Help, I need an assistant

Wow do I ever need an assistant!?!  Now I know what you are thinking.  How can I possibly need an assistant when I am only one person working on a single cookbook one step at a time?  Well, that is exactly why I need an assistant!  Why should I be the only one suffering through all this tedium?  Why should be I be the only one standing at the water cooler with no one to gripe to about all my work?  Okay so my watercooler is my own kitchen sink!  Why should I have to have a sore back, tired eyes which are quickly developing squint lines, aching sides and stiff fingers from all this typing?  Why shouldn’t I have some perky, young, overly-ambitious assistant to pawn all the boring jobs off onto, who I can become insanely jealous of their exciting social life and a little darkly paranoid that they are going to take my job someday and probably do it even better than I do!

Okay so why the sudden complaining?  I am spend over four hours today already typing out email address of news organizations, magazines, news services so when I finally finish the cookbook I can send out press releases announcing that I am done!  I did some research and found out of course there are lots of services to send my press releases out for me, probably to more sites that I can imagine, for only a measly, bargain basement, run out the door for the crazy discounted price of $2500 for a single press release.  Yup, just one page can cost you that much money.  So I said to myself well back to the drawing board and I have started doing some research on my own to build my own email list.  Unfortunately, do you have any idea how many newspapers alone there are in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada to start let alone the rest of the English speaking world!!  Let’s just say I will be transcribing these addresses for weeks.  When I finally have the list complete, it will be probably be more valuable than the actual cookbook!  Maybe I should sell it rather than recipes.  Just so you have a picture of the tedium ( and I hate this kind of work with a deep seated almost pathological hatred) first I found a website that lists, by state, every newspaper in the United States.  So I start with the first state, open it up, and there is a list of newspapers in that state.  Then I have to click the hyperlink for each one, search their home page for their contact us page, then click it, copy the email address for the news or food editor into my Word document, then go back all the way to the list by state and go onto the next one.  Newspaper by newspaper, state by state, till I get through the United States and then it is on to the United Kingdom and Canada.  Can you imagine the glamour!?!  I will be at this forever.  I think this is one of those, I just have to do it, things to make this adventure successful, but wow, is this boring!  Any volunteers to join me in some mindless work!

Swimming in salmon recipes

Well here is the excitement in my life this afternoon.  I am sorting through salmon recipes.  Aren’t you jealous?  Pretty regular afternoon around here.  We did some cleaning, I have been working on recipes and we talked about some more firm plans for the kitchen.  It feels really good planning for our future.  Tonight we are going to join friends for a surprise birthday party for a good friend, Ranjita.  She is turning the big thirty and we are going to a great restaurant.  It used to be a manor house, a country seat in the late 1800s and is now converted into a magnificent restaurant.  I am really looking forward to celebrating and I have of course already drooled all over the menu online so I am certain the food is going to be delicious!  It should be a fun night tonight and then up early tomorrow to meet my parents and take them to see our new home.  We only have an hour with our agent to get some measurements and show them around so afterwards we are going to take them out for brunch.  My guy has to go into work in the afternoon for a meeting, bit of a pain, so I will have the house to myself tomorrow afternoon. Sounds like the ideal time to have some uninterrupted, serious, get some work done time!  And of course play in the kitchen making Sunday dinner.  Hope you are having a good weekend.

A load off my mind

Today is turning out to be a pretty good day.  First, we have arranged with our real estate agent to go back to our new home for a visit on Sunday morning.  We can only have an hour but I want to go back and get the exact measurements of the kitchen so we can start designing our dream renovation.  It is kind of a small space so we have to think of innovative ways to maximize the space and make the kitchen as functional and as beautiful as possible.  There is already a built in pantry which will lessen the need for some cupboards and this is the first time that I will have a basement and lots of storage for my excess cooking pots and pans!  I can spread out for the first time. And can you imagine this is the first house I will have lived in throughout my entire life that has two bathrooms?  And I grew up in a house with four kids, two parents and one bathroom!  Seems positively inhumane but we survived happily.  Hopefully my parents will be able to come down to the city this weekend to see the house with us since they haven’t seen it yet.  They were pretty excited when we told them last week so it would be lovely if they could come down.

And the other great news I received today is this:  I got to chat with an old friend who I haven’t heard from in probably nine months and he can help me with the layout of the cookbook!  My friend Todd and I worked together for years.  We went our separate ways but have stayed friends and Todd is an expert in publishing.  He was the production manager at the company for which we worked and he is a genius with Quark and InDesign.  Yup, that’s right, InDesign the program that has been plaguing me and giving me sleepless nights.  All I can picture is me muddling through using the program and in the end completely screwing it up and the cookbook coming out printed all wrong.  Todd has offered to help me and check my work so I am suddenly feeling much more confident and relaxed about it.  A big load off my mind.  And if I am a complete loser in figuring it out, Todd has said he is happy to help in any way he can!  Creating and producing this cookbook is really making me realize how talented all my friends are in so many different ways and how together we can all make it happen.  I have never felt more supported in something in my life.  I truly have amazing friends

Snorkel casserole

So last night, I went with my dear friend Maryann and Julia out for dinner.  Just the three of us, just to catch up.  We had a marvelous time, as we always do, laughing, talking.  We had a good meal and suddenly the evening was over.  And here is my question:  when did a bowl of spicy Shanghai noodles with crisp vegetables and a delicious glass (admittedly an oversized one) of deep red Sangiovese wine suddenly cost 35 bucks, 40 with a tip?  Seriously, I remember when 4o dollars was my grocery bill for the week.  Don’t laugh we all remember those days, the days where cheap pork steaks riddled with fat, after being marinated in soy sauce and cooked in garlic, were a gourmet treat, where we had fifty different ways to prepare Kraft dinner, where soup could be stretched by constantly adding water to the kettle! All kidding aside, I remember running out of money at the end of the semester at university and eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch and for dinner for a month till school ended.  

