Food
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I think I mentioned somewhere before that they’re making a movie version of Fast Food Nation, the book written by Eric Schlosser. Perhaps not. In any case it’s a fantastic book that I read a couple of years ago. The movie version is directed by Richard Linklater and comes out this October (the 6th to be precise). I just watched the trailer for the film and it looks pretty interesting. I would have never thought that the book could be made into a movie and particularly not a fictional one but from the trailer it looks like they may have pulled it off. We’ll see for sure once October rolls around and it’ll be interesting to see what the fast food companies do in terms of a reaction to the film because it’s pretty damning of their practices and offerings. They won’t be getting much positive praise in the media come October that’s for sure.
During my university days fast food made up an unhealthy amount of our diet. However since graduation and particularly after getting married the amount of fast food that I eat is down near the zero range. That’s definitely thanks to Marcy; she keeps me alive in more ways than one and if I didn’t have her I’m sure my diet would consist of little “good” food. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t eat healthily but I’m more healthy because Marcy is with me. I can thank my stars for that.
The link to the trailer comes courtesy of the fantastic The Movie Blog. I started reading John’s site a few months back and it brings me my movie-related news each and everyday. It rarely disappoints.
Tags: eric-schlosser, fast-food-nation, Food, greg-kinnear, Movies, richard-linklater
Marcy went visiting this week and during the course of her visiting she managed to pick 18 kg of blueberries and several quarts of raspberries. I love this time of year; Ontario berries are second-to-none in terms of freshness, taste and appearance. I raved about raspberries and strawberries a couple of years ago when we were in Kitchener. It’s not as close to go picking now that we’re in Toronto but it’s not terribly far to go either. You can go up to Uxbridge to get fresh raspberries or further east and north to get blueberries and others. You can actually go to this site (Harvest Ontario) or this site (Ontario Berry Growers Association) for more information on where to pick and what the different picking seasons are.
Eric Bow talks about the lack of locally-grown berries in the supermarkets. This is troubling for me too because if we don’t purchase Ontario-grown produce it makes it tougher for those Ontario growers to survive. Given the choice between locally-grown and imported I’ll choose local (unless it’s winter when the vegetables are almost all imported) but if the supermarket doesn’t even give the option to buy locally, it seems to me that we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
Marcy’s already made several jars of jam and berries & syrup which should tide us over once the fresh season has passed. We also managed to sell some of our surplus blueberry stash for a tidy sum. I’m eating some blueberries and cream right now and a few moments ago I was doing some serious snacking on a pint of raspberries I found in the fridge. The problem is that when you have a lot of fresh berries it’s difficult to eat them all before they start going bad. Raspberries are particularly fragile. So I do my part and help eat as many as possible before getting sick (always a concern). Berries are a fruit that I’ll eat willingly. Most other fruit I need to be coaxed though given the right persuasion I’ll eat it.
Find some local berries of your own!
Tags: berries, blueberries, farm, growers, local, ontario, raspberries, strawberries, supermarkets
We went to the Fossil & Haggis pub this evening for dinner. Rather, we attempted to finish the food that we had ordered but it was too much.
The Fossil (as I will call it) is a really great pub on Morningside at Military Trail. It’s very near to UTS (University of Toronto – Scarborough) and 401. It’s a really huge establishment and for me the big selling point is their truly large list of import beers on draught. I routinely order an 80 Shilling by Caledonian. It be a fine brew.
Anyway so we wanted wings (they have excellent wings) but we were pretty hungry so we ordered a plate of fries and the “snack” size of nachos supreme. I really don’t know who could eat that as a snack but it was a dinner plate enormously filled high with toppings. It was very dense but extremely delicious at the same time – chili, guacamole, salsa, sour cream, lettuce. I would heartily recommend it if you’re ever around that area of town.
We had the nachos brought out first and then the fries and wings. Unfortunately we barely touched the wings and since they out of all the dishes we ordered can survive being reheated we had them wrapped up to take home. Maybe we’ll have them later on tonight for a snack. They’re bound to be tasty; we got the medium flavour and it has a fair amount of spice in it. It’s no Duff’s Famous Wings but they’re still very good. I’m getting hungry again just thinking about them.
Tags: chicken-wings, duff's-famous-wings, Food, fossil-and-haggis, nachos-supreme, restaurants, Toronto
You know you’ve made it big when your album is being played at Harvey’s.
I went to the Harvey’s near work today for lunch. It’s a fairly hip place I suppose but I had no idea just how hip it was until today.
They have a radio system at the restaurant (as most restaurants do) but instead of playing know-nothing music like usual, they were playing the Gnarls Barkley album, St. Elsewhere! Yeah the one I gushed over yesterday. And they weren’t just playing the popular track, Crazy. They were playing the album in sequence. I don’t think I’ve ever seen (or heard rather) a chain restaurant do something like that. I was quite impressed. Unfortunately it was too loud for me to really pay attention to it.
Bonus link: Here’s a post [via] about the origins of Crazy (i.e. the sample that forms the basis for the song).
