behold!

the spectre of marx!!! so the original plan was to do a karl marx pumpkin and a johnny cash one...but silly me, because i was captain last minute, i was left with the bottoms of the barrel, pumpkin-wise, from which to select my potential canvas. so yes, it has been revealed: i do have artistic tendencies, and my chosen medium is the humble gourd: the pumpkin. i have to say though, he looks pretty bad ass. we live on the bottom two floors of a house, and our entrance is at the back of the house, through an alley. if there was a chance that kids were actually going to come, then i probably would have staged some kind of performance piece, featuring the pumpkin all aglow and a recording of that stephen-hawking voice simulator reading from the communist manifesto or something. it was nice to get back into pumpkin carving...past years i've been so busy with restaurant stuff that i never had the time.

sooo...we totally bailed on the concert last night!!! i don't know what's wrong with us, but we really are the world's most reliable bailers. the good thing is, we surround ourselves with other bailers, so it's always okay. we also scrapped the original dinner plans in favour of trying a new fish'n'chips joint (new to us): duckworth's fish'n'chips. it still doesn't come close to beating harbord fish and chips in my fish and chips pantheon. duckworth's eating environment is much nicer (harbord is really only a summertime thing, when you can sit outside on the picnic tables), featuring a long row of red vinyl booths and roomy tables. the coleslaw was also much better: crispy, shredded, nice mix of vinegar tang and creamy mayo, with a good amount of celery salt and a touch of heat from dried mustard (the cole slaw at harbord is very much an afterthought...it's a little styrofoam container of coleslaw mulch...very very finely chopped). it was also nice that duckworth's had the option of gravy for your fries (gravy from powdered form, which to me, is perfectly acceptable in this kind of situation). however, the portions were much smaller than at harbord's. i had the haddock...the haddock was a thick brick, but the overall size was small. the batter was a thin sheath, and was crispy enough, although the real star was the fish, which came away in substantial flakes. at harbord, while the fish is thinner, the batter is shatteringly crisp, and the portion is larger. both serve fresh cut fries and packaged tartar sauce. overall it was a good, but not like harbord's greatness.

tonight's dinner is completely the boy's doing. i brought home a jamaican cookbook and he's been fixated on this curried pumpkin vegetable stew that he's going to be making for us tonight. it's got pumpkin, tomatoes, coconut milk, habenero pepper, and we're going to be eating it with the afghani flatbread that we buy down the street. afghani flatbread is a wholewheat bread, about 2.5 feet long, and lightly dimpled. it's real staff-of-life kind of stuff.

fin.

i've decided...

that chamillionaire is the best name of all time. the boy and i have also decided that should we ever tie the knot, we're changing out last name to chamillionaire, and we're exchanging grills instead of rings. my grill is obviously going to say "blood in, blood out" in diamonds. he's also going to get me an awesome japanese knife, and i'd probably get him a piano or something. hahaha! can you imagine dragging a piano to a wedding ceremony and then shoving it at your future spouse?

so i saw "marie antoinette" last night. it was...boring. it dragged and dragged. i can attribute this to a variety of reasons. a) i believe that all of sofia coppola's movies are a projection of just how over-hyped and fundamentally BORING she is as a person b) there were too many scenes of cake being consumed, and the frivolity of court. WE GET IT. we don't need it shoved down our throats. essentially that IS the movie...and i understand how that was the point, but still, it makes you feel like hte movie drags and drags. c) sofia coppola has a very detached "gaze" as a director, leading to a general tone of disaffected ennui in all her movies. they're such trifles, and i don't know if that's the point, but she fails to make these trifles engaging. you feel like you're several steps removed from what's passing before your eyes. she also recycles a lot of the same shot composition and tricks in each film. for example, she LOVES shooting someone (a girl) reclining on something (a chaise lounge, a bed) gazing off into the middle distance. she LOVES depicting girls frollicking in tall grass with the sunlight beaming directly into the camera. it's becoming cliched! and the pastiche was aggravating. more because it's completely DONE. done done done. that font she used for the title, the new wave music, the quick shot of the powder blue converse kicks amongst marie's other "period-correct" shoes...it's just done. boring. it doesn't feel like a current juxtaposition. it was just monumentally uncreative as far as pastiche goes. the film does look pretty for the most part, and she made a good choice in kirsten dunst, who does vacuous coquette very well. all around, it gets a resounding "meh" from me.
tonight i'm going to see this man to my right...madlib, as part of the stones throw tour. the lineup is jam packed! it's going to be at the phoenix, and i'm seriously hoping there's going to be enough room to dance in and amongst all the scraggly dudes who are going to be there. this show is going to be dude-fest to the max. i'm hoping the vibe is going to be amped up though to get me going. madlib is pretty hit or miss for me, i like that he's from the dilla school of very organic sounding, sample-based hip hop, but some of his stuff gets a little too noodley for me. i need hooks, what can i say.

for dinner i'm making a sweet potato and cheddar gratin, which we're going to eat alongside some pan roasted brussels sprouts (I LOVE BRUSSELS SPROUTS) and some roasted asparagus. that banana tart i made yesterday was the ill na na. total rudebwoy dessert. it tasted very grown up and sophisticated. i made a pate sucree, blind baked it, and filled it with sliced bananas, topped with a brown butter mixture that puffed up when baked, and created a slightly chewy, baked crust...similar in texture to a baked frangipane, but with a meringuey crust. here's a picture. we're probably going to eat a piece of that for dessert with some whipped cream.

fin

when the pigs try to get at cha...

drop it like it's hot. halloween was a blast! there were some ups and downs though, some crushing lows and dizzying highs. despite the urgings of my brother, we left the house at 11pm, with my repeated assurances that "people in toronto don't go out until late". when we showed up at the boat, there was a long line, that didn't seem to be moving at all. we waited for about 20 minutes, and heard the music coming from inside. it was all 50s rockabilly, doo-wop kind of stuff (girl groups, etc). we conferred and decided that while the kitsch factor might be able to carry us for about a half an hour or so, we really didn't feel like we could dance and bruck out all night to that ish, so we high-tailed it up to supermarket. where we waiting in ANOTHER long ginormous line in the bitter cold. the saving grace was my brother having queued up toto's "africa" on his cell phone to boost morale and get us all hype (hahaha, i know! toto? who knew?). then when we were the next people in line, doofus mcgraw (aka me) realizes i FORGOT MY I.D.! which lead to some tense moments, whispered strategizing, and some more toto to get things going. the bouncer let me in, and we danced the night away to rick ross, snoop dog, JT, and all sorts of dancey goodness. only bummer was that we didn't hear thriller, and some people were WAY sloppy. plus, i dislike when couples hog the dancefloor, or even worse, the stage, to make out. that's valuable real estate! move along!!! hanging out with my bro was a blast...he's probably the most charismatic person in the history of life. EVERYONE comes up to him, boys, girls...his appeal cuts across most subdivisions and categories. it's crazy.

tonight for dinner i'm making the farfalle caponata, that i described a few entries back, before oyster fest started. i'm also going to make a baked banana tart with whipped cream for dessert. we earned it! this morning i had brunch at kubo radio. the food there is decent, and it's a good price. the main reason i go is for the babycake cupcakes. i've done an informal poll of the best cupcakes in the city, and the babycakes are the reigning champs. however, they're $3.50 a pop. which is EXTREMELY exorbitant. but they are the tastiest...especially the red devil.

fin.

c'est l'halloween - HEY! - c'est l'halloween!

woohoo! tonight is going to be teh fun! (although i'm not hyping it up too much...i find nights tend to be best when you go into them without too many expectations). me and the boy are dressing up as bill s. preston, esquire and ted theodore logan, respectively (circa excellent adventure, not bogus journey). r is dressing up as MK olsen, my roomie is dressing up as one of the dancers from thriller, and my brother is dressing up as charlie chaplin. i'm happy because this marks one of the first times that my bro and i have ever gone out together socially, outside of our usual carousing at family vacations and such. we didn't get along so well when we were younger, and when we were older, we had different interests and were at different stages in our life. now everything is awesome because we're at the point where family is the be all and end all...and i have to say, my family kicks about 10 different kinds of ass. i genuinely enjoying hanging out with them, as people.

as you can see, bill s. preston is sporting a belly-baring shirt. i cut up a sweatshirt and then silk-screened it with "wyld stallyns" but my plan was to wear a tank top underneath. my roomie and the boy are vociferously nixing that plan, under the auspices of method-acting and staying true to the character. eep! i don't want to go out dancing with my jubbly belly all exposed for peeps to see. it's unseemly!

i'm glad i've avoided the whole girl-trap of being the "sexy ___" for halloween. it's an interesting situation. there is a certain subset of girls who love to use halloween as an excuse to tramp it up: "i'm a sexy french maid" "i'm a sexy cat" "i'm a sexy mouse" "i'm a sexy piece of toast", which is completely weird and bogus and bizarre to me. i have nothing against tramping it up. and i have nothing against using halloween in the bakhtinian "carnival" sense as a time of transgressive role-playing, but the ladies who do the overtly sexy thing don't really fall into either of those categories. i'm all about being who you are (insofar as you ever know who you are), and i'm also about hilarious and creative halloween costumes. the chicks who do the sexy thing in the way that i'm talking about, exist in this hinterland of using halloween as an excuse to just amp up their trampiness, which exists in a somewhat watered down form usually. like, just be a skankbot if that's what you're about...ALL THE TIME!

