Pleased to Meat You

I have so many problems deciding whether to capitalize the blog titles like titles or just follow regular sentence style.  Decisions!

So Meat Club.  The friends we know who are part of Meat Club didn't show, so the only person we knew was the principal organizer, who we had only met once before, at our last Supper Club.  It was still fun though.  We lucked out and sat with the loveliest people by far and we had a grand time.  Richmond Station is themed like a subway station (kind of - I only read that it's supposed to be such and didn't really think so myself) but the decor is ho-hum.  The restaurant was bumping though - filled to the brim and busy the whole time we were there (from around 8pm to 11pm).  Here's what we had:

The charcuterie board.  I kind of hate it when the board features this many things and the server just comes over and rhymes them off to you in one long list.  How am I supposed to remember anything?  Just print out a piece of paper or something, or else don't bother telling us.  The charcuterie was served at the perfect temperature, but sliced a touch too thin for me.  Everything was paper thin which didn't allow you to enjoy all the textures of each type.  It was all good, it kind of got lost in the jumble.  

Presskopf (headcheese) fritters with grilled tongue, and a fried egg and greens.  This dish was outstanding.  The little breaded triangles of headcheese were hot, crispy, not the least bit greasy and so, so light.  The grilled tongue is a no-brainer for me (I love tongue) and the egg was properly runny.  This might have been my favorite bite of the night.

Seared côte de boeuf and braised beef cheeks with potatoes, sautéed spinach, roasted root vegetables and brown butter hollandaise.  They brought out the GIANT rib steaks for us to view - they were Flinstonian in scale, before whisking them back to the kitchen for finishing.  They steaks were a touch over for my liking, but there's nothing not really to love about seared meat, hollandaise, and thinly sliced gratin potatoes that are cut into triangles and then deep fried until they're little, dreamy puffs of deliciousness.  I enjoyed the steak more than the beef cheeks.  I find that braised meat treated like this can get very same-y tasting.  I actually felt that way about the côte de boeuf.  Maybe that's the problem with meat club?  The meat-centric focus means that you're getting food that isn't particularly ground-breaking or inspiring.  It's not something I couldn't get at some other restaurant. It was well prepared, though.

The Richmond Station burger - tender meat on an even more tender milk bun.  Served with textbook fries.  It's hard to really get a sense of a burger when you're only getting a quarter of one, but this was tasty enough?  

Dessert was a cinnamon bun with a walnut crumble, candied bacon, and beer sauce.  These buns were delectable - so soft and fluffy and warm.  The candied bacon was a stand-out too, taking the bacon firmly into sweet territory from the savory side.  This was delicious.  I ate two and then gazed longingly at the ones that were left, wondering who was the lucky sod who got to take the extras home (we left early to relieve Momma D from her babysitting duties).  I easily out-ate everyone there.  I even went so far as to mistakenly think that this nice guy I had just met was challenging me to an eating competition.  So charming, am I!  The Dotytron had my back though.  I take my ability to out-eat most people as a very serious skill.

Friday night was lovely.  Our neighbour kid came and knocked on our door and came in to play after daycare and then invited the Big Yam over to their house for popcorn and movies.  So cute!  I love living in a neighbourhood where the kids just knock on each other's doors asking if so-and-so is coming out to play.  It's so darned cute.  After we ate dinner we dressed up the Big Yam in his jammies and sent him over with his milk.  FOR TWO HOURS.  It was kind of the best and obviously the Dotytron and I immediately started scheming of how we could formalize the arrangement so that you did a rotating Friday Night movie night at a different neighbour's house every week.  LOL!  We're such schysters.  We offered to take the neighbour kid this coming Friday in exchange.  If we're home, I certainly don't mind having a pizza, pajama, and movie party with the kids from the 'hood.  It's cute and the Big Yam was totally and utterly THRILLED with the novelty.  

The Captain started flashing weird brake-related warning lights on our way to Chinese school on Saturday.  I think the Dotytron would have continued driving it, but because I am a GIANT nerd who thinks that we are always one dashboard indicator away from our car exploding and consuming us in a fiery inferno, I looked it up in the book and they were all like, DON'T DRIVE.  So we missed Chinese school AND missed our long-planned, oft-delayed visit with J & Tillers in KW.  It was the WORST.  I can't even tell you how annoying it was.  The Captain INSISTS on making us look bad!  It doesn't even break all that often, but it's always when we're en route to visit people from out of town.  Ugh.  As Tillers said, we probably could have driven with the indicator lights like that for a good long time but I'm a nervous nelly.  Our mechanic thinks it's just a brake fluid issue.  Le sigh.

