We arrived into Newfoundland around 10pm-ish on Thursday, followed 6 minutes or so later by Aunt Juice, Uncle Brudy and Rosina. We got back to CBS and yakked and yakked for about 3 hours and hit the hay around 2am or something crazy (well, crazy for MY family of early risers)
We promptly visited the local Tim Horton's coffee shop upon rising (as you do) and then called in to pick up nan from Admiral's Coast before heading to mum's cabin at Ocean Pond. Aunt Ruth and Uncle Wayne, Joan and Rex (Andrea's mother and step father) and my mum and dad all have cabins on the same cove at Ocean Pond.
Chris and Andrea, Hilary and Aiden had arrived in NL about 5 or 6 hours prior to our arrival and were already up at Ocean Pond with Joan and Rex. Trinity of course was with mum and so we took 2 cars, up to the country.
My mum had a fantastic menu planned for the CFA's (for the uninitiated, Newfoundlanders call all visitor's a CFA- meaning Come From Away) all the best traditional newfoundland grub which are must not miss-es!
Juanita will join us by Tuesday and that starts the onslaught of 50 or so family from all points of the globe.
Mum had a great idea that a weekend of resting at the cabin will help us get over the trip and be rested for the weeks ahead- a top idea.
Anyway, back to the important stuff, the menu! Newfoundland is renowned for good music, beautiful countryside, hospitable and friendly people, and.... it's traditional food.
At the cabin, of course, we wanted to start slowly for Scott and so on the 2nd night my Aunt Ruth and Nan did salt fish and brewis. (It is one of MY FAVORITE meals and nan used to do it for brekkie for me when I lived with her when I went to uni)
As Newfoundland for thousands of years had the most plentiful cod stocks in the world, fishing was a natural occupation for many; before the French, Spanish and Portugese overfished and depleted our cod stocks.... but now the moratorium is lifted and we have cod again, we can now have fish and brewis.
Fish and brewis (pronounced like the word "bruise") is a traditional Newfoundland meal consisting of codfish and hard bread or hard tack. With the abundance of cod around the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador it became synonymous with all Newfoundland households as a delicacy to be served as a main meal.
The recipe may vary from community to community or even household to household but, the ingredients were always the same. The typical recipe calls for salt fish that has to be soaked in water overnight to reduce the salt content of the fish. The hard bread is broken into bite-size pieces and it too gets soaked in water overnight. Next day the fish and hard bread are boiled separately until tender then both are mixed together and cooked together for final preparation. (Which is why we had it the 2nd night!)
The traditional meal is served with scrunchions, which is super yummy salted fat pork cut into small pieces and of course, being Newfoundland, fried. Both the rendered fat and the liquid fat is then drizzled over the mixture of fish and hard bread.
When we landed at Ocean Pond, we promptly headed over to Joan and Rex's cabin to see everyone, we had some Aussie gifts to give.
Here is the girls receiving their Billabong hats- Trinity loves pink and the only hat I could find was black with pink- she wore it all weekend.....
Daddy and Aiden- mum used to say, "Aitken" when he was first born.....
One of the highlights at Ocean Pond for me, was Scott's reaction to the Squirrels- which are EVERYWHERE! I was sat at the table facing the kitchen, Scott was across from me, facing the sliding door on the deck when this little guy came up to collect his treats from mum. Scott jumped out of his seat, his face formed a comical "O!" and surprised expression and he actually squeaked! "Oh my god, there is a squirrel!" No kidding. His voice when up two octaves.
Before the Brewis was served, I was showing Nan and Aunt Ruth our camping and kids photos.... they loved it. My nan knows who the kids are really well. Everytime she walks dad out of her room, she passes a photo of the 4 kids and Scott and I in the park and says, "And there is Jen and this is Ginny because of her red hair and that one is Neville and that one is Sasha and this little one here, Victor is Muff."
On Saturday, after brekkie, Scott and I took Trinity and went to Carbonear and Bay Roberts. Mum and dad had a new door to hang and so we scarpered. We had a fantastic brekkie of bacon and eggs, I have always said to Scott how wonderful Canadian Bacon is and it is nothing like what we get in Australia and that the egg yokes are very yellow. With mum's home made bread, we were set. Well, Trinity and Scott played and played the whole day and all I heard was giggles, gales of laughter and gasps....
For lunch, we had A&W, which we also cannot get in Australia and yet is the BEST onion rings, fries, burgers and of course, ROOT BEER!! Yum, yum!!
Walking up to Aunt Ruth's cabin with Trinity is not a simple walk. We had to run and play and scamper the ENTIRE way! Here we are playing "Scoops" as Trinity calls it.
Uncle Wayne ponders his lack of fish off his wharf. Mum says Uncle Wayne cheats- because he doesn't fish, he just drops a line or two over his wharf....
A weekend at the cabin would not be the same without a game of cards or two.... nan is helping me lose miserably to Trinity....
Well, that is it for now, for the first trip to Ocean Pond. Other than to say that my brother Chris and Scott spent Saturday on quad bikes and had a great time- I was left playing Barbies in the cabin with Trinity whilst mum and dad hung the door.... We had such a relaxing weekend it was wonderful.
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