Life at the Murphy house

It's very important to constantly emphasize that my family is a group of seriously devoted, disciplined, and passionate individuals. This results in an extremely high energy level at home that can be a rather constant humming, if not hysterical buzz. But as soon as I realized how wonderful it is to be part of such a group, and that we're not a bunch of crazy stressed out people doing more bad to our health than good, I found some inner peace and have consequently thrown myself even more enthusiastically into this great activity called living. Of course one must not take things to far to the extreme (ahem), and in order to remedy the fatigue that comes from such a high-paced life style, we must once and a while sit down. Luckily, we find ourselves in the glorious situation where three times, if not more per day, we must feed ourselves. And so from morning until night, we devote ourselves to eating and feasting well. But like all things we do, it is of course not an affair we take lightly....

So here we go, here's a small insight to the culinary artistry I consumed, created and was exposed to while recently in Victoria.

To celebrate my graduation from university, Katherine made a cake.

She's quite the talented lady when it comes to decorative art of baking. I walked into the kitchen and there she was, with a wooden spoon jammed under our heavy cutting board, the well-oiled handle sticking out over the edge of the counter, pot of melted sugar in one hand, a spoon in the other, newspaper on the floor to catch the drips, apron on, just lacadaisically drizzling the melted sugar back and forth in such a way that it formed long wispy strands over the handle (oil the handle first so you can get it off later). How she then got this golden birds nest onto the sourdough chocolate cake covered in fudge, I don't know. All I know is that she's a genius.

For dinner we had:

Filo wrapped halibut with spinach and a lemon caper sauce (Thank you Eric Akis - food writer for the Times Colonist in Victoria)

Asparagus with olive oil and vinegar (sorry no photo: imagination required)

and

Amaranth soufflé (Thank you Heidi Swanson of www.101cookbooks.com)


It was an evening to be remembered, filled with delicious wine, champagne even I believe, and extremely good company. My dear friends Fabienne and Rosanne were able to be there and since they are practically like family, they fit right in. I am so grateful that I have such highly esteemed individuals in my life, even if most of them live quite far away. However, I'm beginning to find that in Montreal there are these sorts of food-loving people as well. And so, my journey continues.

-murph