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.

regulators!!!

resetting the regulator on my grill TOTALLY worked. BEST ADVICE EVER! i think when i tried it on saturday i wasn't turning on the propane tank slowly enough after resetting the dials. this time, i spent two minutes slowly cranking the propane tank 1/4 inch at a time and the flames burst forth strong and true. yes! i'm still going to get the barbecue pros in to give it a proper scrub down, but now it's not so dire and i can wait until my next paycheck. success! i feel like such a handy manny (an actual character on playhouse disney...who is...wait for it: a bilingual hispanic handyman.) holy racist, playhouse disney!!! why couldn't he be a hispanic doctor? or venture capitalist? anyway, i feel super capable and skilled after my weekend of building/fixing/cleaning stuff.

last night, our mission for dinner at foxley bistro was aborted because when we showed up there, they were CLEARLY not open for business, were missing a front window, and were in the process of moving a giant pane of plate glass around to presumably fix the whole. they weren't reopening until wednesday. bogus! i then suggested that we head down to delux, which is just down the street from foxley, still on ossington. it used to be the sparrow (i never went) and it's been getting a fair amount of buzz as a neighbourhood resto on the painfully hip ossington and dundas strip. according to a breathless article from that paean to all that is urbane toronto, toronto life magazine,
members from broken social scene have been known to eat there. well, i'll be! look at me keeping such indie company!


that being said, the room is a fairly long, white space, with embossed antique white wallpaper along one side, a row of booths, and a wooden bar at the end. the only adornment on the walls is a long mural with the letters of the alphabet printed in various cool, modern tones. another element is the lighting, which features bundles of spent fluorescent tubes, suspended from thin wires at either end, rigged up to provide a warm, ambient glow. we were lucky to get a walk in table...they take reservations and were continually turning people away who hadn't had the foresight to book ahead (yet another argument to support the fact that it pays to eat early!)


the meal was fairly nice overall. apps are priced at around the 10-11 dollar mark. mains are in the 20 dollar range. desserts are in the 10 area. we started with the charcuterie plate, which featured (from left to right): duck carpaccio with macerated cherries, pork and rabbit terrine, rabbit rilletes with the usual accompaniments. the rabbit rilletes were probably my favorite, with a great, light flavour and some spark from finely grated lemon zest.


i ordered the rabbit and foie boudin, which came on a pool of a fruity sauce with a haricot verts and new potato salad in a mustard vinaigrette. the boudin was very, very nice, with a clean taste that belied the addition of the foie, which added a very gentle, savoury sweetness to the delicate rabbit meat. the texture of the boudin was smooth, with a slight, spongy resistance to the tooth, and the fruit (not sure what fruit) sauce was tangy and sweet. the accompanying salad was a little dull...the vinaigrette was mostly neutral-flavoured oil without enough acid or mustard to cut through the oleaginous coating, but the vegetables were cooked correctly and the beans had a nice snap. the apps showed a deft, soothing hand in the kitchen, with restrained, delicate, flavours.


for our mains, we shared the pressed cubano sandwich (an absolute STEAL at $12!). which featured shaved, thinly sliced roasted pork, melted gruyere, thinly sliced ham, a mustardy dressing, and thinly sliced cornichon coins, all in a crusty, striped, crunchy panini. served with crispy, salty frites and an afterthought of watercress, again dressed with an oily dressing with little to no discernible flavour.


we also got the quebec duck breast which came with a beet soubise, a fennel and basil salad, and a poached apricot. everything on this dish was a little ho-hum, though well executed. it could have used something...the beet soubise was finely textured and full of saccharine beet flavour, but could have used another element to elevate it above a pretty quenelle of pureed beet. the poached apricot was also cooked correctly, but at the end of the day, was still a poached apricot. the fennel and basil salad added a counterpoint to the sweetness on the plate, but wasn't assertive enough. the dish was again, very delicate and reserved. it was good, but not as satisfying as the cubano.


