to err is human; to forgive is divine

Birthday extravaganza

2012-02-12T10:34:00.001-05:00

My birthday was a special one this year, where I celebrated leaving the 18-24 age demographic and entering the new world of 25-34 (or 25-29).

I wanted to do something a little different than what I normally do on my birthday. What better way to say I'm growing up than to have a nice little grown up wine and cheese party!

I got these nice new plates and was (slightly too over-) excited for them.

I also now enjoy taking fancy photos of random non-fancy things. Like this:

And this (pretty wine glass markers):

I think my birthday went pretty well. My friends were there and we had a great time talking, laughing and eating delicious cheeses (nomnomnom!)

There was lots of dessert to go around too! I made french vanilla cupcakes with a whipped buttercream frosting, Kendra brought me a cake, Carolyne brought Jonny a cake, and Jonny made a Brown Betty.

Hurray for delicious food, lots of wine, and great friends!

Landon Pigg

2012-02-05T16:54:00.001-05:00

I just discovered this while perusing videos on youtube. I came across this cute video of two little kids kissing and this was the song playing in the background. It's heavenly.

I think that possibly
Maybe I'm falling for you
Yes There's a chance that I've fallen quite hard over you

I've seen the paths that your eyes wander down
I want to come too

I think that possibly
Maybe I'm falling for you

No one understands me quite like you do
Through all of the shadowy corners of me

I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew

I think that possibly
Maybe I'm falling for you
Yes there's a chance that I've fallen quite hard over you

I've seen the waters that make your eyes shine
Now I'm shining too

Because
Oh
Because I've fallen quite hard over you

If I didn't know you I'd rather not know
If I couldn't have you I'd rather be alone

I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew

I never knew just what it was about this old coffee shop I love so much
All of the while I never knew

All of the while
All of the while
All of the while it was you, you

DayZero Project: Completion (?)

2012-02-04T14:08:00.002-05:00

So I realize I haven't blogged in a (very) long time. I will catch up, I promise.

In the meantime, My DayZero Project came to completion on February 2.

I had been keeping record over the last ~3 years of what I've completed. As the list shows, I didn't get to finish everything. Surprisingly, it was harder than I thought to get everything done. Perhaps I should put more realistic attainable goals next time?

Anyways. I am proud of what I did manage to do from the list. Obviously, I will still try to finish the rest, even though my time on the project had run out. I guess I could start over again with a fresh list of tasks, but then I'd have to come up with at least 75 more things to do, and clearly I don't have time for that... ;)

DayZero statistics:
64 of 101 tasks completed (63% completed)
7 of 101 tasks in progress (7% in progress)
399 posts in 1001 days (a blog post every 2.5 days)

Holidays!

2012-01-19T10:19:00.000-05:00

I was on holidays back home from Dec 23 - Jan 5.

All I'll say about being home was that it was a lot more time than I was expecting!

Plant Ag xmas party!

2012-01-16T16:18:00.000-05:00

Our departmental "holiday party" was mid December, just a few days after my defense. It was a busy week for me, because I was prepping for my defense, then I had to organize a baking party to get our Christmas treats ready, then there was our annual Secret Santa party where said treats were disseminated, and then there was the Christmas party.

The party was being held at Atmosphere cafe this year, and although I was a bit hesitant because of the layout of the restaurant (long and skinny), it seemed to work out pretty well. We had our projector set up for a rotating picture slideshow.

And a fun addition was the return of Santa himself! He had been amiss for a couple years, but we decided to bring him back, with Greta and myself as his personal elf assistants!

Rudolph managed to make it in to enjoy some of the festivities as well!
There was good food (although I hardly got to eat any of it) and a great crowd of people. We gave away door prizes and prizes to go with our trivia questions. There was some fun dancing in the back of the restaurant, and of course heading downtown afterwards for more drinks and dancing!

My post-defense self was a lot more relaxed and definitely excited about being able to drink and celebrate, but my regular self didn't allow myself up later than 1am, so I definitely had to go home and call it a night.

Guelph bus service

2012-01-12T12:30:00.004-05:00

Random thought of the day: I should make Thursdays "Official Rant Days" here.

So I am getting pretty sick of waiting for the bus for extended periods of time because the city of Guelph can't figure out how to make proper bus schedules.

Since January 1, Guelph implemented these new bus schedules that are supposed to be an improvement on the current bus service. Although the routes are now every 15 minutes during peak hours, it makes travel difficult for the rest of the day because of the 30 minute scheduling.

The specialty University schedules still run every 20 minutes and are extended much later into the evening, but what irks me is the stupidity behind the bus scheduled times.

Why is it that for a week's time now, I have consistently taken the bus everyday, but had to wait at least 10 minutes for each of the buses. DESPITE the "supposed" 15 minutes service.

If the bus can't do the entire route in the allotted time WITHOUT stopping, how it is supposed to complete the route while picking passengers up?!?!?!

This is absolutely ridiculous!!!

Defense-ive grievances

2012-01-08T22:32:00.007-05:00

Ah. So I forgot to ~~write~~ bitch about my M.Sc. defense.

Nothing much to report here. The same old grievances about the same old people throwing the same old stupid reasons for not being in attendance for something in the department and something important to a friend. Also known as, friends who once again fail to show up to important events and blame it on it being "too early" or "too far".

I don't think I'm one to really hold unattainably high standards for friends, but I do expect friends to be there for each other when needed. A time of need would be one where support is duly needed - such as a defense. The Guelph campus is not that big. We also don't live more than 15 minutes away from it, walking distance. It was disheartening to hear that I scheduled my defense too early in the morning and in a building too far away to attend.

It's such a slap to the face to hear that 915am in the building across the street is too difficult to get to. Especially when someone from the lab I work in, took the bus in from Markham at 7 in the morning, just to get to my defense on time.

There really is only one question left. Are these people really my friends? Do they really have my best interests in mind?

Perhaps I am a bit naive and expect things that just can't be expected. But coming from fellow graduate students, we all live and understand the importance that culminates in a thesis defense. And for it to be casually passed off with the flick of a wrist as "too early" and "too far"?

I would never use those as excuses for not attending something that was important to a friend. Especially after my presence was repeatedly stated to be important.

The take home message is that I'm not important enough to get up for. I'm not important enough to walk across the street for. I'm not important enough to give a passing glance to. I'm not important enough for 60 minutes of someone's time.

It hurts. It really does.

Christmas baking

2012-01-07T17:25:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I see that I have neglected the blog over the last few weeks due to the holidays.

I forget where I last left off, but I'll start off with the Christmas baking, and see what else I've missed later on.

Many cookies were made.

Many gingerbread were left to cool before icing.

Mint chocolate drops appeared in the blink of an eye.

Boxed up into several boxes.

And sent on their way to put smiles on friends' faces.

Secret santa was held again, but it was rather fraught with mishaps this year. I was still a little stressed from my defense the few days before, and the hiccups along the secret santa session were leaving me a little high strung. AKA. I don't remember what really happened. Nor do I feel inclined to recall it all..

A Fine Frenzy - Almost Lovers

2011-12-22T09:45:00.004-05:00

There's something about this song. It's so beautiful it's haunting.

Your fingertips across my skin
The palm trees swaying in the wind, images
You sang me Spanish lullabies
The sweetest sadness in your eyes, clever trick

Well I'd never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me

Goodbye my almost lover
Goodbye my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be

So long my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me, in the shade
And when you left you kissed my lips
You told me you would never ever forget these images, no

Well I'd never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me

Goodbye my almost lover
Goodbye my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be

So long my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

I cannot go to the ocean
I cannot drive the streets at night
I cannot wake up in the morning
Without you on my mind

So you're gone and I'm haunted
And I bet you are just fine
Did I make it that easy to walk
Right in and out of my life

Goodbye my almost lover
Goodbye my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Why can't you just let me be

So long my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

3 days left!

2011-12-10T10:21:00.002-05:00

Until my thesis defense! Blog on hold until then, and possibly a few days after that too.

Woohoo!

Butternut squash and goat cheese...

2011-12-06T09:17:00.000-05:00

Oh man, food is my life.

Just writing this blog post title made my mouth salivate.

I just love the strong complex flavours of goat cheese. How it's such a soft cheese. How it's not quite a silken texture yet, but it's not really a gritty texture either. How it pairs well with a nice white. How you can drizzle olive oil or balsamic vinegar over it. How you can just eat it. On it's own.

Ooooh yummm...

...

Anyways.

I was reading the latest issue of "Fine Cooking" on the weekend and I came across an article about making fresh pasta. Following it, were a few recipes on making fresh lasagna dishes. The last one, was a butternut squash lasagna, with mashed garlic butternut squash filling between layers of fresh lasagna, coated in a beautiful goat cheese bechamel sauce.

Oh my, that sounded heavenly. But tough luck on getting me to make fresh pasta again without a pasta roller!!

I opted instead, to use up the rest of the pasta shells I had kicking around from the last time.

I roasted half a bulb of garlic and a butternut squash cut in two. Mashing it all together, seasoning it, and mixing it in with a cooked concoction of the leftover mushrooms and a shallot.

Stuff stuff stuff! Into the pasta shells they go!

I could have gone for a cheesier bechamel sauce, but I left it to a tad too late to start adding the goat cheese, and it was thickening up on me like no tomorrow. I only managed to add about 2/3 of a cup of goat cheese before I had to take it off the heat for fear of creating a glutinous mess.

What baked up in my oven 30 minutes later? A batch of heaven. That's what.

Insalata caprese

2011-12-05T10:12:00.003-05:00

I didn't have the right cheese. And I didn't have fresh basil leaves. But I have everything else. And I added delicious avocado slices.

This salad is so... not... really a salad. But I love it. Alternating slices of tomato and mozzarella. Drizzled with a good quality cold pressed extra-virgin olive oil. Salt to taste.

Ooh, it sounds so delicious!

Oh yeah, this was my little appetizer treat for the Grey Cup. Oooh yeah....

Potato curry

2011-12-03T14:09:00.000-05:00

I seem to be lacking a lot of ingredients in my pantry lately. Blame it on having a blanked brain while at the store.

I just wanted something simple and hearty, but was missing many ingredients typically used to make my curry.

For example, curry paste.

Seriously?

Nonetheless, I made it using skim milk mixed with corn starch. Well that doesn't sound healthy. Although I am weighing the benefits of that against the use of an entire can of coconut milk. Really, which seems worse?

I just wanted something delicious to eat. And thus, I made it.

Potato and carrot curry. I can't even remember if I added chickpeas to this. I would have been crazy NOT to.

Pearl barley risotto

2011-11-30T10:19:00.005-05:00

So here's something I'll probably never make again!

Over the last year, I've gotten pretty good at making my risottos. Who'd have thought that switching up the grain would completely change the game?

Not to say that my risotto turned into a cooking disaster. It didn't. On the contrary, it turned out great. I just apparently *hate* pearl barley.

I can't remember where I saw this, but the low GI factor really intrigued me, so I got some pearl barley to test this out.