But you know, I imagine every family has a story of a crazy recipe that your mother served that somehow became a family favourite.  In our case, it was something my mother called snorkel casserole.  I have no idea where the name came from except maybe she dreamt it up while looking down at hungry faces standing in the kitchen fresh in from playing outside.  I asked my mother once about it and she remembers it clearly.  There was absolutely nothing in the cupboards to make for dinner and three days till payday and there she was faced with two young children and my father to feed that evening.  So with the creativity of all mothers, she rummaged through the cupboards and threw together a casserole. And what a crazy combination it was:  a couple of sliced onions on the bottom of the disk, some frozen peas tossed in, a couple of potatoes sliced and put in the pan, a handful of white rice and strangely a can of Campbell’s vegetable soup and a half a can of water poured over it all.  Mom fried some breakfast sausages found at the back of the freezer and laid them in rows over the top and baked it all for an hour.  When we pulled up our chairs for dinner, my mother announced that tonight for dinner we were having snorkel casserole so dive in. And you know what it was really tasty; it quickly became my brother’s favourite dinner and even now he will make it as an adult for himself, long after my mother stopped.  I always laugh at that dish, but I know every family has a similar story, a story of bare cupboards and your mother’s ingenuity and a new family favourite is born.  Feeding your guy on a dime and prayer.  Last night I laughed to think how fortunate I am right now that I can toss down two twenty dollar bills for nothing more than a bowl of noodles and fermented grapes.  Times of changed but I know the day will come when my cupboards are looking equally bare and payday is a few days away and I pray that I will be as committed, ingenious and resourceful as my mother and that I can do it as cheerfully as she did, smiling, as she put snorkel casserole down on the kitchen table.    

The glories of peanut butter and jam sandwiches

I learned yesterday that the average child will eat over 1500 peanut butter and jam sandwiches before they graduate from high school!  Now admittedly, this is probably a uniquely North American behaviour and taste but one that was certainly true for me!  How many of us can remember those peanut butter and jam sandwiches, taken from your lunch bag and eaten at your desk in grade school, seated on hard green formed seats, that green metal tube traversing from your seat to the table, the top of your desk scratched and etched by fellow class mates of years past.  Open the now wrinkled wax paper and taking out your sandwich, the white bread slightly squished, the peanut butter warm, the jam escaping from the sides, the taste delicious!  Even now nothing speaks of comfort food more to me than a PB sandwich or toast with peanut butter and jam.  Despite tasting foods from around the world, and filling my cupboards with goodies both exotic and local, I still reach for peanut butter and homemade jam, made by my mother’s hand and now even by mine, slathered on bread and enjoyed with a cold glass of milk.  A timeless classic!

Hippo beef: a dormitory favourite

I had lunch today in the lunchroom at the office.  I carried my lonely little salad across the office and sat down at a table in the lunchroom.  Already eating, I looked up when someone sat down at my table and, to my surprise, I had no idea who they were.  By the end of hour, however, we had become fast friends. It has made me think today of university, those golden hued days of memory, of setting out for university, those lonely terrifying first weeks when you are anxiously approaching each day worrying if you will succeed at school but more so worrying whether you will find a new circle of friends, the terrifying exhilaration of living away from home for the first time, so many firsts, first year, first dorm, first friend, first groove.  Today in the lunchroom I couldn’t help but be reminded of the dining hall at my dorm at school.  I remember those endlessly high brown brick walls, the abstract art on them, placed more to fill the space than for any artistic merit, the rows upon rows of Formica topped tables, collapsible chairs repeatedly filled by the hungry and just as quickly abandoned, forlorn until being refilled, an endless cycle of meetings and break ups, all encircling food. 

Now as a food lover, the dining hall was a heavenly place for me, even if the food wasn’t always first class.  Our food provider was named Beaver foods, not an auspicious start to a culinary experience since typically the only beavers I came in touch with were lifeless and smashed on the side of the road.  But I have to admit to falling in love with the endless parade of new dishes presented to the weary, the hungry, the aimless student class.  I also came to recognize the patterns as we saddled up the trough as the semester progressed.  Hip of Beef, unfortunately presented on the sign advertising it with an apostrophe leading to colloquial references to hippo beef, was Thursday’s offering, breaded nondescript fish served Fridays, Monday were leftovers not so cleverly disguised as Shepherd’s pie.  Always there were the faithful offerings of fries with gravy, soups of last night’s vegetables.  While on holidays even now, I am instantly transported back to school whenever I eat a sandwich sold in a plastic triangle container.  You know what I mean, a sandwich, mass produced with egg salad or tuna or roast beef and hard, processed cheese, served cut diagonally, its innards splayed forward at which the world can gawk, its crusts pointed back into the plastic corner, and then the whole thing covered in vacuum sealed see-through plastic like a window-adorned coffin with the drapes pulled aside.  I ate endless sandwiches presented to me thus and that bread always had a slightly stiff texture, as though it had been embalmed with formaldehyde, a corpse of a sandwich rather than a fresh one. 

But it was the companionship of that hall that amazed me.  It was where you made your first friends, over a plate of spaghetti. It was the first easy place to take a roommate from your dorm or friend from class when your friendship wasn’t yet strong enough for a restaurant or a movie, your uncertainty with them and your conversations was covered by the noise of the dining hall. It was a cheap first date with that special someone, a place where you could both escape from a bad date easily, where going Dutch only involved swiping your meal plan card, where again any awkward silences were covered by the din of the hall. I remember friends who I would see every day, but only ever in the dining hall, never in dorm, never class, never out of class, only in the dining hall, friends of circumstance, routine, class schedules and shared tables.  But there were part of the fabric of that place, as much as grey hippo beef congealing in gravy or the constant scrape of chairs being pushed back. Today’s easy conversation with a work colleague I had never met over a salad brought from home in a plastic Tupperware container reminded so strongly of the old days, when making friends was as easy as swiping your meal plan card, scraping back a chair, plopping down your plastic tray covered in food your mother would never prepare for you and launching into conversation. 

