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What’s for Dinner?

“All human history attests

That happiness for man, – the hungry sinner! –

Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.”

~Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIII, stanza 99

Boy, we have this question a lot in our house. Sometimes it comes from me, sometimes from the kids, sometimes my wife. Strangely, the dog only worries about whether or not she is going to be fed, not what it will be. I guess years of kibble will do that to anyone.

But what a loaded question for the humans in the house:

  • Sometimes it’s a request for information, as in, “Can you check the calendar and see what we have on for dinner tonight?”
  • Sometimes it’s a gauge as to whether or not one (or both) of the kids are interested in sticking around or figure it’s not worth the wait. Ever wonder why we don’t have any meals that everyone hates but ‘should’ eat? It’s because no one would show up to enjoy it with me. And I’m not eating liver and onions alone.
  • Sometimes, though, it carries a lot more weight. Sometimes it’s a plea, “Please figure out what we’re going to eat this evening, as everyone will be hangry and I just don’t have the resources (time and mindspace) to figure it out.”

The first two options are easy to field. For the third, thankfully, we usually have a few dinner items in the freezer for times like these. Tomato sauce and meatballs isn’t particularly pretty (visually or health-wise) as a dinner but it feeds everyone and it means we don’t have to spend a bomb on ordering in marginal, lukewarm food. I’m not sure how things are in your town, but having something delivered from a restaurant in Vancouver is generally underwhelming.

Thankfully, dinner plans at our house haven’t yet involved Biblical serpents and the knowledge that we brought down the entirety of civilization, but there is a certain raised stress level until we can figure it out. Once dinner plans are in place, the day is easier to tolerate.

Of course, if a certain someone forgets to pull something out of the freezer or pick up ingredients at the grocery store then it’s all for naught. Not that I would ever have had that happen to me. Nope.

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The Lake.

View from the Dock. Morning.

It wasn’t smoky. The mornings were cool but not cold, by any means. It was possibly perfect weather, really.

I’m not sure I have ever visited Christina Lake in August. Generally, we head up in July for a couple of weeks, but given the insanity of this year, we decided to sneak up for a few days over the last weekend. That, and the cabin was sitting unused, begging for attention. Our July time slot has as much to do with the fact that we can’t wait until August to get away as anything else, and a second summer trip up there might just become a more regular occurrence.

As always happens, food was a major part of the trip. Heck, there wasn’t much else to do except zip around in the boat, read books, swim… Take the dog for a walk. Plan and prepare food, we did that, too.

There was no work (not that there is a lot these days, anyway) and no household tasks, as they were left far behind.

We defaulted to the usual cabin fare – pizza on the barbecue – and no scorched dough this time, which was good. I tried to just cook just the dough off a little bit, which I think worked all right as the charcoal barbecue I have offers zero heat from above and as a consequence pizza can be a bit soggy. A pizza oven the barbecue is not. It *was my impression* that my mother-in-law (who is the owner of said cabin on said lake and the final arbiter of what is permitted to be set up at the cabin) seemed to be somewhat keen on me building a wood-fired pizza oven, but I might have been mistaken. I’ll have to double check before I bring over several sacks of pre-mix and start troweling.

Regardless, pizza was good. We also did some steaks, and a pulled pork. Before I give the impression that all we did was resort to our inner palaeolithic selves, most of what we ate was vegetables. The pork shoulder did triple duty as dinner for 8 in tacos one night, breakfast the next morning and then a second breakfast the next day, along with numerous incidental snacks.

Lunches were a mish-mash of brunch (as teenagers tend to sleep in quite a bit) and some salads. Rather good, really.

In hindsight, what made the food so good (aside from the fact that everything tastes better at the lake) is that we had the space, mentally, to plan and prepare great meals. We weren’t rushed to try to make any appointments. We didn’t have too many expectations on what we were going to eat – it was all pretty simple and straightforward.

