Wild and Sweet

Today my sister would have been 44. I don't post personal items on this website very often, but today felt like a day where the exception is perfectly acceptable.

Every year when wild blueberries start appearing on kitchen tables, my mother would tell the same anecdote. “You sister would come from from camp, and I’d make her a wild blueberry pie for her birthday,” she would say.

I remember those summers. My sister Ginette, blonde and smiling from ear to ear, happy birthday being sung, and wild blueberries falling out between layers of pastry. Blue smears on plates and children’s faces. Cake wasn’t missed. It would seem out of place.

This will be the first time Ginette’s birthday will pass without her.  Over the past few weeks, my parents, my in-laws, and friends and I have all had the same thought, “She’s not here.” 

***

“Are you baking a pie this year,” I ask my mother. There is a slight pause on the other end of the line. “Maybe,” she says. “She was the one who liked it the most.” I suggest doing what she feels is best. No one expects anything to be normal today. 

It’s hard not to use words like “strange” or “weird” when discussing life after death. We lack a vocabulary for the sensations, emotions, and passing of time that we endure while we grieve. The world has shifted, or maybe it’s us that has. Things that held positive significance become double edged.  Ceci n’est pas un bleuet sauvage.

***

In 2014, my sister received her first cancer diagnosis. She soon lost her sense of taste due to cancer treatments, and food became a chore for her, rather than the pleasure it had been for so long.  

I ended up interviewing her about the loss of her sense of taste for CBC Radio. I listened to the interview and had forgotten that the it ended with she and I commiserating about peaches - specifically the peaches we ate as kids in our parent’s orchard.

One of the most important things she said to me, to her husband, to her kids, and to everyone who knew her, is that happiness is a choice. So even though today may seem like a day to be sad, I choose not to be be. I choose happiness. 

Pantry and Palate is in stores, in kitchens, and on your screens

It’s amazing what a good story will get you. It can entertain, enlighten, give pause, or give focus. The same goes with a book. Or in this case, promoting one. 

Promoting Pantry and Palate has landed me - and the book - in all sorts of places. It graced the front page of the Arts and Life section of The Globe and Mail, with an excerpt of the book and then was included in a series of new books talking about Canadian cuisine. I also had a really great chat with fellow food writers Jonah Campbell and Linda Mecheksfe over at Quill and Quire.  An interview I shot a few months ago for the french language media organization TFO also went live on social media.

Also on the french tip, I also did two interviews for Radio-Canada- one for the local morning show Le RéveiI, as well as Tout un Samedi (at 9:15) which airs in Atlantic Canada.  Over at CBC I was back on the air, but this time on the other side of the microphone, being interviewed by Jonna Brewer at Information Morning in Moncton.

I also wanted to give special mention that I had a great time shooting a video interview for Chatelaine magazine, which you can watch here. Soo Kim and the rest of the gang at Chatelaine were great to chat with, and I only wish I’d had more time. Next time. 

A glimpse of Chatelaine's Instagram Stories promoting Pantry and Palate. 

Pantry and Palate is on store shelves. Pre-orders of the book have been dropped off in mailboxes across the country. I’ve started getting messages from people on social media that they have received and are enjoying the book.  People are making everything from seaweed pies to salted onions. One person told me that they made the cornmeal molasses bread for their kids and that they loved it. I get random tweets and Instagram photos of people’s efforts. It’s no longer a bunch of recipes on my computer screens. It’s living in their cupboards and fridges. 

Photo by Bobby Grégoire.

But the thing that arguably marked me the most was a recent trip to Toronto to speak at the Terroir Symposium. The main topic of the conference was Canadian food. It’s not easy to define or focus such an expansive topic. There were agricultural, historical, cultural, and ethical issues to discuss. There were amateur and professional chefs, writers, and academics. And of course, there was food. But I was there to tell a story, and talk about Acadian food.

