Love Apples

Prince Edward Island: Kim & Smoked Salmon. Bliss in Real Life.

If I often wonder how the planet hasn't literally just gone madly spinning on a wild stagger of a reactionary zigzagging through space, meeting someone like Kim Dormaar tells me that there are some people who've nailed it into place.

It's not his professional credentials or the awards he's won, it's not even that I'm so mad for his smoked salmon that I forget about worry for whole minutes at a time. It's his confidence in how he has told me for near decade and a half I've known him, "This is how I do it. This is the reason for it." that makes me feel like there's hope.

***

I don't even quite know how it happed.

I meant only to buy two sides of smoked salmon to bring back to Montreal for two upcoming houseguest visits, and so I went to Kim's smokehouse (photo of the smokeroom above). This is something I often do on the island. While there I find myself chatting more than I do, which tends to indicate that I'm either nervous or unexpectedly comfortable, though this time it was hard to tell which it was.

But from that came this: I was on the point of leaving and closing the car door.

Me: I'll probably be back in PEI in about three weeks.

Kim: Well actually, I'm short-staffed tomorrow at the [Charlottetown] farmer's market

Me: [Quizzical look.]

Kim: I usually get there for 7.

Me: [Quizzical look.]

Kim: But if you could arrive at 8--that'd be great.

Me: [Eyes wide open as the penny drops.]

Kim: It wraps up by 2.

And instead of mumbling something that says, "sorry... can't" or "I might look competent, but *trust* me when I tell you..." I went with

Me: I'm not staying 'til 2. I'm leaving at 11.

You mightn't guess how at the time, this felt an assertive answer. And standing before the formidable, it was. Yet most importantly, it was just the answer I meant to give, even as I wouldn't have devised it.

And so--A half-day at the Farmer's Market at Kim's stall. More exhilarating in pace than I would ever have guessed, and just as thoroughly wonderful as deep inside I knew it would be. Needless to say, with it came a sense of community, friendship, and pride and even as my pride was mostly borrowed I think I'll beam with it for days yet.

***

He ships. It's firm; it's tender. It's that ethereal mix of fresh-yet-soulful. It's ecstasy-inducing. It's http://smokedsalmon.isn.net/

Prince Edward Island, Me, & Wild Thyme.

It happens sometimes that life's truths just slam you into knowing them. They don’t wait, they don't seduce, they don’t even demand. They merely assert: I am here--it's up to you whether or not you are changed by me, but for an instant at least, something will change.

And so, driving from a warm September swim at Dalvay beach, on the north shore of the island, with my mind full of what's next. Just like that--the car crashes onto it: thyme. It felt like a solid wall. Heavy, heady, purifying, bracing.

Pull over. Roll down the windows. And as though for the first time in months, breathe.

Wild thyme is abundant in PEI. Round patches of it dot meadows. These are, however, discrete manifestations. Often you only take notice once you've trod on some. The scent wafts up; instantly intoxicates.

It must have been just just cut, part of a whole field. And though I'm still deciphering how this encounter will change things, the lead possibilities so far are:

1. Thyme in throngs mutes the rest of the day.
2. Wild beats cultivated.

Destination La Mer: Char.

I'm sure that much of my day-to-day life sends the nuns of my schooldays spinning in their graves--starting with what's happened to my handwriting, and careening from there--but one thing that might soothe them back into slumber is that my house has a tradition of fish on Fridays. Only let's not tell them that this has everything to do with the wealth of the arrivage overnight on Thursday at La Mer fish market.

Oftentimes Montreal resists giving away its true self in anything larger than a morsel. La Mer, situated in a zigzag of boulevards that in no way suggests the fine or the subtle, tells you nothing more from the outside. And you *know* you're in trouble when the best you can offer in answer to "Where?" is "You know, next to the CBC." Yet after a dozen visits one comes to feel it as a fully-formed version of a Montreal. To a Prince Edward Island fisherman I met a few weeks ago, who drives in his own catch, it's the only Montreal.

The whole of the fish market is refrigerated. In summer clothes, and stubbornly refusing the down jackets on offer at the entrance, this makes for an extra thrill.

In the last few weeks, char from Cap Chat on the Gaspé coast has been abundant, just, today, from coastal New Brunswick, to warm R.'s heart.

Lobster

I'm not sure why one starts a blog. It is a good medium for an exhibitionistic introvert, so perhaps that's it for me. (Oooo--let's change my byline!) As to the reason it's a food blog, the answer will take a time to parse out, but will surely say that food is at the root of how I relate to the world and to myself.

Even as I started it, I didn't have a preconception of what kinds of things I might post. Yet I did look forward to what my first lobster entry would be. R. was born in the Maritimes. In the most urban of days, he still hears the call of the sea. Due to our several trips out each year, and as the trips have awaked the puddle of the primordial that resides in me, I now hear it too. And ocean, or at least our bit of it, means we'll have lobster for supper.

Here is this weekend's incarnation. I'm just back from my annual pilgrimage and lovefest in Nova Scotia: a long weekend of godkids and other objects of my affection. Tumbling ocean waves, lake, canoe, bonfire, guitar strains, sea shanties. We usually make lobster at the cottage, but this time a perfect day brought us to a Lobster Dinner--one of the great Maritime traditions, usually held in white clapboard Church Halls. It was everything it was meant to be, plus a pounded copper boiling pot all asteam, that had originated in the galley of an American ship captured by the Brits in 1813.

Lobster is often made all wrong. It's ruined by sauces, overcooking, wrongminded cooking. I don't think I'll give many out-and-out recipes in this space, but here's one that I hold sacred, and that I think anyone who has a chance of making lobster should learn by heart:

-Anyone who recommends steaming, either doesn't care for you or doesn't care for lobster.

-Visualise the pot you're choosing for boiling the lobsters. The biggest pot in the average well-equipped kitchen might accommodate four lobsters at a time, but many stockpots will only accommodate two. You want enough water to completely cover the lobster and surround them amply enough to be able to come back to the boil quickly after you've added them.

-If you're able to use sea water, do. It provides, perversely, the perfect level of salinity for their cooking. Otherwise use tap water, and add two handfuls of sea salt for the amount of water that will cook four lobsters.

-Bring the water up to a rolling boil. Add the lobsters head first, one at a time, choosing the largest one to go in first. Have the pot covered until the water has returned to a strong boil. Once it has, set timer for 12 mins for lobsters that weigh about 1 1/2 pounds each, (you count 10 mins. for the first pound per lobster, and 4 mins for each additional pound per lobster). Use the same water if you have more to boil.

-Serve with nothing, or with butter and lemon juice that have been boiled together for a few minutes to emulsify, and to sweeten the lemon a bit: the juice of two lemons per 1/2 pound of butter.