Sunday

Tags

Beach, cuisine, home, Me, nature, PEI, sand, sun, surf

Well today was a gorgeous day, Sunny and warm and no cold wind. It was so nice that we decided to hop in the car and go down St-Peter’s Road to the beach, we usually go North to Brackley Point Beach but today we decided to look into another area.

This is following Hwy 2 North-East about a 30 minute leisurely drive. Funny enough from our house to the cut-off to St-Peter’s Road which is just next to the airport runway, now quiet because no flights are coming here. There was some traffic and then suddenly a lot more traffic. Note a lot of traffic on PEI is 15 cars.

The reason was the Agency Liquor Store at the Irving Gas Station on St-Peter’s Road. It’s open longer hours than the Government Liquor Stores and has more hard liquor, you know the hard stuff, the brown stuff, like Bourbon. The clientele goes with the Liquor. After that it was clear sailing,  the road to St-Peter’s Harbour suddenly becomes unpaved and is basically the red dirt road typical of the Island. It was dry and not muddy, red mud is sticky and clings to everything. Driving on it is difficult, I still have my big winter tires on the car because of the Pandemic I did not want to go to the garage to have them change etc, I now have an appointment for the end of May. Winter tires gives better traction anyway.

We had never been to that area of the Island and discovered that it is a Nature Preserve with very high sand dunes that look like the grand canyon but not quite. With high Marram grass growing on top, the grass is planted by volunteers to protect the dunes. The area behind the Marram Grass covered sand dunes is a mix of wetland, plants, grasses and maritime shrubs and shallow ponds of water which rise or ebb with the tides, perfect for ducks and other aquatic fauna. The dunes are so high that you do not hear the Sea until you follow the marked sandy path across. The dunes are protected and to avoid damaging them people are asked to stick to walking on the beach.

The sand was warm today to the touch and despite nice waves the wind was very light. I have always been fascinated by the immensity of the Sea, it looks infinite. However if you look at the map you will see that we are clearly in the Gulf of St-Lawrence.

The quiet of the beach and the fresh air is exhilirating. The only noise is the surf and bird songs. The Piping Plover nest on the beach and you have to be careful when walking around, it’s a little bird and it camouflage itself with the natural colours around. It is also an endangered species only 6000 in the World.

Near the beach and at the end of the road you can see some beach houses, some are expensive looking but they really only function from May to September. You would not want to live in the area in Winter with the terrible fierce storms, unreliable electricity and rural mud roads. In Winter such roads are not plowed so become impassible. I would love to live at the beach like that in the Summer.

The nice thing about beaches in PEI is that they are very clean, quiet and not overrun with people.

Today was a nice break from the City, we came home, had a nice Osso Buco for dinner and our neighbour surprised us with a Coconut cream pie she had made, it was delicious.

FOUR YEARS AGO

Tags

Canada., home, moving, Ontario, PEI

On May 1, 2016 we crossed the bridge from the Mainland to PEI our new home. A new chapter. Much has happened since some good some average but overall we have made our home here in Charlottetown.

Photo from the International Space Station showing Nova Scotia and our Island in the Gulf of St-Lawrence.

Stay HOME!

Tags

Covid 19, Health, home, Italy, message, people

This little film is basically saying to all people living in Rome, don’t be stupid tonight just stay home. This way Rome will remain the Rome we know and love and we will all be safe. A simple message for all easy to follow. Italy has been hit very hard. Not all people have been careful. Enjoy this gentle poetic video addressed to us all.

 

The bucket list

Tags

Friends, Holiday, home, memories, Music, New Year, Travel

In the 1980’s the expression my bucket list started to appear in conversations when people spoke of things they wanted to do or visit. Then silly lists started to appear of the 10 things you had to see or do before you died. The expression the bucket list is now part of general conversations and it seems most people expects that you have a bucket list. I don’t!

Always being the contrarian, I don’t have one. I do not see why you need to do or see this or that during a life time, I just don’t get it.  Until the 1970’s travelling far and wide was not common, until the age of mass tourism and cheap destinations, few travelled. Nowadays it seems everyone travels and have a bucket list, though travelling now is not has cheap as it was once when you could visit a country on $10. per day, remember those travel guide books, impossible now.

