daftcakes!

yesterday we had a going-away party for a coworker. it featured some baked goods (little butterfly cupcakes, italian orange and chocolate-iced biscotti, my pecan shortbread and norwegian cardamom spice cookes with espresso glaze, coffee cakes), fruit, but most notable of all: dominion grocery store slab cake. which i ate two pieces of. corner pieces - with double the frosting! it was fairly disgusting. one of my apocalyptic skills is my uncanny ability to eat massive amounts of slab cake and to at times, favour it over home-baked pastries. i don't know what it is, but lately, grocery stores have really NAILED the slab cake genre. it's all in the frosting. gone is the hard, overly sweet, teeth-aching frosting of yore and in its' place is a lightly sweetened, softly airy, whipped-cream-esque substitute. divine!

after that i met up with dr. rei and we did some shopping for my nephew, little ze's birthday. we also hit the new "forever 21" store at the corner of dundas and yonge. it's an american chain that offers cheap(er) clothes that are still stylee. i went in and almost died and went to heaven. the clothes are so me!!!!!! they've got this flowy, vaguely hippie-esque vibe with nice patterns and colours. j'adore! it's a lot more me than the offerings at h&m, which are a bit too euro-urban-trendy-electro for me. however, i was thinking that the price point would be a little lower...it's not that much of a deal (especially for the quality), but it's still fun to check out. i love shopping with dr. rei because she's very sensible about things and keeps me from going buck on generic, mass-produced pieces, by asking me the hard questions like, "do you really need this?" or "why don't you save your money for something really special?" and in the end, i need to be asked such things, because i've inherited my mother's ability to be a shopping addict. and my wardrobe is already bursting at the seams. i have a pretty good eye for clothes, so things i buy rarely go "out of style" per se, which means that at the rate that i'm collecting, it's bad news for the amount of space i have.

the point is: you're right dr. rei...i'm better off spending my hard-earned dollars on one of a kind pieces.

also, i'm going to visit my sis for a mini-vacay (me and the boy took a few extra days off work), so i should REALLY be saving my money for the hole i'm going to tear into the libertine collection at target. i'm also hoping to check out steve and barrys, which sells ultra-cheap clothes that are the end result of my people being paid in grains of rice. eeeks.

in other news...my birthday weekend is going to be OFF THE CHAINS. i've decided that i want to go see daft punk at arrow hall on august 5th. check out this footage:



holy s**t. if that's not the hypest thing i've seen in a while, i don't know what is. all the dancing i haven't been doing all year is going to be made up in one glorious show. the greatest thing about my birthday is that the provincial government saw fit to mark the auspicious occasion of my birth with a civic holiday, which means that there's always a 3 day weekend lurking around the vicinity of my bday. BOOOOOOYASHAKA. that means the rave is ON, motherf**kers!

ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!! i'm so hype already it's making me want to shoop like whoa!

have a great long weekend, peeps! i'm going to be chilling out maxing relaxing all cool in the land of super-sized portions of bob evans bulk sausage, biscuits and gravy, and modern imperialism-derived slack.

fin.

mmw + s = <3 <3 <3 !!!

last night's show was so good! it was funky and skanky and jammy and dancey and all the upbeat medeski martin and wood hits that i love. although i've said it before and i'll say it again: JAZZ FANS ARE THE WORST. the most unhype, unenthusiastic crowds i've ever seen. it's like buddies: you know why you're listening to a dieing sound??? because you do it a disservice and make live shows NOT LIVE.

mmw is as close as i get to listening to a "jam" band (ie. i loathe dave matthews with a vehemence i usually reserve for...well...i guess i loathe a lot of things with vehemence). i've seen them four times now, and each time, people are up outta their seats and dancing. so why would the td canada trust toronto jazz peeps see fit to pack a bunch of CHAIRS into the tent where the concert took place??? so lame! the most rousing reaction most toronto jazz people can muster is polite clapping. there wasn't much of a vibe inside the room which is so odd to me, as jazz is something that's dependent on LIVE performance. and sometimes that s**t get's COOKIN' but you wouldn't know it from the crowd reaction.

i have to say i think this is a toronto thing. in nyc, peeps get riled and rowdy, and this is the 50+ crowd. we saw ron carter (for free!) at the museum of natural history and the peeps were feelin' it. blech. it's just depressing how lamely mediocre and genially bland toronto is sometimes.

scofield adds an extra layer of dopeness to the group and my only complaint is that the show was a little short.