On Sunday we had R & R over for dinner with their adorable, sweet-eyed little bambino, M.  Little babies are so cute!  They are so light!  She was experience some sleep regression and was thus a little cross.  I keep somehow convincing myself that babies are so low-key and it'll be SO EASY to juggle the twerps when they come but I feel like I might be fooling myself.  We somehow had an easy time of it with the Big Yam but that probably means the twerps will be colicky, fussy, messes.  Why is having babies so jinxy?  I just read a story about a woman who lost her baby at 38 weeks.  Worst.  

Cutest thing ever: we watched part of Mary Poppins with the Big Yam (this is after I vetoed Star Wars as age-appropriate viewing - ummm, hello, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru's charred bodies, much?  Not cool for a 2.5 year old!), and the Big Yam was calling it: "Miss Muffin."  

The Big Yam's room is slowly coming together (conceptually).  I ordered his bed frame, dresser and mattress today.  Here is the photo that inspired me: 

I just thought this was a great, fresh, gender-neutral color scheme.  I already have orange accents going in the Big Yam's baby room, so I wanted to carry that over so I could re-use certain things.

For the bed and dresser I went with the Ikea Mandal line.  I wanted a platform bed for the low profile, and there aren't a lot of options with storage.  It'll be nice to put his bedding in there and other lighter items.  I'm not crazy about the birch outsides.  I've heard of people painting them or staining the wood a less birch-y colour, but after seeing how it's been styled, it will go well against the blue accent wall.  The rest of the shelves will be white.  I saw the bed and dresser styled in this New York Times house and it does look nice with blue and orange accents.  If it drives me crazy I'll paint or stain it in the future, but for now, I think it'll look bright and airy.

We ended up going with a deeper, more navy paint than the one in the inspiration photo - Benjamin Moore's Old Navy.  

I saw this photo that totally inspired me:  

That's a $2 Ikea bracket, people!!!  Then I searched high and low for an affordable industrial cage pendant lamp and found someone on Etsy who will make one for me with an orange cord for about $60.  Not bad!  Considering the other lighting will be Ikea, I thought it would be nice to splurge (if you can even call $60 for a light a splurge) on something not from Ikea for the room.  I'm going to paint the bracket white.  

I also ordered these sale FLOR carpet tiles in orange and bone and designed my own design on graph paper.  It's going to involve investing in a carpet knife from Home Depot, but the cost of the knife (around $11) is still way cheaper than having FLOR do the cutting.  It's a triangle based pattern so lots of cuts and FLOR charges $3 a cut!  Ridiculous!  

We'll see how everything looks when it all comes together, but I'm happy with what I'm seeing in my head.  

The Big Yam has been having the time of his freaking life with the bowl from my Kitchen Aid mixer, some styrofoam packing peanuts I saved from our stroller box, a mixing bowl and a measuring cup, a whisk, a spoon and some water.  That alone guarantees us a minimum of 45 minutes.  If I want more time, I throw in some shaving cream and some food coloring and he's good for at least an hour and usually a lot longer.  It's the best!  Clean-up is okay.  It's not hard to wash off the oil cloth and the water on the tile in the kitchen is a bit of a pain, but at least it's tile so not a big deal.  We might get a giant rubbermaid bin to contain the mess for the future, though:

Here's what we've been eating lately:

Friday night's iron-boosting dinner: a roasted crouton, asparagus, and chorizo salad with seared skirt steak.

The Big Yam pointing at which New York Times chocolate chip cookie he was going to eat as his "special treat"

Sunday breakkie: fried green tomatoes, on top of mashed avocado, with English bacon and a fried egg on sourdough toast.

What I made for Sunday dinner - that radicchio tagliatelle with bagna cauda.  Not pictured: raw kale ceasar salad.

Dessert was a roasted vanilla pineapple tart with a coconut crumble.  My first time serving pineapple as a dessert not in upside-down-cake form.  Pretty good!  I'll post the recipe below.

Fin.

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

Pineapple Tart with Coconut Crumble

serves 10-12

1 pie crust, enough for a 9" pie

1 large pineapple, peeled, quartered and cored

1 vanilla bean, scraped.

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. white sugar

2 T. dark rum

For the crumble topping:

1/2 c. whole wheat flour (you could use all purpose - I was trying to be healthy !)

1/3 c. brown sugar

1/3 c. oats

1/3 c. shredded coconut

1/4 t. salt

4 T. butter, melted

- put your pie crust in a 9" tart pan with a removable bottom.  Chill.

- slice the cored pineapple quarters into 1/3-1/2 inch slices

- place the pineapple slices with the sugars and vanilla in a large sauté pan.  Cook on medium heat until the juices run and the sugars are evaporated, tossing/stirring occasionally.  Increase the heat to high, add the rum, and cook until almost all the liquid is evaporated.  Set aside to cool

- meanwhile, mix all the dry crumble topping ingredients together in a bowl.  Stir in the melted butter until loose clumps form.

