When I travel, I miss my kitchen. When I'm in my kitchen, I feel like travelling. Go figure.

I just got back from touring with my band, and realized I've barely cooked anything in the last three months. We spent most of the summer in the studio at all hours, and the rest of the time was spent organizing and booking. In all honesty, I'm not really sure what I've been living on for the last few months. Coffee, peanut butter toast, mixed greens, poached eggs with spinach, apples, almonds and hot dogs mostly. It's a mildly embarrassing admission.

By the time we got home last week, I was aching to eat something that I made with my very own hands, so I made a big batch of bison shepherd's pie, which mysteriously disappeared overnight (hmmm)... comfort food has a way of doing that in most houses... ours is no exception.

I've made some soup, and a stir fry or two, but I really haven't made anything racy in a ridiculously long time. Even longer since I blogged about it.

I managed to pick up a nice duck for $12 last night and decided I would do something interesting. I'd been thinking about brining and Thanksgiving and what have you and then realized I've never brined a duck. I also came across a recipe for tea smoked duck with blueberry sauce yesterday, but it seemed like way more effort than I am currently willing to make.

So at this very moment there is a duck submerged in a bunch of salted brine spiked with Earl Gray tea, sake, garlic, ginger and vanilla sitting in my fridge. I have a Greek recipe for duck breast with pomegranate that I've been meaning to try for ages, but going off on a tangent as I usually do instead of actually making it, I've been thinking of slathering the duck with a pomegranate molasses glaze, but then again I have an amazing jar of apple butter sitting in my fridge. This is going to be a tough decision, but luckily I don't have to make it until tomorrow night.

To an Oatcake, and Other Boo-urns Eats!

On James Grieve, Laird of Boghead, Tarbolton
Here lies Boghead amang the dead
In hopes to get salvation;
But if such as he in Heav’n may be,
Then welcome, hail! damnation.

Robbie Burns did not love my ancestors well, and possibly quite rightly so. I hear tell we were a bunch of intensely opinionated shit disturbers. (Go figure.) But nonetheless, I still love Robbie Burns Day and a good ol’ haggis munch complete with neeps and tatties. (There’s got to be a dirty joke in there … Uh, yeah.)

I don’t have to make a haggis this year. My lovely friends Bronwyn and Gareth are providing that, but this is my culinary invention for the day: Innes and Gunn Beer Cheese with Orange Onion Marmalade served on Rosemary Oatcakes. Not quite as indulgent as scotch eggs, but still ridiculously tasty. Hope you like it!

Substitute any good quality Scottish beer if you can’t find Innes and Gunn. Mac’s Strong would be great! If I could get my hands on some Alba Scot’s Pine Ale from Craigmill, I would’ve been all over that. I think the piney flavour would pair beautifully with the rosemary and orange.

Both these spreads get better with age. You can serve them right away but a night or two in the fridge will really do them justice.

And, yeah, I know, where’s the recipe for the oatcakes? I’m just making up a basic traditional Scottish oatcake recipe with a couple teaspoons of minced rosemary and a bit of garlic powder added to them. (Made with butter, lard or bacon grease but never shortening! Eww!) You can also buy pretty decent packaged ones in a pinch.

Suggested soundtrack while cooking: The Vaselines, Boards of Canada, Nazareth, Arab Strap, Belle and Sebastian, Donovan, Eugenius, The Beta Band, Franz Ferdinand, Bis, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Mark Knopfler, Life Without Buildings, The Bay City Rollers, and if you’ve really done your research, throw a little AC/DC in for good measure…

Innes and Gunn Beer Cheese
1 lb good quality aged cheddar, cubed or grated
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp dried mustard
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
½ cup Innes and Gunn Triple Matured Oak Aged Beer

In a food processor, blend first five ingredients until fairly well combined.
Add beer and blend until smooth. Serve in a bowl with a smearing implement of your choice. I think a quaigh and sgian dubh might be overkill, but hey, if you’re feeling racy...


Orange Onion Marmalade
2 onions, halved and sliced
1 Tbsp canola oil, or other unflavored oil
2 – 3 Tbsp Innes and Gunn Triple Matured Oak Aged Beer
½ to 1 tsp salt
1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely minced
½ tsp Worcestershire sauce
3 Tbsp orange marmalade
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
fresh ground pepper

In a medium sized pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onions, rosemary and a bit of the salt. When onions begin to brown slightly or stick to the bottom of the pot, stir in the beer and then turn to medium low. Continue to stir onions occasionally until they become soft and golden brown. Add a little water and/or beer whenever they begin to stick to the bottom of the pot. (If you have any left at this point. Oops. Guilty.)

