My fabulous vacation to the Howard’s Deer Lake in Canada is coming to a close. On one hand, I hate to be leaving so soon, but on the other, I can’t wait to get home to my kitties. That sounds like crazy-cat lady talk, I know, but I hate leaving them home alone for so long.

How about I share images from my trip in today’s post?

You’d like that! Yay, here we go.

Seriously, this is the only photo I really need to post. So GORGEOUS! Kim woke up early last Friday morning and caught the full moon over Deer Lake. Absolutely Stunning!

We visited a variety of markets during my visit, here are my favorite images.

On another day we drove into Montreal and visited the Marché Jean-Talon.

After one afternoon of being out for the morning, we came home to find that two birds had flown into the sliding glass doors along the back of the house.

Ten years with 2,037 posts! That is nearly 204 posts per year – and yes, I know, that calculation required the most basic and easy math. But that adds up to a big bunch of typing, talking, thoughts, cooking, memories, recipes, stories and photographs. I believe this occasion is worthy of a contest! Before I share with you exactly what it is that you have a chance to win and how you can win it, how about a few fun facts from the last 10 years?

Although I’ve had my blog since August 16, 2009, the platform I have it on, WordPress, reset the statistics in April 2013. I’m not sure how or why that happened but I no longer have the stats from August 2009 through March 2013.

With that in mind, here are the stats I have for LesPetites Gourmettes.com:

The most visited post: February 3, 2014

The recipe in that post is for Homemade San Tung “Dry-Fried” Chicken Wings. These are the absolutely scrumptious and addicting wings from San Tung Restaurant which is in the Outer Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco. That is where my darling daughter, Marissa, first lived in when she moved away after college.

• Total comments: 5,782 comments left by you wonderful people. Thank you for each and every one! Comments are what keep me motivated to keep on blogging.

• The most commented-on post: “Lost” from 2011 This post is about the death of my younger brother, Andy. Thank you for all the kindness, compassion and comfort you provided to me during not only that sad time but throughout the ups and downs of life that I’ve shared here.
• The person who has commented the most: Marissa <3
• The most visited year: 2015
• The most visited month: March 2015

OK, enough with the stats, let’s get to what we’re all here for … CONTEST TIME!

PRIZE: Five (5) Lucky entrants will join me for a Harmony Board Class. You will learn all the tips and tricks on how a Harmony Board is made. Plus each winner will make a mini-board of her/his own to take home and share, or not share, this is a judgment-free zone!

Tomorrow is the 10th birthday/blogiversary of LesPetitesGourmettes.com. There will be a contest. So you really should come back and see what you could win!

In the meantime, I have a couple of random things to share. I am currently in Canada with Kim at the Howard family compound known as Deer Lake. It is situated between Ottowa and Montreal in the Province of Quebec. This time we flew into Montreal. The large structure on the left in the photo above is the Olympic Stadium from the summer games of 1976.

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I would show you what I did with the bits and pieces of fruit, veggies, and cheese that were in my refrigerator before I left town. Here is a peek inside my carry-on bag.

We had to change planes in Minneapolis, so we found a little lounge table and chairs in the airport and put together our own mini-size travel Harmony Boards to enjoy on the second leg of our flight.

Guess what? While I was in Canada throughout the middle of August, I forgot all about my own blogiversary. I know! That’s crazy talk. It’s like forgetting to celebrate my own birthday, and I love my birthday! But forget it,  I did. August 16th was my 9th Blogiversary. I’ll have to make up for it next year when this blog has been around for a decade.

Speaking of my Canada trip, I want to wrap up a few things I’ve yet to tell you about. And then I want to share with you something I totally kicked butt at yesterday. The images above are of a couple of the fabulous vintage items in the Howard’s Canadian kitchen. Love the breadbox (more on what is in there later) and adore the cookie jar.

Although I did most of the cooking for Kim, Debby, and myself, Kim did make a yummy spatchcock chicken. I don’t recall what cookbook the recipe came from but it was delicious. The green goddess marinade is blended in the food processor. The recipe didn’t call for the chicken to be spatchcocked (which simply means poultry that is split open or butterflied) but that is what Kim did with the whole organic chicken she purchased.

