Bitter Christmas

With everyone talking about Christmas baking and cooking I'd like to put a word in for eating something bitter at this time of the year. Bitter has been my life over the last year or so as I've been working on a book about bitter foods to be published by Ten Speed in September 2014. I think there should be a little bitter in every holiday menu. Bitter foods spark the appetite and more importantly help you digest your food, very beneficial at this time of year when we all tend to over indulge.

Squirrel 0 Jennifer 12

This year I am winning. My fig tree is not beautiful, but it is productive. Every winter I wonder if it is worth the effort of dragging it into the apartment and down the stairwell to the landing which is the coolest darkest spot we have. The tree is only about 1.5 metres tall however, the pot is big and heavy and manhandling it down the stairs isn't easy. We have to walk around it all winter then drag it back outside in the spring. Yet every year the tree rewards our efforts by producing lots of figs.

Fat tailed Lamb

I was very excited when Laurie from Hawk Hill Farm contacted me. She raises heritage breeds, which include Tunis sheep. They put fat on their tails and she had read of my search in Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes for fat-tailed lamb. Generously she sent me tails from lambs that were pastured and slaughtered at 6 months.

A Perfect Day

Today is a perfect late summer day, clear blue sky, a crisp morning followed by an afternoon warm enough to sit outside. This weather reminds me of my arrival in Canada some 28 winters ago. The weather that September and well into October was just like today - perfect. I loved it. And like those first explorers, I too was fooled, lulled into a false sense of well-being which left me totally unprepared for winter to follow.
Let's just say growing up in Melbourne, Australia that I didn't really understand what -23C temperatures really meant or that the hairs in my nostrils could freeze solid as soon as I stepped outside. So, despite ordering two bush cords of firewood today, I am banishing all thoughts of winter from my mind and enjoying these last warm perfect days.
I am also trying to convince my fig tree that summer will last a few more weeks. As you see from this photo, it is only about a meter high but prolific. I have already eaten a dozen delicious figs and there are about another two dozen waiting to ripen, but I fear half of them won't make it. Those of you who live where figs are allowed to to rot on the ground should be feeling guilty.
I carefully nurture this 10 year old tree, it winters inside like me
and has an olive tree about the same height to keep it company. I thought I might even get two or three olives this year - but the blossoms didn't set, perhaps next year. I have a third plant to complete my Mediterranean trinity - a lemon tree. Every Christmas it rewards me with lemon blossom, wonderful as it winters in the bathroom and then lemons. Life in Toronto, even in deepest winter, is not all bad if you remind yourself like Goethe, that there is a land where lemon trees bloom.