Just a wonderfully ordinary day

A new week has started and to be honest it has been a fairly ordinary day so far.  I just had a great salad of spinach, oranges, blueberries, blackberries, almonds, raisins and sunflower seeds.  I love playing with the ingredients of my salads; hey if it tastes good, I am more likely to eat my greens!  Today’s task: spend two hours transcribing recipes.  I have decided to give myself mini-goals, since they are easier to achieve.  Focus on what I have to do today, stick to the plan and tomorrow will take care of itself. Weeknights will be best for working on the cookbook now since the weekends will quickly get filled with moving, packing, choosing paint colours and massaging knots and strains from my guy’s shoulders!!!

Created a delicious new dish

Another great day today.  I got up relatively early and did some work for the office, writing performance reviews and catching up on emails.  We had a nice breakfast and then decadently and indulgently we went back to bed and had a big nap for another two hours.  I spent the afternoon ironing, and cleaning, the regular stuff and tonight I made a great Indian meal from scratch, rice, aloo gobi (curried cauliflower and potatoes), dal malkani (dark lentils and red kidney beans).  And the best to share, I created a great spinach dish.  I love creamed spinach but it is too fattening and not particularly healthy but I do love it.  So I sauted some garlic in a little olive oil and added a tonne of fresh baby spinach.  I wilted the spinach and then added a teaspoon of stone ground, rough Dijon mustard and a scant half cup of milk to the pan.  I mixed them together and simmered it really slowly stirring occasionally to keep it from sticky until the milk had mostly evaporated.  At dinner, I couldn’t get enough of it.  It was scrumptious.  If you have a loved one that is not fussy on their greens, this was a great way to have it, and frankly I could have eaten a whole pan of it!  But then what can you expect from someone whose favourite vegetable is Brussels sprouts!  I love them steam, served hot with a little vinegar on them. I can eat a whole bowl happily and without guilt!  I have figured out today which recipes to test and transcribe next but happily back in the race.  Sunday evening, the evening of indulgent pleasures, bittersweet knowledge of a weekend ending, meals in candlelight and soft pillows, comfy couches and favourite television programs with your guy.  We always try to slow down for dinner on Sunday, open some wine or have a beer, light some candles and mark the beginning of the week.  Hope your evening is just as wonderful!

Happily back amid my recipes

Saturday evening and I am back at it.  We have had a pretty good day today, off picking up packing boxes, wrapping and bubble paper.  We did a few groceries and then back home to start figuring out our plan to move!  And we have even started cleaning out all the detritus of life!  It is truly amazing to me the amount of stuff we save, thinking that one day we will use that little bit of wire, of twine, that empty margarine container or glass jar that came with Christmas bonbons in it.  And now that we are moving it suddenly looks like garbage and very quickly finds itself in the garbage bag headed for the door.  I love downsizing; it appeals to my need for simplicity and minimalism.  The house is top of mind right now.  And it was funny, I was telling all our friends and family and heard back from close friends that they too have started the house search and are currently looking in the old neighbourhood that we were looking in, equally without success and with just as much despair and frustration.  I know what they are going through and I laughed at myself when I was consoling them that the right house was out there for them. Even a week ago I was despairing of ever finding something that would suit us and now suddenly I have a home and am the one being perky and optimistic for others!  Oh how life suddenly changes.  They let me in a joyous secret that I have to keep for a little while longer but suffice it to say, with this news, they will definitely need more room.  I so excited for them and since I am absolutely rotten at keeping secrets I better stop talking about it!

I am also back to the cookbook.  I have some recipes to transcribe tonight and have a little to do list beside me here at my desk.  I need to get back to some of the models who have emailed asking if the pictures are available to see and I need to arrange some time to catch up with Lesley to discuss which ones to touch up prior to publication.  It feels good to be focused again on it.  I have missed it that is for sure.  It honestly feels like a homecoming, like slipping into a warm bath, like greeting an old friend by chance on a busy street and seeing only the wrinkles of laughter around their eyes and feeling the warmth of their hug.  I love this journey and it never feels like work when I am still and sitting here, amid my recipes, dreaming of how I want the cookbook.   

What kind of new kitchen do I want?

Today it is completely official.  We have signed our last set of forms, the fulfillment of conditions and the house is all ours!  I am so contented right now.  And best of all, after work, my guy and I are off to Ikea to dream about our new kitchen. The space isn’t that large so we will have to be creative.  Once idea already has sunk into place. The kitchen in our new home is small but has a pass through to the dining room.  My guy came up with the idea to cut the pass through completely out and open the kitchen in an open kitchen format right into the dining room.  We would replace the pass through with an island on wheels, with cupboards and drawers below and a marble or granite top.  That way, when I am working in the kitchen, I can use it as counter space, if the two of us are in the kitchen, we can push it out slightly to give us more room to manoeuvre and if we are having a party, we can wheel it completely out, place it against the wall and use it as a place for a buffet spread.  I think the idea is ingenious, I love it.  Very flexible and let’s face it you can always use more counter space.  In our condo right now, we have lots of deep drawers rather than cupboards to put your pots and pans and such in and I want to continue that in the new kitchen.  It is so much easy to pull out a drawer and select the pot you want rather than kneeling down and digging through the cupboard.  This afternoon will be lots of dreaming and compromising but I think really exciting.  I am going to have a new kitchen to cook in, in our new home.  I will have to figure out which dish to first prepare to christen the kitchen!!!  And amid all of this, some painting, tiling and other renovations, packing to move, I still have to keep myself focused on my cookbook!!!  All the more reason now to work on it.  We take possession of our house in early February and the day after taking possession we are leaving for a week’s vacation to the Dominican Republic!  Talk about taking a break after shopping!  We can take our time moving in since there is no rush to leave our condo and we have to decide yet what to do with it, rent it out or sell it.  But everything in its stride; lots of reasons these days to be happy.

