Annual Maitland Christmas Tea

Maitland, NS
Nov. 24, 2007

It's never hard to convince me to attend a community supper at the local Maitland hall, and the annual Christmas tea is no exception.

The hall is set up with a slightly different layout than your average supper. There are more single tables, and half of the hall is reserved for craft, bake and other assorted tables.

We received some knowing glances when we sat down, I guess we're regulars now! We were set up with the oh, so delicious tea that makes the Maitland suppers stand out and we quickly received our plates of food:



The turkey salad was chock full of REAL turkey and the ham was yummy as well. The bun came pre-buttered and the little container of cranberry jelly was also a nice accent to the meal. The coleslaw was homemade, crunchy and delicious as usual.

Our plate came complete with all the little details, right down to the sprinkle of paprika on the potato salad, nestled on some crisp iceberg lettuce...doesn't it just make you want to say, "awwww"?

And then....the sweets...oh, the sweets...Chocolate covered peanut butter balls, skor toffee bars, chocolate covered coconut cherry balls, mint bars, and still the sweets kept coming. My only regret is that the batteries died on my camera so I couldn't take pics of the sweets for you all to savour.

The neighbouring chatter was fun to listen to as well. Our nearest neighbour entertained us with stories of when she buys finger cookies on sale, what cookies freeze well, what she and her husband had for dinner the last time out and what candy to buy for Christmas. Rivetting stuff! I was particularly impressed with her thrify nature with the Xmas candy, "why should I buy a 10 dollar box, when he's just as happy to eat what I get from the dollar store?" Why indeed?

The tea was capped off buy my purchase of 2 pairs of hand knit mittens for children and one hand knit dish rag. All for the grand total of 4 dollars. (^_^) The knitted goods vendor had a chuckle when I commented, "surely some kid I know needs mittens!"

To paraphrase the Beatles, a splendid time was had by all!

Crousetown Road burns

Crousetown?
Somewhere on the road between Conquerall Mills and Crousetown
Nov. 4, 2007

It's been a while since I uploaded any brake burn photos. These patches have been calling me all summer...

The highway crew patches the road, and it's like filling up the ink well or pallette..the old highway is the canvas:

Conquerall Mills Soup and Sandwich Luncheon

Conquerall Mills Community Hall
Soup and Sandwich Luncheon
Conquerall Mills, Nova Scotia
Oct. 27, 2007

These are hard to pass up. Imagine an endless supply of little sandwiches filled with all manner of good things: egg salad (with onion and without...ya gotta get it with onions!, turkey salad made from REAL turkey, ham and cheese slices, mayo and cucumber, mayo and tomato.....sadly no devilled ham. I guess we were too late.

Soups were from scratch and delightful. Turkey, a very smoky split pea and ham were our choices...both were the perfect antidote to a fall afternoon.

I was a train wreck that afternoon, a veritable bull in a china shop. I kept smashing my leg against the table when I would go to stand up. Spilling our teas all over the table. Repeatedly. Sorry for the mess I left behind!

And then came....the dessert table...oh man, the desserts....sorry some of them turned out blurry...:


The coffee cake in the foreground was amazing!








I think this might be my favourite picture of the lot..

The moral of this story, is arrive early if you want the devilled ham sandwiches!

Mahone Bay Anglican church Roast Beef supper

Anglican Church
Roast Beef Supper
Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
Oct. 20, 2007

This supper is a guaranteed good meal. That's it. Tender roast beef, delicious pickles on the table, checkerboard cake, who could ask for more? The only thing that could disrupt our plans? Chatty Kathy.

We should've known she was trouble from the second she and her ex-con husband sat down across from us. Within seconds she was spooning chow chow on half of a dinner roll, voraciously eating it. Then, on to the coleslaw. Again, eating it off a dinner roll. Chow chow and coleslaw cascaded down on the vinyl table cloth. And still, she kept eating....

The next victim in her sights was our nearby 'table cake':


Seems innocent enough, right? A lovely looking cake, right? Not for long...she proceeded to cut off a small piece, and then only ate half of it. A puzzled frown quickly spread over her face.
"What kind of cake do you think that is?" she asked us, "i can't tell, it looks like barley bread, don't you think it looks like barley bread?"
For the rest of our meal she inquired with anyone who would make eye contact with her, if they thought this cake looked like barley bread.....

To be fair, she was only being 'neighbourly', and the only reason I mention her 'quirks' is because I've never seen anyone behave that way at a supper. As hard as I tried not to make eye contact, she kept talking to Lisa and myself:

"Where are you from?"
"Do you go to many of these suppers?"
"Don't you think that cake looks like barley bread?"
"These pickles are tough" (they were tough, I'll give her that)

Oh, and dinner was great. For dessert, we had squash pie and pumpkin pie, both were great. Squash pie is a little drier and less 'spicy' than pumpkin pie, well worth trying!

I ate up as fast as I could so we could escape without being pumped for more information by Chatty Kathy. I have a bad feeling this isn't the last we've seen of her...Stay tuned, faithful readers!

Parkdale/Maplewood Heritage Blueberry Supper

September 8, 2007
Parkdale/Maplewood Community Hall
Maplewood, NS

This is one of the annual suppers I look forward to. This year, we had some extra family friends 'in tow' which always makes it more fun. We met up at the hall, surveyed the parking lot flush with Buicks and found our way to the ticket table.

