A trip to the farmer’s market these days is as appetizing as it is inspiring.
August is a wonderful month to celebrate the fresh and flavourful tastes of the garden by incorporating what is available locally into a year-round favourite meal.
I went to the market yesterday to begin preparing for my dinner tonight.
I was looking at colours as much as taste to prepare my:
Summer Spaghetti Sauce 
ingredients:
10 – 15 fresh ripe Roma tomatoes 
I medium purple onion 
I medium Spanish onion or sweet onion 
1 larger shallot or two smaller 
I red pepper 
½ green pepper + ½ orange pepper (depending on what is available) 
*it is as much about colour as it is taste 
I medium carrot 
I large stalk of celery 
1 ¼ cup chopped or sliced fresh mushrooms 
5 or 6 (or 7) cloves of garlic 
At least 250 grams (1/2 lb) of lean ground beef, or pork, or Italian sausage. 
(if you want to go vegetarian: 300 grams of shredded or chopped eggplant or zucchini (or a mix of both)
Two tablespoons fresh basil  
Two tablespoons fresh oregano 
1 ½ tablespoons of lemon pepper
A pinch (or two) of sea salt
Two pinches of nutmeg
I handful of chopped, fresh broad-leaf parsley or cilantro. 
 
1 – 450gram package of dried spaghetti (or, my preference, spaghettini)  
or, if possible, fresh whole wheat pasta
 
This recipe is flexible, can easily be be doubled for a larger meal or to ensure leftovers, but the above will give you three or four servings. The quantities of herbs and spices
are approximate and the measure often depends on my mood. Don’t be timid!
All ingredients can be adjusted any time of the year to suit your tastes or depending  
on what is in the fridge.  
eg. If not using fresh Roman tomatoes, use 1 or 2 cans of diced tomatoes. 
 
In preparation, put your bag of tomatoes in the freezer overnight.
Also put half of the red pepper in the freezer with the tomatoes.

The next day, take the tomatoes and pepper out frozen and run lightly under warm water. The skin will easily peel off the vegetables. Put the peeled tomatoes and pepper in a medium saucepan, covered, over low heat.  As you check occasionally, and see the vegetables soften as they warm, take a knife and chop as you go.
When tomatoes are soft and chopped, turn up the heat slightly and let them boil down and reduce.
At this point, toss one whole peeled clove of garlic in the pot.
With your finest grater or kitchen rasp, shred the carrot in with the tomatoes (this will sweeten and thicken the sauce – no need for tomato paste)

As the tomatoes continue reducing, prepare the remainder of your vegetables.

Chop onions as you wish. I prefer longer (not quite julienne) stands so they mix well in the pasta, but chunky works too.
Slice peppers in a similar fashion.
You can mince garlic with a sharp knife or use a garlic press.
Dice or chop or slice celery and shallots thinly (a shallot will brighten any meal; pretty much).

In a large frying pan, begin browning your meat. If going vegetarian, add a tablespoon of chopped fresh ginger  and an additional teaspoon of pepper to zucchini and/or eggplant. 

If using Italian sausage, remove the meat from the casing. When half cooked, drain most of the fat from the pan then add the onions, shallots, garlic, and peppers. Depending on the meat, you may need to slightly drain the mixture again before seasoning with lemon pepper (or black pepper) and half of the basil and oregano. Add a pinch or two of sea salt.
While this is cooking, add the other half of the basil and oregano to the pot of tomatoes, which should be thickening now.

When the onions are clear, add the diced or sliced or chopped mushrooms to the mix along with the celery, turn up the heat and give it some time to slightly brown the mushrooms.
When everything has cooked, turn off the heat on the frying pan until your tomatoes have reduced to a thick sauce then add the meat and mushroom mixture. Now add the nutmeg.

Allow time for the flavours to mix into each other. Depending on dinnertime, you can let it sit for a while. When you begin heating up, a half-hour before serving, add the fresh parsley.

When serving, keep an eye out for that lone garlic clove you put in the tomatoes at the start of the reduction process. Some people react when they see a whole glove of garlic in something; personally, I make sure it ends up on my plate.

