While I spend my busy days (and some nights and weekends) as a communications director for a major port, balance is brought to my life by time spent with my better half, our 2 girls, and extended family and friends.
My philosophy for life has always been to grab it by the horns and not put off a dream or goal. Live for the moment. Now with 50 years under my belt, I’m reflecting back as I continue to move forward.
Dream on, live on.
#SavourySunday will be a new weekly feature of 50 Rules Life. This week I’m sharing a recipe for a seafood casserole I found online at Saveur (see Seafood Bubbly Bake).
One of the best things about the recipe is you can adapt it to whatever seafood you have on hand, or what you can buy in store or at the market.
I don’t own ramekins so I used a 9 x 12 shallow Corelle casserole dish. Because of the change of dish, I altered the time in the oven. In the original version the ramekins were to cook for 20 mins at 400° F, I added another 10 minutes at 300° F. I didn’t want to over cook the crust on top but wanted to ensure the whole dish was bubbly.
In my version I picked up a whole cooked lobster and shelled it (the advantages of living in New Brunswick). I ended up with about 6 oz of fresh lobster meat and I couldn’t find just 4 oz of fresh haddock so I picked up a seafood chowder mix which also included shrimp and scallops. We’d had a feed of mussels a few weeks back and had left overs that we had frozen so I thawed these and added them in, along with some more scallops I had on hand.
I had it loaded down with so much seafood that I was worried about having too much for the casserole dish, but it turned out to be just the right amount.
I put some parchment paper on a baking sheet and set the casserole dish on the sheet, topped it with the breadcrumb, cheese and paprika mixture and put in the oven
I served the meal with a sesame ginger chopped salad and flaky cheese rolls.
Although the recipe says it serves 6, I had enough for 8 servings, undoubtedly due to the added seafood.
We don’t eat this rich every day but given the number of ingredients I already had on hand, and the fact we had an out of town guest, this dish was the perfect choice.
I wanted to share a recipe this week but I also wanted it to have meaning. I was in search of a food story tied both to my life experiences and the era from which it came.
To fulfill my quest I turned to an aged resource, a floral cloth-covered book that has moved with me countless times. Here in this book I collected recipes during my early teen and younger adult years. The beginning of the book is handwritten with attribution to each person from whom I copied the recipe. Later, when life became busy, recipes were cut and pasted from magazines or calendars that caught my interest.
These were the days before we ‘pinned’ or ‘bookmarked’ recipes. Like most, I now search online when I want something new to cook, and, as a result, I have not used this cooking resource in years.
That’s why looking through the pages was a stroll down memory lane. Thinking of the person who each recipe came from brought back both memories of people and food, two of my favourite things.
The recipe I chose to share for this post is Apple Muffins. Not only is this recipe tied to a memory, but fresh apples are everywhere this time of year, making this post timely and useful.
What makes this recipe interesting in the context of the blog, however, is the memory of where it came from. And, what made it heartwarming for me was making it with my 16-year-old daughter one Saturday morning.
The Memory
Way back in 1980-1982 when I was in grade 7 and 8, all the girls took home economics and the boys all took woodshop. That was just the way it was.
In grade 7 home ec they taught girls the best way to wash dishes, to make a meal, and to bake things. Useful skills for any human. In grade 8 they taught us to read a pattern, and create a piece of clothing with a sewing machine, a functional skill but perhaps less universally required.
I never knew what took place in shop, it was mysterious. I was never physically in the shop, though I did peek in the door a few times.
When I reflect on grade 7 and 8, I don’t recall the gender division of these classes being a personal issue. Which is likely why I was in awe in grade 8 when a female student bucked the system, and together with her parents, she insisted to be allowed to take shop.
Looking back this seems like a simple act, but from the many simple acts carried out by just one individual, to significant movements and moments such as the Persons Case or #MeToo, rhetoric, policy, and our lives change.
We’ve come a long way, although there is still a long way to go as the UN’s International Day of the Girl recently shared on their website: “The 1.1 billion girls of today’s world are challenging the status quo. They’re redefining girlhood, and they’re doing so against the odds.”
They’re redefining girlhood just as those that came before them did. Just as one girl at Rothesay Junior High did 36 years ago.
The Recipe: Apple Muffins
The recipe which triggered this memory is from grade 7 home ec. As the teacher at the time told us, it could be a recipe for any kind of muffin if you switch out the apples and cinnamon for something else. Feel free to adapt and enjoy baking it, regardless of your gender.
I baked this with my daughter and we shared stories of what I learned in home ec and how how different life is now for all genders. She joked that we should do a post from my husband’s shop some day.
Who knows, maybe we will.
