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Bitterness
The night before last I peeled a banana and a bit of it got on my finger, so I licked it. It was highly bitter to taste and I was worried the banana was going to be horrible. It wasn’t. The following morning I was eating breakfast and I again got this bitter taste in my mouth. This time it wasn’t just that first taste but pretty much every bite. I had a piece of leftover pizza for lunch yesterday and again, bitterness. It was obvious at this point that something wasn’t quite right so I did an online search on the problem. One of the first results that turned up was pine mouth. Apparently there is a “condition” where some people are affected after eating pine nuts by getting a bitter and/or metallic taste in the mouth. It seems  show up a day or two after eating the pine nuts and lasts up to a couple weeks in most people. Then it just goes away. It doesn’t seem there is any agreement on the cause, except that it seems certain types that are grown in China cause the problem. It doesn’t affect everyone who eats them either, which is another curiosity. There were a few pine nuts in my pasta at Jamie’s Kitchen the other night. It seems too much of a coincidence to ignore.
Last night, the Scientist and I had our Tuesday night meal of Mad Mex food and Froyo frozen yoghurt. I might have done better to get something small at Mad Mex because it was all bitter and metallic to me. The yoghurt was a bit different. I realised here that I could taste it at first but then I got the aftertaste, which was bitter. I don’t know if that was specific to something about the yoghurt or not. This morning my cereal was similar but now I am left with bitterness long after finishing my food. It’s all very curious.
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Parenting, food, concert, parenting
Yesterday was a pretty spectacular day. Neil Finn concert, after all!
The early part of the day was fairly ordinary. Got up and had breakfast…rather late but still it was breakfast, particularly as it was my usual bowl of rolled oats with cocoa, brown sugar and milk added. Finished some solitaire daily challenge puzzles on the Microsoft app. Exercise was not quite a usual. Started out using our Wii Fit for half an hour and moved on to an app on my iPad. It was tough but it went well enough. It’s nice having more options than when I was going to the gym regularly.
It was well into afternoon and we still hadn’t seen signs of Lego Lover stirring. I realise this is part of the teenage years but I do feel he takes this rather to extremes. Showered and dressed to go out. Wore a skirt but had no decent shoes to wear with it so stuck with cross trainers. Was reminded by the Scientist it might be good to remedy this situation. Too late on this occasion. Nearly time to go and finally we see signs of the Lego Lover being awake. Time to leave.
Arrive in Perth and park. Realise parking on streets is still free on Sundays. No $11 fee for parking in the parking lot next to the Perth Concert Hall. :) I purposely skipped lunch with expectations of a meal in the city. We walked up Barrack Street and considered a Korean place we’d eaten at before seeing Leonard Cohen a couple years ago. Decided to look further afield. Down through Murray Street and onto William Street where we found ourselves at Jamie’s Kitchen. We haven’t been back since our anniversary last May. I thought it might be rather busy but it the queue wasn’t that long. Lucky us, getting the last free table! It was tempting to go for the same meal as last time but chose a ravioli dish in the entree portion. Meanwhile. bread selection with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Cheap starter that doesn’t fail to satisfy. I could eat a meal of it alone and I’m not really that much the bread lover. My entree arrived and the Scientist’s seafood plank was landed onto the tomato cans placed on the table. Entree was rather small this time and wasn’t quite enough but was totally delicious. I savoured each bite, especially considering there weren’t so many. That’s okay, leaves room for dessert. :D The pannacotta special which I adored  last time was now on the menu but I opted to try the epic brownie this time while the Scientist went for the trifle. Desserts arrived and totally met expectations and more. A most satisfying second visit to Jamie’s Kitchen and looking forward to trying more the next time. I might add the Scientist had attempted to book a table beforehand but they weren’t accepted at that time of day. Left to it, I found my way there anyway. :D If it had been too busy, though, I would have been happy trying sushi next door or another local eatery.
