betrayed by my own subconscious!

so i had this weird dream a couple of nights back, where my siblings and i were superheroes. my sister was wearing a nun's habit, so her superhero name was "the habit". my brother had these long tentacle-like arms, so his name was "stretch" or something. you want to know what my name was? "the bitch" !!!!! hahahahaha! it was one of those dreams where you're semi-conscious of the stuff unfolding as it happens, so i remember in the dream, consciously being, "what the f**k? i gotta remember this for later".

the most positive thing about this blog so far is that it's letting me stay in touch with people that i don't get to see regularly. i'm just hoping that there wasn't an "official" guideline for this blog and i don't get penalized for being a potty-mouth, gossip-mongering trash-talker. i am what i am, take it or leave it.

i wanted to go to some of the scotiabank "nuit blanche" things tonight, but i'm passing it up in favour of babysitting my niece and hanging with my sibs later. the nuit blanche listings look hit or miss. swimming in hart house all night listening to "experimental" music? not so much, thanks. i would really like to do nuit blanche in montreal. i was talking to r and we decided that the problem with toronto is that we're always trying to emulate what a "city" should be, instead of letting things develop organically. we're a city of try hards, so when things happen, it always seems forced and overly determined.

tonight for dinner i had planned on smoking some ribs and doing a whole southern-influenced meal. i don't know if the rain is going to mess with my barbecue's ability to stay really low for the requisite amount of time, but i'll give it the ol' college try. i haven't smoked anything in the q all summer...which sucks! i tried to find apple or cherry wood, but no luck, so i'm stuck using hickory chips instead. i smoke 'em for about 3 hours or so, at about 250F, and then finish them on high heat with my chipotle bbq sauce, which i based off the dinosaur recipe and augmented over time. the plan is to have macaroni salad and jicama, red cabbage and carrot slaw with it. i hadn't thought of a dessert thing...maybe chocolate pudding cakes with whipped cream.

fin.

okay smartie, go to a party...

peep my wikked bod flyer of rudeness! they look pretty low-key, but before i learned how to use photoshop (a year ago), it was a painstaking days-long process involving manual cutting and pasting, photocopying and re-photocopying.

i'm feeling pretty chuffed because me and my friend c (aka dj c64) have been throwing parties for five years, and we're on our 19th one. that's pretty long in toronto jungle years. we've also carved out a niche for ourselves as ethical, responsible promoters (when we first started...promoters didn't PAY local djs), and we've built a pretty loyal following. people tend to be excited about when the next splinter event is going to happen, and we get a really good crowd of people who get really bonkers and hype and enthusiastic. it's really gratifying throwing parties that fill a niche in the scene, bringing djs/producers that i wouldn't otherwise get to see, and getting crunked surrounded by people i like, as opposed to random mcgees at club X.

flyering amongst my schoolmates has been hit or miss. i asked some people in my program whether the phrase: "more debaucherous than a frat house full of roofies" was in poor taste and it didn't go over very well. most of my other friends thought it was pretty funny, but i decided not to put it on the print material in case i alienated the roofied demographic.

i think i have a better perspective on things after taking a breather from school-world last night. hanging out with my girl r helped. as did cancelling my attendance at all these workshops i had signed up for, eating rotis, and refusing to even look at my books, and instead watch episodes of buffy. i hated my last go-around at grad school because it was too much wankery, and i'm disappointed with this one because there's too little. i guess i'm a median wanker by nature.

and i gotta stop being such an over-achieving nerd-bomber type A ocd person.

apparently my friend e, at the AD&L cafe sold out of all my baked goods late wednesday afternoon. he says if i bake more, they'll buy 'em. i'm kinda thinking of jacking up the price of what i sell to him. it's a really time consuming process: i have to buy the ingredients, bake like 3 differents kinds (20-30 pieces each) and each time i do something new, i have to weigh it all out so i can calculate my food cost.

