Pentecost 11

Hello Blog Friends!

It has been a rainy week around here, which has not been the best weather for CTM’s Junior Youth Camp, taking place in the Eastern Townships Southeast of Montreal, nor for the one Day Camp happening North of the city. 

The Day Camp was extremely small, with only 8 campers registered and I have not received many updates from the coordinator (other than a couple regarding the ubiquitous “tech” issues!) but he did say that at least the children are all around the same age so they are not also dealing with age disparity, which can make many of the activities impossible to mount, he has also promised to send in some photos, Yay!! 

Tuesday brought more photos from one of the July camps and I also heard from another community that they were holding their debrief meeting and would soon be submitting the evaluation and so have been cheered by some news from out in the fields .

Of course work has also continued on autumn planning, with the Cook-Along, Harvest Team Gathering and Advent program all starting to take shape. The potential TG speaker got back to me on Thursday and sadly is not available but said he would be happy to be asked another time so now it is back to the drawing board to find someone else before the poster can be finalised. I also need to confirm that the 2 young women who usually prepare the worship music will be available on the date we have set.

Next week I shall begin approaching the various people, suggested  by the committee, as suitable content writers for the 2024 program. It usually takes a while to fill every slot and, as content needs to be submitted by year end, I like to give everyone as long as possible to work on the various sections of the program manual. Some of the names suggested may not be available so others will then need to be approached, all of which can take a couple of months to sort out 😊. 

Soon I will begin a rewrite of the Creative Connection chapter, which is my contribution to manual content and as this is one of the programs that does not have an Extended Day Program I will also need to build that manual.  It is not a huge task but it will take quite a while so it needs to get started sooner rather than later 😊.

There has been a steady stream of visitors this week, some  expected and some a lovely surprise. Wednesday morning I received a text from Natalie. She is one of three siblings who are all Day Camp Team alumni and she now living with her husband and 6 month old baby in the State of Washington. I had been told that they would be in Montreal for the wedding of another Team alumnus when Natalie messaged to say they were flying home the next day and could they drop by so that I could meet baby Eloise!!! I was pretty busy as my grocery order had just been delivered, I had a FaceTime meeting booked for 1:15pm and was also boiling a gallon of milk to make yoghurt but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to see all of them so I told them to come on over 😊.

Fortunately Andrew is a great dog lover and immediately they arrived he sat down next to Thomason and by stroking and talking with him was able to keep most of the frantic barking down to a minimum, thus saving the delicate ears of baby Eloise. I poured glasses of kombucha and produced a plate of oatmeal raisin cookies, which we tucked into while catching up on news and cooing over the baby(I got to hold her and she didn’t cry 😊). They stayed about 45 minutes and it was so special as I had not seen them since before the pandemic.

Thursday I was supposed to have a lunch guest and had everything prepared only to discover that she was unable to come. AGH! She thought she had sent me a message a couple of days before, but had forgotten so I ended up unsetting the table and packaging up the various recipe ingredients some of which I froze and others that I used for my dinner last evening. Sigh. Fortunately the friend I was expecting for dinner DID come and we had a really nice visit. Syndi Belle is going to be one of the chefs at our autumn “Feasts of the Saints” Cook-Along and so we spent a bit of time “talking shop” but also chatted about a variety of other topics. 

 For the main course we enjoyed a mango and eggplant salad with soba noodles. It makes a really tasty summer meal so  I thought I would share it as this week’s recipe. 

I had made the soba noodles myself so if you are feeling extra ambitious here is a link to an excellent tutorial.

Mango & Eggplant Salad 

• ½ cup rice vinegar
• 2 Tbsps.raw cane sugar
• 1tsp.salt
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 fresh chilli, seeded and minced
• finely grated rind and juice of 1 lime
• 2 tsps. sesame oil
• 8 oz. soba noodles, cooked and cooled
• 1 large eggplant or 4 Japanese eggplants, cubed
• 2 Tbsps.olive oil
• 1 large or 2 small mangos, cut into ¼” strips
• 1 bunch cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped

Warm the rice vinegar, salt and sugar in a small saucepan, until the sugar has dissolved. Add the garlic, chilli, lime juice, rind and sesame oil,set aside. Heat half the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high and sauté half the eggplant cubes until golden, transfer to a colander. Repeat with the rest of the oil and eggplant. Sprinkle the eggplant with salt and leave to drain.

2 hours before serving, place the soba noodles in a large serving bowl and toss with the dressing. Add all the other ingredients, reserving some cilantro for garnishing. Gently toss together with a wide spatula, cover loosely and leave at room temperature. Just before serving, garnish with reserved cilantro. Serves 4