Sally's Kitchen & Stuff

New blog is up...

I've been planning this for a while - I'm not exactly MOVING this blog elsewhere, but I'm starting a new one on casual games.

Come take a look - it's pretty snazzy. minutegamer.wordpress.com

This site will still be updated, and I'll have some pretty good recipes coming up. Soon. I have this AWESOME slow cooker Shepherd's Pie recipe that's being fine tuned, and some slow-cooked BBQ ribs too that even children will love. But that will come later. For now, take a look at my new site!

Welcome to motherhood, Sally...

On October 27th, 6:01 am, I became officially a new mom. :) That explains my absence - I took two weeks off at work, and when I came in today I came with baby in tow. It's been a busy yet strangely boring two weeks. After we settled into the routine, I find myself with not much to do in his nap times (which ranges from 2 - 4 hours) in the day, and talking to myself. That's when I knew I had to go back to work at least a day a week to retain my sanity. Geez, how did women two generations ago do this?

Needless to say, I haven't had much energy to cook (running off to calm a crying infant in the middle of cooking can be quite dangerous, so I'd rather just nuke meals or reheat things in the oven) but I will try as much as I can to keep this blog up to date as soon as I can. Meanwhile, enjoy the pictures. :)

A little unexpected surprise...

On Saturday, Stu did the usual convenience store run. Instead of my usual plea for a specific chocolate bar, I just said "something sweet and nut-less." He came back to me with a tube of Rolos. I'm not a fan of Rolos, but since Caramilk is my other favorite, Rolo is pretty darn close.

I opened the wrapper and SCREAMED AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS. Up bounced the chocolate bar and it landed on the coffee table.

Stu exclaimed..."uh, what's wrong?"

"THERE'S A MAGGOT IN MY CHOCOLATE BAR!" And on the coffee table, crawling, there it was. It was quite alive. The Rolo bar sits on the floor near it.

Stu then proceeded to put the maggot back into the bar and subsequently squishing it with the wrapper. So, what to do with a maggot-ed chocolate bar? I don't know. Call public health? Likely. Why would a maggot be in a chocolate bar? Don't they only eat rotting flesh? How desperate is this maggot to hatch in a Rolo bar? Now, what if I had opened the other end, eaten all the Rolo pieces, then to reach for the last one to find a maggot crawling on it? I shudder to think. Yuck.

From this day on, I'm only having chocolate if it's factory sealed. None of this foil-wrapped stuff for me anymore.

My latest addiction...

Casual games. No, I don't exactly fit the demographic for the stuff, but you don't often find food related games in the serious gaming genre (restaurant tycoon doesn't count; it sucked) and spending a few minutes clicking away while I wait for my ride is more fun than surfing the net.

Check out my favorite games! They're mostly about food, by the way.

I've been trying to get a hang of a new skill lately: Baking.

It's HARD!

I've managed to produce an edible carrot cake (ok, it got rave reviews - but too sweet for me), a batch of brownies, pancakes, and some chocolate cookies over the weekend, but geez, it's not nearly as easy as I thought. Especially when it comes to biscuits and breads, I seem to turn everything I touch to charred dough.

I've been extremely busy lately - it's getting to the end of the summer and we've started teaching Christmas music (to prepare for those upcoming Christmas shows) and it doesn't help that I've had relatives over every weekend. Soon enough though, I'll have a thrifty brownie recipe perfected with chewy caramel. Right now though they're pretty standard and nothing special.

Any tips on making breads you'd like to share with me? My biscuits are tough, my bread is doughy, and my rolls kinda...sink.

Sorry about the lack of updates...

It's been extremely busy. For one, it's summer. For two, I seem to be losing all my weekends to visiting relatives. Or having relatives visit. Or cooking dinners for relatives. No more! I shall have this weekend to myself or else!

Menu for the last weekend (lunch and dinner):
Lamb and Beef Sheppard's Pie
Maple Mustard Corn (combine maple syrup, mustard, and whip it with butter. Add to corn.)
Traditional Buttered Scones
Banana Bread
Baked Chicken Curry

I'll post some of them at some point. ;)

So, my future mom in law is coming over this weekend.

And I have hardly anything in the fridge. Now, if I had known this beforehand, I would've stocked the freezer a bit more thoroughly. But since I already have brunch planned for the day, and now mom in the evening, I might end up with something ridiculously creative involving anchovies and cream cheese with a dash of advocado.

Contents of fridge: eggs, mushrooms, some grapes, lots of yogurt, milk, butter, cream cheese, condiments (lots), bacon fat (ya, I keep a jar in the fridge), tin of anchovies. Contents of freezer: sausages, some beef, some beef/pork bones, chicken breasts, cooked cubed chicken. Lots and lots of bacon.

We'll see what happens.

I'm turning into a real homemaking queen lately.

As opposed to Homecoming Queen. I'm typing this out wearing the dress I made on Saturday (which I got oodles of compliments for today) and realizing that I'm living my granny's ideal - I can cook, sew, clean the house (ok, not so strong on this one), do my own makeup, and land a nice man.

If you take history back 50 years, these were the requirements for being a woman. Mostly because there were single income families where the woman's role in the household is to keep it running by cutting corners - cooking every meal, sewing half the clothes (suits have to be tailored, hey), and get darn near orgasmic by the sight of a modern washing machine. Nowadays, we all have jobs. Do the dishes? The machine's got it. The laundry? The maid came by on Sunday. The cooking? We're ordering in. Sewing? You kidding me? We have third world labour to do that for us. Land a man? Who needs a man? It is no longer the obligation of the woman to "land" a man. They're LUCKY to find a wife (i.e. woman willing to settle down and have children instead of pursuing her own career) let alone one who can serve 5 course dinners.

Now consider this: if we delegate sewing and cooking - two previously "necessary" household skills - into hobbies, and love doing it regardless of whether we have to or not, think of the money you'd save! If you choose to cook every meal, whether via a slowcooker that you dump raw food and seasonings into in the morning, or a quick stirfry the moment you get home, you're saving the cost of eating out ($8) (pack leftovers into lunch and save another $5), let's say you only do this during the weekdays. That's $13 x 5 (workdays) x 4 (weeks) = $260. Now instead of buying that simple pouf "designer" dress for $300, make it yourself with fabric that costs $40 and a pattern that costs $20. It'd fit perfectly (since you did fit it, didn't you?), costs less, probably made of better material (silk instead of rayon) and if you enjoy sewing (I love sewing. I hate cutting out patterns) the workmanshop should be pretty comparable. The dress I'm wearing would've cost me $60 - without lining. Mine costs $6 including the zipper, and it's lined.

What to do with the extra money you save by cutting corners? What we always want to do with extra money. Shoe shopping!