i'm currently running at about 0.50/per item, food cost only, not counting my labour. originally i sold them to him for 0.75, and he was selling them for 1.50. after working 3 hours doing the first batch, i realized i was getting the short end of the stick and we went through a renegotiation process so that i could get 1.00/per. that way, we both make .50 profit. that seems fair. the thing was...i had to ARGUE MY CASE ABOUT IT. wtf??? i'm the one actually making the stuff, dude just has to carry it. all the labour is on my end, as far as i can see. so i might up the price. if my stuff is popular, they're selling out...i want to see what the market can bear, so to speak. he's also carrying vegan baked goods which are larger than mine, but i'm betting that lady didn't do a food cost, so she's probably running at a loss. and, i bought one of the vegan cookies, and it tasted like a diuretic aid. so, i've obviously got the upper hand here. this arrangement has worked okay so far, because the money i'm getting for it pays for my photocopies and what little i spend on recreation/eating out, etc.

the other thing that's getting my goat is that duderino keeps giving me suggestions on what to make!!!!!! as if, guy! i just ignore him and make what i want to make. this week's shipment is going to consist of lemon bars, raspberry bars (jam was on sale) and i might make oatmeal chocolate chip and coconut cookies with my niece when i babysit her on saturday.

today i'm working at a library that i don't like, with my friend that i really like. being able to work with h makes the mundane tasks of a page much more bearable. for dinner we're having a wild mushroom fettucini with thyme, sauce is an emulsion of the pasta cooking water and some butter and maybe a touch of cream. i'm also getting ahead on thanksgiving by jarring up some of my cranberry apple and pear relish (much better than regular cranberry sauce) and a couple of sweet potato pecan pies and throwing them in the freezer. sweet potato pecan pie recipe comes via dinosaur bbq, a biker bbq joint that started in upstate new york. it's pretty real deal, as far as i can tell. people in toronto like to big up phil's (formerly dipamo's) original bbq out at college and ossington. i find phil's okay at best. the ribs tend to be on the dry side, the sides are terrible, and the pulled pork isn't succulent enough, and phil hasn't really worked on his sauce. the sides at dinosaur are insane-o. especially the mac salad. at any rate, this pie is so freakin' good that r has claimed it as her "the apocalypse is coming, and my imminent demise is here, and i'm going to go out eating this" pie. you really couldn't ask for higher praise, although i find her defeatist attitude about the coming apocalypse a little disheartening.

fin.

perogie critical mass...

has definitely been achieved. i'm feeling vaguely stressed out from all the silly noodley little assignments they have us do in this program, and it manifested itself in the consumption of an ungodly amount of perogies for dinner. now, 4 hours later, i *still* feel so full, i feel like i'm going to puke. and i feel like i'm going to puke up whole perogies. THAT'S how many i ate. so many that a good number of them are sitting at top of my stomach, whole, waiting to go through the miracle of digestion.

i'm not really digging any of my classes at the moment. i would say that most days, i feel like gouging my eyes out. i don't think i'm used to such a professionally oriented graduate program. we kind of get pushed through a lot of assumptions and discourses that don't get questioned, and indeed, it seems like there aren't even any apertures for a critical engagement with our framework. it's a wee bit disheartening. i mean, it'd be one thing if the courses were off the tits fun, or if the profs were funny, but they're not, so it's kind of a bummer.

today in FIS 1311, i was a little disturbed by prof. nickerson making (what i thought to be) overly deterministic statements about the so-called limitations of email communication. like, wha???? whenever i hear a statement like "jokes are harder to discern in email" or stuff of that ilk, i get all ::rollseyes:: to me, that's a pretty retrograde analysis. i guess i'm from the school of: meaning-is-created-in-the-space-between-the-medium-and-the-user. it's a collaborative process of discourse-construction, that's not predicated on the material specificity of the medium in question. it just seems like an overtly and unecessarily structuralist view of things, that doesn't take into account post-humanism, or feminist cyborg readings, or critical cyberspace theory. or, maybe i'm getting an undue percentage of hi-larious emails.

in FIS 1310 there's so much talk about reference "authority" and "objectivity" that it makes me want to stand up and shout: "THERE IS NO TRUTH, BUT TRUTH EFFECTS!" on behalf of my man foucault. and then add in: "P.S. POUVOIR!!!" for good measure.

