September 24, 2009

Tartan Totes – Our first craft fair

10:15 am | 1 Comment » |

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Last weekend, Jackie and I loaded all our bags into the car and headed off to our first ever Tartan Totes craft fair. The fair was held at an old school in Beach Meadows (near Liverpool), which has now been turned into a community centre.

The weekend proved an excellent opportunity to hear what the public thought of our bags – they loved them! People were impressed with the different variety of tartans that we stocked and many wanted to know more about their Scottish ancestors and their clans. Lots of people were impressed that we had Scottish accents too!

We’re looking forward to attending more craft fairs soon! Keep an eye out on our facebook page to see where we are and what we are up to!

Meanwhile Jackie and I are going to be busy cutting and stitching in order to make sure we have plenty of stock to fill any Christmas orders – get yours in soon!

To inspire you, here are a few of our recent designs…

Remember: www.tartantotes.com

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September 23, 2009

Tartan Totes

7:31 am | No Comments » |

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Well as many of you may or may not know Jackie (Cameron`s Mum) and I have been working on a business idea for the past few months. We are now ready up and running so I thought I would tell you a little bit more about what we have been up to.

As it says on our homepage of our website, we wanted to make something that was unique, original and which utilized recycled fabrics. We wanted something that reinforced the connection between our past and present, old Scotland and new Scotland – and what better than tartan to do this. We think the tartan we source for our totes is colourful, fashionable and practical – we do hope you agree!

For more bags and styles please check out our website at www.tartantotes.com and let us know your thoughts.

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June 18, 2009

The Art of Artisan

12:10 pm | 1 Comment » |

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My regular bread requires little effort. In fact it allows me the luxury of rolling out of bed at 9am and still having fresh made-from-scratch bread on the table in time for lunch. It’s a recipe that my mother-in-law has been using for years and it’s pretty fool proof. The best part is that it still tastes delicious. Either make it in a bread pan or just pop on a baking tray for a more rustic look.

However, every cook likes to experiment and when I received a book titled “Artisan Baking” (by Maggie Glezer) for Christmas I couldn’t wait for our house to warm up enough (remember the stories of no upstairs heating, in fact you were pretty much sure to freeze if you moved more than 1/2 a meter from the wood stove) to try some of the recipes. Now spring has defiantly sprung (it’s 28oc out today) and so has my experimental side.

So what is Artisan (Artisanal) Bread, I hear you ask? According to the dictionary (quoted in the book also), “artisan” refers to a person working in a skilled trade or a craftsman. However, like me, Maggie Glezer wasn’t happy with this unclear definition and hence polled several well-respected bakers. The only conclusion that can be drawn from their varied responses is that for bread to be considered “artisan”, at least one part of its production must be performed by hand and it must be of good quality!

Being overly ambitious Cameron and I took a very big jump in at the deep end with our first attempt at artisan bread – a rustic baguette. The fact that the recipe called for 2 different starters should have been enough to warn us off. We tried and I must say we didn’t completely fail. We ended up with a rustic baguette that was cooked to the point where it may have made a reasonably good baseball bat. Overcome the crust, however, and the bread had a delicious flavor. Read the rest of this entry »

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June 16, 2009

Dinner on the Deck

6:37 am | 2 Comments » |

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Last Wednesday, Cameron and I realized that we’d been together for 5 years! We’ve lived together for 4 years and 2 months of that and have so far managed 9 months of marriage (Cameron has just told me it feels like 9 years – charming!) Thinking this quite an achievement (and a good excuse) we decided we’d cook something special for dinner at the weekend.

I love Tapas and vote for it for any special occasion dinner. However, Cameron wanted lobster especially since they are ridiculously cheap at the moment only $4.99 per lb (approx £3 per lobster). We decided to combine the two and settled on a dinner of lobster with melted coriander (or cilantro in Canada) butter, chorizo fried in red wine, tumeric infused rice and peas and fresh crusty bread from the farmer’s market.

All washed down with a bottle of wine or two…. Yummy!

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June 11, 2009

It’s in you to give….

