sunday sunday

thrifty housewifeness continues unabated at casa lagerfeld and dotytron; notwithstanding that yesterday, i came away from accompanying H shopping for work clothes - complete with the prefaced avowal that "i'm only going to buy some buttons" - with a new dress for work with a peter pan collar in a bright fushia AND a short black cardigan - MENTAL NOTE: SHOPPING WITH M AND H AND BABY D IS DANGEROUS...LAST TIME I WENT ALONG WITH THEM, I BOUGHT MY PERFORMANCE DRESS. i have a tendency to overbuy groceries and let things in the fridge go to waste if i didn't use it all for the particular dinner for which it was earmarked, so i'm trying to be more flexible and creative in how i slot in various dishes and sides to use up leftover stuff before it can go bad. with that in mind, faced with a 1/2 jar of devon cream in the fridge, we re-upped on those oat scones again this morning for sunday breakkie. they're the BEST scones i've ever had. the oats give them delicious heft and they develop a crunchy crust on both top AND bottom. love 'em.

last night we braved yet another toronto winter snowstorm (global warming meteorological recalibration edition) to head to N's place for the rock band d-ball social. it was fun!!! i like those guys...it makes me feel like i'm 23 again. the BEST part of the night was when N's new girlfriend thought i was her age...and she was 20. TWENTY!!!!! when i told her how old i actually am, her jaw dropped. it was basically the best 5 minute conversation of '09, thus far. i also got to kick it on rock band drums (my favorite!) for an interpol song. interpol kind of sucks (from the one song i heard.) it's like a more depressing droning morrissey, without any of the subtext of unintentional hilarity-by-sincerity. we didn't stay out super late...left after midnight...we were worried the car was going to get a ticket...even so, it took us forever to drive home with the weather being so balls. it was nice seeing those guys again...i like my teammates.

today is the first game of the season...we've moved up to the more competitive league...i'm excited! it's so much fun playing. then tonight we're having peeps over for dinner. i made a lasagna with bolognese sauce and spinach...this is my first time making bolognese...i think i'm in love. i started mine with finely diced pancetta, then added onions, celery, carrots...sweated that out. took some sausage from maseillis out of the casings and browned that in the pan, then added in white wine, milk (that's what makes it bolognese) and a can of tomato paste and some fresh rosemary...the smell almost made me jump out of my skin. it smelled so freakin' good. there's also a spinach and ricotta layer, and then i topped the whole thing with about 2" of mozzarella cheese (chewy crusty cheese edges, come hither!). we're having a salad alongside - baby spinach, avocado, red onion, grape tomatoes, toasted salted pumpkin seeds, lemon vinaigrette. and either my freshly baked baguettes or the poilane-esque loaf i made earlier this week.

for dessert i made an espresso mascarpone icebox cake (one of the easiest desserts ever with a good results to time commitment ratio. it takes about 15 minutes to put the thing together but it's so effin' tasty when it comes out. i wanted something kind of light and mousse-like and cold but still vaguely italian after the heaviness of dinner.

in the lasagna i used a combo of whole wheat noodles and the last of my box of no-boil noodles. it's one of those scenarios where the powers-that-be just aren't thinking. no-boil lasagna noodles are one of the greatest inventions of the modern era. no more fussing with a giant pot, noodles sticking together, or trying to unpeel and lay out recalcitrant starchy messes in your pan. it's SO easy! whole wheat lasagna is great too! we all want more fibre in our diet! and it's a preparation where the certain amount of chew you get with whole wheat is something you're actually going for. SO WHY DON'T THEY MAKE WHOLE WHEAT NO-BOIL NOODLES?!?!!!? this is one of the great mysteries of the modern era. CONVERGENCE, PEOPLE! SYNERGY! or, watch it be something they ONLY have in the states. like bob evans sausage or creole mustard. balls!

i forgot to mention that the dotytron has discovered this bomb-a** italian bakery/food emporium/grocery/hot lunch counter thing right close to where he teaches on saturday. he brought me back this pizza pie thing a few weeks ago and said that he saw they had porchetta (a giant one) taking up pride of place at the hot counter. he brought back some porchetta yesterday for me to try...it was AMAZING. juicy, sweet, fragrant pork redolent of herbs and a faint hint of lemon. next time my family is up in markham we're going to get a round of porchetta sandwiches...also known as, my reason for living.

this is last night's dinner...i threw together a quick frittata of baby spinach, blue cheese, onions and garlic sauteed in butter, served with some slices of my poilane-ish loaf. it wouldn't have been enough to eat if we had not preceded it with fistfuls of porchetta.

i've got the travel bug, bad. this broad on a message board i occasionally post on was talking about going to barcelona for 10 days and it set my mind afloat on a sea of wanderlust. let's face it: i haven't been making half-decent money for very long (only a year now) and if we're getting hitched then the patter of little feet are probably not very far off in the horizon...and i want to get my jollies in while i can still enjoy some uninterrupted time with the dotytron. when it's easier to travel. i think what got me started was the encouraging meeting i had with my supervisor - she said it looks likely they'll be able to extend my contract until august or september. i don't even have to go somewhere far or exotic...going out east or west with the dotytron (it's a crying shame he's never been to b.c.) would be enough. so we drew up our travel list (aka the "this is NOT a bucket list, list") here it is (not in any order):

-Hawaii
-Japan (Tokyo)
-Hong Kong
-Argentina
-Spain
-East (Maritimes)
-West (B.C./Seattle/Portland)
-Southern States Tour (Savannah, Atlanta, Nashville, Kentucky, North and South Carolinas)
-New Orleans
-New York
-Chicago
-Montreal
-South East Asia (Thailand/Vietnam/Malaysia/Singapore)
-Cabo (Mexico), Oaxaca
-Fiji

the fiji and the cabo made it in there because i really want to lie in the sun and swim in crystal clear waters and have nothing to do but read and relax with the boy. but knowing me, i would grow tired of it...i think doing the oaxaca thing would be way more my style (the food in oaxaca is supposed to be INSANE!)

even though i'm not sure where i'm going in the next year outside of spending a week with the family in disneyworld, it felt good writing it down...like at least it gives us something to work towards...like we've made some small incremental step towards organizing that aspect of our leisure time, so we won't be wasting precious (fantasy) travel preparation time going, "now where should we go?"

okay...i'm off to shovel. i'll update with dinner pics tonight.

fin.

