rosh hashanahahahaha

so tonight is the big rosh hashanahahahaha to-do at casa lagerfeld and dotytron.  i'm making poached salmon, yukon and sweet potato latkes (more of a chanukah thing, but we haven't had latkes in FOREVER), sauteed spinach with pine nuts, and honey-ginger carrots.  i'm also making a sour cream coffee cake.  and putting the finishing touches on the secret knitting that has been occupying my time for the last while. and maybe (hopefully) switching up my summer and winter clothes in my closet so i'm not scrambling every morning.  and doing yoga and having an epsom salt bath. but that's a lot of doing for one lonely little evening so i might spread it out some.

last week, before toronto was stricken with a nasty and vicious bout of cold, dreary, and grey weather, i was biking home in a skirt and was stopped at an intersection in boystown with one leg up and one leg down.  this guy, who was CLEARLY a derelict, crossing the intersection, took an unseemly interest in my nether regions and was blatantly trying to get a peek at my unmentionables as he crossed.  we're talking like, bent-over-at-a-90-degree-angle levels of committment.  i don't know how successful he could have been, but he did give me an enthusiastic thumbs-up.  i wish i could take that to the bank.

so.  "margot at the wedding" is nowhere near as accomplished as "the squid and the whale" (for whatever reason).  "margot" is considerably more caustic (if that was even possible) with less humour and moments of levity to cut through the dark, excoriating unpleasantness of the petty intellegentsia.  nicole kidman gives a committed performance and her naturally brittle, cold, demeanor really suits the viciousness and twisted selfishness of her character.  it was easier to follow the trajectory of events and the motivations of the characters in "the squid and the whale" whereas in "margot at wedding" there doesn't seem to be as much of a rationale for the destruction and psychological manipulation the characters wreak.  that ends up being a huge weakness as then you're really just watching people behaving badly and i tend not to be very interested in plumbing those depths for the sake of plumbing those depths.  as a character study, it's pretty flimsy and one-note.

"baby mama" was pretty entertaining, but handicapped by needlessly maudlin genre conventions (tina fey's character has to be saddled with a generic, "good" relationship in the form of leading man pablum-for-hire, greg kinnear). it was probably a B as far as comedies go, so there were a few chuckles, especially from amy poehler's character, against whom tina fey plays the straight man. their chemistry is fantastic and i'd probably pay to watch those two read the phone book. given the paucity of comedies that i would rank as an A, it was still worth the rental price and it's a nice antidote if you're pairing it up with an "adult" "mature" "responsible" kind of flick like "margot at the wedding."

i'll post pics of the food and casting our sins into the water tonight. the dotytron has also really gone hog-wild with being chinese all of a sudden (well, i guess he's been building towards it for a while), fueled by the fact that 50% of the school he's teaching at right now are new immigrants from mainland china. anyway, he hung up a picture of the kitchen god in our kitchen and we're supposed to burn it on or around chinese new year. he also made himself mandarin flash cards. lol!

in other news, michael ignatieff was parked outside of my subway stop the other day, with his angry eyebrows and all, trying to drum up some support for the increasingly shambolic and desperate liberals. he always looks like a slightly tipsy/sinister professor at hogwarts (to me) with his thin-lipped leer.

fin.

----------

the dinner. it wasn't as spectacular as i hoped it would be.

sour cream coffee cake with pecans

sour cream coffee cake interior shot

casting our sins (torn up bread heels) into the water.

fin.

it takes a village

looking after two kids under 5 is tiring. we all went to bed on saturday at 9:30pm. with my niece getting up briefly to puke in her sleep.  the dotytron and i awoke to the sound of her coughing (she had a cold) and then the unmistakable sound of liquid coming up, then the words, "i throwed up."  i went to her bed (we had dragged a double futon mattress down to the foot of our bed and they were both set up there) and saw that she had puked all over her pillow.  "ellie!  ellie!  sit up!" i hissed, frantically, worried that she was going to puke again and maybe choke.  but she was out cold.  i wish i could still be that blase about vomit.  
saturday was ram-jammed to the max.  the dotytron ended up staying home from work because he puked three times on the way to the subway and was very much NOT blase about it.  then the kids came over.  we started with dress-up 

then we went to the park for about and hour and a half, then we came home and the dotytron did crafts while i got dinner going.  

for dinner we had spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread.  i finally NAILED both the meatballs and the tomato sauce, per my old supervisor T's instructions.  i'm one step closer to mastering italian grandma!

the spaghetti and meatballs were a huge hit with the nephew, but not with the niece, who is an extremely picky eater. she also has a list of ailments that she likes to tell you about at strategic times: "my tummy is growling because it wants dessert" "this streetcar is making my tummy ache"

you can't really tell from this pic, but my nephew is wearing full length overalls a la dexy's midnight runners.

then the dotytron took them for a bath while i cleaned up. my niece helped me make homemade oreos. we watched a movie ("meet the robinsons" which is an awesome movie about orphans, time travel, destiny and family) and then it was bedtime, where a before-bed diaper change by me revealed that the dotytron had performed the classic "put the diaper on backwards" gag.  i don't really get how dudes do that...because it's so much more intuitive to have the tabs fold over the front, instead of trying to get them to stick at the back.  

yesterday we took them to meet up with my fam for our annual, post-ball (my mom organizes a ball to benefit the scarborough hospital every year) brunch at the hot house cafe. on the way over on the streetcar, we passed jilly's (a stip club), my niece looked out the window and pointed and asked what the signs said, so i had to read out: "girls. girls. girls" "party. party. party." it was pretty funny.

then it was dodgeball (i was super logey and msg-weighed down) and came home and we rented movies and watched them with the roomie and l'army.  we got messinis for dinner (gyros) and a poutine that cost NINE DOLLARS and didn't even have cheese curds!  but we were desperate for poutine.

we did a very interesting double bill of "margot at the wedding" and "baby mama" - reviews to follow.

today is work all day, then dodgeball, then home to meet s-dawg, who has turned monday nights into "mooch dinner and commandeer our tv to make us watch heroes" nights.  

fin.

gushy

last night's festivities somehow bypassed tittsworth entirely (the debates were on! there was talking to be done! friday night = being wiped!) and culminated in porn-surfing looking for women who squirt (for educational purposes).

i couldn't love those guys anymore if i tried. i hope they love me! i really really hope they do!

in other news...i was up obscenely early (we still got home at 2am last night...trekking from one end of the city to the other is tough) to prepare the house for the arrival of:



and



i'm making spaghetti and meatballs and have vague plans for making cookies and setting up a fort and maybe painting t-shirts and tote bags if the park is totally out of the question (this looks to be the case). then we're going to either set up camp by dragging the futon down to our room, or dragging the roomie's futon out to the living room and having us a grand ol' pajama party featuring cookies and milk and rice krispie treats eaten in jammies.

fun!

fin.