Tags: crazy, gnarls-barkley, harvey's, Music, st.-elsewhere
Did you ever wonder about the history of Count Chocula the man? If you’re like me you’ve probably wasted many sleepless nights figuring this and other things out. Well wonder no more! Some kind soul added the Count’s biography to his Wikipedia page. Well actually it was there but someone decided that it was fictional and thus not worthy of inclusion. Someone else tried to lobby for its reinclusion (”
Ernst Choukula was born the third child to Estonian landowers in the late autumn of 1873. His parents, Ivan and Brushken Choukula, were well-established traders of Baltic grain who– by the early twentieth century–had established a monopolistic hold on the export markets of Lithuania, Latvia and southern Finland. A clever child, Ernst advanced quickly through secondary schooling and, at the age of nineteen, was managing one of six Talinn-area farms, along with his father, and older brother, Grinsh. By twenty-four, he appeared in his first “barrelled cereal” endorsement, as the Choukula family debuted “Ernst Choukula’s Golden Wheat Muesli”, a packaged mix that was intended for horses, mules, and the hospital ridden. Belarussian immigrant silo-tenders started cutting the product with vodka, creating a crude mush-paste they called “gruhll” or “gruell,” and would eat the concoction each morning before work. The trend unwittingly spread, with alcohol being replaced by sheep–and then cow’s–milk, and the demand for the Choukula’s “cereal” reached as far south as Poland and as far west as the northern Jutland province of Denmark. It wasn’t long before the unmistakable image (the original packaging, a three gallon wooden vat which featured a burnt etching of a jubilant, overalled Ernst holding a large dog and grinning broadly) made a pop-cultural splash throughout the entirety of Europe and northern Africa. In fact, Tunisia’s “Carthagian Sand Crunch” was seen as the first imitation of the Choukula form; the aforementioned product was presented in broad leathern bags with the woven insignia of a nude tribesman holding a sword and a bunched stalk of oats. Sadly, this would neither be the first nor the tamest appropriation of Ernst’s iconic visage. Meanwhile, in the “textile paradise”-region of Schenectady / Elmira New York, General Peter Mills–a celebrated turret gunner in McKinley’s navy–was first beginning to mine America’s seemingly insatiable desire to consume food before high noon. The trend, initially known in the United States as “brekkfest” had first appeared in 1903, with Dominic Eggo’s invention of “wassled” or “waffled” bread, and really picked up steam throughout the teens and twenties, when eating in the morning was no longer deemed a sin by the Anglo-Catholic church. News of Choukula’s economic domination across the Atlantic fascinated and troubled Mills, who was eager for similar success. In 1927, while vacationing the Iberian peninsula, he first encountered three discarded barrels of “Duke Choukula’s Animal Supplement” (the name and design of the product had undergone several makeovers throughout the previous seven years, the most recent of which featured Ernst dressed in a cape and tiara, reflecting his family’s oft-disputed ties to Eurasian royalty). Immediately intrigued, Mills brought one with him on his boat ride back to the States, and spent the twenty-three day trip obsessively studying the packaging. In the spring of 1929, General Mills’ “Prince Chocula’s Morning Digestive” was picked up for distribution in three dozen pharmacies, grocery stands and agrarian carts throughout New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and northern Maryland. The public response was confused and angered at the recipe’s savory, clove-like sting; apparently a confusion over the name led many to believe the breakfast was made from chocolate, and by 1931 the formula had been updated to reflect the nation’s collective sweet tooth. In 1932, boxes were labeled simply “Count Chocula’s Chocolate Food” and Peter Mills was named Life Magazine’s “Humanitarian of the Year, 1933″. Ernst Chocula died in a Ukrainian cabin, penniless and alone, having descended into a type of brain-madness.
This information provided [via].
Tags: count-chocula, ernst-chocula, wikipedia
If we didn’t have free drinks at work I could use this manual (PDF link, why not use FoxIt?) to hack the vending machine on the main floor of our building. Then I could get all of the free Coke that I’d need. That is, until I’d inevitably get caught and then I’d have to return the hacked merchandise.
Tags: coca-cola, coke, hacks, vending-machine
I got my hair cut on Saturday morning. I go to this little place in the plaza near our house called Mario’s hairstyling. It’s run by a guy named Mario and he rents out other chairs to hair stylists. Mario isn’t a terribly busy guy so I can just walk in when I eventually decide to get a haircut and I just have to wait until the customer in front of me is done and then I get served.
He cuts my hair quickly and without any comments or conversation. That’s ok with me, small talk usually isn’t necessary with a barber. You’re there for one thing and that’s to get your hair cut and fast. If it also gets cut well then that’s a bonus. Fortunately for me, Mario does cut my hair well.
I have a history with barbers named Mario. When my parents lived in Michigan I used to get my hair cut only when I went home (I was lazy) and I always went to Mario’s in Rochester Hills. That Mario was similar to this Mario in that neither really talked too much and yet they were fairly busy and gave good haircuts.
It feels much better to have my hair cut. It’s not as heavy and with the weather no doubt turning quite warm over the next several weeks it’s important to have lighter hair. Not lighter in the colour sense but lighter in the weight sense. I look incredibly stylish and chic now. That’ll change in the next couple of weeks though as the hair grows back. Until then though I’ll be living the high life. Perhaps even the High Life.
A question about that last link – why does a beer site have to be using SSL? Does it really matter that my beer surfing is encrypted?
Tags: barber, chic, fashionable, haircut, high-life, mario, mario's-hairstyling, miller-high-life, rochester-hills
This morning when I woke up I had a huge hankering for popcorn. I’m not really sure why; perhaps it’s because we haven’t had any in a little while and my brain was in need of its deliciousness. We were watching this movie and since movies and popcorn go so well together I made some up for us to enjoy.
It was pretty tasty but I think we’ve grown used to the super-deliciousness (or even uber-deliciousness) of the popcorn we bought when we were in Ohio last time. We got it in Amish Country and it’s rainbow-coloured (the u in colour gets put in when we cross the border). For some reason it just tastes really great; maybe it’s the type of corn that they use. My only complaint is that since we use an air popper (no more microwave popcorn for us) the popcorn all has to go through the opening at the front of the popper and for some reason the popcorn underneath the popped kernels can’t seem to force them into the bowl so I end up with a backlog of popcorn at the opening that can’t fall into the bowl without me prodding it to do so.
Other than that though, it’s some of the best popcorn I’ve ever had.
Tags: amish-country, cravings, ohio, popcorn, robin-and-the-7-hoods
This morning Marcy and I had a really great treat. We had to take her cousin Rachel to the airport for her 6:30 AM flight so once we dropped her off at 5:30 we went downtown and drove through the streets to see what the city is like at that time on a Saturday morning.
The result? Around 6 there are a lot of taxi drivers. Between 6:30 and 7 you start to see maintenance workers starting their day. You also tend to see some younger people whose night hasn’t ended yet. After our breakfast at Mars (this place deserves its own post) we continued driving around until 8 AM when Clafouti opens. They bake their croissants fresh each morning and I can now understand why they go so quickly. Within minutes of its opening the store was packed with people who wanted to get some fresh pastries. We got some traditional butter ones, a raspberry one, a chocolate one and an almond one. They were truly heavenly once we ate them later on in the morning. They used fresh raspberries which was a real treat.
We then drove home via Queen Street. By this time it was about 8:15 or so so you’d start to see security guards walking their beat as well as some of the vendors starting to get their displays ready for the morning. One surprising fact for us was that Chinatown (west) was devoid of activity when we drove through. Saturdays is a huge day there so I figured it would be bustling with delivery trucks and shopkeepers even at 6 but we were wrong.
We discovered that Crepes a Gogo, one of the great crepe places in the city, is expanding into a second store in Yorkville. It’s a much bigger space. We’ll have to try it out once they open. They make a really mean basil, brie and baguette combination. My mouth waters just thinking about it.
When you have to wake up so early (I woke up at 4:15 this morning), it makes the morning/day seem really long. By 10 o’clock I had been up for 6 hours and it felt like I had accomplished an amount that I would feel at 2 PM. Of course waking up so early has its disadvantages; twice today I’ve had to take a nap because the lack of sleep from last night took its toll. Tonight I will try to get a good rest.
