Surfacing

Last Sunday we visited the Ottawa Farmers Market (www.ottawafarmersmarket.ca) for the first time. A fairly recent addition to Ottawa, the market operates out of Lansdowne Park.

Lansdowne is noted for its dilapidated, idle, former CFL football stadium and the Civic Centre arena, itself home to the Ottawa ’67s of the Ontario Junior A hockey league, rock concerts and the occasional small trade show.

We’d been told that this farmers’ market was tiny, cramped and tucked away in an awkward corner of the mostly paved, municipal “park.” Fortunately none of that proved true. And we had a lovely, and productive, shopping expedition. In fact we were so busy shopping, I forgot to take pictures.

But more about our visit to the market at another time. (Rated: Hopefully, knowing Mr. Procrastination’s modus operendi (sp?) Make that: Knowing Mr. Procrastination’s MO.)

What I want to discuss here is the pleasant memories stirred up by one purchase in particular. There we were walking along row after row of stalls crammed with such fresh, home-grown goodness, when I spotted a handful of bright red, not-so-healthy items that called out to me, like scarlet sirens. As you have no doubt guessed by the accompanying photo, the object of my sudden desire was the good old candy apple.

(The photo was taken later at home, when I had just taken a bite of the candy apple and suddenly realized I had no photo with which to illustrate this article. Thus the bite mark.)

It wasn’t lost on me that most of the candy apples of my youth had been bought in this very location, at the annual Central Canada Exhibition, or as it’s been known for longer than I’ve been around, the Ex. They’ve been trying to move the Ex out of Lansdowne Park for years now and if the current commercial/residential/entertainment/sports redevelopment goes through — bringing back professional football and introducing professional soccer to a rebuilt/refurbished stadium — the Ex will finally HAVE to move.

But back to this rosy red treat.

Throughout my youth, the candy apple was associated with circuses, the Ex and it’s rural counterpart, fall fairs. It later cropped up in some stores, but I refused to buy there. Without the right atmosphere, they just weren’t the same. They lost a specialness when too readily available. Besides, the apples inside store-bought candy apples were often terrible. Unfortunately, even at the proper sources mentioned above, the apples were sometimes merely something to dip into the candy mixture and little, if any, care was taken in obtaining good apples.

After all, it was a kid’s treat and all the kid was really interested in was the candy.

Wrong!

In my day, good apples were highly valued by us kids. Long before some sadistic fools used razor blades to spoil the practice of giving apples — along with candy — at Halloween, apples were legitimate booty, and actually welcomed by trick-or-treating kids.

I also remember Apple Day when Cubs and Scouts went door-to-door selling apples to raise funds. As an eager participant, I found it a fun event. And if one got hungry walking the streets and ringing doorbells, well there were refreshing snacks — fresh, great-tasting apples — readily at hand.

Our family not only bought apples at the Byward Market by the bushel basket, but spotting isolated apple trees along the back roads was a seasonal part of family Sunday drives.

Needless to say these memories made THIS candy apple especially delicious. It didn’t hurt that the point of purchase was also selling fresh fruit, including apples. So this one was VERY good. Almost as good as the candy coating. Actually better than some candy coatings I remember. But this candy coating was of matching excellence.

Though I waited at least a day before eating this candy apple, I didn’t put it in the fridge. Cold can make the candy coating hard and brittle, to the point that biting into the coating can be akin to chewing glass.

By the time I got to savouring this treat, the coating was a little soft, and super sticky trying to get it out of its clear plastic wrap. What I didn’t realize until happening to look down while eating was that some portion of the coating was actually melting — enough for a couple of very sticky spots on my clean and fortunately dark-coloured T-shirt.

But that wasn’t to say the coating was mushy. Far from it. In fact it had just the right crisp crackle that I so like. What also helped was that the coating was super thin. (Too thick and it’s like biting into hard candy.)

Neither was the apple the least bit mushy. Nor too hard. And as thin as the coating was, it was as rich in its kind of flavour, as was the apple.

In fact the combination of the sweet, crackling candy and the denser, softer apple was just about perfect. And that’s not nostalgia talking. I may have purchased this apple for old times sake but this particular candy apple more than lived up to my memories of a really good candy apple.

Oh that distinctive crunch. Oh the wonderful combination of textures and flavours.

And having not put it in the fridge, the thick rim around the top — the bottom when the coating is hardening — was not the teeth grinding, hard-as-nails, throw it away, block of candy of lesser candy apples of my youth.

No this one was a pure delight — to the spirit for the memories it revived and to the palate for the quality someone put into this special treat.

What’s that I hear? The sound of drooling?

“Listen, I’ll stay here. The rest of you, follow me.”

Well, it’s Wednesday and Mr. Procrastination has but a few days to work on his latest plan. The idea is to put together a collection of train-related songs to listen to on his iPod next week while traveling by train to Gaspé, and back.

