Super moons and more!

I need a weekend to recover from this weekend.  AND IT WAS A THREE DAY WEEKEND FOR ME.  WTF?  Only the craziest weekend in crazytown!

Thursday night Academic Book Club was interesting.  There was a lot of discussion about sexuality and, as the majority of the members (all save one) are parents, how to talk to your daughters about their sexuality.  I don't know if it's a generational divide or something, but I'm way more laissez-faire about it all.  The other women were much more like, "guys just want to take a girls virginity!" "teenage boys are so self-interested!" "girls get pressured into doing things!" which isn't necessarily untrue, but I think it structures the narrative in a very specific way.  Maybe it's because I have a son, maybe not, but I personally think it creates a very narrow field of possibilities in terms of how an adolescent girl is going to come into her own sexually, if the language we use is that your virginity is "taken" from you, and that boys are out to harm you.  Are there existing and pervasive power inequities that mean that women are figured as objects of desire, and that female identities are structured in terms of how they exist as objects for the male gaze?  Yes, 100% and that is deeply problematic.  At the same time though, we have to teach women that there is such a thing as a healthy sexual world-view and not send them into the world with a fear-based mentality.

First of all, your virginity isn't a big thing.  You're not "pure" and then suddenly, "not."  As my friend said, losing your virginity (or your first real sexual experience) can best be described as: "painful, awkward, and uncertain."  LOL!  So true!  There was talk in the Book Club about how the S&M elements in Maidenhead (the teenage girl protagonist gets peed on) victimized women and that lead me, raised as I am on a healthy diet of Savage Love columns, to query whether women could actively participate in submissive sexual behaviour and still be agents.  I say yes, a lot of the women thought no.  It was a really interesting discussion and it showed again, how much and how deeply I differ from these ladies.  But it's all good...they need me around to shake them up and I need them around to know how to be like, tactful and explain slang and stuff.

Friday I kept the Big Yam home with me in the morning and then I dropped him off with J at the drop-in centre.  It's so funny how out-of-context parents make kids go crazy.  He was being weirdly clingy and not himself, but it was cute.  He played at the water table and was showing off a bit.  I absolutely love kids in smocks.  It makes me die inside from the cuteness of it.  Then I had a massage, whereupon I learned that not stretching after running means that you contemplate rolling off the massage table in a feat of gluteal-self-preservation when your RMT digs into your butt with her elbow.  My glutes are in trouble, sons!  Then we had dinner with the Roomie and L'Armi at their place.  We ordered Greek delivery and it was good and tasty and we had a good, low-key time.  We basically just laid around on their king-sized bed and played with all their massage toys.  It sounds super-lame but it was the best.  We also thought up a wicked name for their bambino (they're having naming issues).  Wait for it: Capleton.  BEST!  LOL!  Way easier to integrate than say, Sizzla, which was our other pick.

Saturday was buckwild.  I took the Big Yam grocery shopping, then we went to KW for Jenny Calendar & Tillers' daughter's 1st birthday party!  It was a big deal, yo!  Colour scheme, a huge spread, lots of friends and kids toddling about.  Super cute and super-fun.  The Big Yam was doing his standard thing of petting other kid's heads and then trying to go in for a kiss.  It's his calling card.  Then SMckay drove us home.  We ended up missing the documentary because we left the party late and there was some rubbernecking business on the 401, but it worked out in the end because I got to get SMckay settled.  She ended up meeting like, all my neighbours.  It was cute.

The Dotytron and I saddled up and biked to the Brickworks for the TUM Street Food Block Party.  We met up with MHui and her hubby R there.  It was crazytown!  People were lining up for some of the food trucks for like, 2 hours!  So MHui and I got in line for these lobster rolls from the Rock Lobster Food Co.  It was like a 20 minute wait and MHui said we were getting static from some b**ches in front of us who were being grumbles and talking like we had cut in line or that the people behind us were really with them or something.  So I started getting a little static-y back at them.  At one point, I looked behind us and was like, "whoa, that line just grew like, exponentially!  We got in at a good time!" Then we linked back with the boys with our lobster poutine and lobster rolls and it turns out THAT WE HAD TOTALLY CUT IN LINE.  LOL!  Whoops!!!  No wonder we were getting static from other people!  MHui had another friend who'd been waiting TWO HOURS for her food!!!  Hahahaha...best-slash-worst.  The boys were pretty useless.  While we were waiting for our lobster sammies they came strolling up with beer so we told them to go stand in line at another stand and get something.  We turn around 10 minutes later and they're standing a little ways away from us, chiefing it up and drinking their beer and MHui is like, "did they get food?  I know they didn't get food!" and we go back to them and OF COURSE they didn't get food.  They choked up under the pressure.

We had the lobster stuff, a huitlacoche (a fungus that grows on corn) taquitos, a cochinita pibil slider, this AMAZING Indonesian food (beef rendang in a little egg pancake, this awesome veggie-stuffed deep fried tofu with peanut sauce, yellow curry chicken wings), water buffalo banh mi, cornbread grilled cheese, doughnuts (these were meh, not fresh) and got some cupcakes and cake in a jar to go.  The boys had a bunch of craft beers and some tequila.

I was getting mad, though.  Two reasons:

1) The TUM organizers are exploiting the vendors!  You have to pay to get in and then pay for your food and drink on top of it.  Tickets were $20.  They were expecting around 3000 people.  That means TUM made like, $60,000 in one night!  FOR WHAT?!?  There's a tonne of volunteers, they had to pay to rent the Brickworks, some advertising, security, insurance, and special event liquor license.  Bogus!  PLUS, the vendors have to pay a registration fee of $200!  That's what was the most galling.  I was telling them, "you should rebel! This is outrageous!  They're making money on your backs!" and MHui was like, "are you trying to start a revolution, Katniss?"  LOL!  But it's true!  None of that profit goes to the vendors.  If it was me, I'd do like a "People's Choice" award or something and then give the winner $10,000 or something.

