Have you ever been in a position where something really embarrassing is happening to you, but there is nothing that you can really do about it, because, who are we kidding, no one can just shower for hours and hours in the hopes that hair dye no longer dots the length of their hairline?
No?
Huh. Just me then.
Oh well, it’s all one.
But to get back to what I was saying – although I had (on the whole) an absolutely fabulous weekend, because I did have hair dye smattered all across my hairline, and because I didn’t have one bloody thing on the dye removal list given to me by the lovely Kacy, I spent the majority of my time outside wearing this on my head:
Why, heeelllooooo there.
And while I really love my Forever XXI headband, on the one day that Vancouver finally cracked fifteen degrees centigrade, I was a little hot around the ears.
(Especially as M and I walked up the library to return our books, and to purchase our goodies for dinner.)
We thought the perfect dinner for such a sunny Saturday night would be spicy shrimp fajitas.
When I was first learning how to cook, as well as coming to understand that food was my friend, and not my sworn enemy, fajitas were one of the first things that I began to make on a regular basis.
What I’ve come to love so much about them is the myriad of colours and textures and flavours that all come to play, wrapped up tightly in those tasty, toasty tortillas.
You’ve got the crunch from the peppers, the spice from the seasoning, the sharpness of the cheese, the tang of the salsa, all dancing up a storm, to a perfectly timed beat.
And they are a fabulous meal to cap off a sun dripped, tuliped, early spring day.
Check it:
Nomnom. NOM.
Like I always like to do, I laid out the goods before getting down to business.
And then I chopped it, chopped it.
Do it.
Then I had sizzling sizzlers straight out of sizzledom. (Not to be confused of course with Jerry Sizzler, sister of Jerry Sizzler, the lounge singers and not two clearly insane people. See end video for more, and for proof that I am not the one clearly insane.)
Jerry. JERRY!
Then we laid out a buffet of brilliance.
All the colours of the rainbow!
For an end result of:
Happiness. And cider. One and the same?
What are your easy peasy meal choices that serve as the perfect topper to a smashing day?
And just remember, I’m not Roy Orbison. I work in colourization!
And then for the rest of the day, I felt like this:
Chillin. Illin. And cleaned the heck up!
Funnily enough, after work, what did I do?
I went to the gym gosh darn it!
I kind of felt like I owed it to them in a way.
It ended up being a fab, FAB workout too. I ran sprints and hills (alas – on the treadmill), squatted until my thighs were about to give out, and then did enough push-ups and pull-ups to never want to partake in another one until the end of time (or, as it more likely, for the next two or three days.)
Then I came home and got my cooking groove on with the ever lovely Mr. M.
We decided it was high time to make some homemade spaghetti sauce along with some sweet mini bowtie pasta.
We lined up our veggies and got to work:
Nommers.
There is something so calming about working in the kitchen with someone you love.
It also helps if you have similar taste in radio programmes. The CBC has been absolutely killing it with their 20 year anniversary coverage of the Seige of Sarajevo.
I’ve been brought to tears many, many times listening to their coverage. Seriously, their interviews are just outstanding in the extreme.
As we listened we chopped, woked, and boiled.
Boil it!
M was kind enough to capture much of the action.
Needs more tomatoes.
We also decided to cook up some spicy shrimp for good measure.
Shrimp it!
For a final outcome of this:
Absolute bliss.
As an end note, I would like to send a massive thank you to everyone who has dropped by this here blogspot, left a note, liked a post, or subscribed to updates, whether it be today, or the day I started up Rant and Roll.
We have a sparkling, new, beautifulshower, and I managed to successfully attend a concert for the first time whilst flying solo.
Kaiser Chiefs are top-notch groovemeisters, so I pretty much just showed up, danced like a mad woman for an hour and a half, and then hit the road.
Oh my god, I can't believe it.
(The four glasses of wine I consumed before heading downtown may have had something to do with how easy the whole thing seemed. I’m normally a two-glass max kind of gal, so take this as you will.)
The one thing I will say was that I was a little bummed out about the fact that they hardly played any of their new material (or really anything from their catalogue post-2008.)
I've never been this far away from home.
They have so many fab songs other that those featured on Yours Truly – Angry Mob and I had been eager for the chance to hear them live.
