home improvements and another night in tunisia

the window in the bathroom at lil' ugmo is basically at boob/crotch height for me, and torso/dangler height for the dotytron - and we don't have blinds in there, so basically, for the past 7 months, we've been either acknowledging the fact that when it's night out, and the bathroom light is on, we're putting on a show for the neighbs, or going to pee in the middle of the night with the lights off and skulking around trying to duck under the window, or resigning ourselves to flashing some skin before the shower steam fogs up the window.

i had seen emma jeffs' window film sold for exorbitant prices ($76 for a 37" x 52" roll!) for sale here: http://www.2jane.com/emma-jeffs-adhesive-window-film-otto click on the other options to see her lovely designs...but we didn't have the scrilla for that so i was holding out until we could fit it into our budget (keep in mind, we still don't have light fixtures)

then we were at pacific mall and i saw lovely window film in a dandelion pattern available for $4.99/foot (they're at least 52" wide, too) so i bought 2 feet and did up our bathroom windows - it was so easy! just measuring, cutting with a straight edge and an exacto knife, clean the window with windex, spray it with water, apply, and then push out any air bubbles with a bench scraper (or you could use a sponge). here's the finished product:


isn't it lovely? it was one of those projects where you're like, I CAN'T BELIEVE WE WAITED SO LONG. it was SO NICE to be able to go to the bathroom and not be worried that skeevy neighbs are running a peeping tom site and not crediting you (or sending you residuals).

djerba la douce was INCREDIBLE last night, as it was last time. it's so good, guys. really - you should go. we were the only people in the restaurant the whole night. everything is cooked by the chef-owner, who came and checked on us as we lingered in a sated haze after consuming the delicious, delicately blended, intensely flavourful dishes.

this is the calamari djerbieno:

tender squid pieces cooked in a spiced tomato sauce - chili infused, but not "hot" - it was so good and unlike any calamari i'd ever had before.

the salad grill mushwa:

a blend of tomatoes and garlic, onion, and peppers, topped with capers, olives, egg, and tuna. it's good that everything comes with warm pita - you want to sop up every delicious morsel of sauce on your plate - i will never understand the balance of flavours but it's unlike anything you've had before.

i split the merguese lamb platter and the trout with coriander with the roomie. this is the trout with coriander:

a generous slab of trout in a coriander-infused sauce that didn't have any of the soapiness that i usually associate with cilantro - instead, you get a rich, creamy sauce shot through with the grassy green notes of coriander, over your choice of vegetables or couscous (we chose vegetables: peppers, onions, zucchini, all browned and sizzling, and pan-fried potatoes, crispy on the outside, soft and starchy inside - a perfect foil for sauce consumption.)

the merguese lamb platter:

4 plump merguese lamb sausages piled around a heap of vegetables and more of those delectable potatoes, in a pureed sauce of eggplant and tomato with egg that's so asdj#$!@!! GOOD!!! i can't even TELL you how good it is. you're just instantly addicted to it. i want to take everyone i know there and get them hooked on it - because even though this place gets mad press, i was a little concerned that we were the only diners there last night. dinner for the four of us, with 2 shared apps and 4 mains and us being totally stuffed to the gills, cost $90 including tip.

go go go go go!



tonight for dinner i made us a spring risotto of leeks, favas, lemon and pecorino with a poached egg on top and a quick take on my beloved "olive garden" salad.

i also made orange cupcakes with bittersweet chocolate buttercream for my academic book club tomorrow - i've been craving a delicate orange cake for ages now - and this way we don't have the whole cake in the house for me to demolish. i'm also bringing the pea, mint, and pecorino dip and the flatbreads to the book club. i wavered on whether or not to bang out the buttercream - i was going to take the easy way out and either do a powdered sugar dusting or just a straight dip in ganache. i'm glad i did the buttercream in the end - there's something about the airy, cloud-like ethereal richness of buttercream that can't be beat. i snuck a taste of some of the cake bits that stuck to the pan - this cake is DIVINE!!! so good! a very sturdy, plain, delicately flavoured cake - it'd be a great tea cake. you get the orange more in the nose than in the taste - but it's got a lovely golden cake crumb and a toasty sweetness in between the floral notes of the citrus. i will definitely be adding this one to the "for keeps" binder.

i'll post the recipe tomorrow.

fin.

what a day! what a week!

