We called Barb on Tuesday and arranged for her and Vic to come out on Saturday afternoon for lunch and Barb invited us to be her guests at the Royal British Columbia Museum where she volunteers. Friday morning seemed to be a good day to arrange to meet her there.
The minute the invitation was extended my mind went to what we should serve them, wanting the meal to be special but knowing that we were leaving the next day. Anyone who knows me well knows that I can get anxious about entertaining and that I am not always the best cook. The Lord seemed to be whispering in my ear "Trust Me" and so I did. I looked in the fridge and got the skeleton of what we would have and needed to use but still didn't want the meal to seem like leftovers to Vic and Barb.
Our trip to see my on-line friend Liefie provided us with the means to round out the menu and make it special with her gift of cheese, candied salmon, crackers and potato chips.
With what we had in the fridge I realized that wraps would be a perfect way to present our 'leftovers' in a fresh way and Rod kindly drove into Sooke on Thursday afternoon for these additions as well as a couple of packages of ice cream. We knew from our stay at their house that Barb enjoyed her ice cream, no matter the time of day and had tried to tempt Rod into a late night bowl with her. He resisted ;)
Friday morning found us at the museum and Barb was a wonderful hostess, accommodating my need for rest breaks and our interests in what she took us to see.
I felt strongly on Friday that before we went back to the cabin that I should contact a good friend that had worked with me through about twenty-five years of our nursing careers prior to her moving to Victoria with her husband. I hadn't seen her since the move and didn't know if I would be able to locate her but with my first attempt we were able to do this and she instantly 'demanded' that we come to her place and spend Sunday afternoon and evening after leaving the cabin. I don't think this was coincidence, neither was it coincidence that they just happened to live very close to the airport or that they would have company that weekend that was leaving on the same flight as us and that we could give a ride to the airport.
On Saturday morning, Rod and I tackled the housekeeping in the cabin and then set to work on the meal preparations. Here is where I need to confess that I have never made butternut squash soup before and that there were limited seasonings and ingredients on hand. My qualms were settled with another "Trust me" and so I set to work, starting with the chicken broth and the cubed butternut squash. To this I added some no salt seasoning, some salt and pepper, a few threads of saffron and two cinnamon sticks. I let this simmer for a bit while I made the tuna and egg salad fillings and Rod sliced up steak, tomatoes and sweet red peppers. When the squash was soft, I found an immersion blender and started blending the soup, forgetting that I had cinnamon sticks in the pot and had meant to pull them out before blending. I thought I had a disaster on my hands, once again heard the words "Trust Me" so I fished out all the pieces of the cinnamon sticks I could and then blended well again. I tasted it and it wasn't bad but I didn't trust my own tastebuds due to the chemo effect.
Vic and Barb arrived and we gave them a brief tour of the cabin and the deck area. When we sat down to lunch, I was already apologizing in advance for the soup and telling them if they didn't like it there was no requirement to eat it. I had drizzled cream into the bowls of soup and used a knife through the cream to make a leaf pattern a la Starbucks so it presented well. As for taste, the soup was amazing! Everyone had two helpings and I think they may have had more if, with Rod's second helping, he wasn't scraping the bottom of the pot. The rest of the meal seemed just as amazing and was so relaxed with Vic and Barb insisting on taking turns doing dishes between courses (the cabin had limited bowls, etc.). The admonition to 'Trust Me' was well worth taking and made everything so much more enjoyable than my own efforts would have been.
Following our meal we drove down to a hiking trail at Sandcut Beach and spent about an hour exploring the trail and the beach and talking non-stop (OK, that was me and I blame the steroids, Barb was very patient to listen ;)
On Sunday we did our final clean-up of the cabin and said a sad farewell to this wonderful place. On the way into Victoria Rod stopped to allow me to take one last picture, then we stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant for salads before we made our way to Diane's.
Diane and her husband have a beautiful place right on the ocean with incredible land-scaping and the only way I can describe her home is 'show-home'. It is so interesting how friendships can be, even though we hadn't seen each other for so long we were able to pick right up where we had left off and share the goings on of our lives and catch each other up.
Amazing trip, amazing people, amazing God.
Here is a video that I also found amazing and has to do with a subject near and dear to my heart - Autism and helping people with autism discover their potential and use this potential to bless others. Enjoy and take care.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX-xToQI34I
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