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espresso mascarpone ice box cake
adapted from gourmet, august 2004
serves 8 (my size servings) - 12 (regular people servings)

3 cups chilled heavy cream
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup mascarpone cheese (about 9 oz) at room temperature
1 (9-oz) box chocolate wafers such as Nabisco Famous
1 tablespoon instant-espresso powder (i use instant coffee powder instead)

- beat 2 cups cream with 6 tablespoons sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until it just holds soft peaks, 2 to 4 minutes. Reduce speed to low, then add mascarpone and mix until combined.
- take approximately 14 wafer cookies and lay them over the bottom of the a 9 or 10" springform pan. spread half of mascarpone mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan on top of the wafters, and then cover with 14 more wafers, slightly overlapping if necessary. spread with the remaining half of mascarpone mixture, followed by 14 more wafers arranged in the same manner.
- cover pan with foil and freeze until firm, about 1 hour or overnight. transfer from freezer to refrigerator and chill, covered, until a sharp knife inserted into center cuts through softened wafers easily, about 8 hours
- beat remaining cup cream with espresso powder and remaining 3 tablespoons sugar using electric mixer at medium speed until it just holds stiff peaks. remove foil and side of pan and frost cake all over with espresso cream. Sprinkle edge of top lightly with wafer crumbs. serve cold.

saturday morning flex

today is another buckshot day in the life of a buckshot shorty.

i'm starting off by doing some prep work for the dinner "party" (peeps we're having over for dinner) tomorrow. we're having our friends, B & G, my buddy P in from chile, and our buddy bobes over (we all went to high school together - with varying degrees of familiarity at the time.) so i'm going to start this morning off by making an espresso mascarpone icebox cake (i've definitely made this before), which consists of layers of nabisco chocolate wafer cookies and mascarpone-whipped cream topped with a coffee-flavoured whipped cream layer. i'm also making the bolognese sauce for the lasagna tomorrow. i'm going to get that cooking and start some baguette dough, which will also get baked off tomorrow. the price of flour has SKYROCKETED! it was NINE DOLLARS for four lbs of organic flour! holy crackers! i didn't notice it before. bad time to start bread baking experimentation.

if i have time i'm going to go to town on our part of the sidewalk and chip away at the ice because the thought of poor, defenseless old people slipping on our poorly manicured sidewalk is giving me pangs.

then i'm off to see C & C music factory at their condo, which has a gym with a squash court. we're going to be doing some dball practice in anticipation of my first game of the winter season tomorrow.

next it's off to meet H, baby D, and M to buy clothes for H's new career as an ESL instructor and catch up on the holidays.

after that it's home to make dinnie and await the arrival of the dotytron

and finally we're capping off the day with a d-ball team get together at N's condo...where we're going to play wii games and do some pre-season bonding. i made a gingerbread cake and i'm going to tote along some whipped cream. the gingerbread cake recipe i used is THE recipe for gingerbread lovers. it's dark, thick, dense, and tacky with the full, mysterious, round spice flavours permeating every bite. it's made with guinness AND a healthy amount of molasses. i only tasted the bits that stuck to the bundt pan (why does bringing cakes baked in bundt pans inevitably make me feel like the BIGGEST MOM OF LIFE?!?) - i think after sitting a day, the flavours will totally deepen and i can't wait to taste a full slice.

performance planning went well...we're already slightly over budget so we've had to revise the budget. we're also not including stuff like our outfits in the overall budget...because we're not buying a ONCE IN A LIFETIME dress/suit, then we're folding those expenses into stuff we should/would be buying anyway. the thing that eats up the most is the staff/venue rental/catering. we didn't go top-of-the-line with our catering, but we didn't go bottom basement...i'd say we're in the mid-high range for our caterers. even if we DID want to go low budge, we'd get taxed by the venue for not using one of their "preferred" caterers. any way you cut it, this stuff is expensive. the base costs seem to be fairly consistent, if you're using a venue (and not like, the legion) and having caterers...the things that we have control over and that aren't pushing us over the top, is stuff like djs, invites, our outfits, etc.

i've half-heartedly contacted a few toronto photographers. we really only need someone for like, 3 hours total...mostly the ceremony and some laid back snaps after with family and friends...i don't need the reception documented formally - i figure the plethora of digicams and the many talented photographers i know will take care of that business. it's also hard finding people who don't do conventional, boring ish. these are some photographers whose aesthetic i admire:





these shots were all taken by robert sukrachand he's fantastic! i like really natural, unconventional bouquets like the one in top picture...if i go that route...that's definitely what i'm looking for. something kind of wild and "undone." i also love the dude's suit in the 3rd pic...the dotytron probably needs a charcoal grey number...and i think waistcoat's look so smart. our colours are turning out to be a combo of plum, chartreuse-citron, silvery-grey, and black.








these shots were all taken by l.a. photographer max wanger. the first set in particular i adore...the style and aesthetic is so me! i love the dude's suit and her dress and how adorable everything is. it probably helps that the bride is one of the most gorgeous girls i've ever laid eyes on. seriously, how pretty IS she?!??? it's a little *too* cutesy...and i really love the washed-out tones and off-colouring of the following set.

anyway, if any of my faithful readers know of any toronto-area photographers who do stuff like that above...please let me know!

