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Malaspina and banana bread
It seems the Curse of Blogger is upon me once more: I’ve spent three days trying to post a few more snaps from Feast of Fields but Blogger leads me down the garden path and then just refuses to let it happen. And then I got to the end of today’s snappy, entertaining and endlessly erudite posting and Blogger quit on me again. Grrr. So I try once more, from memory.
I read last night at Malaspina College where I was delighted to see a number of my former classmates from Kate Braid’s form in poetry course in the audience. One of them, Gabriola Island’s own Audrey Keating, did a terrific opening reading, or more accurately recitation. Brave and well delivered.
I was also delighted to receive as part payment for my reading, a hand crafted banana bread from the organiser, the lovely and talented ev nittel. It was wrapped in brown paper and warm from the oven. It was crunchy on top and springy in the middle, laced with chocolate, pebbled with walnuts and scattered with caramelised and chocolate coated almonds. To die for. Or at least to drive to Nanaimo and give a reading for! I will see if I can pry the recipe from her, but I fear she simply has a flair for baking that might not be possible for most of us to duplicate.
In keeping with my latest time-wasting activity (and you need lots of these when you’re getting ready to go away for a year!), namely keeping track of which poems I read where, here’s the evening’s playlist:
White Dresses (from Hour of the Pearl, read in honour of the surprise appearance of my long ago pal and fellow boarding school survivor Pamela!)
Leaving the Refuge (from new manuscript)
Suitcase (from Cartography)
Vegetables
Journeys
Tales
The Thirteenth Fairy Bites Back
The Rhonda Poem, or the Madness of D
Vegetable Kingdom (one for the vegetarians, written at Wired a couple of years back)
Ghost in the Machine (new manuscript)
Hard Cold Realty
London Plane
Ache and Pain
Boston School of Cooking Cookbook (Old Habits / Crosswords)
Another Life to Live at the Edge of the Young and Restless Days of Our Lives (Creating the Country / Crosswords) -
Final feast photos
Wickaninnish Inn’s gorgeous tomatoes.
Wonderful Feys & Hobbs caterers came up with these clever sweetcorn soup shots with mushroom tuille.
Camille’s Restaurant presents venison carpaccio.. assembly line seldom looks like this! -
Feasting in Fields
By some miracle I was in a conscious state and near my radio on Friday morning when Paul Vasey offered a chance to win tickets to the sold-out foodie event of the season, Feast of Fields; and by some further miracle I was the lucky, the very very very lucky recipient of a pair of these. Thank you CBC!
So this afternoon Aurelie and I hustled over to join the shockingly long and surprisingly patient queue that had gathered at the Glendale Gardens and Woodland by 1:59 for the 2pm opening, accompanied by our finely honed appetites and a steady sprinkle of rain. But being rookies at this event, we had failed to accessorize with clever little plastic cocktail plates to hold our booty and wineglass and were thus obliged to consume our morsels on the run, one mouthful at a time, as we sprinted and then trailed and then wallowed from tent to tent, running out of adjectives and resorting to whimpering pleasure. How these stall-holders managed to cater for and be delightful to a mob of 700 starved gastronomes is food for thought indeed.
Interesting to see what was being presented (and it was all pretty amazing, and beautiful, and local). Not a huge amount on offer for vegetarians, but we omnivores were well served. Beef and chicken are out; duck, venison and the odd rabbit are in. Salmon never left; ostrich made an appearance, or five. Goat cheese is very big for sweets and savouries.
Some thank yous to… our municipal treasure Zambri’s, for the amazing risotto balls spiked with water buffalo meat; Smoken Bones Cookshack for proving we can find real ol’ barbecue way up here in the north; Butchart Gardens for providing mini cedar planks and edible flowers with their yummies; 2% Jazz Coffee for the life-affirming honey macchiato. And Dock 503, I worshipped all your offerings: the chanterelle mushroom cannelloni with tomato confiture was to die for, and the sparkling caesar soup with manila clams and spicy yellow beans had me weeping with gratitude. My big regret is being too full to try your smoked sable fish and soybean steamed bun with yuzu sauce. Next lifetime, eh?
A few of the tents sheltering 60 restaurants, wineries and other food producers: the view from the Glendale’s heather garden.
Choux Choux Charcuterie: Rhona recommends the rabbit rillettes.
Part of the Aerie’s offerings: duck liver lollipops in chopped hazelnuts — strange, silky and delicious.
Dock 503: Ohhhh that sparkling caesar soup… Hey look, that clam just dived right in!
Butchart’s pretty li’l planks. The round green items are spot prawn and smoked salmon purses: too cute!
My favourite flavour-fusion duck dish: duck leg confit with Tiger Blue cheese and bosc pear, from Lure seafood restaurant.
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In her latest collection, Rhona McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.
“…A beautiful, filling collection, Larder is a set of poems to read at the change of the seasons, to appreciate alongside a good meal, and to remind yourself of the beauty in everything, even the things you may not appreciate before opening McAdam’s collection….”
Rhona McAdam is a writer, poet, editor, and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Master’s in Food Culture from Italy and a deep-rooted passion for ecology and urban agriculture. Her work spans corporate and technical writing to poetry and creative nonfiction, often exploring the vital links between what we eat and how we live. Based in Victoria, BC, and available via Zoom, Rhona is always open to new writing commissions, readings, or workshops on nutrition and the culinary arts.
