Monday, October 20, 2008

Nuit Blanche

A few weeks ago was Nuit Blanche. Jer and I went out for a few hours to check some things out. Here are the highlights, good and bad.

- A 'waterfall' at OPG (woooo!). It was a big sheet of intertwined plastic with a light shining on it. It was a little underwhelming.
- Cardboard houses with a tv in the window playing random people talking. Ummm, what?
- Cars with a light in the car. Ahhh, most of the cars were essentially empty. A couple had things in them. The only one that amused me was the one with a row of shoes. Whee shoes.
- People singing in Queen's park.
- Writing on a postcard to be randomly delivered to somebody at Nuit Blanche. This one was fun. See below for what I wrote on my postcard.
- Crazy guy in stilts, really tall and serious looking, walking right up and around us. So creepy!! I was hiding behind Jer. But so fun too. A couple guys playing the sax were following him around. I
loved it.
- Zombies.
- Lots of rubber duckies in this cool really blue foggy looking pond by Ryerson.
- An overhead ceiling installed in an alley by Massey Hall to look like an office. The alley was filled with lots of random garbage: christmas decorations, chinese new year decorations, hospital iv cords, file folders, and lots of other random things. I really liked it.
- A weird blue blob in the Eaton Centre. I got the underwhelmed feeling here again.
- City hall with lights in all the windows making shapes and designs. I saw a person running around at one point. Very cool.

After all that walking we were pretty tired. We took the path halfway home since it was a bit cold out and being melodramatic walking up the stairs at metro hall I flopped down and lay up/across the stairs. Jer joined me and we made tired noises which amused me. It gave me energy to make it home so I could rest in a chair and drink gingerale before curling up and sleeping.

And here's my postcard:

I have 5 minutes left to live, and I am using these last moments to write you this: hi.

Live life as if every moment is your last. I know I sure have!

Cheers,
Jen

Michelina's

I love Michelina's Lasagna with Meat Sauce and Cheese frozen dinners. In lazy times, they've been a staple in my life.

I bought a couple a while ago and later I realized that the label says New: Improved Flavour!

I was excited. And fooled. It was more like New: Removed Flavour! It seriously tastes like all they did was give half the sauce they used to.

It was barely worth the dollar I paid.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Quiet in the daytime, too loud at night

Last night as I was just falling asleep I heard my phone buzz across the room. Argghh. Stupid phone. Probably just facebook with a missed text notification. *grumble* Too tired to get up to turn off the buzzzzzzzzz (ie, i was sleeping before I really finished this thought).

I wake up early in the morning and can't get back to sleep. Buzz. NOoo Nooo I want to sleep. Alarm not off. GO away. Grrr stupid phone grumble pout grumble.

Eventually get out of bed, go pee, go on internets. Buzz. Buzz. Why won't it go away? It's literally in reaching territory in my purse but so much effort. It's too early.

*sigh* fine. The phone wins. I grab my phone to see no text msg. Oh. Hmm private call. Who could that be? Probably somebody stupid; I hate the phone, especially voice mail. Cue voice:

"Hi Jennifer, this is Di from So you think you can dance Canada calling to confirm your tickets for the show on Monday October 27."

OMG OMG!!!!! The phone is the greatest invention ever! (Okay not really, but jen happy!!!!) Girls night at the taping of So you think you can dance Canada!!!!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving long weekend was full of yummy food and interesting times. Although probably not in the sense that first comes to mind.

First the interesting times.

Saturday we were on a couch mission because it's not fun waiting for a couch to be delivered that may never arrive. Jer bought a couch a month and a half ago and the Brick kept calling with bad news, delaying when they expected the couch to be back in stock. You can only go so long with one chair and computer chair. Especially when tv is so awesome. So off to the Brick in hopes of solving this issue. Being new to this world we brought my dad to do the negotiations. We ended up saying bye bye chocolate truffle couch, and hello caramel happiness. The couch arrived yesterday and it's wonderful!!

Saturday night Jer and I went to the symphony. Jer had bought me tickets for my birthday. Some guy who's won awards was playing a solo and he was amazing. My favourite parts are still when the whole symphony plays in full force.

Sunday we did the whole family thing at Jer's sister's. It was the typical people talking, kids being kids, and perogies. Okay, the perogies aren't typical, see what I mean about defying expectations?

Alright, now on to the yummy food cause mmmm food so good!