we kind of made the controversial decision not to register for anything. principally because i have some issues baldly asking people for gifts and, the problem is: i'm not sure WHAT we'd register for! it's impossible! we went to the bay on our big xmas gift card blowout day to use up a gift card the dotytron got for xmas and we were seriously hard-pressed to find anything there that we wanted/needed. i think in the end we got a pyrex glass measuring cup (so i guess we can scratch THAT off the potential registry) and a robe, maybe? the way we figure it is, people who are going to give you crap from bowrings and go off-list are the kind of people who go off-list anyway (my sister's wedding taught me this. she registered and STILL got pewter and crystal goblets with dragons on the stem with fake "jewel" eyes - can anyone say: "re-gifting"???) i guess we (mostly i) have very specific tastes when it comes to home stuff, and our little home is already established, so i don't NEED baking stuff or knives and there doesn't seem to be a point to buy stuff when we're not settled where we're going to be settled, yet). the goal is a unified aesthetic and i'm not sure we'd find that in the places where people conventionally register.

we've been living together for SEVEN years and we're both self-sufficient so we got ourselves the stuff we need to outfit a home. i mean, it's not like i'm going to register for a couch, for a house that hasn't materialized yet, right? we're also the kind of people who favour the experiential. i'm not interested in spending $3000 on a couch when i could go to barcelona or argentina instead (and when big brown is so stylish and comfy - i pledge allegiance to big brown!) i don't need a matched set of china...i prefer to go to tap phuong in chinatown and cobble together my own set of white plates...i don't need fancy silverware...that's not my style. i mean, maybe eventually, but i prefer to buy it when i see the perfect thing in front of me, not because we're doing the performance.

the whole registry thing is pretty foreign to asian people anyway - my ever-practical and mercenary peoples prosaically give cash and nothing but. i personally prefer to give cash, unless i can tell the couple are leaning towards registry. i think other cultures (jewish, italian, mostly everyone except your classic anglo, w.p. crew) give cash...i just hope people don't get offended! whatever people give us is fine and we're certainly not expecting presents...that's not why we're doing this whole thing. in the same way that i never expect people to bring anything when they come over to our place for dinner...we're kind of treating this whole performance as having a heap load of people over to "our" place for "dinner." it's an extension of our general attitude of sharing, hospitality and the comforts of a convivial table.

anyway, tweaking the menu and going over the budget took longer than expected, so we've delegated setting up a timeline and deadlines to next week sometime, and we'll do the financial planning another time after that.

in other news: bottarga is the bomb! it smells slightly fishy coming out of the package, but it actually has a very delicate, savory element - in the dish it wasn't pervasive, it added a depth of flavour and nuance but it wasn't all grabby hands for attention. i dug it, big time.

le sigh...the day...starts...NOW!

fin.

yoga fail

i stopped by the video store on the way home last night to see if they had any more of "the tudors" season 1 (aka the johnathan rhys meyers crazy bug eyes show) and instead, left with discs 1, 2, and 3 of "battlestar galactica" season 4, which naturally meant that i didn't go to yoga last night and instead sat in bed knitting and catching up on cylon-human relations and the search for earth with the dotytron.

the way i rationalized it to myself is that tonight is not going to be fun...it's a working friday night. we've (or rather, i) have designated tonight as PERFORMANCE AND FINANCIAL PLANNING night - we're basically setting up timelines, budgeting, and figuring out the menu with the caterers and all that jazz and also setting up a financial plan for the coming year (or what we know of it.) buoyed AND galvanized by my newfound mastery of basic (read: remedial) excel spreadsheets and formulas (before, i used to basically use my excel spreadsheets as charts, doing the calculations on a CALCULATOR and entering the pre-totaled figures into the cells - dr. dum-dum in the house!) i'm attacking fiscal responsibility with a renewed fervor.

anyway, if i stay in budget, i'm due to be finished off paying my osap 19 months from now and my line of credit should be clear by the end of march. assuming my employment situation remains stable (i had a very encouraging talk with my supervisor today that she *should* be getting the okay to cover my colleague's maternity leave, which would make my status here okay until september or october 2009...and who knows if the job interview next friday will make things look up even further), i hope to be back to saving a healthy chunk of change from march, on. my goal is 25% of net income into savings. i haven't figured out how i'm going to divide the long-term/short-term savings yet...maybe i'll try to push it to 30% of net income into savings and split long-term and short-term equally down the middle.

guys, i can't EVEN TELL YOU how titillated i get talking about how much of my net income i'm planning on putting into savings. it's absolutely THRILLING...it's like my heroin.

in other news, i'll feel much better once i have a timeline and fixed budget in place for the performance - right now i kind of feel like we're in limbo...once i have the menu and the catering set...then it's mostly the small(ish) details. i had dinner with someone recently who helped me put the whole performance thing in perspective, in a pretty macabre kind of way, but still, i found it helpful. basically, their father had passed away suddenly, from a heart attack, and he said to me, "we basically planned the funeral in 2 days - that's why i don't get how weddings are so complicated or people plan them over a year" is it tasteless that i found comfort in that? i can't tell. i mean, i obviously felt for him and his loss, but that statement really helped to me situate this event. if anything, you should spend a year planning your funeral, not your wedding...the funeral is the last "event" of your life...you kind of want to go out with a bang.

anyway, it'll be nice for me and the dotytron to sit down and talk things out (let's hope things stay civil - he already made me promise to be relaxed about it last night) and figure out what's important, what we can ditch, etc. funny story, when we first got the venue, the dotytron was like, "it'll be nice to put some decorations in there and personalize it" and which point i went all apoplectic on him and started shouting, "WHAT!!?!??! WITH WHAT MONEY?!!! WE DON'T HAVE A BUDGET FOR DECORATIONS!!!!$#$@#@" and he kind of meekly and forlornly replied, "oh. i was just thinking...streamers or something" lol!!! sometimes, i really really really like that guy (and feel really sorry for him that he has to deal with me). streamers are TOTALLY in the budget. in fact, i've been researching them online and you can get 500 FEET for 3 dollars! amazing! aside: is there anything more tragic than a forlorn dotytron? i don't think so...i'll do well to remember that the next time the ides of lagerfeld threaten to push him into such a state.

