Merry Christmas Everyone

I’m sitting here enjoying the peace and quiet in that magical 20 minutes before your dinner party guests arrive, when the food is prepared, the champagne is chilling, the fire is crackling in the hearth and there’s nothing left to do but wait. It’s our annual Cassoulet Dinner. Every winter just as the temperature dips really low, Murray and I send out invitations to friends and neighbors to come for cassoulet. Cassoulet, in case you aren’t familiar with it, is basically baked beans that have died and gone to French heaven. It’s one of those dishes that is meant to spend days simmering on the hob in a provencal kitchen. In this case it spends days simmering in a slow cooker in our kitchen. It’s a tradition, much anticipated by all who come every year to enjoy it with us. And as I sit here, champagne glass in hand, I’m thinking of all the other traditions we hold close, most of which involve food, that help mark out the important events in our lives.

This year we lost Murray’s dad, and as sad as that was, what I remember now is the entire family sitting in our back garden every evening, all thirteen of us, eating together and reminiscing.

This Christmas morning like every other Christmas I can remember, we will slice into the first loaf of my grandmother’s Christmas Kuchen. Everything that is Christmas is wrapped up in my Grandmother’s kuchen. She made it every year, and when she passed away, my Mum picked up the torch, and now I make it for my family. And one day my girls will make it for theirs. Every time I make it I can smell Christmas, and I can see my grandmother standing in the kitchen, in her apron with the string of safety pins dangling from the bib, kneading the dough. It’s a sacred recipe, one that will never be given to anyone outside our family. It’s the embodiment of what a tradition should be, something that links past generations to future ones, and it’s at the heart of what Christmas is to us.

But there are other foods and traditions that aren’t weighted down with such gravitas; the girls have a tradition of asking Santa for a horse each year. They find new and inventive ways of asking (and spelling) but the end result is the same, no horse. For the last two years we’ve been having a New Year’s Eve fondue, because the only thing better than cheese is a giant pot of melted cheese. In fact Caroline has been making up her own version of the 12 Days of Christmas, the first verse of which is: On the first day of Christmas my Mummy gave to me, 100 pounds of cheese. It started off as 20 pounds a week ago and has been going up with each singing. Sarah has finally figured out that I’m Santa. It started out with her ‘gathering evidence’ that I was the Tooth Fairy (our note paper was the same), and then she asked if I was Santa too. I confessed, she looked thoughtful for a minute and then said, “then how do you make those sleigh tracks of the roof?” Maybe the magic is still there.

I hope the magic is still there for you too, hold on to your traditions, savor the wonder of the season, and carry peace and joy with you into the New Year.

Eating and Shopping, Shopping and Eating

One of the cool things about our apartment, is that is is 5 minutes (a real 5 minutes, not a 2 hour five minutes like the other day) away from the Bon Marche, and the Grand Epicerie de Paris - the latter being where Kate and I decided we want to go when we die. We could have spent the entire week in GEP and gone no where else and we would have gone home happy. As is was we came back with an exquisite box of macaroons and a box of Mariage Freres Earl Grey and French Blue tea.

We also bought gifts for our girls - underwear and t-shirts for mine. Sarah wanted camisoles to wear on gym days so no one can see her little chest when she changes into her gym clothes. We also bought Kate’s three girls some scarves and other bits of fun things we thought they’d like. In between all this altruistic shopping we ended up back at the Editeur Cafe for lunch. This time to have onion soup (for me in deference to my cold) and croque monseiur for Kate, just because it’s yummy. On to the Gallerie Lafayette for more shopping and then home for cocktail hour, and dinner. Tonight we used up the remains of the Divine chicken we had Sunday by turning it into chicken and artichoke pasta. Every meal looks so good we take a picture of it all laid out on the coffee table before we eat it.