We got it! We bought our first home

We got it!  We got it!  We got it!! We are now the proud owners of our first home together and I couldn’t be happier.  It all seems suddenly too easy, finding it on Sunday and everything has gone right since.  The house felt like home once we walked in.  We have been dreaming together about how we might renovate and decorate it to make it ours.  And last night, the negotiations went awesome.  We paid only what we wanted to pay, no excess and we take possession in only three weeks! Our agent, Gina Roman, was a miracle worker!  Seriously if you need a referral for a great agent, let me know I would recommend her in a heartbeat.   Today our mortgage broker had some other ideas for us to save some money on taxes as a first time home owner which is even better; we will save another four thousand dollars in taxes, money which I can immediately put to good use in renovating the kitchen to the kitchen of my dreams.  It was a wonderful night and there is no feeling in the world like one when you are driving home in dark, lit only by streetlights, in the car with your guy, knowing you have your first home together.  I am so happy.  And to add to my happiness I came to work today to find out our bonuses for the year will be even higher than expected.  And great surprise and joy.  What a month this has been, first New Year’s in old Quebec city, then the photo shoot for the cookbook cover, then travel for work last week and buying our first home this week, and now my bonus.  I can’t imagine what next week will hold.  We are so blessed right now, prayers have been answered and gratitude and thanks are due.  Blissfully happy, with dreams of new kitchens dancing in my head!

In a waiting game

Well we are deep in the midst of negotiating for our new house, lost deep in the woods of despair, following a path of crumbs laid only with hope that a house will be at the end of the trail, with few fine rays of hope shining through, occasional showers of happiness.  Well that was the weather report, but to be honest, this is stressful.  We completed the offer last night but are not presenting it until tonight and just over lunch my guy called me to say the agent had discovered a possible other bidder for our home.  Like a dark, menacing outrider heading for town, I feel like I need to be a gunslinger and find myself squarely in the middle of the dusty road, the tavern doors still swinging, watching this imposter riding towards me and my house, trying to snatch it from me!  Well we will put up a fight tonight, but fortunately we have talked a lot about this purchase and know our spending limit so hopefully we will be successful and win this house.  Or maybe, at the expense of someone else’s calamity, maybe the other bidder will get stuck in traffic or find their dinner too delicious to leave or suddenly find some terribly interesting on television and be detained. Maybe I should go cook for them to distract them! 

I have to admit though all this house hunting has definitely hurt my progress on the cookbook.  I have looked through the photos for the cookbook cover and have started to short list them but I have more work to do and haven’t even had time to let Lesley know my progress or which ones to touch up.  Lesley if you are reading this, sorry!  I will get there.  I think I may choose three or four of them and then find twenty five people or so and show them all three and have them tell me which photo makes them feel most happy.  Just an instant reaction.  It will help me choose and honestly when anyone looks for the first time at the cookbook I want them to feel instantly happy and relate to it.  I want using the cookbook to be a fun and happy experience.  Unlike my experience right now of my progress, don’t even talk to me about how I am doing transcribing recipes, building the website or learning InDesign.  I am doing well if feeling guilty I am not doing more.  Okay a bright side, if we get the house tonight, I will have a new kitchen to cook in and a new office to work on the cookbook in!

Nerves and hopes

Here it is Tuesday and I am pretty excited, nervous as well.  Tonight we are going to go see the house we found on Sunday with our agent.  It is much different than what we had been looking at previously and in a completely different part of town but I think it will suit us just fine.  It is close to both our work places, close to shops and restaurants, has a small yard and the house itself is in good shape and much bigger than the other houses we had been looking at downtown.  So now tonight the bargaining and big decisions have to happen. I am trying hard not to get my hopes up too high as anything can happen but I can totally see us making a home there.  And oh the kitchen, it is big enough that my guy can do some renovations and build me my dream kitchen!!!  He can have the rec room with the oversized television all he likes as long as I get my kitchen!  It is the first house that I have truly been able to see us living in and I can pictures dinners, parties, celebrations and holidays in that house.  See dreaming again.  Better stop dreaming and let the day pass by here at work and then some quick prayers before seeing the agent.  Keep your fingers crossed!

A new house and a new kitchen - keep your fingers crossed

Just a quick update today.  I have had a great day.  I spent the morning cooking and tried out a new recipe for dinner. We just finished and there is nothing more satisfying than seeing the happy, contented look on my guy’s face after dinner.  In a little while, we are going to collapse on the couch and enjoy a slice of lemon meringue pie!  Yumm.  But most exciting, we spent the afternoon house hunting and I think we finally found it!  We are going to go back to see it with our agent on Tuesday night and if everything goes well, make an offer!! I am so excited.  We have waited a long time to find one we love and to move from the condo.  I love the condo but we really do need more room and it will be our first home, chosen and purchased together.  Of course at dinner, we scribbled ideas on how to renovate the kitchen, my first order of priority!  I am trying not to get my hopes up too high in case it falls through and we don’t get it but it is so great to dream.  Keep your fingers crossed, I may have a new kitchen and a new cookbook all at the same time.  How great would that be?

Getting my vitamins in a big bowl of homemade soup

I woke up this morning to an incredible snow storm!  Beautiful snow falling, blowing, sometimes a white out where you can’t see across the street.  I love days like this, days that make you want to just spend the day inside, make a big pot of soup, slice some hearty bread and cheese, and snuggle up with a  good book. So that’s exactly what I did already this morning.  I got out the cutting board, piled the counter with fresh vegetables and basil and made a big pot of homemade minestrone soup!  It smells so good right now, simmering on the stove.  I know exactly what lunch will be today, can you guess?  As I was making it, I remembered an article I had read earlier in the month about the effects of fresh fruits and vegetables on us and I really saw exactly how healthy a big bowl of minestrone soup is for us!  So while I am filling my face, at least I know it is good for my guy and me as well.  I thought I would break every copyright law and share some of the interesting parts of the article with you; hope it gets you thinking as it did me! 