tonight for dinner we finally cracked into the bottarga we brought back from italy. here's a definition of bottarga ripped straight from wikipedia:

"Sometimes called the poor man's caviar, botargo is the roe pouch of tuna or grey mullet, or sometimes swordfish. It is massaged by hand to eliminate air pockets, then dried and cured in sea salt for a few weeks. The result is a dry hard slab, which is coated in beeswax for keeping. It is usually used sliced thinly or grated. In Italy, it is best-known in Sicilian and Sardinian cuisine; its culinary properties can be compared to those of dry anchovies, though it is much more expensive. Bottarga is often served with lemon juice as an appetizer or used in pasta dishes."

we made a sardinian style pasta, consisting of spaghetti (not the more traditional chittara - guitar string-cut pasta), tossed with a chili-breadcrumb-garlic mixture, and topped with shavings of bottarga. really easy. i'll post the "recipe" (rough guidelines) below. we had it with the ever-reliable olive garden salad. tasty.

fin.


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

spaghetti alla bottarga
serves 4

1 lb. spaghetti
2 T. unsalted butter
1 c. of dry breadcrumbs (i use panko)
1/4 c. olive oil
7-8 roasted garlic cloves
1 T. minced garlic (2-3 cloves)
1 t. dried chili flakes (we also used some of T's peppers, sliced up)
3 oz (approx) bottarga
1/4 c. chopped parsley
salt and pepper

- heat the butter in a pan and add the breadcrumbs, toss over medium heat until the breadcrumbs are browned and crispy, season with salt and pepper, set aside.
- get a pot of boiling salted for the pasta, cook pasta until al dente
- near the end of pasta cooking time, heat the 1/4 c. of olive oil with the roasted garlic (smash the cloves up a bit), the minced garlic, and the chilies, cook over medium heat until garlic and chilies are fragrant.
- grate in some bottarga, add the drained pasta, and a touch of the pasta cooking water to loosen.
- stir in the breadcrumbs and the parsley, season with salt and pepper and serve, topped with more bottarga grated on top.

literary bent

i haven't been completely swallowed up by design and finance blogs...i've been reading too - just got a little backlogged in my book reviewing.  i'm still slowly working my way through "the watchmen" - i want to be ready in time for the movie (although it looks like it's caught up in some legal wrangling between the studio that initially owned the rights and the one currently distributing the movie - super sucky...almost as sucky as the powers that be arbitrarily making us wait for "harry potter and the half blood prince")  

i finished barbara kingsolver's "animal, vegetable, miracle" AGES ago, but a search of ye olde blogge didn't uncover a review.  her command of the english language and her ability to cannily pepper her prose with evocative, apt metaphors tempers what in the wrong hands ("100-mile diet team, i'm looking at you!) would be a self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing project (her family takes a vow to only eat what they grow or can source locally for 1 full year.) it's a warm, open book suffused with maternal, farm-girl wisdom, lightened with self-awareness. there's a spattering of recipes (really homespun...i personally wouldn't try to cook anything out of the book) and guest writing from her daughter camille on the values of eating locally and mostly vegetarian (camille is like, 19 when contributes - let's just say that i thought her segments were the weakest part of the book and i could have done without, thanks.) i loved it and it definitely inspired the back-to-the-land lust that i have somewhere deep within my first generation canadian of hong kong chinese descent body to come burbling to the surface. it's a quick, satisfying read.

at my brother s-dawg's urging, i plowed through the trades of "fables" - a comic series about characters from fables and fairytales we all know and love, living in exile in a small patch of new york city, ousted from their "homeland" by a mysterious force known only as "the adversary." it took me a little while to warm up to it...the hard-boiled detective stories of the first few issues were a little uninteresting, but once the characters are established and you find out who the adversary is...things kick into high gear/epic battle between good and evil time. the cover art is breathtaking - i could stare at the covers for hours. the other art is done by a rotating stable of artists...some had styles i preferred over the others. bits of fairy tale and fable lore are woven into the narrative and informs the choices and storylines in a clever way - seamlessly bridging the old and the new. i would definitely recommend it.

last night i finished "reading" amy sedaris' "i like you: hospitality under the influence" which is by all evidence a fairly straight forward hospitality guide (replete with menus and crafts and recipes) given an amy sedaris acerbic, darkly humourous spin. i'm not sure i would buy it per se, or could recommend it...it occupies this weird space - if you're not looking for a hospitality guide, it won't be of much use to you, but also, if you're not looking for an outside-the-lines off-kilter hospitality guide (that is funny a lot of the time) it's not much use to you either. she rides the line between being utterly sincere and at the same time, completely herself (which superficially bears the veneer of irony) - so it's pretty tricky to negotiate and i'm not sure who would be the intended audience for the book. the laughs aren't sustained enough to merit purchasing a collection of recipes, and the collection of recipes isn't packaged in a way that would allow you to seriously replicate her parties (even though i'm sure she seriously replicates them herself.) an odd little thing.

here are some book-related links:

the book cover archive is exactly what it claims to be - a database of book covers, searchable by author, title, designer, etc. book cover design is a pretty awesome medium - this site is cool because it lines them all up for you so that you can see the crazy range and styles all in one place.

covers features a selection of book covers and critiques and compliments from designers...it's an interesting window into an over-looked segment of the design world.

i'm wait-listed for the fundamentals of project management class i wanted to take, but i enrolled in the other section just in case (the other section is taught by someone who DIDN'T BOTHER UPDATING THEIR INSTRUCTOR PROFILE. fail!) between all my hobbies and socializing and work and life and constant busyness - you know what's fallen by the wayside? music! i barely listen to music anymore! i'll throw on whatever's closest while i'm making dinner...but even that...my music appreciation is falling behind. the dotytron recently downloaded the best of prince, depeche mode, inxs, and tears for fears...so i've been living off that (quite comfortably, i might add) - but i have no idea what the kids are listening to.