It was now late enough to pick up our tickets but too early for much else. We walked back to the concert hall and collected our tickets and learned our cameras were not welcome this time. Not too unexpected since this was an indoor show but rather disappointing when we had front row and center seats. Ah well, less time looking at the camera and more watching the stage. We walked across the esplanade to the Swan River for a little while then returned my camera to the car. I’d had ideas of staying outside but the weather had cooled considerably and the warmer lobby of the concert hall became our temporary hangout. It was interesting to see the cafe there with food served in one end of the lobby and tables in a side room for dining. They also had smaller treats like Maltesers at a premium cost. More interesting were the small tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in the fridge. After the super sweetness of my brownie, that wasn’t going to happen. But still interesting to see. The merchandise table was being set up. Not a lot on offer for Neil Finn but a few items that looked decent for support act, Joshua James. Eventually sales began and I chose a tea towel to add to my collection. It’s not as nice as previous ones but it will do. Overprices water bottles purchased and I was surprised at the flimsiness of the plastic. It felt as though it would crumple in my hands despite being full but I suppose it’s a good thing to use less plastic.
Finally the doors open and we show our tickets. Front row seats, here we come! For quite a while we were alone in the front row but most seats except two to the left of the Scientist were filled shortly after the support act began. Joshua James was pretty good…played some good music but a bit limited on the chatter. Interval time. The four people to my right who arrived shortly after the show started were gone already, for drinks, I presume. A few minutes to go and seats were filled except those two at the Scientist’s left. Finally the pair arrived. I recognised the woman from other shows.
The show itself was like a dream. Sitting right there in front of stage I felt I could reach out and touch but obviously resisted the urge. Neil played seven songs from his new album. They sounded really good live. The one song I was hoping to hear was White Lies and Alibis and my wish came true. Perth was the first show to hear Animal vs. Human and it was good. The live factor almost always is a bonus with Neil’s songs. But there was more. Songs from the Split Enz days  like One Step Ahead and Message to My Girl.  Songs from the Crowded House days like Don’t Dream it’s Over on just piano with backing vocals. What a fine performance that was. He went from strength to strength and no weakness on this night or maybe this tour by accounts I’ve heard. Only Talking Sense from the Finn album with his brother Tim was sensational. Solo Finn songs like Sinner and She Will Have Her Way. Two encores and a splendid finish with solo Neil on Love this Life and then  Better Be Home Soon, which meant it was truly over.
Obviously we must be too considerate and polite because the three setlists taped to the stages were quickly extracted by other fans before we had thought of it. Usually we get these at request but we were just that close we could reach for them. Sigh. That’s okay because I have my treasured setlist from his show with Paul Kelly last year, thanks to the Scientist. Crowds left the auditorium taking us with them. We lingered behind a bit and the idea of hanging outside the stage door occurred but we didn’t go there. Maybe a shame as there aren’t many opportunities to hang out there now.
Time to go home.
Arrived home just before midnight. Lego Lover is up. Game Fanatic is up. It’s late so the Scientist is soon off to bed as today is no holiday. Game Fanatic goes to bed and it’s just younger son and me left. It’s a frustrating parenting moment because Lego Lover has now restarted his continuous talk on his favorite subject of the moment. It’s a topic revisited constantly in our house and there’s not much to add. I’m not terribly interested right now as I am still wanting to enjoy the moment. Because he doesn’t understand body language well at all, I tell him bluntly I don’t want to hear about it now. I am still feeling rather annoyed that he barely was up by the time we’d left earlier in the day. At the moment I just want to keep the night alive with the lovely buzz I was feeling. Instead, he paused briefly and carried on. This is how it is with my child with high functioning autism. He doesn’t get what I want and his need is foremost. I abandon my buzz for a bit and hear him out. Eventually he does go away and I feel guilty because this happens often enough with him. My attempts to curb him don’t really work so it is what it is. I love him anyway and decide that even though it’s not my thing he’s talking about, it is his thing and he feels such love and joy of it that I can’t help but be endeared to him. As it is, some of his older habits have fallen along the wayside and I miss them sometimes. I hate to think of the time I will miss these moments, difficult as they sometimes be.
