"$56"-*5 4r/&84 SAMME PUTZEL: CHAMPLAIN TOWNSHIP’S SENIOR OF THE YEAR GREGG CHAMBERLAIN nouvelles@eap.on.ca maintain the community festival legacy of her partner, Phil Arber.
“Your efforts have strengthened our com- NVOJUZJOTPNBOZXBZT uTBJE.BZPS3JPQFM What it means “It is a very special honour,” noted Put- zel, regarding her nomination as Champlain Township’s Senior of the Year for 2025, “because we all share common values. It’s wonderful to live in a community where we have a vision to live in a place where we can be safe, celebrating the good things in life like local arts, culture, creativity, and delicious food.” Putzel describes her involvement in the community through art, festival activities, and special projects like the Creating Centre EF$SÊBUJWJUÊBOEUIF&BTU0OUBSJP-BOET Trust as “a way of life” that has evolved for her over the years. “When I was younger, I thought I could save the world,” she said, smiling. “I got discouraged pretty quickly. As I got older, though, I could find new meaning to my life, and that mean is to help create a place where we can be safe and creative and harmonious.” Being part of the community, Putzel indica- ted, means being involved in the community, in any number of ways. “I believe very strongly that everyone has something to give to the community,”she said. “When it comes to saving the world, you do what you can do, in whatever form that is. You always have the choice to follow your dreams.”
Being named the Senior of the Year for Champlain Township came as a “plea- sant surprise” to Samme Putzel. “I didn’t recognize the person they were describing,” Putzel said, smiling, during a Monday morning interview at the Creating Centre de Créativité in Vankleek Hill. .BZPS/PSNBOE3JPQFMUPPLQMFBTVSFJO announcing Putzel’s nomination as Senior of the Year for Champlain Township during the June 26 council session. The provincial government launched the senior of the year awards program so that each municipality in Ontario could highlight and honour older citizens of their community for their achive- ments and contributions to the well-being of their home towns. i*IBWFUIFIPOPVSuTBJE.BZPS3JPQFM “of recognizing someone whose leadership, dedication, and creativity have had a lasting impact on our community.” The mayor described Putzel as “a multi-ta- lented person”, exploring her creative talents UISPVHIXSJUJOHXJUIIFS&NJMZ#MPTTPN.ZT - teries series, “bringing small-town charm and wisdom to the page”, her artwork that “reflects her own deep bond with nature”, BOEDPNNVOJUZQSPKFDUTMJLFUIF&BTU0OUBSJP Lands Trust “that reflects her deep-rooted commitment to environmental preservation.” .BZPS3JPQFMOPUFEUIBU1VU[FMGPVOEFE the Creating Centre de Créativité to help foster and support local arts and culture, BOEDPOUJOVFTUISPVHI&YDFMMFOU&WFOUTUP
Le Centre de Créativité de Vankleek Hill occupe une place particulière dans le cœur de Samme Putzel. Elle a fondé ce centre pour encourager l’esprit créatif des artistes, musiciens, écrivains et autres personnes de la région. (Gregg Chamberlain, EAP)
provided space for local artists to work, a place for musicians to perform, a home for a variety of community groups and activi- ties, including a writers circle and a regular gathering of Dungeons & Dragons fans who pursue adventure through role-playing as warriors, wizards, dwarves and elves. Being Senior of the Year, as far as Putzel is concerned, just means her own adventures in creativity and community involvement continue on. “I am old enough to know that age does not figure into the equation,” she noted. “I will always be young at heart.”
Following her dreams has led Putzel into writing three mystery novels featuring her IFSPJOF &NJMZ#MPTTPN EFBMJOHXJUINVSEFS and intrigue in and around her little village PG&NFSBME)JMM1VU[FMTESFBNTIBWFBMTP resulted in a variety of art pieces, including drawing and sculpting, like the vibrant ima- gery of “The Horse Jumps Over the Moon”. “Creativity, to me, is one of the most fundamental things,” said Putzel. “It’s about expressing yourself.” Which is why she founded the Creating Centre de Créativité in the heart of Vankleek Hill. Since 2018, the renovated building has
THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS CAN CREATE THE PERFECT COMFORT BOWL
ANDREW COPPOLINO andrewcoppolino@gmail.com
and ground roasted peanuts. Malai Kofta at Himalayan Indian Cuisine could also be construed as a bowl: spices and minced vegetables and cheese balls are intermingled in a cream sauce, while Friendly’s prepares a chicken stir fry with seasonal vegetables mixed with teriyaki sauce served on a bed of rice or noodles. It’s the same with Chinese restaurants: Maison di Xin has a Buddha’s Delight that is stir-fried tofu with mixed vegetables among other dishes that, for all intents BOEQVSQPTFT BSFFTTFOUJBMMZCPXMT/FX 3VCZ)PVTFIBTBCPXMPG4JOHBQPSFWFS - micelli noodles with shrimp, BBQ pork and bean sprouts with curry. Further out of town, a venue such as OCCO in Orleans prepares tuna poke bowls packed with basmati rice, pickled ginger, edamame, a nori wonton and zesty jalapeño-lime mayonnaise. They also serve their signature bowls with a choice of protein and a heaping helping of a wide range of ingredients from pickled onions and Asian cucumbers that embellish chicken teriyaki, honey-soy salmon or sesame tofu. Whether you gobble them down at a restaurant or put them together in your own kitchen, power bowls are a satisfying and often healthy way to enjoy unique combinations of ingredients that comfort and nourish. Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of “Farm to Table” and co-author of “Cooking with Shakespeare.” Follow him on Instagram @andrewcoppolino.
