crocus and first columbine leaves in the garden yesterday

Once I acknowledge this absence, this hole in my universe, there’s nowhere to go except to tears and bereftness. Then the intensity subsides, I pick myself up metaphorically, and I start thinking about tasks I need to do, or plans for supper, or whatever.

We can’t live every minute, every hour, with the awareness of the void or the emptiness of absence. But it’s there and intermittently comes back to hit me hard. Is my psyche, my body, my subconscious, learning from these repeated blows inflicted every time I come up against the raw truth of this void? It doesn’t seem so. Each time feels as raw as the last time: utterly unacceptable and unbelievable.

I think that in the early months after his death I felt like he was still around in some way. In some ways his death felt like a continuation of the last eighteen months of his life, when he was living here with me. I felt immense grief, but there wasn’t a sharp sense of absence.

hanging out in the living room

Things have changed over the last few weeks. Maybe the arrival of spring signals that Tashi’s last year of living and suffering is truly over. Now I feel his full absence. The solid tuned-in Tashi we had for years, the fab guy with humour and grace and thoughtful loving judgement, is gone. It’s unbearable right now, this heavy fresh sense of loss that’s like a first contact with another layer of reality.

Have I just been skating on the surface of grief until now? Am I at last swimming in the sea of grief? And feeling the waters threatening to submerge me completely?

Or maybe, to stay with the metaphor, it’s that I can’t touch bottom. I am adrift in deep waters, and I am forced to admit to myself that I’m here forever. Tashi is not going to reappear, to rescue me from this sense of loss. He is truly gone.

I should be grateful to be in touch with this terrible reality, rather than gliding in a pretend world of fake all-rightness. This is life. Life is joy and also pain. It’s discovery and also loss. We hide it from ourselves and from each other in the day to day, so that usually it’s impossible to know whether the people you walk by on the street are feeling safe and contented or are instead suffering acutely from grief or fear and anxiety.

the mouth of the Don River, downtown Toronto beyond

I remember feeling numb when my father died. I was eighteen, in first year university at Queen’s in Kingston, Ontario. He was forty-eight and died of a heart attack in London. His company paid for my brother Peter and me to fly to London to join my mother. There was a funeral and a cremation. It was all unreal, like something seen on a stage or through a plate glass window. And around it was the stage set of London in the late 1960’s, with the hip fashions of King’s Road a short block from my parents’ apartment.

I was tempted to stay away, to not return to my small first-year life of classes, friends, details. Two weeks earlier, during the Christmas holidays with family friends, someone had talked lovingly about Majorca. Now in London, I imagined taking off to Majorca to see the almond trees in bloom, and from there?...whatever. It was a seductive idea.

But my practical self realised that I needed to be grounded. I was afraid that if I went traveling I’d be lost after the first momentum of departure. Looking back now, I’m grateful for my caution, though sometimes I imagine the paths my alternative life might have taken.

I flew to Canada and went back to class. Professors, unasked, excused me from assignments. I probably didn’t thank them. I just lurched through the rest of my year. And I don’t think I ever properly reflected on the loss of my father. I was so aware of my mother’s determination to not fall apart that I didn’t stop to look at what his loss meant to me and for me.

My brother and I didn’t really talk about it either. Perhaps we felt that talking about it would make it unbearable. We didn’t have the tools. (And in those days no-one rushed in with suggestions about therapy.) It’s as if keeping our grief and loss in a cupboard, as a truth we knew but couldn’t handle, was the only way we could hold ourselves together.

My brother was two years younger and a much freer person than I was. I tended to be the more compliant literal-minded older child. He was rather like Tashi in many ways, physically co-ordinated and at ease in the world, with a natural unselfconscious charm. That year, with our parents away in London, he’d been boarding at the house of family friends and finishing his last year of high school. He flew back on his own from London a few days after our father’s funeral while I stayed on a little longer. I never imagined until later how alone he must have felt flying back and returning to high school, fatherless at the age of 16. Now I weep for him too.

I next saw him and my mother in late March, when we had a service to bury my father’s ashes at Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa. It all seemed unreal, that the three of us were together but my father was gone, ashes to pour into the ground in the springtime.

Four years later, almost to the day, my brother died in a sailing accident in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, off Vancouver Island. He was twenty.

I got a phone call on a Friday evening from Dunnery, the friend he’d been with. He was calling from the Canadian consulate in Port Angeles in Washington state. He and Peter had bought a sailboat at a police auction; it had been used for drug smuggling and needed repairs. They’d been working on it and decided to take it out for a sail. But the boat popped a leak, or the keel detached or something. I don’t remember. When the boat started sinking they’d tied some balsa wood together to keep themselves afloat in the water. The water was very cold. By the time they were picked up they’d drifted into American waters; my brother was dead and Dunnery unconscious.

I drove out to my mother’s place to tell her. I put my arms around her, pulled her onto her bed, and held her tightly as I told her. It was so unimaginable. No warning, nothing but the brutal fact of Pete being dead and gone.

I flew out to Vancouver and traveled on to my uncle’s place on Vancouver Island; my mother decided not to come. Pete’s body was shipped from Port Angeles to a funeral home there. I went with my uncle to the funeral home to make arrangements. I remember deciding not to go into the next room to see his dead body because I didn’t want that to be my last image of him.

There was a service a couple of days later at the little Anglican church in Comox, down the street from my grandmother’s small house. Pete had spent time there, loved our Grandmum (who was then 84) and our uncle and cousins very much, and they him. It was awful, a terrible time for us all.

Why am I thinking about this now and writing about it? What is going on? I have told the story of my brother’s death rarely, telling Dom and Tashi about it, for example, and a few friends. But now I’m feeling it. It’s part of the stream of deep feeling that’s taken hold of me. Each loss has become part of the next one. At last I am engaging with past losses, it seems, looking them in the eye with more capacity and understanding than I had at the time.

It’s possible to drown in loss. Perhaps survival, especially when I was young and had less understanding, required me to just keep moving, maintain some momentum, rather than risking being crushed by the weight of it all.

As I ride these waves of emotion, I find myself consoled by familiar patterns, from my live Zoom yoga class each weekday morning, to a weekly long conversational walk with friends, to Saturday trips to Wychwood Farmers’ Market and frequent walks to Kensington Market for food, to a pattern of various friends coming by for supper here and there each week. These are the things that help me put one foot in front of the other, both literally and metaphorically. I am very grateful for all of it.

street art off Spadina Avenue in Toronto

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS including blackcurrant syrup & leftovers-optimism

And speaking of patterns, I still depend on leftovers topped by one or two fried eggs for my (mid-)morning sustenance. Leftovers are usually rice or potato with perhaps some cooked vegetables and/or pickles or a condiment of some kind. With that I generally have a large mug of hot lemon with ginger, turmeric, and black pepper.

Recently, as I sorted through my jars of jam in the basement I came on the last of the large bottles of blackcurrant syrup that I put by a couple of years ago. It’s from a recipe for creme de cassis in Jane Grigon’s marvelous Fruit cookbook. You soak the black currants with red wine, then process them, then squeeze the juice from the pulp, add sugar and simmer the liquid down until it thickens noticeably. The recipe calls for the addition of alcohol at this point. But when I gave my good friend Dina a taste of the syrup her reaction was immediate: this is too delicious to mess up with alcohol! I left it as a syrup. Lately I’ve been treating myself to hot blackcurrant drink with a wedge of lemon rather than my usual hot lemon drink. Highly recommended.

In the evening my patterns vary. This week I made a meat sauce for pasta (whole wheat fusilli). I started with mustard seeds, nigella, and cumin seeds in hot olive oil, then about 5 crushed garlic cloves and two red bird chiles, and finally a pound of Andreas’s ground lamb from Wychwood Market. I stirred it in, breaking up clumps, and soon it had all changed colour. I added most of a bottle of passata plus a chopped up large out-of-season tomato that I’d bought days earlier in a fit of bad judgement. The pot simmered gently for a good while to a lush texture, seasoned with a splash of fish sauce and some salt (I usually work with 1 teaspoon salt per pound of meat, then adjust the seasoning to taste once the sauce has cooked awhile).

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For supper a few days later I made fried rice with leftover brown jasmine. I started with oil poured into the hot wok and tossed in some green Thai curry paste (store-bought). Once I had mixed it well into the oil, I lowered the heat and added several crushed cloves of garlic and nearly a cup of finely slivered raw cabbage. It took 4 or 5 minutes of stirring and cooking for both the garlic and cabbage shreds to soften. I raised the heat and tossed in the leftover rice. I stir-fried it briefly to break it up, added a few dashes of fish sauce, then stir-fried it a little more., pressing it against the hot sides of the wok. In went a large double handful of freshly washed and coarsely chopped spinach (also from the farmers’ market). After a couple of minutes of stir-frying the spinach had cooked to a bright wilted green. I turned the mass of rice out into a shallow bowl, squeezed on lime juice generously, sprinkled on some chopped coriander leaves, and it was ready. The leftover reheated tomato sauce was a surprisingly good side accompaniment to the rice.

Working with leftovers is a wonderful reminder of the transformative power of cooking and imagination. It takes a little optimism, of course, but so does most cooking. And in that optimism and the food it transforms, I find new energy for the coming days

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first bloom in my backyard; a lift of the heart

This talk of the weather is not interesting, my apologies, but feels necessary because in a pathetic fallacy kind of way, it feels like it’s mirroring the awfulness of the news cycle.

Until very recently I’ve felt as if I have less forward momentum each week. Surely this is wrong. Surely with the return of the sun at the equinox I should have been retrieving energy and life. Instead there have been days when I’ve retreated into a kind of still place in myself, a kind of holding tight. It never got me anywhere. So I’d start reading various Substack writers I respect, whose words and ideas take me down rabbit holes that sometimes lead to understanding and clarity, but most often these days to anger at the way the world is being held hostage by dishonest and greedy power structures. And then there’s the terrible fact of the suffering of ordinary people in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, and elsewhere who are being bombed, killed, traumatised

unharvested remnants of last year: rose hips battered by last winter’s snow and cold

When I was on book tour with my Taste of Persia book, in the fall of 2016, I remember that when I spoke at events in various US cities I emphasised that the people of Iran were not the same as the Iranian government, and that it was necessary to distinguish between the state on the one hand, and the people who live there on the other. They had not chosen their government.

The same holds true today. If a foreign government is repressive, it doesn’t mean other countries should start bombing schools, hospitals, and the humans who live there. The daily news of war crimes committed against civilians is sickening; we’ll look back on this era as a horrifying failure of humanity and of our international systems

when I’m in retreat with a book or other reading, I’m often warmed by this quilt I brought back long ago from Gujarat

Helpless bystander is not a role I want. It has felt like a doubling down of the feeble state that grief brings in waves. It’s disabling and disheartening. I wondered where or how to find lightness, or even the basic energy needed to initiate fresh thoughts or plans for each day.

But then late last week I was rescued, pulled out of my stuck state.

I began to leaf through Kaveri Ponnapa’s new book, called Coorg the Cookbook, that had arrived by Fedex.

It was beautiful and intriguing. I started to look for recipes to try. Soon I was making notes and lists of ingredients I needed to have on hand. They included lots of red onions and shallots, fresh curry leaves, frozen grated coconut, rice flour, tamarind, and plenty of fresh coriander leaves (cilantro). Once I’d stocked up (I found everything on my list in Kensington Market, a short walk away), I could launch into cooking.

large red onion; and the slightly tired remnants of the bunch of curryl leaves I bought last week

Since I rarely follow recipes and instead usually improvise with the ingredients I have in my fridge and pantry, this shift to exploring Kaveri’s book turned me back into a beginner in the kitchen. What a gift. Being a beginner always gives fresh eyes.

fresh eyes help me notice the beauty in ordinary kitchen moments

There’s real meaning in this food, anchored as it is in a culture and a geographic landscape. Exploring the recipes is a wonderful way to connect, even from far away, and that feeling of connection, however tenuous, is invigorating.

Kaveri’s recipes: pork with two layers of flavour, before being mixed and then slow-fried; sesame chutney tempered with curry leaves

On the other hand, making someone else’s recipes for the first time changes my process in the kitchen, slows it right down. Even with clear instructions (and Kaveri’s recipes are very clear), when I follow a recipe that’s new to me I usually feel slow and inept. I have no reflexes for timing or sequence. I read ahead, I prep, I check back about the order of ingredients, I check timing again, and so it goes, a slow methodical first-time walk to a final dish. It’s humbling to be inept and slow.

But there’s no anxiety about the result. I know I’m in sure hands, so the whole process is also relaxing. Following the recipe means that, like an apprentice, I am doing what I’m told rather than having to make decisions about what to do.

All of which is to say that this exploration of Kaveri’s recipes from Coorg has given me fresh energy and joy. I am so grateful.

new energy pulled me out onto my bike at last; the cold weather and winds had discouraged me

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS – the magic of curry leaves, and more

And it’s a good reminder that embarking on making a series of recipes from another culinary culture can refresh many things: our kitchen reflexes, the ingredients on our shelves and in our fridge, the condiments we have around, our state of mind…

I’m going to start with curry leaves. With many of the books I’ve written there’s a particular ingredient I feel needs to be more widely known and enjoyed. In the case of Mangoes & Curry Leaves, about the Subcontinent, it was of course curry leaves.

If there’s a South Asian grocery accessible to you, you’ll should be able to find them (I haven’t tried ordering them online). They usually come as a bundle of leafy branches bound with an elastic band and protected by a plastic bag. (In the photo farther up the bunch is small, the remnant of the bunch I bought last week.) Store them in the fridge or another cool place. The leaves fall off the stems easily, so the bag is helpful. You can also buy a small curry leaf plant and grow it up into a bush indoors, perhaps putting it outside in warmer seasons.

Curry leaves are a much-loved ingredient in many of the cuisines of southern India and Gujarat. (If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to do some exploring of them via cookbooks.) And once you have fresh curry leaves in the fridge, there are also many other pleasurable possibilities.

eggs with curry leaves, over some tomato remnants and leftover rice

The last few days I’ve been tossing them into the skillet before frying the eggs that go on top of my morning meal of leftovers. They hiss and sizzle in the hot olive oil and give off a wonderful aroma. I also used them a few days ago to temper a little tomato sauce/chutney. I had simmered coarsely chopped tomatoes with garlic and a couple of chiles. Once they had softened and blended, I heated oil in a small skillet, dropped in mustard seeds, then cumin seeds and curry leaves, and used the flavoured oil to temper the chutney.

Even if you don’t taste the curry leaves strongly as you eat the dish, the aroma that fills the kitchen when you cook them is its own reward.

A couple of nights ago I was cooking for a couple of friends, using mostly ingredients I’d bought that day at Wychwood Market. I boiled small potatoes unpeeled and served them plain. I slow-simmered some chopped washed small leeks with fresh green cayenne chiles, then added a few chopped anchovies before serving. To stir-fry hanger steak (in my very large wok), I started with curry leaves and mustard seed in the hot oil, before tossing in red chiles and a chopped onion. Once it had softened, the sliced meat (I’d rubbed it ahead with shio koji) went into the wok with a generous handful of chopped pea shoots and some chopped radicchio. A few turns and tosses, a splash of water and another toss or two and it was done.

refried spuds with curry leaves, with poached salmon and spinach

Last night I sliced the leftover small potatoes and reheated them with garlic in hot oil flavoured with mustard seed, nigella, red chiles, and fennel, as well as curry leaves. I already need to replenish my stash of curry leaves! (Alongside there was simple cooked spinach dressed in lemon, soy, and sesame oil, and a luxurious piece of Atlantic salmon from Fisherfolk that I poached in a miso flavoured broth with some pea sprouts and chopped ginger).

I’ll write next week about some of Kaveri’s recipes. The ones I’ve made have all worked beautifully. They include a rasam (often called Pepper Water in English), a fascinating and new-to-me rice flatbread (what a gift for people who need to avoid gluten), and a tart-sweet sesame chutney (a condiment I now want to have around all the time; see the photo earlier), plus several very delectable meat dishes. And there are more recipes on my “to try” list.

in the west Annex last Friday

a lift of the heart this afternoon: my first sighting of crocus and dwarf iris in Toronto this year

I began writing here last year, at Nou-Roz, the Zoroastrian/Persian new year. I had decided that I needed an obligation that lay outside my immediate situation, which was that I was living with a dearly beloved adult child who was undergoing palliative treatment for his brain tumour. Tashi had just finished a six-week course of radiation. I was hoping he’d have a good summer. But I didn’t want to write about him or about all that. I thought that instead I could try to keep myself grounded by exploring thoughts and stories related to food and life.

Tashi in September 2020, a year before we knew his days were numbered

In late November last year, two weeks after Tashi’s death, on what would have been his thirty-fifth birthday, I wrote about him here for the first time. And since then I’ve been trying to acknowledge to myself and others the ways in which I’m living and feeling in a transformed world. It turns out that the course of grief, like the course of life, is a very unpredictable variable road. Each week brings me fresh understanding.

In the last while I’ve been feeling rather foggy. Realising I needed a break from my patterns, a week ago I took the train from Toronto to Ottawa to visit a friend.

As we rolled east along the shore of Lake Ontario, I saw the bike path and the sandy inlet where I’ve gone swimming while out for a long summer bike ride with friends. But in this season, from the train, it looked like a stage set rather than a lived-in place. There were no people. The sand on the shore looked wet and packed firm. It was like a model or a painting, not a living breathing place. No wind. The only animation was the false one of our passage which made it move out of sight.

