MTL part II

on sunday we woke up and headed to reservoir, which was touted as serving a pretty good brunch. FALSE! it was also a gastro-pub influenced menu, but there weren't many things on there that we wanted to eat. the food was good, but the service was terrible, and the coffee wasn't unlimited, and the space wasn't as cozy or conducive to whiling away a lazy weekend afternoon like the sparrow. we all basically ordered the same thing, it was the only thing that resembled a basic egg-based breakfast (otherwise, there was fish'n'chips and carrot soup as options). it was a sunny side up egg, served with a thick slab of glazed bacon, on top of a sundried tomato, olive, and gruyere bread. the bread was way over the top. i kind of hate sundried tomatoes too. as bwong said, "remember when sundried tomatoes were on everything?" - it's such a throwback! dr. rei was feeling the effects of trying to keep up with champion eaters like bwong and iron stomach lagerfeld - she ordered a yoghurt - which was actually quite delicious. it was flavoured with orange and came with a little dab of chocolate pudding/cake in the centre...the yoghurt was ultra-thick and creamy. hanbo ordered a toasted brioche thing that came with a smear of nutella/gianduja. very nice. if the service and atmosphere had been better, i would have given them more daps. i don't know that i'd necessarily prioritize going back.

on sunday evening we went to an indeterminate (read: not on my spreadsheet) hot dog and poutine place. i'm not going to lie, i was a little disappointed that we didn't go to the orange julep or dic ann's or hot dog decarie - all pretty famous poutine/casse croûte places. those are the kinds of sacrifices you make when you travel with other people who aren't so slavishly devoted to regional road food as you. i always find it kind of improbable that people DON'T prioritize checking out regional road food above all else, but i know that's just me being a weirdo. plus, those places were all pretty far out of the way and would have necessitated driving.

we met up with I and saw "avatar" - not in 3D because it was sold out. it was, errr...so-so. everything i say about the visuals should be attenuated to account for the fact that i saw it in 2D, perhaps 3D would negate all my critiques. overall, it didn't change the face of movie making forever (as far as i can tell). the na'vi look really cool, but still look super fake. i contend that the both the t-1000 from "terminator 2" and the aliens in "aliens" look more real. the moon the na'vi inhabit, pandora (i'm telling you, all the subtlety of my dad complaining of racism at chuck-e-cheese), looks fantastic, a phosphorescent, glowing, densely forested jungle, replete with majestic (though still fake-looking) animal life.

THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILER ALERTS BUT IT WON'T MATTER BECAUSE THE STORY IS INCIDENTAL.




the story is ludicrous (and is basically a recapitulation of "aliens"): human corporation headed by single-minded, heartless capitalist (here, giovanni ribsi does a blustery job sounding like a crappy richard nixon impersonator channeling paul reiser's role in "aliens") is after "unobtanium" (LOL!!!) which lies directly beneath the sacred tree of one of the na'vi tribes. sigourney weaver has studied the na'vi and created a system where human consciousness can be linked up to na'vi "avatars" as a bid to convince the na'vi to leave their home so that unobtanium mining can commence. sam worthington plays jake sully, a paralyzed from the legs down army guy who gets downloaded into an avatar, disrespects nature, falls in love with the na'vi tribe princess, realizes the error of his ways, and ends up being the chosen one. along the way, he decides that the return of the use of his legs (he's promised spinal cord surgery in exchange for the military using him as an avatar spy) isn't as great a reward as helping the na'vi and staying with them, conveniently where he gets the use of his legs. lol!

i can't tell you how racist and sexist and ham-handed this film is. it's deplorable. the na'vi are a modge-podge of various ethnicities and speak with a faux-african cadence. they are naive, childlike, and slavishly devoted to nature - basically the film borrows from every post-colonial, orientalist trope in the library of the exotic, authentic, "other" slavishly worshipping at mother gaia's feet. we can learn so much from them! look at how in tune they are with the spirit world! their ancestors! with the beating consciousness that binds us all! look at that stupid bumbling gringo, walking amongst them, not knowing and uselessly shedding life! oh wait, he's also THE CHOSEN ONE. how convenient!!!

it's an extremely terrible script with no character development, but again, the visuals are pretty dazzling - although nothing above and beyond what i've seen in other CGI-laden flicks (again the 2D caveat.) ultimately, my review of "avatar" can be summed up thusly: GO SEE "DISTRICT 9"



on monday we woke up and went to willensky's. oh willensky's - what a gem you are! THIS is what road food is about. it's got all the road food signposts - inconvenient hours (9-4pm monday-friday), a limited menu, and character in spades. the "special" is a pressed bologna sandwich. the bun is a run-of-the-mill hamburger bun. the bologna is also pressed in short stacks and then stuck inside. you're given the choice of a kraft single slice or swiss cheese. we had these with egg cream sodas. there's almost a 1:1 staff to customer ratio. it was hilarious. there was a bank of stools and we sidled up, they sized us up, and in the space of 10 seconds the sandwich was slid across the counter. they've been at this game for so long (depuis 1932) that they've stripped the interaction down to the bare essentials: "special?" "cheese?" "swiss or kraft?" "pickle?" and that's it. we were in and out in under 15 minutes, but in the time we were there, no less than like 7 people came in. most of the people were regulars. they didn't even have to place orders. it was THE BEST!


out of deference to the perfection of that sandwich, i'm not going to try to recreate it at home. it's like a chicago beef sammy - it's better left as a local treat - it makes you want to go back to a place to have that one thing they do that no one else does.

