Kale Salad

A year or so ago my massage therapist told me about a kale salad she had read about. It didn't really have a recipe, just a guideline, but I tried it and it has become our go-to salad ever since. I get asked about the salad fairly often as we serve it all the time and just today wrote a fairly long explanation to a young friend in Toronto. Since kale is so highly recommended I figured I'd share what I know about this way to serve it. Its'a long- winded story:

As there is no measureable recipe you have to wing it a bit. I only ever used store-bought kale until this year when I decided to try growing it. This cool spring in Victoria has been perfect for kale and we've had a great crop (Photo at left. The copper strips are to keep the slugs at bay). If you are buying it organic is probably safest. So, buy a bunch of kale, it doesn't matter what colour. If it looks a bit tired/limp, just cut the stem ends off and stick the bunch in some water. I've seen some really wilted looking stuff recover beautifully. I would probably say, not scientifically proven, that when it is extremely hydrated it is very firm and crunchy so you don't want to overdo the water trick. When you are washing it check along the stems for mud. If the leaves are really big I remove some of the stem because it can be pretty woody, otherwise I scrunch the leaves up and chop them quite finely. The unknown part is how much (good) olive oil to use. I just kind of slop some on and then toss it around to see if it was enough. You want a generous coating without dripping or puddling in the bowl. I've had to drain it sometimes when I've been over enthusiastic. After you've chopped and oiled the kale, throw in a generous amount of salt (my favourite is a tarrogon flavoured sea salt), again it's trial and error, a small handful of dried cranberries, and likewise of pine nuts (cost the earth but add a very distincive taste). Sometimes I throw in raw zuchinni but tomatoes or any acidic thing (lemon or vinagraitte) just doesn't seem to work well. It has to sit for 20-30 minutes to soften the kale and is still fit to eat the next day so don't throw out the leftovers. Sorry for the long winded explanation but it's tasty if you get it right and not so good if you don't. And it's dead easy once you get the hang of it. If you like the salad you can thank Ariane for initiating this post.

Some of our exotics!

Black Lace Elderberry - will we ever see elderberry wine?

Jim's doorway to heaven,

a white astilbe, red maltese Cross, and a yellow phygelius.

Rose season

 Who knew that we would become gardeners! Sure we used to scrabble a few perrenials and had a couple of flowering shrubs and acres of lawn, the typical and relatively easy to maintain east coast garden, but living in Victoria we got bitten by the exotic bug. Instead of a zone 5 we find ourselves in a zone 9-almost-10 and haven't been able to restrain ourselves from the smorgasbord of the local nurseries. Our garden is eclectic to say the least. Right now we have the first riotous and exuberant bloom of the roses, possibly Jim's favourite flower; he's in charge of aphids which I find really repulsive like alien parasites. The big standard rose, last photo, used to have a double graft, dark purple and yellow. Over the years, and it's only about 5 years old, the yellow graft got really robust and the purple has virtually disappeared. We haven't had a lot of success with deep purple roses actually, which tend to be very aromatic but not very strong. Of course, it could be that they need more attention than the benign neglect they receive from us.

The white rose has so many frills you wouldn't believe it. It starts out looking quite normal as you can see by the bud, and then it goes nuts like a high school prom dress. Some favourites are still in the thinking about it stage but these were too beautiful not to share.

Mayor of Broadmead

 That would be Jim, of course. A few years back we were losing our view to some developer-planted pine trees across the street. Every house in our area, Broadmead, comes with a covenant, one of them being that residents are entitled to retain or regain their views. It took about a year but Jim was successful in having about 50 pine trees removed and replaced with a hedge that works better for us and the residents across the street. Having tested the convenants and the organization that oversees them, BARA (Broadmead Area Residents' Association), Jim figured he better contribute by volnteering on the Board, and it didn't take long before he found himself President. You know he had to have a party, being the social animal he is, so he got a committee together to host an informal community event, which was today. Sulo Saravana-Bawan chaired the committee and I swear she knows everyone in the city and has a knack for getting people to donate anything and everything. There was free food and lots of prizes, fire trucks, police, school bands, kids games, a hike and bike theme and more. And a pretty good turnout for a first effort. Of course this is Victoria and there are at least of 50,000 events on every single weekend, so the competition is fierce and oh yes, it's Father's Day and FIFA is on TV.

Mark & Melynda got in the act, Mark donating hotdogs & smokies and people and both of them on site to wave the flag for Dad as well as the Swiftsure Restaurant where Mark is Head Chef. They'll both kill me for this photo; they had their chests stuck out showing off the sponsor names and both wearing cheezy grins.