I was to speak on a panel about French-Canadian cuisine with some pretty distinguished guests, including Cyril Gonzales and Alex Cruz from École Buissonière (previously from Société Original,), chef Anne Desjardins (who helped promote season and Canadian cuisine way before people really thought about such things) and Geneviève from Caribou magazine, (a french-language periodical that intently and intensely looks at the food and people of Québec). 

I was the last to speak, and the only one to speak about French-Canadian food outside of Québec. I was glad to be invited to the table, and felt it was my obligation to sing for my supper - or in this case tell a story. But it was also my job to lay claim to a place at the table - and I say that knowing that I risk making myself sound a little adamant. The refrains I kept (and keep) hearing were “I didn’t know about this cuisine. I didn’t know about these stories.  I didn’t know about these lives.”  And this was often followed by “yet I still connected with it.”

Telling a story about food is an act of reconnection: familial, temporal, mnemonic. We often our food stories are intensely unique - and in a way they are - but in a more important manner they are universal. And when that story hasn’t been told, or listened to, or had a light shone on it very much, it’s rewarding to see it come through and connect to so many.

New Things for Spring: A book, a tour, and a talk or two

After over two years of research, cooking, writing, editing - and a lovely photo session - Pantry and Palate is finally hitting bookshelves in May. 

Because I've spent so much time living within that book for so long, I will admit I am at a bit of a loss for words when it comes to tell you what it's like to live outside of it. The work is done. The book is being printed and bound as I type this.  I will have a copy in my hands in a couple weeks. Copies of it will be sent to pre-sale buyers in Canada after May 30th. You can pre-order your copy at Amazon.ca, over at Indigo.ca and via Nimbus Publishing. But for those of you who can wait until it's in stores, might I suggest you check out your local independent bookstore? It's always a good idea.

But the buzz has already started. Chatelaine magazine mentioned it in their 10 Cookbooks We Want This Spring and Amazon has listed it in their  Hot New Releases in Canadian Cookbooks.  And the book isn't even out on shelves yet. (Excuse me while someone helps me pick my jaw up off the floor.)

Now begins the promotional part of the book, and I'm headed to the Terroir Symposium in Toronto on May 29th at the Art Gallery Of Ontario. I'll be on a panel with other speakers reflecting on the origins of French-Canadian cuisine (and Acadian as well!) and its current path. It also looks like I'll be doing some interviews and a bit of promotional work while I am there.  

After that I am off to New York with the gang from Nimbus Publishing to  Book Expo  America where I'll be signing copies of Pantry and Palate. And if I know myself, I'll be heading to a few bookstores - namely Kitchen Arts And Letters and Bonnie Slotnick - to fill up my suitcase for the trip home. Last time I went, I kind of went overboard and ended up paying $100 at the airport because my luggage was over. But lesson learned: bring an empty carry-on just for books. 

But my favourite upcoming event is happening here in Halifax, with a book launch at the Halifax Public Library's Central Branch. I'll be talking about the process of how the book came to be, the importance of culinary history, documenting food ways, and of course, serving up a wee bit of grub. 

Now that the book is in the can - I should be holding a copy in my hands in the next week or so - expect to see more updates, more stories, and more info about Pantry and Palate and much more. Stay tuned!

Filling up the Pantry

It’s one thing to write about food: the making of, the context, the eating. But to capture it in the blink of an eye - or a shutter - is to see it in the way that we experience it. Visceral, pleasurable, and immediate. 

When I saw my blurred hands in the frame, it all strangely came into focus.

Image by Noah Fecks, Noahfecks.com

It was the first day of shooting for my upcoming book, Pantry and Palate. My photographer, Noah Fecks, had arrived the day before from New York, and we were settling in at the location for the shoot. Bags upon bags of fabrics, plates, utensils - and more paper towels than you would ever think you would need - were strewn about the kitchen. 