tonight for dinner i was thinking of going out to eat, but i'm going to do the frugal thing and make a pancetta, caramelized onion, cracked black pepper and parm bucatini with a salad.

fin.

is this normal???

that's a question that gets asked a lot around these parts, usually late on a friday evening, as the roomie, the boy, and i are deep in conversation, as we happen to glance at the clock and realize that by all rights, we should be capitalizing on our youthful vigor and painting the town red, not 2 hours into a psychoanalysis of what makes oprah indicative of the problems with society (the boy and me), or the last bastion of hope for our damaged world (the roomie).

our closeness and contentment with each other as company always makes us wonder aloud if it's "normal" - but then we realize the question is a wash, because as usual, we're only asking each other creating a circular trajectory to our self-analysis.

this was thrown into relief at my friend's shindig on saturday. it was the roomie's long island friend (hereafter known as "p"), the roomie, myself and someone we hadn't yet met sitting on the couch in that order. it was pretty hot in there and we were sweating up a storm, until that became a topic of conversation. "i'm sweating like a pig," says i. "it doesn't matter cuz you don't have hair under your pits so it wouldn't stink," responds the roomie. "sure i stink," is my retort. "no, you don't," is the roomie's rejoinder. to which, i take the "logical" next step, and swipe a hand under my armpit, lubing it up with the pheromones-laced secretions of my glands, and take a sniff. i then offer said hand to my roomie to take a sniff, which she obligingly does, with the comment, "i don't smell anything". at which point, the kindly girl sitting on my right decides (justifiably so) to get up and move to a chair across the room.

yikes. maybe this whole family thing has gone too far? although the thing that reassures me is that every time we have someone over, they want to move in with us. something tells me i'm into something good.

concert tonight! medeski, martin, wood and scofield. you know what i love more than a hammond organ??? a rhodes! and you know what i love more than a hammond and a rhodes? a wurlitzer!!! and you know what i love best of all??? when someone can play ALL THREE at a time, alongside bass and drums. it's my ideal combo. none of that saxamaphone and trumpet biz...all meat, no fat. it also means i get to dance outside. joy!

for dinnie tonight we're having seared scallops on a bed of creamy egg noodles with garlic scapes and peas. and a radicchio, parsley, fennel and romano bean salad with lemon and olive oil and fleur de sel, the original incarnation of which is pictured above.

fin.

this is a throwdown...

behold my boy foucault showing chomsky who's bawss in this debate. imo, he mops the floor with chomsky, especially in the second part. i LOVE this kind of stuff.





in other news, the parental complaint about teenage boys eating you out of house and home is a truism like CRAZY. my little bro is INSANE. he drinks like a litre of milk at a time and i watched him polish off the remainder of my (rather expensive) organic breakfast cereal (there was HALF A BOX LEFT) yesterday as he dumped it into the largest bowl i have. basically, i'm going to buy him a jumbo box of vector and hope that does the trick. i don't know if i can keep up.

for dinner tonight we're having grilled bacon wrapped mackerel with boiled blue potatoes in dilled sour cream and asparagus.

fin.

three's company

actually, technically we have five people in this house right now. so far so good...nobody's had any freak outs yet and the house doesn't feel super-full. we'll see how long this bonheur lasts. my little bro is very respectful thus far, so i think it's going to work out. i'm kind of still reeling from the fact that he's SO OLD now.

the driving range went well again yesterday. according to the boy, i was doing way better than bunny summerington the fourth a couple of spots down, who had the whole rig: a shiny set of graphite clubs, collared polo, walking shorts, golf shoes, the glove, etc. and while my shots were (for the most part) landing straight and true, hers were all over the place. i'm HOOKED. we're going on a mini-vacay this weekend but when we get back, we're going to try to get a round in. i'm totally hyped.

