Erin's Journals

NO, you aren’t on the wrong blog site – I’m actually going to share with you a little appetizer trick that I made last week! 
 
Do you love Caprese salad? You probably know it: slices of tomato interlaid with slices of sweet mozzarella and garnished with fresh basil and balsamic vinegar. We love it, too. And after being inspired at a dinner party, I decided to try making a miniature version for appetizers. 
 
Well, here’s the first tip: buy enough tomatoes. I bought a small plastic carton and it turns out I had about one per guest for the dozen or so who came over. That was a real mistake – they were popular!
 
I bought tomatoes that weren’t full size but weren’t tiny cherry ones either. I wanted them to be pop-in-your-mouth and about the same size as the tiny balls of mozzarella I found in marinating, herbed oil in the deli section.
 

 
Then comes what (to me) was the same amount of work as making sushi. I pulled up a chair and started to work. It was really quite enjoyable! First, you slice the bottoms of the tomatoes to make them sit still on a plate. 
 
Then you slice them across the equator (or what I felt was in half). Then you add a slice of the tiny cheese balls and a small basil leaf, either from a plant or a package.
 

 
Then add a sprinkle of fresh ground pepper and salt and you’re done! Place them on a plate and get ready for accolades….
 

 
….or that’s what I thought. I’d just wiped a plate clear of spices and a few errant tomato seeds and carefully placed my little creations on it, when I realized I’d forgotten the balsamic. DRAT! Back to the drawing (or cutting) board. I had to take the lids off all of them and start again, but how to make the vinegar stay in or on the tomato? I poured some into a small dish and dipped the tops of the tomatoes – open side down – into the vinegar. And then, using small ice tongs, put these little treats back together.
 

 
The finished product went fast and I realized the error in my counting skills! (But I also had prosciutto-wrapped canteloupe slices while we awaited the fruits of Rob’s barbecuing skills. And cashews that I forgot to put out.)
 
As I said last Friday, in the midst of the scurrying to try to get a last-minute voice job done, I’d been glad to have prepared most of the meal the day before. These ones, however, were done a little earlier in the day. The melon was prepared as Rob changed computer files between each of the “chapters” of the video I was voicing. Talk about multi-tasking!
 
Me being me, however, I had to ruin something: in this case I left almond slices in the toaster oven too long and had to pitch them. Luckily I was able to candy some pecans in the few minutes remaining before our guests arrived, so that the spinach salad would have a little bit of sweetness (besides the strawberries).
 
OH! That reminds me: did you know you can slice strawberries with a hard boiled egg slicer? I did just that, and even though I bent one of the wires that is used to cut the egg, it still was a massive time saver. Give it a try if your berries are just soft enough but not too mushy!
 
I just thought I’d share this tomato idea with you today in case you were looking for something to do with your kids or to try yourself. It was a lot of fun and so worth it. Have a terrific weekend and I’ll be back with you Monday. We’re on the road again – this time California or Bust!
 

Thanks for the great feedback about yesterday’s “mother of invention” journal. Today, as I did last Thursday with Lisa Brandt’s terrific book Make the Media Want You, I’d like to take a moment to shine the light on someone’s brilliance.
 
Our little grandbabe Colin, who’ll be four in the fall, has taken to some nocturnal activities. Darn that growing out of the crib stuff! One of his favourite things is to get out of bed and turn on the light so he can read his books. Now, while I’m all for literacy of all ages, it’s not exactly the best thing for him to be doing in the night.
 
So Brooke took his little lamp out of the room (the one we gave them that had been Lauren’s; its base is a blue beehive and Winnie’s digging in). That meant the little man had to go big or go bed…and he went big, starting to reach up to turn on the light switch. What to do? You can’t just unscrew a light bulb or two every night.
 
Using what I think is downright ingenuity, Brooke looked around her tool box and found a butterfly hook that one would usually see on walls where strings from blinds are wound up and out of the way. I can’t imagine what made her try, but it was a perfect fit for a light switch!
 

 

 
Told you she was clever! I told her she should sell them: paint them in ladybug or butterfly colours and let other parents use them as nursery decorations. (She opted not to, so that’s why I’m sharing this idea here for free. But if you make a million dollars off it, be sure to remember where you saw it and share!)
 
Now, feel free to pass this on or give it a try in your home if someone has a habit of turning on lights that shouldn’t be on. I thought it would be great to use if you have a vacation rental or some place where you can’t be around to tell people not to turn off the furnace switch, or not to touch a certain light that has to be left off. It kind of gets the point across, don’t you think?
 
Have a bright day and we’ll be here with you tomorrow. Adventures in the kitchen with a really neat little appie idea that went over huge. It took some work, but I sure wish I’d made more!
 

