This has been a pretty good week at Historic Maplethorpe Inn and café.

Milestone #1: I no longer have any children.

Celebrating Adulthood!

My last reached age 19 yesterday, legal adult age in Canada. Now all my offspring are adults. Doesn’t necessarily mean that they are off the payroll, but it does mean that Mommie can’t easily bail them out when they do something stupid. I bought her a drink, which she said tasted like Kool Aid mixed with gasoline. Good so far.

Milestone #2: Maplethorpe Café recommended in “Where to Eat in Canada 2011”

Great news! You can’t buy your way into this club—it is a mystery shopper sort-of thing. It is always nice to be recognized. We’re still spending most of our free time sourcing real food, grown right here on Prince Edward Island, and cooking it up in innovative and healthful ways. We work hard to price our meals reasonably so that working folks, groups of friends and extended families can actually eat out at Maplethorpe. It is a tough way to make a living but we are still having fun trying. We’ve got some changes coming in the near future, including a new chef (!) to help me out, but that will have to wait for another post.

Miilestone #3: My spices from Steenbergs arrived!

Steenbergs is a UK seller of spices, teas and bakery ingredients, all organic and top quality. It is hard to find good organic ingredients, so I was thrilled to view their product line at www.steenbergs.co.uk The Steenbergs site provides lots of information on the product sourcing, offers interesting recipes, andhave great blog posts—a totally class act.

Problem is, they don’t ship to Canada. Last December my pal Tina was on her way to visit family in England and happily she agreed to bring a shipment back for me. My plan was defeated by the rotten weather that gripped England and the package arrived at her daughter’s house a few days after Tina returned home to PEI. Lucky for me, she and her hubby are frequent fliers and her daughter held on to my treasure trove until they could retrieve it last week. Now that I have them, I can’t wait to start cooking so exotic dishes.

So, those are my milestones for the week. The weather is still cold and wet here on the Island. I am going to bundle up tomorrow morning and go looking for fiddleheads in my secret spot.

2011 Winter in Prince Edward Island

It turned out to be  a great time to be away from Prince Edward Island and its ‘Snowmegeddon’ winter. My poor husband and daughter have been home battling the snow, day after day. Shoveling it. Blowing it. Cursing it.

I just read Mark Bittman’s rant on McDonald’s new oatmeal product.

McDonald's Oatmeal

Mark recently ranted on McDonald’s new oatmeal product, which the fast-food giant has turned into a highly-processed  nightmare of a breakfast.  More sugar than a Snickers bar, “cream” that actually contains 7 ingredients, only 2 of which are dairy. As Mark Bittman observes, McDonald’s has done everything it can to turn oatmeal into just another bad choice.

The answer is, of course, so don’t eat there.

Pick up a cheap sack or round tub sporting the happy Quaker guy at any grocery, then spend 90 seconds of your morning making breakfast at home. Period. Are we so pathetic that we can’t even feed ourselves any more? Do we really need a national discussion on this? Evidently so.

Okay, so I recently drove from Prince Edward Island, Canada to Billings, Montana. Yes, I know, it is sounds crazy, but it had to be done. Being winter, I was dodging blizzards and trying to move fast, but I had to cover over 2,800 miles—4573 km for my Canadian friends. And with a distance this great, eventually you have to spend the night someplace.

And therein the dilemma…how much to spend on a basic, no-frills, just-a-bed-and-a-shower motel?

It takes about 3 days to drive from Prince Edward Island to Montana if you are highly motivated. (Read ‘highly motivated’ as maniac road warrior.) So here’s how my trip went down.

Which way do we go? Which way do we go?

DAY 1: I left in the afternoon on a Thursday, waiting to be sure the highway in New Brunswick and further south in Maine had been cleared of snow. I drove until about 2am and stopped outside of Albany, New York. (1247km/774 miles)

Didn’t bother with a motel that first night—instead, pulled out the sleeping bag and had a nap in the car. Yes, I know, it sounds crazy, but it was already 2am and I just really needed a nap. And it was so cold that a nap is about all I got—woke up at 4:00 am freezing and warmed the car, then slept until 6:30 am when the cold woke me again. After a bathroom break in the rest area and a walk around, I was good to go for the day.

DAY 2: Drove. The nice thing about heading west in the USA is that you can get on the highway and never get off. In my case, I got on Highway 90 and stayed on it through New York, Ohio and into Indiana. Nothing noteworthy scenery-wise to report. Just drove. At 6:00 pm I decided to stop and found a Super 8 in Elkhart (1146 km/712 miles from Albany.) Indiana is still in the midst of a recession and the motel room was a major bargain–$39.95 for the night. They even mentioned free coffee and donuts in the morning, but I knew I would be gone before the doors were open. Decent, no frills room.

