chard salad with feta and capers

Ever since I said that salad doesn't make me go gaga, well –

Salad has made me go gaga.

Here's the latest installment: chard salad with feta and capers.

We were lucky enough to eat it a couple weeks ago at our favourite old lunch spot in Victoria, the Parsonage.

Now, I know that everything the Parsonage makes is divine, but I only ordered it because I thought it would balance out my Island ham and cheddar croissant and Scott's gluten-free reuben.

Man, did it ever. We were sitting at a little table out front and had to use all our restraint not to eat each other's portion. We were sharing just a little side salad, and Scott was soon heading back in to order a full serving. Then he was pretty disappointed when I wanted more than a few bites of that big bowl of salad.

That settled it. After we finished, I crossed my fingers and asked one of the Parsonage's friendly chefs how to make such a good chard salad. And he told me: local chard, capers, feta, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

That, I could do. When we got home, Scott found local chard at the farmers' market and I set about mixing it up. And then I understood why the Parsonage makes it: this salad gets better over the course of the day. And night.

Sure, it was good with our Sunday lunch . . . but it was even better in my lunch the next day. The chard is tender enough to eat immediately – although you wouldn't mistake it for young lettuce – but it gets more tender and flavourful the longer the dressing is on it. The feta and capers are brilliant with the chard, and it is altogether beautiful with little bits of the rainbow running through it.

Dear Parsonage, I wish we lived closer and I could eat your sandwiches every week.

one year ago: three-nuts chocolate torte
two years ago: 27 hours in saskatoon and homemade ricotta cheese
three years ago: quince almond cake and roasted beet risotto
four years ago: pear ginger jam

chard salad with feta and capers
inspiration and ingredients via the parsonage, proportions are my best guess
this is a relaxed salad – i really don't think you need to measure

about 6 stalks rainbow chard or kale*
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1/8 tsp. fine sea salt
ground pepper
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbsp. + 1 tbsp. capers
2/3 c. feta cheese, crumbled

Prepare the chard by cutting out the tough coloured stalks that run down the centre. Line the leaves up and cut them into bite-sized ribbons. Set aside.

Whisk the red wine vinegar, sea salt and ground pepper together. Whisk in the olive oil slowly. Roughly chop 1 tablespoon of capers. Add these capers and the garlic to the dressing and mix well. Toss about three-quarters of the dressing with the prepared chard. Add the other 1 tablespoon of whole capers and feta and mix well. Taste and decide if you need the rest of the dressing, or more salt and pepper.

May be eaten immediately or any time in the next couple days. Store in the fridge.

*If using kale, you might want to massage the dressing into the leaves to soften them somewhat.

summer road trip

There were colours on our drive around British Columbia.

Blue skies, sunburnt yellow fields, blushing peaches, the impossible blue and green of the water.

But somehow the sweep of a mountain and the ripple of a lake shore is clearer in black and white.

Mount Robson in the Rockies.

In the Rocky Mountain trench, near Valemount.

Witty's Lagoon, near Victoria on Vancouver Island.

The land my Scottish great-grandparents settled in 1920, which my dad now manages as a woodlot. Near Courtenay on Vancouver Island.

Wild brambles on my dad's land.

Rinsing his feet in the ocean after a dusty walk through the bush.

Red and blue huckleberries I picked in my dad's front yard for breakfast.

Day trip to Quadra Island.

Pretending I actually live on Quadra Island.

View across Okanagan Lake from Kettle Valley Winery in Naramata.

Lake shore during an afternoon swim in Peachland.

Picnic lunch on our way home at Kicking Horse River in Golden.


one year ago: cherry peach jam
two years ago: tschüss, deutschland! and german groceries
three years ago: peach crisp and tomato zucchini gratin

stinging nettle soup

I always remember visiting my great aunt Marjorie in the spring. After dinner, at twilight, she would send me out into the garden with shears and tell me to pick flowers to take home.

The grass would be wet with evening coming on, and I would find little white daffodils with orange faces and big tulips with pointed red petals. I'd bring them in and we'd wrap them in damp paper towel and plastic wrap, so I could transport them safely home.

Marjorie died just over a week ago.

We knew it was coming for a few weeks but, of course, knowing is different than attending the memorial service. Knowing is different than going out for a big dinner with your family and seeing that Marjorie isn't there.

But for those two days while I was there, Victoria was glorious with spring. The sky was a perfect blue of sunshine and everywhere I looked, there were fat pink globes of cherry blossoms and riots of yellow daffodils and red tulips in the garden and bluebells nodding in the grass along the road.

Knowing how she loved her garden, I think Marjorie would have been pleased that we were all there remembering her, chatting under blossoms and shading our eyes in the sun.

