An ode to the cottage
Friday, July 17, 2009 | 03:56 PM ET
By Amber Hildebrandt, CBCNews.ca
A week away from my fave foodie columnists, bloggers and tweeters and you'd think that I'd shrivel up like a Sunmaid raisin from lack of a gastronomic fix.
Breakfast cooking on the wood stove. (Amber Hildebrandt/CBC)
I was off at the family cottage, located on an island far away from the convenience of a grocery store.
There, food is not the subject of gorgeous pictures and mouthwatering descriptions. It's a necessity, but a lavish one at that.
It's enforced simplicity in a way. Food adds weight to every boat trip and so we go without exotic ingredients and rarely replace our aging spices.
We may have only the food we cart on the boat, forage for on the island or catch in the river, but we have the decadence of time.
And at every meal, we feast. (Mostly thanks to my grandmother, whose culinary skills and ability to cook on a wood stove may be unrivalled ... at least for me.) Breakfasts regularly feature hash browns, eggs, bacon and toast. At supper, we dine on the catch of the day or some thick slab of meat.
Recipe books are tucked deep in a drawer and most date back to the 1940s, when a previous owner thought to bring them. My grandmother has no such need. She simply tosses her ingredients together with an able hand.
And I have to admit, I didn't miss my favourite blogs and go-to recipe websites. Not at all.
« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »
This discussion is now Open. Submit your Comment.
« Previous Post | Main | Next Post »
Post a Comment
Food Bytes »
About the blog
From trends and culture to politics and nutrition, Food Bytes serves up tasty tidbits about food and the issues surrounding it that flavour our everyday lives.
About the writers
Amber Hildebrandt writes for CBCNews.ca in Toronto. Growing up on a farm in Manitoba, she acquired an insatiable appetite, but it was during a stint in Japan that she developed her discerning tastebuds and "foodie" ways.
Andrea Chiu is an associate producer at CBC Radio Digital. Though she loves to eat, cook and discuss food,
don't ask her to bake. It never turns out well. She tweets as @TOfoodie on Twitter and organizes food and wine events in Toronto called FoodieMeet.
Tara Kimura is the consumer life reporter for CBCNews.ca, covering a wide range of issues that range from rising food costs and the growing organic movement, to new trends in the marketplace.
Andree Lau is a CBC web reporter in Calgary. Her journalism career includes seven years as a CBC-TV reporter. Her own blog called "are you gonna eat that?" chronicles her eating adventures (including sampling snake and camel hoof tendon).
Jessica Wong is a CBCNews.ca writer who loves to eat and cook, as well as discuss, read and watch programming about food, sometimes all at once.
Kevin Yarr, CBCNews.ca's writer in Prince Edward Island, wrote about food and beer for national and regional magazines before joining the CBC. He acquired a desire for new tastes on his first trip to Europe, and an appreciation of eating locally and in season when he finally settled down on P.E.I.
Elizabeth Bridge is a writer with the CBC Digital Archives in Toronto. She first ventured into the kitchen as a child to indulge a sweet tooth by baking cookies and making fudge. A student budget compelled her to be a vegetarian (for a while) and instilled in her an ongoing curiosity about food and cooking.
Related
Recent Posts
- Double happiness without shark fin
- Monday, August 17, 2009
- I dream of ice cream
- Thursday, August 13, 2009
- Seeing Julie & Julia
- Wednesday, August 5, 2009
- Trash strike: Lessons learned
- Tuesday, August 4, 2009
- Shadows of the Irish Famine
- Wednesday, July 29, 2009
- Subscribe to Food Bytes
Archives
- August 2009 (4)
- July 2009 (7)
- June 2009 (8)
- May 2009 (13)
- April 2009 (12)
- March 2009 (10)
- February 2009 (9)
- January 2009 (9)
- December 2008 (16)
- November 2008 (13)
- October 2008 (12)
- September 2008 (11)
- August 2008 (9)
- July 2008 (12)
- June 2008 (10)
- May 2008 (16)
Categories
- Agriculture (13)
- Amber Hildebrandt (27)
- Amuse-bouche (39)
- Andree Lau (31)
- Culture (52)
- Elizabeth Bridge (12)
- Health (15)
- Industry (32)
- Jessica Wong (32)
- Kevin Yarr (21)
- Leigh Felesky (3)
- Politics (12)
- Tara Kimura (34)
- Trends (39)
Comments
Olive Green
Bravo
Cooking should always come down to the basics.
Posted July 21, 2009 07:43 AM
Kobe girl
Vaughan
This kind of meals tastes the best! We do not always need all the complicated process of cooking!!
Posted July 22, 2009 12:25 PM
Inky
NL
Missing the food every day along with all my other family members, don't eat to much!
Posted August 8, 2009 01:37 AM
Ada
Winnipeg
I remember the amazing food at your Oma and Opa's cottage...everything was delicious, no matter how exotic it was to my Mennonite palate. To me, that is still the epitome of the perfect summer vacation!
Posted August 18, 2009 04:57 PM