Hello Blog Friends!
Here we are at the last holiday weekend of the summer when, this coming Monday, the whole of North America celebrates Labour Day.
As the photo gallery above indicates, over the past week, the “Changing of the Decorations” was successfully accomplished. It was a good decision to shift the task back by several days as the week has brought a number of other tasks that needed urgent attention.
With a new month almost upon us, one of my top priorities was to prepare the 2026 Day Camp application form and the info sheet, which accompanies the emails we send to current (and hopefully future!) communities and which also is uploaded to the home page of the CTM website. The vagaries of “Google Fillable Forms” always take up a lot of my bandwith but, with a lot of groaning and complaining, (much to the interest of Thomason!) the job got done, to my satisfaction. The September DC committee meeting will also be taking place on Tuesday so all the documents for that had to be prepared and sent to the members.
Wednesday, I was able to get a chunk of work done and also fit in a short FaceTime chat with Gillian, a former DC committee member and Team Leader who is now married and living in Halifax with her husband, 2 darling “littles” and a cuddly dog named Winnie. Gillian’s husband is the brother of my former boarder Steven, so I do like to keep up with “family” news! During our chat the organic grocer who delivers my orders every 2 weeks suddenly called to ask if her husband could deliver then instead of the following morning, so we hurriedly ended the chat and I dealt with unpacking two large grocery cartons, finishing just before Jessica arrived for her monthly visit and dinner.
Thursday, everything had to get properly organised, and started with making my monthly gallon of yoghurt, since I was expecting Anna and Nathanael by noon. As I was heating the milk my mobile rang and it was Randy Howarth (a former committee member who lives in one of the more distant suburbs sand is rarely in my neighbourhood) asking if he could drop by for a quick visit! With one eye on the milk pot I had to also corral Mr. T, run and pull some biscuits out of the freezer and prepare to greet my visitors. We had a very nice visit as I was cooling the milk and getting the yoghurt into jars to start processing. By the time they left I had about 15 minutes to take Thomason out for a quick wee before Anna a Nathanael came up the front path. Quite the morning!!!
Fortunately, they have had quite a full schedule, so I have had time to keep up with all; my CTM tasks as long as I fit in meal preparation. Today is their last full day and, as it is Saturday, my own day is slightly less structured, although I am still trying to include the Saturday Bake as Sue has requested her GF loaves, so, before I head off to take them out of the oven, let’s finish off with our recipe!
Friday, for dinner, we had a pot of corn chowder using some local organic corn that Jessica had kindly sourced at the farmers’ market, served with toasted sourdough English Muffins. For dessert there were sautéed pears, glazed with maple syrup and topped with cardamon-infused whipped cream. The pears were so simple to put together, but very tasty and make a perfect late summer dessert.
Caramelised Pears with Cardamon Whipped Cream
½cup whipping cream
¼tsp ground cardamon
4 ripe pears
1Tbsp lemon juice
1 ½Tbsps unsalted butter
3Tbsps maple syrup
Combine the cardamon and cream and whip the mixture until stiff peaks form. Place in the fridge until serving. Peel, core and quarter the pears, cut the quarters in half and toss the pieces in the lemon juice. Melt the butter in a skillet and sauté the pears, on medium heat for 2 minutes. Turn the pieces and pour the maple syrup evenly over them. Cook for another couple of minutes then, remove from the heat and allow to cool briefly before putting in individual serving dishes. Serve warm, topping each bowl with a dollop of the whipped cream. Serves 3-4.