The last of summer

Last weekend was just beautiful on Prince Edward Island.  Although it was late September, Sunday was like a summer's day.  

We headed to Cavendish Beach.  A first for me, despite being an Islander for almost thirty years.  It was worth the wait, especially since at this time of year the beach was nearly deserted.

There were some great photo opportunities.  It was a majestic sight as dozens of Canada geese departed the nearby pond for points south.

The sand was soft as powder.  Shadows were starting to fall and the sand had a lovely cooling effect on hot feet.  I took this shot with a desktop background in mind.  Feel free to download it from my Flickr account if you like it (just click through).

Can you tell we're enjoying being back on PEI?

Soft as a rock

During a rare slow period this past winter, I recklessly decided to start a new hobby.  In retrospect, I needed a new hobby like an Eskimo needs a Frigidaire (as George Jones would put it).  But the curse of the crafty is that when you see a new craft, you think, "I can do that!".

Needle felting, that's what I'm getting to.  If you are reading my blog, I'm assuming you have seen some felted projects around the blogosphere, Etsy, Supermarket and the like.  Anyway, I loved the aesthetic of felted pieces and had heard over and over again that needle felting was "easy" (with the small footnote that even experienced needle felters occasionally spill their own blood).

For those of you still in the dark, needle felting is a way of turning raw, unspun wool (a.k.a. roving) into felt.  Have you ever washed a wool sweater and had it come out of the washing machine looking like it might fit a neonate?  Well, that's wet felting.  The water, heat, and agitation of the washing machine denature and tangle the strands of wool into a thick, tough (shrunken) mat of felt.  With needle felting, the wool stays dry.  A very sharp (remember the blood I mentioned above), specialized needle with tiny divots in it is used to poke at the wool and mechanically tangle the fibres.

So, given my (short-lived) free time and the low start-up cost of needle felting, I gave it a try.

Stones like these were my inspiration.  Stones are a great starter project - there is no right shape to aim for.  A little wiggle room is ideal for your first project.

So I found some lovely grey and ivory roving (at this little shop during my trip to Ottawa) and gave it my best poke.  Well, my best million pokes.  And came up with something like this:

Not too bad, I think!

For now, they decorate a large glass vase/candleholder on my table.

 

I have a few more items in the works, mainly consisting of decorations for our inaugural Christmas tree (for which we have a current total of nine ornaments).  I would love to do a Christmas post on a few of them.  Guess I better get felting!

Brugge

Continuing on with the story of our European adventure... after discovering Düsseldorf and eating our way through Chimay, the husband and I made our way to Brugge, Belgium.

Maybe the prettiest city ever.  Legend has it that Brugge was spared the drab-ification of the Industrial Revolution thanks to the thriving lace-making industry in the area.  Or that's what I was told when I first traveled there in 2003.  On this trip I learned that the city's history is not so simplistic.  Brugge at one point was supposedly the commercial centre of the world, has a history of attracting great European artists, and was once actually a port city (silt deposits now place it a-ways inland).  These days it seems to have a reputation in Europe for being a big tourist trap.  But, like all good cliches, Brugge's reputation is rooted in truth - it's a great spot to visit!

We spent hours on end traipsing over the cobblestoned streets in the historic (UNESCO-historic) city centre.  The streets circle around the Markt and run parallel with the many canals of the city (hence the alias "Venice of the North").    We found tiny cafes, funny little homes, and some hole-in-the-wall-ground beer cafes.

Our lodgings were lovely to look at, though a bit damp in person (I guess that was to be expected in the bargain lodgings of "Venice of the North").

The food was excellent.  For an example, see our moules-et-frites, below.  On a few occasions we hit up the grocery stores for picnic fare and lunched near the windmills on the perimeter of the city.  Simple and romantic - fitting for our honeymoon.  We also ate delicious Belgian waffles but they didn't come close to lasting long enough to be photographed.  Luckily, they're safely stored away in my food memory.

I can't not mention the beer.  Belgium has so many beer styles, some only to be found in that country.  There's not really beer there - except the odd import - that would really be recognizable as beer to the Canadian mass market.  Many Belgian styles are sweet and/or have a high alcohol content, but really the styles run the gamut.  To generalize, it's the kind of beer you savour and relish.  You won't see a Belgian chugging.  You don't buy a 2-4 in Brugge.  In short, Belgian beer is an art form.  When's the last time you went to a Canadian pub, asked for the house beer and got this:

Served on it's own tray, in it's own glass, on a doily, with a side of specially selected local cheese.  Belgian beer.  That's what I'm talking about.

To me, Brugge is a wonderfully rich city and well worth a visit.  I've been there twice and I'd love to go again.

The next European stop will be in the Czech Republic.  So stay tuned...

Garden fresh

Hello again!  It's about time I got back to the blog.  It's been a busy summer with a new house and a new job, so despite having lots of things to blog about I haven't found enough time to actually post!

Back in June, when we moved in to the house, I quickly took advantage of my very first yard (yeah!), and planted veggies straight away.  At the time I said I would be content if I even had a 10% yield, seeing as it was my first year planting anything.