tonight is leftover night.  i'm hoping to have the gumption and verve to walk my butt to yoga class and back so that i can indulge in gossip girl torrents and knitting in bed feeling right chuffed.

you know what else has me feeling something kind-of-but-not-really related to chuffed (except i had no part in this and therefore can't feel the sense of pride that goes along with chuffery)? these screen stills of spike jonze's "where the wild things are"



i especially love the tone of the first two shots.

fin.

an inauspicious start

yesterday was a bad start to the semi-new me. first of all, my face exploded. we went for a long hike at the farm and i must have gotten a little windburned. my skin was flaky and dry when we got back, but i attributed the extreme flakiness to a combination of my naturally sensitive skin AND not showering and wallowing in my own filth for 3.75 days. in the grand tradition of me aggressively treating my facial skin ailments with concoctions of my own devise and aggravating what would probably be fairly benign issues, i went to town on my face and scrubbed at it with a washcloth followed by a VIGOROUS exfoliation with a tea-tree oil-based (drying!) facial scrub (micro beads!) which resulted in my face exploding in protest at the layering of irritants upon already inflamed dermis. yikes.

then, my attempts to attack work with renewed vigor and zest and commitment to excellence (it says that on my resume) were foiled by a pounding, splitting headache that kicked in promptly at 2pm. possible causes for the headache:
i) my blood sugar levels protesting mightily against the resumption of pre-holiday eating habits and portions (read: a diet of FOOD and not cookies)
ii) my body (and mind) putting up a vigorous protest against returning to the daily grind
iii) being unused to staring at a computer screen all day
iv) all of the above exacerbated by my attempts to maintain proper alignment and good posture at work and at my desk

whatever it was, i was in abject misery all the way home...i managed to soldier through and work with the dotytron to put together the dinner pictured below, the consumption of which provided some temporary respite. i then changed into my jammies, unsuccessfully attempted to cajole the dotytron into reading to me out loud while petting my hair, drank a couple of sips of rooibos tea he made me, read a bit of "i like you: hospitality under the influence" by amy sedaris and PASSED OUT at 7pm. i woke fitfully a few times to randomly proclaim, "what the F**K is going on, here?" *slips immediately back into deep slumber*, i also woke five times to demand that the dotytron pop a lindt lindtor chocolate ball from the candy wreath into my mouth (to think i used to lament the loss of toblerone from the swiss chalet festive special!) anyway, the nuts and bolts of it is that i woke up this morning feeling like a zillion dollars after 12 hours of sleep.

last night for dinner we made pork stroganoff over egg noodles with steamed-then-sauteed brussels sprouts. i LOVE brussels sprouts. (is it brussel? or brussels, plural?) i was also preening over my thrifty homemaker idea to take the package of pork cutlets and, rather than slice them all into a GIANT stroganoff (as is my natural inclination), instead separate them into portions for 3 meals - pork stroganoff last night (livened up with parsley, dill, caramelized onions, and mushrooms alongside the de rigeur sour cream); and schniztel and ma po tofu for another day. THRIFTY NIFTY ME! i effin' LOVE pork stroganoff. especially with fat egg noodles. fat egg noodles are one of my obsessions this winter.



tonight for dinner the dotytron made that spicy grain soup we like. it has bulghur, brown rice, and barley, in a dried ancho chile-kicked up broth with shitake mushrooms, carrot, and zucchini. we had it with cheddar/scallion quesadillas and tomatillo salsa and sour cream. i also did my exercises tonight so i'm feeling pretty good about myself (as opposed to how HELL i felt about myself yesterday when i could barely do up my work pants...lol!)

my lunchtime work french class was today and it kind of kicked my butt a bit. there were only 3 of us in class, so we did some review...can i just say that ce-la and celui-la are mega confusing and the bane of my existence? however! my pen ran out and i did get to use the phrase (J - correct me if i'm wrong): "est-ce que je peut utiliser ce stylo-la?" about 20 minutes after doing the exercise, which was thrilling to say the least. anyway, i've totally forgotten the endings for the weird verbs. any french-proficient readers care to help me out?

etre
je suis
tu es
il/elle est
nous ???
vous ???
ils/elles sont

avoir
j'ai
tu as
il/elle a
nous avons
vous avez
ils/elles ???

savoir
je sais
tu ???
il/elle ???
nous savons
vous savez
ils/elles ???

comprendre
je comprend
tu ???
il/elle
nous ???
vous ???
ils/elles ???

faire
je ???
tu ???
il/elle ???
nous ???
vous ???
ils/elles ???

basically, i can't even remember the endings for the basic ones (-ir, -re, -er) let alone the tricksy ones. and i don't know what venir means, but that i can look up. [edit: it means "to come"] it's always a bit of a pill making myself go to french class at lunch (it happens once a week), but when i do go, i love it, so i should stop finding excuses to surf the net and be a dink and just go...i've gotten so much better already!

tomorrow i'm availing myself of the free course from the school of continuing studies at u of t that you get as alumni. you basically get any course up to a value of $600...i REALLY want to take mandarin, but that only costs like, $300, so i think i'm going to do the smart (read: boring) move and sign up for "the foundations of project management" which costs $599. i'm terrified by how bored i'm going to be and how angry the boredom will make me.

k, that's enough outta me for one day.

fin.

i got a new attitude

new year, new modus operandi (those of you who have been on the receiving end of my cutting wit and verbal lacerations, don't rejoice too soon, textbook lagerfeld tongue lashings aren't part of the rejigging.)

we started our last sunday of vacay with our traditional new year's breakkie of choice: scones with devonshire cream and jam. we didn't do it on new year's day proper because we were at the farm, but i like ushering in a new year with devon cream - there's something fantastically proper and soul satisfying about it. i used a new scone recipe that i tinkered with a bit - with excellent results. instead of the usual 100% white flour, i added whole wheat and rolled oats, which produced a crunchy, sweet, craggy scone with a darkly golden caramelized crust and bottom - a perfect foil for the cream and my strawberry rhubarb jam.