Now that I am back in dusty Edmonton where we have just one-inch shoots of tulips to promise spring, I think more about death and that she is gone. Grief is a funny thing, how it can sneak up on you when you think it's gone away.

After the memorial service, I went up to Courtenay with my dad for a few days.

It seemed like everywhere we went, people were talking about stinging nettles. They grow in ditches and in the bush and in all kinds of places where you might accidentally brush against them and get stung.

We found out that as long as you process the nettles in boiling water, they shed the toxin that stings.

So, an hour before we had to leave for the airport yesterday, Dad and I hurried down to the beach. We got out bags and put on gloves and I brought a little bounty of stinging nettle home.

Today, I made stinging nettle soup. It is a simple little soup, and was inspired by this lovely video.

It tastes like spring.

recipes from Marjorie: loganberry jelly and lemon loaf and butter tarts
one year ago: gouda and roasted red pepper dip
two years ago: a baked banana revelation
three years ago: chocolate cheesecake and tom yum pak




stinging nettle soup

note 1: you must wear rubber gloves when touching the nettles before they've been processed
note 2: you must boil the lentils and rinse them and throw away the boiling water

1 very small onion or two shallots, minced (equals about 1/4 c.)
2 tbsp. butter
2 c. packed nettles (top 4 – 6 leaves only), rinsed
2 c. chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste
4 – 5 tbsp. plain Greek yogurt or sour cream

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pot over low heat and add the onions. Let them cook slowly in the butter until they're golden and translucent, about 10 minutes.

In the meantime, bring a big pot of water to boil. Add the nettles and boil for about 3 minutes, until they're a bit greener and darker. Strain and rinse them. Chop the nettles on a board a few times to avoid having them clump on the immersion blender. (If you're using a real blender, you can skip the chopping.)

Add the chicken stock to the onion and butter pot. Add the cooked nettles. Blend until the nettles are very fine specks of green. Heat the soup up and add salt and pepper to taste. Stir the yogurt in and check your seasonings one more time before serving.

ode to victoria

Heidi's lemon poundcake

This is it.

Tomorrow, we cross the border from British Columbia to Alberta and start a new life.

We've been in a kind of summer vacation/limbo land for the past week and half, with visits to family outside of Vancouver and in Kelowna. We've made it half-way across the province, and now – and only now – it's sinking in that we're leaving so much behind in Victoria.

Last lunch at home in Victoria. Note the deluxe packing paper placemat.

I will miss Saturday mornings in Victoria. Going to ballet class* and then walking half a block to Habit, where I would look through the big glass windows and spot Scott reading the Saturday Globe. I would stare at him intently and wave madly and he wouldn't notice me at all. (This might be best, as I intend to stare and wave for the rest of our lives and this is probably a good coping mechanism. I have no shame.)

Then I would walk a couple of blocks in the other direction to Italian Food Imports to pick up tallegio and olives and rosemary ham for lunch. Oh, and one slice of provolone to snack on. (Scott says my favourite saying is: "Mmm. That was a good snack.")

Or, if we were feeling adventurous, I would pick up my husband and a chai tea to go at Habit, hop in the car (hopefully before we got a parking ticket), and drive out to Sooke to eat lunch at the Edge. Scott always got a deconstructed hamburger and I cycled through the other hot sandwiches: smoked tuna melt, housemade salami, you get the idea.

In a typical Victoria forest: Garry oaks, arbutus, big leaf maples

Then, we'd go for a walk on the boardwalk over Sooke Harbour and watch the crabbers. Sometimes, we'd drive a bit further to scramble along the rocky shores at East Sooke Park.

Some Saturday afternoons, I would meet my friends Heidi and Margot for afternoon tea – at the White Heather or, if we were very lucky, in Heidi's backyard.

And I will miss Sunday afternoons in Victoria. Packing a water bottle and snacks and driving 20 minutes in any direction to get completely out of the city and up a mountain or down to the water.

We'd often pick a hike near Smyth's farm, so we could pick up loganberries and leeks and corn and apple-pears and catch up with farmer Brett.

Shiro plums from Brett's farm

During the week, I will miss the rare morning when I could make my way to Fol Epi and Caffé Fantastico in Dockside Green. Sitting out on the patio and sipping Option B tea while I watched giant excavators move gravel from pile to pile along the inner harbour. Trying to slowly eat the very best pain au chocolat in the world. (I have not been to France and eaten pain au chocolat there. But I am confident Fol Epi would still have the best pain au chocolat. With fair-trade chocolate, no less.)

And lunch: I will miss going to Pure Vanilla with friends from work and trying to read the chalkboard menu while keeping an eagle eye for a table to open up.

