Show of hands: How many of YOU [mere mortals] have flown on an airline that takes off a half hour early BECAUSE EVERYBODY WAS THERE?!
I have!!!
What a great experience it was to fly with Twin Cities Air Service. Mr. Jefferies begs to differ, but hey, I'm the one payin' the bills around here.
I'm currently making my way back home, but here are a few more random photos from my vacation.
Thank you to Paula for being such a wonderful hostess, tour guide, and chauffeur. Thanks to Sandy for being such a great travel companion. Thanks to both of them, and to Sandy's daughter Bethany, for being such wonderful help and support with Mr. Jefferies. And huge apologies to Paula's cats for having to vacate the house so the terrier could invade it. What a cruel, unfair world.
Yesterday was foggy, a bit cool, and a bit rainy -- an absolutely perfect day to build a fire
lie low, and hang out at Paula's home, watching Lucy Neatby DVDs (right, this has nothing at all to do with being Acadian)
and cooking an authentic Acadian meal.
Sandy had purchased a couple of cookbooks earlier in the week.
We pored over them and decided on a menu, then went shopping for the essential ingredients, like:
and grated potatoes, which, together with perhaps butter and molasses (the four basic food groups?), are found pretty much in every.SINGLE.recipe. Those Acadians, they are/were a simple people.
And the Acadians traditionally did not eat many vegetables. It says so in all the books.
So no green stuff.
This was our menu:
Pork & Chicken Rappie Pie. Being thrifty like the Acadians, we used our leftover pork chops from the night before, supplemented with a couple of chicken legs. This was, as near as we can tell, about four times the meat that ACTUALLY should be in a Rappie Pie. (recipe: "Put [no quantity given] meat or chicken in the pot with 30 cups water.") Get that? 30 cups water, quantity given. Meat? Well, however much you have or don't have.
Pretty much like stone soup, as near as we can tell.
In the Rappie Pie that we tasted at a restaurant a few days ago, we found one tiny sliver of chicken in a sea of grated potato.
San was in charge of the Rappie Pie. If I do say so, it turned out pretty photogenic, next to the fire.
The rest of the meal:
Mashed turnips
Corn on the cob
Buttermilk Pie
-----------------------
So after food shopping, with a few side trips to some amazing art galleries, we chopped and mixed and sauteed and baked.
I was in charge of the buttermilk pie. This, my friends, is my first-ever lard pie crust. And I'm chagrined to say that I am SOLD on lard pie crust. This pie was awesome, if I do say so.
First rule against modern cuisine: Do not cook a monochromatic meal. (This meal was brought to you by the color YELLOW.) Oh, and do not put lard in EV-ERY-THING; minor detail. But the Acadians lived long lives, so this kind of eating apparently served them well enough.
A true conversation:
Norma: Sandy, do you want butter for your corn?
Sandy: No. No butter.
Norma: Lard, then?
And last evening, three out of three knitters polled decided that it was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS.
The best kind of vacation is one that is unstructured and free-flowing, one where you can just go whenever and wherever the spirit takes you, like this one.
Yesterday we started the day with coffee, then we went out to wander through Paula's meadows and pick wild blueberries.
From left to right, the pickings: Sandy, Norma, Paula. I guess we see who is the champeen blueberry picker here, don't we? Heh-heh-heh.
Then we ate blueberries on cereal and headed out to a local establishment that sells organic meat and poultry to choose the meat for our dinner. Our choice was pork chops.
From there, we headed up to Pubnico for the Acadian Museum.
Here is our museum guide showing us a potato grater. (Potato graters and a grated-potato-and-meat pie called rappie pie are an integral part of the Acadian identity. So are pork fat and molasses. Sandy and I have been buying a few Acadian cookbooks, and the recipes are a hoot. Lard and molasses pie, and vinegar candy, as examples.)
We're dying to try the Pork Cake, the ingredients for which are as follows:
1 lb. finely chopped pork
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 lbs. raisins
1 1/2 c. molasses
1 c. buttermilk or sour milk
1 lb. currants
4 3/4 c. flour
1/4 gooseberries
spices and cloves to taste
------
I am not kidding.