- with a slotted spoon, spread the cooled pineapple in the prepared crust.  Top with crumble topping.  Bake in a preheated 350F oven for about 40-50 minutes or until the pie crust is golden brown.  The coconut in the crumble will brown rapidly, so it might be necessary to tent the top with foil when the crumble is brown and finish baking this way.  

- serve with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, or coconut ice cream.  

The story

of a boy and his stuffed rabbit.

So cute. Here's the Big Yam taking a wee before-bed catnap with the bunny his Great-Nany bought him (provisional name: Mr. Mistoffelees). Right now he stuffs everything into his mouth, either as a mode of sensory exploration or to ease the ache in his gums from the jaggedy tooth poking through. The result is, when he gets his chubby mitts on the rabbit, it looks like he's bringing it in for a big, juicy kiss.

Tonight's dinner was a shepherd's pie. I used ground lamb from the Mennonites and also used a pack of stewing beef from the Mennonites that I "ground" in the food processor. I added thyme, onions, garlic and threw that in the baking dish. As a thrifty housewife measure I added the creamed spinach on top of that, and topped the whole off with the leftover champ. Baked it in a 400F oven for about 1 hour covered with foil and then an additional 20 minutes with some grated sharp cheddar cheese on top. Sided it with some sautéed brussels sprouts:

Took some initiative and hoofed it to the Beaches branch of TPL (which is as tony as you might expect from the location) to sign up the Big Yam for the baby story time. We'll see if we get in - it's a lottery. Picked up some new books for him as well - classic Ezra Jack Keats and Bill Peet and Maurice Sendak stuff - I like the tried and true.

I also wasted A LOT of time on Pinterest today. It's like an online (cloud?) bulletin board/inspiration board for images you come across on your web travels. I find it a more useful Delicious because of the visual element - and most of the time I'm flagging images for inspiration rather than webpages anyway. It's incredible and astonishing how many "me" types there are out there and how similar the aesthetic is. Not that I'm under any delusions that I'm a special star...but the crafty, visually-oriented, terrarium-obsessed, mid-century-modern enthusiast, parent, knitter, cook, thing is a real thing, ya know? I'm okay with it though - it's nice to know that there are more people with similar taste out there sharing the love of all things pretty and cute and whimsical and fun. Although, I am a bit chagrined that my grey-acid yellow home decor colour scheme is catching on.

Fin.

weekends go down like this

the work picnic was nice - not the best iteration of the picnic that i've seen in my 4 summers at my work, but serviceable. i booked it home to pick up painting supplies and awaited the arrival of bwong, who helped me bang off two coats on the dining room. the colour FREAKED me out at first. i was really concerned that we had made the bad call and that i should have stuck with the original colour.

we took a work break to eat dinner (chino loco's) and watch "shottas" which is kind of like a jamaican backwards version of "belly" (that hype williams hip hop flick) with a $10,000 budget, gratuitous fake boobs and horrible acting. it was kind of awesome, even if the thick patois meant that i only understood about 15% of the dialogue (if that.) it features a performance by wyclef and a pretty boomin' soundtrack. i was exhausted so i fell asleep and missed a really ace scene where they show the requisite, insane-o enforcer goon, mad max, smoking a cigarette. pan out: it's being held in A DEAD GUY'S HAND. lol!

saturday we woke up hella early and got pwned first thing with some probable car troubles. the dotytron was driving in scarbs and some kids at the side of the road were like, "guy! your tire is on fire!" so he pulled over and checked and the rear right tire was smoldering. he called CAA and had them tow the car to our mechanic. i was home and the dotytron was en route to teach a lesson, so i dealt with the mechanic. it was my first time talking to him, and quite frankly, HE'S THE BEST GUY ON THE PLANET. CAA guy was telling us it might be our calipers seizing up, which would be a TOTAL piss-off because a) we just got the rear calipers replaced less than a year ago, and b) calipers cost around a grand. but when i talked to our mechanic, he said it wasn't that. he can't find out what's wrong, but he's going to take another look at it on monday and do our oil and a transmission flush at the same time. i can't convey how reassuring, calm, professional, and NON skeevy our mechanic is. he instantly puts you at ease, if you can find a cheaper price someplace else, he'll work something out with you, he doesn't try to force you to get work that doesn't need to be done, he's super-informative, busy enough so that there's always cars there but not so busy that he can't squeeze you in...i pretty much fell in love with him talking to him on the phone. the dotytron has won himself mad "get yourself out of the doghouse free" cards by finding this guy. to the point where i was all worried that he was old and was only going to be around for maybe 10 more years, and then we'd have to find a new mechanic again, but the dotytron has met him and told me that he's actually in his late 30s. phew.

