Ride Away Stigma

Some days just defy description. This Sunday was one of those.

As you may or may not be aware, a remarkable young woman named Danielle Berman has been riding across Canada to generate awareness around mental health and suicide. Her personal story is heartbreaking and she has demonstrated tremendous courage in launching her campaign. Please learn more here: http://rideawaystigma.com/.

Today was the day she came home to Dundas. It. Was. Amazing.

But first, we carved out an hour to do some digging up at Christie Lake. We are SO close to closing the loop up to the G-out.

Robert Frost: "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep..."

We cut things short in order to make it down to the Driving Park in time. As it turned out, Danielle was running a little late but no matter, the boy ran into one of his pals from pre-school and they set about doing their own bike tour.

How cute is this?

My good friend Krys was out again, as usual, supporting the community and pumping us all full of caffeine.

Work it, ladies!

The vibe at the Driving Park just kept building and once the cortege finally made it in, it was an incredible sight.

Police escort!

There she is!

I was overwhelmed by the number of other riders following her into town.

The peleton

The event itself was fantastic and if you didn't shed a tear, you weren't listening.

SRO

Of course, I eventually got hungry and luckily, there was a food truck there eager to oblige.

Polish poutine (perogies and bacon!)

After all that, we were invited to tie ribbons to a special tree if we'd been touched by suicide. As with most, we've had our brush with a life cut far too short by suicide and we helped the boy tie our ribbon. You do the best you can to brush away the tears as they roll down your cheeks.

Once we made it home, it was time to get down to brass tacks. Our entries to the Ancaster Fair have to be in by the 17th. Let's make some sauce!

I was inspired to make my sauce by the superlative British chef Heston Blumenthal. If you haven't yet seen his old BBC series In Search of Perfection, you should.

I strove to make every element of my pasta sauce as special as possible.

About a month ago, I made chicken stock from BBQ roasted chicken bones.

A few weeks ago, I made a huge batch of tomato sauce.

Yesterday, I smoked a pound of cremini mushrooms over open hardwood coals.

It's a big deal and I wouldn't put this much effort into a "normal' sauce. Did I mention that I'm very competitive?

Step 1 (ish): Heat a cast iron pot. Smash some garlic. Add it to a lot of good olive oil along with the smoked mushrooms. Fry until golden and remove.

Step 2: Add onions, celery, oregano, chili flakes, bay leaves, roasted red pepper juice salt and pepper. Fry for a bit to sweat the onions and release all the oils. 

Step 3; Add tomatoes, mushrooms and chicken stock. Let it sit on low heat until you get to where you want to be.

Step 4: Google "chiffonade" and do that do a lot of basil. Turn off the head and throw it in.

Step 5: Can it! (Bernardin is your friend)

It should look something like this:

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

Good luck at the fair!