so i'm frantically trying to finish a little knitted bolero for my former profs J & S's baby. i'm going to their place to decorate cupcakes for L's birthday party and to visit and it's a no presents party but i don't like showing up empty handed. i've made a LOT of headway (i'd say i'm about 60% done) and i'm steadily plowing my way through season 2 of 'tudors' as my knitting viewing accompaniment.
i don't think i'm giving anything away to say that sir thomas more just got iced because of his scruples. i remember reading 'a man for all seasons' in oac english and it had an indelible impact - what can i say, i gotta love people with integrity (atticus finch, i'm looking in your direction.) a little bit of wikipediaing revealed that sir thomas might have been a little teh creepz0rz (wearing a hair shirt, engaging in flagellation) but in the 1400s and 1500s, seriously, who WASN'T a little creepy? poor guy. i feel bad for him. i should re-read 'a man for all seasons' if only because i haven't read a play since the years long ago when i was required to.
you know what makes me feel old? the fact that it's 2009. more importantly, that raves were like TWENTY years ago (or just starting 20 years ago). an entire generation! it's a cultural historical footnote for the kids nowadays. they don't know what the crap it's about. it's weird to have lived through the life of a subcultural movement. i don't know why i'm fixated on that one in particular (probably because it defined my formative years) but still - IT'S TWO THOUSAND AND NINE! what the heck?!??? i was thinking about it yesterday but it was brought even closer to home because we started watching this british series called 'skins' which is about the scandalous lives of 16 year olds in britain. it's like a cross between 'coronation street' and 'gossip girl' with wackier characters and way more lasciviousness (i can't BELIEVE how the brits are so blasé about showing boobs AND hoo-has during prime time television!) anyway, at one point in the series (which is decent - it makes for pleasantly vacuous, mildly entertaining, but not very engrossing passive watching), the kids are at a showcase for these mcs, who are terrible, and whose equipment goes on the fritz. the crowd starts grumbling and there's about to be a major mutiny, when the dj steps in, and drops 'original nuttah' and everyone starts brucking out and the night is saved. to quote tina fey: "i want to go there." it would be kind of awesome to live in a city where 'original nuttah' is like, a retro pop song that you can drop anytime, anywhere. BEST!
so today is a pretty lowkey day taken up with a lot of knitting and trying to get this thing done. i'm using up leftover yarn from another project...i was worried that i didn't have enough so i had to cannibalize a baby sweater i had knit up ages ago but didn't have an intended recipient for. i thought it would be kind of traumatic unraveling a sweater but it surprisingly went down pretty easy. i'm making a dessert for dinner chez dr. rei and hanbo tomorrow and maybe doing some exercises and small errands on the danny. otherwise, it's me, henry viii and anne boleyn, and a pile of yarn i'm trying to wrassle into a garment.
but tonight! tonight we're going to see 'the watchmen' - if i'm not frantically trying to seam a garment tomorrow i'll post a full review. i've also read a slew of YA fiction lately and i have to review that. i've discovered a new favorite YA author (although really, i think his work transcends the oft-pejorative use of the classification), john green. he's EXTRAORDINARY. we're also having vegan shepherd's pie and beignets for dinner tonight. tasty!
fin.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Friday, March 06, 2009
living the high life
dudes, i cannot reiterate enough how much these every-third-fridays off PWN. it's a gift! i love it! although the dotytron informed me in no uncertain terms last night that if/when he gets a teaching job in the school board, he's going to be working 4 years on 1 year off. i can live with that.
last night i went to watch dr. rei's rec bball team, the compact pressarios, go down in ignominious defeat. actually, it wasn't all that ignominious, i just wanted to use that word. they put up a good fight, but there wasn't much they could do when they were up against a team with a GIANT, blonde, amazon who - rumour has it - used to play in europe. they were also up against the dunkingest dude ever, who easily towered by a foot over everyone. the best part of the game was that the dude who runs the league, this short, little, mustachioed gentleman who keeps score, sat all the teams down for a pre-game talking-to.
in the change room, the team that had played before had warned us that we were going to get a talking to, because apparently the notorious poor-sports of the league had gotten into mad drama with another team the preceding week. guys, the TALKING TO WAS THE BEST THING EVER. super mario called everyone and made them sit on the bench and then proceeded to ramble on about how he was giving everyone the same speech because he didn't want to show favoritism, and how everyone had to dial down the competitiveness a lot and how it pained him to have it come to this because he really had tried to create a PARADISE OF RECREATION here and it was unfortunate that some bad eggs were spoiling it, etc. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i almost had to bite my fist that line was so ace. a paradise of recreation!!!!!!! then he went on to say, "look, there's no point getting competitive, we're all in this together, and the connections you make here with the other teams are important. i mean, i didn't want to have to say this, but there's a good chance that a lot of you are going to lose your jobs this year and the connections you make could get you work in the future." i'm paraphrasing, but the key thing to remember is that i'm going to lose my job this year (believe me, you're not half as shocked as i am to find that out) and that i'm going to be working for someone i met in rec sports. a-mazing!
this day has been awesome so far. it's unseasonably warm, so i'm doing laundry, airing out the bedroom, tidying up the house. i went to a yoga class, did my grocery shopping, gonna wax my 'stache and pluck my eyebrows and plan our chicago itinerary, book our segway tour (!!!!!!!!!!!), make a dessert for the dotytron, knit, throw together a batch of chicken stock and freeze it, prep some beignets for our new orleans feast tomorrow night, and chill the eff out. it sounds heavenly, doesn't it?
tonight for dinner we're having croque hermaphrodites (a croque monsieur with a fried egg on top, but without the bechamel/mornay sauce to make a classic croque madame) with a fennel, radicchio, and grapefruit salad. i think i'm going to throw together a batch of tapioca pudding to warm the dotytron's downtrodden, tired, overworked heart. i'll update with pictures tonight.
fin.
last night i went to watch dr. rei's rec bball team, the compact pressarios, go down in ignominious defeat. actually, it wasn't all that ignominious, i just wanted to use that word. they put up a good fight, but there wasn't much they could do when they were up against a team with a GIANT, blonde, amazon who - rumour has it - used to play in europe. they were also up against the dunkingest dude ever, who easily towered by a foot over everyone. the best part of the game was that the dude who runs the league, this short, little, mustachioed gentleman who keeps score, sat all the teams down for a pre-game talking-to.
in the change room, the team that had played before had warned us that we were going to get a talking to, because apparently the notorious poor-sports of the league had gotten into mad drama with another team the preceding week. guys, the TALKING TO WAS THE BEST THING EVER. super mario called everyone and made them sit on the bench and then proceeded to ramble on about how he was giving everyone the same speech because he didn't want to show favoritism, and how everyone had to dial down the competitiveness a lot and how it pained him to have it come to this because he really had tried to create a PARADISE OF RECREATION here and it was unfortunate that some bad eggs were spoiling it, etc. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i almost had to bite my fist that line was so ace. a paradise of recreation!!!!!!! then he went on to say, "look, there's no point getting competitive, we're all in this together, and the connections you make here with the other teams are important. i mean, i didn't want to have to say this, but there's a good chance that a lot of you are going to lose your jobs this year and the connections you make could get you work in the future." i'm paraphrasing, but the key thing to remember is that i'm going to lose my job this year (believe me, you're not half as shocked as i am to find that out) and that i'm going to be working for someone i met in rec sports. a-mazing!
this day has been awesome so far. it's unseasonably warm, so i'm doing laundry, airing out the bedroom, tidying up the house. i went to a yoga class, did my grocery shopping, gonna wax my 'stache and pluck my eyebrows and plan our chicago itinerary, book our segway tour (!!!!!!!!!!!), make a dessert for the dotytron, knit, throw together a batch of chicken stock and freeze it, prep some beignets for our new orleans feast tomorrow night, and chill the eff out. it sounds heavenly, doesn't it?
tonight for dinner we're having croque hermaphrodites (a croque monsieur with a fried egg on top, but without the bechamel/mornay sauce to make a classic croque madame) with a fennel, radicchio, and grapefruit salad. i think i'm going to throw together a batch of tapioca pudding to warm the dotytron's downtrodden, tired, overworked heart. i'll update with pictures tonight.
fin.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
still bit
by the travel bug. now that we've effectively saved a bundle on our nuptials all i can think about are ways to blow that cash on travel. we weren't going to take a honeymoon before but now we kinda can. there's a part of me that wants to go back to hong kong and hit shanghai and beijing. there's another part that wants to take the dotytron out west to b.c. and salt spring island. maybe spend a week at a shack in maine? or finally do our tour of the bbq states? maybe recreate 'the wire' at the towers and corners of baltimore? go back to barcelona and while away the days eating jamon iberico on crusty bread smeared with ripe tomato pulp? maybe we'll go down wicked south and hit argentina and chile!
ah, the places we'll go. the fiscally responsible thing to do is to batten down the hatches and keep saving for our down payment. but there's really no fun in that. or, no *immediate* fun at any rate.
so, we're all getting owned right now. being on the receiving end of the pwning stick is not a position i'm a) comfortable b) accustomed to and it rankles. summer beckons with the false promise of heady, sun-filled, lazy days that i know are an illusion. THOSE DAYS DON'T EXIST ANYMORE. it's a non-stop work parade. i do love being busy but i wish i had more control over when the brakes get applied. this is not to be. this summer i want to throw taking a language class into the mix. ai-ya!
a few months ago urban outfitters was offering free subscriptions to 'nylon' magazine so i signed up. i received my first issue yesterday. i took one cursory flip-through and promptly regretted everything. so contrived! it's like a magazine in the style of a reasonable hand-drawn fascimile of chloe sevigny or something, except that now even chloe has the class not to try to throw together a magazine consisting of cliches like: glassy, doe-eyed girl staring vacantly at camera in a get up that embodies the golden rule of directionless magazine stylist nightmare: too many layers, ridiculous hats, touch of neon, slouchy bad posture, one incongruous element that's meant to be "cheeky." oy vey. the only good thing is that i now have a regular and steady supply of bug-smashing instruments near at hand that i won't mind sacrificing to the cause. seriously, 'nylon' rivals 'information outlook' (special library association, natch) for "magazine that i receive in the mail but have no intention of ever reading even if i have to stare vacantly at my toes in the bathroom during an epic deuce"
on to happier things! like...spaghetti and meatballs!!! i made sauce on sunday and quickly threw together meatballs when i came home. start to finish i had dinner on the table in under an hour...a pretty impressive feat! i baked the meatballs in the oven on a rack in a pan, to let the fat drain off...ever since old supervisor T gave me the secret for proper polpette, there's been no turning back. spaghetti and meatballs has got to be one of my all-time favorite comfort foods. i made a salad but we housed too much pasta to eat it.
another happy thing: finished knitting. FINALLY. ladies and gentlemen, may i present to you:
bella's mittens from the movie 'twilight' lol!!!!!! anyway, huzzah to having some knitting to show for all my hours doggedly in pursuit of sexy results during the tudor era!
i made them for a rabid 'twilight' fan (are there any other kinds?) i'm quite proud of them...i had to make some adjustments and i had to start over once. the pattern is written for bulky wool and i used worsted. the colour is a lovely emerald-teal. i hope the recipient likes them!
fin.
ah, the places we'll go. the fiscally responsible thing to do is to batten down the hatches and keep saving for our down payment. but there's really no fun in that. or, no *immediate* fun at any rate.
so, we're all getting owned right now. being on the receiving end of the pwning stick is not a position i'm a) comfortable b) accustomed to and it rankles. summer beckons with the false promise of heady, sun-filled, lazy days that i know are an illusion. THOSE DAYS DON'T EXIST ANYMORE. it's a non-stop work parade. i do love being busy but i wish i had more control over when the brakes get applied. this is not to be. this summer i want to throw taking a language class into the mix. ai-ya!
a few months ago urban outfitters was offering free subscriptions to 'nylon' magazine so i signed up. i received my first issue yesterday. i took one cursory flip-through and promptly regretted everything. so contrived! it's like a magazine in the style of a reasonable hand-drawn fascimile of chloe sevigny or something, except that now even chloe has the class not to try to throw together a magazine consisting of cliches like: glassy, doe-eyed girl staring vacantly at camera in a get up that embodies the golden rule of directionless magazine stylist nightmare: too many layers, ridiculous hats, touch of neon, slouchy bad posture, one incongruous element that's meant to be "cheeky." oy vey. the only good thing is that i now have a regular and steady supply of bug-smashing instruments near at hand that i won't mind sacrificing to the cause. seriously, 'nylon' rivals 'information outlook' (special library association, natch) for "magazine that i receive in the mail but have no intention of ever reading even if i have to stare vacantly at my toes in the bathroom during an epic deuce"
on to happier things! like...spaghetti and meatballs!!! i made sauce on sunday and quickly threw together meatballs when i came home. start to finish i had dinner on the table in under an hour...a pretty impressive feat! i baked the meatballs in the oven on a rack in a pan, to let the fat drain off...ever since old supervisor T gave me the secret for proper polpette, there's been no turning back. spaghetti and meatballs has got to be one of my all-time favorite comfort foods. i made a salad but we housed too much pasta to eat it.
another happy thing: finished knitting. FINALLY. ladies and gentlemen, may i present to you:
bella's mittens from the movie 'twilight' lol!!!!!! anyway, huzzah to having some knitting to show for all my hours doggedly in pursuit of sexy results during the tudor era! 
i made them for a rabid 'twilight' fan (are there any other kinds?) i'm quite proud of them...i had to make some adjustments and i had to start over once. the pattern is written for bulky wool and i used worsted. the colour is a lovely emerald-teal. i hope the recipient likes them!fin.
