Ah Spring! All those lovely blogs out in cyberspace with photos of hyacinths and plum blossoms… and then there is Montreal. Another 12cms dumped on us today. It is 530pm and I’ve just come in from a long round of shovelling. Sigh!
But let’s us think about summer and the world of Day Camps. If last week was “proofreading” this week has been “Host Churches”! Wow, Host Churches from Saskatchewan to New Brunswick and many points in between.
Thursday evening I was talking with Alexander, a long-time Day Camps groupie, telling him about all the Church enquiries, of course then I began lamenting the lack of Team Applications. He said “but this is a Church year” ah yes! For some reason, known only to the Lord, it seems that Day Camps has a quirky habit of alternating years-one year plenty of Team-next year plenty of host churches.
Last year we were blessed with 17 super Team Members, but we had to drop from six to five Teams for a lack of host communities. So this year? well I refuse to believe we will not have enough Team Members, but I am willing to concede that there is going to have to be a real Badgering Blitz in the weeks to come, because we most certainly have Churches!
We have got two Team Applications, at present and it was just great, Wednesday morning, to Skype with Carmen, who has applied from Trinity College, Bristol, UK.(It is no surprise that Trinity is where the Rev. Brett Cane is a Chaplain!!)
Monday evening we had a good committee meeting with everyone in attendance. After a meal of Black Bean Soup and Blue Corn Chips, followed by Chocolate Macarons, we covered a lot of territory. We heard about the successful filming of the Slideshow and the work of editing, soundtrack recording and dubbing, which still needs to be done. We also talked about upcoming events: -Team Gathering, Crafts Day, Coffee House and Kick-off Day. (Lots of great Badgering possibilities there!) So all in all great strides have been made as we look toward Summer. To follow the “jigsaw puzzle analogy”- it feels as if the border is now in place and a bunch of random clumps of pieces have been assembled, now we need to start joining them to each other and anchoring them to the border!
In my spare time there has been much crafting! Tomorrow is CTM’s AGM and I shall be seeing my two Godsons, from Ottawa. A’s 2nd Birthday is Wednesday so I have been assembling his Birthday Crown His Mum also commissioned me to make his birthday cake AND two dozen mini-cupcakes for his class at Day Care.
The last two days I’ve been up to my eyebrows in cake batter and bowls of icing. Fortunately, by noon today the last of the decorating was done, everything was carefully wrapped and popped in the freezer. I just hope this fragile cargo does not end up sat upon, during the drive back to Ottawa!
I also had time to make a patchwork glasses case for a friend’s birthday and, of course, have been working hard to complete the first dozen Pysanky. The CO-OP has recently started stocking Duck Eggs so I’m very excited to use some of them for my second dozen; lots of extra space for intricate decoration!
For this week’s recipe I thought I would include the soup I have made for dinner tonight. One does not often have both parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes in the fridge at the same time, but I did and these vegetables have vaguely Spring-like connotations. So I decided to combine
them for a thick hot soup on this “spring” day!
Parsnip and Jerusalem Artichoke Soup
- 2lbs Parsnips, peeled and cut in large
chunks
- 1 Lb. Jerusalem Artichokes
- 1 small onion, minced
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1tsp. dried thyme
- ¼ cup white wine
- 4 cups Chicken Stock
Preheat oven to 400F. Lay the parsnip chunks on a parchment-lined baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 40minutes. Meanwhile, peel and dice the artichokes and place in a bowl of cold water with 1tsp. lemon juice. In a small sauté pan, cook the onion and garlic with 1tsp. olive oil, for 10minutes until soft and brown. Stir in the wine and cook together for 5 minutes. Place all the ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on High for 3 hours OR place everything in a soup pot and simmer gently for 2 hours. Puree soup in a food processor or with animmersion blender. Serves 4