It was a fun day and a great idea, and I expect Jim and Sulo are going to sleep much better tonight than they did last night.
Three cheers for volunteers and people who put themselves out for others.

lesser wildlife

Back in Victoria and avoiding weeding by blogging…

Looking at my last post, it needs a bit of fleshing out and clarification. First off, “the lower mainland” really means greater Vancouver and covers a tiny fraction of the southwest corner of British Columbia. Victoria, on Vancouver Island, is the provincial capital and thinks itself pretty special, and the phrase may have begun as a bit of nose-thumbing at those uppity Vancouverites. It’s a theory! Vancouver is internationally famous for its city planning – it’s called Vancouverism. The philosophy goes along the lines of making it as difficult as possible to get from A to B in the faint hope that travellers will use some other means of transport than their cars. That isn’t actually the philosophy but is the way it appears to those of us who just want to get across and out of town.Second, I should have mentioned the guide company we used in the Fairmont area, BC Rockies Adventures, in case you are ever in the area: great people and very knowledgeable about the area
I'm still waiting to see an adult male Big Horn Sheep, so far only young bucks moulting

.

There are a lot of hot pools in BC and in the East Kootenays in particular. Some are natural like Lussier and some like Fairmont and Radium (about 50kms up the road and a National Park) look like overgrown swimming pools.

Waiting for Jim to get out of the pool, his appetite for it being much larger than mine.

It got a bit chilly toward the end of our stay so we decamped a day early (our ‘camp’ was a fully equipped one bedroom suite with swimming pools, golf course, and tennis courts attached) to
Kelowna to drink some wine and break up the drive which would have been 11-12 hours from Fairmont to the ferry.
Our friend, Hotwire, came up with a great deal at the Holiday Inn Express in Kelowna which turned out to be a really nice place to stay and included a full breakfast. We’ve had good luck with both Hotwire and Priceline for hotels & car rentals. We had dinner at Quail’s Gate, (don’t show up without a reservation and do expect it to be pricey!) and of course bought some wine while there.

 








The patio at Quail's Gate on a damp June day and my painted version of a windy August evening.

As always when we’ve been driving in the hinterland of BC it is a shock to get back into the traffic of “the lower Mainland”. The vast majority of the provincial population lives within a 60 kilometre circle. But we only had to wait an hour for a ferry which was a bonus.

And this morning, sitting on its favourite perch outside our kitchen window, we were greeted by our resident red-tailed hawk.

BC Safari

You know by now that we love taking road trips in BC with its endless change in terrain and virtually empty spaces. Let me add a caveat to the “we love taking road trips in BC” statement: I hate ferries and getting from Tsawwassen to anywhere means crossing the lower mainland’s sorry excuse for a highway system. So I start out crabby because it takes 6 hours, give or take, to travel about 200 kms, which you have to agree is ridiculous and highly annoying. And we end our trips with the same irritation – just had to get that off my mind so you know it isn’t all perfect.

We were supposed to go to Las Vegas, back in March; you may remember that change of plan… We ended up with two one week time-share credits to use and since we aren’t loving airports just now looked for a something within driving range, (this barely qualifies as we are almost 1000 kms east of Vancouver. It is a BIG province) and here we are. Here is the East Kootenays at Fairmont Hot Springs, pretty close to the Alberta border between the Purcell and Rocky mountain ranges. We aren’t even in the Pacific Time zone which caused a bit of consternation as our GPS had us arriving much later than what appeared reasonable. It (she) was giving our eta in local time, not our time, which we eventually figured out. And on the topic, apparently whoever entered the coordinates for the Fairmont resort slipped a cog and if you aren’t a bit sceptical of your GPS you might end up 25kms down the wrong road. We are sceptical so were fine but I bet a lot of people arrive highly ticked off!

our view at dusk about 9:30pm

The weather so far is perfect, we always have good weather or have very rosy glasses – not sure which. We are pretty positive about whatever is thrown at us so maybe we just don’t notice if it rains. I do remember Barb (cousin) and Jim rebelling against my plan-for-the-day in Yorkshire a couple of years ago, just as some dreadful flooding rains were getting underway.

I’m finally getting to the safari part…

Yesterday we went on a guided hike to the top of the local hoodoos, very different from the Drumheller hoodoos, and then explored Invermere in the afternoon which is a charming small town.

Today we took ourselves off the Lussier hot springs about 45 minutes south of here. It’s a natural riverside spring and mighty darned hot!

On the way back down the narrow, twisty, gravel road, (did I say we drive a Subaru so don’t worry about rugged roads?) we saw 3, count ‘em 3, cougars (also known as puma, mountain lion or panther). I don’ t know anyone else who has actually seen a cougar in the wild, maybe you all have, and we saw three, presumably a mother and 2 young adult offspring. Two raced across the road, right in front of us: one had lost most of its tail but didn’t seem to be having a balance problem as it flew by. I saw the third which we had cut off from the others and somehow Jim got his camera out and managed to catch a photo as it tore after its companions or you might justifiably think I was making this story up. What a moment - possibly even more exciting than the fabulous animals in Africa last year because it was so unexpected.

Not an anticlimax by any means, but without the thrill factor, we stopped at the head of the Columbia River which certainly doesn’t live up to “Mighty Columbia” here but it was an interesting walk. It pretty much bubbles up from somewhere into a wetland area and then trundles off to the Pacific, gathering speed and volume as it goes and providing hydro-electricity to millions of people.

And that’s today’s report!