we were supposed to go to deep richmond hill to attend our friends' P & R's baby shower, but there was no way we could get there with no car, so we had to bail, which meant that the day was consumed with going buck cleaning the house and finishing painting the dining room and doing the groceries. lil' ugmo has never been this clean. it's all because i'm hosting academic book club on wednesday and these are all grown-ups and i want to impress, i guess? i dunno. i do know that i effin' love a clean house. the dotytron and i are both like that. we luxuriate in it. we love just sitting in our freshly cleaned house and breathing in that natural cleaner smell and surveying everything being in the proper place. it's so calming.

so the big dining room overhaul is done. this is the dining room we inherited:



pretty hideous. awful acoustic tile ceiling, that disgusting fluorescent light picking out all the yellow tones in the walls, drab furniture...ugh. it's a wonder what we (read: the dotytron) ever saw in lil' ugmo and it's a wonder he managed to convince me that we should actually buy the thing.

this was the interim iteration of the dining room, that we've been living with for the past 8 months or so, featuring that blue paint that was supposed to be a steely gray-blue but ended up more sickening, baby's room blue and would drive me crazy every time i looked at it:

i only have 1 photo of it. i guess in my heart i always knew it was provisional.

this is the new and improved, for keeps (or for the next good long while, at any rate) dining room iteration:





the colour is a little off in the photos - it's a deep, greeny-blue with lots of red tints in it - like a deep, deep aquamarine. we picked it because it goes nicely with the red vignette on top of the refrigerator chest and the pale yellow in the embroidery hoops. the yellow picks up the yellow in the drapes and in the 2 chairs at the head and foot of the table.

here's a shot of the opposing wall, which is all white and features that fabric i bought at that vintage sale i went to a while back, mounted on a canvas frame and hung:

the plan is that later on, i'm going to stretch some twine in between two tacks just below it, and do a revolving photo display of photos that we like of friends, family, vacations, etc. hung from mini clothes pegs.

here's a closeup of the embroidery hoops - i bought vintage yellow fabric online and we hung our favorites in the hoops:

the dotytron totally got into the embroidery hoops - way more than i thought he would. i'm totally besotted with the new dining room. it's fulfilling all my nesting urges.

i love sitting on our new couch (!) from the living room, which is all thunderdome with couches...the new set-up is a little squishy, but not bad, and totally suitable for hosting movie club and whatnot:

we're calling new couch an homage to smudgie, because it's the exact same grey as him and is super soft and squishy.



we moved old new couch under the window, with a side table with the vintage lamp on it right next to it. shifted the colour-coded bookcase down and moved the tv to the far left of the buffet so that it can be angled so that anyone sitting on the couches can see it. pretty aces! i'm waiting to get my international year of astronomy posters framed and then hung above the new couch. the colours in there are grey and dark grey, the purple, red, and yellow. the drapes are the same in the living room and dining room, and the yellow and grey and red are continued throughout both rooms, providing some continuity.

love!

last night i made us a pretty boss dinner. we had grilled flank steak with chimichurri (chimichurri is SO GOOD! that was my first time eating/making it), with cumin black beans and brown rice, with lime squeezed over. we also had that cucumber, radish, feta and dill salad i like so much. for dessert we had another slice of the strawberry rhubarb crostata i made on friday, with whipped cream and ice cream:


we were EXHAUSTED after going to town on the house and doing errands yesterday...i think i passed out at 10:30pm in our blessedly cool house now that the heat has broken a bit AND tillers passed on the super-awesome tip to have the fan going on the furnace (no heat, just fan) to circulate the cooler air from downstairs up to the second floor.

even though we worked like, nonstop for about 12 hours on saturday, it was so worth it, seeing the results above and having everything tidy. i'm such a freak. my vices consist of being prepared, working hard, organizing and multi-tasking. it's sick. i'm addicted to all of the above and the hit of euphoria i get is a pure dopamine shot to the brain.

this morning we woke up at had a shanghai dim sum brunch with cousin yeti and his partner E. cousin yeti plays in this awesome 80s hair metal band called the diemonds. i think i've talked about them before. they are the best! so rockin! and so sincerely rockin at that. we're going to see them play their NXNE show at the newest hipster bar/restaurant sensation, parts and labour (owned by the same people who brought parkdale the social). cousin yeti started off as their drummer, played on their first album, took a break to go on tour with some other bands as a guitar tech, and now is back as their second guitarist.

tonight i think the plan is to go back to chino loco's as a nice treat before the dotytron abandons me for 3 days to take a bunch of grade 8s to montréal as part of their grad trip. i think we're also going to try to do some no-rules tennis or go for a bike ride, too.

fin.

no motivation, zero energy

that's pretty much me right now. last night i went to bed at 8:00pm. more correctly, i passed out while re-reading e. lockhart's "ruby oliver" series of young adult fiction (that i adore more than life itself) huddled under an afghan in my freezing cold living room only to wake up an hour later with a crick in my neck and a cloudy mind. i managed to haul myself through the wet wool torpor that made my limbs and consciousness sodden and sluggish upstairs whereupon i announced to the dotytron in as pathetic a voice as i could muster that, "i don't feel so good" and then threw off my clothes and curled under the covers only to wake again at 6:00am this morning when the alarm went off.