We found our way to the Parkdale/Maplewood museum to purchase our tickets. We had a bit of a wait ahead of us so we meandered around from building to building. The museum is an interesting slice of local history, and there was live music inside all afternoon. That Saturday was particularly humid so we quickly escaped outside and checked out the lovely perennial gardens surrounding the building.

There were several other small buildings with craft vendors (I'm guessing selling hand knit wool goods on a hot day was a hard sell), demonstrations (i.e. snowshoe making) and of course food vendors. Everything looked amazing, from the sweaty squares in their plastic bags (actually, everything was sweaty), to the lemon loaves, the pies and all manner of pickled and jellied goods.

Eventually our numbers were called and we entered the hall. How the work staff survived that heat all afternoon is beyond me! We only had to endure ~30 minutes and some in our party were feeling like fainting....The set up was different than the usual long tables, and sit where you can sit ordeal. This year, there were numerous tables to seat 10 or so, which I'm sure made sitting groups together much easier for the staff. Also a lot of fun for groups of 5 like ours!

Food service was luncheon style and we inched down the line getting a little bit of everything on our plates as we went. Eventually, it looked like this:




Delicious! Lunenburg sausage and pudding (I believe the cheese was meant to be eaten with the pudding), sauerkraut and sauerkraut salad, smeltz potatoes, hodge podge and solomon gundy all fit on this plate.

The brown bread was moist and sweet with molasses, I couldn't stop helping myself to another piece....Smeltz potatoes are so good, they consist of potatoes, pork scraps, onions apples and blend. Man, I'm hungry.....Hodge podge is usually an early summer dish made with the first crop of carrots, peas, beans and potatoes, all cooked until tender and served with cream (and lots of salt and pepper). Saurekraut salad is like.....coleslaw minus the mayo? Here's a recipe:

Sauerkraut Salad

1 quart sauerkraut (rinsed and drained)
1 cup celery (chopped)
1 medium onion (chopped)
green and red peper (chopped)

Dressing:

1 1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup salad oil

Stir dressing ingredients until sugar is dissolved. Add to other ingredients. Mix well. Keeps for several weeks in the fridge. Easy, eh?

Last but not least was dessert. I had to try the blueberry grunt. This consists of small dumplings covered in cooked blueberries. The pie also looked great and both were obviously made from scratch. Hard to declare a winner, but my personal fave is the grunt, just because it is uncommon. Stay tuned for a picture of the grunt, blogger is being...ehem...unresponsive to uploading pictures at the moment...

Conquerall Banks Planked Halibut Supper

Another day in paradise on the South Shore!

Sunday, what a scorcher of a day! Earlier forecasts of a dismal weekend were soon put to rest once the +30 degree weather arrived. A small group of hopeful beach goers headed down to Cherry Hill Beach Sunday afternoon. In typical South Shore fashion, the weather by the coast was a good 10 degrees cooler than inland and the ocean much colder than that. A brisk onshore breeze didn't help matters either. A few were lucky enough to have wet suits so the rest of us were content to enjoy the sunny afternoon and watch the others frolick in the small wind waves. I don't think anyone was sad when they had to leave for the supper, both due to hunger and the temperature.

I was anticipating the usual hordes that accompany the Conquerall Banks planked halibut supper, but when we arrived the parking lot was somewhat sparsely filled with the usual domestic automobiles that populate these events. I am aware of at least one other supper that was happening on the same day that possibly drew numbers away from this event. And I'm sure many people were enjoying the hot weather at home or at the cottage, either way, missing this supper was their loss!

There was an uncharacteristicly brief wait after we purchased our tickets and amazingly, our large group was able to sit together! Our meal followed shortly thereafter, served up by some very hot and sweaty volunteers. To say that the hall was muggy would be the understatement of the year. A 21 degree afternoon down by the beach turned out to be a 31 degree day further inland! I can only imagine the heat in the kitchen with sinks full of hot dish water, and food cooking on the stove(s).





Supper was as amazing as I recalled from previous years. The mashed potatoes were 'potato-y' and perfect, the coleslaw was home made and a welcome side dish to the plate. An obviously home grown tomato and decoratively sliced cucumber graced the edge of our plates, if only there were more of them to nibble on, they were delish! Pickles were notably absent from the table, apparently a popular item at this supper. And the halibut, what can I say that hasn't been said before? Amazing, some found it a bit dry, but I enjoyed the meaty consistency. I can only imagine how hard it is to time the cooking of that much fish outside, in front of a fire. Given the circumstances, hail to the chef!





It was fun to be around a group of younger folks at the supper, as we took in the surroundings and chuckled at some of the 'fixtures' (love the brand name of the air cleaner) and let the local 'flavour' sink in...All in all, a great day for all, by all accounts. Hopefully the turn out was sufficient to raise funds for the Conquerall Banks Fire Department. Big thanks go out to all who helped put on this event!

The Fan: New Cumberland Rd. & Mt. Pleasant Rd.

The title pretty much says it all. New pavement on the bottom of the New Cumberland Road has provided a new 'palette' for brake burners to dip their tires in, and paint on the 'ole Mt. Pleasant Rd....