then we got a cheese plate (we're in the habit of doing cheese as a pre-dessert lately). i only remember a couple of them. on the far left is beemster from holland. the creamy one in the middle that looks like a triple cream was DELICIOUS. creamier than most triple creams, with a fantastic, zingy, mouth-tingly lactic tang. loved it. it tasted very much alive (even though it's from pasteurized cow's milk). the one on the far right was very boring and i would never put it on a cheese plate if i had my druthers. it tasted like nothing. snooze! does anyone remember gnarls barkley? i don't!


then we got dessert. the dessert menu was pretty ho-hum. panna cotta, strawberry shortcake, etc. the dotytron ordered the warm chocolate cake with creme anglaise and whipped cream, which, when presented, turned out to be exactly what you want from an iteration of that crowd-pleasing, restaurant safety standby. it was a little, squat trapezoid of oozy, rich, chocolate mud, barely held together by a just-based exterior. we demolished it.


i ordered the "baked to order" chocolate chip cookies with a glass of milk. freshly baked chocolate chip cookies are hard to resist no matter what their faults, and it's a cute, homey dessert to have on the menu, and quite clever too, considering how much urban diners suscribe to nostalgia for an upbringing they rarely experienced, and the paucity of times people can say they've had warm, just-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies. i do have a quibble though (and i don't know if this a purely individual thing), but the cookies were a little cakey. it's just not my first choice for cookies. i like chewy, soft, delicate, crumbly cookies.


all told, we were in about $100 and change before tax and tip, and that's including all of the above, plus a pre-dinner cocktail, two glasses of wine, and an after-dinner port for captain "special drinks" (that's the dotytron according to my mom). according to him, i was acting like a chupacabra last night. i kind of had a case of the stoops...i kept forgetting the ends of my sentences, and at one point, i used my outside voice to proclaim, "i'm glad we didn't order the halibut. that's a loser's dish." we could do with a little less textbook indie on the speakers. at one point, in between the apps and the mains, we heard the opening sounds of ltj bukem's horizons, which of course made us practically squeal with excitement. we were so pumped to hear it! and then of course, not even 30 seconds in, whoever is running the sound back there decided to CUT it and segueway into elvis costello or some s**t. our mouths gaped open, we were so shocked and disappointed. we got pwned.


then we came home and i messed up knitting this new lace pattern AGAIN (i cast on too many stitches...curses!) and watched "porky's". i don't know about what YOU remember porky's to be about, but i remember it being about sexy stuff and lots of tits and muff. WRONG. it's actually really boring and about taking down porky's (a redneck establishment of ill repute) and battling anti-semitism. snooze!


tonight i came home and cranked out two pies, deviled eggs, and did some errand-running for the big canada day smoke out tomorrow. i was exhausted after all that so we capitalized on a buy 1 get 1 free gyro coupon that came in the mail for messini's on the danforth. that's my pork gyro. oh yes, they put FRENCH FRIES in that mother. apparently those are "authentic" greek gyros. i can totally dig it. i'm trying desperately hard not to let it bother me that i over-cooked part of the crust of one of my pies. i'm trying really really hard to resist the urge to throw it out and start anew. it's paining me. must be less type A, must be less type A. we're getting up at 6am to throw the brisket in. eep! i'll report back with progress shots. it's my first time smoking anything, so i'm aiming low and hoping for the best.

in other news: one of our bbq guests decided to invite along some hippie flakebot (or, at least she was at the time that went to our high school) to my bbq. what the hell? what the hell do people think goes on? do you REALLY think i'm running some rinky dink bbq with like, bear claw burgers and potato salad from the ziggy's deli counter at loblaws?!?!!! is that what you think i do? is that the kind of ship it looks like i'm running? is that the kind of heart you think i'm the captain of? who DOES that? i've dropped a pretty penny on this shindig and i've planned and thought it out. the invites aren't composed willy-nilly. i would NEVER dream of inviting someone random to a friend's dinner invite. it's like last year, one of the dotytron's friends (it's ALWAYS the dotytron's friends who pull this s**t, btw...and they NEVER bring anything), invited a random to LOBSTER FEST. who DOES that? and i'm sorry, but i'm NOT going to listen to you talk about how you breastfed people in guatemala whilst simultaneously digging a well and learning woven handicrafts. i suspect she might get pwned. we'll see. she's actually pretty nice (but we all know how i feel about nice), but i suspect she's really earnest, doesn't share a similar sense of humour, and probably doesn't know important stuff, like...why my postulating that lil' wayne is miles davis' son is funny.