next stop was fairmont bagels to load up on montreal bagels for home. finally we hit up schwartz's for some smoked meat sammies. they're solid, but i still say that caplanksy's is smokier. you get NO smoke from a schwartz's sammy. it's still really good though.

here's a shot of the crew at au pied de cochon:



last night we had our friend K over for dinner. it was so nice! i made a red lentil and coconut dhal with fennel, cauliflower, and potato garam masala dry curry with brown rice.


in other news: an important discovery - we peeped parkside fish'n'chips, the local chippy...it was pretty bomb! so happy to have a good chippy close by. it's not as good as harbord, but it's better than reliable, duckworth's and chippy's. the other one i have to try is penrose. parkside is boss. super crispy, generous portions, cheap as all get-out, a little stingy on the tartar sauce, and the fries are of the wilty variety.

our house is as clean as it's going to get - even though things are a little untidy, it's nice knowing we got a vacuum/dust/bathroom/mop done. tonight we're going to do the annual xmas eve movie with momma, poppa, and ehm d. we're seeing "up in the air" - we usually sleep over there - but seeing as how we're literally down the street and, well, 30 years old AND that we have the most comfortable bed in all of christendom, for the first time in 8 years we're sleeping in our own bed and heading back over early xmas morning for prezzies and mimosas and breakfast. i'm making a panettone french toast with english bacon and fruits.

merry xmas everyone!!! love to you and yours!

fin.

i got my wish

we spent an inordinate and borderline unseemly amount of time holed up in our b&b...but how could we not? the place had a SECRET doorway! the b&b consisted of two buildings bridged by a secret door (hidden by a wardrobe on one side and a giant painting and faux potted plants on the other) that opened and shut when you trigged a motion sensor with your hand. i wish we had gotten video of it...it was aces. they also had a billiards table so we did a lot of that and playing team trivial pursuit which is kind of the worst game on the planet. you try naming the 7 wonders of the ancient world. good luck! the b&b was called victorian heritage b&b - the breakfasts were of the dreaded (to me) continental variety, but they did feature freshly squeezed tangerine juice and one of the best fruit cups i've ever had in my life. it was also a really decent price and centrally located. i really really love my b&bs when they're all old-fashioned looking and appointed thusly. it really contributes to the impression that you're "away" somewhere.







on our way down we hit st. hubert's in cornwall, which was an extraordinarily good call by me. st. hubert's DESTROYS swiss chalet's sorry butt. the sauce! plus, the lunch meal deal is a steal (see what i did there?) you get unlimited coleslaw, bread, and sauce, AND dessert (in my case a too-sweet and underbaked tasting pouding chomeur. the dotytron ordered more wisely and got a light as air vanilla cake with a sticky maple-y caramel topping.) exhorted to by dr. rei, the dotytron ordered the chicken à la king - with mashed potatoes. when he put in the mashed potatoes ordered, apparently i mouthed the words, "WHAT THE F**K???" so clearly formed that i might as well have said it out loud. i can't help it! i'm a purest. when i go to a place, i zero in on the thing they do the best, and order THAT. i don't go off-list, the way dr. rei and the dotytron like to. that's like going to a philly cheesesteak place and ordering the burger. DOES NOT COMPUTE.

our first night we ate at kitchen galerie. the conceit of the place is that it's market-influenced cuisine, prix fixe, with a choice of appetizer, main, and dessert - the big reveal is that THERE ARE NO WAIT STAFF. the chefs do all the serving, wine pouring, AND the cooking. bwong was a little skeptical, to say the least - and i would say that i don't think it came off successfully, at least not in the kitchen galerie format. when i say the words prix fixe to you, i'm sure you think as i do - that there's going to be a set price (say, $80) for a 3 courses and a limited card from which to choose (in paris, the number was generally 3-4 choices in each category). at kitchen galerie, EACH MAIN was priced differently, and included a choice of 3 unappetizing sounding starters (like creamed onions ?!!???) - you could add on additional starters (anything involving foie, oysters) for an ADDITIONAL price. it was very confusing and kind of threw us into a tizzy. our anxiety was further ratcheted up by the chef coming by and (naturally) trying to up-sell us on the MOST expensive add-on, the whole lobe of roasted foie, at $80 to share.

i also question just how market influenced the menu is. they're right next door to jean-talon market, but the menu looked like it was pretty standardized. also, we were served baby beets and that's a summer thing. the food was good...i had one of their signature dishes, a potted foie that's cooked in the steam of the dishwasher, served with a wine-y gelée and brioche.


i loved this, but that's a bit misleading because i've never had a POOR foie dish. the dotytron got the foie parfait, which was lighter, kind of whipped and more mousse-like. at the server/cook's suggestion (conflict of interest!) we got the rib eye for 2, which came with transcendently light garlic mashed potatoes and roasted root vegetables and a way too anise-y tarragon jus. they practically threw a whole bunch of tarragon in there. i thought the dish as a whole was too round - we needed some acid or something to cut through the grease. also, the roasted vegetables were coated in a slick of fat - which wasn't pleasant.

i was also pissed because i like to order my rib eyes medium - generally, when i'm being an a** i say, "medium, but on the rare side of medium, please" because rib eyes have a LOT of fat and medium rare doesn't get the fat hot enough - you end up with globules (this is the case when i'm eating it grilled, if it's served prime rib roasted-style, i like it to be medium-rare (but on the medium side of medium-rare...lol!) ANYWAY, the cook/server was all like, "i'd recommend it medium-rare, because we trim all the fat and with this cut it's really at it's best when it's medium-rare" so i changed my order, and when it came out, IT WAS MEDIUM (and on the medium side of medium). listen you shoemaker, we served a LOT of beef at bymark and while i was never the one doing the cooking, i knew what my meat colours were supposed to look like and THAT, sir, is no medium-rare! it's also super-hard to give honest feedback when it's the CHEF coming out to the table - you really need another layer of mediation between the customer and the cook, i feel.