Serve over the boiled pasta, topped with Parmesan cheese (freshly grated if possible)
Serve with a baguette and butter and a green, spinach, or Caesar salad.

Often, I’ll expand the recipe to ensure there are leftovers, which can be portioned with pasta and sauce and tucked in the freezer for nights when you don’t feel like cooking.

Enjoy the tastes of summer.

I know what I’m having for supper tonight.

08/19/2020                                                                                                       j.g.l.

What you desire
is rarely what is needed. Choices implied,
fascination or frivolities. Rare indeed,
in times like these, the weeks as we know.
We are tested
on days like today
when all that is left is hope.

When to live
in the present takes more from us than
we feel prepared to acknowledge. Courage
required; desires will consume. Needs
only sustain
when doubt is more
than a shadow, less than the truth.

Where that
we have, or all we hold onto, is what seems
impossible or unlikely. Or undeserved.
What is required to sustain you?
More hope? Or
more compassion.
Take what you need. Choose wisely.

 

© 2020 j.g. lewis

When the threat of COVID-19 took hold, my morning routine — like everything and everyone else — was disrupted.
   Back then, most mornings (on days that allowed) when I woke, I would grab my laptop or journal and stumble down the street for coffee at my usual Starbucks. There are three Starbucks directly in my neighbourhood but I, generally, would chose the closest distance to caffeine.
   Once there, often as the door is unlocked at 5:30 a.m., I would settle in with my deep dark roast and continue working whatever I’d been working on; some days a chapter, another day an essay or poem. Many times I’d absorb myself in my journal while the rest of the world woke up and the crowds converged on the coffee shop to pick up a fresh cup on their way to the office.
   All that ended abruptly, mid-March, when this city shut down. Some restaurants and coffee shops remained open for take-out and delivery, but my usual spot closed.
   I still needed my morning cup, so I’d walk a little further — to the one closeby Starbucks that remained open — pick up my coffee and then walk through the downtown.
   Spring had finally settled in, so the temperature was mild and the coffee was warm, so I kept walking, usually well past the moment my cup ran dry. Some days I’d walk much further.
   I wasn’t measuring my distance, nor was I really keeping track of the time.  People on the street, in the early days of the pandemic, were few and far between on just about every street I traveled. Physical distance naturally happened.
   There was no intended route or destination, most days, so at one point I stopped calling it a walk, and began referring to it as my morning “wander”.
   I wandered for weeks, every day for hours; then months. It was near the end of May when I checked the pedometer on my iphone and was notified that I was close to doubling my steps May over April.
   Little else was motivating me right then, but the step count inspired me to pick up the pace and go another block or two. That evening, I went out again to increase my daily average. I, really, wasn’t doing anything else.
   Despite my efforts, I didn’t quite double my May steps, but I became motivated enough to pick up the pace for June. Purposely I was going a little further, still with coffee in hand, and checking my distance at the end of the wander. I began walking more through my day, I began looking for excuses to walk further. I selected ATMs at banks a longer distance from home. I found another coffee shop a little further away to get my first cup of the day. I could see by the last week of June that, at the pace I was going, I would surpass May. Then I had a couple of down days and had to push it hard to make up the mileage in the final few days.
   I saw an increase in June. It wasn’t as large as May, but the red lines of the pedometer’s graph continued going up.
   It was tougher in July.
   The summer heat had arrived (our hottest on record), and I began getting up earlier, just to catch the morning’s milder temperatures. I’d wander further, my T-shirt sopping in sweat by the time I was home. I kept trying to push myself for more steps, both per day and per session.
   Some days I couldn’t take it. Other times I’d make up for it the next day.
   I knew I could do it. I had not only the will, but an app in my pocket letting me know how far I had come. I was checking my phone constantly, at times bargaining with myself, promising small rewards: a Popsicle when I arrived home, or a nap that afternoon. I was doing anything to stay motivated and keep stepping forward.
   I reminded myself of an essay by humorist David Sedaris titled Stepping Out: Living The Fitbit Life’. The 2014 piece from the New Yorker (and you really should Google it) documents how a device pushed him well past the recommended daily minimum 10,000 steps. And how he kept going, obsessively.
   “I look back on the days I averaged only thirty thousand steps, and think Honestly, how lazy can you get?,” Sedaris wrote.
   For me, 10,000 steps was long ago, and I’m not close, at least not often, to a 30,000 step day. But I am walking like I’ll get there.
   I’m not, not yet, obsessive about walking: I’m just doing it; every day and longer.
   It’s funny because before this pandemic business set in, and I was looking for a mindful, physical outlet, I was thinking about stepping back on the yoga mat.   There’s a studio almost across the street, and the hot yoga place is not much further than a distant coffee shop, so I was putting myself in the mood.
   Then along came a coronavirus. No yoga, not then.
   Walking is now was giving me a feeling I hadn’t felt for a while. I was actually stepping with the same daily commitment I had for yoga a few years back. This was feeling almost as good (and it was a lot cheaper), so I continue walking.
   It’s been months now.
   You can imagine how I pushed to get July’s steps up over June, and how – without really thinking of it – I set my intention on increasing my August daily step count up and above July (and I have for each of the past four days).
   I’m even calling it walking now (if you haven’t noticed) instead of wandering. There is still no fixed destination, but there seems to be a greater purpose.

