We Lost a Good Friend Last Night

The people of Alberta lost a friend last night. I lost a friend last night.

Manmeet Singh Bhullar was a man who felt very deeply the importance of putting others ahead of himself. And last night he died as he had lived, helping others. Last night he was making the drive from Calgary to Edmonton in snowy Alberta weather, as he had done so many times before. But this time was different, this time as he selflessly stopped to help another motorist who had rolled into the median, Manmeet was struck by a semi-truck that had lost control. Despite being taken to hospital by ambulance, he succumbed to his injuries. News of his death sent a shock wave through social media. Friends and colleagues shared their grief. I cannot imagine the absolute deep sadness that his wife, Namrita, and his family are going through today.

Manmeet lived in the same community as we did when our girls were young. He attended Chief Justice Milvain School with our daughters, only a couple of years ahead of our eldest. Later, I got to know him through his involvement in politics and community issues. He worked tirelessly with the young people in his community, first founding Calgary's Dashmesh Mission to support at-risk Sikh youth and then going on to help found the non-denominational Inspire Youth Development Society to provide support for youth in the broader community. He has always been a man with a strong sense of fairness.

I remember a conversation we had several years ago, when he was still in his teens, about how he wanted to be a different kind of politician. He didn't want to be like some who enter politics with an eye to their own personal gain. No, Manmeet wanted to enter public life in order to help others. In particular, those who couldn't help themselves. He wanted to be their voice. And he was.

As Minister of Human Services, he helped parents of children in care get back their voice. He worked to rewrite the law that banned them from speaking out when they felt they had been wronged and their child died as a result. No parent should have to go through this horror and only by hearing from people who have been through it can we change things so no one else has to know the pain of losing their child in a system that is there to protect their safety.

Most recently, he was working to help Sikh and Hindu families in Afghanistan who are faced with religious discrimination and threats of violence on a daily basis. He spoke of children who have not been able to attend school for seven years. As he had always done, Manmeet continued to be an advocate for children and their families when he saw injustices being done.

Even during his last day, he was working to make things better as he attended the Alberta Men's Survey Results Launch at the University of Calgary. His last tweet tells us a lot about the man:

"Childhood/past Trauma is a major barrier to healthy relationships. The world needs more healing"

Yes, as we remember his kind and gentle ways over the next days, we will all need more healing.

RIP my friend.

Come Together Canada!

October 14, 2015 - a date that will be remembered by Canadians for a long time. There was certainly nothing boring about this afternoon's Blue Jay's game. Between umpires checking rule books and flying beer cans, things got pretty heated at times.

I have a few thoughts on the game that I will share here, in no particular order.

I have to say it was pretty embarassing to see the behavior of some of the so-called fans who chose to take out their anger at the umps on others at the game (including a baby as we saw on national television). There were flashes of Vancouver hockey riots running through my head at that moment. No matter how bad the call, there is no call for this type of behavior.

Having to listen to the Fox commentators calling the game was somewhat painful. First there was the comment last week about Canadians not playing much baseball...from a guy who played with the Calgary Cannons for a couple of years (yes, there is proof...here's a picture of his baseball card.) 

Then this afternoon they seemed almost gleeful in explaining that the right call had been made in that crazy re-directed off the bat throw by Martin. Lot's of anger and irritation at that one. Maybe the "rule" said he should get the base but I could have sworn the ump called the ball dead before he got there. C'est la vie...Karma's a bi*** and following that play the baseball gods did seem to be on the Jays side.

Jose Bautista's bat flip has become as big a story as this home run. This seemed to rub salt in the wound for the Rangers (I get that, they were losing) but I don't think there is any need to strip all emotion and celebration from sporting events and this was a big play for Joey Bats! Angry Bautista seems to be a good thing for the team :)

Finally, this team has played with huge heart and determination. They were off their game for 1 and 2...they got that....they turned it around and got back to their game. Now, they are bringing Canada together in a way that's usually reserved for things like the Olympics. The Jays are truly Canada's team now. I'm sure we will see an entire new generation of young baseball players inspired by this play-off run. Now let's get ready for the American League Championship Series!

A Turning Point Birthday

I was hardly awake this morning when I received my first Happy Birthday BBM. I can always count on our youngest daughter to send greetings, emojis and stickers for all special occasions. Our other two daughters will send me notes later in the day, one when I get to the office, our eldest once she gets off work. After responding, I clicked on my Facebook notifications where my East Coast friends had begun to post greetings. Through the day this continues moving through time zones toward to West. I really appreciate these little notes and greetings, they remind me of all the great people I have gotten to know over the years.