It started with a pint of cream. 20(?) minutes later came fresh butter and buttermilk. The buttermilk was used to make blueberry pancakes Monday morning. I don't know if it was the buttermilk, but the pancakes were the best we've made. The butter was used with bread from Le Pain Quotidien. Delicious.

Next on our menu was gnocchi. I'm still figuring out gnocchi. It's coming along but I was mislead by a blog post saying to test the gnocchi to see if it falls apart or tastes gummy. If so, add more flour. Well, it always tasted gummy fresh out of the water. The best it tasted was my second attempt where I wasn't afraid of the flour but didn't keep adding flour because the dough was sticky, because no matter how much I added the dough was always sticky. Okay, this isn't amusing. Are you amused? no, well, on to the fun part. Tiramisu!!

Yep, that's right. This weekend I decided it was time to tackle Tiramisu. I've been wanting to make it for months. I bought the ladyfingers in July in fact. I debated making it in August around my birthday, but I got a little overwhelmed with all the recipes. Egg whites, whipped cream, cooked eggs, not cooked, this liquor, that liquor oh goodness make it go away. So I set it aside for the time being. Then one day I did a bit of research to understand the differences in recipes. The classic way uses raw eggs. Some people don't like the risk of getting sick so they cook the egg. This makes it more dense. Some will use raw egg yolk, but skip the raw egg white since it's more likely the whites will make you sick. So they replace the egg white with whipped cream. Makes it significantly less healthy since it adds fat and removes the protein goodness of egg whites, but it doesn't use too much cream so I guess that's fine. Anyway, I decided to face my fears and use raw eggs. Oh wow am I ever glad!!

I went to St. Lawerence market to look for mascarpone. I was hoping they had some italian stuff since I was reading the north american version has gum this, other stuff that and makes it a heavier tiramisu. No such luck, but I did find out how to say mascarpone. I was waaayyy off. Speaking of how north american ruins things, my ladyfingers were the proper Savoiardi, but they also had lots of junk added to it but you know what? It turned out just fine with all the extras.

Here's the recipe I ended up using and a picture of my first tiramisu.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Mocha

SPoT coffee has a contest on right now to become a "SPoT celebrity". You tell them your favourite drink and why. Jer has become addicted to their Mochas in the past month, and with the prize of your favourite drink free every day for a month, I knew he had to enter. Saturday morning after breakfast we headed out to buy a couple mochas, find a comfy spot at SPoT (haha?) and come up with some ideas. I gave useful suggestions every so often, while Jer worked his creative writing skillz. Here's the final product:

What is your favourite SPoT coffee drink?
Mocha

Why is this your favourite SPoT coffee drink?
For 15 years I had been enslaved by the sweet, buttery aroma with flowery undertones of the percolated coffee bean, and its intoxicating caffeinated effects have ravaged my entire being for far too long. I courageously broke free from this hideous addiction over the span of many weeks. I sought refuge in a monastery where the soothing and rhythmic chants offered a quantum of solace to my frayed and frightened soul. Once I had successfully overcome these demons that had haunted me, I became calmer, serene, and significantly less jittery. But was I a better person?

One by one, people I had thought were friends began to disown me, as my lifeless corpse and empty gaze provided a stark reminder that I was but a shadow of my former self. Even my puppy sensed that something was seriously amiss. Taking the garbage out one day, the door was left slightly ajar. Puppy, seeing a glimmer of light, made a ferocious dash for the elevator and with all the strength in her tiny puppy heart, made a terrifically improbable leap hitting the ground floor button, a button to freedom.

I was broken.

That night I searched the streets of Toronto for her, and in a metaphorical sense, searched for myself. At 6 a.m. I stumbled across SPoT, and with tired eyes I dragged my heavy feet through the doors and ordered a Tall Mocha, which brought life back into my decrepit frame. For this I thank you.

And even though I still haven't found my puppy, and my friends won't return my calls, I don't care. I've found the one thing that can make sense of this topsy-turvy world: a delicious combination of espresso, 2% milk and chocolate in liquid form, put together by an angelic army stationed in SPoT.

- - -

So this may be a bit longer than an average response (considering I had to write in tiny print and use the back of the small sheet of paper provided) but I think it will be well appreciated. On the way out, Jer confirmed they do indeed read the entries. It is unclear whether they pick the winner by random or based on awesomeness. We're hoping for the latter.