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.

a night in tunisia

training started in earnest yesterday, with a 20 minute, 2.86km run (a very very slow job, actually), some crunches, weights, push-ups and yoga. it's easy when the weather is all springlike and sunny.

i finally managed to convince the dotytron to go to the castlefield design district so that we could do some research on lighting at union lighting and research some door knobs (i want to replace our brass fittings on all the doors with antique, glass knobs) at the door store. the good news is, union lighting had a pretty decent supply of schoolhouse fixtures that were reasonably priced. we can get stuff that we like for the whole house for about $350, which is way more affordable than i thought it was going to be. the bad news is, antique doorknobs run about $100/knob (minimum...some of them were $285/knob - and the price changes on the knob depending on the finish you want.) because we don't have antique doors but new doors with the new whole drilled in, we have to get these weird converter plates made by a company that allows people with pre-drilled doors to have old knobs fitted. those are a minimum of $30/plate (you need 2 per door) and then to get them darkened is an extra $10 and then to have them re-plated (if you don't like an antiqued bronze look but want pewter or nickle or chrome) is bajillions more.

the long and short of it is: the knobs will be the LAST thing we do. and for all of you homeowners, helping homeowners out there, nice doorknobs are EFFIN' EXPENSIVE!

we had dinner with my friends D and N last night. they're both pretty adventurous eaters so we headed to this tunisian restaurant, djerba ladouce on the danforth. it was SOOOOO GOOD! i couldn't believe it! they don't serve alcohol, so we started our meal off with mint tea. the tea was served hot and poured dramatically from a silver tea pot very high into pretty, tiny, embossed glasses. the tea was tooth-achingly sweet and not particularly my style.

the restaurant is nothing to look at. there are some hand painted murals on the wall and the chairs and tables are standard-issue thrifted from some dated second hand restaurant supply store. you don't go for the decor. the chef proprietor (pictured on the homepage) came and answered our questions about the menu. D asked what the "salad grill mushwa" was and he said it was a pureed salad and that it was fantastic so we ordered that to share. technically, the chef owner said that EVERYTHING was good and recommended the calamari, which, he claimed, was like "no calamari anywhere else." despite that enticing endorsement, we opted to just go with the mushwa instead.

the salad mushwa was DELICIOUS. oh my goodness! according to the online menu it's a puree of garlic, roasted tomato and onion. there are capers and olives strewn about and a bit of hard boiled egg. bits of crunchy pickled cucumbers and a hefty dousing of fresh parsley brighten the rich, smooth flavours of the dish. served with warm pita for scooping it was positively addictive. so freakin' good! it was hard to identify the spicing but alls i know is, it tasted divine.

i ordered the lamb couscous which was a generous, properly braised shank portion on top of impossibly fluffy couscous (every time i make it, the grains clump, but at restaurants, each little bead is always distinct and tender) with a mix of vegetables: tender baby carrots and cabbage predominantly in some gentle spicing. it was delicious and so affordable at $13 for the dish.

the dotytron got the merguez "platter" which featured links of lamb merguez sausage in a hearty, smooth, and intensely flavourful spiced sauce with vegetables and bits of french-fried potato. served with warmed pita for sopping up the delicious sauce.

D got the trout platter which was a huge plate of poached trout covered in a herb sauce that was very rich and creamy but didn't appear to have any cream in it.

everything was amazingly delicious and the bill came to $73 total (incl. tax, without tip, cash only). i'm excited to go back again. the food was unlike any i had ever had before and really satisfying - exciting for the taste buds.

this morning we're doing small futzy things around the house. sunday breakkie will be a BLT with egg on a whole wheat kaiser. we're having goosetang over for an oscar/thanksgiving party. we haven't had an only-goosetang hang since montreal - i'm so excited! it's a slash-thanksgiving party because i got snookered into buying a heritage turkey from the mennonites - i ordered a goose, they convinced me to buy a turkey instead, claiming it was a heritage breed that's like, all dark meat, when i tried to change my order to a duck, they guilt-tripped me saying they had already ordered it and the farmer was weeping silent tears on their doorstep blah blah blah. anyway, i didn't get to cook thanksgiving dinner this year, so i'm doing it now. we're having: roast turkey, sage stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, gravy, brussel sprout and carrot horseradish casserole, and i'm kicking around the idea of doing another vegetable as well - maybe mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping. but i feel like that already is a lot of food for 5 people, especially with sticky toffee pudding and bourbon caramel sauce for dessert...so i might hold off.

it's going to be a fun/productive day!

fin.