Inn On The Cove, Saint John, NB www.innonthecove.com

Ross Mavis, Chef and, with his fabulous wife Willa, owner, operator. Reproduced here with Ross’s permission. See his cook books at: www.innonthecove.com/tides_table_cookbooks.html

Crab Cakes

Best cooked in a well-seasoned cast iron frying pan with a little canola oil.

(I usually make at least a triple batch and hope and scheme for leftovers. DAC)

• 2 cups (500 ml) cooked crab meat, well drained
• 1 egg yolk 1 cup (250 ml) fresh bread crumbs3 tbsp (45 ml) flour
• 2 tsp (10 ml)Worcestershire sauce
• 4 tbsp (60 ml) mayonnaise
• 1 clove garlic (minced)
• 2 green onions (minced)
• 4 tbsp (60 ml) chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tsp (5 ml) paprika
• salt and pepper
• Canola oil for cooking

In bowl, mix crab and egg yolk. Add breadcrumbs, flour, Worcestershire sauce, mayonnaise, garlic, green onions, parsely and paprika.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.(Good luck with that. I can’t tell at this stage. DAC) Form into patties.Add canola oil to hot pan and cook until golden brown, about 2 minutes each side.

Cajun Rémoulade sauce (Ross’s recipe)

(Don’t dream of not using this. DAC)

• 1 Basic Mayonnaise (recipe follows at end)
• 2 tbsp (30 ml) grainy mustard 2 tbsp (30 ml) chopped capers½ tsp (2 ml) cayenne pepper
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) chopped fresh parsely
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) lemon juice
• 1 tbsp (15 ml) red wine vinegar
• Salt and pepper to taste (Again, good luck. DAC)

Rémoulade is a classic French sauce. This version has cayenne for heat. Add this to the basic mayonnaise recipe which follows.

Mayonnaise

• 1 egg yolk 2 tsp (10 ml) white vinegar1 tsp (5 ml) dry mustard
• 7 oz. (210 ml) canola oil
• lemon juice
• salt and pepper

Using blender, food processor or whip attachment of mixing bowl lets you make fast, easy, homemade mayonnaise. It takes a little longer and a strong arm if done by hand, but the results will be worth the effort.(So he says! Notice he doesn’t say what he does? I blend. DAC)

Whip egg yolk, vinegar and mustard. Add oil, drop by drop, whisking constantly, until emulsion is formed. You will see mixture begin to thicken and turn pale. Continue adding oil slowly, adding lemon juice when sauce becomes thick.

Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste.

Note: Ensure intact eggs (no cracks) are used to make mayonnaise.

I would rather be ashes
  than dust!
I would rather that my spark
  should burn out
  in a brilliant blaze
  than it should be stifled
  by dry rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor
  every atom of me
  in magnificent glow,
  than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man
  is to live,
  not to exist.
I shall not waste my days
  in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

— Jack London

This piece of prose looked like poetry to me so I laid it out in the format above. (I quoted this in my eulogy to my father and to Jim MacNeill)

Just because you don’t like something doesn’t give you the right to make it illegal.

If it did, there would be a provision in the Constitution banning canned peas. I really don’t like them.

Quite a number of people, especially campground owners, don’t like that motor homes park in Wal-Mart and other retail establishment parking lots. They feel that this somehow robs campground owners of their rightful due.

I don’t get it.

If there is a need for a service people have the right to offer it. Where do they get the right to prevent someone else from giving it away?

I understand that RV’s that don’t use professional campgrounds don’t contribute to services they regularly need like sewage dumping facilities, showers and the like.

Even so, like all services, the rule that applies is “Use it or lose it.” If campgrounds don’t get enough business to survive, RV owners will lose the services such operators offer.

Mind you, I doubt it would be long before truck stops would be offering sewage disposal. After all, RV’s use a lot of gasoline.

We’re all entitled to feel sorry for campground owners facing a decline in RV tourism and competition from alternative sources of service. They’re entitled to feel sorry for themselves.

They’re not entitled to assume a monopoly.

Ingredients:

• ¼ lb. butter
• 3 egg yolks
• ½ tspn dry mustard
• 2 or 3 tblspns lemon juice
• 1/8 tspn salt
• Several dashes of Tobasco sauce

Place all ingredients except the butter into the blender. Blend at medium speed for a few seconds.

Melt the butter in a saucepan or microwave until hot and bubbling but not browning.

Let cool for a few seconds to avoid cooking the egg yolks when blending.

Start the blender and gradually add the melted butter in a thin stream and blend until sauce turns a light yellow and is as thick as you like it. I like it thick enough that a spoon would stand up in it.

Ta da! Toute fini!

(I mainly put this on Eggs Benjamin which is just Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon instead of ham. DAC)

I HAVE seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills

Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain:

I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils,

Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.