The art of healthy snacking

Like most office drones, I find myself eating at my desk a whole lot. To cut down on the unhealthy intake of junk (hey, I save my calories for dinners) I have, lately, been trying to eat healthier junk. Here are a few ideas of snacks to keep at work:

• Beef jerky. High in protein, low in fat and carbs. Won't give you a sugar rush, but do keep in mind that it's also mucho high in sodium.
• Cottage cheese and your choice of fresh jam. Cottage cheese is high in protein, low in fat. The addition of a sweet fresh jam makes it feel more like a treat than health food.
• Cherries are in season right now. They give me a nice sugar jolt in the morning.
• Danone Creamy Yogurt. The vanilla one tastes like pudding. Sometimes I squirt a bit of cocoa syrup (the kind you use to make chocolate milk) into it. Mmmm. Instant healthy chocolate pudding.
• Unsalted seeds and nuts, toasted.
• Homemade granola. Get your ingredients at a bulk foods store and you'll end up paying a lot less than buying it prepackaged.
• Homemade trail mix. Buy cereal when it's on sale (Stu always wonder why I buy 7 boxes of cereal at a time) and mix it with your choice of dried fruits and seeds from the bulk barn.

Never snack on high sugar foods at work. You'll just end up tired out by mid-morning and binging at lunch. High fat foods make you sluggish, so that's no good either. Snack on the right foods throughout the day and you'd probably see an increase in your energy level right away.

So, we've moved in and all, but...

The place is still one giantic mess.

I guess it's the same everytime you move - for the first few weeks (if not months) you'll still be living out of boxes and wondering where all the pens went. The only completely functional space in the apartment is the kitchen. The second would be the bathroom. Our bedroom has no storage whatsoever at the moment (we broke the dresser in the move) and we're living out of these big bags on the floor.

I love my place though. Things to love:

• It's in a lovely neighbourhood by the lake. 100 yards from a huge park. 5 minute walk to the water. It's beautiful.
• We're close to a traffic pitstop in the city - so technically, you can get anywhere from here.
• We're far enough away from downtown that we never hear any sirens.
• The kitchen has great appliances for an apartment. The stove heats up right away, and it's a huge fridge.
• The rent is CHEAP. $850 for a 2-bedroom? Woooo.
• The AC doesn't need to be on even on a hot humid day, since we're so close to the water...
• ...and the apartment itself is perfect sized for the two of us.

Things to NOT love about the apartment:

• 2 bedrooms. 3 VERY VERY SMALL closets.
• The kitchen has 2 panels of countertops only, and a single sink. There's NO ROOM.
• The kitchen cabinets are painted neon MINT. And there are so many coats of paint on them that some of them won't close.
• The bathroom is the size of my old storage closet. And it has no storage.
• The bedrooms are carpeted in psychedelic patterns of brown and orange.
• All the caulking in the bathroom is old and needs replacing.
• The water system is OLD. When someone flushes the toilet NEXT DOOR my shower water runs hotter.

I still like it.

Tonight, we're hitting Ikea. Hopefully, we'll find ourselves enough storage for the bedroom, the living room and the second bedroom. Hopefully, we'd also find a kitchen trolley that gives me a bit more counterspace to cook with. Wish me luck!

It's been a whole week! Where have I been?

I rarely ever leave this alone for so long, but my kitchen has looked like a warzone (still does) since last week. Why? I've moved. If you've been following the blog, I was just apartment hunting a few weeks earlier. We've found just the thing - a two-bedroom apartment in the heart of New Toronto (that's way, way southwest corner by Long Branch, if you live in TO) on a gorgeous little quiet street.

This morning I was awoken by birdsong. Dispite the fact that my whole place still looked like a tornado went through it, and moving down from my last apartment - a three-storey walk-up - was hell, it was worth it. Now, if only they didn't wake me an hour earlier than I had to be up.

Once my kitchen is in order, I can start cooking again. But for now, you might hear more rambling from me about eating pizza. With anchovies on it. Who likes anchovies?

Nostalgic food installment 2 - jerky.

If you're used to North American beef jerky, you might be a fan of Big John's. I am. I just ordered 4 lbs of it (4 lbs is A LOT of jerky, btw. $60 CDN worth, to be precise.) off their website, and once again I'm reminded of the differences. They might both be called jerkey, but jerkey gotten in Chinatown is completely different from something you get out of Dominion. Or Costco.

NA jerkey is often "hickory smoked" and additionally flavoured with spices. Chinese beef jerkey is thinner, marinated, air/heat dried, and then, uh, covered in grease. I'm beginning to see a trend here. Needless to say, Chinese beef jerky is higher in fat and sugar - it's marinated in soy sauce, honey, and fresh garlic and pepper - but tastes infinitely better.

Here's another reason to make a trip to Chinatown. Beef jerky. Maybe I'll pick up some dried octopus strips and spicy fish sticks too...

Frequently Asked Questions, Installment 1

Q: What do I stuff a chicken to keep it moist? Mine always comes out dry.
A: Don't stuff it if it's small. Stuff it only if it's turkey caliber "roasters."

Otherwise, what you stuff it with have nothing to do with the chicken turning out moist. But please make sure the stuffing is precooked if it involves meat ingredients. Use an instant read thermometer and pull out the chicken before it overcooks and "dry out."

Q: How did you do that awesome heart card origami?
A: I used a template from Canon papercrafts. It's in the "Seasons and Holidays" section. It's a doozy though.

Q: What are some of your ideas of alternatives to meat that's closer in texture than tofu?
A: Whenever I have vegetarians over for dinner, I use seitan. It's a gluten that's refined from wheat, by washing the gluten from the dough and leaving only the gluten behind. The result is either solid and chewy, or reprocessed to be stringy. It can be fried, steamed, poached...basically cooks just like meat, and can be marinated as well. You can get it in Chinese food markets or health food stores. Like tofu, it tastes like whatever you marinated it in, and it absorbs flavour much better than tofu.

Q: Clam Chowder tastes like shite! You know what I mean?
A: I have no personal palate recollection of what shite tastes like, but the closest I can recommend would be the oh so lovely Durian fruit. It smells like shite. (Yet tastes like heaven.)

To quote Anthony Burgess, the Durian fruit's "odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock." Lovely.

Q: Are you a chef?
A: Nope. I'm just an obsessive Food Network viewer who's been cooking since the tender age of six. I still miss my old kitchen. We had a gas stove, and a great big wok - I reached it by standing on a step stool. There, I developed my love for ginger, green onions, hot peanut oil, and soy sauce.