Tags: chinatown, city, clafouti, crepes-a-gogo, early-morning, mars, restaurants, sleep, Toronto
This Tuesday I watched a fascinating documentary on the CBC called Diet Confidential. It investigates the serial dieting that has a stranglehold on so many adult lives and how it’s more about marketing than being helpful. They mentioned that for most people when they go off of a diet they hold themselves personally responsible; it’s never the fault of the diet but rather the dieter. It also provided some historical perspective and it was interesting to see how many of these diets are cyclical; for example low carbohydrate diets were first popularized back in the Renaissance in England.
It’s really disconcerting how little concern the book publishers (and the companies that own them) have for the people who try out these diets. They fund dubious research to back up their claims, use their other media properties to promote the books and use their wealth and fame to gain access to celebrities’ routines in order to get them to lend their name to the cause.
Naturally food makers aren’t any less guilty; they take every advantage of consumers in order to boost their bottom lines. Hence the low-carb everything that we saw two years ago during the Atkins craze. They’ll do anything they can to get out their message – “Eat more but get thinner.”
My diet is rather simple – eat sensibly and things should fall in line. It doesn’t work for everyone but it works for me. I don’t care too much about what I eat. I know there are some things that I should cut out and some things that I should eat more of but the end result is that I feel good and healthy and that’s what really matters.
Now it’s time to go outside and water the plants. It should be a little bit cooler now that the sun is setting. It looks like the forecast for tomorrow is no better than today. It’s also time soon for some dinner; with the heat today it makes me far less hungry than most days.
Tags: Books, CBC, Cultural Criticism, diet-confidential, diets, documentaries, media
I posted a couple of weeks ago about The Beerded Chip which is a restaurant in Scarborough that we like to go to. The only problem is that I typed it the way it should be properly spelled – The Bearded Chip as in a chip that has a beard. This of course isn’t the real name of the restaurant. It’s in fact spelled The Beerded Chip as in a chip that has beer. It’s strange that I would spell it incorrectly (or correctly depending on how much of a stickler you would be) because I go by the restaurant at least twice a day and each time I look at the sign (it’s not a terribly exciting ride).
What’s even stranger is that I’ve thought about writing this post for quite a while. Is that sad? I just wanted to set the record straight. All of the people who have found this site through searching for “The Bearded Chip” (and there are surprisingly many) can also search for “The Beerded Chip”. That should lead to an exponential increase in traffic to this site. And that’s what it’s all about.
Tags: puns, restaurants, spelling, the-bearded-chip, the-beerded-chip, Toronto
Marcy went to HomeSense this evening to buy some shower gifts for Tara and while there she also purchased some nifty-looking lamps and small vases for our own mantle. Here’s what they look like:
I think they look really sharp up there. Also here’s a closer picture of one of the vases:
Marcy has a really good eye for these things and she’s added little touches to our living space that really make it warm and comfortable to be in. That’s what makes us such a great team (I keep coming back to this): things that I might not necessarily think to spend time on are things that Marcy is good at and vice versa. It’s fun building a home.
Tomorrow we’re going to spend some more time outside and clean up the backyard deck as it has been a general organizing ground while we planted our flowers and plants this spring. We need to find a new home for our recycling bins among other things and hopefully I’ll be able to get our hooks attached so that we can put our hanging baskets up. Also tomorrow night we’re having some friends over for bbq (Rob Rainford-style). It’s going to be a mango-filled dinner that is sure to taste great. Perhaps you can even stay tuned for some pictures of the event.
Tags: bbq, decorations, gardening, home, house, Lessons, licence-to-grill, Marriage, organizing, outdoors, rob-rainford
I like hamburgers and I like love blue cheese but the new President’s Choice Blue Cheese Hamburgers are going on my list of banned foods. We prepared two of them on the bbq last night and I could not even finish one of them and overnight I was quite ill so from now on they will not be on the menu. I even filled out the product survey at the President’s Choice site for this food and hopefully they contact me because I was very disappointed in the burgers.
Tags: banned-foods, blue-cheese-hamburgers, Food, ill, presidents-choice
Marcy and I went out for brunch this morning and boy were we disappointed. We went to The Only Cafe (972 Danforth Avenue). We’d been there before about a month and a half ago and had a fantastic breakfast. I had the waffles and fruit which comes with a lot of fruit (grapes, berries, melon, etc.). This time though was a completely different experience. First of all the service was horrendous; there was one other table filled in the restaurant and we still had to get our own menus and wait for long periods of time for the waitress to check up on us.
Then there’s the food. I ordered the “cowboy breakfast” which is homefries, sausage, eggs and toast (standard breakfast fare). I ordered the eggs to be over-hard and they were anything but. Over-easy is more like it. The toast was pretty dry even with the butter on it. The homefries had far too many herbs on them. Marcy’s breakfast also wasn’t very good. It was baked french toast with chevre and walnuts but then they loaded it with fruit on top. “It’s like eating garlic bread with strawberry jam” is how she put it. It definitely was not what we were hoping for and considering how much we enjoyed the food the first time we were there it’s especially disappointing.
I suppose that that is the true hallmark of a good restaurant for us. A very small few restaurants are worthy of a second visit from us because a lot of them aren’t that great: either they have poor food, poor service or poor value. For those that do pass the first visit test it’s really the second visit that will determine if we will continue to go back there. I think The Only is one of those that passed the first visit but failed on the second visit. The Tulip on Queen @ Coxwell is another example; we went there a couple of weeks ago for lunch and were profoundly disappointed with the service. The food was still pretty good but we couldn’t believe how poorly the wait staff were attending to their tables.
It’s for this reason that there are not many restaurants that we go to regularly because so few pass the second visit test. Fortunately though the ones that we do visit regularly are amazing places and we enjoy going there each and every time.
Tags: critics, Food, restaurants, the-only-cafe, the-tulip, Toronto
Remember my post about stealing in the office? Well it seems it is still rampant as I just discovered that my lemon pudding and cookies that I had left on my desk last week are now gone. I’m not really sure why someone would have the need to take my lemon pudding especially since we had a table full of snacks; they would have to walk by said snacks to go to my desk to steal my pudding. People certainly do behave strangely in an office.
Tags: cookies, Food, It Happened To Me, pudding, stealing, The Office
When we buy groceries we like to buy as much unprocessed food as possible. For one it tastes a lot better when it’s unprocessed plus you get to try and create meals yourself instead of someone else doing the thinking. Over the past couple of years I’ve been more and more interested in this which you could probably track by my FoodTV hours per week watched.
Via Boing Boing I just saw a book that I should read called Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World. Linked from the Boing Boing post is another post about the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup. That’s one component of my diet that I know I consume more than I should; whenever you drink a can of pop there’s bound to be some HFCS inside. I’m trying to cut down by drinking tea instead of a Coke but it’s going to take a while to get there.
