from an email my dear friend B sent to me on his return from a trip last week -- this was just too utterly perfect not to share.
"We just returned from a fabulous week in Nova Scotia, at the hunting lodge of a friend, who bought a couple square miles of pristine northern wilderness there last summer.
We thought of you often during the week, because we ate things like Finnan Haddie made with beautiful fresh smoked haddock from the neighbor’s smokehouse down the road, dozens of oysters we gathered ourselves freshly from the sea, blueberry pancakes with blueberries we gathered on their land, freshly caught catfish and eel from their lake, daily salads of lettuce peas and beet greens fresh from the garden, and local strawberries which were the best I’ve eaten since my days in Iowa.
We gathered chanterelles and ate them on freshly baked sourdough toast points, and closed off the week with a stunning lobster bake, done over a fire in layers: potatoes covered with seaweed (the kind that has the bubbles in it, to provide steam) covered with corn covered with seaweed, covered with gorgeous lobsters covered with seaweed, all served with more oysters and some excellent wine.
We hiked, swam in our friends’ private lake, blazed a trail to their second private lake, tubed down their private river, cooked, read, loafed, drank, talked and played hours and hours of viola quintets and string sextets....It was a lovely vacation, and each day contained some lovely food or wilderness item that made me think of you with love."
Is there any wonder this is one of my very most favorite people on the entire planet? Thank you, B.
Posted by foodnerd at August 1, 2006 01:20 PM