Hi folks…I hope you listened to my latest podcast about Marion Kane. My podcast is called All You Can Eat, and you can find out how it works here.
I have four copies of Marion Kane’s book, Dish, to give away. Marion is a long-time food columnist for the Toronto Star and this is a delightful collection of her columns and matching recipes.
For your chance to win just scroll down the the comments box and tell me a story about your favourite summertime food memory. Is it the perfect ice cream cone on a hot summer day? The crispest slice of watermelon you’ve ever had? Or was it a combination of food, people and setting?
Deadline for the contest is August 26th. I’ll choose from the entries at random and Whitecap Books, publisher of Dish, will send the books to the winners. Look forward to hearing your stories….
Thank you for your stories, the winners will be announced soon…
For me it was a combination of things. It was day two of a roadtrip holiday and my partner and I finally emerged on the Oregon Coast after a rather harrowing night in Portland. Our first stop was gorgeous Cannon Beach. We found a beach-view bistro with a patio and had a late lunch of baguettes and brie with local fruit and a tall glass of raspberry lemonade. The sun was warm and glorious, the view of the beach with monolithic Haystack Rock in the background was magnificent, and the wonderful food was the proverbial icing on the cake. I felt like I had a month-long vacation in the 2 hours we spent there. 🙂
Every year when I was younger, my father and I would go on an annual father-son canoe trip in northern Ontario. It was tradition that we would pick up fresh corn from a family farm on the way. We usually tried to get “peaches and cream” corn (mixed yellow and white kernels). We always got enough corn to last us the entire week in the wilderness. After paddling all day there was nothing better than fire roasted corn with a bit of corn and butter.
The ultimate culinary treat is that unexpected “something” that satisfies a hunger that is not easily identified–– as it is screaming that it can’t be satiated. This was my experience last summer when, on one of many food forages, I attended a Greek Festival in Southern California. It was a humid, piercingly hot day. Much like prime real estate, the shady dining areas had been territorially marked with glasses of ouzo and long ribbons of raffle tickets. Accompanied by grand Greek music, I was forced to stand and sort through my mental menu of Greek fare. Nothing seemed to call my name.
And then a “SUDDENLY”; that “SOMETHING” caught my eye. Fractions of a moment later, I was devouring Feta Fries. My plate was piled high with fresh, cylindrically cut potatoes that had been fried to a golden intoxication, lightly salted, and lavishly sprinkled with feta cheese and chopped parsley! As I was steeped in rapture, the crowd scene became a distant backdrop and I no longer cared about finding a table…
When my brother and I were kids we would always look forward to the summer because it meant going camping and fishing on most weekends. We helped our parents load up the truck and head off on Friday evening so we were ready to fish early on Saturday morning. There was nothing like breathing clean fresh air while on the water. The best part was when we caught fish (especially walleye) and pan fried it over and open fire within only hours of it being reeled in to the boat. It was so very good we all knew that ‘this was living’.
One of my favourite summer food memories occurred in the south of France.
My girlfriend and I stopped in the ancient market town of Cavaillon on a warm, sunny day. After an extensive tour of the market, we purchased some of the town’s famous melons, one of which we ate while sitting on a bench in a small park next to the river.
It was perfect — unbelievably succulent and sweet, with the most gorgeous aroma.
That’s all we had – a single Cavaillon melon. But given the complexity of much French cuisine, I was struck by the delicious simplicity of the fresh, local produce.
The girlfriend’s now gone, but the memory of that melon still lingers!
The summer food memory that sticks with me most is the second summer after I split up with my then wife.
I had taken to cooking as a means of building a family setting whenever the kids were with me. It gave me a sense of purpose, making me feel like I was really looing after my family.
That particular summer, we were camping up the Sunshine Coast. My kids, having seen the fishing boats in Gibsons decided they wanted seafood for dinner. Strangely, there was little seafood to be found in the stores, although we did manage to score a few prawns from a local fisher.
That evening I threw some rice, tomatoes, chicken, sausage and the prawns into an old cast iron frying pan my grandmother had given me, and produced my first campfire paella. We sat at the picnic table in the campsite, listening to Coltrane, sharing the meal in satisfied silence.
Who are the winners? 🙂