Monday, March 02, 2009
scrappy doo
uhhhhh...so, there's no delicate or easy way to put this...*cough* ahem...
the performance is off.
it's kind of awesome telling people that because they get all concernedface about it and worry that me and the dotytron are going kaputz. we have not imploded. we just realized that planning performances is NOT our idea of fun. my friend M said, "that's strange, because planning that sort of things seems like PRECISELY the kind of thing you would enjoy" which is true enough...on paper. in reality, we were dragging our feet every time we uneasily eyed the glowing yellow (colour coded for "performance 2009") deadlines i had fastidiously loaded onto the google calendar - they were staring us in the face even as we let them slip by, not done and not caring.
i think i'd like doing it for OTHER people, or for something else...like a baby shower, maybe? but for us, it just seemed to be too much work. and i resented the fact that this was going to be my WHOLE SUMMER spent running around for a day that i knew i was barely going to remember. the first three weeks of august prior to the big day were DEFINITELY going to be a write-off...and i'm turning 30 then! i wanted to be able to have a leisurely, cottage and long-weekend filled summer lazing in the sun wearing sundresses and french braids and birkenstocks and terrorizing teenage boys at the public pool - the diametric opposite of worrying about inconsequential details that would barely register (flowers! making 90 jars of jam/jellies for favours! coordinated invites! timeline for the day! dress rehearsals!) when it came down to it, i wanted only a few things: good food, our families to be around, my best friend, and to look cute with the dotytron.
so there's a new plan, new date. it's now august 1, 2009 (day before my birthday!) we're still going to recognize the day we (re)met as our anniversary...it's more significant to us anyway - this performance day is arbitrary and an afterthought. it's taking place in my sister's town in the states, we're being married by her old judge. we still get to do the fun stuff we had planned, but just on a much smaller scale (immediate family and best friends) and we're having it catered by dinosaur bbq and maybe a drive-in movie, after???. as soon as we decided, it felt like i lost 50lbs...we both felt so relieved and LIGHT! we're going to have it coincide with our annual summer vacay in geneseo, which means golfing at the CHEAPEST GOLF COURSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD (an 18 hole round WITH cart rental is like, $25 lol!) and swimming and stoneybrook and playing in the inflatable pool with our niece and nephew.
i know some of our friends are disappointed...i'm not gonna lie, it probably WAS going to be the social event of the season and it would have been fun...but we can't get a refund on rosetta mcclain gardens and we still have it booked for august 22, 2009. so maybe we'll have everyone we were going to have at the big to-do show up there and squat in the park instead!
anyway, we love you all very much and this is in NO WAY a reflection on how much it would have made us overjoyed to spend a day with all our nearest and dearest. the thought of that is *ALMOST* enough to make the stress, planning, family politics, crystal goblets from bowring, and the fact that it was going to pass by in a blur, worth it. we needed to stay true to ourselves, and at the end of the day, i think we're path of least resistance, lowkey, not a big production kind of peeps.
loves ya!
fin.
p.s. if and when we ever decide to procreate, i promise you the baby shower to end all baby showers (ie. featuring a special old skool jungle set from dj c64 and mc'd by caddy cad)
the performance is off.
it's kind of awesome telling people that because they get all concernedface about it and worry that me and the dotytron are going kaputz. we have not imploded. we just realized that planning performances is NOT our idea of fun. my friend M said, "that's strange, because planning that sort of things seems like PRECISELY the kind of thing you would enjoy" which is true enough...on paper. in reality, we were dragging our feet every time we uneasily eyed the glowing yellow (colour coded for "performance 2009") deadlines i had fastidiously loaded onto the google calendar - they were staring us in the face even as we let them slip by, not done and not caring.
i think i'd like doing it for OTHER people, or for something else...like a baby shower, maybe? but for us, it just seemed to be too much work. and i resented the fact that this was going to be my WHOLE SUMMER spent running around for a day that i knew i was barely going to remember. the first three weeks of august prior to the big day were DEFINITELY going to be a write-off...and i'm turning 30 then! i wanted to be able to have a leisurely, cottage and long-weekend filled summer lazing in the sun wearing sundresses and french braids and birkenstocks and terrorizing teenage boys at the public pool - the diametric opposite of worrying about inconsequential details that would barely register (flowers! making 90 jars of jam/jellies for favours! coordinated invites! timeline for the day! dress rehearsals!) when it came down to it, i wanted only a few things: good food, our families to be around, my best friend, and to look cute with the dotytron.
so there's a new plan, new date. it's now august 1, 2009 (day before my birthday!) we're still going to recognize the day we (re)met as our anniversary...it's more significant to us anyway - this performance day is arbitrary and an afterthought. it's taking place in my sister's town in the states, we're being married by her old judge. we still get to do the fun stuff we had planned, but just on a much smaller scale (immediate family and best friends) and we're having it catered by dinosaur bbq and maybe a drive-in movie, after???. as soon as we decided, it felt like i lost 50lbs...we both felt so relieved and LIGHT! we're going to have it coincide with our annual summer vacay in geneseo, which means golfing at the CHEAPEST GOLF COURSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD (an 18 hole round WITH cart rental is like, $25 lol!) and swimming and stoneybrook and playing in the inflatable pool with our niece and nephew.
i know some of our friends are disappointed...i'm not gonna lie, it probably WAS going to be the social event of the season and it would have been fun...but we can't get a refund on rosetta mcclain gardens and we still have it booked for august 22, 2009. so maybe we'll have everyone we were going to have at the big to-do show up there and squat in the park instead!
anyway, we love you all very much and this is in NO WAY a reflection on how much it would have made us overjoyed to spend a day with all our nearest and dearest. the thought of that is *ALMOST* enough to make the stress, planning, family politics, crystal goblets from bowring, and the fact that it was going to pass by in a blur, worth it. we needed to stay true to ourselves, and at the end of the day, i think we're path of least resistance, lowkey, not a big production kind of peeps.
loves ya!
fin.
p.s. if and when we ever decide to procreate, i promise you the baby shower to end all baby showers (ie. featuring a special old skool jungle set from dj c64 and mc'd by caddy cad)
Sunday, March 01, 2009
delayed reaction
this post is going to be my belated review of bistro camino and a rundown of sunday foods. i had the pictures loaded up to craft a post on monday, but decided it was more apropos to apprise my faithful readers of the new plans re: performance.
tonight the dotytron and i went to a lecture by roger blandford, an astrophysicist from stanford, entitled "black holes: end of time or new beginning?" he was HILARIOUS. he was very cute and dry and enthusiastic and while i would say that there's a good 50% i didn't understand, it was really engaging and interesting. i always thought black holes were hypothesized, i didn't know that they fully existed and had been documented. it's always such a trip even to just see a picture of our galaxy and to know that there's a BLACK HOLE AT THE CENTRE OF IT. although, i experience the same degree of tripped-outedness when he showed a picture of some astrophysics research facility in namibia. it's like, "whoa! namibia! that's a PLACE?" the same way you think: "whoa, OUR GALAXY! that's a PLACE?" it's nice to get jolted out of your cognitive comfort zone - to have the boundaries and limits expanded a touch now and then.
before i commence with the bistro camino review, i have to say that we watched "vicky christina barcelona" this weekend. or, as i like to call it: vicky christina barfalona. the first time, i was so bored and incensed by the poor quality of the film that i fell asleep in between fitful rages at what an absolutely abysmal piece of film-making it is. the second time, i half-heartedly watched while reading...so in total i probably didn't see the whole thing. i don't think this negates my ability to review it because the movie is NOT plot-driven. it's the OPPOSITE of plot-driven. NOTHING HAPPENS. it's the BORINGEST!
first of all, there's this fantastically forced, amateurish, disengaging narration from a preternaturally stiff and smarmily omniscient narrator, who seems to treat the film as if he's auditioning for a role in a bob barker bio-pic (that's how patronizing he is.) the narration is completely extraneous and adds nothing and is an abrasive and consistent irritant.
second of all, the acting is uniformly terrible. people talk in strange, jolty, declarative expository sentences that make them seem more archetypal and mannered than 'dawson's creek' season 1. scarlett johansson "pretends" to be exasperated with her friend vicky and overacts with such vigor that it seems like a grade school production of a woody allen vehicle.
i also don't understand how it's supposed to be a comedy. it wasn't funny in the least. it was a colossal waste of time. it didn't reveal anything about the characters, their story, human relationships, or ANYTHING. i've heard people extolling it on the virtues of the touristing scenes in barcelona. THAT'S NOT A REASON TO SEE A FILM. GO TO BARCELONA. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS MOVIE. it was one of those situations where it was so bad and irredeemable that i actually had that weird rage/anger reaction that makes me PHYSICALLY discomfited. i've seen "annie hall" and thought that was sweet. i've seen "the purple rose of cairo" and thought that was a great homage to film. this was dreck. pure, unremitting dreck.
on to happier things. bistro camino was delightful! we ordered from the prix fixe options (you have two choices, $25 or $28, each three courses - we went with $28). the location is dreary - it's across the street from a canadian tire on a very downtrodden portion of the danforth (smack dab in the hinterlands between east york and scarborough). the sign outside is quite garish and hints more at 80s nail salon than french bistro. the interior features drop ceilings and a mish mash of quaint, country accents (fabric florals, hunter green wainscoting) and ye standard pub cast-offs (captains chairs). the service is hilariously well-intentioned.
it started off with what the menu described as "selection of 4 hors d'oeuvres - ask your server" so we asked the server what the hors d'oeuvres were (the menu was a little enigmatic). she rattled off a list of what seemed like 10 items. when we tried to order 4 from the list, she quickly interjected - "no, you get some of each of them." !!!!!!!!!!
the hors d'oeuvres consisted of (clockwise from top): a lush, satiny, cream of lentil soup; dilled gravlax; salty, chewy bayonne ham with a dried fig; a ham and leek spring roll; a perfectly crisp-coated and oozy bit of fried camembert; a rosemary biscuit with a topping of crunchy sea salt and tobiko; and a pickerel escabeche. everything was extremely well prepared, tasty, and showed a competent hand in the kitchen.
for my main i chose the duck confit with italian sausage from the prix fixe options. the duck was a staggeringly generous portion of perfectly cooked, moist, clean-tasting duck leg. served with crisp-tender vegetables and cheese sauce (!!!!!), a little potato topped with herbed sour cream, a little dab of chickpea puree, and custardy sauteed eggplant. the italian sausage was delicious.
the dotytron got the steak in green peppercorn sauce, which was a full 8 ounce striploin cooked to a perfect medium rare. it came with the same vegetable accompaniment as my dish, but was sided with thick cut, crispy outside, fluffy starchy inside potato wedges with more some more flaky, crunchy salt sprinkled on top. it was delicious (do i have to remind you that this was for TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS?????)
