Recipes With Memories

There are ever present links to our past that follow us through the days of our lives...


As the rhubarb ripens and the tattered, spattered pages from my great-grandmother's recipes are readied, I find the recollections of her most vivid as I prepare to make her rhubarb marmalade.
Amidst the washing, the chopping and stirring, the aroma that fills the kitchen takes me back in time...




The violets are ready for harvest too. Each blossom picked, infused and yielding the most delicious shade of purple-pink jelly... connecting me to the women in my family, long passed but whose memories I share with their recipes.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Blossom Fever

Living in a vast fruit belt affords one the chance to prosper twice in a season...



Once from the beauty of the blooms that paint the orchards endless shades of pinks and whites and again later in the Summer when the luscious cherries and peaches droop from the branches...


I am not the only one smitten by all this blossoming, French, Austrian and Prussian china makers


once hand-painted their delicate porcelain wares in similar adoring motifs...


Alas Spring in all her glory...

The Perils of Nature

When the perils of Nature strike it is often the inconvenience and suffering to humans that is felt most...
But trees, forests and wildlife also succumb to her wrath.
This past Thursday the winds throughout the peninsula reached 95+ km . (75m.) per hour and continued for the entire day... when all was said and done a path of devastation was left in its wake.


The mighty maple that stood at the top of our country lane, where once I waited as a child for the school bus lay victim to the gusts.


I gathered nests from the ground strewn willy nilly across the lawns... each a sanctuary but now no longer able to hold the eggs that were soon to be laid.
We may have had no power for 4 days measured by the stillness in the household but perhaps it was an asset, creating one to indulge in hand sewing, knitting, campstove cooking and reflection...


Strangely enough though the devastation was predominate in areas, beauty still dotted the landscape...


holding the promise of flowers and fruits yet to come...

Lilliputian Lovelies

' Beauty can not be measured in size...
for it is simply a reflection of the loveliness within.'

SMM


I am always amazed how Nature has endowed such tiny little flowers with the visual impact of those 10 times their size and the enveloping heavenly fragrance worthy of great stature...


From these miniature daffodils to the violets and lily of the valley that will soon follow in my cottage garden I feel assured that finally Spring has arrived...




And for those of you that love the Lilly of the Valley and the colour pink I have discovered that the two are now available together. How yummy!

* Link for the pink Lilly of the Valley.

Daydreaming

I sent this antique late 19th century jar to a dear blog friend and it has arrived safely into her hands...

Its aqua hues always stirred memories of collecting water polished pieces of glass along the beach as a child... daydreaming that they were jewels from a mermaid's necklace.

The tiny bubbles so delicately suspended in it's making were captivating...

Whatever garden delights it once held it has been passed on to another to enjoy.

Maddie is upon a rock looking out across the water... with her keen sense of hearing perhaps she can distinguish that very mermaid singing... calling out for all to find her treasured jewels.

Hope

Yesterday marked a significant milestone for me...
A series of tests conducted over the past several weeks and a final examination by my specialist yesterday has concluded I am at last after 10 years cancer free...

Not wishing to dwell on the specifics of my disease I must admit even in the darkest hour I never lost hope...



On a lighter note I have been playing with a ball or two of Noro's latest Spring coloured sock yarn. With its rich cotton, silk blend around here we're knitting light-weight cowls for cool days and evenings. (after all this is Canada and there are still a few flakes flying about)


I bid you adieu and will close with the words of my favourite poet, Emily Dickinson...

' Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune -- without the words,
And never stops at all....'


* Painting 'Girl With Doves' by Charles Chaplin French Painter 1825-91
* Image 'Girl With Birds' Author - Kaycee as seen in ISSUE 55

Perhaps

With a 2°C reading on the thermometer just outside the door, perhaps Spring is hiding beneath a thermal blanket and having a bit of a lie-in...


But we shall not despair... with Victoria magazine's newest publication in hand, 'Gardens of Bliss'


and a proper place to daydream (if only in my imagination) I shall indulge and savour every page...


As warm sunshine reflects off my sewing table and a sampling of French General's 'Pom Pom de Paris' fabric is calling out, I have chosen a fun project...


This Tilda booklet is bursting with cute and quick delights to create.


And with this wonderful antique ironstone soup tureen I captured at the auction, I'll plant crocus and hyacinth for a table top display... just so I can play in the dirt.


Have a great week!

* Pic of chairs amongst the flowers taken during my visit to the greenhouse last week.