Beautiful Garlic

I've been growing garlic in my garden for about three years. This year was a particularly lovely harvest.

Years ago, when I started my little backyard vegetable garden, it never occurred to me that I could grow my own garlic. And then, a few years ago, I tried. As with many garden endeavours, experience teaches lessons. When I first planted garlic cloves, I didn't know that you harvested the garlic bulbs in late summer. I watched their stalks and leaves die and thought: "Well, that didn't work!" The next spring I was telling my best friend how I hadn't had success with garlic and she said that I was supposed to harvest the garlic bulbs in late summer just as the leaves started to wilt. I got off the phone with her and went out to my garden. In the raised bed where I'd planted the garlic the previous summer, there were tiny green shoots. The garlic was still there and it was alive! Had it listened to our phone conversation? I let it grow that whole second season and then harvested it in August.

Since then, I've followed my friend's advice and have planted my cloves in the fall and harvested the bulbs in late August or early September. I cut the curly garlic scapes in the early summer and make a wonderful pesto recipe I found online a few years ago. Then I wait for the leaves to partially wilt a few weeks later and dig up the bulbs. We love to cook with garlic in our household so it's a real treat to have our very own.

This year, I grew Marbled Purple Stripe garlic and it is beautiful! So beautiful that it inspired a new painting! I can report that garlic bulbs are very cooperative models. They sit very patiently and don't wilt and wither like so many of my other painting subjects. They give you the time you need to admire and paint them.

Here's a photo of my painting in progress.

And here's the finished painting.

Within minutes of posting a photo of the finished painting on Instagram last week, I received an email from a friend who has been purchasing my art for years. She had a touching request. She wanted to buy a few prints of the garlic painting for a family she knows. Garlic has a very special meaning for them. Their father, who passed away recently, used to tell his sons that a garlic bulb is like a family: while the cloves exist as individuals, they are grown together and belong to the whole. Isn't that lovely? I will always think of that now.

I'm happy to let you know that my garlic painting is available as both a print and note cards in my shop. Here's what they look like.

When I chose to paint the garlic, I was mostly thinking of how pretty it was. I thought that the painting might interest someone who loved cooking, gardening or eating! It didn't occur to me that garlic would be of symbolic value to someone. People frequently tell me of the special associations, often from childhood, that flowers hold for them. Now I know that exists for garlic too. 💕

🌿 🌿 🌿 🌿 🌿

* 🌱 Gardener's note: I purchased my garlic bulbs by mail from Veseys Seeds in PEI.

* 🍲 Cook's note:  I mentioned a great garlic scape pesto recipe. Garlic scapes have a pungent flavour. I like to freeze this pesto flat in ziplock bags. Then I break off a chunk when I'm cooking a soup, sauce or stew during the winter. I also like to defrost a bit and spread it on pizza crust before adding the other toppings. Delicious!

“There are five elements: earth, air, fire, water and garlic.” 
Louis Diat - chef and culinary writer (1885-1958)

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Saying Goodbye from a Distance

This past week, my parents moved from their lakeside home on the shores of Lake Muskoka, a special place that has been part of our family for about thirty-five years. They purchased the cottage when I was in my early twenties. In those days, I worked and lived in Toronto so I would often go there on weekends and during my summer holidays.

When my parents retired, they rebuilt the cottage into a beautiful four-season residence and moved into it on a permanent basis. Although it had changed completely from its simple beginning and use, we continued to refer to it as 'the cottage' in our family. I moved to Montreal when I was in my early thirties. The eight-hour drive from Montreal to Gravenhurst meant that visits were much less frequent but the cottage continued to be part of each summer. Emma and Chloé, now 20 and almost 16, got to know it from when they were babies.

I had really hoped to go and help my parents with their move and to say goodbye to the cottage but, by the time Chloé's final school exams were over and we could have travelled there, it was too late to be of help.

If you are on Instagram and Facebook and noticed a reduced presence on my part in the past couple of weeks, it was because I was barely looking at my feed. Every time I saw a photo posted by a family member from the cottage, I would start to cry. So I stopped looking. I'm sorry if I missed other things.

