That’s Harry, my grandfather.

He loved me. I knew it.

He was chief engineer on lake boats—the E.B. Barber for a long time.

Time with him was an adventure. 

Spending the day on the Welland Canal. Boarding as the boat came level with the lock. Theo picking us up down the way.

A cook baked us a chocolate cake. I can still see it in the 9 x 13-inch aluminum pan—polished chocolate buttercream piped in a wave pattern. We made the first cut. 

Food’s a big deal on the lakes. 

Harry was easygoing and affable. I never saw him angry. 

To me, he was a peaceful harbour.

He could hold his own too. Boats attract transient labour—there were some dangerous characters below deck. I’ve heard a few good stories.  

Not that long ago Peter, my uncle, told me a hair-raising story about Harry that took place in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We shared a few moments of shock.

And then gratitude.

***

We spent Christmas one year on a boat in Midland my grandparents were babysitting. They used to do that in Montreal too.

Theo in the galley kitchen. Me and my brother on the run. Remember when parents didn’t know where you were for a whole fucking afternoon? On a lake boat? 

Two memories:

When a boat’s in ballast, it sits high in the water. Ten-year-old me climbing a rickety aluminum ladder in deep December, looking way down at the ribbon of black slushy water between the boat and the dock.

Harry in the other direction holding his arms open.

Me and my brother drinking the tap water—straight from the lake. Not Potable Water. Who knew what that meant? The size of Harry’s eyes when he found out. 

Nothing happened. 

***

Harry could never walk past a bakery. That memory and the thought of holding his callused hand melts my heart tonight.

Sausage rolls for him. We could have anything. I was that weird, nerdy food kid from before I can remember. Napoleon slices—custard and puff pastry—I liked them best. The chocolate-vanilla glaze was magic. Remember the wonder when you learned how to do that as a young apprentice?

By the time we left, everyone behind the counter had fallen for him—his thick Scottish brogue and natural charm used to good effect. I was in that golden glow with him 

Harry gave freely. No strings attached.

***

I spent the night listening to Nathaniel Rateliff. I can’t believe he’s new to me. Where have I been? 

This song!

If you know, you know.

Arrived on Monday, April 18, 1994. The day of the Boston Marathon.

I thought I’d get to hang out with the crowds watching. Went to Biba to say hello first. It was fucking busy. 

Straight into my whites. A good introduction all around.

Most of what I knew at that point was French. Lydia was travelling everywhere and eating, and her flavours and palate left me speechless. The restaurant was on fire. So was she.

Along with Susan Regis, they made a great kitchen team. No cooks were in the kitchen when Johnson & Wales called—that was amusing. A novel response to the realities of student loans.

New things to cook and eat every day. 

Making Mexican chorizo, rolling trofie pasta for tripe, sobrebarriga en salsa criolla, a Columbian braised brisket dish that defied what I knew as delicious up to that point, brains in beer batter, salads with purslane and chicory.

Thirty-two years later, I still cook things I learned there. So do friends in Stratford.

Never went back to staging with men. Female leaders were where it was at. 

Boston in the spring is pretty—flowering trees, green parks, and the Charles River.

Spent one day in the Schlesinger Library. Want to return for more.

Arancini in the North End. 

The experience was everything I hoped for.

***

The natural choice for music was Aerosmith. But the association with this song is stronger—the Stone Temple Pilots remake of the greatest Led Zeppelin song of all time.

​Fight me. :)

August and movies seem to go together.
 
One of the ways I’ve been caring for myself—watching a movie at night. Undistracted. Hand’s free of phone or hobby. 
 
Just watching.

The French Connection has not aged well. The racism is painful. I turned it off.
 
Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Like looking at a painting. Steamy.
 
Cinema Paradiso. I’ll watch it forever—the feeling of warmth in my heart.
 
Like Moonstruck.
 
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it. Its beauty is never lost on me. 
 
Olympia Dukakis. A master.
 
The kitchen table. The New York cabs.
 
The way Ronny wants Loretta. Put that on repeat. 
 
***
 
In the before times, I went to a matinee most Friday afternoons. On my own or with a friend. The best is being in a theatre—TIFF or the Varsity. 
 
I like it when I can reserve seats. People talk about the cost. It’s one of my drugs of choice with a side of popcorn.
 
Maybe this is the fall and winter I take a film course or join a film club. 
 
Talking about great movies after. That stuff’s magic dust.

