The Daughter has been home from university for Reading Week. Or at least I think she's home. I haven't seen too much of her. There were the handful of times that she needed a ride somewhere and we were able to see her while riding in the car. However, the last ride we gave her was to get her driver's license. Congratulations Daughter! But now I don't even get car sightings. I'm also not seeing a whole lot of reading going on but it's the thought that counts, right? She specifically requests pumpkin muffins to take back to school with her. With my predilection for vainly trying to bake my way into people's hearts, how can I resist such a request? Click here to get to Pumpkin Walnut Chocolate Chip Muffins recipe
Pumpkin Walnut and Chocolate Chip Muffins
A family dinner is organized. There is a good bet we will see the Daughter at this event. The Boyfriend is invited. Chances increase. While waiting for dinner, the Daughter demonstrates what she has been learning at university.
The Daughter making a flower with her tongue
Other people are inspired to demonstrate their skills.
The Hubby touching his nose with his tongue
Scarlett doing a handstand
Not sure what the Boyfriend thinks about all this. He's still getting to know us. But he works hard to fit in. And does.
The Boyfriend
Terry brings Baking Powder Biscuits. It's a recipe handed down from her mom, my Auntie Katie. These biscuits are very popular in our house. The Adolescent's intake usually has to be closely monitored and controlled for quantity. Click here for Auntie Katie's Baking Powder Biscuit Recipe
Baking Powder Biscuits
Everyone is satiated on biscuits, muffins, and also dinner-type things.
Brian, the Biscuit Maker, and Scarlett's parents
The Beamer and Scarlett
Today the Daughter went back to school. She won't be home again until April! After she leaves, I have an urge I can't ignore to bake for the Adolescent. Freud would be deeply satisfied.
Maybe one day I'll be used as a case study in a psychology textbook...!?
We are at Chateau Montebello for the weekend. It's been a regular rendezvous since 2001 for us with Mike and his daughter Kate who live in Montreal. This year there is extra excitement. Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, is at the hotel for the weekend with his family and they are in the room RIGHT ACROSS THE HALL from us. Our first clue that something is not as it always is is the constant presence of people in suits hanging out in front of our room. Turns out they're RCMP officers. The ear pieces in their ears should have been a dead giveaway. We try and play it cool and act normal.
The Daughter and the Adolescent acting normal
The Daughter, me, and the Adolescent acting normal. The stag head is a little weird.
Mike almost falls through a hole into the water. The Hubby and the Adolescent are laughing in the background trying to act normal.
Acting normal is not one of the Hubby's preferred activities. He has to meet Harper. It should be pretty easy, right? After all, we're right across the hall. He starts by chatting up each and every RCMP officer. He ends the weekend on a first name basis with half of them. Then he finds out what table Harper will be sitting at for dinner and reserves one as close to it as he can get. Then he gets one of the RCMP officers, who by now is his best bud, to agree to pass along a message to Harper: please come by for a glass of wine. He's certain the next knock at the door will be Stephen and Laureen. As insurance, whenever the Hubby is in our room, his eye is peeled to the peephole in the door. The plan is: when Stephen's door opens, he will casually also step out into the hall and, coincidentally, be face to face with his object of desire. He thinks about what he will say to Stephen when he meets him. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about since none of us even voted for Stephen or his party. While the Hubby is doing the groupie thing, we try and have fun anyway.
Snowshoeing
Skiing
Dog Sledding
In spite of ourselves, members of our group are having their own prime ministerial encounters. Mike happens to be walking down the hall to his room and coming toward him is Stephen. Or at least he assumes it's Stephen who he actually can't see due to the phalanx of RCMP surrounding him. The Adolescent accidentally butts in front of Stephen at the dinner buffet, mumbles an apology, and stands right beside him for a few seconds. Where else but in Canada would the leader of the country be standing in the buffet line getting his own dinner?! Hubby, where are you?! Then, Mike and Kate, who is 12, are about to come down the stairs to join us for dinner and suddenly who should be coming up the stairs but Stephen and his entourage. Stephen stops and makes small talk with them. He shakes their hands. A photo is taken. Where is the Hubby?! He's in his room, his eye at the peephole.