This year's birthday comes at a turning point in my life. After over 22 years working in various provincial and federal government offices I will be retiring from full-time work. Yes, I will be taking the next year to travel and write. I can't say yet what I will be writing or if it will be any good, but I will be writing. Recently, I have begun to spread my creative wings and work on some story ideas that have rumbled around in my head for some time. This is easier said than done after writing mainly government correspondence, newsletters, speeches and talking points for the last two decades. Just the notion of writing creative non-fiction and include feelings and personality into a piece is a foreign notion at this point, but I am working at it.

I decided a few weeks ago to register for a creative writing class. This has been one of the best gifts I could have given myself. Communicating with other writers and realizing that I'm not the only one facing these same challenges has been eye opening. Writing can be a somewhat solitary activity so having the support system of a class is somewhat therapeutic. Having other aspiring writers to bounce ideas off of is very helpful.

So this year's birthday is kind of exciting. Like the birth of a new phase of my life and with the support of my family and friends, I'm looking forward to it.

Turkeys and Memories

I have been thinking a lot this week about my grandmother. I think this month's writing prompts are some of the reason since she played a central role in many of my childhood memories of favorite foods, recipes, and family meals. I was lucky that we often lived near my grandparents and were able to form a strong relationship with them. I feel sad for children who do not have the benefits of an extended family. It seems to me somewhat lonely.

We lived downstairs from my parents when we were first married so our two oldest girls got to spend a lot of time with them. Sadly, I lost my mom when our girls were still fairly young so they didn't have the opportunity to talk with her about the things teenage girls like to talk about. Our girls were fortunate to live near my husband's parents though. For a time, they were able to see them every afternoon when they walked down the hill to their home after school while I finished up at my office. These opportunities are priceless in strengthening the bonds between generations, mutually beneficial to grandparents and children alike.

The times I spent with Grama were priceless. As I've written about in this blog, she is the one who taught me to bake and can. She also taught me to sew and crochet. Skills I have passed along to our girls with varying levels of success. Our youngest isn't keen on needlework but she is great a cake decorating. The oldest and middle girls love to do needlework. They all love to organize events and now take on most of the responsibility for preparing our family holiday meals. As I write this post, the delicious and spicy aroma of a Virginia spiral ham is wafting from the kitchen. It's spot in the oven will be taken by a sage seasoned turkey tomorrow.

Long before death took our grandmother from us, Alzheimers disease had stolen her memory. It was hard to notice at first, Grampa covered up for her I think, helping her to take care of the house, reminding her when she forgot to shut off the stove. Once he passed away, this terrible disease went into full attack mode and left a wonderfully talented and vibrant woman a mere shell of her former self. By the time my mom, her daughter, passed away, she would often confuse the two of us during a visit. In a way, this was a blessing since learning that she had lost a child would likely have depressed her further. That following summer Grama had a massive heart attack and slipped away quickly. She was finally at peace.

On Thanksgiving weekend each year in Calgary there is an Alzheimer's Walk and Run that raises money to help support families affected by this sad and debilitating disease. Thank you to all of those who participate, volunteer and support this terrific initiative.

I am lucky to have my memories and the ability to share them with my family. I look forward to the day when not one more family loses a member to Alzheimer's Disease.

Who Can Think of Food When the Blue Jays Are in the Play-Offs!?

I have to admit there is no way I can stick to the writing prompt for today. No, I am too busy trying to figure out how to at least listen to the ball game at my office when I don't get the right channel nor do I have a radio. Would it seem odd to sit in my vehicle and work on my laptop? I see the game is blacked out online but I wonder if I'll be able to listen to it on Rogers Radio on my tablet.

It was so much easier back in the beginning, back in 1977 I was working at McDonald's on the morning shift so when I finished at 3:00 it was easy to hop on the subway and then the streetcar to the old Exhibition Stadium and catch the game in person. I remember it cost me $5 a ticket to sit in the infield on the 3rd base line, still my favorite spot. Considering I was earning $2.76 an hour at the time, this was quite the investment but it was worth it. Through all of the snow, rain, sunburn and crowded transit, I got to see my team play.

My memories of the individual players is a little fuzzy, but I do remember the games when Detroit would come into town. The Tigers fans seemed to travel well and there would be a number of them in the stands for weekend games. A bit like when Rider fans flood McMahan stadium during Calgary Stampeders games. They were not my favorites!