John Birdsall scored a copy of the “Auberge of the Flowering Hearth” by Roy Andries de Groot at a thrift store. Posted it to Instagram. 

Here I am.

It’s one of the books I’m scouring your shelves for—if you have it, I trust you more. Weird, huh?!

The book inspired a trip for me into the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The inn was my first stop, but the monastery at Chartreuse and visiting Annecy were right behind it. 

I drove a car out of Lyon, and because it’s a bit nerve-wracking at first—doing it in another country—I was on alert. I tuned into a classical channel. It was early on a near fall day. The sky was matte grey, and a light rain fell.

The station was playing the Brandenburg concertos and the weather, the forests at the base of the French Alps, and the music felt coordinated. The roads were secondary, and only a few people tailed me. 

Colours were vivid—green fir trees, glistening black bark, wet terra cotta earth, and fallen wood in streams decaying to charcoal, rust, and yellow splinters.

I overshot the road to the inn twice. Third time got lucky.

It was a single lane and modestly steep. Dairy cattle grazing in the field to my right. They wore bells. I turned the radio off because the clanging was gorgeous.

They chewed and observed me. I knocked at the door. 

Here it was mid-September—summer tourists gone and a window of reprieve before ski season. Maybe the Tour de France had gone through that summer. My years of seasonal employment made me feel sympathy for the owner. I was quiet and thoughtful. He gestured me into the foyer. I did not expect it. 

Took a picture of the side of the building before I left. A lovely day in photos gone to the great unknown. Maybe it’s why I can recall it in detail. 

De Groot wrote the book on visits between 1962 to 1967. Here is his opening sentence in the 1982 preface:

“It is now fifteen years since I first approached the forbidden granite wall of rock, found the jagged cleft cut by the rushing torrent of the river, negotiated the narrow road on the ledge above the ravine, swung around the hairpin bends and plunged through one rock tunnel after another, until I found myself in the sun-splashed forest, surrounded it seemed, by an orchestra of a thousand birds singing in harmony a hundred songs.”

Who would not want to go there?

***

The rain stopped. I found a small hut serving food—eating an escarole salad with goat cheese and bread and butter on a two-table patio—sheep grazing in the pasture on the other side of the driveway. Lone tourist mainly owing to the weather.

The sun broke. Paragliders hung high overhead in warm winds. Sails in primary colours. Why is a sight like that so good? 

***

In chapter two, de Groot gives a brief history of how the carthusian monks at le grande chartreuse came to settle there. It was easy to see the landscape through his eyes. Its character is essential.

I’ve cooked a few things like le gratin Savoyard and la salade de pissenlit aux lardons from it. I like the stories.

I’ve come this far without saying a word about the hosts—mademoiselle Ray and mademoiselle Vivette. A gracious couple with complementary skills in the kitchen and dining room. It was a place where de Groot felt comfortable, alive even. Because of its size, a stay required some level of intimacy with the daily rhythms.

I’m cutting myself off there. Read it if you like.

***

I ended the day in Annecy. Sunday lunch was tartiflette at Le Freti alongside local families and tourists. I had no appetite left for it but wanted to taste the fondue and raclette too. 

Then there was a one-of-a-kind lesson in humility in an underground parking lot. I believe a few more people than me have found themselves in a similar predicament. Sheepishly telling strangers, I’d blocked the automated exit. Kind people helped me sort it. 

***

Travelling to places accompanied is good. But sometimes it's perfect going alone to places important to me. 

​This is about childhood violence. Please, take care of yourself.

***
 
I always associated blackouts with drinking. I'd have too many beers, and my inner monitor went blank. It's one of the ways I knew I had a problem. I didn't drink like most of my friends. Jeanette told me that when I was seventeen. 
 
A long time ago, I got help. Thankfully it stuck. 
 
Two cute kids. That's how my brother and I looked to the outside world. People used to compliment my parents on how well-behaved we were. They didn't know that being good was how we stayed safe. 
 
Chuck was 6'2" and weighed between 250 and 375 lbs. He was a big man.
 
But the first time I remember blacking out was around age six or seven—in 1969 or 1970. 
 
I'd gone to the store to get something for him. Crossed a four-lane road in Burlington by myself. Those were the days. Something tempted me at the cash, and I spent a quarter on myself. Was it a lot of money then?
 
When I got home and my father found out, things got crazy. His rage was scary and unpredictable. He let himself go to dark places. Insanity is what I call it now. 
 