sodium and cholesterol reveries

whoa. crazy dreams at casa dotytron and lagerfeld last night.

i wolfed down my three piece meal from popeye's and was in the process of circling the roomie's lone piece of breast meat (seriously...who likes white meat?) (she only ordered 1 because she doesn't really know if she likes fried chicken and was en route to a birth), getting so far as to begin loosening a corner of gorgeous, batter-coated skin (all the better to derobe the meat and roll the skin up into a batter-ball, to be crammed into my gaping, salivating maw) when she returned from an outing and claimed it. rats. thus foiled i begrudgingly satisfied myself with her biscuit offering. then me and the dotytron finished watching season 4 of "entourage" and i watched the latest episode of "gossip girl" to get all caught up.

anyway, i dreamed that i was at some work retreat in some gothic, crumbling mansion (picture the "beetlejuice" house) with dr. rei, her fiance, some of my coworkers, and LIL' WAYNE. two of the scenes i remember most vividly:

- lil' wayne had a piece of food that i wanted. i asked him for it. he refused. i asked again, more insistently, and in true lil' wayne fashion, he PULLED A GUN FROM HIS WAISTBAND AND POINTED IT AT MY HEAD. i kept my cool though, and told him, calmly and firmly, that i wasn't intimidated by him, and then he put the gun away and gave me what i wanted!

- my coworker, pregnant, standing in front of me NAKED telling me about how MANDY MOORE (who, in the dream, i also worked with, and who was also pregnant) was eating nothing but hot dogs and cheeseburgers and how unhealthy that was. basically my coworker was priding herself on her good eating habits and being all judgy judgy of mandy's.

the dotytron told me about his dream, which basically revolved around him having this girlfriend who was a vampire and would turn into one suddenly and have hulk-style freakouts which could only be circumvented with toothpaste. hilarious, eh?

i had lunch with my dad today. of the three children my father contributed genetic material to, i NEVER would have guessed in a million years that i would end up having the most stable relationship with him. we used to FIGHT. my parents got divorced when i was quite young and my dad had weekly sunday visits with us. when he remarried his terrible, awful, shrew of a wife and she pulled some whacked out s**t, i would frequently get into giant fights with him that would result in a cold war where i would boycott visits with him for half a year at a time. when we eventually reconnected, it was an icy and wary truce at best, with no small amount of imperious disrespect coming from miss teenage hormones over here. the s-dawg was definitely my dad's favorite...they share the most obvious physical genetic material, my brother is the only son to carry on the family name and he quite clearly put my (very human) father on a pedestal.

when the eventual awakening came for my brother (later than is usual, given the intermittence with which we saw him), where you realize that your parents are screwed up regular folk like everyone else, it changed their relationship no small amount. my sister being firmly settled in another country with husband and child, i've kind of taken up the slack. now that my work schedule has assumed a regularity in both timing and location, i've been seeing my dad once or twice a month for lunch. he comes all the way from richmond hill to visit me downtown...it takes him almost 2 hours in either direction.

when we talk, we generally avoid heavy, too-personal stuff...he occasionally resorts to the cheap shot...needling my brother, my sister, or my mom (still, after all these years) and being the loyal person that i am, we clash when he does. i let him know in no uncertain terms without mincing words what i think of that kind of behaviour. but otherwise, i actually have a lot in common with him...it's like talking to any other reasonably well-read, retiree. we share hobbies in common (fishing and whatnot). lately, he's been unraveling the u.s. economic situation for me, in his slow, laborious, plodding way (it can be a frustrating lesson for that very reason...i'm a speed-learner, but those attributes really help when you're dealing with asset-backed commercial paper) with felt-tipped pen and paper at the ready.

i see a lot of myself in him. my particularity, my anal-ness, my fiscal conservativism, my caution, my risk-adverseness, my lack of tact, my ability to assess things with an (outward) detached lens. so we sit on one of the benches in the park and in neat block letters he teaches me about instruments and mortgages and fannie mae and freddie mac. stuff that my mom and big d aren't as good for (both of them are horrible teachers)...today we hit the so-called "grand finale" of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. it's fun. i'm glad we're building a relationship now. i kind of regret that it's come late (he's almost 70), but better late than never. moreover, i'm not sure i would have been as ready or open before. i would have been too teenage hormone/half-baked/angry. i've settled into my skin a lot more and it's easier for me to take him as he is and as i am and meet him on those terms.

anyway, we're reconvening in two weeks to talk about hedgefunds and short-selling and futures. whereas before i would have fobbed him off indefinitely...i'm looking forward to it.

tonight is hair cut and rotis and kdubsguelph. huzzah!

fin.

now it's starting to get gross

apparently, nicoise salad is NOT enough to keep one reasonably fit and compact girl and one reasonably unfit and gangly boy full enough to bedtime. i mean, it is afterall only a bowl of veggies with some protein thrown in. around 10:00pm my stomach was rumbly and i felt faint. the dotytron tends to need little to no prompting to indulge in some midnight or close-to-midnight snacking...in fact, he's usually clamoring for something sweet (he has a fearsome sweet tooth) at the same time every night.

the long and short of it is: we polished off an ENTIRE bag of ruffled plain chips dunked in some mysterious onion dip that had been sitting in our fridge (but well before the expiry date) for a good two months. THEN i followed that up with 2 GIANT slices of pie a la mode.

today, i distinguished myself by spending TEN DOLLARS (!) at mcdonald's. my big mac combo with a filet-o-fish chaser standard order now costs a 10 spot? i was also charged ten cents for a sweet'n'sour dipping sauce for dunking my fries into. did you know they CHARGED for dipping sauce if you didn't order mcnuggets?!? that's highway robbery? i'm writing a letter to ronald. inflation is a b***h, folks. spending $10 for mcdonald's certainly makes it a lot less appealing. in fact, i spent the rest of the afternoon feeling vaguely ill/inebriated. lately, the return on the indulgence of my fast-food cravings hasn't been as great. i'm kind of losing my taste for it. i'll crave it like crazy, but the actual payoff just isn't there...i don't get quite the same endorphin hit.

that being said...i'm still sitting at the computer at 7pm, seriously considering ordering popeye's fried chicken for dinner. because, all that being said above, once i've gone off the rails, healthy-wise...i always figure i should go whole hog. there's no point wasting a well cooked, healthy home meal on a body that's already scarfed 10000000000mg of sodium and cholesterol. right? right?

i think, more than anything, i really just want to eat at HOME. and eat real, home-cooked food with vegetables and lots of fruit. i also love cooking. so maybe i'm nesting or something? i dunno. i spent a good chunk of today on mls. i found THE perfect house in the neighbourhood i want to live in...for not so much money. it's fantastic! maybe i should make an appointment with the mortgage broker? i've realized that the style of house i want is NOT that condo-chic, super queen west, super-ultra modern, slick, lots of stainless, lots of white, vibe. dark wood floors and turquoise with chocolate brown and everything looking out of "modern young urbanite" mag. you pay a LOT for that faceless, anonymous interior. when it's finally time for me to go house hunting, we'll save money with our fuddy duddy-ness and affinity for mish-mash decor and houses that you can mess up and live in.

