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| Scenes from the “Barge” concert on Sunday, June 23rd, 2013. - Photos by Fred Schulz |
Bifocals Concert Band perform on the Barge
The Bifocals Concert Band will be performing at “Music on the Barge” Gull Lake Rotary Park, Gravenhurst on Sunday, June 30th commencing at 7:30 p.m.
The community can be justifiably proud of the Bifocals Concert Band. The group is one of the most unique musical groups in the province. Some forty strong they epitomize the dedication that musicians have toward their music. John Ayling, the ninety plus tuba player and the rest of the gang rehearse all winter at the Senior’s Centre will be bringing their musical talent to the Barge on Sunday, June 30th at 7:30 pm.
During the past few years, the band has been spending a lot of time learning to play different styles of music and this year Conductor Neil Barlow has introduced them to one of his favorite groups, the Tijuana Brass. Two of their most famous numbers, The Mexican Shuffle and Spanish Flea will be featured as part of a program which includes highlights from Kiss Me Kate, Hello Dolly as well as the ever popular Theme from New York New York and the usual rousing marches that are the backbone of all concert bands.
Much of the success the band has experienced in the past few years is due solely to the enthusiasm and consummate musical ability of their Conductor Neil Barlow. Neil, with his patience, sense of humour and musical sensitivity has greatly enhanced the musical skills of each player.
Don’t miss our very own Bifocals Concert Band at “Music on the Barge” Gull Lake Rotary Park , Gravenhurst on Sunday, June 30th commencing at 7:30 p.m. The concert will be cancelled and not relocate to another venue in the event of inclement weather, rain or lightning for the safety of the audience and the performers.
Note: By Monday, July 1st our new Cookery Nookery will be open. It has taken eight months to get this far, which is to be considered "a work in progress". We are moving in our personal collection this weekend and this will include binders of handwritten recipes we've been collecting for many years. We must confess that this was a much larger task than we had imagined back in December when we hatched this cookery resource proposal. We hope in the future that it will occupy one large room in our present antique shop, in the former Muskoka Theatre building on Muskoka Road here in Gravenhurst. We are always interested in acquiring cook book collections and will gladly take any amount of handwritten recipes you might like to pass on to a good home.
We have been offered a number of small collections from estates so far. When we are offered these estate donations we have a special book they are recorded into as an archives resource and credit is given to the kitchen of the former owner. We think this provenance is important to keep with our expanding cookery archives which we will share with all those who are interested. Much more to come on our progress at the brand new Cookery Nookery.
The story below is about my father, the sailor cook who loved his cookbook collection and sharing recipes with friends, neighbors and family. To start off Suzanne's new business, we're going to borrow some family stories with a kitchen theme. More to come.
THE SAILOR COOK I CAME TO KNOW
My father loved to cook. He was, as my mother used to call him, her "Jack Tar," and an "Old Salt," because he had been a sailor during the war.
Indeed, he was, by all definition, a tough sailor-kind, who had served in the North Atlantic Squadron, as an anti-aircraft gunner. on the Royal Canadian Navy ship Coaticook, during the Second World War. Born in Oakville, Ontario, but residing from a young age, in Toronto's Cabbagetown, until he signed up to serve his country, my father's mainstay over his working life, was as a manager in the lumber industry. First in Hamilton, and then in Bracebridge, Ontario. Ed enjoyed his years in the lumber trade, and had begun early in life, working with his father-in-law, Stan, and his brother-in-law, Carmen, at a development business in Toronto, owned then by Paul Hellyer, the soon to be Minister of National Defense.
Ed loved to have a social drink after work, with his chums, over at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch, in Bracebridge. He had smashed his knuckles on chins many times, while on ship, or most likely during shore-leave; or at other watering holes, when someone bandied an insult, of one kind or another in his general direction. If someone made a comment about my mother, God forbid, the tables and chairs would be airborne. He was Irish enough to be the "boxer who never hit the mat," gentle enough to be a good father. Earlier in life, he had been a rather accomplished hockey player, who had been recruited to play international hockey, in Scotland I believe. And he was a well known fastball pitcher in Toronto. He decided to remain in Toronto while some of his mates went to play hockey overseas, and the last game I saw my dad pitch was in a mens fastball league game, in Burlington, Ontario in the early 1960's.
It wouldn’t be much of a stretch, to say I came from a male dominated household. My mother Merle, while a tough lady, who had many accomplishments in the banking industry, was both a good mother and kept house with the same pride, as her mother Blanche Jackson, had maintained the family home in Toronto. Like many kids in the post war period, home life was ever-more important, and even though we lived modestly in an apartment on Harris Crescent, in Burlington, I was nicely spoiled by their interest in giving me.....what they hadn’t enjoyed in their own respective childhoods. From early photographs, especially at Christmas, I did okay in the toy department.