the desserts were lacklustre. nothing really that i particularly enjoyed. the vanilla creme brulée was way more milky than creamy/eggy, the banana bread pudding was dense and cold (i like my bread pudding to either be quiveringly under-done, or bready and soused with sauce - i'm not a fan of the "uniform brick of custard" school of bread pudding) and the apple crumble was uninspired.

overall, it worked out to about $70/per person for apps, mains, and dessert and a bottle of wine. the place is touted as having really good value for the price - i agree. i think i would like it more if they did the math and just CHARGED you the price of the highest cost of what's on the menu (say, $70) and then made it a true prix fixe. instead, they kind of set the cost of the LEAST amount you can pay (and make it unappetizing - creamed onions?!?) and then have all these add-ons for extra. too much! either make it prix fixe or à la carte - not some weird hybrid. i think if i had gone in knowing that, i would have enjoyed it more - but it wasn't anything to write home about.

the next day we woke up and met up with my montreal friend I for brunch at the sparrow. oh, love! could i love this place any more? it's a vaguely hipster-y (but not really. not like in the toronto sense) gastro-pub in mile-end. warm, cozy, frequented by patrons of all ages and persuasions (in this way it's not much like the hipster spots of toronto). another thing i love about montreal - brunch is NOT a competitive sport. we got there at 11 and were seated shortly thereafter. there wasn't an insane line of people. also, montreal is fantastic for splitting the bill. it's like, no big deal. try asking for your bill to be split in toronto - good luck! much eye-rolling will ensue and you'll feel like you've just asked the server to separate all your food into self-contained dishes by salty, sour, bitter, and sweet. the sparrow has an interesting british-influenced brunch card FILLED with things you want to eat. you literally want to eat the world. and taxes and refillable coffee is included! and the service is impeccable - bwong sloshed some of his coffee onto his saucer and our server replaced it without a thought.



we shared a plate of the custard-filled beignets. delightful. then i had the deviled kidneys on watercress and toast, which they give you the option of adding a poached or fried egg to (i added 2 poached). so very tasty. i LOVE kidneys and they're mad underrepresented in the cooking world. what a fantastic breakfast. it reminded me of that braised duck heart, arugala, and shaved parmesan on toast dish we had at the publican in chicago (another gastropub). the dotytron had the english breakfast which came with one of the best representations of blood sausage i've ever encountered. faintly metallic, filled with subtly spiced rice and grains - it was a revelation. i could have eaten a plate of just the sausage topped with a fried egg.

after tearing ourselves away (reluctantly), we walked around I's neighbourhood and stopped for a late afternoon snack of hot chocolate at juliette et chocolat.


the dotytron got a bittersweet chocolate from their hot chocolate menu (they're famous for their hot chocolate), served "grandma style", which means it's thicker and more unctuous and not cut with as much milk. his was 70% cocoa solids, a bitter, acidic, tangy, fruity mouthful. i got the milk chocolate at 40% cocoa solids - rich and soothing with still a fair amount of brightness. not the cloyingly sweet stuff you usually find.

we headed back to the b&b to play a million rounds of billiards and prepare ourselves for dinner at au pied de cochon. we managed to shoe-horn bwong into our reservation - what a space! it's a raucous, jolly, warm-wood, tiny-kitchened little thing, packed full of foodhounds and carousing quebecois. i was mentally prepared. the dotytron and dr. rei and hanbo insisted on hitting the bread like n00bs, but i didn't want bread taking up valuable real estate in my belly. the appetizers were so freakin' good.





(forgive the photos, the white balance on my camera was le wack - the good news is i've figured out the manual settings). from the top, we have the foie gras poutine, a fantastic dish (again, how do you go wrong with foie?) marred by the fact that by the time it came to the table, it was tepid. then you have dr. rei's tongue dish - thick, meaty slabs of tongue braised to tenderness anointed with some vinegary sauce and served over toast. the dotytron got beef tartare, served sushi style in nori which added a nice fishy umami to the slightly spicy beef. i got the fried pig's ear's (basically pork rinds) which were little delicate puffs of pig fat (much better than the unwieldy publican style of the same dish). hanbo got a foie mousse of some sort and then bwong had the head cheese croquettes special - quite possibly my favorite. little cubes of head cheese breaded and fried and served with a sauce gribiche. i loves me a sauce gribiche.



for the mains, the dotytron got the pig's foot stuffed with foie. bwong and i shared the pig's head for two, which came with brains in situ AND eyeballs, both of which we tried, AND a lobster rammed into the pig's mouth, which was vomiting a pool of mashed potatoes. it's all kinds of awesome. when the waiter informed us that the pig's head came with lobster on that particular evening, he felt the need to add - "i've never seen that before." lol! the bad part was, that the dotytron FAINTED.