My friend Lianne picked me up at Fallowfield station and drove to her house out in the country. I was there three nights. As always, it was very relaxing staying with her. I didn’t have to decide anything or be in charge of anything. And I was content to just let go. She made meals. I helped a little but took no initiative. We went for a long walk in the woods on crunchy snowy paths, her dog frolicking and exploring all over.

sun and sharp March shadows on our walk in the woods

Friends came for a potluck feast lunch one day, and the next morning I drove into the city to see other people dear to me. Despite those commitments, I was able to let my mind drift. I existed more and more in the present. I had little to no anxiety about plans or obligations. Everything felt simple and natural.

breakfast in Lianne’s kitchen: fried eggs over salad left over from the potluck

In the train on the way back I read a Simenon Maigret published in French in 1967; it was a diverting way to time-travel while train-traveling. Outside the window the cold pre-spring landscape rolled past: soft pale straw-coloured corn stubble in rows across curves of dull brown soil striped with snow, small farmhouses and buildings huddled low, and lines of trees at the top of low ridges, their bare branches silhouetted against the sky in traceries reaching up and out.

Perhaps it was the sensation I had on the train that I was like a package, a parcel being moved across the landscape, that gave me the gift of a kind of passivity. That, in turn, led me into what feels like acceptance. The edges of my mind, or perhaps my defences? softened a little. I was left with a mushier head-space, with less capacity for decisions or decisiveness of any kind. Engaging with any question of where or when or why to do a particular thing seems impossible right now. I don’t have the muscle for it. There’s a lovely lack of striving.

And that tells me how much I must have been striving these last months, without knowing it.

there must be a story behind this fallen phone pole…

Somehow the short trip to Ottawa, an exit from my normal space and patterns, has enabled me to recognise that I’m deeply exhausted. Normally I like to engage with people, to understand where they’re coming from, to explore ideas with them. But right now I am withdrawing. Leaving a room feels better than entering a room. That’s entirely new for me.

I am more weepy, softer, more vulnerable to all kinds of emotions. I feel a sense of relief. This is a new state of being. I don’t want to lose it. My question now is, if I find the muscle to help me take hold again with more energy, can I also keep the door open to this openness and vulnerability?

rainbow socks knitted by Lianne: a lovely encouragement to take things a step at a time

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS with pasta, fried rice, and more

My tiredness and passivity meant that when I got home from the train trip on Wednesday mid-afternoon - a slightly chilly walk up from Union Station - I was a bit disoriented. I dumped my small knapsack and shoulder bag and retreated to the chaise longue with a book.

A while later there was the question of supper, so I had a look in the fridge (with very little enthusiasm I confess). I figured that perhaps the leftover dal spruced up with some spinach, plus a fresh batch of rice (brown jasmine), and a lake trout from Fisherfolk that was in the fridge, would work well. And there were some green beans I could quickly cook and dress with a vinaigrette.

I felt very inept, fumbly, without reflexes, as if I’d been away a year rather than just three days. I’m sure it was because I’d let go of my attentiveness and focus. I was blurry inside and out. The result was that the fish was OK but could have done with another one minute in the pan, the rice was OK, the green beans were under-salted, and the dal lacked vitality. Though I felt a bit badly that supper wasn’t better for my house-guest and friend, lively and lovely artist Sarah Khan, I wasn’t distressed. It felt kind of inevitable.

The next morning I suggested that we might go out for supper that night. I think it was a way of avoiding decision-making in the kitchen. But heavy rain arrived in the afternoon so that the prospect of heading out to a restaurant was unappealing. “I’ll make supper!” said Sarah. I felt a sudden relief.

She liked the idea of pasta, so she chose the one she wanted and decided she’d oven- roast the root vegetables we had: carrots, sweet potatoes, and parsnips. And then she’d figure out a sauce for the pasta. I withdrew happily to the other side of the counter and started to prepare for an interview I’m doing next week.

It was very restful to be out of the role of decision-maker, to leave everything in Sarah’s capable hands. I’m not sure if she’d imagined that I’d help or guide things, but in any case, I did not.

The meal was delectable. She’d made a sauce with ingredients she’d found: a bunch of spinach, a shallot, the leftover green beans, garlic, a few anchovies, and a jar of passata. She’d spiked the sauce with berbere powder so that it was warmingly savory and she’d cooked it down so that it coated the long thick country style pasta beautifully. The root vegetables were tender and aromatic, and a small chopped salad of pea shoots and radicchio was refreshingly green and crisp.

thank-you Sarah!

Then two nights later, suddenly, the kitchen became familiar again to me. I felt a surge of good happy energy as the wok heated. Decisions and gestures flowed easily. The brown jasmine rice left over from Wednesday’s supper became a generous heap of fried rice, enlivened with red curry paste, five cloves of garlic, the leftover roasted root vegetables (chopped a bit smaller), plus chopped spinach. I finished it with generous squeezes of lime juice plus fresh coriander leaves. Alongside we had bavette grilled outside over charcoal, plus a beet salad. I’m relieved to have found my footing a little.

the fried rice left in the serving bowl after everyone had had a first helping

And the sight of long-buried plants re-emerging, the first tips of my rhubarb showing above ground, the straggle of tulip leaves shoving their way through, is always encouraging, a kind of “yes we can!” It’s OK to weep and grieve, to be distracted and fuzzy. And it’s possible, in fact necessary, at the same time to celebrate the return of spring.

the traces of winter are slowly fading; remnants of paths across Kings College Circle at the University of Toronto

but it’s hard to find my footing right now

I somehow had assumed that I’d be feeling a little lighter once spring arrived. Instead I am weighed down almost more now by the reality of the loss of Tashi. It’s feeling heavier than ever. And beyond that, the wider world is also a place of deep grief and loss. At the start of the fourth week of the US-Israeli war against Iran, focused attention, creative energy, and any kind of optimism are all in very short supply. What a harsh way to enter the season of hope

there’s still beauty; but it’s imported and ephemeral right now

The other day I went to a two-hour lecture by Professor Timothy Snyder on colonialism and empire that drew on Arendt and Fanon and others, as well as on his own wide and deep historical knowledge and understanding. He talked about imperialism as an element of character (and culture), the way it shapes the mindset of both the conquerers/rulers and the conquered/subjects. Those thoughts resonated with me afterwards: the assumption of the militarily powerful that they can shape the world as they wish, as we’re seeing with the disorganised mindless launch of this war. And then on the domestic front in the US, there’s the assumption by the senile president and his fascistic enablers that the populace, as well as the country’s institutions, can be cowed into obedience.

I’m left with these scattered thoughts: Violence seems to be seductive and addictive. It sucks people into a feeling of excitement and necessity. How do we counteract this? The steeply rising price of gas and other fuels should have a sobering effect on war-enthusiasm. Will people in the US rise up against the war? The US and Israel seem to have underestimated the capacity and will of the Iranian government to resist military coercion (whatever the cost to the Iranian people). The instigators of this war are like the schoolyard bully who has misjudged his target’s strengths and finds himself no longer in control of the situation.

Meanwhile the humans on the ground in all the countries involved, the families, the elderly, the nurses and doctors, the people of every kind who are caught literally in the crossfire, are all vulnerable. And the waves of fear and grief that must be surging across the region are unimaginable. Then there are cultural losses: libraries, churches, mosques, architectural treasures, and more, as well as catastrophic environmental damage.

The West condemned the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamian buddhas as barbaric. What do we call these current bombings?

where does this all lead us?

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS, from anchovy-garlic sauce to brown rice polo sabzi

While the news out in the world remains horrific, I’ve had an unexpectedly positive week in the kitchen.

As often happens, one happy discovery arose because one night I was stuck with no good plan for supper, and then an idea for improvising turned out to be solid gold. Here’s how it went: I had brussels sprouts and I had taken a small package of merguez out of the freezer. Merguez are (delicious) Moroccan-Algerian style spiced lamb sausages, and these came from our friends at Black Sheep Farm in Grey County. The weather had turned cold and snowy for the umpteenth time this month, so oven-roasting seemed like a good plan.

just before the pan went into the oven

I sliced each brussel sprout into five or six (they were quite large and very firm) and laid them onto a large baking sheet. The merguez fitted along one end, pricked by a fork. I drizzled some olive oil and fish sauce on the sprouts, then they went into a 400F/200C oven for about half an hour. I had imagined somehow tossing the brussels sprouts with some pasta. And maybe adding chopped merguez. But how to make a sauce?

Perhaps if I chopped some anchovy and garlic and cooked them in olive oil? I checked the index of Marcella Hazan’s The Classic Italian Cookbook, (published in 1980) under “anchovy” and there I found a simple sauce that gave me confidence and guidance. It was simply chopped anchovy (no garlic) cooked in a generous amount of olive oil, mashed until pulverised, thickened with grated parmesan and pecorino, and used to cook broccoli florets.

I chopped the garlic and anchovy, cooked them in olive oil in a large cast-iron skillet, mashing them with a spoon as they softened, then stirred in a generous amount of grated parmesan and black pepper.

garlic and anchovy in olive oil

Finally I added the oven-roasted brussels sprouts to the sauce in the skillet. Once the pasta was cooked (whole grain mafalda; other small pastas would be equally good), the brussels-anchovy sauce made an excellent coating and flavouring. We ate the merguez separately, simply cut into short lengths.

and after roasting

Brussels sprouts turn a dull green when cooked, but we know that brown food is delicious. This combo was a shining example of that truth.

Later in the week, on Thursday night, the eve of Nou-Roz, I was expecting a total of five people at dinner (we ended up being six). I thought we could make it an anticipatory and celebratory Nou-Roz-tuned meal. We had fresh lamb shoulder from Andreas of Bushbeck farm. And I had bought fresh herbs so I could make polo sabzi, a greens-loaded rice dish that is classic at Nou-Roz.

I have made polo sabzi several times with brown basmati instead of elegant white polished rice. It’s always gone well but has never been perfect. (My friend Serge Madikians, who is Armenian-Iranian and was the chef owner of the restaurant Serevan in the Hudson Valley, says that when making polo, once you put the lid on the rice to finish steaming you must send a little prayer that it will be perfect.) This time it was: fluffy, beautiful, with a great tahdig.

I used about 3 cups organic brown basmati from Lundberg farms and soaked it ahead in salted water for about an hour. I started cooking the rice about 2 1/2 hours before I hoped we’d be eating. The method for polo is always a first cooking of the rice in plenty of boiling salted water (as if you were cooking pasta), but only until it is slightly softened, still not cooked through. I use the same tall pot that I use for pasta. Cooking times are longer of course if you’re using brown rice. (The full instructions for classic sabzi polo using polished rice are in my Taste of Persia book and are beautifully described in Nancy Jenkins’s recent From the Kitchen Porch post.)

While the rice was boiling I washed and chopped some chives, tarragon leaves (stripped off the stems), coriander leaves and stems, and flat-leafed parsley; they made a big handful of greens. It was also the moment to make the saffron water: a generous pinch of saffron pulverised to a powder in a mortar and then stirred into about ½ cup warm water.

I prefer making a crust (tahdig) with a mix of yogurt and an egg, so in a bowl I stirred together a scant cup of plain full fat yogurt with one egg. Once the rice was softer but not cooked through (it took more than half an hour), I drained it in a sieve in the sink. I scooped about 1 1/2 cups of the drained rice into the bowl of yogurt, stirred to mix it all together, then added the saffron water.

The tall rice pot, cleaned out and empty, went back on medium-high heat. I added about 1/4 cup olive oil (or you can use ghee) and a splash of water (yes it sizzles) and then dropped the yogurt-rice mixture onto the oiled surface. It spread out naturally. I sprinkled on about a quarter of the chopped herbs. Then the remaining rice and greens went on in alternating layers, two or three of each, to make a conical mound. I used the long handle of a wooden spoon to poke six or seven holes in the mound, then dropped 7 or 8 small pats of butter onto it. As a kind of superstitious step to ensure there’s enough moisture to finish steam-cooking the brown rice (this isn’t necessary with white basmati), I always sprinkle on about ¼ cup of hot water. The last step is to wrap the lid in a cotton cloth and seal the pot closed. I raise the heat for about a minute (to help set the crust), then lower it right back down to lowest heat and leave it to cook for about an hour.

Before you remove the pot from the heat, you need a wide pot, or your sink, filled with about 2 inches of cold water. Lift the rice pot off the stove and place the bottom of the pot in the cold water (this helps encourage the bottom crust to detach, though it’s not a guarantee). After it rests there for a couple of minutes, you can turn the rice pot upside down over a platter to empty out the rice and the bottom crust. Or instead, as I do, you can spoon the rice out onto a platter. The bottom crust may stick a little: use a metal-edged spatula to ease it off the pot. Mound the rice on the platter and place the pieces of tahdig on top or around the edge.

The lamb shoulder, cut into steaks and marinated in pomegranate molasses and fish sauce, went on the charcoal grill about twenty minutes before we expected to eat, then rested before being sliced.

It’s a good idea to have a fresh salad or pickles or both with a meal like this. We had a green salad as well as oven-roasted beets that I’d chopped and dressed with a yogurt-tinged vinaigrette

salad, polo with tahdig, beets, and grilled lamb; an assertion of spring

yesterday morning’s view out my window

March has been playing its usual unsettling game of snakes and ladders: two days of warmth and people out in t-shirts, then clouds and rain and umbrellas, then a hard frost and heavy coats and mittens, then those fat spring snowflakes tumbling down followed by some melting snow later yesterday, and today bright cold with frozen crunchy snowmelt underfoot.

reflections in meltwater, ice, and last year’s leaves, earlier this week

It’s exactly four months (one-third of a year) since November 14, the day Tashi died.

And exactly two weeks ago the US and Israel started a barbaric war against Iran, murdering civilians and destroying their treasured past and their present. No-one seems prepared to try to stop this madness. It’s as if, once launched, a war has a right to exist.

I need to start a file called “rants” where I dump my paragraphs of distress and rage and frustration. For that’s what comes out first when I sit down to write here on Substack. And then finally I come to a solid place that I want to inhabit and explore here.

local undulations: cobbled front yard

This week I’ve been thinking about the moments when I forget that Tashi is gone and I for a milli-second have an impulse to tell him about a random encounter, or imagine the look on his face when he hears a piece of news. They’re followed instantly by a sink of the heart and the gut, a quick sharp letdown. No, he’s gone. It’s a kind of death by a thousand cuts situation, unpredictable cuts inflicted when reality and my reflexive thoughts are out of synch.

Perhaps there will always be these moments. Perhaps it’s impossible to truly absorb the painful truth. And that may be a measure of how deeply we connect to our most beloveds. They are built into our bones and muscles. Their image, their living presence, stays imprinted in our subconscious, or somewhere just as deep.

The veil of subtext, of a sense of hidden possibility, and of a kind of unreality, is sometimes very disorienting. Sometimes I feel as if I’m looking at the world through distorted glasses. It seems askew and unreliable. I have the sense that maybe there’s something lurking just out of sight around the corner. Perhaps it comes from my knowing there’s an essential missing, but without my having truly integrated that reality. It’s like having a kind of blurry double vision.

I used to see double when I was a child, whenever I was tired. I’d had a couple of eye operations before I turned two, to correct my strabismus. Usually my eyes stayed in focus without my making any special effort. But if I’d been out in bright sunshine or had had a long day, they’d slide into a double image. It was kind of restful, I realise now, as I think about it. I’d retreat into a sort of vagueness. Perhaps I’d get a vacant look on my face. I don’t know. My mother would usually notice immediately that my eyes had gone out and from across the room she’d signal to me to pull them back into focus.

The temptation with this loss of Tashi is to let things blur, without trying to pull myself back into focus. I’ve done some of that, for sure. It can be restful. But I don’t want to retreat into passivity and inaction. I want instead to retrieve energy and lightness. Even if that’s going to be only intermittently successful, it’s worth the effort. The return of longer days will help me get there, as will fresh leaves on the trees and growth in the gardens. Being out in the world, moving and breathing and noticing, that’s what’s life-giving, that’s what can help me find fresh focus and lightness.

if the snowdrops can push their way up through dried leaves and debris…

When I got back from Thailand nearly four weeks ago I couldn’t face dealing with practicalities, including my accumulated mail, for over a week. Among the bills and statements was a card that had been mailed in New York City just after Christmas but hadn’t arrived until mid-January. In it was a kind letter expressing love and condolences for the loss of Tashi. I was very touched but found myself unable to reply to it until today, when it suddenly felt easy. Who knows how these things work? It seems like pathways forward become clear in odd and unpredictable ways. Perhaps some never do. We’ll see. (For example, the clarity I need to access in order to do my 2025 taxes has not yet manifested!)

