Pure 2015

There are two blogs that I’ve subscribed to so that each time these talented bloggers write something, I get it in my email inbox. One of those blogs is called Obscure CanLit Mama and this blog’s writer, who is also a published fiction and short story writer, chooses a word of the year for each year. These are words that have the quality of being meditatable (not a word, I’m most sure), like a mantra, and words that empower life.

After Obscure CanLit Mama opened up her comments so that her readers could share their words-of-the-year, I posted a comment, choosing a word of the year for 2015 and sharing it in that forum. My post was more than a paragraph, before I edited it back, so I cut and paste the superfluous paragraphs not appropriate to the comment section and am posting them here as today’s blog post:

Instead of just being a spectator on this blog (as I am most days) I, too, am going to choose a word of the year for 2015. Can’t say I’ve reflected on this for the probably necessary days, but the very first word of the song “Real Love” on Jireh Gospel Choir’s new album “Get Up” is pure. [Full disclosure, I am a singer in Jireh and am married to Carol Bernard, the director]. That’s my word for 2015 that I want to explore and that I want God to work into my life. Funny that ‘pure’ is set prominently as first word in a song that was perhaps gospel song writer extraordinaire Stephen Lewis’ first foray into writing radio-friendly lyrics.

The lyrics go ‘Pure, kind, something I have inside of me, joy, unspeakable each time I think of everything, you’ve done in my life…’ Somehow those beginning words set Real Love off on a good track. Like the list of the fruits of the spirit it makes me want this in my life.

On my next trip to the library I’ll start by exploring the etymology (I hope that’s the word) of ‘pure’. How was the word first used? What’s its history? But the all-important part of this exercise, my first time having a word of the year, is, “What will the concept of ‘pure’ produce in my life?”. Only good things, I’m sure.

Stay tuned throughout 2015 as I reflect on ‘pure’.

Jan4 view

The view from my window this Sunday is quite monochromatic but beautiful, nonetheless, for the ice and snow.
Of course, I vector traced it – so much quicker than learning the skills of pen and ink.
There is really nothing more relaxing than a Quebec storm and its aftermath especially when one is inside and has no pressing destination.
Hope my reader is ensconced (??) in a peaceful place and has found beauty in grayscale if not CMYK.
God is good!
: Snow and ice on a Sunday

Favourite breakfast seventeen

The favourite breakfast that will finish my seventeen favourite breakfasts series is particularly well associated with Christmas for me. It’s not a breakfast that brings back fond memories from my youth – it only began for me as a newly-married man, so it is a breakfast that comes from Carol’s rich culinary tradition – corn porridge.

This Christmas morning, 2014, in Mississauga, Marilyn cooked up the white corn to make a most delicious corn porridge. For want of corn porridge in these recent years, I was looking around for milk for my porridge to swim in while everyone else had proceeded to the table with their bowls. Part of the richness of corn porridge is that it is made with con-densed milk, so no 1 or 2%, skim or homogenized need be applied.

Perfect start for this perfect Christmas with family.

For immediate use

Yesterday’s shopping being put into use immediately:

At the art supply store, DeSerres, I considered many possible Apples of Gold creative pursuits and then just bought A Really Useful Box™ that I put into use before our party guests arrived to tame the chaos which was our bottom shelf near the door where we put all manner of keys and chargers and my cell phone etc. AND I bought a two-pack of the smallest possible Moleskin notebook. 56 pages, the size of an oversize business card – my rational for its existence with me was that I would write verses that I encounter during my read-through-the-Bible year in it and when I have a spare moment – while the Zamboni makes its final rounds and I’m stuck standing blade to rubber waiting (for example) – I will redeem the moment with God’s Word.

In the Moleskin, I wrote my first ‘apples-of-gold-in-settings-of-silver’ scripture: Revelation 7:17. “For the Lamb on the throne will be their Shepherd. He will lead them to springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

One of the women in Montreal Gospel Choir who accepted Carol’s invitation to come to our church on a baptism Sunday and subsequently put up her hand to indicate that she was a “brebis égaree” when our pastor preached about the shepherd and the lost sheep was at our party last night (for MGC). Each time I think of this verse – when I see it in the Moleskin – it will be a prayer for her spiritual well-being based on a promise. I’ll claim it for myself as well.