For instance, I was gutted that they didn’t play Man on Mars, a tune that I have been pretty much listening to on repeat for the last two weeks. Seriously, it’s the first thing that finally managed to knock The Decembrist’s Calamity Song off of my top jam list.
Ch-ch-check it:
Ricky Wilson told the audience that Vancouver was their last stop on their tour, so they were probably pretty exhausted and burnt out and didn’t want to take on anything too taxing.
But overall, I must say I had a great time period, and there is always something to be said about going to a concert where you (and every other person in attendance) knows every lyric to every song that is played.
I’d give it a solid 8 out of 10 cats.
Ju-on girl dancing her heart out!
On my way home, sitting on the metro, I was trying to concentrate on anything other than the dull ringing in my ears, when a very young man sat down next to me.
The fellow was just a little too eager to strike up a conversation, so my spidey senses immediately started tingling.
Because I am a crazy weirdo, I did what I am often do in awkward situations – make them even more awkward (this time by speaking in a really terrible accent.)
This is hilarious to me, but probably insanely disconcerting to the other parties involved.
If I could muster up the appropriate amount of compunction I would, but then I always ask myself, what’s life without a little flare? A little intrigue?
So, egging myself on, I sometimes try out mein deutsche, and other times moya ruski.
This time I was from jolly old England.
Bah.
[adjusts monocle.]
Unfortunately, the dude was totally undeterred.
Even after I told him I was seven years older than him, he still asked me out.
Youth these days, I tell ya.
Either deliver my paper on time or get off my lawn!
I will give him props for gumption and guts, but needless to say, I will not be seeing him again.
(Until my next late night train ride, goodness knows.)
The next morning, I was moving a little slower than usual, due to the after effects of my solo dance party, finishing the bathroom, and the eleven kilometre run Mr. M and I completed during the previous day’s afternoon.
I figured the best thing to cure my Sunday sluggishness, was homemade crepes with fresh fruit, nutella, walnuts, whipped cream, and tea, devoured on our porch, basking in the warmth of the (long lost, and now finally found) sun’s rays.
Yum.
Edit: for one bloody day at least! It just makes me want to yell out: Come on Biscuit you can do it!!!
Erm.
I mean spring!
Come on spring, you can do it!
But at the time, it was, for lack of a more poetic descriptor, absolute bliss.
Bliss!
Then, M and I tore about our place, vacuuming like a vacuuming things, dusting, washing, scrubbing – wiping away all the dust that had accumulated over the course of our reno, encrusted in our corners and nestled in all the often missed nooks and crannies.
Seriously, nothing is as good as clean feels.
A friend of mine remarked, after reading my post from last Friday, that I would probably pick up a ton more traffic to my blog if I posted photos of myself doing mad cleaning in my underwear.
I’m not going to lie – I briefly considered this as I tore about our place, but in the end I decided it just wasn’t worth it.
That, like my English accent, should not be encouraged.
I’m not sure what the temperatures are like where you find yourself bopping about, but as of late it has been absolutely blinkin’ freezing around these parts. Currently, there is wet, wet snow, whirling its way around the downtown core and the majority of men and women scurrying about on the sidewalks look, at best, downright miserable.
A park close to our house. One word: BRRRR!
This morning as I walked to a conference I was attending (a hot topic of which just happened to be climate change – go figure!) I narrowly missed being walloped by a fellow pedestrian’s umbrella, as it tried to make up its mind whether to take flight, or just turn itself inside out.
Yikes!
This weather is just one giant yuck-hole.
In fact, the more that I think about it someone should totally wake up all those lying, bastard groundhogs and let them know that I (and probably the majority of the folks living here on the West Coast) are suitably unimpressed.
Early spring you say? Early spring my foot!
In an attempt to remind myself that life is so much more than just rain drops (there are of course, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens) may I present to you, dear readers, one of my favourite things:
(Edit: “Favorite things” can also be read as strange, idiosyncratic activities that fill me with more pleasure than they probably should. And I’m okay with this.)
Onwards!
Peeling vegetables/fruit.
For real, I LOVE doing this. I could peel yams or apples until the cows came home.
I’m not sure what it is about this activity that I find so fab – a lot of it probably has to do with my sense memory, and what I automatically associate with the peeling of potatoes, or peaches, or pumpkins, or pears. Peeling fruit and veg is, for me, a reminder of a holiday.
