Posted on September 23, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

Ballantyne’s Cove

 

Seven years ago, I wrote my first story on the back of a boarding pass on a flight from Toronto to Tampa Bay. When I ran out of room on the boarding pass, I wrote the remainder of the story on a bar napkin. One thousand and thirty-eight (1,038) stories later, I’m still at it. William Shakespeare needn’t feel threatened. I like to write and I write about ordinary things. Often I write about extraordinary people and lately, I have been doing a fair bit of travel writing.

My fifth book is on its way from the printer and on Friday, October 4^th. at 6:30 p.m. at the Arts House (the former Visitor Information Centre), I will release book #5 – “Eat, Sleep and Walk: Stories from the Camino”. This book launch will be a bit different from the previous ones. Instead of reading passages from the new book, I plan to do a brief PowerPoint presentation. Rather than tell you about my walk across Spain this past May, I will show you some pictures of the landscape and some of the interesting people I interviewed for the book.

I hope you will be able to join me.

A few of you have wandered into the 5 to $1.00 looking for my new book. I expect to receive my books at the end of this week so hopefully they’ll be available the week of the 30^th. For those of you out of town, you can order a copy on Amazon. There’s a link here on my homepage that will direct you to Amazon and my book. Of course, for you locals, if you want to save a bit of tax, you can track me down and get a copy directly from me.

While I’m on the travel theme, there is an interesting event happening tomorrow evening (24^th) at the Red Sky Gallery on Main Street at 7:00 p.m.“Travel Tales: trauma and triumph on the road” will feature several local people, including yours truly, who will briefly describe some of their best (and most hair- raising) experiences traveling the world. I think I lost the last remaining hairs on my head during the three weeks I spent in New Delhi, India trying to sort out a visa problem.  If you’re interested in travel and storytelling, this is an event that you might quite enjoy.

Are you a small business owner? You might be interested in advertising on my glamourous website! As you can see from looking at my home page, several well- known businesses have chosen Week45 as one of their advertising platforms. The ads are inexpensive ($10/week) and on average are displayed between 20,000- 25,000 times over a six month period. I add new content to this website at least twice a week and with a loyal reading audience, advertisers get maximum exposure. I have a web team who can assist you with the design of your ad which is clickable directly to your home page. I have only four spots remaining.

Pie making: take two.

I’m on a roll. In the past 10 days, I’ve been on a pie making rampage. Well, not quite a rampage but I have made three pies – two butterscotch cream and one banana cream. Like writing, baking is a creative pursuit but unlike writing, it comes with many added calories. After all, quality control is paramount and before serving dessert to guests, the host has to ensure that the product is fit for human consumption. I will have to exercise caution or else I’ll have to walk a lot further than across Spain!

Have a great week.

 

 

Posted on September 19, 2019 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

My just dessert

 

 

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man,

Bake me a cake (pie) as fast as you can”

The good news is that I know how to make a pie.

The bad news is that I know how to make a pie.

Growing up in a large family, you were expected to do your chores, which included the dishes, vacuuming, polishing your shoes for mass and yes, cleaning the dreaded French door windows. In our house, baking wasn’t necessarily a chore but we were certainly expected to learn the rudiments of baking and meal preparation.

Many of the recipes we followed were moms and her confreres. So we learned how to make Effie’s chocolate squares and Evelyn’s lemon tarts among many other goodies.

One of the many lessons learned from baking was that this was a selfless task. You would bust your butt to make something tasty and with eight vultures around the table, anything baked was devoured quickly. Sometimes the crumbs didn’t even survive.

I did a fair bit of baking in my 20s when I lived out west. Survival of the fattest!

Last week, I was staring at three overripe bananas. The freezer is full of them, frozen solid and probably never to see the light of day again. I decided right there and then to make banana bread, something pretty basic and simple. It turned out pretty well and no emergencies were reported at Outpatients.

On my walk around the Cabot Trail, I was treated to dinner twice by my friends Kathleen and Alfred in Cape North. The meals were fantastic and the company even better. Dessert on the first night was butterscotch cream pie. Simply put, the pie was divine. If you check Trip Advisor, you’ll see my 5 star rating for Kathleen’s pie…” best on the Cabot Trail”.

