Diabetes Expo, The River Grand.

Life seems to consist of running around like chickens with their heads cut off or alternatively doing absolutely nothing. This week is a chicken week. I will not be writing a blog on Saturday, or not in the morning at least, as we are going to a Diabetes Expo from 8:30 to 3:00 - almost just across the road for us which is convenient. It is run by the Canadian Diabetes Association who do very good work in Ontario. In fact I have just written to their volunteer co-ordinator to see if there is anything I can do for them. They use volunteers a lot, especially at Expos like the one on Saturday, not that I could do the standing around these people do at Expos, but I could certainly do other stuff for them. We will see. In case you are unaware, I do have diabetes.

Yesterday afternoon, our Superintendent and his wife invited everyone to share in coffee and cake from 3-6. This is the third time they have done this, Sue bakes herself silly and presents a table loaded with goodies. She had even made some cakes with Splenda this time for the diabetics (of which she is one). I suspect she had a lot of cake left over at the end of the day. She loves to cook but as she broke her ankle before Christmas, is not yet fully mobile so I don't know how she coped.

The snow is actually beginning to disappear although some of the mountains which were formed by ploughing parking lots will take a while yet. There is some danger of flooding, especially the River Grand in Cambridge, nearby. We crossed a couple of small tributaries yesterday and they were flooded and running very fast. Not major flooding at that point, but it wouldn't take much. Of course there are houses on the river banks which are prone to flooding, I guess when they were originally built, people didn't think of such things. In fact I was thinking only yesterday how few places have public access to the rivers because of the buildings on the banks. It is the same with coastal waters where accessing the beaches is almost impossible for people who don't own or rent beach front property. One of my pet peeves about the area of North Carolina where we used to live was the lack of public access and that buildings were built on the top of dunes. Apart from the unsightliness of it, I thought sand was supposed to be a bad surface on which to build. Even the Bible says something about "build not your house upon sand".

When Matt was in hospital having a knee replacement about a year ago, there was a young man in his ward who was a chef at a local restaurant. He had had a bad kitchen accident with boiling oil spilt all down the back of his legs. His name was Paul, I'm afraid we didn't get his last name; needless to say, Matt and Paul discussed cooking and food. He gave Matt a recipe he had created and I share it with you today.

Paul's Tomatoes

Ingredients:
60 Cherry Tomatoes - peeled
60 Coriander seeds
3 cloves
2 cloves garlic
1 sprig rosemary
1 vanilla bean split and scraped
500 g honey
50 ml olive oil
60 ml sherry vinegar

Instructions:
Bring honey to a boil. Add spices, herbs, garlic, vanilla, olive oil. Simmer for 5 mins.

Add tomatoes and then removed from the heat and pour into a shallow container. Add vinegar and put in fridge for 24 hours.

Have a great day.