i'm growing up

okay...so i've decided, in a fit of maturity, that i'll try to be less venti latte all up on here. i'm feeling minor pangs of guilt for being so ranty about the poor roomie, when she really is a lovely, warm, loving, hippie flakebot of a grandma-teenager, who thinks it's appropriate to breastfeed until the child is 5 (!!!!!).

on the other hand...maybe i won't change. i mean, this is all stuff that i feel totally comfortable saying to the roomie in a face-to-face setting, albeit on here, it gets all tarted up for literary entertainment purposes and skewed to my perspective because, well...it's *my* blog, right? i kind of consider this place a dumping ground for various updates and life-related overflow and i think i keep stuff pretty context-specific (ie. i don't say that the roomie is a jerk...just that she can sometimes, in certain situations, do jerky things). i *think* most of the people who find their way here know that i'm not a total a-hole and know that i ratchet things up for dramatic effect but that i'm really a nice person in actions, if not so much in words. i dunno...i figure if the worst that can be said about her is that she's being weird about staying home to let in the plumber on her day off...then i think that in the grand scheme of things...not such a big deal. i think i feel a certain license because i know the roomie is internet and reading averse and wouldn't go trawling for info. i wouldn't ever talk smack about people i know who regularly appear here. i'm not really in the business of hurting people's feelings. i don't really consider it talking smack. i'm not like perez hilton (whom i despise). stuff happens, people come into my orbit, i make an assessment on the situation and comment on it. but i know i'm also pretty thick-skinned and reading stuff about how i acted like a wackjob on the interweb probably wouldn't bother me all that much, especially if it's someone whose opinion i discredited (and luckily for me, i discredit everyone who has an opinion that doesn't line up neatly with mine own. it's a fortuitous coincidence, that). i dunno...i'd like to think that i rarely do stuff to elicit rants from others. but maybe there are tonnes of blogs out there devoted to how weird i am for taking the time to knit stuff for (practically) strangers. let me take stock about how i feel about that. *pause* nope. doesn't ruffle my feathers in the least.

maybe i should include a disclaimer. here it goes: KARL LAGERFELD, ESQUIRE ACTUALLY LOVES HUMANITY IN ALL ITS WOBBLY, MUDDLED GLORY. better? COMMENTS INDICATING OTHERWISE ARE ALWAYS TEMPORALLY AND SPATIALLY CONTEXTUALIZED AND SHOULD ALWAYS BE TAKEN WITH THE CAVEAT THAT KARL LAGERFED, ESQUIRE UNDERSTANDS THAT MOST PEOPLE ARE GENUINELY KIND AND DECENT BUT WITH VARIOUS ECCENTRICITIES AND FOIBLES. THESE ADD TO THE TEXTURE AND WONDER OF LIFE.

okay...so i don't think i came to any resolution. other than that people (myself included) are wack and imperfect beings and i'll try to try to be a bit more judicious and circumspect in my renderings in the future. there.

in other non-related news: so far the rolling stones are winning, but by a slim margin. it's not a runaway. the us version of the stones' "between the buttons" album contains "ruby tuesday" which is a slightly unfair advantage, as far as songs go. no sooner had the recorder part started its' medieval fluttering behind mick's sonorous, doleful balladeering than me and the dotytron both shouted "FIVE!" the beatles' "in my life" is a very, very strong contender...but i really dislike "michelle" (the dotytron gave it high marks for a strong melody, but i find it treacly and asinine). we'll see how future listening sessions go...but i love a little sleaze in my rock and the beatles are very, very unsleazy.

today i have dodgeball after work. P might come and watch me play. if she does and if she has her car, then i'm going to try to convince her to go to ghandi's so we can have delicious rotis for dinner. if she doesn't come, then i think i'm going to order pizza nova for dinner or pizza of some variety as i've been craving it lately. when the dotytron and i were out and about yesterday we had the foresight to pick up a 4-pack of cinnabon cinnamon buns which will promptly be devoured for dessert. those things are MONDO but oh-so-delicious. exciting news is that P lives on long island and has extended an open invitation for us to visit her. the roomie isn't so big on new york city and has had a bad experience but i will GLADLY jump at the chance to spend a long weekend or four days in the big apple, especially with the prospect of a comfortable, friend-hosted place to lay my head. i hadn't really been planning on an nyc adventure any time soon, but with an open invitation extended, it would be remiss not to capitalize on it.

i'll throw up pictures of last night's burgers and mac salad when i get home. the burger was a beauty! 100% all beef, baby. that's all you need. and ace bakery burger buns don't hurt either. they're pretty elusive and rare, but i had the local grocery store special order them in for me.

fin.

astounding

we saw "wall*e" today. it is an astounding, astounding, film, and well-deserving of all the accolades its getting. it didn't start auspiciously. we had to wade through some terrible, terrible previews. derivative, overly precocious, asininely pop-cultured reference riddled, terrible, terrible stuff like "chihuahua in beverly hills" and "space chimps" definitely filled me with trepidation, but i should have had more faith in pixar. i loved "the incredibles" and really really liked "ratatouille" but this was just breathtaking.