Driving through Wisconsin

DAY 3: Up and out of Elkhart at 6:00 am after cleaning a few inches of new snow off the car.

 Finished off Indiana, rolled through Illinois. (Why is Chicago always under construction?) I could tell when I passed into Wisconsin because of the trees and the cheese. Still on Interstate 90, but hardwood trees covered with a frosty costing lined the highway. Every town had a cheesecurd stand.

Wisconsin Cheesecurd Stand

By the time I crossed the Minnesota State line I could feel the gravitational pull of my people, maybe something like how my dog must feel when we he can smell the fresh salt air of the beach and starts jumping and scratching at the car window. Amidst the religious radio stations I found a countdown of the best songs from the winter of 1972. And you know I could sing along with every single one! Bread, Neal Sedaka, Chicago, The Temptations and the Carpenters.

It was late when I crossed the North Dakota State Line. I love the towns on the prairies, with names like Flaxville and Wheatland. Long, long trains transporting grain. I found the Public Radio Station and caught a live variety show called Dakota Air. Things were going so well that I thought about driving straight through to Billings, but it started to snow around Fargo. It was coming down heavier by the time I hit Bismark and by Dickinson I was ready to give up. North Dakota in a snowstorm is no place for a Honda Civic. (1673 km/1040 miles for the day.)

Evidently there is no recession in North Dakota.

 I drove into the Super 8 advertising the lowest price in town. It was $96 plus tax. I asked about wireless Internet and the kid behind the counter said I could steal wireless reception from a nearby business whose system was not secure. Nice. I was too tired to check my e-mail anyway. The room was cinderblock walls with a loud heater and a dripping faucet. By the time I woke up in the morning and cleaned the snow off the car, the free lobby coffee was over.

Medora, North Dakota

DAY 4: Blew past Medora, home of great outdoor musical theater with the badlands as the magnificent backdrop. Not in such a hurry now through Western North Dakota and Eastern Montana, beautiful and desolate ‘painted canyon’ country. A family of ringneck pheasants ran across the road in front of the car. Lots of coal trains, methane gas wells and pumpjacks. Turn-offs marked ‘NO SERVICE’ headed to places like ‘Bad Route Road.’ Got to Billings in mid-afternoon, 500 km /312 miles on the home stretch.

Being in the overnight accommodations business, I am always interested in the price of a good night’s sleep.

At our bed and breakfast on Prince Edward Island in the ‘low season’ a traveler can have a beautiful room with a gourmet breakfast for $80. That same room in mid-summer tops out at $120. Attentive hosts, travel assistance and a package of amenities are included with each room. We think that is a great value, but once in awhile we get a guest that feels our prices are too high. I know how they feel. On my recent trip, one night I slept in the car, one night I found a good ‘no frills’ bargain and one night I think I got ripped off, especially when I think about what we offer to travelers for less money.

Maplethorpe B&B/Cafe Today

I’ll be doing the trip in reverse soon, but this time I am going to do a bit more research on bargain sleeps and hope for better weather. The sleeping bag will be handy, just in case.

It was a subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio. But I am starting to wonder if he bought the present for himself or for me.

See, because I am a chef I spend most of my time in the kitchen. One of the things I miss about the USA is ‘A Prairie Home Companion.’ PHC is a radio show hosted by Garrison Keillor and broadcast across the USA on National Public Radio every Saturday night. I have been listening for years, maybe decades. Saturday evenings would always find me near a radio, listening to the show. Until we moved to Canada, that is.

The show is broadcast while I am preparing the Saturday evening supper. I can listen to it on the Internet, but the kitchen is no place for a laptop, so I usually miss the Saturday night broadcast and try to listen later in the week. I find this difficult and frankly, it just isn’t the same. And the idea of downloading a podcast of the show and listening on an I-Pod while jogging or something is downright depressing.

So I mentioned once–only ONCE–to hubby that it would be nice to be able to hear Garrison’ Keillor’s show in the kitchen on Saturday nights while I am working. That was it…just thinking out loud. Who knew he would be listening?

So on my birthday some weeks later there was no gift. “It’s coming,” Jim said convincingly. “You are really going to like it.” Time went by. Then last Friday Jim came home from town all excited carrying a little box. Sirius Satellite Radio! The best gift EVER. The solution to my longing for my favorite radio show. Happiness would reign in the kitchen on Saturday nights.

