I Made Another Culinary Specialty

Chicken, Pork, Beef, Chicken, Pork Beef, Pork Chicken Beef….does this sound familiar to you? Even though there are umpteen different ways of preparing chicken pork and beef, I got tired of the same over and over and over again. That’s why I tried my hand at fish cakes the other day. What a relief to have something different on the table. Living on the coast, fish is part of every day life out here. In fact all kind of seafood can be found around these parts. I don’t like mussels, oysters or clams, but I do like crab-meat and lobster. I grew up with fish. Dad bought fish every week. Cod, Mackerel, Herring, Flounder, it was all available, much of it right down in the harbour when fishermen brought in their catch. Later, after moving to Norway, we often had salmon. I like salmon, especially the wild-caught. But today, most of the salmon is coming from fish farms. We are actually having fish farming right here on Campobello. When I was down in Machias,ME the other day I bought a pound of smoked salmon cut-of. It was for under $9/pound which is really cheap. But what to do with a whole pound of smoked salmon? Sandwich, yes, or with scrambled eggs – GREAT. But a pound is a lot of fish. Soooo….something else needed to be done with it. After perusing the internet I decided on trying Salmon Paté. Here’s what I did this morning: A good portion (3-400grams) of smoked Salmon went into the food processor where I mashed it to nearly a paste. I added nonfat sour cream, red bell pepper, onion, black pepper and dill and chopped chives. Fresh dill is the best but I didn’t have it. Salmon is a fatty fish and that’s why we use nonfat sour cream. The food processor mashes everything to a thick paste. 2 small bags of gelatin dissolved in a little milk are now added while the food processor is running. And that’s it. The whole pinkish cream is filled into a bowl and put into the fridge. A few hours are enough to make the cream into a pretty stiff Paté. Depending on the amount of gelatin, the Paté can now be cut with a knife. Serve with some lettuce, a slice of lemon on some crusty fresh multigrain bread or white toast…….yummy!  Other ingredients can be added like peas or corn or cut-up crab sticks. It’s a great variety from a rather usual daily diet. And you can still enjoy it with scrambled eggs. Gotta stop here, otherwise I’m getting so darn hungry that I have to make for the kitchen robbing the fridge.

Projects Are Being Done

This spring has been marked by a lot of activity for me. I have been working on many projects, some related to neighbours needing help with their homes and gardens and others pertaining to our own property.    Foggy morning on Campobello I finished the great wall on our north side of the house, I replaced a window on the east gable and now I have started to put cedar shingles on our garage.  Wednesday I have the first sightseeing tour of the season and I just pray that it is not raining. Today’s weather is a wash-out but it’s supposed to clear during late afternoon. Well, some rain is needed for the garden. Bea has now sold about 30 tomato plants and I am already thinking of building a bigger greenhouse. I have also “excelled” in the kitchen department trying myself at preparing fish cakes after a Norwegian recipe. Using cheap Pollock fillets, I boiled and ground it, adding some celery, red bell pepper, egg, salt, pepper and flour. Served with potatoes, carrots and curry sauce, they turned out nice and were really tasty.

American-Traveler: To Canada right?

This is a re-posting from 4 years ago when we celebrated 10 years in Canada.

Canada has sometimes been accused to be a bit lax with their immigrant screening in the past.

Maybe I can contribute to eliminate that prejudgment, because we have been going through the screening process. And let me add it should qualify to receive clearing for the highest federal office.

I will spare you to read about every little item on the list, but just mention that our stack of papers was ¾ of an inch thick. Just to give you one example, we had to go collect all employment data with wages we had earned from the age of 18. In our case that was a span of more than 30 years of working and schooling. Even with the best memory that is not any easy task. And being at it one might just hope that the company one worked for 25 years earlier is still in business. If not – bad luck. Every document had to be notarized and translated by an authorized translation agency.

One other requirement: Criminal background check from every country of previous residence.

For “normal” citizens, and I am thinking of normal as not being any Einstein, this is a hard task to achieve. We were extremely busy for 4 weeks. Then $6000.00 changed hands to our immigration consultant who was the one compiling all the papers to make some sense in our application. He blessed the entire book with his friendly letter and a stamp with his name. He did also sent it off to the Canadian High Commission in London, UK which is in charge for Scandinavia. After 5 months we got a friendly invitation to show up at a doctors office in Oslo. I shall forego the story of that examination here, maybe I will post it some time later, but after 2.5hrs at Dr. Frankenstein we were standing outside on the curb, 600Dollars poorer looking at each other and just couldn’t believe what we just had gone through.

But the doctor’s visit was the last official hurdle before we could leave Norway, and they never call in for the health check unless the application is approved.

So being back at home we got busy again. The house and two vehicles and our travel trailer needed to be sold. Our possessions needed to be gone through for what we wanted to take with us and what we would leave behind. We ended with a wooden box (Yes I made that myself) of 7 cubic meter (247cubic feet). It was mounted on a pallet and a truck brought it to the Oslo Harbour where it was loaded onto a freighter and shipped to Vancouver BC. It took 6 weeks before it arrived in Canada.

Our realtor sold the house I had built within 2 weeks. We moved into our travel trailer and to the local RV-Park.

Bea’s Toyota went like a hot cake and was already sold. The last day arrived and I drove the travel trailer to the buyer in the morning and dropped off my big old Suburban in the afternoon the same day. One minute after I received the money for the truck, friends drove us to the airport. It was incredible timing. We had booked a one-way flight to London, UK from where we would take a charter flight to Calgary the next day. It was just days before the Queen celebrated her 50th anniversary. The city was full of excitement and preparations for the big party. I was 50 years old as well. 1952 was a good year for the Queen and me.

All that seems like it happened yesterday, but hey it’s been ten years!

And today, 10 years after, the Queen has just celebrated her 60^th anniversary, and we have been 10 years in one of the British Commonwealth Countries – Canada!

“SUMMER TIME”

Summertime, And the livin' is easy Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is high Oh, Your daddy's rich And your mamma's good lookin' So hush little baby Don't you cry One of these mornings You're going to rise up singing Then you'll spread your wings And you'll take to the sky     But until that morning There's a'nothing can harm you With your daddy and mammy standing by Summertime, And the livin' is easy Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is high Your daddy's rich And your mamma's good lookin' So hush little baby Don't you cry ------------------------------------------------- Summer Time, it’s my all favorite Gershwin and it doesn’t hurt to listen to Sarah Vaughan or Ella Fitzgerald herself. What a treat when you are seated comfortably on the front porch looking at…..Summer unfold.