend. It was friendly, silly…and delicious.

I know, I know, it’s poured rain ever since, but really, folks, you have to seize the moment.

On a gentle, warm Monday summer evening this week, The Girlfriend and I headed to High Park, picnic knapsack in hand. The park felt intimate, with just a few frisbeeing, fishing, jogging, dogwalking and picnic-ing souls. We parked our plaid blankets by Grenadier Pond and feasted on the following menu:

Watermelon feta salad
Churrasco chicken
Sundried Tomato Pasta Salad
Greens with lemon, olive oil and sea salt
Strongbow cider and Creemore beer
Blueberries and raspberries for dessert

It was all yummy (although I’d forgotten how salty the churrasco chicken is, how it needs something bland, like bread or potatoes, alongside). But the watermelon salad (recipe below) stole the salad show, I must say. And the cider matched the chicken perfectly.

The hues of the water changed subtly from jade to dark green. The ducks took little delicate swims. Dorky men in golfshirts and shorts appeared at the edges of the pond for solitary bouts of fishing. The Girlfriend and I leaned into each other, nibbled on berries and talked about sweet, funny things.

We ended the night with incredible house-made ice cream from Ed’s Real Scoop (2224 Queen St. E), at the other end of town, in The Beach (we have a long distance relationship, The Girlfriend and I). Spicy chocolate and blood orange: quite the sexy sexy combo.

Been on any picnics lately?

Watermelon Salad

This salad is fast, pretty, refreshing and different, and goes well with grilled chicken or alongside a grain-based salad. Make it at the last minute and prepare only as much as you need: it doesn’t keep well.

1/4 medium-sized watermelon
1/4 red onion, diced finely (I used green onions, which also works)
1 stalk celery, 1/4 inch dice
1 T finely chopped parsley
1 T finely chopped basil or mint (optional)
1/2 pitted kalamata olives (I used a jar of sliced, to save time - just as good)
1 t extra virgin olive oil
1/2 c crumbled feta

Cube or melon ball the watermelon; reserve.
In a medium bowl, combine everything else. Drain watermelon (it will continue to produce juice) and toss gently with ingredients in bowl.

Serves 4

It’s 9 a.m. on a glorious July morning. My 81-and-a-half-year-old mother taps her foot impatiently.

I try my best to ignore her. I’m inhaling coffee and adjusting to my new environment. After one month on a remote island and three days in the Comox Valley, I’m jangled to find myself in Edmonton. It’s relatively quiet in my ma’s condo but even so, I find the traffic and construction sounds disturbing. And then there’s the audio track of my mother’s impatient sighs.

It’s Saturday. It’s Market Day.

I gulp back the last of my coffee, grab my knapsack, my sunglasses and my chapeau. That wide Alberta sky can deliver serious rays. My ma herds me to the bus, and then, just as quickly, herds me off. Are. You. Sure. I ask. This ain’t where we used to go to market years ago: a sad, dusty indoor place that’s been around since the 60’s. Yes. I’m. Sure. she says haughtily and disappears into a crowd.

This is a delightful surprise: a sizeable outdoor Edmonton Farmer’s Market spanning two city blocks.

I speed up, trying to track my Ma’s white hairdo in the crowd. She’s already bought rhubarb, poppyseed roll and cherries by the time I catch up. She’s excited about the cherries: We’ll. Make. Cherry. Perogies. she says. I manage to score some organic garlic scapes and kale from a charming vegan couple who host the only organic booth at the market. Local raspberries, and honey face cream from Coal Lake Honey Farm start to weigh down my bags.

Oddly, there’s a Sobey’s Supermarket next to the outdoor market. My ma concludes her high-speed shopping by roaming the fancy aisles, which span both groceries and a kind of upscale cafeteria, She’s got a routine. Now. We. Have. Lunch. she says firmly. She spoons herself some mushroom soup from a steaming cauldron and heads, with great dignity and determination, to a cafe table.

I know those soups. They’re salty and greasy. My Ma slurps hers with enormous satisfaction. She has high blood pressure, and most of the time she eats pretty healthy. But sometimes the lady needs a break.