Paris dans la Pluie

Another grey rainy day. It’s not like I wasn’t expecting this, you go to Paris in November, you have to put up with bad weather. Still, as I said before rainy and grey in Paris is better than rainy and grey in Ottawa. Anyway, today is our shopping day, so we’ll be inside most of the day. I’m suffering from the cold Murray so kindly gave. me. Quelching around in the rain all day yesterday certainly didn’t help. It had more of less been kept at bay until last night when I started sneezing and streaming. I took a long hot bath, drank some Neo Citron, which I had the foresight to bring along, and went to bed, I woke up this morning feeling no better at all but decided to do what I usually do when I’m sick, just ignore it and hope it will go away. If I’m not better tomorrow morning, I’ll go into a Pharmacy and try to get something to clear up the congestion - the French are such hypochondriacs that they’re bound to have some great over the counter medicine to speed my recovery.

Dinner in Paris

Dinner Sunday night. Paris has the world’s best chicken. We found one of those trattiors on rue du Buci that have the chicken roasting cabinets outside. The kind where they roast not only chickens but have a pan of potatoes under the chickens so that the potatoes roast in the chicken fat. Bliss That a salad and a bottle of vin makes the perfect meal. It was a great way to round out a very soggy day in Paris. We spent all day walking, which more of less was the idea, but we’d headed out in the morning to go to Saint Chapelle. Google said it was a 26 minute walk from the apartment, but Google hadn’t counted on how directionally challenged Kate and I are, so it took about 4 hours - mind you we window shopped, stopped for coffee and browsed in books stores, but still. Getting back was also a challenge, but by then the girl GPS kicked in - oh I remember this shop, it has the cute dress in the window we must be headed in the right direction because we passed this on our way out this morning. We finally got back to the apartment, dried our soggy shoes out under the rads and settled in for a nice quiet night chez nous.

Bonfire Time

What better way to spend a sunny October afternoon? We had just come back from lunch up at Chateau Montebello, and decided it was just too nice to go indoors, so Murray lit a bonfire, put some jazz on the laptop, and we all sat in the autumn sunshine reading, sipping hot cider, and just enjoying the day.

The scene just screamed blog post.

We've had a few sunny weekends this October. Thanksgiving was another - and once again we stayed outside and enjoyed every last minute of sunshine while we could. This involved having a Thanksgiving lunch out under the trees. Sadly, there are no pictures, but it was spectacular, you'll just have to trust me on this. We had soup, homemade foccacia, cheese, and lots of good conversation and sunshine. What could be more perfect?

Fall Nesting - Apple picking

The Zen of Apple Picking

One of my fall nesting must-do's is taking the girls apple picking. It was a beautiful sunny day Sunday, the smell of woodsmoke was in the air, and the tips of the trees are just turning colour - so inspired by all the wonderful coziness of fall, we headed out to a nearby orchard and picked a couple of bags full of Cortlands, then it was home to make a batch of apple cole slaw to have with our chicken burgers, and some apple crisp for dessert. Ahhhh.

It's been a long time....

I've written a number of posts in my head over the past few months, and somehow just never got around to committing them to my blog, so in a effort to make up for lost time, here goes:

Goodbye to Laura's Corners
The much-loved store and village gem closed it's doors on the May long weekend. The owners just couldn't compete with the big box stores in the ever encroaching suburbs. My girls are still heart broken, and the sight of the little white house with its forlorn "To Rent" sign out front just adds salt to their wounds. I too sorely miss the store, but wish the owners well in whatever comes next for them.

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Waiting for the School Bus

The inventiveness of children is a wonder. The girls have devised a tic tac toe game they play while waiting for the school bus each morning. What you do is grab four rushes from the ditch, arrange them in a grid, use clover heads and pebbles to play. Keep score with leaves.

Rain, Hail, Snow...I know let's go Camping

Yes, in the midst of the worse spring weather we've had to date, the Navan Girl Guide troops had their annual end of year camp at MacSkimming this weekend. I'd gone out Friday afternoon and kitted the girls out with $200 worth of rain gear - jackets, pants, hats. Good thing too. With the temperature in the single digits and the rain/hail/snow pelting down, they certainly needed it.

Caroline, not the happiest of campers

The cook house was nice an toasty, and they kept the wood stoves in the log cabins going all day, but I'm sure it was still a test of their endurance.

We came back Sunday morning to a bunch of very excited little girls who looked like they had the time of their life, and a bunch of very tired looking leaders who looked like...well who looked like they spent all weekend in the cold and wet trying to keep 60 plus little girls entertained and happy. My hat goes off to each and every one of them.

