28 years ...

...and not forgotten

Geneviève Bergeron (1968–1989), civil engineering student
Hélène Colgan (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Nathalie Croteau (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Barbara Daigneault (1967–1989), mechanical engineering student
Anne-Marie Edward (1968–1989), chemical engineering student
Maud Haviernick (1960–1989), materials engineering student
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (1958–1989), nursing student
Maryse Laganière (1964–1989), budget clerk
Maryse Leclair (1966–1989), materials engineering student
Anne-Marie Lemay (1967–1989), mechanical engineering student
Sonia Pelletier (1961–1989), mechanical engineering student
Michèle Richard (1968–1989), materials engineering student
Annie St-Arneault (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Annie Turcotte (1969–1989), materials engineering student

Additional reading: Remember the Women of the Montreal Massacre by More Than Just Their Names

jasmine I'm a quill for hire!

27 Years...

...and not forgotten

Geneviève Bergeron (1968–1989), civil engineering student
Hélène Colgan (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Nathalie Croteau (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Barbara Daigneault (1967–1989), mechanical engineering student
Anne-Marie Edward (1968–1989), chemical engineering student
Maud Haviernick (1960–1989), materials engineering student
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (1958–1989), nursing student
Maryse Laganière (1964–1989), budget clerk
Maryse Leclair (1966–1989), materials engineering student
Anne-Marie Lemay (1967–1989), mechanical engineering student
Sonia Pelletier (1961–1989), mechanical engineering student
Michèle Richard (1968–1989), materials engineering student
Annie St-Arneault (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Annie Turcotte (1969–1989), materials engineering student

26 years...

...and not forgotten

Geneviève Bergeron (1968–1989), civil engineering student
Hélène Colgan (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Nathalie Croteau (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Barbara Daigneault (1967–1989), mechanical engineering student
Anne-Marie Edward (1968–1989), chemical engineering student
Maud Haviernick (1960–1989), materials engineering student
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (1958–1989), nursing student
Maryse Laganière (1964–1989), budget clerk
Maryse Leclair (1966–1989), materials engineering student
Anne-Marie Lemay (1967–1989), mechanical engineering student
Sonia Pelletier (1961–1989), mechanical engineering student
Michèle Richard (1968–1989), materials engineering student
Annie St-Arneault (1966–1989), mechanical engineering student
Annie Turcotte (1969–1989), materials engineering student




jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

We're in this together: Middle Eastern shepherd's pie

Tomorrow is election day in Canada. 

It’s been a long campaign. It’s been an aberrantly and abhorrently caustic campaign. 

As we waded through attack ads, endured dog whistles, and sifted through fictions presented as facts, many of us remembered what it was like to be Canadian. 

Canadian.

Not the hawkish, divisive and belligerent archetype some try to frighten and bully us into being, but the humanitarian, inclusive and reserved people we have been and (I believe) still are.

Throughout the past 78 days I saw people hold true to the unspoken but understood simple truth about Canadian society, that Calgary mayor, Naheed Nenshi, addressed at the LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium:

Nous sommes ici ensemble.

We’re in this together.

We are our shared experiences and shared emotions.  Our neighbour’s pain is our pain.  Our neighbour’s strength is our strength. Our neighbour’s joy is our joy.  It doesn’t matter what we look like, where our parents or grandparents came from, how we worship, whom we love—or any other artifice of division or classification encoded upon us—we all deserve to live a great Canadian life, in the Canada we hope for. 

As Michael Rowe wrote, in Canada the words “take our country back” are not a right-wing rallying cry of reactionary racism that celebrates and prioritizes white, Christian, heterosexual hegemony.  In Canada, “take our country back” is the cri de coeur for a return to an era when being Canadian meant aspiring to something greater than it currently is.  Something greater than decimating, selling and shedding the entities and endeavours that help to define Canadian culture and identity—the CBC, the Wheat Board, environmental protection of thousands of our rivers and lakes, peacekeeping.

I saw many people take our country back during the campaign period.  People stood up to bullies and called out fibbers.  Religious freedom was defended when peddlers of fear vilified women in veils.  Average people stepped in and sponsored Syrian refugees because the government stepped out and fell down.  Democracy was revived through new and innovative get out the vote programs for marginalised populations.

In their own ways, they were rebuilding our society to one that resembled more closely the Canada we hope for.

In his speech, Nenshi recounted a family devastated by the 2013 Calgary floods. As they sat in their nearly destroyed home, they didn’t focus on what they no longer had.  They focussed on what were about to have: a hot, homemade shepherd’s pie.  One of the relief effort’s thousands of community volunteers cooked and delivered a hot meal to this family.  It was that unspoken but understood simple truth about Canadian society.

