Beat the Heat With a Buttermilk Treat - Melkmoes

Like much of the western part of the continent, we are experiencing a bit of a heatwave here in Edmonton and will be for about a week. Suddenly all the baking we've learned or mastered during the pandemic doesn't seem nearly as applicable. Any day where the oven is not used is a victory and even depressing the handle on the toaster brings unease and self-doubt, if not actual scorn and recrimination.

Grilling is the second-most preferable way to prepare meat after Skip the Dishes, and salads of all types have gone from side dishes to meal foundations without skipping a beat. I am grateful that in addition to these strategies, Audrey has another hot weather dish up her sleeve: a Dutch dish called melkmoes (pronounced MELK-moose).

Now, on the face of it, a cold buttermilk soup made with barley does not sound appealing in the least, but hear me out! It is actually quite good, and brilliantly refreshing on hot days such as these. In fact, calling it a soup is not wholly accurate; porridge might be more on the mark.

The base of the dish is cooked barley which can be made the day before and stored in the fridge. Excess barley can even be frozen for use in soups or in future batches of melkmoes (as Audrey did this time around).

The raisins are boiled (usually with the barley) in order to plump them up, and finely chopped green onions are added for flavour.

Once mixed in with the cooked and cooled barley, you add buttermilk (ignore the 1% on the recipe card; that's a typo) to the desired consistency and then chill it for two hours in a covered bowl in the fridge before eating. Audrey and her mum prefer the Beatrice brand of buttermilk and I have to admit that the Lucerne variety does seem to taste a tiny bit saltier, but your mileage may vary.

There are a number of variations in how to prepare and season melkmoes, but I am using Audrey's mum's recipe because it is dead simple. You can find other versions online (sometimes called kruudmoes).that include different seasonings such as turmeric. 

These dishes are typically sweetened to taste by the individual, either with sugar (our go-to), molasses or a Dutch syrup called stroop (like in stroopwafels). 

The sweetness of the sugar cuts out a lot of the intrinsic bitterness of the buttermilk but leaves enough to keep it refreshing on the palate, like the hops in an India Pale Ale. The creamy richness comes through but is not oppressively thick as one might expect. The barley keeps it hearty, the raisins add a little variation to the texture, and there's lunch in a bowl for you.

We typically end up with enough for a day or two of leftovers, although the expanding barley makes keeping back a bit of extra buttermilk a good idea. 

Most importantly, knowing that a light, cool and refreshing lunch is only a ladle away is a true blessing on days when the mercury gets to the far side of 30. 

Peanut Brothers and Jealous

This Fathers Day I am remembering my dad, of course, and thinking of my daughters who are now both in or on their way to northern Manitoba, but I am also thinking of brothers, mothers and peanut butter.

This is years ago - I'm thinking I was perhaps 15 or 16, but it might have been later as Audrey thinks she was there as well - standing in the driveway with an astonishing number of relations that have delightfully converged on our house in Leduc in some kind of impromptu family reunion. Most of Dad's surviving siblings are there: Garry (who passed from cancer six or 7 years later), Ena and Wendell, as well as Uncle Harold's widow Anna and Gramma Irene. Ena's husband Frank and Garry's wife Janice are in attendance too. 

There are stubby brown bottles of beer in most of the men's hands and several of the ladies' as well. Visiting vehicles and Frank's camperized van have cordoned off a section of our long driveway, and although the picnic table is full, hardly anyone is sitting at it, much of the open back yard is empty as well.

 A steady procession of food makes its way from the kitchen to the backyard and driveway. A proper sit-down meal has been foregone in favour of casual bite-sized nibbles - baskets of battered pickerel cooked from the catch that Wendell brought down from Thompson, trays of Janice's pizza buns and platters of sausage, cheese and crackers, as well as pickled eggs, beets and red onions.

Garry, Dad, Ena and Mum

My uncles have always been a gregarious bunch, eager to laugh and share stories - if I have any skill at storytelling is due to hearing it done so marvelously at gatherings like these. And apprenticing here too - when I was 10 or 11 I told jokes I had heard on comedy records to much of this same group in our basement for at least 15-20 minutes. I remember Garry wiping his eyes from laughter and Janice begging me to stop so she could catch her breath. 