Weekday afternoon games are still some of my favorite things to see. There is something about sitting in the sunshine among businessmen who are playing hooky, some wearing suits to the game. I remember one incident in particular. I had gotten off work early and rushed down to the ball park without eating lunch. I grabbed a hot dog from the vendor and was opening one of the little mustard packets when one of our boys made a hit so I jumped up to cheer...squirting my mustard packet on the guy sitting next to me in the process...right across the front of his suit! Lucky for me he was a good sport about it but was my face red.

I'm sure there will be many fans playing hooky today and joining in with the excitement of Canada's team being in the play-offs for the first time in over 20 years. Wish I could join you.

OK Blue Jays! Lets! Play! Ball!

Christmas Windows and Freshly Roasted Nuts

It is interesting how much food defines our childhood. I think back over the years and can relate what was on our dinner table to where we lived and how well things were going in our lives. One time period I specifically remember was living in Florida. To begin with, we ate a lot more seafood than back in Toronto but then the truckers went on strike so my father’s company was unable to get the materials they needed to continue with their construction project. After a few weeks, our dinner table began to look a little different. There were still the boiled and pan fried potatoes (a favorite of my Irish father) and the accompanying canned vegetables (no frozen for my parents) but that is where the bounty ended. No longer did we enjoy clams and halibut, now we lived the life of vegetarians unless a neighbor would share their spoils from a weekend fishing trip.

Once we moved back to Canada and were living in Calgary, one of our favorite treats was visiting the cafeteria at Woodwards for pumpkin pie with our mother’s sister and our cousins. If we were lucky, they were making cherry chip donuts in the little machine downstairs and our moms would buy us a bag to take home. This was the only grocery store I ever remember visiting that had a donut machine. They also had little fuzzy chicks, dyed in all the colors of the rainbow at Easter time. I don’t think this is something we would see today, but we sure loved our visits there.

Children gathered in front of an Eaton's store window from the archives of Ontario

Another favorite activity with our cousins was our annual visits to see the Christmas windows at Eaton's in downtown Toronto. One of the best parts of these trips was sharing a bag of freshly roasted cashew nuts with our mom. They were served, hot and salty, in a little striped paper cone and were accompanied by a cup of hot cocoa from one of the other street vendors that populated Yonge and Queen Streets at the time. My mom would sometimes buy ‘fresh roasted’ cashews at the drugstore near our home but they were never the same having been poured out of a bag onto a tray that spun around under a light bulb to keep them warm.

I still find myself relating places to the foods I enjoy there. My husband and I are planning a post-retirement road trip in the spring and have a long list of coffee shops, bakeries and restaurants we want to visit along the way. There are so many favorites I’ve enjoyed over the years, including Café du Monde in New Orleans and The Loveless Café in Nashville and I want to share them with him now that he has the time to travel. I’ve started a travel blog, www.vintagebluesuitcase.ca, to keep track of our adventures and share them with our family and friends. I’ll be sure to include stories about our best-loved meals and the restaurants that serve them. I’d love to hear about your local favorite spots so we can check them out on our journey. 

Canning Jars and Meat Grinders

Who did most of the cooking when you were growing up? Just thinking about this question has me remembering the hearty beef stews and pot roasts that my mother would prepare. There would always be enough roast beef left over to make a shepherd's pie the next day. This would be an all day affair with my dad securing the meat grinder to the edge of the kitchen table and turning the crank as my mother fed the slow-roasted beef into the silver coloured hopper at the top. I loved to watch as the first bits of meat pushed their way through the plates in the front of the grinder and tumbled into the waiting Pyrex casserole dish. My parents shared the cooking duties in our home, each having their own specific tasks. I remember our dad carefully watching to get just the right temperature before dropping freshly cracked eggs into the poaching water on Sunday mornings as mom spread the toast with creamery butter. 

We ate well in our home but when it came to baking, that was our grandmother's domain. She knew just how the pie crust should feel as she rolled it out and that the bread dough was kneaded enough when it began to 'squeak'. I remember leaning over her kitchen table, pencil in hand, writing down her 'receipts' in my scribbler. My mom restricted her baking to Duncan Hines and Pillsbury. She always insisted that her mother had preferred to rule her own kitchen and hadn't taught her daughters to bake; thankfully Gramma had changed her attitude by the time my cousin and I were teenagers and she taught us both how to bake her specialties!