tomorrow i'm having lunch with my da and then doing grocery shopping, heading home to wait for the dotytron and then heading over to C & A's pad and meeting up with the kdubsguelph crew and getting my hair cut by the inimitable steph and then eating rotis from mother india (malai kofta for me) and then maybe (75%) going to tittsworth at wrongbar. phew! i may or may not go because saturday i'm babysitting the niece AND nephew for a sleepover and that's going to be draining and i need to be on my a-game with those two.

fin.

shana tova

after an excruciating, frustrating, and extra-long day at work (one in which i stayed late AND worked through lunch), i'm now finally at home, where i love most to be, especially in the fall. what's not to love about fall, really? it's dark and cozy and warm inside, the air is snappy and full of fresh smells, fall food is beckoning my taste buds with the promise of richness and comfort, and my toes are anticipating being curled up in sheepskin. love love love fall. my favorite season by far, forever and ever.

i'm in the middle of researching rosh hashanah recipes. i've decided that we here at casa dotytron and lagerfeld (and casa roomie too, for the forseeable future) are going to start a tradition of celebrating (with food, natch) the festivals of the world (or the ones that i know about...i'm always willing/able to learn more though!). it's something i'd like to pass down to my (potential) kids. knowing what other cultures do and eat and what brings people together. anyway, next tuesday we're going to do rosh hashanah. okay...i just got back from wikipedia. apparently we need a ram's horn to blow to awaken us from our "slumber" and alert us to the coming judgement. i think i'm going to use a kazoo as a substitute. and i think we're going to do the thing where you throw bread or pebbles into the water as a way of casting off your sins.

i think i'm going to do fish. maybe poached salmon? with an herb/honey topping? (sweetness is apparently a big deal during rosh hashanah) carrots glazed in honey and ginger (tzimmes...sweetness is what you want out of the new year), spinach (symbolizes a green year with a good harvest), and a sour cream streusel coffee cake. i LOVE warm coffee cake with pecans with a cold glass of milk.

i have a confession to make. i ate 7 hot dogs on saturday (technically, 1 knacker and 6 hot dogs, only 2 with bun). i LOVE hot dogs! and i barely ever have 'em! so i cooked up a pot of mac'n'cheese for me and the dotytron, and we split that. then i made up a knacker on a bun for me and him. then, he wasn't feeling so hot, so he stopped at that, and i made myself another hot dog on a bun. then i asked him if he wanted any more and he said "not right now" which i took to mean "no, go ahead and be a gluttonous, idolatrous, disgusting pig" and ate FIVE MORE HOT DOGS, dipped in ketchup, SUPER FAST. gross, huh? i felt pretty icky afterwards. but also kind of good. does it make it better that they're mennonite hot dogs? i love forcemeat. there's no way around it.

tonight for dinnie i made nicoise salad. it was a multi-layered, composed affair, that still came together in half an hour, of which i was happy. here are the steps:

1)i cut up some yukon gold potatoes and boiled them in salted water until just-tender, and then i tossed them in my olive tapenade.

2) i steamed some green beans. when they were bright green and still crisp, i drained them and ran cold water over them to set the colour.

3) i generously seasonsed up and seared a 1/2 lb slab of bluefin tuna on both sides, but left it cool and red in the middle. i set the tuna aside and in the same pan, melted 1 T. of butter and added 1 thinly sliced shallot and sauteed that out. then i added a giant plop of grainy mustard and a shot of red wine vinegar. i tossed this dressing over the beans.

4) i poached eggs (has anyone in the history of the world ever loved accessorizing with a poached egg more than i? i think not).

5) in a big bowl, i put a layer of mache, then the dressed beans, then the potatoes, the sliced tuna, and then the poached egg. it was heavenly.



this is what it looks like with the egg yolk bursted:



tomorrow i'm going out for lunch with K, G, and M at work. we're going to MICKY DEE'S!!! OR SOME OTHER FAST FOOD! i've been resisting the urge for fast food all week and i feel like i deserve a treat, even if i haven't run a single step all week.

fin.

zeroes

i got home from dball last night and my bro s-dawg was over. he wanted to watch the season premiere of "heroes" and he wouldn't make it home in time after his game of dball so he came over to commandeer our tv. i wasn't planning on watching it but i got sucked in because really, what was i going to do? hang out in my room while my bro was over? no. that would make me a poor host/sister. so i sat. and watched. and was bored. to. tears.

i'm beginning to think that season 1 of "heroes" was an anomaly. it's gone right off the rails. too much exposition, over-explaining, over-portentousness. it's like all the mystery and wonder are gone...they've sucked all the life and possibility out of a world populated by people with extraordinary superhero talents, which is kind of hard to do, if you think about it. you have to be a pretty spectacular dud to turn superheroes into something boring. i mean, even the crash test dummies managed to make a song about a superhero delivered in the lead singer dude's baritone that was catchy and memorable. "heroes" just feels tired and played out and boring boring boring! i'm through.

maybe it's because i've been reading some a**-kickingly good comics lately. i recently finished the trade paperbacks (i only read trades) of brian wood's "DMZ." DMZ stands for demilitarized zone and the comics cover a young photographer who gets dropped into manhattan, the DMZ standing between what we know as the united states and the land taken over by libertarian southern militias, both groups locked in a civil war. the art is great - gritty and fine with lots of detail. the story is hyper-engaging, invoking the kind of page-turning urgency that leaves you with bags under your eyes the next day at work. it's really political but doesn't come off as preachy because it's still presented with realistic characters and interesting events, so that it doesn't seem like you're getting a lecture. i really enjoyed this. each trade is introduced by a different figure...high-ranking u.s. army officials who have done tours in iraq, cory doctorow, etc.

i'm also about halfway through the trades for "y: the last man" which is about a plague that kills every mammal with a y chromosome except for this one dude yorick and his pet monkey, ampersand. the art for this one is pretty rudimentary (the cover art notwithstanding) but the story is interesting, equal parts adventure/romance/dystopia/gender studies with a good shot of humour thrown in. i think the hard-lined politicism of "DMZ" is more my style, but "y" certainly makes for an entertaining diversion before bed.

s-dawg was thrilled/shocked when my facebook bookshelf revealed i was reading "DMZ" i guess i should have figured that my "graphic novel" love and his comic fanboy-ness would eventually converge. he's got a whole slate of recommendations for me and more importantly, he buys the trades so i have a cherry-picked reading list to look forward to.

tonight for dinner i made a clam linguine...diced up some guanciale, sauteed up onions and garlic in the fat, added a splash of beer, some small manila clams, and steamed those open with the pan covered. when they popped, i added two cans of clams to bulk it up and some parsley and al dente spaghetti and tossed the pasta in the juice. some salt and black pepper and we had a very tasty (and quick!) dinner.