1:08 pm | No Comments » |

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Our mail box is always full of advertising flyers and today was no exception. The exception came when rather than chucking it straight in the recycling bin, I took it home. The flyer caption was “Project Fire Engine Red – Blood Donor Clinic.” Strange that this had suddenly popped up as only a few days ago I was discussing blood donations with my in-laws.

Since the age of 17, I have been a regular blood donor in Scotland and have proudly given over ten pints during the last 6 years (although my dad will boast that he has given over 50 since he started donating!). So the flyer prompted me to pick up the phone and call for an appointment. I spoke with the nurse and she asked if I was a first time donor, as she didn’t have my details on file. I informed her that although this would be my first Canadian donation, it was by no means my first time – I went on to tell her about moving here from Scotland.

I was shocked (and furious) when the nurse informed me that I am NOT A CANDIDATE (and probably NEVER will be) for blood donation in Canada. Why? Because I lived in Europe between the years of 1980-1996….. and am therefore considered to be at risk of hosting a CJD (Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease) infection.

Prompted to try and find some basis for this discrimination, I have spent the last few hours trawling the internet for facts on the history of CJD in both the UK and Canada. Unfortunately, I’m unable to find conclusive UK infection figures for the years 1980-1996. However, the advance of the disease in the UK was not believed to have peaked until at least 2001 (BBC, 2005) so I think that the figures I have found (for 1995-2004) are still relevant in considering my ‘risk’ as a donor. So, according to the BBC (British Broadcasting Cooperation) 141 people in the UK died of the disease during this 1995 – 2004 period, or an average of 14 in each of these 10 years. Now, rounding The UK’s 2001 national census figures down slightly to 58,789,000 (to make the math easier) that means that there was approxiately one CJD fatality per 4,199,000 British residents, per annum. Not to be obtuse, but considering that Scotland has a population hovering around 5 million in recent years – its conceivable we could have had only ONE person per year fatally infected with the disease!

It is estimated that, worldwide, between 0.5 and 1 case of CJD per million population occurs annually. A recent review of mortality data in the United States has shown that the average annual incidence of CJD in that country is 0.9 deaths per million population. Overall, 334 deaths attributed to CJD were recorded in Canada in the 15-year period from 1979 to 1993. The number of deaths ranged from 14 to 34 per year (Public Health Agency of Canada).

I know that these statistics are not the easiest to compare, but I think you see my point – that CJD does not only affect Europeans! Nor is the infection apparently any more common in Europe than North America.

“Every 60 seconds, someone in Canada requires blood or a blood product!” (Canadian Blood Services, 2009).

“One unit of blood can save or improve up to 3 lives.” (Canadian Blood Services, 2009)

So what’s the issue? Why don’t scientists get on with developing a blood test that can identify CJD and start saving lives by freeing up ‘risky’ donors like myself. A blood test has been in the pipe-line for years now but due to the fact that it carries a small risk of identifying the disease in people that are not actually affected, completion of development and production hasn’t been encouraged. The issue is that legally donors would have to be told if their CJD tests were positive, even if there was a chance that the test result was false.

If he doesn’t die of a blood transfusion/lack of transfusion then surely the hospital food will finish him off!

“1 in 2 Canadians is eligible to give blood. Last year 1 in 60 actually did.” (Canadian Blood Services, 2009).

Maybe this would help…

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June 1, 2009

Centennial Trail

7:43 am | 1 Comment » |

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Shortly before the provincial government purchased the old railway line running between Halifax and Liverpool, Bridgewater acquired the section inside its municipal boundaries. Passing through the centre of the town and following alongside the Lahave River, this trail makes for a beautiful hiking, biking or even cross-country skiing route.

Map

The centrepiece of the whole thing is the massive steel bridge that crosses the Lahave river. If you look closely you will spot the Michelin Tire logo on the side of the bridge – the company paid for the restoration of this grand structure.

The trail offers several different paths. Cameron and I opted for the more remote/scenic route and took a left turn after crossing the bridge. This section of trail runs high above the river and is shaded by lots of pines. It is also scattered with various plants, flowers and blossom.