My grandmother taught me how to can as well. When we were living in Toronto, we had a huge pear tree in the backyard that would get so heavy with fruit that my dad would have to prop up its branches to keep the golden globes from hitting the ground as they ripened. Once warnings of the first frost arrived, we would all go out into the yard, armed with buckets, baskets, and paper shopping bags to pick the fruit that my grandmother would soon peel, slice and sweeten in my mother's kitchen. Up from the basement would come boxes of sealer jars that had been collected there as they were emptied of their delicious contents over the previous year. Bags of sugar and new lids would be purchased at Knob Hill Farms by my grandfather during one of his bargain hunting expeditions and soon our little bungalow would be filled with the sweet smell of pears as they softened in the open graniteware kettle on the back of the avocado green stove. 

By day's end, there would be rows of jars, filled with the light amber jewel toned pears, along with a few filled with rosy peaches if Grampa's shopping trip had been successful, cooling on tea towels laid out for this purpose. Oh, how I loved this scene, one I have repeated myself many times over the years in my own kitchen. I couldn't wait for one of the shiny jars to be opened so we could enjoy its delicious contents with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This was dessert on many a night, no need for fancy cakes or pies, just the simple goodness of the harvest.

Grama was also the one who took care of most of our family holiday meals. Even if we were gathering at one of my mom's sisters' homes, Grama would arrive early, freshly baked pies in hand, to help with the turkey. My mom and dad took care of the meal when we hosted, but we would still enjoy Grama's pie for dessert. On those occasions, the meat grinder would make its appearance right after breakfast, this time churning out chopped onions, breadcrumbs and giblets for the stuffing that was cooked inside of the bird. There was an extra pan for us kids minus the giblets, thus avoiding complaints and helping to keep peace at the dinner table. 

They say that too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the broth...I think I was lucky to have them all.

Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah...

OK, so do we really know who was in the kitchen with Dinah and why they were strumming on a banjo when they should have been helping her cook dinner? As a child, I would sing along to the song and never give the lyrics a second thought, only now as an adult, do I think about the deeper meanings of both folk songs and stories. Some of them are certainly not what we would write about today. 

Not sure why but today's writing prompt made me think of this song (which is now playing on a loop in my head...don't you just hate it when that happens?!). Perhaps thinking of a kitchen, and who does most of the cooking in it, makes me slow down and remember all of the happy (and sad) times we spend in our kitchens. I don't know about your family but in ours whenever there was a happy occasion or a crisis, someone headed for the kitchen to put on the kettle or a pot of coffee as the women in the group slowly followed. The kitchen of my childhood was pretty much the domain of women. Was this sexist? Was is the men who relegated us to the kitchen? The answer, for me at least, is I don't think so. there always seemed to be things we women (and girls) wanted to talk about without the prying ears of husbands, fathers and brothers. This was the place of laughter and tears and no fear of judgement no matter what we needed to share. Yes, the kitchen was certainly the center of our home and it was the same at all of our cousins homes as well. 

Things have certainly changed over the years with families being busier and rarely having the time to sit down together at the dinner table. We all seem to be running a million miles a minute and hurting our health with take-out food, not to mention the damage to our wallets from the cost. I wish there was a simple solution, that we could just snap our fingers and things would slow down a bit, but now it seems even when we are home we allow our work life to sneak in. How many of us put away our smart phones in the evening...even for a little while? And we all talk about it. My Facebook feed is littered with posts from people who are celebrating their upcoming trips to "no cell reception" areas, just so they can disconnect and enjoy their solitude or connect with the people who are there, right in front of them.

Sorry about today's post being all over the place, seems that my mind is wondering of late, filled with thoughts of everything I need to get done in the next two weeks. It is a funny time of the year to be moving on to something new. I usually think of the fall as a time of settling in, nesting, and getting ready for the holidays. Instead, I am packing up nine years worth of memories and making travel plans. It is going to be an exciting few weeks.

More Than a Simple Date Cake

I’d have to say my grandmother, my mother’s mother, ‘invented’ my favorite family recipe although it wasn’t until many years later that I realised it wasn’t something that everyone ate. My mother and her sisters grew up in the 1940’s and their family didn’t have a lot. My grandfather got work from time to time with the road crews in Saskatchewan but, for the most part, they lived on what my grandmother grew in her garden along with the eggs from her laying hens. They would only have meat when she butchered one of the old hens who wasn’t laying anymore or if my grandfather was able to bring something home from one of his hunting trips.

