Recipes for Trouble

The writing is slow, the writing is fast. The writing takes the time it was meant to take. The writing does not respond to: This is the only time there is, or, I need to get something written so I can go swimming. The writing takes its own sweet damn time.

But here, where I am, there is time, and I feel the fullness of it, every day.

I’m on Gambier Island again, my quiet refuge amid the cedars. There are 140 permanent residents on this island, and no car ferry, (you have to bring your car in on a barge if you need one), just a small boat for walk-on passengers lugging all manner of carts and wheely devices.

So everyone knows everyone else and no doubt they now know about me, the writer girl staying in L’s place, and they’re kind, and only slightly curious. Are. You. The. One. Who. Wrote. The. Cookbook. asks Margaret, owner of the island’s only B&B, leaning out the window of her dusty old car. Food Memoir. I say, and then, Yes. That’s. Me. .

She tells me she liked it, I tell her I’m writing a sequel. Great. I’ll. Buy. It. she says briskly in her crisp British accent and zooms up the hill. She’s offered me a ride but I’m already committed to the first person who offered, and as I head to her car, lugging my groceries, three other people offer to drive me to my cabin.

That’s the kind of place it is.

The heat has slammed this island, just as it has the Lower Mainland, so I’m cooking and baking irregularly. But a visit from The Blue-Eyed Stranger inspired a mouth-puckeringly sour apricot galette (not quite in season: we slathered it with whipped cream), and my romance with shrimps and prawns continues.

Last week I bough $6 worth of tiger prawns from the fish store in Gibson’s and fried them up my favourite way with cherry tomatoes, garlic and lemon. But on the weekend we got all fancy with fresh side stripe shrimp, making a luscious pasta sauce with them, recipe below.

We ate that pasta so fast and so reverently, no one even thought to take a photo.

Pasta with Shrimp and Creamy Tomato Sauce
Serves4
(Adapted from Gourmet.com)

The addition of the sweet vermouth here punctuates the natural sweetness of the canned tomatoes, making this quick sauce taste as if it’s been simmered for hours.

* 3 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 lb peeled large shrimp
* 3 large garlic cloves, forced through a garlic press
* 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1/2 cup sweet (red) vermouth
* 1 (14- to 15-oz) can diced tomatoes, drained
* 3/4 cup heavy cream
* 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
* 1/2 lb pasta (I used linguini)

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers, then cook shrimp and garlic with oregano, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, turning once, until golden, about 2 minutes total. Stir in vermouth and tomatoes, scraping up any brown bits from bottom of skillet. Add cream and briskly simmer until sauce has thickened slightly, about 1 minute. Stir in lemon juice.

Meanwhile, cook pasta in a pot of boiling salted water (3 tablespoons salt for 6 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1 cup pasta-cooking water, then drain pasta.

Serve immediately, topped with shrimp and sauce. Thin with some of reserved water if necessary.

The cherries on my backyard tree fed the birds while I was in Europe…

but I had a cherry party anyway.

Neighbours came from across the street and across the city

bearing all manner of cherry concoction, including cherry /goat cheese tarts, cherried chicken, pork kebabs with cherry marinade, cherry/feta/romaine salad….

But as is usually the case with a cherry party, the desserts stole the show.

Cherry clafouti, cherry pie, and a cherry-centric fruit salad by Hair Dude and Librarian, topped with creamy custard and meringues….

The Diasporic Filmmaker said, sounding for all the world like an Iron Chef contestant, It. Was. A. Good. Challenge.

7:30 a.m.
I wake up at a bed and breakfast that has no real breakfast. (It’s actually a student residence) – they hand you a bag that contains a muffin, a pouch of instant coffee, a tea bag, and apple juice when you arrive, as well as vouchers to present daily for the exact same rations. The voucher system is faintly humiliating, but that’s the least of my problems. I am deeply and profoundly addicted to coffee. I make myself a cup of tea and head out into the drizzle, headachey, hungry, yet doggedly determined to fulfill a day of tourism before my second conference of this trip begins.

8:30 a.m.
A meandering bus takes me into Glasgow’s city centre. Part of the trip reveals stunning Victorian architecture, while the core, with boarded up shops and pedestrian malls reminds me of London Ontario, a strange and unfortunate flashback. As I get off near the train station, a Starbuck’s appears before me, a corporate mirage. I stumble in blindly, order the largest latte possible, and suck at it like it’s mother’s milk.