on the plus side, i managed to pick up a whole new slew of paint chips for the dining room and they're much more promising. i just have to muster the courage to actually see my vision through and go a deep, dark, green-y teal/turquoise on the walls. 3 walls will be that colour and one wall will be white. technically, it's not even 3 full walls, as 1 of the walls has the archway into the living room and the other wall is mostly the window. do i have the nads to go dark, jewel tones in the dining room? stay tuned and find out!

anything has to be better than the namby pamby slightly too-blue/grey combo we have in there. ugh.

i've read a tonne of books lately, but i have no motivation to review them. i somehow convinced my academic book club (which i'm hosting - eek!) to read "twilight" by stephenie meyer. lol! we'll see how they do. there was some resistance but i'm like, ladies - let's find out what this is all about, shall we? having them come over in the second week of june is giving me a very fixed deadline to work towards in terms of getting the dining room ready. hopefully couch numero dos gets here in time, too. there's nothing like having a whack of people over to get your jazzed to get your house ready.

tonight we had dinner with the roomie at queen margherita pizza. i forgot my camera because forgetting things is part of my life at the moment and i've made peace with it. i have another opportunity to capture the chewy-crusted goodness on sunday as we're taking the supper club there. my capsule review is very favorable. they push the prix fixe on you but will allow you to order pizzas a la carte. some of the pizza topping combinations are lacking (plus one, libretto) but most hardcore pizza heads will tell you that pizza is ultimately about the sauce and the crust. the crust is pretty damn amazing. it's not as uniformly thin as libretto's but to me, has a more textbook correct brawny, puffy chew to it, with some nice char spots on the underside. it's more reminiscent of the naples-style pizza we had in florence (which i know is a locovore/slow foodist's nightmare, but i didn't go to naples, so suck it, aight?)

l'army couldn't make it so we ordered 2 à la carte pizzas and 2 prix fixe. first they brought out terrible, terrible bread. like, IGA generic "baguette" bread - tight, snow-white crumb, no flavour, etc. with olive oil and balsamic to make a slurry for dipping. i'm not particularly fond of dipping my bread in olive oil and balsamic under the best of circumstances and when it's crappy bread, i'm even less inclined. i don't know why they don't just send out pieces of their pizza dough - straight from the wood-fired oven.

one of our antipasti was sausage, red peppers and potatoes which is exactly as it sounds - fluffy skinless yukon gold potato chunks, big pieces of denuded fennel-flecked italian sausage and strips of red pepper in a jolly melange. this was very tasty. the other was buffalo milk ricotta with chopped pecans, cranberries, and honey. we all felt that the ricotta was delicious with the accoutrements, minus the honey - which made everything taste like honey instead of letting the milky sweetness of the ricotta shine through. plus, the cranberries provide a lovely sweet-tart counterpoint, you don't need the heavy, treacly hand of honey on a dish that delicate - throws the whole balance off.

when the pizzas arrived we passed slices around so that we got to try all four. the dotytron's pizza was the best - it had italian sausage, cheese, tomato sauce. the other fantastic thing about queen margherita is the sauce. full of pulpy, bright tomato flavour. i can't remember what the sauce at libretto tasted like. i got a vegetarian pizza that was okay, the roomie went off the rails and got a smoked salmon pizza with mascarpone that was pretty bad (but i don't really think a neapolitan style pizza place should even have smoked salmon pizza on the menu anyway), and we tried l'army's which had proscuitto cotto and olives. i will say the topping combinations at libretto are better - but again, i think if margherita dialed it back to just a few basic topping combinations, they would knock it out of the park. scrap the smoked salmon (ugh), don't do a vegetarian if you've already got the margherita, limit your topping numbers to 3. on the strength of the crust and the sauce alone, i think margherita has libretto beat.

libretto has a more extensive menu though, so they get points for that, but they're also in one of the most annoying neighbourhoods in toronto, so minus points. ultimately, margherita will win because they're a 5 minute walk from my house, they take resos, and no pizza in the world is so good that it warrants a 2 hour wait. and the crust and sauce at margherita are insanely good. you just have to pick your pizza judiciously. i think on sunday i'm going to go the classico route and order a margherita pizza - the pizza standard.

the prix fixe follows up your pizza with a salad, in this case a mixed greens with a honey drizzled pear. the dressing was pretty ace - vinegary and sweet at the same time.

we also split a dessert, "nonna's" tiramisu which apparently is ACTUALLY made by "rocco's" nonna. it was good - boozy and light. points off for the highly unorthodox whipped cream topping. additional points off for being a saucerfull of tiramisu for 7 dollars.

i'll post pics on sunday (if i remember to bring my camera).

