Wil’s Aunt and Uncle came to stay with us for a couple of nights, on their way up to Quebec City and beyond. As well as it being awesome to see them for their own sake, they also brought us the most incredible gift – four packets of Café L’affare coffee! Somehow, in about four days we have managed to almost finish one packet already. It’s so delicious!

I made us a rice noodle salad with grilled chicken for dinner, and we had a lovely time catching up. After dinner, we took them for a short walk down to the Ottawa river, and partway across the bridge over to Gatineau. It was a warm evening – something like 28 degrees, and humid as anything. People have been warning us about the humidity in Ottawa, and it really is quite oppressive. Our house has an air-cooling system (sort of moves the cool air from the basement into the rest of the house) but it doesn’t seem to make a huge difference on the really hot and humid days.

The next day, our visitors took themselves off for some sight seeing. On their return, we decided to take a drive across the river to look at Parliament from a different angle. It had been a beautiful, clear, hot day, but by the time we prepared to hop in the car it had clouded over, and there was thunder rumbling overhead and the occasional jagged flash of lightening. It started raining as we pulled out of the driveway. By the time we got across the bridge to Gatineau, the rain was coming down in sheets, the heaviest I’ve ever seen it. We could barely see three metres in front of us. The roads were flooded, water spraying everywhere from the wheels of the cars. All hope of sightseeing was lost as a wall of water obscured the view over the river.

The rain, the one-way road system, and the fact that Wil and I have only really explored the city on foot, sent us back home. In retrospect, we should have pulled over and waited for the weather to clear completely rather than continue driving around, but thanks to the Uncle’s careful driving, we’d managed to avoid any harm. As we got home, the weather cleared up, leaving only flooded gardens and roads, and the occasional drenched pedestrian as a sign that it had been so horrid. We found out later that it had actually been part of a tornado system, which caused a lot of damage in the Quebec region. A friend was in Montreal on Friday night, and narrowly missed being in the area that the tornado touched down.

After the excitement, we gathered some wet weather gear and walked down Preston St to find somewhere to eat. Since Preston St is Little Italy, we were keen to try out one of the Italian restaurants. We meandered along, comparing the menus as we walked, and eventually ended up at Piccolino Restaurant, a cute little place with a reasonably priced menu. We had noticed as we walked that most of the menus seemed very similar, and the difference really only lay in price. Anyway, the restaurant had a nice atmosphere, and the food seemed like it was good value for the price. I had gnocchi with gorgonzola cream, which was tasty. I always feel a little funny about Italian restaurants, like I could make the stuff at home perhaps, but we never have gnocchi (Wil doesn’t really like it), and we certainly never have cream-based sauces on our pasta at home, so it was a treat.

The next morning we wanted to take our visitors to our favourite neighbourhood bakery for breakfast. Alas! As we walked up to the storefront, we were greeted by the baker and the rest of the staff pulling equipment out of the backs of cars. The bakery had lost power, so no croissants for us! There was a limited selection of loaves available (from before power had been lost) so we picked up some raisin bread and a potato and dill bread and had a picnicy breakfast at home instead.

Kind of light on posts this month, so I decided to generate some content by giving you all an insight into our everyday dinners. We try to make dinners that will make leftovers for lunches, and try to eat a vegetarian meal at least once a week. I do the bulk of the cooking, but Wil cooks at least once a week. This week was a little unusual in that Wil had a thing over the weekend that meant he wanted leftovers for weekend lunches too. 

Monday: Pork chops, sautéed fiddleheads with wild garlic, and couscous and chickpea salad

Wil picked up the fiddleheads and wild garlic from the Byward Market, on the recommendation of one of his workmates. Fiddleheads are a spring delicacy; like Pikopiko in Maori cuisine, they are the uncurled tips of ferns, picked while young and tender.

To prepare them, I boiled them for a few minutes, then sautéed them with the wild garlic. They tasted fresh and green – like eating unseasoned bok choy. Not unpleasant, but not exactly memorable.  