After he beat me, he did the unthinkable. I was terrified of the dark. He dragged me up the stairs to the bathroom, threw me in it, closed the door, and turned off the light. 

Everything goes blank.
 
Around the same time, my brother and I are playing on a swing set in a campground across from our apartment. I saw my father in the distance coming towards us. I think I peed myself. I could tell by his gait what was coming.
 
I don't remember what we had done. 
 
The thing about violence is it distorts all infractions. Nothing is minor. Everything is worth hurting over. The threat of it is omnipresent—its scent is in the furniture and the baseboards. The line we walked as kids was frightening and narrow.

Getting it just right took so much of my childhood.  
 
On that day, my dad had gone to the crock that held kitchen tools. He chose a slotted spoon. It was swinging by his side as he came toward us. 

As an adult, I've wondered about the progression of instruments—from wooden to metal spoon. There had to have been a moment of thought about it. 
 
The kids playing with us backed away to a safe distance. They watched while my father wildly grabbed at us. I was trying to swing myself away from him while in his grasp. To soften the blows, I put my hand up and felt the pain of it connecting. He dragged us away. Out of sight. Behind the curtains of our lovely home.
 
Everything goes blank.
 
One of the hardest things I've had to recover from is childhood violence. I think there's an ancient vein of it in my family. No one wants me to talk about it. One of the side effects of doing it is isolation from relatives. 
 
Blackouts protected me from the pain. The unbearable feeling of being wrong to the core, of never, ever living up to expectation. 
 
Of feeling unloved.
 
My dad made a blanket apology once. There might have been a scotch at hand. He never talked about it in detail. Didn't want to hear about it from us. I rode that out for a while. 
 
Then when I was 49, I confronted him about another incident. I did it under good guidance—had rehearsed it with a therapist. Had a support network behind me. I was fucking scared.
 
It's the bravest thing I've ever done. And I've done some brave stuff.
 
Because we were in public, he seemed to handle it okay. But the next day, at the dinner table, he exploded. Behind the curtains in his lovely home. 
 
I left. Our relationship changed. He built higher walls.
 
I've been trying every way I know how to tear mine down. Getting softer is my mission now.
 
***
 
I held my breath the first time I read "Breakfast at McGee" in Kate Christensen's Blue Plate Special. I could not believe it.
 
I was not alone. 
 
***
 
It was hard to choose a song, but this felt right for where I'm at. After writing this piece I bought myself dahlias and ate a couple of oatmeal raisin cookies in the park.  

Today I'm in my kitchen cooking beautiful food. I sent messages out to friends. My phone dinged for a while last night.

​Good people sending me love.

A little-known fact about me.
 
I wanted to be a potter. 
 
At twenty, I applied for undergraduate studies at Trent University and the Craft and Design program at Sheridan College. At that age, the way forward wasn't clear. Both accepted me—a trusted elder helped me chose the former. I have zero regrets about the path I took. 
 
The beauty of time is seeing my interests and expertise weave together in unique and astonishing ways.

I told anxious students not to worry about picking a career until their mid-twenties. Explore all possibilities was my best advice. I didn't step into a French kitchen until I was 25.

In my first meeting with Jim Morris at the Stratford Chef School, he told me I was too old for the profession. He was wrong. I had the pleasure of proving it in his restaurant.

***
 
I took a pottery course at the Dundas School of Art and enjoyed it. It may someday become a serious hobby.
 
I follow a lot of potters on Instagram and share their work in my stories. Some of you may have noticed. 
 
I have beautiful pieces—a few of them from my father. This bowl is by Kayo O'Young, a Canadian porcelain master. I can't believe my cat hasn't broken it, yet.
 
***

If I were a potter, my work would be beautiful, just like my cooking and writing. I have an artist's heart.

I still have hopes and dreams that are precious as porcelain.

They're mine to nurture.

***
 
Billie Eilish's sultry vocals are everything I want to listen to right now.

Happier Than Ever. 

"The GIFTS OF NATURE—GENEROUS, RICH IN FLAVOR—constitute the largest and most precious part of the pantry." 
 
La cuisine du marché 1987.
 
Burgundian lushness pressed seductively against the village of Vonnas.
 
Weathered tables at local markets. Dappled light through trees. A high summer garden stitched together like a verdant quilt. 
 
***

It began with a woman—la mère Blanc. The gastronome Curnonsky christened Elisa "the best cook in the world." Imagine that. 
 
Knowledge tended by generations.
 
Her grandson Georges wove a light and exquisite thread through it. Nouvelle cuisines natural evolution.
 
