Tag: classic

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Cottage Life

35th anniversary celebration: Headlamps are superior to flashlights

Illustration by Katie Hicks

Into the early 2000s, we published a series of “Classics.” The writer would argue for something that you could not live at the lake without—watermelon, beach towels, a beloved web chair. Twenty years on, we’re asking, what are the new cottage classics?

My husband can run from the dock to the cottage, up our steep, root-encrusted path, in the dark. When it comes to using lights outside, we prefer to avoid them to better view the stars or enjoy a campfire. 

One summer, though, even a simple flashlight might have saved the day, or the night, as it happened. DH (Dear Husband)’s ribs would have thanked him had he taken just a moment to slip on the best light in a cottager’s arsenal—the hands-free headlamp that’s embraced by serious campers and coal miners alike.

Anyone who doubts the superiority of a headlamp over the flashlight on our ubiquitous cellphones has only to imagine nighttime visits to the outhouse. Consider the acrobatics that ensue while you clutch a phone in one hand. You could set the phone down, like a regular flashlight, where it will illuminate the ceiling, or wall, or anywhere other than where you need it. But that’s risky. Those black holes where light can’t get out? They’re not just in space. A headlamp is safely attached to your skull, can be set at an angle, and also ensures that, when you get up to pee in the night, you don’t get sucked into checking your work email. (Curse those notifications!) 

Headlamps rule when you crawl under the cottage on your belly to address a plumbing leak, or you indulge in cross-country skiing at night, or you need to gather wood in the dark for the fire. Keep one beside your bed or under your pillow, ready for duty just like any other flashlight. 

It’s true that even headlamps have shortcomings. A blinding flash when your buddy turns toward you is like meeting a car with its high beams on. And don’t be surprised when moths fly into your face. Remember, there’s a beacon of light shining out of your forehead.

Like other flashlights, headlamps require batteries, a problem when they accidentally get turned on in your bag. A canoe tripper I know solves this potential mishap by stowing the light with one battery installed backwards. Finally, the strap that you find on cheaper lamps can get stretched out over time, becoming as useless as the elastic waistband in worn-out underwear.

But straps can be replaced. So can headlamps, for that matter. Thus, there was no excuse for my DH to be racing up the hill in the dark of night, except that after 50-plus years, he knew every rock and root in the path. What he didn’t remember was the pine tree that had fallen across it just days before.

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Cottage Life

35th anniversary celebration: In defence of good coffee at the lake

Illustration by Katie Hicks

Mornings are beautiful at the cottage, made of sunrises over the lake, gentle mists, and birdsong. But for me, it’s hard to truly enjoy this beauty before caffeine kicks in. Coffee is a sacred part of my morning ritual. And my afternoon ritual. (And other rituals depending on how I’ve slept.) It’s the same for about 70 per cent of Canadians who drink coffee daily. But cottaging isn’t typically associated with top-shelf java. In the past, cottage coffee meant worn-out percolators or jars of instant crystals. For some, coffee from the decades-old drip machine they use at the lake is the cup they want. Others with more particular tastes are finding ways to embrace their favourite coffee away from home. 

One of my dearest friends, who visits her Saskatchewan cabin every summer, says that good coffee is luxurious, but not blasphemous. It’s not too fancy a luxury to detract from the feeling of escaping the wider world. It actually enhances it. Well, good coffee enhances it. Luckily, it’s never been easier to BYOB: be your own barista, that is.

What this means has as much variety as cottages themselves. Some lake houses may have high-end espresso machines. Other cottage-goers swear by French Presses or pour-overs. (For me, a pod machine devotee, that’s too many steps before caffeinating.) Once you establish your preferred brewing method, your favourite roasts, and get a couple of good (i.e. big) mugs, you’re mostly there.

But, since we’re at the cottage, give yourself permission to play around. You want your set up to help you thrive, not merely survive! On a summer afternoon, a hot cup doesn’t hit the same, but ice trays and large, reusable cups with straws make homemade iced coffee an easy fix. Pack a few syrup bottles to add familiar vanilla or caramel flavours, or spoil yourself with exotic ones like Italian eggnog or macadamia nut. For post-dinner coffees around the fire, spill in some whisky, Kahlua, or (my first choice) Bailey’s. Do this in the morning too, if you feel like it—you’re on cottage time after all. Consider making coffee like crafting a cocktail—let your imagination run wild. Caramel sauce. Whipped cream. Chocolate shavings. Maple syrup. Plant-based “milk.” You can have any or all of them. (Or black coffee, if you prefer.)

No matter how you make it, coffee tastes better at the cottage. Peaceful moments sipping it on the deck or the dock go beyond mere refreshment: they’re memories to take home with you.