Although it turned creamy just like it should, the consistency, texture and flavour profile was a total miss...

No matter how long it's cooked, pearl barley has an inherently gummy chewy texture and a bland boring off flavour that just doesn't work well with the likes of a risotto.

Needless to say I ate maybe half of what was in my bowl and promptly threw the rest out.

-sigh- this was way more disappointing than when I discovered steel cut outs get boring after the 2nd day! =(

Mac 'n cheese

2011-11-29T14:14:00.000-05:00

I love love LOVE macaroni and cheese. I had a lot of KD growing up and with an appreciation for "real food" now, I've learned that it doesn't take much more effort to make it from scratch.

Lesson's learned this time around?:

DON'T buy the whole wheat macaroni. No matter how healthy you want to be, the Healthy Harvest just doesn't cut it with cheese macaroni.
Use more jalapeno. Apparently, this pepper doesn't have much effect on me. The spicy heat was sorely missed, and I was left with a sad bowl of un-spicy mac 'n cheese.
Bring on the cheeseeeeee. Man, do I ever love it.

Baked pesto salmon

2011-11-28T12:51:00.003-05:00

Last week, I was in the mood for pesto, but not in the mood for pasta. I wanted to eat some protein, so I opted to try a pesto salmon.

I baked it in foil on a bed of green beans and it turned out great. I could have salted a teensy bit more (as usual) and let it bake for a touch longer, but it turned out great.

Delicious!

Spaghetti squash

2011-11-23T16:02:00.001-05:00

I am a fan of butternut and acorn squash, but for some reason I just haven't ventured to the spaghetti variety. I thought I'd give it a try, as I bought one the other week.

After thinking for a week of what I could do with it, I realized why it is not high up on my squash priority list: there isn't much you can do with it.

So I did the standard.

Spaghetti squash seemed even more difficult to cut than the butternut. I couldn't hack through it, so I ended up making a bunch of slits and tossing it in the microwave for about 8 minutes before I could get a knife through it.

I tossed some olive oil over it and baked them cut side down for 30 minutes. Then, with fork-ful power, I turned it into this:

Looks delish, doesn't it.

It certainly looks great, but I got quite sick of eating it soon after. Plus, with such a massive squash, it was more than 1 meal. AKA. zOMG-give-me-anything-else-to-eat!!

My squash dinner was topped with a random assortment of "in-fridge" ingredients. Aka, pasta sauce, onion, chick peas and jalapeno.

Raspberry cheesecake cupcakes

2011-11-22T14:08:00.003-05:00

So I've been busy the last little while fretting about graduation and frantically getting everything organized.

The weekend was fraught with stress, as I was told of impending edits to certain aspects of my analysis that was pervasive throughout my thesis. YIKES!

Nonetheless, I called upon my stress to help me bake. Funny how it actually helps.

With another wine and cheese party in the works, I thought I'd shake things up and make cheesecake instead. The lack of plates meant I needed to get crafty. Thus, cheesecake cupcakes!

These were actually quite easy to make, it just takes a while.

First came the base, which was a typical graham cracker crust. Simple.

Next came the jelly, which I made from scratch with fresh raspberries, sugar and some water.

Layer on top some cheesecake deliciousness and bake that until a toothpick comes out clean!

I also made the whipping cream fresh with some heavy cream mixed with cream cheese. It didn't quite get as thick and fluffy as I was hoping, but I always find that I under-whip the cream because I'm afraid of over-whipping and turning it into a slew of wet butter...

They were a hit at the wine and cheese and were devoured very quickly! Too bad I only brought 18 there, I really should have brought them all. Oh well! More for me! =D

Chocolate mousse shortbread sandwiches

2011-11-16T09:34:00.002-05:00

Sounds like a mouthful doesn't it?

It is.

A mouthful of delicious, that is.

To counteract the licorice taste from the fennel in the Mediterranean soup, I opted for a semi-sweet dessert to go with it.

I saw this on gojee again, therefore, I clearly had to make them.

The original post wanted honey coated strawberries to top these, which makes sense after-the-fact. However, strawberries aren't in season right now and I wasn't going to rush out to get something picked unripe and shipped from thousands of miles away just to satisfy a malleable cookie recipe. The cookies were destined to go strawberry-less.

Despite that, they turned out great. The cookie batter is a consistency I'm not really used to. It was really wet and was to be rolled out quite thin. It turned out to be a lot more cookies than I thought, which is nice for sharing.

Don't they just look delicious? I used nested cookie cutters, so I had small and large sizes of the same fluted shape.

The cream filling was a simple concoction of melted semi-sweet&dark-mix chocolate and whipped heavy cream. Only half the cream was whipped so it didn't have a ridiculously light and fluffy texture. The chocolate also helped to weigh it down a bit to give it a heavier denser consistency like that of buttercream (although it was far from it, let's be honest).

The cookie filling was piped with a 1M Wilton tip for extra oomfph on the edges.

Mediterranean soup

2011-11-15T11:13:00.001-05:00

I was busy on the weekend. The kimchi and sloppy joes were on Saturday. Sunday I used to relax a bit, make some chocolate cookies (coming soon!) I was dying to try out and test out making a Mediterranean soup.

As usual, I get inspiration from watching the Food Network. Michael Smith was on TV and the episode highlighted his Mediterranean chicken soup. Given the fact that I don't eat chicken, clearly I needed to improvise. I started my soup stock with the standard mirepoix. The vegetables in the soup were rounded out with green bell peppers and half a fennel bulb (I didn't dare to throw it all in for fear of licorice-y-ness).

I know it's a Mediterranean soup, but I didn't start with a sofrito base because I wasn't making it Spanish. Just to make it even more ambiguous, the soup was finished off with a random assortment of things:

black olives
Israeli couscous
chick peas
fennel

I didn't realize Israeli couscous continued to absorb liquid the way it does, so my lunch the next day was conspicuously chunky. Still delicious though!

Sloppy "joes"

2011-11-14T10:17:00.002-05:00

I had a couple meals planned for the weekend and I was glad to make these vegetarian sloppy joes.

I've only had sloppy joes once in my life. And even the likeliness of that event is hazy. I can't remember where it was I had it, for what reason and who (on earth) would have made it for me.

Regardless, it always looked like a ridiculously messy-licious meal so I wanted to make it. This vegetarian version has lentils instead of ground beef. It uses pasta sauce, mustard and chili powder. I added some ketchup to it also, just to up the flavour.

The result? Delicious on a bun. I actually really enjoyed this and there is also a lot leftover (I made over a cup of lentils).

Definitely suggest everyone try this out and I think you won't miss the meat at all.

After dinner, we went out to the Pennywhistle to meet Rob and celebrate his defense. His Ph.D. went well and we met up for a couple beers. I didn't know any of the people but it was still a good crowd and there were definitely interesting conversations going around.

Congrats Rob!

Kimchi

2011-11-13T22:02:00.003-05:00

A few days ago while in the office slacking off, I came across a way to make homemade kimchi. I don't normally eat it, but thought I'd try it out and see.

I don't think I used the correct type of red chili powder because I didn't get a nice paste consistency and it wasn't as bright red as I was expecting.

A whole head of nappa cabbage was enough to fill two standard mason jars full.

Aside from that it still tastes pretty good, from what I can tell. I think I should really learn to cut the amount of listed chili powder... I obviously can't handle it hahaha

Shrimp stuffed portabello mushrooms

2011-11-11T09:22:00.001-05:00

I'm posting my first "interactive" foodie post on something I made for dinner Wednesday night.

I actually really like portabello mushrooms. At first, the taste was a bit strong for me but I've grown into it.

I've been looking for more ways to use them, so I've been buying them every couple weeks and trying to come up with things to do with them.

Perusing gojee.com didn't lead me to anything that sparked my interest (or fit my pantry contents), so I re-visited my old love, epicurious.com. There I found a nice shrimp stuffed portabello mushroom recipe that I wanted to try out.

First, scrape the gills and remove the stem from the mushroom caps.

Then sautee the onions and garlic for a few minutes in canola oil until soft before adding them to the rest of the ingredients (bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, mayonnaise, cooked shrimp).

Stuff it all into the cleaned caps and bake for 20 minutes at 350F!

It was super simple and it came out delicious. I only made 2 mushroom caps so I just split the recipe accordingly.

I had mine with fresh tomato slices on the side.

Butternut squash pasta

2011-11-10T11:15:00.001-05:00

The weekend has two days, so after warming up to a bowl of soup and slice of pie, I thought I'd make a quick dinner to wrap up the weekend (aka. pasta).

I had a butternut squash sitting around since the week previous and wasn't sure what to do with it. A quick search on my go-to website gojee.com led me to a delicious butternut squash pasta.

I melded two recipes together because I don't like bland sauce-less pastas. I added the rest of my remaining pesto sauce with half a cup of pasta water to thin it out, tossed it with my roasted butternut squash pieces and threw on some black olives for fun.

You think I would've learned by now that I really am not that big of a fan of olives, but I am relentless and keep tossing them in everywhere I look.

Despite my olive mess, I'd say this pasta goes into the book of repeats, although I'm going to need to use more pesto sauce next time to really coat my spaghetti.

Broccoli soup

2011-11-10T10:06:00.000-05:00

I received some of the final edits on my thesis from Al this weekend so I was busy working on that. Finishing it mid-afternoon meant there was plenty of time for me to whip up a delicious dinner for the evening.

The broccoli at the store this past weekend wasn't the greatest, but I wanted to eat it so I went with a soup instead.

I made a cauliflower soup a the week before and didn't like it that much. Roasting the florets didn't help up the flavour profile and I much prefer cauliflower in my gratin or curry.

I do, however, enjoy my broccoli all buzzed up into soup form.

I thought I'd go with something simple that I've (semi-)made before: potato broccoli soup. I amped it up with some spring onions too, but it turns out I didn't like the sharpness it added.

Plus a little baguette on the side. Perfect dinner!

Of course, dinner is never complete without dessert and Adam's incessant *whining* about pie resulted in a freshly baked one.

I certainly do enjoy making this pie though. It's relaxing to make, aside from the initial makings and the crust-in-pan development.

Asia Day 16: Home!

2011-11-09T19:04:00.004-05:00

October 8
Finally, the day came that it was time to go home. My flight was just after lunch, so we headed to the airport mid morning so I could make it through the pesky customs line in good time. I had some money left over so I tried to spend it as best I could.

Obviously, I bought a Hello Kitty phone charm. Clearly the best use of money.

My trip was great, made better by all the appearances by family. I don't know if I'll go back in the next few years, but it'll be on my list of places to return to eventually!

Movie list for the flight home?

Bon Cop Bad Cop
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Just Go With It
Bad Teacher

Clearly I didn't sleep on the plane. Unlike my flight TO Hong Kong, my flight BACK did not have a free seat next to me. In fact, I probably had the worst seat possible. I was in the middle seat of the middle row in the plane. Next to 2 asian guys who were keen on overstepping the armrest into my seat. Also, I pee A LOT!!! =(

By the end, the lines to go to the bathroom were over 10 minutes long! And there was only ONE LADY in front of me!!!