here's how it went down. it was kind of warm and a little claustrophobic in there. the dotytron has been nibbling away at his pig's foot (unrelated, but useful for posterity: it was breaded) then he said, "i'm really full guys" then he pushed himself away from the table. then a few things happened simultaneously. dr. rei asked him, "are you okay?" he said, "no." dr. rei said, "guys! he said he's not okay!" i said, "I KNEW IT. I TOLD YOU NOT TO EAT THE BREAD." and then he crumpled to the floor. it was a really graceful fall - as bwong said, it was like an old man easing himself into a tub. i leaned over at him prone on the floor and looked into his now open eyes and asked, "are you okay?!?" and the dotytron said, "yes." and then with the help of a nurse who happened to be eating there, we got him into a chair and he stuck his head between his legs and drank some water and we put a cold wash cloth around his neck. then i hustled him outside and he got some cold, fresh, air and i made fun of him for a bit and then we headed back to the b&b (first i went back into the restaurant to tell the guys we were heading back and i stuffed myself with a lobster tail). CRAZY, huh? the dotytron used to faint as a kid but it hadn't happened since he was 15. it was kind of scary.

so i got him into bed and goosetang came back with 2 sugar pies for 2 and i went down to meet them and then went back upstairs to check on the dotytron. i leaned over him in the bed. he was fast asleep. i farted. i asked him, "hey buddy, are you okay?" and he kind of half-awakened, wrinkled his nose, and said, "it stinks!!" and i asked, "what stinks?" and in his still-asleep state, he identified, "something!" and then fell back asleep. lol! this story makes me laugh every time i revisit it. he contends that it was disingenuous for me to ask "what stinks?", all innocent-like as if i didn't know that it was ME, who stunk.

anyway, APDC is the best deal in town. with all that food, the bill was under $400 for five people, 6 drinks, 3 courses each, including tax and tip. WHAT THE HELL? it was well under 4 hunny, too. like, it was $380 at the end of the day.

i've written too much. i'll finish recounting the remainder of our time spent there tomorrow. today i've got to do some house cleaning, some xmas dinner baking, and picking up the food we ordered from the mennonites.

fin.

do you self identify as a feminist?

the usual, pre-xmas, last week of work, holiday hijacking of the usual routine continues apace! that means that we've been eating takeout and avoiding fruits and veggies and watching movies and mowing cookies instead of anything remotely resembling a substance with nutritional value.

the other day i took a wrong turn in blogville and ended up on the blog of some of those quiverfull (let god decide how many kids you should have/anti-abortion/anti-contraception/birth control and/or vasectomies lead to health issues) wackjobs. like those "18 kids and counting" nuts they show on TLC. i find it SUPER irresponsible that TLC glosses over their religious fundamentalism and just depicts them as this crazy, giant family, like some mullet-bedecked, dowdy prairie dress version of the brady bunch or something. doesn't ANYONE find it odd that these people think it's okay to add "iah" to the end of names to make them sound all pseudo biblical? (ie. duggar child "jedidiah" - I SWEAR THAT'S A FAKE BIBLICAL NAME) p.s. the duggars' kids all have j names, which occasionally leads to egregious faults against common sense and conventions of nomenclature - "jinger" "joy-anna" and "johannah."

oh i'm sorry, am i being judgmental? THAT'S INTENTIONAL. those people are WACK. this one lady i read (her blog here: http://quiverfullfamily.com/) was like, a bisexual wiccan and then totally found jesus and now wears a cap (!) and reverted back to "traditional" male female roles and has 3 children and wants a bajillion more (p.s. they all share A FAMILY BED) and lives off the grid and farms. you can read her testimony. she used to be like me! she mocked christians! and now look! i'm always super-afraid that i'm one dr. laura radio episode away from abandoning popular culture and being born again. i think what's saving me is the poor design aesthetic of most religious materials (ie. super depresso jesus, crappy fonts, etc.) also, bathing in the blood of christ is the grossest.

anyway, i'm super-concerned about this movement. it freaks me right out. they're breeding a holy army! also, the rhetoric is outright racist, ignorant, and goodness knows what else. all creationist and global-warming denying and misogynist. you also can't convince me that there's not all kinds of sexual deviance being bred in a situation where people practice "courtship" (no kissing, hugging, touching before marriage; asking permission of the father to marry a girl; always accompanied by a chaperone) AND a family bed.

crikey. it's terrifying. also - i have a lot of superficial stuff in common with these folks - the d.i.y., the preserves, the knitting and craftiness. ugh.

this all culminated in me storming downstairs this morning and yelling at the dotytron: "DO YOU SELF-IDENTIFY AS A FEMINIST?" him: "yes! ... have you been reading blogs again?" lol! then he started saying that he was for equity in general, which started me on a giant tirade. i'm really sick of people trying to pull the humanist card instead of feminist. THAT'S the problem with the left. THAT'S why we don't have a civil rights movement anymore. because everyone wants to be everything to everyone. that's not going to work! you need to root yourself in a subject position (however contingent, however transitory) in order to have a place from which to speak. then you can look out and speak to other people/groups/whathaveyou that experience similar oppression and make strategic alliances. it's NOT going to work if you lump all discrimination under "humanism." that does NOTHING to address the REAL world ramifications of patriarchy and misogyny and inequities based on gender, sexual orientation, class, ethnicity, etc. movements like quiverfull are a DIRECT ATTACK against feminism and the gains made. getting rid of women's studies programs is a DIRECT ATTACK against feminism. don't effin' flap your gums at me about the "crisis of boys" in the education system. gimme a break. tell your little principessa (that was dr. rei, the dotytron's and my shorthand any time we saw a little italian boy of like, 7, being wheeled around in a STROLLER in the streets of rome or florence) to get out and get a freakin' job. there's no boy crisis! there's a generation of boys (in my cohort, actually) who were lazy, coddled sods who didn't know what to do with the riches granted them and frittered them away.

