The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
Cigarette advertising laws in Canada are just nuts. You can’t legally show any brand information beyond the brand name (in a standard typeface) and the packs are covered in YOU_WILL_DIE messages. It’s even on the cigarette filters. Every time I see shit like this, I think of Dennis Leary’s old comedy routine “I love to smoke”…
1 tbsp unsalted butter
500ml heavy/35% cream
500ml maple syrup
100h granulated sugar
2 tbsp light corn syrup
Flaky salt (optional)
Coat an 8×8-inch baking pan with 1 tablespoon unsalted butter and line the buttered pan with a parchment paper sling that hangs over two sides of the pan by 2 inches.
Place all ingredients (except salt) in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan and stir to combine. Attach a candy thermometer to the side of the pan.
Cook without stirring over medium-high heat until the mixture reaches 110C or the soft ball stage, 30 to 35 minutes.
Immediately remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool to 55C (do not stir), 25 to 35 minutes. Once cooled, remove the thermometer and stir with a wooden spoon just until the syrup loses its shine, thickens, and lightens in color, about 10 minutes.
Transfer the fudge mixture to the parchment-lined pan. Do not scrape the sides of the pan clean. Spread into an even layer, sprinkle with flaky salt, if desired, and cool to room temperature, 3 to 4 hours. Cut into 25 squares
Sauce
310 ml heavy/35% cream
250 ml maple syrup
55 g brown sugar
Cake
115 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
85 g sugar
60 ml canola oil
2.5 ml vanilla
1 egg
90 ml milk
Sauce
With the rack in the middle position, preheat the oven to 350°F/180°Cm
In a small pot, bring all of the ingredients to a boil while whisking. Simmer over medium heat for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Cake
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt.
In another bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, vanilla and egg with an electric mixer. With the machine running on low speed, add the dry ingredients alternating with the milk. Spread the batter out in an 8-inch (20 cm) square pan. Delicately pour the sauce over the cake.
Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack.
Ben and I spent two and a half weeks in Canada. This was a trip that had been planned to within an inch of its life, but of course real life interfered and none of the planned minutia survived, even though we did managed to do most of what we wanted to do, if not in the “right” order, or for the full amount of time.
Even before we left, a (stupid, pointless) discussion over a North Face duffel bag started, and didn’t really ease up for the whole two weeks we were there – hence the “stressed” picture from my watch. Flights there and back were in premium economy, which was very nice because of the extra leg room and the smaller cabins. Ben enjoyed the food, I didn’t want to risk it. I did enjoy the wine though.
We spent the first couple of days at Nat’s place, which was really nice. Her cat is a cuddlebug. Those first couple of days were taken up by shopping (of course) and trying to keep Ben from eating out at every possible meal, succeeding at various degree.
We’d gotten tickets for the new Cirque du Soleil show, which garnered mixed reviews. Gab, who was supposed to come with us, bailed at the last minute so one of Nat’s friends that had toured with her in the Allegria days met us at the old port. The new show has potential, but it was clearly the least polished show I’d ever seen. The giant marionette was cool. The juggler was good. The ladies who were connected by their hair and/or mouths were insane. The slackline number was annoying because the view was blocked most of the time by the rotating box. There was one number that just sucked. The acrobats in the final were not synchronized and all over the place. The 1st half was clearly stronger than the 2nd half, and the show needs more polishing. Still, it has potential, and I’d be curious to see it in an year.
We went to my parents’ place for the weekend/following week. We had a large family party for 3 of my cousins who were turning 50 this year and had organized a large family gathering. Turns out we were about 80 people. 30 adults and 50 kids/teens. It was really nice to be there. I saw family members I probably hadn’t seen in over 20+ years. I realized that this is something that Ben is never really going to appreciate. My mom is one of 9 kids, each of whom had at least 2 kids, and now those kids are having their own. Most of the people under 15 years old, I hadn’t seen in… I don’t remember when. But it’s still family and they’re still my peeps, if only very occasionally and from afar. It was really nice to reconnect, if only for a little while. Ben did really well to come and participate, I know it’s not something he’s comfortable doing.
The rest of our time at my parents’, he tried to go shopping and I tried to do things that didn’t involve spending stupid amounts of money on stuff he doesn’t need. We tried to go to the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa. I enjoyed it, if at an accelerated pace. We went to the Canadian Museum of History, which was really fun because it had a temporary exhibit of all the TV shows I grew up watching, but this was completely lost on the boy. In both cases though, the visits were cut short because Ben lost interest and/or got tired, then got really pushy to leave. I’m a bit annoyed that he spent most of the time that we were at my parents’ place in the basement, on his laptop, working on whatever the latest obsession was. Now, to be fair, I spent most of that time upstairs at the kitchen table because it was just too bloody hot out and there were too many buzzies around outside, but at least I could chat and play cards with my folks. Ben was constantly calling me downstairs for “private chats” (about current obsession) or to stay downstairs and spend time with him.