the visual elements alone! the level of conceptualization and imagination required to pull together such a complex, intellectually engaging, dystopian reality and imbue the characters with such humanity and life is nothing short of a feat. it's one of the best exercises in speculative fiction that i've ever encountered. the decision to trim the majority of the talking to maybe 10 minutes only shows how adept the pixar crew are at writing and executing real, expressive characters. it's surprisingly dark. it's very, very funny. its references to popular culture and other science fiction before it are clever, well-timed, and cheekily apt. the film manages to transport you and keep you completely rapt from the first minute to the last. finally, the thing i like about pixar is that the writers always manage to strike the right moral/thematic tone. the mores and values in pixar films are always a fine negotiation between not accepting mediocrity, the individual, the power of imagination, the power of coming together, responsibility, community...basically everything i hold dear and near and believe represents the best that humans have to offer.

go see it! i want to see it again! the last few pixar films have really represented this gigantic leap forward. better than "toy story" better than "finding nemo" or even "monster's inc." these are sophisticated films. and if major studios could produce 10 of these a year and STOP giving the greenlight to "chihuahua in beverly hills" then we'd be all the better for it.

last night's dinner was good, but could use some tweaking. i brined the chicken in a buttermilk brine first. that resulted in juicy, flavourful flesh. but i also salted the seasoning flour, which resulted in slightly over-salty chicken. the coleslaw was really good. and the biscuits were flaky, but a little tough. i'm going to use all pastry flour next time with a similar technique (this one had you layer and fold the biscuit dough with softened butter and create "turns" similar to making puff pastry) and see if the biscuits are a little more tender. the lemon meringue pie though, was my piece de resistance. no weeping! i could have par-baked the crust for maybe 5 more minutes...but the lemon was puckery and tart and the meringue was a majestic cloud of non-weepy, foamy, burnished goodness. we sat and chatted and talked and bwong brought over cheeses and pure 100% chocolate for us to taste and then went off on a rescue mission. me and the dotytron went to bed around midnight, and the roomie, P and the roomie's friend M went to cutty's hideaway on the danforth, where they have a live reggae band and the roomie said it was pretty hype. she kind of sometimes has wacky ideas about stuff, so i take her opinion with reservations. but i'll definitely go and check it out sometime...as live reggae in a place called "cutty's hideaway" frequented mostly by reggae aficionados of a certain age dressed in their sunday best is very appealing.

this morning we met A & C at saving grace on dundas west for breakfast. we showed up for 10:00am, right when they opened...and there were already people milling about waiting for them to open! it's crazy! throughout the breakfast there was a steady stream of people lining up to put their names on a clipboard. the queue was constant and lengthy. i had the old cheddar, avocado, tomato and lettuce (sometimes served with bacon, but they were out today) on toasted cinnamon raisin bread, served with mixed greens (first picture). i also ordered a side chipotle sausage. this sandwich was quite nice, and may have brought me around on cinnamon raisin bread. however! i was expecting a panini, with melted cheese. it was tasty and pretty satisfying. i didn't eat my mixed greens (the dotytron and i ate half and then swapped plates). it was $8. minus points for being out of bacon. the dotytron got the scrambled eggs of the day, which came topped with a scallion-ginger pesto, asparagus, avocado, and hot capicolla, sided with buttered, warmed baguette and homefries. he also got a side of breakfast sausage. this was also pretty yummy, with extra points for the inventiveness of the ginger scallion pesto. the homefries were nicely salted, but kind of flaccid and under-crisped. A got the waffles, which came with peaches, and raspberry butter, also with an extra side of chipotle sausage. C got the frittata which had gouda, corn, and pumpkin. C's frittata was exceptionally nice, with the sweetness and crunch of the corn adding a textural counterpoint to the creamy eggs. overall, i'd go back. but i found the price point a *little* high and i certainly wouldn't wait in line like a chump. the stuff was a little different from the ordinary, but served in a bare-bones, no frills atmosphere on a pretty desolate strip of dundas, regardless of what breathless real estate agents and "toronto life" would have you believe.

we're continuing our great "beatles versus stones" listening session. we went and picked up two albums. we're slowly working our way through the catalogue. we go to a second-hand record shop and pick up one stones album and a roughly contemporaneous beatles album and do a side by side comparison, rating the songs on a scale of 1 to 5. we'll see who comes out on top! i love these sundays with the dotytron in the summer...more than most things in the world. i love when we can hang out together all day and have nothing we *have* to do. it's so nice and private and fun.

tonight for dinnie i'm making burgers with horseradish mayo and cheddar cheese. with macaroni salad (dinosaur bbq recipe) and more lemon meringue pie for dessert. maybe a radish, cucumber, and dill salad alongside.

fin.

stranger things have happened...

right? right?

so get this. on thursday, i went for a run at lunch. as i was doing my post-run stretching (or my reasonable approximation thereof, cobbled together from yoga positions that feel good and are focused on the hamstrings), this guy gets up of this bench close by and ambles towards me and asks me how far i run. so i tell him, "oh, just 3 times around...it's a little less than 5km" and he goes, "well, i'd like to get back into running, and i just live over at harbord and huron [is huron a real street?!??], so i'll give you my number so if you want a running buddy you can give me a call." at this point, i'm on major HOBO ALERT. so i go, "don't you work?" and he's like, "yeah i work downtown" so i go "ummm...but you're available to go running in the midday?" and he's like, "yeah, i usually have mornings and early afternoons off" WHAT KIND OF JOB IS THAT? anyway, i took the scrap of newspaper he had written his name and number on (the name is "john" btw). totally fishy. and i know i would NEVER, IN A MILLION YEARS CALL A RANDOM DUDE (even though he wasn't NOT attractive) (whatever happened to email?), but at the same time, a part of me is wondering if i'm being scaredy-cat city girl. more realistically, a part of me is wondering if maybe he's really a billionaire oil tycoon and being running buddies would be the launchpad for him becoming my patron and buying me a house in downtown toronto. but that doesn't happen, right? what are the odds that some random queen's park bench-loafer is actually a really nice, decent, cool, funny dude that i could become bosom buddies with? slim to none. but WHAT IF HE'S AN OIL TYCOON?!??!