it's just such a radical departure from my previous undergraduate and graduate work. being herded into a giant lecture hall to be assaulted with a power point presentation that's probably been in circulation since paul simon was recording graceland isn't my idea of higher education.

but i shouldn't be such a bitch-tits. what was i expecting? i knew coming in what the program was about, and that u of t is high on its own bunk-juice, so whatevs. maybe i'm just bitterbeans today and i'm just in the mood for hatin'. and besides, i take responsibility for my own complicity in this. the program is what it is, and i have to accept that and work within it as best i can, to get what i want out of it.

le poo-poo.

i'm excited about tomorrow night's dinner though!!! after a super-long day of school, i'm going to be meeting up with one of my favorite girls and we're going to flyer for my party in stores and go walking along queen. which means...GHANDI'S ROTIS FOR DINNER!!! i'm going to buy three for my house and bring them back home. what a treat! my roomie has never had them before either. ghandi's ranks equal to bacchus rotis in my book. bacchus is nice for the irie vibe, whereas ghandi's does the east indian roti. i'm getting the malak kofta roti, which consists of fried potato-paneer balls in a creamy tomato curry. my cohort is getting butter chicken roti. and the roomie is going to try a sag paneer roti. we're going to cut everything in three and go threesies. happiness abounds! the balance of flavours in their curries are fantastic, and the roti shells are perfectly flakey and sturdy enough to hold the filling in. they make everything from scratch while you wait. i'm also going to get a ginger beer to wash it all down. i'm a ginger beer connoiseur.

actually, the prospect of ghandi's is making everything aces.

fin.

p.s. i think my favorite hall and oates song is "private eyes" - shout out to veronica mars!

just as i always suspected...

yesterday in my "intro to bibliographic control" class, i asked about discrepancies between the results i had for our ungraded assignment, and the results prof had posted on the overhead projector. prof told me that i had been doing level 3 work, when we were only supposed to use level 2. so basically, she told me that i'm next level. it was pretty awesome.

i was trying to think of songs by hall and oates (sp?) lately, and the only one i can remember is "maneater". it's pretty catchy, but i'm absolutely positive they had more than one hit, and those other hits were equally, if not more, catchy.

trying to stay ahead of my workload is kind of crazy. it probably doesn't help that i take on all these additional projects in addition to working for tpl...but i guess i'm a type A personality. i just feel like there aren't enough hours in the day. ah well, i guess it's better than being at jesus camp. or in sierra leone, or david hasselhoff's daughter. i should be grateful that those are my problems, as opposed to my roomate, who's a student midwife in her last year...on friday, when i was busy bitching about the science of sleep, she was delivering a baby that had to have it's heart and lungs manually stimulated for FOUR MINUTES. so, all things considered, i'm doing aight.

dinner tonight is that old standby when i need something quick: perogies! with full fat sour cream, caramelized onions and garlic, and steamed green beans with a red-wine shallot mustard vinaigrette.

fin

stick a gun in it, it's done

that's a new colloquialism i made up while going for an evening stroll last night. our house has instituted evening strolls, which was my roomie's idea, in order to aid digestion. it seems to be working. my cohort tries to augment our evening strolls by getting us to clap and stomp out rhythms. things i've learned about myself: i can't stomp on the downbeat and clap on the upbeat at the same time.

i'm reading a fantastically engrossing book. it's called "the omnivore's dilemma" by michael pollan. it's an examination of the processes that make up what we choose to eat. so, it talks about industrial agriculture, the discourses around vegetarian/veganism, sustainable agriculture, the petro cost attendant on what we eat, etc. it kicks about ten different kinds of ass. it also trumps reading taylor's chapter on "access points". the readings for intro. to bibliographic control blow about 10 different kinds of ass. i don't understand the point of READING what is essentially a series of rules, supplements, augmentations, etc. it's like reading the canadian criminal code back sequentially. raphael de la boring.

tonight's dinnie is a mushroom, barley, beef soup with thyme. and garlic bread made with this sundried tomato bread i got from the baker lady at riverdale farmer's market. her bread is aight. it's made with commercial yeast so the crumb is kind of tight. st. john's bakery also sells their bread there and their bread is much better, in general.