Q: Do you know how to cook for a black man?
A: My white man boyfriend enjoys my jerk chicken, gumbo, oxtail, as well as my take on beef patties. Cuisine knows no boundaries. ;)

Q: Could I be your friend?
A: Only if you're within two degrees and asked after a few correspondences. And if you ask nicely :)

Q: 25 years on earth, what have you found?
A: True love. :)

Q: Why don't you answer your messages?
A: Because friendster doesn't have a user-friendly message system where I can reply in bulk or click next or anything like that. And I get way too many messages. Fear not though. I read them all.

Q: When are you going to add songs back on your profile?
A: As SOON as I can. Promise. I took them down a while back because I just ... uh...don't have the bandwidth. We're looking at 2000 hits or so a day on some days, or uh...40 gigs of traffic with only 4 songs. It's brutal. Best I can do next time is one song at a time.

Q: Ocean's 12 is the worst movie ever?
A: Oh, definitely. I can't believe I wasted 2 hours of my life on that one.

Q: How long IS your hair?
A: Knee-length. I keep it that way. Last month it was getting to be calf length so I got a haircut.

Q: I love you! Could you add me?
A: Don't you know that approach, uh, scares women?

I signed onto Friendster this moring

And there were 50 messages in my inbox. ARGH! We ought to increase the number of messages shown per page to like, 100 or something. To those of you who read and tried my clam chowder recipe, thank you! It's the most popular recipe on my blog ever!

Now, please go ahead and check out the rest. My sheppard's pie isn't getting any love, and it deserves it. It's a bit of a holiday dish since it is quite a bit of trouble, but I promise you that the end result is worth the time and effort. (It tastes better than roast turkey, serves about the same amount of people, and takes less time. How's that?)

Apartment hunting day

Today, is Friday. Today, is also aparment hunting day. Stu and I reserved the afternoon - and evening to jog around town looking for a perfect 2 bedroom apartment under $1000.

You'd think that with that budget I'd be able to find the perfect place; not so in Toronto. The average price of a two-bedroom apartment is $1150 here, not including hydro. Toronto has the highest living costs in Canada - it's expensive, it's dirty (if you don't believe me, just check the satellite images in Google Earth), it's a city full of good neighbourhood right smack next to bad neighbourhoods, separated by 2 lane streets.

And the dilemma, is that my bf seem to hate every single one of them except for the most expensive ones. Geez, I'm the woman here! I'm the one who has to walk home late at night, and I have no fear. I have pepperspray, and thank the government for our gun control laws and strict weapon carrying laws, rapists here don't even carry knives.

Lakeshore? Scuzzy. Downtown? Too hard to get out of. Northwest? It's a shootings-neighbourhood. No it isn't! It's Martingrove & Eg, not Rexdale! Then again, I can't argue. He's been here all his life, and I've been here ten years.

Let's just HOPE we find an apartment today that isn't tiny, cramped, and roach infested.

Trying to get a slow cooker gumbo to work.

And failing. Maybe I'm just not good at this yet, but whatever I cook in the thing just seems to fall right apart. I guess that's the idea, but geez, the only thing that retained the shape in the gumbo were the sausages!

Chicken congee, however, worked like a charm. I had to put the chicken in a net so that I could pick the bones out AFTER the congee's done, but 8 hours on low in a slow cooker seem to suit congee just fine; it turned out well stirred (weird, isn't it) rich, no burned bits.

I'm going to try to make something entirely new this evening involving sausages and chicken. (It's an obssession.) I also have paprika, chilli powder, and lots of cayenne at the ready. Oh, and rice. :)

Howl's Moving Castle

And she's done!

It's so beautiful (messy) and complicated (messy) I think I'm in love with it. :)

It took me about 4 days of free time. 4 days of undivided attention, 2 Xacto blade, 2 utility blades, 1/5 of a bottle of Elmer's glue-all, and now, where shall I put the thing?

Right now it's balancing precauriously on my Stereo, backlit. It might as well be flying.

Here's ALL the photos, in my Flickr photoset.

Did you like Howl's moving castle?

I liked it enough that I'm actually going to tackle the 26 page papermodel of the castle. It looks daunting, it probably IS daunting, but you can't stop me. :| But if you like, you could race me to it.

I've printed it out on letter size and nothing was cut off. So don't bother buying A4 for it.

There's also the scans of the castle (the first one, not the one in the ending) floating around the net, but 50 sheets, double sided? If you're printing it out yourself, factor in the cost of the ink of a home inkjet printer...if you might as well buy the book and support the publishers.

The lost art of creative cooking

Each of us come from different backgrounds of cuisine. For me, it's traditional Chinese food. Not your Chinatown cooking, mind you, but steamed vegetables served with oyster sauce, minced fish in egg pockets, and so on. Good Chinese home cooking that you really can't get anywhere else.

Fortunately, I also grew up with a grandmother whose idea of traditional cooking deviates pretty much everyday. Sometimes, things taste amazing. Like the time when she basted chicken with Coca Cola. And the mararoni with shitake mushrooms, beansprouts, and cooked in chicken broth. At other times, her creativity knew no bounds: guacamole made with strawberries and sugar, lemon chicken that tastes somewhat like chewing on plastic, deviled eggs that tasted downright evil. But hey, she tried. And when it didn't work, she would substitute ingredients until it tastes good.

There are people who follow recipes to the letter, and there are those who are willing to experiment to see what might work better than the "right" stuff. I grew up with the best of the latter, and I feel the better for it.

So next time you pick up that recipe book, go right ahead: add tabasco sauce in soy sauce. Mix wasabi into your salad dressing. Make cream of tuna soup. Hey, one day you might get to write your recipe book.

So, what's the deal with Swiss Chalet?

It's a restaurant.

It's a family restaurant.

It serves chicken. To make things more exciting, they added ribs, and a few salads.

It's a restaurant with a menu so limited it might as well have been FASTFOOD.

I really don't understand why people go there. The chicken is quite blend, the spices are not spices - they're just salty. The gravy (chalet sauce) is too tangy for chicken, and the smoky gravy (served with dark meat) tastes like Chinese chicken drink (gai jing) with flour. The meat is consistently overcooked, the ribs way too small, the salads often overly acidic (that's what happens if youd don't DRY your greens properly before tossing in dressing, btw) and the coffee dreadful.

Stu loves the place. The question isn't whether they serve bad food - it's not bad. It's just bland. The service is splotchy, sometimes good, sometimes horrible. Yesterday it was on the level that the waitress consistently forgot about spoons, cutlery, and butter.  What's good about bland? What's there to like?

Paper kitchen appliances

To stay within the theme, here's Panasonic's page of papercraft appliances. They're squarish and a piece of cake to put together, and look quite cute on the dish cupboard.

Guess what I've just taken up...

For those that know me sort of well, you'd know that I'm a spontaneous passionate sort of person. As in, I have a short attention span, but when I clomp on to a topic, I will be obssesed until I know pretty much everything there is to know about it (in a generalist point of view) and then lose interest.