i skipped out on yoga on thursday because the roomie's good friend P from long island is in town for a visit and i'd much rather hang with her. i also stopped off at my colleague E's house to visit with her and her squishy little baby and give her some food i made so that they could have a home-cooked dinner.

last night we took it easy and loafed at home...the roomie (who has the weekend off) and P didn't really want to go out. we ate dinner and then sat in the backyard talking until our eyelids started drooping and the night air lulled us to sleep. we didn't end up going to see sean paul and akon last night...which is kind of disappointing. i mean...that concert was kind of guaranteed to be dance-fest 2020. i wish they had sold lawn seats. it's kind of hard dancing in the seats at molson amphitheatre. anyway, i'm kind of bummed about it because "i want to f**k you" is only the best song ever. and don't even get me STARTED on sean da paul. he's got the right temperature to shelter me from the storm. nuff said.

on thursday i made sammies out of the leftover brisket. i sliced it up, mixed prepared horseradish with mayonnaise and added cheddar cheese and provolone and threw the whole mess in a kaiser and from there into the panini machine. i also made a salad of celery, red pepper, cucumber and scallions in a mint-cumin dressing. so crunchy and fresh!

last night i made that lentil, pancetta, baby spinach and fried goat cheese salad. with crostinis. and the last of that orange hazelnut tart for dessert. i kind of wanted to go see z-trip, but it was $25 (in advance, more at the door) alongside a bunch of punks i don't care about...and that's a tough call. it was probably guaranteed to be less of a dance-fest than akon and sean da paul. this weekend and the next are the only two that i have (relatively) free before summer explodes on my ass in a maelstrom of trips-to-rochester-cottage-wedding-bachelorette-visiting-friends. i'm knitting this thing right now...and the sick thing is: i'm TOTALLY OBSESSED. it's all i want to do. i think about it at work and i'm kind of hoping that whatever social engagements i do have can be manipulated to account for me being stationary enough to work on it. i haven't had this in a while. i keep staying up past my bedtime, trying to coax a few more rows out of my rapidly cramping and stiffening fingers, battling my heavy eyelids and stupid distractions like, oh, i don't know, having a conversation with my life partner. this pattern offers a LOT of joy in that it grows really fast so you see results and the simplicity of the pattern belies how intricate and pretty the resulting fabric is. eek! i'm in love!

i had an incredibly frustrating and aggravating lunch with my bio-dad yesterday. the hard thing is...the guy's such an infuriating schmuck but i can't stay mad at him (i actually have a hard time staying mad at most people...so tender are my heartstrings. technically my anger tends to explode in a rant-y supernova and then fizzle out and disappear in a poof of dust. gone. forgotten. done.). i think it's because he's getting on in years...and he's chinese (duh) so he's barreling towards landing smack-dab in the middle of my ultra-desirable, unimpeachable, empathy-inducing demographic.

today i'm doing some errands, going for a run, maybe playing a round of no-rules tennis with P. then i'm heading out to meet my friend H and hang with her and J and their baby D. then homeward bound, for some more experimentation in al fresco deep frying. bwong's coming over. we're having a southern feast of buttermilk-brined fried chicken, angel biscuits, coleslaw, and lemon meringue pie. tasty!

we might go dancing tonight if we can find something worth going to. there's a few things going on that seem like they might be fun. we'll see. i'm content to just hang and talk in the backyard all night and get a full night's worth of sleep.

fin.

mall rat

i met up with dr. rei after work today and we went to the mall. her cuz S was supposed to meet us but was running on iran-time and thus it didn't work out. we ate dinner at this lebanese place called "milo's ___" (i forget) which is in a really nice, not skeevy food court on the third floor of the new theatre/adidas complex at the north-east corner of yonge and dundas. it was solid! i got a falafel sandwich combo (meetings with dr. rei are turning into falafel-fest lately) which was plussed up with tabbouleh AND hummous inside and a side chickpea salad. it was delicious and fresh and very healthy for food court fare. this isn't to say that i almost went down in a ball of harvey's poutine flames...but i resisted. the food court tugged at my heartstrings. it's all tucked away and OF COURSE all the establishments are run by hard-working minorities, who pull and worry at my heartstrings like few other things in this world.

