BUT, it’s not as though I always pass up a cookie or a piece of cake, a scone or a chocolate treat. It’s just that I don’t crave sugar the way other people do. I like it, I appreciate it’s place in society, but I don’t have to have it next to me or in my desk drawer, or in my hand all the time.

Another BUT… I do like to bake. I like to make sweet treats so much more than making savoury dishes. I love the smell of the sweet cake or pastry baking, the way dough can go from soft to crispy in the oven and come out all sugary and delicious and tempting. I love the look people get in their eye when you tell them you baked it yourself, or better yet, when you tell them you baked it for them. That makes me all ooey-gooey inside (maybe because I feel that way I don’t need chocolate or a slice of cake to make me feel that way.)

So when I want to make myself feel better, perk myself up a bit or make someone else feel comforted or taken care of, I bake. I sprinkle a little sugar, I pour a little honey and I make magic.

This week, that magic came in the form of a pan of crispy, sweet, nutty, buttery, extremely decadent baklava.

Recipe: Baklava

• 1 pound finely chopped, mixed nuts (walnuts, pistachios, almonds*)
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 1 package phyllo dough
• 1 cup melted butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup honey
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

* You can also use hazelnuts (very traditional in Egyptian Baklava) but I don’t because I’m allergic to them

Directions:

1. Mix cinnamon powder and chopped nuts.
2. Unroll the dough and place two sheets in the bottom of buttered 9×13 inch baking dish. Brush generously with melted butter. Sprinkle two to three tablespoons of the cinnamon-nut mixture on top. Repeat layers until the dough and cinnamon-nut mixture are used (last layer should be the dough).
3. Cut the baklava into four long rows and then diagonally to make diamond shapes. Place it into a preheated oven (350F) and bake it for about an hour until golden and crisp.
4. While baklava is baking, combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat and bring it to a boil. Stir in honey, vanilla and lemon zest, reduce heat and simmer the mixture for 20 minutes. Put the mixture in the fridge to cool slightly and then, when the baklava is done, spoon the cooled syrup over it while it’s still hot.
5. Re-cut along the lines from before once cooled and serve.

One of the few things she never really taught me to do was to iron. I hate ironing; she loves ironing. Ironing is the bane of myexistence; ironing is the household chore she does the most often. I don’t so much as own an iron, she has a separate room dedicated to its specific use.

I digress.

My mother has shared many things with me over the years. She helped me grow up into the woman that I am today. She took care of me when I got sick and supported me when I went back to nursing school. She shared with me her love of cooking, baking and food to such an extent that I can’t stay out of the kitchen (especially when I’m at her house!) and have massive amounts of cookbooks and recipes pillaged from every different source imaginable.

BUT… I only recently discovered that she held back on something. There was a secret between us that she could never coaxed into divulging. A deep, dark, sticky, sweet, delicious secret that she held close to her heart and kept from me for many, many years.

Her Butter Tart recipe. Those utterly flawless, deliciously perfect, miniature tarts. Each one crammed almost to the brim with a syrupy, gooey, delectable filling that leaves your teeth throbbing and your tummy clambering for more.

Ingredients:

Pastry:

• 2 ⅔ cups all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ⅔ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 6 tablespoons cold vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
• 8 tablespoons ice water (+/- depending on weather and humidity)

Filling:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ⅛ teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Cut in the butter and shortening to make pea-size pieces. Add ice water until dough holds together, then form into a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.
2. Roll on a lightly floured surface to about ⅛” thick. Cut the shells using a round cookie cutter that will cut circles that will fit your muffin tin (I like to make mini tarts so I use about a 2″ diameter cutter). You should have about 12 medium or 24 small shells when finished. Put these shells into a greased muffin pan.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and beat all ingredients together until full of bubbles. Spoon into pastry-lined tins and bake for 20 minutes.

