Finally Spring in Ottawa!

Well Winter started on 24 November 2013 with the first snowfall and finally on 31 March 2014 it came to an end.

It was long and very cold, we had one of the longest skating season on the Rideau Canal and Ice Fishing on the many rivers and lakes. Now its Sugar Bush time, the Maple trees sap will start running with the cold nights and warm days, a sure sign of Spring.

So we need a little dance music to celebrate the New Season.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote le Devin du village, presented to King Louis XV in October 1752 at Fontainebleau.



I will write shortly about the two new exhibits I am involved in at the Canadian War Museum on paintings from the Canadian War Memorial Fund of Lord Beaverbrook. The two exhibits open on 10 April to the public in Ottawa.

http://www.warmuseum.ca/event/witness-canadian-art-of-the-first-world-war/


http://www.warmuseum.ca/event/transformations-a-y-jackson-and-otto-dix/

Auguri di Compleanno, Bon Anniversaire

Another year, a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer water down your pants. (Quote from the Mary Tyler Moore show). Birthdays are a funny thing for me, each year is different, different cities or continent, in all kinds of places. This year in Ottawa, though we are suppose to be in Spring now it is still cold and full of snow, however all this is set to change dramatically by Thursday when temperatures soar to 10C over night and a massive melt will start quickly, meaning floods, ah Spring in Ottawa.

I have many things to be thankful for on this Birthday, good health, good teeth, my dentist told me this week that for a man my age having all my teeth is remarkable. It seems that like 300 years ago most people in their fifties today have lost a large amount of teeth or are looking at dentures.

We have a nice home, friends, our dogs and each other. We still travel a lot, I have taken in my lifetime more trips to exotic, strange and foreign lands than anyone I know. I have seen 45% of the planet and have lived in many countries for extended part of my life. Going abroad for a few days does not appear on my chart. I have studied and learned foreign languages. I understand quite a few others and am not lost or put off by foreign cultures or mores when I travel.

I now work as a volunteer in two National Museums in Ottawa and I enjoy it immensely. Spending easily upwards of 50 hours a month doing volunteer work, it is like a second career and it is fun, something I always wanted to do and can now do. Not a bad life Maggie Muggins.

Here are some pictures of little me through the ages.

In Ville Saint-Laurent in our backyard in the little pool, I am about 5 yrs old with my little brother.

My first morning going to school, grade 1, on my own in Quebec City

On the train in Poland going from Warsaw to Krakow, 1998.

Italian Cooking School near Rome 2009

In Rome in 2013 at dinner at our friends house

With our Reesie in Rome in 2008 our first apartment on Via Asmara

 In Assisi in 2010

At dinner in Salzburg at the Sketch Bar, Hotel Bristol

With Nicky in Rome on Via dei Villini

On the old Via Latina, with one of the many old aqueducts, Rome

At the monastery of Pedralbes in Barcelona

 At Cap Sounion near Athens at sun down 2010

In the Silk Merchant Guild Hall in Valencia, Spain

Breakfast Italian style at the Hotel in Ragusa Ibla, Sicily  

On the Island of Capri

At the Festival in Salzburg the Karl Bohm Hall 

Infamous photo abroad the Azamara where I was mistaken for Karl Lagerfeld 

Café Bazar, Salzburg, my favourite café at Festival time.

The little wood house in which Mozart wrote his music, beautifully preserved in the garden of the Mozarteum in Salzburg

This for me is the most beautiful fountain in Rome, the Turtles fountain in the area of the Portico Ottavia and the old Ghetto

With Professor A. Testa on Easter Sunday in Rome 2010 

On Via Appia looking for Spartacus 

On board Air Transat going to Italy, a good airline 

Cooking recipes

A few weeks ago Will suddenly got up and went looking for an old red binder with the word Air Canada on the cover, inside are old yellow sheets of paper with type written recipes for various dishes from appetizers to main course to desserts. We have had this binder and recipes for at least 35 years. He was looking for a recipe in particular and wanted to see if we could try it out. We did and it was quite good, a simple sauce to accompany a dish of pasta. Many of the recipes are from a time a few decades ago when people ate heavier dishes. Mind you, I know a lot of people who still eat fairly heavy dishes with lots of cream and butter sauces and cheese topping for good measure. It's the same with desserts, many are fudge chocolate like with cream and a side of ice cream. I simply cannot imagine eating any dishes like that today. My desserts now tend to be a fruit usually fresh never in a can or just an espresso
with a spot of milk no sugar.

So far we tried two recipes and both are sauces requiring fresh tomatoes chopped up and at least 500 gr of fresh leafy spinach. In Europe spinach is very popular usually just tossed in a pan with a bit of garlic, in the USA at least in New England, cream spinach is popular but in Canada you do not see it so often on menus or in peoples homes as a side dish. A shame really, it is a very good vegetable and so easy to prepare but you must remember to clean it well, like all leafy greens. There is always a lot of dirt on the leaves and it needs a good rinsing once of twice under cold water.

Among these old recipes are some of Will's signature dishes, like Smoky Pumpkin Soup done usually for Canadian Thanksgiving in October, Sopa de Tortilla from our time in Mexico 1986-89. Or his
Tomato tart with polenta crust and rocket, or Mushroom rarebit. A dessert he use to make was Treacle tart.

                                        Recipe teasers

So he looked up this Pasta with Spicy Tomatoes and Spinach.  I got the ingredients at the store and made it for dinner, it was easy and quite good. This recipe can be made in less than 30 minutes if you are slightly organized in the kitchen and have a nice glass of wine at hand.