2) I know the point of TUM is that it gives amateur cooks exposure...but the amateurishness of the amateur cooks was galling.  There was no sense of urgency!  How do you see like, a wall of 150 people in front of you and you're still moving like you're just making yourself a Sunday afternoon afternoon sammy?  C'MON! I so wanted to jump behind the line at points and start like, expediting or pumping out the orders.

All in all, I don't know if I would go back.  When they first started TUM was $5 admission.  That's fair.  $20 is pushing it.

We rode our bikes there and the Dotytron had the brilliant idea for us to ride our bikes down Bayview back.  Ummmmm...Bayview is like, DVP-lite.  There is NO shoulder and so you have to ride in a car lane and cars are going by you at like, 70 or 80 and honking and not expecting you to be there.  I was like, screaming at him at the top of my lungs going, "I AM NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THIS!  GET OFF!  I DON'T LIKE THIS!!!!!!" and so we got off at the first available opportunity (which are few and far between on Bayview).  So it's not super-accessible, either.

And...the Dotytron got food poisoning.  He woke up at 2am with the scoots and the brafing.  It was bad.  Poor guy.  I have an iron stomach so I was fine.  The good thing is, SMckay was an awesome babysitter and allowed us to have a fun night out.  We also saw the super moon on our way home and it was amazing and so we gave it a 3-ring salute on our bike bells.  The super moon is kinda bada**, guys.

Sunday I let the Dotytron sleep in and did mad sensory play with the Big Yam.  We basically spent the whole day outside.  I mulched the garden and had the Big Yam sitting in his bean tub (but filled with the cocoa shell mulch) outside with me.  Then in the afternoon I filled the tub with water and food colouring so he could play in the water.  Then all the neighbours were outside and the kids were talking and playing together...it was super-cute.  SMckay came back from her date with the philanthropist to pick up her car  and like, knew everyone, just from being out the night before.  It was cute.  I really, really, really love my 'hood.  We're talking about this year's Street Party already.  We ended up having to cancel our planned dinner with Lolly on account of the Dotytron's gut being all sensitive.

This is the look the Big Yam is gonna be running with all summer.  LOL!  He looks like baby Hunter S. Thompson.  We almost got him mini-Ray Bans in NYC but I didn't want to spend the money and then I found these sunny g's at store in Toronto.  They're hilarious.

This morning was a gong show.  Applications for the TDSB job postings are all due today by 4pm.  The Dotytron found out this morning he has an interview way out in the west end.  I worked night shift so it was a mad scramble figuring out who was gonna pick up the Big Yam.  Thankfully these occasions are few and far between but it was still a bit of an "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" morning.  I hope the Dotytron gets an interview and gets one of the jobs closer to home.  Having to drive cross-town every day would really make things difficult for us!

Momma D picked up the Big Yam and I ended up ordering us pizza to make dinner time easy tonight.

Fin.

Clevelanded

The good news: our car got fixed Friday morning and we eventually made it to Cleveland. The bad news: my camera ate all the bomb-a** photos we took and left us some pretty nondescript ones. Totally bummed about that, but what can you do.

We got there Friday evening (it's about a 5 hour drive sans baby, a 6 hour drive avec - so the equivalent of going to Montreal, but I would say more fun than Montreal). We had dinner at Otani's, which is this Japanese restaurant owned by my friend H and his mom, Auntie J - who is my mom's childhood friend from school. Otani's is AMAZING. I'm sure rolling up with the owners helps - but we had beef tataki, their famous volcano roll, big slices of hamachi and salmon, delicious scallops and shrimp from their teppanyaki side, uni with quail egg yolks, this Hawaiian roll with macadamia nuts and this jalapeno roll which was straight incendiary.

That night we went to this speakeasy fundraising night held by Ingenuity Cleveland - a non profit organization that funds the arts in Cleveland. It takes place on a bridge that spans the Cuyahoga river, on the part where their now-defunct subway trains used to run - so cool! The night was fun - they had drinks and people dressed up in period garb, a photo booth, a dj, some art installations....and black jack tables. Me: "How much is the table minimum?" Random dude giving me a bewildered look: "Uhhh...a dollar?" Dotytron and I bought chips ($5 for 6!) and went to town. By the end of the evening, the Dotytron was up like, $40 after a $10 investment, so we decided to "cash out". The Dotytron goes to the table where we purchased chips and watching from afar, I can see his growing confusion as the woman manning the table, instead of giving him money, starts counting out raffle tickets. When the Dotytron asked for clarification, she pointed to the SMALLEST SIGN IMAGINABLE that said "chips can be cashed for raffle tickets to be entered to win a $100 gift certificate to the Greenhouse Tavern." The Dotytron was none too pleased to say the least and H & A were cackling about how we got "Clevelanded." LOL! I have to say, it IS a very unorthodox way to run a charity casino. As we left, I pointed over to a dude playing at the table I had been at, who was playing 3 black jack hands at once and had amassed a stack of about $100 in chips, "should we tell him?" We decided that we didn't want to be responsible for his disillusionment and the recipients of his (justified, probable) ire so we slinked off into the night.

