Now with girls of my own, I wanted to share these rustic hives with them. My Mother and I set off in search of these hives, not knowing if we would find them, or they would even still be there after all these years. A few winding roads and close calls with nausea later, we came to the village where we thought they were. We asked around and eventually found the farmer to whom the hives belong. Yes! The hives were still there.

The sad news is that for the past couple of years, his bees have been dying. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to rescue them because the cause(s) were not clear.

This is a recurring theme in the world of apiculture. There are many reasons, and theories about why the bees of the world are dying. We should all be concerned about this because not only will many, many foods be impossible to make traditionally (think Baklava and Nougat, for starters…), but more importantly, bees are the pollinators of the world. No pollination, no plants.

When we go to France to visit my family, we always indulge in the local honeys which have very unique and strong flavours. Among my favourite: lavender honey and chestnut honey. Nothing like the large-scale supermarket honey we are used to!!
You can find specialty honey here in Canada at fine culinary shops, and they are definitely a treat! Think of it as a long lasting culinary candy.

To learn more about bees, here are a few interesting links.

http://www.honeycouncil.ca/

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/honeybee/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/nature/

Somehow, our nine year old backed up into the flame on the stove.  Her hair is, or was, quite long and was loose, so the flame caught easily and melted the tips and part of the back of her hair.

Dad got there first and held her close.  He quashed the burning hair and calmed the child.  The flames were out quickly, but the calming took a while. Her big sister was spooked too; it all happened so fast.

The next day I asked her how this happened.  She explained that they had been talking and walking around, as they made their lunches, and she had backed up into the fire on the stove.

I also asked her if she knew what to do; she promptly replied: stop, drop to the floor, roll on the ground to put out the flame.  She scored perfect marks on her oral exam but zero on her practicum.  Dad was the one to stop the burning hair.

Maybe if she had been alone, knowing that she didn’t have anyone to a look after her, she would have rolled. Or maybe if an adult had not been there so quickly, with a few more seconds, she would have rolled. Maybe her sister would have reminded her, or patted out the flames herself.  We will never know, but I do know that there are some instincts which need to be practiced in order to be useful. Our family has talked a lot about fire procedure, but we have not practiced.

Our kids are responsible and comfortable around the kitchen, and they know how to manage all sources of heat.   We will be taking their knowledge to the next level shortly: what to do when dangerous  things happen.

She looks just as lovely with her medium length hair, and we have all learned some lessons.  Drills are only useful if you practice them.

Here are a couple of useful sites for fire safety.  It’s never too early.

Toronto’s Fire Department has a great list of kitchen safety tips here:

http://www.toronto.ca/fire/prevention/index.htm

It’s worth noting the BBQ safety tips too:

http://www.toronto.ca/fire/prevention/safe_barbecuing.htm

1. Renovations are both expensive and stressful, even when all is going well. Since we have to continue eating, it’s really important to make sure you he your kitchen life under control. Make sure you will be able to make sandwiches, have decent dinners, and be sure to budget for outside food. Trust me, stuff happens.

2. During a renovation you may need to spend a lot more time than usual doing kitchen stuff, whether it’s doing dishes by hand in an awkward space, traveling longer distances between where you cook, where you eat and where you clean up.

3. See the short cuts all around you: prepared vegetables, prepared foods, take out, friends, and other forms of cooking such as crock pot cooking which minimize the time you spend making dinner.

4. Ask for help. You have a renovation going on, your eating patterns are changed, and the usual life events will continue. In our family it’s been two and a half months of bad health. The renovation continues.

Keep kitchen calm and carry on.

Have you recently been through a renovation? Let me know what helped you get through it.

It was a typical Monday morning…until we told the kids to graffiti the kitchen wall with a permanent marker.

Day one of our long awaited kitchen renovation needed something notable; something to mark the occasion.  So after the graffiti, we gave the kids a hammer and suggested they put holes in the walls. Shyly tapping at first, they got into it, and did some healthy damage to the kitchen. Once they were gone to school, it was my turn. I’ve been waiting for this day for years!!

Kitchen Coach demolishes kitchen!

Our old kitchen looked quite nice but was totally impractical. After six years, we were used to it, but the dishwasher had been on a work to rule for about two years, the Corian counter had an ever-expanding crack (from a poor installation), and then the oven died. The oven died about 18 months ago!!

This past spring we had a marathon designing spree to create our new kitchen on paper. We wanted more light, more connection to the rest of the ground floor, as well as to our back yard. Since we love to entertain, we wanted as much work space as possible, and of course loads of storage space. Simple style, super practical, and pleasant to be in.