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New and improved Mexican food
Before we moved to Australia, the Scientist and I often ate out at local Mexican restaurants. They were mostly family run places with really delicious food and the best salsa ever. Then we came to Australia where Mexican food hadn’t really arrived. There were a few restaurants around although they were a bit too expensive in the early days for us to indulges ourselves. The local food halls (food courts) had something they called Mexican food but it was mostly curried meats and corn chips, salads, etc. and hardly resembled what I knew as Mexican food. Â A few more restaurants popped up over the years and our budget grew enough to include a meal out more often. There was a place called Crazy Cactus relatively near us and we used to go there fairly often with the boys. I have forgotten the name but their most memorable dish was a fiery hot nachos appetiser (maybe something like diablo?) . It was really hot and Game Fanatic adored it. He has had a liking for very hot food from a very young age. The rest of their food wasn’t really all that great and they eventually closed down several years ago. We have tried a couple other places along the way, Â some good and some bad. In the last year or two, a bunch of Mexican grill places have popped up in Australia and suddenly Mexican food is in fashion. It’s in a similar position to the sushi places a few years ago.
Meanwhile, making Mexican food at home has been even more limited. Ingredients can be a bit difficult to source here so most people have relied on Old El Paso. This is pretty much the lowest of the lowest in at home meal preparation as far as Mexican food goes. We had this back in North Carolina and I think that was about all that was available then. But we did have the lovely and inexpensive restaurants all around to keep us satisfied if required. My eyes were opened when we first visited my family (who moved to Texas soon after I moved to Australia) and discovered the wide range of Mexican style foods available. I don’t recall the names of all the brands but there were lots of choices and it was possible to find sources to make everything from scratch too.
When we eat Mexican food here at home, I usually make a meat dish and add my own spices. It’s a hit and miss sort of thing where one time it will be quite flavorful and other times it will be watery and/or bland. The packet mixes hardly get a look in these days. In the last year or so we started getting a few Mission brand products in the stores and Casa Fiesta has also appeared…although I don’t find them that different to Old El Paso. Today I discovered from another local American ex-pat that the Mission salsas are now available at her local store. I popped off to the shops this afternoon and found they were available there too…and bought a jar of each (rich tomatillo and black bean chipotle). We were already planning to have Mexican tonight so this fit in well for us. I also bought a jar of the hot salsa that Old El Paso makes, one of their only products that we really like. We also planned to have some fresh guacamole too. Game Fanatic found a recipe a few years ago that was good and is now our official family guacamole maker. We have a bunch of avocadoes in the fridge thanks to the Scientist’s mum (who has a tree). Game Fanatic got everything ready to make it and cut the first avocado and it was just too hard. He tried another one and it did break apart but the flesh was impossible to scoop out. We gave up that idea and will see if we can get the others to ripen by removing them from the fridge…Methinks they might not have been quite ripe enough when picked so I’m hoping we can salvage them.
The actual meal came out quite beautifully. I made some chicken and made sure to let it simmer a long time. It was enough that it broke apart into shreds…But there were enough chunks to satisfy Lego Lover who is only just starting to eat this part of the meal. (I made sure not to mention that I’d used onions in it and he never knew the difference as I think they melted into the sauce.) I managed to get a good balance of flavor with the paprika and cumin powder. And the tomatoes didn’t overpower it because I added them gradually. It came out really well and everyone liked it. As for the new salsas, the black bean was a hit with all of us (except LL who didn’t try it) and the tomatillo was okay. I imagine we might not buy that again since it’s a bit expensive to buy so much salsa. I always cut up tomato, lettuce and cucumber to add to a burrito or similar wrap. Â Tonight I decided to skip the wrap and just use the corn chips and make a bit of a crunchy salad from it which was probably a bit more satisfactory than having the flour tortilla on top of everything else.
I’m hoping to see even more variety of food here in the near future. Even today I saw some Mexican style corn flour at a spice shop in some nearby markets. It would also be nice to get black beans into the supermarkets since they are so delicious. I make black bean stew and use dried ones for that most of the time but once tried a tin of black beans I found from the middle east. They were pretty awful….maybe mostly because they surely weren’t the type of beans I was seeking….Anyway, I’m hoping to find more variety in the foods we make at home with these few added ingredients. The new Mexican grills, meanwhile, seem to satisfy my taste for Mexican food.
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And another food post
Our local grocery stores sell packets of various salads. We don’t buy them all that much unless they have been reduced. The exception has been the crunchy salad which consists of shredded cabbage, carrots, spring onion and red onion with Asian crispy noodles and a bit of thousand island dressing. Not that we have bought it at full price all that often but it’s good enough that we would buy it just because on a few occasions. Now that we have the new food processor, the need to buy these packets is gone. The other day I bought my own cabbage, onion and carrot and made my own crunchy salad in a matter of five minutes. Most of the work was in the clean up (which took another five minutes). We also bought crispy chilli noodles at the store and a low fat dressing. For a little more than the cost of that prepacked salad, I have made about three times as much and liked it far better. I’m going to try some variations on those ingredients over time so we can keep it interesting.