But at least I’ve been working on plans for ImmerseThrough trips to Georgia (in late September of this year) and northern Thailand (January 2027). In the last few weeks I’ve been talking with my friend and colleague Tamar, who lives in Tbilisi about this fall’s trip. We’d like to include a few days across the border in Armenia, as well as generous time in Georgia. (All of this may be a pipe dream if the warmongers keep pursuing their murderous goals.)

fried eggs with leftovers (in this case grated beet salad) plus generously buttered toasted rye bread, is a heart-warming encouraging way to start the day

Next week, with the new moon, we come to the end of Ramadan. Nou-Roz is a few days later, on March 20. Unlike Ramadan or Easter, it’s set by the solar calendar rather than the lunar calendar. It’s the Iranian/Persian/Zoroastrian New Year celebration of the return of the sun, that falls on the first day of (northern hemisphere) spring. How wonderful if the war could wind down at Nou-Roz.

lilies from St Lawrence Market, brought by a dear friend

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS - halibut, celery root, oven roasting, and Pi Day

The other day, with two well-loved friends here for supper, I cooked halibut, two thick pieces totalling about 550 grams (just over a pound) that I’d bought frozen from Fisherfolk at Wychwood Market. (They bring it in from Nova Scotia.) I’m always worried that I’ll not do fish justice. Over-cooking is the big risk. I defrosted it in the fridge during the day and then brought it to room temperature just before cooking.

I wanted to try using diluted miso as a cooking medium. I dissolved a heaping tablespoon , perhaps a bit more, of shiro (pale/”sweet” miso) in about ¾ cup (175 ml) warm water. I cooked a little minced ginger and minced shallot in a cast-iron skillet over moderate heat (in a splash of olive oil). Once they had softened I lowered the heat. When I added the miso liquid it sizzled slightly as it flowed to cover the whole surface thinly. The halibut pieces went in flesh side down for just over a minute. Then I flipped them and they cooked skin side down, with the lid on so they could steam a bit, for another nearly four minutes.

I served the fish with a drizzle of the cooking liquid on top. The halibut slid into beautiful flakes and it was not overwhelmed by the miso. Whew! I failed to take any photos. Sorry.

The rest of the meal included a dal (a mix of urad and masur/red dal) cooked earlier in the day for over an hour until soft, then tempered with spices and chopped cauliflower ooked in oil. There was also a lightly dressed salad of roasted celery root and chopped radicchio.

We’re lucky to have Ontario-grown celery root (celeriac is the other name for this large bumpy vegetable) still available (it doesn’t seem suffer much in storage). Celeriac needs to be peeled (a potato peeler works well, or a small sharp knife) before being sliced. I slice it fairly thinly, cut the slices crosswise so they aren’t too big, toss them with olive oil, sprinkle on fish sauce, and then roast them on a baking sheet until tender. Celeriac takes a while to soften, always a bit longer than I expect (allow 45 minutes to an hour at 400 F/200 C).

Then what? I can imagine you asking. I like to combine its sweetness with some bitter. That could be chopped dandelion stir-fried with a little garlic, cumin, mustard seed, and perhaps some minced chile if you’d like extra heat. Local farmed dandelion, a classic spring green, is now available here, so that’s a good choice.

Another possibility is chopped raw radicchio or endive. (I found some imported radicchio from Mexico last week; I’m avoiding US produce these days). The radicchio-celery root combination calls for a well-seasoned (salty enough) dressing with a bit of a tart edge, say yogurt, cider vinegar, and a little olive oil, or instead tahini diluted with warm water, plus some pomegranate molasses. With the latter dressing you could use a good soy sauce for part of your seasoning.

It’s true that most root vegetables lend themselves to being cooked in the oven, from beets and carrots to potatoes. It seems useful to talk about them now, because we’re still mostly in the “hunger gap season” with root vegetables plus cabbage our main source of vegetables.

I slice potatoes (peeled if the peel is thick), drizzle them with olive oil , sprinkle on salt, and put them into a 400 F/200 C oven until tender and touched with brown (usually about 45 minutes; it depends on the variety of the potato and the thickness of the slices). Carrots, scraped clean, get the same treatment except that I usually slice them lengthwise into batons. Beets go in whole and unpeeled, on a baking sheet and sheltered under aluminum foil so they don’t dry out.

And finally today is “Pi Day” (if you write your dates American-style, with the month first, it’s 3.14.). I forgot about it this year and never even thought to try making a pie.

here’s a glimpse of two small pies, tartlets, made by Dawnthebaker, both of them genius: rhubarb cardamom custard, and Shaker lemon

frost-burned neglected rosehips

Of course I’m continuously waylaid by mourning Tashi’s absence. That grief is now a familiar, a presence. So is the horror of Gaza. But these days there’s even more.

How can any of us feel OK or focused when the illegal US-Israeli war against Iran is taking all our oxygen. It’s obscene, crazed. And murderous. There’s no principled motivation, just opportunism and propagada everywhere. They’re bombing Isfahan. What a nightmare.

The world seems to be heading to hell. And along the way hundreds and thousands more in Iran as well as in Palestine and Ukraine and many other places will suffer violence, death, displacement, starvation, and impoverishment. How can anyone cheer this on? My friend Nancy Harmon Jenkins, much wiser than I, titles her most recent Substack post “War is Not the Answer!” She’s so right.

There are ways to actively protest what’s going on. But the first essential I think is to resist the hysteria and the sense of dislocation created in us by the 24-7 news cycle that brings us wars and propaganda. My first reaction to it all is to rant and rage.

But if we lose ourselves in rage or despair, then the forces of disorder, the bad guys, have won.

Surely a better approach, though it’s a challenge, is to stay in touch with our humanity. We can try to stay grounded by connecting with other people, both friends and strangers, and by being attentive to the natural world. Another access is through human creativity: art of all kinds including painting, drawing, music, poetry, film, etc.

street art just off Spadina, south of Dundas, in Toronto

The full moon this week with its trail of bright planets, was one reminder of larger wonders. There was a lunar eclipse just before dawn, when the moon was low on the western horizon. I felt driven to get up early to try to see it. I wasn’t sure I could find a clear line of sight to it. Bundled warmly I walked to Kings College Circle at the university, five minutes away. As I walking across the snowy expanse of the circle I was thrilled to see a small group of five or six other optimists, black shapes on the white snow, standing still and looking west.

And yes! The eclipse was visible, though barely. It was a veiled pale persimmon colour, rather than brilliant (because we were looking at it through the thick atmosphere near the horizon, rather than higher up in the sky). But it was a thrill, still, to see it. I felt light at heart walking home, as the eastern sky slowly brightened into dawn.

Another lift this week came from South African artist Willian Kentridge. His work is always a tonic and a reminder of a larger view. He uses many tools, including video, charcoal drawing, metaphor, a strong sense of history and justice, and music, to explore big ideas. His series of nine half-hour films, A Portrait of the Artist as Coffeepot, which premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2024, has been on show here in Toronto; I finally got there this week. (It has now closed, but is available on MUBI.) I’d seen the first four of the films at the Biennale. On Friday I watched the last five. then stayed around to watch first two, to see what I’d missed first time round. What a pleasure.

At one of the breaks between segments, an acquaintance who was there with a young friend asked me if I had any thoughts about how to keep a clear head in the noise and distraction, the bombardment of the current news cycle. It was that question which led me to the train of thought that I’m trying to follow in this post.

The ideas that Kentridge explores in the films through drawings, words, song, question and answer discussions with himself, torn paper sculptures, and more are still reverberating in my mind’s eye. They’re helping to keep me steady. Art can do that, as can cooking for friends, meditating on grief, eating with friends, conversation with strangers on a streetcar or while waiting at a store or on a subway platform. All these can remind us of human connection.

So can looking for signs of spring in a slowly melting landscape. Yesterday there was a sudden warming, from freezing to plus 12 C/ 50 F. On my way to Wychwood Market in the early morning there was a soft damp fog that made the world beautiful and mysterious. It was transporting. So is the sight of sturdy green hellebore leaves in the back garden, flattened by the weight of the snow that has burdened them for months, and now ready to grow towards the sun. In other bare patches there are small sharp-edged iris leaves and other small green tips growing upward. A thick layer of crusted snow still covers the area where the rhubarb should appear, and the crocus.

and babies and children can help ground us, if we’re lucky enough to have time with them

KTCHEN EXPLORATIONS – wok cooking for spring, and a try at bread pudding

I’ve been turning to the wok more often these days. The cold outside makes charcoal grilling unappealing, but the sense of coming spring means I am less inclined to rely on the oven to cook both meat and vegetables, as I have been doing almost all winter. So instead of putting a sheet tray of root vegetables and/or cabbage wedges along with a little marinated chicken or pork, into the oven, I find myself chopping ingredients for stir-fries.

Last weekend I was expecting two extra people for supper and I had about 1 ½ pounds of frozen pork shoulder and some delicata squash to work with. I put on a pot of brown jasmine rice to get things started. I cut the squash in half, scooped out the seeds and pith, then sliced it into thin half-moons (thank heavens for sharp knives). I sliced the pork and tossed the slices in a bowl with some shio koji paste and several splashes of soy sauce. There was onion, garlic, and ginger to chop too. Amazingly we have local spinach available, these days from Nith Farms. I washed and coarsely chopped both that and some bok choy leaves that were hanging around in the crisper.

The dish came together easily, perfuming the air: I heated the wok over a high flame, added olive oil, then tossed in the onion and ginger, followed soon after by the garlic. In went the pork, and after several tosses to expose it to the heat of the pan, I added the squash slices. They stir-fried together with the meat for several minutes before I added about a cup of hot water. As it bubbled to a boil I popped on a large lid for a minute or so until the squash had softened in the steamy heat, then added the bok choy and spinach and stirred it in. Another minute or two later the dish was done and turned out into a serving bowl.

the pork and delicata stir-fry over rice, with a side of beets (from a batch I’d oven-roasted the previous week), dressed with a vinaigrette

At the last minute one of my expected guests couldn’t stay for dinner. That meant we had the stir-fried pork and greens not only for supper that first night, but also as reheated leftovers a couple of nights later. I love good leftovers.

I took the same approach last Thursday when a friend from out of town was coming for supper and to stay overnight. My meat this time was two small duck breasts, totalling about 1 pound. Again I rubbed the meat with shio koji and some soy sauce. But this time I turned to a jar of black bean sauce that was in my small ferment fridge (There’s a recipe for it in my Miracle of Salt book.) It was a special batch that I’d made without chiles, so that I could use it when cooking for a friend who is allergic to capsaicin (the heat-giver in chiles). I mixed about 2 tablespoons of the black bean sauce with a little oil and with one minced bird chile. The only other flavourings I used were chopped shallot and some garlic (on the theory that more is always better).

The greens I had were fresh locally grown pea sprouts, and more spinach. I coarsely chopped those and set them near the stove top.

Once the rice was done (brown basmati cooked with a little chopped onion and some salt), I added a few small pats of butter to it.

The big wok went onto high heat. Olive oil went in first (I could/should have used goose fat but forgot). I added my aromatics, then soon after, the sliced duck. I turned it a couple of times then added the black bean sauce mixture, stir-fried things together a moment, then added the greens and stir-fried it all together vigorously, with the addition of a little water along the way. Duck gets tough if it’s cooked a long time (like beef), so I needed to get everything done quickly. It all came together perfectly, with the addition of a small hit of fish sauce…

the greens have just been added; I paused to take this quick shot

and a first try at bread pudding

The other exploration this week was bread pudding. We don’t seem to be eating much bread these days. On Thursday I realised I had a half loaf of bread that was two weeks old, a delicious rye bread with quince from Dawnthebaker. I sliced it, chopped it (trimming off very tough corners), and put the cubes of bread to soak in milk.

Dawn had told me that she soaks her bread pudding bits (remnants of various kinds of leftover baking) for 24 hours. I didn’t have that much time (I wanted to have the bread pudding available for suppertime), so after they’d soaked a couple of hours I put the whole mass (including the soaking liquid) into the food processor. The grinding was bumpy at first, but then I went on processing it too long I think. Oh well.

Next time I’ll grind it less, so it still has some lumps and texture, rather than being smooth, or perhaps if I chop it into smaller chunks, after the long soak it won’t need any processing. I poured the slurry back into a bowl, whisked four eggs and added them, then stirred in spices, sugar, maple syrup, and a bit of salt (amounts and proportions are below). I poured the thick batter into a lightly oiled bread pan, placed it in a water bath, and put it in a 325 F oven.

Ninety minutes later it was done, in a soft bread-pudding kind of way. It took more than an hour to cool to firm. I was pleased with it, as a first try. The flavour was excellent, the texture moist. But next time, if I have leftover bread, I’ll do a long 24-hour soak.

bread pudding recipe for guidance.

It bakes in one large loaf pan. Of course you can make a smaller batch and use a smaller loaf pan. Just reduce amounts in rough proportion. And play with warming spices that you like best.

About 4 cups/1 litre container of chopped leftover whole grain bread

Soak bread cubes in 3 cups milk and 1 cup water (ideally for close to 24 hours), then briefly process to break pieces down a little more so you have a lumpy slurry.

Preheat the oven to 325 F/165 C

Then add and stir in:

4 large eggs whisked well

About ½ cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon powdered ginger

1 teaspoon cardamom powder

½ teaspoon powdered cloves

½ teaspoon salt

1/2 cup or so quince jam or marmalade

About ½ cup turbinado or similar sugar

Pour the batter into a lightly oiled large bread tin

Place it into a water bath (1 to 2 inches/3 to 5 cm hot water in a wide ovenproof pot); shallow enough that it doesn’t risk slopping into the bread pan

Place into the preheated oven for 90 minutes or until a skewer inserted deep into the cake comes out clean

Sprinkle on about ¼ cup turbinado sugar. Let stand to cool for an hour or more before slicing. Serve with ic cream or whipped cream or on its own with tea or coffee.

mist and melt: the Wychwood neighbourhood ice rink melting last Saturday morning

snowy back yard, with sharp shadows and signs of melting

The annual cycle of changing light, as the sun gradually moves further north in these months of late winter and early spring, is always thrilling, but also entangled with memories of other springtimes, other seasons of hope or fear. Hope is positive, but also implies uncertainty about whether the wished-for thing will happen. And fear is the flip side of that: a dread that a possible bad thing will occur.

[An aside: Along with many others, I’ve been dreading the possibility that all this talk of negotiation with Iran was a smokescreen that was designed to lead to war. And so it has turned out this morning. I’m enraged and distressed that huge numbers of people will suffer for the satisfaction of the orange bully in DC. And I’m also angry that the Prime Minister of Canada spoke in support of the illegal bombings and other acts of war of today. He should be ashamed and embarrassed.]

cigarette butts by a doorway on Bloor Street; each is printed with a health warning

At this time last year the suffering I was aware of was more personal. We were near the end of Tashi’s six-week course of radiation, prescribed when his brain tumour became active again. Every weekday we’d drive the short few blocks to the hospital, anxious to be on time for his radiation appointment and then we’d take the elevator down to the basement. There I’d wait with him until he was called, then read a book while he was wheeled away to have radiation beamed onto his head.

In those endless weeks of snow and cold, getting to and fro was very difficult. Tashi could manage walking the short distance to the curb and easing himself into the car, but he needed a wheelchair at the hospital. He was so exhausted from the radiation. And yet he joked, we joked together, we gossiped, and when we got back from the appointments in late morning we’d watch TaskMaster or QI on his laptop as distraction.

Friends would come by, Tashi would chat on the phone to his brother or to friends, we’d have people over for supper, or dropping by at other times to say hi. That whole concentration of friends and visitors, calls, and notes, was a wonderfully intense and sustaining web of energy that carried us along all last year.

I wondered whether there’d be a falling away of people after Tashi died in mid-November and after the holidays were over. I wondered how we’d all reconfigure ourselves in the new year.

Now I’ve returned home from five weeks away, a bit unsure about how to move forward, how to be, in this changed house, this changed landscape. I had wondered at Christmas if I’d hear from the lovely collection of Tashi’s friends who’d become part of my life. And while I was away I worried about them too. How were they coping?

It turns out that we’re still very connected. Since I’ve been back many of them have reached out about plans and/or have come by for supper. I’ve learned that through the winter they’ve also been keeping in touch and watching out for each other. It’s lovely to see, and a relief. It’s an example of how to be. They’re not running away from the intensities and pain of last year but instead integrating it all as they move forward. These (mostly) thirty-somethings have wisdom and lived experience of love and grief beyond their years.

Other friends of mine have also been in warm touch with me, checking in, figuring out when we can meet for a walk (yes, even in the cold), a meal, a coffee, and conversation. I feel lucky to be so embraced in their understanding. It’s not that we’re always talking about Tashi or grief or feelings, but all of that is an acknowledged backdrop to our lives, not a walled-off territory. And it will continue to be.

a glimpse of the hockey rink at Ramsden Park, as I walked to a meet-up with friends

This week for the first time in over a year I felt the impulse to bake. I was due later that day to a gathering of friends, an informal potluck, and instead of bringing cheese or pate, I could imagine committing to baking something. I decided to make an olive oil cake, loosely following the easy recipe in my Miracle of Salt book. I decided to double the recipe (one cake to take to the potluck and the other for home), and I needed to make some substitutions: Instead of the brined roasted ground walnuts of the recipe I chopped some store-bought roasted salted pistachios; and instead of chopped preserved lemon I used the liquid from a jar of Seville orange marmalade that I made last year. Half the batter baked in a loaf pan, as the recipe asked, and half in a cast-iron skillet. (The recipe is below, in Kitchen Explorations.)

I loved the feeling of freedom I felt while making those cakes. It was as if a weight of responsibility, debilitating inhibiting responsibility, had lifted itself off my shoulders and mind. Why? How? The passage of time perhaps. Maybe also I’m somehow better able to disregard normal expectations? There was no anxiety about the outcome. Of course I cut a small slice off both versions of the cake, to check it. But I wasn’t worried about it.