Saturday morning we checked out The West Side Market, which is their equivalent to St. Lawrence Market. Unlike St. Lawrence market, the West Side Market is much more representative of Cleveland and has a sense of place. The vendors lean towards the Eastern European side, reflecting the Polish and Slavic immigrants in the area. We picked up crepes, cupcakes, double smoked bacon, sausages, beef jerky, and pepperoni sticks galore. So good. Then we had a little driving tour of Cleveland and checked out their wee little Chinatown and the Cleveland Cultural Gardens. For dinner that night, we went to this Polish placed called Sokolowskis - which has been in business for the past 88 years. It's the kind of place where everything is served cafeteria style, which might be repugnant for those of you unfamiliar with the charms of the old style American cafeteria-style restaurant, but is manna from heaven for anyone who loves to eat real, home cooking. In true style, you grab a tray, and make your way down the line (desserts are served first, natch). I had a slice of coconut cream pie, picked my main (breaded pork chops) which came with 2 sides (beans and perogies), unlimited trips to the salad bar, and the best bowl of beef barley soup I've ever tasted, the flavour goosed by liberal lashings of thick cream. It was delicious. Found out later that this Cleveland institution has been visited by no less than Anthony Bourdain and John Oates of Hall and Oates fame. So good.

That night we watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. First, the theatre where we watched it was initially having major problems with the sound - the commercials and previews all sounded like it was happening under water. Not good. The Dotytron, H, and I all went up individually and spoke with the useless tits at the theatre to complain and were assured that it was only the commercials and previews and that once the film started, it would be fine. Guess what? It wasn't fine. You couldn't hear the dialogue over a weird grinding/whirring noise and when we were whispering to each other about who would go up and complain next, we were actually SHUSHED by other people in the theatre! What freakin' idiots. We're trying to fix the problem here, you nincompoops!!! I couldn't believe those tits were shushing US. I was livid and of course I get all irate and in my head I'm all like - this complacency is how you end up going to war, blah blah blah. Anyway, they subbed the celluloid print for the digital one and then it was fine.

What wasn't fine, however, is the movie. I'm going to be liberal with my review so if for some reason you haven't read the books and don't know what to expect, then go someplace else. Also: you've had like, 10+ years to get this shiz done...so really? This film was a disappointing conclusion to the series, especially after the highs of Deathly Hallows Part 1. My principle critique is that moments of emotional impact weren't given the proper treatment, so you lost your investment in the events transpiring. What you have instead is a wooden race to the finish, where significant moments weren't highlighted. For example:

1) the battle of Hogwarts should be epic. The culminating battle is a well-worn cinematic trope, so there's no excuse for one done poorly (ie. see The Two Towers' battle at Helm's Deep for reference of a culminating battle done well). When the staff at Hogwart's first raise their wands into the sky to conjure the force field I was so adrenalized my blood was singing in my veins and I get goosebumps remembering it even now. Unfortunately, that initial excitement is soon quashed by the lack of attention paid to the battle. In the book, the battle sequence is when all these characters that you've grown to love over 7 hefty tomes all come out and mobilize together. Professors Trelawney, the creatures of the Forbidden Forest, the ghosts, the people in the paintings...anyone connected to Hogwarts both great and small come together to fight for this central symbol of the world of Harry Potter. What we got instead was a barely-there fight focusing too much on Neville Longbottom. It was such a let down.

2) The deaths. The death of Fred (or George) and Lupin and Tonks is a BIG DEAL. I cried in the books. What do we get instead? A glimpse of their dead bodies and a 10 second reaction shot of Ron Weasley. LAME!!! SO LAME! Lupin and Tonks I can kinda understand because their relationship isn't super-developed, but Fred (or George)?!!!???? Come ON! Their sacrifice is just as big of a deal as Harry's. Also - how the crap are we supposed to know that Lupin and Tonks already had their kid? Why bother mentioning it at all?

3) In the service of more emotional impact, I would have cut back on the scene with the whole Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter's interview on the location of the diadem. Seriously. We've SEEN ghosts do that whole, evasive-and-then-suddenly-shriekingly-angry thing before (see Moaning Myrtle). Why was that episode so long? Why was the sequence with Crab (or Goyle) burning down the Room of Requirement so long? Instead of that - how about more Battle of Hogwart's????

4) The epilogue. Worst. Hated it in the book. Hated it in the movie. So awkward. Don't need to see it. And you're telling me they STILL haven't gotten rid of Slytherin House?

5) Snape's memories in the pensieve bring me to TEARS every. single. time. I read it in the book. To tears. This is a character who's been with us from day 1 and this is how you do him in the end? By making him look like a fat, pasty drag queen with too much pancake makeup and eyeliner? By glossing over the importance of his patronus being the same as Lily's? By making his sacrifice for Harry (and really Lily) a rushed montage afterthought? SERIOUSLY?!!!???

6) Anyone who cares about Ginny and Harry's relationship raise your hand. *sound of crickets* Exactly.

Anyway, I was disappointed. These were things that could have easily been fixed to give us the movie that us Potterites deserve.

We left the Big Yam with A's mom, who provides babysitting services as part of her retirement. The text message we got from her at 9:10pm (about an hour past T's bedtime) showed a photo of a beamingly happy Big Yam climbing the couch and giggling a gap-toothed smile. When we got home, we found out why, as A's mom reported that she gave him THREE BOTTLES of milk and let him finish all the Cheerios (about a cup's worth). LOL! The Dotytron was a little concerned about the fact that he had quadrupled his before-bed intake and I was a little concerned about my breast milk surplus being wiped out, but as I told the Dotytron: when someone else is watching your kids for you, you kind of have to let that shiz go and let them do whatever keeps them and the baby happy. Just gotta go with the flow.