then we went off on our day of post xmas exchanging, gift certificate redemption, etc. the new modus operandi kicked in then. i was VERY good about the conspicuous consumption...very restrained, practical, disciplined. i'm finding my patience for trawling physical stores to be less and less. vintage, yes. for vintage i'll gladly sift through my list of go-to retail gems, but even then, i don't really have the desire to dig through mountains of crap for the one piece of gold...i want the store to be well edited, well curated, in order to maximize my success rate. i'd drag the dotytron into zara only to walk one foot into the store and go, "you know what? i don't want anything here" and turn on my heel and march straight out. the dotytron was in shopping-with-me heaven (even though i'm a decisive shopper at the worst of times [she says, unconvincingly.)

there are certain stores that i know i can never set foot in again (for things for myself.) h&m is on my s**t list, urban outfitters is on life support. overpriced, poorly made crap. we went into indigo to use our gift cards but walked out empty handed because it seemed so...undignified to be walking through a physical bookstore with it's formal layout and rigid genre sectioning...i'd much rather the convenience of shopping online and having it shipped straight to my door. i got two lovely cardigans from the gap that i can already see layered over the stuff i'm going to buy from my online stores. online shopping ftw!

my brother got us this boxed set of the entire series of joss whedon's "firefly," without the receipt, which we already own. i tried to exchange it (sans receipt) at the hmv at the eaton centre but the dude working there was a douche and said that "there's no way of knowing that he bought it at an hmv" (this dude was wearing thick, plastic framed glasses [warning!] and had two full sleeve tattoos [additional warning!]) what an a**jack. we tried the hmv on queen west and managed to exchange it for "buffy" seasons 2 and 3 (2 for $30!) and season 4. SO MUCH WIN! we only had to spend $15 of our own money! we also hit sears and exchanged some random isotoner business for flannel pj pants. anyway, we came away like bandits without spending our own money AND we made sensible buying decisions and didn't buy frivolous crap we didn't need. no word of a lie, i'm kind of in love with myself right now. tax free savings account, here i come!

tonight we're going to use our chapters money and order some books online. i've pretty much decided that i'm going to get michael ruhlman's "charcuterie" - once i have cured meat under my belt, i'll only have cheesemaking left to tackle and i'll consider myself adequately equipped to feed myself should the apocalypse arrive (only if the apocalypse sends us back to a pre-industrial, agrarian, idyllic past redolent of pastoral nostalgia - anything else and i'm fuxz0red.)  i'd consider getting some fiction but buying fiction outright always seems like a colossal crapshoot.  i'd rather hedge my bets and preview fiction from the library first and then if i know i absolutely LOVE IT, then buy it for the permanent collection...the economy is way too tight to be spending money on books that i may or may not love outright.  i think the dotytron is going to buy us a copy of "the watchmen" (i'm STILL reading it! it's hella dense!) and i don't know what else...hopefully something i can read too.

for dinner we made pad thai...a last minute addition of shrimp crustaceaned up what would have otherwise been a perfectly serviceable and tasty vegetarian main. i over-egged at the end, but with some minor tweaking (mostly involving keeping an eagle eye over the ephemeral changes of rice noodles' states of being) it will be a half decent substitute for run of the mill thai, though a pale shadow of the brilliance that is jean's vegetarian kitchen. i went whole hog and used tamarind pulp instead of the cheaty pants shortcut ketchup route. yay me!

last night was hilarious (as per usual) even if we had to wait over an hour for our 6:30pm "reservation" (no face!) we got to hang out at bwong's place and meet his parents who love two things: cruises and bwong (not necessarily in that order.) it was adorable! the place was a shrine to every conceivable cruise line (replete with a map studded with push-pins of ports of call past and future) and a shrine to bwong's accomplishments (great and small.) i wonder what it would be like to live with parents who were visibly proud of you? alas, that is not for me to know. not that i would trade my madcap over-siblinged existence for all the framed york region physical fitness badges in all the land. i yam what i yam.

bwong's parents' place has the BIGGEST TV I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE. in the 60" range...hd, every pore visible, every piece of fur visible (they were watching "blue planet" when we showed up), i-would-never-want-to-watch-my-home-movies-on-it super clear, with surround sound. it was intense. what WASN'T intense was that the version of "harry potter and the goblet of fire" procured by dr. rei was NOT blu-ray. ergo, we played it on the regular dvd player (bwong's house accepts every format known). for some inexplicable reason, the tv got all confused by the non-hd-ness of the conventional dvd and made the movie look like crap. seriously...i made a crack that it looked like dr. who (old dr. who!) and it's one of my most accurate observations/metaphors/similies of recent memory (and let's be real here, i make a LOT of accurate metaphors/similies.) it took all the magic away! it was the oddest thing i'd ever seen...it looked so low budg it could have canadian. it looked the way it must have looked to the camera operator as it was being filmed in real time. the aspect ratio was all off, everyone looked dull, the colors were deadened, the special effects cheesy...it took all the movie magic away. unsolved mysteries!

now i'm kind of getting a bit sad panda about going back to work. winter break is never long enough!

fin.