C ordered the lamb cacciatore, which i didn't try, but it looked delicious.
to round out our prix fixe (TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) we were told to order what we wanted from the dessert menu (regular price for desserts ranged from $5-$6). i ordered the profiteroles and got one jolly, fat one, stuffed with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. delicious!
the dotytron ordered the english trifle which would have been perfectly lovely had it not suffered the curse of what i call "the attack of the random mish-mash of fruit." if they had just stuck to the jam-soaked sponge cake, custard, and cream, and left off the kiwis and whatnot, it would have been a winner. even at that, for the price we paid for the meal (TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS A PERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) it was well worth every penny and i almost felt guilty paying so little when we settled up the bill.
the best part is, the chef came out and inquired in his halting english how we enjoyed the meal, accompanied by stiff little demure bows. he was a compact, old man with a sweet, genial twinkle in his eye and well...let's just say that as soon as he walked away from the table, the dotytron looked at me, my eyes aglow, and declared to the rest of the table, "that's it. lagerfeld is done" it's my favorite things in one place! old, asian men! hard-working cooks! people trying to make an honest living! good, unpretentious food!!!!! a price that can't be beat!!!!!!!!!!! TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i want to go back there and i want to bring everyone i know there so that they can support the endeavors of someone who deserves success. i wish a blight and pox on every overpriced gourmet burger joint, or any college street "little italy" excuse for a deplorable plate of penne with vodka sauce that takes business away from bistro camino.
for sunday breakkie i made the dutch baby at the roomie and dotytron's clamoring behests. we call it the fat baby now. it really is hella good. we had it with burned bacon:
and this was sunday roast suppie. roasted chicken, roasted brussel sprouts, bacon-fat and brown sugar and sage roasted kabocha squash, roasted garlic celery root and yukon gold mash, caramelized onion gravy. it was deeeelicious. for dessert i treated myself to chocolate pudding with a dollop of whipped cream and all was right in the world:
it's been a crazy crazy crazy week so far - ultra busy and questions up the ying yang at work. i'm sore from d-balling and my weight lifting regimen. i'm mildly stressed about work and extra projects. the remedy was definitely dinner at asian legend with the dotytron tonight and some looking at pictures of the galaxy before bed. that should set me right again.
fin.
tonight the dotytron and i went to a lecture by roger blandford, an astrophysicist from stanford, entitled "black holes: end of time or new beginning?" he was HILARIOUS. he was very cute and dry and enthusiastic and while i would say that there's a good 50% i didn't understand, it was really engaging and interesting. i always thought black holes were hypothesized, i didn't know that they fully existed and had been documented. it's always such a trip even to just see a picture of our galaxy and to know that there's a BLACK HOLE AT THE CENTRE OF IT. although, i experience the same degree of tripped-outedness when he showed a picture of some astrophysics research facility in namibia. it's like, "whoa! namibia! that's a PLACE?" the same way you think: "whoa, OUR GALAXY! that's a PLACE?" it's nice to get jolted out of your cognitive comfort zone - to have the boundaries and limits expanded a touch now and then.
before i commence with the bistro camino review, i have to say that we watched "vicky christina barcelona" this weekend. or, as i like to call it: vicky christina barfalona. the first time, i was so bored and incensed by the poor quality of the film that i fell asleep in between fitful rages at what an absolutely abysmal piece of film-making it is. the second time, i half-heartedly watched while reading...so in total i probably didn't see the whole thing. i don't think this negates my ability to review it because the movie is NOT plot-driven. it's the OPPOSITE of plot-driven. NOTHING HAPPENS. it's the BORINGEST!first of all, there's this fantastically forced, amateurish, disengaging narration from a preternaturally stiff and smarmily omniscient narrator, who seems to treat the film as if he's auditioning for a role in a bob barker bio-pic (that's how patronizing he is.) the narration is completely extraneous and adds nothing and is an abrasive and consistent irritant.
second of all, the acting is uniformly terrible. people talk in strange, jolty, declarative expository sentences that make them seem more archetypal and mannered than 'dawson's creek' season 1. scarlett johansson "pretends" to be exasperated with her friend vicky and overacts with such vigor that it seems like a grade school production of a woody allen vehicle.
i also don't understand how it's supposed to be a comedy. it wasn't funny in the least. it was a colossal waste of time. it didn't reveal anything about the characters, their story, human relationships, or ANYTHING. i've heard people extolling it on the virtues of the touristing scenes in barcelona. THAT'S NOT A REASON TO SEE A FILM. GO TO BARCELONA. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS MOVIE. it was one of those situations where it was so bad and irredeemable that i actually had that weird rage/anger reaction that makes me PHYSICALLY discomfited. i've seen "annie hall" and thought that was sweet. i've seen "the purple rose of cairo" and thought that was a great homage to film. this was dreck. pure, unremitting dreck.
on to happier things. bistro camino was delightful! we ordered from the prix fixe options (you have two choices, $25 or $28, each three courses - we went with $28). the location is dreary - it's across the street from a canadian tire on a very downtrodden portion of the danforth (smack dab in the hinterlands between east york and scarborough). the sign outside is quite garish and hints more at 80s nail salon than french bistro. the interior features drop ceilings and a mish mash of quaint, country accents (fabric florals, hunter green wainscoting) and ye standard pub cast-offs (captains chairs). the service is hilariously well-intentioned.
it started off with what the menu described as "selection of 4 hors d'oeuvres - ask your server" so we asked the server what the hors d'oeuvres were (the menu was a little enigmatic). she rattled off a list of what seemed like 10 items. when we tried to order 4 from the list, she quickly interjected - "no, you get some of each of them." !!!!!!!!!!
the hors d'oeuvres consisted of (clockwise from top): a lush, satiny, cream of lentil soup; dilled gravlax; salty, chewy bayonne ham with a dried fig; a ham and leek spring roll; a perfectly crisp-coated and oozy bit of fried camembert; a rosemary biscuit with a topping of crunchy sea salt and tobiko; and a pickerel escabeche. everything was extremely well prepared, tasty, and showed a competent hand in the kitchen. 
for my main i chose the duck confit with italian sausage from the prix fixe options. the duck was a staggeringly generous portion of perfectly cooked, moist, clean-tasting duck leg. served with crisp-tender vegetables and cheese sauce (!!!!!), a little potato topped with herbed sour cream, a little dab of chickpea puree, and custardy sauteed eggplant. the italian sausage was delicious. 
the dotytron got the steak in green peppercorn sauce, which was a full 8 ounce striploin cooked to a perfect medium rare. it came with the same vegetable accompaniment as my dish, but was sided with thick cut, crispy outside, fluffy starchy inside potato wedges with more some more flaky, crunchy salt sprinkled on top. it was delicious (do i have to remind you that this was for TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS?????)
C ordered the lamb cacciatore, which i didn't try, but it looked delicious.
to round out our prix fixe (TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) we were told to order what we wanted from the dessert menu (regular price for desserts ranged from $5-$6). i ordered the profiteroles and got one jolly, fat one, stuffed with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. delicious!
the dotytron ordered the english trifle which would have been perfectly lovely had it not suffered the curse of what i call "the attack of the random mish-mash of fruit." if they had just stuck to the jam-soaked sponge cake, custard, and cream, and left off the kiwis and whatnot, it would have been a winner. even at that, for the price we paid for the meal (TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS A PERSON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) it was well worth every penny and i almost felt guilty paying so little when we settled up the bill. the best part is, the chef came out and inquired in his halting english how we enjoyed the meal, accompanied by stiff little demure bows. he was a compact, old man with a sweet, genial twinkle in his eye and well...let's just say that as soon as he walked away from the table, the dotytron looked at me, my eyes aglow, and declared to the rest of the table, "that's it. lagerfeld is done" it's my favorite things in one place! old, asian men! hard-working cooks! people trying to make an honest living! good, unpretentious food!!!!! a price that can't be beat!!!!!!!!!!! TWENTY EIGHT DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i want to go back there and i want to bring everyone i know there so that they can support the endeavors of someone who deserves success. i wish a blight and pox on every overpriced gourmet burger joint, or any college street "little italy" excuse for a deplorable plate of penne with vodka sauce that takes business away from bistro camino.
for sunday breakkie i made the dutch baby at the roomie and dotytron's clamoring behests. we call it the fat baby now. it really is hella good. we had it with burned bacon:
and this was sunday roast suppie. roasted chicken, roasted brussel sprouts, bacon-fat and brown sugar and sage roasted kabocha squash, roasted garlic celery root and yukon gold mash, caramelized onion gravy. it was deeeelicious. for dessert i treated myself to chocolate pudding with a dollop of whipped cream and all was right in the world:
it's been a crazy crazy crazy week so far - ultra busy and questions up the ying yang at work. i'm sore from d-balling and my weight lifting regimen. i'm mildly stressed about work and extra projects. the remedy was definitely dinner at asian legend with the dotytron tonight and some looking at pictures of the galaxy before bed. that should set me right again.
fin.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
wake of shame
well, last night's bacchanalian feast had the weird effect of knocking us both out at like, 10pm. i ended up making a baked brie, which i cribbed from L (she made it at the farm.) it's basically a wheel of brie, encased in pillsbury crescent rolls, baked up, then smothered with pepper jelly (in my case i had cranberry pepper jelly) and scooped up with crackers (whole wheat triscuits here.) it was AMAZING and it has haunted my thoughts ever since.
what better occasion to crack it out then a bacchanalian feast? the dotytron wasn't a fan of the cocktail weenies...he felt you could taste the cost-cutting measures in the forcemeat. i only had a spoonful or two of my chocolate pudding before settling into a well-deserved, earned, and unstoppable slumber.
i've had a humdinger of a week, with barely a moment to catch my breath at work. the upside is, i'm feeling much better now. the downside is i bailed on my plans to hit my friend's birthday party. ah well, sometimes you just need a chance to reset and shake off the work week - that's what friday nights are for.
today i've got a friend-filled, event-filled day. i'm going to do my exercises shortly and eat some breakkie, and then i'm meeting up with dr. rei for a stroll along queen west. i'm after a new knapsack and some bras. and then i'm going to hit up an office supply store because our cheapo filing cabinet from office depot is falling apart and because of the recent pay grade bumps, i have a little extra floosh to drop on some office-grade filing cabinets. i want them to be fire engine red. or cobalt blue. then i'm meeting up with H and baby D and we're going to seedy saturday at the wychwood barns. it's a big seed exchange thing. i'd like to grow stuff this summer aside from flowers. we're also meeting up with my friend L there, if the timing works out.
then home, for a knife sharpening and blog prettying lesson with A & C and then out to dinner with them. we haven't had a chance to catch up with them since they got engaged! we're eating dinner at bistro camino, which has been generating huge buzz and is supposed to offer amazing prix fixe menus by a french-trained japanese chef. AND it's on the east side! AND it's on an otherwise economically depressed strip of the danny. and it's owned by a cute old asian guy which means that it's guaranteed to tug at my heartstrings and sympathies. i'll post a full review with pics tomorrow.
in other not-so-new-news: i love werner herzog. we watched most of 'encounters at the end of the world' last night before being lulled to a cheese-and-carb fueled slumber, and it is extraordinary. sure, herzog doesn't maintain the detached distance of the traditional documentarian, but when you have a personality that's so dry and wry, WHY WOULD YOU? his voice overs are the best. a) his voice and the cadence of his speech is amazing. b) his insights and observations are equal parts poetic, curious, and hilarious and delivered in the most deadpan way. in this film he journeys down to antartica, meeting the strange, oddball types who all somehow converge at the end of the world, spending time in the largest community there (mcmurdo station) before venturing off into the field to follow various researchers, glaciologists, biologists, and scientists. herzog is desperate to escape mcmurdo, calling the yoga studio and exercise facilities "abominations" lol! at one point, interviewing a well-traveled, starry-eyed adventurer who is rhapsodizing about her many scrapes in guatamala, herzog interjects with a voiceover: "her story goes on FOREVER" lol!!!!!!! speaking to a phd linguist, herzog again inserts himself into the interview: "in the time i spent talking with him, 3 or 4 hours, it occurred to me that 3 or 4 languages had been lost" he also talks about the banality of a world where humans will work tirelessly to save whales, but don't bat an eye at the disappearance of an indigenous language. I FREAKIN' LOVE THIS MAN. why won't he be our friend??? i really feel like we would get along well with werner, ESPECIALLY the dotytron. it's a beautiful, philosophical, moving documentary and i highly recommend it. i didn't even finish watching the thing, but that's how much i believe in the power of werner.
two years ago, the dotytron dragged me to a documentary about tea during hot docs. imagine how thrilled we were when werner herzog makes a cameo appearance in the doc! he's actually friends with the kooky tea dude (of course.)
anyway, the moral of this post is that werner herzog is the best and we're kind of obsessed with him.
fin.