tonight for dinner we're having what i call an italian red-sauce meal. italian-american food. i'm making spaghetti and meatballs. the sauce is simmering in the slow cooker as we speak (the secret to a rich tomato sauce is TIME...and love, of course), and i'm going to make meatballs out of veal, ground beef, and pork and some bread soaked in milk, bound with a little egg, and then i'm going to simmer them in the sauce in the last half hour or so, throw in some basil leaves and top with a dusting of parm reggiano, and it's a very comforting thing to ingest when the weather is dour. with that, we're having what i call the "olive garden" salad: chopped romaine, croutons, tomatoes, mushrooms, red onion slives, black olives, in a simple vinaigrette. i *might* make a dessert if we have time, and if i do, it's going to be a chocolate caramel banana pie. which is a really toothsome, achingly sweet candy bar in pie form. it's very decadent and you're supposed to eat it in much smaller portions than i actually do serve/consume.

fin.

all is right in the world...

finally! our kitchen faucet was all bunged up and allowing us the teensiest trickle of water with which to conduct our daily lives. it was like that for 3 days, and with the way i cook, things were not looking pretty. we were about to start washing our dishes in the tub, which seemed a little ghetto, when the landlord came and fixed it all up. niceness! it was strange how we were completely held hostage by the littlest of things. it definitely tempers my dreams of home ownership.

tonight my brother is coming over to crash...and i'm just going to take it easy. finish silk-screening my costume, probably do a costume dry run with the boy...and prepare for the weekend fun to come. this weekend is pretty jam packed...and i have to remember to be disciplined enough to stay on top of my work in the midst of it all. no slacking!!!

dinner tonight is going to be cornmeal dusted, fried oyster po'boys, on a buttered toasted bun with remoulade. oysterfest 2006 went off swimmingly last night, although my rockerfellers were compromised by the citywide (canada wide?!?) spinach shortage due to that whole e. coli thing. quelle surprise, peeps. you spray your fields with untreated manure, you're going to get e. coli. sheesh. it's such a real world example of how effed up our food supply system is, AND how dependent we are on the states of california and florida for our food. not to mention guatemala. yeeks. we also brought fries and onion rings to dip into the remoulade. remoulade is probably one of my top 5 sauces. and i do make a particularly good one, if i do say so myself.

i think i'll just scarf a fruit smoothie for dessert.

fin.

change of dinner plans...

in a big way! the girl who lives upstairs just gave us a giant (10lb+) bag of PEI malpeques! her mom brought them back from the island for her and she didn't have the heart to tell her that she doesn't like 'em. so she gave them to us!!!!!!!!!

i don't even KNOW what to do with this decadent bounty! we're going to eat some raw on the half shell, with a squeeze of lemon and some hot sauce (i like mine straight up, personally, so i can taste the oyster, not the condiments). i think i'm going to make some rockefeller, and then maybe dip the rest in cornmeal and fry them and serve them with remoulade. ahhhhhhhh!!!! happiness!

take THAT, ogs deadline! yet another gentle reminder from the cosmic forces that life is a collection of these kinds of little wee moments of pleasure.

fin.

in the on-going history of me being a dummy galore...

i forgot that there's an EARLIER deadline for ogs applications. ahahaha *wan smile* i console myself with the knowledge that i probably wouldn't have gotten it anyway, which is very very very small consolation. i'm also blaming the program for sending out the email reminder 5 days before the application is supposed to be in. ah well, live and learn. this is what lines of credits are for, n'est pas?

ouch. i still feel like a colossal dummy though. it smarts, i tells ya. the good news is...today is my last class before the sweet sweet succour of reading week. in which i have to prepare a presentation and write a paper. in which i forsee myself procrastinating on the aforementioned until the very last possible moment.

also...the boy and i are staring down the barrel at five years together. eep!!! we're looking at places to have our celebratory meal (we commemorate all events with meals). i'm kind of torn between sushi kaji or oyster boy. oyster bar is way more casual...but we really do love it there. there aren't that many restaurants in toronto that i really super want to try that are worth dropping a lot of coin at, that i can think of. i would consider going to perigee again, but otherwise...i'm racking my brain trying to think of places. it's kind of telling of how conservative our fine dining scene is, when the options of stand out "destination" restaurants is so limited. the good thing is, toronto makes up for it with loads of ethnic restaurants, and lots of great restos that serve quality food without busting the bank.


i'm not really into the idea of marriage, which is unfortunate, as i've found the IDEAL image for our wedding invitation. i kind of want to do a half-assed un-wedding just to send out the invite. check it out! i also have the perfect wording: "___ and ___ invite you to join them beyond the thunderdome, as they celebrate their strange relations on ____" how hilarious would that be? it also kinda sorta looks like us too. the only way i could do a ceremony with a straight face, is if i made sure that it was completely for jokes. we're talking smoke machines, lasers, balls of fire erupting at random...i'm basically taking my cue from a motley crue show. the problem is...it's really hard for me to get behind the whole privileging heteronormativity thing. and of being MARRIED. it's like i can already feel the shackles holding me down. plus, i answer to no man!!!


tonight for dinner we're having a caponato pasta with farfalle. i skin and cut two eggplants into a chunky large dice. i heat up a substantial amount of olive oil in a pan, and fry the eggplant until it's browned all over. i set aside the eggplant to drain on some paper towel...then i drain off any extra oil, leaving about 1 T. in the pan, which i then sautee some onion and garlic in. meanwhile, i've got a large pot of water on to boil, for the pasta. i've also got two pints of grape tomatoes roasting in the oven. i roast them rather than cook them in the sauce, because i want the sauce to taste fresh (ie. not long-simmered), but i also want to break down the tomatoes and let them get all jammy. when the tomatoes are ready, i add them to the onion mixture, throw in the eggplant, mix it all together, and add some chopped parsley, capers, and rough-chopped black olives. mix the cooked pasta into the sauce, with some pasta cooking water to lube it up, and season with salt and pepper. and that's it! in about a half hour's worth of work, i have a healthy dinner on the table.

i'm always surprised when people think they don't have time to cook. all it takes is a little organization and discipline, and you can be eating fresh, healthy, wonderful food EVERYDAY!

fin.

new gwen stefani single = bogus

i have the same kind of strange and morbid fixation with gwen stefani that i have with avril lavigne. i just d/l her new single...the beats are semi-okay, but as usual, she's doing her talk-singing thing with the most vapid lyrics known to humanity: "they try to bite our style, they try to steal our looks" are you SERIOUS? first of all, should someone who colonized a crew of japanese girls to follow her around and NOT SPEAK EVER really be talking about style-biting? secondly, are you in junior high?!?

nelly furtado's maneater is also completely puketastic. ESPECIALLY when compared to the relative brilliance of hall and oates' maneater. which is everything nelly's isn't. plus the video is so low budge it's hurtin on the eyes.

okay, now that the pop culture portion of today is done...on to dinner ish. tonight for dinner we're having french onion soup. i caramelized onions for about 1 hour, on very low heat, in a not-insignificant quantity of butter, then i deglaze the pan with whatever booze i happened to have on hand...this time it was a quite unorthodox addition of bourbon. add some thyme sprigs, season them with salt and pepper and add water (i haven't made any chicken stock in a while) and let it simmer. pour it into my french onion soup crocks (garage sale finds, every one) top with a slice of ace bakery sourdough and some gruyere cheese and throw it in a very hot oven. with this, we are having croque monsieurs, ham and gruyere sandwiches, buttered and toasted in the panini machine. and again with the no dessert.

fin.

QUOI?!?!?

another day, another round of butting my head up against this confounded program! i'm feeling comforted in knowing that my friend from school had a similar revelation today, to the one i had a few weeks back, when i realized that i was too much of a post-structuralist for library and information sciences as it is currently articulated at the U of T. she had a simliar realization today.

anyway, today in class, i was criticizing why even "new" research on user-oriented information systems still insist on imposing a series of structures and models, on what are highly cultural contingent processes and relationships. the prof responded along the lines of: "cut us some slack! we have a history of a specific service and relationship to information that we are beholden to, and foucauldean analysis has only entered into the dialogue in the last ten years" YES. YOU HEARD HER. LAST TEN YEARS. foucault has been DEAD for longer than that !!!!!! it's EMBARASSING that a graduate program related to the humanities is making this admission. the thing i don't get is, yes yes, the library is a social science, the MISt is a professional program...but COME ON. there's people PUBLISHING and RESEARCHING and RECEIVING GRANTS for this stuff. and FOR WHAT?!? THE LIBRARY IS A CULTURAL INSTITUTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's the SITE for the procurement and dialogic engagement of culture!!!!!!! ai-ya.

i feel like the only way to bring this discussion to the table and feel satisfied with information studies, or to make it go where i want to go, and to explore what i want to explore and find valuable about the field, is to do my phd. but! the irony is...THERE'S NO WAY I'LL GET INTO A PHD PROGRAM WITH THE MARKS THEY'VE BEEN GIVING ME FOR THINKING/WRITING ABOUT THIS STUFF IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!! dear academia: why do you persist in being the thorn in my side? why can't you just submit to me, like just another luscious bowl of custard. whyfor?

phew...i'm able to safely put to rest this rant. only, i'm sure, to be revisited the next time i come up against the program and u of t acting like a bunch of dorkus malorkuseseses. tonight was my first round on the phone banks. QUELLE SURPRISE! i'm actually very good at it! i'm a natural! i think it was a valuable lesson for me in civic-based praxis. i found i rather enjoyed it. and it's making me want to run for city councillor.

i was put on the list with all the local 416 members on it, and it also helped me to be calling my fellow "brothers and sisters" in the union. i think the whole idea of talking to strangers fits into my schema way better than bugging people i know. the fact that i'm backing a good candidate helps too. all the positivity aside, people can be SO SELFISH! if i hear anymore boohooing about how the st. clair dedicated streetcar line represents the coming of the apocalypse, and how people are basing their voting decisions based PURELY on that ONE issue (which has already been decided, you potsers!) i'm going to scream. the good thing is though, i get to engage in spirited debates with randoms on the phone about toronto issues. it's so much fun! i love it!!!! plus the phone is the best insulator of my latent insolence when presented with narrow-minded people. it's the best of all possible worlds!

finally, the giant keloid scar that has taken up residence on my right foot is not dealing well with its first winter experience. when your scar resembles the many layers of an onion, it's not a good sign. i've also been neglecting it on the vitamin e oil front as of late.

fin.