Today at Wychwood Market I found myself telling the little story of this week’s cake(s) to a chef friend of Tashi’s, a lovely guy who moved to Toronto last summer and is figuring out what comes next. He was one of the Tashi visitor contingent all summer and fall. As it turned out, my story resonated with him because he’d had a parallel experience. He told me that at Christmas he’d realised he no longer enjoyed cooking. Cooking had always brought him joy, but suddenly it was gone. An absence.

Then about eight weeks later he decided to try making fesanjun, a Persian dish he had no experience with. The experience was a real pleasure. And today, he said, he’d started to think about doing a braise of some kind for dinner tomorrow. Slowly slowly life and lightness were returning.

I told him about my strategy for trying to avoid “should” and “ought to” right now. I am trying to cook or bake or do anything else only if it’s something I feel I really want to do. There’s no energy for forcing things against the grain. We agreed that part of the trick to staying light (when cooking, but it applies elsewhere too) is to avoid the weight of expectations, our own or those of others.

My job now is to leave myself room to rediscover joy and lightness as I recover from the heavinesses of last year. The grief is heavy, but I’m slowly developing the muscles and the reflexes to carry it with more ease. And for all of us who grieve, as those muscles come, so does an ability to retrieve pleasure and lightness in other things: baking, painting, writing, political activism, cooking for ourselves and for others…

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS including chilled mandarin segments, a recipe for olive oil cake, and poached pears

I came across a photo on Instagram recently that showed mandarin orange segments in snow. The writer (who was it?) explained something she’d learned from MFK Fisher’s writing: that if you dry the segments in a warm place, say on a rack over a radiator, so the fine skin dries out to paper thin, and then you place them in snow, they taste extra sweet. I did that today (scraped snow from the back yard into a bowl), and yes they become very sweet and juicy. They’re also pretty splashes of warm colour in the snow, and a consolatory delicious set of bites in this extended cold and snowy winter.

The olive oil cake recipe is simple, as I said above. The oven is preheated to 350F/175C. Oil a standard (8 by 4 inch/20 by 10 cm) bread tin and line the bottom with parchment paper; or instead oil an 8-inch/20 cm diameter cast-iron skillet. (If you wish to double the recipe, as I did, double all ingredients except the baking powder, which should go only from 2 to 3 teaspoons).

the skillet cake version that I kept for the house

In one bowl mix together 1 cup whole grain wheat flour (I used Maris Widgeon from Dawnthebaker; Red Fife or another non-bread flour is fine) or instead unbleached all-purpose flour, with 1 cup/200 grams turbinado sugar; ½ cup/50 grams finely chopped brined walnuts (I substituted chopped salted pistachios), 2 teaspoons baking powder, and a pinch of fine sea salt. In another bowl whisk together ½ cup/120 ml plain whole milk yogurt, 3 large eggs, and 2 to 3 tablespoons tart marmalade liquid or finely chopped preserved lemons.

Add the liquids to the dried and stir well to blend and moisten all ingredients. Then stir in ½ cup/120 ml extra-virgin olive oil until completely incorporated. It will seem unlikely that it can blend in, but don’t worry, it will. Pour the mixture into the greased pan and bake in the centre of the oven until done, 50 to 55 minutes (10 minutes less if using a cast-iron frying pan rather than a loaf pan). Stick a skewer or fine knife blade into the centre of the cake; it should come out clean.

Let stand for half an hour or more to cool before slicing. You can lift it out of the loaf pan onto a plate, or ease it out of the skillet, once it has cooled.

and poached pears: When I had the impulse to make the cake, I had first imagined including some poached pears eitheer in the cake, or as a topping. I’d bought pears from Milan of Bizjak Fruits at Wychwood Market. They were hard after months in storage, but I imagined they’d ripen into some flavour after a few days, or perhaps be even better if I poached them. I heated a little water, stirred some sugar into it, along with cardamom seeds and some powdered cloves, then added slender long wedges of pear, unpeeled. They simmered awhile, then sat cooling in the spiced thin syrup. In the end I didn’t include them in the cakes. I thought they’d make the flavours too complicated. But they are delicious eaten with a dollop or two of yogurt or kefir (or ice cream, as a friend pointed out). Yesterday I had them for breakfast, along with two modest slices of the cake. A great combo with coffee.

pears in their poaching liquid; breakfast bowl of pear, kefir, and cake wedges

Finally: Last week I had dinner at Jennifer McLagan’s place. She is a brilliant cook and her books are rich with insight, clear excellent recipes, and loads of information. For dessert she made a pavlova topped with pomegranate seeds. Here’s the slice I ate with pleasure!

I encountered this beautiful bare willow on a walk in Vancouver

I love having hand-carry only. There’s no waiting to drop luggage or to pick it up on a carousel after landing. The trick on the plane is to be self-sufficient. I like to have a small sub-bag that I lift out of my hand-carry and have with me in my seat, with books, headphones perhaps, and maybe spare socks. I also make sure I have a shawl and a generous coat or jacket because planes are often cold and drafty. Everything else can be stashed above, leaving me maximal legroom. I always choose a window seat, because it seems to me that I get an inch or two more space there, with the possibility of stretching at least my outside leg out straight. None of this is important for short flights, but for anything over three hours (and certainly for long trans-ocean flights) it can make a huge difference.

I had wondered how I’d feel arriving back at the house after five weeks away. Tashi felt less immediately present in the house as I walked in. The space felt more neutral somehow. I no longer expected to see him around a corner. But he’d been in my head and mind’s eye a lot, because often during my trip I’d imagined telling him about something interesting or quirky that I’d seen. Then each time that impulse would fade into the fact of his absence.

another reality of arrival

Close friends have asked me whether the time away was good, or how my trip was. It didn’t feel like a trip so much as a stepping away from a complex reality into a sort of empty space. And that was a help, that break of pattern and change of place. I have good friends in Chiang Mai whose loving concern was a balm. And the break in patterns of thinking was also restorative. It prepared me for the return home, for the daily living in changed circumstances.

I’ve already this week had time and conversation with some of my close Toronto friends, whose focused attention and care have been warming and relaxing. I’m so grateful

Vancouver’s Pulpfiction Books, used book paradise, where I found a Murakami for the plane

I also had one encounter this week, during the interval at a concert, that was a reminder of the shifting burden of this grief. It was with a guy whom I rarely run into. He asked how I was and I said something neutral like “doing OK.” And then after a few sentences he said, “and how are your kids?”

I remember long ago, when I was twenty-two, being in this kind of situation. My brother Peter had died in a sailing accident in British Columbia. A few weeks later in Ottawa I ran into a friend of his named Mary who’d been out of town for a year. As we were saying a quick hello she asked where my brother was these days. I chickened out, completely. I simply said “I don’t know where he is right now.” I never saw her again, so I don’t know how or when or whether she ever learned that he’d died.

But in this case, perhaps feeling tougher and more able to deal with a response to the news of death, I said something like, “Tashi, my younger one, died in November; it was a brain tumour. It has been a brutal year.”

In that situation the first thing that usually comes out in response is an “I’m so sorry.” All expressions of sympathy, even that simple familiar phrase, take dealing with,. They’re weighty and demanding, even when tender and loving. But in this case, perhaps with the best will in the world, the person went on to engage with the news. He didn’t know Tashi personally, so it was just clumsy and awkward, wrong-footed. It’s hard to describe how cornered I felt, sort of suffocated in formalities and meaninglessness. It was a taking-away of meaning, a subtraction. I fled.

I’m not sure why I’m writing about this here, apart from a general need to unload. These break-points in life are so complex, not just for the people who are on the front line, the primary grievers, but also for those who deal with them, the outsider friends and acquaintances. There’s the natural human urge to commiserate and express sympathy. But without a ritual language beyond the plain clear “I’m so sorry” things can get awkward, painful, burdensome. As the consolers, we want to assure the grievers of our sympathy, in order to embrace them, to help them feel strengthened by our loving concern. (Of course if we’re instead doing it just to perform concern rather than genuinely feeling it, we’re really burdening the griever and being jerks.)

As a person grieving I find a simple expression of sympathy is a welcome acknowledgement of loss and pain. But when people try to build a conversation on top, it often goes astray and becomes exhausting and pointlessly painful. Close friends and family don’t say much, don’t need to. We all share a knowledge of how horrible the loss is. We can easily move together into funny stories of shared experiences to lighten our shared load. But those less intimate have nothing useful to work with. Religious language of consolation works for some people but sounds like empty platitudes to me. An insult.

I guess my takeaway advice to those wishing to express sympathy is to keep things intentional, warm, and brief. Think about the person grieving and what they might need/want, not about your own performance

someone to grieve for right now; an unidentifiable street person on West Broadway in Vancouver

Have you had these experiences? In either role? What’s your take on this?

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS ON RE-ENTRY, including crepes, stir-fried rice noodles, and feasting with friends

I arrived back in Toronto last Tuesday evening to a perfect return-home meal of sliced bavette, cooked dressed greens, and tender sweet potato. The house was warm and welcoming.

best arrival meal: slices of charcoal-grilled bavette with sweet potato and dressed greens

The next morning I found myself thinking about what to make for supper, the first time in five weeks that I’d had those thoughts. There were chicken thighs in the freezer. Simon Thibault, who did a great job of house-sitting through endless cold and snow storms, had tidied my spices and my fridge, eaten some supplies and rearranged others very helpfully. He’d also bought a cabbage, some radicchio, and some greens.

I discovered two partial packages of rice, brown basmati and forbidden rice, that needed finishing. I washed and cooked them together, with a scattering of chopped onion. It worked fine. The mixture gleamed black, especially after I added dabs of salted butter at the end of cooking.

I put wedges of cabbage drizzled with olive oil and fish sauce on a heavy baking sheet, along with the chicken thighs that I’d marinated for half an hour in a blend of pounded ginger, garlic, salt, and dried chile powder (in the absence of fresh chiles). The method is a very loose adaptation of the Kachin chicken recipe in my Burma book. The chicken and cabbage went into a 400F/200C oven for about half an hour. Once they were done, I chopped the cabbage and sliced up the chicken, then drizzled it with the lush pan juices.

Meantime, for fresh crunch and colour I’d chopped some radicchio and pea tendrils and made an improvised dressing of yogurt, olive oil, rice vinegar, and a dash of soy sauce. It needed a sprinkling of flake salt once tossed.

partway through supper: the radicchio and pea tendrils, the cabbage, and the black rice

On my first morning home I had had pancakes on my mind, so I’d walked out in the snow, shivering at the change of climate, to shop for eggs and milk. That evening after supper I whisked 4 large eggs with about 2 cups whole milk, a generous pinch of salt, about 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar, and enough whole grain flour to make a thin batter.

I am not a Christian but I have a long-standing cultural awareness of the major elements of the Christian calendar, including Lent, probably because of its importance in the kitchen and at the table. In most Orthodox churches, Lenten fasting means no animal products at all: no butter, milk, or eggs, as well as no meat. There may be a few days when fish is permissible (I remember 13 years ago being served fish on Palm Sunday at the table of the bishop of Javaheti in southern Georgia). Many western Christian churches do not have Lenten fasting. Those that do, as I understand it, tend to restrict merely the eating of meat from animals and birds.

These restrictions are the reason why traditionally people have celebrations and festivals just before Lent: think Carnival, and Mardi Gras (“fat Tuesday’) or Shrove Tuesday (the day you confess your sins and get shriven - cleansed of them - before the start of the 40 fasting days). Pancakes and crepes are a classic dish for Shrove Tuesday. I had missed making them this year on the day itself because it was the day I was flying home.

On Thursday morning I stirred the batter again, placed two cast-iron skillets over medium-low heat, wiped each with olive oil, and then made the crepes. Each one takes very little time. I use a ladle to scoop up a little batter, lift the skillet off the heat with my other hand, tilt the pan slightly and continuously as I pour on the batter, attempting to encourage it to flow into a round shape, then place the pan back on the heat. In about a minute the crepe is ready to be flipped over. They were fine tender pancakes in the English style, using Maris Widgeon whole-grain flour milled by Dawnthebaker. I failed to take any photos, sorry! I think I was too busy dancing the skillet dance and imagining the good eating that lay ahead.

I like stacking only two crepes on a plate, delicate approximate rounds. I squeeze on a little lemon juice, add a small drizzle of maple syrup, then loosely roll the stack up and eat it in hand. And then I stack another two and repeat… I can report that crepes delayed a day or two are just as pleasing as those eaten on the official day.

the open butcher shop scene at Sanagan’s

After my crepe breakfast, I headed to Kensington Market because a good friend was coming for supper that evening. I had some vague ideas. And when I found there were fresh rice noodles available at the tofu shop/factory, the meal took shape in my head. I bought two pounds of noodles and then stopped for a bunch of coriander and a few other veg at Kensington fruit Market. At Sanagan’s, my local butcher, I bought a scant pound of hanger steak.

weighing out the rice noodles at the tofu shop

I ended up cooking the whole meal in the wok, starting with the hanger steak, sliced, rubbed with a little shio koji, then added to the wok with chopped chives after the chopped ginger, bird chile, garlic, shallots, had softened. I stir-fried the meat with the addition of a little water at the last moment, then turned it out into a bowl, rinsed the wok into the meat. The wok went back on the heat to cook chopped bok choy, pea tendrils, and spinach with a little garlic. Finally came the turn of the rice noodles, a tender tangle, which went into the hot oil in the wok with some pea tendrils for a few minutes of stir-frying to soften to full tenderness.

I put the noodles and the cooked greens in one large bowl and tossed them together. The meat and gravy went out separately. I made a small bowl of vinegar lightly sweetened vinegar to use as a condiment. With the help of a couple of extra people who dropped by, the whole lot was eaten; no leftovers.

And finally, last night, Saturday night, we had supper for seven, with chicken and potatoes from Footsteps Farm (at Wychwood Market) oven-roasted (the chicken smeared with shio koji and suffed with a lemon). Alongside there was a radicchio salad with kefir dressing made by Dawnthebaker, a chopped salad brought by another friend, and some dal I’d made (urad and masur together, tempered with minced onion and ginger, powdered red chile, turmeric powder, and freshly toasted and ground cumin and coriander, and topped with chopped coriander leaves).

It was a lovely feast of conversation and flavours. It gave me a real feeling of arrival, and the start of a retrieval of equilibrium

a reminder that flowers will return: morning glory blooms at Free Bird Cafe in Chiang Mai

Toronto is still covered in snow my friends tell me. I’m due to land there this Tuesday, February 17. On that date the new moon rises, and with it come momentous endings and beginnings.

It’s a lunar calendar trifecta: the start of two fasting seasons, Ramadan and Lent, and the end of the painful year of the snake. I’m hoping, aren’t we all? that the year of the horse brings us better news.

Valentine’s Day, yesterday, was the three-month anniversary of Tashi’s death, already one quarter of a year in the past and still so present and immediate. It feels very recent and yet far away too…days of numbness and hurt and flattened energy.

I had a phone call yesterday with my dear friend (and Immersethrough partner) Tamar, who lives in Tbilisi (the luxury of WhatsApp!). She told me that in Georgia the Saturday before the start of Lent - yesterday - is the day for mourning and remembering the dead. It was evening in Tbilisi when we spoke. Her family had already laid the table and lit candles for their departed. And so, after our call, she and her son added another candle, for Tashi, and lit it. Light in the darkness is a gift, a reminder to keep our eyes and hearts open

first tender life in Vancouver

I flew into Vancouver last Monday evening, in rain and drizzle, the ground sodden. And because I’d been softened by four weeks in Chiang Mai, the damp penetrated my bones, despite my wool coat and several merino underlayers. But the chill here is nothing compared to the deep cold and snow of Toronto.

Last year in Toronto at this time every weekday morning we’d climb into the car and drive the short distance to the hospital, in cold and snow, for Tashi’s radiation treatments. The appointments began in late January and continued until early March, six weeks that left him exhausted, truly wrecked, and then led to serious blood clots in his lungs and a brutal week in hospital. This year the Toronto winter brought even more snow and more cold. I could picture the scenes that must have been happening daily at the entrance to the cancer hospital as patients and their families struggled to get to their appointments

That’s the thing about tough experiences. There’s an intimacy with suffering that can later give us an empathy with others. Does it help anyone who is struggling that I am imagining their situation and feeling for them? They can’t know. Perhaps the person who is helped is me: my experience has pushed me into thinking of others, has taken me out of my narrow personal preoccupations and into the larger world.

I don’t want to sound religious here. I remember listening to a sermon at my cousin Andrew’s funeral. The minister tried to persuade us that, as Job’s suffering had been necessary, so also it was somehow good for Andrew that he suffered (appallingly) as he died of bone cancer. I found the point of view outrageous and couldn’t wait to flee.

In my last week in Chiang Mai I pedalled out west of the old city to Free Bird Café one morning for breakfast. The café runs as a social enterprise hub, with clothing donations for refugees and others fleeing Burma, and fund-raising of various kinds, and serves a vegetarian menu of largely Shan and Burmese dishes, plus a few western items.

Free Bird Cafe Shan noodles, stirred, with fried Shan tofu triangles

The young guy working at the counter that morning had come across the border about two years earlier. He was Intha and had grown up on Inle Lake in one of the villages that “float” in the lake. Here he was, a young person displaced by the military coup and ensuing civil war in Burma, putting in his day’s work with grace and competence.