I just built my first paper model yesterday, and I think I'll probably fill a book shelf with them before the fever burns off. To those of you who has no idea what paper modelling is, it's like regular models, but printed on card stock. I started by using 67lb paper, but eventually I'll move up to 150 glossy for the harder stuff. If you're interested, Yamaha's papercraft site is a good place to start.

To those who are interested, this is my first model. I'll take a picture tonight and post on Saturday.

RANT: The hydro bill in Ontario...WTF?

The bill came back at $490. I think I must've had a heart attack. I don't own a house - I rent an apartment. A ONE-bedroom apartment. One bedroom apartments should not have a 500 dollar hydro bill.

I can understand this if I live in Oakville, in a three bedroom house, growing POT, with the snow melting off my roof. But in a Toronto apartment on the top floor where I rarely have to turn on the heat? There has to be some mistake.

I need a new coffee table...

I have this ugly, laminated particle board THING from the 70's. It's a hand-me-down twice. It's way too big for my living room.

I tend to bump right into corners at night due to my poor eyesight. I need something oval, in light colored wood to go with my bookshelf. Scary thing is, everywhere I looked, they're rectangular. Checked Ikea - theirs are too big, and too square. I need something small, oval, and preferably foldable.

After repeated searches at various merchants, I've come to the conclusion that people just don't make oval coffee tables. :p I'm almost tempted to make my own. In reality, I don't need anything super steady: I just need something that would hold up a few mugs, have storage space underneath, and the color of light untreated pine. Something minimalist. Think BOX, but oval. Ok. Screw the oval. It's not going to happen. But think simple.

Maybe something like this. But bigger. 3 ft. long by 1.5 ft. wide by around 2 ft. high.

Any ideas?

Linkalicious.

Wee! I'm now a featured blog. Yay.

I'd like to extend this privilege a little by providing a few links to my favorite friendster blogs:
My Blog: The Latrine of Intellectualism - based in the UK, not updated that often, but what's there is good.
The Gallery of M. K. Styles - MK is a thinker, and it shows. ;)
Yup...Just Me... - A.A. of the Friendster forums, a fellow Canadian.

Feeding my addiction, or not.

As I filled up the coffee maker yet again, I had a slight conundrum. What has coffee ever done for me? Not the first cup in the morning that shakes me from bedraggled mind to the sharp thinking gal that I normally am, but the coffee taken at 4 PM at work after lunch. That cup of coffee which inevitably keeps me jittery through the evening, and sometimes keep me from sleep.

What has it ever done for me? I love it for its warm liquidiness - the fact that I have a hand warmer on my table that is divinely drinkable. I'm obsolutely addicted to the aroma, the creaminess, the sugariness (I over sugar my coffee) slight aftertaste of acidic coffee bean. But what has it ever done except to keep me up at night? Sure, I want a warm drink, but hot chocolate (equally fattening and sugary) could do the trick. If I'm simply thirsty, a mug of water will do.

What is it about coffee that makes me want to drink another cup? Does drinking 3 cups of coffee a day somehow qualifies me as an adult? The fact that as a child it was the forbidden drink and I can only have a little with a whole lot of milk probably made me think that only adults may drink coffee. Therefore, at the point which I turned adult (I recall that being 16 or so) I drank it liberally. But now that I teach at two different places, and is generally regarded as a person of authority, what am I trying to prove? Is it so important that I gulp down a mug of coffee at 4:30 PM?

I poured myself a glass of tap water.

On the subject of Detox

Short conversation with the bf last night over a Wendy's burger (my brief lapse in judgement over fastfood - happens evey couple of months or so, and often regret comes within hours) involves him wanting to go on a detox diet, or going to some clinic where they practice detox on people through a colonix something.

I told him that it's a bunch of bull. He told me that he didn't know what I was so defensive about. I told him I can't understand how people believe - and pay for - such bogus claims.

"Oh but it seems like it makes sense - it simply helps your body get rid of chemicals." - Stu

"Yeah, it all 'make sense.' Psychics solving crimes, expensive miracle skin cremes. 'Detoxification' is just a way for self-help gurus to convince you that your body is incapable of taking care of itself, and they capitalize on the fear that builts on the so-called facts mainstream media choose to feed us: things like how the full-moon induces murderous behaviour and how you only use 10% of your brain. Total complete BULL." - Me

"Well, just imagine what the other 90% can do! You can't just blindly doubt everything." - Stu

My point exactly. I really should subscribe to the Skeptical Enquirer.

Have more energy: 7 steps in 7 days

All you have to do is follow the following steps for the 7 days. Some things might not be what you expect though.

1. Wake up 30 minutes earlier than usual.
   Sleeping in actually makes people lethargic and sluggish. Get into the habit of waking up early, and avoid the stress of running late. This also gives us time for some excercising.
2. Stretch. Do 15 minutes of cardio BEFORE you go to work - aerobics is the most convinent. Just load up a dvd and follow along.
   Excercing releases endorphins in your brain. If you have morning sinus problems, that would effectively make it go away. It'd also give you a nice appertite for that big breakfast.
3. Eat a reasonable breakfast - eggs and bacon are fine. ;) Have a coffee. This will be your ONLY coffee, so savour it.
   It's 7:30 am. When was the last time you've eaten? A snack last night at 10 maybe? It's been a while. Load up on some good, hearty food. It'd stop you from wanting to devour a hamburger for lunch later.
4. Eat the heaviest meal of day at lunchtime. You can have a steak if you like, but if you do more than 6 oz of red meat, don't say I didn't warn you about the heartburn. Take the entire hour eating lunch.
   The feels weird, but works. If you're going to have mashed potatoes and steak, have it NOW. Take the time to eat it over an hour. Don't rush. Most people can't stomach that much food at this hour, so you'd actually end up eating less than you would at dinner time. Restaurants usually have lunch specials on entrees that gives you a smaller portion of the dinner plates, so you're scoring a good deal as well.
5. Do another 15-30 minutes of cardio when you get home. 15 if you usually don't excercise. 30 if you already do.
   This would put around 5 hours between eating that hearty lunch and excercising. You should have plenty of food energy for this.
6. Eat a vegetarian dinner. No meat after 2 PM. Make sure it has lots of protein.
   Carnivores sleep more than herbivores. The common heavy dinner at 6 PM would make the normal person fall asleep during the movie at 8 pm. So having a light veggie dinner gives you just enough juice to last through the evening, without making you sluggish.
7. Make sure you take in 8 glasses of water during the day, but don't guzzle two glasses at once.
   This keeps your muscles hydrated so you won't feel that acidic pain when you excercise.

At the end of seven days, you should notice a difference in your energy levels. You should be able to wake up feeling better, stay awake during the day with LESS caffeine, and excercise longer.