h&m was having a sale and so i got this marimekko beauty that i've been eying (truth be told, i would have preferred the fuchsia/orange combo instead) i love it! it was half off by now, we ALL know how much i love looking like a crazed nicole richie/hippie/mrs. roper in free flowing dresses that could mask me carrying quintuplets. it's very sheer and light and flows and drapes beautifully and makes me look both tall AND like i'm swanning away my summer on a terrace of a villa on the amalfi coast (not a bad life). dr. rei got a proper lady cardigan, which makes her look sophisticated and urbane and like a member of the gentrified intelligentsia, like she swans away her summers smoking gauloises in paris drinking rose and buying hermes scarves. our style meets somewhere in the middle at shirt dresses, which manage to be simultaneously playful and youthful (for me) and with a structured cut and ladylike (for her). i also found the white pants i've been searching my whole life (well, two summers) for. trouser cut, low rise, fitted in the leg with a very flattering flare in a heavy enough denim weight so that you can't figure out the colour of my drawers. there's something so crisp about white with a wide, woven leather belt (good thing i purchased just the thing in ital-towns!).

so...on saturday we invited our friends (a couple) over for an impromptu dinner. i came up with the antipasti idea on the fly and went out and supplemented the zucchini blossoms with purchases of buffalo mozzarella and charcuterie. i got home and was elbow deep in cooking when i got a phone call telling us that they had just found out about a bbq hosted by another friend of the dotytron's who we don't see barely ever (but that the couple has remained in close contact with). so they suggested that we move the operation over there and we (the dotytron and i) crash the bbq. i wasn't too keen on that (plus i wanted to eat those zucchini blossoms) so i assured them that it was okay and we'd catch up with them another time. no biggie, but we got ditched. straight up. but maybe because i was pmsing...i got a little depressed about it. and then i got all "i have no friends" and "nobody likes us" and a little head-wonky about it. luckily i've snapped out of it and today, with dr. rei, came again to the realization that when it comes to friends, i suffer from the proverbial embarrassment of riches. the people i have in my life, while not mighty in number, make up for it by being so special, amazing, unique and one-in-a-million that i'm awestruck with my good fortune. i'm lucky and blessed. how did dr. rei and i find each other in this crazy, workaday world? how is it that we've only been friends with bwong for LESS THAN A YEAR and it feels like it's been forever?! no one has as awesome a family as mine (both blood and adopted) and when i think about how much fun i'm having, i wouldn't trade it for all the ziggy's potato salad bbqs in the universe.

okay. subject change alert. tell me if this is crazy or not. so, we have an ongoing plumbing problem in the house, with tree roots growing into one of the out pipes. this causes the toilet to make this glugging sound...and it's semi-serious...because when large volumes of water hit the pipes, the tree roots block it from being whooshed away...so it's kind of slow...and it *could* result in a backup. the landlord came and did a half-assed job fixing it...but it really requires a plumber to come in and smash up some of the tiles outside the bathroom and take the pipe out and replace it. it's a half day job. we've been trying to get it done since like, march. it didn't work out but the landlord found a new guy, so i called and tried to arrange a time for him to come and do this half day thing.

now, i don't know about you, but when work people are coming to the house to do stuff, i like to have someone here. the dotytron feels the same way. i mean, i guess it's different if you're getting extensive renovations done, because that takes a long time and you can't take months off of work, but in that case, i figure the contractor stands in for you. if it's like, rogers or bell or the plumber, then i want someone there. so, the dude doesn't want to work on weekends. now, the roomie has every other weekend off, from thursday at 6pm until monday at 6pm. so i suggested a friday when i knew she'd have it off. i told the guy i'd check and get back to him.

so i asked the roomie last night and she goes, "but that's my weekend off"
and i say, "well, it's only friday for half a day"
and she goes, "but my [our] friend I is coming into town"
so i say, "okay, i can do it two weekends after that"
and THEN she says, "well, i don't really care if someone is here or not when the plumber is here"
and i say, "yeah, but the dotytron and i would prefer someone to be here"
and she says, "well since i'm the one who doesn't care, i don't want to spend my day off waiting around the house. i don't know what i'd want to do that day"

ummmm...SO I'M KIND OF FREAKIN' ANNOYED. is that justified? here's my rationale:
a) NOBODY WANTS TO SPEND THEIR DAY OFF WAITING FOR SERVICE PEOPLE. but does it make sense for me or the dotytron to do it and then miss a PAID day of work, or does it make sense for someone who CONSISTENTLY has a friday and monday off to do it?
b) aren't we living communally? isn't that what quasi-hippie midwives are supposed to be all about? IT'S NOT JUST YOU. like, how is it MY problem to find someone to come in and arrange a time to fix OUR toilet? don't you care? couldn't i just as easily say: "well, i don't care if maggots take over our fridge, so if it doesn't bother me, then too bad"
c) i feel like i'm the one who takes care of this administrative house stuff and she gets to capitalize on it and it's bogus. what do we all do on our days off? i mop the floor, the dotytron goes grocery shopping, we do the stuff we need to do to have lives. i'm sorry, but when you're pushing 30 (or have pushed 30) you don't have the luxury of doing the teenage carefree leisure all the time on weekend business.
d) i feel like there's an undercurrent of her misreading me at play here. i also feel like if it was one of her friends asking her, she would do it (case in point: she's going over on her day off this week to walk the dog of the rude friends who had the boring baby shower and just had the baby they refuse to send an email announcement for).

anyway...i think it's annoying and we're having a house meeting. because i also feel like if the dotytron had asked...it wouldn't have been an issue. gah! okay...i'm done venting. she really is a lovely, warm person...but like everyone (myself included) she's capable of being a jerk sometimes. that's fine. but it's one thing to always call ME on being mean and harsh and whathaveyou and not take ownership of when you do it yourself.