Noah and I were working on shots of ingredients for the book. I wanted people who may not be familiar with certain ingredients to know what they should look for, and I also wanted them to see a certain kind of beauty in the ingredients themselves. Even the most humble of ingredients can be well packaged, let alone quite striking on its own if you look at it in a new context. 

But we only had a few days to shoot. The list of shots was long, time was short. Today’s last ingredient shot was for salted onions, a condiment/seasoning used in a lot of Acadian cooking in southwestern Nova Scotia. “Tell me how you would make this, and what it would be used for,” said Noah. I explained how it was used to season soups and stews, and even went into the history of salting herbs throughout much of french-speaking Canada. “Yeah, but I want you to show me how it’s made.”

I had tested most of my recipes - and sent them to others for testing - but this was a recipe I had yet to make.  I grew up in a household where every summer, bunches upon bunches of green onions would be collected - either grown in the backyard, or occasionally bought - and the salting of the onions would begin.  When I was a kid, I thought it was a horrible smell, a harsh sulphuric haze that hung in the kitchen. My parents eyes would be slightly misty from the incessant chopping, and the windows would be open to air out the place. 

And then there would be salt. What seemed like an obscene amount of salt would be poured over the onions, covering them in a fine salty snow.  They would sit overnight in that dry brine, their moisture leaching slowly overnight and pooling at the bottom of the big tupperware containers that held them.  The next morning there would be more salt poured over them, and then they would be packed into jars, to be put up for the upcoming winter and fall.  Later in my life, my mother told me a secret that if I were to freeze the jars, that the onions inside would keep their vibrant colour. “It just looks better than the dull green that it turns into,” she would say.

And so here I was, chopping scallions, waiting for Noah to tell me when to stop and go so he could get the perfect shot. I joked that my knife skills are less than stellar, and he kept on clicking.  I grabbed a large wooden bowland scraped the chopped scallions into it. 

I had written down the recipe, as dictated to my father, as it had been told to him. “Add salt, and then more salt. And when you think you have enough, add some more.”  I called him once again, just to make sure. “Yup,” he said, “that’s the way to do it.”

Even though I had never done this, my nose told me what to do.  As he clicked away, Noah noted that I wasn’t joking when I'd said that I would be using almost the whole kilogram of salt for what seemed like a paltry amount of scallions. I repeated what my father and grandfather had said. “When you think you have enough, add some more.”

We started setting up another shot, this one of me tossing the mixture together. Noah stood over me slightly, holding the camera at an odd angle. “I’ll tell you when to start,” he said. My hands hovered over the bowl. I wanted people to see what this looked like. I wanted those who had never done this before to feel confident, and that they too could make this. And cook with it.

“Go.”

Image by Noah Fecks, noahfecks.com

When we were done, Noah pulled me aside to look at that day’s shots.  There were shots of  salted fish, molasses, a very large blood sausage, and even a pig’s head. But there was something about the tossing of those scallions. A little life. A little history A little pride. 

Good Gravy

Last night, at the 2016 James Beard Foundation’s Book, Broadcast, and Journalism Awards, Tina Antolini walked up to the podium. Standing up there, she was handed a medal, emblazoned with James Beard’s face, and the name of his foundation. But most importantly, the words, “For Excellence” framed the right side of Beard’s face on the medal. Gravy, the podcast that Antolini steers with great care, had won a James Beard Award for Podcast Of The Year.

Photo via Southern Foodways Alliance's Twitter Feed.

If you don't know Antolini's work, you should. Her smooth delivery pricks up your ears every two weeks, when a new episode of Gravy, The Southern Foodways Alliance's podcast, is put out.  That’s why Antolini was up there at the JBFAs.  Her instincts for stories, and her knowledge of audio storytelling are what put her up there, on that podium, with that excellent medal around her neck.

In honour of Antolini and Gravy’s win, I want to share with you some of my favourite episodes of Gravy. 