Selfie with Riley
Riley filling the cups
Who remembers these jar/glasses
Apple Muffins
1 egg, beaten slightly
1 C + 3 tbsps. milk
¼ C butter melted (the original recipe called for shortening)
1 ½ C flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 apple, diced or shredded
½ tsp cinnamon
Preheat oven to 400° F. Stir until flour is moist. Mix in the apple and cinnamon. Bake 20 minutes. Makes about 1 1/2 dozen small muffins.
(Author’s note: Just in case you are inspired to make the muffins, the recipe is just so-so, it’s more about the story with this one. I’ll share some great recipes in future posts).
The idea that stimulated this post came from Jenna MacDonald at There’s a Shoe for That. When I was considering starting this blog, a conversation with Jenna tipped me over the edge to actually do it.
The thought of finding 50 moments seemed daunting at first. However, when I sat down to write, I actually had to trim out moments because I passed 50.
The lesson I took away from the exercise is that in a world where the next instant moment of gratification is the goal of many, I believe a path to happiness comes from being present, taking chances, and living a life of gratitude for opportunities that may cross your path.
Reluctant to classify these moments in any ranking that could be interpreted as one being better than another, they are random within four categories: cradle-to-grave moments, travel moments, unique opportunity moments, and existential moments.
Cradle-to-Grave (Moments 1-6)
According to Dictionary.com ‘Cradle to grave’ means: “extending throughout one’s life, from birth to death”.
Pregnancy, I only had one but I loved the experience
Holding my baby, 2002
2. Holding my baby for the first time
3. Being with my Mom on her last day of life
4. Finding my soulmate
Revisiting our 2nd date spot (2014), Ice Caves in Springfield, NB
5. Realizing our kids know how to make good choices
6. Watching our children develop/perform/create
Travel (Moments 7-32)
These moments all happened because I travelling away from home. The range of dates for these experiences begin at age 7 with my first trip to Scotland and extend up to last year when Eric and I cruised from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Haiti and Jamaica.
7. Seeing the Grand Canyon by both small plane and land (Arizona, USA)
Turning 30 trip in 1999 with friends from U of Waterloo days
10. Breathing the air at the Icefields Parkway (Rockies, Alberta, Canada)
Athabasca Glacier 2014
11. Snorkeling in Cozumel (Mexico)
12. Dog sledding (La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada)
13. Seeing the terrain of Iceland for the first time
14. Sailing in the Burrard Inlet (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
15. Swimming with dolphins (Costa Maya, Mexico)
16 Experiencing a desert (Palm Springs, California & Las Vegas, Nevada, USA)
17. Days in Liverpool (England)
On our Fab Four tour in LIverpool, England 2015
18. Any visit to Scotland
West Highland Way hiking, 2012
At Loch Ness in 2005
Edinburgh, 2005
Elvis sighting, 2015
19. Putting my toes in the Pacific Ocean for the first time (British Columbia, Canada)
20. Riding a pony on the beach in Blackpool (England)
21. Visiting a fortune teller in New Orleans (Louisiana, USA)
22. Experiencing the Napa Valley (California, USA)
23. Meadows in the Sky Parkway (Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada)
24. Airboat tour of the Bayou in Louisiana (USA)
25. Kayaking with dolphins in a South Carolina marsh (USA)
26. The many layers of Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Amazing Amsterdam (2014)
Amsterdam is as Nutella obsessed as me! (2014)
Windmill walks, 2014
Canal-side breakfast, 2014
27. Introducing Eric to cruising
Voodoo demonstration while in Haiti on our cruise (2018)
28. Day cruise on the Rhine (Germany)
Somewhere on the Rhine, Germany 2001
29. The Giant’s Causeway (Northern Ireland)
Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland, 2012
30. Chicago Art Institute (Chicago, Illinois, USA)
Chicago (2014)
Chicago Art Institute (2014)
31. CN Tower view (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
32. Experiencing Mardi Gras in New Orleans (Louisiana, USA)
Unique Experiences (Moments 33-47)
These moments all happened, or started, at home in New Brunswick, Canada.
33. Tour of the potash mine in a Jeep-like vehicle (700 m below surface)
34. Discovering Eye of the Needle for the first time
35. Flying in a helicopter
36. Sleeping on a train (in a sleeper car)
37. Figuring out how to make Lorne sausages and having them taste just right
38. Spending days outside with my Dad while he created art
39. Catching my first fish
40. The smell and feel of cool air in early autumn
41. Growing to love lobster
Christmas week traditions post-2014
42. Whale watching
43. Walking on the ocean floor, regularly
Here I stand, walking on the ocean floor, 2015
My GPS position for photo on the left (2014)
44. Feeling the wind in my face while riding a bike
45. Being hooked by a good book
46. Falling asleep to the sound of the ocean
47. Learning to knit
48. Meeting Prince Charles (1996 and 2012), Prince Andrew (1985), and Prince Edward (sometime in the 2000s)
Existential (Moments 49 & 50)
For lack of better classification, these moments where philosophical reflections that have come to me in the last few years.
