Summertime, and the livin is eeeeeasy. Yeah I just planted that ear worm, luckily it’s a groovy tune,. Where to start, life is rolling fast, we are trying to soak up as much sun as humanly possible with a small infant. The little love went on his first camping trip to special Bannock Point over looking the gorgeous Slocan Lake. It was so awesome to swim in the crystal clear fresh water, bask in the hot sun like seals on a rock and sleep under the stars. Not to mention our delicious campfire curry and sweet potato hummus breakfast skillet, soo good. I think we’ll be doing a lot more camping this summer, may as well make the most of being free from work!
Escaping to be in nature is basically an instant zip zap over to my happy place. Even though I live amongst the trees and the bees, it’s exciting to explore the natural beauty near and far.
“We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children’s memories, the adventures we’ve had together in nature will always exist.”
“Prize the natural spaces and shorelines most of all, because once they’re gone, with rare exceptions they’re gone forever. In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chapparal, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. We require these patches of nature for our mental health and our spiritual resilience.”
If you ever want to spoil yourself in the best way possible, take a little trip to one of natures gems and keep it simple. The second best way to spoil yourself is to buy some good chorizo sausage and put it in, um, everything.
These Chorizo & Smoky Salmon “Macos” (a word I may have just made up) are absolutely so darn perfect and lacking NOTHING regardless of that tortilla mumbo jumbo. Savoy cabbage leaves are perfectly sturdy, with a great crunch, but you could also use regular cabbage or swiss chard. If you don’t have chorizo, bacon would be a nice substitute . Crisp radish and zippy red onion are ideal, it’s a beautiful thing when food unites to create perfection.
4-6 savoy cabbage leaves, thick stalks removed and thinly sliced
2 wild sockeye salmon filets
1/4 cup thinly sliced chorizo sausage
1 tsp + 1 tbs coconut oil or bacon fat
1 jalapeño, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
bunch of radishes, sliced
1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
handful of finely chopped cilantro
a few pieced of smoky gouda (optional)
2 tsp cajun seasoning-
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp onion salt
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
liberal amounts of fresh cracked pepper
Instructions
Sprinkle the cajun seasoning and black pepper on salmon filets.
Heat 1 tbs coconut oil or bacon fat in a pan. Add salmon skin side down. Cook for about 3 minutes per side depending on thickness (the ones I used were quite thin)
In another pan heat 1 tsp of oil and add to that the chopped cabbage stalks, jalapeño, garlic and chorizo. Cook until cabbage is tender, about 5 minutes.
Assemble the macos by layering pieces of salmon, chorizo jalapeño mixture, red onion, gouda, radishes and cilantro. Garnish with lime wedges.
Rainy Days. I clutch my baby to my chest as we stare out the open door, smelling the downpour, staring at the falling water, hearing the roaring thunder. We are both in awe, one moment he is crying, the next he is entranced. I am grateful for this water, the plants soak it up, the river flows more freely. But I wish to send some blessed rain to the people who need it most, to parched soils, and mouths, all over this crazy world. May rain come and bring you all sound sleeps and excuses to loll in a warm place, contemplate.
Some days tiredness sticks to my bones and I can’t shake it. Gone are the days of solid night sleeps. Even when my precious darling doesn’t wake up, I still do, I gently place my hand on his little heaving chest and drift back to nowhere land. Today we dozed off together, a little hand resting upon my clavicle, and I felt still, as if we were one. Lack of sleep doesn’t always manifest in tiredness, there are also times when I feel boundless energy and profound inspiration. The ebb and flow of life doesn’t bet its basis on sleep. While I thought before babe that I would be a zombie for the next years, most of the time I am more fuelled to live fully than ever before. Interesting to note that our ancestors, before the invention of electricity, had a tendency to awaken in the night for an hour called biphasic sleep before entering into a second sleep. The sleep break was used to reflect, meditate, read, ruminate on life’s happenings. A lot of “insomniacs” might be happy to know their mid night wakefulness is really completely normal.
Idea sex. Today I listened to an interview with Jason Silva, short shooting philosopher de you tube, whose “shots of awe” videos, offer people a glimmer of existentialism in a 3 minute quip. He’s a passionate dude, you can tell, this is what he lives for, spreading novel ideas to help our society transcend the murky and rise to our true potential. In this particular interview, he was talking about this concept of ideas having sex and forming new creations, this is modern day creativity. We aren’t forming new ideas, we’re simply remixing old ones and making them new again. I find this to really ring true when it comes to creating recipes. Sometimes I think I need to create things which no one has done before. Isn’t it interesting that at this point in our evolution, there is less species diversity than ever before on the planet, yet, more than ever, there are also more people attempting to create new dishes that will set them apart. This is part of the reason why I’m passionate about learning wildcrafting and attaining wild meat. Just because we can drive our cars to the store and get whatever we want, doesn’t mean it isn’t wildly rewarding to know what we can eat from our local environment.
Our fridge is just brimming with vegetables, it’s hard to keep up to all the abundance. Right now there are so many delicious, delicate greens and crunchy radishes sprouting forth. I love how easy it is to eat fresh salads all the time. We hardly eat salad in the winter, it just doesn’t make sense to buy these plastic sealed salad mixes which take so much energy to package and ship across the world. Of course, it’s a nice luxury to be able to eat spinach in the middle of december, but something about it feels a bit odd. Eating with the seasons enables us to stay connected to our nourishment. Delighting in the arrival of treasured vitamin packed spring greens, instead of just assuming they are always going to be available. There’s nothing like the freshness of vegetables that were just plucked out of the ground, your ground, the ground you walk on everyday. (more…)
Hey I'm Chantelle, my alter ego would be a mermaid if I wasn't such a terrible swimmer. I love writing authentically and cooking in my pyjamas. My favourite pastimes include eating avocados, travelling the world and hanging out with a toddler.