I forgive you; powerful words.
   The sign on the outside of an Italian restaurant across the street from my downtown Toronto condo shook me with its honesty.
   Apparently, in the dark hours over one of the past couple of nights, someone decided to break the windows of this small Italian kitchen.
   It was just another act of senseless vandalism.
   The space now secured by plywood, the restaurant owner took a marker and spelled out his frustrations:

To the guy who thought it would be
cool to break my windows the other night
I’m not sure what you are gong through maybe
you’re feeling down and out or you were just
having a bad day. I forgive you. We are all struggling
I’ve questioned everything the past few months. You are
not alone. We are all in this together.
Love & peace                   #stay strong

   The restaurateur is a guy just trying to make a buck, just a guy trying to survive or make his way through these pandemic days.
   For months, restaurants in Toronto have only been open for take-out and delivery. Recently patio service was allowed, but with distance restrictions. On Friday, indoor seating will open up with health and space restrictions.
   Some of these places have been struggling for more than four months while others have not bothered to open or have simply given up.
   Who can blame them?
   Wherever you are, you know what these past few months have been like.  Whether mom and pop operations, huge corporate franchises, or street corner coffee stops, entire organizations are faltering.
   Nobody, anywhere, has any idea just how bad the economic fallout from this virus will be (globally, nationally, or locally), but we know it’s not a pretty picture and it will take a long time before it gets better.
   What we can do is support the businesses we can, when we can.
   I know where I’ll be ordering my pasta this Friday night.

   Fusaro’s on Richmond St. East.

What can we do as we no longer touch?

When the handshake offers danger, and even a first bump comes too close, how can we — in this period of physical distancing — mark an occasion or relationship while we try to stay apart for safety sake?

Even a smile has lost its power as those of us who are COVID-19 cautious, courteous, and correct now shield their face with a mask of some sort (and if you are not, you should be).

And in this world (perhaps now more than ever) a wink carries certain undertones, while a nod is unnoticeable or not nearly enough.

I think its time to bring the peace sign back into favour.

The peace sign is easy. It says more than a wave, displays greater optimism than a simple thumbs up, and is there a better greeting, salutation or sign off than wishing somebody peace? I think not.

Peace: is there a better word? Couldn’t this planet use more peace?

I learned to flip the peace sign in the late sixties. To me, it came at a time when things were far out and cool. I saw it on television, if I remember correctly; perhaps during television coverage of the hippies and the flower children, or Woodstock, or from the media photos of John Lennon, Janis Joplin or Jimi Henrix. Peace out.

Everyone, at that time, was doing it, it seemed. Even the kids on my street, all of us under 10 and wondering, not knowing what it meant or anything about a counterculture, but if The Monkees were doing it, it was “cool” with us.

It should be now. Again.

Of course, we learned from our moms, dads, dads or teachers that the V symbol of palm out, two fingers up also meant victory, but it seemed we wanted to give peace a chance.

Decades later, I still do.

Peace.