alongside i made a quick salad of roma tomatoes, peeled seeded cucumber, and sliced radish tossed with a good pinch of salt, cracked black pepper, and some balsamic.

and now i'm treating myself to a rare epsom salt bath. i honestly haven't been this tight in a looooong time. reading entertainment weekly in the tub while the scorching hot water leisurely cools is a luxury i seldom afford myself...but desperate lactic-acid infused musculature times call for desperate measures.

fin.

up to my eyeballs

...in applesauce. the roomie and l'army went on an apple-picking adventure on saturday, returning with half a basket full of macintoshes, courtlands, and empires. i was foiled in my attempt to procure tomatoes on saturday, so yesterday i got up and turned into an applesauce making machine. i mis-read the yield on the recipe and ended up making about 15 L of applesauce. oops! haha!

saturday evening was nice. i've been having mortality thoughts again (spurred, no doubt, by "the wire" season 5) so instead of anything dark or grim or too gritty, the dotytron and i bunkered down to watch "gossip girl" torrents. delish! nothing to take your mind off of serious, real-life matters like blair waldorf and chuck bass sparring in the hamptons.

sunday morning we had a bacon and egg and toast breakkie (which i prepared while gingerly babysitting a seething, roiling, spitting mass of applesauce that threatened to overflow my largest cooking pot). then i prepped us a fantastic (at the time, i suspected, but was proven correct) dinner of osso bucco. i got the tip-off from T, my old supervisor about a portugese butcher which was around the corner from the pizza place on friday, so i dragged C & C there and i snagged four ENORMOUS beef shanks for osso bucco (seriously, the things were at least 3" tall and 5" in diameter) for the pauperly sum of $13!!!

that's IT! i couldn't believe my eyes. i've paid 3x that for osso bucco at st. lawrence market and at the healthy butcher for much skimpier specimens. portugese butcher all the way!

i braised the osso bucco in wine, chicken stock, and a mirepoix with the addition of tomatoes and thyme. i skimmed the fat off the resulting juice (they braised in a covered pan in the oven for almost 3 hours) and tossed that with pappardelle. then i served up the pappardelle with a chunk of osso bucco on top, topped with the gremolata (parsley-lemon zest-garlic mixture) which is an absolute NECESSITY. it brightens up the whole dish...i might put a gremolata component in all my future braised dishes.

then i took chef's privilege and grabbed the fattest hunk of bone marrow for myself and smeared it on the garlic-butter topped crostinis i had crisped in the oven. sprinkled with sea salt and devoured with eyes closed and heart racing. i LOVE bone marrow. love love love it.

alongside i made that fennel, radicchio, romano and parsley salad that's so well balanced and was a fantastic counterpoint to the richness of the meal.

finally, we finished it off with a slice of sour cream apple pie, topped with an almond streusel, using another good chunk of the roomie and l'army's spoils.

bellies full, we lolled around on the couch and contemplated bailing on the manifesto after party...this wasn't helped by the fact that BET was showing this movie (i think it's called ATL") which was T.I.'s first starring role. you would *think* that he'd pick something that would boost his street cred and make him look all hard and tough. oh no! here's the plot synopsis from imdb: "As four friends prepare for life after high school, different challenges bring about turning points in each of their lives. The dramas unfold and resolve at their local rollerskating rink, Cascade." THAT'S RIGHT. T.I. on roller skates!!! there's NOTHING more hilarious than the image of the "king of the south," that fine, hot, sophisticated weasel that he is, spinning around on a pair of skates. AMAZING.

but the call of premier battling pete rock was too strong so we roused ourselves and headed out. this is my third time seeing premo and the second seeing pete rock. going out on a sunday is balls though...and i'm feeling properly ruined as a consequence.

however! partying with dr. rei, hanbo, bwong, and the dotytron CANNOT be beat. i love those guys. goosetang clan in effect yo! seeing dr. rei going buck, the dotytron out for once and happy, and bwong dancing is THE BEST. pete rock and premo didn't go on until 1:00am!!! that's flippin' late!!! this is after i had all but assumed they weren't going to show and AFTER we were "taken to school" (i hate being taken to school by djs) by this terrible opening dj who was pandering to these awful breakdancers by playing stuff straight outta the 80s. FOR WHAT SEEMED LIKE HOURS. totally killed the crowd. another key moment happened when the dj, out of nowhere, dropped some jay-z tune and the crowd ROARED, and which point, i scowled and said, "i HATE the jigga-man" and bwong gave me danger eyes and frantically tried to shush me.
then this other dj stepped up and off a tribe tune, at which point, the crowd went buck and bwong said, "this is cheap. i mean, it's FINE, and i'll TAKE it, but it's cheap" lol! we were all whores though and ate up the cheap bone-throwing. the dj ended up being AMAZING. sick programming, sick track selection, totally knew how to work the crowd.

then premo and pete rock stepped up and were aight. i've seen them both be better. there was a bit too much "taking us to school" and the degree was ambitious (they wanted to span the 70s to now)...after a few weakly-received funk and soul numbers, they gave us what we wanted (because they're pros, after all...the pro-est of the pros). then there was a VERY STRANGE interlude where premo hyped up this dude he brought from queens (i think), "black poet" and he mc'd with a really s****y mic (ie. no one could hear him) which kind of killed the momentum again. poor black poet! it was really awkward...it's like a kid being asked to perform when they clearly don't want to by an over-bearing parent and the kid has to use like, a toilet paper tube instead of a mic. brutes! then they went back to playing some classic tunes from each other's back catalogue and there was a tribute to j dilla which always makes me sad because j dilla was a true lion and genius and it's tragic when you lose someone that gifted, so young.

anyway, it was awesome and i stayed out way too late and woke up way to early and now i'm a hurting unit to end all hurting units and i still have to play dodgeball tonight before i get to curl up at home and watch "gossip girl" and eat leftovers (assuming i don't cave to this ever-present craving for mcdonald's/wendys/burger king/popeye's that i've had lately).

i'll update this post with food pics tonight.

fin.

not-so-lazy saturday

it's 10 in the a.m. i've been up since 8 in the a.m. i have mopped the floors, done 2 loads of laundry and switched the bed linens. i've also fastidiously cleaned the kitchen in preparation for today's big to-do: canning tomatoes. the tomato canning adventure is dependent on masellis grocery having a crate of plum tomatoes. last night when we walked by after dinner, they only had crates of peppers and i am NOT equipped to jar peppers at the moment (much as i would like to). now i just have to take a shower and walk my little keister over to the store for tomatoes, jars, and basil. if that falls through, i'm going to organize all my photos in albums and/or possibly start cutting fabric for the drapes i'm making or the quilt i want to make. so ambitious!

i love my saturday days. lately they've been for me, myself, and i and i quite enjoy it...it's prime-time puttering and we all knows how much i loves a good putter and being "domestic."

