Category — Family

One of the things that I always love about visiting my parents in the summer is getting to eat my mother’s fresh fruit flans. When I went back to my parents place recently, strawberries were just starting to get ripe so my mom put together her patented German Erdeertorte for us.

The basic recipe for a torte or flan is to make the flan base, then fill it up with fresh fruit, and optionally cover the fruit with a glaze. My mom used a pear juice cornstarch glaze on her particular flan which turned out quite nicely.

What I love most about my mother’s torte is eating them a few days after they are made, after the juices from the fruit has seeped into the flan a bit, and made it a bit mushy. I know most people hate this, but for me this is heaven.

On my way home from my parents I picked up 2 flats of strawberries from my favorite farm in the valley, Zelaney Farms. I had to crank my air conditioning the whole drive home just to make sure the strawberries stayed cool. The day after getting home I went to work on putting together my own version of my mother’s erdbeertorte.

The flan I created was a bit different than my mothers. It turned out a little more solid, and a bit skinnier. Here is my flan recipe:

5 eggs
3/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
3/4 cups soft butter
pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Start by mixing the eggs in a stand mixer until they become frothy. Then slowly mix in the sugar and vanilla. When the sugar is fully mixed in, add the butter and mix until creamed. Finally sift in the flour, salt and baking powder and fold into the mixture and fully mixed. Grease an 11″ flan pan, and sprinkle with white breadcrumbs. Pour the batter into the plan plan and bake for 12-15 minutes until the flan is a nice golden brown. Let cool on a wire rack.

Once the flan has cooled you can load it up with fruit. I went a little overboard with the number of strawberries I put on my flan, mainly because I had so many. Finally you will want to cover your fruit with a glaze. I made a lychee/strawberry glaze. Basically I mixed 1/2 cup lychee juice, with 1/2 cup strawberry juice from my cut strawberries. Added 3 tablespoons of cornstarch and 3 tablespoons of gelatin. Heated the mixture until it became nice and thick. I let the mixture cool briefly before carefully spooning it over the strawberries. The glaze turned out really nice. It had hints of lychee, yet was not too overpowering of the strawberries.

Of course no German Erdbeertorte should be eating without lots of Schlagsahne (whipping cream). Overall I am happy with the results of my flan. Probably not as good as my Mom’s, but still pretty delicious.

During my time back in Fauquier I made a day trip with my nephew Mateo to Vernon to visit my brother Michael and his family. It was a really nice summer day, so Mike decided to take out his boat on Kalamalka Lake to do a little wakeboarding, and just enjoy they hot summer day.

Here are a bunch of photos I took during the day. First up was Mateo who had never wakeboarded before. He was up on his first try!

Next up was Kalin. He started off on a wake skate, goofed around on that for a while then switched to the wakeboard.

My sister in law Angie and Kalin’s friend Johnny also went for a board. I went too, but nobody remembered to take any pictures of me. Maybe it was for the better!

However it was my brother Mike who showed us all how it is done.

After we all got a little wakeboarding in we got a little silly. We put Kalin in the dry-suit and filled it up with air so that he would float on the water. We then pulled him behind the boat!

The rest of the day we spent cruising around the lake enjoying the sunshine. Kelsie (Mike & Angie’s dog) was sure enjoying it.

It was a great way to spend the day, as it is always fun hanging out with Mike and Angie.

Wild mushroom picking, specifically the pine mushroom (Matsutake) is something of an event back in the Kootenays. Since pine mushrooms are such a lucrative crop, you will find many different people out picking. Whether it is someone with a job just out to get a bit of extra spending money, or a student trying to save up for his first car, or even a retiree, you are likely to find them out in the bush come September. For as long as I can remember my mom has been one of the most religious pickers in the area. So this Thanksgiving at the tail end of the pine mushroom season, I went out in the bush with my mom for a short picking session.

My mom has been picking in the same location for the last 20+ years. Actually I think most of the Fauquier community picks at this one location. So during the pine mushroom season, you are almost more likely to run into your neighbor in the bush, than you are on the streets of Fauquier!

So what makes pine mushrooms so special? Well they are a bit a delicacy in Japan, and are sold at extremely high prices. They are also a mushroom that is near impossible to farm. Pine mushrooms form a symbiotic relationship with the trees in the forest through a network of mycelia in the forest floor. So it is very important when picking that when you pick the mushroom you take care not to damage the ground of the mycelia when you dig out the mushroom. Pine mushrooms are also a difficult mushroom to find. Largely because they often grow below the forest floor. Often times you might only seem a glimmer of white, or even just a bump. Really good pickers like my mother, almost have a sixth sense when it comes to picking.

It is important when picking pine mushrooms to know what they look like. There are many different mushrooms in the forest, many of which that are highly poisonous. Several of these mushrooms tend to resemble the pine mushroom to the untrained eye. So how do you tell a pine mushroom? Well a young pine mushroom, called a button, will be fully contained without a detached “hat”. Somewhat resembling a lightbulb.

Pine mushrooms are creamy white in color, and generally found barely above the surface of the forest floor. As a pine mushroom grows older the outside of the hat begins to detach from the mushroom stem, and eventually when fully matured the mushroom will look like a table top.

It is important when picking the mushroom to be very gentle. Pine mushrooms are very fragile, and especially if you wish to sell the mushrooms, you will want to make sure the mushroom stays in excellent condition. So to begin, start by slowly uncovering the dirt that is on top of the mushroom.

After the mushroom is uncovered, then you can use your fingers to gently dig around the stem of the mushroom until you reach the bottom of the stem. Then very gently rock the mushroom back and forth with your fingers until the mushroom becomes loose enough that it will come out of the ground.

Once you have picked the mushroom it is extremely important to cover up the hole it came out of, to protect the mycelia, and promote future growth. If the mushroom’s “hat” is already open, before closing the hole you can tap the top of the mushroom to knock the spores back into the hole. This is said to also promote future growth of mushrooms. Once the whole is closed you are done and can continue to look for more mushrooms. Be sure to look around where you found the mushroom as well, as pine mushrooms often grow in bunches. To protect your mushrooms it is best to carry them in a cloth bag, as plastic bags tend to make the mushrooms age quicker after they have been picked.

It was really nice to get out into the bush with my mom this Thanksgiving and take part in a bit of tradition. The excitement of the hunt, and getting to explore the forest makes mushroom picking a fun activity, and getting paid at the end of the day is icing on the cake.

Here are a few additional photos I took out in the forest of some other mushrooms. Be sure to leave these ones alone, as I am pretty sure none of them are edible.