I met a lovely man in the line (har har hilarious) who turns out had circled the globe in the last 2 weeks. Wow!

We chatted while in line before getting back to our respective seats. I waited for him when we got off the plane and we chatted until my luggage came off the carousel (which was a very very long time =[) We switched cards and I guess we... are fb friends now?!

Anyways, I am glad to be back home! And I believe I am now caught up in my blog posts! Yahoooooo...

A whole year? Already?

2011-11-08T19:02:00.000-05:00

Adam and I celebrated our 1-year anniversary this past weekend, so we decided to go back to where it all started...

Yes, my friends. We went to...

Greek Garden.

Delicious! I really do like that place so I was glad to get to have some Greek food again. As in, I was glad to once again have spanikopita that I don't have to labour over myself.

I left work a bit early so we could pick up a GPS from Future Shop on the way home.

That beauty of a baby set me back quite a bit, but all in good intention. This way we don't have to keep borrowing Jen's GPS and I get the excitement of owning a new fancy gadget.

I came home to some gorgeous delivered flowers, that was dropped off at the neighbour's since they came too early.

Then for a "fun" game of darts in the backyard where I clearly excelled. Darts because Adam was awful at winning me any prizes when we went to the CNE this year. So he made his own game so that he could "win".

Obviously, I am way better.

Some prizes didn't quite fit...

But clearly, I won them all.

Greek Garden was busy (busier than I'd ever seen). We were a bit early for the movie so we stopped in the bookstore first to peruse. I picked up another Michael Pollan book to add to my growing collection and we went to watch The Help.

I hadn't read the book so I was hesitant to watch it, but it was sort of the last chance to see it, so I figured, why not.

The movie was fantastic, and if movies are always worse than the books, then the book must be absolutely incredible.

It was a fun night and I was totally pooped out. Good thing everything in town is so close, home was only 10 minutes away!

Asia Day 14-15: Hong Kong

2011-11-07T18:47:00.000-05:00

October 6
The last few days went by quickly. We were winding down and starting to organize suitcases for the packing fiasco that was barreling towards us at lightning speed.

I was finally able to get time away from my parents, so I spent it shopping by myself at the nearby Olympian City.

I got some time to myself, to think, and to really look at/buy things I wanted.

I got to have Japanese for lunch and bought a few things for myself. That made my happy.

My happiness is always shortlived, we were having dinner with some people I didn't know that evening.

My uncle had us meet him at the mall above the Mong Kok East station. We walked around for a bit and he showed me Goldfish Street (金魚街) before heading to the restaurant.

Lucky me, we were at a seafood restaurant. A large portion of the dinner was seafood, aka. food for me!

How do you buy your goldfish?

The family that invited us to dinner was my uncle's oldest (and youngest) daughter's godparents. They have two sons who were also there, the older married one also had his wife in tow. Among others, there was my aunt, uncle, the newlyweds, my aunt's sisters and one of the kids and husband.

We were a big table, and I was paired to sit next to my cousin (who came a bit late). On my other side was one of the godparents' kids. Turns out he went to UC Riverside, so we had a somewhat intellectual conversation. He was in business, so I clearly we had no real business delving into each other's respective fields.

Dinner was good and it was nice to see everyone before we left in a couple days.

October 7
If memory serves me right, this was the day we had dimsum with my aunt and her side of the family that was in town. After that, we walked Olympian City (again for me) before calling it a day some time mid afternoon. The evening was taken up with my uncle once more, where he took us to Carp Channel (鯉魚門).

It is so named, because the street only contains two types of stores:

restaurants, and
fish markets

All fish markets also have very large very old karp. A few of the fishmongers were fond of showing me that if you threw a small fish in the air towards them, these humongous fish would jump up with lightning speed to catch and eat it.

I. Was. Terrified.

Anyways, we walked the street and my uncle showed it all to me. We were waiting for my cousin to arrive to pick the food and a restaurant. He phoned to say he was near, so we picked out our food and picked a restaurant.

Oh. Right. I should explain that.

The restaurants don't actually have any food in terms of protein. Their service is, a chef to cook your meal. Your meal, being what you purchase at the fish market.

Let me explain via photos.

You choose what you want to eat from the tanks (above and above)...

Then they bring them to the restaurant in bags...

Then they cook them all up for you the way you like!

Sooooo delicious I was definitely seafood bellied for a couple days! =)

Sweet potato salad

2011-11-06T21:07:00.000-05:00

I totally forgot about some sweet potatoes that I bought at the store a few weeks ago. I spotted them a few days before and decided I needed to make use of them.

I also started using this great website gojee.com recently. You can put in what you have in your fridge and it will search its database for great ideas!

Anyways, I popped in sweet potato as one of my "cravings" and i came across this delicious looking salad. Sweet potatoes, red peppers, black beans, onions. Sounds fantastic!

It was a breeze to whip up (although the cilantro sure was missed) and tasted great!

Muffin pig!

2011-11-05T13:53:00.000-04:00

Too funny to resist!

Also, I'm supposed to be working on the final edits for my thesis, so just a random post for today!

Cabbage rolls

2011-11-04T12:59:00.000-04:00

I've never had cabbage rolls before.

I've also never made cabbage rolls before.

Challenge accepted. (teehee score! HIMYM reference!)

They weren't super hard to make, but getting the filling to the consistency of that made with beef wasn't easy. Also, my 'soux chef' overboiled the cabbage and I was left with only tiny cabbage leaves to work with. The result? Small not-quite-fully-wrapped cabbage rolls.

Regardless, I found it quite delicious, although I think I'll be hard pressed to make these again. (I'm not a huge fan of eating boiled cabbage!)

Pumpkin carving

2011-11-03T22:02:00.000-04:00

Halloween! I love seeing the cute little kids all dressed up in random but hilarious (and cute too!) costumes to scope out the best candy.

I didn't get much this year since Adam said it's the lowest expected turnout in years. I picked up a box of 50 mini chocolate bars, expecting to get around 25 kids. Marc/k from downstairs also brought up a 75 pack of mini candies to hand out, but the turnout was so underwhelming!

I was saddened by how few kids came, I probably had about 15. By the end of it, when kids were coming, I was giving away handfuls of candy - one of chocolate and one of candy.

It was disappointing, but at least I was proud of my pumpkin this year! It was an easy carving to do, but it's super cute!

Super cute!

Impossible pie

2011-11-02T13:53:00.000-04:00

Searching for the most difficult, labour intensive, lengthiest pie recipe ever?

Sorry. You won't find it here.

Contrary to the name, impossible pie is a breeze to make. In fact, it's... impossibly easy! Oh yes, I just went there. My puns really are getting worse and worse...

I had to make 2 of these pies on the weekend, it was that good.

This pie is called impossible pie because of how impossibly easy it is to make. It's a crustless pie that you mix all together in one bowl (wet and dry), pour it into a greased pie plate and bake for an hour. It's that easy!

The trick to this pie is that while it's baking, the ingredients separate. Since it is baked for so long, the water (milk) evaporates from the pie and the crust separates itself out and sets on the bottom. The leftover milk solids thicken and gel up the pie, forming that delicious "filling".

Impossible pie is a oh-so-delicious "crustless" coconut pie!

This was made October 29 (see, I'm catching up on my posts...).

Asia Day 13: Macau

2011-11-01T10:29:00.000-04:00

October 5

After feeling horrendous from the bus ride at the Peak, I semi-recovered to make it on the boat ride to Macau. The sickness from the evening before was unfortunately timing, because we had already pre-planned the day in Macau and had 3 tickets for a Franco Dragone show.

Ergo... I had to grin and bear it for our day in Macau.

After docking in Macau, my dad thought he'd be super clever and sneak a free shuttle ride to a random hotel near the touristic district. Unluckily, my dad isn't quite as clever as he would like and led us to a hotel shuttle that wasn't very close by at all. Aka. The Grand Lisboa.

Nevertheless, I was glad to just be off things that moved and happily made the walk from the hotel to the tourist district.

The architecture is old and grande and beautiful, heavy on the Portuguese influence. The big colourful flower decorations on the ground behind the fountain are decorations for National Day (October 1). The week long celebration had run through and the decorations were being taken down.

I don't remember what street it was that the fountain was at, but we were on our way to the Ruins of St. Paul. We eventually made it there (amidst the throngs of people) and also headed up behind it to the Fortaleza do Monte. There, I got to sit on a cannon. Seriously.

It looks like fun and games, but this was initially a centre for protecting Jesuit property. Eventually it was seized by the government for Macau defense (aka. the Portugese colony). It's seriously old (1600s) and is in pretty darn good shape. A museum like thing has even been built in the centre of the fort.

The reason we went to Macau though (as alluded to), was for a performance. Franco Dragone used to direct nearly all large Cirque du Soleil shows but left some time before 2000. One of his latest shows was playing at the City of Dreams in Macau, billed as a $2 billion HKD production. It is the largest permanent water based show and was quite spectacular to see. It wasn't as large a production as some Cirque shows I've seen before, but the sheer volume of water that the stage holds and the impressive stage changes that occur underwater and reveal themselves, was magnificent. I truly enjoyed the show and was very glad that we were just a few rows up enough that we didn't get wet.

I have photos, but will not be posting them because I don't want to be getting in any trouble. The internet is a scary place, y'know...

Ginger shrimp

2011-10-30T22:45:00.000-04:00

At the food show we went to a while back, I picked up a little bookmark recipe from Chatelaine for some ginger shrimp. It looked delicious and I certainly need more ways of using avocado.

I gave it a shot to great results!

As good as it looks!

Avocado, feta cheese and shrimp cooked up in a delicious asian sauce. I served it over a bed of rice and nearly died it was so delicious!

United Way baked goodness

2011-10-28T10:01:00.000-04:00

Every year, my university has a campus wide Fall semester campaign to raise money for United Way. It's sort of a competition between departments/colleges on campus where we each have campaigning goals to reach. I always partake in the events that involve food and prizes. This one had both.

Jeremy and Greta came over to make some delicious treats to have at our International Coffee Break.

Greta wasn't going to make anything but Jeremy was stoked about these oreo chocolate truffle things. Whatevs, I can help him make stuff but am not in charge of what he wanted to make. I, however, wanted to make a Linzer torte.

blackberry Linzer torte bars

There were some mistakes made but I'd say they turned out great! My tortes were a little denser than I think they're supposed to be, but I used all whole wheat flour to make it a little bit healthier. The oreo truffles turned into white chocolate oreo truffles, but they worked fantastic.

We also raised over $300 for United Way with our coffee break! Go us!

FoodNetwork Delicious! Food Show

2011-10-26T17:19:00.000-04:00

I know I've been totally behind on my posts, but I will be getting them all up soon! As of right now, I have completed my thesis for a total of 90 minutes. I haven't sent it out because I am waiting to get to school tomorrow so I can print the massive bugger (230 pages!!). So in the meantime, I am catching up on everything else in my life (aka. cleaning my room and calling my mom. yikes!)