finally, we watched the final two episodes of veronica mars, the series. wow. that was COMPLETELY UNFULFILLING. it blew chunks. the story was actually starting to pick up and they left the door open for future episodes and then BLAM. that's it, show's over. laaame! the writer/executive producer knew what was up though, as he dissed himself in the second last episode. still...laaame!!! it just made me mad more than anything else.
we ended up at this place called "the burger shoppe" for dinner last night. they ONLY do burgers, fries, onion rings and shakes and they market themselves as "specialists" in that particular idiom. dinner was on the pricey side: 2 "shoppe" burgers (with caramelized shallots and horseradish) combos, 1 with fries, 1 with rings, a side gravy, an upgrade to boylan's soda (instead of canned coke) and a vanilla shake cost $30. it's getting a shade high for me. the fries were outstanding, the onion rings needed a touch of seasoning, the shake was a good shake (if i had my own milkshake machine, i would exercise the masochistic need to be gouged every time i want blended ice cream and milk), and the burgers were quite good, although what i really enjoyed was the shallots and the horseradish. it was a beefy little number, but it wasn't the kind of burger that makes me want to shoop, if you know what i mean. i had what i thought (on a tastebud satiation level) was an equally good banquet burger, made with a quantifiable amount of less care and cheaper ingredients, for $3 at square boy. so burger for burger, i don't know if it's worth the drive to acton. the fries were just the way i like them though. top fries in the city (in no particular order): the burger shoppe, duff's wings, and oyster boy.

today is my long day, so i cooked my dinnie for tonight, yesterday. we're having a fried eggplant, roasted pepper, grape tomato, basil, and oven-dried chili pepper penne pasta, with a big salad with my carrot-miso vinaigrette.

fin.

the bad boyfriend pays off (finally!)

our relationship to supermarket has finally taken a turn for the better. it's basically our abusive boyfriend. most of the times it's pretty bad, but then the odd time, the place is full, the music is good, and it's hard to forget all the bad times we've had. after a fun and sociable time at my friend's place for pre-drinks, we meandered over there, and the place was actually busy! and the tunes were aight (aight meaning they played "bonita applebaum - AT THE APPROPRIATE TIME - *cough* dr. rei *cough* and "o.p.p." and "push it"). that's an overexposed pic of me in our friend's car on the way over. there's nothing i love more (as i'm exceptionally unphotogenic) than blurry or overexposed pics of me.

you know what else is a ginormous ego-stroke? on saturday night some pretty cute dude tried to pick me up off the street and told me i looked like i was 21 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). best thing to happen on saturday night fo sho.

last night's dinnie was the boom boom. although i spoiled my supper by eating a square boy banquet burger at 2pm for a late lunch. but it tasted so goooood going down. the star of the show was definitely strawberry pie. it was fantastic! the crust was flaky and light and tender and had good flavour and the strawberry filling set up nicely, wasn't too watery, and wasn't too sweet. it was the essence of strawberries bound in my award-winning (self-adjudicated, not peer-reviewed) crust.

today the plan is to hit the driving range with the boy, although he's still not up yet, so i'm not sure how feasible this plan is, then come back and eat a sunday breakkie of blueberry buttermilk pancakes and bacon. then i'm going to a yoga class, coming home, and making dinnie for my mum and bro while my little bro moves in.

dinner tonight, if i end up cooking and we don't go out, is supposed to be a pasta with fried eggplant, tomatoes, olives and parm with bucatini and a side salad. strawberry pie for dessert, obvs.

fin.

mr. belvedere, m.d.

last night's dinnie with dr. rei and the roomie inside the ride was hi-larious and featured, amongst other things: an ongoing mr. belvedere gag, dr. rei's bumbled fumbling of a 1 month old baby, dr. rei's subsequent unsuccessful hamming attempts at winning said baby over, only to be met with rolleyesdotbarfdotgif from the baby, and a mildly embarrassing conversation on the streetcar to the bar where us three girls hashed over (quite loudly) people we knew who were "ugly" "average" or "pretty".

the bar was a bust. i was expecting old skool hip hop dj sets and what i got instead was an all-white reenactment of 8 mile. seriously. it was like bad mc after bad mc, although the notable line of the night was: "or else i'll f**k you over like a french seal". yikes is right, folks, yikes IS right.

today i'm lazing and futzing around the house with the roomie and her visiting friend from long island. then we're going to my friend's place for a birthday pre-drink and then seeing where the night takes us. i've given up on finding a live place to go dancing. it's like, never going to happen.

tonight for dinner we're having ginger-pear glazed grilled pork chops a panzanella salad and grilled asparagus. for dessert we're having a warm strawberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

fin.

summer solstice

yesterday was the summer solstice which always leaves me feeling bittersweet. even as you're quietly awed as the seemingly endless day inches slowly into twilight, you know that this is the turning point, where you start to feel the sun gently extricate itself from your fingers, eluding your grasp, leaving in its place the quickening dark that hints at winter.