Friday, February 27, 2009
so i might have lied
about healthy eating starting tonight.
the weather (grey february days and rain) and my pms are conspiring to make me want to bunker down, watch torrented movies with the dotytron, and compile a bacchanalian feast of: vienna sausages (cocktail weenies to you) as a kid, i used to eat them by the CAN, sometimes with the improvised, gourmande touch of microwaving them slightly so they got browned on the outside - so gross but so good...also, the dotytron has never had a cocktail weenie! travesty of travesties!, kraft dinner, chips and dip, maybe some kolbassa (i'm craving meat like crazy), and some kind of sweet thing for dessert. maybe i'll make chocolate pudding if we have eggs at home (the roomie is supposed to pick up our re-up from the mennonites, but has been birthing babies left, right, and centre.)
the sundae pie was pretty aight for $1.50. it's got a thin brownie/cake bottom, then an indeterminate chocolate and white topping with more chocolate squiggles on top. the filling tastes like cool whip (so, freon).
anyway, i'm checking out for the night...back to business as usual and non-fat-little-weirdo states of being tomorrow.
fin.
the weather (grey february days and rain) and my pms are conspiring to make me want to bunker down, watch torrented movies with the dotytron, and compile a bacchanalian feast of: vienna sausages (cocktail weenies to you) as a kid, i used to eat them by the CAN, sometimes with the improvised, gourmande touch of microwaving them slightly so they got browned on the outside - so gross but so good...also, the dotytron has never had a cocktail weenie! travesty of travesties!, kraft dinner, chips and dip, maybe some kolbassa (i'm craving meat like crazy), and some kind of sweet thing for dessert. maybe i'll make chocolate pudding if we have eggs at home (the roomie is supposed to pick up our re-up from the mennonites, but has been birthing babies left, right, and centre.)
the sundae pie was pretty aight for $1.50. it's got a thin brownie/cake bottom, then an indeterminate chocolate and white topping with more chocolate squiggles on top. the filling tastes like cool whip (so, freon).
anyway, i'm checking out for the night...back to business as usual and non-fat-little-weirdo states of being tomorrow.
fin.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
hypothesis:
people of chinese descent have a genetic predisposition to LOVE lesportsac gear. or maybe that's just me. i can't help it! the line manages to combine my favorite things: colours, cute prints, indestructibility, practicality. seriously, if they're good enough to court stella mccartney for two straight years of collaborations, and fafi, and countless other amazing designers, they're CERTAINLY good enough for me. and you really can't beat the price. so whilst my contemporaries routinely blow $300-500 on leather, au courant handbags by the likes of marc jacobs, miu miu, balenciaga and the rest, i'm perfectly content to have something that looks cute, is comfortable, holds and compartmentalizes all my stuff, AND leaves me hands free. look at the "lakeside" print!!!!! *bites pillow*i actually just bid on that little number on ebay. i think it'd be a great travel bag, with the three tiers and all.
COUNTDOWN TO THE WATCHMEN PREMIERE HAS BEGUN. truth be told, i don't have high hopes, but i'm cautiously optimistic. i also kind of want to go as rorshach for halloween next year...like every other nerdboy out there.
tonight i went to see the dotytron's practicum's school's production of 'aladdin' - it was kind of awesome slash terrifying. the kids were awesome, the parents were terrifying. it was like a sea of old people. wicked old people. who looked hella old and fantastically schlumpy. how do people stop caring!??? what happens?!??? please don't ever let me get that way. i'd love to take a lesson from my mom - don't get me wrong, her home clothes are straight off the grimy street vendors of hong kong, but when she leaves the house, she puts some effort in. they also laughed at s**t that wasn't funny. i was laughing about how AWESOMELY gong-showy the production was...the parents were like, ACTUALLY laughing at the silly puns. please don't let me get like that. the day i laugh at puns (i don't know if 'c**tainer' counts) is the day that i've crossed the line into doddering irrelevance.
my siblings' new word of the past weekend was "apologist." as in: "i'm a chris brown apologist" "you're a c-hova apologist!" "you're a irish jean valjean apologist!" lol!
i'm a fast food apologist. last night i had made tonight's meal, in anticipation of the fact that we were going to just have enough time to stop at home and shovel some food down, before trying to make our way through a mob of enabling parental units to secure some decent seating at the show. i made egg salad and borscht. i also bought smart food because i didn't actually think we'd have time to eat a meal at home, so i knew we'd need something to tide us over. well, we got home, quickly toasted off a slice of bread each and had an open-faced egg salad sandwich (oh egg salad, how i love thee - EGG ON EGG, WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE???). then we ate the smart food at the show - the idea being we would come home and sensibly eat the borscht for a healthy repast.
but no. no sooner had we pulled out of the parking lot than the wicked impulse to pay a visit to my lady wendy's house of artery-clogging repute took up residence in my id. we pulled an audible and pulled up in the fast food drive of burger king instead, except this place had a busted sign that only read "burg" (it's inelegant, but it gets the point across.) the dotytron placed his order, and looked over at me, "i'm not that hungry," i said. as he turned around to tell the disembodied robot-voice that that was indeed all, i frantically clawed at his arm and ordered a double whopper meal with onion rings and a coke zero (concession to health), and then MADE SURE he also placed an order for the hershey's sundae pies. lol! what's wrong with me? i invariably spend $20 at burger king. it's like a talent. an utterly useless, horribly unhealthy and self-sabotaging talent.
this was not made better by my realization that i can't fit into my jeans of yore (like, my favorite jeans from 2 years ago that developed a hole in the crotchal region and that i couldn't throw away but strangely decided to pull out of retirement for my attendance at a CHILDREN'S musical theatre production.) i blame my office job. healthy eating will begin again in earnest tomorrow. i'll also give you my thoughts on the sundae pie.
fin.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
duh. me no read so good.
as i mentioned, we saw 'the reader' on saturday. i had pulled it from a torrent. during the climactic trial scene, the disc kept freezing up and stopping. i couldn't skip forward, only back. this was LITERALLY at the apex of the movie (or so i thought.) the holocaust survivor is giving testimony about hanna schmitz (kate winslet's character) in the courtroom. she says something along the lines of: "hanna schmitz chose differently. we didn't know why. then, one day, we found out -" AND THE DISC STOPPED THERE. i was kind of beside myself and tried plying little bro chova's playstation 3 with all the weird, juju at my disposal, only to give up and accept that i would NEVER KNOW WHAT THEY FOUND OUT. ONLY I DO KNOW. BECAUSE I'M AN IDIOT AND THE FILE WAS SPLIT INTO TWO SEGMENTS. lol!warning: the following review contains spoiler alerts, although if you're actually surprised by the "twist" i think you might want to reconsider your cognitive abilities
anyway, i thought this movie was (to use the outlaw bro's terminology) hokey. cheesy. kind of embarrassing with its' ham-fisted execution of high-minded, literary aspirations. the score was TERRIBLE. it was intrusive, obvious, and so trite. the same supposed-to-be-lilting/haunting piano would come slogging through the moment the scene hinted at "introspection" or "emotionally charged meaningful exchange between characters" or "tears welling" or "a character's distracted, faraway glance out of a train window that suggests all their sublimated emotions."
the film itself wasn't much better. listen: i'm all for a nuanced examination of the banality on behalf of the citizens of germany and europe and the world at large that allowed the holocaust to happen. i'm very much interested in a critical understanding of how people stood by, of the complexities that underlie people's complicity with the genocide, of the mass collusion with the nazis. i'm no german apologist, by any means, but i think there's room within the discourse for a meditation on the subject that doesn't cleave immediately into stark black and white, that embraces the shades of grey. this film is not making room for that discourse.
as a metaphor for the loss of reflexivity and self-awareness of the "everyday" german citizen that allowed the holocaust to happen, i think that hanna's illiteracy could have been an effective vehicle (probably more in text...the story doesn't lend itself to the visual drama of film.) unfortunately, the filmmaker doesn't give the viewer credit for having a modicum of intelligence and sense and decides to bludgeon you to distraction with "clues," lest the already poorly disguised symbolism be lost. in doing so, the filmmaker makes the tragic mistake of making it about hanna's illiteracy in the less evocative, literal sense of her inability to read. by leaving a breadcrumb trail consisting of entire loaves, dumped square in the middle of scenes, and in the stilted, overly mannered and stagy delivery of dialogue, the filmmaker strips away the metaphor and leaves you with the symbol, stripped of its symbolic power - a squat, homely trifle, unable to guide you to a more considered engagement with the material.
the first time the young boy michael returns to hanna's flat after a bout with scarlet fever, she's carefully ironing her undergarments, in a scene that could have been fraught with tense, illicit desire. instead, when he makes a remark about his weakness during his illness, and the he could "barely be bothered to read" - winslet literally FREEZES, and the scene could not have been more lacking in subtlety than if a giant air-horn AOOOOOOOOOGGGAAAA had gone off instead. when michael finally "realizes" that hanna is illiterate, in a climactic courtroom scene - the audience is robbed of the thrill of sharing his discovery because we've been led by a ring through the nose to that same conclusion, seemingly hours (and movie-years) before him. they then drove my outlaw bro crazy but not crediting the audience with being able to remember scenes that had just happened. so the director makes the novice decision to create a short montage of all the scenes of hanna basically going APES**T any time she was confronted with the written word, as if we COULDN'T BE CREDITED WITH PIECING (AND REMEMBERING) THE MOST OBVIOUS MESSAGE OF THE MOVIE TOGETHER.
it was pretty terrible and definitely not best picture worthy. i was kind of insulted at its inclusion. it was so PATENTLY trying to be "heavy," "serious" fare and yet it couldn't present any of the issues in a way befitting the intelligence of the general populace. pap.
bah. i'm going to have to do my book reviews tomorrow night or the night after. phew! so much to tell!!! i've totally been neglecting my rss feeds lately too, so not much to show you in the roll call of awesome (or bunk) department.
tonight i made spaghetti with clam sauce for dinner. i use only 1/4 c. of butter and a glug or two of olive oil, but that, in combination with the onions, garlic, clams, and in this case, chopped yellow tomatoes is enough to make the most aromatic, flavour-packed coating for the pasta. it's so quick and healthy! even though i made a baby spinach salad (with avocado, more yellow hothouse tomatoes, toasted salted pumpkin seeds, red wine vinaigrette) to go with, i ended up eating two bowls of pasta and foregoing salad. the dotytron LOVED the dutch baby (it was the first time for us both.) he's pretty particular about his breakfast quick breads, so i was shocked. this morning, as he climbed the stairs to find me making my morning breakfast, i was met with the stinging accusation: "YOU DIDN'T EAT THE FAT BABY, DID YOU?????" (i didn't. i had a buttered, toasted bagel.) and this evening, the first words i heard once he had unloaded all the detritus of the day, was: "i love the fat baby"
roll call of awesome:
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
images from a 1958 USSR pavilion brochure (courtesy of grain edit)
illustrations from italian illustrator bombo!
mexican tissue paper flowers. you know how NOT to spend $200 on a bouquet (that's the price i was quoted to START)? you make your own!!! i'm super excited to make myself paper flowers...that way i can control the colours, size, everything! aren't they lovely? ça c'est tout
fin.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
"i'm really excited about pancake tuesday"
ever since i cottoned on to today being pancake tuesday sometime last week, that's been my diurnal refrain - to the point where the dotytron told me i had to stop saying it. i AM excited about pancake tuesday though! and it's not the kind of thing that i want to or should deny. we missed pancake tuesday last year, and the year before that. as we all know, no one loves a theme meal more than k. lagerfeld, esquire, so i've turned this week into an homage to new orleans (well, two nights anyway.) tonight we had pancakes and bacon for dinnie and friday i'm making oyster po' boys with remoulade. unf!
i got inspired and instead of doing a traditional stack of flapjacks, made us dutch babies instead. dutch babies are like giant yorkshire puddings - made from a thin pancake batter with a higher proportion of egg, which makes it rise all awkward and puffy and will turn into a delicious, crispy, butter-drenched, crusty bottomed, delicate eggy vehicle for fruit, or in our case, a sprinkling of powdered sugar and maple syrup. it's meant to rise up dramatically and then it'll sink, usually creating a depression in the middle that people like to pile fruit into. i made them in our cast iron skillets - i can't remember the last time i used our teflon pans. the great cast iron switchover of 2009 is a grand success...i just have to get a GIANT one (like, 12") to replace my biggest nonstick and then we're good to go.
i know i promised you movie reviews and book reviews, but i've got a lot of paperwork to get ahead of tonight, so i'll leave you with a few short blurbs.
the second is about how the dotytron is a mama's boy but in the very best way - he's super nice to my mum. a few weeks ago when we went to drop off food for my mum after her surgery, we hung out with her for a bit. we sat on her bed (me at the foot, the dotytron next to her) and he read a magazine while i talked to my mum. when we got up to leave, he said bye, and then he leaned over and kissed her on her frankenstein, turtley head! so cute! he's always currying favour with my mom, except not, because he's just nice without thinking twice about it. whenever we go out to eat he always cuts off a piece of his entrée and puts it on her plate without asking (i'm a little greedier about it and a little more reticent to do the splitsies thing with my mom, because if she likes what you ordered better than what she ordered, you get shorted.) yesterday, when we were getting on the subway to go home, she was handing me a token for the subway, but he missed the gesture and thought she didn't have one so he gave her the one in his hand. dawwwwwww.
the third will be after the division when i post the recipe for the dutch baby.
now onto paperwork.
fin.