reading michael pollan's book underscores my realization that "organic" can be a load of poo as a designation. the lady organizing the withrow farmer's market wasn't too enthused when i suggested they expand the edicts of the market to include local and sustainable produce. her smile got kind of tight and then she repeated: "ORGANIC. OR FARMS IN TRANSITION TO ORGANIC". when i used to work at canoe we'd get strawberries from driscoll farms in california labelled "organic". driscoll is also the company that provides a ton of the "conventional" raspberries and strawberries on the market. so the fact that they suddenly have space to be shipping "organic" strawberries across the continent seems dodgy at best.

and the heirloom tomato thing is getting way outta hand. what's the point of having conventionally grown heirloom tomatoes? why are people so wack?

fin.

"i'm not spoiled, i'm privileged"

- steve sanders, 1993

i watched "enron: the smartest guys in the room" this past weekend and it made my blood boil (predictably). after careful consideration, i've decided that day traders are chachis of the highest order, and therefore, are being added to my list of "people i can't take seriously". this list includes:

- anyone with a myspace page (i know there's 50 million of 'em, but i'm not interested in that wank-fest)
- people who believe in astrology
- people who work for companies like rogers and can't admit that they're effed up.
- people who you know know you but pretend like they don't in public, and awkwardness ensues.
- people who go on and on about how "tv sucks" and pride themselves on not watching tv. i don't CARE if you watch tv, that's your choice, but don't act like it gives you some kind of moral/cultural superiority. and also, don't qualify these kinds of statements by saying: "i only watch the discovery/history/etc. channel" like you're some kind of stalwart of the intellegentsia or something.

of course, there's a gradation along the scale, i might weigh other factors into the equation that will lessen the degree to which i won't take you seriously, and i'm generally easy-going, but if you subscribe to any of those things, there will always be a small part of my brain that will marvel over your ability to do so.

i also went to a farmer's market trial-run in withrow park. it was nice, a lot of the vendors from my regular farmer's market in riverdale were there, but i was surrounded by people wheeling $2000 designer strollers and they were mostly whiteys so i kinda got wigged out. i really believe in local organic food, and that what we put into our bodies matters, insofar as we should be conscious of the choices we make, but being surrounded by flake-bots being self-congratulatory and pious about their ability to spend the extra money on organic food gives me the willies. it really bugs me when people can't acknowledge their own privilege. they also played some really bad hippie-folkie music featuring lots of shakers and paens to peas.

on that note, last night i went off the charts again and yammed mamma's pizza delivery. didn't feel like cooking. but i was highly conscious of my choice to stuff my gullet with mamma's veneziana (artichoke pesto, black olives, proscuitto, asiago) and devils delight (spicy peppers, sausage). it was freakin' tasty as all hell.

tonight i'm finally doing those poor mackeral fillets justice.

fin.

plasticized cheese rules!

so i ended up going the processed cheese route on my grilled cheese sammy last night, it was everything i wanted it to be: fake, gooey, melty, and excellent with a ketchup counterpart. i think sometimes i'm trying to recapture a distinctly white-bread childhood i never had (will the next step be english muffin "pizzas" with velveeta and sliced hotdogs? who knows?). the apple strudel turned out fairly well, and i realized that it's a good recipe that lends itself to encounters with vegans, as all you have to do is sub oil for butter when you're brushing the phyllo. it was crispy and flakey and very fall.

sunday morning is the only time i get to make a real breakfast that's not cereal on the go, and it's a time when the members of my household are pretty much guaranteed to be together, so it makes for a nice sunday tradition with the "family". this morning i'm continuing jewish bubby mode by making cheese blintzes (honey-sweetened cottage cheese, ricotta, mascarpone filling) with a blueberry sauce and garlic breakfast sausages from the mennonites on the side. tonight we're reverting to the original plan for friday before i turned into captain piggerton, the seared mackeral, etc. and leftover strudel and custard sauce for dessert.

i made the zucchini relish yesterday. it turned out well (all the jars sealed), but the recipe is super labour-intensive. i also made some s'mores granola bars for sale at the AD&L cafe. apparently they were a big hit last time.

