Whoa, it must be officially Fall around here, as the geese are flying over and I am gearing up for tomorrow evening’s Harvest Thanksgiving Team Gathering. (Watch for a special post about it this on Sunday).
Because of that I’m going to publish this post today (Friday), as tomorrow will no doubt be fairly manic. So let’s look back at the week…
Last Sunday evening I had a lovely dinner visit with Steven Craig. Steven lived in Montreal for several years while serving with IVCF and was a regular visitor as well as getting involved with CTM on a number of occasions. He has spent the past year literally traveling the globe and even walking the Camino, a feat in itself, and is now back in Canada, slowly making his way home to family in Alberta. I really got to know Steven because of his Mum, who is one of our stellar Day Camp Coordinators and a friend for over 10 years. We talked about his adventures and also about Day Camps and CTM’s residential camps. It was great to catch up.
October 1stis always a difficult day for me as it was my parent’s wedding anniversary and although there are many happy memories, it is sad not to still be able to celebrate the day with them. Happily, Jessica had been wanting for a long time to share a favourite movie of hers with me and so she joined me Monday evening for dinner; then we settled on the sofa with our knitting and watched “The Hundred Foot Journey”. I really enjoyed it and hope to see it again some day soon 😊
Tuesday was pretty zooy. I have been working hard all this week putting the finishing touches on the CTM Harvest Newsletter and had to add more content as I was very anxious to get the final draft off to Wentworth so he could proofread and email it out in time for Thanksgiving. I am also working on some pretty intense revisions to our Day Camp Planning Guides and so put in some time on that project. But as soon as office work was done my attention turned to preparing for the Harvest Gathering of our Pod community.
We had a super turnout with 9 adults and 5 children. Those of us who meet together each Sunday had discussed how to “do” these Gatherings as we move into a new season. For the past 2 years we have tried to hold one evening Gathering each month, inviting friends and supporters who live in NDG to join us for supper and to share in the Eucharist. Several times we had to cancel as either the priest we had invited was suddenly unable to come or only a handful of participants was available, so this autumn we are starting off with a revised plan- we are now meeting every second month, we switched from Thursday to Tuesday, AND each time we meet our Gathering will be themed around a Liturgical day or season, with a special activity that will take place during the Eucharist😊
This time it was Harvest Thanksgiving and so each family made a Thanksgiving centrepiece filled with gleanings from my garden arranged in small, hollowed out pumpkins.It was gloriously messy but both adults and children had a really good time!
The shared supper was yummy and we were blessed to have Paul and his guitar with us to lead in our singing. The timeframe for these Gatherings is 530-730 pm to allow for young children getting home at a reasonable hour on a school night so, even though there was a LOT of clean-up afterwards, the house was back in order by 830pm. It was a real blessing that both Jillian and Chelsea gave a hand with the dishes. The next morning I received several emails and texts (including one from our guest priest) saying what a lovely time people had.😊 The next Pod Gathering will be in Advent, woo hoo!!
Wednesday my dear friend and neighbour, Barb, came for a late lunch. Barb and I go back almost 30 years to the time when she and her husband joined St. Matthew’s Church. I have been their babysitter (and more recently cat sitter 😊), have painted murals on her children’s bedroom walls, shared garden plants and cooking advice and prayed and cried with her. Sometimes it is so hard to carve out a space to see each other but I’m so glad we still make the effort to meet together every few months.
For lunch I made Salmon Chowder, as we are now officially in “soup season”! And since this post is getting to be far too long, I’m going to close off with the recipe, which I adapted from “Alive” magazine. Here goes…
Salmon Chowder
- 2 Tbsps. vegetable oil
1 large onion, diced- ½ tsp. coarse sea salt
- 2 sweet potatoes, cubed
- 2 large carrots, chopped
- 1 large red pepper, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tins water-packed organic salmon
- 2 Tbsps. ketchup
- 2 Tbsps. fresh lovage, shredded
- ½ tsp. chilli flakes
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- 1 cup white wine
- 1 cup half and half cream
- 1 cup frozen peas
- ½ cup chopped fresh dill
In a large saucepan heat the oil and add the onion and salt, sauté until soft and golden, about 5 minutes. Add the sweet potato & carrots and heat for 5 minutes. Add red pepper, lovage and garlic and heat for another 5 minutes. Stir in chilli flakes and ketchup then pour in the wine and bring to a boil, simmer 2 minutes. Add the vegetable broth, bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the sweet potato and carrot are just tender.
Break the salmon into chunks and add to the pan with the cream and peas, heat for a few minutes but do not boil.
Remove from the heat and stir in the dill. Serve with cracked black pepper.
Serves 6 and freezes well.