Someone told me that I deserve to be 300lbs. I'll take that as a compliment.

I joined SparkPeople.com last week to track what I eat. Granted, I really don't try to stay within how much calories I'm consuming - just tracking what I do eat.

Mostly I joined because I need something to whip me into drinking 8 glasses of water a day. I think I must've been doing <1 glass of water plus 3 mugs of coffee with cream and sugar, plus two glasses of milk. That's something I always made sure I did - two glasses of milk a day for strong bones, since I'm so bloody accident prone, I need every bit of help i can get! Knock on wood - I haven't ever broken any bone in my body, yet.

(Did I tell you about the time where I fell down the stairs at work and all I did was sprain a finger? And the time when a counter plank hit me straight on the top of the head and was rushed to the ER only to find that I was perefectly fine except for a scratch on the nose? Yup. Strong bones.)

Turns out that I'm consuming around 1200 - exactly how much I need - regardless of whether I track it or not. I just eat a meal when I'm hankering for a snack and it's meal time, or eat a snack when it's not. I also have a bad, bad habit of eating tuna out of the can a lot. Maybe 3 times a week. :) In the old days, that would give you alzeimer's. Now it turns out that my fish addiction is really good for me.

When I have a fast food day I end up not eating anything else for the rest of the day (fast food makes my stomach whirl. Then I eat it again when I forget that it does.) so that 1000 calorie combo at Wendy's isn't so bad after all, since it would turn out to be the only thing I eat that day. But if I go to a good restaurant, just watch me devour a 12 oz steak. It'd take an hour, but I just LOVE a T-bone. I also love lobster tail in purified butter, fish and chips with real tartar sauce, real lox, potato latkes, and southern fried chicken. If I ever start really counting calories, shoot me.

My net has been crapping out for days on end

Hence the lack of quality posts. Don't you just LOVE technology?

Issues (my very own) with Low-fat/Low-Cal.

Just read an article off Lifehacker on sticking to a low-fat foods.

As a person who is completely healthy, fit, under on the optimal weight for height, and avoid low-fat foods like the plague, I have issues with that. People are always trying to stick some diet on a book or an article, and we blindly chase it, simply because it seems so easy - all I have to do is follow these rules (and avoid excercise) and I'll be skinny! Hooray!

Well, life doesn't really work like that. The problem with a "diet" is that it is FOOD-oriented, and that easily becomes food-obssessed. A healthy lifestyle isn't food-oriented; it is action oriented. It comes from what you do, not what you eat. Ok, partially from what you eat. But definitely NOT a low-fat, low-cal diet. The thing is, sure, it's "low-fat" but compared to what? A "low-fat" muffin you can get from the local bakery packs enough calories in it that you might as well have had bacon and eggs. Plus juice.

As much as it may "claim" to be healthy, as well as toting the "same great taste" as its more fattening version, low-fat foods simply don't taste the same. Low-fat desserts also tend to contain more sugar, which effectively cancel out the low-fat benefit. As for diet-soda, aspartame is worse for you than sugar. Diet-soda, as much calories (0) as it contains, causes a person to eat more - you can't fool your body with false signals (sweetness = quick energy) and expect it to act normally.

Instead of buying everything low-fat, try this instead.

• Avoid FAST-FOOD. Unless it's sushi.
  Embrace the art of slow food. Lunch? Pack a sandwich. If you're living in a decent sized city, sushi for lunch is very affordable (often fast food pricing affordable.) My boyfriend describes eating sushi as "running on premium gas instead of diesel."
• If the ingredients contain "mechanically separated" anything, don't buy it.
  I'll give you a mental picture: chicken meat sludge mixed with flour, MSG, and salt. Shaped into patties, covered in breadcrumbs and fried. What do you get? Chicken nuggets.
  Processed foods are generally higher in fat and sugar - it makes up for the lack of real food contained therein. Buy the real stuff. Skip the processed.
• On the humourous side: If the title of said food contains the word "food," and repeatedly assures you that despite all its repeated mechanical processes that it is still food, has problems. :) Did you know that processed cheese used to be called "Cheese food"? Ewwww.
• Some low-fat (or 0% fat!) foods might contain Olestra. Sure, it's now "new and improved" but we have no idea what the long term effects are - it's a 2 year old product!
• Use cooking sprays instead of greasing the pan with oil.
  It really makes no difference, taste-wise. You can get flavoured sprays such as butter, olive oil, or sesame oil to add flavour.
• Replace your 10"-12" plates with 7" plates. Use a real Chinese rice bowl (chinatown!) for noodles instead of those oversized ones from the mall.
  It's really not what you eat, it's how much you eat. We're in the "supersize" era of more is better, so when you hit a family restaurant, those serving sizes are humongous! If you're going out, eat HALF of what you order, and bag the rest. Better yet, when you order, ASK to bag half the meal. Most servers would be happy to do it for you.
• Stop associating "food" with "activity"
  "Candy" has nothing to do with "working behind a desk"
  "popcorn with loads of butter" has nothing to do with "watching a movie at home."
  "Eating a whole box of Oreos" has nothing to do with "watching Sex In the City."
  "Turkey" can be eaten any time during the year, so there's no reason to overload at Thanksgiving.
  Snack if you feel hungry, not because you're doing a certain activity!
• Use LOTS of spices.
  Spices enhance the taste of food without adding calories. Dig that spice rack out (who doesn't have one? People just LOVE to give spice racks at Christmas time.) and start using it.
• Stop relying on the microwave oven to cook EVERYTHING.
  I'm not saying to ditch it entirely (I have) but microwaves make you lazy. It makes you reach for the frozen meals. It makes you eat processed microwave-able foods. If you grew up with it it's hard to give it up, but I've been without it for the past two years, and really, nobody NEEDS a microwave.
• Drink a SMALL glass of red wine with your dinner if don't have allergies. (for you guys who complained over my last food articles and my alcohol bashing - yes, red is allowed.)
  A little bit of red wine actually make you eat a little bit less. It MIGHT also speed up your basal metabolic rate. People who drink a glass of red a day tend to be leaner than ones who don't.
• Adapt an active lifestyle.
  Move a little. Take the stairs. Take a dance class. Get into Stepmania. Walk your dog. Run your dog. Join a community sports team (that isn't curling.) Go skating. Do something active and most of all, FUN.
• Don't (bloody) starve yourself.
  I work with teenagers, and it's scary how they think skipping a meal/eating only salad/drinking lots of diet pop is keeping the weight off. Eat. Eat. Eat! Eat breakfast. Have a snack. Eat lunch. Have a snack. Eat dinner. Have another snack. As long as the snacking involve high-fibre foods, and the meals involve 1/2 vegetables, it's all good. EAT!
• Don't go on a diet. Don't count calories, fat intake, EVER.
  This is the golden rule of staying in shape for the normal person. If you're HUGE, then yeah, a diet might help, but for the normal person (and ones who are just 10lbs overweight) and those of us who aren't super-determined-stick-to-a-diet-like-glue types, there is no point in going on a diet. Why? There's always a new diet. The Atkins diet. The south Beach diet. The carbs diet. Yada yada yada. Does it work? For some people. But most people who go on a diet fail. They don't work.