We spent the summer clearing out the basement of our accumulated junk, cleaning the floor and walls, and moving the kitchen into our new temporary kitchen space. A kitchen coach’s dream job!

Here are some before and after pictures of our basement and its new definitely-temporary kitchen.

Kitchen sink

Basement kitchen before

Twelve weeks is what we have been told it will take to get the job done. It should be done by Christmas. … I know! I hear you!! In my mind, I’ve budgeted my mental energy for more than twelve weeks, but there is nothing wrong with optimism and faith.

When the kids came back from school on Day one, there was a solid wall between the construction zone and our living space. The adventure begins!!  I will keep you posted.

There are not many materials that you can both make food in and leave in the BBQ for a long time.  My plan was to make use of my new 31cm (12”) cast iron frying pan to make an apple pie.

First I had to season it, and that will be another BBQ blog…  All sources talked about using the oven to properly to this task.

So I made an apple pie, using a recipe from Fine Cooking. Everything was looking great.  One massive pie was ready to “bake” on the BBQ.  The whole family was getting excited, though my kids were making snide remarks about having a “flambéed” pie.  A saucy reference to my first attempt at naan.

Attempt number one: I should have been wary of my thermometer.  The problem with using a BBQ’s thermometer when it is – 20C is that the interior temperature is likely much hotter than the external one measured and displayed on the appliance.

The pie was thoroughly and utterly scorched.  I tried to salvage the apple part, not realizing the extent of the carbonization, which was absolute.  Proof:

Did I mention in the naan post that I am stubborn? Yesterday was BBQ Apple Pie attempt #2.  I made two significant changes: I lowered the temperature and raised the pan off the grill.  I used two cookie sheets “facing” each other, so that there was a height of about 2 – 2.5cm. I also put a silicone mat inside the cookie sheets.  It was useful when I made lasagna and cookies, so thought it would be a good addition to my setup.  (Not sure if it did help, but either the high heat for such a long time, and/or the dramatic temperature drop when I left the mat outside overnight caused it to be completely wrecked.) Here’s the set up:

The outside temperature was again quite cold, so I checked on the pie more often than the first time.  It took just over an hour, like the first time, but this time I had a thing of beauty.  Check it out:

What a reward!  It smelled absolutely amazing as it cooled in the kitchen.   And yes, it tastes good too!

On Saturday night, I had planned two curries made in the slow cooker: chicken and chickpea. For starch, home made naan bread. I followed the Joy of Cooking recipe for the naan up until the part about the “preheat the oven for 45 minutes”.

Turned all BBQ burners on high, and waited quite a while for the temperature to go up to somewhere close to 450F. On a -15C evening. The recipe called for a pizza stone, which we don’t have. I used the backside of an old cookie sheet, covered with aluminum foil. I rolled out two of the four dough balls, and placed them on the foil. Brushed melted butter on top, and slid the whole thing into the BBQ as quickly as possible to avoid losing the heat.

Time to set the table, get the chutney from the basement, and call the troops. As I came up from the basement, I saw the BBQ with large and leaping flames coming out of its back. The troops were called (very efficiently, I might add) with “flames!”. I opened the BBQ and found two flaming, charred naans. The foil was burning, the naans were burning…even after putting it all in the snow, the naans were still burning.

We were already running late on dinner, so this was looking pretty bad. Tried again with the last two balls of dough. Stayed focussed. No extra activities. Pulled out very decent naans, and learned some lessons about adjusting baking times for the BBQ.

Next time: apple pie on the BBQ.

Given its age and the model, the thing’s not worth fixing. And since the rest of the kitchen is also falling apart – it is at least 20 years old – it made no sense to replace the oven without fixing the whole kitchen. Kitchen reno! Aack!!

We’ve decided to invest in a stunning BBQ while we wrap our heads and finances around a kitchen renovation. So we bought the BBQ on sale in September, and we’ve been cooking all sorts of things. Obvious items like poultry and meats, but also a very nice lasagna and even cookies! We had ten people for Thanksgiving…and we did it all without an oven. And no take out either!

To be honest though, we have quite a few other options which are picking up the slack: stove, toaster oven, slow cooker and a combination microwave/convection oven. Some of these are getting a bit elderly too, and I’m hoping they have the good sense to wait a bit longer before having minds of their own.

So which appliances in your kitchen could be doing more to make things easier?