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

whole wheat oat scones 

makes 8, adapted from january 2009 food and wine magazine

1 c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. rolled oats (quick cooking or regular)
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
5 T. sugar
6 T. unsalted butter, cut into small cubes, cold
1/2 c. dried fruit of your choice - cranberries, figs, apricots, ginger (optional)
1/2 c. buttermilk, plus more for brushing
- preheat the oven to 425F
- whisk together the flour, whole wheat flour, oats, baking powder, salt and 4 T. of the sugar
- cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal (i never know what this means when recipes say this - basically just cut in the butter until the butter is in little, pea-sized chunks)
- stir in the dried fruit (if using) and the buttermilk until a stiff dough forms, knead gently until it just comes together
- on a lightly floured surface, pat the dough into a 3/4" round, cut into 8 wedges and place the wedges on a baking sheet.  brush the tops with a little bit of buttermilk and sprinkle with reserved 1 T. of sugar
- bake for 17-20 minutes until golden brown, cool slightly and serve warm.  

meanwhile, back from the farm

so the farm was the funnest ever! we were on our very best behaviour and i cooked my little heart out so that we could ingratiate ourselves on our host L and possibly be invited back in the future. *crosses fingers* there were some startling revelations and some hardcore over-sharing, chased with lots of over-eating, one of the most taxing hikes in recent memory that quite nearly broke my spirit (but was fun nevertheless) and endless rounds of game playing and late night guantanamo-style interrogation sessions of "would you rather/who would you do?" that kept me up way past my bedtime.

we learned a new game! it's called werewolves (also known as mafia) and it's WICKED fun. i'm not a very good strategist though so i wasn't the best at it...and i'm definitely not the sharpest tool in the tool shed when i haven't had enough sleep. so that's why i suck at it. that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

S made the dotytron one of the bestest presents ever! it's a candy wreath! just try to picture how my imagination was set afire at the introduction of such a wondrous and crafty item into our lives:

oh hai! i has talented friends!

i've slowly been getting my life together today. unpacked, did some laundry, tidied up after montreal I, did some dishes, set up the new toaster (what a beaut!), did some online shopping with gift certificates and now i'm gearing up to head out into the cold cold world and do some grocery shopping.

tonight the hamcamp klik is ushering in goosetang '09 with our much anticipated 'arry 'otter (sound out every word preceded with an apostrophe in the paragraph to follow with an atrocious cockney accent) movie night which will also be our inaugural time hanging at bwong's house. not only will we be hanging at bwong's 'ouse, but 'arry 'otter movie night will be prefaced with us gorging our faces at chinese all you can eat (AYCE for short) 'ot pot (big steaming bowl of broth, into which you dip all manner of raw meats, seafood, dumplings, noodles, veggies. i'm bringing some 'omemade 'arshies for 'ot 'hocolate, and some frozen balls of new york times 'hocolate 'hip 'ookies for baking off at bwong's 'ouse. should be epic win! i think we're going to watch the last few 'arry 'otter movies which hanbo has never seen. this will also be a good refresher for dr. rei, who likes to watch movies but apparently forgets them immediately following the viewing (lord of the rings, anyone?)

okay...movie review time. "slumdog millionaire" was good, but not great. it's one of the most highly-reviewed films of oscar-bait season (it's been getting A+ and 5 stars) and is based on the book "Q & A" by vikas swarup. it's about a poor dude from the slums of mumbai, who somehow gets onto india's version of "who wants to be a millionaire" and answers all the questions correctly. the film (and book) trace back through his life and track the events that gave him the knowledge to do so. my one complaint about the film is that there was a bit of a tonal issue. it's presented in a hyper-realistic fashion, but at the same time, some of the events stretch the limits of the plausible. if it had been filmed in a magic-realist fashion, i think i might have been able to buy it a bit more. also, it's about the poor kid's rise to triumph and it's supposed to be a heart-warming little number, but some of the experiences are pretty grim and harsh and bleak and hyper-real, which fights against the uplifting climax of the narrative and creates a jarring and incongruous tonal disjunct. the film is gorgeous though and mimics "city of god" in it's ability to show the seething slum life of the 5th largest city in the world and the unprecedented growth that has occurred within a generation's span.

"the curious case of benjamin button" (hereafter referred to as, "the movie"), has the opposite problem...the tone is right (magic realism) but it's very cold and almost too clinical, the director (david fincher) doesn't do a good enough job of coaxing the emotion of the story and the actors. that the same screenwriter penned "forrest gump" is obvious in the heavy-handed use of a (somewhat pat) recurring motif) and in the way the story unfolds (going from event to event in one "extraordinary" person's life) and in the use of the main character's narration to guide the story.

cate blanchett and brad pitt never really seem to overcome the limitations of their movie star faces (titters broke out in the packed audience i sat in when cate blanchett's daisy remarks, upon seeing benjamin at the prime of his life, inhabited fully by the brad pitt-ness of brad pitt, "you're perfect!") to imbue their characters with, well...character. the best moments of the film are the side stories, but the romance between the two leads is the central thread that connects the events of the film - daisy's life parallels benjamin's and it is to her that he keeps returning, and it falls short. by contrast, benjamin's brief dalliance with tilda swinton's character is much more believable. as a whole, i generally found the side characters and supporting stories much more engaging than the central one. the film was also wicked overlong and there were too many montages and scenes that dragged.

okay...grocery shopping time!

fin.

champagne

yesterday was the dotytron's champagne birthday (29 on the 29th.) i neglected to mention it because i was too busy going INSANE trying to prepare for the farm trip. basically, the kdubsguelph toronto crew are all heading up to this place called markdale, ontario (close to owen sound) to celebrate new year's and J's birthday up at L's farm/cottage that's not on a lake. i'm super-excited...this is probably the most ambitious thing we've done for new year's in about 4-5 years...lol! the best is that it's going to be all people we love in the same place. the usual problem with new year's is that people are doofuses, and don't commit, and want it to be an epic night and totally over-plan it. this is just going to be a fun getaway weekend, although i have a hard time thinking that it could possibly rival last year's jack astor's love in with me, bwong, and the dotytron, during a huge snowstorm, when the dotytron botched mr. big's "to be with you" and kiboshed playing "come on eileen." lol!

anyway, last night most of the goosetang clan (minus dr. rei and hanbo...who seem to be missing all the epic goosetang hangs lately!) and the roomie, and l'army, and montreal I went to harlem restaurant for dinner. the dotytron had a hankering for soul food and the best i can say about it is that i suppose it's as good as you're going to get for american soul food in toronto (damning with faint praise?) essentially, we don't really have that type of black culture in toronto...most of the black culture is from recent (relatively) immigrants from the caribbean (which is why we get such awesome rotis and doubles and jerk goat, and soca [i don't like soca]) but not so much from the candied yams/banana pudding/fried chicken and waffles school of awesomeness...which i think is where my true heart lies. overall, the food was fairly generously portioned and reasonably priced (there was some dissension about this, but the most expensive entree ordered was $20 and the most expensive appetizer [the ribs] was $12, which i think is fair).