So today I offer you a shepherd’s pie in anticipation of tomorrow’s vote.  It’s warm and comforting, and with Middle Eastern flavours, it celebrates the multicultural mosaic that makes our country stronger and better.

Parce que nous sommes ici ensemble.

Middle-Eastern shepherd’s pie

Yield: Serves 6

Ingredients

For the mashed potatoes:

450g/1lb Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and quartered

55g/60ml/0.25c butter, melted

100ml/a generous 0.33c buttermilk, plus more, if needed

salt

For the filling

Olive oil

450g/1lb ground lamb

1 onion, finely chopped

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

1 carrot, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

35g/2Tbsp/30ml tomato paste

1tsp/5ml ground cumin

1tsp/5ml ground allspice

1tsp/5ml ground coriander

1tsp/5ml cinnamon

0.5tsp/2.5ml pepper

1 pinch ground nutmeg

50g/75ml/6Tbsp sultanas, plumped in water

0.5c/125ml beef stock, lamb stock, or water

1Tbsp/15ml Worcester sauce

30g/60ml/0.25c toasted pine nuts

1 handful chopped parsley

Method

Make the mashed potatoes in the usual way.  Set aside.

Brown the lamb and remove from pan, leaving any fat in the pan. Sweat the onions, celery and carrots in the lamb fat. Add the garlic and stir until the air is perfumed with its scent. Remove the veg from the pan.  Add some olive oil and fry the tomato paste until it deepens in colour.  Return the sweated veg to the pan and add the cumin, allspice, coriander, cinnamon, pepper and nutmeg.  Stir for about a minute before returning the meat to the pan.  Tumble in the sultanas and stir well.

Add stock and enough water to cover the mixture.  Pour in the Worcestershire sauce.  Stir and bring to a boil.  Let boil for a few minutes before slowing the hob to a simmer and let blip (uncovered) until a thick sauce clings to the meat. 

While the mixture reduces, preheat the oven to 190C/375F.

Add the nuts and work through the parsley.  Balance flavours to taste.

Tip the mixture into an ovenproof pan or dish.  Top with the mashed potatoes.  Fluff and style the potatoes in the usual way, so as to create as many opportunities for browned, crunchy bits. Drizzle with olive oil.  Bake until the potatoes are burnished to satisfaction.

Let cool for about 5-10 minutes before serving.

Notes:

• Instead of lamb, used minced beef (or a combination of the two).
• Almonds can be substituted for pine nuts.
• Use the raisins’ plumping water when cooking the meat mixture as it will add some of the raisins’ sweetness to the dish.
• If you're lucky to have celery with its leaves, mince those leaves and stir through with the parsley.

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Food Day Canada: Mmm..Canada Blackcurrant Buckle

The first Saturday in August means different things to different Canadians.  For many of us, it's the start of a three-day weekend.  Although different parts of the country call it by different names, for most of Ontario, it's the Civic Holiday long weekend (with Monday being the Civic Holiday).  I say most of Ontario as Burlington calls it Joseph Brant Day,  Ottawa calls it Colonel By Day, Toronto calls it Simcoe Day, and Vaughan calls it Benjamin Vaughan Day.

But the first Saturday of August is also Food Day. Over the past dozen years or so it has morphed from a beefy barbecue to support the Canadian beef industry to a nationwide celebration of Canadian food.

Personally, I think it's a fitting combination of celebrations. It's a reminder of what, traditionally, it is to be Canadian: keeping an eye out for one another, and doing the right thing, and welcoming new people and ideas.  It's also about celebrating Canadian food: from farmers who grow our food, to chefs who work with amazing local ingredients, to cooks who adopt and adapt foods to feed their families and friends.

My offering for Food Day Canada is a very homey blackcurrant buckle--a lumpy-bumpy cake topped with fruit and a sweet topping.  Depending upon where you are, you may call it a crumble.

I've posted buckles recipes before, but they were both blueberry-based: peach-blueberry and lemon-blueberry.  This one features locally-sourced blackcurrants.  More tart than sweet, the small onyx orbs paired nicely with the tangy, lemon-scented buttermilk cake.  Of course, if the cake is *too* tart for your palate, you can drizzle an icing glaze on top, dust the cake with icing sugar or snuggle a billowy cloud of ice cream or chantilly cream along side your slice.

Blackcurrant Buckle

Yield: One 20cm/8" cake

Ingredients:

For the topping:

65g  85ml  0.33c   sugar

50g  85ml  0.33c   ap flour

40g  45ml  3Tbsp  cold butter

For the cake:

100g  125ml  0.5c    sugar

55g      62ml  0.25c  butter

20ml  2dspn   4tsp    flavourless oil

2 eggs

Finely grated zest of half a lemon (optional)

165ml  0.66c  buttermilk (plus more, if needed)

265g   440ml 1.75c ap flour

10ml 1dspn  2tsp baking powder

1.25ml  0.25tsp   salt

210g  500ml  2c blackcurrants

Preheat oven to 180C/350F. Butter and paper the bottom of an 20cm/8" high-sided springform pan.