The salad is from Simon Holst’s Dish It Up cookbook, which is one of my favourites for easy but interesting everyday meals. The recipe makes a huge salad, great for lunches during the week.

Tuesday: Black bean, corn and pork tacos/burritos

This would usually be one of our vegetarian meals, but we had some extra pork to use up, so I threw it into the filling mix. I sauté chopped onion and garlic with some oregano, chilli and cumin, then add the meat (if using any), a drained tin of black beans, tinned tomatoes, tomato paste and frozen corn, and simmer it all until it’s ready. It’s a real store cupboard meal.

I like mine in tacos, because I like the crispiness of the taco shell, while Wil prefers a burrito, as it’s more manageable. Anyway, the mix is super versatile and I turned the leftovers into quesadillas for lunch. 

Wednesday: Boiled egg, new season asparagus, and sourdough soldiers with vegemite

A quick dinner before the BUGjam at 7pm. A team effort as Wil did the eggs and I did the asparagus. Soft-boiled eggs and asparagus are such a great combo. I picked up three bunches of new season asparagus from the Byward Market for $5. Simple and delicious.

Thursday: Penne with asparagus, peas, zucchini, bacon and parmesan

Adapted from a recipe in Annabelle Langbien’s Eat Fresh cookbook. I added lemon juice and a bit of garlic and chilli for extra flavour. It was good, but needed just one other thing to make it awesome – Wil’s suggestion was adding red capsicum.

Friday: Sourdough pizza with lettuce and pear salad

We have these pizzas pretty much every week. The base is made using our sourdough starter, and I make a sauce from tinned tomatoes, onion, garlic, chilli, oregano and basil. Our standard toppings are capsicum, artichokes, anchovies, olives, mushrooms, and mozzarella. We didn’t have mushrooms this week, so this pizza had asparagus and fresh tomato slices on it instead. Sometimes we get some salami for the pizzas, but most often it’s meatless (apart from the anchovies). This pizza is good every time – haven’t made a dud yet.

I made a simple balsamic and olive oil dressing for the salad, which I thought went very nicely with the pear.  

Saturday: Pork Larb with fresh greens and rice

I made this using a recipe off the Suff.co.nz website, and I wasn’t super happy with the result – it was ok, but needed more chilli and more lime juice, and even though I had reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe, I could have reduced it again. I like larb that sends you diving for the veges to cool down your palate. It was quick and easy to make though, and I’ll probably try it again, with adjustments to the seasoning.

I miss my mummy’s larb. 

Sunday: Herb and garlic pork sausage, green salad and garlic bread

A non-leftovers meal – good for a long weekend. Obviously, too hungry to remember to photograph it until partway through the meal! The sausages are from our local Italian deli, where we also get our bacon, and sundry Italian treats. You can tell they are  home-made, because each time we get them the mix is slightly different – no industrial homogeneity for our saussies!

The salad is just lettuce and radishes with a balsamic dressing – the radish gives a good crunch and peppery bite, great contrast to the richness of the sausage. The garlic bread was so good – I wished we had more, but it was the end of the baguette.

This meal was followed by a bowlful of raspberry jelly. Wobble wobble!  

I think I mentioned previously going to see the Bytown Ukulele Group (BUG) perform at the Ottawa Grassroots Festival. Anyway, after seeing the performance, and being encouraged by a number of friends to go along, I finally made it to the monthly BUGjam on Wednesday night.

Buoyed by a large glass of red wine, I caught the bus to the Clocktower Brewpub on Bank St, and descended down into the basement. There were maybe 30-40 people there, with lots of different ukuleles. Very exciting! I joined a random table, where there was one amazing player (who also played the fiddle when appropriate), one person who had been playing for about the same amount of time as me, and someone who had bought her ukulele two days previously. In general, that’s what BUG was like – a few really amazing musicians, and a lot of enthusiastic amateurs. The theme was songs about trains, including The City of New Orleans, Peace Train, I’ve Been Working on the Railroad. There were also quite a few songs that I’d not heard before, like the Canadian Railroad Trilogy, by Gordon Lightfoot (apparently a big deal Canadian classic…really pretty song). I had downloaded the music only about two days prior to the BUGjam, so hadn’t practiced much, but it didn’t seem to matter!