But first there was an antenna to install and wires to string around the cabinet tops and shelves. We needed speakers. We needed a place for the tiny controller. Jim was having a great time on a ladder figuring all this out while Shirley and I were trying to work underneath.

Finally installed, Jim turned it to his favorite station, Las Vegas Traffic. Being half deaf, he turned it up LOUD. I gave it a good ten minutes before  I protested mildly about his choice of stations. He turned it to Patriot Radio, the crazy ranting of the Tea Baggers just before election day. No thanks. Next station to catch his eye…Willie Nelson Radio. All Willie, all the time. I could see that this wasn’t going to work out–bad radio, volume too loud, Jim hanging around while we were trying to work. No, no, no.

With a few harsh words I banished Jim from the kitchen and turned the stupid thing off.

A few days later, alone, I took a look at the available stations. There is some nice stuff. A station that only plays music from the 1940′s and reminds me of home growing up where my dad would play phonograph records of the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and he and mom would sometimes dance in the living room. I tried to listen to the BBC but couldn’t understand much of the show that was on. I didn’t realize how much I missed those nut-jobs on Car Talk until I heard the show again. And on Saturday night during the supper service I was able to listen to A Prairie Home Companion right in my Maritime kitchen, sang along to some sweet gospel music and got caught up on the news from Lake Woebegone.

Shirley muttered that she would sooner listen to Willie Nelson but I didn’t pay much attention. You either get it or you don’t. It is a pretty good birthday present if I can keep my husband out of the kitchen and away from the dial.

As for Veteran’s Day, or Remembrance Day as it is called here, Canada does it better. Way better. The stores are closed. The schools are closed. The radio and Canadian television have special programming for the day. It is truly a national day for remembering those who served and reflecting on their sacrifice.

So, I’ll retire my poppy for 2010 at the senataph at 11:00 am. And I’ll think about my father who served in WWII, my husband’s father who also served, and those we know who have served or are still serving–including a son in active duty.

Thank you all.

Remembrance Day Poppy

]]> http://www.cafemaplethorpe.com/cafe-blog/2010/11/remembrance-day-2010/feed/ 0 http://www.cafemaplethorpe.com/cafe-blog/2010/11/ready-for-the-holidays-with-sticky-date-pudding/ http://www.cafemaplethorpe.com/cafe-blog/2010/11/ready-for-the-holidays-with-sticky-date-pudding/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 18:00:06 +0000 cafemaple http://www.cafemaplethorpe.com/cafe-blog/?p=550 It is early November and it has been raining for days here on Prince Edward Island. Unseasonably warm as well. Despite the weather, the Christmas craft fairs are starting to pop up all over and the stores couldn’t get rid of the Halloween junk fast enough to make way for the Christmas decorations. Here at the restaurant we are regularly booking Christmas parties and so, ready or not, we begin our holiday baking.

One of the most popular desserts at Maplethorpe is our Sticky Date Pudding.

We serve it year ’round, but it seems like a great Christmas stand-in for fruit cake or the fabled “Christmas Pudding” Mrs. Bob Cratchit so fussed over in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.  Our Sticky Date Pudding is glorious and also gluten-free, but yours can be made with plain white or whole wheat flour if you prefer.

Ingredients:

500 g dates (or 2 cups packed)

2 cups water

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

3 eggs

1/4 cup molasses

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 and 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup flour (gluten-free blend, white, whole wheat, etc.)

Method:

The dates and water go into a sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the dates have absorbed all the water. Be careful not to scorch or burn it. I usually get a good boil going for a few minutes then turn off the heat and let the dates absorb the water. This takes a bit longer than boiling and stirring until the water is completely absorbed, but there is less chance of burning and I don’t have to stand at the stove for 20 minutes.

Whichever method you choose, let the mixture cool completely before proceeding.

I really like the Golden Boy dates from Costco. They come in a two-pack of 1-kg blocks and a half block is perfect for 1 recipe–just cut the block in half and break it up before putting it in the sauce pan.

Once the plumped dates are cool, put them in the bowl of a mixer and add all the other ingredients. Just dump everything in. Easy, eh? (Don’t tell anyone!) Mix with the paddle attachment for not more than 2 minutes-it will be well mixed by then. The batter will be very wet and maybe a bit lumpy from a few large chunks of dates.

Now you have to decide how you want to bake them.

silicon mold for baking

We use a silicon mold (affectionately called ‘the C Cup’) and this recipe makes exactly 12. You could use 6-ounce ramekins and the recipe will yield about 6. Or you can put it in a 2-quart casserole dish-or a pudding mold, if you have one-and cut slices or wedges out of the pan. Whatever you choose, grease it or spray with cooking spray before transferring the batter.