the schmoozing went well, although i've just about given up any hope of a chance at working at the toronto star or globe & mail or any of the media outlets. a woman from the star spoke at the event and she said it's really tough out there for news librarians. as news organizations continue to centralize and lay people off, they're simply not replacing people. although she did mention a friend who finally got a job working for e-talk daily (which would be SO.MUCH.FUN!!!. just imagine me "researching" celebrity pop culture all day...although if i got stuck with the can-con, imagine instead me struggling to stay awake as a i troll the internet in search of pictures of kim mitchell's younger sister or tidbits about michael buble where he DOESN'T come off as a giant boob, or info on feist where she's not a pretentious, self-involved twat).

thanks to momma d, i also had an in with the film reference library lady, which would be another awesome job. ideally, and i've said this before, i would love to be a pop culture librarian, which is hard, because the only university of popular culture of any repute is in bowling green, ohio. i'd also love to be a librarian at some kind of culinary archive or something, but again, there's not much of that around these parts.

last night i ended up grabbing chinese bbq takeout on the way home. tonight my brothers, rei, and the roomie are going up to markham for a chinese banquet for my grandma's bday. feastus-maximus! then we're going out dancing at supermarket for that hip hop night i adore, called "never forgive action". and my littlest bro is also moving in tonight for the summer (he got a job as a camp counsellor downtown).

fin.

lateness abounds!

yet again! so yet another short post.

questions:

a) does the fact that i have absolutely no interest in pride make me a latent homophobe? my principle objections are: the music, sweaty naked people, and hordes of drunks.

b) am i ever going to see my friend schmee again?

c) will i be able to pull off schmoozing at my professional event tonight with aplomb and grace?

i'm not sure if i'm going to be ambitious enough to try to make dinner. we shall see. if i do, it's going to be pasta with fried eggplant, tomatoes, olives, and these oven-roasted hot chili peppers packed in oil that my supervisor gave me.

i lub her!

fin.

subway etiquette

yes folks, it's the de rigeur toronto ttc rider's rant about how other people have no subway etiquette. as i was getting off the subway yesterday i was held up by a doddering old lady, with a cane, unsteadily trying to weave her way out of the path of exiting and oncoming passengers. she was OLD, folks. like 80+ old, and all the other passengers on the train with a seat are much younger. i almost lost my s**t. as i'm getting off and pass the lady, i raised my voice and shouted, "will SOMEONE give up their seat for this person?!?" and stared at the seated people until a young man sheepishly and shamefacedly got up. i also got some nasty glares but i can deal with that. it makes me want to puke the way people can be so rude. i want to cuff them all upside the head.

in more positive news: WE FOUND THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!!! it was parked on the corner of the danforth. i got a butterscotch sundae and the roomie and the boy got a swirled chocolate dip cone. i suspect that the ice cream truck is probably pretty low fat because soft-serve is probably soy milk or something. the dairy percentage in that crap has got to be pretty low.

we're also dealing with this weird pipe issue, where every now and then, the pipes start making this shuddering racket, that will only be alleviated by turning on the taps all the way. it's pretty freaky because the noise is so loud and the walls start shaking something awful - it feels like the pipe is going to explode. apparently there's air trapped in there or something.

dinner tonight is huevos rancheros. i made the tortilla chips, deep frying cut up corn tortillas, and we nibbled on some last night...they're SO MUCH BETTER than store bought. so corn-y! i'm running late so i'll put up pics of last night's dinner tomorrow.

we love freaks and geeks!

i borrowed the entire first season from the library. we had started watching "firefly" but i couldn't handle the heavy whedon-sci-fi epic in the summer time. funny, heartfelt, awkward, teenage coming-of-age in the 80s however? sign me up!!! we've only watched 2 episodes so far but it's got so much heart that i was totally won over. seth rogan's awkward one-liners are hilarious. i'm really hoping that lindsay weir ends up with nick andopolis (who is totally sweet and kinda goofy and obsessed with building the ultimate drum kit) instead of daniel desario (played by james franco as this show's jordan catalano character...hot but a big dummy). little sam weir is the cutest! i'm kinda glad the show only lasted one season, because i don't want to see that kid grow up. it would just be bad. like, kevin-arnold-at-the-end-of-wonder-years bad.

tonight for dinner we're having cedar-planked lime-ginger marinated salmon with sweet potato fries and roasted ontario asparagus. viva l'ete!

fin.

the next tiger...