Why do diets not work? It's quite simple. It tells us what to eat. People (in our 20's and up) have set preferences of what we like to eat, developed over our childhood, and if we're continually told to eat something we don't like, for days on end, for months on end, we're either 1) going to get sick of it or 2) gain the weight right back afterwards as we go back to our favourite foods.

Counting calories is really hard to do - when you go over the world falls down on you. All of a sudden you're "not sticking to your diet" and it's very easy to just let it slip. It's much easier to make little, permanent changes (you can't go back to those 12" plates. Mwahahahahaha.) than going on a fad diet.

You can also check my other eating & excercise article.

There has got to be a better way to to do this.

Have you ever done a menial task? One that takes way too many steps, way too much time, and offers little reward? Have you, in this instance, ask yourself if there's a better way to do this task?

This question is how people invent/improve things. It springs from the desire to go from point A to point B in fewer, shorter steps. It's built into us to want things done faster. The difference between creative, imaginative people and the ones who aren't is the desire to ACT on this question.

So next time you do something that takes too long, find another way. A shortcut might be one thought away.

Gizmodo House update...

Made it to the semifinals. Still crossing my fingers. :p

Here's the Flickr Photo Stream, if you guys are interested in taking a look.

It was made of:
Angel food cake (I wanted an artificially organic look, like critters from the old super mario games;
A whole pound of marshmellows (Melted down with sugar to make most of the surfaces)
Purple Tentacle was made of gumpaste. It's a mixture of sugar, dextrose, cornstarch, and syrup. It's basically a lump of sugar.
Whipped icing. Basically heavy cream and stabilizer, with various colors.

I'll give the lowdown on "how it's made" - including "making of" photos, almost every step - when the contest is over. :)

Christmas...

Well, that was interseting. Onto other subjects...

...I just entered a "gingerbread-inspired" house to a contest, where the criteria is to be GEEKY. I believe I fit the description. I blieve my house does too.

I'll be sure to post those photos come 28th when the contest is over. *crossing my fingers*

What do I want for Christmas?

Gad. I hate answering that question. The thing is, most of my friends in my age group are in the $20-40 per gift category. What I want runs into the hundreds. The only things on my list that are not expensive are books, and for some reason, nobody likes to get me books, since I have "too many." You can NEVER have too many books!

Here's what I want for Christmas. Really.

• The Sleeptracker. It's a watch, it tracks the hours you sleep, and it tells you when to wake up in order to not get TOO MUCH sleep.
• An 3G apple ipod. I don't know where you can find one.. the old weird looking one. You might think it's a piece of ####, but I can turn it into a 20G voice recording retro gaming linux running monster.
• An older PC with an ATI all-in-wonder card. I want a new DVR, but nobody's going to have all the features I want. I'm going to have to build it.
• NDS with Nintendogs. In Pink please. (just kidding. ANYTHING BUT PINK please.)
• A nice pair of noise cancelling headphones. I don't need an mp3 player. I use my pocket PC. For audiobooks. Needless to say, I don't need to carry 30 gigs with me. Just 90 megs. But yeah, those are some headphones.
• A laptop to tinker with. It doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. I just want something to run Gentoo on. Something to play with, basically.
• A food processor.
• A lot, and I mean, A LOT, of books.

And if I don't get it, I'll just have to get thse things myself. :p

Last official Sunday Show.

Reader's digest version.

- We were supposed to show up to get on the bus at 7:30 AM.
- 8 AM. We're sitting in the parking lot. One of my singers slept in, the lead trumpet was on his way.
- 8:05. We're finally on our way, but my singer is going to have to drive up with one of our sax players.
- 9:10. Bus breaks down and we had to stop near Orangeville. We sat and played cards/talked til around 11 AM while our director got us rented cars. (for 25 people, no less!)
- 11. Toll truck arrives, but it couldn't toll a bus. The bus was much too heavy. We left it there.
- 12:45 PM. We finally arrived and unloaded, setup in a huge hurry.
- 1:15 PM. Makeup. Hair. Hair's a mess.
- 2 PM. Show. Not bad - we're remembering pretty much everything...but in the interim one of my singers ripped both her dress and her gloves. Thankfully it wasn't noticeable. (More time at the sewing machine for me...)
- 5:30 PM. We finally packed up and drove back.
- 8:40 PM. We arrived in TO, but 4 people will have to drive the cars back and come back tonight.

What a DAY. I'm somewhat glad I don't drive.

Chatelaine Magazine: Free New Year's Resolution sheets

They're free, and they actually have some good info on them. It's actually the ONLY magazine I subscribe to: a 20 to 30 something working woman's productivity bible.

New Year's Resolutions - Printable PDFs

How to be healthy via eating and excercise - the easy way.

I don't have a new recipe up yet - it's been a long time prepping Christmas...you guys have no idea what it's like! I've been teaching a vocal group Christmas music since the beginning of August, and honestly, that's probably why I haven't been over-shopping for gifts. The constant festive music in shopping malls just drives me out of there without the hour.

So instead I've came up with some secrets...some secrets people's been telling you about that you haven't been listening to in ages. How I maintained my weight since 17, and how the old jeans still fit. It's really very, very simple.

Eat well. Eat anything you want. Don't ever deprive yourself.

Didn't expect that did ja?

Now here's the catch:

• No alcohol, no smoking, no drugs. You can't do cardio and smoke. It's just not feasible.
• No sugary drinks except for orange juice and other no-sugar-added juices.
• No buying chips and cookies. If you must eat it, make it yourself. Once you realize how much butter goes into the baking of one batch of cookies, and how much oil it takes to fry chips, you'd be wary of putting another one into your mouth. Worse yet, most commercial cookies still contain trans fat.
• Eat EVERY meal. Snack on vegetables. Don't let your body feel hungry.
• Eat everything you put on a plate, and replace all your 12" plates with 8" ones. Nobody needs to eat that much!

It's really not what you eat: it's what you buy. When you go grocery shopping, bring a list. Make sure you have a bunch of yummy low-sugar fruits and veggies on it. Skip the snack and pop isle.

When you get home, prep the veggies  - wash, dry, chop - and throw them in Tupperware containers. So when you're hankering for a snack, you'd reach for a Tupperware full of chopped white mushrooms and red bell peppers. Mmmm.

