Every afternoon our newsroom becomes a porous entity. People pass in and out of the station’s backdoor like it’s nobody’s business, all in pursuit of one thing: a mid-afternoon snack. That snack usually comes in the form of some bagged goodie bought at the Shopper’s Drug Mart across the street from the station (my co-workers and I are convinced that we are the most frequent visitors to this location and are upset that none of the cashiers remember us and say something like “oh yes, I do remember you! You do have an Optimum card!).
The afternoon snacking binge is normally initiated by a single person (this is an alternating role) and then, contagious as a yawn, we are all suddenly in need of Smart Food popcorn, hummus and carrots, seasoned peanuts and Licorice nibbs. The latter is my vice, and on a number of occasions I’ve found myself having inhaled the bag’s contents before even making it back to my desk.
So there…I am a reasonably healthy eater, but I am also an unhealthy snack fiend.
Brownie bokeh
These brownies were inspired by the most recent of my Shopper’s Drug Mart trips in which, having previously managed to fend off the urge to purchase an expensive “Excellence” series Lindt chocolate bar, I finally gave in when my co-worker and friend Jen asked if I wanted to go splitsies on a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. We chose two of our favourites – the dark chocolate sea salt and the milk chocolate crunchy caramel bar – and proceeded to (or at least I did anyways) stuff our faces with a sickening amount of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate. This posed a problem. For anyone who has ever been required to speak into a microphone, you’ll know that eating dairy in any form is not a good idea before doing any sort of recording. This in mind, I had to drink about a gallon of water before I was able to voice my narration for the next day’s news piece. Radio reporting + copious amounts of chocolate = not an excellent combination, sadly.
The idea for these brownies didn’t fall too far from the tree, and are a wonderful marriage of that delicious caramel/sea salt/chocolate threesome. A special thank-you to my co-worker Erik who suggested this week’s dessert be something in square-form (inherently non-photogenic, but I tried).
These did the trick in keeping any afternoon Shopper’s Drug Mart trips at bay BUT did little to quell my daytime eating habits. I may have had five of these on Friday. That’s just how good they were.
One of the things I have come to love most about Sudbury is the diversity of landscapes that come with northern Ontario. Yes, there is no doubt we have lots of rocks and trees and lakes, but how beautiful they can be. The way highways have been blasted out of what was once a beast of Canadian Shield. The way you can drive half an hour into Greater Sudbury’s Valley region and encounter rolling fields of farms, potato warehouses and U-Pick berry stops.
This diversity of regions is particularly highlighted when driving to Manitoulin Island, a trip that has quickly become one of my favourites.
Such was my Saturday spent with Jen, Ian and Steve.
Our day started at the Sudbury Farmer’s Market, where I sampled no less than six types of sausage, both to decide on which one would grace our island sandwiches and to make up for the fact that I had slept in and not eaten breakfast. Jen bought two different kinds of cheese (more sampling ensued, obviously) and I paid $1 for two cucumbers that the farmer offered me for free. You may question my decision to pay, but hey, farmers aren’t doing so hot this summer and every shiny loonie helps.
Now, let me talk about the drive.
The magic really begins when you get past Espanola, the town where the smell of the pulp and paper mill is matched only by the raw strength of that plant’s straight lines – tubes and towers crossing one another creating what can only be described as a playground of industrial ingenuity. From here, the roads open into a twisting maze (the turns are so sharp I almost poked my eye out while trying to remove my contacts on the way home), with walls of limestone rock and a view of Georgian Bay that sits as a faded layer of blue just above the tree line.
The discovery that the cassette (weird, I don’t think I’ve ever typed the word “cassette” before) deck in Steve’s van still worked was a game changer. Our trip was filled with cassette tape tunes from a former life. Does anyone else remember how good those Classical Kids cassettes were? We listened to Tchaikovsky Discovers America and snickered whenever the composer and the two bratty American kids outran the journalists. Nothing has changed, and I still find myself wanting to conduct Swan Lake whenever it plays. Other musical relief came in the form of Gordon Lightfoot (a true cross-Ontario listening experience) and a slightly-disturbingly titled mixtape that used to belong to my dad called “Songs to Watch Girls By.” Related: I can’t believe I lost my Backstreet Boys cassettes.
Once in Little Current we completed our first of two Farquhar’s Ice Cream stops, strolled along the harbour and tried to discover what all the Haweater Festival fuss was about.
Little Current has nice signs
We picnicked in the grass with simple sandwiches (or a “smörgås” – open faced sandwich, for me) topped with our local produce and bread that Ian made.
Dessert was chocolate cheesecake (another Ian creation) which he refuses to believe I actually like, despite repeated declarations of deliciousness. Ian: let it be known that I am taking my oath upon this great institution that is the Internet: I enjoyed your cheesecake, and would like to be continuously invited to your apartment for evenings of more cake and Catan.
The highlight of the day was our trip to Bridal Falls – a beautiful area with walking trails filled with the most lovely of sights.
We pretended the frogs leaping into the tiny, path-side streams were using them as water slides and imagined (or at least I did) that a local power generating building was haunted by a thousand killer bats. Looking up, down and around, the trail was an enchanting mix of textures and light transparencies.