This morning I woke up and the sore throat which I hoped was from too much talking at last night’s party was accompanied by a stuffed up nose in need of Royale tissues and tea. I am sitting writing this blog, which interrupted my Bible-reading when I made the mistake of reading Revelation first instead of after Job, Amos and John. Once I tell you about the tea, then I can go back to God’s word. (After I feed you the trivial, I’ll feast on the eternal – read between my lines).

I think I’ve found a new tea supplier. Asiatica is only two blocks from my home and I went there yesterday for their wealth of teapots and other infusing devices, hoping to find the appropriate such thing to fill out a tea-gift that Carol needed for two someones. I like shopping, especially in downtown Montreal, Carol doesn’t. At Asiatica the owner served up his depth of knowledge on the teapots and subsequently on the teas that I asked about. The lemony smell and memories of Myrtos beach in Cephalonia (and Myrtiés in Kálymnos) led me to buy some myrtle tea, which is treating my cold right now. I really had no need of more tea as I already have up to a dozen varieties of loose teas and herbal infusions confined in various containers around the kitchen. It was the knowledgeable owner’s patiently explaining things of which I had only the beginnings of knowledge that lead me to buy his excellent product. Next time the line up at the psalm-writer’s tea store gets too long, I highly recommend Asiatica to you.

There’s more to say – like the fine 800 ml of myrtle tea that I got from 1 teaspoon (the instructions said 1-2 teaspoons would yield 1 litre) but this cold is driving me back to bed to complete sleep too soon interrupted.

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Gotta shave

Favourite breakfast sixteen

This is the second last in my 17 part Favourite breakfasts series. Started it on Facebook and then, when I created my own blog site I reposted the first four in the series on the blog and am soon concluding the series. Several breakfasts are currently fighting it out to be the series ultimate (doesn’t mean greatest, just means last).

This morning my brother, Greg, is picking up sausage on my behalf in his hometown of Anonymousville (it’s a long name with lots of esses in it) and taking it to Eden High School in Saint Catharines, Ontario. I would be making this run myself, but Jireh Gospel Choir is in concert this evening in a beautiful theatre in Assomption, Quebec – ben trop loin-distance pour moi de tracer ce trajet moi-meme – so I found the next best reliable substitute to make this delivery of 3000 lbs of sausage (give or take). Thanks, Greg.

So while Greg is QEWing past Stoney Creek I am writing this blog and when I finish and post this I will home prepare a Ted McMuffin. Fry up some of that ready-cooked bacon that I sell at St. Catharines market (November 29th is the next market date – you can order now at 1-877-886-8372 or info@dettweiler.ca) along with an egg. When I turn the egg over I put on some cheddar cheese (aged) that I purchased at giant warehouse club store so that it melts (the cheese, that is) on my egg. Insert in toasted english muffin – or as we call them here, muffin anglais (hmm, muffins are masculine…) Done.

This breakfast is appropriate today because long ago in a land named Breslau, Ontario, I would make two of these in my kitchen at home and eat them as I drove my product-laden truck to Saint-Catharines, Ontario to sell said sausage produce at the market. So today, I am eating the road breakfast in honour of my brother who is on the road to Saint Catharines.

When Carol and I drive the 401 to Toronto and places beyond or the 417 thru Ottawa to the 17 to the 60 to South Portage Rd to Brunel Rd 2, left thru downtown Baysville across the S. Muskoka River up and through a rock cut that is ever young seen from my older eyes and then right on Echo Rill Lake Rd to the cottage that mom and dad found when I was very young (pre-rock cut days). When we go that way, or the former, simpler route to Toronto we also usually stop at the restaurant whose name is scottish that made the egg on a muffin anglais creations famous and we buy one each of their famous versions.

So, nice memories recreated with food or drink – see previous blog – somewhere Septemberish. Getting hungry and ready to go back to bed before it is too late.

Egg **Muffins, whether made at home with superior bacon or bought when off to somewhere distant is favourite breakfast sixteen in my 17 favourite breakfasts series.

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Halloween at Aunt Normas

Scarey woo!

Tonight I was prepared for the kids with a box, no, let’s call it a case of Chiclets. The last time I had a kid show up at my door on Halloween it was 1996 and I lived at 877 Gohier in Ville Saint-Laurent.

