Today’s post is the 7th of “I eat, I read, I watch,” my biweekly column highlighting one of my solo dinners and my reading or Netflix accompaniments. Please treat yourself well at mealtime too. Don’t just eat alone - dine solo! You’re worth it. And it’s not hard to do. Missed the earlier instalments? Click #1 (pork chop & green beans), #2 (trout & veg), #3 (shrimp pepper bisque), #4 (rice & peas with coleslaw), #5 (ramen), and #6 (take-out burger).

I eat: Duck Sausages

Instagram followers will know that I frequent King Cole Ducks, Ontario’s principal producer of ducks and duck products. It was a pandemic discovery - a 1/2 day trip out of the city to a smallish store where I could mask and get a range of things all in one place. I’ve kept it on my go-to list of activities when I feel like a getaway but need to have it have purpose. Driving for the sake of driving no longer feels right in a changing climate.

So my fridge is often stocked with Korean duck pizza, duck legs, smoke duck breast, and even, once in a while, duck giblets - hearts, gizzards and the like. Once I made the mistake of duck tongues. I’ll give it a miss.

Tonight felt like a duck sausage evening. I began with thinly slicing half a large red onion and a few baby potatoes and getting them going in the cast iron pan in some olive oil with a little S&P.

Then I preheated the broiler to 350F and got the sausages in for a time. I don’t know how long. Probably about 15 minutes - long enough for the onions to pretty much caramelize. I turned the sausages once to get the other side crisped up.

Then I made a little salad of red pepper, zucchini, and sliced cremini mushrooms in a store-bought sesame dressing. All plated with a dollop of horseradish mustard. With a glass of ginger Kombucha? Nothing better.

I prepared this while talking to a friend on the phone. Much gratitude to the person who convinced me to spend the money on AirPods! Many meals - and walks and laundry and and and - have been made more enjoyable with a friend accompanying me on the phone.

Prep Time:   20 mins

Cost:  $  Honestly don’t know. My trips to King Cole usually leave me financially down about $100 but with lots of duck options for a few weeks

How do you feel about duck?  In the Comments below please!

I read: Everything - when I was a teen

There’s a character in Heartstopper (below) who has bucked current trends and instead of following a phone blindly everyone, he walks around reading a book. I get it - at 16, there’s just so darned much good - and bad - stuff out there to read!

As a child on a dairy farm near Wingham, three hours west of Toronto, I was often alone. Television-less by choice (my parents’, not mine), and with older siblings gone from home, I had little to do other than read. I consumed books like I consumed milk - in large quantities and indiscriminately; like milk, books were free and plentiful. My parents’ collection was full of English classics, my sisters left their more modern fare for me, and the library was at my disposal. I could talk just as easily about Pooh sticks or Avonlea as I could about Madame Defarge, Frodo Baggins, or the White Oaks of Jalna. It all fed the same need to explore other worlds.

I won a summer reading contest at the library when I was 10, and was disappointed the prize was a kids’ book.  “Dick Wittington’s cat?” I said with disgust.  Hadn’t the librarians seen the stuff I was reading?  

In grade 8, my French teacher snatched a book from my desk, saying accusingly, “Do your parents know you’re reading this?”  With the self-righteousness of a 13 year old, I assured her they did.  She backtracked quickly, saying, “Can I read it when you’re done?”  It was Jacqueline Susann’s best-selling and very adult novel, “Valley of the Dolls.”  

If we hadn’t been TV-less, I know I would have spent my time vegging in front of cartoons or Love Boat like my contemporaries. I would have missed out.

What did you read as a kid? Add it to the Comments below.

I watch: Heartstopper

If I had to guess, I’d say Netflix thinks I’m a teenager. Definitely gay. Probably trans and biracial. Oh and of course, living in England. At least the stuff I get fed in the Netflix recommendations is all about coming of age as someone who doesn’t quite fit the mold. It works for me - frankly, I’m just not that interested in stories about middle-aged cisgender straight women living in Toronto. Been there, doing that.

Heartstopper is a good quality UK-based coming-of-age story about a bunch of kids who are fluid in a bunch of ways. There is a middle-aged cisgender straight female character played by everyone’s favourite UK actor, Olivia Coleman, amping up the palatability considerably. But even without her, it’s worth watching.

It occurs to me that lots of people think that significant personal growth is reserved for the young. As you may have gathered, I’m not one of those people. Some of my happiest times in life where when I shook up my personal snow-globe and watched the white stuff land. The beauty of the snow-globe analogy is that it’s a very controlled environment - white stuff stays inside, it doesn’t fly wildly around the room. I like that kind of well-planned and contained change. Try it!

What does your watching algorithm produce? In the Comments below please!

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