The slate-of-stone benches found every hundred metres or so looked like alters to Mother Nature, and I offered my hiking shoes and backpack as a sacrificial lamb.
We encountered the tiny hamlet of Kagawong and spent a blissful hour exploring Edwards Studios in the old mill building (built in 1925) and appreciating the whole pile (the correct and grown-up way to describe a lot of any one thing) of stained glass, paintings, prints and pottery that had been made by the gallery owner, his wife and son. We weren’t supposed to take any pictures inside (a rule that I complied with for probably the first time in my life – see this Athens Museum post to read otherwise) but let me tell you that the art was unbelievable and the view from the old mill windows were enough to make me swoon. The view: a bright blue strip of Georgian Bay and a sky that when contrasted with the old grey brick of the building and the white window frame created the most dreamy of colour palettes. I liked to imagine the mill building was sitting high on a cliff and that the bay beyond was the edge of the world.
The four of us then took that view and transformed it into a location of splashing and swimming fun. I fell backwards off a dock like I was in a Nestea commercial and found a rock that looked like mainland British Columbia. It was reinvigorating.
We returned to Bridal Falls to find that it was far less busy than before. Advantage: silly photography.
Our best “battle to the death” faces (THANKS self-timer!)
And some not-as-silly photos:
Jen and Ian, the most absurdly (and adorably) in-love pair that I know
Our drive back across the island to Little Current was undertaken at the most amazing time of day – a sweetspot where the evening light cast a golden glean off the top of leaves and broken barns were illuminated in soft, slitted spotlights of sun.
I took out my contacts and dozed off for most of the ride home, my eyes not able to take the blind bokehs of passing car lights and highway signage.
I don’t think my description has done this trip justice. So just know that it was a really great day filled with good friends and an expanded appreciation for my home region. I’m happy.
When compiling a list of my favourite things, paper crafts will always be right near the top.
My extensive coloured paper collection is perhaps topped only by my button collection. Each occupy a special part of my bedroom, be it several drawers in my desk or glass jars that used to hold my favourite spaghetti sauce.
A paper drawer explosion that resulted from an episode of birthday card-making
I’ve always liked paper.
In my second and third year of university, my pick-up line for boys or friends was “want to come see the paper tree in my bedroom?!” No, that’s not somehow a crude innuendo. I was actually ridiculously proud of each individual piece of paper that I cut up and stuck to my wall with scotch tape. I wanted to show it off. That’s just the type of person that I am.
Ottawa paper tree, circa 2009
I also created a more lame-sauce version of my Ottawa paper tree on my door in Sudbury, but had to take it down awhile ago since it was faded by the killer evening sun. And so my door was plain and white for sometime. And that wouldn’t do.
So the other night I created a more grown-up, Things Organized Neatly paper arrangement to go on my door.
I got to use some of the four dozen paint chips that I took from a hardware store in Ottawa.
I punched out circles in each chip and carefully arranged them by shade.
Then I messed around with the leftovers to make a fun colour pinwheel.
Back to the circles – I neatly stuck them to my no-longer-bare bedroom entrance. And voila, new door art! I like it because it looks like two rows of colourful elevator buttons, which appeals to me and my lifelong desire to be a character in the book Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.
My dad had a minor heart attack when I told him I was going to an “F” party.
Let me give you the same explanation I gave to him.
One of my colleagues, Jen, suggested a brilliant new dinner party series for the CBC/Rad-Can colleagues: letter parties. The premise is simple – each week a letter of the alphabet is chosen. Your goal as a dinner party attendee is to bring a dish that has that begins with that letter. The more words that have the letter, the better. Want to know how crazy it can get? Our first letter party featured the letter “S.” I have never seen so many strawberry spinach salads with sesame and sunflower seeds in my life.
F is a decidedly simple letter to tailor dinner and dessert around. Fruit, filet of fish, foie gras, finger foods, fennel, food for goddsake. I, however, needed an excuse to make flan. But not just any flan – a fudge flan! Double F’s for the win. Flan has a few different food meanings, but for the purpose of this blog post, please know that it is a cooked egg custard that is like an extra jiggly, not-too-sweet, half cheesecake. Read: it is awesome.
When I first saw the recipe on Tastespotting, my jaw dropped and my mouth drooled.
Making this chocolate fudge flan was a flurry of fun (see what I did there? Whether I mean to or not, the week’s chosen letter always shoves its way into my everyday conversation. I really do think my brain subconsciously looks for a way to create as many alliterations as possible).
The baking process is actually quite exciting. The cake and flan layer do a little flippity flip in the oven, with the lighter cake floating to the top and the condensed mixture sinking to the bottom.
The cake goes into the oven as a murky mess
This flan is very dense and takes its sweet time sitting in its water bath baking. I advise you to eat leftover cake batter and take sugar-induced self portraits at this time. (OKAY I’ll stop pretending it’s 2007 and I’m on Myspace)
After much breath-holding and bongo-playing on the bottom of the bundt pan, the cake came out in one piece. And that, my friends, is just Fantastic.
Our drive back across the island to Little Current was undertaken at the most amazing time of day – a sweetspot where the evening light cast a golden glean off the top of leaves and broken barns were illuminated in soft, slitted spotlights of sun.
Hilary Makes 