We have immersed ourselves in Acadian culture for the past two days and have loved it. Sandy's heritage is Acadian, so it's been extra enjoyable to help her learn about her ancestry.
Soon our guide had already summed up what kind of senses of humor we have. This is the next item he asked us to guess the identity of:
Mwahahahahaha. It's a curling iron. But.... anyway.
I then enjoyed surveying the gardens at the museum and bought some of their gooseberry jam for me and my mom.
So onward. We went up the road a bit to Dennis Point for lunch at one of the most active fishing ports in Canada, where we ate haddock and lobster and sweet potato fries at picnic tables directly on the pier.
Just two boardwalks up, there was a lobster bait company. It emptied waste water directly into the sea, and though it was surprisingly clean-appearing and not bad-smelling at all (and despite my recently demonstrated affinity for such things, there were no seagull poops falling on our heads.) There was certainly enough seagull activity around there, though.
Those birds are bigger'n me, Alpha. I'll just stay in here.
It was quite foggy on the pier, but through the fog we could see some wind turbines quite nearby.
We decided to go investigate.
Coolest.
Thing.
Ever.
The sign said, "Visitors may enter at their own risk," and so of course we did. Mr. Jefferies and I went onto the grounds and I stood on the steps of one of the turbines. It was quite magical.
So we're up here in Nova Scotia visiting Alpha's friend Paula, havin' a blast. It's so beautiful up here -- and COOL! I can run all over the place at her house without a leash, it's so big. And it has a small lily pond and a big goose pond and lots of decks and lawns and places to run and chase the toy. And TWO CATS that I can terrierize while I'm here, too. And everybody keeps on feeding me extra food and treats because of all the stress I endured while they put me in jail back in Portland at Mel's office.
I screamed so much and created such a ruckus in the regular jail cell they put me in while Alpha and Sandy were gone out to breakfast with Mel, they had to put me in solitary confinement:
This was my freakin' cell. Yep, it's just me and Lindsay Lohan, folks. Did.NOT.LIKE. What kind of a way is this to start a dogcation, I ask you?
And then they brought me on this LOUD and HOT little plane that was so awful and scary and I HATED it. HATED. I could not see terra firma, or if I could, it was WAYYYYYY down there below my feet. And I do not believe that a Yorkie is supposed to be able to see things like a hawk does -- I just do NOT. It is NOT NATURAL. I fuhREAKED out just a little bit. (But the pilot said I was very good because he expected me to bark the whole time. I guess lesser dogs bark the whole time they fly in his plane. Whateverrrr.) They'd better darn well give me extra treats; that's all I've got to say about that.
But things took an immediate upturn when we got to Paula's, as I mentioned. Lots of treats and extra meals (salmon & whitefish pâté, that's what I'm talkin' aBOUT!) and so much playtime, with three women at my beck and call. Pretty much just awesomesauce.
And all the stores are dog-friendly and lots of them give me treats and hugs and playing. And in this store:
...is where I got my new raincoat/windbreaker, which came in mighty handy when we visited the beautiful Cape Forchu Lighthouse, where it was DANGED COLD and windy, though sunny and beautiful and sweet-smelling. Makes me feel a little bit like a superdog.
Alpha doesn't want you to see her Nova-Scotia-humidity-enhanced vacation hair. Don't look:
Here I am sitting next to Paula, watching the....
WAIT!!!!! What....are...they....DOING???
DIDN'T THEY READ THE SIGNS??? They say, DANGER! ROGUE WAVES! SLIPPERY ROCKS!
STOP! Don't go DOWN THERE, SANDYYYYYYY AND ALPHAAAAAA (barkbarkbarkbarkbarkBARK)!!!!!
Oh...........
THERE you are!!!
Phew!
OMYGOD, I thought you were.....
Oh, never mind.
My pack is all intact, and that's all that matters.
Phew.
Phew.
That was close.