Sunday morning H & A cooked breakfast and then we napped and then headed to Michael Symon's burger bar, B Spot. Delicious. We split an order of amazing onion rings (so crispy!), twice fried skinny frites, their namesake Lola burger, a fried bologna sandwich, and some beers (they had a beer called Brother Thelonious!) I had a vanilla-apple-pie-bacon shake. So good. Thick vanilla ice cream with apple pie blended in and topped with crispy bacon bits. B Spot also has a full service pickle bar and a suite of homemade sauces for topping your burgers. It was really good. Then we walked around this quaint little town called Chagrin, which is where all the Cleveland rich folk live. Lots of pokey antique stores and high end boutiques. We sampled ice cream from Jeni's which serves bougie ice cream flavours like goat cheese & cherries (so good!) and brown butter almond brittle (also really good!). As we were backing out of our parking spot, H's car got honked at, and he wigged out. He was all like, looking back, and opening his car door to lay some smack down, until we looked back and realized it was an OLD LADY - like giant polarized shades, dyed hair, barely could see over the steering wheel, rich, leaving her inheritance to her cats old lady. So the running joke became about how H almost fought an old lady.

We ate our last meal at Skyline Chili - an Ohio institution that started in Cincinnati. Basically it's variations on chili, served either with cheese, with onions (3 way) and with beans (4 way) on a limited number of bases: coneys (hot dogs), spaghetti, baked potatoes, fries. The log type thing in the second photo is a burrito (filled with spaghetti) and topped with the chili, cheese, etc. It's kind of trashy but also hella delicious. It's also a quasi-fast food joint with table service. Keeping it classy, Cleve.

We spent our last night in H & A's backyard, with a fire going, playing games and with the boys smoking cigars and shooting the shiz with the sparking light of fireflies in the dusk. We also had a cupcake tasting and a Handel's ice cream tasting.

These guys are totally our doppelgangers. H's scotch and cigar collection is insane, he's a chowhound like we both are, we travel the same way, AND H just sent me his excel spreadsheet bugout bag list for emergency preparedness. LIKE IN CASE OF THE APOCALYPSE. It's serious and insane and I was thrilled (thrilled!) to find a kindred emergency preparedness spirit. The Dotytron (on the drive home, of which bugout bag/emergency preparedness talk make up 95% of all conversation): "I wasn't sure whether the bugout bag talk was scaring you or motivating you" (it did BOTH, people!) A believes in the power of vinegar as the solution (double entendre) for all things AND is notable for her dogged determination to always do what's right. Not what's easy. Not what's quick. What's right. Love that. They're total nerds like we are.

Can't wait to go back to the Cleve. I'd love to do a Harvey Pekar tour and not go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame again. Plus, there's still so much to eat!

Massive heatwave in the Tdot right now. Staying cool is the name of the game.

Fin.

it takes a village to cure some meat

it should come as a surprise to absolutely NO ONE that i wasn't able to sustain my own self-generated 4x4 yoga challenge. it's too damned hard! what the hell? how am i supposed to have time to do FOUR HOURS of anything during the week? it's too crazy! what with dodgeball on thursday nights and my alternating movie club/dinner with the roomie commitments on tuesday nights and then socializing on the weekend and random stuff coming up during the week - it was too hectic. i'm still committed to a more regularly weekly yoga practice and i'm going to start throwing in some crunches and weights in there to get myself in fighting form for the summer, but the rigidity of the 4x4 was not happening.

in other news: i think i might try training (in the same kind of meandering, not super-regimented way outlined above) to do a try a triathlon this summer. something late in the season. i like biking, swimming, and running but not enough to do an entire challenge devoted to one of those things individually. plus the try-a-tri distances are very manageable - you swim for 375m (in open water though), bike for 10km, and then run for 2.5km. i'm not super into placing or anything - i just think it would give me something to work towards when i run/bike/swim this summer. i don't really care about beating times...i just think it would be fun. i pretty much can do all of those distances now (the weak point would be swimming) but they say when you're training you should try to exceed those distances, like, don't just stop at a 2.5km run and call it quits because you want to have some mustard in you. they also say that you should practice biking for 10km and then hopping off and running, which also sounds like sound advice.

i've also been pooched since like, mid february. i think it was the mid-february blahs, which didn't manifest itself in any way other than to make me want to sleep a zillion hours every night. it hasn't helped that i've been nose-deep in several books for the past little while - books are seriously like crack cocaine. the ones i've been into, i've been hard-pressed not to try to sneak in reading time at work. all i want to do is curl up with the book and finish it at the expense of other things like my quilt top and my knitting. again, the pitfalls of having too many interests.

i freakin' love my food friends. this guy who i worked with at my first cooking gig at angus glen golf club in markham recently re-connected with me over fb. this guy was/is HARDCORE. the kind who does a tonne of research into food and will try everything and is super curious and well-informed. he's also the guy who i got to hone my skills at being unbelievably crass and off-colour in the kitchen with (this was the time of bukake gripping the minds of a generation of people newly unleashed onto the internet). ANYWAY, he recently got into charcuterie and smoking and hepped me to all these messageboards AND he has an arborist friend who has hooked him up with all these hardwoods for smoking (apple, pear, cherry, mulberry, white oak, sugar maple) and he's going to hook ME up with them in turn. then my buddy J of cellar and table said he'd get me in on his buddy's 5kg bag of sure cure so that i can start making my own bacon/cured meats. HOO-HA! i was totally beaming about this community of food-hounds coming together. i don't usually like to define myself by my interests, but i'm so glad that my time spent as a cook has brought me such a diverse, interested, and educated community of like-minded people. what resources! as the dotytron said as i told him about the sharing in excited tones over dinner last night: "i'm way more into that kind of community than the exclusive crap of these stupid supper clubs like charlie's burger" SO TRUE.