so, we waited 45minutes to get into pizzeria libretto and it wasn't half bad! here's what we had:

we got a bunch of apps to share. clockwise from the top left, we have -
calamari with romesco - romesco wasn't very "romesco-y." short on almond and red pepper flavour...actually, it tasted and looked more like tomato sauce. calamari was crispy and tender.

bread - your standard, unsalted, portugese/italian bread, nice chew

burrata with heirloom tomatoes (thinly sliced) and basil - this should have been seasoned. the lack of salt was a crime against nature and really did this dish a disservice.

duck proscuitto. delicious, served with fat, plum wedges.

bruschette (mascarpone and shrimp) - this was incredible. creamy but not too rich tasting, full of shrimp flavour...it tasted heavenly.

olive oil and balsamic with cracked black pepper and chili oil for dunking bread into

boar capicollo - unlike any capicollo i had ever seen...more like a boar proscuitto...tasty.


then we sampled 3 of their much-lauded pizzas. clockwise from top left:

margherita - they use a really nice tomato sauce here. good texture, sweet, nice bit of acidity. this was a textbook perfect margherita EXCEPT! it could have used a final brush of olive oil on the crust and a sprinkling of salt. i don't care if it's not traditional...you need the salt and the lubed up crust. the crust has a nice, blistered, char covering it, and a great texture and taste (with a bit of salt, it would be exemplary).

caramelized onion, house-made sausage, chilis and mozzarella - this was our favorite. sweet, broken down onions, chunks of sausage and just a hint of heat. the best by far

proscuitto, arugala, heirloom tomato, fior di latte mozzarella - this was ho-hum. same great crust, but everything was a little dry and i don't like the "salad on pizza" technique. i like the arugala wilted down a bit.

then we got the lemon panna cotta for dessert with the "chef's own blueberry compote" (our waiter's words, not mine). not to be a pain in the arse...but blueberry compote ain't that hard to make. also, our waiter was super friendly and looked like one of the characters on guitar hero.

the panna cotta was fantastic. great lemon rind flavour, amazing, just-set texture and full of cream flavour. i love me a good panna cotta.

overall, everything was super tasty. i don't know that i would *necessarily* line up
again for it, but it was a worthwhile experience. my main quibbles are the lack of salt in key places where salt would make all the difference (burrata, crust) and the extremely long wait time for the pizzas. we waited about 35 minutes between our apps being cleared and the pizzas being ready, and quite frankly...those puppies only take 2 minutes in the oven. that's a small complaint though and once the lines calm down and things relax and you don't have to wait with jerks, then it'll be a nice little spot. 4 people, 1 bottle of wine, 2 cocktails with tax came to $160.

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these are dinner shots from thursday night.

for dinner tonight, we're having kraft dinner and hot dogs. we weren't supposed to be home for dinner tonight...we were supposed to originally go to the ancaster fair and visit with dr. rei's fam-bam in hamilton. unfortunately, the transportation situation didn't work out. with the dotytron working in richmond hill until 5pm, he doesn't get home til 7 and we wouldn't get to hamilton until 9pm or so. then the exhibits at the fair (the best part with the exotic animals and stuff) close super-early (8ish?) and don't open til 10:00am on sunday morning, and we'd have to take the GO bus back and i want to be back in toronto for 1pm. basically, it was going to involve a lot of transportation time with too-little time in hamilton and at the fair. boooooooooooooo.

then the dotytron decided he NEEDED to go to this jam, featuring a battle between pete rock and preemo. done and done. it was just getting too packed as far as weekends go...so tonight it's just me and the dotytron, watching "the wire" season 5 and "gossip girl" (special guest appearance from yokozuna tonight, perhaps?).

fin.

you don't say!

so, apparently, guys (read: the dotytron) don't respond well to in-the-sack role-playing when the roles being played consist of "yokozuna" (me) and "the undertaker" (him). sheesh! who knew?

it's probably exacerbated by the fact that i, having assigned the roles, in the persona of yokozuna, insist on being as unsexy as possible, basically rolling onto him like a beached whale in my pajamas like a proper sumo wrestler would (hey, this is method acting at its' finest) and chortling at my own cleverness in finding newfound ways to torture the dotytron before sleep.

another thing we've adopted at casa dotytron and lagerfeld is this thing we picked up from my niece. whenever you ask her a question she doesn't feel like answering, (ie. "what do you get when you take 2 apples away from 5 apples?") she scrunches up her nose, looks slightly past you, and says, in a funny voice, "who said that?! was that a talking ____ [cloud, squirrel, crazy telephone, etc]?!??" it's a pretty ace avoidance technique. so, when i was asking the dotytron if he had put his grocery money in the jar (for the third day in a row) last night after dinner, he rinsed the same line.

tonight the plan is to meet up with C & C then walk to this portugese grocery store so that i can either pick up some osso buco for sunday dinnie. and/or rabbit, if i'm feeling adventurous. then we're going to stand in line for hours and hours at pizzeria libretto until we get a table. the dotytron will be joining us after his after-school program. good god, they love him there. word is out and the school that he teaches at has more classes than he can handle.

i'll post a full review tonight! and i'll also attach some pics of last night's dinner.

i had a successful run of grocery store clothes shopping last night. joe fresh is pretty awesome for cheap, serviceable, fashionable but basic work clothes. i dug it, hard. we went to the one on lower jarvis, which has a standalone store, unlike some of the other locations, which are a little incongruous because there'll be produce and bread and condiments and then in the middle of the store, clothes. weird! the only problem i had was that a lot of the things i wanted were gone in my sizes. and shopping with the roomie drives me crazy! she needs work clothes bigtime, but while i'm frantically running around the store (we got there an hour before closing time), snatching up armfuls of stuff, i catch her, in the YOGA AND MATERNITY section, buying ANOTHER cowl-necked cotton sweatshirt. so brutal! she already has like, 5 of those! in the same colours!!!!!!!! she's the worst for buying a million of the same item of clothing, most of which, are only appropriate as "house" (maybe camping) clothes. i just gave her the exasperated head-shake.

it's early...but hallowe'en is seriously SO SO CLOSE!!! i've already decided what pumpkins i'm going to be doing and i think we're going to montreal hallowe'en weekend, because our friend I and her bf M are throwing a party in M's blingin' loft. sweet! the house family put our heads together and we came up with a pretty solid group costume...i'm seriously pumped about it. the costume works on all counts...pretty easy to put together, comfortable, cute, and works as a group thing. i'm pretty excited (even though i tend to excite easily.  still)! while we're there, i'd be pissed if we didn't eat at one of the many many many amazing montreal restos...so i think the dotytron and i are going to do an early anniversary dinner at au pied du cochon. foie gras poutine, here i come!!!

fin.

potpourri

or, odds and sods. does jeopardy still have a "potpourri" category anymore? do people still even put bowls of potpourri on their coffee tables in their "living rooms" anymore? these are the questions that bedevil my mind.