OHMYGOD, I missed you Sandy, I missed you Sandy, ImissedyouSandyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Let's just go play on the beach now, okay?
Did you know that if you chase and bark at the waves, they will retreat back into the ocean? It works, especially if you have on your superdog cape. And it's a wicked fun game.
We got up early to a message from Mel that had come in overnight (he works nights) to say, "You're in my town? Let's have brekkie in Portland."
When we arrived at his workplace to pick him up, the receptionist delivered the first of many quotable quotes of the long day. "Dr. Vassey, there are two veryhappy people out here to see you."
And so we had a delightful breakfast at a Portland institution, according to Mel who should know, Becky's Diner:
And maybe you can tell by the smiles in this photo, everyone was happy.
The second quotable quote of the day was delivered by the waitress: "There was a little incident with your poached eggs."
Actually, this was the third. The other involved a toll booth lady, but that story is just too long for me to tell well at this late hour. Don't you hate it when someone gives a teaser like that? Sorry. I'm on vacation. And I'm happy, so deal with it!
And then on the way out of the parking lot, there was a blogger's gift just ripe for the picking:
We were hoping to have time to do some more shopping in the Commercial Street area, but we ran out of time, because we had a plane to catch:
I took several photos on the plane ride, but I used my little camera and forgot to pack the cable for that one, so I can't share them with you yet. SORRY!
The flight in that little plane was interesting, a bit like flying on a feather. But it was pretty smooth and the pilot and airline were wonderful and so accommodating and generous of personalized service. There had been a concern earlier in the day that the weather in Yarmouth would not allow us to land, and so we weren't sure we'd be flying out, but in the end the stars and planets aligned and we landed perfectly on time, without incident.
Now we are well fed and safely ensconced in Paula's beautiful home in Nova Scotia. There is plenty of room for Mr. Jefferies to safely run around her extensive and gorgeous grounds unleashed. He's done a great job of terrorizing Paula's two cats. Please send funds for the necessary cat psychological rehab! He's exhausted now and so are we.
The Portland Lobster Co., where dogs are not only welcome, but they are provided treats and a water bowl on the deck (and bites of lobster, haddock & shrimp). I had wonderfully fresh and delicious fish and chips and wine; Sandy had lobster and shrimp and beer; all while we were treated to the gorgeous foggy (and rather chilly) view above. Mr. Jefferies made new friends everywhere we went -- EVERYBODY here loves dogs and especially Yorkies, it seems. He was welcome in ALL the chichi shops, and given treats in many of them. I had a cougar groupie moment with the lead singer of this band. Sweeeeeeeeter than honey.
We did some great shopping, found some really unique things, then locked the keys in my car and had to call AAA to unlock it. The guy came in less than 10 minutes and broke into my car in less than a minute. (Etiquette question: Should I have tipped the AAA guy? I felt awful that he left and I didn't tip him, but didn't even know if that was de rigueur. I've been a member of AAA for like 25 years and this is the first time I've used them in that entire time, so I figure they've got enough of my money. Then again, I know that it's like everything else -- the local guys who perform the service are NOT the ones making the money, so I just don't know what is the protocol, and now I feel bad.)
But in OTHER WORDS, Sandy, Mr. Jefferies and I are having a great time.
Tomorrow, we fly via TinCan Airlines (I kid! They have small planes -- and I do mean SMALL -- but they have incredibly lovely personalized service, and we actually feel a little bit like celebrities.) to Nova Scotia to visit Paula (formerly Hired Hands).
It's possible he could convince me to do anything. But anyway, I'm reading his book and trying his program. So far I love it. And in the never-ending quest to quit, and as an important part of this cleanse, it's been four days since my last Diet Pepsi.
But Mr. Jefferies and I are going on vacation next week, and I plan to let it ride, resuming when I get back. I was going to wait and start it after the vacation, but I decided there's no time like the present, and I can get a good five days in before I go. It's already made me much lighter, I feel great, and I've been juicing up veggies from my garden to beat the band. Lovin' it!
Recent Comments