A culinary dream come true

While participating in Circe's Circle, Jamie led Tammy and me on many wonderful guided visual meditations. Almost every time I ended up wandering a lovely market, smelling the perfectly ripe tomatoes and talking to people about what was for dinner tonight. I was almost always in Paris which is a whole other story, I dubbed that persona of mine Suzette!

Today is the last day of Circe's Circle and I can not believe it's almost over. It has been so helpful, so life altering in a positive way and now, one of those dreams has come to fruition.

For those of you who do not know my story, I have fibromyalgia and moved from the gentle skies of British Columbia to the crazy abusive weather of Nova Scotia. As a result, I have been housebound for over six months and come close to madness many, many times. Last week after my dentist appoint I decided to finally visit the famous Pete's Frootique. This was the first time I had taken a bus and gotten out of the house on my own in half a year and didn't want to waste the freedom of being out from under winter's oppression.

It was amazing! I got this tingley feeling in my stomach, I felt like I could almost cry. I thought this place would only have produce but I was wrong, it had EVERYTHING! How many times have I watched a show on the Food Network only to find out that my grocery store will never ever carry mirin or orange blossom water.



Look at that huge bundle of thyme! Only $2! At my grocery store I get maybe eight spring for $2!

The most wonderful part about getting to a real market just outside of my real neighbourhood is the sense of freedom I felt here. This is where I belong, with food. I think this must be what some people feel like when they go into a church! LOL.

As the circle comes to a close, one of my dreams has materialized. For me, food is my touch stone, my life line. I may be super unhappy about where I live but when I cook I can travel to a British pub with my mushie peas and mashed potatoes. When I bake I escape to Paris with my homemade bread. A part of me goes to Japan now that I finally own panko breadcrumbs.

Food takes us places. Where would you like to go?

Caraway Rye Bread...from a breadmaker!

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Millie Feather at Allrecipes.com shared her family's recipe for Caraway Rye Bread and when I read that it had been in her family's recipe book for over 45 years, I just had to try it. I have been delving into Old-World recipes for the last two months and because of my fibromyagia, I can't make dough by hand but I can using my breadmaker!

If you do not have a breadmaker, just follow Millie's directions. You will need rye flour which is not always easy to find. I could only get a 5 lb bag that cost me $7! Yet when I was looking at the Caraway Rye Bread in the baking section of the grocery store, one old dry loaf was going for $4. This one recipe gives me two loaves of bread and it is super moist, unlike any Caraway Rye Bread I have ever eaten before.



The only real change I made to the recipe was to add 1/4 cup of all purpose flour when I saw that the dough was very wet and I used around 1 1/2 tsp of breadmaker yeast. I put the ingredients in the machine in typical breadmaker order: wet ingredients, sugar, salt, flour, herbs/spices and then the yeast. The yeast always goes in last. My Black & Decker Horizontal Bread Maker lets the ingredients sit for around 15 minutes for everything to come to room temperature and then it started to knead and did all of the work for me. In just a couple of hours the dough was ready and I divided it up and put each loaf into a cake pan and then baked them in the oven. I made the best pastrami sandwiches in the world with this bread:



I do not think I can ever go back to the dry, crumbly Caraway Rye Bread I used to get at the bakery after eating this heavenly bread. Now that I have the rye flour I have all the ingredients in my pantry to make this at any time for zero cost.

Homemade food is the best!

I have been away...

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...and now I return to blogland. It has been dark and quiet here in Nova Scotia and very, very cold and lonely. I have learned a lot during my cyber hiatus and while stuck inside I found solace in my kitchen and realized that I am more a foodie than ever. Food is where my passion is.

I still have to be super careful about my health so my online commitment must be strict. I will write here and only here. I can not go visiting other blogs. If that's a problem, then feel free not to come back. This is the only way I can be online.

Thanks to my sister Jamie's creativity group Circe's Circle, I have found profound connection to food through my writing. It has started an amazing culinary and literary journey for me. The experience has been so deep and life altering, I feel forever changed and more focused than ever. Thanks also goes out to the amazing Tammy! I have absolutely adored getting to know you better with our weekly phone calls and hope that you will still be friends with me even though you have seen/heard me at my worst! LOL.

For now, have a pastrami sandwich on homemade caraway rye bread and a swig of Suzie The Foodie's brew of mango iced tea:



Life is hard here in Nova Scotia but I can make it delicious.