I was just in Osoyoos for mom’s birthday lunch and the menu was exhausting but lovely.  Jerralynn, our own gourmet cook, made a whole bunch of delicious things.  We started with a goat cheese terrine which tasted as good as it looked.  It was made with dill, chives and dried fruit, and spread on home made croustinis.

Then she’d made homemade cream of tomato soup, using roasted tomatoes, and she topped the individual ramekins with pastry then baked them.  For the main course Jerralynn fried bacon, then braised Savoy cabbage in the fat.  In the meantime she’d made an herb rub which she put on salmon fillets and then they were baked in the oven.

The salmon was served on the braised cabbage which contained bits of bacon.  For dessert she’d made tres leches cake, which is made with a can of sweetened condensed milk, regular canned milk and heavy cream.  First you bake the cake, then the milks are poured on and soak in so the texture is almost pudding-like.

Luke had surprised us by coming home from Saskatchewan for the weekend, so he and Nicky were both at their gramma’s 88th birthday party.  The mayor of Osyoos and his wife were there, as well as Major General Lise Mathieu who’s retired there.  Mom doesn’t like to slum on her birthday.

And now I’m back at home and with spring around the corner the yard looks like Hell from the winter.  I need to get out there and start to clean up the pine needles and do general cutting back of all dead things.  I just don’t want to due to laziness.

I went to Fabricland and felt overwhelmed, couldn’t buy a pattern or fabric, and left feeling defeated.  However I went on-line and looked at patterns there, and may be able to persevere long enough to order one that way.  I have no idea how that’ll work as I think you print it yourself.

But then that’ll likely end up with other projects, half done, and thrown into a corner.  I may need to do something a bit more practical like paint all the ugly areas in this old house.  But then I think about starting to empty a room and taping it and feel sick.

I did manage to drop Okanagan Harvest cakes at Terwilligers in Penticton, and I took samples to the owner of Indie Lulu on Main Street of Osoyoos.  Both are gift shops where people get a lot of individual attention, so those are the best places for my product.

I was at the post office the other day and a nice clerk who’s a regular customer ordered a fruitcake.  When I arrived she said, “You don’t happen to have fruitcakes in the car do you?”  She needed one badly, so I said I’d drop one off to her.

I need about 499 other people like that, who are like mom, and have developed a yen for fruitcake no matter the season.  Then I could just stay in my lazy rut, doing very little except dropping off orders.

But soon enough, it’d be time to bake again, and then I’d be in another resistant state, not wanting to do that, either.