my cook's heart's cockles were equally warmed when i reached out to some friends from canoe (my buddy A and his now wife S, who worked at auberge de pommier) who now live in NYC. A worked at tru in chicago and is super-precise and an extremely gifted and dedicated cook. i'll always remember that he was the one who first heard my strangled curses when i dumped the pot of boiling water on my footie and he was the one who immediately filled a giant bucket with ice water for me to dunk my foot in. we were just kind of copacetic - on the same food wavelength. anyway, he's been working at per se and his wife was working at del posto. i contacted them because we're heading to nyc in may and i thought we should get together and try to work something out. in the message, i expressed my dismay and still-lingering embarrassment over having served these two incredibly talented, gifted cooks my corned beef hash (with canned corned beef, natch) the day before they left toronto for a going-away breakfast meet up at my place. he's going to work at per se and i'm frying up corned beef hash as a goodbye meal. lol! the wife, S, was so sweet and posted on my fb wall that it was the best corned beef hash she's ever eaten. i don't believe it for a minute...but what a sweetheart. i love unpretentious cooks!

monday night's dinner was a GIANT bowl of the last of cream of cauliflower soup and my favorite quickie sammy of cheddar and onion toasted in an oven on ace focaccia.

last night's dinner was an old favorite of mine. steamed chicken with dried shitakes and chinese sausage (lap cheong) in a sweet soy sauce with steamed brown rice with gai lan (chinese broccoli). topped with a raw egg. that's some good eats, right there...even if it is loaded with carcinogenic nitrites.

tonight i made us steamed mussels in a thai-inspired (read: it had lemongrass and fish sauce in it) coconut curry sauce which we had with toasted chunks of my homemade bread and steamed gai lan with oyster sauce. unf unf!

i read joann safar and emmanuel
guibert's "the professor's daughter" a while back. it's another comic. i was a big fan of guibert's "alan's war" (the review to which i was going to link until now, when i realized that i didn't actually write one). i didn't like this one at all. the images are watery and undefined and the whole story is rather ridiculous and half-baked. don't bother.

but DO read guibert's "alan's war" which is a touching, well-drawn, poignant capturing of the reminisces of american g.i. alan cope, who fought in wwII. alan, who met guibert in the last years of his life in france, is a wonderful storyteller, effortless and unselfconscious. the comic is basically a straight transcription of alan's reminisces of his war-time experiences. it's deeply personal but the deft, meandering storytelling makes it a fantastic read.

i didn't read all the pieces in this compendium of food writing from the pages of gourmet. some of the "endless feasts" were more compelling than others (i don't really need to read 3 separate stories chronicling the life and appetite of james beard.) some of the writing was dazzling and evocative and so of its' time with charmingly colonial colloquialisms (siam, "the chinese") that made you wonder at these impressive gourmands, so impossibly bourgeois, scattering across the globe in the post-war era of discovery and sending back dispatches of meals taken in rice paddies or of glistening trout fetched from a stream in switzerland and plated, piping hot but moments later. it made me miss gourmet magazine.

"olive kitteridge" was the 2009 pulitzer prize winner for fiction and my work book club's choice for the march meeting. elizabeth strout's writing style reminds me of annie proulx's - spare, lean, and yet palpably descriptive, bringing the short interconnected stories of small-town, new england life in portland, maine, to vivid life. you don't get verbal and linguistic acrobatics here. what you do get are characters who are real, filled with longing, regret, fears, worries, yearning, suppressed emotions. complicated, nuanced characters, like the title character, olive kitteridge, whose presence in every story - however incidental at times - ties the collection to gether. olive is a stern, repressed, conflicted, and taciturn woman, set in her ways. around her the stories of the novel unfold. ultimately the reader is left with a profound sadness for the complexities and fleeting moments of life - of how moments of tragedy and beauty can strike in an instant and how our reactions to these moments are fractured and messy. how we constantly wage a battle against our own histories and characters. i have to admit, i started out not liking this book (i dismissed it as mom-lit), but gradually it drew me in, bit by bit, and i was gifted with an intensely rewarding reading experience.

this didn't start off being a big post...but somehow blossomed into one. i'm saving my latest favoritest book of all time for its very own post later.

big weekend, guy!

this weekend is a super-duper special one. chinese new year! emma-lee's show! campfire at dufferin grove with pals! valentine's day! family day! long weekend flex!

buckcore.

last night we had dinner at big mouth kee with the whole fam, minus my grandparents and my sister, who stayed in the states. big d was in fine fettle, as he always is when dinner is at big mouth kee. he loves him some kee.

we started with some complimentary soup, featuring random fatty pork bits, lotus root, and tongue, which according to my mom's transliteration, is supposed to foretell a new year filled with only sweetness coming from your mouth...like you'll only have happy, good, auspicious things to say.

then we had roast pork...which was DELICIOUS. it also means something but i might have been too busy trying to snag the choice skin pieces to listen. oops. YOU TRY. the skin was ultra crispy and thin and not greasy at all. so effin' good.

deep fried lobster with garlic and pork. one of the only times when the OUTSIDE of the lobster is as lip-smackingly good as the inside.

this dish was my request: deep fried oysters that are so good. meaty pacific oysters encased in a shatteringly thin, light, sarcophagus of batter, with spicy salt for dipping.

