Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-bound coast

Just reliving a few sunny, summer days not so long ago. Goodbye for now my lovely hometown...

My Mum at age eight as drawn by Nicholas de Grandmaison

My Nana as a little girl as a paper doll

Cotton candy haired lady doll

Mama dreams of fishies

A 60's paisley dress and a sunny yellow deck chair

Moon Mist. If my childhood had an ice cream flavour this one would be it.

Irish, my parent's mildly deranged and very photogenic Border Collie

 A portrait of my Nana on her wedding day and I 

A Picture an Hour

A visual diary in the form of a picture (or a few) an hour of a Saturday in Nova Scotia spent with my parents and Brett in late August:

11am

Brett and I wake up in my Mum and Dad's house in Halifax; wrapped in my grandmother's old Hudson's Bay blanket and the beautiful quilt my Aunt made and gave to my parent's as a present on their wedding day.

12pm

That day I wore my brand, sparkly new Everlane summer sandals. They make me feel like a really fashion forward Jesus.

1pm

Knowing we had a full day of feasting ahead of us, for brekkie I make myself a light, yummy snack of mushed avocado on toast.

2pm

We set off road trip styles to Chester Basin and ended up at the Seaside Shanty for lunch. The restaurant is owned by a sweet lady named Gillian McKenzie. She babysat my sister and I for a brief spell when we were little. Gillian makes some mean mussels and an outstanding seafood chowder.

3pm

After lunch we take off farther down the shore to Lunenburg. We waved to the Bluenose II schooner as she was dry docked for repairs and said hello to a couple of lazy jellyfish floating through the harbour.

4pm

We head back towards home and stop to pick up our dinner's guests of honour at Ryers Lobsters.

5pm

We make a quick stop in Peggy's Cove to show Brett the pretty pretty lighthouse and sweeping views and then it's back on the road home to get to work on our supper.

6pm

Back home and playing with our food.

7pm

I take some glamour shots of the insanely awesome galaxy manicure I got before I left Toronto. A wickedly talented dude by the name of Justin at Pinky's Nails did them for me. Can you tell that this kind of spacey manicure is his specialty?

8pm

The lobster feasting begins. Potato salad and Keiths, sparkling wine and crusty warm bread, and gobs and gobs of melted butter to dip our tasty little crustacean friends in. We eat till we nearly burst.

9pm

The day before I made a batch of lemon semi freddo to go with our epic meal. It was the perfect light finish to a rich, heavy dinner.

10pm

After the feast we take our wine out onto the patio to burn the candles down low and talk late into the night.

In My Kitchen: Chocolate Raspberry Pie

After picking two heaping pailfuls of fresh raspberries last week I've been trying to work them into just about every meal. It's been a lot of berries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner around here and I for one am loving it. There's been raspberries in my yogurt and in my salads, handfuls stashed in take away containers to nosh on throughout the day. Brett made a yummy raspberry syrup that I put in my prosecco the other evening as a delicious twist on a kir royale. Lastly I made a very decadent, and very easy to make, chocolate raspberry pie with a graham cracker crust. It certainly packs a punch in butter, cream, and sugar content but what kind of chocolate pie worth eating doesn't? Read on for this super simple recipe...

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 7 ounces of graham crackers (about 13 or 14 of the full sized crackers)
• 1 1/3 cups of heavy cream
• about 2 and a half cups of raspberries
• 12 ounces of semi sweet chocolate (I used Baker's chocolate but chocolate chips would work just fine too)
• 9 tablespoons of unsalted butter (chilled)
• 1/2 a teaspoon and 1 pinch of coarse salt

Preheat your oven to 350. 

For the crust: If you're lucky enough to have a food processor, combine graham crackers, sugar, and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt in there. If you're like me and don't have one just chuck all of those ingredients into a zip lock bag, seal tightly, and get out a rolling pin. Bash and roll out that sucker until you get a very fine crumb. Transfer cracker crumbs to a mixing bowl. Melt the butter in a pan and then stir into crumb mixture until it just comes together. Press crumbs firmly into a 9 inch pie dish; you can use a flat bottomed drinking glass or measuring cup to really flatten it in there. Bake until the crust is dry and a bit brown around the edges, about 20 minutes. Cool in the fridge.

For the filling: In a large saucepan, bring cream to a low simmer over medium heat. Add in the chocolate and a pinch of salt. Stir until melted and combined. Take the pan off of the heat, break up about a cup of raspberries with your fingers and stir them into the chocolate mixture. Pour chocolate into cooled pie shell and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Before the pie is completely set, arrange the remaining berries on top and then return to the fridge to cool and set completely, about 1 hour.

This pie would go great served with whipped cream or maybe even some vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!