Here it is going into the oven to roast.

It was delicious!

My favorite thing Kim made though was her Curry Lentil Soup. I need to get that recipe and post it here because… YUM!

The other items Kim purchased were the best peaches, corn, and tomatoes I’ve had in my life! I am not exaggerating!

I had to control myself from eating every last one of these perfect Ontario pêches. This was the second pack we bought, so maybe I did eat an entire package myself.

And the pink Ottawa tomatoes, it was as if I hadn’t eaten a real tomato before. But that’s not all. Things got really real when Paul arrived.

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Ripe avocados were an incredible challenge to find in Quebec. On the day we arrived, Monday the 13^th, we went to the grocery store directly from the airport. We bought 8 avocados and they were rock hard. Kim also bought 3 bananas.

Did you know that the way to speed up the ripening of an avocado is to put it in a brown paper bag with a banana?

Yep, ripe bananas release ethylene, the hormone that triggers ripening in mature fruit, so placing one in a closed paper bag with your under-ripe avocados will speed up the process.

At least it does in AZ, not so much in Canada. When I left on Tuesday morning, (8/21) those darn avocados were still hard as rocks!

Thankfully, we went to the farmer’s market in Ottawa mid-week and found 6 ripe avocados. I used 2 of them for this recipe and the other four in the guacamole I posted yesterday. Unfortunately, I forgot to pick up purple leaf lettuce, so please use your imagination and pretend it’s there, mixed in the butter lettuce.

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I found the recipe for this next dish on Food52 and made it for Paul’s “Welcome to the Lake” dinner on Saturday night. It is a delicious and stunningly beautiful dish.

I added and omitted a few ingredients from the original recipe. In the photos, you’ll see 2 zucchini, 2 yellow squash, and 2 eggplants, but that was too much for the baking dish, so in the recipe, I say to use one of each.

Don’t worry, we didn’t let those go to waste. I spread the excess on a sheet pan, seasoned and baked them off for another meal.

We picked up Paul at Montreal-Pierre E Trudeau International Airport at around 10:30 am.

We then drove to Old Montreal, parked, and walked about a mile and a half to Schwartz’s for their famous smoked meat sandwiches.

That sandwich was just as spectacular as I remembered from when I visited in October, 2010.

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I’m still in Quebec at Kim and Paul’s dreamy lake house. I haven’t been posting regularly because, well, I’m on vacation and because I’ve been obsessed with reading a book I found on the shelves here. I finished All The Light We Cannot See yesterday afternoon. My dreams have been filled with it since the day I picked it up and last night was no exception. Many of you have probably already read it since it came out nearly four years ago. I’m usually behind the curve when it comes to books. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a new read.

Now that I have my nose out of the book and my head out of the clouds, here is the salad recipe I promised you last week. Oh, and there is a mouse update at the bottom of this post.

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I know I said I’d post the recipe for the salad we ate the night before last, and I promise to get to that soon, but we had such a fun day yesterday, that I’d rather talk about that for now.

It was cloudy and foggy over the lake when I awoke. Then the thunder rolled in and the rain began. The lake house was so cozy and dark, it felt like fall for a moment and I was in heaven. Summer drags on when you live in the desert, so even a few moments of what feels like fall is a complete joy.

Our morning plans to paddle board was put on hold. Kim knows how and Debby and I were eager to learn.

photo credit: Pinterest

Oh, before I go any further, I should mention that I was a bit tentative about being the first person to get up and leave my room. And for good reason, the first night here we saw that we had another resident in the house with us. A mouse. Granted, he was little and even, dare I say, cute. We tried to shoo him out the door with a broom but he wasn’t having any of that. Kim set out a no-kill trap but it didn’t work. We saw him again the next night, Debby set four mousetraps with peanut butter and placed them around the kitchen. So, the first person up was going to have to deal with a dead mouse and I didn’t want that to be me.

