Every summer for, oh, about the last fifteen years or so I’ve made a trek into the centre of Vancouver’s splendid Stanley Park to visit the water lilies. The surface of tiny Beaver Lake is entirely covered with lilly pads and in August they bloom: big fat waterlilies in purple, yellow, white and pink. There’s so many I barely know where to look. There’s almost enough to get bored of them, as though such a thing were possible. Beaver Lake in August is the most luxurious thing I’ve ever seen.
There are literally hundreds of them.
On holiday Monday Bill and I rode bikes out to see this year’s batch. There was an embarrassment of lilies, maybe more than I’ve ever seen and for some reason most of them were pink with a few rare white beauties.
This I don’t mind at all. For one reason I like the pink ones best and for another reason checking on the purples, yellows and the rest of the whites will give me a great excuse to take another trip over there.
We hung out with the waterlilies for awhile, taking photos and sharing a root beer while lazily watching the dragonflies that also love to hang out around the waterlilies.
Dragonflies don’t mind messy braids.
There are plenty of frogs in Beaver Lake but none of them came out to sit on the lily pads that day. Perhaps they are tired of indulging visitors in such a hackneyed cliche.
Later, for dinner we grilled out on the tiny apartment patio. I have lots to tell you about that meal but the only thing you need to know about today is Maple Thyme salmon. So simple. So delicious. We’d bought a nice big chunk of pink salmon at the farmer’s market. Pink salmon is really great, as delicious as sockeye but half the price. One of the reasons for this is because the quality of pink does not hold up in the freezer as well as sockeye. If we’re planning to eat it right away, we buy pink.
All I did was line a piece of foil with a piece of parchment. I drizzled some olive oil on the salmon to keep it from drying out, then I drizzled it with a little maple syrup, oh about a tablespoon for a big filet. Then I tossed some fresh thyme sprigs and leaves on top, wrapped the whole thing up and Bill put it on the hot grill for about ten minutes. The maple set off the sweetness of the salmon perfectly and the thyme added just a slight haunting herbiness. Maybe the best part is that it was so effortless. A perfect dish for a season in which the most luxurious place I can imagine is just a bike ride away.