Me and the Beamer with a rare sighting of the Hubby
Kate, the Daughter, Mike, the Adolescent
By the end of the weekend, the Hubby hasn't set eyes on Stephen and is totally bummed. Mike and I surmise that very soon after we arrived the Hubby's behaviour probably landed him on the RCMP's Keep a Watchful Eye on This Groupie list.
P.S. The Hubby wants all my faithful readers to know that he isn't a stalker (see Baking Worth Stalking For). So, Stephen, you can relax and take your man off peephole duty. Oh Canada!
Today is Scarlett's 8th birthday. Scarlett was born in China to parents who we don't know and never will. But if by any chance they ever read this I want them to know how so very grateful I am to them for making me an aunt to Scarlett.
Scarlett
Scarlett likes to hang out with me. Like she just knows something wonderful will come her way by sticking close. Usually what comes her way is my request to put the leftovers in the fridge which IS something wonderful to Scarlett.
Every time Scarlett has dinner at my house she asks hopefully what's for dessert. She's hoping against hope that dessert is something that she can decorate with sprinkles. So many beautiful desserts I've served that have had the benefit of extreme sprinkling.
It is the best feeling to walk down the street holding hands with Scarlett as she jumps and twirls and skips beside me.
Scarlett and I went out for lunch once. She requested to go to a sushi restaurant. Pinch me! She ordered fish roe. She made me a holder to rest my chopsticks on from the paper wrapper, the way her dad taught her.
Scarlett's parents
She has an amazing sense of style. She's chosen what clothes she wants to wear ever since, well, ever since she could. She puts colours and patterns together in ways that you don't think can possibly go together. But it always works. She usually wears dresses or skirts. She's a master of layering. She has lots of gorgeous sweaters hand knit by her "Ma", her dad's mom. Her other grandparents Gung Gung and Sinikka gave her two more beautiful dresses for this birthday.
Sinikka and Gung Gung
She is a loving and generous cousin to the Beamer. She lets him drool on her. She doesn't get mad when he pulls her hair. She hugs and kisses him as much as she can. She knows he loves her too.
Mom and her accomplishment
In honour of her birthday, my sister made a cake. I worried about the Cake all week, really really hoping it would not be another Rock Cake. My sister made an amaretto cake. It's moist and tender and delicious. Everything a cake should be. Nicely done Sis! I will try really really hard never to mention that Other Cake again.
The Hubby is a proud man today. His chest is a little puffier. He's standing a little taller. He's trying not to talk too much about his supreme accomplishment but it's an effort for him not to. I think secretly he'd like to start a focus group: Marveling at My Amazing Feat. The Hubby won the most points at Euchre Night. Out of 16 people, all of them (although this is a subject of great debate) excellent players. And I believe he did it without too much annoying of others. Last year, at the first annual event, I lost count of how many people came up to me to complain about how annoying the Hubby was. Suck it up people, this is my life! Not one person complained to me this year. He was trying hard to not be annoying. I think he was trying to be more like Paul. Last year Paul won.
Paul receiving his prize last year
Paul is quiet in our group, a keen observer. Last year he didn't get involved in being annoyed by the Hubby, just concentrated on winning. So this year the Hubby was intent on unseating Paul. I think Paul's mistake this year was that he and Sabina didn't wear their lucky slippers. Paul, take note: if something works, don't change it!
Extreme euchre players
Now because we were the hosts, it didn't seem right for the Hubby to take the first prize so it went to the next highest score who was still standing at the end of the night. Last year first prize was a bottle of wine from the Hubby's wine cellar. So this year, Paul, the winner from last year, provided the bottle. Trevor won the first place prize. I think he was starting to doubt the positives of winning when Paul told him that the bottle should be laid down for a few years before drinking. And then he found out that he now had to bring the wine for first prize next year. It's the STATUS of winning and ADMIRATION of others that's the real prize, Trevor!
Trevor, on the extreme left, is on the cusp of status and admiration
I love Euchre Night. All that's required food-wise is to put out lots of little bowls of munchies. This I can do! Potato chips, chocolate covered almonds, guacamole and tortilla chips, nuts. We ordered in a platter of sushi and then tried to keep Geoff from inhaling it before anyone else had a chance to get near.