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Vanilla slice
Yesterday was Australia Day and our family has some traditions of sorts when it comes to our meal. Game Fanatic has ruled we must have potato salad done the way I make plus cornbread…Not that either of those is particularly or at all Australian. I make the corn bread with onions and chilli flakes (or the cut fruit when we have it) and it comes out quite well. For Lego Lover, we usually buy lamingtons since they tend to be a bit fiddly to make. I bought a couple on Friday but he insisted we all had to eat one so I bought more yesterday. The Scientist happens to love vanilla slices and as that is particularly Australian I decided I’ve have a go of making that this year.
I searched online for a recipe that seemed easy enough for me to follow and found one on the Taste.com.au website that seemed suitable. I bought the ingredients on Friday and started cooking that night. The custard was an interesting experience to make. You start off heating milk and heavy cream together then adding it to a beaten mixture of egg yolks, sugar and vanilla. Then you have to cook the mixture a bit longer until it thickens and coats a wooden spoon. When I started reheating it just turned into rather gluggy lumps and didn’t exactly coat the spoon so much as attach itself to it. But after a couple minutes it did thicken into a smooth mixture and was fine. After that it has to cool for an hour. Meanwhile you prepare two sheets of puff pastry in the oven before cooling it and then pressing it down flat. The Scientist took care of this part while I was doing the custard. One piece of puff pastry is placed into a pan and the cooled custard is spread over it before topping it with the other sheet. It didn’t look that thick when the custard was spread across it so we thought it was going to be more like a vanilla slice sandwich. I made some icing yesterday, complete with food coloring to make the requisite pink color the Scientist remembered from his youth. The Scientist spread the icing and it chilled again until after we had dinner. It was surprisingly good but quite rich when we tried it last night. The custard was a bit squishy compared to what you get at a bakery but it tasted really nice. And the thickness wasn’t that bed in the end although it wasn’t as thick as we are used to eating. As it is so rich it will take a few days to finish this off since it’s mainly the Scientist and me that are eating it. Next time we try it, we plan to make a lower fat version and see if it tastes as good.
First time attempt at a vanilla slice -
Happy New Year!
Since I last posted, Lego Lover had a birthday and it went well. He woke up very early and stayed up quite late to experience as much of the day as possible. No disappointments at the end. This is fairly typical but it still pleases me every year. Such a contrast to his brother on his birthday too. There’s still a small chance I will write up a post for his birthday, even though it’s been nearly two weeks now.
Christmas went pretty well  aside from it being the first day of a week-long heatwave. We had a family gathering at the Scientist’s mum’s house. We all ate quite well on all the food prepared. I’d made my usual vegetable and chickpea patties for my MIL and a potato salad for Game Fanatic. The Scientist cooked a small turkey and his mum made heaps of curries plus a salad. Plenty of food was eaten. I was last to get my food and I made the mistake of having a couple veg patties and was filled way too soon. Almost as soon as dinner was finished, dessert was on. To be fair, it’s also my BIL’s birthday and the Scientist had made a cake so it was time to serve it and sing happy birthday. But I didn’t eat any of the cake because I knew it would be way too much after all the food. Another BIL’s family had brought along four or five things for desserts and it seemed like they had gone a bit overboard. Later on I remembered she told about several family members being sick and missing out on Christmas at an earlier gathering with her family. I can only assume some of that was meant for the other gathering and had gone uneaten so they brought it to ours. Still it was way too much and it was too hot to enjoy so much rich food. I did have some jelly (gelatin) that my MIL had prepared with a little bit of a couple desserts but could eat no more than that. We’d also taken along some chocolate and raspberry brownies we’d made a few days earlier and they weren’t touched at all…just meant we were eating them for days after Christmas.
The rest of the year was hot and hot and hot. Everyone just stayed in cool places as much as possible…Then it cooled off a bit and became humid earlier this week. Not a lot better, really…then a couple days of lovely mild weather. Meanwhile the heatwave seems to have gone east and they are now sweltering there. It’s heated up again here for the weekend but it seems we will be okay for next week.