I haven’t made a pie in over 40 years so when I decided to try my hand at butterscotch pie, I brought in the big guns. I got the recipe from Kathleen and then enlisted the support of my sister-in-law, Karen, to school me in the fine art of pie making. I learned how to make the dough for the crust. The most important tip for you two left handed men who might attempt this is to not handle the dough too much. Many of you are already good at this having left the money- managing exercise to your much wiser partner.

The proof is in the pudding, they say, and indeed, the filling for the pie is crucial. I learned how to make the custard, even scooping out a few tablespoons of the hot sauce to mix with the egg yolks before putting them into the custard.

Everything appeared fine, as I cooked the pie shell, made the filling and put it in the fridge to set. The only deviation from the recipe is that I chose whipped cream as a topping rather than meringue.

Last week, I had a few friends over for dinner and they became my guinea pigs. The pie tasted fine but the filling never really set leaving some of it to leak out the sides once the first piece had been cut.

I have discovered that cream pie is an excellent dietary source of something and a perfect substitute for scrambled eggs at breakfast. I mean, the recipe contains two egg yolks, after all. I brought what was left of the pie to my brother’s house the next morning and we made short work of the leftover pie (an expression I never heard growing up on Hillcrest Street).

Yesterday, I watched a few YouTube videos on pie making and am happy to report that my second attempt yielded a favourable result.

Now, the bad news. Even after sharing a few pieces with neighbors and friends I have this conundrum. What am I to do with the leftover pie?

I’m pretty sure a call to one of my siblings would solve this problem quickly!

Have a great weekend.

P.S. To my loyal readers spread far and wide around the planet, there’s a link to Amazon on my home page where you can order my Camino book.

 

Posted on September 16, 2019 under Monday Morning Musings with no comments yet

 

“And death shall have no dominion.” Dylan Thomas

First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you who sent messages of condolences on the death of my brother, Tom. I want you to know that I read every e-mail, text, private message, Week45 comment, telephone message and Facebook post. There were simply too many to respond to individually. Just about every one of you reading this will likely have experienced death up close and personal. It is easy to get overwhelmed with the outpouring of support, if that makes any sense. I think that the mind and heart only have a limited capacity to absorb all this when they are in grief mode.

Death is so complex. There’s not a day goes by when we don’t hear about someone’s loss and while we try and comfort the best we can, grieving is very personal. We scan through the obituaries daily and then casually move on to the sports page. It is only when it hits close to home that you realize that every death notice carries with it suffering and pain.

We will miss our brother terribly, as you miss your loved ones. We’re all in this together.

I did the Cabot Trail again this past weekend. What? Have you completely gone bonkers? I joyfully drove the Cabot Trail with two dear friends on Saturday. My friends wanted a guided tour of the Trail which also gave me the opportunity to stop by and thank several people along the way who helped me on my walk for Simone a few weeks back. It was a beautiful sunny day. We saw many moose and one whale which is a pretty decent tally if you ask me. However, the moose were all affixed to road signs and the whale was painted on a mural at the lookout on Mackenzie Mountain overlooking Pleasant Bay! We had a lot of laughs, had some great food and shared some stories. It was the perfect tonic for me after spending the day after Tom’s death huddled up at home. Thanks, Kathy and Linda from the bottom of my heart.

By the way, I am a measly $115 short of the $8,000 mark. I will close the account later today but will graciously receive a last minute donation! You can e-transfer me at lenpdmacdonald@gmail.com

I have completed my Camino book and it is now on sale through Amazon. The title is “Eat, Sleep and Walk: Stories from the Camino”. Hard copies are being shipped to me this week so they should go on sale locally next week at the 5 to $1.00 store or you can track me down to buy one. I’ll let you know when they arrive. Each chapter of the book contains four distinct segments: the first part is a brief description of where I walked on any particular day along with a smattering of the history of that part of Spain; the second part is a blow by blow description of what I experienced each day; the third part contains an interview of people I met along the trail; and the fourth part contains “Camino Tips”. These tips might be useful for someone contemplating doing the Camino.

In my estimation, the interviews form the core of the book. I interviewed people from all over the world during my Camino walk. When we had all completed our walk, I asked each of them some follow up questions about their personal journey. I asked five questions: 1) who are you. 2) Where are you from? 3) What do you do or what did you do for a living? 4) Why did you come to walk the Camino? 5) What are your observations or key takeaways from doing the Camino? I think you will find these stories quite compelling.

The inspiration for the book came from my brother, Tom, who did the Camino in 2018. He had a chance to read the book before he passed.

I hope you enjoy the book.

Have a great day.