I can say that I spent my life travelling and living abroad so travelling some more now is not appealing, unless it is to a favourite city where I know where to go and who to see, like Rome, Vienna, Salzburg, London, Berlin, Palermo. What I have not seen in the world is no big deal and I do not need to go. There are places I really do not want to go back to, I did not enjoy them when I was there, example China. Some place have changed so much I don’t think I would enjoy them today as it would clash with my memories of them, example Egypt.

Travelling at Holiday time is also something I do not want to do, it seems that stories of things that went wrong and exhausting tales of family gatherings and all manner of unpleasantness abound. As someone said, you do not choose your relatives it is an accident of birth. Staying in town and with friends is our tradition. A nice meal at home with people we enjoy and same for New Year’s Eve, quiet and pleasant.

Now we still don’t have any snow maybe a sprinkle would be nice, not too much, just like icing on the cake.

And because this is the Season, my favourite Christmas Hymn heard in Roman Catholic Churches at Midnight Mass in French Canada. It was de rigueur as part of the religious service then.  Ça bergers, assemblons-nous!

 

Shopping street in Rome, Via dei Condotti on the left is BULGARI at no.10 and just a few steps further you arrive at Piazza di Spagna and the famous steps, all decorated for Christmas.

Festive dinner ware

Tags

dinnerware, Family, Food, Holidays, home, memories, plates, tradition

Many decades ago I inherited a set of dishes which have been in my family (maternal side) for 80 years. This dinner ware was always used for family occasions like Christmas, Easter, special dinners etc. It belonged to the second wife of my maternal grandfather. My grandfather became a widower in the late 1930’s and had one son and five daughters. They all lived in a grand house on rue Filiatrault in Ville Saint-Laurent, all that remained of a fortune which disappeared in the 1930’s through mismanagement and the crash of 1929.

The story about this dinnerware and its provenance is interesting. My grandfather born in 1904 whose family had been considered very wealthy and he had attended private schools including the college Notre Dame on Queen Mary Road and had his own car in 1920 which was a luxury, in the imagination of the neighbours the family could not be considered less despite a reverse of fortune. His second wife also came from a former prominent family the LeCavalier who were social rivals in this small town, now a neighbourhood of Montreal.

When my grandfather remarried he was now working as a fireman and police officer he would become later head of the police for Ville Saint-Laurent. Having little money and for social reasons could not use what had belonged to his first wife, he had to make a show of what his new second wife brought with her, dowry and wedding gifts etc.

I remember many childhood Christmases in that house on rue Filiatrault and the trophy Moose head on the left side of the front door. It was a very nice place with formal rooms with columns and beautiful wood floors and a small study at the front were my grandfather read and met with his visitors, in later years it would become the TV room but he watched very few programs, there only was 2 French language channels then in black and white. He did watch the weekly television serials produced by Radio-Canada which are today classics of early television. But he listened to a lot of radio, news and other programming including everyday the agricultural news, though he was not living on a farm, many other relatives had farms including his own father who had a big tobacco farm just North of Montreal. Agriculture and land ownership in French Canada was a big status symbol.

So this dinner ware was cobbled together one piece at a time from powdered clothes detergent, I forget which brand but it seems it was Tide. The marketing ploy was to get women who had families and lots of clothes to wash to buy the big boxes of detergent and inside was a piece of dinner ware, you just collected them. This way his second wife, whom we always called Aunt and never grandmother because that would have been inappropriate to the memory of my maternal grandmother who had died in her early thirties of heart failure due to bearing far too many children.

The dishes were made in England by a Company called Empire, later bought by Staffordshire, the pattern is called York Maroon, not hand painted, it was mass produced. Of the original set of 12 dinner place settings only 8 survive to this day. Through the years many pieces were broken or chipped but considering its age it is amazing it survived at all. The pattern is discontinued but what is still available is worth about $15 for a dinner plate or luncheon plate as it is called, or $9. for a small bowl or $35 dollars for a sugar bowl or serving dish.

When my mother told me that she had this dinner service for me, initially I did not want it, I could not really remember it and wondered what would I do with it. We did have at the time 8 other dinner service. I am glad I have it now and it is a good souvenir of all those Christmas turkey luncheons with peas and mash potatoes, the turkey was always very good, the desserts and the Hershey Kiss chocolates a treat once a year, not allowed the rest of the year, Tante Fernande was the cook. Memories of my childhood and all my aunts and cousins on those times together and all the little traditions we had to observed, the singing of traditional Christmas songs and the Christmas Family benediction by my grandfather as the patriarch.

