Catching Up: Pear Pie and More May 6, 2008

Well, the past week has been hectic, to say the least, but I have now moved back to Vancouver Island and am starting to recover and I’m thinking about finishing the unpacking of my car. This week will be really busy too, with a couple trips to Vancouver scheduled.  Just in case there is anyone out there who doesn’t know, my thesis has been successfully defended and has gone to the publisher/printers for binding.

So, pie project update: last weekend I made a pear and cinnamon pie for Ash and Kristin (and two year old Mason, who refers to me as “my ‘Annon”, which guarantees him presents and indulgence) to go with a bit of pouring custard. I tried to give Kristin some pointers on pie making but I’m not sure if any of it will be all that helpful since she refused to actually touch the dough.

My mum came out to Edmonton to drive back with me and keep me company. She wanted palm sugar to make a pad thai and since Victoria is a bit short on ethnic groceries, I said we should stop at Lucky 97 on the way out of town and get some, since I hadn’t managed to buy some before she came. Saturday morning I was fuming as we waited forever to get through some United Way run. This will sound hateful, I know, but I get so fed up with these marathons/charity runs/bicycle races. We have multiple ones in front of my parent’s house every summer here and it gets to be beyond aggravating, especially when they are not properly managed. It makes me want to go to those bicyclists/runners’ houses and run back and forth in front of their driveways and block their access to the roads, so they can see what it feels like.

Anyway, we struggle through that to get to Lucky 97, and when we get there my mum thinks it looks so scary and ‘off’ she won’t get out of the car to go in, and so we cruise through the parking lot and head up to the highway. I told you guys it takes some courage to shop there.

We had a good drive but had horrible food. Word to the wise to everyone, if you stay in Kamloops, don’t stay at “The Thompson” hotel and conference centre. Total rip off, and I don’t just mean the food. We did have some decent food in Hope, though, at a restaurant that is part of a mini-chain in places like Salmon Arm, called “Home Cooking” (if I remember correctly). It wasn’t the best–I could do better– but it was edible and the pie case was impressive. Here’s a picture from the front of the restaurant in Hope. The town has the most beautiful setting, but I don’t know how much of it you can appreciate from this picture. It’s one of a string of small towns as you drive over the Rockies from Alberta to BC on Highway 5, but to me it always marks the first moment when, coming from Alberta, I think “Ahhhh, I am back in beautiful BC!”

When I got home my mum had a bag of jelly babies on my bedside table ready for me. For you Americans, jelly babies are a soft chewy candy that are shaped to look like little babies and come in various colours. I’m putting in a picture so you can see what they look like. As I write this, it occurs to me that it might seem a little weird to be eating candies that look like babies. Maybe it’s one of those things you have to grow up eating to appreciate. Anyway, every time I eat one of these now I flash back to a Sunday at church several years ago. Since I became an aunt, I make it a policy to always have candy in my purse (it’s one of those little, thoughtful things that make me the favored aunt/uncle). One particular Sunday I was sitting with my three year old nephew Grant.

I hand him a green jelly baby. Now, if you are a typical child, you might bite the head off first with callous glee. Since I am abnormally sensitive, even as a child I would quickly pop the whole baby in my mouth so as not to maim it (weird, I know). Grant took the jelly baby, eviscerated its stomach, and went in for the soft centre, leaving the outer, harder shell til last. By the end of the Sunday service he had green sugar spread over his hands, over his face up to his hairline, and green sticky patches on his shirt. I still wonder how that tiny candy was able to spread in such a thin layer over such a distance, and yet get in his mouth as well. The moral of it was taken to heart, though, and I now have a non-sticky purse candy policy.

I’ve been reading though “660 Curries” and getting very hungry for Indian food. I am going to try and make idlis with a vegetable curry for lunch on Wednesday for me and my dad. Tomorrow I will try to make the sambhar masala, if I can locate all the ingredients.