As journalists, chroniclers, academics, and historians, it’s not enough to just write down stories about food. It’s not enough to discuss the ethics and history of food, its role in our lives, and the politics behind it.  It’s not enough to just make sure someone, somewhere, writes down a recipe. It’s our responsibility to bring people this information and to make it as palatable as possible, yet without watering it down. It’s our responsibility to temper the sweetness of nostalgia without forgetting the bitter flavours that occasionally must be brought to light. It's about getting it just right, like any good dish served upon the table.

That’s what Gravy does. That’s what good journalism is. And that’s what Antolini does.

I had the chance to work with Antolini on an episode of Gravy last year. The whole thing came about when I met Antolini at last year’s award ceremony. She was giddy and a little beside herself as Gravy’s sister publication, a quarterly published by The Southern Foodways Alliance, had just won a Beard Award for Publication Of The Year that evening. Antolini and I talked about Gravy’s podcast, which had just begun a few months earlier. A friend mentioned to Antolini that we should work together, since I had Acadian and Cajun connections, and I was a freelance radio producer.  Tina said yes, and graciously gave me her card.

At first, I thought she was just being polite. And she was being polite. But she was also sincere. I followed up with Antolini, and sent her some of the work that I had done for CBC. Less than a year later, The Cajun Reconnection was broadcast as Gravy’s 25th episode. I’m still pinching myself that I got to tell this story on such a great platform. And now an award-winning one, as well.

But I want to talk about, to share, and to bring to light some of what I believe are some of the best episodes of Gravy.  Have a listen.

Toni Tipton-Martin also won an award last night for her book, The Jemima Code. The book talks about the whitewashing of food in the American South, especially in the way it was chronicled. In Episode 6, Antolini interviews Tipton-Martin and a slew of others to discuss the illumination and reparation of such a cultural loss.

Toni Tipton Martin was just starting out as a reporter back in the 1980’s, when she noticed something that struck her as odd about the cookbook section of the newspaper she was working for. There were no cookbooks by black people. “That just didn’t jive with my experience,” she says, having grown up in an African American household of skilled cooks. “It didn’t make sense that African Americans didn’t make any contribution at all.” Little did Toni know that that observation would set her on a multi-decade journey of research and discovery. In this episode of Gravy, we tell the story of the world of black cookbooks that Toni eventually uncovered, and what they tell us about culinary history in the United States.

The idea behind Gravy is to "changing American South, through the foods we eat." But what if you are sometimes defined by what you don't eat. Under the laws of kashrut, or kosher dietary law, the eating of pork is forbidden by Jews. But what happens when you're Southern, Jewish, and your access to kosher food is less than nil? In this story by Robin Amer, meet the last Jews of Natchez, Mississippi, who shared many a table, with many a dish of questionable kosher application, but never of questionable appreciation. 

There has been a Jewish community in Natchez, Mississippi for 175 years—and Robin Amer’s family has been part of it for 160 of them. But now the number of Jews in Natchez has dwindled to only a handful. In this episode, Robin returns to learn what culinary culture might disappear when they’re gone.

This last episode, I think I listened to at least three times, and sent it to many a friend, wether they be food lovers, Southerners (or aficionados thereof), podcast fans, or just plain anyone who would give this story a listen. This story is one of resilience, faith, and good food, all set to the stirring voices of church mothers, singing and telling it all. 

When Alysia Burton Steele moved to Mississippi, she found herself drawn to the Delta. Something about it reminded her of her grandmother, who’d grown up in rural South Carolina. That observation would lead Alysia on a journey of discovery, seeking out the stories of elderly women of her grandmother’s generation. Their memories often focused on food. And they painted a portrait of the Mississippi Delta that is usually missed by an outside world that focuses on the poverty, the racism, the hardship. In this episode of Gravy, the stories church mothers across the Mississippi Delta reveal a region of extraordinary generosity.

Congratulations again to Tina, the Southern Foodways Alliance, and to all of Gravy's contributors. Kudos. And like Antolini always says at the end of each episode, "Make cornbread, not war."