Free the vegetables!

Lower east side Green market and me holding fresh local organic ginger while visions of dishes dance in my head!

I'm in NYC and I get excited each time I go to a local farmer's market and see the incredible produce, which is like a canvas of colours, textures and cooking and eating opportunities for me. As you can guess by now, vegetables are my friends, and I treat them with a lot of love and respect because I feel they are often misunderstood and mistreated. I sometimes feel I am the champion for them, perhaps I should start an organization, something like Free the Vegetables? There is a Vegetable Butcher at Eataly in NYC after all.

Pictures from the Green markets in NYC

 
Though, if I had to pick one vegetable that I love, and I have many, near the top would be kale.  Well, first of all I think it's very Canadian. Sorry for people not Canadian that are reading this, but hear me out and you will understand.

Kale from left to right: curly, dinosaur, Red Russian

Red Russian kale

Kale can be surprisingly bitter at times, though aren't we all at times in our lives?  But it is hearty, and you have to admire a vegetable that actually tastes sweeter after a frost. I'm not sure if I'm sweeter after a frost, but I certainly understand how to adapt and dress for it, unlike basil.

I love basil, but at the first sign of frost it is out of there with its bags packed for a sunnier, warmer destination. It might be the Club Med of herbs. It is highly attuned to the elements, especially cold, and most of us have had the experience of our basil plants dying a slow death inside, as did our visions of fresh basil in January, with its leaves dropping one by one. It longs for the hot sunny weather outside and it is not happy. It is not shy in hiding this fact.

There are many kinds of kale, two that I usually use, curly kale and dinosaur kale, called that because its spear-like leaves have a pebbled appearance that looks like the back of a dinosaur. Dinosaur kale goes by many other names like black kale, Tuscan and lacinato, but the kid in me always likes to refer to it as dinosaur or dino. Think of the first one as the stronger, bolder one and the other one as the softer, gentler one, both great but with two different personalities. I love both and use them  differently.

There is also Russian Red kale you see once in a while, and though it is pretty with its purple tones and flat oak-like leaves, I don't use it very often. First of all, it's harder to find, and though it's prettier in a way and all kale is from the cabbage family, the ones I've tried really remind me of cabbage and if I'm going to eat cabbage, I'd prefer to eat cabbage.

Now if you're like me and can't resist the deal at the farmers markets and buy too much kale or other greens here's some ways I love to use it.

- Step 1. When you get a kale home, first tear off a small piece and eat it slowly. Enjoy it but also observe what it tastes like. Is it bitter, does it have some sweetness, or is it a combination of both?

I feel this is an important part of cooking well. You need to really understand and appreciate the ingredients you are working with. Every time you use a vegetable like kale, it is different, and therefore, if you use the same recipe and it turns out differently, this is part of the reason why. If you understand what it tastes like, then before you start the recipe, you might not decide to use as much sweetness if it is sweet already or might want to add more sweetness if it is bitter. Or if it's delicious already, you may decide to use it raw and forget about cooking it.

It may sound complicated, but it's not really. It's all about using your senses and cooking from the heart vs. the mind, and being present in cooking. A recipe is just a point in time, a guide book, a map, and what makes something great is YOU.

- Step 2.  Ok, you now have this big pile of kale and don't make the mistake of keeping it in the plastic bag and cramming it into the fridge as I have done. These days, I'm trying to show more respect to the kale and at the same time allow more space in my fridge, which if like most, is probably over full.

Here's how. Take out the stems. Wash the leaves under cold water to clean and refresh. Greens love cold water. Spin or pat dry well with a towel. Chop into thin small pieces. Keep in a covered container. This won't take you so long to do, and you will have kale ready to go for the week for many purposes. And, if you have way too much kale or are going away before you can finish the container, then you can transfer the kale to a bag or container for the freezer.

- Step 3. Now, armed with a container of kale, here are my favourite uses:

- Salad. Toss it lightly with extra virgin olive oil, lemon or apple cider vinegar, a touch of maple syrup and a sprinkle of sea salt, Himalayan pink salt is my favourite. Now you mix it up with tongs or your hands. You can add what else you have on hand but not necessary. I often add goji berries or cranberries. Both kind of kale work well but I find you need less seasoning and mixing with the dino kind.

- Integrate raw kale with other things. Mix the raw kale into some finished grains, rice, salad or other dish for flavour, colour, and/or fun.  But please keep the kale thin and small and do this at the end, to preserve the nutrition, colour and integrity of the kale.