Nat drove us back to Montreal, and she’d taken some days off work to spend the last little time we were there with us. We went to tbe biodome, which was renovated but not in a good way, really, and to the planetarium, which was good, even if Ben fell asleep during the projections. I tried to get him to do things beyond shopping, like going to see a movie, going to see the light and music show at the Basilique, doing à river cruise. None of it really got him interested enough.
I wanted to meet up with some friends again, but that didn’t happen – and to be honest I didn’t expect it to be possible, given Ben’s moods. All in all, this holiday went pretty much as I’d planned, even if it still surprised me with all of Ben’s constant demands about bags, eSIMs, shoes, clothing, airpods, moving to new apartments, bringing one of my parents’ kittens back to Switzerland, getting one (or two) new Siberian cats and getting pissy when the breeders didn’t respond immediately to his emails, reorganizing his room to setup a cat corner (for a cat we don’t even have yet), sushi, etc etc etc. I think my parents really got to experience the real Ben, full on, for the 1st time. It was relentless, and constant, and intense, but such is our life.
I slept for shite the last 2 nights at Nat, because Ben and I were sharing a room and for some ungodly reason, he kept waking me up in the middle of the night, while dreaming, asking stupid questions then going back to sleep while I spend the next few hours trying to get back to sleep, and failing miserably. (dad!dad!dad! is it normal the room doesn’t smell like you? zzzzzzzz). I’d end up getting up at 6-7am, having coffee, feeding the cat, and doing Nat’s dishes…
Anyway, I really enjoyed spending time with Nat, cooking, drinking (!), eating and talking. I know she appreciated me cooking for her and doing her dishes, and putting up the frames that had been lying on the ground for the past several months :)
The trip back was fine, and now I just need to get over my jetlag, as well as Ben’s, before going back to work next week.
Getting there & back / Random moments
Cirque du Soleil
National Gallery
Museum of History
Family party
Biodome/Planetarium
I’m back in the land of cheese and chocolate. I was in Canada for the last 2 weeks – a “workation” – as I needed to work remotely while trying to relax and visit with family and friends. The work part got done. The visiting part was mostly done, but the relaxing part was… less successful. There’s a lot of anxiety around my dad’s health concern, and there was some family drama on both sides of the ocean, which meant that there was a lot of things to still juggle. I’m happy I went and saw my family – I needed that – and I managed to do/see some of the things I had planned, but not all of them and the return home was brutal.
Met up with the boys tonight. Some of them still kept in touch with each other, some not as much, but all made the effort to come by and spend an evening together when they knew I was in town. Some of them I’d not seen in close to 12-15 years. I’m honestly, truly, deeply touched. These were my guys, my tribe, my friends when I was living in Montreal and tonight, it felt at times like I never left. We retold the old stories of our most stupid times together and we just laughed at and with each other. I’ll cherish this night for a long time.
It took me a while, but I finally made it to Montréal.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has released their very own stock photo library packed full of hilarious images of Canadian stereotypes. Hockey, maple syrup, poutine, moose, they’re all there and they’re totally free to use as long as you give proper credit.
The point of the stock photo library, explains the CIRA, is to enable people to “add a little Canada to your website,” with some “maple syrup-infused visual masterpieces.”
I must incorporate one (or more) of these into my next deck for work.
Image credits: All photos by CIRA/.CA.
I’m Canadian. This means that I have a fondness for poutine. It goes with the territory. Unfortunately, getting cheddar cheese curd outside of western Canada has, in the 15 years I’ve lived overseas, proven impossible.
Until now.
I recently came across this little gem of a news article:
Walter Grob, the current owner of the Engelberg cheese dairy, moved from Unterland to Engelberg. After years of hiking in Switzerland and Canada, the young man from eastern Swiss took over the business in 2015 at the age of 24. He produces traditional products in outstanding quality – but always tinkers with something new. Thanks to his innovative strength, he has already launched several new products, such as the Cheddar, and won prizes at the Swiss Cheese Award.
From there, auntie Google provided this information:
Walter Grob
Klosterhof 1, CH-6390 Engelberg
Telefon: +41 (0)41 638 08 88
info@schaukaeserei-engelberg.ch
So I reached out by email.
But got no answer.
Then I reached out by phone.
And got in touch directly with the man himself. And found out that the email reply was written but never actually sent, and since they make cheddar 3 or 4 times a month, I could have as many curds as I wanted. He’s been trying to get the product in stores, but with little success.
But I will get 2kg of freshly made cheddar cheese curds by post next week.
This makes me stupidly happy.