i'm sleeping like a baby lately. cool fall nights and warm fall food conspire to send me off to the land of nod at the completely unrespectable hour of 11pm. snooze!

here's what i've got rolling around in my jumbly brain lately.

katy perry. can't stand her. she's like a poor man's less stylish, less creative, and much less cute and cute-voiced version of my beloved zooey deschanel. also...she gives vintage shopping a bad name. piecing together a 40s revival outfit is so boring and uncreative! it's poor taste pastiche not clever referential. also the whole vintage explosion is driving me crazy lately because people are bidding up stuff on ebay that clearly SUCKS and quite frankly, i don't want to see you traipsing down ossington in your misguided, dressed-in-the-dark, and poorly conceptualized outfits. moreover, stop bidding on crappy shiz! ugh. i hate seeing parkdale librarians in their maudlin attempts at urban sophistication that just end up reeking of the painful provincialism that seems to be all that canada is capable of producing in large numbers in the culture department.

we watched part of "so you think you can dance - canada" last night. wow. it makes me want to claw mine own eyes out. so embarrassing! if the cbc could just get their nads together to put together ONE good show that looked as good as even the crappiest offerings on subscription-tv in the u.s. (seriously...i would lap up a canadian show that looked half as good as "walker: texas ranger"), i could have something to stand behind. but no. it's always a cringe-inducing mimesis of what we THINK popular culture looks like in the u.s. and without the amplification or appropriation of like, japan or something. no...what we project back is a markham theatre production by way of honest ed's.

i also watched the new "beverly hills, 90210" last night. BOOORING. once you've gone "gossip girl" you really can't go back. it's so terrible! the writing! the acting! it's like a fig newton. i mean, the "high school" kids on "gossip girl" look old, but NOT as old as the "beverly hills, 90210" crew. and the parents! "gossip girl" has stockard channing as one of the upper east side matriarchs. "beverly hills" has lori loughlin. aunt becky! who looks 30! i'm done with it. it's a waste of my precious time and i refuse to give it another minute more.

*edit: weird convergence alert. i wrote most of this post during my lunch break at work...then i check my rss feeds and lo and behold, the delightful vixens over at gofugyourself have posted a similar (though infinitely more entertaining [keep in mind, this is their full-time job] rant on bev hills, neuf zero deux un zero. read it because it's hilarious. i wish i could be their friend.

the dotytron's new school (the one right close to us) is turning out okay. it's not the richie rich school. that school is franklin. according to "toronto life" by way of my friend D (i don't read that rag), franklin is one of those schools that rich parents compete and struggle to get their kids into (stealing addresses, 2 year long waiting lists, etc.). i hate them on principal. ha! the dotytron's school features a healthy dose of new chinese immigrants, so his attempts to learn mandarin earlier were not in vain. he's also gotten roped into teaching a ukulele program at lunch - the by-product of what he thought was an off-the-cuff comment to the principal. the school apparently has a large number of ukuleles. the dotytron, when sneakily prodded by the principal, commented that he could probably learn to play one. by the next day, word was out that he was running the program and i come home to find a suspicious dvd on ukulele instruction from one of the preeminent ukulele pedagogues in the world. this has resulted in me torturing the dotytron when he won't pay attention to me, by perching on the spare computer chair next to his desk in my pajamas while he's doing homework. energetically and tunelessly strumming away in time to whatever hip hop, drum'n'bass, or jazz tune he happens to be listening to. there's something inherently funny about playing instruments that are mini.

he's also taking this stupid course called "teaching for the inclusive classroom" which is basically "one world, one dream" class. it has been decided by the chickenheads that run the york education program that this course requires EIGHT HOURS of class time every two weeks. EIGHT HOURS! last week the dotytron played musical chairs for FORTY FIVE minutes. FORTY FIVE! and then they had to talk about it for ANOTHER HOUR because OF COURSE, the musical chairs exercise was used as a "metaphor" for how it feels to be excluded. i hate society and i hate teacher's college if that's what we're fostering. so what, there's no such thing as people being better than other people at stuff? no such thing as competition? everybody is equal at everything all the time? nobody ever loses? SOMETIMES YOU LOSE! i hate this nanny state, coddling business. that's PRECISELY the lack of reflexive, critical engagement that results in the sheer preponderance of idiots with whom i have to contend and even entertain on a daily business. appalling. it makes me want to enroll in teacher's college just so i can cause s**t.

i hate how people can be SO WRONG in their misguided, dumb efforts to do right. it's like the ndp. i want to punch jack layton in his stupid face. i want the green party lady to fix up and look like she TRIED to put herself together before being thrust into the media spotlight. i want there to be a candidate or a party that i can actually care about, instead of voting for the ndp by default because they're closest to what i kinda sorta want even though if i was stuck in a room with them i would probably vomit in my socks from the lack of leadership and constant dithering and "teaching for the inclusive classroom"-ness of it all.

sigh. end rant.

------------------------------------



tonight for dinner i made baja style fish tacos. took some whitefish (tilapia), dredged in seasoned flour, fried, in warm corn tortillas with finely shredded red cabbage tossed with lime juice, mexican crema, and diced avocadoes (guac, more like it).

fin.

new dodgeball rules = teh lamez0rz

so the league implemented new rules all stealth-like and some of them are kind of good (speeding up the game, keeping balls in play, keeping teams from drawing out the time) and some of them are kind of lame (i'm not going to get into it here for the dodgeball uninitiated).

i finished season 1 of "gossip girl" and feverishly d/l the torrents for the first 3 episodes of season 2. the georgina (michelle trachtenberg) storyline kind of bit the big one...wasn't feeling it at all, but i'm pro the vanessa-nate hookup.

not much else to report...i should really stay off the comptor as i've got the suspicious twinges in my forearms that herald the beginning of an RSI. i'm doing some stretches and implementing a regular yoga regimen to circumvent that...no knitting for me tonight. we're going to curl up with "the wire: season 5" instead. this is AFTER our house-family biore nosestrip party. biores are so gross but equally so amazing. i'm so conflicted about them. adding to the turmoil is the fact that they practically cost $5 a strip or something equally outrageous for what amounts to water-activated glue on paper.

the dotytron made dinner tonight (with my cyber-intervention in the form of overly-detailed email instructions). we had ground pork and long beans with black bean sauce and udon noodles. delicious.

i also went to the hygienist today for my bi-annual cleaning and emerged feeling like i *DIDN'T* get hosed. this is huge as i'm inherently distrustful of dentists (i urge new readers to timeline my previous experience with the dental profession). i got a full cleaning done but i got all suspicious when the hygienist told me that i was also concurrently scheduled for a visit from the dentist and i arbitrarily refused the visit. don't they tack on like, an extra $50 for the guy to waltz in and poke me for 2 seconds? as usual, even though i floss EVERY DAY, i'm not doing it properly. flossing is a delicate art.

fin.