but i'm nothing if not fair. i'll give her a fair shot and bury my resentment at her uninvitedness and give her a chance to prove herself. see how she feels about chris brown. that kind of stuff.

fin.

the bbq whisperer

gah! so i spent about 3 hours yesterday in the (contrary to the meteorological reports) blazing hot sun, sweating and wrenching and in all other ways frankensteining and coaxing my smoker to rise from its boxed ashes like a glorious meat-tomb phoenix. (i also put together the crappy tire table). in the end, i have a lovely, sturdy little soldier taking up residence in a corner of the backyard and i only have one orphan nut! success! i undertook my endeavours under the glassy, boozy, eyes of my alcoholic neighbour dimitri, who is very interested in the smoker, and spent his concurrent time outdoors putting together a dolly (dolly as in lifting device, not as in parton or toy). i think he was inspired by my saturday-afternoon-handywoman efforts. he periodically offered me advice that i routinely ignored, but did manage to come up with the appropriately sized phillips head screwdriver - otherwise, we worked in companionable silence.

just as i was firing up my weber grill for steaks (i changed the menu around last night, the impetus for which was a pms-driven craving for animal flesh and the ferrous tang of blood), lo and behold, the flames from the burners are sluggish and slow, and even on maximum power, the thing refuses to get up to temp. it's a good thing i bought that smoker then, otherwise my planned canada day bbq would have been in jeopardy! i've checked the manual and online, and it could be one of two things:

a) the regulator needs to be reset (the regulator has this auto-compressor thing that limits the amount of gas going to the burners when it thinks there's too much pressure)
b) there's spider webs in the venturi tubes (the venturi tubes are what mixes air with the propane before sending it to the burners for ignition).

webers come with venturi tube spider screens, so i think it's the regulators. i tried doing the reset yesterday, but it was still sluggish, so i'm going to give it another go later on today. i woke up early and gave the burners a good scrub down...but my grill is looking in dire need of a solid cleaning. enter the barbecue pros. for the princely sum of $125 or so (depending on the level of cleaning required) they go over that thing with a power washer, sander, fine grit steel wool, and return it to you pretty much new. i've had the grill for four years and i had it done once. at the time, it seemed exorbitant (after all, that's pretty much the same cost as a new, albeit low quality and cheap, grill). i skipped last year, but i think once every two years is good, if it's going to prolong and extend the life of the grill. i'll probably get that done next paycheque. cleaning your own grill just isn't worth it, and i'm bourgeois enough to pay for the convenience of having someone else do the work for me.

in every other respect, yesterday was extraordinarily productive. i did laundry, errands, put together two items, did dishes, cleaned out a bookshelf, sorted through about 10 years of photos to discard the ones i don't want and cherry-pick the ones that will be going into albums, and organized and plastic-sheathed all my recipes. phew. AND did some knitting...it's my first lace pattern, but the one i tried is a 25 row pattern repeat and i've had to rip it out so many times, i'm starting with an easier one. to get my lace-knitting toes wet before i get so frustrated i never pick up a lace chart again.

that's last night's dinner. rib eye steaks, pan seared *tear*, hasselback potatoes, with bacon-dill sour cream (note to self: potatoes really do deserve full-fat sour cream), and a lovely lovely salad of watermelon, tomato, bulgarian feta, chili oil, preserve lemon julienne, and sea salt. it was DELICIOUS. we had strawberry shortcake for dessert and watched "a fish called wanda". they don't make movies like that anymore, that's for damn sure.

this morning we had fried spam on toast with over-easy eggs. i've been craving that for FOREVER, and now i don't have to eat it again for 10 years. it really is quite delicious. like corned beef hash sans potato. i'm going to an afternoon yoga class, and then the dotytron and i are going out for a nice dinner a deux. we're going to foxley, which is a new small-plates place that's been getting a lot of buzz. full review with pics tomorrow!

fin.