i basically yelled all of the above at the dotytron this morning as he was trying to relax, which culminated in him musing: "i don't understand why everything went all first year university all of a sudden this morning." lol!

as an aside, quiverfull messageboards are a hot mess. giant avatars, cheap comic sans fonts, poor quotation etiquette - it's a s**tshow. it's like mom-internet on meth.

on a lighter note, last night we ate harvey's. we placed our order and were waiting for it to be ready, behind a few other people. the dotytron leans back, pulls out his phone, bends a leg, and STARTS PLAYING BRICK BREAKER ON HIS PHONE. I'M STANDING RIGHT BESIDE HIM. i was like, "um, are you SERIOUSLY going to be game-playing phone guy while i'm standing right here?" and he looked up, cocked an eyebrow at me, and said, "ssssuuup?" lol!

today was my last day of work until january 4th. so pumped! our montreal mixes are done, we're all packed and ready to go and looking forward to some r&r. i told dr. rei today that i don't care if all we do in montreal is lie around in our b&b rooms and watching movies on demands and venture out for food - we all are in dire need of a well deserved break with our favorite peoples.

i'll be back on monday - with lots of photos of foods eaten!

goosetang clan in MTL - whut!

fin.

a bit of a fail, really

we didn't get to do 4/5 of our list yesterday, on account of getting pwned by the doctor's house and having the itis. the food was decent - i tend to think that AYCE buffets are over-priced - the food quality is always going to be less than stellar when you're cooking for mass consumption - lots of leftovers being used up and prepared/packaged stuff. there was an alarming shortage of breakfast goods - no eggs, bacon, breakfast sausage - mostly lunch and brunch things with a decent seafood selection of king crab legs and mussels and mini-lobsters and whatnot. i still loaded up 4 plates of food (1 of which was the signature lagerfeld meat-eater's special) and subsequently hit up some pepto (or the life brand equivalent) before bed.

skating was thwarted by the weather. "the fantastic mr. fox" was thwarted by the dotytron being congenitally adverse to leaving the house. dinner was thwarted by the non-stop conga-line that was the doctor's house's buffet into my stomach.

so we split it down the middle and went to the movie store. as i was doing my usual sketch comedy routine of talking too loud in retail settings (according to the dotytron, my [sole] sketch comedy talent consists of engaging the general public and retail store staff in improvisational scenes, employing the use of loud talking and stream of consciousness commentary in the service thereof), we ran into the ex roomie! who we promptly invited over for a viewing of "paper heart"

"paper heart" is a kind of documentary/kind of scripted "reality" hybrid that follows charlyne yi's attempts to understand love. there was endless speculation about whether cera and yi were an actual couple before/after/during the filming of the movie. i don't really care about that particular scuttlebutt other than to use the fact that he dated an asian girl (if the rumour is true) as ammunition for my own questionable and potentially inappropriate fantasies about making out with his awkward, man-child, a**. he's 21, i'm 30 - i think that's okay, right? i mean, not by the "half your age plus 7" rule, but by my own convenient metric where michael cera is fair game but jonathan lipnicki and pete wentz will NEVER be.

the film is quite slender and thin - it features some softly funny moments and sweetly tender ones - all in the service of a predominantly heteronormative (one token gay couple!), monogamous, nuclear (2 people only!) standard definition of love. nothing too far outside the lines, here. it intersperses footage of charlyne and her director friend interviewing people across america about love with the development of her "relationship" with cera - from the first meeting, to dating, to the inevitable conflict and resolution. i would have liked to see more interviews - the insights from the interviewees is where most of the humour and depth of the film lies. people's stories of falling in love are played out with naive paper dolls and first grade arts and crafts-influenced sets. a bit more of everything would have been nice, but overall, i found it rather charming. i can't believe how much i want to jump michael cera's bones! i asked dotytron if i could and he totally smirked and assented - i guess cera isn't very threatening. what a perfect high school boyfriend, though! would that we were all so lucky in high school. gimme michael cera's nerdy awkwardness over lloyd dobbler any day!

tonight we had the roomie over for dinner and a visit. i made those black bean and farro burgers with the smoky red pepper spread and a quickie green cabbage and carrot coleslaw. my old supervisor T gifted me with a holiday tin that's filled with no less than TEN different kinds of treats! it even came with a legend (a photo of all the treats, numbered, with the corresponding names). contained therein:

- stuffed dates with marzipan and almonds
- danish orange cookies
- salted peanut bars
- torrone with hazelnuts and almonds
- coconut clusters with tipsy cherries and figs
- butter pecan fudge
- pecan kisses
= chocolate cherry bars with hazelnuts
- lemon fudge with blueberries
- pretzel sandwich with rollos and pecans
- nutty caramel clusters

INSANE. it's so "canadian living"/"company's coming"/"better homes and gardens"! i love it. it's stuff i would never think to make myself but are so tasty and good. anyway, we'll noshed on those for dessert.

the book reviews continueth!

october saw me venturing into mom-lit territory at the suggestion of momma d. "the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society" was as comforting as pablum. it's the story of an english post-war writer who starts corresponding with an oddly named book club of sorts from the channel islands. the channel islands were occupied by the nazis during the war and so historical tidbits are interspersed with the experiences of the members of the literary society and the development of the narrator's character - the conceit is that the whole story is told through letters. i'm not generally a fan of epistolary fiction - not my style. too much work figuring out who's saying what - but this was a quick enough read. not my thing overall - i think i skew a bit young in the demographic for this type of novel. it's all veddy english in that miss marple, "a country vet" kind of a way - tweedy and provincial as all heck.


