Happy family day! Weird holiday yes? Especially as it comes the day after love day. Do we really need days in our calendar to remind us to feel love, express love and to cherish our family? Name the holidays whatever you like- family doesn’t come from a day off of work, or blood relations with any number of people you might have nothing to do with if you weren’t related. Family, like love, is just a feeling.
Last week, I had dinner with this amazing family of ladies.
This is Catherine Farquharson, photographer extra-oridnaire! You’ve met her before here. Catherine is the talent behind that photo up there in my site masthead and Catherine is a brave woman. She had me over for dinner. We actually had a double date of sorts. Along came my sweet friend, Vanessa Farquharson (book author and journalist and just happens to have the same last name as Catherine… and they kind of look alike) and also in attendance was Catherine’s best friend Hilary Doyle (Reporter for the Business News Network, and braved a faced off with David Suzuki).
Catherine had us over for dinner in a little Julia eats Julie’s cooking type deal. See- Catherine was cooking for me, using all of my recipes. When we walked in the door, Catherine proclaimed that this was a ridiculous idea and that it was the equivalent of my deciding I would photograph her next set of head shots.
Catherine did her research and given that she read through past posts in a short amount of time, she knows a whole lot about me. She knows that I love Brussel’s sprouts the most and so she made us Brussels’ sprouts with pine nuts. Awesome. She went back to the last 5 Days Vegan challenge blog posts and pulled out the delicious recipe for Sweet Potato and Buckwheat Burgers. She even accompanied it with almond dipping sauce! She steamed some artichokes, made some easy tortilla pizzas and grilled some peppers to make it all look beautiful!
And it was awesome-town. Not just the food but the company too. We talked about men, sex, work, love and running away to huts in the Mexican jungle. For the night, we were the best family there ever was- without the obligations and politics. Family was the feeling and that has nothing to do with being related.
Once the cooking was done, Catherine couldn’t help but pick up my camera to document that it was a lot of work preparing this family dinner…
Dinner really was deliciously wonderful. Food and company wholly included. But why aren’t there any pictures of us hot ladies? Because… well, sometimes when you are hanging with family, you don’t really worry about how you look. Family doesn’t judge such things, chosen family anyway. My real family will be the first the tell me when I am having a bad face day. And I love them for that too.
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Hahaha, I love Hilary’s face-off with David Suzuki! “Invest in a web-cam, David.” Amazing. Also loved Catherine’s dinner — and while it was a lot of prep work, she did make about five different things, and I think she’d agree it was worth it.
It took me a while to read the rest of the article — the first photo scared me so much!
Thank your lucky stars you aren’t actually related to me!!!
Thanks for writing this, Meghan. This is like the desert!!
It’s a good thing we don’t need a holiday to remind us to cherish family, as we don’t get Family Day here in BC. Though I can’t complain, I’m not working today, and, as you’ve just posted, it looks like you are.
What a wonderful way to spend an evening. Good food, good company. Hooray!
I’m guessing, since Catherine served artichokes for your Julie and Julia meal, you have cooking instructions for them somewhere on your website. Obviously I missed them. Could you redirect me please? I love artichokes, but haven’t a clue how to prepare them. Many thanks Meghan, and Happy Family Day.
Well. Since Meghan has not responded Laurie, allow me to be semi-pro and respond on Meghan’s behalf.
All I did was cut the stems off the bottom, and the spikey bits off the top. Then I boiled them. You know when they are ready when you stick a fork in the bottom and it’s relatively easy to poke.
Et voila!
Back to you, Meg.
Hmmm… Want to take over Catherine? You hold down the fort well.
Sure thing, Meghan. That is, if you don’t mind that I only talk about those 4 recipes. Over and over. It’s all I know.
Thanks Catherine. Like Meghan, you make things sound way-easy. Almost like you’re related or something.
Awesome! I went to university with Catherine – she is fabulous, and it was lovely to see these updated photos and see her rocking out in the kitchen!