He turned his inheritance into a temple to ingredients.

***

PRINTANIERE AUX SUCS DE LEGUMES—painterly whorls of vegetal colours.
 
VINAIGRETTE TIEDE DE JEUNES LEGUMES A LA CORIANDRE ET AU GROS—tiny glistening jewels from the garden.
 
BIGARREAUX AU JUS DE CERISES NOIRES ET A LA VERVEINE GLACEE—cream melting into crimson velveteen juices.
 
***
 
Chefs in great modern kitchens on this side of the Atlantic in the late 1980s studied it for inspiration. 

His influence is obvious in restaurants near and far from me. 

I worked in kitchens with men who worshiped him. 

Farmers and gardeners enjoying the apricot glow of adoration.
 
***
 
Time is like a long country lane.
 
Intimacy with history is one of the lovely outcomes of committing to a career. 
 
Almost 25 years later, I still pull this cookbook from my shelves and can return to the first time I went through it as a young apprentice.

A brand new world before me.

On our last day together, my mom and I went to a small municipal beach in Chestermere, Alberta. We set up lawn chairs on the grass and moved with the shade. The breeze felt like silk in that hot and dry part of the country.
 
Sitting and watching the people—families and goofy kids bubbling over about the sand and water.  
 
It was the best day. 
 
We talked about what needs talking about on this trip. I could imagine her with spunk and spirit as she told me stories of being young.

I made two recordings. During one, we laugh so hard we can hardly breathe.
 
She, too, was fatherless—her mother’s story the same as Theo’s. Both my grandmother’s caught in an impossible spot. 
 
Over a little fun.
 
***
 
Talking like this took time and effort for my mom and me. 
 
It was not a walk in the park. We can still disagree.
 
***
 
I said goodbye to her and my brother when I was 17. They went out west, and I stayed put for my last year of high school—lived with friends.
 
The pain of standing on the platform at Union Station and waving goodbye to their train. 
 
Shattered.
 
I glued me back together.

Good things happened. Almost straight out of high school, I did Katimavik—a life-affirming experience. 
 
***
 
At 58 years old, I am my home. My mom’s home is in Strathmore.
 
We don’t take being together for granted. 
 
She was in the passenger seat for all my sunset videos. Barbara Streisand is one of her favourites.

My seatmates on the flight to Calgary were Liam, six and his sister Bo, four. 
 
We were on a first-name basis before we hit the runway in Toronto.
 
Fifty-two and fifty-four years separating us in age.
 
But in aisle 11, seats A, B, and C, we were sharing the same excitement.
 
They were going to see their grandparents for the first time in two years, and I was visiting my mom for the first time in twenty months.
 
They were jazzed about other things like the journey to the runway, take-off, and going through the clouds. That was fun.
 
Bo let out a joyful shriek when the plane began ascending. Her travel companion was a bunny named Bella Luna, worn in places from love and cuddles.
 
When the plane levelled above the clouds, we all did activities.
 
They had books and attentive parents.
 
I turned to my journal and the practice of handwriting a poem daily—because cursive is lovely, doing it is meditative, and it makes for good sentences later.
 
***
 
Liam’s dad read a book to him for one and a half hours, and he was quiet the whole time. 
 
Later he told me he was starting to read a chapter from a book on his own at night.
 
We marvelled at this. I was the kid who liked to read too.
 
***
 
Bo barfed on the descent. 
 
Lucky I carry a supply of Pur spearmint gum. That worked a trick—good for the ears.
 
She sat on her mom’s knee—big blue eyes and golden curls. Bella Luna in the crook of her arm.

***
 
We parted ways in arrivals. 
 
Their first stop was for ice cream. 
 
Me and my mom went for ice cream too.

This is about letting go.
 
Without even realizing it, I’ve been wearing a ring JE gave me.
 
It was silver. What else is there?
 
On Friday, I found myself in a store on Queen St. W. looking down into a cabinet at the ring for right now.

A reminder of Wasan Island. It found me.

Made by artist Karen Cameron in Owen Sound—Bella Grey jewellery design.

It will have a season. Then there will be the pleasure of finding another.
 
When I got home, I took the ring from JE off. It was easy. 
 
***

There are beautiful pieces of jewellery that must be worn no matter their origin.  
 
But there has to be a letting go. People have seasons too.
 
I'm consistently surprised by how long change can take.

It happens—sometimes despite me.

***

"I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me." Virginia Woolf