Most days, I tend to eat mainly raw fresh fruit and vegetables. However, when I received an invitation from one of my best friends to come over for dinner, I just couldn’t resist eating some old fashioned cooked food!
She did the most fantastic thing for me – surprised me with her specialty, blueberry duff (also known as blueberry grunt). The last time I would have had it was over eight years ago, as I refuse to eat it from anyone but her. Let me describe what you’re about to see:
This dish is a basic cake-like dough that’s cooked and simmered in a blueberry sauce. Blueberries are fresh, cake is made not from recipe, but by her ability to throw ingredients together, like our mothers and grandmothers use to do. After five short minutes (I savoured every bite, but I’m sure I also inhaled it too!), this is my bowl:
I’ve gotta tell you… Eating this cake is like a party in my mouth. It takes me back to when both of us were starting our lives in Toronto, newly imported from Nova Scotia, discovering our new city together, having nearly no money, and using our last extra dimes to piece together a batch of this comfort food. Fast forward to now, where she is a wonderful writer living in a beautiful house in the ‘burbs, and me a newly published author. So being together and sharing this dish is a time for us to reminisce, sit and be thankful for our blessings, and think about how far we’ve come… A story we’ll get to share with our families, children, and maybe even one day grandchildren.
What is your comfort food, and where do your memories take you?