As they begin to soften taste them to see if they need more salt. They probably will. You want the onion mixture to be fairly well salted to stand up to the sweetness in the marmalade you’ll be adding to them, but don’t worry, if you don’t get it quite right you can fiddle with it at the end.

Once the onions are golden, stir in the Worchestershire, marmalade, garlic and balsamic vinegar and stir until combined. (Why am I adding the garlic now, you ask? There’s raw garlic in that beer cheese and I want the garlic flavour in my marmalade to stand up and balance with it. Cooking it with the onions would have made it shy.) Let the marmalade simmer for a couple of minutes and taste to see how that salt balance is. You might want to check your vinegar balance too. (All balsamic vinegars are not created equal.) If it’s a hint too bitter or vinegary for you liking add a pinch of sugar and simmer for a little longer; if it’s lacking that nice punch add a hint more vinegar.

Remove from heat and season with fresh ground pepper. Let cool before serving. (If you store this in the fridge, let it come to room temperature before serving. It will taste way better with the cheese.)

Sick Transit, Gloria Monday...

“Always have your headphones in before you get to the bus stop. “

It’s my number one rule. And it usually works to keep at bay the consortium of rather odd individuals who for some reason gravitate to talk to me while waiting for and being on the bus.

I find, for the most part, you don’t even need to turn the ipod on. Those little white earbuds of “I’m not listening to you” tend to get the message across, as does making as little eye contact as is humanly possible; or at least they used to.

I don’t know what it is about me, but all my life random strangers have taken it upon themselves to divulge at me their life stories, conspiracy theories and unhinged grocery lists. It’s something I’ve never really understood, and seems to be growing on a daily basis. I have days when I feel like a homing beacon for the less than functional. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I am not entirely functional myself; or that I really do have a sense of kindness and compassion for my fellow man that makes it hard for me to turn away when I sense another person’s need to talk. In any case, it sometimes makes me very tired and only seems to get weirder as time progresses.

I have developed a new skill though. It happened at the bus stop the other day, when apparently the headphones were not a large enough do-not-disturb sign. Person A begins a conversation with me regarding her childhood experiences and how she can’t wear converse sneakers because they make her feet too hot, while Person B exclaims that I look exactly like his niece before she got married and proceeds to tell me about all of his extended family, and did I know how much I looked like his niece, because you know I really, really do and maybe I know her…

At this point, I see a woman and her dog walking down the street and I think “Man, I hope these people really like dogs”, and sure enough both of them lean forward to say hello, and I discover the wonder of the gracious side step. And so the frenzy of conversation begins between Person A and Person B and I turn up my iPod so loud it hurts my teeth. Just another weapon in the arsenal of Buffy the Conversation Slayer…

...and yet as much as I complain, I must admit I sometimes kind of love it. Every once in a while people seem like human fortune cookies and mutter the most randomly poetic things at me. A few days ago, while putting sugar in my coffee at a local coffee shop, a little old man tottered up with an americano. He looked deep into my eyes and said, “What am I looking for?” He stood there for a couple of seconds, scratched his chin, then nodded and said, “My morals probably.” And with that, he wandered off into the day.

For the love of God, step away from the stove…

When I was seven years old I became obsessed with the idea of becoming a Cordon Bleu trained chef. I didn’t just want my certification, I wanted to travel to France and study at the REAL Cordon Bleu school. I wanted it so much that I saved up all my money and bought a Berlitz language guide and would spend hours in my room practicing completely random French phrases like “What time does the bus leave for Lourdes?” and “How much to dry clean my overcoat?”. I learned the French name for pretty much every fruit and vegetable under the sun. I would converse with my dog for hours. He spent a lot of time looking tired and confused.

I threw a dinner party for my friends and made Chicken Vol-Au-Vent and sautéed broccoli with lemon and Parmesan cheese. My friends ate it and even liked it. (Not that they didn’t think I was the weirdest seven year old on the planet…)

Every once in a while I would be lucky enough to travel to Saltspring Island to visit my mom’s best friend who ran the kitchen at the Vesuvius Inn. She would put me to work prepping French fries in the crazy potato slicer/press or have me scrub grease traps or floors or peel carrots. Some would call it a child labour violation; I called it heaven. I wanted to drop out of school and work in a kitchen right then and there. My dad said you needed a high school diploma to go to the Cordon Bleu. Good one, Dad.

