2008

What a farewell gift from the weather gods.

Although I got lots of writing done at the writers and artists’ colony this year, I also enjoyed the reading time. I spent my evenings with Edward Hirsch, browsing his Poet’s Choice, which led me down interesting paths — including one that led to Yusuf Komunyakaa, whose name I’m sure had not crossed my radar (though Brenda tells me she also came across him recently and was impressed).

I brought a chapbook called When Now Is Not Now, produced by The Poetry Trust for Alastair Reid‘s 2006 appearance at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, where he was one of my clear favourites, and after re-reading those poems still is.

For criticism and theory, I brought Annie Finch, The Body of Poetry, which had a fabulous piece in it about how the DWM canon came to be and what to do if you don’t like it. And some welcome introduction to the work of Sara Teasdale, which delighted me.

Other books I’ve read over the past couple of weeks include Jane Hirschfield‘s After; Vona Groarke‘s Shale, Paul Farley‘s Tramp In Flames, the 2007 Forward Prize Anthology, Helena McEwan’s Ghost Girl, Medbh McGuckian‘s The Currach Requires No Harbours, Mimi Khalvati’s The Meanest Flower, and Naomi Guttman’s Wet Apples, White Blood.

So here we are, having had a fabulous if freezing view of the lunar eclipse; last night having seen some absolutely gorgeous layered photographic slides from Regina’s own Cherie Westmoreland, and had our farewell reading. It’s time to pack up.

So long to Benedict…

And to these newcomers, who were born out in a -25c field and luckily spotted and brought inside for a little time under the heatlamp…

And today, all the colonists fly away home.

I went round to the sheep barn again yesterday, braving the face-freezing weather for a glimpse of the two latest arrivals, born on Sunday.

I had apparently timed my visit to nap time. Tipsy was there with her colourful offspring.

And this pair were watching the door.

In other news… Last night I made a batch of Fanny Bay smoked oyster pate (my changes: I used 2 tins of Fanny Bay smoked oysters instead of 1; green onion instead of white; and added a tablespoon of plain yogurt and a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a pinch of minced lemon rind) which swiftly vanished into the colony’s creativity machine.

A last swing round the freezing streets of Humboldt yielded an “Italian-inspired” yogurt maker, currently in experimental use (though Carla tells us she makes her yogurt in a much simpler way: using a mason jar, wrapped in a towel and set on the hot water tank overnight). After a crippling second night of badminton I am moving slowly but making what I can of my final two days and looking forward to our finale reading and studio tour tomorrow night.

What’s behind the blue door?

The chickadees have long been friendly,

but this is the first year I’ve had nuthatches in hand.

This little white lamb is a charmer – always curious and full of beans…

..who’s mama’s favourite little mountain goat?

And I hate to say it, but the alpaca babe (Benedict, of course) has a funny face.

As we engage in our annual reflections about food and menu in the monastery’s dining room, it happens that the Food Programme’s latest show was on nursery school food and what toddlers eat: the roots of institutional dining, and part of the programming that shapes a child’s food tastes for life.

There was an observation that parents ought to be looking at the food offered to children with the same care they pay to checking out the qualifications of the staff and the rest of the facilities.

An interesting point made: don’t expect children to take to something you demonstrably don’t eat and enjoy yourself: “It’s no good expecting a child to eat something if you make a face when you feed it to them” remarked Dr Gillian Harris, a child psychologist (interviewed to much the same ends in this interesting piece on ‘supertasters’).

And the French were again held up as a model of good practice; this time for school meals – where attention is paid to the quality of the food as well as the food culture around it. Which is nice to hear, but not what we witnessed being fed to students of business school age, if what we experienced at the Dijon Business School is anything to go by.

I was even happier to have been born liking broccoli and cauliflower when I read this article.

What a social whirl this week. Cake after cake, treat after treat, chocolates every which way. On Tuesday we had some fun at the Muenster Family Restaurant:

Awesome pork chops. Lemon potatoes. Mmmm, be it ever so humble….

Then we marched back through the frosty night air to have cake with Fr Demetrius, to celebrate his birthday, with musical stylings by Reg.

Thursday was the colony’s weekly reading and we did a mini-tour of two of our artists’ studios as well. Shelley showed us the beginnings of another of her awesome photographic projects, this one documenting a buffalo effigy in Saskatchewan. Apparently such effigies are not unusual in Saskatchewan; they’re made of boulders and often featuring turtles or human figures, but this seems to be the only one of a buffalo. She’s taken 1500 photos which she’s merging for a life-sized reproduction which will measure about 15 by 35 feet. I have yet to walk all over the project she showed us last time I was here, which was stunningly beautiful photography of tipi rings, now installed on the floor of the Regina Airport.

We then had a look at Honor’s charcoal portraits. If all life begins from carbon, she reasoned, what could she create with a simple stick of burnt willow? Some kind of beautiful, it was. Portraits of many of the writers who are here again this year, and she’s going to add some other life forms too including Tipsy the sheep who just gave birth to lovely little lambs (clocking in at 12 lbs each).

And lambs there are a-plenty just now.

Buddy’s a trainee sheepdog.

Maureen tells me that the farmer told her a great story about Buddy’s training. He was taken out to a field to meet the sheep, and when he got out there in the middle of them, they all gathered in a circle around them. He looked them all over for a minute and then went and licked each sheep’s nose in turn. I think he’s gonna work out just fine.

I whirled up a batch of Uova Tonnato for aperitivo hour, and was fortunate to find that Cupid had decorated the table before I got there.

I have earlier given a link to Delia’s version of this magical sauce, but as many seemed to want an actual recipe, here’s my modified version of a nice simple one, from my treasured Good Cook series. When choosing your tuna, remember that Bluefin and Yellowfin are endangered (overfishing) and even Albacore, which I’d heard was the one sustainable species, is also being dramatically overfished. Alas…

Uova Tonnato (Eggs in Tuna Sauce)

Based on a recipe for Vitello Tonnato/Veal in Tuna Sauce, from The Home Book of Italian Cookery, Beryl Gould-Marks (Good Cook: Beef & Veal)

3.5 oz (125g) can tuna, preferably packed in olive oil, drained
3-4 anchovy fillets, soaked in cold water for 10 minutes and patted dry
1 cup (250 ml) (approx) olive or other good quality oil
1-2 tsp (5-10 ml) fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp capers, rinsed & drained well
salt & pepper
1 dozen organic free range eggs, hard-boiled, shelled and sliced

• Puree tuna, anchovy and capers to a paste; add enough oil by drops to make a thin mayonnaise. Add lemon juice and seasonings to taste. Best if left a few hours or overnight so flavours can meld.
• Drizzle over the egg slices and garnish with a scattering of capers. Use bread, cauliflower or cucumber or celery sticks to mop up the sauce.
• For shockingly good not-devilled eggs, try stuffing them with a mixture of hard-cooked yolks plus Tonnato sauce.

It has been a bit warmer, if that is the word, but even my hardy Edmonton companions found a few minutes of yesterday’s walk a journey through the most biting cold imaginable. The day before, we’d had an invigorating march out to the barn to see the animals… barely warmer than outside, said my frozen fingers. Maybe better pics another day, but here’s how it looked: mums and babes, and away in the distant background a cackle of chickens and a dabble of doves – who are being trained for work at weddings and funerals apparently.

Last night’s entertainment was a reading by visiting poetic dignitaries Bert Almon

and Olga Costopoulos who warmed us all up by reading from their latest collections.

And finally, a happy electronic acquaintance: my Crete entries from last April have connected me with an expat cook on Crete, who has a blog of her own featuring some very promising looking recipes.