So many people in Chiang Mai and in Toronto are from somewhere else, and often they did not choose to be displaced. How many of them have the freedom to return home, or to choose to live elsewhere?

On my last morning in Chiang Mai, I felt so easy and light, packed and ready, that I went for an early walk around the neighbourhood, noticing small things, loving the light. There were soft dreamy clouds slowly billowing and swirling in the tender pink of the dawn. The monks were still out on their rounds

noticing small things: cat on motorcycle at the local wat

I stopped in for a last bowl of jok, velvet-smooth, with tiny meatballs and the sharp hit of fine threads of ginger, and said my farewells.

jok stirred up; a great start to a very long day

HERE & THERE IN VANCOUVER

I’m hanging out with dear ones in Vancouver, but that also involves lots of walking and talking, as well as eats here and there. I made a pilgrimage trip to Tommy’s Whole Grain on Powell. It was an easy bus ride from where I’m staying, and a warmer day than my last visit, in January two years ago, when temperatures were in the sub-basement (minus 20C!). It was great to see Tommy again and to eat his food (a small quiche and a veg hand pie). The tender aromatic whole wheat pan loaf I took home has already vanished down various throats.

Tommy’s breads…

A few days ago, after a meet-up at Siegel’s Bagels for Montreal smoked meat in a bagel (it really hit the spot), we went for a walk westward along the waterfront, with pale water and giant houses, plus wheeling seagulls, for décor. Supper that night was at Saba, a Yemeni restaurant on Granville. I had a delectable slow-cooked dish of okra, potato, and lamb with a fresh lime drink to wash it down. The restaurant seems to be thriving (it was packed) despite serving no alcohol.

bagel awaits; Saba’s lamb and okra stew with flatbreads beyond, and lime juice

I’ve spent a few mornings reading and working in Ele Café, on Broadway at Laurel, an airy calm space with a fabulous list of teas, some enticing not-very-sweet pastries, and good coffee. And on several long walks we dropped by tiny Fife Bakery on 3^rd west of Main for coffee and a sausage roll. I enjoyed the surprise of the heated toilet seat in their washroom!

early camellia in Vancouver

I had a long café conversation yesterday afternoon with a dear thoughtful friend from Burma/Myanmar who now lives in Chiang Mai, where it’s safer for her teenage son. (After the military coup of February 1 2021, the army was grabbing tall strong boys from school and forcing them into the army, so she and her son moved here.) We talked about many things, including love and loss, meditation and attentiveness. As with the conversation I had had days earlier with another friend here, speaking of deep emotions and memories was somehow cleansing and left me lighter. It’s as if feelings of grief and sorrow accumulate for days without my knowing, and then certain moments or conversations bring them out, allow them to bloom and flow, carried by tears.

detail of a water dragon at the entrance to Wat Saen Fang

My time here in Chiang Mai is nearly over; I fly out on February 9. As the days of my last week here unfold, I’m a bit stuck in a familiar state: an over-awareness of the finiteness of things. For example, I know that today is my last time this year at the Friday market eating mohinga; yesterday was my last time eating morning jok (rice soup) at Jok Chang Moei; etc. This way of thinking places a weight on otherwise light and pleasurable experiences and drains them of some of their energy. Does this happen to you?

Because it’s been a fact of life for me, I find myself urging friends who are making travel plans and who have the time, to stay longer in whatever place they’re going. It’s a way of postponing that end-of-stay awareness. There’s nothing more enticing and freeing than an open expanse of days. A short time limit constrains thinking, makes us aware of the end of the trip almost from the start. And as many others have written before, more eloquently than I can, the valuable thing in life is expanded thinking, wider horizons, more openness to unexpected possibilities.

The other related travel strategy that I (perhaps irritatingly) urge on friends is to refrain from making too many plans or locking themselves into a tight schedule when they travel. I get it that if good restaurants are your thing, then reservations need to be made in advance. And ditto for theatre tickets etc. But I love having big open spaces, days without plans, so that some serendipitous side trip can suddenly take shape, or an invitation to a spontaneous event can be accepted with ease.

view of Doi Sutep at sunset from atop a highrise where a friend lives

I admit that I operate in much the same way when I’m home in Toronto. There’s a basic skeleton of commitments, my monthly Sacred Harp singings for example, but most events, from dinners or drop-ins with friends at home or out, to movies, daytime walks, and other meetups, are last minute plans or improvisations.

A complex schedule feels confining to me. I prefer not to feel that the dance steps of the week are pre-set. I am fine with commitment. In fact I have a dread of not coming through on commitments. Perhaps that’s why I don’t want to be locked into a detailed schedule?

streetside mobile fruit vendor; there are bags of limes hanging underneath his cart

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS – SOME TASTES OF CHIANG MAI

A wide variety of people live in and near Chiang Mai. As I’ve mentioned before, the region has become a centre for people who have left the precarities and dangers of Burma. Those people may be Bamar, but many are non-Bamar Burmese citizens from a variety of regions and diverse ethnic groups, including Kachin, Pa-O, Karen, Danu, Shan, Tai Yuan, Lisu, and more. And then apart from northern Thais, there are Thais from many parts of the country, and there are Thai citizens of a many ethnicities, among them Shan, Lisu, Tai Lu, Lahu, Akha, Hmong, Tai Lao, Chinese, and more. There is also a good number of people from outside southeast Asia living here who are studying, teaching, doing business, living as digital nomads, or retired.

pea eggplants (left); halal goat and beef (right) at Yunnan Market today

The wide range of market foods, street eats, and restaurant offerings in Chiang Mai reflects this diversity. Here’s a small sampler from this last week:

Last Friday I went to a special dinner cooked by an Akha chef who is launching herself with help from Andy Ricker’s test kitchen in the old city. The food was very interesting, a blend of mountain ingredients and techniques with some Thai influences. The mountain rice was wonderful, a real treat.

I especially loved her version of potatoes, her peanut nam prik, and her pork laab. The potatoes were silky smooth (like the proverbial baby’s bum). She said that after she boils the potatoes and peels them she pounds them in a mortar for a long time, with a little oil, salt, fried garlic, coriander leaves, and a touch of water; they were spectacular. I’m looking forward to trying this at home. I’ll need to try different varieties of potato to optimize the texture.

Nam prik is an intense small sauce to be scooped up with fresh or steamed vegetables, a side sauce of a kind. The Akha peanut version had white sesame in it and some eggplant and garlic. In the pork laab (see my Substack two weeks ago for a description of how it’s chopped) the meat was combined with chopped green onions, herbs, some garlic I think, and chopped red chiles (perhaps they were dried?), and then pressed into a flat rectangle, wrapped in banana leaves, and grilled. It was like the Thai category of wrapped grilled chopped foods called “ep”.

nam prik tua with veg accompaniments on the left; pork laab on the right

For lunch Saturday I went to Khao Soy Islam, my favourite of the Muslim khao soy restaurants down the street from the big mosque near Thapae Road. This time I tried their fish khao soy. Wonderful.

fish khao soy before being flavoured with lime juice & pickles and stirred together

A friend named Zafar flew in from Delhi for a short visit. (You can find him on Substack as .) On Monday we went for lunch to Toy Roszab, an Isaan restaurant, unpretentious and excellent. The charcoal grill is out front. You order, then walk in, find a table, and help yourself to water, ice if you want, raw greens such as herbs, chopped long beans, cabbage and lettuce leaves, etc, a plate, and utensils. Your order arrives quickly: sticky rice, grilled chicken wings, cut in pieces, slices of grilled pork in a salad, sour pork, som tam (there are a number of options for this classic green papaya salad), and more. I like to get there by 12.30 or 1 pm. They close in mid-afternoon.

at Toy: grilled sai oua (north Thai herbed sausage), som tam, moo som (sour pork), sticky rice

The next evening we were at Huen Penh, a lovely classic North Thai restaurant in the old city, open only in the evenings. Zafar had come on an ImmerseThrough trip with Fern and me two years ago and wanted to go back to Huen Penh again; he remembered it with fondness. Their versions of North Thai classics are elegant and thoughtful. I love the pomelo salad (yam som-o), the pork nam prik, the eggplant salad with ground pork, the deep-fried cubes of moo som (sour pork) which I hadn’t seen on the menu before, and the delicate banana flour soup/curry.

at Huen Penh: deep-fried cubes of sour pork; eggplant salad with eggs on the side

At lunch on Wednesday we went to eat Burmese food at the Zinme Tea House near Wat Kaet. We ordered salads (thoke): laphet thoke, potato thoke, and a lush noodle thoke with a side of clear soup. The clear tea is a serve-yourself bottomless cup. There’s a peaceful garden in back that’s a wonderful oasis from the bustle of the city. Highly recommended. I still haven’t tried their mohinga. Perhaps I’ll go back tomorrow. They’re open from early morning until 4 pm.

laphet thoke (tealeaf salad), left; noodle thoke with broth

Nearby is a longstanding streetside kitchen that makes a rice noodle sweet called khao giap pak moh. Rice batter is spread thinly in a cotton cloth that’s stretched tightly over boiling water. Then dollops of salt-sweet filling are dropped onto it and the lid put on to hold the steam in. The result is a set of square rice ravioli-looking treats, lightly sweet and salty, and oh so tender. You need to buy plenty, for they’re very more-ish.

There was a final meal slot that night, before Zafar’s departure next morning. We went at about 6, before sunset, to the kanom jiin woman under the overhang at Warorot Market. She sets up just after 5 pm, serving four or five different choices of sauce/curry over the fine fermented rice noodles called kanom jiin. On each table are piles of different options to add to your bowl: shredded cabbage; beansprouts; pickled cabbage; many herbs; pork crackling in small bags; hard boiled eggs; powdered dried red chile; fish sauce. All are included in the price except the cracklings and the eggs. It’s a wonderful light meal, intense and yet also refreshing because of the raw ingredients.

Afterwards we walked back up Chang Moei Road to my condo, where we sat gazing out an open door at the rising moon, snacking as we sipped red wine made by Fern’s husband in Barossa, and treasuring the pleasure of being together.

bougainvillea in the neighbourhood

Yet in my weeks here I have found myself regularly tensing with worried thoughts, a kind of anticipatory anxiety, especially as I lie in bed, but also in broad daylight. Several weeks ago I was worrying because I couldn’t visualise getting on my bicycle here and riding around. The prospect felt very daunting. But I pumped up my tires, still doubting myself, then got the bicycle downstairs and got on. It immediately felt reassuringly familiar, a kind of magical transformation, and off I pedalled.. I think I mentioned this here on Substack

an old chedi in the neighbourhood

A similar thing happened last weekend. My friend and colleague Fern and I had a plan to drive up to Chiang Khong, a small city on the Mekong, opposite Huay Xai in Laos on the other shore. It’s a lovely place. We want to include it in next January’s ImmerseThrough trip, but of course we needed to do a recce. The day before we were due to leave the anxiety started: I couldn’t imagine driving. It felt daunting and impossible.

morning view of the Mekong in Chiang Khan; forest monks walking through the town

The rental car, a small Toyota, was waiting downstairs next morning. I asked Fern to drive us out of Chiang Mai, with the excuse that traffic might be complicated. An hour later, well up the road, we stopped for a coffee break, and then it was my turn. Yikes. But once I was sitting in the (very comfortable) driver’s seat and had checked the mirrors and other details, suddenly I was able to be present with all my reflexes. The anxiety had fled. I enjoyed the driving, settled into it and into paying close attention. There was a relief in having all my senses directed to the one thing: driving us safely up the road.

Is this what’s going on with my anxiety and fragility? Is it about fractured attention, a split or cracked mental state that works against being present and focused? The ongoing grief and emotional exhaustion do undermine my resilience and fragment my thinking. That must be the explanation, or a good part of it. And then when focus is absolutely necessary (me in the driver’s seat for example), the fragments reassemble, the cracks disappear, the mind pulls itself together, and I feel fully present and able. What a relief. I have the power to be present and capable, to fully inhabit myself.

Is this why prayer beads calm people? The focus on a prayer per bead perhaps directs the mind, steadying things. The splinters and fragments created by anxiety vanish or maybe instead they glue themselves back together. Whichever the better metaphor, the result is healing

detail of Tai Yuan weaving, at a workshop beside Wat Phra That Pha Ngao, not far from Chiang Saen

Perhaps my form of anxiety can be described as fractured attention. Finding a focus pulls the broken pieces together so they’re functional again.

Our drive out of Chiang Khong next morning took us on a small road that curves north and west along the river. It follows the route of the rough road we drove long ago with friends when my older kid Dom was barely two. We were in an old blue truck we’d rented from a Karen man in Chiang Mai. We stayed in a Hmong village up that road for a night, watching the local guys play takraw in the evening, then drove on to the then-sleepy town of Chiang Saen the next day.

The road is now paved and the villages along it well built, prosperous looking, and much less agricultural. It’s quite different from how things looked nearly forty years ago.

We made that trip a year before Tashi was born. And here I was bracketing his existence, remembering times before him (which he’d heard about growing up) and moving forward into stories I won’t be able to share with him. That’s what’s so strange and so disconcerting: the future story-telling, the living forward, will be happening without him. He’ll be in my mind, and I imagine that I’ll often try to picture how he would react to this or that story, but…

I had a bout of flatness, low-energy grey thoughts, and dead-endedness after we got back. A kind of grey funk started to invade. I couldn’t find the energy to draw, to plan, to do anything fun or interesting. I started turning to my phone for distraction, a deadly tactic, and then bumped up against a “no connection” message. I’d run out of data on my eSim.

Without my phone as a distraction I found myself shockingly adrift. It made me realise that when I am a bit lost, when I don’t have a clear idea of what to do next, I use my phone to fill the gaps. I was reminded of the long ago days when I smoked cigarettes. I’d use rolling a cigarette or lighting one to fill a gap, to help me transition to my next step or to think about what I wanted to do next. When I quit smoking (at the ripe age of twenty-two) I found the hardest thing was not having the distraction of something to do with my hands. I missed the small breaks that rolling or lighting a cigarette created in the day.

This phone data interruption was a wake-up call. If our days are numbered, and we know they are, then what am I doing spending my precious days scrolling? The fragments of news I consume, and the reels on Instagram, erode concentration without contributing anything much. I should at least be day-dreaming when I have open time!

young women streetside in Chiang Mai

One way to be more mindful about my phone use might be simply to ask myself each time I reach for it: Why are you looking? What can’t wait? The other, more positive tack is to make sure that I am actively engaged during the day: in reading, doing chores, seeing friends, making plans, writing, drawing, daydreaming All these things are world expanding and energy-giving.

I’ve resolved to remind myself to keep my eyes open and my mind’s eye too…

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS - eating tea leaf salad, and market scenes

Yesterday, we cycled west and slightly uphill past Chiang Mai university towards the bulk of Doi Sutep, the large mountain that frames Chiang Mai’s valley on the west. We turned south up a side road, headed to a temple in the forest called Wat Umong. It’s a peaceful place, at least in the early morning before many visitors arrive. It’s built a little like a fortress, on a hill, with the chedi (stupa) up on the flat top surface. There are tunneled passages underneath and earthworks supporting the walls.

Below the square height of the pagoda there is a line of damaged buddha statues – heads and some bodies - resting on leaf-strewn earth under large trees. It’s a peaceful calming scene. Signage tells us that they were gathered from abandoned temples in the 1970’s and brought to Wat Umong. They were made by Phayao area sculptors working in the 1400’s and 1500’s.

We pedaled back a toward the city a different way, taking guesses at the route, unworried. It felt great to just let go. And then once near the river we headed across Nawarot Bridge to Ninme, a Burmese Tea Shop near Wat Gaet. What a pleasure to have attentively made Burmese salads and good rice to restore us.

cured duck and beef at a Haw woman’s stall; eggplants of many kinds here, small squash on the right, and hibiscus on the left

This morning I was back at the Yunnan Market, eating mohinga, photographing gorgeous produce, falling into conversation with people at the mohinga stall. Such pleasure. I have another nine days here to revel in it all…

this morning’s mohinga, as I started to stir it together

fallen frangipane flower

At least I’m not at a complete standstill; I’m still moving, still going through the motions of the day. And I did get out this week for a small bike ride up the river, about a 30km round trip. But I found I couldn’t get it together to travel from here to Bangkok to see an old friend. The planning and the doing both felt too enormous. The idea made me anxious.

landscape with young rice, north of Chiang Mai

Still, I need rid myself of this flatness, to resist it or push through it. One strategy perhaps is to make a conscious effort to find the beauty or the quirkiness, or the interest, in small or specific things. As a way of trying to reboot myself, in the last couple of days I’ve been stopping to photograph flowers and small streetside scenes.

Whenever I’m here the one weekly thing I try to never miss is the Friday market, the one that used to be called Talat Jin Haw or the Muslim market, and is now referred to as the Yunnan Market. Thinking about how to counteract my flatness as I walked to the market this morning, I promised myself to slow right down and to remember to pause and look for details.