The group mashed through some songs, and sounded awesome on others. I was a little disappointed that we rushed our way through my favourite song on the list (Long Way Home, Tom Waites/Norah Jones), as it was also the one I had practised the most. In fact, I’m just about brave enough to post a video of me playing it. ALMOST. Maybe after another BUGjam.

Anyway, it was great fun, I had an awesome time hanging out and chatting with fellow enthusiasts, and watching the solo performances, which were amazing. Really looking forward to the next one, which is themed Flower Power – so lots of 60s and 70s songs. Hopefully I’ll manage to practise more beforehand this time!

Oh, also, the weather here has been AMAZING recently – bright and sunshiny and warm. Today’s high is heading up to 31 degrees! I spent pretty much all of Saturday out on the veranda reading my book. Just lovely.   

We’ve been pretty quiet over here for the last few weeks – just sort of ticking along, making plans for our summer holiday, and working. We have about six weeks of visitors from NZ coming up, so it’s probably quite good for us to have a little break before they arrive.

In preparation for the summer of houseguests, we did a big clean up of the garden. In addition to being totally frozen over the winter, the garden seems to have been neglected for the last couple of years. With the warmer weather and sunshine, it’s suddenly taken off, everything verdant and blooming. We have a funny sort of meadow in the back yard, with wood violets and dandylions growing through the grass. It’s pretty, but kind of means the backyard is unusable.

We did a big mish with the random assortment of tools in the garage, trimming the grape vine, pulling weeds from the side of the house, and clearing out the patio, which was covered in dirt and weeds. Two big bins of garden rubbish later, it’s looking pretty good. Also handy was the fact that my boss, who is a keen gardener, came round and identified which plants were weeds and which were actual nice plants, so next weekend we can finish clearing out some more of the jungle. With that and a quick mow of the lawn, it will be great for hanging out in the summertime.

The reason my boss came round was not solely for plant identification.  It was to pick me up for a little road trip to visit a local winery and a brewery. I was the official taster, as she was driving, with responsibility for letting her know if the wine was worth buying.

We drove out to Vankleek Hill Vineyard, about an hour away from Ottawa. It’s an organic boutique vineyard, producing a red, white and a rosé. Our arrival coincided with a group of Corvette enthusiasts who had come out for a tasting.  There were about ten Corvettes in the parking lot, some of them looking pretty vintage. We snuck in with their group and got the spiel on the operation, as well as a tasting.

The wines are called the Purple Cow (red wine), Yellow Cow (white wine) and Pink Cow (rosé), each with appropriately funky artwork on the label. The Purple and Yellow Cows were not to my tastes. Purple Cow smelled quite grapey and was rather on the sweet side – almost like a dessert wine. The Yellow Cow was ok, but more floral than I like – I prefer a very fresh white wine (NZ Sauvingnon Blanc!), and this tasted closer to a Chardonnay to my palate. My boss liked it though. The Pink Cow was great! Fresh and bright tasting, perfect for a sunny afternoon sipping wine on the deck. The Vineyard itself is quite a neat place to visit – there’s a patio overlooking the vines where you can have a glass of wine, and there’s art and local cheeses to peruse as well.