well, that escalated quickly

somehow, in the space of half an hour i found myself committing to this little beauty on the right, there. that's right folks! i know have a dedicated smoker to call my own! thanks to a hot messageboard tip from a food-obsessed poster i trust, when i shouldn't really have been surfing messageboards in the first place (ummm...i was on my break! uh...yeah, that's it), i heard that the model on the right was on sale at home depot for under $200. i was already planning on swinging by the home deeps to pick up some hickory chips for the bbq i'm hosting on tuesday, so i called the dotytron (who had the day off) and breathlessly hatched a plan for him to borrow the mater and pater's car so that we could haul it back home. no word of a lie, my heart was pounding with anticipation, i had butterflies in my stomach and i was giddy as all get-out.

it's propane fired. 'cue purists might think that's sacrilege, as it should be charcoal or nothing...but i mean, true 'cue purists make their own charcoal from fruit/nut woods and there's no WAY i have the space for that. i like having the heat control. i'll save charcoal for when i get a kettle bbq (next summer, maybe?). i'm kind of in love with it. and by "kind of" i mean "it's my new boyfriend". smoked meat! smoked chicken, sausages, homemade bacon! the possibilities are endless! smoked tea, cheese, fish!

we also got a glass-topped table (hella cheap at crappy tire) to supplement our picnic table. it's nice having the extra surface area for prep or to set up a bar...i don't know what i'm going to do if i ever buy a house that doesn't have a proper back yard. i'd be totally screwed. i need room for all my gear!

last night was hella fun and funny. we had ribs, bean salad, a jalepeno cornbread, and a mixed greens salad. this is the cake i made! it's a giant hostess cupcake! devil's food cake with a marshmallow cream filling. i was pretty proud of myself. i could have done a slightly better job to mirror the hostess cupcake by shaving down the sides of the cake so that they angled slightly towards the bottom...
but i left it as is. also, the cake was made on wednesday evening and it's never as good when it has to be refrigerated for a bit. that devil's food cake recipe that i use, when eaten at room temperature, is so moist and rich and essence-of-cake-y that it's a shame that time didn't allow for the full effect. i made mini-versions with the cake scraps (the circles i cut out of two layers to make the hollow) and leftover cream filling and ganache...i ate it on wednesday and it was divine.

i don't know if it's just me...but i kind of don't get the w.p. thing of serving cake with ice cream. i don't feel like the two go together at all. notable exceptions are when the cake is warm, because then you get the contrast in temperatures. but a firm, sturdy, cold slice of cake is better supplemented with whipped cream (but still, generally unnecessary because of the sweetness and texture of most frostings and buttercreams) or a cold glass of milk. PIE, on the other hand, generally improves with the addition of ice cream, but again, that's usually a temperature thing, and it's generally reserved for pastry-crusted fruit pies. there's an ineffable alchemy that occurs when flaky, warm pastry layers sandwiching sugared, acidic fruit hits the creamy coolness of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. but i would never think of serving ice cream with like, a chocolate pudding pie or a key lime pie or a coconut cream pie. it's unnecessary, because the cream element is really supposed to offset the acid in the fruit, and provide a textural contrast. with cake, it makes no sense (imo).

it was a fun time! the ex got a little drunk and proceeded to go into high school modern western civilizations teacher mode (it's a favorite mode of his, actually) which involves tangential, flimsily constructed arguments cobbled together from mainstream, slightly-left-of-centre news sources, rick mercer, george strombolopolous, boring documentaries about dictators, and conspiracy theories targeted at angry male adolescents. it's a hoot.

the omnipresent rain today is putting a damper on my plans to assemble the smoker and table and fuss around outside. instead, i think it's going to be a tidying up the house, movies-and-knitting in front of the tv kind of a day. tonight for dinner i'm making us egg fettucini with garlic scapes and chilies, topped with a poached egg and breadcrumbs, and a salad. and strawberry shortcakes for dessert, because i have to eat strawberry shortcakes at least once a summer, and when ontario strawberries are in season, there's no better time for it. strawberry shortcakes are probably one of my all-time favorite desserts. judging by the regularity with which they appear in summer food magazines and that bible of patrician lifestyles, martha stewart living, i'm aware that i'm not alone in the sentiment. they're just about perfect. sweet, craggy, flaky biscuits, sandwiching a heap of juicy strawberries, topped with a cloud of softly whipped cream.

fin.