Several years ago when I was still working at the Personal Care Home as a nurse, I had this young and fresh coworker who was new to the North. We took a liking to each other, each at total opposite ends of our careers, and in life.
She was a fairly new graduate of nursing, was single and decided on this little life adventure to move up north, away from her friends, family and city life. I always admire that type of thing. Maybe because it’s the same path I took twenty-five years ago.
I had made food for her a couple of times and so in return, right before she moved away, she left two poke bowls for me at work.
I’m not exactly sure the correct term for them, like a sushi bowl but the protein in them was actually fake crab. Which I love.
Sticky rice, cucumber, carrots, crab etc. Along with it she sent a little tiny plastic cup of sauce, I’m not sure what it was either.
Well I inhaled one bowl within minutes and honestly, started on the next. Nothing has ever tasted so good in my life. I don’t know what she did to it, but I was in love.
I’ve made them since, but they don’t come close to being as tasty as hers was.
Something similar that I love is a crab sushi bake that a neighbour makes and sells on our local “underground bakery”. She’s Filipino and sells all kinds of stuff but I’m obsessed with the sushi bake. Again, it’s fake crab but my caucasian-heinz57-very uncultured-self can’t get enough. Each forkful goes into a chunk of seaweed and once I start, I can’t stop.
The other food that I love and don’t get enough of, a food from my childhood, are beet leaf buns. The leaf of a beet, wrapped around a tiny chunk of bread dough, baked in the oven and smothered in a dill/onion/cream sauce. It’s absolute heaven.
I wonder if it’s too late to plant beets?
bloom.planted.north 
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