Next on the docket, updating my blog. So here goes!

After the Kate Voegele concert that I wrote about a while back but that really happened like 3 weeks ago... we got a good night's rest before heading back down to the same general area (DT Toronto) for the Food Show.

I was super excited for both the concert and the food show, so now onto part 2 of my wonderful weekend.

I think we got to the Food Show just after 11, so plenty of time to walk around before heading to see the sustainability speaker from Stratford's Simple Fish Company. The talk was at 1230 and not 12 like I expected, so we had an extra 30 minutes to walk around, where I pretty much saw everything and ate it all with my eyes.

The talk was pretty good, he talked about other types of fish that are great for sustainability in this area, and did a lot of up talk about his business too (can't say I blame him). He cured some salmon for us to eat and shucked an oyster for everyone in the crowd. Delicious! Adam had his first fresh raw oyster and let's just say he didn't dislike it (that's still a hurray in my books!).

We did a good chunk of wandering around and eating and I definitely have my favs.

St. Phillips - their cakes make me want to die and go to bakery heaven
Marcys - their sea salt and pepper calabrese crisps... TO DIE FOR!
Bobette & Belle - such creative girls and I love their passion for bakery treats!

There are so many stores I could name that were just delicious but I won't to save the internet from my droolings over delicious food.

I was saddened I missed Lynn Crawford. I'll just have to attend another food outing and try to catch her again. I'm obviously way too poor to eat at any of her restaurants, so I think running into her and getting autographs/photos would be my best bet.

But for now, here's some food porn for you all.

Entirely chocolate!

Oh, St. Phillips Bakery, I envy you.

Delicious!

After the Food Show, we were meeting my cousins for dinner at Epicure (Queen St W). We walked most of the way there, and with some extra time, I got to head into the Winners that is directly across the street. Hurray! I love Winners!

Also, I love delicious food. Although I got a seriously spicy dish for dinner, it was still very yummy (or at least, from what I could tell after my tastebuds had been singed off). We had interesting conversations, in fact multiple ones at the same time (as we always do), and I'm sure Adam's head was reeling after that. My cousins and I are quite good at having multiple conversations simultaneously. I can't say that it's the Bach genes though, because my maternal side cousins and I do the same thing. Hrm, perhaps it's the asianness in us...

Dinner at Epicure was great, I certainly do like that little restaurant, but it was time for us to head home because we had to get back to Ildiko's little engagement party shindig. Albeit an informal one (and we will be arranging a formal one), it was nice to have a little get-together where (for once!) Greta was there! Hurray for only going home every other weekend.

Certainly it was a busy busy weekend =)

Kate Voegele!

2011-10-25T17:50:00.000-04:00

So I was super excited for this concert since I knew she was coming (months ago!) and the date had finally arrived!

I had planned it out with my aunt that we would drive to the concert Friday night, but stop in after it was over for a good night's rest. The next day, I had tickets to the FoodNetwork's Delicious! Food Show and was super hyped about that too! What a great weekend in Toronto!

The concert was listed to start at 730 but it began at 7. There were 2 opening bands, Grady *something* and Michou. I had heard Michou before and really liked them live, so I bought their CD after the show and got it signed too! The guys from the band are laid back and great and it definitely showed on stage.

After the openers, Kate Voegele was up! I knew she was thin, but couldn't believe how much more than I thought. Anyways, she was great and it was an awesome show.

Here are some photos of the night.

More on my trip to the FoodNetwork Show in a later post!

Philly "cheesesteaks"

2011-10-24T09:48:00.000-04:00

I wanted to come up with some more creative ideas in using portabella mushrooms in my main meals. I came across using it in Philly cheesesteaks as a replacement for the ever so crucial "steak".

I hadn't had a Philly cheesesteak before, so how could I go wrong? It turned out to be delicious, indeed. I removed the stem and gills of the mushrooms so they would cook up to be nice and soft alongside some sliced onion.

Adam didn't grate the cheese like I requested, so the cheese wasn't so keen on melting. Also, a lack of any sort of white cheese in my kitchen resulted in the overusage of cheddar. Despite that, I'd say they were a home run in my dinner meal planning!

I ended the night with a new vegan chocolate cake I was testing out. I didn't overly like it because I didn't think chocolate flavour had any depth to it. It was one dimensional and also lacked the deep colour of chocolate in a cake. To me, it almost looked like it had a reddish tinge, but lacked the red velvet cake flavour. Adam liked it, and said that it tasted even better the next day, but I've noticed that he tends to like things that have sat for a day or two. Which is good for finishing up the leftovers, lol =)

Is it me, or does this just lack chocolate flavour? =(

Asia Day 10-12: Hong Kong

2011-10-21T13:02:00.001-04:00

October 2
After arriving back in Hong Kong the night before, we checked in at the hotel (Holiday Inn Express in Causeway Bay) and just kind of.. relaxed (in reality, I don't really remember what we did, except the sushi I got...).

We were staying in a hotel directly behind Times Square (時代廣場), as in, it was very busy there. Also, conveniently close to SOGO (崇光百貨), a popular shopping "faux" department store that I wasn't particularly fond of.

Anyways, back on track, this was the day we went to Ocean Park (海洋公園)!! I was super stoked about this because I thought the roller coaster would be up and running. However, it was a rainy day, and I was informed by my cousins that it has been shut down because of an accident in the previous weeks (a cart ran into an empty one being loaded).

Back to the story, I saw enough of pandas to keep me satisfied for a few years (above), I suppose. There was also a dolphin show, a goldfish exhibit and obviously the underwater creatures (seahorses, fish, sharks, jellyfish, etc.).

That took most of the day and we went back to Causeway Bay where my uncle treated us to hotpot dinner. Oh man did it ever feel good to eat something I am used to. Also, the deliciousness.

Some more walking around Causeway Bay and we were beat.

October 3
The next day was pretty relaxing. We went to Wan Chai (灣仔) for some sight seeing and shopping in that area. We went into the HK Convention and Exhibition Centre (香港會議展覽中心) and walked all the way along to Sheung Wan (上環). I treated my parents to dimsum somewhere along the way and we generally had a pretty easy day.

I'm pretty sure this was the evening we used to move back to our original hotel in Mong Kok (Cosmo Hotel).

October 4
The Tuesday was spent committed to the shopping in the Mong Kok (旺角) area. The malls look small from the outside, but it is deceivingly large. Multiple floors up and small store fronts = lots of stores to enter!

I discovered Lamingtons at a Hong Kong bakery (#communitychannel!) and fantastic food shopping along Tai Kok Tsui (大角嘴). It was a pretty relaxing day before we went to the Peak Tram (山頂纜車) in the evening.

My uncle decided we should head up the Peak Tram to see the Hong Kong night view, so we waited a disgustingly long 1.5 hours to get on the tram to head up the mountain. After getting to the top, I was horribly hungry where we sat down for yummy dinner at a diner in the building. The red bean ice was soo delicious, as was my super hot soup.

Unfortunately for me, the bus ride down the mountain left me feeling more than just ill and it was a quick jog to the bathroom to spit up. That's what I get for following me uncle to the second deck of the bus that goes in circles down the mountainside... -sigh-

Hong Kong atop the Peak

Asia Day 8-9: Taipei, Taiwan

2011-10-20T13:32:00.000-04:00

September 30
Day 2 in Taipei and we started at some fancy hotel called "The Grand Hotel" (圓山大飯店). We wandered around, took photos, used the bathroom, then headed to a place that has guards (萬古流芳). Sorry I don't know the name in English, but it is guarded by 4 guards (left) who take 1 hour rotations and have a 20 minute long elaborate protocol when they are switching guards. It was quite entertaining to watch.

This is when my camera battery dies, so the rest of this day is not quite so well documented. My dad's photos indicate we went to the jade market, I know neither the English or Chinese name at this point, but I remember the man who worked in there deciphered my chinese name and basically told me I was obnoxiously stubborn and need to learn to listen to people.

After that, we went to Jiufen (九份), a very mountainous area with a single street up at the top that is very busy. The street is lined with shops and food places just like at night markets.

We went to Ximending (西門町) for dinner on the last night. Technically speaking, it is a neighbourhood and shopping district, but it might as well have been called another night market because it was all street food (aka. getting very sick of eating the same thing).

Somewhere along the way in Taipei (either this day or the day before) we went to the hot springs (北投椰林溫泉). I don't know the name in English and a quick google search did not turn up any English. I don't remember which day this happened because I did not participate in this part. It was a mandatory no-clothing hot spring and despite the temptation of a private room, I heard from some of the girls on the tour that it wasn't that clean. No loss there, I don't like going in and out of hot spring tubs set at different temperatures to experience the "maximum effect".

October 1
We were given some free time in the morning before our flight, so we took our time getting up and walked the neighbouring streets.

Things to note:

I do believe meat is hanging at the street side stalls from morning until night in scorching temperatures (below). How do YOU feel about leaving your meat out to defrost all day?
Also note in the photo (below) how you can buy your clothes in the store and then walk out to get your meat for dinner. How convenient!
I don't think grocery stores exist in Asia. Everyone buys things from the street stalls.
Stores don't open until like noon. Argh.

Hanging meat - very VERY common...

Goodbye tour-guides!

Asia Day 7: Taipei, Taiwan

2011-10-19T11:50:00.000-04:00

September 29
Upon reaching Taipei (I can't remember if anything happened during the Taichung-Taipei drive), we went to Taipei 101 (台北101). When it opened in 2004, it was the world's tallest building, and remained so until Dubai built on that was taller in 2010. The architecture is pretty amazing.

Side note: I basically had to lie on the concrete floor to get this photo (left). In Taipei on a bloody hot September afternoon (it was 36C that day), the concrete literally burned my skin.

Following Taipei 101, we went to Vigor Kobo (維格餅家) for their yummy pineapple mini cakes (鳳梨酥). I believe this wasn't on the itinerary, but we went because many tourists wanted to go get them.

After the detour, we went to the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall (國立中正紀念堂) and then the Miramar Entertainment Park (美麗華百樂園) to see their enormous Sky Wheel (摩天輪 - 2nd tallest in Taiwan). Instead of going on the Sky Wheel, we decided to peruse the shopping in the complex and sit down for some Haagen-Dazs (they have actual sit down cafes there!) where I got this delicious creation (right).

After this, we went to the National Palace Museum (臺北故宮) where I nearly forgot about this due to the inability to photos at this location.

Dinner was at Shilin night market (士林夜市) where I was starting to get sick of eating street food... -sigh-

Also for some random (not really) reason, we changed hotels despite being in the same city. I learned after the fact, that we were in very opposite ends of Taipei, so it was best to change hotels. But seriously.. really?! =(

Asia Day 6: Taichung, Taiwan

2011-10-18T12:16:00.000-04:00

September 28
We woke up in the morning to some events in Kaohsiung and all the way along the drive to Taichung (臺中).