i followed that up with the work book club's double-header "sway" and "outliers" - both are kind of meh. i mean, easy enough to read in that watered down, social-sciences-without-the-quantitative-analysis idiom - but nothing that stays with you and really makes you think or that you would be enthralled by. it's like a passing tidbit you hear on the radio - something to pass along during social parlay - not something that you sit and mull or that requires a rearrangement of one's ontological position. i find these business-type books always a bit throwaway - gladwell in particular. it's like an over (and unnecessarily) long "atlantic" article. i don't ever see anything in them that couldn't have been boiled down to a 3000 word essay - you have your thesis, the supporting arguments (carefully tailored and with none of the nasty methodological couchings that ruin perfectly valid peer-reviewed academic work) and it's all presented in regular person language. good transit reading i suppose. helps to shore up your small-talk abilities and makes you appear ever-so-topical in those kinds of situations (and by "those kinds of situations" i mean, "social gatherings of professional associations") - but overall, nothing that's going to set your world on fire.

fin.

party hardy

wow. this weekend has been mayhem and it's only 1/2 over! the good thing is: it's only 1/2 over! yay to one more day (one day more)! friday night we had plans to see our friend bobes' band (the creaking tree string quartet) play at the sixth in parkdale. that obviously didn't happen because the dotytron came home from his second of 2 back-to-back holiday concerts totally pooched. he was a zombie - he has no more to give. he's given it all. i'm so proud of him!

meanwhile, i was busy making a batch of marshmallows and cream cheese brownies to finish off the xmas cookie tin. in all, i think i have 10 different things in the tin (but not everyone gets all 10). here's a sample shot:

you've got: espresso shortbread, brown butter pecan shortbread, fig pinwheels, fake english almond toffee, bittersweet chocolate almond cookies, rum balls, snickerdoodles, and the gold wrapped things are hard salted caramels. i also made the aforementioned cheesecake brownies.

some people are getting these instead of the tins:

AREN'T THEY THE CUTEST?!? shouldn't i be next in line for martha stewart's throne?!???? those are little packages of vanilla marshmallows and the salted hard caramels, in little cellophane bags, with a red ribbon and a little card (i cut up my performance thank you cards) that says a little holiday greeting and describes the contents.

i also finished my FELT WREATH:


isn't it THE BEST? i'm really happy with how it turned out. it's hanging on the screen door that leads to our enclosed porch right now. working with felt is the best because the edges don't fray so you don't have to do a lot of the pinning and sealing and folding, etc. ISN'T IT THE CUTEST? i'm kinda obsessed with the colour combo.

anyway, we totally didn't go to bobes' show cuz we were both pooched. you know who went though? momma and poppa d. because they're both officially cooler than us.

so yesterday we headed over to momma d's side of the family's annual holiday afternoon soirée. it's a pot luck. i'm kind of on the fence with adult pot lucks. i'm like, are you hosting or are you hosting? like, it's one thing with people you're SUPER close with (besties, etc.) but generally, i find it kind of weird to make your guests do work at your party - especially in this kind of formal, segmented pickle-tray kind of entertaining style. like, it's not a tailgate party. but whatevs. i made 2 dips (smoky red pepper and this pecorino, mint and pea one i cribbed from dr. rei's cousin, S) and little mini banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. you know what momma and poppa d brought? cheese and crackers. lol! to me, that's the adult pot luck version of bringing a bag of chips. that's because they're too busy partying in parkdale. talk about role reversal!

then we hightailed it over to the dotytron's work party at this bar in leaside. that was really nice. although making small talk and socializing with people you don't know all that well is EXHAUSTING. i really turned it on. i have to say, i'm quite the adept small-talker. i've gotten really good at hanging out with strangers - i don't know when it happened, but it suddenly did! i have mad social skillz, sons. but it's super tiring - it takes a lot out of you to keep the conversation going.

we dip-setted out of there and headed home where the real fun began aka listening to old school jungle records. we were rinsing the sub woofer pretty late at night and the dotytron felt a little weird, but i was like, UMMM...WE OWE THE BANK 300 THOU AND CHANGE PLUS A BILLION DOLLARS INTEREST. I'VE PAID FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF A LATE NIGHT RINSEOUT. end of story.

today is poppa d's side of the family's annual xmas brunch. it's at the doctor's house in kleinburg. last year we went to the weston golf club. that was BOSS. we went to the doctor's house a couple of year's back but went on a saturday when they didn't do the sunday brunch and it was kinda meh. like, standard line-cook serca foods mushroom soup and the like. definitely not worth the drive to acton (kleinburg).

we have BIG PLANS this afternoon. we want to go skating and then see "the fantastic mr. fox" and my favorite theatre (AMC dundas square!) and then get takeout around there in my favorite food court (AMC dundas square!) i'm SO HAPPY that the dotytron doesn't work on saturdays anymore. it's nice having him around. he's worked saturdays basically our whole relationship.

fin.

she dreamed a dream of time gone by...

we didn't get to go skating last night because of stupid xmas concerts of doom sapping all of the dotytron's energy and vim. but we had a good night nonetheless.

tonight is xmas concert #1 of 2. so as of friday evening, i have my regularly scheduled dotytron back in my life. we picked out his outfits last night. he was a bit of a nervous nelly this morning. luckily, i had a funny dream to recount.