here's an installment that we haven't had in a while:

roll call of awesome:

dan style's art prints - available here:




the world maps from these are things:


i love futura font. i think the aqua print would look great in the fatburger's room (or even ours), but we just bought this ork poster toronto print in black and white for the big wall leading up the stairs:

so i feel like the hyper-masculine black and silver one would go better with the colour story i'm developing there. i'm thinking black and greys against the pale-pale grey wall with some black and white significant photos hung with bulldog clips.

this light shade is pretty boss. it's also $950 (excluding delivery)

wylie dufresne. so awesome. we've been watching "top chef masters" and i just love his little face and his mannerisms and the fact that he uses thomas' english muffins in the deconstructed eggs benedict dish at his restaurant wd-50 because he says there's nothing better (and i totally agree - thomas' english muffins are THE BEST.) i think he's super-talented, inspiring, and still totally approachable, unlike cerebro weirdos like grant achatz.

fin.

giant pictures yesterday aside

...not much happening around these parts, lately.

oh, except we might be squandering some of our tax return on a new couch. because our existing couch, whilst lovely, is rather narrow and it's difficult for the both of us to be comfortably prone while watching the tube of the boob variety. and we LOVE BEING PRONE while watching the boob tube. also, we only have the one couch in the living room, which means that whenever we have people over (which is often), we all have to sit in a row...not good!

plus this store on the danforth is having a 20% off sale on custom couches so i think we're going to hit that up. the problem is...our living room is quite narrow so it's going to require some rejigging - mostly involving condensing down our bookshelves. i'm always in favour of getting rid of books anyway - but the dotytron is a known and recalcitrant pack rat who likes holding onto EVERYTHING in the universe. it's super annoying. i mean, really...how often do we re-read books? barely ever, that's how often.

therefore, for the next little while, our living room might be a bit of a cramped pen...but that's just the way it'll have to be until we get our basement dug out and finished and can turn that into the rumpus room/den. if we're finding that it's ridiculous, we can always sell the now old, formerly new couch and just stick with the new new one.

i also want to repaint the dining room cuz it's driving me crazy and has been driving me crazy for nigh on 7 months. it's a small job, really - more inconvenient than anything else - but once it's done, it'll be done - now it's just a matter of finding the right colour. we also have to do the switcheroo on all the doorknobs in the house and work on the garden. those are the immediate concerns that don't cost an awful lot of money.

in other news...i've got the travel bug, bad. specifically, i've got the travel to hawaii bug, bad. we both want to go back, like yesterday. that's a tough bug to scratch (mixed metaphors, much?) here's the thing - i was looking up vacations on red flag deals and at all inclusive resorts in the caribbean and it seems to me, that when you're at that kind of a place, where ALL YOU DO is sit at the resort, then you kind of want to be at least 4 star and up, because anything else is kind of skeevy looking and suspect. once you get into the 4 star and up range in countries that are actually remotely interesting (ie. not cuba or the dominican or cancun) then you're looking at spending a good chunk of change, once taxes and all the rest are factored in.

and if it's the difference of a grand, total, i'd rather go to hawaii. it's PERFECT there - it really, really is. there are places to explore (ie. you're not trapped at your hotel), breathtaking vistas, sights, and the food! the food!!! i was thinking that next year we might go to oahu, stay at a B&B (why anyone would ever stay at a hotel when you can stay at a B&B that's nicer, comfier, way more chill and less expensive, is beyond me), rent a cheap car (because we're not on the big island, we wouldn't need a jeep wrangler) and probably have a very nice vacation for under $1500 each. i love hawaiian food - we both do - i found a place in oahu that has a make your own poke bar (poke is basically chunks of raw fish mixed with ponzu, soy, and tobiko) and thinking about eating moco loco in a greasy diner somewhere is enough to make me hop on a plane right now. plus, i love hawaii because you feel less bad about exploiting the peoples (they're american!) and you have the regular, north american amenities and because everyone is so active outdoors, the place shuts down at 9pm. love it. love it love it love it.

b&bing it up in hawaii is basically me and the dotytron's perfect vacation. we love staying at places where your exposure to randoms is minimized. if i close my eyes, i can totally recall the feeling of driving through the big island with the windows down, smelling the insanely fresh air and listening to classic rock. i can totally picture it now - the two of us, zipping along in a little compact, the windows down, with some poke and a fresh fruit shake in our belly, going to watch surfers on the north shore. so perfect.

alas, it's but a pipe dream currently. we won't be doing anything about it until next year this time, at the earliest. we gotta save some monies and pour some more monies into the house and our debt first...but a gyal can dream, right?



tonight for dinner we had spaghetti, tossed with a long-simmered tomato sauce made from canned san marzano tomatoes with a big handful of basil thrown in at the last minute. the pasta was topped with a spoonful of homemade ricotta, which in turn was drizzled with chili oil and sprinkled with fleur de sel and pepper. so good! we also had a fake caesar salad with croutons.

homemade ricotta is dead-easy to make and it tastes amazing - your yield sucks though...1L of whole organic milk and a 1/2 cup of cream makes approximately 1 c. of ricotta.

fin.