"what's wrong with happyjack?"

yet another quality line, courtesy of david silver. well ladies and gentlemen, it looks like david silver might have successfully kicked his crystal meth habit...which is too bad, i'll miss young silver tearing donna martin a new asshole, and her perpetual look of wounded befuddlement. ah well, such is life.

today is my first official day of phone bank work. no more calling in sick, no more shirking my civic duty, no more fearing the reaper (actually, i still TOTALLY fear the reaper). it's also my first time headed up to the st. clair and dufferin area. it will also be the first time that i won't be able to watch veronica mars, season 3 in real time, as i fear i'll be getting home way late. will the injustices ever cease?

in other news, i think i may be transitioning into a narcoleptic. freaky! i'm basing this on the past two days, when it was very difficult for me to wake up. i'm also basing this on my latent hypochrondriac tendencies, where i tend to blow potential symptoms out of proportion (ie. i spent a good chunk of last year fretting that i was becoming diabetic).

tonight for dinner is vegan chili, made with tvp instead of ground beef. this lady i work with at the library seemed fairly convinced that tvp was "bad" for you, but when she went searching for the source information, she just found some sketchy website that appeared to claim that everything under the sun was bad for you. so, i'm going to continue to eat tvp. to make my chili, i saute onions, celery, carrot, chopped chili peppers and garlic, chopped fine. add in my cumin, coriander, ancho powder, chili powder, and mexican oregano, saute. add a can of tomato sauce (plain, cheap tomato sauce), a can of beef (whatever the boy has on hand), my tvp, and chuck it in the slowcooker. add my TOP SECRET HIGHLY CLASSIFIED SPECIAL INGREDIENT FOR CHILI BIGGING UP, and let it simmer all day. then i add a can of kidney beans at the end, season with salt and pepper, and eat it with an avocado-lime salsa, sour cream, and chopped scallions. no dessert tonight! i've been pigging out like mad lately.

fin

p.s. my top secret ingredient is a little bit of cocoa powder. it adds a warm, round, deep backnote to the chili.

weekend roundup

i boo this real world, non-weekend business, heartily. friday night the party was good, but not great...although everyone seemed to have a really good time, and we got lots of people out, i guess i was over-tired and just wanted everything to be over. promoting is just very stressful and ultimately, i think i'm just too old to be doing all this...especially when my co-promoter is in scotland for the year, and i'm left working with his flunkies, who quite frankly, suck...it's basically i have to do 90% of the work on my own, and then babysit the fragile, seratonin-deprived, hung-over psyches of the people i'm working with. that's too much work!

saturday we rolled around on the couch all day, then went out to dinner with some great friends. we ate at el sol, this gem of a mexican restaurant on the east side, at danforth and coxwell. the only downside used to be that the service was painfully slow...but things are so much better now! and the food is amazing. i always have the tacos dorados with chorizo. the chorizo is extra crumbly and mildly spicy, the corn tortillas are freshly fried, and the refried beans and rice are amazing. i love it there. then i made a brief appearance at this dubstep show. dubstep is very hit or miss for me...the atmospherics imply a higher bpm than the actual breaks and bass would indicate. i find it very difficult to get into a groove and dance to it...which is a shame, cuz the bass is so sick! some of the stuff they played while i was there had some amen-y early-hardcore ish fills that were awesome, but if you're going to do that...then it's basically following the path to jungle all over again. basically, if they gave me 20 more bpm, it would be righteous.

sunday i worked, then we started watching "battlestar galactica" !!!!!!!!! holy crap! best show ever!!!!!!! it's like terminator 2 but longer...and it deals with all these moral/ethical issues. frackin' A! i was feeling kind of beaten up from the weekend, so i cancelled my movie plans for the evening, and stayed in and marathoned that. best call, ever. last night i made that macaroni and cheese with all the cheese odds and ends. it was quite tasty...although i should have extracted more of the liquid from the spinach after sauteeing, before adding to the pasta mixture.

i think tonight is going to be leftovers night. i'm working rather late at this library branch i'm none to fond of. other than that...i'm counting down the days until reading week starts!!!

fin.

tonight is the night!!!

after much planning, money, and anticipation, my party is tonight! i'll hopefully be able to post some pics tomorrow if i remember to take any in the midst of brucking out all night 'pon the dancefloor.

i almost want it to be this time tomorrow so that it's OVER...it seems strange i know...but the dj has been kind of acting strangely, my promotion partner is m.i.a. because he's too much of a party junkie, so i just want the relief of not having to stress and worry about it anymore. although i'm sure i'll feel differently tonight when i'm screaming my head off and surrounded by my friends and all.

i also got into a huge argument with a friend/former bf who has weird social issues. it's one of those situations where they like to belittle you and verbally put you down, especially when another mutual friend is around that they can put a show on for...and then try to play it off like they were "just kidding" because they've known you so long, so for some reason, that makes it okay. even if you've repeatedly said it isn't okay. i just find it way immature, and i don't have time in my life for that kind of crap, and quite frankly, i don't let anyone talk to me like that, thankyouverymuch.

last night we watched dave chappelle's stand up dvd called: "for what it's worth". i'm one of those people who doesn't find the chappelle showconsistently funny, but this was hilarious...it was just what i needed. however, we followed that up with what is possibly the most harrowing episode of buffy the vampire slayer ever, "the body". for someone who has issues dealing with their own mortality, and for a house that has had entirely too much mortality stuff thrust upon us as of late, it wasn't the best choice. we were all too scared and unsettled to go to bed last night! however, it does highlight why joss whedon is probably the genius of all television geniuses. it was brilliant...i've rarely have a tv episode affect me that way.

today i have to do a crapload of running around and stuff, and i'm working from 2:30-6:00pm. so if i get home with any gusto...i'm planning on making macaroni and cheese with sauteed spinach and mushrooms thrown in. i need to use up all these cheese odds and ends in the fridge (i hope all the flavours mingle well)...but it'll predominately be cheddar. i find when making a bechamel with all cheddar as your mac'n'cheese sauce, that cheddar has a tendency to melt with a very slight graininess...so i like to smooth it out by adding a gruyere, or a fontina, which helps round out the texture and provide a buttery undernote. generally i make baked macaroni and cheeses with some kind of panko/crouton/toasted almond topping, but i think for this version, i'm going to leave it very loose (to adjust for how much liquid the mac can absorb, even after cooked, and how it can seize up so much as it cools), and toast the panko in some butter and garlic in a pan on the stove, topping each bowl with some of the breadcrumb mixture to add that crunch. maybe more chocolate pudding for dessert.

fin.

the biblioblogosphere? no thank you!

so the fact that there's even such a thing as a biblioblogosphere, is (to use an internet meme from our time) teh ghey. it's definitely NOT teh r0x0rz. i find it mildly embarassing that people find it a worthy enough phenomena to a) name it, and b) feel all chuffed because it shows how techno-"savvy" library folk are. it's borderline painful for me. basically, the equivalent of watching your parents dance to 2 live crew (actually, that would be about 10 different kinds of awesome)...okay, it's more like when you're in grade 8, and you're walking with your dad in bi-way, and there's a rack of discounted new kids on the block t-shirts, and your dad points them out to you and says all loud like, when there are potential schoolmates within earshot: "hey! don't you love that band?" when you totally grew out of nkotb ten bazillion years ago. that's the biblioblogosphere.

look, i have no problems with people wanting to talk shop. but there's something about the idea of library people and "information specialists" nattering away in blogs that for some reason rubs me the wrong way. i suspect because they all kind of take themselves too seriously...and aren't funny. being unfunny is basically the cardinal sin with me...ESPECIALLY being unfunny in academia. it's like people who pride themselves on being dorks, but aren't dorks in the endearing, quirky way, but are TRUE dorks (the unredeemable, non self-aware kind). ie. that couple dave and lori from last season of amazing race (those who know, know). i think i kind of resent the implication that i want to talk to you, just because we're in the same field. it's like myspace. it reduces people to the sum of their interests...and makes people think they have something great and special that's worth sharing with the world at large.

i for one have ABSOLUTELY NO ILLUSIONS about that. i don't KID myself that i have anything worth sharing that's vaguely interesting to anyone but my 3 friends and assorted family. i've successfully blocked out the fact that this might be read by randoms. no surprise here: i don't LIKE randoms. i basically have a lot of pathos for complete strangers, and people who've succesfully navigated my intense screening process to be my friends...but with people i kinda sorta know but not really...i have no sympathy/time. thems the breaks. i'm basically like veronica mars. but a way less hot version. like, way.

my roomie has had a rough couple of days...so tonight we're going to loaf it up. i'm hopefully going to be done my last assignment of hell week...and then it's a weekend of slackery and crackery. yayayayayay! tonight for dinnie we're having a spinach, ricotta, and roasted butternut squash quiche, in a whole wheat crust. and my boy is being lovely and making us chocolate pudding...and we're going to rent a movie and veg out. ahhh bliss. chocolate pudding and brainless (probably teenage) movie entertainment? sign me up!

in other news...my friend got me this amazing cd of karl lagerfeld's favorite tunes. it's called "les musiques que l'aime". we actually have pretty divergent tastes...but the fact that my alter ego made a mix cd is beyond hilariousness.

one more day til party time!! woop!

fin.