As one friend noted, not being there means that my memories of the cottage will not be of its packed-up, empty state but the way it was over the years. Among the layers of things I will remember will be swimming out to a big submerged rock with my younger sister, Karen where we could stand and dive--'our rock' we called it. I'll remember laying on the dock on my stomach with Emma and Chloé when they were little, catching minnows in a fish net, observing them and then putting them right back in the lake. I'll remember the camaraderie and group nuttiness of the cousins--Emma, Chloé, Duncan, Mac, Katie, Erica and Sydney. I'll remember the beautiful sunrises and the late-night stars. Falling asleep to the lapping sound of the lake and the occasional haunting call of a loon. Reading books sitting in the big Muskoka chairs on the dock with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.  The boat rides to get ice cream and long walks with the family dogs. I'll remember the gatherings, the chats and the laughter.

The cottage and its gentle natural surroundings have also figured frequently in my art over the past thirty-five years. I have painted many Muskoka scenes, some in oil and then, in recent years, in watercolour.

I spoke to my parents yesterday. They are in their new home in town, a place that is more suited to them now. They said that the family who bought the cottage seems to really love it so it is in good hands. I have managed to write this blog post without crying so that's progress. We will be visiting my mom and dad's new place sometime soon. As for the cottage memories, they will always be ours.

The Christmas Tree

Our annual trek to a tree farm near Sorel, Quebec about an hour from where we live.

My husband and my youngest daughter Chloé on their way. An excited Meeko in the lead.

A gorgeous but very cold day. -13C (12F)

Me and Meeko (photo by Emma)

Beautiful milkweed.

Chloé makes a valiant plea for the Charlie Brown tree.

Meeko with Emma (photo by Emma)

The one! We walked through three fields of the plantation to find it.

Sisters. 

Best to sit for long jobs.

When is this tree-cutting part over?

Crazy how early the sun starts dipping in the sky this time of year.

Last view of the tree farm as we drive away. See you next year!

Peace and Joy

December always seems to go by at high speed. There is so much effort expended preparing for one day. I meant to post more often but 'whoosh', the month flew by.

We have tried to keep things simpler this year. We put out less decorations. (The photo shows a simple but beautiful candle arrangement Chloé made for our table, with our tree in the background.) We bought less things although the pile of gifts under the tree still seemed monumental. We have shifted our traditions over the years as our family changes. We still eat tourtière on Christmas Eve to honour my husband's Quebec traditions although I now make both traditional meat and vegetarian tourtière as Emma is a vegetarian.

In honour of my anglophone traditions, we open our gifts on Christmas morning. In Quebec, it is more common to open gifts just after midnight on Christmas Eve.

We used to have a turkey dinner on Christmas Day which is what I always ate growing up. But cooking a turkey for a family of four, actually three since Emma doesn't eat it, made less and less sense.

The past couple of years, we have eaten 'raclette', a traditional Swiss meal. No Swiss heritage here but it works for us. We put out plates of potatoes, cheese, vegetables (this year--green beans, asparagus and cauliflower), pickles, cured meats and marinated tofu.  We sit around our round kitchen table right beside our Christmas tree. We light a fire in our fireplace. Each person chooses and cooks exactly what they want on a small communal raclette grill. We cook, we eat, we chat. It is perfect.

I hope you are enjoying your holidays whatever your traditions.  May you find pockets of peace and joy in all of the bustle. I won't be posting again until the New Year so I will take this moment to thank you for your friendship and to wish you all a beautiful new year!

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I am having a Boxing Day Sale in my Etsy Shop. I am offering 20% off all purchases (prints, cards and original paintings) when you use the coupon code BOXINGDAY. It is effective now until midnight on December 29th. All orders will be mailed during the first week of January.

Fog and Sunshine

A big hello from me and this little fellow who visited our front yard this week. Isn't he a beauty?

The past few weeks have been quite a blur, dominated mostly by computer issues. We had two family computers encounter problems in the first part of May. My daughter's laptop was able to be nursed back to health. The family desktop computer where I do the bulk of my Etsy work (making art prints, etc.) started crashing and encountering unexpected shutdowns. We had it in for repairs twice and a technician visited here. Oh the time that was spent/wasted on it!