Rub the zest into the sugar, infusing the lemon oils into the sugar. Set aside.

Sift together the flour and baking powder and set aside.

Start with the topping by rubbing together the sugar, flour and butter so everything is combined, but in varied pebbly sizes (from grains of sand to no bigger than a pea). Set aside.

To make the batter, cream together the sugar, butter and oil. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the flour and buttermilk in the usual way (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry), scraping down the bowl's sides between each addition.  If necessary blend in more buttermilk until the batter reaches a dropping consistency.

Pour into prepared pan and level the batter. Tumble the blackcurrants on top, so they are evenly distributed on the batter. Cover the fruit with the topping.

Bake for 60-75 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out with cooked cake crumbs clinging (it can be hard to tell as the skewer will have to travel through the cooked currants). The cake will begin to pull away from the sides and the crumble will be a light golden colour.

Allow to cool to room temperature before serving.

Serve, if you wish, with ice cream or chantilly cream.

Notes:

• Taste your blackcurrants before baking with them as they can range from tart to sweet.  If they are tarter than you’d like, then you can
• Drizzle an icing glaze overtop the cooled cake
• Dust the cooled cake with icing sugar
• You probably wouldn't go wrong with adding more fruit than the two cups listed.  You'll get more of bursted, somewhat jammy fruit top, and I can't think of how that could be a bad thing.

Previous Food Day Canada Posts:

• Jamaican Beef Patties
• Blueberry-Apricot Frangipane
• Chimichurri

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Mmm...Canada: Lemon Rhubarb Pound Cake

Happy Canada Day!

This year I offer one of my favourite spring/summer cakes to ring in my country's 148th birthday. A lemon rhubarb pound cake.

When I was little I wasn't very fond of rhubarb -- it was just too sour.  My neighbour grew it in her garden and would give my mum jewel-like stalks.  Experiments ensued.  A strawberry-rhubarb something was by far my favourite, but I thought it would have been better sans the stalks.  I'm not sure I'd come to the same conclusion today.

Time passed and now I look forward to spring and summer, if not for the long ruby and green stems that I see thrusting from the ground, or bundled at my favourite country market.  Neither my parents nor I grow rhubarb--so I can't just amble out and harvest some for my kitchen. One of these days I'll either plant some or befriend someone with a surfeit of the stuff.

I must admit I do find rhubarb a bit of an unwieldy venture.  The stalks sometimes feel as long as I am tall, and finding an out-of-the-way storage space can be an adventure.  They balance on top of refrigerated containers of leftovers and bottles of milk or weave and precarious path between bottles and packets.  If I'm not paying attention and let the lie on the counter, the cats bat at the tips and occasionally tear off the remnants of the (poisonous) leaves.  Yes, I have cleaned up the evidence of their taste testing. Yes (again), I should be better about trimming off the leaves if the stalks are going to lie about for any amount of time.

I'm not sure why, but in spring and early summer I tend to crave sharp flavours--lemon, lime, vinegary coleslaws--which is probably why I spend much of that time baking lemon and buttermilk cakes. Rhubarb seemed to be a natural addition to the batter, and a very good one.  Slightly damp and just tart enough, this loaf is a more than welcome accompaniment to my afternoon tea.


Lemon Rhubarb Pound cake

Yield 1 loaf

Ingredients
zest of half a lemon (see notes)
200g/250ml/1c sugar
100ml/0.33c+1Tbsp buttermilk
20ml/2dspn/1.5Tbsp lemon juice
170g/280ml/1c+2Tbsp all purpose flour
1/4tsp/1.25ml baking powder
1/4tsp/1.25ml salt
85g/90ml/6Tbsp soft butter
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla (optional)
250g/500ml/2c finely chopped rhubarb

Method
Line an 8-1/2" or 8" loaf tin
Preheat oven to 170C/325F.

Rub the lemon zest into the sugar in your mixing bowl.

Mix the lemon juice into the buttermilk and set aside.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, and set aside.

Cream together the lemon sugar and butter.  Add eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition.  Mix in the vanilla, if using.

Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures in the usual way (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry), scraping down bowl after incorporating each buttermilk addition.  Fold in the rhubarb.

Pour the batter into the prepared tin, smoothing the top.  Tap the pan a few times to release any trapped air bubbles.

Bake for 90 minutes, or until the top is golden brown, the sides pull away from the tin and an inserted skewer is clean-ish (see notes).