The ancient cookware didn’t help things, but we managed to get around that. I will bring a couple of new non-stick pans out next year as well as a decent French knife. It seems that the entirety of the kitchen is made up with items that are old or superfluous from other kitchens. Some of the cutlery feels like it was never actually meant to be used in a kitchen situation at all. And a couple of the pots have bottoms so thin that they scorch the contents in a moment.

What did help was the fresh fruit we picked up on the way to the lake – there are some farming communities along the route and August is prime season for pretty much everything.

What also helped was my mother-in-law raiding her garden. Salad greens, cherry tomatoes, green onions…

That and some decent sunshine made for unlimited good food.

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Who knew? It works!

Simple, yet effective.

We were at a summer evening party a couple of years ago. The purpose of the party was to welcome a new staff member to the group my wife works with. Unfortunately, he didn’t last long, but the dinner was lovely.

As we sat down for dinner, I noticed a small bowl with some cloves floating in what turned out to be white vinegar. Puzzled, I went through a mental list of possible reasons as to why the bowls would be on the table. I even dipped my finger in (carefully) and gave it a quick sniff to see what it was.

I was flummoxed.

Finger bath of some sort? Even though dinner was a buffet and there wasn’t any seafood or artichokes, or even bacon. (all of which you can eat with your hands)

Did you dip your bread into it? I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around that one.

We asked the server – she said, “Oh, it’s for the wasps. They hate the smell of cloves.”

I couldn’t believe it. I’m allergic to wasp stings and they seem to love me more than anyone else. I had never heard of this.

Dinner was delightful. No wasps of any consequence.

I tried it at home the next time we ate outside. We always have a few yellow jackets buzzing around our dinner. In a couple of minutes they seemed to have just sort of… disappeared.

Amazing. A few cloves in a bowl with a bit of vinegar or water. Worked like a charm.

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It just sort of dropped into my lap.

Not quite manna from heaven, but still greatly appreciated.

This is a common situation in our backyard. Dinner (yet another pizza – I think I’m getting the hang of the dough now. Sort of…) accompanied by a liberal dusting of fruit from above.

Further to my previous posts about pie and, well, pie… Nah, I’m not cool enough to refer to a pizza as a ‘pie’. At any rate the pizza dough I made on Friday for Saturday’s dinner was pretty good. Better than before – after a couple dozen tries I think I’m getting the hang of it. I’ll write about my learning process on dough later.

Here’s what I like about this photo – the juxtaposition of the apple and the pizza. On the one hand a pizza that has taken so many tries to get the dough right. My goodness, I have brought out some pretty marginal doughs over the last couple of years. Still a work in progress. On the other hand you have the apples. The apples, that according to Wikipedia, “…very juicy and has a sharp, refreshing taste.” The apples that literally fall into your lap. Or, in this case on to the table and almost break your wineglass. The apples that make the most incredible pie. When I have made apple pie (only a couple of times) with these apples, I almost feel like I need to stand aside and do as little as possible in order to get the most amazing result. Even my ham-handed pie technique is no match for these apples. They save me in spite of my limited pastry abilities.

As opposed to the pizza dough that seems to want to thwart me at each and every turn. Sometimes I wish pizza dough would fall like the apples, but that might well get messy in a hurry. I’ll stay with the apples.

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Crowding the pan – bacon-style

Go ahead, crowd it in there. Not going to make any difference how it cooks.

One exception to crowding a pan is bacon. You do have to place it on the bottom of the pan, but cramming it in there is nearly a rite of passage, at least in my household.

Of course, the worst is if you have 2 or 3 strips of bacon at the end, and they languish with all that extra space. Planning to crowd the pan is nearly as important as the execution. If you don’t get it right then the entire household can see your poor planning skills.

Never a good way to start the day, that’s for sure. On the other hand, as long as you don’t burn anyone (especially yourself) or over or (God forbid) undercook the bacon then the crowding transgression usually gets a pass.

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Food 8

Miss Woo, in Grade 8. Trying her best to make us less savage.

All I remember was doing a chicken pot pie, but now that I’m looking at the photo, a stir fry was obviously also in the mix. the Chicken pot pie was really rather good.