After wine, naturally, comes beer! We dropped into the Beau’s Brewery, about 10 minutes down the road. Beau’s is also an organic operation, and is also focusing on sustainability. For example, they are fundraising through selling a special beer membership to put solar panels on their building, and they also have partnerships with local organic farmers who use their grain byproducts to feed pigs. We got the free tour, which comes with beer samples. It was fascinating to find out that they get some of their hops from New Zealand! I picked up a few bottles of their beer to take home for Wil – two bottles of Lugtread, their flagship lager, and a bottle of a seasonal IPA named “Beaver River.” It’s quite a laid back and interesting place to visit – I’m definitely taking some of our visitors there when they arrive, to try the new season’s beers!

The Plague Child, Peter Ransley. Historic fiction set during the 1600s in England during the civil war. The main character is rescued from being thrown into a plague pit and grows up to become a printer’s apprentice. There’s the mystery of his birth, intrigue and politics, and lots of historical detail… but it gets a meh reaction from me. I found the main character (Tom) hard to empathise with, being mostly a sulky, emo child, who seemed to constantly make decisions with no reason or logic behind them. I thought that the plot about his origins was just too ridiculous – and I read romance novels, so ridiculous plots don’t usually bug me too much. Reading this felt like hard slog. This was the first in a trilogy, and it did not make me want to read any more of Tom’s story.

Trespass, Rose Tremain. Great little novel set in England and France, about sibling rivalry, love, and vengeance. Tremain is a fantastic writer, and her characters are well drawn, with lots of complexity and depth. It’s funny, because (as with The Plague Child) I didn’t necessarily like characters in Trespass, and yet I still liked the book. I think it’s because they seemed realistic to me, and didn’t make decisions that were out of character – you could always see why they did something.  The plot is quite dark – maybe a little more dark than my usual taste. I am becoming more and more averse to reading about incest, and I think that if I’d known that was a theme in book, I might not have read it.

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human, Richard Wrangham. The thesis of Wrangham’s book is that consuming cooked food was a central influence on human evolution both in a biological and social sense. Wrangham argues that contrary to the views put forward by raw foodists, cooked food is easier for humans to digest and draw nutrients from. He runs through a bunch of different studies to argue his point, including using examples from the animal world. Although it’s pretty sciencey, at times, overall the writing was good, and he makes what could have been quite dry subject matter interesting.

The Daughter of Siena, Marina Fiorato. Historic fiction set in Siena in 1729 Siena. Lots of political intrigue between rival families, a pair of star-crossed lovers, and an iconic horse race form the substance of this book. A good light read – I found it enjoyable and engaging, although not necessarily the best example of the genre. It was slightly predictable at times, and the characters were not very nuanced. Still, I’d probably read another of Fiorato’s books – really enjoyed the historical detail about Siena.

When Will There Be Good News? Kate Atkinson. With her third book in the Jackson Brodie series, Atkinson has written an excellent piece of modern crime/detective fiction. Good characterisation and a nice and complex plot with plenty of twists make this a very readable book. I enjoy the nuanced way that Atkinson depicts the relationships in her books.

Bloodhound, Tamora Pierce. Second in the Beeka Cooper series – YA fantasy. In this one, Beeka and her fellow Dogs (the semi-official police force in Pierce’s imaginary kingdom) investigate a counterfeiting ring. I find Pierce’s books so much fun – great plots, imaginative settings and strong characters. I’ve got book three out from the library now.

Last Chance To Eat: The Fate of Taste in a Fast Food World, Gina Mallet. Mallet is a food writer based in Toronto, so this counts on my Canadian books list, even though she grew up in the UK. I did enjoy reading this, although I also thought that it was unnecessarily pessimistic about the state of food today. In each chapter Mallet focuses on a particular foodstuff – eggs, beef, apples – and sets up a dichotomy between the “good old days” when eggs were eggs (and rationed), and the current state of the food, describing innovations in production methods, the development of regulation and the effect on quality. I find these sorts of books pretty interesting, but I actually don’t think we’re as badly off as Mallet is trying to make out. Also, quit living in the past and celebrate what’s great to eat now! 

I went to see an amazing exhibition at the National Art Gallery last week - The Clock by Christian Marclay. Here are my thoughts in an article I wrote for the Urban Times. 