In any case the posts linked to above are definitely worth looking at.
Tags: Books, coke, fat-land, Food, foodtv, groceries, Health, high-fructose-corn-syrup
Once again we return to the series:
The leaves take the water, the first sip emanating wisdom’s light, where TeaMind is polished. It shines, pervading the universe, teaching us once again, that a true cup of tea is more than it seems. And so are we.
– The Minister of Well-Being
Things come full-circle again, as this is the same passage as was found in the first in our series. It’s appropriate as the original (blueberry green tea) supports prostate cancer research and this tea featured here (pink grapefruit green tea) supports breast cancer research.
Tags: green-tea, Lessons, pink-grapefruit, Republic of Tea, sip-for-the-cure, tea
Well this weekend certainly did let me relax a little and catch up on my rest. I think I got enough sleep each night which is nice for a change; all last week to get a ride to work I had to get up at 5:45 to be picked up at 6:30. Getting to work at 6:50 has its advantages but I’m not sure that I could have done it for much longer. This week is a short one (because of today’s holiday) and Wednesday through Friday I don’t have a ride in the morning so that will hopefully not make things so crazy in the morning.
We had a little scare in our neighbourhood early yesterday morning around 4:50. I had briefly woken up when we heard a lot of yelling outside. It was a very heated argument and then we heard what sounded like someone getting beaten up. Marcy called the police but they weren’t really willing to come out right away. We got to see the guy who was yelling and he was with 2 other guys but it was difficult to tell exactly what they were doing out there. Once we saw the third guy with them Marcy called the police back and shortly after that we could see an unmarked car come down the street I presume to question exactly what those boys were up to. They sounded intoxicated but it’s difficult to say what they were arguing about. This is an extremely quiet neighbourhood that we live in; when people are up that late/early screaming about something, people tend to notice.
The weather has been very temperatemental recently but this weekend we got a lot more outdoor work done. We bought some plants on Saturday and spent the rest of that day planting them and cleaning up the yard. We also cut back some of the shrubs and trees that have gotten way out of hand in the backyard. Now it at least looks like there is someone here who cares about what the outside looks like. Our downstairs tenant cut the lawn this afternoon and it’s beginning to look really nice. We have a lot of brush to get taken away and once that is done then it won’t look so junky. Also we can start planting things along the back of the property which should help bring some colour out.
So far we have really enjoyed having a barbecue. We bought one a few weeks back and have been having some rather delicious meals; roasted corn is especially good. Tonight we’re going to be having some chicken, corn and roasted asparagus. Should be pretty tasty. Since we’ve been eating lunch later this weekend (3-4 o’clock it seems) we won’t be eating dinner until quite late.
Work has been consistently busy but I think things are a bit more under control as of last week. The next 2.5 weeks are going to be a real crunch but I think that after that we’ll have some breathing room at last which will be really nice. It might even allow me to take some well-deserved vacation without worrying about how things are going at work.
Tags: barbecue, bbq, Commuting, crunch-time, gardening, holiday-weekend, hooligans, lawn, outdoors, outside, plants, rest, ruffians, weekend, yardwork
I realized this morning when I opened my backpack to get my breakfast that I had made a serious error in judgment. We have some crumpets at home (boy how I love crumpets). I put some marmalade on two of them and wrapped them in paper towels so that I could toast them once I got to work. That was my mistake. Crumpets are rather porous and marmalade isn’t exactly the most sticky substance (like say peanut butter). It tends to slide around so when I opened my backpack the maramalade had oozed through the crumpets into the paper towels themselves and had potentially spread to other parts of my backpack. It was fun to clean up and after that my fingers were quite sticky. At least the crumpets were tasty once I finally had the chance to toast them and eat them.
Moral of the story? Crumpets are there to be loved.
Tags: crumpets, Food, It Happened To Me, Lessons, marmalade
When you wake up at nearly the exact moment your ride arrives to take you to work, you won’t be catching that ride. I think it’s good to remind myself what it’s like to take the bus to work in the morning (I had to do it again today since Leo has the day off). At least it lets me succumb to my temptation. Perhaps I can possibly win with Coffee Time since at Tim Horton’s it’s always “Roll up the rim to lose” for me.
Tags: coffee-time, Commuting, lesson, temptation, tim-hortons
I absolutely love ginger marmalade. I picked some up last week and I had it on my toast this morning for breakfast. The soothing properties of the ginger combined with the jelly properties of traditional marmalade makes for a very good eat. I used to eat it a lot in the 2000-2001 period but really haven’t eaten it since then. You really have to like strong ginger to eat this stuff; since I was raised on crystalized ginger back in that same period I’m ok with eating large amounts of ginger.
Tags: Food, ginger, ginger-marmalade, marmalade
I’ve never had such awful croissants. No wonder they were on the discount rack. Wow. I’m going to have to get something else for breakfast now.
Tags: breakfast, croissants, Food
As yesterday was Mardi Gras we celebrated at our house by eating some tasty sausages and pancakes. Oh and some scrambled eggs too but that was mainly because we had to eat them up. On top of the pancakes? Some maple syrup. Real maple syrup! I haven’t had real maple syrup since Sunday morning. Ok that was because we were at Deerhurst for the weekend and they had a big vat of maple syrup available for the breakfast buffet. I certainly did not spare any opportunity to make use of this plethora of syrup. Before this past weekend though I can’t think of the last time I had maple syrup. Let me tell you this – I really do love it (in case that wasn’t obvious before).
We also watched Walk the Line last night and it’s really quite a good movie. I’m a pretty big fan of Johnny Cash and I have to say that it’s quite remarkable how similar Joaquin Phoenix sounds like the Man in Black. Personally I enjoyed this movie more than Ray but both of them seemed to end abruptly. It’s weird saying that as the movie is over 2 hours long but I was waiting for more after June and John got married. I suppose I’ll have to read the autobiographies to learn more about that period in their lives. In any case I enjoyed the film.
Tags: deerhurst, joaquin-phoenix, johnny-cash, man-in-black, maple-syrup, mardi-gras, ray, shrove-tuesday, walk-the-line
Eating cinammon buns with cream cheese icing for breakfast makes for a rather messy experience. I certainly can’t continue to do work while I’m eating them because the keyboard/mouse will get iced. So I have to pause my workday in order to give myself enough sustenance to last until lunchtime. Considering the alternatives it’s probably a worthwhile tradeoff.
Tags: breakfast, cinammon-buns, Food, icing, messy
No not the Peanuts character (call me Chuck). I’m a big fan of peppermint tea in the afternoons of late. It’s a refreshing taste and it’s very pleasant to drink. Plus it doesn’t contain any caffeine (at least the one I drink here at work doesn’t). I usually alternate between this kind of tea and green tea in the afternoon. It cleanses the palate.