edit: so i text the dotytron during the day today to recount my streetcar ride into work with our shared wall neighbour [male], hereinafter to be referred to as wall-yM, who is totally awesome and cool btw - even if my toto-loving sensibilities and his indie rock music sensibilities don't quite match up. ANYWAY i received this terse text message in reply: "all i have to say is: grade 6 lice outbreak - the day of the concert"

laughing, laughing, laughing, out loud.

last night i dreamed that i was at my alma matter, trent university, to see some dude i know speak. the dude i know is some guy who was friends with the old roomie - he, montreal I and old roomie were a team and i met them in my first year, their second year. he was really cool, super into entomology, and kind of koo-koo *does universal pantomime for loco* ANYWAY, also attending that conference was a grade school friend of mine, E (who i lost touch with in late high school.) and i was asking E if there were any cute guys in her program, and she said no, but there was LES WIZ. p.s. LES WIZ was a person. apparently a really flamboyant, possibly gay dude. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! i woke up howling. the fact that "LES WIZ" was a PERSON is infinitely funny to me. also, the fact that there was an entity called "LES WIZ" is making me laugh out loud. i told the dotytron he should do a musical production of "les wiz" at his school - just like "the wiz" but with many wizesesseseszz.

speaking of musicals (tangentially) - my colleague at work has JUST discovered susan boyle. it's kind of the best, actually. so the past few nights after work is "officially" closed she's asked my permission to play susan boyle. and it's always the youtube clip of boyle on "britain's got talent" - over and over! so best! last night we saw a little entertainment show segment that boyle has sold over a million cds in just 2 weeks - making it one of the best selling cds of 2009. the dotytron turns to me and says, "can you believe this whole susan boyle thing? i hope at least she's been kissed by now." awwwwwwww - isn't he the cutest? although, the awwww factor is probably mitigated by the fact that he followed up that heart-warming sentiment with, "i mean, even if you were a total fame groupie, you'd have to be pretty hurting to hit up some boyle." lol! (which i disagree with, by the way - i told him that being a recording star has probably put her amongst a wider sphere of potential boyfriends than she had in her village).

tonight i totally bogarted the leftover chicken kiev and ate it with leftover spinach salad.

over the summer i read jane and michael stern's "two for the road" - they're the couple that used to write my HANDS DOWN favorite segment in gourmet magazine (r.i.p.), "road food" which was about precisely that - regional, local, americana. stuff like friday night fish fry, and hoagies and grinders, and the best steaks or the beset onion rings or fried chicken or ribs or shoofly pie. stuff that speaks to an elemental part of me. this book tells the story of how they got their start and how they lucked into my dream job - criss-crossing the US for road food and writing about it. bliss! the food writing is top-notch. at least, i think it is. i mean, they can describe the food so that my tummy growls when i read it and i notch the pages and file them away for future reference - but i suspect a simple menu description of the food itself would do that. that's how much i love bbq and friend chicken and muffulettas and the rest. my food prof friend J said that she hates the sterns because she thinks they hate (or capitalize or fetishize) poor people. i'm usually pretty sensitive to that kind of cultural capital trading so i'm surprised i never picked up on it. i wonder if my love of the food blinds me to it?

john green's "paper towns" is one of the best books i've ever read. young adult, adult, whatever. genre does not apply. this is writing that is at once deeply intelligent and deeply understanding of the human condition. it's funny, winsome, smart, wistful - i can't say enough good things about john green! i'm obsessed! the book is ostensibly about quentin, a nerdish, bookish high schooler nearing the end of his senior year, and his difficult, distant, removed relationship with his neighbour, margot - also a senior in high school - but in direct contrast to him, she's the popular, dramatic, charismatic girl that every high school has - the one that everyone in high school knows, even if she's not the stereotypical high school queen bee. so i say that it's about these two, and you think it's a romance - but it's not. it's about the connectivities between people - it references walt whitman and physics and woody guthrie all in the service of different ways in which people connect and come to be who they are, how people come to grow and inhabit their own skin and how we live simultaneously through and for others. it's about relationships and the maturation of them - that coming of age that you do in high school where old divisions fall away and as you near graduation, lines get blurred in a bittersweet nostalgia for what you've been through together. i can't capture it in words. i made the dotytron read it immediately after me so that we could discuss it - it's so good. like, a touchstone piece of young adult fiction.

this is john green's blog: sparksflyup

he also does a video blog with his brother hank which is a triumph of all things erudite and nerdy: http://www.youtube.com/vlogbrothers

he's brilliant.

edit: i KNEW i shouldn't have written that twitter update this morning crowing about how this was going to be a good day. all day long i was looking forward to the moment when i could come home, heat up chicken kiev, and eat it with a spinach salad, then change into my jammies and work on my felted wreath. FAIL. i got locked out of my house tonight! NOT BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE THE KEY, but because my stupid lock sticks out just a little, teeny, tiny bit and then WON'T open, even though it's "unlocked." all this on the COLDEST NIGHT of life. so i called the momma and poppa d - no answer. the roomie - no answer. i used wall-yM's bathroom then felt bad about imposing even though they graciously offered me dinner and a warm place to stay. i asked monster truck neighbour on the other side to help me out but he couldn't do it. so i biked in the FREEZING cold and in my WORK CLOTHES [imagine: i had been SO pleased with my outfit today. it was nice. but NOT MEANT FOR BIKING IN] to H and J and sweet baby D's place where they graciously put me up and fed me yummy pasta. i almost got blown off my bike. the dotytron came to get me at 10pm. i KNEW IT. i knew even as my fingers hovered over the "g" key for "good day" that i was tempting the fates - BUT I DID IT ANYWAY LIKE A FOOL. never again!