Last Friday, it started crashing again and I told my husband I couldn't deal with it anymore. On Sunday, we went and replaced it with a brand new iMac. We are now a two-Mac family. The black cloud that has been following me computer-wise continued this week with weird, ominous start-up error messages on our brand new computer that had the Apple technicians scratching their heads. Yesterday, I spent an hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with an Apple technician and we finally figured it out.

Next big challenge. My Etsy print files aren't printing exactly the same way. I am using the same printer but I am now using a different operating system and monitor. To say I've been feeling a little stress lately is an understatement. I have been waking up at 4:00 a.m. and can't get back to sleep because of thinking about the computer.

This morning, I started typing an email to my husband in the Google search bar. (Hmmmm...hello universe, can you direct this to the right person for me?) I began pouring coffee into a cup that was already full and I missed the turnoff on the highway--an exit I take all of the time.

I know that everything will be fine with time. Better than before. I am certain of it but still wish this transition was a little easier.

A sweet little bouquet gathered by Chloé. It still looks beautiful after a week.

I am behind in everything right now: my blog posts, Etsy team quotas, family responsibilities. I talk about home-cooked meals more than I make them. I haven't painted in over two weeks. There are still flats of annuals waiting for me in the backyard. Thankfully, Mother Nature has been looking after watering them.  The weeds have enjoyed that I've had my back turned to them and they have been sneakily growing taller than their annual and perennial companions.

Meeko keeps looking at me wistfully and occasionally doing this combination whimper/sigh that goes straight to the heart. I know what he's thinking--that a little more attention directed his way would be welcome along with a few extra walks.

What else? Emma turned 18 on June 1st. How did that happen? I am so proud of the wonderful, quirky (in a good, interesting way), beautiful young woman she is.

Emma's birthday cake. I did find time to make it!

Other news from the past couple of weeks? I sold two original watercolours to two separate buyers--both from Australia. I have sold many originals in the past but never on Etsy before and to so far away! It was quite a thrill. I have received lovely emails from both buyers confirming that they received the paintings and loved them. Phew! That makes my heart sing. I've talked before about how hard it is for me to let go of my originals. But when I know they are with someone who loves them, that makes all the difference to me. It's also encouraged me to add a few more to my shop and I'll continue to add originals every now and then.

I also have a couple of new prints ready to add to my shop but have been waiting for a day when I have both the time and enough sunlight to photograph them.

Emma finished school a few weeks ago. Chloé wrote her last exam this morning so the summer has officially started here. Did you hear that, weather? (Maybe it did, because the sun is out today.)

Oh yeah! I got my first pair of real glasses yesterday! So when the fog finally clears, I'll be able to see everything better than ever.

The view outside our front window very, very early yesterday morning.

Family Portraits

One morning this past week, I found a little stack of pictures beside my computer. The night before Emma had doodled portraits of us all. I love them so much. I asked her permission to post them here and told her I planned to frame them. With a few lines, she has really caught our essence. (I am 'Mama' for those of you less familiar with our family.) These are by my 17-year-old daughter who says she's not artistic.

Of course, there is one family member missing so I will include my recent watercolour portrait of him. On Saturday, Meeko celebrated his birthday. He is three years old and it is hard to remember when he wasn't with us. He has stolen our hearts.

As of tomorrow, the household will be back to its normal routine. Chloé finished her school break last Monday. Emma is back to school tomorrow. I hope to paint a little and get some new prints into my shop. There is a ton of snow predicted for this week. Oh boy. Meeko will be happy about that. So studio time and snowy walks are on the agenda for the week ahead.

Hearts, Sirens and Hugs

My week began in an ambulance with the siren blaring. Surreal. It still feels like it might have been a dream.

I woke up very early Monday morning feeling ill. I had a pain in my chest. I thought it might be heartburn and took something for it but I couldn't get comfortable. I changed positions many times. Sat up. Laid down. My heart was beating strangely and I could feel a sharp pain under my left shoulder blade. I felt dizzy. I knew that women's heart attack symptoms were different than men's. I hesitated but, in the end, I called 911.

First time ever in an ambulance. The last time I was admitted to a hospital was when Chloé was born over 13 years ago.

