201123 Weather Anniversary Egg Foo Yung

 

On Friday, it was 17 degrees and in the field I discovered violet leaves and dandelions waking up! Yesterday, snow, a proper 5 inches of perfect snowman snow; the children scrambled to find boots and mitts and by nightfall there were snowmen and forts all along the street. Tamar and Indre went for an after-dinner walk and returned dragging a giant snowball on the sled: a snowman for the records.

   

 

   

This morning another giant snowball brought home from the field, and the corner garden, where in summer the wildflowers spill out onto the sidewalk.

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Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip celebrated their 73rd wedding anniversary this month. I hardly know where to go from there! On their 50th, Philip said, "The main lesson we have learned is that tolerance is the one essential ingredient of any happy marriage."* Tolerance - not a word I would have gone with, but the drift is there. Allowing your partner to be who they are and trusting your commitment and love to get you through the challenges are the keys. Marriage and its foundation, love, are miracles which, while all other miracles of life shrink in the bright glare of modern science, remain completely mysterious and magical. K and I have been married barely more than half as long as these two royals, making us practically newly-weds. There is a romantic novel at the beginning of every marriage and then, through some bonding process two persons join together to make a new family. It is referred to in ceremonies, the cleaving of two lives, but its resulting union, cemented by years of learning, shared goals, a home and sometimes children, preserves and intensifies that love and one looks at one's partner, as beautiful as ever, in disbelief, as one reaches "until we're grey and old"**.  There is joy in knowing the other will be there through the trials of old age - here you are together where you promised you would be when "grey and old" was a far-off myth. Disbelief and joy. 

(I still remember when I learned that my mother and father had once not been married, it seemed impossible that there was ever such a time.)

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Egg Foo Yung:

 I made this last night and this time I wrote down the recipe for safekeeping. I made it up long ago (the recipe, not the dish!, must have been before google.).

Oil - a little for wok or pan

1/2 onion chopped or sliced

6 or 8 mushrooms sliced

Bean sprouts 2 cups rinsed and patted dry

Hot sauce, 5 shakes

Pepper, shakes

Ginger powder, 2 pinches

Soy sauce, 2 Tbsp.

4 Eggs beaten with 5 shakes salt and a little pepper.

To make:  Fry onions to soften, add mushrooms to soften, add sprouts and seasoning, fold and stir to mix and cook 2 or three minutes. Drain liquid, and add eggs. Cook gently until just done, you can fold mixture over to cook through, no need to preserve whole shape. Serve immediately. Needs no sauce but you can put soy sauce, hot sauce or your favorite chinese condiments on the table.

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Persimmons: a November treat, this fruit comes in two varieties. The tomato-shaped one is ready to eat while it is firm, just cut out the flowery top and cut into pieces, full of healthy vitamins and fibre. The other is acorn-shaped and ready to eat when soft like a peach or avocado. I only have a picture of the second kind, because we ate the others last night!

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Thank you to all the readers who visit my blog. Keep safe.

Mumma Yaga

 The absurdity in its future element.

* The Globe and Mail, November 21, 2020, p A22

** Say You Won't Let Go, song by James Arthur. 

My favorite version, Yoli Mayor: https://youtu.be/NBup8MdUL-w