A Weekend of Stellar Performances

We've had a very hectic couple of weekends. The weekend before last was taken up by the Governor General's Awards for the Performing Arts awards. Friday night was the presentation of the awards at Rideau Hall, and Saturday was the Gala. Both were formal affairs and very enjoyable, but I think my favourite performance of the weekend was Sunday night's presentation by the Orleans Young Players, of Alice Out of Wonderland. Of course I'm bias being the mother of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, but I thought the members of the cast did a superb job. Here are our little divas with their opening (and closing) night bouquets.

All Tucked In, Safe and Sound

I went into Caroline's room the other morning and found this little vignette. Whereas Sarah has one stuffed animal that she has loved ever since day one - her panda, Chi Chi, Caroline has an ever evolving menagerie of stuffies. These are from left to right: Touche, Blueberry, Mommy Bear, Dog-whose-name-I-have-forgotten, Sweet Cat, Nutmeg, Katy Copley, and Flutter.

And They're Only Nine

I'm behind in my blogging, so this is a little stale, but about a month ago or so, the village school had a grade 3-5 dance. Yes a dance. The parents had to come too of course, so we all got to re-live our teenage years by standing along the wall not dancing.

All the little ones were dressed up in their glad rags. They served pizza and pop, and the DJ played the same tunes they been playing at school dances for the last 30 years. As things were wrapping up at the late old hour of 8:00, we were all waiting for them to play Stairway to Heaven so we could take our little dancing queens home for the night.

Easter Eggs for Everyone

Someone actually wrote me the other day and said they read my blog. Who knew? I'd assumed I was just posting to amuse myself. Now that I know I have an audience of at least one, it behooves me to try to catch up with all the comings and goings in our little village. That and I've always wanted to write a sentence with behooves in it.

So, To catch up....two weeks ago on I think the warmest Easter weekend in living memory, I had ten kids in my back yard making Easter eggs. I would never have attempted this madness if I had to do it indoors. But it was 28C - so out came the folding table, three dozen eggs, pots of dye, crayons, glitter glue etc, and all of the little girls (and one brave boy) in the neighbourhood came over for an afternoon egg-straveganza. It was a lot of fun and because we did it outside, easy to clean up. Hopefully too, it is one of the first of many blissful village weekends where all the little girls run around from house to house, playing in one back yard, going to the next for snacks, and then on to someone else's house for the next adventure. Navan has to be the best place to grow up. I'm sure the girls will grow up with warm memories of golden weekend afternoons with their friends, and I hope I helped make some of those memories.

Monday Morning at the General Store

On Friday, I stopped into JT Bradley's general store (aka, the hub of village life), and noticed a new sign in the parking lot.

Today I saw the occupant of this new parking space. Its rider was inside enjoying a coffee and chin wag with the regulars at the store, while his trusty steed waited patiently in its appointed spot. I think they need to install a hay crib so the horse can have a little snack too.

Shrove Tuesday in the Village - Clowns and Clergy

Besides making a giant pancake dinner for everyone, some of the guys like to get into the spirit of Mardi Gras and don clown costumes, last year they even gave out beads - luckily we didn't have to do anything to get them.

Shrove Tuesday in the Village

Pancakes for everyone - Murray was part of the all-guy kitchen crew.

Making your own fun

This isn't a great picture, but you get the idea. The sun finally came out after about 6 weeks of cloudy overcast skies, and all the neighbourhood kids came out with it. This was a Friday afternoon, all the girls were having a great time sliding down our icy drive - with Mummy standing at the bottom as a human bumper to keep little ones from skittling out into the street. When the sun set, we headed indoors for dinner in front of the fire. Perfect end to a perfect day.

Firewood and Fur Coats

When you have a house with two fireplaces, you can go through a lot of wood in one cold Ottawa winter and the cord I had delivered in the fall was used up before the new year. This Friday, I finally got around to stopping by the place where I get our wood, and the woman there took my order for two more cords. It was one of the coldest days of the year, Environment Canada had issued a frost bite warning, so I wasn't really surprised to see her bundled up in a gigantic, rather odd-looking fur coat. But, what did leave me at a loss for words was when she told me that she was against using animals for fur, but the coat was different, she made it herself. Entirely out of road kill.