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homemade ricotta
yields approximately 1 cup ricotta

1 L whole milk
1/2 c. heavy cream
1/4 t. salt
1 1/2 T. lemon juice

- combine the milk, cream, and salt in a heavy saucepan.
- line a colander (i just used a fine-mesh strainer) with cheesecloth and set it in a large bowl. measure out the lemon juice and set it aside.
- bring the milk mixture to a simmer over medium high heat, stirring occasionally with a spatula to prevent scalding. once the mixture is simmering, add the lemon juice and stir gently with the spatula.
- let the mixture sit for about 1 minute, turning down the heat slightly so it stays at a simmer but doesn’t reach a boil.
- stir with the spatula after about 1 minute, then let it sit another minute until it looks like most of the liquid has separated into curds and whey.
- drain the mixture into the cheesecloth-lined colander set over a bowl, and let it drain at room temperature until you get the desired consistency.
- transfer the ricotta to an airtight container and refrigerate.

notes: i felt that you could have upped the salt in this recipe, at least double. i'm going to try that next time. we drained ours for about 30 minutes and it was very firm (you can see that it almost quenelles in the picture above - if you wanted it creamier, i'd check it and stir it after 15 minutes of draining - it's up to you what your desired consistency is.

zomg - so intense

this weekend was crazygonuts. so busy! so many meals out! so much fun!

friday was this insane adventure that involved me hopping on my bike to go meet my new family doctor only to get a flat tire less than a 1/4 of the way there. so i had to drop my bike off, was late for my appointment, and had to pay $20 for the tire change. but somehow, in the midst of getting my tire changed, freaking scammers at cyclepath ALSO f**ked with my rear back breaks so that they were baby soft (incredibly unresponsive). what jerks. i'm thinking it might be time to invest in a new bike...maybe i'll hold off for one more season and wait til next spring...i think i'm going to get one of those city hybrid cruisers - not as heavy as a mountain bike, thinner tires, but not like, velodrome/tour de france thin.

anyway, then i got a massage and met up with the dotytron and accompanied him to his after school program, where predictably the kids went a little nuts at my presence and while i quietly did paperwork in the corner during his guitar lesson, i overheard gems like, "you know what i want right now more than anything? besides subway, i want spray-on shoes." lol! kids are hilarious.

before the goosetang hang at bwong's we passed by johnny's hamburgers in scarborough, which has been on my to-try list for forevers. i'm OBSESSED with burgers right now, for whatever reason.





the place is tiny - with only a sliver of stainless counter top for you to eat there - almost everyone is taking their food to go. the prices are dirt, dirt cheap - $3.99 for a banquet burger - you can't beat that. the patties are frozen, but the bun! the bun! so soft, so yielding, so accommodating to the melting cheese-whiz goo of american cheese - this is your classic, greasy spoon, burger joint, burger. good flavour, soft, tender, so good!





for dinner near bwong's we went to jetsun's juicyburger. (yes, i double-burgered in one day, nay! in the space of an hour.) the dotytron got onion rings and i got chili cheese fries and a cheeseburger. i ate it all really fast, but i gotta say, i'm not a fan of this place. everything was strangely tasteless - with the burger being the most tasteless of all. all i could taste was pickles, mustard, and ketchup - the patty itself had no discernible flavour or seasoning of even texture to recommend it. the chili cheese fries were pretty good, but they had beans in the chili which i'm not a fan of when it comes to chili cheese fries and the chili again was very bland. i think overall, my verdict of this place is that everything was bland and unmemorable.

then we went back to bwong's. funny stuff that happened:

- right when we got there, just as we're sitting down and laughing about something, bwong mysteriously shredded something that we're guessing he REALLY didn't want us to see. it was so funny! like, literally, bwong's like, "HAHAHAHA-" *shrrrreeedddd* - hand under the table. lol!
- i passed out on bwong's super comfy sectional while those guys watched blue planet on his giant tv on blue ray and woke up to some random channel (the w network, i think) showing something like "top ten lame a** movies for women") and they showed a clip from "love, actually" with hugh grant being interviewed which for some reason made dr. rei INCENSED and had her pointing at the tv, barking, "HUGH...ARE NOT!" which makes no sense but made me laugh like a mofo.

