Friday 28 January 2011

Ingredients for a great meal

Originally posted to Multiply January 17 2010

Collect the ingredients.

Pull from freezer: Vegetable stock made from peelings. Chicken stock made from the carcass of one of Linda's home-grown chickens. A baggie of frozen dill, bought from market buddy Colette last summer.

Get from pantry closet in the hallway: Organically grown onions, from the neighbors in Washington State. Home-grown potatoes and garlic. A can of B.C. wild pink salmon, a can of clams, origin dubious but we can't be perfect.

Get from fridge: Organically grown carrots from our heroic local farmer Janet Spicer. Celery from the supermarkt, "corporate organic."

From spice cabinet: A bay leaf. Whole mixed peppercorns, Caribbean seasalt. A few cloves.

Invoke the memory of Dot, my boss at the Frontier Drive-Inn in Grand Forks who taught me how to make Clam Chowder in 1972. I think of her every time I make it. I cannot remember Dot's last name, though the government of Canada could help out. She was one of my sponsors when we became Canadian citizens in 1975. I remember her tears when she found out our first-born had died a day after birth. It turned out she had lost her first baby too. When you break a leg suddenly the world is full of broken legs. So it was with dead new-borns and other failed first pregnancies. We digress.


Ingredients and memories collected, now for the most crucial part: turn on Sunday Morning radio.

I absolutely love CBC's Sunday Morning. It is a leisurely paced program presented by the donnish honey-voiced Michael Enwright. It has room for documentaries, a bit of music, unhurried interviews and thoughtful analysis of what's happening in the world. It lasts from 9-12, and is a perfect accompaniment to the making of soup.

I even saved the extra potato water for baking bread tomorrow. Sometimes I am so virtuous I can't stand myself.













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