The following 25 incredibly healthy foods have the potential to slow biological aging by acting in a number of ways. They provide unique antioxidants and nutrients that bolster our immune system, they defend against free radicals, they maintain a healthy blood-glucose and insulin level and they help to keep inflammation at bay.

Almonds: Rich in vitamin E (an antioxidant) and a good source of monounsaturated fat (an anti-inflammatory).

Avocados: High in monounsaturated fat and an excellent source of folate (which helps to repair DNA in cells).

Beets: Contain anthocyanins (antioxidants) and betaine, a compound that protects cells from aging.

Berries: Packed with many phytochemicals that act as potent antioxidants.

Black beans: Deliver low-glycemic carbohydrate, plenty of plant protein and their antioxidant content outranks other beans with anti-cancer properties.

Cabbage: Rich source of glucosinolates, phytochemicals that mop up free radicals and help rid the body of carcinogens

Broccoli: Contain sulforaphane, a phytoc of glucosinolates, phytochemicals that mop up free radicals and help to rid the body of carcinogens

Dark chocolate: Good source of flavonoids, compounds that have antioxidant, ant-inflammatory and anti-blood-clotting properties (all it takes is one small square!).

Flaxseed: Excellent source of alpha linolenic acid or ALA (an omega-3 fat) and lignans, phytochemicals thought to guard against breast and prostate cancer.

Garlic: Loaded with natural sulphur compounds that help to boost your immune system and may keep your heart healthy.

Green tea: Rich source of flavonoids, powerful antioxidants that may help to prevent heart disease and certain cancers.

Kale: Good source of vitamins A, C and K, folate, calcium and potassium and is plentiful in phytochemicals that help preserve eyesight.

Lentils: Great source of soluble fibre (the type that keeps LDL cholesterol in check) along with slow-burning, low-glycemic carbohydrate and folate.

Oats: Deliver cholesterol-lowering fibre and unique antioxidants called avenanthramides that protect LDL cholesterol particles from free radicals.

Olive oil (extra-virgin): Excellent source of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat along with vitamin E and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals

Oranges: Packed with vitamin C, a nutrient that keeps your immune system healthy as you age, as well as limonoids, phytochemicals linked with disease protection.

Pomegranates: Seeds deliver polyphenols, antioxidants thought to reduce the risk of heart disease and possibly prostate and lung cancer.

Red bell peppers: Good source of vitamin C and beta carotene, two antioxidants linked with protection from heart disease and certain cancers.

Red grapes: Contain resveratrol, a phytochemical with anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties.

Salmon: One of the best sources of omega-3 fatty acids, anti-inflammatories shown to combat aging in cells by preventing special sequences of DNA (called telomeres) from shortening; telomere shortening is linked with the aging process and poorer health.

Soybeans: Nutrient-rich and an excellent source of isoflavones, phytochemicals that may help to reduce the risk of breast and prostate cancer.

Spinach – packed with lutein for eye health and a good source of anti-cancer compounds including vitamins A and C, beta-carotene and flavonoids.

Sweet potatoes: Rich in beta carotene, a phytochemical that not only protects from free-radical damage, but is also thought to guard against cancer by stimulating communication between cells.

Tomatoes: Contain lycopene, a phytochemical shown to help lower prostate-cancer risk when consumed from heat-processed tomatoes (e.g. tomato sauce).

Walnuts: Important source of monounsaturated fat and alpha linolenic acid (ALA), an omega-3 fatty acid that helps to reduce inflammation.

Weekend of cooking ahead

Yippee, the weekend is here and I am feeling motivated.  It’s going to be a big weekend of testing, cooking and transcribing recipes.  Back home now.  Isn’t it amazing how just a few hours with your guy and the world feels right again?  I came home from the airport, after flight delays and traffic jams, to our home, lit softly, dinner ordered and my guy surprising me by being home from work early!  A fantastic homecoming.  This weekend is relatively free; we have the birthday party of my niece turning three, but other than that, I can devote my weekend to cooking and working on the cookbook.  I am so looking forward to it.  A friend’s sister was so kind to send me a number of links for tutorials for InDesign so I have promised myself that I will watch at least two this weekend and start learning.  I am so grateful to so many people for their unrestrained kindnesses toward me as I work on my cookbook.  It is truly amazing and comforting to me how good people really are to each other, despite the tragedies and misfortunes in the world.  I know for certain it isn’t just me alone writing this cookbook!

The hard work is paying off

I have had the perfect ending to my trip away for work. Last night, I went to dinner at the home of great friends.  I get to work with them both often but have never had the chance to visit their new home they built and meet their new son, their first.  We stopped on the way home and shopped for artisan cheeses at a wonderful little cheese monger.  I could have spent a tonne of money in there but resisted!  We did enjoy them later in the evening, everything from a blue to creamy, runny soft unripened cheeses, and some dense yellow-brown solid, aged cheeses, absolutely delicious on fresh baguette.  We had a great dinner, marvelous conversation and best of all, their baby son is just adorable.  A perfect way to end the week away for work.

And this morning I got another fantastic surprise.  The pictures for the cover are available.  Lesley loaded them to her client site and I took a quick peek at them.  Some of them are amazing!  I cannot believe how the food looks, so scrumptious and professionally photographed and staged.  Honestly looks like something from Gourmet magazine.  And the shots are really fun, the models look great but also very natural and everything about the photos, the models, the colours, the lighting, the setting, everything is just how I had envisioned it.  It is really happening and suddenly I can see what the finished product might look like.  The problem now is choosing, so many of them are great it may be hard to choose.  But the ones I love that aren’t the cover I know I will use for the website or advertising so they certainly won’t go to waste.  I can’t wait to share the “winning” picture for the cover with you.  This is back to being so much fun.  I can’t wait to hear what the models think of their pictures.  Hopefully when they look at them, the best reaction is that they will feel hungry!!!  Best outcome for a cookbook cover!

