Wrapped With Flowers

I like to surround myself with flowers.  During the summer, I just need to walk out my back door to do so.  This time of year when my garden is just starting up, if I want to be surrounded, I have to resort to other measures.

If I still was in my apartment in midtown Toronto where I lived years ago, I would have walked to the corner of Avenue and Davenport Roads to the grocers that sold literally buckets of flowers.  I would just stand there sometimes and breathe in the beautiful fragrance of freesia, roses and lilies.  Then I would buy an armful of flowers for not very much money--enough to fill a couple of vases at home and a vase in my office during my corporate writing days.

I added some twigs from my amelanchier (serviceberry) to this arrangement

When I moved to Montreal years ago, I imagined that I would find similar flower shops. After all, it's a city with a decidedly European flair. But sadly, I've never found an equivalent in downtown Montreal.  There are florists of course, but none with wide selections and low prices. And in the suburbs where I live, the choices are even more limited.

So on Thursday when I started to feel the need to be surrounded by flowers, I went to get my flowers at Costco. Not as romantic as a walk in midtown to buy an armful of flowers for sure, but the bouquets at Costco are generous and well priced.  My three bunches of tulips were able to be split into six beautiful bouquets. So this Easter weekend, I am most happily surrounded with flowers.

And do you remember my Christmas cactus that decided to bloom just before Valentine's Day?  The other side of it has decided to celebrate Easter.  I like a plant with a sense of occasion. :)

Tulips and Crocuses

I spent a good part of yesterday as grumpy as a bear.  I couldn't find my camera anywhere to the point I thought it had been packed in someone's school bag. Grumpiness is not a very useful state, especially when there are spring flowers blooming.  I used my old camera to take these photos of crocuses and the first of my botanical tulips.

I managed to paint.

And take Meeko for two extra-long walks. He didn't complain.

And I added a new tulip print to my Etsy shop.

All in all, not too bad for a grumpy day. :)

Tulip and Crocuses in progress. Another painting in progress in background.

This made me smile this morning:

"I thought yesterday was the first day of the rest of my life but it turns out today is."

Steve Martin on Twitter (@SteveMartinToGo)

A Confession

A year or so ago, my husband and I were invited to have dinner with my brother and a couple of his work associates from Toronto. Because we hadn't met his colleagues, my brother Bob wrote a little introduction for each of us. Knowing that your younger brother is going to write a description of you could be quite nerve wracking (especially if we were still 12 and 10) but he did a pretty good job of summing me up I think. I actually kind of like what he wrote.

Kathleen Maunder (Kathy to some) is an artist, in the painting sense. She once wrote speeches and such like for corporate folk and now is a tamer of flowers and wild dogs. She has an entire bookcase of well used recipe books, a standing invitation at a cool bistro in Paris and knows the difference between Sarah Harmer, Sarah Slean and Serena Ryder. 

Which bring me to that confession. Those cookbooks. I counted them. I now own (get ready for it) over 300 cookbooks.  Oh my.

I remember telling a friend about how many cookbooks I owned (and this was a long time ago when the number was much smaller). She said she didn't need that many books to be a good cook.  Good heavens. NOBODY needs that many cookbooks!  

It is a collection that has grown over the years. The first cookbooks I owned when I moved away from home were the Fannie Farmer Cookbook and The Joy of Cooking. Both are reliable and are now falling apart from use, although I don't dip into them very often these days. There are maybe a few books on our shelf that haven't been used, but most fall open on their own to stained pages containing favourite recipes. 

I particularly love the cookbooks where you have a strong sense of the author. Jamie Oliver's books (we own all of them) fit into this category. Nigella Lawson too. A new acquisition, Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, would fit here as would The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters.  I have some that are close to my heart. Novelist and food writer Laurie Colwin's books would be there. Whenever our organic basket contains beets, you can be certain that I will make Laurie's Beets with Pasta for dinner (from More Home Cooking).  Some are fun to use such as The Flavor Bible. It's really just a booklong list of food with flavour affinities.  My daughter Emma has Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours out on the kitchen counter most weeks.  Friday night dinners? It's probably Joie Warner's No-Cook Pasta Sauces that has been used most often.

We've tried to slow down our collecting in past years, but I can't think of  a birthday or Christmas when my husband and I didn't exchange cookbooks.  Well, because they are interesting and fun.  Maybe it's a little obsessive. But that's what a collection should be.

Cookbook links:  Fannie Farmer, Fannie Farmer Cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson, Plenty, The Art of Simple Food, Laurie Colwin, Home Cooking:  A Writer in the Kitchen, More Home Cooking, The Flavor Bible, Baking:  From My Home to Yours, No-Cook Pasta Sauces

P.S. I bought the tulips. I'm still waiting for mine to open in the garden. :)