---------------------------------------------------------
dutch baby
serves 2, can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, easily
4 T unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. half-and-half
pinch of salt
- preheat the oven to 425°F. divide the 4 Tbs butter between two 6-inch cast-iron skillets [i used one 10" skillet for each batch], and melt it over medium heat.
- in a blender, whir together the eggs, flour, and half-and-half [i used my immersion blender and a large measuring cup to make for a quicker cleanup]
- pour the batter into the skillets over the melted butter. slide the skillets into the oven, and bake for 25 minutes.
- remove the puffed pancakes from the oven, transfer them to a plate or shallow bowl, and sprinkle on lemon juice, and dust with powdered sugar [or add the fruit topping/pancake topping of your choice]. serve immediately.
i got inspired and instead of doing a traditional stack of flapjacks, made us dutch babies instead. dutch babies are like giant yorkshire puddings - made from a thin pancake batter with a higher proportion of egg, which makes it rise all awkward and puffy and will turn into a delicious, crispy, butter-drenched, crusty bottomed, delicate eggy vehicle for fruit, or in our case, a sprinkling of powdered sugar and maple syrup. it's meant to rise up dramatically and then it'll sink, usually creating a depression in the middle that people like to pile fruit into. i made them in our cast iron skillets - i can't remember the last time i used our teflon pans. the great cast iron switchover of 2009 is a grand success...i just have to get a GIANT one (like, 12") to replace my biggest nonstick and then we're good to go.
i know i promised you movie reviews and book reviews, but i've got a lot of paperwork to get ahead of tonight, so i'll leave you with a few short blurbs.
the second is about how the dotytron is a mama's boy but in the very best way - he's super nice to my mum. a few weeks ago when we went to drop off food for my mum after her surgery, we hung out with her for a bit. we sat on her bed (me at the foot, the dotytron next to her) and he read a magazine while i talked to my mum. when we got up to leave, he said bye, and then he leaned over and kissed her on her frankenstein, turtley head! so cute! he's always currying favour with my mom, except not, because he's just nice without thinking twice about it. whenever we go out to eat he always cuts off a piece of his entrée and puts it on her plate without asking (i'm a little greedier about it and a little more reticent to do the splitsies thing with my mom, because if she likes what you ordered better than what she ordered, you get shorted.) yesterday, when we were getting on the subway to go home, she was handing me a token for the subway, but he missed the gesture and thought she didn't have one so he gave her the one in his hand. dawwwwwww.
the third will be after the division when i post the recipe for the dutch baby.
now onto paperwork.
fin.
---------------------------------------------------------
dutch baby
serves 2, can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, easily
4 T unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. half-and-half
pinch of salt
- preheat the oven to 425°F. divide the 4 Tbs butter between two 6-inch cast-iron skillets [i used one 10" skillet for each batch], and melt it over medium heat.
- in a blender, whir together the eggs, flour, and half-and-half [i used my immersion blender and a large measuring cup to make for a quicker cleanup]
- pour the batter into the skillets over the melted butter. slide the skillets into the oven, and bake for 25 minutes.
- remove the puffed pancakes from the oven, transfer them to a plate or shallow bowl, and sprinkle on lemon juice, and dust with powdered sugar [or add the fruit topping/pancake topping of your choice]. serve immediately.
Monday, February 23, 2009
slumdog snoozeanaire
predictably and unjustifiably swept the oscars last night. really? it wasn't THAT good. it was decent. an entertaining, distracting, colourful trifle that glosses over poverty and chemistry between the leads and leaves you the moment you step out of the theatre. it's not the kind of film that wows you. that thrills, excites, engages, challenges. it's as easy to swallow as pablum. but whatevs, the academy has been wrong before (hello: 'shakespeare in love'? 'juno'? 'little miss sunshine'?) giving 'slumdog' the win for sound mixing was egregious. did anyone even NOTICE the sound in 'slumdog'? VERSUS 'THE DARK KNIGHT'?!???? i did pretty well in the oscar pool, losing to my sister by one point (i knew i shouldn't have voted with my heart in the best actor race.) i missed the first part but it seemed to move along at the tidy clip. my sister gets really upset when the audience in the auditorium doesn't clap equally for all the people who get mentioned in the tear-jerker "in memoriam" segment - she kept repeating: "clap equally or at the end! clap equally or at the end!" which is kind of true. don't be dicks about it, just because people have no cultural memory any more (or any memory for that matter.)
now the clothes. kate winslet's dress was interesting in concept and colour, but ended up looking like it lacked polish. reese witherspoon's dress was a mess. i really liked miley cyrus' gown, even though i thought it wore her instead of the other way around. at first i didn't like marisa tomei's, but when i saw all the pleating i changed up my opinion - i do wish it had been more of a colour though, the oyster shade washed her out even though she editorial-posed her heart out on the red carpet. SJP's boobs were wrangled, pushed, and prodded up and out as if their very integrity depended on it. i wasn't a fan of her gown. i loved penelope's vintage balmain number and leslie mann's sequined sheath. i thought there was too little colour, overall and that beyonce needs to learn to tone it down and for the love of all that is tasteful STOP LISTENING TO YOUR MOTHER. viola davis and taraji henson both looked absolutely stunning. halle berry's dress was too busy. frieda pinto's number, i don't care if it's dior, looked cheap and was pretty unflattering, and shame on you for doing that to someone who possesses that radiant of a smile.
the biggest upset was the most obscure japanese foreign film of all time winning over 'THE CLASS'. WHAT! i was never more sure of anything than i was that 'the class' would win that category, considering i think it's head and shoulders above 'the reader' (which i saw this weekend, review to come) and 'the curious case of benjamin button' and 'slumdog'. it's best picture worthy, and to lose to 'departures' whatever that is, was a big shock. they really DO hate the french, eh? film friend D was equally flabbergasted. this morning we shared a little tête-à-tête about it. "i can tell you about the german film, the austrian film, the israeli film and of course the french film, but i don't know a single thing about the japanese one. it's not on ANYONE'S radar" lol! also, i LOVED the judd apatow directed 'pineapple express' bit with my beloved james franco. so funny! there's nothing funnier than people pretending to laugh at serious movies. hell, i used the same bit a few weeks ago when i saw '4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days' so i consider myself in good company.
as a strange aside, philip seymour hoffman showed up wearing the EXACT SAME TOQUE I TRIED TO KNIT FOR MY MOM (twice)! bizarre!
so saturday night my back was all messed up still and it started storming so i didn't go to amit after all...the dotyron was on his way to being deep in his cups and flatly refused to drive back downtown in the increasingly inclement weather conditions. so what did we do instead? the kids piled into the family room, and we looked up videos on youtube from the 'les mis' 10 year anniversary "dream cast" special where instead of the musical being fully staged, the singers stood in costume and sang in into microphones. this was put on in 1995. this means that the latter half of my high school years were spent glorying with my sister and the s-dawg over the magnificence of the performances - it was in heavy rotation because pbs caned it like you wouldn't believe (that and 'riverdance' - i think 'les mis' wins the test of time battle there). anyway, all the cast members are like, THE BEST. so we somehow found versions of all the songs on youtube WITH THE LYRICS PRINTED UNDERNEATH which meant that my saturday night was spent prostrate after a delicious home-cooked meal of: arancini, pasta with rosé sauce, baby spinach lentil salad, veal saltimbocca, and espresso mascarpone icebox cake, doing 'les mis' karaoke with my siblings and the dotytron. it was EPIC. and AMAZING.
here's a sample:
the best thing about the 10th anniversary edition, is that there's a FULL choir, and an orchestra behind them, and the GRAND FINALE features 17 JEAN VALJEANS FROM AROUND THE WORLD PERFORMING 'DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING':
i defy you not to get goosebumps. my family's collective attachment to this is a seminal part of our upbringing. it's one of the reasons why we're so close. also: the JAPANESE JEAN VALJEAN IS CHAIRMAN KAGA FROM 'IRON CHEF'. *MIND EXPLODES X GOOSEBUMPS X INFINITY*
recreating 'les mis' took a lot out of me and the dotytron and we kind of crashed out. we woke up to find that the s-dawg, my outlaw brother, and my sister had found THE NEXT VIRAL YOUTUBE SENSATION and were kind of sitting in a state of awestruck stupefaction. ladies and gentlemen, may i present to you, mr. benjamin lind:
BEST. re-creating ben's uniquely atonal, flat, rendition of the 'license to kill' theme occupied a good portion of the remainder of the weekend. nobody loves fan-video evocations of sincerity more than my family. we're ardent tay zonday fans. we genuinely LOVE this shiz. if you could channel this heart and sincerity into like, policy making, the world would be so much more of an a**-kickingly awesome place. lurve!
okay, i've given you all a lot of gifts tonight. i'm going to call it for the evening and go on my merry way. movie and book reviews are coming in the next couple of days.
tonight my mum had a meeting at mt. sinai so she met me at work and i gave her a tour of the library and she read the newspaper until i was done. from there we moseyed over to tacos el asador and had dinner with the dotytron. that's two el asador meals in 3 days!
fin.
now the clothes. kate winslet's dress was interesting in concept and colour, but ended up looking like it lacked polish. reese witherspoon's dress was a mess. i really liked miley cyrus' gown, even though i thought it wore her instead of the other way around. at first i didn't like marisa tomei's, but when i saw all the pleating i changed up my opinion - i do wish it had been more of a colour though, the oyster shade washed her out even though she editorial-posed her heart out on the red carpet. SJP's boobs were wrangled, pushed, and prodded up and out as if their very integrity depended on it. i wasn't a fan of her gown. i loved penelope's vintage balmain number and leslie mann's sequined sheath. i thought there was too little colour, overall and that beyonce needs to learn to tone it down and for the love of all that is tasteful STOP LISTENING TO YOUR MOTHER. viola davis and taraji henson both looked absolutely stunning. halle berry's dress was too busy. frieda pinto's number, i don't care if it's dior, looked cheap and was pretty unflattering, and shame on you for doing that to someone who possesses that radiant of a smile.
the biggest upset was the most obscure japanese foreign film of all time winning over 'THE CLASS'. WHAT! i was never more sure of anything than i was that 'the class' would win that category, considering i think it's head and shoulders above 'the reader' (which i saw this weekend, review to come) and 'the curious case of benjamin button' and 'slumdog'. it's best picture worthy, and to lose to 'departures' whatever that is, was a big shock. they really DO hate the french, eh? film friend D was equally flabbergasted. this morning we shared a little tête-à-tête about it. "i can tell you about the german film, the austrian film, the israeli film and of course the french film, but i don't know a single thing about the japanese one. it's not on ANYONE'S radar" lol! also, i LOVED the judd apatow directed 'pineapple express' bit with my beloved james franco. so funny! there's nothing funnier than people pretending to laugh at serious movies. hell, i used the same bit a few weeks ago when i saw '4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days' so i consider myself in good company.
as a strange aside, philip seymour hoffman showed up wearing the EXACT SAME TOQUE I TRIED TO KNIT FOR MY MOM (twice)! bizarre!so saturday night my back was all messed up still and it started storming so i didn't go to amit after all...the dotyron was on his way to being deep in his cups and flatly refused to drive back downtown in the increasingly inclement weather conditions. so what did we do instead? the kids piled into the family room, and we looked up videos on youtube from the 'les mis' 10 year anniversary "dream cast" special where instead of the musical being fully staged, the singers stood in costume and sang in into microphones. this was put on in 1995. this means that the latter half of my high school years were spent glorying with my sister and the s-dawg over the magnificence of the performances - it was in heavy rotation because pbs caned it like you wouldn't believe (that and 'riverdance' - i think 'les mis' wins the test of time battle there). anyway, all the cast members are like, THE BEST. so we somehow found versions of all the songs on youtube WITH THE LYRICS PRINTED UNDERNEATH which meant that my saturday night was spent prostrate after a delicious home-cooked meal of: arancini, pasta with rosé sauce, baby spinach lentil salad, veal saltimbocca, and espresso mascarpone icebox cake, doing 'les mis' karaoke with my siblings and the dotytron. it was EPIC. and AMAZING.
here's a sample:
the best thing about the 10th anniversary edition, is that there's a FULL choir, and an orchestra behind them, and the GRAND FINALE features 17 JEAN VALJEANS FROM AROUND THE WORLD PERFORMING 'DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING':
i defy you not to get goosebumps. my family's collective attachment to this is a seminal part of our upbringing. it's one of the reasons why we're so close. also: the JAPANESE JEAN VALJEAN IS CHAIRMAN KAGA FROM 'IRON CHEF'. *MIND EXPLODES X GOOSEBUMPS X INFINITY*
recreating 'les mis' took a lot out of me and the dotytron and we kind of crashed out. we woke up to find that the s-dawg, my outlaw brother, and my sister had found THE NEXT VIRAL YOUTUBE SENSATION and were kind of sitting in a state of awestruck stupefaction. ladies and gentlemen, may i present to you, mr. benjamin lind:
BEST. re-creating ben's uniquely atonal, flat, rendition of the 'license to kill' theme occupied a good portion of the remainder of the weekend. nobody loves fan-video evocations of sincerity more than my family. we're ardent tay zonday fans. we genuinely LOVE this shiz. if you could channel this heart and sincerity into like, policy making, the world would be so much more of an a**-kickingly awesome place. lurve!
okay, i've given you all a lot of gifts tonight. i'm going to call it for the evening and go on my merry way. movie and book reviews are coming in the next couple of days.
tonight my mum had a meeting at mt. sinai so she met me at work and i gave her a tour of the library and she read the newspaper until i was done. from there we moseyed over to tacos el asador and had dinner with the dotytron. that's two el asador meals in 3 days!
fin.