Dig right in and enjoy

Today I am feeling optimistic and settled.  This morning, over breakfast, I was thinking about the need to balance my work, my love life, home life and the development of my cookbook.  All are important to me and all deserve my attention, patience and devotion.  I have to admit to feelings of pressure, anxiety and guilt about my cookbook, the times when I have not been working hard enough or fast enough, have not achieved as much as I would like in a week, worries about whether I will be able to learn the programs for layout or whether the book will even eventually sell any copies.  But this morning I have had a few moments of reflection and clarity.  This project is a project rooted in passion, filled with joy for me.  I have realized that I have to be careful not to cheapen this experience, not to rush, or put undue pressure but to savour each moment of this journey, to let it unfold as it will.  It is a great pleasure for me to try a new recipe, modify spices in a dish, feed my guy, share the experience and the food with friends and family.  Really this is my life and I have realized that I have been treating it like another job, or a task I have to complete, or something I need to hurry.  But hurry for what?  Of course I want to finish it but I also want to enjoy every moment of it.  I will never get these moments back, these moments of discovery, of excitement, even of panic.  I want to taste them, chew on the experience, suck the marrow from the bones of this adventure, so I can always remember it.  I am doing this for me, first and foremost, and I want to cherish each moment of it.  I am not letting myself off the hook for getting the rest of my recipes transcribed or for having to learn a tonne of new things.  But I am also not going to cheapen this time or treat it as something other than a sacred gift I have been given.  I truly believe these moments or adventures do not come often in our lives and I want to enjoy it all.  After all, it is why I am doing it, I truly enjoy cooking, feeding my guy and of course eating!  How can I not just tie a napkin around my neck, lift my knife and fork, and dig right into this excellent adventure.

Trying desperately to stay focused

Well I have to admit a pretty ordinary day and not a lot to report.  I have been stymied in working on my cookbook.  Work has been really busy and then evenings are filled with dinner with work colleagues (always delicious, don’t let me kid you) and I have tried to ride the bike in the exercise room in a futile attempt to convince myself that I didn’t just over indulge at dinner and that all those extraneous calories are not going to immediately pack themselves on my slender, or used to be slender frame.  I do have to lose a few pounds.  We are going to take a week’s vacation to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic Feb 12 so I have to try to look good on the beach, or at least make some room so I can sample the many buffets on offer!  I am going to try now to go and transcribe some recipes in a gesture to keep my promise to myself!  Hope it works and I don’t just succumb to the comforts of the big fluffy bed, ample pillows and endless channels on the television!  

Back to reality

It’s Monday morning and I have a sobering case of normal life.  I am travelling for work this week and won’t be home until Thursday evening.  But not to despair, I have packed recipes cards that I can transcribe for the cookbook in my hotel room in the evening, after exercising, of course.  Well, maybe, I will transcribe them over a delicious room service meal sitting on my comfy big bed watching television.  To be honest, travelling for work has long since lost its luster but you have to make the best of it I suppose.  Yesterday was a great day, full of a feeling of satisfaction at making progress.  It was hard leaving this morning.  This trip will be the longest period of time that my guy and I have been apart since we got married but between phone, text, email and the continuing distraction of my cookbook, I think the week will pass quickly. I could only pack so many recipe cards in my luggage so my goal is to have them all transcribed by the time I get home and perhaps to start writing some of the text that I will need when I finally get the website up and running.  I am sitting in the airport lounge right now as I write this, still dark outside the windows, with no WiFi.  I will have to post it once I get to the office so these will be thoughts interruptus!   I will be thinking of my guy, my cookbook and my work, likely in that order.  Hope you have a great week

What an amazing, spectacular day

Yesterday was a spectacular day! And you cannot imagine how much fun it was; the day just flew by.  Although I have to admit the day started out a little stressful.  We woke up to a heavy snowstorm, which normally would look beautiful, falling softly on the city, blanketing everything with its quiet and beauty.  But yesterday, all I saw was it was clogging roads, closing roads, making travel difficult.  I started the morning calling some of the models coming to shoot that day telling them which roads were closed and traffic conditions and when our start times were.  Some were off getting their hair done, others had to travel up to an hour so it was a little cause for concern at eight am!

But despite the snow, and a stop on our way to the location to purchase some spring tulips for the cover and to cheer myself up, we arrived at the house.  We were using friends’ home, a beautiful, century red brick row house, right downtown.  Arriving it too was covered in falling snow, the iron gates blanketed, the park across the street covered and quiet.  Entering the house, a fire was in the grate and the house simply said welcome.  Lesley arrived as we did, trudging across snow-covered wheel mounds on the street, lugging photography equipment and lighting.  I met Nicole, our brilliant make up artist, almost as soon as I entered the house since she took public transit and of course arrived earlier than those of us in cars.  Quickly we were setting up lights in the kitchen and honestly there were quite amazing.  Big lights on tripods, with huge diffusers put over top, two of them in the room, like giant unblinking Cyclops eyes, blinking in time with the camera flash. 

My friend Claudette arrived from the other side of the city and immediately took over getting the models organized, helping them choose which outfit to wear, helping them with the waivers and generally keeping them happy.  Honestly she was a great help, I can always depend on her to keep things on track for me.  She is really great at organizing and directing and it was a load off my mind to have her out front taking care of everyone who were now shuffling through the front door, damp and snow covered, removing boots and coats and emerging from under the detritus of winter.

And you should have seen these guys, wow!  The women were beautiful, seriously beautiful and the men, ok what can I say, like something from the pages of a magazine, from day dreams, from high school crushes.  Each and every one of them were beautiful in their own way, but also completely familiar and casual, since I wanted people on the cover who you could meet in your neighbourhood, who you could see yourself cooking and enjoying a meal with around a table with good wine.  Claudette helped each of them choose and coordinate their clothing and then they were all sitting in turn chatting with Nicole as she did their make up.