Read the rest of this entry »

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May 26, 2009

Mr. Fudgey

8:03 am | No Comments » |

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Anyone who has been reading my mother-in-laws blog will already know the story of the pesky little squirrel who now goes by the name of Mr Fudgey.

For those of you who haven’t read Jackie’s blog let me give you a little recap. Mr Fudgey (so named due to his coloring, and also due to a popular brand of biscuits)…

…first appeared in the bird box in my in-laws garden back in February. We initially found him quite amusing until he successfully destroyed several bird feeders and refused to move along. It’s now May and he is still there.

As time has moved on this little guy has got braver and braver. It doesn’t matter how much we chase him, he just sits and looks at us as much to say ‘what you going to do?’. Cameron manged to get these photos the other day without Mr. Fudgey even twitching. In fact I think he quite likes his new career as a model!

Luckily for this little red squirrel, Cameron, has taken quite a liking to him and the good news is that he only costs us a few packets of sunflower seeds every couple of weeks. I’ve got a feeling he isn’t going anywhere in a hurry…

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May 15, 2009

Molega Lake/Beavertail Basin

8:15 am | 1 Comment » |

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MISSION TWO – EXPLORE MOLEGA LAKE

Molega lake is a 30km long lake situated not too far from Chelsea, Nova Scotia. We headed off in search of one of the islands, soon discovered we weren’t quite as fit as we’d thought and instead headed under a little bridge into Beaver Tail Basin.

A few kilometers up the lake we came across a lovely sandy beach…

and stopped for our sandwiches…

Post sandwiches, we jumped back into the canoe and started heading back the way we came. Unfortunately we’d tied our dry sac to the middle bar in the canoe and weren’t able to reach our camera to capture some of the magnificent sites en route. One of the most impressive was a GIANT spider floating on the surface of the water. It was holding tension with it’s legs. It obviously thought we were land as it picked up pace whenever we went near.

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April 28, 2009

Stovies Recipe

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Stovies = a traditional Scottish dish made with leftovers from the Sunday roast! Quick, easy and delicious. Although cleaning the pan after-wards isn’t that much fun..

Let me start with a confession, I don’t make stovies the ‘traditional’ way. Like everything else that comes out of my kitchen, they are made to my own unique recipe. However, (without sounding big headed) they taste pretty damn good.

What you’ll need:
*a large saucepan with lid
*oil (olive or vegetable)\
*1 large onion
*8-10 large potatoes [tatties]
*1 pint of beef stock
*left over gravy
*left over meat
*beetroot and oatcakes (they are different in Scotland, try Walkers variety from Pete’s Frootique) to serve

1) Chop an onion into fairly small pieces and soften in some oil

2)Peel and then slice 8-10 potatoes (no hard and fast rule, the more potatoes, the more stovies you’ll end up with) into rounds

3)Add potatoes into the pan with the onions. Stir and remove from the heat. Read the rest of this entry »

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April 27, 2009

Project Canoe – Part 1!

12:39 pm | 1 Comment » |

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When we got married last September we asked all our guests for money rather than wedding presents for three reasons; 1)We wanted to go on honeymoon, 2)We planned on moving to Canada and 3) We wanted to buy a canoe when we got there!

Since we arrived in Nova Scotia in October we’ve been looking out for a canoe. We’ve looked everywhere and quickly became depressed when we realized that a new canoe was a lot more expensive than we had anticipated. Time for Plan B – www.kijiji.ca! but still we had no luck! Plan C – go for a walk around your local town and look in people’s gardens.

We (well actually, Cameron’s parents) spotted a canoe in the garden of a gentleman that lives at the top of our road. It looked good but rather in need of some TLC. We simply asked him if he could consider selling it, he replied ‘make me an offer’, we did and the canoe was ours.

As mentioned before it was in need of some work, so we got to it. We carried the canoe home and placed it in our garden…

Step one – a trip to the hardware store for some sand paper!

Step Two – sand it!

Read the rest of this entry »

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