raspberry lemonade shandsicles

As the summer pushes on into Fall, I look back and realize I've been in Montréal for about a 1/3 of the season so far. Treks to Toronto, Los Angeles, New York and the townships have left me mulling through a haze of summer memories. Sometimes I catch myself thinking of an evening that happened last summer and placing it two weeks ago, or feeling that a city-switch can change my energy so distinctly I could have travelled months ago and not days. 

But in between all the happenings, the weddings and funerals, the jobs and other jobs, the friends from far-off places or family who pull me to and fro...in between it all I still love me some food.

There have been moments this summer where I've found myself too fatigued to cook, an exhaustion I find as emotionally frustrating as it is physically frustrating. I'm a lucky girl though, cause my boo made me some delicious cuisine (pulled pork tacos, fava bean kuku, watermelon popsicles, to name a few). However, I'm not about taking credit for someone else's work, so I'll be focusing on one day of respite when I cracked out some very fine shandy popsicles, garlic scape pesto and a MOTHER@%$ING duck-egg omelette (yea, I still got it).

On a fine summer's day, sometime this summer (I told you, I truly cannot remember anything linearly right now), my dearest friend Kristen had a car rental! Adventure, we said! Fun, we said! IKEA, we said! And IKEA it was.

So after nearly murdering my partner over shelves (let's not deal with that), we trundled back to the car with our loot and were going to head straight back into the city when Kristen had a stroke of brilliance. 

"How about the St. Anne de Bellevue farmer's market?" she asked.

What's so great about this farmer's market, you ask? Well, you smarmy asshole, YOU don't have to go, but I'll tell you anyway. 

Duck Eggs! Lardons! Fresh basil! Sundried tomato bread! Waterfront views! and cheese, delicious delicious cheese.

I wandered around aimlessly for awhile, wiping away my bitter feelings from the IKEA trip, until the sounds of Seadoos from the bay lulled me into blissful dreams of lunch. I gathered up some eggs and an onion confit soft cheese from La Beurasse (this cheese is my absolute favourite of theirs). Then I got some fresh basil and a loaf of hazelnut and fig bread, and I was ready to rumble. 

Once home I threw some garlic scapes from my CSA in with the basil and walnuts and made an awesome pesto, most of which I froze (MOM TRICK). Then I made an omelette with these duck eggs. I had never actually worked with a duck egg before, but the yolks are such a bright yellow and so large that I only used two. I put some fresh basil, shallots and cheese in the omelette, spread pesto on my bread and voila! lunch for two!

For dessert, I had been inspired by a friend's post about Pims cup popsicles and wanted to make my own boozy pops. I had always thought it was impossible to freeze alcohol, but learned that with hard liquors, you can boil off some of the alcohol and they'll freeze fine! I decided to take a shortcut and just use beer, making a raspberry lemonade shandy. They were pretty beer flavoured, but perfect for a hot summer day.