Two summers…actually, three summers ago (my sense of chronology is on permanent mom mode), I had an amazing ‘mobile’ herb garden that we planted and grew in a bunch of mismatched pots on our deck. When we moved in to our first home, our tiny garden was totally professionally landscaped and we didn’t dare touch it, so this little collection of herbs was our attempt to curate and craft something of our very own in the backyard. Because I am a terribly undomestic goddess, I mostly just admired the herbs from afar (my husband trained as a chef in his twenties, so he’s in charge of the kitchen), until one day I decided to get experimental and leverage my love of cocktails to create a truly beautiful and very simple recipe.
When we think about nourishment, most people know how to balance a good meal and many can also afford a few spinach leaves here and there. BUT… there are millions of people all over the world who can’t. Pacific Foods has always been one of the most socially-conscious companies in Canada. Their employees volunteer hundreds of hours, they have a zero-waste target that has almost been reached, and the company has always followed sustainable practices to ensure kinder treatment of people, animals, and the planet. They also just treated the public and a local charity to a fun and nutritious pop-up. The Pacific Tasting Kitchen was a public “soup-kitchen” in Yaletown, where for every sample of mouth-watering soup given out, another sample was donated to The Dugout, a local soup kitchen in the YVR Downtown Eastside. The charity provides a free soup breakfast every morning to 200+ people in the neighborhood. I feel so very lucky.
Diala’s Kitchen is one of my favourite new food blog obsessions and after getting gluttonous on the (terrible, curse on whoever invented this) “Eat What You Want Day” with a bowl of popcorn to carry me through from breakfast to lunch, an inhaled curry pad thai for dinner, and half a huge bag of dark choc almonds to follow—let’s just say that I woke up this morning hungover, overcome with guilt, and looking to redeem myself.
Diala to the rescue with a dish that’s fresh, healthy, totally yummy, and makes me feel like I might not have to wear a T-shirt over my swimsuit during baby swimming lessons this summer.
Wondering what to with all the ripe and delicious tomatoes you harvested from your garden this year? Tired of canning your tomatoes whole or making the same old boring pasta sauce? Making the same thing all the time with tomatoes can get boring, but when you live on an island like me, you need to be able to maximize the produce from your gardens.
We may have mommy-brain about almost everything else, but the one thing we all know is how we like our coffee.
My personal go-to has been a K-cup of an insanely dark roast cut with half and half. There is something to be said for fast, easy, eye-opening caffeine consumption that even my kid can make. (Yes, I’ve taught my oldest how to set the coffee maker and how many splashes of cream to add for it to get to just the color mommy likes.) That convenience comes at a high cost however, with a large amount of waste I’ve never felt great about.
Testing a microwave is a tough one for me. I tend to use few features, and when I use my microwave I’m in a rush. Manuals seem unnecessary, and, really, aren’t all microwaves the same? I thought so until now. Breville has come up with a new model called the Quick Touch Crisp that not only does the normal stuff like popcorn and eggs very well, but comes with a crisper pan for use in the actual microwave that gets food crispy on the bottom. No more soggy pizza with burnt cheese on the plate.
September brings with it an insanity not seen during any other months, and this year is no different in our house. With two boys in school all day and then off to various extra-curricular activities at least one day a week I am handing out sandwiches in the car, or picnicking with one while waiting for the other. While we all love a good picnic, it gets a little boring after a while, munching on the same old easy to pack foods with a child who is tired and just wants to zone out. We often sit together and lose ourselves in a Netflix show while waiting for a program or sport practice to start, nibbling dry sandwiches and crumbly cookies. Time to up my game!
I have vibrant BBQ and grill memories. When my husband and I returned to Hamburg, Germany where I lived as a teenage exchange student, my host family became so excited that Canadians were coming that they went and purchased a BBQ and assembled it in front of us! On another occasion in Martha’s Vineyard, a beautiful charcoal BBQ evening resulted in breaking an original rifle last fired on the Mason-Dixon line (I was at the home of a Dixon). Whoops. My first experience barbequing by myself was on the roof of my Annex condo in Toronto, when I lit it closed and just about annihilated my lashes and eyebrows upon later opening the lid.
For me, breastfeeding was far from easy. I was nervous, unsure I was doing it correctly and always worried about whether my babies were getting enough food. Because of the pressure I felt from doctors, nurses, family, and myself—basically, everyone—I did it for a while with both of my children until, one day, I didn’t.
It happens at some point for every mom and it was happening for me today, one and a half months before he would turn the big oh-two: the first trip away from my baby.
I’m a journalist and editor, so it’s been easy to find reasons to work from home over the past few years, scrambling to squeeze every workable second out of naps, evenings, and weekends—but when a press trip came up for Ann Arbor and my first choice writer couldn’t make the dates, I considered whether it was perhaps time to get back into the game and go myself—a mom’s getaway.