2.0 fast 2.0 furious - the discourse of library 2.0

Walt Crawford’s piece does not make any claim to offer a concrete, authoritative synopsis, or to take a definitive position on one side or another of the on-going Library 2.0 discussion. What Crawford proffers instead, is a balanced dialogic overview of the various viewpoints and criticisms proliferating in the bibilioblogosphere, at conferences and in publications, coalescing around Library 2.0 as the sole crux around which the future of library services revolves. If one can synthesize any central argument from Crawford’s piece, it is that it advocates for a critical engagement with the discourses that make up “Library 2.0” and asks the reader to detach the discourse from the material attributes of Library 2.0 as an operating paradigm. By distinguishing between the talk about Library 2.0, and its practice, Crawford effectively pricks a hole in the hyperbolic grandstanding of the most vocal and visible proponents of “Library 2.0”, and calls for a considered, qualified, textual analysis of the underlying socio-economic imperatives, assumptions, and self-serving discursive constructions that disparage current iterations of libraries put forth by “Library 2.0” stalwarts.

people are so crazy!

first of all, if i ever met donna martin in real life, i'd punch her in the face. she acts like a child! it's so bizarre how they infantilize her on this show! david silver broke up with her because she hasn't had sex with him in over two years together, and i'm worried that it makes me anti-feminist that i'm on david's side. she barely even kisses him! on the christmas episode, there was also all this strange mouth-kissing going on between david and kelly, and then dylan and brenda and dylan and kelly and then dylan and donna.

in other news, i'm sure you've all heard that madonna is adopting a little black kid from africa. how is collecting children from developing worlds suddenly a thing now for celebrities?!? it's so wack! and then there are people who are making concerted efforts to block the adoption. who has that kind of time on their hands?!? madonna is soooooo boring. she's probably the most over-rated "transgressive" celebrity in the history of forever. hang it up, sister. it's just awkward.

regular readers of my blog may be confused by the post to follow this one. i have to post my conclusion for this paper i wrote for a class on library 2.0. i came up with THE BEST name for my paper though: 2.0 fast, 2.o furious. hahahaha! there are no ends to how funny i find myself.
finally made contact with the dj...he's coming into town tonight. usually the talent stays with me, but this guy wants to stay with this former acquaintance of mine who's completely unreliable, a pathological liar, and is a true "joker of the scene" (the tdot jungle scene that is). i was a little offended, but then i figured, if mister dj is that poor a judge of character then, by all means, go to it. one less thing for me to have to worry about, having a houseguest and all and worrying whether they're okay and whatnot. as long as he shows up to play...that's all i'm worried about.

veggie shepherd's pie for dinnie again tonight. it turned out teh awesome! except, i covered the top with foil to keep it from overbrowning, and most of the cheese came off with it :(
i think i'm going to treat myself to a nanaimo bar from daniel et daniel as well. things are going well...i just started the paper i'm writing today, but it should definitely be done by class, and if not, i have until 5pm today to email it into the prof. you know what takes the longest? writing out your works cited. it's such a bummer, just when you think you're done, it's like an extra half hour or 45 minutes sorting all that shiz out.

last nights episode of veronica mars was so good, i faked vomited and screamed into a pillow (twice) out of happiness and excitement. and tonight, top chef starts!!!!!!!! yayayayay! best shows ever! according to my brother "heroes" is an awesome show too...but i don't have time for anything else right now. top chef and ronnie is all i need.

fin.

one midterm done!

three papers to go! i'm feeling pumped! although a few things are bringing me down. they are:

a) my bestest library work buddy got another placement elsewhere, which means i'll have no one to goof off and pretend to work with anymore
b) i think i managed a B at best, and a FFFFFFF at worst on the midterm. i don't preform well under the gun, unless it comes to feats of supernatural endurance, and physical strength. ie. if there isn't any adrenaline involved, i crap out, muy pronto.
c) i still have three assignments to write
d) my headliner for the show on friday for some reason refuses to return my emails

things on the plus side:

a) i had a fantastic breakfast this morning of smoked salmon on a cream cheese slathered whole wheat bagel.
b) my work was understanding about me skipping out on my shift today to get to work on my school stuff
c) veronica mars is on tonight!
d) this weekend is shaping up to be hella fun and it'll be nice to be footloose after all this tension and stress

tonight i'm going to make a veggie shepherd's pie for dinner, featuring tvp in place of ground beef, because i'm feeling uppity like that. i saute up onions, garlic, celery and carrot chopped fine, sweat 'em down, then add my tvp and some boiling water to lube everything up. then i add some quartered mushrooms (for the beefy umami flayva), and some larger dice of random root vegetables (sweet potato, celery root) some peas, and some thyme. throw it in a casserole dish, and blanket the top with a thick, snowy layer of mashed yukon gold potatoes, and some cheddar cheese. throw it in the oven...and it comes out all melty and layered and tummy-filling. i love cold-weather food!!!

fin.

since i'll probably be cramming tomorrow morning

or making last minute, hasty, and inadvisable edits to my paper...i'm engaging in some premature procrastination induced posting.

my roomies have been very nice and let me off the hook for making dinner until everything calms down for me. actually, to be honest, it's more like they made me let myself off the hook. i feel really guilty about making everyone pay extra money for takeout during the week, when we've already pitched in for groceries, and i feel even more ocd-instigated guilt for not slavishly adhering to my pre-determined, carved-in-stone list. it sucks being a slave to lists and idiosyncratic systems.

tonight we grabbed hakka chinese food from "danforth dragon" around the corner. hakka food is indian-influenced chinese food. it was quite tasty. we kept it simple with a chow mein stirfry, and this caramelized chili beef which was standout. i came home from work this morning feeling very stressed out..i think sitting in front of the computer for long periods of time staring at the screen really messes with my head. my eyes were googly and i had a dull headache. my roomie came up with this relaxation technique that seemed to work. she dipped two cotton pads in witch hazel and threw them in the fridge. then we lay down, put them over our eyes, and "concentrated on our breathing" for 20 minutes. it definitely made me feel a thousand times better when i came out of it.

today's episode of beverly hills was a flashback one. david is at his wit's end with donna because she won't give it up to him. i'm kind of on david's side and i'm worried that it's means i'm not a feminist. she barely kisses him though!!! they're like brother and sister! it's gross!!! it was a christmas episode so OF COURSE i started crying when dylan gets a christmas tree for his newfound little sister. and then we happened to catch the video for johnny cash's "hurt" which basically reduced everyone in the house to tears. apparently we're all in an emotionally heightened state right now. that, and that video could squeeze tears from the most cold-hearted bastard out there (aka stephen harper or heather mills mccartney)

having to write an exam is totally giving me the wigouts. firstly because i haven't written an exam since grade 11 bio, and secondly because everyone goes all crazy when exams come around! this exam is for intro to bibliographic control. the whole course thus far is based around a thick tome that details various rules for every conceivable situation a cataloguer might be faced with. the exam deals with two chapters of the text, and we get to bring the text in with us. so basically...i'm worried because i don't really get what the stress is. we're being given the format...you basically just have to chug your way throught the rules. don't get me wrong, there's still a chance i'm going to go down in a blaze of glory, like the young gun i am, but it seems fairly straightforward...no trickery involved. we also got the layout for the exam in advance. all will be revealed tomorrow. maybe my ill-advised trust in my abilities to decipher the intricacies of the Anglo American Cataloguing Rules will be my undoing. AACR2= moriarty. and i'm picard. in one of those awesome ST:TNG episodes involving heavy use of the holodeck. god bless the holodeck.

or was it data who was sherlock holmes?

fin.

stressball

that's me! i gotta finish a paper and study for my midterm today, and i'm working 3.5 hours at some library branch. i *should* be okay...we'll see. then tomorrow night i have to write another paper. and repeat again on wednesday. then i'll be a free woman (somewhat), except i'll then be preoccupied with stressing about this party. it's too hard doing the promoting thing when chris isn't around. i don't know if i'm going to do it again, but there's another opportunity in december to bring this amazing dude paradox, who does a live p.a. that's the best show ever. however, he costs a LOT of money.

tonight for dinner is a sauteed kale and ricotta quiche with a side salad with sesame soy vinaigrette. the veggie pot pie last night was very nice, except for some weird reason, a lot of the bechamel got soaked up by the veggies, so it wasn't quite as saucy as i would have liked.