Notes:

• You can use the zest of the whole lemon, if you wish.
• This is a damp cake--the skewer won't reveal crumbs, as with many other cakes, but a *slight* stickiness.
• I prefer this cake without icing or glaze, but if you prefer it enrobed, try a lemon glaze or cream cheese icing.

Variation

• This cake can be made with sour cherries instead of rhubarb

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!

Happy Pi Day: Tourtière

Happy π Day!

Given this year is a special pi year (if you don't know, look at the number below and you'll see it), it only made sense to join in this roundly delicious celebration.

How better to celebrate 3.141592653 (et cetera) in the land of math and physics geniuses than with a very Canadian pie? I thought of butter tarts (which are just little pies), flapper pie and bumbleberry pie but I wanted something savoury. To my mind, the quintessential Canadian savoury pie is “tourtière,” the Quebecois meat pie, traditionally eaten over the Christmas-New Year season.

Tourtière falls within the millennia-old tradition of pie-making, with distant ancestors traced to ancient Egypt and Sumeria. The Romans helped spread pie-making throughout their empire, and soldiers returned from the Crusades with Middle Eastern pies.  European explorers, missionaries and colonists continued to spread pie-making traditions throughout the world.

Regional variations mean it’s difficult to declare an “authentic tourtière.” General agreement among Quebeckers seems to end with the point that tourtières are double-crusted savoury pies.  The pies can be: 

• Made in shallow pie tins or deep cast iron pots

• Fish pies or meat pies, with or without veg or grains

• Filled with one or several meats

• Made with ground or diced meat

So why do I think tourtière is quintessentially Canadian?

• According to Chef Richard Bergeron, 17^th Century France provided the pie's five essential seasonings--allspice, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and pepper.

• Quebec food journalist Julian Armstrong found British influences in ingredients rolled oats (Scottish) and potatoes (Irish), and form (the deep dish sea-pies from the 18^th Century British Navy).

• It takes advantage of regional ingredients such as pork, game, veal and/or beef; coastal variations can use fish.

• While purists may decry modern interpretations, some newer recipes use ingredients that indicate the diversity of Canadian tastes such as meatless fillings and chicken or include garlic or soy sauce.

Click here to listen to Bergeron and Armstrong talk tourtières on the CBC. 

This straightforward recipe is very much like the first tourtière I tried -- a rich ground pork pie and lightly spiced.  Served with a dollop of HP sauce, buttery peas and creamy mash, it makes a delicious winter's meal.  And that's not an irrational declaration.


Tourtière
Adapted from a recipe by Julian Armstrong

Yield 1 23cm (9") pie

Ingredients
600g / 1.33lb minced regular pork (see notes)
190ml /0.75c cold water
125ml / 0.5c finely chopped onion (approximately 1/2 a medium onion)
62ml / 0.25c finely chopped celery (approximately 1/2 a rib)
1 bay leaf
0.5tsp / 2.5ml pepper
0.5tsp / 2.5ml dried summer savory (see notes)
0.25tsp / 1.25ml dried rosemary
0.25tsp / 1.25ml nutmeg
0.25tsp / 1.25ml cinnamon
0.25tsp / 1.25ml allspice
Salt, to taste
25g / 60ml / 0.25c rolled oats

Pastry for one 23cm (9") double-crust pie (see notes)

1 beaten egg

Method

In a heavy bottomed pan, combine water with pork and bring to a boil.

Add onion, celery, herbs and spices (except for salt).  Cover and cook over a medium-low flame for about 30 minutes, stirring often.  Add more water, if the mixture begins to dry.

Taste the mixture, and add salt, to taste. Stir in the oats, cover and continue to cook (still stirring often). Remove bay leaf and let the mixture cool.

Preheat oven to 210C/425F

Line the pie tin with pastry.  Evenly spread the filling in the lined tin, brushing the edge with egg. Cover the pie with the top crust, seal the edge.  Trim and crimp.  Cut steam vents, in the usual way, and brush the surface with egg wash.

Bake for 15 minutes. 

Reduce heat to 180C/375F and continue to bake until the crust is golden (approximately 25-35 minutes).

Cool slightly (about 10-15 minutes) before slicing.

To help cut the richness, serve with something sharp such as

• Pickled vegetables (such as jardinière, pickled beets, vinegary coleslaw)
• Sauce (such as cranberry sauce, HP, chowchow)

Notes:

• Regular pork adds a richness to the pie that lean pork lacks.  If you prefer lean pork, by all means use it.
•  If you can't find summer savory, substitute with winter savory or thyme.
•  I prefer meat pies with a savoury flakey crust, but a shortcrust would work as well.
• This recipe should convert easily to handpies or individual pot pies.

cheers!
jasmine
I'm a quill for hire!