- Saute. Put a pan on high, add oil, add the kale, after a minute or so (the time will depend on the size of the kale pieces and the kind of kale), add the minced garlic and a touch of vinegar, say red wine or apple cider, put on a lid and let it steam for a minute or so, take off the lid, and then take the pan off of the heat. That is my perfect kale, fried and then steamed. Please only a few minutes or less, kale doesn't like to be over cooked, yuck! The curly kale works best for this, though if you use the second, it is only seconds vs. minutes. It may be tricky at first, but you'll get the hang of it if you pay attention.

- Soup, stews, sauces. Throw into a soup, stew, curry or tomato sauce, but please do it at the end, so it doesn't turn out all grey and mushy, thank you.

- Smoothie. Throw into your next smoothie. The amount you use depends on the amount of kale you want. I like my smoothie with about 1/4 kale to fruit like an apple, banana and berries, but it's a personal preference. You know, some times you can have too much of a good thing!

- Freeze. And then when you're making a soup, stew, curry, smoothie, grains or other creation, you can put some in. Again, near the end of the cooking cycle please as they don't need to cook, just warm up.

- Pesto. I also like to make raw kale into a pesto, using a food processor is best, with some extra virgin olive oil and then I freeze it. Some times I add to the kale other greens from basil to arugula. I make it plain, so I can add it to many things like a tomato sauce, and store it in small containers or bags in the freezer.

Oh kale, how do I love thee, let me count the ways! I could go on about other ways like baking, dehydrating, using it as a wrap, pasta filling and other uses, but I wanted to keep it simple and speak from my own experience and life. I used to do many things with it at the restaurant but I also had a team of kitchen staff to help me, a continuous supply of ingredients at my disposal, and the motivation of having enough food for service (believe me, a big stress factor because it's always a guessing game!), so that was a different modus operandi and this is me now.

Do you have other uses fellow kale lovers? I'd love to hear from you, as always, much love, Caroline

Invincible summer

 

I am excited and anxious when I get to the outdoor markets especially at this time of year. I love it, I know it won't last forever and I don't want it to end! 

 

Perhaps it's like a summer-like day in the fall. We know that winter is coming and are anxious about it, but for that one day, it is summer and we try to savour each moment. It's like eating an ice cream cone on a hot day. We can hardly eat it before it melts and when we inevitably leave drops on our clothing, we are a bit annoyed but it doesn't last long because we need to get back to eating ice cream after all and it's beautiful day.

What if we were to live our lives this way? I recently read a lovely book called The Untethered Soul and when it spoke about this, it touched me deeply. I started to remember the things I wished I had said to people before they died, the things I wished I had said or done to make me a more caring and compassionate person.

I have little regrets and I am a kind generous person but I wasn't always like this. I was too scared and let others take the blame when I should have spoken up or let someone suffer when I could have taken the time to help them. I see now that not speaking up is as strong as action as speaking up. And the most important person that suffered through all this was me, and not speaking up for me.

The more I have taken the direction toward my heart and the truth of who I am, and living in courage and happiness vs. fear and anxiety, I feel like I am reading a epic book and I can't wait to get to the end. But not really. I don't want the end to be the end.

Now that I am finally settling in to living from the heart and being true to who I am, I feel like I am truly living and that life is so short. I realize that I can never be certain when I will take my last breath or it when it will be the last breath of someone I love. Why has it taken me so long to figure this out and not take this for granted?!

I meet young people that know how to live from the heart and truth at an early age and I am envious as it's taken me this long to figure out and I am still learning. But at the same time, I know that life will happen to them as it did for me - happiness and celebrations, bumps and bruises, and tragedies and sorrow - all tied up in a package we call life. Will they change as they grow older?

I feel like it's like a test for us. Can we grow to accept our imperfections that make us human or do we criticize them and compare ourselves to others, being our worst critics? Can we accept the deep challenges that inevitably touch us as part of living?

It's easy to "like" lovely verses that people post on Facebook on how to be a better person and how to make the world a better place. But to live them, fucking hard! Sorry, but sometimes, no other word seems to fit, and that is the truth of the matter.

If I had a magic wand, I wish we could all wake up and create the changes we want. I believe the world is waiting for us to do this. It's like we are in a deep sleep and want to stay in bed, snuggling in our warm duvets on a cold and blistery day like I love to do.

But what if we were to wake up, step out the door, putting on our clothes first or course, and realize that the day would bring us more warmth than we could ever imagine. In friendships, families however dysfunctional they may be, in connections new and old, in compassion for our fellow human beings, and deep gratitude for the precious life we have been given. What if?

I don't have the answers, but I find in asking the questions, I am getting more clarity breath by breath.

I love the Albert Camus quote:

"In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

  



I am home

Floating at one of my favourite places at home... Meech Lake

I am home. Most recently from cooking on a small island north of Campbell River, BC called Cortes. I am back to Ottawa where I have been residing for a long time and where my possessions stay when I go off traveling.