fin.

regular guy voice

zomg! last night was insane! i biked home in the freezing rain and sleet and it was awful and my toes were cold but i had to do the grocery shopping so i did. i had my paniers on my bike so i didn't take a bag from the bulk store but carried out all the bulging bags of bulk goods in my arms. made it almost to my bike and then SPLAT! the bag of dates fell and EXPLODED in the road while i stood for what seemed like agonizing moments trying to decide whether to pick them up or not. then this creaky old man (like, seriously old...) came up and sweetly offered to hold my bags while i collected the dates and when i demurred, he said "no one will know!" lol! then i tugged on my bike and discovered that i had forgotten to LOCK IT UP. i could have lost my bike last night!!! then i came home in a fit and fury and totally damp and bone-cold and foul owly and told my tale of woe to the dotytron who said that he could top it with HIS story of being hijacked by CTV news on his way out from canadian tire with our natural ice melter. he was so zonked that he couldn't even be funny or ironic or taking the piss and it was plaguing him that he basically stood there with his mouth agape blindly answering questions like, "and why did you choose the natural ice melter?" "do you find that you're MORE prepared for winter this year than last year?" with his regular guy/everybody loves raymond voice and responded with total regular guy stuff like, "because my wife tells me to." LOL! it was really amusing how upset he was that he was going to be regular guy on national tv.

further to my post yesterday re: bedding saving your life. BEHOLD OUR $20 FLANNEL SHEETS FROM TARGET:

ZOMG. it's like sleeping in a warm cloud. i was WILLING myself to go to bed at a decent time and not dive in. i made the bed as soon as i got home and we kept looking at it longingly until it was a seemly hour to retire. so cute! so warm! so fluffy! so seasonal!

so i was nosing around on the shiny squirrel (where i got the print of the silhouette of my hair) and there's a NEW ONE. that looks like me with bangs! lol!

isn't that hilarious? and check out this ADORABLE blanca gomez print...if i ever have a baby girl, i'm so getting this for her room:



i was fiendishly excited all day at the first snowfall and first bitter cold of the season. this despite discovering that my faithful no-name ugly, heavy, winter boots had a hole in the sole on the way to work this morning. ugh! time to throw them out. i had harbored hopes that they might be salvageable when i discovered a small crack where the rubber meets the nylon near the end of winter last year - but a hole in the sole is not something you can cope with. luckily, i had the foresight to buy an uglier pair of boots last year. however, they're nowhere near as nice (i'm using that term loosely) and functional as the last pair.

guys, i freakin' love winter. love it. i love being too cold and having to get warm again. i love winter foods and winter activities (staying in, eating aforementioned winter foods, being cozy). all i wanted to do when i got home today was make tuna noodle casserole, make a batch of gingersnap cookies, and then change into my flannel jammies and hunker bunker down with the dotytron and knit. and i'm getting to do JUST THAT!

this dinner was a little dangerous because i'm capable of eating a freakishly large amount of tuna noodle casserole (especially when it's topped with brown, buttered, challah cubes) AND caramelized brussel sprouts. can you believe that before i met my friend T in university i had never had a brussel sprouts? one day i was over at T's house and she was talking about boiling up some frozen ones and tossing them in butter (she was a strict vegetarian at the time) and the THOUGHT of little wee crucifers glistening with butter so enraptured me that i set out to make them. and there's been no turning back. i love them so.

on sunday night we watched "two lovers" - after nearly cracking and ordering an exorbitantly priced movie off rogers on demand. what stopped us was not knowing our pin and being too lazy to find out. i'm not familiar with james grey's work. this film was my film friend D's favorite film of 2009 (barring any late contenders - which he doesn't anticipate.) it's a quiet little character study of a jewish guy leonard (phoenix) who works at his parents' dry cleaning company and attempted suicide once. he's caught up between two women who represent the two possibilities open to him - sandra (a luminous vinessa shaw), who stands in for the good, steady, sweet, nurturing path, surrounded by the (at times) suffocating pressures of family and lineage. then there's the shiksa goddess, michelle (played by gwyneth paltrow) who's a total head case and is mixed up, fragile, and possibly more broken than
leonard - but who promises a whole other world in her swinging blonde hair and lithe body.

the film is BEAUTIFUL. gorgeously shot - it takes place in the farthest reaches of brooklyn - not the romanticized part that young people and michelle williams have colonized and claimed as their own, but this whole other area of resolutely ethnic, working class folk that seems to belong to another era - another time in new york - before the different ethnicities were all appropriated and diluted in some swinging metropolitan cocktail. the tones of the film are gorgeous, deep, shadowy watery blues outside - shot through with warm russet rembrandt golds and tawny browns. so beautiful to look at. it's a tight, lean little feature too - and joaquin phoenix is a wonderful actor - all the performances are strong, with isabella rosselini as the wary-eyed, caring mother anchoring leonard's family life. i really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.

i'm off to craft and listen to china mieville's newest book "the city and the city" on tape (ipod). a colleague hepped me to audible.com - which sells books on tape. it works kind of like netflix or zip.ca - you pay a flat rate per month which entitles you to x amount of credits (usually 1 credit = 1 title). i signed up for a special 3 month reduced rate - and apparently there are sales all the time on titles. i'm really excited. we're going to move my little portable ladybug ipod dock into the bedroom (we don't currently have any other media-players in there other than my vintage flip alarm clock) and listen to it before we go to bed - it's nice because that way i can knit and "read" at the same time.

fin.