This time around I am mostly listening, and there are peals of laughter coming from where Dad is holding court with his brothers. Somehow the words "peanut butter" drift out of this group and fall into Gramma Irene's ear. She is perhaps 80 by this point but still as sharp as a tack and as acerbic as a spoon of lemon juice.

Dad, Mum, Tara and Gramma Irene - 198?

She shoulders her way into the group and says, "What's so funny about peanut butter?"

This prompts another round of laughter from the brothers, but Gramma is unmoved. The brothers' eyes all turn to my father, either because he is the oldest, its his party, or because he was the one who said it and drew Gramma's attention.

Dad grinned at his mother and said, "Oh, we were just laughing at how much of a staple it was for us growing up."

"What's so funny about that?" Gramma demanded. "Lots of people eat peanut butter." This prompted another round of chuckles from the assembled siblings.

"Well, sure, " Dad agreed, "But Mum, I ate so much of it at home, I don't think I had it again until I was maybe 31!"

His brothers laughed in amusement and agreement, but Gramma was not to be outdone. When the chuckling died down, she looked Dad dead in the eye, and said levelly, "Funny that none of you ever got tired of beer."

Glory and Wendell and I in Hudson Bay SK,  2016

Dad's jaw dropped as Garry and Wendell howled with laughter, then he grinned and nodded, conceding the point to Gramma, who, now satisfied at having regained the upper hand, moved back over with the other ladies. From everyone not in earshot you could hear whispers of "What did she say?" or "Was that something about peanut butter?" or "Gramma Irene said what?!" The repartee quickly circulated among the assembly and cemented Gramma's reputation as someone not to be trifled with for at least another decade or so.

This is probably the purest memory of both my father and my extended family that I have, and I don't know why it has taken me this long to write it down.

The Hesitant Residents

With vaccines making their way around, it is tempting to think of things as returning to normal, and in many ways they are. Here in Alberta, more than 60 % of the population has received at least one vaccination, so patio dining and movie theatres have re-opened.  Restrictions on outdoor social gatherings have loosened, and when we reach 70% (less than 2% away!), we should be able to have visitors in our homes again.

And yet, vaccine hesitancy, particularly in outlying areas, has slowed down the take-up of the initial shot to the point where a cash-strapped Conservative government is now spending $3 million on lottery prizes to "incentivize" getting vaccinated. Well, after coughing up $1.3 billion betting on the Keystone XL pipeline, what another $3M, I guess.

While it is easy to point out how much higher the vaccination rates are in cities as opposed to rural areas, the cross-section of people choosing not to receive their vaccine covers all age groups and professions, including, strangely enough, health care workers.

The rationale ranges from the reasonable but unfounded ("I don't trust experimental vaccines"), to the paranoid ("I heard there are reproductive side effects") all the way down to conspiratorial ("You know that vaccine can be traced by satellite, right?") but in the end, the result is the same: people are slow getting the vaccination that will help us reach herd immunity for COVID and its variant cases.

Furthermore, some people resent the vaccinated for getting their shot so willingly. I have a co-worker who has now had multiple interactions with people teasing her, and she is unable to tell how serious they are. Her defusing tactic (which I think is brilliant) is to say, "Well, all the doctors are taking it, and if they all die, I don't know if I want to hang around to see what happens next." This usually generates a mirthful chuckle, or "fair enough!". but the fact that it is even up to debate leaves me a bit slackjawed.

On the plus side, this slowdown in uptake means that early adopters like myself and Audrey can get our second shots ahead of schedule - we are booked for ours this Thursday! 

Most of my 50+ friends will be two weeks in from their second dose by Canada Day - brilliant timing. But as nice as it is to be able to visit a friend's place for a barbecue and a brew, it will only feel normal. We seem to be a long ways off from actually being normal, I'm afraid, and I don't know if we will ever really get there.

Trainwiches by the Linear Foot

It was beastly hot in Edmonton on Thursday, 30 or 31 degrees, and I lamented that it was a poor day to be roasting a 25-pound turkey.

