[2] #16: Fruit Salad

For a reason established long before I arrived on the scene and rarely explained to summer staff rookies, the Wiggles have a chart-topping hit at Camp Mini-Yo-We. In league with most of their music, the song is repetitive, instructive and disturbingly catchy... You will never see fruit salad in quite the same light after watching it through, but to get the full appreciation for the power of this tune you really need to show up in the summer, just as Boy's Camp is having their cook out. Boy oh BOY do those boys blast this song. It's boggling.

While this little anecdote definitely inspired the title of this post, the general idea came from a different era of my life. In the last days of my elementary school career, my teacher introduced me to a foreign fruit with such impact that the experience of it has been burned into my memory like a scratch-and-sniff tattoo. The durian. 

When ripened it has so pungent an odour that it is forbidden in many public transit systems, hotels and apartment buildings around this world of ours. The smell has been described politely as "distinctive" and less so, according to Wikipedia, as "rotten onions, turpentine and gym socks," which is why, of course, I am so eager to eat it again. Unfortunately, Durian is a bit hard to come by in Muskoka (as in, impossible). When spring returns, I will make my way back to the Chinese market at York and Queen, and I will most certainly invest ten-ish dollars into one of these spiky sweets... but in the meantime I have broadened this goal to one that can be accommodated north of Toronto.

For many years I have stared at boxes of pomegranates with a blend of confusion and awe. This pomme-grenade infatuates and infuriates; it is both delicious and difficult to eat. I'm glad that I began my little kitchen adventure with this video - it absolutely saved me a lot of time. Ate seeds for a few hours, juiced the rest (half and half with orange is divine), and tried adding the pulp to breakfast-for-dinner pancake mix (which did not work - SO gritty). All in all, a happy new-food experience! 

[2] #21: The Upturned Thumb

There are few attitudes of precipitation that are compatible with a long walk alone. Last year, wrapped up in the romantic idealism so often self-inflicted in my life, I decided to take myself on a wandering sort of adventure down the road and through the woods wearing a costume princess ball gown. The first ten minutes were a joy; many a confused smile from drivers as they zoomed past, a bus load of kids headed home from school, a little lighthearted music in my ear... but then the summer rain turned into a chilly drizzle and as the weather half-lifted the bugs came out. I was eaten alive and had a miserable trudge for the last half hour. Eventually I gave up and called my Dad.

With this memory running through my mind as I drove through the dripping grey world last week, I decided to pick up the sopping wet person on the side of the road. His name was Ryan, and he was on his way to work in town - about ten kilometres away from where I picked him up, which was about five from where he started. He didn't say much, but he gave me a smile and kept up his end of the conversation in exchange for the lift. All in all a decent ride... and in the future, as long as you don't look dangerous or creepy, you can count on my passenger seat.

[2] #74: Chocolate and Stamps

The recipe was one that I've adopted from camp - adopted and adapted because of my love affair with cinnamon. It is my general rule that nearly everything in the baking world can be enhanced with a sprinkling of this spice, and so nearly every recipe that passes through my fingers will be graced with an asterix, instructing a dash of the good old finely-ground.

The mixing-up of cookie dough is one of the most pleasant activities I can think of to do by one's self. Something about cracking an egg or two into a bowl and watching as it is folded into butter and sugar and flour has an almost hypnotic rhythm to it. And then, by the magic of simple chemistry, something wonderful emerges from the batter. Cookies, my dear friends, are so much more than the sum of their parts.

Half of the camp-sized batch made about seven dozen chewy, melty, delicious oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies. Some of them were gobbled up by my Dad on their way out of the oven, some by the rest of my family when the work day was through - but one dozen made its way down to Toronto, and the balance were shared between the men and women at the post office in Huntsville, and a summer friend currently out in Saskatchewan. Win-win-win-win.

It was a good day.