From an out-of-print Chatelaine cookbook, circa 1950

Turns out he’s a huge fan of the avocado/cucumber rolls, the miso soup and the veggie tempura. Dipping each piece of sushi in a small bowl of soy sauce and attempting to eat with those slippery, flingable chopsticks is a fun evening for him. I can’t say I blame him. Like I said, I love it.

So one Sunday recently we decided to make our own at home. For no other reason than we could and that we wanted to. It was messy and fun and an interesting way to spend a few hours. He tasted every ingredient raw and on it’s own (from cucumber and deep fried onion flakes to smoked salmon and cooked shrimp) and then decided what he wanted rolled up in with his rice and nori (which he insisted on pronouncing “nor-eat” for a while).

Even if you leave out the cooked fish and opt for wholly vegetarian sushi at home, I recommend trying this out with your kids. It shows them how a certain type of food is made, gives them an appreciation for the making of it and teaches them about the different ingredients and flavours. All in all, very educational…and truly a delicious afternoon.

Photos by John-Marc Hamilton

I adore warm-weather cooking for its simple arithmetic: (meat + veggies) x grill = fabulous dinner. I find the scents of grilling and all warm-weather cooking irresistible: all those fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables make me lightheaded (in a good way). The flavours are diverse and splendid…and tempt my palate well into the cool crisp months that follow (we Canadians bar-b-que all winter long, it’s a part of our genetic makeup.)

I LOVE a good bar-b-que. Give me just about anything that’s been cooked on a grill or open flame and I’ll gobble it up. There is something wholly satisfying about how completely relaxing it is to cook in this manner.

Of course, part of the relaxation for me is that I don’t actually do the grilling. I do all the prep work and someone else usually heads out to the grill and does their job while I sit, sipping a glass of wine, eating crackers and cheese and watch, breathing in the delicious smells from the grill. Quite different from the meals I cook indoors. It’s more than just a way of cooking — it’s a way of life.

One that starts now (get those grills heating up!) and doesn’t have to end until the snow is at least a few feet deep, if at all. Let’s hope this winter is warm enough to keep the grill going at least a few nights a week well into December.

Recipe: My Awesome BBQ Chicken Wings

That saying “good things come to those who wait” has never held more importance to me than it does these days. I have been waiting and waiting for good things to come…the waiting is the hardest part (thanks, Tom).

Recently emotions were getting a bit testy on the home front. I was nervous all the time and being curt with everyone. Every day there was a mad rush to check the phone messages and email and for weeks on end there was no news (and no, no news isn’t good news). It was awful.

Then, somehow, it got worse. The only news coming in was bad news. Disappointing news. Difficult news. I was more stressed. I didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, didn’t know what to do.

Then one day it finally happened. The person that said “yes”. The job that I had been looking for, waiting for, hoping for, had said they wanted me (me!) That day, I immediately went and made myself and Leith a huge batch of brownies. We shared them with friends, family, even a few strangers. Between the brownies and the job, life was back on track and I was feeling better.

Ahem. My brownies are amazing.

“A picnic?” ”Yes, mama. On a blanket. With food we can eat with our fingers.”

It made sense. We’d done it last summer a few times on the university grounds across the street. We had packed sandwiches and juice and took the wagon and a few books and a Frisbee. It had been a lot of fun and obviously something he remembered enjoying.

I tried to explain to him that it’s too cold out right now for a picnic. He said we could wear our rain pants. I tried to explain to him that I don’t own snow pants. He told me I could borrow his extra pair of rain pants if I wanted. I tried explaining to him that his pants don’t fit me, but he was already ticking off food items on his list of must-haves for our impending picnic.

I ended the conversation by asking him to get his boots on because it was time for school and breathed a sigh of relief when the conversation turned to a discussion of where the elevator went after it dropped us off (for some reason he has decided that it goes to different buildings and I didn’t have the heart or the energy to explain that our elevator doesn’t moonlight for other apartments). I dropped him off, kissed him goodbye and told him I’d pick him up later.