saturday morning i met H, sweet baby D and H's mom jeans to attend this annual vintage clothing sale around the corner from my house. it's put on by 3 vintage clothing retailers that i like individually, and there were tonnes of great pieces there, but everything was quite expensive (say, $150 for a dress) and i didn't have the money for it. tucked way back in the corner, i did see a pile of fabric remnants in great, 1970s bold prints and colours, on heavy linen/cotton blends...i bought these three:



they're going to look AMAZING! i'm so pumped. i'm going to stretch them onto wooden frames that artists use to stretch canvas and hang them on the walls - aren't they unique? what a find! they were priced at $20 each but i went in on them with another woman who was buying 4 and we haggled the seller down to $15 each, which i think is really fair for unique wall art.

saturday night we had plans to meet up with heinz and amy (cleveland cru) at pizzeria libretto, only to show up at 8 and be told that there was a TWO HOUR WAIT for a party of four. that's freakin' insane. people on ossington (and the city of toronto at large) are morons. i mean, pizzeria libretto is good, but it's not TRANSCENDENT. it's not a bollito sandwich at mercato centrale, or deep dish chicago, or well, a night at guu izakaya or even fish'n'chips at harbord fish'n'chips. the food is really good at libretto, but the EXPERIENCE doesn't add up to more than the sum of its parts. i'm never going back there again! i'm telling you, if the pizza at that new place at the bottom of our street is even midway decent, i'm swearing off libretto until you only have to wait an hour. 2 hours?!? ridiculous.

anyway, we ended up at burger shoppe quality meats...which would be my third burger meal in a row, i know.

the burgers there are really good though - i got one with bacon and a fried egg, and we split an order of the pulled pork poutine and sweet potato fries and baked mac'n'cheese:





the next day we met up for dim sum brunch at chili secrets in markham - here are some shots of the crew:

and then we headed down to guu izakaya four hours later for DINNER. so crazy! we definitely wanted to take cleveland down there because they own a japanese restaurant in cleveland and guu is so g-d fun, how could you lose?

we showed up at 4:45pm and easily got a table for 8 when they opened at 5, even though there were around 30 people ahead of us. cleveland freakin loved it - we pretty much ordered the whole menu:

this was kabocha squash wrapped around a hard boiled egg, and then panko and fried. super tasty.

this is a dish we love...cold spinach sauced in a toasty, cool black sesame dressing. the dotytron LOVES black sesame more than any gweilo should, really.


deep fried octopus balls

okonomiyaki

this is one of my favorite dishes at guu, hands down. the grilled oysters with spinach (in the form of a creamy, pureed spinach-cheese sauce) with chunks of broiled mushrooms is a revelation. the mushrooms and oyster chunks match each other in umami and texture so perfectly.

spot prawn sashimi.

fried calamari with matchstick potatoes, in a sauce which heinz surmised was a mix of ketchup and sriracha.

grilled ox tongue.

pork intestines! these were a revelation - i'm used to the chinese bbq style where they're kind of rubbery and chewy. these were so tender and giving - almost like pork stomach - and they were sauced in a highly addictive sweet black bean sauce.

braised pork belly with egg. so effin' good. but i'm trying to get the dotytron to start saving me from myself, in the sense that i probably eat too many chunks of pork fat, per capita.

fried brie with the mango, blueberry sauce.

kimchi udon. we know how i feel about fat, chubby, slurpy udon noodles.

grilled pork cheeks! so good! the texture of the meat is a little firmer than you might expect (equivalent to pork loin) but very, very meaty and flavourful, with a good hit of fat, without any gobs of noticeable fat (like in pork belly). it was tender, even though you'd expect it to be chewier. we loved this dish.


oh hai, salmon belly carpaccio! so refreshing - we went a little lighter on the raw/cold stuff this time around, for whatever reason - but the cold stuff is super-refreshing so i would highly recommend it.

this is a special, almond tofu they were offering that day that was a giant version of their usual almond tofu - that they said was for 4-5 people but that totally served the 8 of us, quite happily. so awesome!

this is sakura (cherry blossom) cheesecake, their flavour of the day. it was so light! and not too sweet - i liked that.

some shots of the crew:

this is a shot of me and my guu boyfriend (aka my backup doty) - masa. SO FREAKIN' HOT. heinz totally pulled the tourist card so that i could get a photo with him - lol!

on the left you have my mum at the top, and across from her is her childhood friend B, B's partner P, heinz's mom, heinz, and amy. so cute!!!

i love those guys. i can't even imagine that a year ago, i didn't even know we HAD cleveland crew! and now look! best cleveland crew of life! (seriously...those guys are the funnest AND our exact double. heinz had a "heinz turns 10!" 30th birthday party where everyone wore like, 80s clothes and l.a. gear high tops and they went go-carting - SO BEST.)

onward and upward.


tonight for dinner i'm trying to resume sensible, non-burger/restaurant eating by making us spinach, mushroom, roasted pepper and mozzarella & ricotta calzones - hearty little veggie-packed mothers, which i brushed with chili oil and sprinkled with salt before baking on my trusty stone.

fin.