First thing, we went to some store in Kaohsiung that sells pearls (珍珠養殖中心). Obviously a sponsor of our tour, they were very persistent to get you to buy pearls. My mom had just got some in Shanghai so we weren't going to spend more money on that. They had this other stuff though, that wasn't a turtle, but looked very similar to it. It was made into pill form and was supposed to be very good for you. I don't remember the details, but I bought a box of the pills for my dad to try. Expensive stuff!

After this, we went to Sun Moon Lake (日月潭). The lake is so named because the east side of the lake looks like a sun, the west side like a moon. I, however, fail to see the sun or the moon and just see some blobs in the earth that are filled in with water. Perhaps the map is a bit too literal? Anyways, it is the largest body of water in Taiwan and actually has a little island (Lalu) in it. We had lunch here, sight-saw, then left.

After lunch, we went to Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village (九族文化村). The village has the largest free-fall ride in Taiwan (which I did not venture up) and celebrates the culture of the nine aboriginal tribes in Taiwan.

They had some interesting things to see and their wax sculptures of people were very lifelike (aka. creepy). A lot full of bunnies and some aboriginal singing/dancing show later, we were off.

In Taichung, we went to the Feng Chia night market (逢甲夜市), supposedly the largest night market in the city, also adjacent to Feng Chia University (逢甲大學). Having overdosed on delicious goodness from the night market the night before, I took it easy and went with some noodle soups and no fried goodness. Oh but how I miss the delicious fried foods!

We went to the hotel after the night market where I quickly tried on my new clothes and subsequently passed out. Traveling is hard!

Asia Day 5: Kaohsiung, Taiwan

2011-10-17T19:51:00.000-04:00

September 27
We are leaving for Taiwan! We were coming back to the same hotel on the last few days of our trip, so we decided to store luggage there instead of carrying everything to Taiwan and back. With significantly less luggage, we make our way to the airport and jetset off (with the tourgroup, unfortunately).

We land in Kaohsiung (高雄), near the very southern tip of Taiwan. It felt like we did a lot of things that day, but in reality, Asia just operates on a different time system than North America.

We went to Fo Quang Shan (佛光山), the headquarters for one of the largest Buddhist organization. This particular one in Kaohsiung is the largest monastery and one of the largest charity organizations in Taiwan.

After the monastery, we went to the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas (龍虎塔). Our tour guide told us the proper way to go through the pagodas is in the dragon and out the tiger. My mom didn't let me in these because I am born in the year of the tiger and shouldn't be walking out of a dragon... or something... Instead of hanging around that, we decided to walk to see the Spring and Autumn Pavilions (春秋閣), just down the street a little bit.

There wasn't much to do at this stop, so we did a bit of wandering on the other side of the street at the shops. We bought some fruit and I tried to look for Taiwan shotglasses (to no avail).

After this, it was already getting quite late and I was hungry. We were dropped off at the Liuhe night market (六合夜市) for delicious street food dinner. And by delicious, I really mean delicious.

How can you NOT want to shove all those shrimp in your mouth... *droooool*

Finally, after the night market and a lot of food in my stomach, we got to go to the hotel. This wasn't the end of my night though (-sigh-). We had a family friend waiting for us in the lobby of the hotel. I don't think my mom had even met him before so she was going off pictures to know who we were meeting. This"uncle" of mine has lived in Taiwan for decades and used to take care of my uncle (who was in university and the army) like a brother. We went up with them to our hotel room and chatted for what seemed like HOURS (I was tired!). I showed them pictures of all my mom's siblings and whatever else they were talking about. The night had to end at some point though and so we part ways (rather, they left the hotel).

Sleep!!!

Asia Day 1-"4" : Kowloon, Hong Kong

2011-10-16T15:11:00.002-04:00

September 23
Yay! I left Toronto with a 19kg suitcase on a 10am flight to Hong Kong. Expected arrival? 1:15pm September 24.... -sigh-

My flight was.... okay. I had an empty seat next to me, so I was lucky. I got to lie down on my pillow with my feet outstretched into the aisle and try to catch some zzz's, but was unlucky on that front. So much for pulling an all-nighter and being zonked out on the 16 hour flight...

My in-flight movie entertainment of choice?

Something Borrowed
Hall Pass
another movie that currently (and still) escapes me

September 24
I arrive at the Hong Kong airport to meet my cousin Chris waiting for me. We meet up, chat, and wait for my parents to arrive from Shanghai the following hour.

After getting to the hotel (Cosmo Hotel in Mong Kok - 旺角丽悦酒店) and my cousin leaving us be, we meet my uncle (mom's brother) in Tsim Sha Tsui (尖沙咀) for dinner at iSquare (國際廣場) and some later evening shopping. I love how everything is open so late! (I later shall probably vent my frustration at how late things open...)

September 25
My cousin Priscilla's wedding, we had dimsum for lunch, did some shopping, went back to the hotel to change, and went to the restaurant for the tea ceremony and dinner reception. Many many hours later are we finally fed... It was such a long day!

September 26
The next day we did some wandering around the Tsim Sha Tsui (尖沙咀) area again. I needed to check out the prices of custom made suits for Adam before it was too late to get one made.

Unfortunately, the prices just weren't quite right so we opted out of it. However, there were some beautiful sights there, including awesomely large tokidoki art pieces (above) and rows of flower boxes orchids lining the streets (below).

Cute tokidoki's and beautiful flowers! I wonder how they get them to bloom so nicely even on the sides of the streets. Damn Hong Kong and their gorgeous weather!

Tacos, a flan and a pie

2011-10-15T13:26:00.000-04:00

Is this going to be a bad joke of some sort?

Thankfully not, it's just the contents of what was on the menu for dinner on the weekend.

I believe this was the day that I decided I wasn't going to do schoolwork. See what happens when I make poor decisions? Food gets made!

The tacos weren't overly difficult with pre-made taco kits, but I opted to pick up some Yves Veggie Ground Round to try out. It was quite spicy, which was good, and worked really well as a ground beef substitute. Since it was only me eating it, I used probably 1/4 of the package, so I stuck it in the freezer for later use.

Jen was also raving about this blueberry flan recipe she got from a friend that is just to die for.

She made it sound so delicious, I just HAD to give it a try.
I wasn't a fan of making the crust and the use of frozen berries was not as easy as promised. It turned out really great (apparently) but I wasn't a huge fan. Perhaps all the talk about how great it was upped the ante and I was just setting myself up for disappointment.

Lastly, I made my delicious homemade pies. I've made this pie crust many times before, but am not sure if I put it up here before. It's this great all-butter recipe I found in one of our bazillion food magazines lying around and I just ADORE it. It does require time and patience, but the results are soo worth it! I filled it with gala apples and topped it with the delicious streusel topping that I just go crazy for.

How could you NOT love this pie?!

Young Rival

2011-10-14T15:35:00.000-04:00

I am back from Asia, and went to a concert this week!

I haven't properly organized my Asia photos yet, but once I get everything organized and remember everything I did, I shall post it all.

We went to see Young Rival Thursday night at e-Bar. There was a band before them (I can't remember their name) and Yukon Blonde to headline. The first band was nothing to write home about and since the concert started so late, I didn't hang around for Yukon Blonde.

Yay for seeing Young Rival all the time!

Asia!

2011-09-23T01:59:00.002-04:00

Going to Asia! See you in a few weeks!

Apple turnovers

2011-09-22T23:02:00.000-04:00

Delicious!

I don't know why I was so afraid to work with puff pasty, it was really simple (duh, it's premade!). The only problems I had was that my egg wash wasn't quite sticking the way I hoped, and some of the turnovers popped open a bit while baking.

These weren't quite as crunchy and delicious as I was hoping, but for my first time working with puff pastry, I'd say they worked out very well.

Fencing!

2011-09-19T10:38:00.000-04:00

So this past weekend we went to Cambridge to watch Heather fence! I had never actually been to one of her competitions before, despite her always telling me about them. This time, it was actually at a good time and location for me to visit, so we popped by for an afternoon full of armour-clad horseless jousts (teeheehee).

Unfortunately, there weren't enough women to hold their own group so they were mixed with the men. Boy do they ever hit hard!

Congrats to Heather!

Mannequin modeling

2011-09-16T15:01:00.000-04:00

FYI everyone. I've changed career paths and have decided to become a full time shop window mannequin.

Toronto

2011-09-12T14:49:00.001-04:00

So I took a little trip in to Toronto for the weekend for some quality cousin time and for some prior engagements.

Friday night took me to a Pampered Chef party at Heather's, where I quickly learned / already knew I was far too poor to afford the kitchen gadgetry I would love to have.

After a day organizing the BBQ, an exhausting trip on the Greyhound and then the kitchen party, we cleaned up enough to be able to sleep. Too bad the noise coming from the streetcar and construction down below were enough to keep me tossing and turning all night. I uncomfortably woke up and got ready to head to my cousin's.

We went to lunch at Fresh (Queen and Richmond) and dessert at Le Gourmand. I had to go to MEC to get a travel pillow, so we walked there, then to Nathan Phillips, then to St. Lawrence market and oh so many other places. My feet were screaming and so we sat for a while before going to take the tube at Union.

Dinner was in Scarborough, and our other cousin ditched our celeb spotting adventure, so we scrapped it and stayed home to watch chinese movies instead.

Quality family time was had and I headed home with an ample supply of moon cakes for one person.

Orientation BBQ

2011-09-12T14:34:00.004-04:00

Another year, another cohort of students. We welcomed them again this year with our annual September BBQ. A morning of driving around gathering all the supplies needed, and we BBQed up a storm for them.

Woop woop for fun poses!

Yay for raffle prizes too, I managed to snag the $20 g/c to Shakespeare's Arms. Can't wait for a delicious evening spent there for pretty much free!

Back to school? Nooo.......

2011-09-08T13:07:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year again.... *cue Staples music*

That's right. The time of year when masses of undergraduates once again become the bane of existence.

My beautiful campus has been overthrown by new undergrads.

My downtown streets are subject to the whims of don't-know-how-to-handle-my-booze drunken students.

My home is overrun by movers and loud vehicles belonging to my new neighbours' friends.

Countdown until parking bylaw enforcement begins? November 1, I can't wait for your arrival...

Cottage preparations!

2011-09-07T23:24:00.000-04:00

To prep for my meal at the cottage, I decided on a simple menu:

grilled salmon
cheddar cornbread muffins
fennel apple salad
double chocolate biscotti

I didn't get a picture of the cornbread muffins, but suffice to say they were delicious!

double chocolate biscotti - cocoa powder and chocolate chips

Carolyne was making fun of my biscotti photos looking like pieces of poop, but she was gobbling them up all weekend.

The fennel apple salad was easy to make, especially since the dressing was made previously and warmed up coat. I'd say it was a perfectly simple and delicious menu!

Cottage!

2011-09-06T16:13:00.000-04:00

The last long weekend of the summer means a trip to the cottage!

We were all in charge of certain meals, so I made sure to plan all that out and get it ready before we left. I spent all Friday night prepping for it (see next post).