we watched "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" last night. i had to redeem michel gondry. it's still a fantastic movie. i'm not a big person on re-watching stuff, but i could see it again and again. the score is really nice too...it's nice when films still make an effort to have an actual film score, as opposed to stringing pop songs together. another great score is neil young's work for "dead man". if you have the means i highly recommend it.

fin.

the science of "meh"

i saw the science of sleep last night. in the words of antoine and blaine: "hated it". it was terrible! michel gondry should really stick to just directing (no writing for you, mister), and directing music videos. the aesthetic of the film was visually appealing, there was a certain naive quality to the low-fi set designs and stop-motion dream sequences (i particularly like the cardboard stuff), but the characters were really flat and one dimensional. they were supposed to be "whimsical" but they weren't endearing at all. and the movie was BORING. it just moved from one scene to another and each scene seemed like an exercise in showing just how "whimsical" stephane was, but there was no character development, or anything to make me care for that matter. the story arc was non-existent. the people in the theatre around us were laughing uproariously, but they must have been stupid because the humour was played out (ie. one of the characters was a co-worker who crassly talked about sex). i was actually fidgeting in my seat wondering when it was going to end. not good.

last night i came home to an empty house so i ended up doing some serious pigging out and veering way off the meal plan dictates. in the space of about five minutes, i yammed: two chicken thighs (cold from the fridge), 1 slice of pepperoni pizza from mamma's, and 2 crappy tarts (one pumpkin pie, the other key lime) made by dufflets by way of the sun valley grocery store. i also ate a small bag of popcorn at the movies. it wasn't pretty, but it did the trick.

tonight my cohort isn't feeling well, so i'm going into jewish grandmother mode and making some chicken soup. little known fact: deep within the heart of all short chinese girls, lurks a bubby just dying to come out. i LOVE ashkenazi jewish cooking. however i should qualify that the bubby within ME, isn't really that keen on the whole lebanon-palestine fiasco. so, tonight's dinnie is chicken soup with lots of root vegetables, dill, shredded chicken, and roasted chicken stock. and maybe some simple grilled cheese sandwiches. possibly with processed cheese cuz i kind of feel saucy like that.

i'm also making an apple strudel for dessert. chopped apples mixed with cinnamon, cardamom, chopped walnuts, rolled up in breadcrumb-layered, buttered filo, baked and served with a vanilla custard sauce. i LOVE custard sauce! i'm not overly keen on the brits in other respects, but i get positively anglophilic when it comes to serving desserts with custard sauce. and there's just something about a culture that calls almost all desserts "puddings" that makes me want to rest my head on the matronly bosom of the empire. god save the queen!!!

fin.

cheese it, the feds!

as promised here is a picture of fatty d'angelo. damn, son.

the jig is up! my blog is being read. and i'm caught posting on a regular basis. eep! mainly these posts are gratuitous padding around the real reason for my daily entries: i love documenting what i'm making/eating for dinner. so, it's early in the morning, i know you're frothing with anticipation, and yet, a niggling question in the further recesses of your rational mind: HOW DOES SHE KNOW WHAT'S SHE'S HAVING IF IT'S 8:40AM???

confession time, world: i make a weekly meal plan. i do this for the following reasons: it helps me stick to a weekly budget (i do all the cooking in my house of 3), it's organized and makes grocery shopping easier, and it's a by-product of my not-so-latent obsessive compulsive tendencies. i also have an excel spreadsheet grocery list. i've made my peace with it, but i'm well familiar with the pitying looks these revelations tend to induce.

on to happier things: tonight i'm making seared mackeral fillets on top of a warm, chivey potato salad bound with a mayo-sour cream mix (it's supposed to be creme fraiche, but i was too lazy to make a batch), with roasted garlic-thyme campari tomatoes on the side. i'm also starting a batch of my spicy zucchini relish, to be canned and preserved tomorrow. yes, i also make preserves. i'm preparing myself for the coming apocalypse (you have your doubts about the coming apocalypse??? go to you tube and watch the trailer for "jesus camp" - don't expect to get any sleep tonight - you've been warned).