In grade 8 we had a half-year class in food, and then a quarter year in woodwork and metalwork each. Both woodworking and metalworking have come in handy over the last few decades, but my food class was infinitely more valuable.

I learned how to not burn myself on the stove and what to do if there is a fire. I used a fair amount of baking soda not that long ago to put out a barbecue fire I had allowed to flare up. Worked like a charm. It took the better part of 25 years, but some things (thankfully) stick with you.


I learned some food safety.


I learned how to wash dishes properly.


I learned that the whole ‘men don’t cook’ thing was a crock. That said, I don’t remember any groundswell of amazement by the women in my life over the fact that I knew how to poach a chicken breast properly. Admittedly, I was about 13 years old and ‘clueless’ was a good word to describe how I lived my entire life until I was about 30. It’s also safe to say that men cooking probably wasn’t on the mind of anyone in my peer group – I don’t remember any young women being particularly interested that I could cook. Friends of my parents, and parents of my friends (moms, anyway, the dads were eternally on Mars) thought it was great, though.

Food 8 gave me confidence as well. Confidence to try things in the kitchen, confidence to understand that, at worst, you can simply follow the instructions and you won’t poison any of your guests. My mom might have been on to something there.

Aside from Typing 9, English 12 and Biology 11 and 12, probably the most useful and memorable class.

I still think I should have paid more attention or even taken more cooking classes. #hindsight.

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Local Strawberries

Not sure what happened to the fellow in the middle-right, there, but he was as tasty at the rest.

Sometimes they just don’t get any better than local and fresh. I love how the stems are still on them and they still have some dirt from the field.

Obviously a couple of these berries wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but contests are passé and we have more important things to do than get hung up on looks.

My goodness, they were tasty.

Berry perfection from just a few miles away.

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As American as Apple Pie? Sure, except that I’m from Canada…

The raw ingredients.

Lucky. That’s all I can come up with as to how on earth I made a pie that tasted like that. Perhaps I should explain a bit. It’s rare that I make something and when I have a bite I think, “Holy cow, that’s way better than I expected.” Such was my response from my most recent pie. I make it sound like I bake pies on a regular basis. They are a bit of a rarity, but after this I’m thinking I may have to do it again.

The pastry recipe came from The Best Recipe cookbook, from Cooks Illustrated. Simple, quick. Food processor, cold butter and shortening, a few tablespoons of ice cold water and some time to rest in the fridge.

Here’s a tidbit: the pastry was made with some special, possibly illegal, butter that my sister-in-law sourced for me. That does sound strange, and it may sound like I’m a conspiracy theorist, but I can assure you that up until very recently, in Canada, it was true. I believe things have changed somewhat but until a couple of years ago it was the law that all butter in Canada had to have a fat content of at least 80% and that all butter had to be made from pooled milk. As in, if you were a dairy farmer and you wanted to make your own butter with a higher fat content or from a specific type of cow (Holstein, Jersey…) you were not allowed to do it. It was against the law. As a consequence all butter was 80% fat and really rather boring. 

When I was a kid there were two types of butter in the store: Salted and unsalted. A decade or more ago they added organic butter for a total of three types, but that was about it. No European Style butter. No butter with sea salt. No ghee, no ability to have any say whatsoever in the type of butter, except with or without salt. Like our eggs. White, brown and free-range. That’s ti.

Of course you could buy butter from New Zealand if you wanted to. Or the USA. It was in specialty shops and it cost $14. For a half-pound. More expensive than beef tenderloin at the butcher. Nothing like a little import tax of like 200% to dissuade the casual cook.

But somehow someone is making unsalted 84% milk-fat butter and selling it for less than a king’s ransom. And they are doing it in Canada, so the rules must have changed at some point.

I used some of this 84% butter for the pastry. Amazing how I can go from baking to supply management in a couple of paragraphs.

That was a segue. Back to the pie.