the people who rent upstairs made this big stink that we should turn on the heat and now my apartment is so dry...it's like a freakin' desert in here. i got a nosebleed in the middle of the night last week! they're kind of energy-wasting babies up there. the first hot day (or cold one) they phone down and start crying and complaining about how we need the a/c or the heat on. and they're the kind of people who run a whole load of laundry with two pillowcases and a pair of socks. waste-cases!

fin.

some party girl i am

so last night all my best-laid plans turned into bail-fest 2010. my roomies both flaked out on me - the boy because he was feeling under the weather and is already deeply sceptical about baltimore bass, and m because she was at a birth the night before and got about 3 hours sleep. it's really hard, when you love the people you live with, to get motivated to leave the warm beacon of your couch. when it's late, it's cold outside, the night's events are the great unknown, you already have a predisposition to be a homebody, and you have already have all the company you need within a 2 foot radius of you. the family we've carved out for ourselves here on the danforth is definitely a double-edged sword.

i felt bad because i flaked out on r and her crew, some of who are from hamilton, and i've never met before, but have heard alot about. i also flaked out from my school-chum s, which was a double bummer, because a) i haven't had a chance to do out-of-school socializing with school peeps yet, and b) because i talked up the night to her and now feel vaguely responsible if it's a bust. eek! i'm a bad friend! but when m and i started bailing, i felt guilty for going out when i have all this stuff due next week. plus, i justified it by saying that my party is this friday, and i'm going to get right crunked at that. and i have a whole year of partying to do...and this week coming up is particularly heinous for school ish. i just wish i had more time! my friend from canoe m called me yesterday, and i realized i haven't seen/hung with any of my canoe friends since i left in late july. gah! you get so caught up in your day to day and your regular circle that it's really hard to nurture new, long-lasting friendships the older you get, because there's so many things competing for your time, that weren't there in say, high school or university, when you could really spend hours with people hashing it out, and building strong foundations. booo.

so, we ended up staying in and watching "party girl" which h lent to me. it's awesome! it's really funny and individual and quirky and cute. it doesn't fit any one genre, and it feels like my life story: hard living party promoter girl starts working in the library by chance, then ends up deciding to go to grad school to get her MIS degree. whoa. looking up "party girl" on google images results in a LOT of NSFW ish. beware! people have VERY divergent ideas on what constitutes a party.

i went off my rocker in the food department last night. my beloved weekly meal plan is getting sorely neglected. i ended up at sushi delight, where i indulged in the "special box" which is the best deal i've ever come across in toronto, for boxed sets. for $10.99 you get: 6 pieces of california roll, 3 pieces of salmon sashimi, miso soup, a drink of your choosing (non alcoholic), ice cream, and a bento box with shrimp and veggie tempura, salad, rice, black cod fish or bbq beef ribs and edamame. they also sent out some steamed mussels on the house, which was a lovely gesture. THEN i came home and ate a slice of pizza and some chips and dip. my gut is suffering.

today i'm back on track with a vengeance. we're having root vegetable pot pie. i sauted some onions, garlic, finely chopped celery and carrot, then did a chunkier large dice of celery root, sweet potato, turnip, some yukon gold potato, and cremini mushrooms in quarters. mixed those in...made a simple roux, added milk, and salt and pepper, chopped parsley and thyme, and mixed it all together. threw it into a baking dish, and i'm going to top it with some frozen peas and a whole wheat pie crust i made, and throw it in the oven tonight. mmmmmmm.

the more i think about this baltimore urban appropriation thing...the more it gets me wondering. is diplo the ry cooder of urban youth culture? would people like baile funk if the ghettos of brazil hadn't already been presented to us in a fetishized way in "city of god"? if people could understand what the singers were saying? probably not all that original...although i don't know if anyone has researched diplo yet. maybe i can milk a phd out of this!

on another note: dane cook is enormously, gigantically unfunny. why do i know this guy's name? how is this guy famous? he blows!

fin.

fall = fatting it up

and how! last night i went mental on the hoovering food tip. i ate: an appetizer order of veggie tempura, the spicy beef kimchi pot with udon noodles, about 10 billion chocolate chip cookies i baked, and about 10 billion chips with sour cream'n'onion dip. eep!

i feel disgusting! i need to get the healthy train back on course. today i'm working on a paper all day so that i might finish in time to go out. we're going to see these dudes from ottawa called "the jokers of the scene" who play a mix of club remixes and baltimore bass and maybe some baile funk and other new disposable genres that i'm too stuck on jungle to care about. i don't know much about baltimore bass, but from what i've heard...it just sounds like dirty south. but it's like dirty south for middle class (predominately) white people, who want to ironically appear to be into ghetto debaucherous crunkage, but not really (ie. the style of dress of the listeners doesn't involve the baseball cap with the tag still on it). the semiotics of this are something that came to me yesterday and that i'm mildly interested in. however, i've never been to baltimore, so maybe it's a completely apt representation of the incarnation of the club scene there. i'd probably have to immerse myself in it a bit more...and quite frankly, the music isn't *so* interesting to me that i'd want to try.

tonight for dinner we're having crepes, stuffed with roasted butternut squash and mascarpone with crispy sage and garlic bits, seasoned with some nutmeg. served with a creamed spinach sauce on top. it's like a cross between a crespelle and these canelloni that i used to make that were stuffed with buttenut squash and mascarpone, or spinach and ricotta and served with a bechamel. i think i'm going to put just a little bit of filling (at most 1/4 c) in each crepe and fold it into quarters, and then spoon the creamed spinach sauce on top. hopefully it turns out as i imagine.

no dessert because i'm still feeling guilty about yesterday. i hate it when i stuff myself even when i'm past the point of hunger, but i'm just doing it because my healthiness has already been shot and i might as well go down in a blaze of glory. my gut regrets it the next day.

fin.

staring down the barrel

of a really boring weekend. it's really hard to stay disciplined and do your homework when the weekend rolls around. it's very easy to get tempted into major slackery. unfortunately, i basically have to start and finish a paper tonight, and tomorrow. bogus.

the stress is coming in waves...i'll succesfully forget about it...and then it comes back and hits me in the chest like a ton of bricks (original analogy, eh?). this is what i have on my plate at the moment:

- working 16-20 hours a week at various libraries, including sunday shifts
- working on getting the cover art for the record label's next cd finished with the graphic designer
- sorting out this party, which is really stressing me out because it came together very suddenly, i have a lot of my money on the line, we only had three proper weeks of flyering, and it's a week today
- burning 175 cds to give away at the party
- sending out the mailing list info
- working the phone banks for some union-approved municipal candidate's election campaign
- making dinner every night
- life (ie. being a functional human being)
- school, which right now includes: 3 papers, 1 midterm, all next week
- sorting out another party i might potentially be throwing in december
- kicking myself for being an idiot and taking on too much ish
- sorting out my halloween costume
- figuring out the montreal travel arrangements for my road trip with rei

tonight i might treat myself to a pizza or some form of take-out dinner. maybe chinese bbq and soy sauce rice and veg? or maybe sushi delight? or maybe a bowl of the spicy hot kimchi bowl with udon noodles from the japanese place, sakawaya, around the corner. or i'll do the fiscally responsible thing and make what was planned for: a kale and ricotta tart. i work today until 6pm at the library i really dislike, so i can see myself not wanting to do more work after work AT ALL. after re-reading my list of obligations/committments...i'm most def ordering takeout.

we shall see. i want to go out dancing on saturday...i'm trying to rally the crew (aka my housemates) to go with r and her crew. eek!

fin.

norweigian misfits and nanaimo bars

slow news day, folks. so instead, i present you with the mighty nanaimo bar! this particular specimen comes from Daniel et Daniel on Carlton (@ Parliament). They are the superlative nanaimo bar as far as i'm concerned. they're large, each layer has a distinct texture, and the coconut and walnuts in the crust layer are equally represented and present on the palate. the nanaimo bar is the subject of my reference review question. i'm supposed to go to a "bricks and mortar" library and a digital/telephone reference service and ask the same question, analyzing and critiquing the service i'm given at both. my questions started out pretty vague: "what is the current consensus on the expansion of the universe?" "is there any conclusive proof that vegetarianism is less harmful to the environment than omnivorism?" but i think i'm going to ask about the history of the nanaimo bar. either that, or ask "in what aesthetic period do we currently find ourselves?"

i had a talk with the t.a. and with the prof about the B paper. the t.a. admitted that the mark was assigned based on the dates of the reviews that i had critiqued...and i think i put on a pretty good defense of how the dates were superfluous to the nature of my analysis of the reviews. the t.a. said they'd talk it over with the prof and then get back to me. i had already made an appointment with the prof to discuss my paper and my concerns about the program, and the prof said that a superficial reading of my paper revealed that it was actually a very good paper. just as i suspected! the prof also addressed my concerns and basically re-affirmed what i knew: that is, that this program does tend to be highly structured and methodical and involve a lot of "report" writing versus "essay" writing, but that my critical background can and should be employed...but on a case by case basis. now that i've been here for a few weeks, i kind of know which profs invite that kind of analysis, and which ones want a paint by numbers approach to the assignments, so i won't get so hung up on it...i'll just crank out what they want, in the "wham bam thank you ma'am" style.


phew! so far, a red letter day! to further top things off...i found the perfect wig for my hallowe'en costume, and one that isn't all that expensive.

dinner last night was a success! the beans got really creamy in the slow cooker, and the garlic sausages from the mennonites can do no wrong. i was also a good little kid and refrained from eating the last slice of pumpkin pie. tonight's dinner is seared lake trout (again from the mennonites) with the last of the leftover brussel sprout and carrot casserole from thanksgiving, some sauteed tomatoes, and cheddar sage biscuits (i want to make things easy on myself). no dessert again! maybe a fruit smoothie if i get extra peckish.

in other news..i think i have a wee crush on one of the dudes that works at the bike shop closest to me. i call them "sven and his band of norweigian misfits" but i've come to suspect that they're actually croatian or something. anyway, i went to pick up my bike from them today, after its post-accident tune-up, and i realized that dude is pretty damn cute. who knew? who knew that eastern european dudes with hands permanently blackened with chain grease would turn my proverbial crank?

fin.