Tags: charlie-brown, green-tea, peanuts, peppermint-patty, peppermint-tea, tea
I read The Daily everyday. It’s Statistics Canada’s daily press release (hence the name) about the new studies coming out of that organization. One of the items that piqued my interest was the study about our trade in beer. Yes they do track these kinds of things.
Canada’s trade surplus in beer with the United States has expanded significantly in recent years as Canadian beer producers have made inroads into the US market, according to a new report.
It’s true; you can find quite a few Canadian beers in the U.S. now. Our surplus is up to $265 million.
Here’s a surprising fact:
Beer is by far the most popular alcoholic beverage among Canadian consumers. However, beer drinkers are increasingly swinging more and more to imported brands to quench their thirst.
Sarcasm intended. We have to watch out for competitors though:
[B]eer from Mexico has been virtually gushing into Canada. In 2000, Mexico replaced the United States as Canada’s leading source of imported beer in terms of value.
You can see the beer gushing at the border. Sometimes you have to wait for quite a while until the row of beer bottles makes it way through customs.
Tags: beer, canada, Economy, mexico, statistics-canada, statscan, surplus, united-states
We got our monthly supply of coffee here at work this week. One of the new flavours/roasts is called “Eclipse Blend”. It’s a dark roast which I tend to like though the darker the roast the more bitter the coffee. I figured that it was an appropriate coffee for me to drink; not because I’m a bitter man but for the geeky reason that I use Eclipse at work. What’s a better way to honour this fantastic platform than drinking its namesake coffee? I can’t think of a more suitable tribute.
Tags: coffee, eclipse, geeky
I’m eating some of Marcy’s fabulous homemade vegetable soup for lunch today. Let me tell you – the VSI ratio on this soup (that’s vegetables per square inch in case you didn’t know) is extremely high. It would be tough to pack any more in so at least I’ll be assured of having my vegetable servings for today. It’s so plentiful that I doubt that I’ll need to eat much else before I go home for dinner.
Tags: Food, home-cooking, lunch, vegetable-soup
Fourth in the series:
Who draws the water and boils it? Who spoons the leaves from the tin, and places them in the pot? Who lifts the kettle and pours? Who waits? Who fills the cup? Who drinks the tea?
– The Minster of Leaves
That’s definitely one to ponder.
Tags: cinnamon, Lessons, plum, poetry, Republic of Tea, tea
I had to bring in my own coffee this morning. The coffee maker here at work (the one that no one fills) broke down yesterday and they’re replacing it today so between yesterday at noon and today at whenever there is no coffee available in the office. People either have to bring in their own coffee or purchase one downstairs. “The horrors” I know; I’m thinking the same thing. Hopefully by later today the risks associated with a lack of coffee in an office will have abated.
Anyway so I brought my own coffee today and to make sure that it was ready by the time I had to leave the house I actually prepped it last night before going to bed and then turned it on when I got up. I’m using my new coffee mug that I got from the cats for my birthday. Yes you read that correctly. They also gave me some Cadbury Creme Eggs. I’ll have to eat those up soon and possibly get some for a certain someone that I know also likes these treats.
Update (8:40 AM): It’s too bad that the coffee that I made isn’t very good. I’ll have to look at my formula again.
Tags: cadbury-creme-egg, coffee, coffee-machine
I bought a muffin this morning for breakfast from the little deli downstairs. I’ve had them before and they’re pretty great but this morning I checked to see if they were open when I got into work (7:15) and found that they were indeed open. Seizing upon this opportunity, I bought a fresh, warm muffin. It must have been just out of the oven and boy does it smell good! I can’t wait to eat it.
Aside: I remember when you used to see Mmmuffins stores in every mall. Are they still in the malls? I honestly haven’t been to a mall in quite a while and when I am I don’t usually pay attention to the food stores so I really can’t say. I always used to look at their selection of muffins but I don’t recall ever actually purchasing one.
Update: It was a delicious (not del.icio.us) muffin!
Tags: breakfast, Food, malls, mmmuffins, muffins
Do you remember the turkey soup that I was talking about early last month? Well we’ve been eating one of the pies this week and it has been very tasty. Hooray for leftovers!
Tags: Food, leftovers, pie, turkey, turkey-pie
For breakfast this morning I made myself a couple of English muffins. Now I love these types of muffins and I love crumpets even more. There’s just something about them that tastes so good. In any case I made today’s muffins with peanut butter and honey. It’s a delectable combination. I didn’t toast it at home because I didn’t want the filling spreading all over my backpack so I toasted it here with our toaster oven. The one small problem though is that I was setting the timer without setting the temperature so for about 4 iterations the bell went off and the muffins were still cold. Then I realized that the temperature was set to “Off” so I was really not toasting it at all. I rectified the situation and all was good. I had a great set of toasted English muffins.
Tags: english-muffins, honey, It Happened To Me, peanut-butter, The Office, toast, toaster-oven
We have a single-serving coffee maker here at work and we have several varieties of Van Houtte’s coffee available. It’s a good system though there’s one important drawback. It requires people to fill the coffee maker with water so that other people can fill their cup. There’s nothing more annoying than wanting a cup of coffee and walking over to the coffee maker only to find that there’s no water left. It takes a couple of minutes to heat up the water and so there’s not much point waiting around it while it’s doing this. Often times I’ve had to fill it up with water, gone back to my desk, gone back to get a coffee and found that the water is already gone and again no one has filled it up.
It’s just an office pet peeve of mine.
Tags: coffee, coffee-maker, office, pet-peeves, van-houtte, water
McCain has a new “smoothie” product called Smooth-eez (warning: Flash site). It’s supposed to be ridiculously simple to make. Just take the mix from the freezer, blend it and put it in a glass and you’re done. The commercials make it seem like it’s a good replacement for something broken or hurting. Just give them a glass full of Smooth-eez and they’ll forget that you broke their airplane or model ship.
The thing that makes me uncomfortable though is that the glass that they fill up in the commercial is a little too full. For some reason I don’t like seeing something that is that full. It looks like it’s in danger of spilling over. That would create a mess and that would be a bad thing.
I wonder if it’s a good product. I know if we ever got it, I’d definitely be careful to get a big enough glass so that there would be no chance of it spilling over the side. I like to have more than enough containment room in my glasses.
At least it’s better than those infamous “Catch the Taste” commercials. Man those were bad.
Tags: advertising, catch-the-taste, Food, mccain, smooth-eez
We had some Chinese food for dinner tonight (celebrating the New Year) and my fortune read as follows:
You will be the next person at your firm to receive a promotion.