"blind loves"

the subtitle of which should be, "or, don't ever live in slovakia" THAT message came through loud and clear in the TIFF documentary i saw last wednesday, much clearer than the competing messages of "entertaining" "well-edited" and "interesting subjects" which were all thoroughly sublimated. this is my longhand way of saying that the documentary was in no way deserving of the accolades it had received and i thought it was a proper snoozefest.

it was very detached, very cold, very much a "window into the lives of ___" examination, which is all very well and good, when ___ make great subjects. most of the blind people in this film did not make for great viewing...quite frankly, it all came off a little sad and forlorn and dull and very post-communist eastern bloc with all the grim greyness that reference suggests.

the real kicker was the Q&A. most people who know me know that there are few things i loathe more than a Q&A. in my experience, Q&As invite every last asinine observer of the human condition who has ever longed for a soapbox to come scuttling out of the woodwork like so many banal and pretentious cockroaches. they make my teeth hurt. K, on the other hand, has somehow miraculously avoided such prototypical Q&A experiences and earlier in the day had informed me of her and J's intention to stay. D and bwong also wanted to stay. so i stayed. and lo and behold, one of the first questions shot at the director was the following: "when working with the disabled, did you ever feel uncomfortable filming them?"

keep in mind, the director seemed to understand english okay, but had a very shaky grasp on speaking english. tickets to TIFF screenings are $20. TWENTY DOLLARS. tickets to gala screenings are THIRTY DOLLARS. i mention this because i would GLADLY pay that much to hire a slovakian-english translator for the 30 minutes it would take to conduct a Q&A, instead of watching the poor director grasp at the words necessary to present his no doubt sophisticated rebuttals and explications of his thought processes to the audience. it was excruciating.

then, the nitwit above, upon realizing (belatedly) that the question was a dud, came back to the REAL reason for asking a question in a Q&A, which in my experience has been to be self-serving in some capacity or another, "because well...when i was in south america working with the poor, i felt very uncomfortable filming them for my own gain" (i'm paraphrasing, but you get the gist). ugh. it's like first year university all over again. except the ENTIRE class is filled with that one dork who read kafka and "the catcher in the rye" and nietzsche in grade 11, for "fun" (read: to impress women) and now likes to show the world how they read above the regulated reading level. basically, it's a whole class full of ethan hawke. and mature students. yikes.

then someone ACTUALLY asked this little doozy, "i noticed in your film that you really referenced the great european masters of film...was that a conscious decision to emulate fellini?" *sound of crickets*

this reminds me of this exchange that took place between the dotytron, dr. rei and myself on saturday. we were talking about theatre and dr. rei was proclaiming that she doesn't get theatre or modern art. she mentioned how she had gone to see "waiting for godot," which was boring and consisted of, in her words, "watching two guys, day in, day out, saying, 'WHERE IS HE?!?' 'I CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S NOT HERE YET'" *insert dr. rei over-enunciating and dramatically looking at a fake watch* 

at which point, i interjected, "is that what it's about? i always thought it was two dudes expounding on philosophy and stuff" lol! i'm so gullible! can you believe that i actually almost let dr. rei lead me to believe that "waiting for godot" consisted of two guys going "WHERE IS HE?" hahahaha! she's a slippery little badger is that dr. rei. always trying to pounce on my innate initial instinct to take her seriously. she tried to convince me that what i thought danzig sounded like isn't what danzig actually sounds like. HA! wrong! danzig sounds EXACTLY what i thought danzig would sound like. this was a by-product of a conversation where it was revealed that faith no more doesn't sound anything like what i thought faith no more sounded like. i thought they sounded like danzig. on that, i'm willing to concede defeat.

on a different note, watching "gossip girl" with the dotytron is one of the best experiences of life. the dotytron's boundless enthusiasm is so infectious.  the very first episode, as the cast scrolled across the screen, he exclaimed, "penn badgley?  blake lively? chace crawford?  they really went all out with these characters"  when i told him that those were the actors names he got all saucer eyed.  hilarious.  his impression of nate is so funny.  i'm so obsessed with gossip girl...i only have maybe 3 more episodes before i'm done the first season and have to watch them in real time and it's kind of breaking my heart.  chuck and blair are the best couple of life.  i love the redemption of the tortured bad boy.  my friend I called on saturday to speak to the roomie and upon hearing her voice i screeched into the phone, "I LOVE GOSSIP GIRL!"  i'm lucky it was her.  i'm pretty sure if it had been a telemarketer, coming as i was off of mainlining 3 hours of episodes, i would have done pretty much the same thing.

tonight is the first dodgeball game of the season.  afterwards, i'm rewarding myself with tacos al asador and i'm picking up takeout for the house family.  

fin.

i gotta stop doing this...

and by "this" i mean, "overextending myself on the weekends." we're entertaining TWICE today. twice! that's ludicrous! we're having the dotytron's family over for brunch and then having our friends A and S and the dotytron's old thornhill friends D and her kids, and J over for an early bbq dinner. phew.

last night me, dr. rei and the dotytron went to the dodgeball party. we weren't planning on staying very long because they're all pretty much very much younger than us and i have a feeling we have a different sense of what it means to party...like, when i say "party" i mean "talk s**t and laugh all night" whereas i suspect that their definition of party encompasses mine, but also includes "watergun fights with red wine in the hallway" which gives me mild seizures just thinking about it. at any rate, i wanted to go to c64's thing, but in the end, we got called away cuz the roomie got sick and was sent home by the midwives who wanted to make sure that someone was home with her. the roomie is NEVER sick so we went home right away. it turns out she just had a migraine, but she'd never had one before, and was so disoriented when it first came on that she forgot our home phone number, which is what made the midwives reluctant to send her home without someone there. she's lucky. she has a great work support systems and we have a great home support system.

the party was aight. we went AFTER hoovering down 4 slices of pizza each in the space of about 5 minutes, and chasing it with the cheesecake brownies i made (pictured above). yesterday was pure bliss. i got rid of all the stuff i had to do by 1:30pm and was going to meet dr. rei and her parents downtown but bailed on that to lie at home on the couch, marathoning "gossip girl" and knitting. so happy. i effin love that show. it's a delectable treat. and a million times better than "the hills" which is way too vapid. "gossip girl" by comparison is a delicious, well-crafted little morsel...it's like a french macaroon and "the hills" is a cookie from a 7/11.

so the party last night was hosted by this girl on my team who's in canada for a bit on her 'round the world tour...she's from australia. the house she lives in is shared with 6 other people, one of whom is a japanese guy, who obviously doesn't speak much english. he introduced himself to me and i THOUGHT i heard the name "tucker." so i kept calling him by name, which is a trick i employ to make people feel included. "tucker! thanks for the snacks!" "it was nice meeting you tucker!" as we left, dr. rei burst into laughter, because she's pretty sure his name ISN'T tucker, and is in fact, taka or something. so i embarrassed myself hugely by calling this poor dude by the wrong name...and at that, the most IMPLAUSIBLE name imaginable (as the dotytron said, "you don't meet CAUCASIAN people named TUCKER!"). pretty brutes. tucker/taka was so cute though! he meekly brought over an array of bowls filled with sunchips, regular chips, and roasted peanuts and put them on the coffee table. so cute!!!!!!!! i was so full but i made me and dr. rei eat some. adorable. i really empathize with new immigrants like crazy. i'm the champion of the underdog.

