Category Archives: Recipe

Ingredients

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Some people seem to have all the ingredients of their lives set out on the counter, measured, tossed into the pan or bowl at various times, baked, brewed or grilled, somehow always to perfection. Their soufflés never fall. At least that is how it appears.

It’s a mirage. Everybody has stuff. That’s just the way life is. Yes, some people have more stuff than others, but nobody goes through this life without something. Our lives are complicated, and the ones we think have it all together, the ones whose lives we envy, those are often the most messed up. The intricacies of relationships, family, love, business, desire, well….those are the details that rarely follow the course of least resistance.

Most people who are really, really good cooks will not be able to direct you specifically to a carved in stone recipe, it’s more like the recipe is their guide and they deviate off the path as it comes to them. Life is a lot like that. There is only so much you can plan. And, there is certainly a whole bunch of tossing the ingredients in to the pot and seeing if it works out along the way.

My friend Ellie attended my first recipe for life club party. I asked everyone to bring a story and a recipe. She brought the ingredients for a chocolate turtle martini, a martini glass that reads, “I love nights that I can’t remember”, and an apron that says, “keep calm, carry on”.

She is my fun friend. She keeps me balanced. I can be overly introspective and she knows how to listen and support me, and she is the person I can laugh with as well. She lives life fully. She travels, goes to concerts, (she just saw the Rolling Stone concert 4 times…) opened a fashion boutique called Shenkin West, she loves colour. She is the fuchsia and chartreuse, to my white and beige. And when things work out she says, “the ingredients were right”. So here’s to mixing and concocting and creating our lives. Cheers!

Rob’s Chocolate Turtle Martini

Recipe courtesy Rob Harpest

1 drink

Ingredients

Cocoa Powder

Powdered sugar

Caramel sauce, in a squeeze bottle with a very small tip

Chocolate Sauce

2 ounces vanilla vodka (recommended: Stoli Vanilla)

2 ounces white creme de cacao

2 ounces Praline New Orleans Style Pecan Liqueur

Crushed ice

Roasted pecan halves, for garnish

Roughly chopped chocolate squares, for garnish

Directions

First, sweeten the cocoa powder to your liking by mixing the cocoa and powdered sugar. Take a large martini glass and very carefully coat the rim in caramel sauce from the squeeze bottle, being careful not to let it drip too far down the sides.

Then, dip the entire rim of the glass into the sweetened cocoa powder, being sure to coat all of the caramel. The desired effect is a chocolate dusted caramel rim. If available, I also like to put just a drop of chocolate syrup at the bottom of the glass for color.

For the drink, shake the vodka, Creme de Cacao and praline liqueur in a martini shaker with ice to chill. Fill the martini glass nearly full with crushed or shaved ice, being careful not to touch the rim. Strain the drink into the martini glass.

Garnish atop the floating ice with a roasted pecan half and a small piece of chopped chocolate. Alternately, I have garnished it with a half of a Turtle candy by making an incision and hanging it on the rim of the glass. Whichever you prefer.

Sponge Cake

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I can see my mother standing at the kitchen sink, and the lovely window edged with white curtains that gazed in to the garden. The ribbed glass cabinet doors, the right edge chipped, but worn smooth. Plates stacked in sequence of size, teacups dangled from the hooks above the juice glasses. Her black hair, short and tucked behind her perfect ears. The curve of her back under the pink sweater set and her apron tied with a bow at the back. I imagine her hands as she washed them under the tap and wiped them on her apron. The same hands that held mine.

Her recipes are within me, like pieces of her. A weathered yellow bowl that somehow made the trip across the ocean from England stands on her counter and his filled with red cabbage soaking in vinegar. The way she patted the ‘canaidella’ into balls for the chicken soup. Fish patties….and when she was too old to stand and cook, she made them with me and my girls in my kitchen. She sat on a stool holding the tin bowl and wooden spoon. Yorkshire puddings, apple cake, the apples sliced by hand and smothered in brown sugar.

I have learned many things from my mother. If I’m a good mother, it is because of her. So if my daughters turn out okay, it is because she is watching over them. I f my mother had a ‘recipe for life’ it would be her inner strength and courage, her ability to put one foot in front of the other and find what is good about each day. And to find joy…. She was around my age when she lost her breast, her son, her husband. And yet, she filled my life with joy, she was gracious and good.