The last Christmas was 1968, my grandfather died in 1969 and after that the tradition simply fell apart. We still went to my father’s side of the Family for New Year’s but it was a different affair with none of the homey touches. In the 1970’s my family moved a lot and our Christmases tended to be in hotels with trees prepared by the hotel engineer and food from the hotel kitchen.

This year we will probably use Tante Fernande’s dinner service. We are having Bisque de Homard to start made from scratch, Tourtière which is a  combination of veal, beef and pork and turkey with vegetables and of course Will’s Plum Pudding, the recipe by Nigel Slater flamed in Brandy. We had a taste test the other night with a small pudding he made, OMG is it ever good.

I hope you all enjoy your Holiday Season!

 

 

 

 

Getting ready

Tags

cuisine, Food, Friends, home, Noël, ornaments, PEI, Tree

This Monday we had another Birthday party for Will this time with a few friends across the Street at the Water Prince, we had Malpeque Oysters, Lobster and Halibut one of my favourite fish. Will had coconut cream pie made on the premises, it is so good. A friend who is a baritone and actor came in to sing Happy Birthday to the boy who was surprised. It was a fun afternoon.

Well we are getting ready for the Holidays, Will has been cooking up a storm, muffins, cookies, Christmas Puddings 2 big and 2 small, a very rich recipe with lots of Brandy. He also made bread (no machine) by hand, mince meat pies (45) small ones. Today it was Tourtière or French Canadian Meat pie, something English Canadians find exotic and cannot make on their own, one of those strange Canadian Factoids. The Tourtière is no longer made with the Tourte Bird which is extinct since 1914. It is a mixture of veal, pork and beef, very nice and the smell in the kitchen screams Christmas Season. This meat pie should not be confused with the Acadian Meat pie which is a very different recipe and preparation, made of shredded beef and mash potatoes. The Acadians live in the Maritimes in Canada and are a distinct French speaking group from other French Canadians in Canada. We already have a year old Fruit Cake soaking in Brandy which is a traditional gift from our Friend John in Ottawa. Every year for the last 38 years no matter where we might be in the World, he makes one for us and sends it to us. It is truly a marvel unlike any other Fruit cake I know of.

Our one and only Pointsettia which is a mixture of pink, red and yellow, it stands 2 feet across.

We are going to make Amuse gueule for our Xmas Eve Party, note that I use the old French culinary expression Amuse gueule and NOT Amuse bouche which is so common today amongst the prissy class. The word gueule is an old French word and refers to the mouth of the lion or wolf, meaning that the food in small bites is so good you devour it. The new expression means nothing to me and is frankly silly, a bit like saying; Oh I will have one but should not because I’m on a diet. Well then honey let me show you the door.

I am looking for a good Stilton Cheese and I may have found one today. No Stilton is not like other blue cheese. Stilton is an English cheese, produced in two varieties: Blue, which has had Penicillium roqueforti added to generate a characteristic smell and taste and White. I want the Blue. Which I will put into a light pastry and served hot.  Will also wants to make other little bouchées for our guests. We will also have sweets like the mince meat mini tarts. We make all of this from scratch which means that I go out with long lists of ingredients.

Cheese star crackers made with very old Cheddar for that extra sharp taste, you cannot eat only one.

Mince Meat tarts, first make the mince meat and store in jars and then the pastry and assemble. Again very nice to have with a drink or coffee.

Today I also went to the dentist for a cleaning and well I was told I have beautiful teeth, again the Colgate poster kid, what can I say… Afterwards came home and polished the famous 30 Sterling Silver Christmas balls and the 10 Towle Sterling Silver Floral Ornaments,  so tomorrow we can decorate the tree. We have Delft ornaments this year to add after our trip to The Netherlands. Photos coming.

Sterling Silver ornaments all hand polished each year. Neiman Marcus has them each year.

We have our menu planned for Lunch on Christmas day, we will be 6 people. As for New Year’s Eve I really don’t know at this time, I prefer to either stay at home or maybe we will go to the Club for a drink. Then for January 1, 2020, Levée Day in PEI, I am wondering if I will go either to volunteer at Government House or to the Club. Not sure what to do. In either case you greet hundreds of people in 2 hours, a little exhausting.