One of my grandfather’s favorite desserts was Matrimonial Cake. For those who are not familiar with this recipe, it is kind of like a date square. I’m not certain why it is called Matrimonial Cake but according to Cook’s Info, http://www.cooksinfo.com/date-squares, this name is no longer used outside of Western Canada. In doing some research I’ve found a number of sources and comments that this name was given because the cake is “rough on the top with a sweet filling and a solid base”.

So, getting back to my grandmother’s recipe. As I said, she had to make do a lot in her cooking and dates were something she had to buy. This would have been difficult, I should imagine, during the Depression so women, like my grandmother, used whatever they had at hand to feed their families and add variety to their tables. Many Depression-era recipes utilize rhubarb in place of other fruits or in addition to other fruits (just Google cooking with rhubarb in the depression and you’ll find a host of recipes, http://community.tasteofhome.com/community_forums/f/30/t/8458.aspx). Rhubarb, as anyone knows who has a plant or two, grows like a weed and is virtually impossible to kill. It’s also one of the first things to grow in the spring. With an abundance of rhubarb to use and a husband who liked his desserts, my grandmother (along with many other housewives at the time) let necessity be the mother of invention and came up with an alternate filling for her Matrimonial Cake. As it turned out, Grampa preferred the rhubarb so Grama kept making it that way. As a child, this was the only way I knew Matrimonial Cake. Sure, we might get a date square at the bakery but I never thought of it as the same thing. No, Matrimonial Cake was made with rhubarb…or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when I entered a country fair baking contest in the category of Matrimonial Cake and mine was the only one with a distinctly pink filling! I wanted to cover my plate and quietly walk away but hubby said mine looked better than the others even if they had a different filling and what did I have to lose. It turns out he was right. I won the section and was asked to include my recipe in the fair’s recipe book, so much for thinking I’d made a fool of myself.

Yes, my grandmother’s Matrimonial Cake is my favourite recipe. Think I’ll have to make a batch for Thanksgiving.

Grama's Potato Bowl

Here goes, I’m taking the plunge yet again and am determined to complete my challenge to write something every day for the month of October for NaBloPoMo. I know, I know, those of you have followed me through my fits and starts in the past know that I generally let life get in the way of my writing somewhere about a third of the way through…halfway if I try really hard. But this time is going to be different. This time I’m setting the stage for the next phase of my life. Being a full-time writer. Yes, after working in the same office for over nine years I am ‘retiring’ with my husband and taking up writing full time. There is something romantic and exciting about telling your friends you are “taking a year off to travel and write” but that is exactly what I have planned. So to get myself started in being disciplined enough to sit down at my keyboard every day, I decided to sign up for the October NaBloPoMo challenge.

Today’s prompt asks me to talk about my family’s most beloved dish. My first thoughts ran to holiday family dinners and all of the delicious dishes spread out across the tablecloth but then I began to think of the dishes themselves. The turkey platter that my husband bought me when we were first married, the ‘silver’ gravy boat that was a gift from our girls, the remainder of a crystal salad set that my parents gave us long ago and all of the other special items that come out of the cupboards for a special meal. Of these, the most special for me is the yellowy green Depression Glass bowl that is heaped with mashed potatoes, just as it always was on my grandmother’s table. It isn’t fancy, just a simple fluted bowl that she likely purchased at the five and dime or received as a free gift after collecting stamps at the local A&P. The specialness of this bowl isn’t in it monetary value, no it is in the memories of all the happy times, the family gatherings where this simple bit of glass held pride of place.

These dinners weren’t fancy, just good solid home cooking. Grama would have been busy for days, baking pies and cookies and making some of her creamy chocolate fudge (the kind that melts in your mouth the minute it touches your tongue). Her little kitchen would be a hub of frantic energy as she asked 'us girls' to peel some apples or get ingredients from the pantry. We loved spending time with her there as she talked to us about holidays of her childhood and of her brothers talking her into making them an extra batch of sweets, hoping my great-grandmother wouldn’t notice the missing sugar. These are the stories that I cherish now and share with my daughters and grandson. The stories that help them to know what it was like to grow up on a farm in the prairies at the turn of the century.

As I set the table for Thanksgiving dinner this year, I will smile as I remember those special times spent with my family and look forward to making new ones.

Yes, I would have to say that Grama’s potato bowl is one of my family’s most beloved dishes.