In my travels over the past few years… visiting friends and relatives, couch surfing, house sitting, dog watching, cat chasing, and chef in residence stints at friends places where I cook for a place to stay… I have wondered where home really is.

I always thought it was a physical bricks and mortar location. I thought I was happy when I went from apartment to bigger apartment to home owner. However, there was always something bugging me about this as I wasn’t truly happier. In fact, I felt there were more stresses and pressures, of paying more rent or a big mortgage, of fixing the endless things that seem to go wrong or you want to ignore because it will involve more cash outlay.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my places and would spend lots of time agonizing over how to place things, what colour to paint the walls, finding the right accents, and going to Ikea to get the right storage device so I could make my places seem lighter and more open like in the catalogues. Looking back, it was a bit stressful to own so much, always wanting more, and finding ways to make more room for the things I did have.

When I decided to leave everything behind over two and half years ago... my home, my relationship, the restaurant, my career… it was a big decision but it didn’t seem as much as the right thing to do.  I think most of the anxiety came in making the decision to do it, as is usually the case.

Everything became clear after my father's death. As would happen several times in my life, I was given the opportunity to wake up and start truly living my life, instead of listening to society's expectations of what I should be or giving into my fears.

With my dad's death, my heart broke and the sharp pain from the loss and grief was overwhelming at times. It felt like an open would, incredibly raw and tender, and I wanted to put a band aid over quickly it so others could not see it, including myself. But something inside me, told me to let it be exposed to the elements to heal, to breathe deeply, and I listened through the tears. And in doing so, breath by breath, I began to hear the quiet voices of the heart who kept on saying  “come home” but I didn’t really understand what that meant.

Before my dad’s death, I wanted to live a more honest life and my word was "truth". In recent years, I've had words for periods of my life, as kind of a directional sign. I don’t like to lie, well I am prone to the little white lies like telling a friend that she looks great and everything will be ok when she looks horrible and you're really not sure what will happen.

Over time, I realized that I was a big liar! I was telling myself lies all the times!

I was lying about my life, who I was and what I could do. I loved parts of my life, but other parts not, and this was confusing and hard for me to come to terms with. My body started showing me the affects of this inner turmoil as it always does as the body does not lie.  I want some sort of truth serum to set me free, release me from this life of lies.  

I wanted to be happier, I needed to take care of myself, and I had to free my spirit, constricted by a demanding work life and relationship that was not working. I desperately wanted to hang on to the dream I had when I started the pop-up dinners and restaurant and craddle the baby that I created for me and the community. I felt there were no other choice but to be in relationship that was clearly beyond it’s best before date.

When I came back from Toronto after my dad's death, I did the thing that I most feared. I let go of my tight grip around these things that were depleting my energy levels and were not good for me anymore. And in doing so, I thought I would fall hard. I needed to let go of what I was so I could move forward into what I could become. Right, easier said then done! How does a caterpillar know when it's time to shed it's casing and become a butterfly? If it happens naturally, why can't we do the same when something or someone is no longer serving us? Perhaps we do have the same forces of nature and clues telling us to do something, but we choose to ignore them?

I started taking care of myself, loving myself and listening to my heart. It was hard work at first. I was resistant because I didn't truly love myself and therefore felt I didn’t deserve the nourishing things I was giving it. It was like a baby rejecting the milk of its own mother. 

I am back home to Ottawa, but the greatest lesson I learned in all my wanderings and travels to date, is that home is where you are. I have been running away from home since I was a teenager and found safety then in that, and continued to repeat that pattern, thinking there could be danger in transitions as was the case when I was a teenager.

Only recently have I begun to understand how important transitions are to our growth and development, the spaces or pauses between things that seem solid and certain. In yoga, we are taught it's not only the asanas or poses that matter, but how we transition (thanks Phil!) and move with assurance and grace from one asana to another.

I have come home and am never leaving home wherever I may travel.  hOMe.

 

 

 

Roots

my dad George

One of the reasons I was attracted to go to Cortes Island, BC is because I have roots in the area. Many people on the island would ask me where I was from and I would say "Ontario but my roots are here", and they would give me a puzzled look.

I would explain that my grandfather bought an island in the early 1900s in the Desolation Sound area. It was one of the three Rendezvous islands. He chose the northern one and bought 250 acres for $3000. It is north of Cortes island and only 40 minutes by boat. After my grandfather bought the island, he sent for a picture-bride from Japan, and raised a family on there, including my father George.