It is a scary story with a happy ending.  After several cardiograms, blood tests and a lung x-ray, I was told that my heart was fine as was everything else. All of the tests came back normal. What I had felt that morning was a cluster of symptoms that could be explained by other things (indigestion, palpitations probably due to coffee and hormones, muscular aches, topped off by more than a bit of anxiety).

I spent nine hours staring at a hospital ceiling on Monday. I traced the pattern of those drop ceiling tiles about a million times. No book. No music. Not even my shoes or a coat. What did I think about? My family, my friends, my painting, Meeko. About how caring everyone was with me that day: the ambulance paramedics, the doctor and nurses, my husband and my two girls. I thought about how my husband had left a meeting and rushed home as soon as he heard. I thought about how brave and grownup Emma and Chloé were that morning. I wanted to go home and hug all of them including Meeko. I wasn't worrying about returning emails, making Etsy treasuries or new blog posts, checking my Facebook and Twitter accounts, increasing sales or churning out more prints on my temperamental printer. I was just thinking about what was important.

Amaryllis - work in progress (a mere beginning)

Yesterday when I woke up I felt so different. Lighter. Calmer. More centered. I felt thankful. I felt lucky. I took Meeko for an extra happy walk. I tried to breathe more slowly and deeply as I moved. I appreciated the powdery snow that had fallen the previous day. I got in touch with my relatives. I started a new painting of my beautiful amaryllis. I drank herbal tea in the late afternoon. I bought a pot of fresh basil to make pasta with pesto, potatoes and green beans. I revelled in the basil's beautiful colour and pungent smell as I picked the sprigs and thought about how my garden will be waking up not that long from now.

Maybe we all need a scary story every now and then so that we can put everything else in perspective. Today, nothing is different and yet somehow everything is.

A Warm Kitchen

No need to visit the Arctic. It has come to see us instead. If yesterday was cold, today is a block of ice. The temperature at the moment is -25C with a wind chill factor of -37C. I did take Meeko out for his walk yesterday, wrapped (me that is) in a ski jacket, snow pants, hat, gloves and two infinity scarves. We'll see if we venture out today. Meeko doesn't seem to mind the cold at all and, as I've mentioned several times here, he adores the snow.

Days like this are best spent indoors sipping hot coffee or tea and making or at least dreaming about warm creations coming out of the oven.  Our ever-expanding cookbook collection grew a little over the holidays. Pictured at the top are the books that were under our tree, plus a couple I ordered in early January. I bought the book 'I love cinnamon rolls!' because I couldn't get the cinnamon rolls my sister-in-law made for our family out of my head. What to do when plagued by thoughts of cinnamon rolls? Make more!

We own every Jamie Oliver recipe book that has been published. We love Jamie and his recipes. They always work and taste so good. We own most of the Barefoot Contessa collection too, also wonderfully reliable although I've learned to reduce the salt a little and use evaporated milk in many of her recipes calling for cream.

On the very top of the pile are two books published by Love Food (aka Parragon Books)--one owned by Chloé and the other by Emma. We now have three of their books. I posted last summer about a fabulous 'sheepscape' that Emma made, inspired by a cookie recipe in one of their books. I contacted Parragon at the time and asked if they would give me permission to print the recipe on my blog. They were lovely about it and said 'yes'.

Some family recipe cards and a photo of Emma at three decorating a cake

A few months later, they contacted me and asked if they could feature my blog as their first 'blog of the month' on their website. They asked me about my art and garden but were particularly interested in how Emma and Chloé got to be such wonderful bakers.

It is pretty exciting to have my blog featured somewhere and it was fun to talk about all of the baking that has gone on in our kitchen over the years.

My interview with Parragon

Keep warm, my friends!

On Age and Amaryllis Bulbs

Well, hello there! I feel like my January is just beginning. Emma went back to school on Monday after a month-long break. So the house is mine again during the days. I don't mean that in a selfish way. I just find it easier to concentrate when I'm alone.

I made it up to my studio yesterday and actually painted. It's so hard after a long break. I get weirdly scared and then everything is fine again, once I get a paintbrush back into my hand. I started to paint an amaryllis bud that had just started to open. I've never grown an amaryllis bulb before. I don't know why. They are so simple to grow. It was included as a bonus when I ordered a bunch of tulip bulbs in the autumn.