The workmates I was chatting with online were astonished. "Why would you do that?" asked one. "Dude, there is a reason Thanksgiving is in the fall..." opined another.

"I didn't really have a choice," I explained. "My Safeway is closing and turkeys were 89 cents a pound, and Glory had just mentioned the week before how much she loves the turkey and brie sandwiches I make every time we have turkey leftovers.

"And with her needing food for her 36-hour train trip to Churchill on Sunday..." well, no more really needed to be said at that point.

Three of us head out to Hudson Bay SK tomorrow, my third visit, but the first time dropping someone off. Glory will isolate while helping to prep the Tundra Inn hotel for tourists this summer, and Fenya will join her in two weeks' time. 

So! Road sandwiches are needed for tomorrow and trainwiches for the day after that. The turkey cooked up a treat in the Look bag (juicy and tender in 3.25 hours? fuhgeddaboutit) and I went shopping last night to grab the last few ingredients. There was a bit of bacon leftover from our pancake breakfast this morning so I baked that up and cooked up a bit of instant stuffing as well. All was in readiness to produce 3.25 linear feet of sandwiches.

After slicing the baguettes and laying them out, I butter them and add mayonnaise - regular for half the trainwiches and hickory mayo for the rest. The margarine is there to make the ticker parts of bread more palatable but it also serves as a bit of moisture barrier, since the majority of these sandwiches won't be eaten for another 36 hours or so. I had the chipotle aioli out too but abandoned it when I decided I couldn't be bothered with the labelling this would necessitate.

Next step was adding the lettuce (more moisture barrier and a bit of texture, plus, you know - yay veg) and a bit of bacon. I'm usually too lazy to cook bacon for these purposes, but in the past I have added some prosciutto in the same place.

This was followed by the addition of a touch of whole berry cranberry sauce. In the future I might put this directly on the bread, but I think this is better in terms of bread integrity anyhow. We have also used mango chutney at this stage and it is amazing. I also added stuffing to the roadwich baguette as I believe it adds a savoury note and makes the whole thing more festive, but Glory is not that into stuffing.

Then the turkey! Honestly, I might have liked wider pieces here, but you work with what you've got. I try to mix up the light and dark meat a little, but again, the breast meat is moist enough it works fine on its own. A little bit of smoked salt and fresh cracked black pepper and we are entering the home stretch.

The brie component is due in no small part to a bacon and brie baguette I had in London Heathrow in 2005. It was my first time having brie outside of a cheese plate or combined with anything other than an expensive cracker and it blew my mind. We have used other cheeses as well, but usually only if brie is not available. Double or triple crème is advisable due to its greater height and resulting improvement in bread coverage - once again, Costco to the rescue.

The assembled sandwich is an imposing edifice, but sadly, must be sliced to allow for easier transport and tidier consumption. This can be tricky, and keeping the various components from breaching their carbohydrate casing requires both a compression stage as well as something I call the Cthulhu grip when cutting. Care must be taken with one's fingers splayed across the anterior face of the sandwich, out of line-of-sight but helping to confine slippery pieces of turkey. This focus did prevent me from losing a digit, but did result in my slicing my thumb open like an imbecile while it rested in plain sight.

In most instances, I will remove the dry crusty ends of the baguettes, but this time they were spongy enough and I had allowed enough fillings to reach them that I left them intact. Quartering the sandwiches allows them to fit in a standard-size zippered baggie...with a little bit of additional compression.

And there you have it -  a yard-plus of turkey sandwiches, individually portioned and ready for travel. Five trainwiches go into a knotted grocery bag while a smaller one holds the three roadwiches for tomorrow.

Honestly, it is a bit more forethought and effort than hand food invented by an Earl to keep his fingers dry while gambling should ever require, but this sort of preparation makes road trips just a little bit easier to enjoy. And like I said, when it is a request from the offpsring you won't see for the rest of the summer, it is certainly worth it. And there is another bag of turkey in the freezer so I can do the same thing for Fenya in two weeks' time (and for her boyfriend who has graciously offered to drive her).

The last word from one of my workmates when discussing the sandwiches was "Stephen loves his girls more than I love, well, anybody," 

I know it's not true, but I am flattered that people recognize that important ingredient!