fin.

absenteeism

i forgot to mention that on saturday evening, when we were talking about our wonderland plans with the roomie, bwong, and J, the roomie (who is a HUGE rollercoaster/wonderland fan) asked us if we were going to go on "the bohemian." this resulted in hilarious speculation about what a rollercoaster called "the bohemian" could possibly entail. we guessed stuff like, as the car rolls by, people cut holes in your clothes, as you enter a dark tunnel, a crouching figure descends from the ceiling and starts reading "howl."
hi-larious.

for dinner tonight i made an eggplant, tomato, and basil pasta. with an italian "chopped" salad consisting of: red leaf lettuce, iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, olives, cubes of buffalo mozzarella, and strips of hot genoa salami - all dressed in a red wine vinaigrette. it's like a sandwich salad. it was kind of amazing.

in other news: "meatballs" is an amazing movie. why don't they make them like that anymore?

in other other news: i might be going to the sean paul (!), akon (!!) and wyclef (!!!) concert at molson amphitheatre on thursday evening. hello!

fin.

sometimes you don't know what you want

until fate intervenes. the other night we were watching some music video count down on much more music (is there anything tracy melchor does OTHER than count backwards in skimpy outfits and over-teased hair?!?) and p.e.'s "fight the power" came on. i off-handedly said, "i want one of those l.a. raiders jackets" and no sooner had the words fallen from my lips when i realized that I'VE NEVER SPOKEN ANYTHING MORE TRUE or that SPEAKS TO MY INNERMOST YEARNINGS more. i really DO want one of those old skool l.a. raiders jackets. desperately. if i get one, the dotytron says he's going to get one of those similar jackets from the same era that had the continent of africa on it in red, green and gold (p)leather. i also want one of those cloth hats with the flap that protects the back of your neck from canada's wonderland. in an ideal world, it would be the ones they released in support of the bat or the vortex. i've started scouring ebay to no avail. le sigh.

tonight i made a mish-mash of a salad that was a cool, delicious, and healthy respite both from the humidity blanketing toronto in a wet-wool-comforter-in-a-sauna oppressiveness AND from the number i did on my colon at canada's wonderland yesterday. holy crap the food there is holy crap. the salad consists of baby spinach, chickpeas, bulghur, bulgarian feta, sliced cucumber, avocado chunks, sliced shallot, chunks of just-hard boiled egg, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. it was amazing. lots of great texture and intensely satisfying.

now i'm off to play dodgeball...but really...all i want to do is work on my new knitting project. it's taken me by storm.

fin.

it pays to have foodie friends

...that show up on your doorstep bearing burrata gifts. from wikipedia: "Burrata is a fresh Italian cheese, made from mozzarella and cream. The outer shell is solid mozzarella while the inside contains both mozzarella and cream, giving it a unique soft texture. It is usually served fresh, at room temperature. Burrata, once only packaged in leaves, is nowadays wrapped in a plastic sheet, sometimes printed with a leaves pattern on the outside. Even so, the tradition of having a wrapper of asphodel leaves (leeks) is still followed, even if only covering outside the plastic. The leaves are indicators of the freshness of the Burrata; as long as the leaves are green, the cheese within is still fresh and ready to ooze out. The name "burrata" means "buttered" in Italian."

last night i ended up doing a antipasto meal al fresco. we were supposed to have two friends over for dinnie but they bailed. bwong came over and then my friend J showed up with the aforementioned burrata and tomatoes and basil, which he turned into a lovely caprese salad. i've had burrata twice before. once at canoe, where it came wrapped in leaves and the other time one the buffalo mozzarella tasting plate at this mozzarella bar called obika in rome. i'm obsessed with it. it's the creamiest, softest, sweetest cheese on earth.

i made deep fried zucchini blossom fritters, stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella, lemon zest, basil and mint, and battered and deep fried. i should have gone with a tempura batter. the beer batter was a little thick and not lacy enough. i also did those stuffed roasted peppers which were FANTASTIC. another win for old supervisor T. i had a charcuterie plate of proscuitto, sweet capicollo, a dry sausage and some guanciale; olives, and a ball of buffalo mozzarella that i served with an orange marmalade from italy. yum! i was kind of meat and cheese drunk by the end of it. for dessert i made an orange curd tart in a hazelnut crust which tasted like an orange creamsicle. i really enjoyed that dessert. it's nice cold...but even nicer slightly frozen. we also did some experimenting with the deep fryer. (i hauled it outside and it was awesome). we battered and deep fried the following: oreos (doesn't really improve them), twix (ditto), toblerone (deep fried is quite nice), wunderbar (deep fried also is quite nice), peanut butter cups (deep fryer obliterates them), and kinder surprise buenos (deep frying is decent, but au natural is still better).

it was a lovely evening spent outside in the backyard. today i'm up fairly early for a sunday and am in my skanky best (flimsy halter top, denim cut-offs) to spend the day at wonderland with my k-w-g-tdot crew. i'm so excited! the dotytron has lots of nostalgia for being at wonderland with a scantily clad girlfriend (something i don't think he got to experience in high school), so whenever i'm dressing myself for a wonderland outing, he's MORE than encouraging of me landing this side of slightly age-inappropriate. funnel cakes and foot long hot dogs, here i come! the behemoth looks crazy...i'm pumped (and filled with silent terror).