As always, I wanted to start the day with a bowl of mohinga from the woman who is at the market every Friday and has been for over twenty years. She’s Thai, speaks not a word of Burmese I’m told, but her mohinga is excellent. It transports me to Burma, to morning mohinga in Rangoon and elsewhere. It’s a steadying aromatic treat of subtle fish broth over fine rice noodles, with chunks of tender banana stem and onion floating in it. I squeeze on lime juice, scatter on a drift of chile powder and a splash of fish sauce, and then crumble a crisp Burmese bean cracker over it for contrast. The result is perfection in a bowl

the bowl of mohinga, with the bean cracker still to be broken up and sprinkled on

Most people queue up to get their mohinga “sai tung,” in a plastic bag, so they can take it away to eat at home or where they work. But there are always a few who perch on stools at a small table and eat right there, as I do

mohinga maker serving a customer who is getting it sai tung

The mohinga this morning was reviving. And so was the conversation I had with a Burmese man in his thirties who was also at the table eating mohinga. He told me he’d left Burma two years earlier, was opposed to the military coup there, and had managed to get Thai residence papers, so he could work legally here. He’s doing all right, working at a hotel. But he doesn’t have a Burmese passport. He’d been refused one, as an opponent of the regime. He’s trying to learn Japanese, working on plans to move elsewhere, however he manages that. I heard no tone of complaint from him.

A few minutes later I found myself in conversation with another stranger, who turned out to be a Burmese academic who lives in Oxford but this term is teaching at Chiang Mai University. The military coup in Burma – now five years old - and the subsequent civil war have generated terrible suffering, refugees, and desperation. She and I talked about the academics and others who have fled Burma and are having to live hand to mouth in exile, and about the IDP’s (internally displaced people) near the border, many of them Karen or other non-Bamar people, who are suffering from lack of everything, from rice to clothing.

Those two conversations sharpen my thinking, make me wake up. Who am I to settle for this flatness of being? Yes I am carrying deep grief, sorrowing for the loss of my lovely Tashi. But he’d reproach me for indulging in grief, for not having the energy to appreciate all that is before me: the human stories, the complexities being lived out by the people I see on the street

late night glimpse of a kitchen worker still at it

Many people here live on minimum wage or less and work long hours. They carry other griefs and hurts too, of course. As with people everywhere in the world, those are largely hidden. We can guess at their existence, but we don’t know details.

These reminders of the struggles and sufferings of others, both visible and invisible, are good kick in the pants. If I stay flattened, attending to my own bleakness rather than paying attention to the humans and the human landscape around me, I cut myself off from life. I lose track of my connection to others.

My obligation, it seems to me, is to summon my curiosity and find the energy to stay alert, stay open, stay noticing. And in all that to find some humour and lightness. I’m fed and sheltered, I have dear friends; what on earth is there to complain about, really? So let’s get on with it

The next new moon, February 16-17, is the Lunar New Year; the last new moon rose five days ago. I’m now thinking of this lunar month, the last of the year, as a time to get myself re-energised, so I’m ready for the Year of the Horse.

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS: learning laab from a pro

I’m eating out here in Chiang Mai, rather than cooking. It’s a pleasure to spend a few weeks not stocking a larder, but instead buying only fresh fruit and vegetables, and prepared foods from markets and street stalls. Chiang Mai is a spectacular place for street eats and small eateries, and for fresh produce of all kinds. I have less than three more weeks to luxuriate in it all, before practicalities reimpose themselves. Yes, those practicalities of home are a fun ongoing challenge. But the break has been great.

The other day, thanks to my friend Nattha, who lives in Toronto but is at the moment in Thailand, I was taken to meet a man named Charan Chaiyawong who specializes in Northern Thai laab. Sometimes spelled laap, or larb, it’s a dish of very finely chopped meat that is blended with toasted finely ground spices (an array of about 12 or more) and some blood or broth, depending on the meat and the maker. The traditional version in northern Thailand is eaten raw. Yes, really. The word for raw laab is laab dip. Beef or pork are the most common. Laab dip is served with fried garlic on top and eaten with a pile of fresh herbs and greens, and with sticky rice

beef laab dip, with piled herbs

We ate our way through a mound of beef laab, picking up a leaf of one of the herbs and some sticky rice with each mouthful. The texture of the meat was remarkable, both pasty and firm, a little sticky, a little elastic. And the flavours were subtle and delicious

portrait of two meat experts: Charan Chaiyawong and BBQ pitmaster Terdsak Gamgulna at Laab Tonyang Restaurant near Chiang Mai

After we’d eaten our host showed us how to mix pork laab. The spices, powdered chile, and salt were briskly stirred into a warm broth with some boiled pork skin until they had fully dissolved. Then the mass of finely chopped meat and blood was added and massaged with a wide spoon for over five vigorous minutes until everything was beautifully blended

blending pork laab dip; notice the pieces of pork skin

Laab is traditionally a special dish. In earlier days fresh meat would have been a rare treat for a special time, say when an animal was killed to feed a crowd at a wedding or other occasion. Now there are laab competitions held in northern Thailand around Thai new year (mid-April) and teams from all over compete.

I like the idea that the tradition is honoured. And that the meat is treated with care and respect. It must be very fresh, kept cool, and minced until very fine using two knives in a kind of drum roll technique. That same double-knife technique is used here to make coarser “ordinary” minced meat, say for a sausage stuffing or meatballs. It produces a very different texture from a meat grinder.

People who have come on my trips to Northern Thailand have had a chance to try working with two long sharp knives. (You slice your meat and then start chopping briskly with the two knives, rattattat.) It’s a good challenge, and very satisfying. You can then take that chopped meat and make sausages (recipes in Hot Sour Salty Sweet) or one of several meat dishes in my Burma book…

rice landscape: many mountain rices being sold at the Yunnan market on Fridays

January 14 is the anniversary of my father’s death long ago, in 1969. He was only forty-eight. And now, this year, it marks exactly eight weeks since Tashi’s death on November 14. These dates are part of the architecture of my year, along with the birthdays of people dear to me, other death dates, a few historic events, the solar calendar markers of solstice and equinox twice a year, and the lunar markers of new and full moon. I think of them as archways or doors, entryways into awareness. They remind me of things beyond my immediate present; they give me an expanded view, wider and deeper than my day to day. In some ways they’re tools for navigation as I walk forward, carrying precious pieces of the past with me like household gods.

Some of my friends find it strange that I keep a detailed architecture of the year in my head. But I don’t know how, without it, I’d know where I am, or in some ways who I am. It’s not a dreary filing cabinet of facts. Instead the year is a dynamic landscape of days and months, embroidered with all kinds of life.

Perhaps this resonates with you…

I’ve been thinking about the ways in which this place, Substack, has been very freeing for me. The subject is on my mind because in the last few weeks I’ve had a number of conversations about it with friends who are thinking about whether they’d like to embark. I like being free of the constraints of writing books. Here I can write about food in many ways. And if I describe a process or a dish, I don’t need to make a formal recipe. Any cooking instructions I give don’t need to be detailed and precise. That’s just as well, I think, because Mother Nature is variable, so the idea of precision with most cooking feels oxymoronic. It may seem reassuring on the page, precise measurement, but since ingredients, especially plant ingredients, vary widely with season, variety, soil, weather, it’s a bit misleading.

I’m enjoying writing my “kitchen explorations” section in these posts. You may wish that I delivered exact precise recipes here. Other people do a very good job of that. But I prefer the idea of finding my way in the kitchen, trying things out, and of working within the framework of ideas. And in turn I like encouraging you to find your way, by giving open-ended instructions and descriptions. Life’s much more interesting if we keep inquiring, don’t you think?

AIRPLANE FODDER

I knew the the flight on EVA Air from Toronto to Taipei was due to be nearly 16 hours, so I packed four paperbacks in my hand-carry, hoping there’d also be a few decent film choices. In the end I needed all three books, as well as two films: Koln 75, the story of the Keith Jarrett concert, which was fun to watch, and a 2025 fantasy romance with Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie called A Big Bold Beautiful Journey that I don’t recommend.

these two, both very diverting, as well as Hunting Badger by Tony Hillerman, were my escape

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS

Long ago, in the mid-1970’s I spent about a year travelling in Europe, and then over two months in Nepal, before returning to Canada. I learned a lot from many people, including from a wonderful creative Swiss woman from the Jura named Monique. She was welcoming and open-minded, a model for me of how to be, how to conduct myself.

One day she made a simple vegetarian dish, a casserole, that was much more than the sum of its parts. And then once home from travels I made it occasionally, when I found Belgian endive at a reasonable price, and especially if I was feeding vegetarians. It’s made of endive leaves, rice, and mushrooms, plus dots of butter. They’re layered in a casserole dish with a tightly sealed lid and cooked in the oven. It all works much like the Indian technique of sealed pot cooking called “dum”: the rice and the mushrooms cook in the moisture given off by the endive. Once it comes out of the oven, you add some cream and stir, which gives richness and pulls the flavours together.

I made the endive-mushroom casserole fairly regularly for a while, but then once I had kids, one-pot meals were a thing of the past, and I kind of forgot about it.

Last weekend, the night before leaving on this trip, I decided to try making it again, using my heavy Staub pot. I had Belgian endives, plus some radicchio in case my quantities were off. And there was polished Japanese rice and a half pound of cremini (aka ordinary) mushrooms. All I needed to buy that day was a small container of cream.

I was guessing at quantities and proportions, trusting to old memories of the look and feel of things. And it all worked out well, because it’s a flexible concept. Because I noted quantities and embarked on it like a recipe test, I am for once setting out a relatively precise recipe. It’s very forgiving, so please don’t worry if your quantities stray from the amounts suggested.

I used some radicchio leaves in the layers because I didn’t have quite as much endive as I needed. When cooked both give the necessary edge, a touch of bitter, that is a wonderful contrast to the sweetness of the cream and the umami of the mushrooms. My salt amount is on the low side, because it’s a pleasure here to adjust seasoning with a little flake salt as you eat.

This makes enough for a main course for 2, or a side for 4.

About 1 ½ pounds/725 grams Belgian endives, separated into leaves

1 pound/450 grams cremini mushrooms, coarsely chopped

About ½ cup white rice, soaked in water 10 minutes

About 4 tablespoons (2 ounces)/60 grams salted butter, divided into 4 pieces; and in small chunks

About 1 teaspoon/5 grams fine sea salt, plus flake salt on the table

About 1 cup/225 ml ordinary (18% to 30%) cream

Black pepper grated on after cooking

Preheat your oven to 375 F/190 C

Start with a heavy cast-iron or other pot 8 to 10 inches/20 to 25 cm in diameter, with a tight-fitting lid. Start by placing a layer of endive leaves on the bottom of the pot. Sprinkle on some rice, about 3 tablespoons, and about a quarter of the mushrooms. Drop on dots of butter, about 1 tablespoon (a quarter of what you have). Repeat the layers, then top with the remaining endive leaves. (If you run short of endive you can use some radicchio leaves to supplement.)

the assembled layers, with a few more endive leaves to go on, and then the lid

Sprinkle on a little water, about ¼ cup/125ml. Place the lid on top (if your lid is not heavy, or not a good seal, use some foil under the lid to keep the moisture sealed in).

Cook in the centre of the oven until the endive has collapsed and the rice is tender, about one hour. Cooking times will vary; they depend a little on the heaviness of your pot.

Take the pot out of the oven, lift off the lid, add the cream, and stir and turn. Put the lid back on and let it sit for a few minutes. Serve from the pot. Grate black pepper generously over each serving and put out flake salt so guests can add a little if they wish.

lush and earthy and completely delicious; brown food at its best!

I had a nice fillet of farmed rainbow trout from Fisherfolk, about 2/3 pound/300 grams, to serve with the casserole. It was at room temperature, with the flesh side smeared with a scant tablespoon of shio koji plus a little Georgian blue fenugreek.

I heated a large cast-iron skillet, added olive oil, then some chopped ginger and cumin seed. After a minute or so in went a large handful of thinly sliced carrot and a sprinkling of salt. After some stirring, the carrot was coated with flavoured oil. I added a little hot water so the carrot would cook as it sizzled in the hot pan under a lid. When the carrot slices were just tender, I moved them onto a serving dish, then drizzled a touch more oil into the pan.

The fish went in skin side down. I put on the lid and cooked it at medium high for about 4 minutes, flipped it over briefly, for less than a minute, then flipped it back and transferred it onto a serving dish, mounding the carrots alongside.

Leftovers of the endive and mushroom casserole with two fried eggs on top were spectacular the next morning. It was a very luxurious combination

I hear from friends that Toronto is now very cold, with lots of fresh snow; this shot from my garden a week ago, of lavender looking perky in the garden, is now very out of date!

winter-white roses from my friend Trisha

In the last few days, plenty of rain and much milder temperatures, plus sun that felt warm on the skin at midday, have melted snow off the streets and sidewalks, leaving only an occasional crusty lump here and there. This is not good news for skiers, or for kids with toboggans. But it’s a break for me.

Yesterday I realised that a window of opportunity had opened and that I might finally be able to plant my garlic. I had a lift of the heart. It was good to feel energy, momentum, ambition, enough to power me out into the garden in plastic clogs, spade in hand, to see if the ground was soft enough to dig. The answer was both yes and no. The top inch or two were still a hard layer, a crust made of soil glued together with frozen water. But a sharp jab of my spade was enough to break through to the soft moist earth below. Hurrah! I went into the house, separated some garlic bulbs into cloves, and put them in a pot of lukewarm water to soak

garlic cloves soaking

Back outside, under mild grey skies, I dug two short trenches in the garden, lifting off chunks of the top crusty layer as I went. I was able to lay the soaked cloves in the earth at 8 inch intervals, just as I should have done two months ago. I took a few photos as a record. And once the garlic cloves were all placed, I used the shovel to break up the pieces of crusted earth - bam, bam, bam - then pushed the lumpy cold dirt onto the trenches to cover the garlic generously. I tamped it all down with my feet and the job was done.

little lumps of potential life, and the tool that made it possible

We’ll see if the garlic survives its rough treatment and germinates. Fingers crossed. If it does, I’ll view it as a gift, rather than as an encouragement to procrastinate. After all, it was the exhaustion of grief that kept me from digging the garden in November. Let’s hope next November is a more light-hearted season

a bonus, heartening sighting in the garden yesterday: parsley still green and vital

Tomorrow night I’m flying to Chiang Mai. I’m looking forward to seeing friends again (it’s been two years since I was last there) and to warmth, markets, different aromas, a change of pace. My friend, writer, editor, researcher Simon Thibault, will be house-sitting, so my next task is to make a list of this and that for him (house idiosyncrasies, garbage day, plant watering, etc). I’m so grateful that he can do this. Houses in winter, especially old houses like mine, are prone to many issues, from broken drainpipes to leaks of many kinds. I’m hoping he has a smooth happy stay here.

Looking ahead, I imagine all the patterns large and small that have been embedded in the house this last year now needing to evolve into new patterns, new feelings. I feel a bit naked at the thought of leaving these patterns and this shelter. It’s like an echo of my uncertainty, almost timidity, before my first travel after two years of Covid lockdown

snow plus melting ice crystals this week

There’s rebirth here, and there’s vulnerability too, as I find my way forward. I’m trying to embrace them both.

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS: of ovens and potatoes and more

The oven comes into its own in cold weather. It’s such a great cook’s tool for many things, not just for baking or for the classic Sunday roast or Christmas turkey. And potatoes have played a big role in my kitchen this last month. (We still have relatively smooth- skinned local spuds here in Toronto, beautiful simply boiled with their skins on.) I have a few examples of recent potato-forward oven-made meals to talk about.

First, boiled potatoes, chopped into large chunks, and roasted with chicken thighs: I prefer bone-in skin-on thighs, or boneless, but always with skin on. I do a simple version of the Kachin chicken recipe in my Burma book: I pound a mix of chopped ginger, garlic, and hot chile with salt in a mortar (or use a processor). Then I spread the mixture onto the chicken thighs and preheat the oven to 400 F/200 C. If you have (freshly cooked or instead leftover) boiled potatoes, strip off the skin, cut them into large chunks, place them on a baking sheet or in a roasting pan, brush them with a little olive oil and sprinkle on salt. Move the chicken onto the pan with the potatoes and cook in the centre of the oven for about one hour. As it cooks the chicken flavours the potato. The combo is terrific. Be sure to make plenty

oven-roasted brussels sprouts

Another possibility is to slice cooled boiled potatoes fairly thinly, brush them with olive oil, sprinkle on salt, and roast them on a baking sheet or roasting pan in a 400 F/200 C oven until browning at the edges. If you have the oven on, you might as well cook other vegetables at the same time: a tray of trimmed sliced brussels sprouts drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with a little fish sauce or salt; wedges of cabbage or a one or two large leeks sliced in half lengthwise and brushed with a little olive oil and fish sauce.

You can serve the vegetables separately or instead try combining a couple. Most recently I sliced and roasted some leftover cooked potato, combined it with coarsely chopped roasted leek, and dressed the combo with a yogurt and vinegar dressing spiked with a touch of soy sauce. It was a lovely surprise. Ideally I’d have had some fresh dill or other herb to sprinkle on top

yogurt-dressed roasted potato and leek; yes it’s brown food, and so delectable

If my small kitchen explorations here give you the urge to embark on exploring more ways to make use of your oven, there are many resources to help. I don’t own British food writer Diana Henry’s book From the Oven to the Table, but I’m sure there are loads of excellent recipes and ideas in there.

an orchid that Tashi’s friend Aram brought to the hospital in late October, still in bloom

AND A NOTE: A week ago, on the first Sunday in January, there was a Sacred Harp home singing at my house. We were 12 people, of varied experience. We sang from both the Shenandoah and Northern Harmony books. There were many familiar tunes, and others we were sight-reading. A lovely challenge and a pleasure. Singing is such a reviver; I felt it literally helped bring me back to life.