Regardless of the butter, I think the key, really, to an epic apple pie is (big surprise here) the apples. The recipe called for Granny Smith and something a bit sweeter, like McIntosh, but I used transparents. We have a transparent apple tree in our backyard. It’s probably as old as the house – so pushing 100. The apples are almost inedible off the tree, but the flavour for a pie is amazing. Apparently they’re great for applesauce, too. The ripen in mid-July to mid-August, so now is the ultimate apple-pie making season.

Finished Product. I need a little less time, I think

My sister-in-law was in town for an impromptu visit and I managed to get the pie into the oven and out in time for it to cool so everyone could have a slice. It was a big 9-inch pie. It lasted a few hours and then was all gone. 

The ultimate compliment for a chef (and timid baker) is to have the food demolished before you have an opportunity to put leftovers away in the fridge.

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Last One

OK, the last two.

Last piece.

Who gets the last piece? Why is it often such a fight? I know I shouldn’t do it, but often when it’s offered to me – that final piece of sushi, the last cookie on the plate… 

I take it. 

I mean, someone has to, why not me? I suppose that the “you snooze, you lose” mindset that drives these impulsive decisions is a bit childlike… But if it’s a tasty morsel, I do find it hard to resist. 

For these macarons, I really, really had to work at not having them both. 

It would have been nice, though, if my kids (who gleefully took one each) appreciated my sacrifice. 

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Why cook?

Why bother? Why not Uber Eats every day?

I was going to post an entry about the classic Italian Nonna, and how traditionally they cook up a storm in the kitchen, and how it draws everyone together in a big, happy family.

But I don’t have a Nonna. I’m about as Italian as a pint of Guinness. Well, technically more Bass or Boddingtons, but my point stands. One of my grandmothers died when I was very young, and the other was as British as you could get. Her specialty was pastry. My God, she could make a pie.

But I don’t want to speculate (yet) on why she worked so hard to make such lovely pies and meals for us. Perhaps it was because she had some pressing need to feed her grandchildren, even though she was in rather poor health (Measles when she was 3 and she lost an eye; the Second World War, when they levelled Birmingham because it was an industrial centre; tuberculosis, which was why she really struggled to hug us, as she only had one lung and was rather frail – God, it’s a miracle she lasted as long as she did). Given her history, she didn’t need to lift a finger for us and we would have been ok with that. She had her great British reserve and never berated us with, ‘eat, eat, eat!’ as far as I can remember. The food was always just… There. Her cooking was fine, but the memory of her pastry can bring me directly to a backyard in Salmon Arm in the summertime with a slice of cherry or apple pie ready for my appetite.

Speaking personally, why do I spend so much effort cooking for my family? Here’s a secret – when I’m cooking alone I can barely get a baked potato on the table. For the family, I’ll pull out all the stops. Or most of them, anyway.

But why?

I have no clear idea, but as I have noted before, we all have to eat. More than that, though, I’m a middle child. They say middle children are pleasers. It’s in my nature to want to make sure that everything is OK and that everyone is fed. Certainly the dinner table is one of the last areas where a family can safely gather and talk. Even if no one wants to really get into issues, most people are able to put down their phones and make small talk for the duration of eating a meal. I really celebrate that and as much as possible, dinner is on the table at 6. The only other place that you have great conversations is in the car.

Further to my style of being a pleaser, my mom just wasn’t that interested in cooking. She had an immaculately planned kitchen (still does – Tupperware everywhere, everything labelled) and she always knew what we were eating. She just wasn’t that enthused with the prospect of putting dinner on the table every night. My sister was off doing her thing; as was my brother. I was the only one regularly around the house and my foods class in grade 8 along with a couple of years being a busboy at a restaurant meant that all of sudden the cooking fell to me. I didn’t mind. Heck, I was eating it anyway. What is more, my dad always appreciated a good meal, and he is incredibly capable, but he doesn’t cook much.

One more thing: One of my aunts, one who is endlessly kind and the sort of person who will be remembered by all as loveliness personified, told me that if I wanted to impress a quality woman I had to learn how to cook. That advice has helped me greatly in keeping my wife blissfully unaware at just how out of my league she really is.

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