I also went with friends to a couple of events over the weekend - first up, to the first annual Ottawa Grassroots festival, at which I got to check out the Bytown Ukulele Group. A friend had convinced me that my ukulele needs friends, so I took him with me to the Festival, even though I was a bit scaredy about it and Wil had to force the ukulele case into my hand as I left the house. However, having seen the group perform, I think I might be brave enough to go to their monthly meeting next month. As well as the Ukulele show, there were dancing and storytelling events. My friend and I did a music and dance workshop, which was really fun. 

Afterwards, I went with my friends to an event in Montreal for the evening - a performance put on by members of the Cambodian community. This was really interesting. The show was created by members of the 1.5 generation (people who were children when they emigrated from Cambodia) and explored their stories of identity and history. It was a little challenging as it was all in French, but for the most part I could follow what was going on (and I could translate any Khmer for my friends too!). I found that the stories on stage were very similar to the stories that come out of my own experience.

Someone asked me recently how I had found it growing up as an immigrant kid in NZ - my response was that I didn’t even know I was an immigrant and not a “New Zealander” until I was older and other people started treating me like an immigrant. I think of myself as a New Zealander and as a Cambodian. It was extremely interesting to see this dual identity thing going on with these Quebecois-Cambodians as well. I also thought it was fascinating to see that they identified as Quebecois and not necessarily as Canadian. Really says something about Quebec’s relationship with the rest of Canada. 

Sunday 22 April was Earth Day. To celebrate, the Canadian Museum of Nature had free entry, so a friend and I went to explore it. She has lived about a block over from the Museum for about a year, but had never been in, so it seemed like a pretty good opportunity.

The Museum is a beautiful old building, with stained glass windows and ornate carvings all over its façade, with lots of natural iconography – squirrels, moose, beavers. It was pretty crowded when we arrived, with lots of kids everywhere – it’s definitely an awesome place for kids. Awesomely, in the foyer there is a Moose Mosaic.

We started with the dinosaurs, which I was particularly excited about, as I have never seen dinosaurs outside of movies.

I was a little disappointed that the bones weren’t all gleaming white as various films have led me to believe, but I do understand that they need to be coated in order to be preserved.

In my scientific opinion, which is HIGHLY valued in some sewing circles, this type of dinosaur most likely died out because its arms were so shit useless. If you haven’t seen it, you should check out this Tumblr which is a highly amusing collection of drawings of T-rexes trying to do stuff. 

Imagine living in a world where there were turtles this big swimming in the ocean - this isn’t really a turtle, but a turtle shaped dinosaur. Dinosaurs are so cool. Were so cool. Stupid extinction. 

 I can’t resist a cheesy photo op with any sort of replica creature. 

Look out that kid! Fake T-Rex is out to get you!

After dinosaurs, it was off to the Mammal gallery, where we got to look at lots of stuffed Canadian wildlife. 

The posing of this skunk demonstrates that museum curators have a sense of humour. 

Wolverines - smaller and less Hugh Jackman like than imagined. After I saw this guy, I immediately turned to my friend and said that I’d been in Alaska all summer shooting wolverines with my uncle. 

Next up, the Water room. I wandered in and got distracted by a pretty video of underwater sea life. It was only when my friend said told me to turn around that I realised that the whole room was taken up by this:

This is the skeleton of a six year old blue whale. Suddenly, all the dinosaurs we’d just seen paled in comparison. 

We also went to the Earth gallery, where there was a huge collection of different rocks and minerals. I particularly liked this:

Colour blocking by Mother Nature - there really are no new ideas in fashion. 

We finished off in the Bird room, where we challenged ourselves to the bird call identification game, failing miserably apart from in the “backyard birds” section. I take no credit for the success in that area - I don’t think I managed to identify a single bird call. Obviously need to get into the Canadian countryside more. 