The recipe is as follows:
Pasta with Spicy Tomatoes and Spinach

8 oz of fresh Linguini pasta
1 dried chili pepper, seeded and crushed
5 *anchovy fillets, rinsed under cold water, drained and chopped
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 lb (500gr) of fresh loose leaf spinach, washed, stemmed and coarsely chopped.
8 ripe plum tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced (you can used the can variety)
3\4 cup of freshly grated parmesan
Fresh ground pepper
1 tsp of good olive oil

* about the anchovy, on the market you can find imported from Italy, fresh anchovies which is a white fish in oil or anchovies only in oil and a little salt. It is very different in taste from the anchovies which are cured and salted, do not use those.


First cook your pasta in boiling water until al dente. Drain and shake well, coat with 1 tsp of oil and mix up. Cover and set aside.

Heat the chill in 3 tsp of olive oil until the pepper is brown. Remove and discard pepper.
Now using the same large pan used for the pepper you have your base oil flavoured with the pepper.
Reheat the oil, add anchovies, garlic and cook stirring constantly until garlic turns golden brown. Add spinach and tomatoes and cook tossing until spinach is wilted.

Now add your pasta and toss well with the sauce until heated through ( approx 3 min.)

Remove from heat and add the parmesan and pepper. Serve immediately.


This weekend I made Breast Chicken fillets with Spinach and Tomato and for Sunday dinner Sautéd Chicken and Tortilla Salad.
Spring is here now, the Rideau canal water level is back up for boating, The many marathons along the canal have started, we have quite a few in Ottawa. The fishing season has opened and the Tulip Festival starts on 3 May in Ottawa our special connection with the Royal Family of the Netherlands. The weather is now on average 20C very pleasant. So I am switching the sheets to summer cloth and also our dinner menu to more Spring like fare.

24 March

Today is my birthday, many friends have sent good wishes and I thank them all.

We are now in Spring time Canadian style which means that snow is still on the ground. Though it is still winter weather in parts of Europe too, but warmer weather is just around the corner.

In 2011 photo taken in Vienna at the Hofburg Palace.

Today 24 March 2013 at Le Café, Centre national des Arts, Ottawa

This Begonia Bonsai is my birthday gift from Will, Nicky and Nora

Le violette

The violet a little flower and listening today to WFMT Chicago, I heard two pieces, one by Scarlatti in Italian and the other in Spanish by Padilla. I long for Spring time which is not very far now and violets are nice reminder of days to come on this sunny but cold day in Ottawa. The violet is in the same family as the African violet and this is the flower I am more acquainted with being common in many households in past decades but not so much now.

Le Violette sung here by the late Luciano Pavarotti




The other song a famous tango, I always liked by José Padilla, La Violetera, sung here by opera, bel canto specialist Montserrat Caballé. She is, I am told, still singing and was in Vienna last year in Fille du Régiment.



We always had lots of African Violets, my Mom really liked them and they were on the window sill
in the kitchen or the living room.
Saint Paulia or African Violet named after Baron Walter Von Saint-Paul Illaire (1860-1910) discovered the plant in Tanganyka today Tanzania in 1892 and sent it back to Germany to his father an amateur botanist. They arrived in Canada as a house plant in 1926.

I don't think Violets are associated with Spring, though I remember seeing some in Rome in late March last year.

The balcony of Via Tronto, Rome.

Tulip, Tulipe, Tulipano, Tulp, lale

On this lovely Saturday I went to Dow's Lake which is a former swamp flooded during the construction of the Rideau Canal just below Hogs back falls in Ottawa. It is a large park area, with old trees and flower beds. At this time of the year and for the last 60 years we have over one hundred thousand tulips blooming.
Each year the Royal Dutch Family and the people of Holland send thousands of tulip bulbs in memory of Canada's help in the Liberation of the Netherlands in 1944-45 and in the hospitality and help we gave to the Royal Family of the Netherlands. Here are some photos of today's excursion.

Tulips in our home's front hall a gift of our friend J.

The man from Appeldoorn, symbol of the two hat contribution of Canada to help Liberate Holland and then feed and re-build the country. A similar statue stands in Appeldoorn symbol of the faithfulness and friendship between Canadians and Dutch people.

Dow's Lake in central Ottawa

Spring on a foggy day in Ottawa

Today May 3 the Rideau Canal is back to its normal water level for boating. Parks Canada started to let the level of the water rise on 26 April and then stopped completing the process today. The 60th Tulip Festival is about to start and the tulips in their thousands are blooming everywhere in the Capital. All the parks of the Capital are full of large tulip beds of various colours, a gift of the Netherlands in thanks for Canada's liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 and the hospitality during the Second World War when the Dutch Royal Family sought refuge in Ottawa. Queen Juliana gave birth to Princess Margriet in Ottawa in 1943, the hospital room at the Civic Hospital declared by Royal decree of Canada's Governor General, the Earl of Athlone, Dutch territory for the occasion.

The fog over the Capital seemed to absorb all noises, a strange silence. The rain makes everything so green and fresh and the trees are bursting with new leafs.

Tulips in their thousands in Major Hill Park, Ottawa

Tulips in various colours at Ottawa City Hall

The Basilica and Roman Catholic Cathedral of Ottawa on Sussex Drive

The great glass rotunda of the National Gallery of Canada on Sussex Drive

The centre block of Parliament of Canada with the round library as seen from Major Hill park across from the Rideau Canal locks.

The Ottawa river looking west just below Parliament Hill in Ottawa

Colonel John By of the Royal Engineers (1779-1836), builder of the Rideau Canal.

Knox Presbyterian Church (1844) Elgin street.

On Cartier Street in front of a private house, a Camellia bush in bloom.