so, i've totally fallen in love with the driving range. according to the boy, i was doing pretty good for a first-timer...i managed to knock the ball into the 100 yard range a couple of times. the thing i like about it, is that it's a mental game. every single time you tee up is an opportunity to make micro-adjustments and get it right. and it's just you against yourself. i definitely like it better than most team sports, where things are happening really fast and your movements have got to be really instinctual. golf seems really cerebral and i totally dug it. the plan is we're going to hit the driving range a couple more times and then play a round on a par 3 course. as you can see, i totally don't have appropriate golf attire. i'm hoping i can raid a used clothing store for a totally 80s, vintage, preppy, lacoste-laden look, suitable for a woman named dottie buffington III. go big or go home, folks.

it was a pretty physical weekend all around, which i loved. we biked to dinner on saturday night and biked home from the movie. we also biked to golf and back, played a round, and then played dodgeball. we won the final game, but it was close. final score was 9-8 and it got ugly. we had a good lead going in, but then we lost our heads and started playing too defensively and the opponents started gaining ground. my heart was POUNDING during that final game but we made quick work of them. for once, **I** wasn't the one having rage blackout issues. and you know there's something off when **I** am the calmest person during the game. that team in particular makes us SO MAD. the game started off fine. then they called an out on one of our players (he was holding two balls). now, i've got the rules. simple possession of two balls at one time by one person doesn't qualify as an out, but they do have to put one of the balls down. and if they make a catch while holding another ball, the catch is a wash. but they started flipping out and calling it an out. and that's when our team LOST IT. they were also calling outs on stupid stuff like if one of our players accidentally slid over the line by half a foot. and they were CHEATING again like CRAZY! they weren't abiding by the first off, first on rule. and when we had established that we would let them call their own outs and we would call our own, they kept trying to argue our outs for us. in the end we won, but it was so ugly that it marred the victory for us. because i just know that they don't think we won fair and square. they probably think we won through cheating, which is just annoying when they're the cheatiest team around. so aggravating! if we meet them next season, we're just going to kill them with kindness. and then CRUSH THEM.

you know what's NOT aggravating? hilary duff's dress at the mmvas. gorgeous! i just need it to not be strapless. what a fun, kicky little number.

today is my long day, so i'm packing a red cabbage and beet borscht with dilled sour cream (can be eaten hot or cold!) for dinnie along with my by-now requisite cheddar and onion sammy.

fin.

o, mein papa

fathers of the world (except kim jong-il), i salute you!

the rosebud was delicious! four people, 3 cocktails, and a bottle of wine cost $310 after tax and tip (although now i'm agonizing that we didn't tip enough...why am i so bad at the maths??? why???) and we each had 3 courses. to start, i had the chicken liver and cognac pate, which came (properly) in it's own little wee crock frosted with a 1/4 " layer of chicken fat, which cleaved in big shards like ice beneath the pressure of my knife to yield buttery, smooth, rich and flavourful chicken live mousse with a slight acidity from the booze to cut the unctuousness. this was served with thin crostinis that had been seasoned. i can't reiterate enough how much i love it when places take that extra little step to season their toasts. just a soupcon of salt makes all the difference.

the boy had an heirloom beet and arugula salad with goat's cheese. the arugula was bitter and spicy, tempered by the sweetness of the beets and the balsamic vinaigrette in which it was dressed, and complemented by the disc of faintly barny goatcheese that had been crusted in nuts.

for a main course, i ordered lamb rack with mint sauce and peas. the lamb was cooked perfectly medium, capped with a chewy, sizzling, lip-smackingly good layer of crunchy lamb fat, properly seared. the sauce was the star of the show: a rich, dark, thickly viscous lamb glace, punctuated with breathy shots of julienned mint, the pop of green peas, and chunks of crunchy-soft roasted potatoes, perfect for chasing the slick, flavour-packed jus. delicious.

the boy got braised short ribs, which were two sturdy, beefy little numbers, the meat properly falling off the bone with a neat pile of caramelized shallots.

the desserts were pretty standard, an airy, bittersweet chocolate mousse shot through with espresso undertones and a fairly standard (though very custardy) creme brulee, topped with a layer of burnt sugar that was slightly too thick for my liking.

overall everything, including our friends' dishes, were all well prepared and uniformly delicious. the style of the food doesn't make it the kind of place where i'll necessarily be running to go there again, mainly because it's on the opposite side of town. it's a great first-date kind of joint, where you'll pay medium prices for well executed, thoughtful, though slightly unadventurous food.

today we're going to shoot a bucket of balls at the driving range with the boy's dad. F.U.N.!!! i've never golfed before but i'm tremendously excited. then it's dinner with the boy's family, then dodgeball, then post-game food at duff's, then home.

what a day!

fin.