Categories
Cottage Life

35th anniversary celebration: I can’t imagine the cottage without Google Maps

Illustration by Katie Hicks

Into the early 2000s, we published a series of “Classics.” The writer would argue for something that you could not live at the lake without—watermelon, beach towels, a beloved web chair. Twenty years on, we’re asking, what are the new cottage classics?

Every so often, I’ll find my cottage on Google Maps, go into satellite mode, and then float around like a ghost, observing things from above.

It’s a strange way to visit nature, isn’t it? I’m using technology that is literally out of this world—multi-million-dollar orbital cameras. It’s an alien’s-eye view of the landscape. Yet this is precisely what makes it so wonderfully revealing: looking down from space, you behold cottage country like a minor god.

My cottage sits near the tip of Presqu’ile Point, a peninsula that juts into the northeast corner of Lake Ontario. I grew up hunting for snakes in the woods and watching herons with wings the size of car doors take flight.

My older neighbours, one cottage over, would explain to us kids how Presqu’ile contained critical and endangered wetlands; it was why nobody was allowed to go deep into the marshes behind the trees, for fear of upsetting the ecological balance. I was a dutifully environmental kid, so I obeyed. Peering down from space now, I can see in a fresh way the beauty and fragility of those wetlands—the tendrils of bullrush-thick marsh reaching out into the lake like graceful fingers, the gothic darkness of the murky water just offshore.

Satellites show you secrets. Looking at your cottage from above, you realize how much of the surrounding land you’ve never really visited. You couldn’t have; it’s dense forest, which—as the deer know—is great for concealing things.

From space, the woods cough up their mysteries. I’ve met cottagers who were startled to discover, on Google Maps, entire dwellings they were previously unaware of, not far from theirs. One found a small gravesite deep in the forest; another, a hidden stream. And satellite vision can be a way to spy on your neighbours, like a low-rent James Bond: Hmmm, those folks across the lake added one heck of a deck.
Peering down from above, you also grasp just how damn huge is the Canadian wilderness, and how tiny, comparatively, are the parts we occupy. I’ve gone on virtual “hikes,” zooming down close on my cottage then slowly scrolling farther and farther north, until—15 minutes later—I’ve travelled so deep into the Ontario north, I haven’t seen even a dirt road for miles and miles. You can feel lost, pleasantly so, in a digital map.

These days, when you visit the cottage, go stargazing. You’ll see some of the lights zipping across the sky. Wave at them: those are your eyes now, looking down.

35th anniversary celebration: An ode to the dock spider sweatshirt

Categories
Cottage Life

35th anniversary celebration: An ode to the dock spider sweatshirt

Illustration by Katie Hicks

Into the early 2000s, we published a series of “Classics.” The writer would argue for something that you could not live at the lake without—watermelon, beach towels, a beloved web chair. Twenty years on, we’re asking, what are the new cottage classics?

A cool, late-summer morning in the early ’80s: I was a cottage newbie, recently introduced to lake life by my soon-to-become-spouse, Steve. We had just pushed off on a leisurely paddle—I was a rank beginner at canoeing too—when after only a couple of strokes, Steve headed us straight to a neighbouring dock. “I don’t want to upset you,” he said (which alone was enough to upset me), “but I think when we got in, a dock spider got in with us.”

Right. Me, in a 14-ft. canoe with the largest spidey species in Canada, and the ones I’d seen on our dock were particularly healthy specimens. The size of salad plates—hairy salad plates, with venom. Steve, who grew up in cottage country, had assured me they weren’t aggressive, but this was no time to take a chance. I leapt onto the neighbours’ dock, peeled off my jeans, tee, and everything else, and began to shake and shimmy from the shoulders on down. Apparently, it was quite the dance routine. Luckily, the neighbours missed it. Luckily, the spider (if one really had hitched a ride with us) got away.

Fast forward to the early ’90s: I was the editor of Cottage Life, and Steve was its art director. We were in a meeting discussing CL merchandise. “How about we do a sweatshirt with the logo on it?” someone suggested.

Steve, who clearly hadn’t forgotten that delightful scene on the neighbours’ dock—he still claims it was the fastest he’s ever seen me undress—said, “Boring. Needs attitude. How about a sweatshirt with a dock spider?”

“Beside the logo,” someone else said.

“Nah,” Steve replied. “On the back. So it’s climbing up on your shoulder, like you don’t know it’s there.”

The spider wouldn’t merely be printed on the sweatshirt. Verisimilitude required that it be done in fuzzy flocking to achieve the hairy effect; and it would be life-sized, of course—all the better to horrify someone approaching from behind.