A SECOND NOTE: My friend Hilary gave me this book over Christmas. It’s a classic in Japan, won a mystery story prize in 1960. The translation into English is very fluid and seamless. Why am I mentioning it? Because it was perfect time travel, not reconstructed history, but written in and set in an era, the late fifties, which feels very remote in terms of patterns of daily life in Japan. It’s a great read.

And I’ve had everything too: joy, delight, deep sorrow, shocking grief, laughter and tears, sobs and quiet delight. No wonder I lose track of the day and of time of day. No wonder I’m in a fog of tiredness.

I tell myself that I need to inhabit this space of grief and lostness wholeheartedly. It’s a necessary part of living fully. Of being human. It’s a way of being aware of the suffering of others. And at moments I feel less isolated in my sorrow as I imagine myself part of this larger whole.

I learned the other day from a young friend who is dealing with the pain and frustration of lupus, that Tashi had talked with her about transparency. He told her that he’d decided the only way to deal was to be completely transparent with everyone about his brain tumour diagnosis. He took dread off the table by being open. He told her he thought that covering up or pretending takes a lot of energy. And lack of knowledge makes other people worried and uncomfortable. Better they should know where things stand. Only then is it possible to live lightly, rather than weighed down by a dread of the unknown.

She told me that her conversation with Tashi had made a huge difference to her. It enabled her to be open with others about her illness. It took away her feelings of shame, lifted a weight off her. She no longer felt she needed to apologise or be embarrassed when she asked for a sick day from work or an accommodation from her professors.

And as I think about on these last years, as I relive moments of joy or intensity, I’ve come to understand that the way Tashi dealt with life after his diagnosis was a lesson in living well. He wasn’t in denial. But he managed to not sink into moroseness or despondency. That would be to waste the life he had. He managed to be so present, to take on new work, to take care of his friends, to have fun, to engage with the world and be curious about it.

And I guess that lesson from him, though we never talked about it explicitly, is why and how I am writing here about the day-to-day of living with grief and its many aspects and consequences. As I write I come to understand a little more, and as I explore it further, or it explores me, I’m able to write about it.

the cold, like hard times, has its own beauty

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS: GOOSE BROTH RISOTTO & RECIPE LESSONS

In my last post I mentioned the broth I’d made from the carcass of the roast goose we made and devoured on Boxing Day. Some of the broth has gone into the freezer in labelled jars (with a lot of empty space at the top of each jar for expansion). But before that, I’d strained the broth, tossed the bones and bits, and then put the rest back in the pot. It sat in a cool place overnight so I could skim off the fat. Goose fat is so precious. I look forward to frying potatoes!

On Monday it was time to make risotto. First I put a couple of litres/quarts of broth in a tall pot over medium low, so it would be hot and ready to be added when heeded. Then I started with a little chopped garlic in a generous layer of olive oil in the bottom of my heavy Staub pot over medium heat. Once the garlic had softened I sprinkled on washed carnaroli rice (I wash/rinse all rice). I gave it a gentle stir as it started to heat, then scooped up a cup full of hot broth and added it to the pot. It boiled almost immediately and I added a second cup. After that, as always with risotto, it was a matter of keeping the heat low enough that it cooked without sticking, and adding broth when the liquid got too low. Somewhere in there I tasted for salt and added a little. About halfway through cooking I added some thin slices of delicata squash

risotto bubbling

And sometime soon after that I put a very large purple carrot, cleaned and sliced in half lengthwise, on top of the rice. It lay there steam-cooking under a half-covered lid. Why add a carrot? It was a way of lightly cooking the carrot that was going to be chopped into a small salad with arugula and radicchio, without using another pot

radicchio and carrot salad with a little dill

Later on I added a generous dollop of red wine (there was no white open). I like to finish the cooking with enough liquid that there’s a very loose soupy texture. Once the rice was at a tender al dente, I turned off the heat and added small chunks of butter. After it sat a little so the rice could firm up, I gave it a stir and folded in some grated parmesan, about a half cup.

After that pause, the rice had absorbed more of the liquid, but the risotto still had a loose texture, so it was easy to spoon up, mouthful by succulent mouthful. It was a perfect second gift from the goose, warming on a cold snowy night

the other treat this week has been having time to read this remarkable book

The following evening I had a less easy ride in the kitchen. It taught me an old lesson.

I had read Nancy Harmon Jenkins’s clear lovely recipe for “Wintertime Pasta with Walnuts for a Healthy New Year” on her substack last week: spaghettini or other thin long pasta dressed in a walnut and anchovy dressing, elegantly simple and quick. For the first time in years I decided to follow someone else’s recipe, a recipe new to me.

I discovered, or perhaps I should say I rediscovered, that it’s not easy. (I was particularly handicapped by using my phone to display the recipe. It meant I couldn’t see the whole thing in one glance, as you can do when you use a well-designed cookbook.)

You can find the recipe in Nancy’s Substack “On the Kitchen Porch” dated December 28, 2025. Highly recommended.

Basically while the water comes to a boil and the pasta cooks, you make a simple sauce in a large pot: You heat the garlic in a generous amount of olive oil to soften it, then add about 1 ½ cups of finely chopped toasted walnuts, and about ten (rinsed off) mashed anchovies. Then you stir in hot water from the pasta pot to lengthen the sauce. Once the pasta has cooked to a bare al dente, you drain it and add it to the sauce in the pot, tossing it to coat. The warmth of the sauce helps the pasta finish cooking

chopping a pile of walnuts, and garlic too

The flavour was terrific. The execution not so much. I scrambled, was scattered and disorganised, kept checking my phone for details. I was a messst all because I had forgotten a basic rule: the first time we use an unfamiliar recipe, the task is not simply to follow it, but also to understand it.

I’d glanced through the recipe and decided it sounded delicious. The simplicity appealed. But I’d skipped the essential, which is, before embarking, to read the whole thing carefully and slowly, and to visualise each step. Even a simple recipe requires imaginative attention the first time or two. That visualising helps me understand why it’s done that way and allows me to inhabit the process as I work. There’s a pleasurable harmony to it.

Without that understanding, I floundered. So silly. But out of it we had a delicious supper nonetheless.

All of this is a reminder that when we’re off track because of grief or exhaustion or distress of any kind, it’s often reflected in our cooking and our other work. But let’s not beat ourselves up over it. Life goes on.

crossing streetcar tracks on a cold snowy night, Spadina Avenue

I’m so grateful when my friend Trisha brings me flowers; they bring joy and their details are astonishing

He sat comfortably facing out with both parents in view, at ease, but always in deliberate continuous action. He’d look around, then lift a slippered foot to his mouth to suck for a moment, then instead a hand went to his mouth, then just a few fingers, then the edge of my hand, then his fingers again, and so on, in a relaxed round of movement and touch and exploration. His contentment, and the strength and ease of his firm little body, were a joy. There was the familiar feel of a small person who is, yes, of course, in need of care and protection of all kinds, but who is already - so soon! - an independent being launched on the road to autonomy. Gorgeous life.

children bring light and life in many ways: terrific decorated ginger cookies made by my friend Carol’s granddaughters; my granddaughter’s boots after an excursion into the snowscape yesterday

This week has been full of other visits with friends: walks and meals out in the world, as well as people coming here to the house. The only sticky place for me, as always, was presents/gifts. I don’t do well at mandatory giving. Instead, throughout the year, if I see something that I think would be ideal to give to a friend, I buy it and give it. But it’s rare that I go looking for a present for an occasion such as Christmas or a birthday. My kids long ago became used to my neglect of present-giving on special occasions.

In anticipation of present-giving season I had accumulated a small stash of possible presents, mostly ceramics that I’d liked and bought in the last few months, plus other hand-made things, such as knitted fingerless gloves and hats, and skin creams and salves. I sorted through them trying to figure out who might like what, then wrapped each in newspaper, with scotch tape to hold it in place. As a meagre addition, I had also chopped some Ontario-grown turmeric (amazing, from Soznicki’s) and boiled it at a low boil for about 2 hours to make a turmeric concentrate; it went into jars, one for me and the rest to give away

There’s a definite asymmetry here, for my incoming presents have been very thoughtful and carefully wrapped. I’m well past shame after all these years. I feel a bit badly for my friends but not badly enough to try the mandatory-gift shopping list technique. I’m grateful for their love and their generous tolerance.

turmeric for concentrate: it’s great in hot lemon, along with chopped ginger and black pepper

KITCHEN EXPLORATIONS, including mushroom rescue, hanger steak, goose fat, and loads of vegetables

A few days before Christmas I was expecting two or three extra people for casual supper. I’d decided to make brown jasmine rice and to stir-fry some hanger steak from Sanagan’s. Then I came across two brown paper bags of mushrooms from the market. I’d completely forgotten about them. (Does that ever happen to you?) They’d been neglected for ten days and had dried out to almost weightlessness. How to rescue them?

I rinsed them off and then tried to chop them and trim off unsalvageable stems. The mushrooms were so dry and tough that anything more than very rough coarse chopping was impossible. I heated some olive oil in my large Staub pot and tossed in several chopped garlic cloves and then the mushrooms. After a minute or two I added about an inch of hot water and brought it to a boil. I half-covered the pot and lowered the heat to maintain a strong simmer, hoping that the simmering would eventually manage to rehydrate the mushrooms. It was a very slow process. I had to add water a couple of times. Finally after about 45 minutes the mushrooms started to soften properly. I lifted them out of the cooking liquid with a spider and chopped them more finely, discarding any irredeemably tough bits, then dropped them back in to continue simmering. I added a generous amount of butter and a little red wine, a splash or two of soy sauce plus some salt. Altogether it took well over an hour to cook the mushrooms to edible.

Meantime the rice had finished cooking, guests had arrived, and people were hungry. It was time to cook the hanger steak. I’ve come to love it as the perfect beef for a stir-fry, cut across the grain in medium (not super thin) slices. I rub it with shio koji about fifteen to thirty minutes before I want to cook it (about 1 heaped tablespoon per pound/450 grams). I had a bunch of cavalo nero (that lovely tender bumpy-leafed kind of kale that you can eat raw or cooked) that I chopped fairly finely, a large red onion that I sliced thinly, and a thumb of ginger that I peeled and chopped.

I’m grateful to have a large spun steel wok which can handle large quantities. I like to use mustard seed, nigella, and fennel seeds as a flavour base with beef. Once the mustard seeds had popped, in went the ginger, then a moment later the sliced onion. I lowered the heat a bit as the onion cooked to tender softened slices, then with the gas flame turned back up, in went the beef. After about three minutes of vigorous stir-frying, most surfaces looked touched with colour, so in went the cavalo nero. The stir-frying continued for a minute or more. I wanted the greens softened but the beef tender and strongly pink in the middle (that’s why I don’t slice it thinly). I splashed in some water as I kept pressing the meat against the hot wok, then turned it and pressed again. In another minute, after some dashes of soy sauce and more stirring, it was done and could be turned out onto a wide shallow wooden bowl: tender slices of beef, a thin gravy, and bright green pieces of barely cooked cavalo nero.

I worried that the mushrooms might still seem too chewy to everyone, but there was no problem. We feasted and talked relaxedly, of many things, with mentions of Tashi woven into our stories and thoughts. What a pleasure.

the leftovers of rice and of mushroom were terrific for breakfast, reheated together in olive oil in a cast-iron skillet and topped with a fried egg or two (and tarragon leaves here)

On Christmas night we were invited out to dinner: ten people around a long table, with loads of everything, all beautifully cooked: turkey, stuffing, cranberry chutney, squash, gravy, brussels sprouts, and conversation.

huge perfectly cooked turkey for a crowd

I loved bathing in the energy and loving care of dear friends. But wow my stamina was limited. By the time we were headed home I realised I was deeply tired, flattened out, exhausted by the weighty current of grief that is flowing inside me even when I’m unaware of it.

The next night, Boxing Day evening, we were due to feed ten adults plus five small children. The plan was for roast goose and loads of vegetables. The fridge and pantry were full of supplies for the feast, mostly bought at Wychwood Farmers’ Market. But illness struck (colds, eye infections, etc) and two families had to cancel. As a result we were only five adults and one almost four-year-old. The goose was small, a mere 7 ½ pounds; I’d planned to grill some lamb, to supplement, but there was no need. (As it turned out, with fewer people for dinner we had a little leftover goose for sandwiches.)

Perhaps we had leftovers because I went a bit overboard on the vegetables, all cooked before the goose went into the oven. There were slow-cooked spiced chopped leeks, I mean really slow-cooked so that they became melty and lush; oven-roasted beets sliced and tossed with chopped dill in a yogurt-olive oil-rice vinegar sauce; soft oven-roasted squash mixed with chopped radicchio and flavoured with olive oil, pomegranate molasses, cider vinegar, and squeezes of lemon; cooked peeled chopped potatoes in a herb-laden vinaigrette; and wedges of pointed cabbage that were sprinkled with olive oil and fish sauce before being oven roasted, then chopped

a crowded plate: goose thigh top right, then beets, cabbage, leeks, potatoes, squash-radicchio going clockwise

Before carving the goose I poured the fat out of the roasting pan into a jar. Later, while we sat around playing Dixit (such a terrific game; do you know it?), and then during the last of the cleaning up, the carcass simmered for some hours in a tall pot. The next day I simmered it a little more, then set it by the cold back door to chill overnight so that the fat would float to the top and congeal. Today I skimmed it off and added it to the goose fat jar. Real wealth! Now that I have a good stash of fat, I see fried potatoes in my future…

The plan for supper tomorrow is risotto made with the goose broth. Perhaps I’ll include some slices of delicata squash in it. I’m not sure what else. That will be a post for another day, just after New Year’s perhaps.

I hope the New Year brings you good health and good energy to meet the ongoing challenges we all face. Life is not getting any simpler, nor is the world more peaceful. We need all the good energy we can summon

the view out back two days ago, or perhaps it was yesterday!

In Zoroastrian tradition the longest night is called Shab-e-Yalda, or simply Yalda for short. On Yalda people stay up all night eating pomegranates and dried fruit and talking and story-telling, to push back the forces of the dark. Persian grocery stores here in Toronto are loaded with piles of pomegranates (anar in Farsi, Urdu, and Hindi) and with dried fruits of all kinds, their rich colours enticingly like a version of the treasure in Aladdin’s cave.

pomegranate seeds close up

This hinge of the year is a good time to reflect back and to imagine forward. I’ve been doing some of each.

A dear friend brought me a pomegranate about a week ago. It’s been sitting round glowing pink-red, reminding me to open it up. So this morning, a couple of days early for Yalda, that’s what I did. If you’ve got a lot of pomegranates to strip, the task can seem tedious or onerous. But if, as I was, you are on your own with no deadline to meet, then it becomes wonderfully meditative.

mostly done, my meditative stripping of lovely seeds

I picked the glowing red seeds off the sections of membrane in ones and pairs and dropped them into a wide bowl. Now and then I’d eat one or two, crunching their acid-sweet juice and the slightly bitter seed between my teeth. It was easy to lose track of time and just float.

As they often do, my thoughts turned to Tashi. I am still hearing from friends of mine and friends of his with expressions of sorrow and sympathy. I appreciate them all. It’s difficult for people to know what to write, what to say. And it takes courage sometimes to risk saying the inexpressible. I don’t respond usually, except to thank them. But then a few days ago I found myself writing a response for myself, not to send, but to explain to myself how things feel right now.

Here it is:

“It is entirely outside the power of words or immediate understanding, this absence of Tashi. I say that, but in fact I feel him everywhere, just outside my line of sight, his attentive energy and his presence. I don’t know how long this will go on. It’s lovely and haunting and kind of a cushion against the harsh fact of his death.

The other thing I’ve learned in all this is what a labour death is for the person dying. We labour to give birth and most of us labour to die. That’s especially true when the person dying is young and healthy, as Tashi was. The drugs and treatments weakened him of course, but really the tumour messing with his brain was driving the show, producing and directing it. And so he laboured, with amazing patience and tolerance and humour.

As I age into stiffening muscles and a poor memory for names, with many more weaknesses to come, I hope I can remember to model myself on Tashi. Children educate us in so many ways. I just never dreamt he’d be the one to show me how to exit gracefully.”

These days, as we enter full holiday season mode, friends of all ages come by. Over coffee or a meal, we talk easily of the present and of the past. And we touch on possible future plans. These conversations knit together the fabric and help build a sense of how the future will take shape. I am so grateful

Almost every week since May 2020 I have gone for a long walk with a small handful of friends, people I’ve known for years. Once Covid restrictions eased, we added lunch at some quirky small place to our walk. These jewelled Turkish sweets were part of a coffee stop we made this week at Simit Chi on Bloor.

KITCHEN THIS AND THAT, MOSTLY TIPS AND TRICKS

In my last post I mentioned pastry plans. I’m happy to report that I made a batch of pastry using flour milled by Dawnthebaker from Maris Widgeon wheat, a delicious variety that is now being grown by one or two farmers in Ontario.

