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Issue #1161

The Unpublished Issues

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Rhubarb stew.

Our neighbors bring us rhubarb from their cottage near Clinton. The stuff does not grow well around here but it does grow well there. They have a big patch and don’t use it so they bring it to us. They brought us some a few days ago and Sue chopped it up and put it in the freezer for use during the winter. I decided to make rhubarb stew. Our mom used to make that regularly and its something I’ve always liked. Nothing like a bowl of rhubarb stew with a piece of toast covered with peanut butter. The requirements for making the stew are quite minimal, mostly just rhubarb, a few drops of water, and some sugar. Boil it down to a mushy consistency and its done, that simple.

So, thats what I did and yes, it was quite nice. I had my first bowl hot as I had made the stew just before lunch. However, I do tend to prefer it cold. The rest of the stew went into the fridge and will be cold the next time I have some.

Something else I remember mom making was a sort of dried fruit stew. She’s make it in the winter when fresh fruit was hard to get, at least for us normal, poor people. I guess dried fruit was easily available in the grocery stores back then, and for nutritional purposes we needed the vitamins and minerals that they contained. I always likes the fruit stew. It was not as thick as the rhubarb stew but very tasty. If memory serves, she would include raisins, apricots, apple, peach, and so on. Basically it was simply the dried fruit and berries plus water plus a bit of sugar and then simmered for a while. Good food and good memories.

Brown bears.

Brown bears and just a version of the more populous black bears and this time of year there are black bears all over the place. One evening this week we were down at the plaza that the CTC store is in. A brown bear, often called a ciniman bear, crossed the highway from the west side over to the east side just up from the intersection. Thats a very busy intersection and it was a wonder that it made it. There are some shrubs and small trees along the sideway and it headed into them, then onto the CTC parking lot, then back into the shrubs. There is a fruit stand right there in that corner of the parking lot and I thought it might be headed for the easy to get fruit and berries. So did the girl working the stand as she took shelter in her car. The bear ignored the available fruit etc and then worked its way through the traffic on Mamquam, heading for the golf course and the river.

I can only assume that the brown bear was so stressed and fearful from all the traffic etc that it wasn’t even aware of the fruit and berries as it tried to get to the quieter golf course and river bank.

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Doug

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Have a Good One
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