My grandfather didn't know that WWII would break out and a government boat would come one day to say that Canada was at war with Japan and they were the enemy. They had one hour to pack their belongings and were taken away to holding stations in Hastings Park in Vancouver and later were moved to an internment camp in the interior. He was told that he would return one day to the island, but he was not allowed to after the war ended and they were released from the camp. Instead, he was given two choices, to go to Japan or go further inland. He chose Japan, believing that Canada did not want him, and returned to the village he was from with his family in tow. He hadn't realized that the village was destroyed during the war and there was nothing for him and his family there. My aunt Helen had married in the camp, and did not return with the family. She eventually ended up in Toronto and worked very hard to save every penny to bring back one family member at a time. That is how my father ended up in Toronto.

George and Suyeko

My mother Suyeko, or Suzie as she was known, has roots in BC too. She was born in Vancouver but her parents died when she was a young girl, and the children were sent to different homes to be taken care of. Suzie was the youngest of five and it was decided that she would be sent to the Japanese back country, or "inaka" as she used to say, to be taken care of by relatives. After the war, my uncle Yosh in Toronto found her and paid for her way back to Canada to be reunited with him and the rest of her siblings.  In her twenties now, she made her way back alone by steam ship to a country where she was born but was forced to leave. George meets Suyeko, and thus I was born in Toronto. 

I have always been pulled to go the west to explore and perhaps stay one day, but I didn't know when or how. This is one of the reasons I jumped at the chance to go to Cortes Island and work at Hollyhock. It would bring me closer to my roots and ancestors, and I have always longed in my heart for this, perhaps it is part of growing older and yearning to know your past.

I took the water taxi back to Cortes from Campbell River recently, and the owner-driver Regent said he remembered driving my relatives to the northern Rendez-vous island some 15 years ago. I told Regent I wasn't on that trip because the elders in the family, my father and aunt Helen, didn't want to go, and thus I decided not to go too, thinking that I could encourage my dad to return with me one day. I didn't want to go without him. My dad and aunt have now passed on and I could never encourage them to go with me. The youngest siblings, my aunt Joy and uncle Arthur, and their children went and reported back. They said that the resort that had been built there welcomed them and they explored the land with my aunt and uncle, who were young kids when they left and had fond memories of their time there.

With the visit of the Ishii clan to the island, some locals asked the government to change the name of the tip/cove where they settled to "Ishii" in honour of my grandparents. Regent said it had been changed on the newer maps. He said that the people who owned the resort then, sold it, and moved on and the land is divided up more.


He pointed to the map where the island was and then pointed in the direction of some mountainous areas in the distant. "That's the island over there," he said. I felt excited to be in the area that my grandfather had fallen in love with and to know that he had travelled and fished in these waters with my father George and his brothers, there were three and one that died and is buried on the island. The girls, there were two, stayed at home, helping their mom with the farmland and preparing lots of food to store in the cellar for the winter.

It's not as easy as I had originally thought to go to northern Rendez-vous island, although it's only forty minutes by boat from Cortes Island. But again, I found in being on the island and not from the island, many things were challenging. You either have to pay quite a bit to charter a boat or know someone with a boat. In a comforting way, I felt the presence of my ancestors and my roots, and that was enough for now.

The northern Rendez-vous island is in the distance to the left

When my relatives visited northern Rendez-vous island, the locals said there was a strange weed growing all over the island and they couldn't get rid of it. My aunt Tomo told them that it wasn't a weed but a Japanese vegetable called "fuki" and gave them instructions on how to cook it. My grandfather and grandmother had orchards and farmland so they could be self-sufficient, and this must have been one of the vegetables that they grew to give them a "taste" of Japan.

We leave roots in many ways when we leave a place that we love, and sometimes it's of the physical you can eat kind. It makes sense that my family who loved to cook, eat, and most of all share food, left something behind for others to eat. However, it would take some 60 years for others to discover it.

Fuki

Food evolution

More photos of the dishes I created in the kitchen at Hollyhock centre on Cortes Island, BC and the beautiful English-inspired garden. Food is served buffet-style, often for 100 or more guests, with a short period to prepare and serve guests, often with a small kitchen team of varying skills. To keep the beauty and essence of the dish throughout service remains a challenge, but the taste, nourishment and love remains relatively the same.

Everything is changing all the time, you, me, the garden, the world, so why not a dish, evolving with each person that eats it? And instead of fighting it, of thinking my food would be more beautiful if plated, taste better only if I had a certain ingredient I can't get, and wishing I had more time and staff, I try to control the only thing I can, the present moment, breathe into it, and let go. Yoga practice has helped me a lot in cooking and in life. I learn every day from my cooking, and it's often not about the food. Food for thought.