Meanwhile the real activity was occurring in the kitchen.  I had prepared a delicious autumn carrot ginger soup, a grilled rosemary chicken breast with Thai rice and green bean and carrot bundles for the food courses and my pineapple, coconut, walnut carrot cake stood regally on its cake platter.  But you should see what the food stylists could do with it.  Garnished with fruits, or cream and chives or sprigs of rosemary standing proudly, mounds of freshly baked bread piled and secured with discreetly hidden toothpicks for support, vine tomatoes cascading amid pyramids of cheese.  I was dumbfounded when they were finished.  What an amazing skill.  Suddenly my cooking looked like something from a magazine, stunningly beautiful and appetizing.  I think my food tastes pretty delicious all the time but when they were finished, it looked ready to be presented at any table in the world’s most exclusive restaurants.  Later a cheese board for the table groaned under its own weight but you almost couldn’t resist just reaching out to pluck some of it, it looked so scrumptious.  They did things I would never think of doing.  I had vases of purple irises and another of yellow tulips in the kitchen shots but when it came time to shoot the dining room shots, they transformed them to platters of flowers lying nestled against each other, blooms facing out, wrapped and tied with tulip leaves.  If you ever need a food stylist to make your party or dinner even more amazing, just let me know and I will call Henry to come to the rescue!

We started shooting the pictures and very quickly everyone was having a great time.  There was lots of laughter as everyone became more comfortable and the pictures were amazing.  The food looked seriously like something from Gourmet magazine and all the models looked gorgeous and relaxed at the same time in the photos.  Some of the girls looked like Nigella Lawson, only prettier and the men were great, laughing and looking relaxed. Even my brother, the good sport that he is cause believe me this really isn’t his sort of thing, came and did some of the photos for me and he enjoyed himself.  He really is the handsome and fit right in among the models even though he has no experience.  I enjoyed immensely working with them all but to be candid it was hard work. I was always thinking, directly, suggesting what I would like, working with the photographer to get just right shot that matched what I had pictured for the cover and the back cover.  We spent over an hour in the kitchen and then I trucked them all upstairs so we could shoot a fun picture with everyone with a glass of wine in the beautiful but also huge bathtub upstairs. Finally we came back down and finished with a number of pictures of people enjoying food at the dining room table and then all of a sudden the day was over!  Everyone ate the food I had prepared and then headed home.

But for me, it has felt really surreal.  Suddenly it has all come to being.  I can hardly believe it is really happening.  I had trouble sleeping and awoke this morning still thinking about it.  It is like a dream coming true, and similarly to your wedding day, it all passed in a happiness soaked blur.  Back to grind now of finishing the recipes and laying it out and all the other tasks I have ahead of me, but yesterday was a true joy to me.  That I could make it happen, that it happened the way I wanted, that it exceeded my expectations, that everyone involved enjoyed themselves immensely, that I felt their excitement in doing it and their excitement for me for taking on this challenge of creating a cookbook, it was a moment of pure joy.  I am on a high right now and deeply grateful for the experience and for everyone who made it possible.  Special thanks I have to give to Lesley my photographer and her assistant, to Nicole my make up artist, to all my models who generously came on a snowy difficult day to make it happen, Carmela, Rose, Jean, Shanti and Lindsay and the men Ryan, Ian, Luis, Matt and Ken, to Henry for all the food styling, for Claudette for her incredible powers of organization, to Nick for the use of his beautiful home.  And to my guy, who ran, cajoled, carted, arranged, set up, took down, styled, carried, encouraged, supported, laughed and supported me through the whole day.  I could not have done it without him, and I really understand what they always say now about how in marriage the union of two becomes greater than each of them singly.  It was a spectacular day that I will always remember and I am now so excited for you to see the photos! This is a crazy journey and today I can’t stop smiling.  

Here we go - wish me luck

Woo hoo it has arrived, today is the day!  Today the photo shoot really happens.  I thought a lot about it last night and was up early this morning.  You should see the kitchen.  There is food all over the counters.  The fridge is stuffed.  There are bags full of plates, and bowls, and vases and everything you can imagine to help display and stage the food all over the foyer in the front of the door.  I think we have everything and if we don’t, just have to wing it.  It is so weird to think across the city models are waking up and thinking they have to go to a job today and that job is mine!  Lesley our photographer is excited as well, oh, it is going to be fun today.  My guy is ready and willing to help me and actually he will probably be the sane, calm one without whom I probably wouldn’t be able to get through the day!  Gotta run and get this day started.  Wish me luck on this leg of the adventure, what a day this is going to be!  Tell you all about it tomorrow!!!  Wooo hoooo

Counting the hours till the dream becomes a reality

Yippee, twenty four hours from now, we will be deep in the midst of photographing the cover of the cookbook!  Models will be dressed and fresh faced in make up, lights will be up and glowing softly, food will be staged in various locations, looking enticing and appetizing (assuming I don’t drop any in the snow on the way over!), and I will be running around, deliriously happy, nervous and telling everyone what to do!  The carrot cake last night turned out amazing, rich, moist, and smelled so good coming out of the oven.  This morning it is iced with cream cheese icing and decorated with pecans, very pretty.  I just got back from the grocery store; how great is this I have lots of reasons to peruse every aisle of the story and make multiple trips to my favourite place on earth.  I know some people do yoga, some exercise, drink, watch television, talk on the phone, yell into their pillows, for me, when I am stressed I simply go the grocery store, walk the aisles and I immediately feel better.  Takes me away.  And now, because of the shoot, I get to the store over and over.  Today I spent a lot of time in the produce section, really looking and deciding, and I came home with a bright pink dragon fruit, yellow-green star fruits, deep purple figs, prickly pineapple, ruby red apples and the deepest yellow pepper I have ever seen, dark green beans and dusky brown mushroom.  I was going for colour for the cover and I think I found it!  Later today have to pick up some beautiful looking breads to go with the foods I have prepared for the cover and then tomorrow morning it is all about setting up and staging the food to look its most attractive.  This is becoming a fairly expensive undertaking what with the food, the photographer and the make up artist but I am confident it will all be worth it. This hobby of mine is taking on a life of its own.  Better head off and draw out more photo ideas and then off to the store once more so I can cook tonight!  So much fun. 