I used half of it to make an improvised version of pear tart, open-faced, with the pears resting on a layer of frangipane. In its most elegant form this combination is called a Tarte Bourdaloue. I took a rough and ready approach, which meant that my tart was a poor cousin to the Bourdaloue in many ways: I chopped the pears rather approximately into several shapes, I used a rectangular tart pan rather than a round one, and my frangipane was a bit coarse (I’d toasted the Ontario hazelnuts lightly, but didn’t grind them finely enough). Other criticisms: I used salted butter but the pastry could have used more salt, and the frangipane too. Still, I was pleased. Textures were great and I loved the flavours.

frangipane made from Ontario-grown hazelnuts; local pears; whole grain Maris Widgeon flour

Now to report on the mincemeat. Two days ago I made mince tarts, little ones. The tartlets were delicious, yes, but there was a bit of a glitch. I left them in the baking tin too long. By the time I wanted to serve them for dessert on Tuesday evening they had stuck a little in their hollows and were difficult to lift out, even though I’d greased each little indent well with butter. I gather the trick is to take them out when the pan has cooled a little, but before things are completely cooled. There’s always more to learn.

mince tarts in preparation; I put a dab of frangipane on top of each

And on the topic of always having more to learn, my friend Ed Rek, whose Substack is Movements of a Cook, told me he had a new twist on roasting chicken. I roast chicken at 400 F/200C and I always start with the chicken breast side down so the underside gets a good start and is sure to be cooked through. I turn the bird over after about 20 minutes, so the breast ends up on top all golden-skinned. His suggestion: once the chicken comes out of the oven, turn it over while it rests, so that any juices drain back into the breast, keeping it even more moist. It’s something to try next time.

Another tip, this time from Dawnthebaker: She’d given me two large beautiful squash, a new hybrid variety. I don’t remember the name, sorry. The tip? Once she said it, it seemed obvious, a real duh! but it had never occurred to me: when you cut them in half, leave the seeds in. They keep the flesh moist and it saves work. Bake them cut side down. The seeds are very easy to scoop out once the squash is cooked. The flesh was silky smooth, simple to scoop out of the skin, and a little sweet. I added chopped radicchio to it, then dressed the resulting dish – a salad? a mashed textured vegetable? – with a little olive oil, some lemon juice, a dash of good vinegar, and some fish sauce. A real pleasure to eat. Alas, there were no leftovers to have with eggs the next day

radicchio landscape: both kinds grown by Paul of Footsteps Farm

fried eggs in process this morning, about to go over leftover brown rice

slushy back lane this week, behind Brunswick Avenue, Toronto

My recent time in hospitals with Tashi, first at Toronto Western and then in the palliative care ward at Princess Margaret, was painful, yes, and also intense, wonderfully human, rich with feelings and care. The hard work and thoughtfulness of nurses and other front-line care staff goes on day and night. But unless we’re there to see it, it’s easy to forget that parallel universe. And the stress and anxiety of patients and their loved ones is also an ongoing complicated landscape that is mostly hidden from us

December full moon, setting before dawn last week

The truth is that wherever we are we are surrounded by people whose inner landscapes are individual. We don’t know what is going on for them on a particular day or in a particular place. In the same way, people passing me in the street these days can’t know how I’m feeling; sometimes I myself barely know.

I’m still trying to find my footing, metaphorically, in this new world where I no longer carry anxiety and dread about Tashi. Instead he’s present in his absence. I am distracted, tend to lose mittens and to lose track of time. I am reluctant to make future commitments to people and find myself taking refuge from commitment by reading novels.

Earlier, in October, I was reading literature, three books on the Booker Prize shortlist: Kiran Desai’s marvellous The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Susan Choi’s intense unforgettable Flashlight, and the Booker winner, Flesh by Richard Szalay, which is brilliantly written and left me feeling alienated. They all came from the Toronto Public Library.

But now, after Tashi’s death and the intensities of those weeks, I have been working my way through the last six or seven books in the Billy Boyle series by James R Benn. They’re transporting, and a great escape. Instead of doing household chores or writing the letters I owe, I flee into Billy’s wartime escapades. Only my commitment to myself to write here on Substack every week has pulled me away from the comfortable nook that well-told stories provide.

The other pleasure that is slowly growing on me, is retrieving a sense of adventure in the kitchen. I mentioned this possibility in last week’s post. Since then I have made mincemeat, free-styling on the basis of my recipe in HomeBaking, plus the recipes in a 1947 book by Mrs Arthur Webb called Preserving, and Dorothy Hartley’s mincemeat entry in her Food in England.

It was liberating to realise that mincemeat is really a matter of combining sweet preserved/dried fruits with tartness (usually from various forms of citrus) plus a little liquid and perhaps sugar, all of it preserved in a thin coating of fat from suet. I began with chopped apple, about a pound/500 grams of it, as well as the same weight of organic sultanas and of plain raisins. Other ingredients included a (2 cup) jar of Seville orange marmalade; 2 large organic lemons, chopped in the food processor, plus the juice of two more lemons; about ½ cup/125 ml syrup left over from when I candied peel last year; about the same amount of strong black tea and of rye whiskey; and about 2 cups of sugar. The last ingredient to go in was the beef suet, 250 grams/half pound; luckily Sanagan’s in Kensington Market sells it in frozen packages, already chopped into tiny pieces. The ingredients all sat together mixed in a large bowl overnight. The next day I spread them onto a roasting pan and put it, loosely covered, into a 225F/105C oven for two hours, then removed the loose cover for the last hour. That was the plan.

Forgetfulness intervened. I went out, leaving the uncovered pan in the oven for an extra three hours. Blame my distracted state. Miraculously - a confirmation that mincemeat is difficult to mess up - the mixture was fine, still moist, and very delicious. I ended with nearly 3 litres/US quarts of mincemeat. Some I’ll give away, and some will go into mince tarts

close-up; I am very grateful for all the flowers people brought to the house after Tashi died; the loveliness continues with this huge pot of amaryllis from Mika at The Good Egg

PASTRY RETURNS TO MY KITCHEN

I came to pastry-making when I was working on HomeBaking nearly 25 years ago. Until then I’d been intimidated by it, having bought into the myth that “cool hands” were an innate gift that only some lucky people had. These superstitions can keep us from trying. They did that to me. But as I embarked on learning how to be comfortable with home-style pastry-making I settled into the pleasure of it. If we avoid the trap of perfectionism, pastry-making can be casual and relaxed.

As I was reading through my HomeBaking book last weekend, thinking about possible Christmas baking ideas, I came upon the recipe for Leekie Pie, in the savoury tarts section. I had a large handful of leeks from the farmers’ market that were looking a little tired and crying out to be used. Ambition stirred.

But it’s been ages since I last made pastry. For the last couple of years I’ve been cooking supper, yes, with care and attention, improvising most nights. Sweets and desserts, cookies, cakes, tarts, have come mostly from Evelyns Wholegrain Baking, the business of my brilliant friend Dawnthebaker.

I know I can rely on the recipes in HomeBaking but of course I often riff off them, as I did in this case: I substituted whole grain pastry flour for the paler all-purpose or pastry flour in the recipe.

I made the pastry in the morning and left it in the fridge until late afternoon. A friend came by as it was time to roll it out and assemble the tart. We chatted as I worked. I felt a little self-conscious with her there, because my fingers were a bit clumsy, unused to handling pastry. I rolled out the dough for the bottom crust and laid it onto the greased pie plate, easing it in without a problem. The mix of lightly cooked chopped leek plus chopped bacon looked appealingly fresh and green a I mounded it onto the crust. But rolling out the top crust and trying to drape it over the leeks was more challenging. It cracked in a couple of places and needed mending. The mends looked a bit crude, but there was no point worrying. I pressed my thumb all around the edge to seal it, and then for good measure also pressed all around with a fork.

chopped leeks with a little chopped red onion, pre-cooking before going into the pie

The final step before the pie goes into the oven is cutting a large square hole in the centre of the top crust. When the pie is almost done, you carefully pour a whisked mixture of egg and whole milk into the hole and put the pie back in to finish. The custard mixture seeps through the chopped leek, flavouring it and holding it together as it sets. But when I took the tart out, though the pastry was well browned, the filling still looked wet rather than set. Oh no!

I’d forgotten that you need to let the tart sit for a short while once it comes out, to set completely. We were hungry, so we ate it a little soon, when it was hot and steaming. Delicious. The leftover slice I had the next day was even better, firm, and succulent, a perfect blend of leek and crust.

My confidence has returned. I feel ready to make small mince tarts. I have some Maris-Widgeon flour freshly milled by Dawnthebaker, who suggests topping the tartlets with a little frangipane…

Ontario-grown wheat in Dawn’s mill, awaiting transformation

brilliant colour on a grey day just before the latest snow; the bush is Cotoneaster horizontalis

And as I type this, I am listening to a short clip from the terrific film made by Sepideh Farsi called Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. The film is a series of phone-video conversations between the filmmaker, who is in Paris, and her Palestinian photographer subject, Fatima Hassouna. In the clip, Fatima tells her that (even though she is living in a fraught situation in Gaza) she lives each day with joy and optimism. In the background we hear the sound of bombs. But Fatima’s smile and confidence push the fear away and assert the vitality of the life she is living in the moment.

That’s what many humans in crisis seem to do: try to live each day as best they can. I had a glimpse of this long ago, in Cambodia in July 1997. There’d been a coup d’etat, as Hun Sen ousted Ranariddh from their joint presidency. There’d been violence and deaths. Many foreigners had left Phnom Penh. But already a couple of days later the local markets were open. It was as if people were pushing back, insisting on daily rhythms and normalcy, resisting the anarchy of violence and disruption.

Death is a violence, a big rip in the fabric of life. Even when we expect it, death knocks us sideways, takes our breath away. There’s an impulse to just sit still and live in a separate space, timeless and disconnected. Some people find themselves adrift in that space for a long time, unable to retrieve a sense of life or purpose or connection. Others go the other way and rush into activity. Perhaps the urge to keep moving is a denial, a kind of running away from the harsh truth. Or maybe it’s a built-in human survival strategy: after a shock you keep moving so your body continues to function.

These last weeks I have kept moving, but kind of ineptly. I seem capable of only one thought at a time, and I easily lose track of my intentions. The day zigzags, with long pauses for reading, or phone calls. I haven’t sat down to draw, not even a bare sketch.

And some tasks have been abandoned. Garlic, for instance. In October I bought garlic to plant in my small back garden, as I do each year, just a few bulbs, that I break into cloves, soak overnight, and shove into lightly tilled ground in several rows. But events overtook that project this fall, so that when I next was home and paying attention, there were only two mild days left. Each day I looked out at the garden and thought, “Today. I’ll dig and plant garlic today”. And then I just didn’t. I couldn’t commit to anything, not a coffee date, not what I would make for supper, and not planting garlic.

Now here we are into the first week of December, with snow on the ground, a hard frost, and the full moon tonight. My garlic-planting window has gone. Or perhaps not, my friend Lillian told me today. According to her, if there’s a mild spell in the next few weeks I could still get it into the ground.

I’ll let you know!

IN THE KITCHEN

I may still lose track of time as I get lost in thought, and I certainly still have trouble making commitments, but basic habits and gestures keep my blood flowing and my brain ticking over, however slowly. I’m discovering that kitchen tasks, from making my fried eggs over leftovers in the morning, to cooking supper with friends, revive me.

eggs over leftover bean stew from our at home party for Tashi

A group meal last weekend helped get me moving in the kitchen in a light easy way. We had a large lamb chop and several pieces of smoked lamb (a delight!), all from Andreas of Buschbeck Farms. My partner Paul grilled them over charcoal after brushing them with fish sauce and a little pomegranate molasses. Meantime Dawnthebaker chopped and oven-roasted a handful of carrots of many colours. They went into a large bowl with two kinds of radicchio, to make a salad that we dressed with a blend of tahini, olive oil, creme fraiche, and brown rice vinegar.

two kinds of radicchio on the left; and the not-yet-dressed salad on the right

I had bought three large-ish candy-striped beets from Footsteps Farm, at Wychwood Market. Dawn peeled and grated them, while I made a hot dressing of minced ginger and sliced garlic cooked in hot olive oil spiced with mustard seed and fennel seeds, and spiked with vinegar. There were a few sorrel leaves and stems of parsley still green in the garden to add to the gorgeous pink of the beets. Once we’d sliced the lamb and dressed a green salad we all dived in.

grated beet salad; plated meal of two kinds of grilled lamb, plus salads

After that meal, and a few other small excursions in the kitchen, I’m even starting to imagine doing some baking. I’ll keep it simple by making standbys from my HomeBaking book, for example sweet paximadia (biscotti made with olive oil and flavoured with cloves and cinnamon), which I make with whole grain flour.

This morning I realised I was thinking about buying organic citrus to make candied peel. And that led me to imagine mincemeat. Perhaps it’s a bridge too far? The hazelnut frangipane in the pear tart Lesley Chesterman made ten days ago in Montreal (see my last post) was so excellent; perhaps a fruit tart lies in my future. And from there it’s a hop skip and jump to a gateau des rois. Hmmm.

a shot of me in the kitchen, by Ed Rek, as I cooked the hot dressing for the beet salad

Life and curiosity beckon me forward.

faded, dried out, and perhaps even more beautiful: a bouquet of peonies brought to the house by Robin Kay after Tashi died

His brother Dom and I decided to have an open house two days later, on Sunday, a large gathering of friends and chosen family, with no speeches, no ritual, just an open-hearted coming together. There were conversations, tears, cross-connections made or discovered, stories told, and food and drink to sustain people through the afternoon and evening. Tashi would have enjoyed the party enormously; I could picture him threading his way through the crowd.

We knew people would be hungry and distracted. We needed food that could sustain us all, in various ways. Dawnthebaker brought over a huge load of her whole grain baking: slices of butter cake, pecan squares, chocolate digestives, loaves of bread, and more. And she’d ordered a cheese plate from Cheese Magic and charcuterie boards from Sanagan’s.

I had bought two smoked trout at Wychwood market, so I broke them up into shards, sliced sorrel leaves I’d picked from the garden into chiffonade, squeezed on some lemon and drizzled on a little sesame oil: one plate done. I’d already soaked a large batch of small white beans (Dawn had bought them from a local Amish farmer). Sunday morning I cooked them in my large Staub pot plenty of water along with two chopped red onions, until tender. Mustard seed, nigella seed, turmeric, fennel, and cumin, went into hot olive oil in a large cast-iron skillet, followed by minced garlic and ginger and chopped tomatoes. About fifteen minutes later I added the whole skillet full of flavours to the pot of beans to simmer some more before taking them off the heat. I left the pot on the stove during the party, with a ladle in it so people could help themselves.

Dawn meantime organised all her baked treats and the charcuterie and cheese trays. Then she peeled and cubed root vegetables (celeriac, beets, squash, etc) and roasted them in a hot oven to yield a jewelled heap. We boiled a huge pot full of beautiful potatoes from @marvelousedibles, then peeled and chopped them. Dawn poured on a dressing of her home- made crème fraiche, with olive oil, a little vinegar, and plenty of chopped pickles, and garden herbs. She sprinkled on the last of the nasturtiums from the garden in a kind of blessing before she put the bowl on the table.

All this relaxed focused unhurried work in the kitchen was a balm, a wonderful way to move into the day.

Friends brought more food of all kinds: crackers topped with pate and jelly, cakes of many kinds, and many other thises and thats which I have now lost track of. Altogether we had plenty of food, but in the end, after about 150 people had come and gone, not too many leftovers to clear up.

We spent the next few days sorting through things, spending time with visiting friends, trying to get used to the idea that we are now in a new era, bereft forever, but at least no longer anxious about coming through for Tashi.

You may wonder why I never mentioned Tashi here before. When I started this Substack at the spring equinox this year, I wanted to keep it separate, a world apart from the realities of the heart. I was trying to live each day fully, rather than anticipating the deep grief that lay ahead. And Tashi deserved his privacy.

toddler Tashi with bread dough; this photo ran in my HomeBaking book

A week later Dawnthebaker and I took the train to Montreal.. I needed to change pattern, change scene, jolt myself into the new world I’d be living in.

We stayed with Lesley Chesterman of the Eat my Plate Substack. She’s a good friend, with loads of energy and wonderful food knowledge and curiosity. Both Dawn and I needed a break and a change of pace. We spent time at Atwater Market; visited the McCord Stewart Museum to see the new Menu exhibit, a history of Montreal from about 1960 to the present, seen through its restaurants; had an evening eating oysters and chorizo at Mamie because we were too impatient to wait for half an hour or more to get into PumPui for Thai food; drank many interesting wines; had blood sausage for breakfast at Larry’s; had delicious poutine and beer at Dieu du Ciel; checked out Brebis (cheeses and more) and Lawrence (aged meats and more); and had long lovely digressive conversations with Lesley and her partner, wine writer and educator Jean Aubry.

blood sausaage for breakfast at Larry’s

On our last evening we stayed home and cooked supper with Lesley. We’d invited another friend, legendary food writer Julian Armstrong to join us. The meal included five or six different wines (chosen by Jean). We began with a salad of roast delicata squash slices tossed with chopped radicchio and endive, moved on to leek risotto, braised brussels and carrots, and sliced duck breast, and closed with a pear-frangipane tart topped with crème anglaise. A feast of food and conversation. Very restorative.

Now back home, I confess to feeling adrift. I’ll read, see friends, try to find a groove…

After four years of dread (mostly buried deep) knowing that Tashi’s tumour would eventually kill him, after four years watching his amazing grace and lightness and clarity since the diagnosis, and despite it, I need to find my way in this new world. How to do that? I guess it will be a continuous work in progress. I need to keep hold of the feel of his sense of humour, his alertness, as he went on loving his brother, watching out for me, and engaging with his friends

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