I slip out and grab shrimp ceviche from a Mexican takeout trailer I noticed at the market. I sneak it back in and join my ma. It’s delicious, tangy and spicy. My mother shakes her head in mock-exasperation as I finish my illicit nosh. She’s had a bit of an outing, got her shopping done, had a visit with me. She looks happy, satisfied.

As we head back on the bus, I wonder how the coming week - the length of my visit - will go. There are spaces as large as frozen fields between us, differences impossible to bridge. There’s no way I can understand what it has meant for her to have her body ravaged by cancer. What it’s like to eat only pureed foods; to wheeze constantly; to speak through a tube in your throat.

She’ll never get the queer details of my life, what it means for me to have a lover that i can’t really talk about, someone who fills me with an intense joy that I have to hide from her. What it’s like to constantly edit those queer details: in the classroom, in the lunchroom; in her very own kitchen. What effect that’s had on my intimate relationships: sometimes, it just didn’t seem worth the trouble it would cause.

But for now there is soup to be made. I have bought local hothouse tomatoes, cucumber, peppers. When we get home, I will make my mother a fragrant gazpacho.

Sometimes, it’s the food and not the words that bridges the gap.

Gazpacho Soup

Ingredients:

2 1/2 pounds vine-ripened tomatoes, chopped
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
1 small fresh jalapeño chili, or to taste, seeded and chopped (wear rubber gloves)
1 small onion, chopped
1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
3 large garlic cloves, minced and mashed to a paste with 3/4 teaspoon salt
enough white bread, crusts removed and bread torn into pieces, to measure 2 cups (about 4 slices)
3 tablespoons red-wine vinegar, or to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
ice water for thinning soup
croutons (optional)

In a blender purée chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeño, onion, and cucumber, garlic paste, bread, vinegar, oil, and salt and pepper to taste. The soup will taste better if it’s chilled for a few hours.

Thin soup with ice water and serve topped with croutons.

Now that the sun is here to stay, and the beach is a swath of cool relief from hot days, visitors are arriving on this island. There are the summer people and the weekend people, and there are my friends.

Before they come, they ask what to bring. Bedding? Booze? Camping supplies? Just bring ingredients and a recipe for one meal I say.

I meet friends at the ferry and watch covertly as tension disappears from their faces. It happens sometime between the end of the ferry ride and the middle of walking up the second hill. They arrive at this shady cabin and unload their food supplies. They always bring more than a meal: The Performance Artist, exceedingly generous in her foodways, immediately set out appetizers: dark seedy crackers and gouda cheese. She confided that she had, on her way to the ferry, hopped a cab to a fancy Vancouver food store, Urban Fare, to buy morels and gnocchi for her meal. You. Are. Way. Out. Of. My. League. I said to her.

It’s fun to see what people bring and how they cook. It gives them a way to participate, gives me a break from my sometimes rigid old world hostessing agenda.

Performance Artist cooked up a delicious cream sauce for the morels – sans recipe – making it up as she went along. She cooks the ways she makes art, spontaneously, loosely. She created a new salad by gathering the salmonberries that are everywhere on the island, and sprinkling them onto mixed greens with slivered almonds (you could do this with raspberries too).

We took a trip into Gibson’s to check out the Fiddlehead Farmer’s Market: garlic scapes and arugula got added to our meals. But the highlight was really the Salvation Army thrift store, full of four dollar vintage gems.

The Anthropologist arrived a day after Performance Artist left. She never cooks, she says, so the imperative to bring a meal threw her for a loop. She was intimidated, perhaps even scared. She went online.

That night for dinner we had butter chicken that came out of a plastic bag. It had been ordered from a student-run company that brings meals to your door. She brought naan bread, too, and I found some lime pickle in the fridge. It was smooth and tasty comfort food.

In between meals we walked the trails, light streaming through branches, foxglove swaying like vertical prayer banners, birds declaiming their raucous speech. Both of my friends are moms and their relief at being away for just a couple of days was palpable.

These summer days, fleeting and lovely.

Have you ever cooked or baked with salmonberries?

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Happy lesbian /gay/ queer pride day!