So Mr. P — no relation to Mr. B (as in Bean) — could use some help before he launches his train-oriented shopping spree on iTunes. What he’s looking for are suggestions. Lots of suggestions.

Mr. P knows that just about everyone has at least one favourite train song, or two, or many. So hit the old Comments button and let fly with suggested song titles — everything from City of New Orleans to the good ol’ Wabash Cannonball.

And when he’s finished, hopefully before the train literally leaves the station, Mr. P will come back and post a new note here listing all the song titles he received and a complete list of those that made his Train Sound-Tracks playlist. (Even at .99 cents per song, he may run out of money at iTunes.)

Anyone interested in the above may like to check out the chain of Comments attached to the movie review of Julie & Julia. That’s where I am enjoying a dialogue with a valued reader about how to subscribe to this blog and receive automatic notification of when this blog is updated.

We’ve found a few partial solutions along the way — I am aiming for auto-notification via e-mail (Mozilla Thunderbird), having achieved this, ticker style, in my Web browser (Mozilla Firefox).

So if you have similar interests, and perhaps even some answers for us, please do check out the Comments thread attached to:

Feast or Famine: Julia’s glorious fun outweighs Julie’s lack of charm

Thanks.

[Movie review: Julie & Julia]

Mick Jagger. Sir Winston Churchill. Hervé “Tattoo” Villechaize ** **(“Da plane, boss. Da plane!”)

These are just a few people I am convinced that Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep could no doubt play with both an uncanny accuracy and a great deal of fun.

She certainly gathers all the right ingredients to capture the singular joie de vivre of iconic author and TV chef Julia Child. Then with a little shake and bake here, some tender loving care there and a liberal dose of buttery delight all over, she serves it all up to perfection. Streep as Julia is an absolute feast — for the eyes, the funny bone and the heart.

Unfortunately Streep’s Julia is not the only thing on this cinematic menu. The movie is, after all, based on two books — Child’s memoir My Life In France and Julie Powell’s 2005 book, Julie And Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously. It is an interesting idea to intertwine both books in one movie and if the idea is to use one to contrast with the other, then the idea works — just too well for its own good. After all, whatever contrasts with “delightful” — like “deadly dull” or “borrring” or “pain in the butt” — is not good news for the viewer.

Julia’s adventures in post-war Paris with her husband Paul the American diplomat are as rich and vibrant as Child’s personal outlook on life. At one point she’s openly wondering what to do with herself. Paul simply asks her what she is most good at. “Eating,” is her outrageous but accurate reply.

When the laughter has subsided. it’s not a huge jump from there to taking on the male establishment at Le Cordon Bleu school of cooking where Child’s fiercely competitive nature kicks in — to gales of laughter in the now famous onion-chopping scenes.

This in turn leads to Child collaborating with two other women to write a huge cookbook for American woman on French cooking — which eventually became the legendary Mastering The Art of French Cooking. The story turns to the huge obstacles faced in trying to get such a book published. There’s also a look at the long reach of the gathering political gloom as the McCarthy era begins to unfold back in the U.S.

All this would be great if we didn’t have to keep cutting away to get back to the more modern story of Julie, played by Amy Adams. Julie is portrayed as a rather vapid, self-centred young woman living with her husband Eric in Queens, in a  tiny old apartment, above a pizza parlour. Julie is a thoroughly modern woman desperate to finally, for once in her life, actually see something through to its conclusion. The project becomes cooking all of the recipes in Mastering The Art of French Cooking in one year, and blogging about her efforts. Her eventual celebrity status has publishers falling all over themselves to publish her story as a book, and literary agents dying to be her guide to sudden fame and fortune, which certainly contrasts with Child’s experiences decades earlier.

But the contrast that really divides the two sides of the movie is the contrast between “lovable” and “not even likable.” Streep’s Julia is so lovable, I found myself constantly wanting to get back to her story. Adams’ Julie is so unpleasant, in an odd, deliberate way, that I began to resent her and her story as an unfortunate intrusion. What really threw me was how Adams, who exuded such natural charm as the princess-out-of-water in Enchanted, could play someone, in my mind at least, so utterly charmless.  (I hated her character, though my wife Mariette thought she wasn’t that bad.)

On its own, I think Julie And Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously would have made for a rather tepid and frustrating romantic comedy. There are some funny bits, usually involving dropped pans and spilt food. And some tender bits, involving the husband feeling as if he’s losing his wife to her strange ambitions and obsessive cooking. But served as it is here, it would be a rather depressing tale over all.

As a full-length feature, Julia’s story might have proved a little thin, or short, but as the scenes we do get illustrate, it still would have been glorious fun.

I can’t blame screenwriter/director Nora Ephron for combining the two stories. It must have seemed a natural fit, with one story underlining the other. And I am well aware of the artistic adage that without dark there is no light. But I don’t need a burnt hamburger next to my filet mignon to remind me how super the filet has turned out.