49. Realizing I’ve found contentment
50. Knowing home is the best place to be
Number 50 is my life lesson from the list. I have been fortunate to see and do so many things in so many places but as Dorothy so aptly puts it “There’s no place like home”.
Part of the reason I’ve started on this blog journey is to provide myself a writing challenge. Writing and reading have always been a huge part of my life.
My parents were both prolific readers, and they encouraged a love of reading in me. Books of all kind were always around our house: fiction, non-fiction, anthologies, reference, and various versions of the Bible.
We lived in a rural area, had 2 channels on our black-and-white television, and, of course, no knowledge of the Internet or video games. This lifestyle created perfect conditions to develop a self-entertainer, as my husband calls it.
This was rural New Brunswick in the 1970s, a time when kids were unscheduled and roamed freer than they do today. When I tired of the books at home, I would hop on my bicycle and head into the library in downtown Sussex, a 7-km round trip.
At the library I’d spend hours in the reference section reading about geography and mythology and I’d pick out a few books to read at home. The pattern of biking to the library to return books and take out more books was repeated often enough to be a vivid memory.
My grandfather, recognizing this thirst for knowledge, bought me a subscription to National Geographic, which I lovingly collected through my teen years.
Yes…I’ve been a geek for a long time.
In this formative period, I was consuming books, assimilating knowledge, and living in conditions which were ripe for development of a vivid imagination. By age 9 in the 4th grade, I was writing my own stories. In February (1978) my first work of fiction was published in the school newsletter.
“The Thing From Space” by grade 4 Paula Harris, along with a variety of stories, recipes, poems, and illustrations by other students, appeared in the newsletter which was copied on a mimeograph (sometimes called by brand name Gestetner).
If you’re from my generation, or older, you may remember the experience of cranking copies out of one of these machines in the school office, but if you didn’t have that experience, you’ll surely remember the unique odor made by the copying process. Every hand-out and test bore this scent until the advent of photocopying
In the mimeograph process the pages were impressed with a purple typeset that blurred slightly at the edges, particularly if it was not left to dry long enough. The copy I have of this newsletter from 1978 looks the same today as it did the day it was copied.
When I reflect of the origins and inspiration of this first story, and I also look back on the timeline of my life in 1977/78, I recall that had just seen my first big screen movie at the theatre. Everything before this was on our 28-inch black-and-white TV. The movie made a big impression on me. My Dad also bought the soundtrack (on LP), and he played it often—thus keeping the memory of the movie alive in our house.
The movie was Close Encounters of the Third Kind, released four months prior to writing this piece. Close Encounters stirred an obvious fascination with aliens. Ricky, a fellow student, brought my description to life with his striking illustration of the “Thing”.
“The Thing From Space” is an amusing read now, forty years later, but it is also more than that. This story, the many trips to the library, and the magic and inspiration of Stephen Spielberg, were the beginning of a life of story telling. For the past 25+ years, stories, albeit not science fiction stories, put food on the table and kept a roof over my head.
Without a love of reading instilled at a young age, and a quest for knowledge that only deepened as I aged, I would not be writing this blog post today and I would not be helping others tell stories.
Today I turn 50 and I celebrate it with every fibre in my body.
I’m a no regrets kind of person and keeping my eye on a goal and a future plan, only looking back to reminisce or learn a lesson, is how I keep positive and focused.
Reaching 50 is a celebration for me—a milestone at which to take time to pause, reflect, and refocus.
I often hear from those who know me, ‘you’re so lucky’. My reaction to those people is often to smile, nod, and agree.
I agree because I do feel lucky. I am happy and comfortable with who I am, where I am, and get to spend my life with the best husband and kids I could ever hope to have.
What may not always be apparent about my first first 50 years, however, is that they have been more about perseverance, overcoming obstacles, assimilating disappointments, and roll-up-your-sleeves hard work than they have been about luck.
Will life 50+ be any different?
Likely not. But what I have learned along the way is how important it is to find the balance to make it all ‘sing’. To be positive in the moment, to learn from others, and to be true to myself.
This blog is my latest personal challenge: 53 blog posts for my 50th year, one a week + one to reflect on the year. I’ll share some stories about the past 50 years as well as what’s going on in the ‘here and now’. I’ll throw in the odd recipe, favourite places to visit, or top 5 list.
My hope is that through the blog, you’ll get a glimpse into the life of a Gen Xer who found midlife happiness and balance.
You’re welcome to join me on my journey of being 50.
to cook for 20 mins at 400° F, I added another 10 minutes at 300° F. I didn’t want to over cook the crust on top but wanted to ensure the whole dish was bubbly.
but fresh apples are everywhere this time of year, making this post timely and useful.