I had promised at the end of Monday’s journal a story about some travel troubles. I’ve moved it to next week as we’ll be “on the road again,” as Willie Nelson sang. So here we are with one I’m hoping you’ll find entertaining.
 
Yes, the old saying goes that “Necessity is the mother of invention.” We found out for ourselves that very thing when a modest hotel left Rob with a thirst for beer and a problem to solve. I don’t think Ms Christie would consider this lazy at all, unless it was to solve us the hassle of leaving our hotel room after an exhausting day to find a convenience store….
 
Last year when we travelled to Seattle for the Jays’ stand there, my uncle introduced Rob to a sweet beer called Alaskan Amber. Unable to purchase it at home in BC, Rob was delighted to find it in a grocery store cooler on our travels through the States a few weeks back.
 
We picked up a six-pack and went on our way, checking in that night in Provo, Utah. And no, we didn’t bring our own because we were deep in the heart of Mormon country; that thought didn’t occur to us! And besides, there are plenty of bars in the state – at least in Salt Lake City – as pointed out by ads in the Utah tourism guide we picked up at a rest stop.
 
After a long day’s drive, I know he was looking forward to popping open an Alaskan; he’d put a few on an ice pack in a thermal bag when that day’s journey began. As we settled into our hotel room, he said, “Oh no. There’s no bottle opener.” Yes, he’d chosen a beer that was not a screw cap and we’d forgotten that. So, what to do?
 
We started looking around the room for something that could give him leverage. I’m sure Youtube has ideas as to how you could fashion a bottle opener out of dental floss and a paper clip but I wanted to come up with something myself. I spotted that metal arm that flips over to lock your door from the inside, but it wasn’t attached well enough to withstand a good yank. Besides that, it had all rounded edges. No good.
 
That’s when I turned around and spotted this:
 

 
A removable metal piece covered the built-in tissue box compartment. Taking it off was a snap; housekeeping has to do just that to refill it. What the lid wasn’t meant for, of course, was opening beer bottles. But that’s exactly what it did.
 
Applying just the right force at the perfect angle, Rob was able to open his beer, which was still fairly cold (or cold enough). After sustaining a little foamy spillage from the beer having been jostled all day in the car, he enjoyed that sweet amber ale. Our lid idea worked so well that he tried it again with similar success. We bought a can punch the next day at Walmart and it lives with our suitcases now.
 
Coincidentally, the same day that we were trying to come up with a solution, my sister sent us pictures from Mexico of something rather ingenious they sell there: toilet tissue that is meant to come apart from the roll so that you can take it with you – and not just sheet by sheet!
 
We’ve been fortunate on our forays to Mexico: any place we’ve gone has had paper in plentiful supply. Some countries we’ve traveled have left us high and…well, not dry…but at least we’d been prepared with our own! However, that’s not always the case, I guess. And that’s why THIS is a thing!
 

 

Have a great day – thank you for stopping by – and I’ll be back with you here tomorrow with something pretty clever a family member came up with. You may want to borrow it if you have a child in the house!
 

Yet again yesterday we awoke to news of a tragedy in Toronto. There was the Yonge Street van attack and, of late, escalating violence that I hear about in snippets and tweets. But before I went to bed on Sunday night, the news of the gun attack on the Danforth hit especially close to home – that’s because it was.
 
When we lived at Bloor and Jarvis, it was a rite of spring to walk over to the Danforth – often to the area of Carrot Common – to take in dinner. We didn’t sit outdoors on the sidewalk anymore; the panhandling got to be too much. But sitting outside on back patios, enjoying open air dining was always such a pleasure. Strolling and gazing through store windows at furniture, ceramics and clothes – always a pleasure. 
 
A hit like this on such a storied and popular stretch of street in Toronto would have seemed almost unthinkable until 2018. Yes, there have been attacks such as that at the Eaton Centre in 2012 (killing two) and the Boxing Day shootout on Yonge that killed Jane Creba in 2006. But this year, as much as this senseless violence hurts, the vague and unclear warnings around the CN Tower and Canada’s Wonderland less than weeks ago kind of put us on notice. This summer would be one we might remember for all of the wrong reasons.
 
Already I’ve heard from and read of people who don’t want to go on patios or subject themselves to possible danger. To them, I say what so many others have said: Toronto Strong. You are safe in Toronto.
 
What makes me say that? I know what the heart says: be worried! But here’s something that we need to keep in mind. And thank to you Michael Hainsworth for this tweet yesterday in response to someone who said how frightened they were to go out and enjoy life on the Danforth again.

@hainsworthtv: You are literally THREE TIMES more likely to be killed by a car than a gun in Canada. And even that death rate is only 6 out of every 100,000 of us. We can’t cower in the face of violence. #Danforth

I know that it’s easy to cite statistics. I tell myself when I’m in the midst of turbulence or getting a little nervous on a plane that I am truly travelling one of the safest ways there is. I think of my Dad saying that the pilot and crew want to make it home as badly as we do! But what the brain says and what the heart feels can be two very different things.
 