bwong, dotytron and i went splitsies on stuff...we shared:

catfish lafayette, which the menu describes as "seasoned, deep fried catfish or chicken morsels in a hot sauce" the sauce wasn't hot in a chili-sense...it could have been a lot more incendiary, instead, it was more of a sweet'n'sour concoction (truthfully, i was expecting a creamy remoulade-y type of smothering sauce - like chicken gravy or something...i don't know why.) as you can see, it's a pretty big portion and it was still pretty tasty.

i had the bourbon baby back ribs...which were nicely cooked (not smoked). tender, with the right amount of grip at the bone so you could tear off the gristle that connects bone to meat in one satisfying strip...the sauce was a sweet-based barbecue sauce with a good amount of depth...again, it was billed as a "hot" sauce but there was little discernible heat.

the dotytron ordered the jerk chicken quesadilla, which was nice (although not very soul food), which came topped with a sweet chili sauce.

for our mains we went splitsies again. we shared the fried chicken which was all dark meat (bliss!) coated in a semi-shaggy crumb topped with another sweet-hot sauce and served with an indiscriminate afterthought "salad" of mixed mesclun greens, a blackberry, some sliced plum, and some kind of dressing (i generally refuse to eat afterthought salads on principle.) the fried chicken was pretty darn tasty, i thought. extra points for our plate consisting of all thighs.

i ordered the beef short ribs, which were really tender, very meaty, and sauced with a "brown" (both in flavour and appearance) sauce that had a good mix of vaguely caribbean influenced spices (thyme, allspice, etc.) it was served with rice (which tasted like uncle ben's parboiled, to be honest) and sauteed swiss chard. it was really good though, and a very generous short rib serving (considering i've paid double that for half the amount of meat before.)

the dotytron got the ham hock, which by the end of it's obvious long-braise seemed to have lost all it's porkiness...the ham hock was right up my alley but not so much anyone else's - mostly bone encased in flabby skin, again sauced with the "brown"ish sauce and served with rice and greens. the ham wasn't very ham-like though, and i think that was a bit disappointing...it didn't have enough of that salty ham flavour you're looking for. it was probably the weakest main.

a meal for 6 people, with 3 cocktails and 4 beers, 5 apps, 6 mains, came to $215 before tip which i thought was a pretty fair price, considering that INCLUDED the alcohol. i'd go back, but stick to the ribs and the fried chicken.

it was a HI-LARIOUS night though. bwong, dotytron, and i were in fine form and were pwning right, left, and centre. we got into some pretty heady conversations on sexual proclivities, definitions of deviance, art and aesthetics, homosexuality, the intarw3bs (oh hai!), and other random ridiculousness which culminated in a visit at home from our buddy S whom we then had the pleasure of ribbing for a while. it was a near-perfect night. i love my friends. fam-up!

now we're off to the farm...have a safe and happy new year everyone!

see you in '09!

fin.

xmas chez the ho-lee-shi-do's

epic. that's all i can say. it's a good thing we're going to L's farm for 4 days because we totally need a break from our break so far. my bro S-dawg bought rock band so i spent a good chunk of the weekend banging away on the drums. here's the problem with that game - there aren't enough songs you actually know/want to play. seriously dudes? rise against?!? against me!?? no one actually cares about THEM! it should be non stop 70s and 80s arena rock. he also bought this trivia game called "buzz" which comes with 4 buzzers that you use to select your responses and buzz in with the answers.

incidentally, S-dawg was the only one home when we arrived at the family manor and i span style="font-style:italic;">was going to see through my campaign of not being extra nice to him and ignoring him...but i could see in his eyes that he was sorry and embarrassed. so i went up and gave him a hug and we started laughing and i said, "you apologize" and he said, "no, YOU apologize" and i said, "i DID apologize. i CLEARLY sent you an email saying that i was SORRY that you're such a D**K." lol! which is a textbook karl lagerfeld, esquire apology.

somehow the gift theme ended up being stripy stuff...kick-started by my mum giving my two brothers matching gap sweaters. "matching gap sweaters! matching gap sweaters!" ended up being the default catchphrase that we yelled near-constantly while we opened prezzies.

this is a HORRID pic of us in all our striped swag. lol!

here is our eggs benny breakfast...with the monkey bread that looks like it has a smiley face in there - weeeiiiirrrd.

this is my nephew being cute...wearing a charlie brown christmas chair tie-in around his neck.

this is the roast beef dinner (prime rib of beef, gravy, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, buttered peas, spinach gruyere casserole, pillsbury crescent rolls)(it was hella tasty):

trifle (lemon curd, pound cake, raspberries, mountains of whipped cream):

the next night's dinner we had a slow-roasted pork shoulder (with crackling!) that had been rubbed with oregano, garlic, salt, pepper, vinegar and lemon juice and roasted for 5 hours. my sister made a b***hin' sweet potato casserole topped with marshmallows, and i made braised green beans with bacon:

this is my niece wearing the striped dress i bought her (from the gap!):

finally, when we went to see "the curious case of benjamin button" (hereinafter referred to as "the movie"), we came across one of those movie billboard things with the cutout for you to put your face in...my family has never met a cardboard cut-out insert-your-face-here thing that we've never loved/exploited/made tasteless, so this is the end result:

note: the boobs.

i'll do a review of "the movie" and "slumdog millionaire" when i return on friday. in the meantime, have a safe and happy new year, all!

fin.

p.s. these two are best buds.

p.p.s. i did a lot of driving this weekend...this is my second first time backing into a parking spot - i wanted to document my near-perfect form. the dotytron was remarkably unsupportive.