Perhaps the ol’ fortunate cookie writers know something that I don’t.
Tags: 4704, Career, Food, fortune, Lessons, lunar, new-year, year-of-the-dog
Another post in the series:
I am told that in Western cultures there is a preoccupation with youth, but that you have not yet discovered the timeless effects of tea. How can it be? A single cup of tea has the power to carry you back to the time before time. Now that’s young.
– The Minister of Leaves
Perhaps not as prosaic as the others but still true to form and true to life. That’s a fine cup of tea.
Tags: ginger, Lessons, peach, poetry, Republic of Tea, tea
I had a fantastic breakfast this morning. It consisted of two pieces of toast with a generous helping of lemon curd on each. It made my morning. I get to have some more of my birthday cake for lunch. That’ll be tasty too.
Tags: birthday, birthday-cake, Food, lemon-curd, toast
My hands still smell like garlic. Not exactly a pleasant smell when I’m trying to rub my eyes or blow my nose. When I eat garlic I tend to keep it around for quite a while. My body just really likes to absorb it I guess.
Tags: Food, garlic
Another tea-inspired piece of poetry:
At this moment, somewhere, the kettle calls.
Somehere, the pot waits.
Somewhere, a person smiles into a cup watching leaves unfurl.
– The Minister of Leaves
It warms the heart. It’s also great tea.
Tags: Lessons, poetry, Republic of Tea, tea
I made dinner last night. It wasn’t pretty. It looked ok but many things went wrong while I was preparing it. I made stuffed peppers which is a pretty easy recipe to follow. Cut some onions, a couple of cloves of garlic, cook some hamburger, add a little tomato paste, stuff pre-cut green peppers, sprinkle some cheese and put them in the oven. Sounds pretty simple but I made a mistake on 3 of those steps. Firstly, the couple of cloves of garlic. I didn’t mince them enough nor did I cook them enough so I feel right now like I could kill a vampire. Secondly, the hamburger. I didn’t drain the fat off before I put it in the peppers. Thirdly the peppers themselves. I didn’t cook them long enough so it was like eating a green pepper salad. It was hard to digest and my stomach wasn’t happy with me afterwards. I think I’ve learned some important cooking lessons from this. So long as I’m not killing anyone with my cooking (yet) I’m bound to be making some progress and learning some skills.
Tags: cooking, Food, Lessons, stuffed-peppers
From my canister of tea:
The leaves take the water, the first sip emanating wisdom’s light, where TeaMind is polished.
It shines, pervading the universie, teaching us once again, that a true cup of tea is more than it seems.
And so are we.
– The Minister of Well-Being
There are more introspective comments on other tea canisters from this company. I’ll post some more later.
Tags: blueberry, Lessons, poetry, Republic of Tea, tea
I was looking at the daily stats report for this site and one of the referrers yesterday was this site. I guess my stealth campaign to see hard shell North Atlantic lobster is paying off.
Tags: lobster, search
$3.66 is what is costs me to get a fantastic breakfast. In the other building there’s a restaurant called Maria’s Corner Cafe. I can get a large coffee and an egg and bacon sandwich. It’s very tasty! The guy over there is extremely friendly; he knows everyone’ sname, knows the office gossip and the food is incredibly inexpensive. It’s worth the walk across the parking lot.
Tags: breakfast, Food
Quiche is a strange word. Fortunately though it makes for a delectable dish. I had half of the leftover quiche for breakfast this morning so I should have the proper blend of food groups to start my day off right. Yum!
Tags: breakfast, Food, quiche
I bought a Bounty (I love them) and a new Max 5 chocolate bar. It has pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter and milk chocolate all wrapped into a solid bar format, by Blackbeard’s sword. The commercials are all kind o’ strange and I’m not sure combinin’ those particular 5 ingredients is a good notion. I’ll try it out and let ye know. Prepare to be boarded, on a dead man’s chest! Stay tuned!
Edit: The conclusion? Meh. Too many flavours at once. That and it’s not even a bar but rather two small bars. I’m underwhelmed, avast.
Tags: bounty, chocolate-bars, max-5, reviews
I have t’ say that I absolutely adore th’ taste o’ Montreal-style bagels. They’re so tasty I could eat a dozen at once. Well maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but I could eat at least a couple each mornin’. I’m lookin’ forward t’ tomorrow mornin’’s breakfast! The sharks will eat well tonight!
Tags: bagels, Food, montreal, montreal-style-bagels
Wagon wheels are much smaller than they used to be. Maybe I’m just bigger than I used to be. In any case they seem smaller.
Tags: nostalgia, size, snacks, wagon-wheels
I couldn’t drink my coffee this morning; it was too weak. We switched filters this morning and apparently they’re not the right kind because the coffee didn’t turn out the way it usually does. I’ll have to investigate!
Does it still count as soup when it’s thick enough to eat with a fork? No, I’m not talking about Chunky soup. I’m talking about my own soup that I made on Sunday (red lentil coconut curry soup). It seems to be rather thick and I don’t mean dim-witted.
So today is Fat Tuesday. Hooray! We’re having pancakes and sausages tonight for dinner. Mmm, sausages. I’m hungry already. We’ll make our apartment seem like Bourbon Street (watch those cameras today – it’ll be interesting).
This is an odd story [via]. I love his quotation though – “I don’t buy Taster’s Choice. I do beans.” I do beans too but I think I’d notice after all of the commercials and advertisements for Taster’s Choice that it was me on the label. I mean it’s not like it’s an unknown brand. I wonder if this guy was used as a model for other brands and he hasn’t clued into that fact yet. He could be owed millions more! Still, $15.6 million for one day’s work isn’t too bad.
I’m not sure what the deal is but lately I’ve felt like I can’t make a good cup of coffee. Today’s is better than it has been recently but it’s probably still a bit too strong. I think I’m having a harder time adjusting to the coffee grinder that we got in November. Either that or I’m losing my touch.
I was reading this Boing Boing post yesterday and realized that the delicacy they’re describing is something that I first discovered a couple of months ago. We went to Iqbal Kebab & Sweet Centre for lunch and after the main course Remi suggested getting paan. I’d never had it before but he seemed pretty enthusiastic about it so I gave it a try. I have to say it was one of the most delicious and refreshing things I’ve ever eaten. It helped with the digestion of the meal and freshened my breath. The next time I see them offered in a restaurant I’ll definitely spend the money to get one. They’re highly recommended!
Chocolate is tasty but not so much when it’s on your pants. It seems that I somehow managed to get chocolate on the seat of my car which apparently transferred itself to my pants while I drove in this morning. I have no idea how this happened but I do know that it looks slightly embarrassing. Fortunately I was able to clean off most of the chocolate by using a paper towel and water. I’ll have to clean my car seat when I get home tonight.