We left early Saturday morning, picking Kendra up on the way to carpool up. And off to Pointe Au Baril we went!

A lot was done while we were there including swimming, badminton, boating, seadooing and canoeing. Canoeing was hectic on my stress level due to the waves caused by passing boaters, but I survived!

The sunset at Pointe Au Baril

Thanks to Carolyne for inviting us up!

Ice cream social!

2011-09-01T11:37:00.000-04:00

This year, the GSLC decided to hold an ice cream social fundraiser to get some money for the upcoming orientation BBQ.

It was quite a success, although there was a lot of ice cream leftover. Nothing is better than $1 ice cream cones being served to you from right outside the front steps of your building!

Haystacks

2011-08-30T14:05:00.000-04:00

The name of these sweet little cookies have been debated among my friends (haystacks, frogs, no-bakes...), but we all agree that they are delicious!

mmm delicious!

On top of making butter tarts (and walnut date muffins), I thought I'd whip up a batch of these and use the rest of my shredded coconut.

I let the milk boil and bubble a bit longer than normal to make sure that my cookies wouldn't end up really soft like last time. I didn't want that runny mess again. They turned out perfect!

Butter tarts

2011-08-30T11:59:00.000-04:00

Who doesn't love butter tarts? Uhh... that would be me. However, Adam loves them.

So thus is the story of why butter tarts were made.

This is what they're supposed to be like?

I don't know what they're actually supposed to taste like, since I don't like them. It's hard to tell, but he says they were delicious, especially after sitting for a day.

They certainly look scrumptious. I wonder why it is that I don't like these...

Ribfest

2011-08-29T10:07:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was Ribfest here in town, so of course, we went.

Kendra and Matt made it back to town for a late afternoon Ribfest meal. I don't remember which vendor they went for their ribs, but it sure smelled delicious.

One top of ribs, the boys got pulled pork as well. Needless to say they were stuffed!

The highlight of the trip to Ribfest: at the car showing, there was a Ford Model T!

One Day

2011-08-24T14:02:00.000-04:00

Cheap Tuesday = movie night.

Girls night = chick flick night.

Cheap Tuesday + One Day = bad chick flick evening.

Needless to say I did not enjoy this movie too much. It wasn't severely great acting, and the 20 year time lapse during the movie failed to yield any aging on Anne Hathaway's part.

Having not yet read the book, the ending came as a unexpected plot twisting shock. That was probably another big factor as to why I didn't like this movie. One does not expect, upon entering the theatre for a romcom chick flick, to find such disastrous reality-check type endings.

Lackluster acting, disappointingly predictable, unpredictable and then predictable again plot twists, it by far wasn't anything to write home about.

CNE

2011-08-23T11:56:00.002-04:00

I had a lot of fun at the CNE last year, so thought I would head over to it again and show Adam what it's all about. My cousins weren't joining me this year, but Heather was up for it so we had a party gang going!

We went to lunch at House of Gourmet first, where Naeem and Alan came to hang with us. An hour and 4 plates of delicious food later, we were full and needed to get on our merry way.

This guy had one of the most impressive sand sculptures that we could see. It was only the 2nd day of the ex, but what he had already completed was amazing. How does that cloth covering all their faces stand up without support underneath? Amazing...

We also saw Joannie Rochette skating at the ice show they had, and saw the human cannonball guy shoot himself out of the cannon.

How does one get into this sort of career???

The ex was a lot of fun, we played a lot of games and won some prizes. Unfortunately the rides were so expensive by way of individual tickets that we skipped out on them.

I got my yearly fix of mini donuts and walked around the fairgrounds enough to burn off a whole day's worth of calories. It was definitely time to go home.

We watched Fantastic Mr. Fox that evening at Heather's, with some stove popped popcorn (delish!) before literally passing out for the night.

Cluster-cuss!

Master Chris!

2011-08-23T11:44:00.002-04:00

Chris had his defense on Thursday and we all came out to support him. He had a great presentation and, I'm sure, an even better question period. His presentation was easy to follow and inspired the decoration for the cake at his party the next night.

I previously made this cake (See: chocolate cake and quesadillas) and it was such a hit among Adam and my friends, that I stuck it in the "definitely make again" list. Seeing this as a good enough opportunity, I baked it up in my springform so I could get a round flat top cake for a good decorating surface.

why yes, that is the structure of paraoxon

Using classic vanilla buttercream, I tested out my offset spatula for the first time. I am still getting the hang of it, but it wasn't the best. I think I should have gotten the size up, because although I could smooth out the top great, I had to go over it twice, which led to inconsistencies in my surface and a painstaking amount of frustration on my part.

I also need to learn to let my cakes cool some more before popping my springform pan. My impatience always leads to ripped edges and the need to double crumb coat sometimes.

I decided to draw out room 2315 and the time that Chris was on his organophosphate slide. I double checked that I had the correct structure of paraoxon before piping the design onto the 'slide'.

The cake was loved by all, especially the celebratory boy. I also brought over a batch of my infamous chocolate chip cookies, which for the first time in a long time, baked up properly! I was so ecstatic for that. Several times now, I have noticed they would slump in the oven and end up being flat long cookies, when they're supposed to be plump fat tiny one-bite cookies. I used a better butter this time, and think it has something to do with the softening ability. I don't think I'm going to go back to Shoppers butter anytime soon...

Anyways, back to the evening. Pre drinking was at Jason's before we all headed downtown to eBar to get our dancing groove on. Unfortunately, we didn't stay out super late because we had to head to Toronto the next morning.

Congrats Chris!

A Canadian legacy

2011-08-22T12:32:00.000-04:00

A day or mourning for Canada, at the loss of a great politician.

Rarely do I get teary eyed when someone in the media passes on, but this is something that really strikes a chord, even if you aren't an NDP.

The death of Jack Layton really was something like a dark ominous cloud in the sky. Since he announced he was temporarily stepping down to fight his 2nd battle with cancer, it really seemed like things were going to go downhill.

Dozens of articles and newspaper obits have hit the web on this particular topic and I don't doubt in my mind that this affects every Canadian.

At noon, the NDP released a letter written by Jack Layton just days before his death.

Read about it here: http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110822/wpg_layton_letter_110822/20110822/?hub=WinnipegHome

For more, CBC has some articles as well: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/08/22/layton-obituary.html

Thoughts and prayers with his wife and family.

Pool party!

2011-08-15T11:32:00.001-04:00

I hecked Luis for not giving me enough notice for his last pool party, so I got ample notification this time around.

I didn't want to be there the entire day, so we showed up around dinner time. Wrong move! Everyone had been there for an extensive period of time already, which meant the party was on its way down.

A few hours later, plenty of food and some guitar solos later, the party was skimpering down to just us few left, sittin' around a 'fire' beltin' out some guitar tunes.

Perhaps better timing on my part next time will ensure a longer lasting party.

Vegetarian moussaka

2011-08-15T10:37:00.000-04:00

I watched an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay some weeks ago and was intrigued by this Greek lasagne type dish called moussaka. Without pasta, it uses slices of eggplant, zucchini and potato to layer together a meat dish with a creamy Bechamel sauce to top.

It looked delicious, and I was jealous again how so many deliciously creative looking dishes are centred around meat. Luckily, vegetarian moussaka variations do exist, and I chose to make mine with lentils as the alternative replacement.

Boy oh boy was it ever delicious!

mmm... I want another piece right now!

I always get a little nervous when making a layered vegetarian dish. The meat in lasagne really helps hold together the shape of the dish upon serving, stopping the tomato sauce from running everywhere and wreaking havoc on a beautiful dish. I was worried about the Bechamel sauce saucing things up rather than thickening and making a sloppy moussaka at the end. Lucky, this I had the right proportions of sauce and it turned out fantastic! Absolutely delicious to boot.

I skipped the zucchini in this step because I hate the zucchini at Ontario grocery stores. Super tiny, they aren't great for doing any layering with that ridiculous size.

This is a must try for anyone, even those meat-eaters.

Potato Day 2011

2011-08-11T11:27:00.000-04:00

Another year, another Potato Research Day.

I was a bit busy this start of August, with organizing that summer departmental BBQ and getting ready for Potato Day too.

I was seconded for another short presentation this year, so I had to get some slides together for this. I arrived in the morning to help set up a bit too, but there wasn't much that I was needed for.

The weather was a bit crappy (rainstorm), so the schedule was re-arranged and my talk was moved to the morning. Nonetheless, I have had talks with these folks before so it was a breeze to get through. A ton of questions later, we finally waited out the storm to head out to the demonstration plot.

Another successful day gone by, but thesis writing really should commence again... *hrm...*

Hand tossed pizza

2011-08-08T09:19:00.000-04:00

Running out of ideas for meals, I thought rather than buying a pizza, we'd make it ourselves. This way, we'd also be able to satisfy his "meat-tooth" and I could get an actual vegetarian pizza that I like.

Made to order!

I couldn't be bothered to make pizza dough as well, so we just got some from the store. Spread with some tomato sauce base, layered with wilted spinach, feta cheese and mozza cheese. I had shrimp on my side, he had chicken on his.

Delicioso!

Sticky rice wraps!

2011-08-08T09:03:00.000-04:00

I LOVE sticky rice wraps. Good thing Adam does too.

They aren't good to eat constantly, but every once in a while, I like a delicious treat.

My good ol' grandma taught me how to make these a while back and I decided to draw it out of the recesses of my brain.

They weren't as great as when I made them with my grandma, but they worked out okay.

Yum!

I also didn't have the exact same type of string, and made do with some butcher's string from the grocery store, and some random other stuff from the dollar store. They held up well and kept my rice wraps intact.

I haven't eaten any yet, so when I do I'll be sure to get a snapshot of the goodies inside.

Plant Ag BBQ!

2011-08-05T14:30:00.000-04:00

Our yearly summer BBQ has come and gone. This year, we were lucky enough to get Eric Lyons back with his magnificent pulled pork. Unfortunately, that meant that the entire BBQ this year was catered by us and a lot of prep work had to go into it.

I spent the night before the BBQ in the kitchen lab making the potato salad. I spent 4 hours on my feet to make it, and Adam helped me for 3 hours as well. 7 hours of combined labour later, I was so spent I fell right asleep, only to have to actually organize the BBQ the next day.

Everyone did such a great job with everything, it was perfectly organized and we had so many prizes and games for everyone's enjoyment. Plus we sold out of tickets, and actually went over our expected count!

Hurray for the beautiful cooperative weather and another great summer event =)

Fresh crab

2011-08-03T16:24:00.001-04:00

Mmmmm crab......

After taking Peter back to Toronto, we stopped to pick up deliciousness. I got all the things to make sticky rice wraps (粽子) and 2 fresh Dungeness crabs for dinner.

I pan fried them up Chinese style, with ginger and green onion.

Delicious!

London calling

2011-08-02T11:24:00.000-04:00

So it's been a crazy busy week (not really, but sort of...).