dear sister

so i finally got around to watching the snl "dear sister" digital short 'pon de youtube. HI-larious. i know i'm hopelessly out of date but i kinda got a hot-on for andy samberg. although i thought the natalie portman rap wasn't that funny.

last night's "scene not herd" series was predictable/fun/entertaining as always. the best one i saw was for this song called "sta passando novembre" by eroz ramozotti. it was beautiful and sad and touching and sweetly tender:


the other one i loved was called "the owl" by i love you but, i have chosen darkness. this one was beautifully stark and effective, mostly for the depiction of the owl alone. the music melded amazingly with the visuals, creating a nearly unbearable tension that mounted and mounted without the exhalation of release:


finally, the last one i really really liked was called "peace and love" by a band called quasi. it had cute round animation and if there's one thing i'm a sucker for, it's cute, round animation. plus when the characters finally come together, it's the cutest embrace ever! like brancusi's "the kiss" (grade 12 art history say what!):


there was an AWFUL one from the scissor sisters (i can't believe people listen to that generic crap), the constantines (ditto) and emily haines and some other loser from broken social scene. indie music is poo. the emily haines one was just plain BORING and utterly generic and the apostle of hustle tune, "national anthem of nowhere" sounded like s**t. literally. the levels and engineering on the tune were crap, unless it was MEANT to sound like it was recorded 5 rooms down from the mic, in which case, that's the stupidest idea i've ever heard. also, there was a predictably, self-indulgent lame-ass tune featuring the most generic, elevator-innocuous electronic music noodling beats, courtesy of everyone's favorite borderline autistic dorkface, thom yorke. the programme calls his style "plaintive", i call it "whiny" and "dull". i don't think "plaintive" can be used as a favorable adjective. as soon as i heard the keening, indecipherable mumbling of a male voice over those utterly banal beats, i just KNEW it had to be radiohead or a side-project, and lo and behold, 3/4 of the way through, we see thom yorke, half catatonic, curled into a embryonic rigor mortis, plunging into a pool of water. *YAWN* i'm sorry, but thom yorke needs to go away now. actually, he should've gone away like ten billion years ago and left his keening middling-ness off the airwaves and music enthusiasts-cum-lately's "best of" lists.

today i'm working a shift at the library (just a half day, yay!) and then coming home to get a crash course in bike mechanics from my housemate (my friend renting the apartment upstairs). then me and the boy are going to a place called the rosebud for dinner, followed by a short film festival "midnight mania" series called "creepy".

full review of the rosebud (with pictures!) to follow.

fin.

let the weekend begin!

i'm homeward bound to chill with dr. rei before we go to the "scene not herd" show of the worldwide short film festival. i'm a festival regular now, going on five years. "scene not herd" is a showcase of music videos from around the world which makes for a visually and aurally entertaining show.

that is a variation on the outfit i'm wearing. it's a little blurry and i'm scrapping the short-shorts in favour of dark denim capris. i was hamming it up last night, wearing a cut-off piece of the boy's trousers on my head and arm...a kind of nouveau kkk/nazi cross...it's a line i'm developing for target.

i was so excited to start mowing last night's dinnie i almost forgot to take a shot. thus the large, unsightly, dinosaur-chomp taken out of my sammie. the spooge coming out the top is the scallion mayo making a run for it. i ended up scrapping the bottom half of bread because it was getting too bready. the miso-carrot vinaigrette was aight. it could've used some fresh ginger but i was out. otherwise it was sweet and slightly acidic with a good shot of the miso-fermenty-musk/funk to give it some character.

tonight for dinnie i'm making braised sausage and artichokes with lemon and sage and roasted asparagus. and i think after the movie i want to go to greg's ice cream for dessert.

fin.

the sarah dessen oeuvre

"that summer" was sarah dessen's first novel and in my opinion, it shows. it's a story about the "summer that changes your life" and is a rather flimsy tale about a girl, haven, whose sister is getting married, dealing with her father's remarriage and the reappearance of the boy who her sister dated. not a lot goes on and the characters aren't very well drawn or interesting. if i wasn't so doggedly committed to reading everything she wrote, i doubt i would pick it up otherwise and i know i wouldn't read it again.