Bake at 325* (F), 25 minutes for the 12-serving mold, 35 minutes for 6 oz. ramekins and slightly longer for a larger pan. The pudding is ready when it is is firm to the touch but you are still able to make a dent with a finger poke. Cool completely before removing from the pan.

Serve Like a Pastry Chef

We serve our Sticky Date Pudding warmed slightly (40 seconds in the microwave) atop a disc of vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and a bit of whipped cream on top. You’ll get rave reviews! But of course if you don’t want to bother, just come down to Cafe Maplethorpe and let us serve you a warm pudding and a cup of tea. Or call and order a 6-pack of already cooked individual Sticky Date Puddings to reheat and serve in your home. Happy Holidays!

Cafe Maplethorpe's Sticky Date Pudding

My world lost a great guy on this day in 1993.

Still miss you, Dad.

Not a great way to start my week.

In my world-the land of hungry and weary travelers-we push hard from Tuesday through Saturday. Every day there are tourists spending the night and having breakfast before exploring Prince Edward Island. At noon  the lunch crowd, local residents and tourists, in search of some friendly conversation and a plate of something healthy and interesting. And yummy–they all like yummy. By the end of the week we are serving supper as well. Some Fridays days I don’t  leave the kitchen except to go to the bathroom.

Sundays are different.

On Sundays, we serve a lovely breakfast to guests at the B&B, and that is the last and only meal I cook. Once the breakfast dishes are cleared, cook’s holiday begins. I can go back to sleep, catch up on reading, take a bike ride or go to the movies–whatever I want. I might choose to work around the house, but I do not cook. The family can forage, go out to dinner or starve. (No evidence of starvation around here, so they are coping.)

As the years pass I have been increasingly protective of my Sunday hiatus. I need the break to recharge and restore some balance in my own life. When I have a great Sunday I am ready on Monday to get back to work, making the breads, desserts and cafe staples that will carry us through the beginning of the week.

I gave up my Sunday this week to prepare supper for 6 of our overnight guests who were all heading home on Monday morning. For me it wasn’t a hard decision. These travelers had been lured from Alberta, Florida and Maine to PEI by the promise of culinary delights available at the International Shellfish Festival and Fall Flavours Festival. These were exactly the kind of tourists the provincial tourism establishment target in annual marketing efforts–older adults with no kids at home, dual income and a wide range of interests, planning a multiple night stay on Prince Edward Island.

As we chatted over breakfast about their PEI holiday that was about to end, they expressed great disappointment with their PEI food and dining experience. Among their culinary complaints:

“Seafood Chowder” they described as “potato soup served with a view of the ocean.” Poetic but pathetic.

Mussels that were overcooked to the point of being “pencil erasers,” then served cold. Now, really…how can you screw up mussels?

Steamed lobster that was “nothing special.” Fresh caught PEI lobster, nothing special?

This was in the midst of the International Shellfish Festival and during the month-long ‘Fall Flavours’ Culinary event!

This is the kind of stuff that drives me crazy. Two million dollars worth of marketing spent to get these people here wasted! They were ready to go home and tell their friends not to waste their money on PEI.

So I invited the group to have a private supper at Maplethorpe and give PEI one more chance to WOW them. I visited my friends at Captain Cook’s Seafood as well as Confederation Cove Mussels. I made chowder and homemade bread, followed by mussels, then lobsters and baby PEI potatoes. Pastry One contributed a fabulous Italian Espresso Torte. We hauled out the starched tablecloths and antique china and opened our best wine.

Supper at Maplethorpe

It was a wonderful night. The conversation was lively and went on long after the dishes were cleared away. (While the Albertans and Americans debated politics, immigration and healthcare, Jim and I did the dishes. Safest plac for us was in the kitchen.)

Several of the guests reported that we ‘saved their vacation.’ It is always nice to hear a compliment like that and worth the sacrifice of my day off to know that they will go back home now and recommend PEI to their friends.

My husband and I expected to be persona non grata at check-in. Our parental function is to buy all the necessary dorm swag, deliver it to the residence hall, pay all the bills, and then get lost. Really, we get it…this is our 6^th child to get off to university.

But when did freshman year at college become such a weird combination of preschool and sex club?

Waiting in line was, of course, the major activity of the day. After unloading the car, the helpful volunteers explained that while the student waited in the line for her student i.d. card, the parents were asked to schlep the junk up to the room and stow it away.

Okay so far. The elevator was for luggage ONLY, so we took the stairs up to the 6^th floor. 6^th floor. Still okay.

Caitlin’s stuff is now piled outside of her dorm room in the hall and we are waiting to move it in.

