Radio silence

I don't think I've ever gone this long without updating since I started this blog. So long that I missed my own fifth anniversary (Sep 18) and that I've been in North America for 10 days and I didn't even mention that I was coming. As usual at this time of year, I am traveling primarily to attend my .org's annual meeting, which took place in Quebec City and ended two days ago. It was the usual extremely intense roller coaster ride, compounded this year by my team's decision to run a one-day symposium just before the main meeting started, which felt like almost as much work as the other five days put together.

But it's all over now, and before I plunge into the long list of follow-ups, wrap-ups, and action points, I'm having some downtime. At the moment, I'm staying in a nineteenth-century (I think) farmhouse on Ile d'Orleans, just outside Quebec City, with three of my work friends, decompressing and celebrating J's retirement at the end of the month. Tomorrow DP and Miss B will arrive to collect me, and we will begin a three-week jaunt to visit family and friends in Montreal, Boston, Kansas City, and Dallas.

So that's the news from here. I'll leave with a few photo highlights of the last 10 days - mostly food, of course:

One of my all-time favorite sandwiches, the chicken club - not widely available outside North America, and therefore an object of regular craving in Australia. The experience was somewhat marred by the chef's decision to put cream cheese on the bread. Photographed by the lovely MJ, who is clearly a much better photographer than I am.

Deep-fried sushi from Yuzu, a Quebec City chain. We liked this so much that we went back for seconds. It sounds like an abomination, but it's totally delicious. Another image contributed by the talented MJ.

My retirement present for J - a set of hand-embroidered (yes, by me) napkins to celebrate her new life as a lady who lunches.

Last night's dinner - a spicy fish stew with rice prepared by friend K, accompanied by braised kale prepared by yours truly. South American comfort food and definitely a keeper recipe - more info to come on this.

Dessert last night and breakfast this morning - a mixture of fresh berries (some of them were even local!) topped with a sprinkling of sugar and a large spoonful of Greek yogurt.

The object of today's first expedition - what our landlady assures us is the best bakery on the island for morning coffee and pastries.

She did not mislead us. This danois au framboise may be the best thing I've ever eaten in a bakery.

That's all the news for now. More shenanigans to follow shortly.

Instant salad

As a parent of a school-age child, I seem to spend a fair amount of time dodging activities that cut into the dinner hour. I consider family dinner more important than most other things, so I prioritize accordingly. Recently, I have been making one exception, though, for a kung-fu class. Miss B really likes it, it ticks a lot of boxes for her physical and skills development, and it's a 2-minute walk from our house. That last part mitigates the fact that it starts at 6:30 pm, since it means I can still cram in a family dinner beforehand. I've been using it as a challenge to myself to see if I can get dinner on the table with 30 minutes or less of prep beforehand; as a result, this is now my go-to kung-fu-night salad. It's delicious, it's nutritious, and it takes even less time to prep this than it does to walk to class. (Cutting an actual salad is enough to send me over the edge in a 30-minute prep window.) And every time I do this, I think fondly of my friend J., who first introduced me to this ridiculously simple concoction.


Retro cool avocado halves
Cut one avocado in half and remove the pit. Place each half on a small plate, and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Fill the pit cavities with balsamic vinegar. Serve as a starter or side.
Serves 2.

(Miss B is not into the avocado, so I chop her up a carrot or cucumber instead.)

August wrap-up

How can it be August 31 already? Tomorrow is the first day of spring in Australia! Not that winter has been much of a hardship; we've had quite a few grey days, and more rain than I remember in the previous two winters I've spent here, but also plenty of bright, sunny weather for Miss B to put some miles on her new birthday scooter. Some other items of note from August:

Here's a preview of a recipe that is under construction: sliced chorizo glazed with a mixture of red wine, wholegrain mustard, and maple syrup, baked in the oven, and served as an appetizer. I'm still fiddling with the measurements, proportions, and cooking times, but the first couple of trial batches were a hit. Then the chorizo I was using disappeared from Costco, and I've only just found a replacement. So more on that shortly, I hope.

Or I could just start making my own, I suppose, since I signed up to take a sausage-making class earlier this month at a local butcher shop - or, as the butcher called it, "Salami Academy." I learned all kinds of interesting facts and tips, had a chance to use the professional sausage-stuffing machine pictured here, and am now seriously tempted to plunge into the world of charcuterie - two years after everyone else, just as I predicted during my Year of Canning in 2011.

The second half of August has been another round of solo parenting, which means more cooking experiments that hopefully also double as treats for Miss B (and me!). This experiment is crumpets, which went down a storm. I used this recipe, and although they were delicious, they didn't turn out quite as I expected. I'm going to have a go at Delia's recipe next, so more on that later.

More fun with cross-cultural food terminology: the substance pictured here is known as fairy floss in Australia, candy floss in the UK, and cotton candy in the US. I'd love to know if it has yet another name in, say, Canada or New Zealand. (Full disclosure: I loathe it no matter what it's called and always have, but Miss B devours it at every opportunity.)

Did I mention that tomorrow is the first day of spring?