so...I WON THE WORK COOKIE BAKE-OFF! it was surprisingly nerve-wracking for a throwaway kind of thing (and by "throwaway" i mean "agonized over my [multiple!] entries for a couple of weeks beforehand") what can i say? i'm a competitive, go-for-the-gusto kind of a gal. i have a despicable habit of really, really enjoying winning stuff. my two entries were: chocolate cornmeal cookies with orange cream, and a classic chocolate chip cookie with sea salt. i really thought the sandwich cookies with the orange cream were the clincher, but i actually won for the chocolate chip. at the end of the day, people really always come back to comfort food classics. T and i held hands as they were announcing the winners. lol! to be honest, the funnest part was trash talking T leading up to it. to balance out my olympian dreams, my teams lost at bocce AND the relay race. my lunchtime bocce team also suffered a humiliating defeat on thursday. WE LOST 11-0. that's right, we didn't score a SINGLE point. fastest bocce game EVER. that was pretty humbling, considering T all but announced it on the p.a. so that by the time i trucked back into work after eating a post-game hot dog, i was confronted with snickering, good-natured ribbing from my colleagues.

yesterday was kind of hectic. i hauled my butt home straight from the picnic, did a quick change, and then was picked up by my friend's D's friends to head to the ancaster old mill for D's wedding. it's a pretty spot. D and her new hubby N had already had the religious ceremony with the imam a few weeks prior, so this was just a chance for her to wear her pretty dress and sit down to dinner with her friends. it was very intimate...maybe 40 people in all? quite cozy and everyone was super friendly. there was no alcohol (D and N are both muslim) which cut down on the rambling, crass speeches and no dancing. the food was excellent and even though i went on my own (the dotytron couldn't make it because he had to oversee the final recital for his after school program thing) it was easy to talk to everyone and chat and mix and mingle.

look at how pretty she looks! and how handsome he is! he looks like a hockey player (kind of sergei federov-ish) this was my first time meeting him - it had been a bit of a whirlwind courtship but he's very sweet and gentle and shy and you can tell they're good together. her dress was awesome. i recommended the same place that dr. rei got her dress and D said they were so amazing there. that jacket she's wearing? it's made from the part of the train and dress they chopped off (she had it shortened to mid-calf length)! and that little ruffled pleating above the sweetheart neckline? also added (she needed the dress to have more coverage)! pretty awesome, eh?

so now i'm about to eat my breakkie and start my day. my day is kind of a wonky one. i'm going to head out to the hardware store and this place called lee valley to pick up supplies like: teak oil, strap clamps, wood glue, medium grit sandpaper and chrome polish to fix up my various chairs and whatnot. and then i'm going to put on a pair of gloves and get to work and see how i do. i'm cautiously optimistic. the plan today is to do the gluing and the clamping and to go at the chrome chair and see if i can get any of the rust off.

the plan for this evening is hopefully to somehow watch "he's just not that into you" lol! pretty ambitious, eh?

the worldwide short film festival is starting this week! it totally crept up on me without warning. usually i'm totally on top of it. it's a bit of a tradition for me and the dotytron spanning the entire length of our relationship so we'll have to try to squeeze in a couple of viewings. i really associate this festival with summer, with the dotytron, and with the nascent stages of our journey together. i'd feel a little odd if i missed it for no good reason (ie. i was in town, but just didn't go)

okay...time to start my day of impersonating bob villa! wish me luck!

my fair lil' ugmo: bathroom edition

so i'm kind of keen to get going on the bathroom. with some basic fixes (paint, a new door way, punching open a wall and installing closets) the upstairs would be COMPLETELY done and gorgeous. the bathroom is another thing standing in the way to one floor of the house being in tip top shape. as i've already mentioned, i'm feeling the hex tiles on the floor. and then i thought...what about GIANT hex tile? and then i googled up my vision today and found exactly what i was looking for! isn't it cute? i kind of like the look of the chubby hex tile with the subway tile backsplash. if tile floor and tile halfway up the walls gets to be too pricey, i'd settle for wainscoting, but my first preference is tile for such a damp space. just for the peace of mind and cleanability factor. i'm not a super-fan of the sink pictured above...i think i'm going to go for a wide pedestal style.


i'm also a fan of the deco style sink fixtures.

with a mirrored medicine cabinet above

and the ikea asker containers suspended on the grundtal rail and S hooks for toothbrushes, toothpaste, etc.

above the toilet, to make up for the under counter space you lose with a pedestal sink, i would either want open shelving (with a piece of fabric stretched over top so it's still hidden) or maybe three of these shelves spaced out vertically, if i have enough width above the toilet:

fin.