Friday, February 20, 2009
there but for the grace of robaxacet
i would not have come into work today. i'm so effin' sore! what the hell? what did i do to deserve this?
this has also been a bit of a piggerton day. i stayed in bed way longer than i should have, because i physically couldn't get UP without twinges of pain in my shoulder and neck (i hope it's not meningitis!) the dotytron packed me a robaxacet care package but cautioned me against dosing before eating. i didn't have time to eat breakfast so i had a bacon and egg bagel from the caf (only my 5th ever caf meal, in almost 2 years of working here). then i had pre-existing lunch plans with my friend M at the indian buffet close by. now i have dinner plans at tacos el asador with L and her bf N. it's nice seeing people but i really want to go home and lay the eff down and regain my full range of motion.
i didn't get to watch 'the reader' last night because A was in a chatty mood so we ended up talking most of the night. it was nice. i like him!
in the happy files: i managed to score some discounted thakoon stuff from target while in the states...because the line is old (in target time) i got some sick deals. a skirt for THIRTEEN DOLLARS! a spring coat for TWENTY! what a scoop! apparently alexander mcqueen is doing the next designer line. i love you target! don't ever make the mistake of coming to canada and getting sullied!
in the sad files: my clunky, cheapo winter boots that i bought for sixty bucks like, 5 years ago have sprung a small leak. heartbreaking. luckily, i scored an equally ugly, no-name (i'm NOT spending $150 on sorels, thanks) cheapo pair from sears for $40. sweet! i believe in sacrificing form for function sometimes.
in the happy files: i made the discovery that the chicago architecture foundation offers tours of the lakefront by SEGWAY.
...
has it sunk in yet?!???? BY SEGWAY PEOPLE!!!!! the dotytron and i have a mild obsession (me: mild, dotyron: raging) with segways. it's kind of expensive and you have to wear helmets but in the grand tradition of us taking on outlandish modes of transportation while on foreign soil (the tandem bike in bruges, anyone?!???), i think it'll be worth it for the hilarity alone. my prediction is more time spent taking pictures of each other on the segway than in listening/paying attention to the tour.
dearest readers! i have such a backlog of stories/events/reviews/random musings with which to regale you! and so little time!!!
i'm filling out my oscar ballot right now...i think i'm going to fill out two. one of who i think SHOULD win, and the official one of who is GOING to win. that way i can reconcile my heart and integrity with my more mercenary interests.
tomorrow i'm going to be up bright and early to accompany the dotytron up to markham to await the arrival of my sis and outlaw bro and the kids. they're in town for my grandpa's birthday dinner tomorrow night. i'm going to spend the day there, make dinner, then head back downtown to hit this show: amit @ el mocambo i'm mostly in it for chrisc64's (of C&C friend factory fame) old skool set with the gunnderson. it's going to be boss (if he plays it dancefloor friendly, otherwise known as "tunes that lagerfeld wants to hear" - i represent the dancing desires of the masses).
i'm excited! this weekend is going to be so fun!
in other news...i find some of the food peeps on this messageboard i still stupidly post on to be hella irritating. they're like the kind of people who made canada debase itself for obama yesterday. like, totally swept up into the food zeitgeist like, 10 months (or in some cases, years) too late. and they don't KNOW anything! but they preen like you wouldn't believe! they're almost a-critical. you can almost graph the fall out --> toronto life and/or now post a foaming at the mouth review --> 10 weeks later, they whip themselves into a frenzy discussing how much they want to eat there --> 2 weeks after that, they do, and are A-CRITICAL! they're like the worst kind of upwardly mobile n00bs. gah. i don't know why i go on there (i know why: habit/procrastination)
as an aside: the obama coverage bordered on embarrassing - seriously canada? HE'S NOT YOUR PRESIDENT. HE'S ALSO PRETTY CENTRIST. HIS STIMULATION PACKAGE IS MEH. it's just embarrassing to be canadian and watch them go buck like that, prostrating themselves out of adulation for THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT (because that's how you're supposed to perform when he's around?) it's cringe inducing. i don't know what i prefer more, the rabid 'twilight' fan or the rabid canadian obama fan. i might have to pick the 'twilight' fan. at least they've done their reading (at the very least it can be said that few can match prepubescent girls for their obsessive research skills when it comes to the objects of their hormonal outpouring.)
sorry peeps, i got a little ranty there. i blame the robaxacet. and that i'm super-full but wish i was super-not so that i could suck the marrow out of el asador (who am i kidding? i'll probably go whole hog and then end up filled with regret. and by "filled with regret" i mean: "crawling out of bed to hit the pepto at three am") upcoming posts will include reviews of the YA fiction i've been filling my brain with lately, as well as a dramatic account of my initiation into a ponzi scheme!
fin.
this has also been a bit of a piggerton day. i stayed in bed way longer than i should have, because i physically couldn't get UP without twinges of pain in my shoulder and neck (i hope it's not meningitis!) the dotytron packed me a robaxacet care package but cautioned me against dosing before eating. i didn't have time to eat breakfast so i had a bacon and egg bagel from the caf (only my 5th ever caf meal, in almost 2 years of working here). then i had pre-existing lunch plans with my friend M at the indian buffet close by. now i have dinner plans at tacos el asador with L and her bf N. it's nice seeing people but i really want to go home and lay the eff down and regain my full range of motion.
i didn't get to watch 'the reader' last night because A was in a chatty mood so we ended up talking most of the night. it was nice. i like him!
in the happy files: i managed to score some discounted thakoon stuff from target while in the states...because the line is old (in target time) i got some sick deals. a skirt for THIRTEEN DOLLARS! a spring coat for TWENTY! what a scoop! apparently alexander mcqueen is doing the next designer line. i love you target! don't ever make the mistake of coming to canada and getting sullied!
in the sad files: my clunky, cheapo winter boots that i bought for sixty bucks like, 5 years ago have sprung a small leak. heartbreaking. luckily, i scored an equally ugly, no-name (i'm NOT spending $150 on sorels, thanks) cheapo pair from sears for $40. sweet! i believe in sacrificing form for function sometimes.
in the happy files: i made the discovery that the chicago architecture foundation offers tours of the lakefront by SEGWAY.
...
has it sunk in yet?!???? BY SEGWAY PEOPLE!!!!! the dotytron and i have a mild obsession (me: mild, dotyron: raging) with segways. it's kind of expensive and you have to wear helmets but in the grand tradition of us taking on outlandish modes of transportation while on foreign soil (the tandem bike in bruges, anyone?!???), i think it'll be worth it for the hilarity alone. my prediction is more time spent taking pictures of each other on the segway than in listening/paying attention to the tour.
dearest readers! i have such a backlog of stories/events/reviews/random musings with which to regale you! and so little time!!!
i'm filling out my oscar ballot right now...i think i'm going to fill out two. one of who i think SHOULD win, and the official one of who is GOING to win. that way i can reconcile my heart and integrity with my more mercenary interests.
tomorrow i'm going to be up bright and early to accompany the dotytron up to markham to await the arrival of my sis and outlaw bro and the kids. they're in town for my grandpa's birthday dinner tomorrow night. i'm going to spend the day there, make dinner, then head back downtown to hit this show: amit @ el mocambo i'm mostly in it for chrisc64's (of C&C friend factory fame) old skool set with the gunnderson. it's going to be boss (if he plays it dancefloor friendly, otherwise known as "tunes that lagerfeld wants to hear" - i represent the dancing desires of the masses).
i'm excited! this weekend is going to be so fun!
in other news...i find some of the food peeps on this messageboard i still stupidly post on to be hella irritating. they're like the kind of people who made canada debase itself for obama yesterday. like, totally swept up into the food zeitgeist like, 10 months (or in some cases, years) too late. and they don't KNOW anything! but they preen like you wouldn't believe! they're almost a-critical. you can almost graph the fall out --> toronto life and/or now post a foaming at the mouth review --> 10 weeks later, they whip themselves into a frenzy discussing how much they want to eat there --> 2 weeks after that, they do, and are A-CRITICAL! they're like the worst kind of upwardly mobile n00bs. gah. i don't know why i go on there (i know why: habit/procrastination)
as an aside: the obama coverage bordered on embarrassing - seriously canada? HE'S NOT YOUR PRESIDENT. HE'S ALSO PRETTY CENTRIST. HIS STIMULATION PACKAGE IS MEH. it's just embarrassing to be canadian and watch them go buck like that, prostrating themselves out of adulation for THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT (because that's how you're supposed to perform when he's around?) it's cringe inducing. i don't know what i prefer more, the rabid 'twilight' fan or the rabid canadian obama fan. i might have to pick the 'twilight' fan. at least they've done their reading (at the very least it can be said that few can match prepubescent girls for their obsessive research skills when it comes to the objects of their hormonal outpouring.)
sorry peeps, i got a little ranty there. i blame the robaxacet. and that i'm super-full but wish i was super-not so that i could suck the marrow out of el asador (who am i kidding? i'll probably go whole hog and then end up filled with regret. and by "filled with regret" i mean: "crawling out of bed to hit the pepto at three am") upcoming posts will include reviews of the YA fiction i've been filling my brain with lately, as well as a dramatic account of my initiation into a ponzi scheme!
fin.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
believe in the restorative power...
of pancetta. that's another credo.
this is going to be a shorty...i messed up my shoulder lifting weights (!!!!!) as part of my new regimen to turn back the hands of wii age time. actually, i've been doing it for two weeks (reluctantly). anyway, my shoulder is all messed up and i'm stiff and sore and consequently confronted what ended up being a rather busy day with a considerable amount of ill-will and disgruntled short temperedness.
anyway, we had our buddy A over for dinner. i really like him. i made carbonara pasta with penne picolo. like the subject line says: when in doubt, believe in the power of salty carbs to bring you round the horn. i added some peas, and gussied up the standard formula of egg and parmesan sauce with some onion and garlic sauteed in the pancetta fat. we had an olive garden salad alongside. now i'm treating myself to a night off. i'm going to watch "the reader" and knit and unplug.
fin.
this is going to be a shorty...i messed up my shoulder lifting weights (!!!!!) as part of my new regimen to turn back the hands of wii age time. actually, i've been doing it for two weeks (reluctantly). anyway, my shoulder is all messed up and i'm stiff and sore and consequently confronted what ended up being a rather busy day with a considerable amount of ill-will and disgruntled short temperedness.
anyway, we had our buddy A over for dinner. i really like him. i made carbonara pasta with penne picolo. like the subject line says: when in doubt, believe in the power of salty carbs to bring you round the horn. i added some peas, and gussied up the standard formula of egg and parmesan sauce with some onion and garlic sauteed in the pancetta fat. we had an olive garden salad alongside. now i'm treating myself to a night off. i'm going to watch "the reader" and knit and unplug.fin.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
america the beautiful
as usual, upstate new york was good to us this weekend. we cruised down in our borrowed pt cruiser listening to our traditional road trip soundtrack of equal parts heart's greatest hits, les mis original broadway cast, assorted jazz, and hits from the radio. we got there late on saturday and scarfed down pizza paul's (pizza and buffalo wings) which was made all the more appetizing because my sister picked it up for us, fresh. delicious!