I’ve discovered the joy that is a chocolate-dipped mini-macaroon. It is so tasty! Having more than one is even tastier!
Phil’s recent post got me thinking about spicy foods.
When I went grocery shopping on Sunday I bought some chicken wings. I had wanted to get the mild or medium President’s Choice Buffalo Chicken Wings but they only had the hot variety. Thinking that it couldn’t be that spicy and seeing as I had no alternative choices (apart from the dreadful No-Name mild wings that we had purchased previously), I went with the hot wings.
Yesterday we had them for dinner and they definitely lived up to their name. They were too spicy for us and I felt kind of ill afterwards which is never a good sign.
I think next time we’re going to get the naked wings and season them ourselves or try and find the mild or medium varieties. A repeat of this experience is not desirable.
This happened this morning:
It was kind of strange. I guess they could have read CNN’s story and come up with the same introduction but it seemed rather coincidental to me. It was like I was watching someone reading Joey’s blog. I guess it shouldn’t be too surprised if people in other media read Joey’s blog; after all he’s been in the Globe and Mail several times now.
Moral of the story? Hardee’s is trying to kill people.
Street meat is an interesting idea. I’m not sure if the expression is a Canadian one or not but basically street meat is a hot dog or sausage that you’d get from a streetside vendor. I know that isn’t a Canadian business idea because I’ve seen them all over the world. I suppose it’s a fairly easy way to make money if you’re the owner of the cart provided you choose a good location.
There was a street meat vendor that set up shop near the University towards the end of my stay there and they did quite well because if there’s one thing that students want, it’s easy food. A few months ago someone set up one of these carts right by City Hall. It does fairly brisk service and the food is fairly cheap and reasonably tasty. If you’re considering a fast lunch and have the stomach to digest all-beef hot dogs or sausages then you might want to consider the old standby, street meat.
This is the kind of resource I need for cooking. The name alone appeals to me. I found this via Mr. Accordion Guy. I really like those charts. They’re so logical. Most engineers I know like a good chart. Maybe next week I’ll practice by trying out a new recipe. My cooking skills could use some refactoring (an understatement if there ever was one).
Last week Marcy and I had moussaka for dinner. I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant eating it at first because of a variety of reasons. For one, it was a frozen moussaka. I’ve had bad experiences with frozen meals like this in the past. They’ve been anywhere from very bland to completely inedible. The second reason is from my first week in residence at university.
The guys on my floor ate together all year but this tradition was forged in the first week. We were naive in that we had no idea what kind of quality of food to expect at the cafeteria. We learned quickly however as we were offered a choice of moussaka one day. Now I didn’t partake in this event but three guys – Ernie (a.k.a Bernest Ghan), Andrew and Lonnie all had a moussaka eating “contest”. I say “contest” because there really wasn’t much competition. Ernie blew everyone else away though Andrew certainly did give it a good “go”. Lonnie was left in the dust. All of them said that it was one of the most disgusting meals that they’ve ever had (little did they know however that we’d have a full year of this food). So that experience with moussaka, even though I didn’t eat it, kind of made me hesitant about eating it ever.
I was brave and bold though last week and boy am I glad I tried it because that was one awesome meal. It was vegetarian moussaka (meaning it had no lamb) and we had a fantastic greek salad to go along with it. I’ll definitely have moussaka again, so long as it isn’t from the cafeteria on campus.
I’ve been eating carrot muffins for breakfast this week. Now usually I abide by the rule that the muffin top is better than “the stump” (as prescribed in this classic Seinfeld episode) but with Coffee Time muffins it seems that “the stump” is almost as good if not better than the top. I know it seems ludicrous but I can vouch for this fact. I’m not sure why this is but for one thing, the muffins don’t come in their traditional wrappers but I’m sure they were baked with them. All I know is that I’m enjoying my week o’ muffins though even these fantastic muffins can’t compare with Marcy’s baking. I get homemade baked beans to look forward to eating tonight! I can’t wait!
Second in my series (as it is now apparently) on berry picking this summer we find raspberries. Raspberries are far and away my favourite fruit and if they weren’t so expensive in the store I’d eat them more often. We went up to St. Jacob’s on Saturday afternoon and since the market was too busy we turned back. However on our way back towards Waterloo I noticed a sign advertising “Raspberries Galore”. Marcya nd I made plans to go picking the next day. Pick we did! All told we picked over 7 pounds of raspberries. Pretty impressive amount considering the quality of the plants. Since we’ve had so much rain, a lot of the berries were moldy, too ripe or stunted. The other problem (mentioned by Marcy here) were the beer bugs. Man those things are annoying. You’d pick a berry from the plant that would look ok but then when you turned it around, the other side would be covered in bugs. You’d have to look carefully inside each berry because the bugs liked to hide inside the center. Disgusting things. Apparently since these berries are sweeter than the normal variety, the bugs like them a lot more.
Apart from the bugs though, the raspberries are delicious! I’ve had them by themselves (lots), on cereal and with cream. I’m going to eat some right now.
Well Marcy and I went to dinner with the Simonetto’s last night (discussed here) and we had a good time. Much discussion was had. In some ways it’s strange having dinner with your parents old friends, especially when they haven’t really spent much time with you in at least 15 years. I suppose this was the first dinner that we’ve had with another older couple since we’ve been married. I doubt that it’ll be the last. I wonder if Marcy and I will gradually start to spend more time with other married couples or whether we can find a balance between the married and single/non-married people in our lives. I’m hoping for the latter.
Marcy amazes me with her ability to carry on conversations about anything with anyone. The Simonetto’s gave us a wonderful gift certificate to Sears which I’m sure we will promptly use to buy new pillows and other things that we need. Tonight I’m going to vacuum the apartment again because the cats seem to think that it’s “fun” to throw litter around everywhere, particularly on the couch.
I’m in a great mood today! Things are definitely looking brighter. More details tomorrow.
As I mentioned previously, we went strawberry picking on Saturday. We picked 10 pounds worth of fresh, organic strawberries. They taste delicious.
We put the strawberries into three separate bowls when we got home but we noticed yesterday that the berries were becoming very fragile and the skins were bursting. The rush was on to finish the strawberries before they all became too ripe. We gave a lot to Stacey yesterday and I took in a bunch today for lunch. Marcy put two of the bowls of strawberries in the fridge and that seems to have hardened the flesh enough so that they weren’t becoming damaged just by sitting in the bowls. This means that the period of usefulness of these particular strawberries has dramatically been increased. This bodes very well for dessert and snacking expeditions.
