Today is my blog’s one year anniversary!

(source)

It’s not been at all the journey I expected, let me tell you. I imagined so much more “balance” than “extreme”.

I imagined so much more activity than absence.

I imagined so much more adventuresome cooking than reptitive meals.

I imagined so much better photography than anti-eye-candy.

But on the upside, I’m not dead, so who knows what the next year will bring? I mean that too literally on too many levels these days, let me tell you.

I have certainly enjoyed the community, the friendship, the entertainment value… so the surprises have been, on the whole, a good thing. And now, I have a surprise for you:

I know this post was meant to be story-telling, and all about my upcoming mystery travel, but I’d rather do one thing at a time so let’s play first and get down to business second…  because it’s a birthday, there should be gifts, right?

Right!

And to whet your appetites and keep you coming back for more, this is a TWO-PART giveaway!

Part I:

I had some themes in mind for the giveaway—something me, something relating to the blog, something a bit fun… and so it was born:

ME: well, I’m a nerd from way back. If I were less of a nerd, then if I asked you to guess the proportion of these boxes:

and these boxes:

that were books, you wouldn’t say “60%”. But they are. Just ask my forearms.

So a book seemed right…

THE BLOG: … and this blog is about food, partly, right? So why not a COOKBOOK?

A BIT FUN: this one overlaps with the “me” part—because at the end of the day, I’m still a historian, even retired. So finding an older book, and an older Canadian book seemed just downright groovy.

And so, my first ever blog giveaway is a copy of THE LAURA SECORD CANADIAN COOK BOOK!

What’s that, you say?

To most Canadians, if you say the words “Laura Secord”, they think of this:

Laura Secord is a chain of mall-based candy stores, which used to feature in my life primarily once a year. Easter:

These cream eggs are deadly sweet (I was about to make a joke about “literally” and then hoping for resurrection, but then I realised that was religiously insensitive—oops), part of my childhood, and distinctly Canadian.

Fewer people know the story of Laura Secord, who warned the Red Coats of an American attack during the war of 1812 (in which Canadian-based British forces went south and burned the White House—sorry ’bout that, Yankee friends!). It wasn’t quite marathon-worthy, but she did trek around 30 km to warn the British forces of the attack coming near Niagara, Ontario, and this let the Brits and their First Nations allies to be prepared and take almost all the attacking Americans prisoner.

Now, the story is heavily enshrouded in myths and legends—who knows how much of it is real history other than the fact that this lady took an epic walk? But as far as I’m concerned, an active liver (that walk!) and later affiliated with chocolate makes her my spirit animal for today’s giveaway—without actually being an animal!

In 1967, on the Canadian centennial, this cook book was developed featuring a whole whack of old-school Canadian dishes, from Fricandeau (veal and pork loaf) to Malpeque Oyster Stew, Holubtse (Ukrainian stuffed cabbage rolls), Hot Cross Buns, and Quebec Sugar Pie.

And for all that, she becomes my first giveaway prize! Yay!

I think these recipes could use an update—a healthification while keeping their essences alive (hello, Nanaimo bars, I’m talking to you), but it would be a fun book for the creative cook to play with.

To enter, I would ask the following: in the comment section below, tell me about an iconic historical figure that was a part of your youth—for whatever reason, foodie or otherwise—and on Tuesday, 14 June, I’ll pick a winner.

Thanks for playing!

(Stay tuned for Part II of my giveaway on Monday—the story comes then, no ifs, ands or buts!)

In the summer of 1990, I was 13. I spent my time nannying for the 1-year-old of some family friends, and hanging out with my friends from school. I lived in a middle-class, predominantly English-speaking suburb of Montreal, and I was pretty naive about, oh, everything. I probably still am…

I read the local paper—parts of it, anyway—and had since forever. One morning, the front-page image was this:

(source)

That image is burned in my brain.

I grew up so sheltered that I didn’t think that “important things” happened anymore (Meech Lake? Quebec sovereignty? Yawn!), and they sure didn’t happen to me. But then, the barricade went up.

To summarise a long and complex history into a line… the town of Oka, on the North Shore just off the western tip of the island of Montreal, decided to expand a members-only golf course and build condos on contested ground—”contested” because the First Nations band there, the Mohawk, thought that was their land. (map source)

Back then, I thought history was in the past.

And then came the Oka crisis—to prevent the white people from building a *golf course* (of all things!) on sacred ground, the Mohawk people put up a barricade. The Quebec police force, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), was called in, and as things escalated (an SQ officer was shot and killed), the Royal 22e Régiment (the “Van Doos”—the army) were called in. And that photo up there, a stand-off between a Van Doo soldier and a Mohawk Warrior, appeared on the front page of The Gazette, with the heading “Showdown at the Oka Corral” (which I still consider one of the cleverest titles I’ve *ever* seen!).

I was quite terrified by the idea that angry people with guns could interrupt the business of daily life… in the suburbs… it stayed with me, as you might be able to tell from my story.

In fact, it stayed with me *so* much that EVERY time I eat my favourite cheese, I hear the words “Showdown at the Oka Corral” run through my head, and that image up there flashes before my eyes.

It has not, however, soured me on Oka Cheese at all.

Now, for someone who fancies herself a cheese connoisseur, I’m pretty wussy. I think foods that are blue (except blueberries) should be thrown out—i.e., bleu cheese—and I’m super-picky in what I give thumbs-up to.

I can’t say a word against Oka, though!

Oka was first made by Trappist Monks in 1893, and while it’s become a commercial process now, I still find it charming. It has a certain… aroma… to it, which you could call “pungent”, or “the smell of the rind stays on your fingers if you should happen to touch it, and that’s not great.” However, the smell of the orange rind is misleading, because the cheese actually has a really nice, mild, but nutty taste.

Thursday is my Friday, by which I mean, I have deadlines on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday… EVERY week. And so while I still work on Friday, knowing that it’s deadline free makes it feel like candy, as far as days of the week go. This week, I decided to mark “my Friday” with a little wine and cheese, but lest I be predictable, I’ve broken out of the mould!

Tonight’s wine is *still* a Sav Blanc (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!), BUT! It’s a SOUTH AFRICAN Sav Blanc! I went to a non-provincial wine store which marked up by $2 per bottle *at least*, and I’m on a frugality kick in 2011: I didn’t want to spend more than $15 on the bottle… and this bottle of Nederburg came with a free wine glass, too!

I mistakenly left it in my car for about 4 hours after work (at -21°C) so it’s *too* cold and hard to really taste… but I think it’s entirely fine, though no New Zealand Sav Blanc! It’s just lacking a little of the depth and warmth of my NZ faves… the Nederburg claims “Lively wafts of fresh-cut grass and gooseberry, deliciously refreshing with a lingering finish”, which I fault for being a sentence fragment but not for the claim. I *like* grass and gooseberry, but it’s just not my old NZ standby.

The cheese, on the other hand, never fails me.

(I am also using tonight’s wine and cheese to balm my soul, as this morning, I had to report animal cruelty to the SPCA. Remember how cold I said it was? Well, a house a few doors down from me has taken to locking their dog in a van in my back alley for 8 hours every day… I noticed it last week when it was 0°C and thought “I don’t think that’s OK…”, and when I saw the dog being put in the van this morning, it was too much. But I’ve never whistle-blown before and I actually felt bad about it—until I went out and heard the dog crying. How creepy is *this*?!?)

Do you ever associate food with major—non-personal— events? (Oka didn’t happen to me, so it’s not personal, but it became personal when I couldn’t eat the cheese without thinking of aboriginal land claims.)