What came as quite a shock to me initially shouldn’t have. Enlightenment came much later in life, about sharing of household responsibilities. My wife Suzanne might question just how enlightened! Actually I went as far non-traditionally, with my own young family, when I became a full-fledged "Mr. Mom," when my wife went back to her teaching job, after our sons’ respective arrivals. My father never really became all that enlightened about household chores, but he found enjoyment in the kitchen.
When my father Ed (Edward) began taking more control over Sunday dinners, I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Merle’s role in the kitchen through the week didn’t change; she looked after the meal grind from Monday to Saturday. I don’t know where his passion for cooking came from but it had fully matured by retirement, and my mother was delighted. What began as Sunday meal preparation, morphed into a seven-day-a-week culinary protocol. It was his amazing Yorkshire puddings and gravy that won me over as a kid, and what kept me wandering by their place on Sunday afternoons, long after I had moved out, hoping for an invitation. There was always lots of food in the Currie kitchen. As my mother was on a restricted, low-sodium diet, and had problems with her gall-bladder and hiatus-hernia, I ate the menu items that Merle couldn’t, so my dad was always glad I showed up to try his latest recipes.
When my wife, Suzanne and I, began preliminary work, to develop an archives, and promote the preservation and collecting of "handwritten recipes," Ed offered a great deal of reference assistance, and showed me many scrap pieces of paper, and some others scribbled onto journal pages, and the inside covers of published cookbooks, that he had penned since those roast beef and Yorkshire days back in the early 1960's. He had shared many recipes with his other culinary arts friends, everything from making the perfect pickled pig’s feet, pickled eggs, dill pickles, chutney, chili sauce, spaghetti sauces, fabulous full-course dinners and desserts, and the list goes on. When we had to pack up his apartment, after his passing, some years ago, we found a huge collection of cookbooks stored in cupboards and closets. I have spent many enjoyable hours, despite the sentimental melancholy of the collection, sorting through some of his most important keepsake recipes, many from his own hand. There are of course handwritten recipes given to him by his apartment building chums, who were fascinated by this former naval gunner/ lumberman’s passion for good food.
I asked my mother, one day, if she was jealous about Ed’s takeover of the kitchen. "Not at all..." she fired back, letting me know that I shouldn’t ever think of rocking the boat, with a situation so wonderfully seaworthy, as a man taking more responsibility in the kitchen. Her only complaint was that he often cooked things that were too spicy or too rich for her stomach to handle but it was a minor objection. His complaint of course, was that she was simply too fussy, and could handle more than she would admit. I was there to mediate. I recall that during the period of the late 1970's and early 80's, it was Ed’s kitchen magic that kept me fueled. As a lowly paid reporter I sure benefitted from his desire to cook for others.
He didn’t cook in a state of the art kitchen. It was small and very much run of the mill. Nothing special. Everything special was contained in those handwritten recipes, clumsily stuck and folded inside the many volumes of cookbooks, he got as gifts every birthday and Christmas from his family. He used the published recipes to develop a framework for a dish but he would add ingredients he fancied, and ones he thought we did too. Hence the handwritten versions he used, that while not entirely original, had been adapted to his and our taste.
The funniest cookery story I have of my father, dated back to our first days living in Bracebridge, Ontario. We had just moved from Burlington, Ontario, to the mid-Muskoka community, where my father had accepted a job with Shier’s Lumber; a legendary name here in the logging industry for many decades. Shortly after we arrived however, my father got into a dispute with the owner, and quit on the spur of the moment. What made it a tad more complicated, is that we were living then, in a company-owned house up on the extension of Toronto Street. While we were given time to pack-up, we didn’t have much in the way of financial resources to survive. While my mother had found work at a local bank, Ed, when he wasn’t trying to hustle up another job, did try his best to be a creative cook on a tight budget. We have laughed at it many times since but he did have one major folly; a recipe someone had given him for, get this, "peanut butter potatoes."
These were baked potatoes, scooped from the skins, mixed with peanut butter (crunchy to make matters worse), put back in the skins and baked again. My mother and I tried to be brave but it just didn’t fly. At first he did seem to a little hurt by the fact we couldn’t swallow the concoction but joined us for a chuckle later on that evening. Whether it had come from his Cabbagetown roots, (Toronto) or not, we never found out. We don’t mean to suggest that this wouldn’t be fine for some folks, just not us! Ed’s attempt to stretch the food resources cost us some potatoes and peanut butter that first winter but gave us a longstanding good humor, about culinary trial and error that would last literally a lifetime.
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