fish with mushrooms and veggies. this dish also means something but again, i was too busy grabbing choice bits of everything to pay attention. uhhh...next year?

fried chicken - also tradish.

this is a traditional new year's dish because the name of one of the items is "fat choy" - like the chinese new year's greeting "kung hei fat choy" - VERY AUSPICIOUS! i think the actual fat choy is this fungus stuff that looks like hair. it sounds gross but when covered in a wonder-powder thickened sauce, the mushrooms, veggies and hair fungus are super-tasty.


chova's requested dish...it's thinly sliced pieces of tender pork with veggies.


fried soft tofu balls. SO GOOD! you bite in expecting some kind of resistance but that's like, silken tofu all up in there, sons.

braised, mostly boneless duck with seafood and mushrooms. holy cow, this was the bomb shiz.

finally, dessert. red bean soup. not pictured, deep fried black sesame paste filled glutinous rice dumplings.

we finished watched "dexter: season 4" holy crap that season scared the pants off of me...even if the implausibilities kept piling up. near the end, i was getting pretty p.o'd about all the coincidences and contrivances that were keeping the plot running. it started getting pretty credulity-stretching.

SPOILER ALERT







i'm SO GLAD that rita is donezo. she was SOOOOOOOOOOO annoying!!! so beyond annoying!!!!!! i've pretty much disliked her from her first appearance on the scene so i'm glad she's been dispensed with.

we slept in and for breakkie this morning i made us those oat scones i've posted about before. i subbed all whole wheat flour with no discernible deleterious effects.

we saddled up and headed out to check out the closest lighting store for bedroom, porch, and hallway lighting fixtures and shades. there's a lot of HORRID lighting options out there, folks. me, i'm a schoolhouse lighting fan. HUGE. that's all i want. like this:

but i would prefer a flush mount. i might be willing to consider a short little dangler like the one above for the upstairs and downstairs hallways. but for the bedrooms, i want something like this:

polished nickel or brushed chrome. either the above style or something like this:

look how nice and classy that looks! and how it honours the time when lil' ugmo was built. P.S. DID I MENTION THAT IT'S LIKE HALF THE PRICE WHEN YOU ORDER FROM U.S. LIGHTING STORES LIKE rejuvenation and schoolhouse electric? WAY TO MAKE ME NOT WANT TO SHOP IN CANADA, idiots! before i resort to buying it online and having it shipped to us and thus having to pay the hefty tariffs - our next approach will be to try printing out these pictures and going to union lighting or the door store in toronto and seeing if they have what we're looking for and doing some price comparisons.

no one has ever loved the look of milk glass more than i. nooooooooobody!

we're doing our valentine's home-cooked meal tonight. steak, creamed spinach, baked potato, butter-sautéed mushrooms with cognac, some beer and chocolate soufflés for dessert. then we're heading out to see emma-lee play at the rivoli:

consider coming out!

fin.

super bowl sunday

i'm starting to totally get into football, kids. it's such an intense sport! especially when you have a clear underdog/dramatic athletic success story like the saints going up against captain all american petyon manning (i absolutely HATE that name. it's like a made-up gossip girl name.) not only that, but the saints also have scott fujita on their team and he just might be the omega man.


berkeley educated with a poli-sci degree and a masters of education. vocal advocated for same-sex marriage, pro choice, and proud of his adopted japanese-american heritage. all in a totally alpha, thick-necked, fairly dreamy package. it's like the best of ALL worlds!



so we had jalepeno popper and nachos and because the dotytron can't tell the difference between a drumstick and a wing drumette, a mix of of wings and drumsticks, deep fried and lolling in a bath of equal parts butter and frank's red hot sauce. it was pretty effin' tasty, if i do say so myself. a finger-lickin' meal worthy of the lickin' the colts got at the hands of the saints. i missed the on-side kick but the security guards at work today explained it to me...dramas! we also ducked out on the who at the halftime show. carrie underwood looked pure, nascar, big-haired country-fried in her white bedazzled outfit. it aged her. she also got mad pitchy near the end of her overdrawn rendition of the "star spangled banner" but it still beats taylor swift at the grammys! i don't understand why people want to over-sing "the star spangled banner" - it's such a beautiful, rousing national anthem that's got so many peaks and valleys that it doesn't need much embellishment. unlike our national anthem, which is a sturdy, dull, mumbling little thing...the reliable, stoic, wallflower child in the class of national anthems that features the blustering bombast of "le marseillaise" and the pinched, rigid, imperialism of "god save the queen."

for sunday breakkie we had jimmy dean's maple sausage with over-easy eggs and rye toast.

for a super bowl dessert i made us fudgy chocolate brownies with ice cream and leftover bourbon toffee sauce. i love a good, fudgy brownie. i think a good portion of my baking career has been spent chasing a homemade replica of the brownie sundaes that used to be served in the dining room of a roadside howard johnson's on the long family drives to NYC from toronto, in the time before roadside food was annexed in the name of the unholy union of tim horton's pedestrian chili-in-a-bread-bowl and wendy's. there used to be some variance to road food or at the very least, there was someone manning the stoves in a kitchen behind the dining room façade. there was a kitchen! where there was turkey roasting for hot turkey sandwiches - real turkeys even if the accompanying side of vegetables was standard-issue frozen peas and carrots propping up a rapidly dissolving pat of butter (but that's a textbook hot turkey sandwich preparation - real turkey, white bread, fake gravy, fake veggies). le sigh.