"keeping the moon" has an awful title but is more fluffily readable than the last. there's familiar ground being retread here: a girl going through awkwardness, comes into her own during a summer of new friendships and a boy. i dig the whole teenage-portentousness-of-summer thing, i think i'm still guilty of it to this day, romanticizing summer. there's something about summer that to me, just makes it seem possible that anything can happen, particularly in the romance and adventure department. there just seems to be more opportunity to DO stuff in general. i enjoyed this one, but not as much as "just listen"

"someone like you" has a "best friends going through a teenage pregnancy" theme, mixed with a dash of "teenage girl getting into a regrettable relationship" and "teenage girl breaking away from the ties that bind her to her parents, only to gradually make her way back through the exorcism of the regrettable relationship" the slight change in subject matter (ie. not so romance driven) made it more enjoyable than "keeping the moon" or "that summer" and i liked the way the characters developed and were written.

finally, there's "this lullaby" which i LOVED. it's about a girl who goes through relationships and chews boys up, a serial monogamist who never really allows herself to get close to any of the boys she ends up with, until she meets this musician, dexter, who blows through her defenses, and despite all her efforts to rationalize how wrong they are for each other, makes her take a chance on love. it SOUNDS incredibly cheesy, right? it's not! (at least, i don't think so). the characters were so sweet and well written, especially dexter whose personality jumps off the page. they felt really real and the romance plays out in this sarcastic, guarded, jokey way that i found really endearing. dessen also frames her lead character's resistance to love within the framework of a deadbeat dad. maybe i liked it because the lead character is like me. it's by far the toughest girl that dessen has ever created. usually her lead characters are about mousy "good" girls who have to try hard to have their voices heard, whereas remy, the lead in "this lullaby", is a confident, brassy, whip-smart chick who just doesn't know how to let her guard down. it was an absolute delight to read, and it became my new favorite...it's definitely one i'll be re-reading again.

so my personal ranking of sarah dessen's young adult work reads thus:

1. this lullaby
2. just listen
3. the truth about forever
4. someone like you
5. keeping the moon
6. that summer

i still have to read "dreamland" and then i'm completely caught up, but right now i'm going through a non-fiction phase.

i LOVE how much pleasure reading i'm getting to do this summer!

update: last night's dinner = SUCCESS! but i implore you not to underestimate the ease with which one can bread and deep fry a poached egg. to quote julia roberts in that timeless french classic, "pretty woman": "slippery little suckers" *horse-faced - but beguiling! - smile* i wasn't careful and broke a couple of yolks. it's hard getting the eggs poached firm enough so that you can handle them, and underdone enough so that the yolks will still be runny when re-cooked during the frying process. the garlic scapes were an unparalleled success and overall the dish was restaurant worthy to the extreme. i added some oven-roasted ontario asparagus to up the veg quotient.

i was feeling guilty because yesterday i basically ate sugar all day. the party was a huge hit! the ladies at work should definitely start a side business doing corporate events because it was the nicest, most diverse and pro spread i've seen at a work gig. they really know how to entertain! plus there was dominion slab cake of the calibre that i'm particularly susceptible to: cheap, fake, airy and loaded with a creamy (whipped cream?) frosting that isn't that gummy, thick, overly saccharine grout-like stuff that is the go-to frosting for most mass-produced cakes. deelish! needless to say, i ate way too much sugar. i nearly scrapped dinner (since the day was already a write-off) for burgers from this new burger place that opened up in leslieville, "the burger shoppe", but stopped myself since i really want to try deep-frying poached eggs. in other news: operation hijack the ice cream truck was a bust. we couldn't find it anywhere! so my craving for soft-serve chocolate dip remains unsatiated.

tonight for dinner we're having simple grilled salmon on a bun with lettuce, tomato, and scallion mayo with a side salad of baby greens, tomatoes, cucumbers and a miso-carrot vinaigrette.

fin.

work/play

for the shower today, i volunteered to do some cooking, so i made: jerk chicken on naan rounds (it's an island theme), smoked salmon with herbed cream cheese on crostinis, mini chorizo and cheddar quiches, and banana-walnut cake squares with brown sugar frosting. it's going to be quite the spread. the party will probably last until lunch, which means i get like, all morning off (because i'm helping to set up the party too).

in the past few weeks i've read almost all of sarah dessen's books, i'll do a bulk review tomorrow.

last night's dinner was delicious! italians are to meatballs as dwarfs (apparently you don't pluralize dwarfs as "dwarves"?) are to fantasy warriors. the meatballs were so tender and delicate. mine always turn out to be hulking, burly, chunky and squat little numbers (like me!). the salad was a nice complement to the heaviness of the pasta. i was a little worried that the cumin in the dressing would be overpowering, but there's just enough to ground the crunchy, crispy, bright freshness of the salad and round it out. it's definitely going on the roster. i always need new salad ideas.