You CAN eat big heavy meals and still be healthy! Keep your snacks healthy and keep the unhealthy snacks hidden, if you must have them at all. Sure, I still like a few cookies once in a while, but since I only eat what I bake, I partake in premeditated bingeing - often, when the cookies are done, the therapeutic dough kneading and the smell of baking, as well as the interim veggie snacking already did its work, and I end up giving the cookies away.

Most of us lack the will power to go to a gym - I do. As much as I like to advocate Pilate's/yoga/weight training/cadio/aerobics, I can't. I don't do any of them - they're too boring. I stay healthy doing what I love - DANCING.

It used to be salsa and swing lessons that really reved up my metabolism, but lately I've turned to Dance Dance Revolution, or even better, its PC equivalent: Stepmania. All you need is a $10 dance pad, a PC, and USB adapter. There are lots of sites that offer free sim files, linked off of the Stepmania website. Each set of DDR takes 9 minutes (3 rounds). Pick 5 of your favorite songs, and you'd have 45 minute of cardio separated by breaks of 30 seconds or so each, or however long for you to pick a song.

If you have a PS2/Xbox, the official version of Dance Dance Revolution also has a workout mode so that you can play continuously. I prefer the breaks, however, but to each his own.

Staying in shape is not a science - as much as diet books and fitness instructors try to tell you. It's about having fun in life, and wanting to have more energy to have said fun WITH! And since it is fun...why not start today?

Well, THAT was the summer.

Finally. It's over. (well, not quite. We still have gigs every weekend, but at least I'm not gone all the time now.) The summer of hectic rehearsals and gigs, and lots of giggling teens. Here are some pics.

I know, I said I'd give this blog up, but it's hard to break a habit, and I'm too lazy to move all the articles over. So here I go again...

Back to blogger I go.

ihatethursdays.blogspot.com - my new blog. Brand spanking new...nothing on it yet.
sallysnaps.blogger.com - photos in general
cammysnaps.blogger.com - Band photos

Busy busy busy.

We had a gig until 11:45 last night. In Thornbury. In case you have no idea where that is (I had no idea where that was), it's about 2.5 hours north of Toronto by car, on a good day. We left at 12:30 am, that means that I got home at around 3:10 am, and went to bed by 3:30 am. Then I got up at 8:25 am to catch a ride with my honey so I can get to the Studio by 9:15. In 15 minutes, we're heading out to Barrie for a waterside festival. *sigh* Then we do it again tomorrow. And the day after.

I'm tired. :(

I think I'm going to buy some sunglasses, and have junk for lunch. I need...sleep.

Booo. Friendster blogs.

I'm totally thinking about moving this whole thing to blogger. I'm a blogger devotee - I have around 3 over there, one for those funny moments with the kids. A couple of other ones to gab, in general. One of the main reasons I want to do this is because of "Hello" support. I use picasa to sort my photos; it's a very handy program, and it's FREEWARE.

Since blogger is now part of Google, they have made "blogger pro" completely free - customizable templates, easy uploading, image support, everything, FREE. I can understand why Friendster would need to charge for theirs - hosting, bandwidth, etc, is expensive. I wonder how they're going to keep this service free for very long, since the server load must've increased exponentially in the past 4 months with the recent upgrades. The problem with the net is that what you can offer for a little bit of money, somebody else will do it for free.

Meet Cammie

Meet Cammie. Isn't she lovely? She's a Canon Powershot A70. Compact, heavy (it's all those damned 4 AA batteries), kinda flimsy construction, has a major engineering flaw (sand could get into the side lens, causing it not to retract and gives you an error. Thankfully, nothing I can't fix.), but supposedly the best point and shooter out there. I like it because of the manual options - you can manually focus, change exposure, aperture. Lots of things I can't do on a traditional cam.

This one's on auto focus - there's only one problem. I took it with a mirror, so when the auto-focus beam hit the camera, it's focusing on the mirror. So anything you take from a mirror is bound to be a bit blurry. Just a tad.

Yes, I name all my electronics. At least, as far as my "follow-me-around" stuff goes. I call my PDA "Palmmie" and my camera "Cammie". Not too creative, but if I call it "snooklebuns" people will think I'm weird.

I loooove Craigslist.

I'm meeting up some guy who lives in North York today to buy his digicam - a Canon Powershot A70 - gorgeous little thing, 3.2 mp, enhanced jpeg, takes AA batteries, all that. I've wanted a digicam forever, so I'm definitely getting this one. All thanks to Craigslist! Yes! Cam, box, case, mem cards, all for $200. It's still under warranty. Hallelujah.

It's part of my upcoming web comic project; I've got the characters developed already, so all I'll be needing are backgrounds. I want to make them as realistic as possible, so I'll need tracing material. You know, I really should've stuck with still-life class longer than I had.

The beginnings of a comic...

So we came up with this idea. We'll just be us. That's right. It'd be just the little hilarious things that happen between two people who live together, where the girl is the geek, the guy is the suit, the place is way too small and we share a puter. *grrr* *hiss* *mine!*

Stu: So, do we get to go on adventures and stuff?
Sally: Um. Sure. Let's go rescue little space puppies from the planet beta centuari in a spaceship made of paper clips, little bits of paper, and mentos.
Stu: Why mentos?
Sally: I don't like gum.
Stu: ...you DON'T need drugs.

I'm looking for a digicam. Saw a good one used actually - canon powershot 3.2 mp, with a 256 mb card, cables, software etc for $200. Not a bad deal considering that it'd cost me $400 in a store by itself.

There's also the matter of me learning how to use illustrator. :) I've always HATED doing vector graphics, so this will be a...love hate relationship.

So guys, I got the Sims 2 University.

That about sums it up, eh? It's worse than crack. You can play this game for ... oh...9 hours straight without batting an eyelash. Currently I'm addicted to build mode - I'm churning out one historic house after another. Call it a revival to Lego(TM).

Stu stayed out all night playing video games, and so I stayed up til 2:30 am on the puter building houses. Geek homes should have more than one puter dammit! We need one more, hook him up to DoD, and that, would be perfect. Sadly, there isn't more room to put another desk and a puter. We'll have to wait til our move NEXT year.

He did come home early enough to drive me to work though. Awww.

So...I'm at work...and...

there's definitely something hissing in the ceiling. No, REALLY.

It's making hsst...stt.ssst... noises. The occasional clawing about can be heard too. Sometimes live things fall through the hole in the hall closet and we have to make routes to get it out of the building. I think it's a raccoon. Anybody want to place bets?

I'm thinking about starting a web comic.

Twice a week, sort of thing. About a bunch of musicians on the road who are also computer geeks with laptops.

I'm currently hooked on Real Life.

My allergies are killing me.