*edit*

so i didn't get a chance to finish posting before i was whisked away by A & C in their slick new automobile to the wonderest of wonderlands. allow me to first say this: as skanky as i thought i was, i was NO match for the lascivious depths that wanton teenagers are willing to plumb. when i was in high school, there was NO WAY IN HELL that i would have worn underwear shorts with my bum hanging out and a bikini top all day where people would see me. oh hells no. i remember vividly that the first time i showed a little flesh was when i wore a lavender tank top with about 1/2" straps to art class one day (they were 2 for $20 at like, stitches or some s**t) and i almost barfed. i was so noticeably awkward that my art class friend, A (the dotytron's first gf, actually), kindly took notice on me and said, "you don't usually wear that kind of thing, do you?" and when i said no, she was really nice and said, "i can tell. you look nervous. you look fine." before that point it was extra large tshirts or large if i was feeling sassy. anyway, girls nowadays may or may not be sluts, but they sure do dress like it. end of story.

but not! because the behemoth is awesome slash terrifying. we also went on the minebuster close to the end of the evening and by comparison, the behemoth is the butteriest ride ever, whereas the minebuster is like rubbing sunburnt skin against a cat post wrapped in sisal. it's the bumpiest, gankiest ride ever. no more! we were there for a little shy of 12 full hours and definitely got our monies worth. we hit the stunt car one, vortex, the fly, top gun, tomb raider (i only know the names of the rides prior to paramount realizing that the amusement park game is a loser's bet), the sponge bob square pants virtual reality 3d business, psyclone, sledgehammer, wild nightmares, this spin-twirl thing i forget the name of...we ran tings. the company was great. the circle of sharing and honesty was everything you want the sharing circle to be. the food was a zillion dollars and profoundly unsatisfying...basically, it was your prototypical wonderland experience. aces!

now i've managed to shower the filth of my day off my body and i'm eagerly waiting for the moment when my hair is dry enough to smush down under my clean sheets. the dotytron has planned that we're going to watch "meatballs" until we fall asleep. regular readers of this blog know that one of my favorite pre-bed activities is to spend my last conscious minutes terrorizing the dotytron's. this lately has involved the following.

*whispered falsetto*

"look at the staaaars/see how they shiiine foooor yoooouuuu/and all the things yoouuu dooo/wearealll mrwawwwwwwwww"

dotytron, with tears streaming down his face, finds it in the depths of his manly resolve to interject: "isn't it 'we are all yellow?'"

"shut up! this is MY song"

*repeat x a billion*

fin.

the longest week ever

is finally drawing to a close! mid-week statutory holidays are a bust, lemme tells you. you don't get the feeling of having a proper long weekend, you have to come back to work (wednesday felt like such a monday.)  add to it that my workload increased exponentially and i'm ready to embrace two days of sleeping in (kinda) and business casual-free tomfoolery.

yoga class yesterday was really, really good. the perfect balance. i really like this teacher. his name is sebastian. he pushes us pretty hard, but there's enough time to really breathe into the stretches and feel yourself sinking into the postures, without it being a cardio workout. it's a great pace and i'm learning lots of new moves. i come out of it gleaming with a thin veil of sweat, but not perspiring heavily. because this is the last class of the evening, the class size is perfect, too; usually averaging between 5-7 people, so the teacher can come around and correct your postures. i'm totally hooked and it works into my schedule perfectly. the dotytron works late on thursdays and i have enough time to come home, make a nice dinner, and go to class and come home all loose and languid and unwound. now that dodgeball is moving to mondays, i can also start going to sunday classes too! two yoga classes a week in addition to my home practicing and running is the perfect amount. the outdoor pools are open so i might start going for swims...yay to working full time! i LOVE it! look at me, being able to go to adult lane swims!

recently i finished reading the following comics: "big baby" by charles burns, "skin deep" by charles burns, and "aya" by marguerite abouet and clement oubrerie. by now, i know what to expect from charles burns. macabre, grotesque, mysterious and pulpy stores laced with the seedy, alien, hidden underbelly of american life. these two books are collections consisting of 3 short comics each. "big baby" features the titular character, a child with an active imagination who comes in contact with mole people, a wife abuser, ghosts, and plagues that strike sexually active teenagers. all that being said, the "big baby" stories were less fantastical and had less of an evil truly malignant tone than the stories in "skin deep" (probably because they featured a child's point of view). "skin deep" is much more dark (featuring appearances by the devil! and a woman trapped in a woman's body!). i really enjoy his drawings and the references he makes to the science fiction and pulp novels of the 50s and 60s.

