It had occurred to me on Monday that I hadn't made baked beans yet this winter. It's comfort food on cold days, if anything is. Monday we had a beef roast, Yorkshire pudding and asparagus, so I was looking for something quite a bit different. It isn't that I produce baked beans exactly, although the ingredients are just the same, it's that I do the beans in a pot on the stove. I just barely remembered to hunt for the pinto beans in my pantry and soak them overnight, before going up to bed. I hate it when I remember once I'm already in bed with my nose deep in a book.

 

So baked beans it was, yesterday, with its wide panoply of ingredients from onion, garlic and finely chopped jalapeno pepper, to molasses, brown sugar, vinegar, tomato paste, salt, pepper, dried mustard and olive oil. For good measure I chopped red bell pepper and tomatoes into it as it bubbled away on the stove for added flavour and texture. When our children were young I used to shred cheddar cheese for them to sprinkle over their beans.

I had planned to do a stir-fry for dinner tonight but when I went searching in the freezer for what I was certain I had put away; beef strips suitable for stir-frying, there was none; must have used them another time. What I did find was minced meat so I decided to make a meat pie instead, for a change. Another meal I haven't yet made this winter. And Irving gave his enthusiastic approval. He'll be somewhat less approving tomorrow when we have fish.

 

The  younger of our two sons who loves working with wood (like his father) and sending off gifts to his brother, his sister and us, had mailed a knife to us and it arrived in the mail, a slender, well-packed object that had 'fragile' written on it. It cost the earth to send, no less than $21 in postage. On the other hand, as a hand-made kitchen utensil in my kitchen-cooking arsenal, it is precious. I've so many wooden paddles, mixing spoons, rolling pins and the like he has made for me. As well as an endless array of pottery, from teapots to mixing bowls and pie plates.

 

He didn't forge the business half of the knife, though he could have. In his younger days he used to make miniature wood planes, forging the steel to fit into the wood portion, using the live fire of a wood-burning stove we had in our old house. And once when he was in Australia he went to a workshop on knife-making, the actual steel portion. It was the handle he produced, this time. He'd bought a large knife on sale, and removed the steel from its original handle, then set about making his own handle. He did the same with a potato peeler he made for his sister. 

 

 

He collects pieces of wood he finds here and there; surprisingly exotic woods sometimes used as packing material, wood he picks up when he is wilderness camping, and sometimes what he finds down at Wreck Beach in Vancouver.

This handle is made of tiger maple primarily, through there are slender pieces of sumac and cherry on either side. The finished product, steel included, is light and balanced, the blade cuts through the most stubbornly resistant food. It feels polished and smooth, because it is, absolutely unblemished, sparkling like a jewel from the finish he used when he built his kayak.

 

It's been an overcast day but very windy, the high temperature this afternoon 4C. But apart from the occasional foray into the backyard with Jackie and Jillie, no ravine walk. Yesterday when we set out for the ravine, Irving mentioned his ankle was tender. He speculated he might have twisted it on the ice out in the ravine yesterday. Our boots tend to splay sideways taking our feet sharply in that direction, when we tromp on/into deep indentations that appeared as a result of last week's rain followed by a snap freeze. We're in for more of that this evening and tomorrow.

He managed well enough on our afternoon hike yesterday but by late evening he was in agony with the pain. Thankfully, once he fell asleep it didn't bother him. Not until this morning when he awoke. Still, it feels much better than it had the night before. But no question it wouldn't be possible to embark on a vigorous tramp through the forest trails. All the more so since they're pretty icy. Irony here since I was the one that slipped while ascending a hill yesterday, not Irving.