Sorry for the lack of recipes, people. Although I'm sure there's enough here to keep you busy in the kitchen, my nose had prevented me (lately) to create any new ones. I can't smell anything. My allergy meds haven't been working well either, and I don't really want to take doubles...

So I've been making crazy stuff like western style Chinese preserved meats rice (without any chinese preserved meats. I just used Oktoberfest sausages. Sue me.), and Stu somehow gobbles it up like it was gourmet. Honestly, if you have the stomach for this kind of stuff, you can make sausages into anything you need meat for. Just take the casing off, and bake/fry/braise. I won't need to smell it because I know what the stuff taste like - then I just add ingredients like eggs, random veggies, steamed rice. Easy.

I still get read to sleep at night.

Because my boyfriend spoils me rotten. He has read me the entire Little Prince (bits at a time, of course) and short stories from Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors, among others, over the course of our relationship. We just started on Stardust, and now I can't wait until I get to sleep. Then I keep myself awake as long as possible.

It's been a slow week.

Well, it's been a fast week at work, so I haven't been cooking much. I've also been (believe or not) on a diet to get in shape for the summer. Not so much get in shape as just excercising to get more energy to handle my heavy summer schedule, but so far it's been working well.

I got Stuart Star Wars: Republic Commando and Gary Grisby's World at War. Looks like he won't be getting any sleep for a while. WaW is actually pretty damn interesting - it reminds me of those old Chinese games like Ghangis Khan and Three Kingdoms - grand strategy. Risk on crack. I think I might actually end up playing it more than he does.

TV Dinners

I went on a quest to find some healthy food for lunch today. Healthy. Think not-Chinese-resturant, not slathered in grease, not tossed in salt, and not a bloody bagel. Being where I am (middle of bloody nowhere that is called Etobicoke), that is a very difficult thing to do. Here are the choices for food:

Lucky Restaurant - Westernized Chinese food. Greasy.
The Great Canadian Bagel - Dirty.
Tim Hortons - $6.99 for a sandwich? You kidding me?
Wendy's - I don't eat fast food.
Candiana Restaurant - If it wasn't frequented by a bunch of scary looking people, I might go in there someday.

I decided to instead hit the frozen grocery store. M&M's. I figured they might actually have something that won't 1) shoot my cholesterol level right up 2) give me a sugar high 3) take up the rest of my daily sodium intake. The problem, however, is that a grocery store to a cook is akin to a candy store to a child. I ended up buying a box of steaks, a box of chicken breasts, a box of oktoberfest sausages, 4 scottish meatpies, and 4 boxes of tandoori chicken entrees.

The entress, however, were very yummy. So yummy they made me sad. Sheesh, if a machine can cook this well, and make my lunch in 5 minutes for $2.99, what's the point of spending 2 hours whipping up a nice tandoori sauce? I couldn't even tell that it was pre-frozen. It had no hint of "pre-frozen" whatsoever. Usually after a frozen entree, I think, I can probably do better than this in 5 minutes or less, but this time around I wanted another one.

This calls for a good tandoori recipe. I WILL make tandoori better than a machine, dammit.

Cure for homesickness.

I had a bout of homesickness on Saturday. It was wet, it was cold, it was rainy. It was miserable. Stu told me he'd spend the day with me, and then ended up going out with his buddies to play DoD, and left me at home with my piano (well, at least that Waltz Lanna gave me is coming along GREAT) and Bloodlines.

By the time he got home I was a whiny wreck - it was too cold for me to go out, I missed him, I played so much piano my fingers ached. I refused to have dinner, refused to make dinner, and wanted roast duck with rice. Yup. I missed my mommy, I want to go home, and the only way to cheer me up was real Chinese food. Roast duck, white soya chicken, chicken feet, crispy roast pork; any one of them would've had me bouncing in my chair. I can be such a pain sometimes.

So we ended up driving out at 9:20 PM, through a snow/rain storm; parking in Chinatown; risking a ticket; braving the cold and the rain walking through Chinatown. Thank goodness the restaurant was still open (I've never seen it closed) or I would've been really peeved. We bought the duck. Rice was cooked and waiting in the rice cooker when we arrived home. All was well again.

At the end of the night I asked him - since he was complaining a little - whether it was worth the trip. He told me so, "it's worth the trip because you're happy."

I'm one lucky little girl.

Time to go grocery shopping again!

I'm feeling uninspired; I'm sure you'd be too if everything in your fridge is frozen and you haven't had milk in it for days. What I need is a nice clean out of the freezer - I'm not even sure I know what's in it anymore. Yikes.

I made seafood pasta last night. Stu had no idea what he was eating until halfway throught he meal. His comments were - "hmmm...it's nice. There's oysters in it...and mmm that tastes like olive oil...and woah it's got quite a kick! What's in it?"

"Well, there's smoked oysters, bacon, chives, anchovies, cream, and a tin of halapino spiced sardines." - me

"Sardines?" - Stu

"Yup." - me

"I don't eat sardines." - Stu

"No?" - me

"Well, it doesn't taste like sardines. It tastes pretty good. Well, you've just found the strategy to make me eat stuff I don't normally eat." - Stu

"Disfigure it?" - me

"Mince it." - Stu

There you go. Strategy for making kids eat spinach. Actually, I do have a good cold spinach with peanut sauce recipe. Tomorrow.

Neil Gaiman is a Futurama Fan

I just gained another good reason to like him. Yikes! Human perfection is not easily achieved, but I think he's there. I've loved Futurama since the first season - it was like the Jetsons, on crack.

Stu always told me that the show is stupid, unoriginal, and steals from every genre imaginable. Let's not forget that he watches Trailer Park Boys, shall we?

Same Old Day.

On the way to work, there was this boxer that kept sticking its head out of the window. I guess it never knew it was providing much entertainment for Stu and I as we giggled at it going from one side of the car to another, being the proverbial "dog sticking head out of window".

That paragraph looked whacked. Ah well. You can't always be brilliant.

The wonderful life of working in an office; I had photocopier training today. It was a state of the art Canon machine, with all the bells and whistles. Mmmm. Rep from Canon was very nice. She had a few quirks, one of which was saying "mmm kay" after every sentence. Ever seen "office space"? It was like that. I mean, really, after every sentence. It was very distracting.

Working in a music school is fun.

Egad. I work in a music school, and students usually start pouring in at around 4 PM or so. By 6, the building is full of the sounds of kids playing violin slightly out of tune. Sometimes you hear a kid singing karaoke downstairs. Yesterday it was brass duets, but of course, nobody bothered tuning themselves after they've been mechanically tuned. Oh well, they're just kids.

I hate Thursdays.

You can have my last anything, honey.

Me: (spots the last turtle.) May I have the last turtle, hon?
Stu: Sure.
Me: REALLY?
Stu: You can have my last anything, honey.

Now that's true love. :)