where was i? i made valentine's treats for my colleagues. these coconut almond brownie bars. a thin, fudgy, brownie base topped with a lime-accented coconut topping. trimmed and cut into bars and then topped with a salted, roasted almond and coated in glaze. i was NOT happy with the glaze. i was expecting a hard, thick glaze that would coat the bars and turn them into a homemade bounty or almond joy or like a chocolate-coated petit four. the amount of cream and corn syrup in the glaze should have twigged me that it wouldn't work out as i had envisioned, or as the VERY MISLEADING MAGAZINE IMAGE depicted:

theirs...and mine:

next time, i'm just going to use a more straight-forward ganache or a tempered chocolate covering. the problem with the glaze in the recipe is that it's also extremely tacky and sticky - making for a messy eating experience. the coconut and brownie are tasty as all f**k so it's worth revisiting - it also makes a pant-load with a modicum of effort, although glazing individual petit fours approaches the upper limit of my sweets expenditure scale.

okay, that's enough outta me...i'm going to try to go have sexy dreams about scott fujita now.

fin.

2010

holy crap. look at those numbers in that subject line. 2010! this is the future! the future is now! isaac asimov, h. g. wells, arthur c. clarke, and all the grandfathers (and grandmothers, although admittedly, science/speculative fiction was primarily a dude's genre) of speculative fiction would be losing their minds at the wonders and glories of the 21st century. and yet, for all that, my favorite moments from the past two weeks spent in interweb and tech isolation are the ones spent with dear family and friends engaged in the simple, tactile pleasures that asimov et al would recognize all too well.

here's a brief rundown of what i've been up to.


xmas eve started with the best iteration of toad-in-the-whole i've pulled off yet. there is a certain gloriously transcendent je ne sais quoi about bread fried in a buttered pan that your garden variety buttered, toasted bread cannot ever approximate.

on xmas eve we went to momma and poppa d's and ordered indian food and played a redonkulously hard game or o.g. trivial pursuit (against the strenuous objections of emma-lee and myself - seriously, no one knows who won the oscar for best supporting actress in 1929!) then we went to see "up in the air." overall, i liked it - but i didn't love it. i kind of think it's overrated and the rave reviews are being unnaturally inflated because 2009 has been a particularly lackluster year for films, overall. don't get me wrong, it's quite good, and intermittently funny, but it doesn't make you think, per se. it's a character study about a man in transition - a man who flies from city to city as a downsizer-for-hire - delivering the news that bloated bureaucracies are too cowardly to impart and adroitly and deftly managing the inevitable emotional implosion of the objects. the man (played well by george clooney being george clooney), is detached, emotionally removed, preferring the rituals and social interactions of travel to real human connections.

as a commentary on the economic ravaging of america, i thought it was well executed - the quiet dignity it gives to towns that don't make the news very often - the omahas, the minneapolises, the kansas cities. the film tenderly puts a face to the realities of recession and the particular brand of detachment that allows a more fortunate person to remove another from engaging in their capitalistic pursuits and identities. i was less engaged with the emotional story of george clooney's epiphany. i thought anna kendrick was fabulous as the pert, eager, corporate shark in the making, and vera farmiga was exquisitely alluring as the thinking person's sex object. the directorial flourishes in the beginning i could have done without, but overall, it's a fine film. not one that i particularly want to revisit or consider brilliant, but well done nonetheless.


xmas morning saw me whipping together some panettone french toast and english bacon with the dotytron's family. we changed things around a bit. for the past 6 years, the tradition has generally been: wake up, mimosas, present opening for hours, late breakfast. this year, we decided to do breakfast first, then mimosas and present opening. it was a nice change as present opening takes a while and we're usually famished and then have to eat a giant turkey dinner shortly thereafter. i had panettone because the italian grocers i frequent did me a solid and helped me vac-pack some montreal smoked meat i picked up from schwartz's. in exchange, i offered to pay and was told to buy a panettone instead. it makes the BEST french toast. so custardy! the panettone soaks up the egg-milk mixture like you wouldn't believe...it's even richer than brioche french toast.


santa was super-generous with me. i got my big bag of salted pistachios and the blanca gomez print i wanted!!! and the beautiful leaves of canada print. assorted other goodies as well...a cute book and some much-needed stripy socks.

check out how cute emma-lee and the dotytron are in their snuggies! i searched (and by "i" i mean, my sis) high and low for the leopard print one after a chance sighting at a pharmacy in one of the towns near rochester the last time we were in geneseo. i should have bought it right then and there but i didn't...and then realized how perfect a leopard print snuggie would be for my outlaw sis. i'm so happy she loves it.

dinner was with momma d's sister, uncle jeff, cousin mark and cousin yeti and his lovely wifey. i made that caramel pecan banana upside down cake and we ate it with whipped cream.

that night we came home full of turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing (god, how i love stuffing). we homer'ed out on the couch and in a fit of frivolity ordered "julie and julia" on rogers on demand. UMMMM...did you know that you get that movie for like, HALF a millisecond? we watched like, 3/4 of it and when we tried to go back to it 2 days later it was GONE! what a scam! this movie was pants! i hated the book and i hated the film even more. don't get me wrong - the "julia" parts are great. julia child by way of meryl streep is engaging, self-deprecating, full of joie de vivre, and inspiring. julie powell by way of amy adams is a whining, miserable, complaining cow. she was like that in the book, too. totally undeserving of any fame she's garnered. the julie segments drag the whole movie down. i would have rather seen an entire movie based on the life of julia child.