I think one of the best things about being an adult without responsibilities is that you get to go to museums and behave like a kid, but you’re also old enough to actually appreciate the educational and entertainment value of places. I had a great time being amazed by all the awesome stuff that occurs on earth. Great way to spend Earth day. 

Emmett had asked his friends in London what he shouldn’t miss in Canada, and had been told Quebec City. The Tuesday after Easter weekend, Wil had to work, so Emmett and I drove up to Quebec City and back for the day. This involved 10 hours in the car. Was it worth it? Yes.

We got up early, and hit the road about 6.45am, taking a route that we hoped would get us past Montreal’s morning traffic. Armed with a bunch of Google maps and a GPS, we managed to get to Quebec City by midday, with only one detour onto a dirt road, which the GPS didn’t recognise.

Once in the city (via a very confusing side trip to an information centre that seemed to be constantly 2km away) we parked up the car, and walked through the gate from Modernity to the Past.

We started with the tour of the Citadelle, Quebec City’s fortress, which still houses a regiment of the Canadian Forces. It was pretty interesting – obviously very military focused. It was kind of the off-season for visiting. Apparently in the summertime you can see things like the changing of the Guard, and visit the Governor General’s house (the GG of Canada has two abodes – one in Ottawa, and this “summer” place in Quebec City). The view from the Citadelle is amazing, and our tour guide was quite engaging, which I think makes a real difference to the experience.

Buttresses at the Citadelle

Me with Old Quebec City in the background

After the tour, which took about an hour or so, we wandered into the Upper town to find a place for a late lunch. After a weekend of extreme eating, we were sort of looking for something light. So we got sandwiches.

Club Sandwich

Smoked meat sandwich

Bloated, after lunch we wandered down the 55 steps to the Lower Town. 

Walking around the Lower Town is kind of like time travelling. The cobbled narrow streets seems so out of place in a North American context. Every which way you look, it’s picturesque.

As the evening drew near, we started thinking about getting back to Ottawa. We took the funicular (I love that word!) back up to the upper city and meandered back to the car.

The drive home was pretty uneventful – followed the GPS instructions and made it back to Ottawa before 11pm. We kept ourselves awake for the last hour or so of driving by singing, since the radio seemed determined to play the same three songs on all stations, and we’d listened to the one CD I own in Canada four times (Florence and the Machine’s newest album was my Christmas present). All-in-all, a successful day of touring. 

The Sugar Shack is a Canadian institution – it’s the place where maple syrup is made. In the spring, lots of maple farms offer the sugar shack experience – a chance to have a traditional sugar shack meal, and see the syrup being collected and made. We decided to take Emmett with us this Canadien experience. Because it was Easter Monday, and pretty much the end of the sugaring season, our choice of places to go was limited. We ended up going to Proulx Berry Farm, on the outskirts of Ottawa, which has a sugarbush (maple grove) as well as a working farm. We started with the sugar shack meal, a buffet which included:

• Split Pea Soup
• Scrambled Eggs
• Maple Cured Bacon
• Sausages
• Pancakes
• Maple Glazed Carrots
• Fried Potatoes
• Maple Syrup Baked Beans

All with as much maple syrup as you wanted. And for dessert, a choice of sugar pie, raspberry pie, maple candy or maple taffy on snow.

To be honest, the meal wasn’t the best ever – I imagine that if you went to a sugar shack in Quebec you might have a more authentic and delicious experience. However, it was still pretty tasty and filling. 

Afterwards we had a random mini-tour of the sugarbush, and got to look at the machine that they use to boil down the sap into syrup – it takes four litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. Because it was so late in the season, and because we had a week of amazing warmth just two weeks earlier, the trees had stopped producing the sap, so we didn’t get to see the syrup actually being made.  I think that once is enough for the sugarbush experience – potentially I would go again to one that was really, really good, but overall it was a little random.

The place also had a petting zoo with lots of cute goats, pigs, ducks, geese, horses and this woolly donkey.