Baking a carrot cake for the photo shoot - wanna piece?

We are making progress!  After some frantic chasing, it looks like we will have a professional make up artist after all.  My friend Lesley, the photographer for Saturday, came through in the end and found an aspiring make up artist student at the local college who is studying theatre and photography make up artistry who is looking for more experience and to build her portfolio, perfect for this Saturday.  One less worry off my mind.  I spent my lunch hour here at work in the grocery store, picking up ingredients for tonight.  On the docket this evening, I am baking my decadent carrot cake, complete with pineapple, coconut and walnuts, finished with cream cheese icing and covered in coconut and crushed hazelnuts.  I just love it, moist and very delicious.  And I hope it will photograph well for the cover.  It will join the other food being featured on the counters, tables and in the models’ hands during the shoot.  Sitting upon a cake pedestal, this cake so look both regal and scrumptious!  I am also am going to spend some time tonight finalizing the food and menu for the shoot so I know where to concentrate tomorrow.  Saturday morning is almost here, wooo hoooo.  Wish me luck that my cake turns out perfect.  Otherwise tomorrow’s blog will all be about tips and tricks to hide your baking mistakes and still have a perfect looking dish to put on the table!

Legal releases and high school fantasies

I had a hard time falling asleep last night.  I couldn’t stop thinking about the photo shoot this weekend.  Woo hoo it is coming together.  This morning I worked on and edited the waiver and release forms for the models so I can use their images for the cover and on the website.  A bit of tricky writing but I found some great examples on the internet that I could modify for my purposes.  You have to love the internet.  I was laying in bed last night thinking about the different shots I would like to have taken and the story boards to go with them and was trying to figure out the logistics of how to keep the shoot moving while we move from location to location and still allow people to set up the food and the setting for the next shot.  This is getting crazy but I have to admit, although I am a little nervous and stressed, since it is really happening, it is actually starting to be fun as well.  Now that I have ten people coming to be photographed and a photographer and an assistant as well as a make up artist I sort of feel like I can’t screw it up but also having all those people coming suddenly makes it seem so real!  I am sure Friday night I will up cooking and stressed and nervous and excited but I am hoping that come Saturday morning at ten it all just becomes fun!  I can’t imagine doing this for a living every day but maybe with routine it would seem simpler but for now, figuring it out as I go.  Tonight I think I am going to write down the photo shots I want so I won’t forget in the nerves and speed of the day as well as a shopping list of ingredients I need to collect so I can start the cooking.  Somehow the cooking and baking seems like the easiest part right now.  Once this photo shoot is done, I have to get back to the actual hard work of putting the book together. I had hoped to be farther along in assembling the book, but I still have recipes to transcribe, let alone having to learn InDesign.  If you have been following along you can tell that I have been procrastinating learning the new software; I am such a wimp!  But its day is coming. Having the photos for the cover hopefully will make me want to have the book done all the sooner!  But for now, this week, I just have to worry about preparing food, and hoping a snow storm, freak accidents, sudden flus or other natural or unnatural mishaps don’t prevent all those cute models from showing up for the shoot.  You should see some of these peoples, men and women alike, I should wish to be half as gorgeous as these folks!  At least I can mingle with them for a day, like a dream out of a high school movie of hanging with the popular kids.  In that movie, I would have been the geeky one, pimples and all, in the home economics room, ratty old apron, covered in flour, licking cake batter from finger and wondering why I was putting on weight!  

Models, models, models

Back to work today and back in the swing of things. The first day back is always slow but with the cookbook cover shoot this weekend, I had lots to keep me thinking.  We are doing well getting some more models, they seem to be coming out of the woodwork and friends are reaching out to everyone they know to get as many as I need. And these people are cute!   Lesley is working on the make up artist so that is looking good and my friend Claudette has agreed to be my on site coordinator that day, moving the models along, doing the legal stuff with them and generally keeping the day moving.  She is really good at that stuff so I can leave it in her capable hands.  Tomorrow night the cooking begins; I am thinking of making a big carrot cake tomorrow night for some of the display and then I will do the more time sensitive cooking on Thursday and Friday so it looks great on Saturday morning.  So much happening but it is all coming together, hurray!

The photo shoot is a go!

It’s a new year and I am filled with a new energy and enthusiasm! Today has been an amazing day.  We are back from our holiday in Quebec city, visiting friends and enjoying some much needed rest. And today, I jumped with both feet right back into the adventure of getting this cookbook ready for publication.  This afternoon, I caught up with my photographer and we went to check out the lighting in the kitchen where we will shoot the cookbook cover on Saturday.  I can hardly believe it is happening this fast right now but sure enough there we stood in the kitchen talking about storyboards and art concepts and how to stage the food and where to put the models. It was so exciting.  And I have been confirming the models for Saturday.  I have done pretty well with women models; I have lots of amazing, intelligent, beautiful girlfriends and the male models are starting to look up as well.  I just called a close friend who found me the perfect addition to my male model stable!  He is young, just the right age for the cover, boyishly handsome and full of life.  I also roped my younger and handsome brother to come to the shoot and I have one dashing late fifties model who is willing to the cover as well.  Just going to look for a few more this week as last minute replacement in case any one can’t make it and we should be all set.  It is really getting exciting.  My guy and I were talking at dinner about what I should prepare for the cover, and how we should stage it and whether I should get the photographer, Lesley, to do some food shots as well.  I think we will shoot in the kitchen obviously, but also maybe the dining room and if we feel inspired maybe a fun, tongue in cheek shoot in the bathtub!  Just for fun.  I am so excited and have a lot of work ahead of me but this all just feels like a great, rolling, rocking adventure.  Almost surreal.  Now if I could just get all the recipes tested and transcribed we could pull this trick off!