We stayed home on New Year’s Eve, which is pretty usual for our family. Our clock was slow so there was some uncertainty when midnight rolled around so our happy new years were a bit delayed. The Scientist managed to stay awake that long and then was off to bed almost at once.
The next day our dog Maromi had to go to the vet to have a grass seed abscess removed from his paw under surgery. He has a bad relationship with the grass seeds…usually, though, they get into his ear…which is a lot less costly to treat than surgery on his paw. :( He’s recovering just fine. Managed to pull the bandage off a bit early and it was impossible to get it back on where it would stay. It’s all fine though and the stitch comes out in a week which means he can get rid of the cone.
We also bought a couple of new gadgets at the end of the year sales. We started off looking at one thing but ended up looking at food processors. We have an older one that I’d been using once a year for my veg and chickpea patties and it pretty much is a piece of junk. I had to hold things together to keep it working this year so it was destined to be removed from our house in the near future. Anyway, all my research turned up that there were really no lower end models that rated well at all. Maybe this is an area where you just have to pay for a decent machine. The one we finally chose was cost $435 on sale. I haven’t used it yet but it seems quite solid and has a lot of attachments that are stored in a separate case. The other gadget is an air fryer that uses very little oil to cook foods in. We’ve used it a few times now and it works wonderfully. Mostly it’s nice for making chips (french fries) and they come out nice and crispy in far less time than the oven takes.
I almost forgot we have another expense coming up in the bathroom. Seems that the light switch is now shocking when turned on so it’s not to be used until fixed. We are hoping to have a couple extra plug points installed in the house when the electrician comes out as that’s been on the t0-do list for a while now.
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Last minute Thanksgiving dinner
I just realised I never posted about the dinner I decided to do on the spur of the moment. Obviously Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday here and it certainly isn’t harvest season. But we usually do something to mark the day even if it’s not a traditional dinner. I was vaguely aware of the date coming up due based on what I read online. The Scientist thought it was the following week and had planned to do some sort of dinner. But on the day he was hard at work when Game Fanatic asked me when Thanksgiving was. When I said it was that very day, the Scientist was upset as he’s mistaken the date…So just after noon on the day, I rushed out to the store and bought one of those boxed turkey breasts along with a few other supplies and brought it all home. It was kind of warm that day so the air conditioning was put to work while the kitchen heated up.
Along with the turkey I made mashed potatoes and some sweet potatoes with brown sugar for candied yams. The Scientist made some vegetables later in the day. Game Fanatic wanted corn bread so I whipped up some  batter using some corn meal mixture that comes from South Africa. This mixture was much finer and was closer to wheat flour texture. The end result was okay but not quite as nice as usual. I might have to tweak the recipe a bit to make this work for me. The South African product is a lot cheaper than anything else I’ve gotten here so it would be good to be able to use that instead.
The meal came out quite nicely although we weren’t able to persuade Lego Lover to indulge in any of it. After it was finished, I started thinking of how I would do it differently next year…here’s hoping I do a bit more planning. :D
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Bubble tea revisited
At first I thought it was many months ago but now I think it must be nearly a year ago I tried bubble tea for the second time. I’d tried it years ago in Fremantle and it was sickeningly sweet so ignored all the bubble tea being sold around town. The bubble tea shops were nowhere near us anyway. My first taste in recent times was at our local markets and I really liked it. Funny thing is I don’t even recall which flavor now as I have settled on kiwifruit as my favorite flavor.
I tried bubble tea at Utopia, which I believe is the first bubble tea specific shop around here. They have stores in several suburbs around Perth but all are at least a half hour drive away and mostly in places I don’t frequent. But they do have some nice flavors, my favorite being black lavender milk tea. I didn’t really understand the distinction at first but the black means black tea as opposed to green tea. I think you can get the non-milk variety of the tea but I’ve never tried it before. I have tried a couple other flavors on the few occasions when I am near Utopia but I’m stuck on my favorite.
Some of the local delis also sell bubble tea and one of those near us make a pretty decent one and another makes it way too sweet.
