Saturday, July 4, 2015

Mumbled and Jumbled Days

I did not visualize retirement. I had no mind's eye picture. In fact, it wasn't on my radar.

Even now after almost six years life seems surreal. I relax in my back garden wondering who planted the delphiniums. Why did they not let the fallen pine cones accumulate rather than attempting to grow grass where grass doesn't want to grow?

I sit in my wicker chair beneath towering pines whose boughs nearly touch the earth and listen to the mournful call of doves, wondering if any bird will ever make the little house on said pine, gifted to me by children on the Colony, home as I sip on a glass of chianti.

I sit here in the quietness of a summer's warm evening and ponder my lot in life. I am fortunate to have the freedom to follow my whims but at the same time I don't know what for I wish. I ask, I seek, I listen. Nothing. Am I to be here without direction? When? When will the message arrive?

Most of all I yearn for socializing. How much longer must I wait or am I overlooking the obvious?

Fortunately I have met interesting people in cyberspace. Elisabeth Poscher of Prairie Infusions is one of those people. She is a professional forager in northern Saskatchewan. Her chanterelles and morels grace the finest tables in Canada and the States.

This year she has begun a CSF, Community Supported Foraging, subscription. Once a month a box of freshly plucked produce arrives from the boreal forests of Saskatchewan. I love the challenge. Last month a few of the items in my box were wild rose petals, Labrador tea, morels, SK maple syrup, stinging nettles and fiddleheads.

This box is my Christmas gift to myself. I await with great anticipation.


Tomato Salad with Ricotta and Wild Mint
Wild mint is to garden mint as rose petals are to gardenias. The delicate flavour adds that "je ne sais quoi" to salads and side dishes. 

If you make your own ricotta, this is the time to use it. Also choose the juiciest and most flavourful tomatoes you can find. Birch syrup takes on a flavour similar to aged balsamic vinegar. Camelina oil has an earthy flavour.
2 tomatoes
1/2 c. fresh ricotta 125 mL
camelina oil
birch syrup
wild mint leaves
sea salt
Cut tomatoes in thick slices and place one in the centre of each plate. Top with a small scoop of fresh ricotta. Drizzle with camelina oil. Garnish with sea salt, mint leaves and a drizzle of birch syrup. Serve immediately.





2 comments:

  1. Delish...sounds like summer in a bowl. Thank you

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  2. In the summer heat I long for the cooling boughs of those pine trees and a sun ripened tomato with ricotta and fresh mint on my plate.

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