this was brunch this morning. i quite like brunch entertaining. you get a solid visit in, but then you still have the rest of the day to do stuff. if only i could get more people on board! we had: bob evans sausage, swedish pancakes, blueberry whole wheat muffins, bourbon peach compote, juice, whipped cream, maple syrup, and momma d brought over a big platter of fruit and some brie with mushrooms. yum!

for the bbq tonight i'm making my famous burgers, with either cheddar cheese or the brie with mushrooms melted on top, and our friend J is bringing a salad, and i think i'm going to make a sauteed corn and scallion salad with lime. for dessert i made blueberry sour cream pie with almond streusel, which i'm going to serve with vanilla ice cream.

fin.

abbatoir cat

last night we had dinner with our friends, B & G. we originally wanted to go to foxley...but it was packed full of the members of broken social scene and their loser, plaid-shirted, trust fund skeevy hangers-on. it was an hour long wait. i refuse to wait an hour for tapas. especially on ossington. then we wandered over to pizza libretto. but it was packed full of the readership of toronto life who had left their babies and bugaboo strollers at home. it was an hour long wait. i refuse to wait an hour for pizza. especially on ossington.

i had a feeling this was going to happen. i'm starting to hate ossington as a street. i had compiled a list of backup options during the day because of the aforementioned feeling. we consulted the list and ended up at the niagara street cafe. the website has annoying flash and a ghey song. fast-forward that shiz. i would describe the menu as "new american" or "urban farmstead." i didn't make up those terms. the food world did. the space is nice, with a big patio...we opted to sit outside because the weather was sultry.

we started off with sliced and warmed fred's potato sourdough bread with a caramelized onion and arbequina olive oil jam. this was tasty (but i was also very, very hungry).
we shared a bunch of appetizers.

we had poached ontario artichokes with lemon vinaigrette and bacon mayo. this was tasty...they had cleaned the artichokes until you were at the mostly tender leaves near the heart...you had to pull the leaves off, dip them in the bacon mayo and then scrape them against your bottom teeth. my general preference is an entirely cleaned artichoke that you can just go to town on, but this was nice.

then we had their heirloom tomato and goat cheese tartelette with zucchini blossoms and greens. i didn't see any zucchini blossoms, but this was also yummy...the tomato was really ripe and the goat cheese had been whipped and was quite mild. the stack sat on top of a flaky pastry square.

rabbit rillettes with bacon jam, grainy mustard, and house preserve. i didn't taste any of the accoutrements but the rabbit rillettes was tender, delicate, fine textured, with a faint lemon flavour. delicious.


raspberry point oysters with cucumber mint salad, sugar-chili vinaigrette, and raspberry szechuan pepper granita. i tasted the first two accompaniments, but not the raspberry granita thing (probably superfluous anyway). the oysters were cold and the other elements paired with the brininess well...a good amount of heat offset by the crisp texture of the crunchy cucumber.

i went halfsies with the dotytron. i ordered the braised pig's cheek and confit of tongue with sprouts and lentil salad. i really loved the tenderness of the tongue and the braised pig's cheek had been crisped up and was super-tasty. the meat portion was quite small and i definitely did NOT like the taste of the raw, grassy sprouts with the lentils. it made everything taste really alfalfa-y and the greenness wasn't what the otherwise warm, round, plate needed.

the dotytron ordered the slow cooked cumbrae's brisket with asian greens, baby shitakes, and panko egg yolk. this i dug. the brisket was moist, fatty, rich, and beefy. the panko egg yolk was flash-fried and broke open over the whole dish (and we all know how much i loves raw egg yolk). i personally could have done with more conventional greens instead of the asian greens. i thought the baby shanghai choi was again, a little too "green" tasting and chewy for the dish. i think baby snap peas and baby carrots would have been a better match, but overall, i thought it was well cooked. i would order this again over my dish.
for dessert i ordered the almond milk panna cotta with macerated cherries and biscotti. i love almond milk, ESPECIALLY in a panna cotta. this flavour was quite subdued...i've had punchier, stronger almond milk panna cottas before, but it was a nice finish to a meal. the panna cotta was lighter than i personally prefer and the cherries were a bit of an afterthought. i think i also would have enjoyed the dessert if it had been served a little cooler. the biscotti was crisp and crumbly...i really liked the texture and flavour of it (faintly lemon).

the dotytron got the soma chocolate tart with salted caramel sauce and cardamom chantilly (whipped cream to you and i). the tart was rich and bitter with an acceptably flaky crust. the salted caramel sauce was barely present on the plate and the cardamom whipped cream was a nice gesture, but unnecessary.

overall, i'd go there again, EXCEPT for the fact that near the end of the meal, the nearby abbatoir must have received a shipment, because the air was suddenly suffused with a distinctly barnyard funk that tempered the experience slightly. if you sit inside, you're fine. we went on a hunt for the abbatoir and saw the back end of it, complete with a mangy, feral, abbatoir cat. i think the other thing about niagara cafe is that the menu is tiny, so if they don't change it up enough, then it wasn't so extraordinary that i'd rush back as there weren't that many things on the menu that i was interested in revisiting. the apps were stronger than the mains, i thought. it was quite affordable though. for 4 people, 2 bottles of wine, 3 courses each we paid $315 including tax and tip. i thought that was pretty decent.

today is a day of errand-doing. i've made a pie and blueberry muffins and done two loads of laundry and laboriously punched out 4 packs of stencil letters and alphabetized them to make the t-shirt making a little easier tonight. tonight is my dodgeball t-shirt making party. i'm not planning on staying too long...i'm also thinking of hitting up the why? festival...which is a party that my buddy c64 is throwing featuring bogdan raczynski from rephlex (aphex twin's label) records. i'm on the fence because i ALSO want to come home and sit on the couch and watch gossip girl and knit with the dotytron. it's a tough call.

i was going to go and check out grocery-store clothes at joe fresh...but the roomie wants to come too so i've put that on hold. i'm running on money fumes right now. september and august have both been uncharacteristically expensive months so i'm running on a deficit. luckily, october is a 3 paycheck month...the sucky thing is that the deficit i'm running cuts into my plans to dump my 3rd paycheck into my savings account which i'm trying to bulk up in case my contract doesn't get renewed. it's a tough life. the other sucky thing is...i do need to continue shoring up my work wardrobe with more professional fall/winter work clothes. i can't keep falling on the "casual" side of office casual.

fin.