A couple of special mentions: Mary Lynn Rajskub, better known as the socially awkward Chloe on the TV series 24, is quite funny as Julie’s friend Sarah. Stanley Tucci is excellent as Julia’s husband Paul. One of the more delightful aspects of that side of the movie is the wonderful, loving, even sensual relationship between Paul and Julia. After all, tall, big-boned, ungainly, and squeaky-voiced Julia is hardly anyone’s candidate for a sexual fantasy. Yet Streep makes her so real, so well rounded, so natural, that she is touchingly sensual, as well as funny and charming. And Tucci completes the picture, making them highly believable as a loving, sexually active couple.

All this and more make Paul and Julia the people you want to hang out with in this movie — and perhaps even in real life if they hadn’t been from another time period. As for Julie and her husband Eric, well let’s just say I’d rather go downstairs for pizza than eat at their apartment.

Do note, however, that no matter how dreary I found the Julie half of the film, it is still definitely worth enduring for every glorious moment we spend with Julia in her world. It’s just a bit like having to eat some despised vegetable to get to enjoy one’s rack of lamb. The latter certainly removes any bad taste from the former.

So if you are the least bit intrigued, or inclined, do not miss Streep and company in Julie & Julia. They’re a real treat. Bon appetit!

[FICTION]

“So you never saw the car following you?”

“What car?”

“The black car that followed you all the way out from the city.”

“I didn’t see any car. But then I wasn’t looking behind me.”

“Well, you were definitely followed by someone in a black car.”

“Why would anyone follow me?”

“I happen to know, for a fact, that the person who followed you intends to kill you.”

“But who? Who followed me?”

“I did.”

Chicken nuggets are the fool’s gold of fast food.

Horns were invented by cavemen trying to make fart sounds.

Dang-blast-it, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Last week it was the discomfort of badly sunburned arms, which have finally faded and stopped hurting. This week it’s some kind of flu bug or something that’s given me an upset stomach, to go along with the regular aches and pains.

During the first half of the week, I was pretty tired, which I figured was from enjoyable but tiring babysitting endeavours Sunday — lots of playing on the floor with granddaughter Rachel, carrying her around (and she is getting big), pushing her in her cart and other stuff.

However, while resting to overcome the fatigue, I noticed my stomach was slightly unsettled.

And then came the surprise. The other night I was just sitting there, shortly after dinner, and I was hit with a sudden wave of nausea. Which actually wasn’t the surprise. One of the many lovely side effects of the cornucopia of medicine I take is occasional sudden waves of nausea in which I feel like I’m going to throw up. But I never do. I just have the fun of constantly feeling like I am about to. If it goes on long enough, it leaves me wishing I WOULD throw up, just to get it over with. But the best thing is to just sit very still, or lie down very quietly, until it passes.

But there was something different this time. The feeling was more intense. And suddenly I realized that for once it was the real thing and if I moved a muscle, things could get messy.

Fortunately Mariette noticed me sitting there frozen in place, staring straight ahead, afraid to move even an eyeball. I forget what she asked but I somehow mumbled, without moving my lips, “I eed a ay-sin.” Being a nurse she understood my medical shorthand and scooted out to the kitchen and returned with a plastic basin. And non too soon. The mere act of taking it and placing it in front of me was enough to trigger …

Well, you’ve been there. You don’t need a description.

I was quite relieved to discover that though violent it wasn’t voluminous, and thus quite easy to control and confine to the basin which made clean-up a snap. The round of dry heaves was no fun but at least everything that did come out came out just the one hole — if you “nose” what I mean. 😉

After the quick cleanup I drank some water which triggered a second round — again one of the least unpleasant and least messy episodes of barfing I’ve ever endured.

But I’ve been existing on dried crackers and toast ever since, though I think I am about to try some soup.

Now don’t worry. Not every post is going to make reference to health issues, or why I’ve taken a whole week to get around to posting again. But there’s a certain reality to all this, a context that not only may help people understand factors at work here, but also prove to be something they can relate to. I may be the only one crazy enough to talk in public about puking, but I bet I’m sure not the only one who has been through something like this. 🙂

Rachel in push cart.

One thing about this great kid, she likes playing as much as grampa does. Which reminds me. Right from the start we were all given our choice of what we wanted to be called as grandparents. Now Miche’s mom chose Ma Mere in honour of their French ancestry. Forgive me if I can’t remember for sure, but I think her dad chose Pa Pere or perhaps it was simply Poppa. I’ll have to check on that.

With her French ancestry on her father’s side, Mariette qualified for Ma Mere as well, but chose instead to honour her Dutch ancestry on her mother’s side and chose Oma. I have some French ancestry, as well as Scottish and Ukraine, so I went with the simple Canadian mongrel style of Grampa. It seemed much shorter and easier to pronounce than my other choice, Oh Wise And Omnipotent Elder.

Anyway, here are a few more recent pictures:

NOTE: Had to drop a couple of captions for technical reasons,

then gave up when next caption kept altering its style and layout,

as in the no-sunscreen pic below. (sigh)