"said you'd never lie...but you never told me about the fire"

- that's a line from one of my favorite early jungle tunes of all time.

i've noticed that most food or food-related blogs worth their salt tend to include a lot of pictures. i'm toying with the idea of taking shots of what i eat, but quite frankly, it seems like a lot of work. suffice to say that last night's dinner was deeeelicious. the coconut almond rice puts it over the top. i take a can of coconut milk, and pour it into a measuring cup, add enough water to make 4 c. of liquid. put it in a pot, and add the zest of 1 lime, and 1 t. of salt. bring to a boil, add two cups of basmati rice, put the lid on, put the heat on low, and steam the rice until it's cooked. meanwhile, in a pan on the stove or in the oven, i toast some slivered almonds, and unsweetened shredded coconut, and stir that into the cooked rice. i also added some of the leftover peas from thanksgiving dinner, so it became almost pilau-esque.

tonight for dinner is another slow-cooker offering. i soaked some white beans last night. i throw them in the slowcooker with some chunks of sauteed onion and garlic, some sprigs of thyme and rosemary, and just barely cover it with water. let those braise away all day. closer to serving time, i'm going to get the roomie to add two pints of grape tomatoes, and 1 bunch of chopped kale, and braise some more (ordinarily i would use stock for more flavour, but it all got sacrified to the turkey gods). then i sear this coil of garlic sausage i get from the mennonites on both sides, and chuck it in the slow cooker for the last half hour or so of braising. a one pot meal. no dessert again for me tonight, i'm being virtuous.

last night after ronnie (an uneven start to the season thus far), i got sucked into watching this show on foodtv called "the heat with mark mcewan". i started my career in fine dining at his restaurant north 44, then moved to another resto (sen5es) and then went back to his new (at the time) restaurant bymark, before finishing my cooking career at canoe. watching that show made me a little nostalgic for kitchen life. i was there when the show started filming, and the producers were going to make me a "key" "character", mainly because i was one of the people who didn't freeze up when the cameras were around and i was capable of being myself (read: obnoxious). then i left because i was getting fed up with the food, and all the sycophantic slavering over what to me, was a pretty mickey mouse operation.

as i was watching the show, and saw the familiar faces of people i'd worked with and who had watched me grow as a cook, i started thinking a little bit about the life i left behind. leaving bymark was a little rough, because they really liked me there, and were grooming me to take on a leadership role in the new hotel operation in yorkville that mark was opening. it also made me miss a way of life that had been mine for 4-5 years. there's something about the swaggering machismo of working the line in a top-notch, well-regarded kitchen that gets you all chuffed inside. every night, you're being tested, and it's an environment of intense heat, pressure, adrenaline, and base, raw, pumping power. there is really nothing like the rush you get pushing out order after order, when you can see the chits lined up 20 deep on the pass, when your mind goes into this frenzied auto-pilot and your body starts to move in a pre-orchestrated automation that you didn't even think you were capable of, but is the condensation of ingrained training. it's the manifestation of skill and a reaffirmation of your abilities that doesn't get expressed the same way say, in library school. the camraderie is amazing. you all go through the same thing together, every night. i imagine that the oft-used military analogy is probably pretty apt.


an amazing book i read recently that dealt with life on the line is bill buford's "heat". being a cook is like being part of a secret society or something...it's got its' own language, and attracts a strange breed of highly disciplined masochists. people who pride themselves on being able to shave the hair off their arms after spending an hour sharpening their knives. people who pride themselves on 100 hour, 6 day work weeks. people who can shoot off at the mouth with an awesome command of profanities and vulgarities used with a lyrical, poetic finesse. very few people are good cooks, and i think i was one of them. i miss being in an environment where my skills are validated every day. and it's mostly a self-validation too. but it was hard trying to be in two different worlds at the same time. the conversation on the line rarely went beyond the various sexual proclivities of whomever happened to be in the immediate vincinity. and it wears you down after a while. it's hard to be a normal person when you keep restaurant hours and restaurant company.

so now i get to be a normal person. and i cook dinner every night for my boy and my roomie, instead of clayton ruby and the stronachs (with 200 of their closest friends) or couples celebrating engagements or birthdays or anniversaries. but there's a pretty substantial part of me that misses the ritual of setting up for service, and executing a friday night rush. there's even a part of me that misses being in the s**ts and knowing it.

fin.

when tryptophan attacks

i went to bed at 10:30pm last night...and only just got up now (9:57am). meaning, i inadvertently missed my first class! ah well...i'm semi-stressing because the class i missed has a 30% midterm next week, but i've allowed myself one missed class per course. and, i only have to get a B to get a degree. so hopefully, i can do it!

i couldn't wake up to save my life. after thanksgiving on saturday, i was fine. after part two on sunday, i was fine. but i think eating turkey and the accoutrements in leftover form last night finally did me in. i was done for! plus, i'm still feeling the effects from the car-bike accident i was in the other day...my head feels a little googly.

tonight for dinner i'm nixing turkey and anything turkey related...and trying to get my diet back on track. we're eating a chickpea korma, that i currently have bubbling away in the slow cooker. i saute a crapload of onions, until they're starting to break down and turn a dark brown, then add garlic and ginger, a couple of split chiles, then a bunch of whole and ground spices (caradmom, cumin, coriander, tumeric, black pepper, fennel seeds, cinnamon, cloves and salt), and some drained, canned diced tomatoes. when i come home tonight, i'm going to finish it with some sour cream and eat it with coconut almond lime rice. and i might grab some sag from the pakistani take-out place up the street so we have some greenery in there.

no dessert! a fruit smoothie for me instead.

day of homework, here i come!

last night's thanksgiving dinner was very good. although i found out that the boy's family doesn't serve the skin on the turkey, for somewhat questionable and highly suspect reasons pertaining to the alleged fat content of the skin. to me, turkey is a pretty bland, oft-overcooked bird, and the flesh really has little appeal. i kind of thought the point of cooking a turkey WAS the skin. i also thought the high-fat justification a little strange, considering that everything else on the table is composed of varying percentages of butter, all totaling a respective mean average of > 50% also, once you've roasted a bird for as long as you roast a turkey, most of the fat has disappeared into the roasting pan (thus, the often dry meat), which means the skin is just that: skin - crispy and crackling and salty.

my suggestion for a skin sandwich (which in every kitchen i've ever worked in, has been the cook's treat par excellence) also didn't go over well, except with one of the cousins, which whom i share a worldview. we tend to agree on most things, which is funny, insofar as he's a 6'4 hulking, heavily tatooed, travelling roadie for bands like alexisonfire, and i'm a 5'4, fairly compact chinese girl training to be a librarian. when i open my own restaurant, i'm definitely putting the SkinLT on there. or, just a pile of roasted chicken skin, on soft white wonder bread, loaded with mayo. le sigh.

last night we went to mitzi's sister to hear my boy's friend's band "the lake vernon drowning" play. they're quite good. i really like them, they have a rootsy, country-esque twangy vibe (kind of like a more writerly, nouveau version of CCR or something) with cute little meandering songs. the honesty is very present, and it creates a great connectivity and resonance with me. i've seen a few of the singer songwriters in toronto perform, and very often, it seems like a re-presentation of what people think a "singer-songwriter" is supposed to sound like, which ends up devolving into generic, self-indulgent pap. this particular outfit is so good precisely because it seems to come from a true place.

today we all agreed to sleep in, and then we're having a proper breakfast: swedish pancakes and bacon. then a long day of homework and reading and catching up.

tonight for dinner is one of my favorite "blue-plate" diner-style meals. hot turkey sandwiches, consisting of a pile of warm turkey meat, sandwiched between soft bread, drowned in gravy, served with leftover veggie casserole and stuffing. probably chased with a nice wedge of my pumpkin pie, which i feel i perfected two years ago. it comes out VERY custardy, and after much tinkering, i've developed the perfect flaky crust. one of the secrets is lard in the crust. i tried using real, unprocessed lard rendered and filtered straight from pigs from the mennonites, but i found it resulted in a crust that tasted fantastic, with a really flakey and tender end result, but it was extremely frustrating to work with. the lard that you buy in the grocery store, while probably processed a little more, results in a slightly less flakey crust, that is much easier to work with and roll. it's a catch-22. i really want to enter a series of small-town country-fair pie-baking contests. maybe do a cross-country circuit. i need my pie baking skills validated, dammit!


fin.