And look what I found when I walked up my studio stairs today! I gasped out loud. So extraordinarily beautiful! Its name is 'Rosalie'.  I think I'll do another painting of it.

January just seems to be slipping by. I might have been quiet here but lots was going on. Chloé went back to school on the 8th so she is already busy with school projects and extra-curricular basketball practices and tournaments. Emma started her new term of CEGEP (Quebec's unique college for Grade 12 and 13 students) yesterday. She has recently started taking driving lessons. She had her hair cut--over ten inches which she is giving to a local foundation that makes wigs for children with cancer. She looks so very grown up and beautiful with her new haircut. I sold an original painting out of my studio last week which was a wonderful thing. I've also joined a number of treasury teams on Etsy and have become a leader of one of them. I'm really glad to be back painting and my challenge will be to make sure that my social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter can be such time holes) and Etsy involvement are kept balanced so I can keep producing new work--well, because that's where the joy is.

Chloé made a beautiful family tree for her Spanish class. She used metallic silver and gold markers on black bristol board and cut out photos of apples to represent each person. The class had to present their family trees in front of the class and describe their family members including their ages. I cringed when I heard that. I'm sure I'm the oldest, or one of the oldest, mothers in the class. How did I get so sensitive about this age thing? I surprise myself sometimes. 

Actually last year, my private new year's resolution (and we don't tend to choose the easy things, do we?) was to embrace my age more fully. I don't think I was very successful and here I am a year later and a year older! There's nothing much we can do, is there? Even though there is much talk these days about age acceptance, I'm not always sure it's true. Youth does seem to be revered more than age. And as an artist who relaunched her career in her fifties (there I said it!), I think I worry about being pegged or ignored because of my age. I was very interested in reading Lisa Congdon's blog post this week. It really resonated with me even though I am a full decade older than she is. There, I'm getting very brave, aren't I? And now I will go look at my blog stats and see if my readers are running for the hills.

Here's a special somebody who doesn't care how old I am. I'm willing to bet he loves me just the way I am and almost as much as he loves snow.

To Cut, To Cut The Christmas Tree

Yesterday, despite the very cold weather, we ventured on our annual Christmas tree cutting expedition. This is a family tradition that extends to my own childhood. The tree farm we have gone to for the past three years is about an hour's drive from home. This farm actually sell cut trees at a location very near to our house but somehow going to a lot isn't the same as choosing your own tree in the middle of a snow-covered field.

Meeko is always very excited to go anywhere in the car even if he doesn't know where he is going to end up. A tree farm is much better than the vet!

This is Emma and Chloé standing in front of our chosen tree just before it was cut. It was so cold that they actually went back to the car and let Mama and Papa Lumberjack cut it down. There are many goofy photos of the junior lumberjacks that I would have loved to have included but unfortunately I was not given permission.

Here's the tree with its lights on. That's my job. Chloé and Emma then added the decorations. (If you squint a little, you can see one of Geninne's beautiful bird prints on the wall to the left of the tree. We have five of them in our family room.)

Even Meeko is getting excited about Christmas. Actually, I'm not sure he was all that joyful about having reindeer antlers on his head but he was a very good sport about it.

There was a lovely snowfall last night as we were decorating our tree. It's amazing how a little snow makes everything feel more Christmassy. For those of you living in places where snowflakes are rare or non-existant, I'll try to share more snowy photos in the days ahead. Good luck with all of your holiday preparations.

Snow-covered clematis seed heads in our garden last night

Pumpkin Cookies

Chloé made the most wonderful pumpkin cookies yesterday. The house smelled so lovely and they tasted divine! Emma told her they were the best thing she's ever eaten. High praise from a big sister. Chloé followed the recipe here.

I ate some. Well, we all did. Emma is right. They are very, very good.  I also painted a couple. Not the same two above. Chocolate chips found their way into these ones. That happens here.

In Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving in October. I have so many blog and Etsy friends in the U.S. now that I feel like we should celebrate twice. I suppose being thankful twice a year (at least!) would not be a bad thing. Have a wonderful celebration!