Oops! The student i.d. card is also the electronic door key and Caitlin is downstairs in the neverending line getting hers. The Residence Assistant, king of the orange shirt brigade, can’t let us in the room—even though he has a master keycard—because Caitlin isn’t with us. Of course not! If she was WITH us, we wouldn’t need this earnest young man. Despite the fact that we blew all our accumulated savings PAYING for the room, and had to sign a responsibility form for potential damages since Caitlin isn’t yet an ADULT, we can’t be let in HER dorm room to put things away the things WE bought.

Thanks for all the help, pal.

So, we stand and wait. There are minions of orange-shirted dementors roaming the halls, greeting families and poking their cheerful faces into every open door. Every time one walks by and asks how they can help, I tell them to send the RA up to open the door. Same doofus shows up each time, explains that he isn’t allowed to open the door without Caitlin present, and leaves. Every half hour we send a different helpful orange shirt to find him and let us in. This goes on for the entire 2 hours that we wait in the hall for Caitlin to arrive. I figure we might as well have fun while we wait.

Every door has a bright-colored sheet of questions for students to answer and leave posted so that their new neighbors can have a head-start learning the family secrets.

Here is one: “What countries have you traveled to?”

Wow. Glad Caitlin is not in the English Department.

Here’s another. “What did you want to be as a youth?”

Well, I suppose the best answer is that at age 18, our daughter is STILL a youth. A goal of every youth, presumably including our daughter, is to live long enough to no longer be considered a youth. So far, so good. If they are really asking how she wants to earn a living after university is over, the correct answer is how the hell does she know? She’s an 18 year old kid, for heaven’s sake.  But there is not enough room for all of that, so I guess she’ll write either astronaut or prostitute. Whatever.

When Caitlin finally shows up and unlocks the door, we have literally not been in the room 90 seconds when an orange-shirted thug comes to give her a tour. Off she goes with him while we unpack the sheets and make the bed. During bedmaking, three more clueless oranges pop in and ask if Caitlin is in the room. As the room is roughly as large as a small bathroom, I patiently wait for Captain Obvious to jump out of the closet and clear up this mystery. After a suitable pause, I glance in every direction and loudly state that I don’t SEE her in the room. I am informed that as soon as she returns she is to report to the lobby for ORIENTATION WEEK activities to begin. When Caitlin arrives back a few minutes later, she hastily dons her orange shirt and orders us to go home.

Looking at the orientation schedule, I wonder if she hasn’t just joined a cult.

From 7am to midnight, every minute of every day is planned. She is never alone. She must wear the orange uniform at all times. Meals, when available, appear to lack any sort of nutrition. Tonight, Toga Pub Crawl! Tomorrow, Games in the Commons followed by 2 hours of Dr. Sue, the octogenarian talkradio sex guru. And a condom giveaway! Concert and Dance until Midnight! Next day, Roadblock for Cystic Fibrosis!..Hot Dogs!…Concert!..More Condoms!

We lock the door on our way out. I leaved perturbed because I just didn’t have time to say a few things that I think will help our daughter as she transitions to adulthood.

So, I am going to say them now.

First, just because people plan dumb ways for you to waste your precious time, you are not obligated to participate. Your time is your own and you are responsible for how you spend it. We expect academic achievement for our financial contribution toward your higher education, and this will require you to sometimes forego social activities in favor of study. Have fun at orientation, but once classes start, you know what you have to do.

Second, lots of kids are going to have more things than you have. I noticed lots of new refrigerators, microwaves, fancy electronics and mountains of other new stuff going into those dorm rooms. Your pile seemed pretty small in comparison, much of it used. Here is a summary of an entire semester of Economics, free of charge: wants are unlimited, but needs are not. You have everything you need to be successful.  Spend your money (and ours) wisely. You have a paid meal plan, so get up and go eat some healthy food in the cafeteria.  You don’t need energy drinks, granola bars, fast food or fancy coffee to get through your day.  Designer paperclips are cute, but the plain ones hold your papers together just fine. God knows you don’t need any more clothes or gadgets, but you might want to think about buying an umbrella. Find free and cheap entertainment and save your money for travel.

Last thing. We love you. You are smart and cute and loveable. Lots of guys are going to notice you, and having fun is an important part of your university experience.  Even though you can, you don’t need to have sex with every idiot that wants to be with you. You have some long-term educational goals, and guys need to know that they have to fit into your plans. Stay sober, sleep alone and go to class.

See you on Thanksgiving Break.

Sugar Cookies With Sprinkles

Nothing like a real grandchild-made sugar cookies with sprinkles.