As I got older, I became an opera singer and discovered the electric guitar. (Dangerous business, if you ask me.) When I graduated from high school, I worked in a few different kitchens, and even traveled to France, but I never got my Cordon Bleu cert. I ended up studying music, not cooking. I still have a huge passion though, and I try to hone my skills constantly. And for the most part, I’m a pretty damn good cook. I can throw together a rack of lamb or chicken tikka or oeufs en meurette without even stressing out that much.

Which leads me to my morning of chaos and my very embarrassing admission. I can cook a whole lot of things. You can chuck me a recipe and I can practically guarantee that it will turn out as good as it’s supposed to be or better. (I can never stick to a recipe word for word; it’s why I’m such a shitty baker. I get bored easily.) But in spite of my abilities with the complex nuances of food, I would get fired on the spot after one shift cooking breakfast. Try as I might, I can’t for the life of me cook hash browns from scratch or make pancakes.

Now hear me when I say this, I don’t mean I don’t think my hash browns or pancakes measure up to what they should be. What I mean is you don’t want to even consider eating the hash browns or pancakes that I make. If they came to you on a plate at a restaurant, you would complain, cry or barf. There would be no exception. I really don’t know what it is. I try and try and no matter what I do I cannot succeed. It’s like the math block that I have in my head. I can understand complex math theory, but I can’t add or subtract on the spot and I have a panic attack if you ask me about multiplication tables. It’s like when you pull the elephant’s trunk the light is supposed to come on…

So yeah, in spite of knowing this about myself, I thought I’d give it another try this morning. I usually fake hash browns by roasting potatoes instead, but no, I thought, “Today will be different!” “I can do this!”

I should have listened to the universe when I managed to spray half a pound of coffee grounds all over my kitchen that the gods were not with me today. Not even the gods that are usually with me. (Et tu, coffee gods?!) In between fighting with the dog to convince her that large mouthfuls of coffee are not food, my cell phone rang and I tried to sweep up the catastrophe, my already suspiciously awful looking hash browns smoking away on the stove, burning to a crisp. I managed to pull them off the heat while juggling a broom, phone and small caffeinated dog. To add insult to injury, I couldn’t even fry an egg to cover my potato embarrassment. I burned that to a crisp as well.

Note to self: Never make hash browns again. Ever.

Pause and Effect

I had a lot to write about yesterday but, as I didn't write it down it's fallen out of my head. I write a lot in my head, a sort of internal monologue or narration that comes and goes. A buzz of sorts. When I have the time and ability to scribble it down it usually evolves into these blog posts, or songs. Yesterday, nothing at all. Just words thrown at the wind.

I am currently on "vacation". Not something I do well. It's never been anything that really fit into my vocabulary. My family went on two vacations in the entire 17 years I spent at home, one was a three day camping trip from hell, the other a multi-state roadtrip a la National Lampoon's Vacation. The only thing is - when that stuff happens in real life, you tend not to find the humour in it. I was 15 that summer. It was the summer I got thin for a while. Boys actually wanted to talk to me. I however, was so desperately shy and untrusting that I figured it was some ploy to get me to let my guard down and torture me. I had, at that point, not exactly had a nice time with any of my social interactions, so I guess it was only to be expected.

I vividly remember sitting at a rest stop in Montana with my sister that summer. A bunch of guys were skateboarding and came over to talk to us. They asked my sister a bunch of questions about her skateboard. I stared at the ground. They attempted to ask me a bunch of questions too. I stared at the ground. They called me a snobby bitch and walked away. They were probably nice guys and I don't really blame them.

I have never been gifted with social niceties. At any given moment I feel like a duck wading in molasses. I am walking confusion encrusted in bubbly blonde. The fact that I actually perform on stage and have for nearly twenty years now confounds me. I have desperate stage fright and I am completely inept at witty banter, but in the space between the pauses I almost feel free. And so, I suppose I will continue to do it for as long as I possibly can.

In the same vein as witty banter, the concept of a vacation is lost on me. I am not well-practiced at it. The whole sitting still, relaxing thing feels completely foreign. My hypervigilance disapproves. I'm used to touring, and when I tour I overschedule and drive everyone batty with my intense organization and need to function like some well-oiled gizmo.

I have difficulty with the pauses or even the idea of them. I am working at it though. I figure maybe it's something I can learn with time.

Yesterday I drank a margarita. Today I am lying on a beach. It all feels like some sort of Wes Anderson film. The quality of light is suitably appropriate, and an old Mexican guy played some really weird covers on an acoustic guitar while I ate horrendously bad food last night. I took some time to stare at the stars.

It took a while, but I learned to talk to boys and people in general. You just pretend you're okay with it until eventually you sort of are. I'm still awkward and make no sense, but at least I have the ability to go through the motions on occasion. Maybe I'll get there with the pauses one day too. A molasses covered duck could do with a good swim now and again...