Raising a child is hard work. Bringing up a boy who is headstrong, intelligent and ambitious is a difficult job. Nurturing him pretty much on your own is an exceptionally thorny occupation, full of pitfalls and “danger” signs…and lots and lots of bruises.

My son can be engaging, polite, endearing, loving, giving, understanding and adaptable. Toss a wrench into the mix when he’s least expecting it and you might swiftly have your head knocked off your shoulders. He can throw a temper tantrum with the best of them (me) when he’s tired, sick or when the moon is in the waning gibbous phase. Most people I know have never seen the evil demon side of Leith and probably never will. I however, have seen it quite a lot lately, and honestly wish I never had. My sweet little child can be quite the monster when he really, really tries (oh, if he’d put that much effort into his learning, he’d be a[n evil] genius!).

Motherhood is gruesome. Anyone who tries to tell you differently is either selling something or has never been a mother. It is the only job in the world where everyday you are certain you are doing something horribly wrong and yet you continue, without support, day in and day out. In fact, many days, not only do you doubt yourself, but someone else tells you that you are indeed doing something wrong and that you are incompetent.

If someone could have shown me a video of how my life would play out after having my son (the numerous hospital stays, the chronic fatigue, the chronic kidney disease, the temper tantrums [Leith's, mine, everyone's], the late nights, the no-sleep nights, the early mornings, the emotional rollercoaster that is being a mother) I might not have done it. I might have just gotten a dog and called it quits (not that there is anything wrong with that).

I am extremely thankful that no one bothered to show me that particular video. I am grateful for Leith and all the torture he brings into my life on a daily basis because of the additional happiness he also totes around. While he sometimes makes my life more difficult than it ought to be, he also makes it better. His giggles, his smiles and his hugs are like crack. His made up stories and his songs and his puppet shows are hallucinogenic and magical. While he can’t cure my medical problems he does make them significantly more bearable simply by telling me he loves me (“I love you mama”). I’m high on being HIS mom.

His personality and our relationship is mirrored in the shortbread cookies we made on the weekend. They are perfectly sweet, and just a little bit spicy with a slight crispiness to them; decorated with an untamed smattering of colourful sprinkles that catch your eye while the cookies melt in your mouth and make you smile.

I think someone pulled my plug. I feel drained. Used up. Ka-put. As though someone has sucked the life from me like Prince Humperdink did to Wesley in “The Princess Bride”…

I don’t want to feel this way; I hate feeling down. But I’m at the point of wallowing now and that is pathetic. I’m finding it hard to concentrate on one thing for any length of time and even finding it difficult to smile. It’s like it takes too much energy to do these things and it is energy that I cannot spare.

I’m walking around in a sort of blue funk without really paying any attention to what is going on around me; and have been like this since last week sometime…maybe the weekend, but somehow I remember being happy on Sunday; or parts of Sunday at any rate.

I don’t get like this often anymore; I used to go through this everyday. Every single day then was an effort a

t not crying or not just staying in bed and feeling rotten. Now it comes on, unexpectedly, rather forcefully and lasts a few days each time. It’s depression and it’s scary.

I lay in bed late last night or early this morning, pondering the reasons for it’s arrival this time. I couldn’t come up with one solid, worthwhile reason why I could be feeling this way (although, quite possibly, it’s this).

I’m healthier than I’ve been in a long time, I have good friends whom I care for and care for me, I’m enjoying spending time with Leith, and I certainly don’t have excessive amounts of stress in my life right now. I do have a few major deadlines in the next month to deal with and June is quickly approaching and with it comes Leith’s birthday, possibly moving, looking for schools for him for grade one, the return of my absent husband and more. These things are not what I’m bad about; they’re not factors in my funk.

So what is it? I’m thinking that I need some time to myself. I am beginning to feel as though this funk has become the focus of my life; it is defining me and that’s not a good thing. Perhaps I have given it more attention and more dedication than it deserves; more than I should have. Maybe I just need a good batch of coffee and chocolate scented cookies to indulge in with a great big cup of coffee to take the edge off.

How do you deal with the Spring blahs?