So I say this: Toronto will heal again, as it has been in the process of doing since the van attack earlier this year. No one and nothing can prevent one sick person from doing something heinous, whether on a vibrant metropolitan street or during the Changing of the Guard in the nation’s capital.
 
All we can do is control weapons access as best we can, live our lives, remember the victims and use our sadness to fuel our journey forward. Be ever vigilant, ever tolerant and ever adamant that no one can steal the freedom from fear that life in the city of Toronto has always offered.
 
Sending love, always,
 

My goodness, we’re already three quarters of the way through July. Summer, as it always does, is flying by at a pace most incongruent with the slow speed at which life should go during this most delicious of seasons. But we’re looking forward to August, not only for our upcoming road trip (yes, another one – this is what we hoped reWirement would be all about) but we’ve got our fingers crossed that Dad will hop on a plane out of Kelowna and pay us a visit.
 
When we spoke of it earlier this month, Dad jokingly asked if we had two naps a day built into our schedule. I told him they can do whatever they like – and we’ll always make time for naps! This will be a great time for us, having him at our place. We’ve plans to show him around and treat him royally and I know Dad will look forward to visiting with his “kid” brother, 66-year-old Vern and his wife, as well as their youngest daughter Karen and their family. We can’t wait and hope it comes to pass.
 
Dad, as I think I’ve told you, loves to read to his lady friend Dawna every night. The widow of a missionary, Dawna has always had a great interest in studying The Bible and Dad loves the opportunity to pore over and discuss religious teachings. Born a Baptist, he converted to Catholicism when he and Mom got married in 1956, a decision that prompted some of his smaller-minded relatives to sit out their wedding. Too bad; from the pictures, it sure looks like they missed a great time!
 
Now he enjoys looking at different perspectives and recently picked up from a Mennonite thrift store several volumes of books that explore The Bible from different viewpoints. I made my dad laugh out loud the other day as we discussed his new acquisitions. I said, “Boy, you’re really cramming for the finals!” and he laughed a great musical laugh, saying he hadn’t really thought of it that way!
 
I love that we laugh together. Our phone conversations are a discussion of the latest news (world, national and what’s going on in his life), his weather and ours, and what the Jays are up to. When we’re done, I usually say, “Well, we’ve covered news, weather and sports…” and we laugh and know it’s time to wrap up. 
 
One of Dad’s great joys now is that his tween-aged granddaughter, who lives in Kelowna, and whom he’s been ferrying to music lessons so she can learn to play his (now her) clarinet, has shown great interest in and ability with the instrument. Ava’s been playing lead clarinet in a marching band and may pursue the interest further in the cadets. Another generation of military Davises, she could well follow in the footsteps of her aunt, my sister Heather, who went on to become the first female conductor in the Canadian Armed Forces music program. So, let’s hope!
 
Dad always encouraged Lauren to keep up with her cello, although her interests moved more towards singing and performing musical theatre in her high school years. That didn’t stop him from asking in almost every phone call whether she’d taken it up again – sometimes to her frustration – but I reminded him that when I was well into my radio career he would occasionally ask when I was going to study some university courses.
 
That’s Dad: always wanting us to push harder and go higher. But maybe, and thankfully, it was when I was fortunate enough to receive an honourary degree from my alma mater that he finally realized I wouldn’t be darkening the hallways of higher learning, at least not as a student!
 
There was a time when I was frustrated with my Toronto radio career (back in the CKO all-news years in the mid-80s) that I almost left to teach at Loyalist College in Belleville. I’d always imagined myself as a teacher when I was sitting in classes in high school; radio hadn’t even occured to me as a career a woman could realistically pursue. Surely I wasn’t as intelligent or well-versed as the women I listened to at night in the dark on the CBC’s As It Happens; I couldn’t imagine the steel it took to ask all of those powerful men the tough questions. 
 
Am I glad I didn’t leave to teach? Oh, yes. I don’t know what it would have meant for Rob’s career; I hoped he’d be invited to come and share his knowledge as well, but that request was never extended to him. So, I stayed. And that remained a path not taken.
 
Now, even if I was asked to teach somewhere I don’t think I’d be able to fit a structured job – even part-time – into this more carefree life that we’ve fashioned for ourselves. But I never mind listening to and helping young broadcasters on their way up.
 
Kind of seems a shame to waste a lifetime of experience when my best student is no longer around to ask for advice or to share stories of the radio business as it is now evolving. I often felt I learned as much from Lauren as she did from me. I’m grateful to have set up a scholarship for young female broadcasters at Loyalist, though. For even as my dad continues to demonstrate with his granddaughter Ava, life is about leaving little legacies of the good kind.