But I was getting sore from sitting in bed and typing my post. I had to get up so I could sit at the table to type. I quietly crept out and peeked around the corner … no mouse. All the peanut butter was gone but thankfully, no smashed mouse.

Yay for me. Yay for the mouse. But then again, we still have a mouse in the house, so no bueno!

The rain stopped. Kim and I went running errands and grocery shopping in the little town of Ripon. Two of the things at the top of our list were more mousetraps and Snicker’s bars, which will hopefully work better than the peanut butter. Debby stayed behind to read and hold down the fort.

When we returned, Kim taught us to stand-up paddleboarding (SUP). She may also have given us a short lecture on the details of SUP. Though practically, it wasn’t that easy to paddle. For me, the hardest part was going from the kneeling stage to the standing stage. I had to do Lamaze-style deep breathing and talk myself into being brave and just doing it.

After much hesitation and nearly psyching myself out, I did it. Debby did too. We were quite pleased with ourselves. The Howards have two paddle boards. I came to shore and Kim took that board out. Most of my pride washed away as I watched her pop right up and quickly paddle down the lake in the blink of an eye. I’ll try again tomorrow.

Next, we went out on the pontoon boat and took a tour around the entire lake.

It’s a long lake! You can’t see from one end to the other. It curves and twists and there are cute islands and peninsulas. Kim and Paul not only own the lake but also the 550 (approx.) acres of wooded land that surround it. This is a very special and magical place that has been in the Howard family for generations.

After our cocktail boat tour, I made another recipe inspired by a doctor’s office waiting room magazine find. The perfect end to a perfect day.

OK, not quite the end and not perfectly perfect. Kim and Debby set a total of 10 mousetraps with the Snickers. Without a doubt, I’m sleeping in this time.

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photo credit: Cody Howard

If you’re like me, sometimes you look at your smart phone in complete awe. We walk around with a computer in our pockets. No longer do we need a watch, a camera, an encyclopedia, a dictionary, any array of how-to books, a landline, and the list goes on.

And no longer do I tear out pages from magazines in doctors’ offices. Yes, I’m sorry to admit that I was one of those people. Now, I just whip out my phone and snap a photo of that recipe or article I must have.

photo credit: Debby Gooding

The following recipe is inspired from one such photo I took during a recent visit to a doctor’s office. I don’t recall the magazine, probably a celebrity weekly or women’s monthly, since those are the magazines I usually gravitate towards in that situation.

I’m in Quebec Canada with Kim Howard and her dear friend, Debby Gooding, at Deer Lake, which is the Howard Family’s gorgeous Canadian retreat. Click HERE to read more about it in this posts from my last visit in July, 2013. One of my favorite things about this magical place is all the vintage vibes.

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I am feeling a wee bit melancholy, for today shall be my final post about Deer Lake. Even though we drove away from Deer Lake six days ago, I’ve enjoyed reliving it through these posts and photos.

Once again, I will leave it up to Kim and Paul to correct or embellish any of the details I share about the shrine atop the mountain on their property in Canada.

As I understand it, the shrine was erected early in the twentieth century. It was placed atop the mountain after a father and son were lost there one freezing winter night. They survived the night and were rescued the next day. Soon after, the shrine was built and a large cross was raised next to it.

The Howard family first noticed it decades ago, from the road far below as they were driving to the lake when someone looked up at the mountain and spotted a cross on top. It was then that they learned the story of the father and son.

When they hike up to the shrine, they like to take a little offering to place at the feet of the Madonna. This time we brought a candle and some playing cards… including the queen of hearts. I noticed that others have left rosaries, religious medals, pine cones, a heart-shaped rock, a hairpin, and a little wooden angel.

The view from the top is outstanding! The trees have grown and filled in, so the cross is no longer visible from the road far below.

There was an order of priests known as Pères Blancs (White Fathers) who would hike up the mountain every year on August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, and say Mass. The order is no longer in the area, but the Howard family likes to make the hike up each time they visit. The ashes of Paul’s parents are scattered there now, so this is hallowed ground.

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