Jane Macdougall: The Bookless Club’s good intentions gone wrong

I can still see my mother’s downcast face.

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My mom likes to cook.

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On our weekly trip to the public library, I’d examine the mysteries of Nancy Drew as she reviewed Time Life’s cookbook series on world cuisines. She flipped through the pages of lutefisk, kedgeree and rfissa, deciding which regional cuisine she would tackle next. It was, I suspect, her way of looking at the world, something she wouldn’t get until all four of us got off the ground. In the meantime, we may have been pining for SpaghettiOs and Velveeta on toast, but we sat down to Moroccan tagines, Portuguese peri peri chicken, and Senegalese peanut soup. She was (is) an inventive and extraordinary cook.

My parents’ dinner parties were famous for their cuisine. Instead of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, you’ll be served an exotic curry or something from Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire. I caught much of his interest and a hint of his skill when I helped out with the apron chores for his dinner parties. You would eat well, but the great advantage was that you could chat with the adults.

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On one particular occasion, I felt like I had knocked it out of the park. She was serving duck à l’orange. Peking ducks didn’t interest me much, but that sauce! The juice of half a dozen navel oranges and a giant shot of Grand Marnier. Ragweed! The sauce was sweetened with sugar, thickened with gooseberry jam and simmered with the fat from the ducks. I had never tried anything like it. The rest of the menu was something along the lines of roasted carrots, steamed asparagus, and probably rice. Bland also ran in comparison to the knockout blow that was that orange sauce.

As my parents entertained their guests in the living room, my 12-year-old self made a one-sided decision to improve the rest of the meal. In the last seconds before serving dinner, I put everything in orange. From my teenage point of view, you just couldn’t have too much of a good thing, and that sauce was second to none.

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I can still see my mother’s downcast face.

I can still hear my mom explaining to her guests what she had done. Someone offered the old news that good help was hard to find.

The years go by.

I pass my preschooler carrying a bucket of water. He tells me that he is going to wash the car.

Excellent! This will keep you busy for a while. I go inside

From the kitchen window I see him hunched over, the soul of an attentive laborer. He is preparing to wipe the car door.

And then I noticed his other hand.

He is holding a barbecue cleaner. You know which one. The one that is basically barbed wire.

He’s dipping the brush up and down in the bucket to work up a nice lather.

I lunge for the door and catch him moments before his first knock. Nothing I say makes sense to him. It’s probably because they were only vowels: Ai-ee-ai-eee-ooou! I snatch the brush out of her hand.

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I can still see his downcast face.

What he didn’t get to see is how close I came to making up a story for his dad about wolves attacking the car after a race at Costco.

The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions.

Through the Internet, I learned that planters would slowly achieve a desirable mossy appearance by covering them with buttermilk. The pressure washing guy was pleased to inform me that, with considerable effort, he was able to remove the horrible moss that was growing in my outdoor pots.

I wonder if he can still see my downcast face.

Jane Macdougall is a freelance writer and former columnist for the National Post who lives in Vancouver. She will write in The Bookless Club every Saturday online and in The Vancouver Sun. To learn more about what Jane is up to, visit her website, janemacdougall.com

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This week’s question for readers:

What are the times in your life when good intentions went off the mark? Did you ever get it so wrong when you tried to get it so right??

Email your answers, not as an attachment, in 100 words or less, along with your full name to Jane at [email protected]. We will print some next week in this space.


Answers to last week’s question for readers:

What’s something you’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t? Pole vault? Skydiving? Cook under vacuum? mini crime wave?

• I’d like to start by saying that I have never written about a newspaper article in my life, but I really enjoyed your article on the Vancouver Gun Club and wanted to thank you for your detailed description of how it all works. it works and what to expect.

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I grew up a little girl carrying my dad’s case of “shotgun shells” while he competed in the Vancouver Gun Club. Frank Opsal became one of the best Canadian shooters who represented Canada at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne and was later inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame.

No, I’ve never tried to shoot, but your article definitely sparked an interest, but I doubt my shoulder can take it.

Thank you as it brought back some special memories for me, and I am happy to have your website and follow future columns and articles.

Laura Opsal


• Purely by accident, I learned to shoot clay, which is similar to shooting traps. I had never heard of either of them, but I was on vacation and the opportunity arose. The strange thing is that I was instantly and surprisingly good at it. Nobody could have been more surprised than me. I didn’t live in an area where there were a lot of opportunities to do more, so my brilliant career as a shooter ended there. Your article has made me consider starting over… that is, if the old lady still has the sense.

Toinette B.


• I recognized myself in your comment about the concentration required in marksmanship sports. I do both archery and rock climbing. What I like about both is the concentration that clears the mind. Everything has to work together. You create a nice little bubble that blocks out all the daily worries. And the good thing about archery is that there is no recoil.

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