the next day we packed up and hit up my family's xmas. it was a proper hootenanny, filled with movies, jokes, miss ramona's annual xmas post-dinner holiday play, karaoke on my bro chova's new ps3 singing game. i was feeling pretty down with a cold, but the dotytron, my sis and i came up with the following meal: roasted porchetta style pork (rubbed with fennel and lemon), pork cracklings, my sis' corn pudding, my corn pudding, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, fennel and potato gratin, and my mom's contribution was the non-thematically sound king crab legs. for dessert i made sticky toffee pudding with bourbon caramel sauce.

we saw "sherlock holmes" - the trailers DID NOT do this movie justice! i wasn't a fan of the guy ritchie flourishes during the fighting sequences, but RDJ can do no wrong, as far as i'm concerned. it was so entertaining and it was a nice update to the sherlock holmes cannon. the detective work is still there, there weren't many "cheap" action-movie hokey laughs - the writing and pacing was sharp and fluid. i really enjoyed the look of the film - the costumes were ace and the relationship between holmes and watson had a pleasant, exacerbated, bffs-for-life rhythm (my sis thinks there's a homoerotic subtext, which i think they should go balls-out on if there's going to be a sequel). we were all pleasantly surprised.

on monday we had little ze and miss ramona with us for an afternoon at the museum and then a sleepover. it was hilarious. the best lines of the day:

*in the car*
little ze: "RAMONA! RAMONA! LISTEN!!! RAMONNNNNNAAAA!!!"
miss ramona, exasperated, finally, "what"
little ze: "light bugs [lightning bugs] have lights. that come out of their butt."

*later in the car"
miss ramona: "little ze's brain is not very powerful."






LOL!!! those kids are hilarious. we had a good time at the museum. we went with H and that guy and sweet baby D. thank goodness they have a ROM family pass - we got to bypass the line and that was KEY. otherwise, it would have taken us 45 minutes just to get in!

the best thing about the museum is that everyone is exhausted by the end of it...the adults within 10 minutes of stepping foot inside the place, the kids came home, ate dinner and promptly slept for like, 12 hours. it was the best. what wasn't so the best was my nephew's fake vomit routine. he'll get up, say, "i have to go puke" and then go to the bathroom and grip the sides of the toilet like his life depends on it and hang his head WAAAAAAY into the bowl and do this awesome heavy-breathing routine for a good long while, and right when you, as the primary caregiver start to be ready to freak out, he pops his head up, fine as can be, and says, "no puke!" and goes about his merry way. for dinner i made them roasted tomato soup which they refused to try and grilled ham and cheese sammies. we supplemented ours with a croque hermaphrodite.

we bought each of them a book for bedtime stories. little ze's book was an alphabet animal book with glossy, high-res, arty shots of animals for each of the letters of the alphabet. i was trying to get miss ramona to practice learning to read by covering up parts of the word to see if she could identify her "sight" words that she's learning in school. the annoying thing about her is that she gets uber-lazy and stops trying and gives up. anyway, the word was "toucan" or something so i covered up the "tou" to get her to try to read "can." she started making the "c-c-c-" sound and out of nowhere, little ze stars piping up, "can. can can can can can. caaaaaaan. can can can can can!" he wouldn't stop! me and the dotytron looked at each other like, is he some kind of savant or something? with his not-very-powerful brain? lol! he did it for like, 2 minutes while miss ramona fake-tried to read. it was hilarious.


the next morning was the dotytron's big 3-0. i made us all belgian liege waffles for breakfast with pearl sugar brought by my friend LD who's living in brussels right now. the pearl sugar makes all the difference. we also had birthday bacon (which is regular bacon, served to someone on their birthday).


then we dropped off the kids, went grocery shopping for the farm and met up with the roomie, l'army, pingy (visiting from NYC) and I from montreal. we hung out for a bit and then went to the tulip for the dotytron's birthday dinner. the tulip has been around since 1929. i like it there. you get classic steakhouse/diner fare like liver and onions and veal parmigiana and steak tenderloin with green peppercorn sauce. you can ALSO get what i ordered, a 14oz prime rib, medium rare, au jus, with baked potato (or mashed, or french friend), vegetable, and salad with a scoop of complimentary ice cream...all for the bargain basement price of 20-odd dollars. like, seriously? are you for serious? it's so old skool! i love it! plus, i feel like it's on par with the keg, without the keg's exorbitant mark-up for mid-grade meat and execution. aces! i love me some pingy. she's living in this hilarious co-op house in brooklyn right now with a bunch of high-achieving grad students and lawyer-types and i'm dying to visit her.

after that, it was almost 4 days at the farm complete with a new year's eve party, nudity, and non-stop laughing. apparently, my american apparel training-bra isn't quite up to snuff. i'm not good at being a girl! lol! my attempts to "grow-out" my toenail polish colour was met with repulsion all around and was promptly fixed by a pedicure courtesy of the best damn hairstylist in all the world, smckay. i love the farm, so much. it's so much fun. we did a secret santa/yankee swap gift exchange and when the dust had settled, i had won me a SLANKET. zomg! if you think the snuggie is good, the slanket will literally knock your socks off. it's larger, so you can spoon and fit two people under there. it's made of a fluffier, softer, plusher material. it's got a kangaroo pouch AND little pockets for your feet! it's THE BEST INVENTION KNOWN TO MAN!

okay...i'm totally typed out. tomorrow i'll update you on date night with the dotytron, featuring one of my top flicks of 2009, "the fantastic mr. fox" and a belated birthday brunch with the dotytron's family at lady marmalade. it's like 7pm now and we're off to meet up with the roomie, l'army, and montreal I to watch "district 9" in their frigid house. guess what i'm bringing? it starts with an s and ends in "anket"

fin.