Is there anything tastier than really fresh fruit? Perhaps but for me, today, these strawberries are amazing.
There’s not much more than I can think of, lunch-wise, that is more disappointing than opening up your sandwich container and realizing that your bread has gone mouldy. Even more troubling could be the fact that the bread you used in the mouldy sandwich is the same as the sandwich you delightfully ate yesterday.
Fortunately I had enough change to purchase a slice of pizza (Pizza to the third power actually). It’ll have to do.
It seems like a lot of families walking around downtown have triplets. On my way to Shopper’s Drug Mart, I saw three different people pushing triplet-capable strollers. I wonder why that is.
In other unrelated items, my eyes are really feeling strained today. I didn’t get a nice sleep last night and that’s probably the cause of it. Today is Marcy’s birthday and we’re having ribs and salad for dinner. I think Sally is making a cake. We might go to Baskin Robbins for dessert as well (Marcy loves the peanut butter and banana ice cream they have there). I bought Marcy a new bottle of Burberry Weekend perfume. I think she’ll be surprised.
It smells like Swiss Chalet in the office right now. It’s making me desperately crave some rotisserie chicken.
Well today’s lunch was kind of interesting.
Marcy’s going to the Ottawa Valley to interview for a job position. We wanted to have lunch together because she’ll be gone until late tomorrow night.
There’s a new restaurant open downtown called the “Passions Lounge”.
Passions Lounge
It’s been painted since that picture was taken.
Since I like to give new businesses a chance, I suggested we go there. I had no idea what kind of place it would be.
We walk in to the empty restaurant and it has a very bar-like atmosphere. There’s a chef standing way at the back of the restaurant and finally a waitress comes and asks (too quietly) if we’re eating in. We take a booth and wait for menus. The waitress comes back and asks if we’re ready to order.
“Could we get some menus?” we ask.
“It’s there on your table,” she replies.
I look towards the end of the table and sure enough, tucked underneath the ledge is a plastic upright menu. The waitress disappears while we look at what’s offered here. It turns out the restaurant is Caribbean and with Marcy having a very sensitive stomach it could pose some troubles. The menu is extremely simplistic, listing items like:
- Chicken jerk
- Chicken curry
- Fried chicken
with absolutely no additional descriptions. The menu is also very small and unless you really knew your Caribbean food it’s doubtful that you would know what you’re getting. So when the waitress came back and asked if we were ready, Marcy had some questions for her as to what the dishes contained and how they were prepared because if she’s not careful she can get really ill after eating at a restaurant. The waitress had absolutely no idea what to say except things like “well it’s chicken jerk served with rice”.
We asked if the chef would come speak with us and considering how there was no one else in there it didn’t seem to be a problem. He came over and seemed even more clueless and offering vague answers like “well I use West Indian spices and you wouldn’t know them”. He seemed to act like running a restaurant was a big joke. Finally he told us that he uses garlic powder and that was all we needed to know because Marcy can’t have that.
Marcy had offered some suggestions for the menu. Nothing too outlandish, just things like “you need descriptions”. The waitress seemed to take offense at this and said that you don’t spell out what’s in the dish on a menu. Before things got any uglier we paid for my pop ($2 for a flat, no-ice Pepsi) and left.
We give them 2 weeks to live and that’s being overly generous.
We went to Bolero’s instead and I had a roast beef sandwich. That might not have been the best decision since the roasted red pepper mayonaise sauce that was on the sandwich has given me a slight headache. Oh how I wish there were some better restaurants downtown.
Oh man how I love Pocky. I first tried it one time when I was in Michigan and was enchanted by the combination of pretzel stick and chocolate that is Men’s Pocky:
Men’s Pocky
The self-acclaimed “Super Snack”, it describes itself as “crispy pretzel dipped in dark chocolate for the intelligent conoisseur who enjoys the finer points in life.”
Actually my box doesn’t have the “intelligent conoisseur part”. It replaces that with “type of person”.
This is the kind of product that I like to buy; one that doesn’t insult my intelligence. Rather it boosts my ego into thinking that I’m eating something specifically designed for me and that I can go around for the rest of the day thinking that I am a conoisseur and that I enjoy the finer points in life.
I think tonight I’ll put on my smoking jacket, sip on some fine brandy or port and muse whimsically on the decline and fall of Western society. That’s what fine gentlemen do right?
An interesting discussion about black pepper, the original “black gold”.
Marcy and I went to Lisa’s convocation in Guelph this morning.
Thankfully it was in the morning because the afternoon one (which started at 2:30) would have been dreadfully warm. It was in the Gryphon Dome (more impressive if you say it in a “Sunday, Sunday, Sunday” kind of voice). They didn’t turn the fans on though and so once the sun was high enough, the building acted pretty much like a greenhouse.
The convocation was really nice – Annette Haas was there as well my parents and Aunt Pat and Uncle Rob. I even spoke with the Lootsma’s; Eric was graduating in Lisa’s class as well. Jeremy is teaching in Peel Region, an elementary school and Eric is going to teacher’s college in the fall. That is one family of teachers that’s for sure. It would have been nice to see Jeremy but I suppose it’d be hard to take time off from teaching.
I’m proud of Lisa for finishing her degree. I know she’s had some rough patches over the last 5 years.
We’re going back to Guelph this evening for dinner at The Other Brothers. It should be a good time. Marcy said that I’ve been restricted to 100 pictures but I think I’ve gone over that already and if not then I certainly will be after tonight.
I didn’t pack a lunch today because I wasn’t sure if we had bread (I know I could have checked). I felt like having some pizza for lunch but instead of walking down King Street to Pizza Pizza I decided to walk up Water Street to Pepi’s Pizza. I’ve had Pepi’s pizza before a number of times but this time I got a slice only instead of a full pizza. It was pretty cheap ($2.95) and very large. Initially the pizza tasted really good though it was extremely greasy (I could tell this even while walking back from the restaurant). It reminded me in some ways of Pizza Hut pizza, particularly the crust. Now, almost an hour later I can feel my stomach complaining about the pizza.
Sure it was tasty and cheap but at what cost to my poor stomach?
I’ve noticed recently that when I’m at work the morning just seems to fly by whereas the afternoon really drags on. I know that the division of my day isn’t exactly marked by noon at the mid-point but even when I come into work especially early (as has been often the case over the last few weeks), before I know it it’s time for lunch. Maybe it’s because I have to catch up on email and feeds when I come in that makes the time go so much faster or maybe I really do live in a time-space tear and I can’t get out of it unless I move my entire workday to start in the afternoon. Now that would be an interesting exercise. I should just ask Ed what that’s like. He’s used to working weird schedules (though not so much recently).
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