i'm kind of looking forward to seeing "the science of sleep" even though it's been getting middling reviews. gael garcia bernal is a dreamboat, and i'd slog through a lot of dreck to watch him be pretty onscreen.

does anyone know how to inbed pictures into the body of the text? the "add picture" function seems to just plop them on top of the post somehow.

fin.

donna martin graduates!

okay, so apparently no one wants to read my crappy blog for jerks. i kind of find this liberating, in a doogie-howser-typing-his-diary-to-no-one (except possibly his creepy friend who climbed in the window every night) kind of way.

last night's episode of neuf zero deux un zero was pretty righteous. it involved the fall-out from donna getting wasted on a couple of glasses of champagne on prom night and getting suspended from school. brandon rallied the students of west beverly high to walk out on exams and protest. the best part was the corollary that was drawn between brandon's stand (on the rights of donna to be a privileged wasted slutco), and the student protests against the vietnam war in the 60s (!!!!!) it was, in the parlance of our times, teh awesome!

tonight's dinner was very fatty, and consequently, very tasty. i love fall/winter food because it's the ultimate time to indulge, and the food in general is just comforting, warm, and belly-filling. there's nothing like trudging home when you're cold and wet to find a slow-cooker slowly coaxing the gelatin to break down in a pile of short ribs, or clogging your tender arteries with mounds of pork belly by-products. we had a zucchini and proscuitto carbonara pasta with some thyme and lots of ground black pepper.

i also made some raspberry bars to sell at the architecture cafe. if anyone IS reading this, and wants to taste my wares, i'm selling baked goods at the wee cafe in the architecture, design and landscaping building (on huron street) at u of t. it's my first venture into freelance catering/wholesaling and if i've learned anything, it's that buying your ingredients retail really effs you up. i'm running at a 50% food cost, and that's BEFORE i factor in my labour. but the raspberry bars are, in lil' kim's words, the "ill na na". they also have real, fair trade espresso and a pretty bomb espresso machine in there, if that's your kind of thing.

what it is, yo. what it is.

fin.

karl lagerfeld is most skeptical of this enterprise

heretofore, i have been quite happy to sit on the sidelines of this whole emo-tastic enterprise, slagging on blogs and bloggers, and now, through the cruel machinations of fate, 5% of my mark depends on it. the bitter, bitter irony!

i'm not really sure what i'm going to talk about. am i supposed to keep it about technology and my thoughts on technology all the time? cuz i can forsee that getting kinda dry, guy. i'll probably keep the subject matter loose and unstructured, talk about whatever i'm into at the moment, and do a little bit of hatin' on the side (for those of you hanging on by the seat of your pants: i hate to burst your bubble, but my love for Anglo American Cataloguing Rules 2nd ed. will not feature prominently here, sorry to disappoint).

i'll probably talk about food a lot...because i like to eat, and i like to cook, and i like thinking about food, and in my former life, before i opted to chain myself to the architectural marvel that is the claude t. bissell building, i was a professional cook. tonight i made this mexican-style tortilla lasagne thing. it consisted of layers of corn tortillas interspersed with a black bean-chipotle tomato sauce, roasted poblano peppers, and a monterrey jack bechamel. it was muy picante, if not exactly culturally authentic.

i'm really feeling j dilla's last album, "the shining". particularly the tunes "love jones" and "so far to go". the latter features common and fatty d'angelo. poor poor fatty d'angelo. if i can ever figure out how to post pictures in this thing, i'll provide a side by side comparison of d'angelo pre-fatty and post-fatty. it's crazytown! common is actually aight on this tune, which is a big thing, because he and i have a checkered past (i blame him for me dropping out of my last graduate program).

i'm also currently fixated with the following: lindsay lohan being a slut-bot, beverly hills 90210, expressing my emotional state in the third person via karl lagerfeld, and finding a suitable venue for the next party i'm throwing. DUDES! i can totally use this for promotion! if you like to shake your moneymaker and get grimey and listen to bumpin' tunes...you should come to my jungle parties. they're off the chain.

fin.