Back to England

I spent two years living in England as a kid. I can still recall so many tastes and smells: Bird’s Custard, yellow and smooth, floating over and around an apple crumble. The little bottles of milk and foil-wrapped biscuits they gave us every morning at school. Lime cordial. Shandy. Hovis bread.The smell of hedges,…

Vancouver Island Food

The air….aromatherapy with the smell of lilacs salt water honeysuckle and the light gold at the edges of the day swathes of green sloping up to robin’s egg blue sky flowers in front of every house, an embarrassment of riches and of the course the ocean (succulent Fanny Bay oysters fried up and loaded…

Harvest Queen

When I was a teenager, fresh and angry with newfound feminism, I did the strangest thing. I agreed to compete in the Harvest Queen Festival. This was a yearly fundraiser for my church. A lineup of girls had to sell raffle tickets, compete in a talent competition, and attend the Harvest Ball wearing a…