Sure enough, I didn't get a super yield.  Below is a picture (taken last week) of the 'garden' where I planted yellow beans, carrots, and cucumbers.

[underwhelming]

Yep.  Underwhelming.  Because NOTHING grew!  I noticed when I tilled the garden that there were numerous creepy-crawlies making a home in the dirt.  Cut-worms must have been included in the melange because, aside from a few short-lived bean sprouts, my crop yield was nil.  Mildly disappointing.

But now onto the success story of my garden:  the cherry tomatoes!  I decided to plant potted tomatoes because I've heard good things about container gardening - you know exactly what type of soil you're giving the plants, you can move the containers to get the optimal light, and really, you can put them wherever in/on your yard or deck you please.  I found my plants at VanKampen's Greenhouses here in Charlottetown.

[just after planting]

I planted three cherry tomato plants per container (in retrospect I would have planted two - you'll see why).  One container was a mix of potting soil + PEI compost and the other had potting soil + a Miracle-Gro potting soil.  I was going to experiment to see which plants did better, but of course mixed up the containers before labeling them (all my years experimenting in labs obviously have gone to waste!).

[crazy plants]

In the end, the soil-experiment mix-up was moot.  All plants took off like crazy.  At last count, about three weeks ago, there were over 100 tomatoes on the vines - I'm guessing that number has doubled by now!  If you look closely in the pic above, you can see the green wire frames I'm using to support the vines - compare to the first picture to see how massive the plants actually are!

[pretty tomatoes]

[enough for dinner!]

The best part is that the tomatoes are actually starting to ripen in useful quantities.  For about two weeks we simply ate them as they ripened one-by-one, but this weekend we had enough to use in our marinated-summer-veggie-and-tofu-kabobs.  We typically go through a container of cherry tomatoes every week or two, so this garden success story will actually help our grocery bill.

Another success in the garden was the pea patch:

[before and after]

We're starting to see a bit of a yield - looking forward to the first harvest.

[so fresh]

Lastly, let me show you our inherited grape vines.  I can claim no part in helping them grow, they just came along with our house.  They seem to be doing wonderfully this season, though.  I might try some grape jelly in the fall if they become plump enough.  They are definitely still sour at this point.

[grape vines on the pergola]

[lotsa grapes!]

Thanks for checking back into the blog despite the summer dormancy.  Hope to have more posts for you soon!

Chimay... the food

I promised in my first post about Chimay that I'd be back with more about the food we discovered there.  Well, promise fulfilled.

If I recall correctly, the first food we had on arrival at the Auberge de Poteaupré was - dun da na na - the cheese.  Not only was it the first food we tried, but the first food we smelled.  On walking in the front door, the aroma of cheese rind was in the air.  Kinda fousty, but in a pleasant way.  Unless you don't like cheese.  In that case, you probably shouldn't read this post.  Anyway, I began salivating immediately.

After freshening up, we sauntered down to the restaurant.  First item of business:  selecting one of the Chimay Trappist beers.  I chose Chimay Red, a somewhat dark beer that was fruity, spicy, and served in a beautiful goblet.

While selecting a beer from the Auberge menu, I happily noted that each beer was paired with a cheese, also made by the Trappist monks across the road to my right.  Across the field to my left was a herd of dairy cows.  I knew this was going to be good cheese!

Our group was up for trying ALL the cheeses.  Luckily, samples were on the menu.

[clockwise from top left:  cheese board, Grand Cru, A la Biere, Vieux Chimay, Grand Classique, Le Poteaupré]

I'm not going to pretend that I can critique the cheese and beer pairing.  My palate is not that refined!  They all went well together, in my opinion.  The cheese was delicious.  It ranged from creamy and smooth (Classique and A la Biere) to mild and firm (Vieux Chimay) and finally (my favorites) to smoky and rich (Le Poteaupré and Grand Cru).  If there is a specialty cheese shop near you, I'd have a look for any of these cheeses the next time you're in.

When the cheese had vanished from the board, leaving nothing but a pile of toothpick-flags, we moved on to selecting our mains.  I couldn't resist the pan-fried local trout:

The trout was simple and fresh with a crispy skin and a perfectly-cooked, flaky-but-moist interior.  It reminded me of going fishing with ski poles with my dad when we were kids.  We'd take the fish home, flour, and pan-fry them.  Except we would usually behead the fish before cooking it...

Mike went for heavier fare.  Homemade meatballs.  All smothered in cheese.  Meatballs big enough to plant a flag in:

Oh, that cheese sauce... (I'm obviously drooling right now).  I dipped a few frites in it, not gonna lie.  Imagine a saltier, smokier, creamier Hollandaise sauce and you'd be close.  It also had bacon in it.  Yeah, it did.

Do you see why the food needed it's own post?  And this was just one evening!  We had an equally fabulous dinner the next night.  I'm telling you, this Auberge is the place to go in Belgium.

Until next time!