thanksgiving 2.0

so far weekend has been way fun! i got to take my niece and nephew to the park, where i got to watch my niece carry on my grand tradition of playground antics involving : giving other children the stinkeye, not sharing communal toys scattered in the sandbox, and being very suspicious of other chillun'. that's the spirit! my nephew is a very jolly, cherubic lad, the turkey emerged from the oven with a uniform burnish and was crisp-skinned and juicy of breast, and the sweet potato pecan pie defies superlatives. look at it! isn't she a beaut? i also know now that in the future, 17lbs of turkey is far too much for 7 people and 1 toddler. i now have a mountain of leftovers to contend with. and some lovely roasted bones for turkey stock.

i also got hit by a car yesterday while on my bike conducting errands. to be completely truthful, i hit the car. but it wasn't my fault! i was biking straight along the danforth, keeping a watchful eye for errant car doors, and a car, turning down a side street, didn't see me and i plowed right into it, dented the car, bruised up myself, sprained some fingies, and bonked my chin on the windshield. i was really unsure about how to proceed, as i didn't know whether i was in the right or wrong, and so i was reluctant to give my information. now that i know that basically, if i'm going straight, i have right of way, then i can go apes**t next time and freak out. especially when the person says: "oh, i could tell you didn't see me". that's not my problem!!!

i also got to hang with my dad and the woman he married, and caused a bit of a ruckus at macdonald's because the manager was watering down the o.j. i'm definitely NOT one of those people who thinks i'm too good to eat at mcdonald's. sometimes, you just want a big mac combo with sweet'n'sour sauce for your fries, and a filet-o-fish chaser (my standard order). i know what i'm getting, and it tastes pretty good at certain times or places. what i really DON'T like, is when you pay for food at places that are crappy chains masquerading as proper restaurants. ie. jack astor's, kelseys, boston pizza, appleby's, alice fazooli's and most other big box franchises. i don't think macdonald's is trying to hide what it is. whereas those places, charge real-restaurant prices, for food that comes out of a can/box/vacuum seal.

i saw the new scorsese flick, "the departed". i'm currently d/l the torrent for the chinese movie on which it was based "infernal affairs" as apparently i either watched it way long ago, or never saw it at all. a welcome return to form for scorsese, it was way more entertaining than "the aviator" (which was good, but not great) and "the gangs of new york" (which was boring and not very good). aside from the spielbergian final shot with the heavy handed symbolism (paging paul haggis!) it was fast, entertaining, well shot and highly engaging. some nice editing work and a great pace. i don't think anyone can rein in jack nicholson at this point, but he gave a wonderful performance that only reverted to cariacture on one or two occasions.

i like the departure from "infernal affairs" in condensing the two love interests into one woman, which adds a neat psychological dimension (who's the father of the baby???). i also liked the themes of brotherhood, fraternity, fatherhood, etc. (bro-in-law brought up an interesting point...was nicholson the father of them both???). mark wahlberg continues to impress me as an actor, and he and alec baldwin had the best lines in the movie. i never used to "get" leonardo dicaprio's appeal (in the teen-beat sense), but he really won me over in this movie. he's a fantastic actor and there's a coiled up masculinity in there that i never saw before, but that really came out in this flick.

i also saw an interesting slicked-up, adrenaline pumped trailer for "300" that totally won me over, it's getting added to the list. "the blood diamond" looks way heavy-handed though. i saw a preview for that movie "bobby" which i think features too many actors to be an effective piece. large ensembles like that tend to just move from scene to scene to scene without really the time/effort taken to develop characters. i'm also highly suspect of emilio estevez as both a writer and director. i mean, if he had it in him, what's he been doing all these years since mighty ducks, huh?

fin.

p.s. i love my sister

my sister reads my blog and just sent me a cute email about how libraries are a post-modernist nightmare, and that i was way naive for thinking otherwise.

it was very cute, and i'm very appreciative of the fact that i can have these kinds of discussions with my sister.

i'm procrastinating and realizing that i didn't want to blog tomorrow, i figured i'd post the thanksgiving dinner i'm preparing for my family today! fun fun fun. thanksgiving menu tomorrow at my house will be:

roasted turkey - basted with white wine and butter
gravy
garlic mashed potatoes
sage, parsley, thyme stuffing
cheddar sage biscuits
panko-topped brussels sprouts, carrot horseradish mayonnaise casserole (so cracker-jack! so good!)
peas with crispy bacon bits

sweet potato pecan pie and whipped cream for dessert
and my sis said she might make this pumpkin snackin' cake.

i made the stuffing and brussels sprouts casserole today, and i just biked back with the 17lb turkey from the mennonites on my back. yay mennonite turkey. it always tastes more turkey-like than non-mennonite turkey...the same way lay's short-lived "deli-style" chips tasted more regular than regular chips (in a good way).

for the boy's family, which is having their to-do on sunday, i hand over kitchen control to the mater familias and content myself with my role as designated sugar/fat (read: dessert) bearer. so i'm bringing them a sweet potato pecan pie. the boy's cousin is diabetic, so he can't have sugar, and the boy's sister is on this semi-vegetarian thing where she'll eat eggs but no dairy, so for them, i combined their food preferences into an apple-pecan strudel with a custard sauce made with a leetle bit of sugar and vanilla, to be passed on the side. i could use sugar-substitute stuff, but i'm fairly convinced that stuff is poison (like raisins!), so i'd rather put in a bit of the real stuff, as opposed to some weird, raisin-esque, chemical-derived poison.

fin.

you think you know...

but you have no idea, this is the diary of a post-structuralist, in a social sciences program.

so...i got my first assignment back. uh...i got a B. to say that i'm not taking it very well would be putting it VERY lightly. i haven't gotten a B on anything since high school. the assignment was 6 pages long and had three comments written on the paper: "good!" "why such an old review?" "this from a review...how pertinent today?" (which was a total mis-reading of the context of my quote i used) and one on my works cited where i omitted one word in the reference list (i didn't write the word "accessed" before a web site, but only listed the date)

this is the assignment (quoted verbatim from the class wiki): This assignment is meant to give you an opportunity to familiarize yourself with evaluation criteria for reference tools and to write your own review of a selected resource. Choose a single title of either a general reference work OR a library and information science reference work that has been published within the last five years: it may be in print, online, on disc (i.e. CD-ROM). Part A: Examine your selection in detail and then find two published reviews of the work. Provide a critique of the two reviews. Do not critique the work itself in Part A.

i chose as my reference tool IMDb. of the two reviews i selected, one was written in 1996, and one was written in 2001. the reason i selected those two reviews to critique, was because of the different methodologies and voices employed by the authors. the one written in 1996 was a quantitative review, written in an objective voice, that ran a IMDb through a series of tests (ie. IMDb has a hit rate of 90% for titles, features x amount of actor listings, accuracy rate of 98%, etc). the other, more contemporary review was placed in a reference-professional specific context, and was written in a more subjective voice: "imagine you're standing around the water cooler at work, and all of a sudden, pretty in pink comes up, and you want to know the name of the actor who played ducky, i turn to imdb!"

my critque of the reviews situated them both within the context of their time, and intended audiences, and ultimately, resulted in a conclusion that critiquing reviews is dependent on the interpolation of the meaning created between the review, the audience/user/ and their target demographic. i basically took a post-structuralist approach to the thing, and what r told me is that basically, they wanted a summary of what review A offered/didn't offer, and what review B offered/didn't offer.

therein lies the rub. homey don't play that. i don't even know if i'm capable of thinking about things in that way, i've scheduled a meeting with the prof to discuss where i went wrong, what the assignment actually intended (as the comments on the paper weren't enough for me to glean anything constructive) and basically, where i stand in relation to Library and Information Studies. I really don't know how to think the way they want me to. how can you NOT want to know what's behind the curtain? it would never even occur to me to approach an assignment like this as just a summary of the various attributes...i don't see the synthesis in that, or the extrapolation. i can't turn off the part of my brain that was influenced by my exposure to critical theory. so, ultimately, if that means i'm going to be a B student, then i can deal with that. i just need to have the program laid out for me. i basically have to make peace with LIS.

the thing is...how can LIBRARY school be so structuralist? i don't get it! the library is a channel for media and culture! my whole freakin paper that i wrote on why i wanted into the program and my research interests involved dissecting the role of the library within a critical theory context and the library as the site of cultural/ideological reproduction. hells, if i could have found a wait to fit lacan in there, don't think that i wouldn't have!

i'm completely flummoxed, and i think u of t is totally BUNK. u of t prides itself on being such a institution, the "ivy league" of canada. it's a total crock. theoretically, their praxis is WAY behind what's going on in other universities...they're not pushing s**t. i hate to say it, but my time at york, where i studied with some pretty effin cool profs is trouncing my FIS experience so far.

but again, it's a means to an end. i hope i don't get crapped on for writing this stuff in my blog. i'm pretty much writing assuming that my audience is my close friends and family. and well, if they want me to shut up, then i think they're dealing with the wrong broad.

tonight for dinner it's my boy's da's bday...so we're going to indian rice factory. i've never been, but it's supposed to be quite good. and i can use a dose of indian food. after, we might go to a friend of the boy's from high school's house party. we went to the same high school, but i had a crew that was a year older...so i'm debating whether or not i want to go. i like going to these things cuz his immediate crew are awesome, and funny...but then it turns into a big high school reunion thing, where a lot of dudskis show up...but i LOVE seeing how the dudskis turned out...so i'm always so torn. i don't do well in house party situations, and it's not my crew, but i love to observe how all these high school peeps ended up. what to do?

fin.

thanksgiving countdown...

is in high gear!!! i'm so excited!!! probably my most favoritest of holidays. i love it because it happens during the fall (best season), is all about family and friends gathering around a table full of food, and it features some of the best dessert offerings of the year.