Peter stopped by this past weekend on his 'Canadian' tour on his way home from London. Without bringing presents from London, I was disappointed (haha jokes Peter!) but I sure was glad to see him.

With a massive bag of chocolate chip cookies awaiting him at home, plus popcorn and a nice homemade sandwich, he dug right in during our game of Settlers of Catan!

Adventure #1: The missing Greyhound station

We go to the Greyhound station only to find it was demolished. Where oh where are we picking up the cellphone-less Peter? Thankfully, good folks at the Cornerstone knew exactly how to direct me to the empty parking lot slash temporary Greyhound station.

Successful capture of the London-ite!

Adventure #2: Brunch at Eggcetra

I love Eggcetra, although I haven't been since I stopped eating meat. How I quickly forgot that almost everything on their menu came with meat. -le sigh- I ordered eggs and pancakes a la carte.

Adventure #3: the Arboretum fr-olf course

Really? It exists? We went for a nice leisurely stroll in the Arboretum to showcase some of the beauty of Guelph, when we happened upon the fr-olf course. I didn't know it existed, and didn't know fr-olf existed until just a couple weeks ago when happening upon it in the Wii Sports Resort games. Unfortunately, we were sans-frisbee that day. Another time!

Adventures #4: Bulk Barn!

Candy was the #1 priority, and it was successfully satisfied with a trip to Bulk Barn. Massive candy gumball aside, we scored a whole kilogram of Skittles, nomnomnom!

Sadly, Peter had to go back to Toronto on his way to the next stop, Ottawa. We shall meet again my friend!

Spiced banana muffins

2011-07-28T10:59:00.002-04:00

Mmmmm delicious.

I've been on a bit of a baking kick as of late, and my most recent delectable treat were some banana muffins. I spiced them up with some delicious nutmeg, but I think it could have used some cinnamon as well.

Banana muffins

I'm nearly out of flour too so I'll have to get more of that before I can attempt this weekend...

(more to come later!)

Gladiator

2011-07-26T12:20:00.004-04:00

"I can't believe you haven't seen this before!"

Ironic. Coming from Adam.

But I really hadn't seen it before.

It was playing on TV the other day so I had to sit and bear through it. Although it's actually quite good..

I'm not an epic historian or anything of the like. In fact, if you've watched movies with me before, you would most certainly know how much I dislike watching movies about wars or history.

Elora Gorge and cupcakes!

2011-07-25T15:55:00.000-04:00

Heather had literally been dying to go to the gorge for tubing since I can remember, so we finally got it all ready to go. She was there at what I considered a ridiculously early time, but we were still in line for the tubes.

What felt like an hour in line later, we picked up our rentals and made our way up to the top of the river.

Did I enjoy my trip? Hrm... that would depend on who you asked about my 'adventure'. Long story short, I ended up with a scraped ankle, bruised knees and a ridiculously sore body.

After our little escapade on the Grand River, we came home to make some dessert - chocolate chip cupcakes and buttercream frosting with a twist: zucchini!

The cupcakes were delicious, but not the texture or consistency I like in my cupcakes. With the zucchini in them, they ended up with a muffin-like texture, which doesn't quite fit with my buttercream for me.

Nonetheless, chocolate and buttercream are always a delicious combination.

The zucchini wouldn't be missed...

Fish sticks

2011-07-24T13:50:00.000-04:00

I was totally obsessed (aka CRAVING) with eating fish sticks lately. With some fish in the freezer (not the best way, but I needed a fix), I cut up my cute little sticks and breaded them in some delicious panko.

I made a scrumptious tartar sauce to go with it with just a few simple ingredients. Mayo, mustard, Russian sweet mustard, shallots and pickles.

Yum!

Bon apetito!

Gnomeo & Juliet

2011-07-21T16:03:00.000-04:00

I love animated movies. Although I don't think I've actually seen any since last summer's "Despicable Me". I've been wanting to watch this for a while but never really found a time or mood to watch it.

Lucky me (really?), headaches have been ruining my life as of late so I took an evening off of staring intently at word processor documents for at-home mani pedi's while watching a movie.

Cute! I love the spin on a Shakespearean play, and animated!

Even the character names remain the same, I loved how true to the original this film was.

I recommend this for anyone. It's such a cute movie, with lots of entertaining bits to make it more modern. Even Shakespeare himself makes an appearance (albeit, as a statue, but still)!

Fresh mussels

2011-07-20T11:17:00.001-04:00

Steamed in a bath of white wine, and onion, delicious fresh mussels for dinner!

How Do You Know?

2011-07-19T16:37:00.000-04:00

The answer? You really don't... Unfortunately.

Kendra and I hadn't hung out in a while so we decided to chill out at home (where central air is a godsend) and watch a movie.

We walked to Blockbuster and spent some time deliberating about a movie to rent. It was a toss up between Jennifer Aniston's "Just Go With It" or Reese Witherspoon's "How Do You Know".

Too bad for us, we clearly chose the worse movie.

Sucky! I really like Paul Rudd, so it was disappointing for this movie to be so lackluster.

My recommendation? Don't watch this.

How do I know? I just do.

Cherries! and a recipe gone-awry!

2011-07-18T14:07:00.008-04:00

Kendra gave us a nice basket of lovely fresh picked cherries Friday night, so aside from eating them by the handful, I decided to do some baking with them. The result? Turnovers and a loaf.

can't get enough... cherries!

Despite their delicious-looking-ness, I wasn't too happy with my baking this weekend. I'm not sure if it was me, or just the cherries. I haven't worked with them before, so I was surprised that things I make on a regular basis turned out quite like this.

how much grease do Brits like? EW!

What surprised me the most, was how awful (I thoguht) the cherry loaf turned out. I had never heard of cheery loaf before, but Adam swore by it and requested one be made, so I found one on BBC Good Food.

WARNING!!! DO NOT USE THIS WEBSITE!!!

I was so horribly dis-satisfied with this recipe. It was gross! I substituted the white chocolate for dark and I mixed all the cherries and chocolate into the loaf instead of only half and adding half to the top like they said, but it should most definitely NOT account for the atrocity I found upon removing my loaf from the pan.

There was grease EVERYWHERE. and I literally mean everywhere. The loaf pan was lined with so much grease I could see it physically dripping down the sides from the amount. The parchment was soaked in grease. When I put the loaf on to a cutting board, it instantly stained it a red grease. You couldn't pick up the loaf slice without it sagging due to the weight from the butter.

How much butter do the British like in their loaves? This loaf was heavy in both senses of the word: heavy in the stomach because of the insane amounts of butter and heavy because it literally weighed SO MUCH!

ONE CUP of butter? FOUR eggs?!?! REALLY?!!?!?!?!?!

I didn't even top it off with the chocolate ganache on top. Imagine if I did that, you would die of a heart attack!

I was skeptical when it called for nearly 2 sticks of butter, but I went with it anyways because the photo looked so delicious and moist. The recipe had gotten 4 stars for crying out loud!

I've had baking disasters before, but this was just ridiculous. Aside from the heart attack amount of butter, the loaf really was delicious. Unfortunately, I had to wrap my slice in paper towel and squeeze some of the excess butter out because I could literally feel it clogging my arteries.

I guess baking the British way doesn't work for me. I can't stand there all day weighing out my baking items!

The Illusionist

2011-07-18T14:03:00.003-04:00

This movie is from quite a few years ago, but I never got around to seeing it because I was drowning in trying to make sense of The Prestige, which came out the same summer.

We saw this on netflix, so decided to watch it Friday night. I thought it was good and was able to make sense of this movie a lot easier than The Prestige.

I won't give it away for those who still haven't seen it, but I highly recommend it.

Chocolate cake and quesadillas

2011-07-11T11:57:00.000-04:00

Nom nom nom who doesn't love chocolate cake? Especially when it's got coffee in it =)

*droooooooooooooooooooools*

Oooh it wasn't the ooey gooey delicious, but it sure was moist deliciousness with chocolate goodness glazed on top! This was definitely a chocolate hit and I will make this specific one again!

But before enjoying that bad boy, I had to have dinner. Black bean quesadillas to the rescue!

yum yum!!

These were so easy to make and so delicious! I served it with tomato rice so that I wasn't just eating a carbohydrate filled flatbread mess. =D

Boathouse

2011-07-09T13:55:00.000-04:00

The OAC grad council set up a picnic for all us grads at the lovely Boathouse. Yummy food, good friends, free ice cream and free canoeing!

We had a lot of fun, and the canoeing is quite a workout. It was a beautiful day, not too hot and not too cold.

I love the Boathouse!

Toronto!

2011-07-04T10:46:00.000-04:00

I had to venture into Toronto on the long weekend to drop some things off for my aunt. She had room in her luggage to Edmonton so I was going to get her to courier some things home for me.

A day trip in always means lunch at some asian restaurant and a trip to T&T. Adam came with me (aka. driver) so he was privy to the deliciousness and awesomeness of the asian culture.

Of course, we went to Keung's Delight (my fav fav FAV) in Markham and of course stopped at the T&T. This was Adam's maiden voyage to T&T and he loved it! Of course, I think that might be due to the fact that I bought him lots of pork buns... =D

Canada Day!

2011-07-04T10:09:00.001-04:00

It was a beautiful day on Canada Day and we had planned to spend the day at the beach. Grand Bend and Wasaga were too far away to go and would be really busy, so we opted for Elora Quarry instead.

It was gorgeous and hot and sunny! I packed a very big picnic for us, with sandwiches, a veggie platter, a bunch of whole fruits and berries, watermelon and fresh lemonade.

I don't have a small cooler, so we opted to bring the massive one we went camping with. I managed to fill up most of it, but it was a ridiculous amount of food for just the two of us. I was hoping Matt would join us, but he had a long night of badminton so he opted to sleep.

We got to the beach around 1030 to beat the crowd, but it quickly filled up. I managed to finish reading a book and started on another. That didn't go far though, as it was filling up with sand and the heat was near unbearable.

After a few dunks in the (REALLY) freezing water, we headed out. Five hours in the sun was more than enough for me and Adam's really ridiculous tan warped into a burn.

The heat put me off on cooking so we went to Greek Garden for dinner. Yummmm spanikopitaaaaa.

Ending the night with fireworks at Riverside and a nice leisurely stroll back home from the park!

Tuna steaks - nomnomnom

2011-06-27T13:15:00.000-04:00

These were sooo delicious!

I've never made tuna before, but I always loved it in Japanese restaurants. I know it's served raw there as my delicious sashimi.

Delicious!

We were at Zehrs wondering what to have for dinner, and I had tuna on the back of my mind all day. I got to the fish counter and I saw these lovely delicious looking tuna steaks and just HAD to get them.

I was worried about them sticking to the grates on the BBQ, so I encrusted them with black and white sesame seeds and pan fried them to perfection.

Hawksley Workman

2011-06-22T11:39:00.002-04:00

To follow up with my claim to post Hawksley Workman concert videos that I took (see this post), here they are:

Piano Blink -

Striptease -

Smoke Baby (extended play) -

I may have already said it, but the concert really was great. He's an awesome entertainer and left us laughing all the way home.