Swartz Bay

Or going downtown for lunch at Relish. My friend Jenn introduced me to the crispy chicken bowl at Relish on the Thursday before we moved . . . But I still managed to get back there on our very last day in Victoria. I had the crispy chicken again because once you've tried it, it's hard to try anything else – even though the other parts of the menu did look intriguing.

And finally, I will miss the sweet, tucked-away Parsonage where it smells like fresh coffee and bacon frying, and the orange-date muffins are always warm out of the oven.

Victoria, I will miss you.

A ferry ride away

*Lest you think I'm a prima ballerina . . . I am very comfortable in the beginner ballet class. So much so that I've taken it more times than I would like to number on a public blog.

one year ago: pan-fried salmon with sugar and salt rub
two years ago: black & blue scotch berries and plant yourself some garlic (Edmontonians – how do you grow garlic?)

tarragon three-bean salad

One late Saturday afternoon in August – seven years ago now – my friend Janet picked me up at the ferry terminal at Swartz Bay, near Victoria, and took me right to our friend Caitlin's parents' house.

Now, I must tell you that Caitlin's parents live in my dream house. It's out in the country, a renovated wooden farmhouse set back from the road and surrounded by gardens and fields. Whenever I see it, it seems to have the late afternoon sun bathing it in golden light. 

At the time, I'd just moved away from Victoria to the big city of Vancouver, and was missing the Island.

Janet pulled into the driveway, gravel crunching, and we got out.

In the backyard, Caitlin had set up a little table covered with a pretty French tablecloth. We wandered inside and helped her bring out our dinner: salmon quiche and tarragon three-bean salad.

We talked and ate and caught up as the sun fell lower in the sky. I wrote down the recipes for both the salad and the quiche.

It's one of those golden memories that will always define Vancouver Island for me. The Island, it seems, always draws me back.

Indeed, after a couple of years in Vancouver – just enough time to meet and marry my leading man – and then a year in snowy Ottawa – we moved back to Victoria three years ago.

And now, we're leaving again. This time we're off to Edmonton, where Scott will start graduate studies.

I've never lived on the Prairies before and I know it will be a shock: the flat horizon stretching as far as my eye can see, the cold winters, the flat Prairie buildings, the predominance of country music. But I know there will also be so much to explore: cross-country skiing, the year-round indoor farmers' market, Saskatoon berries, the predominance of perogies.

But this bean salad will always bring me back to the Island. I've made it in Vancouver, Ottawa, Victoria and – soon – I will make it in Edmonton. The mustard dressing is light and the tarragon brings out the fresh beans' flavour, while the chickpeas give it a buttery background. It is, in short, the perfect thing to make on a late August afternoon.

If you can, eat it outside.

A note about the recipe: Caitlin says she found this in a magazine and cut it out. This many years later, she can't remember which magazine it was. She first made it for us in August 2005, which means it must have been published before that. Do you recognize it? If you remember the magazine, could you let me know? I always want to give credit where credit is due.


Last year: Tschüss, Deutschland! and German groceries
Two years ago: rosemary corn butter and peach crisp

tarragon three-bean salad
slightly adapted from an unnamed magazine clipping
makes a big bowl that serves 6 – 8

3 tbsp. dijon or German sharp mustard
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 c. olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp. table salt or 1 tsp. kosher salt
3 tbsp. fresh tarragon, chopped roughly
1 red or Spanish onion, cut into thin wedges or strips
450 g. (1 lb.) fresh green beans
450 g. (1 lb.) fresh yellow wax beans
540 g. (19 oz.) canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained

In a small bowl, whisk the mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and salt together to make a dressing. Whisk in the tarragon. Set aside.

Once the onion is cut up, put it into a mug and top it with cold water. Let it sit to mellow while you make the rest of the salad.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Drop the green and wax beans in. Cook them, uncovered, until tender-crisp, about 5 minutes.

Drain the beans in a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking.

Drain the onions of their water.

Mix the beans, onions and chickpeas together. Toss with the dressing. Eat!

hop & go fetch it: pacific rim edition

See that?

That is a perfect lunch-time dessert. It's sticky jasmine rice with mango and coconut cream and it's divine. We ate it at the über-lovely Café Julia in Honolulu (where I freely admit we ate five meals over the course of our nine-day stay).

I have been travelling and it's now time for the Pacific Rim edition of hop & go fetch it: Hawaii, Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo. The restaurants include the exotic influences of Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, French and Scottish food . . . but they're all located in places that actually sit on the Pacific Ocean.

Now, you might not think little Nanaimo is exciting enough to be included in these Pacific Rim hotspots, but I beg to differ. If you eat a Nanaimo bar at McLean's, I think you'll agree.

So there you go: if you're travelling somewhere on the Pacific, here are my favourite places to eat. Enjoy!

That Hawaiian wind helped us work up a healthy appetite . . .
and created unusual hair styles.