I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,

And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships;

But the loveliest thing of beauty God ever has shown to me,

Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.

– John Masefield

Here is my favourite, by far, of two poems with the same name.

The second one follows the first and is, in my opinion, also very good.

To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence

I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Or metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?

How shall we conquer? Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Maeonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago.

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you by the hand,
I send my soul through time and space
To greet you. You will understand.

– James Elroy Flecker

And the second

To A Poet A Thousand Years Hence

I who am dead a thousand years
Who wrote this cribbed and broken verse,
Conveying an envoy of words
To a time and space I cannot course.

I cannot know how you may look
What sort of life you live each day;
If days and places still exist;
If you’d understand all I say.

Do wine and song still entertain?
High finance and romance pursue?
Of virtue wrestling the profane?
Are these still themes of art for you?

What shall we conquer? All seems done
Have all the words before me come?
Man’s slow decay must now be done;
Poet’s names dead to more than some.

Have you a use for all these words?
Or is this craft among those that died:
Whose echoes of our past are heard
That worn out shoes can still confide.

We may have been friends had we met,
Two fledgling poets raising brows.
Read betwixt my lines when you may,
Apprentice as I do today.

You must be born to some lost time
To comprehend my poem thus far.
We travel through, our paths entwined
And guided by the same bright star.

I’ll never set my eyes on you
And neither take your hand in mine;
I leave you with a heart that’s true:
Go tell the rest that all is fine.

— Frederick Kesner

Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly;
Their beauty shakes me who was once serene;
Straight through my heart the wound is quick and keen.

Only your word will heal the injury
To my hurt heart, while yet the wound is clean –
Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly;
Their beauty shakes me who was once serene.

Upon my word, I tell you faithfully
Through life and after death you are my queen;
For with my death the whole truth shall be seen.
Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly;
Their beauty shakes me who was once serene;
Straight through my heart the wound is quick and keen.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Every so often people have a sudden realization about themselves or life. We sometimes borrow from Christian theology and call these realizations “epiphanies.”

I was walking down the hall to let the cat out and prepare her breakfast. My knees and back were whining as they always do first thing in the morning.

It suddenly hit me that that is not something that will go away. I’d been muddling along believing that, as I get in better shape and lose some weight, the joints would get more limber again.

With age 65 waiting for me just beyond the next flip of the calendar page, I had an epiphany.

I suddenly realized that I’ve been thinking all my life that all my flaws and challenges are temporary.

I’m not fat. I’m just temporarily overweight. Yeah, for most of 40 years now. I’m not sedentary. My annual couple of months of aerobic exercise and weight training are my normal program.

My chronic obesity is not a temporary condition. My long-suffering joints won’t forgive me and shut up.

All my other lifelong challenges will probably remain challenges.

Is it possible my office is not temporarily a mess just until I get organized?

Is it possible I will always be scatterbrained and unable to match faces to names with people I’ve known all my life?

Might I never become fluent in French?

Is it possible I might never get to the bottom of that pile of books I want to read?

Might I never find a consistent, useful, golf swing?

Is it possible I’m running out of temporary?

Do we all live our lives thinking we’re in a temporary phase.

This is just until I’m old enough to drive. This is just until I’m out on my own. This is just until she realizes I deserve her. This is just until we get our bills paid off. This is just until I get promoted. This is just until the kids are on their own. This is just until the mortgage is paid. This is just until I get my pension.

Hmm. Many of them are temporary phases we do get past.

My wife Michelle says seeing all of one’s faults, flaws and obstacles as temporary is probably the difference between happiness and depression, between optimism and pessimism. Thinking (hoping) one is going to overcome each flaw may be necessary to enthusiastic participation in life.

I want to believe that so I will. I also want to believe I will improve so I’ll continue to try.

I believe it was Ring Lardner who said, “The race is not always to the swift, or the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”

My optimistic attitude may be a sucker bet.

On the other hand, negative thinking and pessimism is sucker behaviour, isn’t it? Where’s the prize for that?

We do have to make choices and take action and try.

And, yes, the thought that came to your mind when you saw the headline above is true.

One thing we can be quite confident is ultimately temporary is me.

Was it that same Ring Lardner who said “I always knew that no one lived forever but somehow I always thought there’d be an exception made in my case?”

Probably not the way to bet.

— David Cadogan

In 1972, while at the Canada Russia hockey summit in Moscow, I visited the renowned GUM department store and a Soviet version grocery supermarket.

Partly to provide full employment and partly, I suspect, to keep the masses out of mischief, the communist government made the retail experience mind crushing.

First of all, each section of the supermarket was like a separate store. Shoppers had to make separate purchases from each department.

A shopper would stand in line and work her (always her) way up to the meat counter. When her turn came, she would tell the butcher what she wanted. He would write out an invoice and hand it to her.