Classics

2011-06-20T13:15:00.000-04:00

Gotta love classic films.

Yes yes. I know. Kung Fu Hustle is hardly a classic, it's not even a decade old. But this will become a classic.

I was scrolling through NetFlix this weekend and saw that they actually had good movies! First up was Kung Fu Hustle.

I haven't seen it in a while but am glad I watched it again. I forgot how boring and hard it was to follow at the beginning, but things fell in line quickly.

Everyone has to admit though, that Weird Science is such a cult classic.

Adam's never seen it before, which totally blew my mind. My brother and I grew up on this show!

I was surprised to see that NetFlix had quite the random assortment of movies available, considering the other week I spent about 20 minutes looking up movies I wanted to watch and not finding a single one.

Yay for re-watching some of my favourite old movies!

Spot the similarities

2011-06-17T13:19:00.003-04:00

Take your classic original game 'spot the differences', and twist it into a game of 'spot the similarities'

Photo #1

August 14, 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt
New York City Times Square, a sailor kisses a nurse amidst celebrations of the end of WWII

Photo #2

June 15, 2011
Richard Lam
Vancouver streets, Australian Scott Jones kisses Canadian girlfriend Alex Thomas amid Stanley Cup loss riots

A copy of the original infinitely famous photo?
An innocent moment caught on film?

What do I think? Thanks for doing the U of Guelph proud.

U of A medical dean resigns

2011-06-17T12:58:00.000-04:00

I think we all saw this coming...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2011/06/17/edmonton-dean-medicine-resigns.html

Avon eBrochure

2011-06-16T10:50:00.001-04:00

For those of you who love shopping online, you can do so with Avon!

Click the link below for my Avon e-Brochure and be sure to let me know of your orders!

Avon eBrochure

Hockey fans disgraceful

2011-06-16T09:02:00.004-04:00

Show some class, will you?

I feel like Canadians might be particularly sore losers. I really think it's disgusting how hockey fans act out when losing the Stanley Cup.

Yes. I know. It's heartbreaking. I was there, 2006 when the Oilers lost. It didn't mean I went out and started throwing rocks at windows, setting things on fire and endangering the lives of lots of innocent people who are out on the streets or working.

Hockey fans can be batshit crazy.

The complete lack of respect of other people's property. The utter loss of control over oneself. These people should be held accountable for their blatant vandalism.

I know it's not only in Vancouver, that this happens every year. Edmonton was no exception. Drunk tanks were out on Whyte Ave every game night during the playoff run. I'm not discriminating against Vancouver. I don't think this behaviour is acceptable anywhere, for any reason.

If a hockey team can set off this type of emotion, I'm worried about what other reactions can be elicited in these people.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/06/16/bc-riot-thursday.html

University Dean should resign

2011-06-13T11:49:00.001-04:00

I'm really glad I never applied to Medicine while going to school at home, but this is still very disappointing to see, coming from my home university.

This last Friday was the Medicine banquet for the new graduating class, and Dean Philip Baker plagiarized most (read:ALL) of his speech from Dr. Atul Gawande from Stanford University's School of Medicine.

I feel like this really ruins the reputation of the University of Alberta, as one of the Dean's at the University isn't responsible enough to know not to plagiarize something as important as a graduation speech. I am sorely disappointed in the way the Dean (and the University) has responded to this.

I really hope the University does something about this. If there's nothing done, this just opens the door for future students to plagiarize all they want. "If the Dean can, why can't I?"

To read more, click the link below.

http://www.cbc.ca/whitecoat/blog/2011/06/13/medical-deans-who-plagiarize-should-resign/

Birthdays and cake!

2011-06-12T16:43:00.000-04:00

Adam's birthday was yesterday, which is the main reason why we didn't stay overnight at Relay this year. I needed most of the day to bake the cake, so being awake and alert was necessary.

I made a simple white cake, a recipe I hadn't tried before. With a trick to help cakes bake evenly, I was pleasantly surprised to have a perfectly level cake when I was done with the baking!

Perfectly flat!

This made my life so much easier, because it wasn't absolutely crucial for me to crumb coat the cake. Although it would have been better with it, I was totally pressed for time.

I made a simple vanilla buttercream to start and slathered it all over the cake. To put the finishing decorations up, I added a packet of instant espresso to make a delicious buttercream and a slight colour contrast.

Delicious!

We went out for dinner at Wooly's and headed back for games and dessert. Hurray for birthdays!

Relay for Life

2011-06-11T18:18:00.000-04:00

Another year, another Relay.

I'm so glad it's over for this year! No more hectic planning and rushing to answer dozens of emails!

It was a huge success (on my part, at least). With 47 registered survivors as of 9pm Thursday night, we welcomed a whopping 57 survivors on Friday at by 7pm! And with handfuls of pre-registered survivors not being in attending, that pushed our registration numbers to nearly 70! So close to our set goal of 75 registered survivors!

Thank you to all the wonderful survivors for coming, to everyone for helping out and getting such wonderful food to serve and for making the organization a success!

Penguins! in a cookie =)

2011-06-11T17:46:00.010-04:00

'Penguins! The ultimate cute bird. Now available in cookie form! For a limited time only, get them before they're gone!'

If I could have an infomercial, that could be what it sounds like.

Earlier this week I made penguin cookies. I couldn't post them until now because the recipient of them was still in suspense about what it was that I had made.

Anywhoo, Adam's favourite animal would be (you guessed it) the penguin. Having a big stash of penguin stuffed animals hidden away at his dad's, they've been around his whole life. We recently began the propaganda on his niece, last month while we were in Regina.

But herein lies the story of the penguin cookie...

They began as innocent gingerbread cookies, cut out from the top of a highball glass. It was irrevocably altered forever when it was iced *gasp* with black buttercream icing.

Then it was filled with flood black, only to be tainted with more icing, this time white.

Piped along the bottom and then filled once more, with flood white.

Finally, it was given a rest. But then more embellishments were added. To end up with, a penguin!

Beautiful!

Happy birthday Adam!

X-Men: First Class

2011-06-08T11:13:00.003-04:00

Now I'm not a big fan of all the superhero movies that have been raining down on us for the past decade, but I wasn't against going to see the new X Men movie (#95 on my DayZero).

A prequel to the XMen trilogy from recent years, I guess I was intrigued in finding out exactly how Professor X is put in his wheelchair. Other than that, I had no recollection of any of the characters or their powers.

Matt wanted to see it so bad (despite having already seen him opening night), and since Something Borrowed was no longer in theatres, we switched it up to watch X Men. A couple of the girls came too, so it was a fun night.

The movie was long, but not in the sense that you felt it dragging on. More in the sense that my ass was going numb in the seat and I couldn't find a comfortable position.

I liked the movie, it was definitely gripping to watch. I don't know much about the X Men or how closely it fell in line with the comic books, so I can't comment on that. I'd still recommend it to anyone who wants a good summer movie.

That, and I'm downloading the X Men movies right now so I can catch up and know what I was watching...

Robyn - Oh Baby

2011-06-07T16:02:00.000-04:00

I am on such a Robyn bender right now.

I see those tears and it hurts so much
Each time you say you're sorry
Cause no more words or regretful touch
Could change the way I'm feeling

You're doing me wrong
Again and again
You say that you will
But you won't

Oh baby
You're making that mistake again oh why
Oh don't you understand
Every time you do you make me cry

I stayed up late every lonely night
Waiting for you to call me
I used to think if I gave you time, ooh baby
You'd find a way to make it right

You're doing me wrong
Again and again
You say that you will
But you won't

Oh baby
You're making that mistake again oh why
Oh don't you understand
Every time you do you make me cry oh why

Don't explain and don't ask me why
Oh baby please stop crying
We've been through this one too many times
So baby don't you put me there again

Cause no matter how hard
I try to believe
This time I know that I won't
No I won't

Oh baby
You're making that mistake again oh why
Oh don't you understand
Every time you do you make me cry

Oh baby
You're making that mistake again oh why
Oh I don't understand
Every time you do you make me cry oh why

[Don't wonder why, baby don't cry, let's say goodbye]

Oh why

[Don't wonder why, baby don't cry, let's say goodbye]

Falafels

2011-06-06T09:37:00.003-04:00

Ah, falafels. Greasy frittered goodness.

I didn't think my body would be able to stand the greasiness. And Adam requested pan fried or baked, not deep fried. Thank. Goodness!

I wasn't sure of the chickpea to anything-else ratio for this, so I just threw things into the blender to see how things went.

Clearly, I used too much parsley. My falafel balls were green...

Despite that, they were delicious! My tahini sauce was a little too yogurt-y and lemon-y for my taste, but Adam gobbled them up like no tomorrow.

They went so well with some shredded lettuce and radish slices. Paired with kale chips and an artichoke soup, dinner was scrumptious!

On a bed of kale chips

'Dense' chocolate loaf

2011-06-04T14:23:00.001-04:00

I had my carton of buttermilk still hanging out in my fridge, so I decided I should use it up before it expired. Good thinking too, it was definitely on it's way out when I checked.

I found this recipe in a book called "Quick Loaves" from Jean Anderson. It was hanging around in a box in the spare bedroom that I found while because caught off guard on the phone with an old lady who likes to chat your ears off.

This is a gooder because it's easy to make and actually doesn't have much sugar or butter in it at all, which is great for me. The book has a bunch of common recipes at the beginning, and then the real recipes call for things from these common ones. This one starts with the quick cake mix.

Quick Cake Mix

2 cups sifted flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) ice cold diced butter

Add everything to the food processor and pulse until a crumbly meal (like lentils) is reached. This makes ~4 1/2 cups of mix.

Next comes the real recipe. I (almost) doubled it, because I had enough of the mix. Since I only had large eggs, I thought if I made just less than a double batch, they would work great, and they did!

Dense, Dark Chocolate Loaf

1 cup buttermilk
1 extra large egg
2 tsp instant espresso
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups Quick Cake Mix
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Move the rack to the lower third, preheat oven to 375F and grease a loaf pan. (I always line with parchment instead - less fat!)
Combine the buttermilk, egg, espresso and vanilla in a measure cup and mix. Let the espresso dissolve.
Add the cake mix, baking soda, and sift in cocoa. Mix until combined, and make a well in the middle.
Whisk the buttermilk until smooth and pour into the well. Fold gently until combined. (It will be stiff and lumpy)
Pour batter until the pan. (get the corners too)
Bake for ~45 minutes.
Cool on a rack up top for 10 minutes before removing to cool to room temperature.
Serve it up with a scoop of frozen yogurt!

All that's missing is the frozen yogurt!

The reason why I call this cake 'dense' is because it was so much lighter than I expected. I was expecting something that really was like a pound cake, and got nothing of it. Certainly, I didn't expect it though, seeing as how I added baking powder to the cake mix, and then baking soda to the loaf too.

I hope you enjoy this confused cake-loaf!