"aya" is kind of boring and doesn't have much of a story, but it gives you a snapshot of life as a middle-class person in the cote d'ivoire during its economic boom, which is a side of africa we rarely, if ever, see in the west. otherwise, it's very, very slight. the woman who wrote it didn't do the illustrations, so at that point, it's kind of like, well...what DID you do? because the story isn't much at all. it's getting rave (and i think undeserved) reviews for what it is.

last night for dinner (i'm writing this saturday morning) i made a swiss chard, chili, roasted garlic and ricotta salata pasta with a salad of red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and shallots in a mustard dill dressing. i also made homemade ice cream sandwiches, using a recipe that gives you the same kind of cookie consistency as those cheap, $1, ice cream sandwiches you get from the convenience store. aces! those things are my favorite and i'm capable of eating an ungodly amount of them. i overcooked the cookie slightly, as i didn't account for the carryover cooking crisping them up (they seemed too soft so i left them in a little longer than stated, and then they got too crispy and weren't soft/chewy enough).

this is the BEST summer so far. i love the weather for downtown toronto. some people are griping that it's too cool, but i absolutely adore it. it's warm enough to wear a dress during the day, with no humidity, and then it cools down enough at night so that you want to wear a thin layer over your shorts and t-shirt. perfect. and it's amazing for running. we sat out in the backyard after dinner, me knitting, the dotytron studying for his geoscience exam and ate it up. ate up our dinner, then the dusk, the fat drunken bumblebees buzzing around our garden (which is having a break-out year of gloriousness), the sounds of the ice cream truck and the gravelly rumble of kids' plastic trike tires running up and down the street. laughter and far off screaming and screen doors slamming shut and the smell of barbecue in the air. i love my backyard i love this weather and i love this summer so far. i love that we can enjoy it outside instead of running inside to air conditioned havens to save ourselves from oppressive humidity.

today is a day of errands and cooking and knitting outside. it's also the beats breaks and culture thing at the harbourfront. thunderheist is playing for free and so is crystal castles, but the dotytron hates that stuff so i'm not sure if we're going to go. we might just have dinner here and then bike down to the beaches and hang out there, or just play frisbee in the park with some friends. i'm getting a shipment of zucchini blossoms today so i'm doing a whole meal of antipasti. stuffed, battered and fried zucchini blossoms. this thing that my old supervisor T told me about where you take roasted peppers and stuff them with proscuitto and provolone, bread them and deep fry them. a grilled eggplant, zucchini and basil salad with some crumbled goat's cheese and balsamic. some cheese and crackers and italian cold cuts. cold cocktails and water and an orange curd tart in a hazelnut crust for dessert.

doesn't summer seem endless right now?

fin.

the wackness the wackness

wa-wa-wa-wa-wackness. it was aight. i'm glad i didn't pay for it (i'd be glad if i didn't pay for a LOT of movies i ended up seeing actually). it's a classic bildungsroman (that's coming-of-age story for you non-english lit types) of the teenage variety that unfolds over a hot and sweaty summer in nyc in the halcyon days of 1994. when the tunes were hype, giuliani was cleaning up the streets, and our protagonist, luke shapiro, is trying to suss out love, life, depression, and family, all while selling pot out of his pushcart. it's was a little *too* melodramatic for me, with luke's older counterpoint (an exceptionally stringy, swarthy and rumpled ben kingsley as a shrink who trades psychotherapy sessions for pot) taking up a bit too much air time and a few too many debaucherous drug montages. i think it would have been better if they kept it simple. luke is unpopular, falls in love with stephanie (ben kingsley's stepdaughter, played by a long-locked and coltish olivia thirlby), stephanie is bored and breaks his heart, the end. it was a sweet story that dragged a bit, but it wasn't a waste of time.

the best part of the movie was probably method man doing his version of a kardinal offishall impression and rinsing one of the most egregious jamaican accents this side of dr. rei's. i bet it was meth's idea to "stretch" himself as an actor. bad call, meth! bad call! the second best part of the movie was that me and dr. rei found ourselves sitting next to a trio of virgin boys who could knew luke's pain all too well. they were pretty vocal with their advice during the movie, "don't do it man, don't do it man, don't do it man" (when luke is about to tell stephanie that he loves her) and it was pretty hilarious. the third best thing was the soundtrack. the fourth best thing was that everyone was obviously there on these free preview passes, and somehow, there were more than a few old couples (like, full on white-hair, stooped, and sensible nursing shoes style) who found themselves in the theatre. it was great!

the thing that ruined it for me more than anything was that the lead actor looks like this guy i dated whom i'm incredibly grossed out by now. we call it "having a touch of the chatz". this guy had more than a touch of the chatz and it was hard to watch.





tonight for dinner i made a pasta with chopped up scapes (garlic tops) sauteed in chili oil from T's chilies. i added in thinly sliced rounds of baby yellow and green zucchini and tossed everything with egg noodles cooked al dente.
i topped it with a poached egg and it was glorious. absolutely, utterly, glorious. summer in a bowl. on the side i made that tomato watermelon feta mint preserved lemon salad that i've been going buck for. it's so good. also summer in a bowl. so really, for dinner, i had two bowls of summer.

and now i'm going to go to a yoga class and hope and pray that i won't have to lie and talk about my bum chakras. pleasepleaseplease no bum chakras tonight, s'il vous plait.

fin.

the butterfly effect

according to karl lagerfeld, esquire, as explained to one dr. rei, m.d.: "the butterfly effect is when a butterfly flaps it's wings in china and bill gates cries somewhere else." lol! that was one of the many pearls of wisdom and laughter that was dropped last night.