things are finally getting truly nippy out there, which will be nice, since my house will be a raging inferno when i'm hosting my family here on saturday.

fun fun fun!

tonight i'm hanging out with r, we're going on a mission to check out coats for her at aritzia. i generally find aritizia to be a most unpleasant shopping experience, but that's what friends are for. i'm longing for a jacket i saw at a vintage store on queen...it was a little quilted, asian-inspired, mao-ish number, dark blue, with a mandarin collar and a small apple or cherry print. it was really cute! but it was also $60 which i don't have.

the AD&L cafe sold out of my stuff as of early wednesday, and i gave them 50 items! my friend insists on giving me feedback in the way of poncey "critiques". it'd be one thing if he said: "the jam bars weren't as good as the last batch for some reason" but he'll write stuff like: "the crumb on the bars wasn't as tender, the browning wasn't as dark, and you lost the chewy extra-jammy bits clinging to the edges" (imagine that...but PONCIER). anyway, i might do a blitz this weekend and do a s**tload of cookies and stuff (quick, high volume) and then see how much moolah i can get. plus, i haven't broached the idea with him yet of raising the prices. i don't know if i will, since people have already been buying the goods at one price, i'd hate to be a total greed-monger and jack it up.

dinner tonight is going to be an ode to fall. garlic-pork farmer's sausage, seared until it's nicely browned and snappy and crackling on the outside, then cooked with caramelized onions, garlic, and pears, cooked in a cider-vinegar caramel pan sauce. we're eating this with mashed potatoes, and olive-oil braised kale. i love kale! for dessert, i'm fulfilling a special request by r for pumpkin pie. with piles and piles of whipped cream. i can't wait! i wish it was dinnie now.

when i come back and re-read my entries, i realize that these postings are rampant with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, tense-conflicts and such. i'm not being super-careful when i write these, i'm usually doing it first thing in the morning, as i'm eating my breakfast, and after i've consumed my daily glut of celebrity gossip blogs. guessing who has cellulite and tracing jessica simpson's rapidly appearing-then-disappearing orange skin condition has a tendency to vaporize my language skills right outta my head. the point is, i can write with a reasonable degree of proficiency...i don't want these blog entries to reflect poorly on my stellar public-school education.

fin.

a long time ago, we used to be friends

*cue dandy warhols*

well, despite an opening sequence i'm ambivalent about and the introduction of some new and possibly skeezy characters, I LOVE VERONICA MARS!!! i'm just worried that rob thomas (no, not the matchbox 20 douche, another infinitely smarter and more charismatic rob thomas), the show's creator, might be selling out the core fanbase by trying to attract more ratings with idiots who should've just watched the show in the first place. hopefully i'm just overanalyzing and it'll be the show i love.

what i emphatically DIDN'T love, was veronica rockin' the shrunken denim vest. ew! i did love the shout-outs to steely dan and battlestar gallactica though. one of my hidden talents is that i'm an excellent donald fagan impersonator. and, my boy just came up with an intriguing theory: the character named donald fagan was a thief...featuring the name of a steely dan lead singer?!? coincidence? hells no! not with this show!

i haven't even started watching battlestar yet, but i know it's coming, and i know it's going to be good.

okay, this has been plaguing me: ashley simpson has GOT to have more than her nose done. there's just NO FREAKIN' way that she looks like such a completely different person and just got her schnoz shaved down.

i started reading allison bechdel's new comic collection: "invasion of the dykes to watch out for". i also read her memoir-y graphic novel called "fun home". she writes these cool, funny comics featuring lesbians, transgendered people, etc. who live and have political views very similar to my own...i find them funny and entertaining just because you don't see comics with an overtly political far-left slant being represented much (doonesbury doesn't count because, well...it's BORING), and her characters are amusing and endearing and have rich interpersonal relationships that feel "real".

tonight for dinner is all on the boy. i hope it turns out! we're having orecchiete (sp? - ear shaped pasta), in a broccoli-walnut-parmesan pesto. it should be easy, it's a one pot, one pan ordeal. you toast some walnuts in a pan, then set them aside, and saute some onion and garlic in olive oil in the same pan, set aside. meanwhile, get a pot of heavily salted water boiling for your pasta. when it boils, throw in two heads of broccoli florets, roughly chopped, blanch them for about 1 minute or two (until they turn bright green), remove. dump in your pasta into the water. while the pasta is cooking, you blend the broccoli, walnuts, parmesan, a couple of glugs of olive oil and salt and pepper. drain the pasta, reserve about a cup of pasta cooking water, and toss the broccoli pesto with the hot pasta, loosening the sauce with some of the reserved water as needed. taste for seasoning, serve with more parm on the side. easy!

fin.

i f**ken love you, logan echolls!

yes, yes y'all. my day of days has FINALLY arrived. season 3 of the best show ever to hit television, "veronica mars" starts today. thank god for torrents! it's one of those criminally under-appreciated shows that crushes anything else on tv, is adored by critics, gets props from the don dada of tv (joss whedon) himself, and yet is always struggling on the verge of cancellation, because people would rather watch desperate haggy housewives . it's infuriating! this show has great characters, amazing acting, it's engrossing, snappily written and laden with contemporary pop culture references. i love it!!! you should watch it too!!!

bah...families are so crazy. or, maybe my family is just crazy. it's like a giant ball consisting of equal parts love, frustration, sublimated angst, clusterf**k, and understanding. i really love that my family is very close, and we're very honest with each other, but the flip side of that equation is that things can get a little raw sometimes. but i guess it's better overall than other families i've observed, where the pressure is on to always keep a polite facade. if you can't be honest with your family, then who? (whom?)

in other news, refworks is the greatest thing to happen to academia since post-structuralism. it's basically a program that organizes all your citations, and then, through some simple coding, will EMBED them in your paper and CREATE YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY for you. although, i can see it being a big crutch...there's something to be said for holding your torn and worn copy of mla 6th ed. in one hand, your other hand on the keyboard, your eyes frantically searching for the citation information on some journal article you copied a week ago from some source unknown and unremembered. but i like how it's like magic. magic and laser technology hold untold depths of fascination for me.

and finally...the screech sex tape?!? i'm not so much into the sex tape scene if we're talking celebrity gossip...i like intimations of tawdriness, not actually depravity. i also prefer my celebrity gossip to be of the a-list calibre. screech is so z-list that he's verging on being a real person, and lords knows i have no time for real people. boooring!

tonight for dinner is a roasted tomato soup with basil leaves. i take plum tomatoes and roast them with my mirepoix (everything except for the celery, extra carrot because the sweetness offsets the acidity of the tomatoes) with olive oil salt and pepper. then i dump them in a pot when they're starting to caramelize, and just barely cover it with water. sim simmah, and you've got tomato soup for yo' dinnah. add in some basil - which is showing an admirable zest for life and is hanging on in my planter, despite marauding bands of rabid squirrels - and a grilled cheese sandwich, and you've got the perfect rainy deal meal, straight out of a normal rockwell painting...like the WASP childhood i never had, but so secretly aspired to (foodwise, that is).

fin.

thanksgiving wouldn't be thanksgiving...

without a giant family kerfuffle before/during/after. luckily my fam got it out of the way beforehand. this weekend was going fine, until the subject of me hosting my family at my place for thanksgiving came up....then the sh*t hit the fan, BIGTIME!

in retrospect, it was no biggie. basically they want to have it up at my parents house, which is more comfortably appointed, but the kitchen blows. my place has an awesome kitchen set up, with all my gear, but it's still an apartment rented by three students. the sticking point was what i perceived to be the expectation that i do my whole thanksgiving menu up at my parents place. the thing is: i'm the only person who cooks in my family. and i absolutely loathe cooking up there.

the way i see it, cooking is my craft, and something i'm really passionate about. and i don't like doing it half-assed. i don't really like doing anything half-assed, but especially cooking (school stuff i'll totally let slide on the half-assedness scale). and cooking up at my parent's place is the definition of half-assed and stressful. thanksgiving cooking is always a lot of work, but it's work that i would enjoy, in my place, surrounded by my tools and gear. up at my parent's place, it would just be a lot of tedious work. blah!!! but it all got sorted out okay in the end, i think. basically the fam can't have it both ways. if they want me to do the cooking, they can suck it up and do it at my place. if they want to have the comfort of my parent's place, they can do without home-cooked factor, and i'm totally fine ordering pizza or whatever.

babysitting my niece was fun on saturday. we had a good time, even though she was feeling a little out of sorts. we spent the night at a hotel with my family on saturday, and then sunday we had brunch at the hot house cafe at church street. it's an msg-laden, reasonably priced buffet with the usual all-you-can-eat allstars. the food is aight, but the price is decent and for what you pay for, and considering that all-you-can-eat buffets can be gouge-fests, it's okay. then we went home and loafed around and ordered asian legend take out for dinner. asian legend is usually the bomb, but take out is so-so. it's still porky goodness, but sweating in styrofoam doesn't do it any favours.

tonight i have a monster day. boooooooooo. tonight for dinnie is huevos rancheros. i made little tortilla sandwiches, stuffed with refried bean and chopped tomato and monterrey jack cheese. i bake them in the oven, then top them with a chipotle-tomato-sofrito sauce, and fried eggs. eat it with guacamole and sour cream and salsa, and it's basically all things i love on one plate.

fin.