Geoff all by himself eating sushi
I made desserts.This is my idea of entertaining! Coffee Crunch Bars. Lemon cream sandwich cookies. Cocoa brownies with Browned Butter and Walnuts. Recipes can be found at Recipes - Desserts
Desserts
As the Hubby said once in one of his (only) metaphorical moments: Life is a euchre game. I'm not quite sure what that means. Perhaps: Stop annoying people and you win??? Please weigh in...
My friend Trevor is aghast. He can't believe that my family and I would have a dinner to celebrate Chinese New Year on the same night as the Super Bowl. Trevor is not Chinese so he is naive in the ways of Chinese people. Chinese people are short and small in stature. We would get killed on the field. We are thinkers not tacklers. We are not football players. Or football watchers as it turns out. So the overlap of Chinese New Year's dinner with the Super Bowl is not an issue for my family.
BUT there is an issue. The issue is that Chinese desserts SUCK. I have done a little research, hoping against hope that my memories of Chinese restaurant desserts are actually only part of the picture. No, my memories are the entire picture. I should have done my research before I offered to bring dessert to the dinner that my cousins Terry and Brian are hosting. I would surely perish if I lived in China. The top of the line, premium, elite dessert, the one you have at weddings and banquets, is red bean soup. It's mushed up red beans that are sweet. That's just not right. These sweet red beans are also put into buns, pure white steamed buns (no flavour, just texture) and, again, called dessert. And cakes are steamed, not baked. I also discovered Water Chestnut Cake. No flour, just water chestnuts. There's also Eight Treasure Pudding which as far as rice puddings go is "chewy rather than creamy". Then there's Neen Gow, or New Year's Cake, made from glutinous rice flour. I don't think so.
I settle on Cherries in the Snow. Doesn't it sound poetic? It's an almond milk gelatin cut into cubes (the snow) topped with a cherries and port sauce. There are 3 things that intimidate me: yeast, shortening, and gelatin. Yeast because it's ugly, it smells bad, and it's alive. Shortening because it's an unnatural white and is used in pie crust that I never have attempted to master. My mother was a great pie crust maker. I can't compete with that. Gelatin intimidates me because it also seems unnatural. And isn't it made from horse parts or something? Anyway, I am woman, I am invincible, I can work with gelatin.
Cherries in the Snow
Just in case Cherries in the Snow is a bomb I decide we need a back up dessert. We go to a Chinese bakery in Chinatown to buy a cake. This is always an adventure. My cousins who grew up in Vancouver all went to Chinese school as kids where they learned basic Cantonese. My family moved east when I was very young so my sister and I never did. Reportedly the first language I spoke was Cantonese but my parents soon realized they had better teach me English. Their own ability to speak Cantonese was basic so although we got by for a little while they knew it would not equip me for all the talking that was to come. The clincher was when I spoke to another kid in Cantonese and when that kid didn't respond, because she didn't understand Cantonese, I punched her! Anyway, I've come a long way from that...!?
When I'm in a Chinese store I immediately feel a connection. These are my people. This is my culture. But although I recognize a lot of the food I have no idea what any of it is called. The shopkeepers speak to me in Chinese but I have no idea what they're saying. I feel like an impostor. The Hubby comes in with me. Although he's not Chinese he fits in more than me. Nothing is expected of him. He can stumble with pronunciation of words, they can laugh at his ignorance, it's all expected. The shopkeepers ask us if we want something written on the cake. Yes, Happy New Year please. Do they understand us? No idea. They bring it out proudly showing us their calligraphy.What does it say? I have no idea.
Happy New Year Cake...I think
Dinner is wonderful. As Terry says, it's important we keep up tradition even though none of us really know what we're doing tradition-wise. She and Brian make noodles for long life, chicken with Chinese mushrooms in white wine and sherry, cha siu (barbequed pork), baby bok choy. My sister makes a delicious "Asian-inspired" salad. Cousin Craig brings meat-stuffed buns. My Dad and Sinikka bring fortune cookies.
This is the fortune that was inside my fortune cookie
The two desserts are actually very good. Cherries in the Snow is light with a subtle almond flavour. The cake is light and not too sweet. Both very typical of Chinese desserts.
I am content in our version of Chinese New Year. Happiness has arrived.