an interesting dish to enjoy at a restaurant – or make at home. 3BOHFPGJOHSFEJFOUTJOPOFDPNGPSU food dish It seems to me that the thing about a meal in a bowl is that it suddenly becomes comfort food, no matter what the ingre- dients. It’s almost like when you are eating a bowl of breakfast cereal as you wake up in the morning. Whether conventional proteins and vegetables or straight-up vegetarian or vegan, the bowls combine several ingre- dients and seem to encourage balanced and healthy eating. And they can also be made gluten-free and vegan, too. Often a nutrient-dense concoction of protein (animal or not), vegetables, a grain and a sauce of some sort, power bowls are composed in their presentation and often artful in their design. The bowls can be for breakfast, lunch or dinner; they can be served as appeti- zers, salads or main courses. Whatever time of day they appear on your table, power bowls can offer a terrific blend of textures and colours. When you make them at home, they are ideal for taking leftovers from the fridge and ensuring you protect your grocery-bill investment and at the same time reduce food waste that might be going to the landfill unnecessarily. Multicultural and plant-based eating One of the great things about such bowls is their multicultural inclusivity: there can be grilled pork, poached salmon, barbecued beef or duck confit seasoned with a host of international flavours.
To that, lettuce, nuts, raisins and noodles might be added before a drizzling of sesame oil or a reduction of balsamic vinegar. There can be both enchilada bowls and bowls with raw fish. When they move into the realm of the Buddha bowl, they can become part and parcel of a plant-based diet. While there might be a myth of Buddha walking around and carrying his bowl of food, the term may also refer to the wide bowl and mound of ingredients that make up a Buddha bowl, and an apparent mimicking of his chubby belly. At the same time, power bowls can play a role in helping people become familiar with less well-known ingredients such as quinoa, freekeh (roasted green wheat), buckwheat and spices such as cardamom, za’atar and sumac. What’s available nearby? As for area restaurants, Boston Pizza has a power bowl and a barbacoa burrito bowl: the former is salmon or chicken with brown rice, quinoa, spinach, guaca- mole, beets and roasted red peppers; the latter, barbecued beef, “fire-roasted” corn, onions, peppers, cherry tomatoes, jalapeños, Cheddar cheese and sour cream. It’s served with ancho-chipotle sauce, guacamole and tops either quinoa or brown rice. Of course, a visit to Vijittra Thai will reveal various curries and Thai dishes and their multiplicity of ingredients – from cashews to scallions – along with the national pad Thai chock full of your choice of chicken, beef, tofu plus delectable rice noodles, egg, bean sprouts, green onion
The one and only Martha Stewart, maven of DIY, recipes, home décor and holiday event-planning tips, might be cited for her early reference to a culinary phenomenon known as the “power bowl.” Stewart had written about a bowl of food – carefully “curated” and artfully constructed and presented in a large open bowl packed with many fresh and novel ingredients – as early as 2013. The bowls had an impressive moment of fame about a decade or so ago and reached virtually every menu across the restaurant spectrum: you could find them at upscale bistros at the same time they were part of the Taco Bell fast-food canon. Variously called macro bowls, “Buddha bowls” or nourish bowls (and even “hippie bowls”), the foodstuff certainly wasn’t a new thing – just an item that had taken off due to social media influence: you could always head into a restaurant of Thai, Japanese or Chinese orientation and find a delicious bowl of food. But a larger scan across the culinary landscape will reveal delicious bowls of food that might pop up in the form of Korean bibimbap; Andalucian salmorejo of ham, tomato, garlic and egg; Portuguese arroz de marisco seafood rice; Hawaiian poke or a Vietnamese bun cha gio noodle bowl. While their presence may have slip- ped somewhat on Instagram and Tik Tok feeds, the so-called power bowl remains
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