Hungarian Cabbage Soup

Rainy days make me crave soup. Go figure. I have a picturesque love of food. Always have, always will.

The two main reasons for my love of the culinary arts are:

a.) I can travel without ever leaving my kitchen, and good lord do I love to travel…

AND

b.) Scents and flavours allow us to create, relive and enhance memories in a way that nothing else on Earth can.


So, with this rain came a sense of nostalgia and a distinct need to recreate some of the Hungarian flavour that I grew up with as a kid. The fact that I found out, years later, that I am not actually Hungarian doesn’t lessen my love of Hungarian food. It’s still home for me, that and a good bout of haggis now and then, but that’s another story.

So staring into the abyss of my refrigerator I find a bag of coleslaw cabbage, two frozen bratwurst and some chopped up red bell pepper, and so the story goes. I flavoured this kind of like a traditional goulash. The smoked paprika is entirely optional, as is the porcini mushroom powder. Mushroom powder is fairly common in eastern European cooking, and adds a lovely earthy flavour to things. It’s also amazing to add to gravies and burgers. I make my own. It’s pretty easy. You just take a package of dried porcini mushrooms and grind it up in the blender or if you are a nutter like me, a coffee grinder reserved entirely for grinding spices. Just let the dust settle after grinding for a while before you take the lid off or you will be sneezing mushroom dust for a week.

If you wanted to make a vegetarian version of this, I would definitely add the mushroom powder, and probably even double it, then skip the sausage and top with garlic sautéed mushrooms, the wilder the better. Use a commercial veggie stock or hot water flavoured with enough dark miso to taste “soupish”. Plain water won’t cut it for this one...

Hungarian Cabbage Soup
2 Tbs canola oil, or if you’re feeling daringly authentic, lard
1 medium onion, diced
1 bag pre-shredded coleslaw cabbage or half a green cabbage, thinly sliced
4 lrg cloves garlic, minced
2 red bell peppers, seeded and diced (Hungarian peppers would be even better. I’ve seen them starting to pop up in the last couple of weeks. They are a waxy yellow and have a teeny bit of heat.)
1 hot pepper, minced (I used a Serrano and didn’t seed it. Skip the hot pepper if you want, but even with it, I don’t consider this a particularly spicy soup.)
1 14oz can diced tomatoes
6 cups well-flavoured beef stock
1 tsp caraway seed
2 – 3 Tbs sweet paprika
1 Tbs smoked paprika (optional)
1 tsp porcini mushroom powder (very optional)
1 medium potato, diced fairly small (about 1")
a small amount of some sort of smoked sausage (I used to bratwurst, sliced about ¼ inch thick. Kielbasa would be great, even European wieners work well.)
sour cream and dill, to garnish

Heat oil in a large pot, then add onion and sauté until golden brown. Add cabbage, peppers and garlic and sauté until soft and gooey. Add all other ingredients, except potato, sausage and sour cream. Let simmer about an hour or until flavours have blended. In the last 15 to 20 minutes of simmering add potato. Season with salt and pepper to taste. If soup seems a bit flat add about a teaspoon of lemon juice. Add sausage and simmer until heated through, about 5 minutes. Serve and garnish each bowl with a little bit of sour cream and a pinch of dill.

“Yeah, True Love is the greatest thing in the world,
except for a nice MLT---mutton, lettuce and tomato
sandwich, when the mutton is nice and lean, and the
tomato is ripe. (Makes puckering sound.) They're so
perky. I love that. But that's not what he said---he
distinctly said "To blave" and as we all know, to
blave means to bluff, heh? So you were probably
playing cards, and he cheated—“

“To blog.” For some reason it reminds me of that scene from the Princess Bride with Billy Crystal and Carol Kane. As a word, it has a nice percussive feel. As an entity, it probably only contains a modicum of actual truth. In reality, any writing is a bluff in the best sense. Maybe that’s why Hemingway was so good at it. I hear tell he was a heartfelt braggart and compulsive liar. Even in the realm of non-fiction we perpetually attempt to convince people that we actually know what we’re talking about. Deep down I always hope that someone dwelling in a mild state of fear has written what I’m reading. True experts always feel fraudulent. With zealous confidence comes great error, or some random, overblown tenet or other. So three cheers to the charlatans of knowledge, because if knowledge is infinite then every single person is an accidental charlatan at heart and in the less than immortal words of Operation Ivy… “All I know is that don’t know. All I know is that I don’t know nothing.”

Running with a pair of scissors in hand, I ridiculously welcome myself back to the interweb.