even though brian's u.s.a. diner is advertising for cooks in the penny saver, you wouldn't know it from the delectable (and mountainous) portion of breakfast i had the next morning. this is real-deal diner-style breakfast. $6.99 for the "belt-buster" pictured above. that's corned beef hash, 2 eggs, toast, and you choice of meat (sausage patty ftw!) i always get my toast dry, which is my small and meaningless concession to stemming the tides of fat about to be coursing through my veins. i never eat the toast anyway.
then we came home and played rock band (accompanied by my niece, who rocked out like whoa) and watched mtod and played around on the wii fit. i totally failed the initial fitness assessment on the wii. my bmi was in the normal range, but because i did so poorly on the balance/centre of gravity/reflex tests, my wii age was the oldest out of anyone there (49!!!!!!!!!!) epic fail!
for dinner we by-passed our usual burger go-to, red robin, in favour of "five guys burgers and fries" where i had the best not-made-at-home burger of my life. hands down. no question. they're a chain and if you ever happen to come across one in your travels and DON'T stop, you're a colossal fool and will rue the day the next time you hunker down and bite into a flabby, insipid, spongy, hero burger-type patty.
the surroundings are pretty bare bones...stark white walls with red-lettered testimonials, indifferent, mass-market chairs - red, black, and white colour scheme. let it be known also: they ONLY do burgers and fries (and hot dogs). no gravy. no onion rings. no milk shakes. no chicken. no fish. just the juiciest, most delectable patties (the "hamburger" comes with 2 patties, standard, the "little hamburger" means only one patty), sizzling full of beefy flavour and with the textbook 100% ground beef crumble that is a textural stamp of purity - no fillers, no soy, no gluten, here! i had the cheeseburger and went a little hog wild with my toppings: ketchup, mustard, mayo, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, and grilled mushrooms. see how soft and yielding that bun is??? perfect. this is a hamburger with an expiration date. you have to commit to eating that thing lest the co-mingling of juice, toppings, and condiments vaporize its tender carbohydrate casing. the fries are pure potato, from russets, fried to a limp, salted, mealiness (that's a good thing.) i'm actually overcome with pangs of sadness when i think about how long it's going to be until i can eat another one.
we closed out our stay with an obligatory dinosaur bbq visit. i had the platter that comes with ribs and 1/2 a chicken, and picked as my sides fried okra, and the goopiest, cheesiest mac'n'cheese i've ever had. so so so good! this is after we split an appetizer of fried green tomatoes and cajun boiled shrimp and before we split a dessert of peanut butter pie, chocolate icebox pie, and key lime pie. heavens! effin' rochester is like my freakin' mecca.
in between all that caloric blitz there was an incident with my nephew getting into my sister's lipstick, and a hilarious bedtime story reading courtesy of the dotytron to little ze (they're seriously best buds - probably because little ze's word for his favorite treat [donuts], dodo, is what he calls his unky.) anyway, the dotytron read this epic long story which little ze, in his little 2 year old brain, punctuated with "okaaaaaay" every 10 seconds. "once upon a time-" "okaaaaay" haha.
the dotytron is kind of losing his s**t right now. the night before he began his teaching block at his placement school, he did homework until wicked late and then huffily climbed into bed, mad at how little time there is in a day, how early he had to get up, that he wasn't asleep already, and generally at his lot in life. the cats jumped up on the dresser to nip off with one of those rubber "hope" bracelets that the dotytron had gotten from a student for valentine's day. he turned over in the bed, and not getting up, hissed at them, "guys! gimme the bracelet!" the cats, being cats, ignored him and continued batting it around. "GUYS! give it here. giveit. bring it to me. giveit." obviously they didn't listen, at which point, he flopped back over, screwed his eyes shut, and hissed, "you guys are F**KS." lol!!!
tonight for dinner i took another suzanne goin recipe for inspiration (i effin' LOVE suzanne goin) and made a butternut squash and radicchio risotto. because i live by the basic credo that all things are improved with the addition of a poached egg, i topped each portion with one. it was so very tasty. it was easy too. start to finish it took me an hour. i'll post the recipe some time.
fin.
even though brian's u.s.a. diner is advertising for cooks in the penny saver, you wouldn't know it from the delectable (and mountainous) portion of breakfast i had the next morning. this is real-deal diner-style breakfast. $6.99 for the "belt-buster" pictured above. that's corned beef hash, 2 eggs, toast, and you choice of meat (sausage patty ftw!) i always get my toast dry, which is my small and meaningless concession to stemming the tides of fat about to be coursing through my veins. i never eat the toast anyway.
then we came home and played rock band (accompanied by my niece, who rocked out like whoa) and watched mtod and played around on the wii fit. i totally failed the initial fitness assessment on the wii. my bmi was in the normal range, but because i did so poorly on the balance/centre of gravity/reflex tests, my wii age was the oldest out of anyone there (49!!!!!!!!!!) epic fail!
for dinner we by-passed our usual burger go-to, red robin, in favour of "five guys burgers and fries" where i had the best not-made-at-home burger of my life. hands down. no question. they're a chain and if you ever happen to come across one in your travels and DON'T stop, you're a colossal fool and will rue the day the next time you hunker down and bite into a flabby, insipid, spongy, hero burger-type patty.
the surroundings are pretty bare bones...stark white walls with red-lettered testimonials, indifferent, mass-market chairs - red, black, and white colour scheme. let it be known also: they ONLY do burgers and fries (and hot dogs). no gravy. no onion rings. no milk shakes. no chicken. no fish. just the juiciest, most delectable patties (the "hamburger" comes with 2 patties, standard, the "little hamburger" means only one patty), sizzling full of beefy flavour and with the textbook 100% ground beef crumble that is a textural stamp of purity - no fillers, no soy, no gluten, here! i had the cheeseburger and went a little hog wild with my toppings: ketchup, mustard, mayo, lettuce, tomato, grilled onions, and grilled mushrooms. see how soft and yielding that bun is??? perfect. this is a hamburger with an expiration date. you have to commit to eating that thing lest the co-mingling of juice, toppings, and condiments vaporize its tender carbohydrate casing. the fries are pure potato, from russets, fried to a limp, salted, mealiness (that's a good thing.) i'm actually overcome with pangs of sadness when i think about how long it's going to be until i can eat another one.
we closed out our stay with an obligatory dinosaur bbq visit. i had the platter that comes with ribs and 1/2 a chicken, and picked as my sides fried okra, and the goopiest, cheesiest mac'n'cheese i've ever had. so so so good! this is after we split an appetizer of fried green tomatoes and cajun boiled shrimp and before we split a dessert of peanut butter pie, chocolate icebox pie, and key lime pie. heavens! effin' rochester is like my freakin' mecca. in between all that caloric blitz there was an incident with my nephew getting into my sister's lipstick, and a hilarious bedtime story reading courtesy of the dotytron to little ze (they're seriously best buds - probably because little ze's word for his favorite treat [donuts], dodo, is what he calls his unky.) anyway, the dotytron read this epic long story which little ze, in his little 2 year old brain, punctuated with "okaaaaaay" every 10 seconds. "once upon a time-" "okaaaaay" haha.
the dotytron is kind of losing his s**t right now. the night before he began his teaching block at his placement school, he did homework until wicked late and then huffily climbed into bed, mad at how little time there is in a day, how early he had to get up, that he wasn't asleep already, and generally at his lot in life. the cats jumped up on the dresser to nip off with one of those rubber "hope" bracelets that the dotytron had gotten from a student for valentine's day. he turned over in the bed, and not getting up, hissed at them, "guys! gimme the bracelet!" the cats, being cats, ignored him and continued batting it around. "GUYS! give it here. giveit. bring it to me. giveit." obviously they didn't listen, at which point, he flopped back over, screwed his eyes shut, and hissed, "you guys are F**KS." lol!!!
tonight for dinner i took another suzanne goin recipe for inspiration (i effin' LOVE suzanne goin) and made a butternut squash and radicchio risotto. because i live by the basic credo that all things are improved with the addition of a poached egg, i topped each portion with one. it was so very tasty. it was easy too. start to finish it took me an hour. i'll post the recipe some time.fin.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
firm but fair
so today i took a carriage ride down indie lane. i mean, i spend a good chunk of time slagging indie, but i haven't listened to much per se. i'm going on my preternatural ability to know what something is about and formulate a startlingly accurate appraisal without checking it out. it's a gift that i have (a gift that tends to drive people who are proponents of whatever i happen to be slagging INSANE.) anyway, i started on this mission by checking out she & him. i'm a bit of a zooey fan (faithful readers will remember that a couple of years ago, i took her on as a style icon) although i find of late that she's just been too twee for me to not find her saccharine girlishness and wide-eyed stare a little off-putting. it's obviously a calculated effort to appear adorably precious and while sometime it does work, there's something disturbing about a grown woman being precocious. it's the same reason why i can't deal with miranda july, even though i quite enjoyed her movie, "you me and everyone we know" and found her book "no one belongs here more than you" equal parts astute observation, mystery, and confounding attempt to be provocative in a contemporary art kind of way.
anyway, i listened to some she & him. her voice, reminiscent of rosemary clooney, has a gimlet clarity and sweetness befitting the 40s and 50s stripped down, MGM tar factory crooning the pair blatantly reference in their material. i give her points for not over singing - overall her vocal delivery is restrained and winning. the actual songs though, aside from their blatant references to a bygone era, are rather unmemorable. my favorite numbers were the covers (i do my research on youtube.) her version of "dream a little dream of me" is a perfect match of material to the voice, but it's not enough of a individualized take to warrant seeking she & him out (the uncanny old fashioned quality of her voice means that she could just be any other piano bar crooner taking a stab at a winsome little ditty.) she also does a version of "you really got a hold on me" and well, we all know how i feel about that song. truth be told, i much prefer smokey's version.
from there i decided that it was about time i listened to death cab for cutie. and then i made a brief stopover in the postal service territory and finally ended up at bloc party. this stuff is THE BORINGEST. basically the anti-thesis of memorable. completely forgettable regurgitations of indeterminate, noodley pop music with some weird, throwaway synth bits. SNOOZEFEST! i gave it a fair shake! you can't say i didn't try. after i finished my experiment (i conducted it at work) i called dr. rei to catch up. after the preliminaries i said, "i've been listening to death cab for cutie and the postal service"
dr. rei (obviously taken aback): "...?"
me: "it's because i wanted to finally know what it was all about"
dr. rei *deafening silence*: "and?"
me: "i hated it"
dr. rei: "phew. for a second there, i thought i might have to reassess everything i know to be true." lol!
last night on our way home, we were listening to this awesome rochester radio station that played all kinds of rock. we finished "interstate love song" by the stone temple pilots and then heard a nirvana tune and then an alice in chains number. when you compare that stuff against the kind of rock music that exists now and what existed just before it - grunge was actually an ORIGINAL musical movement - a repudiation against glossy, overproduced (but still awesome) hair rock and metal. deliberately sludgy, fuzzy, stripped down...it's cool to have experienced that first hand. i can't think what kind of original musical moments exist now and it makes me sad. when you think about the early 90s and all the stuff that was going on musically - the rise of gangster rap, the whole funk and roots flavoured tribe called quest sound, the pop, industrial, electronic music, grunge - it really was an apotheosis of creativity, and arguably the last kind of truly innovative and inspired cultural moment that we've had in a generation.
from there we naturally segued into the "is it just because we're old?" analysis. i can truly say that i don't think that's the case. music for the last little while has been a recapitulation of what has come before (for the most part.) we're in a period of revival, of revisiting material and mashing it all together, but nothing that signals a radical departure. it's kind of sad. i feel sorry for people who love death cab for cutie. i feel like they kind of live a half life of unmemorable material. maybe that's what a culture of entitlement deserves? maybe that's what we get when we make a concerted effort to celebrate mediocrity? lol! i know i kind of sound like a jerk, but seriously, those tunes are the epitome of generic (obviously this is all bracketed by a big, fat, IMO)
look at me - yammering on and i haven't even gone over the weekend yet. i'll post a full review tomorrow. for now, i'm going to treat myself to a hot shower to work out the muscles and some reading and knitting (i think i've gotten my knitting zeal back.)
tonight for dinner i made a chickpea, sweet potato, kale and kolbassa soup. we had it with fred's bread's green olive chipotle bread and butter. i felt a little guilty buying olive bread when i've been doing such a good job of keeping us in artisanal sourdough, but i was away all weekend and didn't have a chance to bang out a loaf. it's not bad, but you can't taste the chipotle at all.