So it is all coming together. Not to forget there is also Hanukkah on 22 December, in fact every year at Christmas lunch we give our guests some chocolate geld which come in the form of Canadian $1 and $2 dollar coins.

 

 

 

 

 

Have you made your list?

Tags

Canada., Christmas, home, life, Music, Santa, Travel

Have you made your list for Santa?

What do you want for Xmas? I would like a BMW convertible or better still a Bentley Convertible, lots of Bulgari stuff and some nice cases of Bollinger Champagne. like in this photo in Lisbon.

 

Today 87 years ago, on 11 December 1931 Canada became a fully independent Country with the proclamation of the Statute of Westminster, George V was proclaimed King of the Dominion of Canada. These important changes were enshrined into our Constitution and Canada adopted its own Law on Royal Succession.  We were also able to finally make our own Foreign Policy independent from Britain and open our own Canadian Embassies around the world. The first one was in Tokyo, Japan and Sir Herbert Marler was our first Canadian Ambassador to the Empire of Japan.

 

Christmas shopping

Tags

Food, home, Jordan, London, shopping, Travel, wines, XMAS

Many years ago when I was posted to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for the holidays I would fly back to Canada with a stop in London with British Airways. Amman  to London is about 5 hours. The fun of London was the shopping. The stores had so many fun items, you just wanted to buy it all. One request was to bring home to Canada a baby Stilton, the food hall at Harrod’s had such an item. The baby Stilton is the size of a human baby, this being Stilton it is pungent and needed to be wrapped up properly for the long flight home in Business Class. London is known for its great shopping and there was all kind of great gift food items and not to mention the visit to the wine merchants, what was on offer was mind boggling, not only wines and quality vintages but a great selection of Champagnes and liqueurs of all kinds, so many wonderful choices.

Not to mention the great restaurants and things to see in Museums and galleries. There was also the theatre and so many enjoyable plays. Yes that stop in London was lots of fun, it was always guaranteed to bring home unusual gifts.

And for Xmas how about this group Out of the Blue are Oxford’s all-male singing sensation and two times UK champions of a cappella. Featured on Britain’s Got Talent in 2011 and more recently being recognised by pop-diva Shakira and press all around the world, the group combines award-winning musicality with outrageously unprofessional choreography and mostly intentional comedy! Founded in 2000, the group is made up of students from Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University. Each year brings a fresh batch of faces, voices and arrangements. They raises funds through their music for the Helen & Douglas House Hospice for Children and Young Adults a registered hospice charity based in Oxford, England, providing palliative, respite, end-of-life and bereavement care to life-limited children and young adults and their families. The Patron is HRH Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

 

 

Only 23 days to go

Tags

Holidays, home, life

We are back from a fantastic vacation in Portugal. One of the best ever in all of our travels around the world. Now we are only 3 weeks from Xmas and this is my favourite song from Mariah Carey, it brings back so many wonderful memories. A few days ago Dr Spo asked about Xmas music best selection, well there you have it.

 

A picture of town

Tags

Canada., Charlottetown, cruise ships, home, PEI

The picture of the waterfront of Charlottetown in mid-1960’s show how industrial the waterfront was with its port facilities, railway yard and vestiges of the 19th century ship building period. If compared to today’s waterfront park, the area is unrecognizable. In 1989 with the demise of the railway in the Province, all rail equipment was removed and instead parks and hiking trails were built, now covering extensive areas not only in the Capital but across the Province.

At the bottom of the photo is the old potato storage terminal, today it’s the Cruise ship terminal completely rebuilt and renovated. Behind it the rail yards  and a rail car repair shop now transformed into a great hall soon to become a Farmer’s Market. Next to it the old oil tank park of a giant oil company, the tank park disappeared and now the area is totally transformed into a lush green park known as Confederation Landing, a gift of the City of Quebec who shares with Charlottetown in 1864 the honour of hosting the conferences which led to the formation of Canada. Next to that more empty land now occupied by the Conference centre and the Delta Hotel, shops and restaurants. This coming Summer Charlottetown will welcome 94 cruise ships from various companies with over 100,000 passengers landing a few meters away from my house.

The waterfront today, you cannot recognize it.