tonight for dinner we're having breaded, deep-fried poached eggs (YOU HEARD ME. BREADED DEEP-FRIED POACHED EGGS!!!!!) on creamed spinach on ace focaccia toast. i'm trying to avoid dessert, although if it's stinking hot, we might raid the grocery jar for the change that we've been saving and accost the ice cream truck on our way to/from the park. we've been stockpiling the change for just such an occasion. and if you can't hijack an ice cream truck in the summer, then you're basically letting osama win.

fin.

things that are good

ribbed:
- condoms
- the banding on socks
- me during rib-fest

things that i abhor ribbed:
- PAPERCLIPS

the hunt for a smooth paperclip is dictating the course of my day at work. i loathe ribbed paperclips. i don't know who ever came up with the notion, but that person should be stabbed. the ribs just catch and tear at the paper and it drives me bonkers. and yes, this is actually something that bothers me. we all have our issues, i just happen to have exponentially more than most people.

today i'm going to work and then meeting the boy at the farmer's market. then some grocery shopping, home, making dinner, and hopefully doing some dodgeball practice in the park. i'm liking this sunny but low-humidity weather we've been having. delicious.

tonight for dinner my lovely supervisor at work gave me a jar of her tomato sauce and meatballs. i can see lovely leaves of basil floating around in there and she's italian so i have high, high hopes. we're going to be having it with pappardelle pasta and a big cucumber, orange pepper, celery, cumin and mint salad, al fresco.

fin.

i'm running late!

quickie post:

- dinner with my grandparents was hilariousness as per usual, but ratcheted up a notch by the presence of dr. rei. she was also invited to the next to-do, having made a good impression on my grandpa through the machiavellian coaching of the boy sitting next to her: "grandpa doesn't have dessert! SERVE GRANDPA HIS DESSERT!" - needless to say, grandpa was thoroughly charmed at her filial piety. my stepdad was also on point. quote of the night being (as he's arguing with my brother about his favorite bone of contention: his cell phone plan): "i'm just going to take your suggestion and switch to a pay as you go. AND THEN NEVER ANSWER THE PHONE." !!!!! there were also the usual slanderous slurs against mainland chinese people.

- dodgeball was bittersweet. by all rights, we won our game, but we're fixing it slightly because we really want to face this team we despise, who we won fair and square against (even though they cheated like d**ks) and then had the GALL to give us less than 5 spirit points. EVERYONE GETS FIVE SPIRIT POINTS.

dinner tonight will be jerk chicken with coconut rice'n'peas and some random veggies.

fin.

bust-fest 2010

trying to find a place to go dancing in this city is brruuutal. well, at least it was for me, the roomie and the new bffffff. we all had VERY different agendas though and very different expectations. surprisingly, for all that i'm a hard-ass, picky mofo, i'm the most flexible out of them all. we got turned away from one place because i was wearing running shoes (which is probably my ONE sticking point: i really resent some lame club stuffed with 905ers telling ME how to dress. like, i'm sorry i'm not wearing head-to-toe aritzia and stilettos so that there's no physical way for me to outrun some lame-o computer programmer/investment banker looking to roofie me). then we tried a bunch of other places: too long a line, music isn't good, cover is too high, etc. etc. the new bfffff basically just wanted to be able to do the bump'n'grind and get some action and the roomie basically wants to be able to hear "it takes two" for less than 5 dollars in a club that's full (but not too full) with no dress code and no line. c'est impossible!!!

i saw a cute boy but as per usual he had a short weaselly friend cock-blocking him. what is WITH short boys with a touch of the chatz (those who know, know) thinking that talking obnoxiously is working for them? p.s. dude, you're not funny. now let me get my mack on.

last night's dinnie was fun fun fun!!! i'm bummed my fam missed it, because we went to the park after dinner with my friend who moved in upstairs (AWESOME!!!) to play frisbee and they were having a "summer solstice dance" in the hockey rink at withrow park. it was a bunch of kids dancing to a dj and there was a beer zone and everything for the grownups! my niece would have had the best time. boo. in other news, holy s**t: chocolate pudding pie is my new demi-god.

sunday breakfast is going to be a cheddar mushroom omelette (fritatta) with toast and an apple-cucumber-carrot-ginger juice. today me and the boy are going for a bike ride through the city and then it's dodgeball playoffs and then dinner up in markham for my grandparentals anniversary. busybusybusy.

fin.