And so a classic was born. On the sidewalks of cottage-country towns and at the annual Cottage Life Shows, I’d exchange knowing smiles with other members of the Spider Sweatshirt Society. The original run eventually sold out, to be replaced by a less, uh, realistic version, with a flat, printed-on spider. But I hear that people are still showing up at the Cottage Life booth today with their classic sweatshirts on. Mine, sadly, was retired to the ragbag years ago, its dock spider bare of fuzz, worn down to a faint shadow that wouldn’t even alarm an arachnophobe.

Categories
Cottage Life

Blueberry-peach crisp is a summer classic

Photo by Oleksandra Naumenko/Shutterstock

If you’re going to your local blueberry patch, or making a stop road-side stand for blueberries and peaches on your way to the cottage, pick up some of the season’s best for this classic blueberry-peach crisp. It just may become an essential August tradition.

9 pick-your-own blueberry patches to visit in Ontario

An ode to blueberry picking

Blueberry-peach crisp

Jane Rodmell

This is an absolute favourite cottage dessert, and the only chore is peeling the peaches (but you can make that simple too with the Tip, below). Serve hot or warm with a generous dollop of whipped cream, ice cream, or crème fraîche. Serves 6 (4 in some families).

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Print Recipe

Course Breakfast, Dessert
Cuisine classic, Cottage

Servings 6 servings

Ingredients

  

  • 1 cup blueberries
  • 3 cups peaches peeled and sliced (see Tip below)
  • rind of ½ lemon grated
  • 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • ½ tsp ground ginger
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • ¼ cup sugar

Pecan Crisp Topping

  • ½ cup flour
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • pinch salt
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • ½ cup chilled butter
  • 1 cup pecans chopped

Instructions

 

  • Toss all ingredients except those for the Pecan Crisp Topping, and place in a lightly buttered 6-cup baking dish, about 8” square.
  • To make the topping, combine flour, sugar, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl and cut in the butter until mixture forms coarse crumbs. Add pecans to mixture and toss together.
  • Cover prepared crisp with topping and bake at 375°F for about 40 minutes.

Notes

 TIP  To easily peel ripe peaches, cut an X in the bottom of each fruit, and drop them, one at a time, into boiling water for 30 seconds. Then immediately plunge them into chilled water for a few seconds and slip off skins.

Recipe originally published in the July/August 1994 issue of Cottage Life. 

Keyword blueberry, crisp, peach, pecan
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

Categories
Potins

Freddie Mercury’s final resting place discovered?

Freddie Mercury’s final resting place may have been discovered.

A plaque seemingly dedicated to the late Queen singer – who died from complications caused by AIDS in 1991, aged 45 – has been found in Kensal Green Cemetery in west London following years of speculation about what happened to his ashes after he was cremated.

The dedication, which is located on a tall plinth along with other memorial plaques, refers to Zanzibar-born Freddie by his birth name, Farrokh Bulsara and matches the dates of his birth and death. The plaque is signed by ‘M.’, who is thought to be his former lover Mary Austin.

The plaque reads: "In loving memory of Farrokh Bulsara. 5 Sept. 1946 – 24 Nov. 1991. Pour Etre Toujours Pres De Toi Avec Tout Mon Amour."

The French words translate to: "Always to be close to you with all my love."

What became of Freddie’s remains following his death has been a mystery to fans, but it’s thought his ashes were given to Mary, who also inherited his £10 million home, Garden Lodge in Kensington, west London.

A Queen fan told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "Everyone knows Freddie was cremated at Kensal Green Cemetery in 1991 but it has remained a complete mystery as to where his ashes were finally laid to rest.

"The discovery of this plaque is really exciting and may prove to be a major breakthrough."

Workers at the cemetery had no idea the plaque was in honor of the ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ singer, who changed his name after joining Queen in 1971, and it’s not known how long it has been there.

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Uncategorized

The Porsche 911 Sport Classic

Visually, the tribute to history is an evocation of the legendary Carrera RS 2.7 of 1973, with a ducktail spoiler instead of the usual retractable spoiler.

The car also features Fuchs-style 19-inch wheels and a wider 44-mm rear body.  The classic grey model also comes with a double-dome roof.  The modifications aren’t limited to the exterior.  Inside, the car is equipped with brown leather upholstery.

Finally, what’s under the hood is also quite impressive, with 403 horsepower.  An optional sport package is available for suspension, which lowers the car’s body by 20 mm.  Limited slip differential is a standard feature on the car.

In order to become the owner of one of the only 250 Porsche 911 Sport Classics, you’ll need to hand over the dough, because the car comes with a price tag of 169 300 euros, or roughly $266 500 CAN.