finally, in the last week or two (before the whole chris brown fiasco), miley cyrus got into hot water (again) for taking a picture with her friends that was construed (rightly) to be trading on the slanty-eyed asian racist discourse. notwithstanding that miley cyrus ends up in photo-related drama on a seemingly quarterly schedule, and notwithstanding that from her self-presentation and media depictions she appears to be a spoiled, stupid, mean-girl kind of a slag - is it wrong that i actually kind of find this photo a little funny? the expression on the asian dude's face is kind of classic. the problem is that it's miley doing it and she hasn't really done enough to convince the world at large that she's NOT racist. if it was margaret cho or dave chapelle, or heck, even andy samberg or the cast of 30 rock, i'm sure it would have barely registered on the interw3b radar. unfortunately for miley, between her and her dum-dum papa billy ray, and their hollow-sounding christianity, and her petty feuds with other disney factory moppets, she couldn't pull it off.
fin.
anyway, i listened to some she & him. her voice, reminiscent of rosemary clooney, has a gimlet clarity and sweetness befitting the 40s and 50s stripped down, MGM tar factory crooning the pair blatantly reference in their material. i give her points for not over singing - overall her vocal delivery is restrained and winning. the actual songs though, aside from their blatant references to a bygone era, are rather unmemorable. my favorite numbers were the covers (i do my research on youtube.) her version of "dream a little dream of me" is a perfect match of material to the voice, but it's not enough of a individualized take to warrant seeking she & him out (the uncanny old fashioned quality of her voice means that she could just be any other piano bar crooner taking a stab at a winsome little ditty.) she also does a version of "you really got a hold on me" and well, we all know how i feel about that song. truth be told, i much prefer smokey's version.
from there i decided that it was about time i listened to death cab for cutie. and then i made a brief stopover in the postal service territory and finally ended up at bloc party. this stuff is THE BORINGEST. basically the anti-thesis of memorable. completely forgettable regurgitations of indeterminate, noodley pop music with some weird, throwaway synth bits. SNOOZEFEST! i gave it a fair shake! you can't say i didn't try. after i finished my experiment (i conducted it at work) i called dr. rei to catch up. after the preliminaries i said, "i've been listening to death cab for cutie and the postal service"
dr. rei (obviously taken aback): "...?"
me: "it's because i wanted to finally know what it was all about"
dr. rei *deafening silence*: "and?"
me: "i hated it"
dr. rei: "phew. for a second there, i thought i might have to reassess everything i know to be true." lol!
last night on our way home, we were listening to this awesome rochester radio station that played all kinds of rock. we finished "interstate love song" by the stone temple pilots and then heard a nirvana tune and then an alice in chains number. when you compare that stuff against the kind of rock music that exists now and what existed just before it - grunge was actually an ORIGINAL musical movement - a repudiation against glossy, overproduced (but still awesome) hair rock and metal. deliberately sludgy, fuzzy, stripped down...it's cool to have experienced that first hand. i can't think what kind of original musical moments exist now and it makes me sad. when you think about the early 90s and all the stuff that was going on musically - the rise of gangster rap, the whole funk and roots flavoured tribe called quest sound, the pop, industrial, electronic music, grunge - it really was an apotheosis of creativity, and arguably the last kind of truly innovative and inspired cultural moment that we've had in a generation.
from there we naturally segued into the "is it just because we're old?" analysis. i can truly say that i don't think that's the case. music for the last little while has been a recapitulation of what has come before (for the most part.) we're in a period of revival, of revisiting material and mashing it all together, but nothing that signals a radical departure. it's kind of sad. i feel sorry for people who love death cab for cutie. i feel like they kind of live a half life of unmemorable material. maybe that's what a culture of entitlement deserves? maybe that's what we get when we make a concerted effort to celebrate mediocrity? lol! i know i kind of sound like a jerk, but seriously, those tunes are the epitome of generic (obviously this is all bracketed by a big, fat, IMO)
look at me - yammering on and i haven't even gone over the weekend yet. i'll post a full review tomorrow. for now, i'm going to treat myself to a hot shower to work out the muscles and some reading and knitting (i think i've gotten my knitting zeal back.)
tonight for dinner i made a chickpea, sweet potato, kale and kolbassa soup. we had it with fred's bread's green olive chipotle bread and butter. i felt a little guilty buying olive bread when i've been doing such a good job of keeping us in artisanal sourdough, but i was away all weekend and didn't have a chance to bang out a loaf. it's not bad, but you can't taste the chipotle at all. 
finally, in the last week or two (before the whole chris brown fiasco), miley cyrus got into hot water (again) for taking a picture with her friends that was construed (rightly) to be trading on the slanty-eyed asian racist discourse. notwithstanding that miley cyrus ends up in photo-related drama on a seemingly quarterly schedule, and notwithstanding that from her self-presentation and media depictions she appears to be a spoiled, stupid, mean-girl kind of a slag - is it wrong that i actually kind of find this photo a little funny? the expression on the asian dude's face is kind of classic. the problem is that it's miley doing it and she hasn't really done enough to convince the world at large that she's NOT racist. if it was margaret cho or dave chapelle, or heck, even andy samberg or the cast of 30 rock, i'm sure it would have barely registered on the interw3b radar. unfortunately for miley, between her and her dum-dum papa billy ray, and their hollow-sounding christianity, and her petty feuds with other disney factory moppets, she couldn't pull it off.fin.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
entre les murs
i much prefer the french title for "the class" - "entre les murs" (between the walls.) it's much more evocative and indicative of what the film is actually about. this film is EXTRAORDINARY. for once, cannes got it right (it won the palme d'or). i can always tell if i loved a film by if we're obsessed with talking about it for hours afterwards...this was certainly the case - we were desperately trying to find a place where we could grab some tea and talk some more, but nothing decently priced in the yorkville area was available.
warning for jenny calendar: the following review contains spoiler alerts (kind of)
i don't even know where to start. it follows a school year in a urban school in france. it's hard to use words like "urban" and "school" in close proximity in reference to film because it immediately conjures all those poor articulations of the above. those films that show you the christ-like teacher who faces the initial struggle with the kids, only to win their hearts and help them rise above their socio-economic limitations are all too prevalent - they've become their own genre. if the teacher has faults, they're movie-land faults: racism, drug addiction, etc.
what is so fantastic about this film is that it approaches documentary in the restraint and limitations of the narrative structure. you see episodic events linked together because they occur between the walls of the school - you see what happens at disciplinary hearings, in the teacher's lounge, in the school yard, in francois marin's class. francois marin is played by francois begaudeau and the film uses his screenplay, which in turn is based on the book he wrote about his experiences teaching. it's a testament to his reflexivity that his own "character" is conflicted, uncertain, and all too human. everyone in the film (and special attention must be paid to the kids who play the teenagers, who i understand to be all untrained, first-time actors) is resolutely human. your sympathies move amongst them; you empathize, disagree, judge, and negotiate their actions along with them and see the intricacies of the power dynamics of the class room, where institutional power and discourses of class, race, aptitude, ability, and interaction all collide.
it is so stimulating and intellectually engaging. the film makes you so present in the classroom dynamic. you experience the difficulties in managing a room full of personalities from both the teacher and student perspective -how tenuous the divide is between the two roles and how much the division between pedagogue and learner in the school system is predicated on nothing more substantial than title and age. how easy it is for authority figures to slip up, how quickly things can escalate in an exchange with teenagers - how they're so smart and confused and self-aware and selfish and oblivious - and how their states are mirrored by their authority figures. race and class and gender and the inevitable slippages in education are all depicted with honesty and authenticity - the film doesn't try to pull any punches, it doesn't try to take the cheap, easy, shortcut route to your sensibilities. i can't say enough good things about it. i want to see it again - i feel like i missed so much. go see it now. it's one of the best of 2008 for sure.
that was the good part of the evening. the other part wasn't as good but the company made it good and the fact that we were all in it together.
the interior of moroco chocolat looks like it was designed by someone who graduated from the bowmanville school of cliched design (with prop rentals from urban outfitters). it was TERRIBLE and tacky beyond all measure. purple, with grey accents, black and white highly lacquered crap everywhere - like a nouveau alice in wonderland's parisian boudoir (but someone who has clearly never been to paris) by way of versailles. it was horrendous. i mean, we can all agree that versailles is breathtaking, but it's not actually in good taste, per se. it's gaudy as all f**k. and the soundtrack was INSANE! they played all-4-one's "i swear" which would probably be fine (at a lower volume) - i get it...kind of po-mo pastiche. but then they followed it up with SARAH MCLACLHAN! at that point, the pastiche theory gets thrown out the window and you're dealing with someone manning the decks who just doesn't know better, or is a cultural r-tod.
i'm willing to overlook all that because there aren't that many places to go have a nice dessert in toronto. unfortunately, this place wasn't that hot. desserts were expensive...most hoveringi n the $14-16 range and for what you get, not worth it. big time beard fail.
i had the chocolate sticky toffee pudding, served with salted caramel and gingerbread stick. this was the size of a golf ball. i'm sorry, i know what the food costs are on pastry items and i know the rent is probably insane in yorkville, but that's not my problem, it's yours. GIVE ME SOMETHING WORTH FOURTEEN DOLLARS. the flavour was aight - sticky date cake was suitably tacky, but it committed the cardinal sin of sticky toffee puddings in that the thing WASN'T SOAKED THROUGH WITH THE CARAMEL SAUCE. so it was sticky on the outside but kind of dense and dry on the inside. the chocolate mousse accompaniment was a bit of an afterthought.
the dotytron had the brownie. this place also does that stupid thing where they give the menu items names that are embarrassing to say out loud in mixed company, when there are no children present. also, the names had no relationship to the actual items and featured inexplicable spelling. so the brownie is called "brownie and clyde" and there's a menu item called "kiss me kake" (a chocolate cake w/ cream cheese frosting) anyway, this was also MINISCULE. it was about the size of a wagon wheel snack cake. and was thin (you can see it's resting on blackberries). it was okay...like a fudgy, egg-heavy flourless chocolate cake. but as you can see, there's not a hell of a lot sitting on the plate. 
i'm not the biggest fan of tromp l'oeil food. i don't generally find it that impressive. making food that's relatively malleable look like other stuff isn't all that impressive to me - it's a lot different in terms of skill set then when say, wylie dufresne makes a "fried egg" out of emulsified carrot juice and coconut. in the above example, you have a sponge cake "bun", a chocolate mousse "patty", lemon gelatin "mustard", shortbread cookie "fries", strawberry coulis "ketchup", and some green stuff that i didn't taste that's supposed to be "relish". in this case, making the food look like stuff seemed to have more to do with "what can we make this food look like?" as opposed to "what will actually taste good together and make sense from a textural/flavour standpoint?" this didn't taste that bad but it wasn't very wow. the cake overwhelmed the burger flavours and the lemon and chocolate didn't make sense. the lemon also ended up tasting kind of artificial and way too gummy - it was reminiscent of black forest cake with the fruitiness and the chocolate. incidentally, this is probably the best value for the buck as you get a crapload of shortbread cookies and the sponge cake bun is pretty substantial.
zorak got the trio of brulee's (chili chocolate, caramel ginger, and vanilla.) i didn't get to taste them but brulee is brulee and they looked alright from where i was. if this was $8-10, i'd think it was worth it, but it was also fourteen bones. so finally, it's a waste of your time and money. don't go there. they also sell the MOST EXPENSIVE MACARONS EVER. and the MOST EXPENSIVE CANDIED ORANGE PEEL EVER. THE ORANGE PEEL IS THE PART YOU THROW AWAY. the stuff is nicely packaged and i get what they're going for...but you my friends, are no fauchon.
i sound like a colossal complainer but it was awesomely fun and amazing because dr. rei and hanbo are the best. we (mostly i) managed to make hanbo turn quasi-apocalyptica because i don't believe in modeling and i don't believe that you can ascertain the intrinsic value of a company. hanbo thinks that i don't know what i'm talking about (this is true.) also, it was revealed that dr. rei has spent almost 10 years doing engineering and engineering related work but isn't an expert on anything related to engineering (civic, mechanical, electrical, chemical). in fact, the look of dismay/fear when asked to explain something engineering related was probably worth the ONE HUNDRED AND TWO DOLLARS WE SPENT ON 4 DESSERTS AND 2 POTS OF TEA. lol!!!!!! it was so funny and fun!
i did all my errands yesterday so today is my day for doing sweet f**k all. i got to go to the beer store and do some tidying around the house and maybe apply for that job and do some yoga...but otherwise i'm going to loll around on the couch reading and knitting until the dotytron comes to whisk me away to geneseo. i think we're getting pizza paul's for dinner tonight. pizza paul's is THE BEST!
fin.
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