9 a.m.
I find the train station, My plan is to take a train to the Aireshire coast and then a ferry to the Isle of Cumbrae where there are hills and ocean and hiking trails, a mere 1.5 hours from Glasgow. But first, a traditional Scottish breakfast – a puzzling array of meats, potato scone, single fried egg, grilled tomato and canned beans. The kind of breakfast a shipbuilder or an ironworker or a miner would take before heading off to do manly labour. Or, perhaps, a tourist about to hike in the pouring rain.

Noon
Arrive in Largs to a grey, chill downpour. Largs is a charming small town full of second hand stores and a tea shop where I have so-called Devon scones with strawberries. Only one very wilted strawberry: perhaps the s is a typo. Perhaps I’ve been had.

1 p.m.
The rain has abated somewhat, and here I am, in a a tiny seaside town, crooked shops and pubs hugging a curved rocky coast. Shopkeepers stand in the their doors and stare at me.

I pop into a pub and order fish and chips. Scottish chips are puffy and large, these taste frozen. The fish seems fresh, and has a breaded coating, a nice touch. I try the mushy peas, they taste like cold pea soup: I almost gag. I find out later the peas are characteristic of northern U.K.: dried marrowfat peas soaked overnight then boiled up with sugar. Perhaps a way to get some of the minerals and protein legumes can provide, when fresh veg were scarce.

7 p.m.
I’ve hiked the hills, seen a poignantly beautiful old graveyard, rolling hills and stunning views of the isles. The fog in my head has cleared, and I’m ready to re-enter the world of words, theories and intellectual labour again. I’m also ready for dinner, while fearing what horrors it may hold.

Back in Largs, I search for bread and cheese to take with me on the train. A helpful townswoman directs me to Iceland, which is fascinating: a store entirely devoted to frozen foods – even the bread and cheese are cryogenically preserved. Back at the Glasgow train station I end up buying a tasty couscous salad from Marks and Spencers’ food outlet, Simply Food.

Glass and metal arches swoop over train platforms, and commuters buy takeaway before heading home.

Usually, food isn’t the first thing you think of at a conference.

A quick breakfast as you finish writing your paper, gallons of coffee at the break, some fast food crap for lunch. Hors d’oeuvres at receptions, gulped back while schmoozing. One conference I was at, dinner consisted of takeout that I brought to my hotel room.

But here in Amsterdam, at The Ends of Television Conference, they feed us.

At lunch, after papers on such topics as “Televisual Phantoms in the Built Environment: Sensate Publics and Acoustic Architectures,” and “Cultural Broadcasting in the Age of Digital Reproduction,” we sit at long wooden tables and eat delicious sandwiches on good Dutch bread, with salad and fruit. It’s here that I meet The Cypriot and The Polish Sophisticate, and The British Theorist, who becomes my friend.

At the end of the day we are invited out to a beautiful courtyard, with tall tables covered with white linen and rows of wine glasses. We eat caprese salad kebabs, and pickled herring rolled around olives, and small spicy red peppers stuffed with goat cheese.

The communal eating (which I notice is also a fixture of many of the outdoor cafes in the city) humanizes us. The astringent competitiveness, so often present at academic events, is neutralized by the flavours of smoked salmon, Gouda cheese, the fresh pungency of an orange.

I give a talk on the last day, “Girly Men and Mannish Technologies: Social Discourses of HDTV”. There are five of us on a 11/2 hr long panel. It could easily be a site of tension and irritability. But we all co-operate as we set up, help one another. The Austrian Industry Guy cues up my Youtube clips for me as I talk. I promise to send him an article I wrote on television and mobility, which he might find useful for his work.

It’s all because of the food.

Later, several of us walk slowly to Spui Strasse, and find a tapas bar. We linger over grilled sardines, tortilla, spinach with pine nuts and raisins, Dutch beer.

The Eccentric Grad Student tells British Theorist about her dissertation, he listens intently. I tell The UK Guys about my film, and they nod, solemnly, ask questions.

A band of Roma musicians serenades us, we dig in our pockets for Euros. A cat brushes against my feet, the waiter tells me the cat is pregnant, I give her the last of the sardines.