Enter Hi Tea, which opened in May in some local everyday markets. They had moved from Northbridge, the suburb adjacent to the city center, as their lease ran out and rents were too high there. I don’t know where they were located but more recently I have discovered about three shops within 200 meters of each other. I suspect Hi Tea must have been in this area too. I was excited about the new bubble tea shop located within reasonable distance in an area I’m likely to frequent. The reviews of Hi Tea from its previous location were almost unanimously giving it high praise as they use real fruits in their tea and don’t resort to powders. I tried the place out and was underwhelmed the first time as it didn’t taste at all like the lavender milk tea I had tasted elsewhere. In fact, there was no milk component at all. Also it tasted more like a lemon tea than anything else. I decided that maybe the girl, who wasn’t a native English speaker, may have misunderstood me and given me the wrong order. I tried a second time and the tea still wasn’t quite what I expected so I had to decide whether to carry on or not. I did try once more and that was a great experience and I have been going there periodically ever since.
The last couple few times I’ve been there, I have been adventurous and tried different flavors to the lavender milk tea. Once I tried the rose milk and that was bit sweeter than I like but still okay. Then I tried the Jasmine milk and that was really nice. Last time I tried Summer Dream and it was wonderfully fruity with flavors I recognised but couldn’t place. If I’d had more time I’d have queried which fruits were in it. There are still many other flavors to try, including something called Black Widow.  On my last two visits, the owner asked me to try out new flavors he’s working on. Both were faux alcohol varieties and both flavors I’ve never tasted before. First time it was gin flavor and it did taste a bit like I’d expect gin to taste as I am familiar with its smell. The second time was easier as I am quite familiar with the smell of cognac even if I’ve not tried it before. He is releasing several new flavors next week, all of this faux alchohol range. The owner seems to be a bit of a mad scientist and loves making new flavors, which seems a good thing when you see how many choices there are. Or perhaps that’s a bad thing because it makes  the decision all the harder. I might try one of the new flavors but I doubt any will make my favorite list any time soon. I seem to have latched on to the floral flavors right now and will likely stick to those for the foreseeable future.
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Kale
I seem to be leaving my updates so late that I’m too tired to write the past day or two. This is how long periods pass before I post again so I am making an effort tonight/this morning just for effort’s sake.
A couple days ago I bought some kale for the first time ever. I’ve heard a lot of good about it but had never prepared it and I thought I hadn’t eaten it. The Scientist thinks I have had it before and that’s possible if his mum made a Sri Lankan vegetable dish with it called mallung (not sure of spelling but I think this is it). I’ve read this is commonly used in the US south but I’m pretty sure I never ate it there. I did have collard greens a few times but never liked them. I suspect that may have to more to do with preparation than the vegetable itself. I don’t think collards are sold around here but will keep an eye out to give it another chance. :)
Once I got the kale, there was the question of how to prepare it. I found many recipes online, with several suggesting that it’s good to blanch it as it can be a tough vegetable. I didn’t do this but I did get inspiration from a recipe I found for fritatta with kale and mushrooms. I didn’t make a fritatta but I did saute the kale with some swiss mushrooms, onions, Â fresh yellow and green bell peppers and some grape tomatoes that were a bit past it to be used fresh. I served this with some scrambled eggs, which didn’t come out all that well. But they were acceptable and together with the veggies provided a very hearty meal that made me feel overfull.
During my recipe search I saw something about a stew that had chorizo and kale and thought that might be good and the carnivorous members of the family agreed. I bought more kale today and made a stew with some adaptations and it was okay but not so nice as yesterday. First of all, it’s getting a bit warm for soups and stews. Also, I tried to adapt some spices from a North African kale stew that was on a vegan blog for this and don’t think it was a great success. I also overdid the chilli flakes so that it bordered the threshold of being too hot for the palate. Not sure if I will revisit the kale in a stew any time soon although it might be better if done in the pressure cooker. But I do plan to make another saute version soon and even bought two bundles of it today so there may be another kale dish in my diet tomorrow. :D
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Happy Canada Day!
