When I left yesterday I had no idea I’d be on a ‘foodie trip’. Apparently I have a talent for making everything about me food. The long drive here was interrupted frequently for baby-maintenance-stops. On one of those stops, I got out and was looking at the interesting plants growing in the ditch. Some holly-looking-ground-cover-thingers. And then I noticed these: wild blueberries. I was gleeful [and still am]. I scrambled to pick as many as I could, eating furiously, and shoving whatever was left into a bag to enjoy later. I haven’t had the pleasure to eat or cook with these in my adult life, so this is a treat.

Today, at another baby-maintenance-stop while touring about, I picked some Labrador Tea. I’d been meaning to muck about with it in the kitchen for quite some time, but haven’t been in a boggy-muskegy area [when there wasn’t snow cover] in quite some time. It’s easy to pick, grows like crazy, easy to de-leaf, and is apparently healthful. It has a lemony-evergreen herb smell that’s quite interesting.

And on the way up here, my dad mentioned that one of the guys who worked for him building this great place was a bee-keeper. We went to the ‘farmer’s market’ in Goodsoil, Saskatchewan today, and he was there. Well…he was kind of ‘it’. Him and a lady with some baking = the farmer’s market. He let us taste his clover honey, and dandelion honey. The clover honey is light and fragrant – the dandelion being darker, more robust and complex. So I bought a kilo of both for dirt cheap. Between us, I think we bought 12 kilos of honey.

I think the hangovers have nearly been shaken off from last night’s wine and brandy indulgences. On the menu tonight: rotisserie chicken with a dandelion honey, garlic, and Labrador tea glaze with garden potatoes, and a 2003 Domaine de Tourraque Cotes de Provence.