She would then go and stand in another line. When she got to the head of that one, she would pay the invoice and get a receipt stamped on it.

She would then work her way to the head of another line and be given her order.

Women did find ways to make the experience more efficient. They’d shop in groups with huge suitcases they could sit on. They would sit and read a book, standing up a bit when the line moved and kicking thesuitcase forward. One woman would buy the meat for the entire team. Another would do dairy. Another would do the bakery.

From then until now, Canadians have expressed shock and dismay when I tell that story.

Imagine my surprise to find a local store using the same 1970’s communist Moscow system with a twist that makes it even more frustrating.

Let’s suppose you want to buy ground spikes at the Kent building supply store. You go back to the back to a counter where you tell them what you want and they give you an invoice. You go back to the front where you pay the invoice and get a receipt.

Then, and here’s the twist, you go out into the supply yard and try to find someone to give you your ground spikes. When you do find someone not already getting an order together for someone else, he may or may not know where to find ground spikes. He usually knows someone who does and can describe him for you.

So off you go in search of the guy who knows, unless you happen across them yourself.

The people are all as helpful and friendly as they can be. The system is nauseating.

On one occasion, I did find what I had bought myself and couldn’t find anyone to take the yard copy of the invoice. I just took it and left.

So, not only does the system make you feel like you are in a weird dream, it doesn’t even work for the company.

Where is Mikhail Gorbachev now that we really need him?

–David Cadogan

One of my heroes died last week. Jack Estey died on July 4. He was 85 years old.

All of us struggle to keep our lives in balance. We want to devote the proper share of our time to career, family and friends, spiritual development, health, community and fun. I never met anyone who seemed to manage that any better than Jack.

After graduation from high school in Fredericton in 1939, he joined the Royal Bank of Canada for a year before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940. He served as a navigator, mentioned in dispatches, in WW II from 1940 to 1945.

He had a brilliant career in business rising to Executive Vice President of National Sea Products Ltd., while, at the same time becoming the president and owner of A & R Loggie Ltd., with extensive properties and interests up coastal New Brunswick.

A strong believer in enjoying life, he semi-retired to Loggieville at the age of 50. He still did more business in his spare time than most of us do in our lives. Just one of his ventures was to create and head, in 1975, the company that successfully brought cable television to the Miramichi.

He was tireless in his community service and his recreation. He was a kingpin at the Miramichi Golf & Country Club, leading the expansion of the facility from a conservative, old boys, 9-hole course to a dynamic 18-hole course where he drove the first ball in 1981. He sponsored his own golf tournament at the club.

His charity and leadership were at work everywhere from his church and community hall and water system in Loggieville to hospitals across the Maritimes and as a founding member of the Miramichi Regional Hospital Foundation. Several of his donations were for $100,000 including one to the Loggieville Centennial Park Senior Citizens Home.

The list of national, regional and local boards and councils he sat on ranges from the national Economic Council of Canada and president of the Fisheries Council of Canada to president of the Chatham Curling Club.

He scored a hole in one at the local golf club, and caught a 567 lb. tuna in Conception Bay, Newfoundland. He spent 10 days at a fisheries conference in Moscow, was all over the U.S., Caribbean and Europe on business and pleasure and spent winters in his Florida home for years.

He was a member of the Chatham Branch #3 Royal Canadian Legion with over 69 years of Legion membership. He was a past president of 252 Wing of the RCAF Association in Fredericton and long-time member of the 254 Wing in Chatham.

Every New Years Day and every Remembrance Day saw him among a group the included the commanding officer of CFB Chatham, Wilf Gorman, Vince Mitchell and George Whitty, among others, who visited the Legion, Wing and base before winding up playing cribbage at the Wing.

The list of his activities the family has only goes to 1985.

He never stopped. He was a founding member of the Miramichi Regional Hospital Foundation board, heading the committee to monitor the million dollar plus endowment investment portfolio passed on from the Friends of Miramichi Hospital.

With all of that, he always seemed to have time for anyone and everyone he met. At his funeral at Knox United Church in Loggieville, Rev. David Cleveland described him as a courtly gentleman.

He was certainly that. Along with successful, intelligent and generous, one of the most common ways people described him last week was as “down to earth.” He had a way of making anyone he spoke to feel comfortable and significant. He was also always witty.

When his daughter Carol and her husband John teased him that their house had a better view than his, he said, “Well of course it does! It has a view of my property. I spent 30 years making it a great view.”

His family and extended family have an unending list of his kindness, helpful advice and fun of their time with him. From Pass the Ace to snooker, games with him were always accompanied by laughter.

He was successful. He knew how to enjoy life. He was a model community citizen, He was constantly generous. He was a wonderful family man and friend. He was always a gentleman.

So, he was my hero and will remain an inspiration. Would that I could be a fraction of the model he was and is. If you are lucky, he is among your heroes and models too.

— David Cadogan