It’s now just a decade ago that we returned from a nearly one year stay in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. We arrived the first week of July 2001 and left mid-June the next year. It was an interesting experience for all of us but it definitely left a lasting impression on our Lego Lover. He is obsessed with Canada and has been since we left. For him, it ranks up higher than all other countries aside from Australia. Not even the fact he is also American sways him towards the US. He was only three when we left so it’s a bit of an oddity. During our stay, we lived in a three story townhouse that overlooked Halifax Harbour. I remember the day we arrived as it was drizzly, damp and very foggy. It was so thick that it was a couple days later when we finally saw the view across the harbour. We were lucky to live on the Dartmouth side because there was a lot more to see in Halifax than in Dartmouth. We also had a balcony outside our bedroom upstairs. It was a neat thing when we arrived there in summer but it was mostly ignored once winter set in. From the balcony and the bedroom window, the view was pretty neat, especially for a 2-3 year old obsessed with vehicles. We could see the ships on the harbour, the buses and cars on the road, seaplanes, barges, and also the freight train that passed through several times a day. There was also a bridge connecting the two cities that was visible from our house. In winter, there was the added pleasure of the snow plows going up and down the streets. I think that might have been the clincher for Lego Lover since that was really the only place he got to see them.
We have always done something to celebrate the 4th of July since that’s part of my heritage. It’s not the outdoor event that was always part of my childhood because our winter weather usually isn’t that conducive to such doings. Lego Lover has always taken some interest but last year it reached his sphere of knowledge that Canada has it’s national day on the 1st of July. He was somewhat distressed upon finding this out just a few days after the event. He made it his goal that we would celebrate this year and he has made it his goal to mention Canada and/or something about it daily since then.
At the beginning of the year, he decided he wanted us to make Nanaimo bars for the day. A few weeks ago we started looking at recipes and we did a trial run last week using a recipe from the Canadian Living website. The result was a sickly sweet treat on a base that was overpowered by walnuts. The middle layer was tasted of the pure icing sugar instead of the custard powder. The top was a mess thanks to using the wrong chocolate…it was just a big gunky mess that was hard to spread. We tried the recipe from the website of the city of Nanaimo this time and had far better results. For both recipes we substituted Marie biscuits for graham crackers, which aren’t sold here. We used ground almonds instead of walnuts and shredded coconut instead of flakes for the base and it wasn’t baked this time. None of the ingredients overpowered it in flavor or texture and it came out nicer than the first try. Instead of pure icing sugar, I tried icing mixture for the middle layer and it was smooth and a bit creamy instead of powdery. Â I found a proper semisweet chocolate to use for the top layer and it spread properly this time. The result was a very yummy slice that we all enjoyed.
Nanaimo bar: second version Lego Lover has recently taken to enjoying the meat pies sold locally so thought tourtiére, which  is popular in Quebec at Christmas time, would be just right for us. Most of the recipes I found listed pork as the favorite meat to use so I stuck to that but did make some alterations to the recipe to suit our family. The Canadian version uses a lot of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg but I cut that down and increased the pepper. It was more like a pepper steak pie but still had some of the spiced flavor of the original recipe. Mashed potato is used as a thickener and I was able to cook down the mixture so it wouldn’t make a soggy pie. We used frozen pastry and made mini-pies in our pie maker and they came out quite nicely.
Tourtiere mini-pies Our third Canadian recipe was for poutine, which essentially french fries (chips) with cheese curds and gravy. Of the three foods we cooked, this was the only one I remember being sold in Nova Scotia while we were there. I remember it was on the menu at the pizza shop we used to like but we never tried it because it didn’t look very appetising. Now I think we should have tried it just to say we had  tasted it once. Our version didn’t have cheese curds since it’s another thing not easily found here. We used the suggested mozzarella and added pre-packaged chips gravy to a batch of chips from our local chip shop. The family consensus was the gravy was good but we probably won’t bother with the cheese again. If I ever happen to run across cheese curds here, I might buy some just so we can try a closer-to-authentic version of poutine. And if we ever happen to be in Canada again, I suppose we might make an effort to try the authentic version.
Our poutine with mozzarella cheese and pre-packaged chip gravy While the Scientist and Lego Lover put the pies together, we listened to the Canadian national anthem, once in English and one in a bilingual version. Game Fanatic was reminded of how he was forced to sing this daily while at school. It wasn’t a pleasant memory for him and he seems to still hold a grudge that he had to sing when he was not Canadian. Â Overall, Â Lego Lover seemed quite happy with the day so I imagine we will do something similar next year. Or at least make the nanaimo bars. :D