But some years, I spot a halloween treat that I would not be averse to eating myself should year add unto year and ‘nary soul flash their countenance at my door. This year I was at Andalos Bakery and they were offering these cases – 20 packages of chiclets.

Scarey woo!

You know I thought to myself, “What might I do with a case of Chiclets?” I don’t spit, or chew or date girls that do. But then I remembered Halloweens and Aunt Norma. We always went (were driven) to Aunt Norma’s on Halloween when we were kids and it seems to me that Aunt Norma always had those little two-chiclet packs. How many of those did we get? How many do you dare take? No, I think Aunt Norma must have allocated the appropriate amount – how much simpler for me to give a full pack of Chiclets, no indecision as to whether I’m stingy or too generous.

And so it was, the perfect Halloween treat. This year, how appropriate that I could buy my trick-or-treat candy with money from a small (neither too-stingy or too generous) inheritance that all the nieces and nephews received from Aunt Norma. I was so wrapped up in these perfect packages of sugared chewing gum with the modern graphic re-design of the Chiclets logo on one side and the Arabic? very-scary Chiclet logo on the other side. Now I can learn to write “Mastic Flavor” in Arabic. Somehow, I think Aunt Norma would have liked that.

Here is to Halloween and my Aunt Norma.

(ps. no child penetrated Fort Knox for the 16 years I’ve called it home. If any adults want to swing by late and pick up a pack of Chiclets (mastic flavor, mmmm) they are more than welcome. The entry code for Fort Knox is _ _ _ _ Oh wait, I can’t give that here!!

Bring back

My brain is wired in such a way that I find that I can summon back places that I’ve been by preparing the same beverage, or food, that I enjoyed there.

This morning, a dark rainy one in Montreal, I’m bringing back the cottage with chocolate mint Rooibas tea wi’ a spot of milk in it, like I enjoyed with my nieces on the first day at the cottage.

Other concoctions popular with me to summon up somewhere else:

A cup of Milo brings back Jamaica, whether my in-laws house in Mandeville or the tea kettle in our simple suite at El Greco in Montego Bay.

Capsule coffee might summon up Rome on New Year’s morning or Kirchleerau and the summer I explored Swiss roots for three days. But I have to choose to go there – there’s not magic enough in a Keurig capsule to get me far.

Marmalade on a bread roll can take me to Innsbruck at 16 years old.

And many foods, many places…which is probably why my blog is titled “Ted’s Ideas on Food and more”. Because there is always more with food than meets the palate.

Impulsive runner

This morning, sitting down in the cafeteria with my tea and bagel, an ad for the “Tour du Mont-Royal Brébeuf” caught my attention. Le 26 octobre, dans moins que 3 semaines, “la seule et unique course en sentier en pleine ville” aurait lieu. I’m the kind of person who thinks he can knock off a half-marathon (and a little bit more) just like that without spending weeks and weeks to ramp up for it.

And the truth is, after a 10 km Oasis Montreal run 5 or 6 years ago and a truly enjoyable Ottawa half-marathon run next to my wife, I had officially retired from running. Until I saw the ad for a course in my backyard that was on trails rather than pavement.

Going to New Brunswick for a wedding this holiday weekend. Guess I’ll be taking the running shoes along.

Step of Faith

I love this picture from June of 1997 because I love the woman next to me, who, inconceivable to her as this photo was taken, would become my wife within 6 months time.

Marriage might be the biggest step of faith that a human-being takes. Compared to the step of faith of believing in God, marriage is deciding that you are going to link your future to a person that you have only recently become acquainted with. God, on the other hand, if you believe what I believe, had initiated a relationship with you and was absolutely committed to you from the moment you were conceived. You became aware of his existence years after God knew about you and then you decided for any one of many great reasons that you would link your future to God. It’s one small step for man, but it seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable step to take to commit to someone who has known you as long as you were.

Even if you married the girl next door, at some point you took a risk in thinking that if you lived a little closer together it would make for a better relationship.

For my beautiful Carol, the man with the perfectly contented grin next to her might turn out to be so perfectly full of himself that he wouldn’t give the appropriate time-of-day every day to developing his relationship with her. That happens in marriage. Marriage relationships are work – who is to say that this grinning man wouldn’t turn out to be too lazy to do that work?

I love this picture because that girl with her both feet standing on a hot driveway next to me took that step of faith in me and it is turning out fine. So fine!

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