first, bwong regaled us with tales of his adventures in falconry (!) at greenbrier resort, in west virginia. btw, bwong also showed up looking like a cross between the great gatsby/james spader circa "pretty in pink" (think: white blazer, seersucker pants, collared pale blue shirt, sparkling white shoes). this inevitably lead us to make jokes about his falcon bride, in its little falcon wedding dress, with bwong feeding it cake and sending it on a mission to get bitters. "bitters, go!" *falcon screeches into the echoing air*

it rapidly digressed from there. we talked about quintessentially "cool" musicians and there was some spirited debate around that. thom yorke was broached as a possible modern quintessentially cool musician by our friend A, because of his wonky eye. my reply: "yeah but...he WORKS that wonky eye. he owns that s**t." we talked about how my worst nightmare is two things: when dr. rei spins off into one of her hip hop (read: wu-tang) reveries (which inevitably last a minimum of 2 hours, is ENTIRELY an externalized internal monologue, and tends to proceed regardless of whether people are actually paying attention or not) (in her defense, dr. rei's textbook passion for stuff is quite infectious and cute), and tam tam in montreal. i actually HATE tam tam in montreal. i hate disorganized "drum circles". we talked about how i only trust two people in this world: myself and wyclef jean. we talked about how dr. rei is coming around (slowly) on africa (the continent and its' musicians) and how sean de paul is the best non-guilty guilty pleasure ever. we talked about how the high school girl's dog was (or wasn't) doing "yoga". i contend that dogs don't do "yoga". that would be like saying, "that dog is practicing the hegelian master-slave dialectic". the high school girl and the roomie (of course!) gave me the, "well, how do you KNOW the dog isn't doing yoga?" line that people who have inappropriate relationships with god's creatures usually take. i think it's bunk. to me, that's like saying that the dog is "practicing" chemical engineering or any other human-made construct. we talked about dr. rei's belief that the kids nowadays are running rampant in the streets doing mad drugs. we basically just talked and laughed a lot in the sharing circle of honesty, which is one of my favorite ways to spend any evening. talking and laughing into the night surrounded by good food, drink, and company.

the high school girl was pleasant and very nice...but kind of humourless. or rather, possessing of a much much MUCH different frame of reference and sensibility than the company that i usually keep. i don't know what it is, but there's this thing of girls from markham district high school being humourless and very earnest. it's not the best combination. it's kind of like being stupid AND dumb. that's the worst combo ever, imo. anyway, of COURSE she brought her dog with her, which OF COURSE she rescued from a life of prositution (i think) in africa, when she was doing development work in tanzania (!). she's also...wait for it...a teacher. and she hates wal-mart. and when she found out i was a librarian, talked about how librarians are so awesome because the kids in her class just "google everything" and she has to show them about books and indexes and how you can "actually find out information in books." so basically, she's my EXACT OPPOSITE. i don't understand how people can allow themselves to be so typical and like, walking cliches. no nuance! no context! so misguided and misdirected! next you're going to give me the line that you "don't watch tv" because "tv changes your brain patterns" or something equally unfounded and inane. or that you "hate america". *rolleyesdotbarfdotgif*. she's fine, really. just easy to peg down. and i was really nice to her, i swear! i'm actually a nice person! i swear! and her and our friend B brought stuff to the 'cue, which is never expected (not for nothing do i run the "house of plenty", but always appreciated.

the dotytron and i played "no rules" tennis in the morning which worked out pretty well, but my forearm got a little sore. i love playing sports/doing activities with the dotytron. it's always a billion times more fun.

everything i've read says to smoke the meat until it hits an internal temperature of 185F. our brisket plateaued at around 158 for about FOUR HOURS. yes, FOUR HOURS. it's normal to hit a wall because the energy is being directed at breaking down the connective tissues and denaturing the protein and blah blah blah. at 6pm, the meat had climbed to 162F and had been holding at that for an hour. so i said, you know what? i'm effin' hungry! so we pulled the meat out, i wrapped it in foil, and while it was maybe not quite at the point where you could cut it with a spoon, or look at it and have it fall apart, it was still pretty effin' tender and tasty with my chipotle bbq sauce spooned over. the strawberry pie was lovely...an absolute winner, but the lemon chess pie was only so-so. coleslaw went well, cornbread was a smash hit (i always use the same recipe and like a truth north-of-the-mason-dixon-er, i like my cornbread on the sweet side). i nixed the watermelon and tomato salad because i thought we had enough food and we were all stuffed.

we ended the night by shooting fireworks off at withrow park, while dr. rei cowered on the far fringes of the group, protecting her one good eye.

fun!

tonight was my free advance screening of "the wackness." full review to follow tomorrow when i have more time. i had a falafel at ghazale's for dinner. i got them to put tabbouleh in it, cuz that's how i roll.

fin.

good morning in the morning!

it's 9am. we've been up since 6am, because well...that's what you do when you're the pit boss. we put the brisket in and have it set at a steady 200F, where it will remain until 6pm or so. now we're off to play tennis. it's shaping up to be a perfectly lovely day *crosses fingers*.

today is canada day. to celebrate, we're having a southern bbq. ha! (sorry canada, your food kinda sucks, sometimes).

may i present, the menu:

deviled eggs (of course)
olives (not so southern, but necessary nibblies)
cheese and crackers (ibid)
texas brisket with my chipotle bbq sauce
corn bread
cole slaw
tomato and watermelon salad with feta, mint, and preserved lemon (southern-ish, but i'm kind of obsessed with this salad right now)

lemon chess pie with whipped cream
strawberry pie with whipped cream

the soundtrack will be heavy on the credence, hotlanta hip hop, the band, and heart (because heart transcends all).

happy canada day! pictures will be posted a demain.

fin.