It is Thanksgiving; it is Christmas. Two celebrations that remind me of family, and fireplaces, of laughter and light; rooms that smell of rosemary and cinnamon, and spiced cider and cloves; it is Mr. M’s cranberry-kissed lips, and his gravy stained oven mitts; frosted windows, overlooking gardens, both green and white, from dustings of snow.
It is love (which is strange I know – but it is true!)
So today as I travelled home on skytrain, I thought about the different things I could make that would require me to peel, peel, peel (I have three different utensils to choose from when I take on this task), and many different kinds of veggies at that.
So I decided that the perfect antidote to both this soggy, sunless day and my now urgent need to, well, strip legumes of their skin, would be to make a frittata, Ethel-style (aka with sweet potatoes, instead of regular ol’ tubers, and two kinds of cheese!)
I was introduced to the frittata by the brilliant and hilarious Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten – how good is that?) and while I have never quite yet achieved her level of fluffiness, it is something to which I aspire.
I picked up the goods that were required for the task (plus a few other treats, such as fresh strawberries and whipping cream) and Mr. M was lovely enough to pick me up at New West station, relieving me of the burden of walking up the (ridiculous) Eighth Avenue hill, in the rain, laden down with food stuffs.
Ready to rock! Chop! PEEL!
And they say chivalry is dead!
As soon as I got home, I put on my professional cooking outfit (my Dr. Seuss t-shirt and stripped pyjama pants.) This is after all, serious business.
BOOYAKACHA!
The first thing I did was infuse my oil as it warmed up in my cast iron pan.
Bottle this scent and sell it!
I started doing this a couple of years ago, and it is a method that I highly recommend. I learned this from my genius chef-extraordinaire sister – I add garlic, salt, pepper, basil, and chilli powder and I promise you, as the oil heats up the smell of all the different herbs and spices coming together is something pretty special.
Also, it saves you the time from adding flavour later, and if I may so myself, it just always tastes better doing it this way.
Love these colours. They sure taste good too.
(But then again, this could just be a sensory reaction that I have, due to the awesome memory of cooking fried potatoes with my two sisters, three summers ago while we all vacationed in New York together. A late morning, after an even later night, spent sipping home brewed espressos and nibbling on fresh baguettes, slathered with nutella and peach preserves.)
But still, take my word for it and try it!
Green with hunger.
Sometimes I cannot believe how quickly time seems to be passing – a blink, a skip of a record needle, a missed alarm clock, or a late dinner date – three years have passed since that trip but I feel as though I just got off that plane yesterday.
A marriage made in taste heaven.
So I peel carrots and sweet potatoes, and chop onions, and grate cheese – because during this simple, self-satisfying activity, time slows. It doesn’t stop, but a lovely lethargy sets in, that allows the world to sit back, and breathe.
EGGY.
Time also slows when I dance about our kitchen, singing Rod Stewart, and Mr. M breaks it down in the living room, in front of the fireplace, his shadow looming large, flickering on the adjacent wall.
Nymeria, sits watching, intrigued by our antics, and perhaps perturbed (but not enough to move us from her line of vision.)
CHEESY.
And so on this windy, wet Wednesday night, Mr. M and I will peel, and chop, and dance, and we will wrap ourselves in memories and time, rhythms and rhymes, eating a frittata, dreaming of spring.
So I know it’s all the rage to slag-off love and put down romance (and proclaim Valentine’s day to be nothing more than a consumerist, wallet measuring contest, etc., etc.), and it is very well known amongst those who know me, and those who read this blog (or both) that I am pretty direct about what I abide, and what I don’t, but – I just can’t get behind this movement.
Because I love love.
LOVE it.
So, all’s I really got to say is:
You hear that haters? TO THE LEFT!
What’s that you say? Relocation isn’t something you’re interested in? Well then, because I’m not a cold-hearted bastard, I’ll give you a second option.
In order to banish these bummed-out blues of yours, all you need to do is watch one film, and I promise you that it has the power to change both your mind and heart:
The magnificent, magical, mesmerizing tour-de-force that is Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain.
If you let it, it will change your life.
After a week of where every day began by lugging my sluggish, bedraggled body out of bed, folding myself over the frozen porcelain of my tub, and standing under the searing stream of my shower – steaming my eyelids open as water pooled around my ankles (think the way you do to envelopes, when you’re not supposed to see their contents) – this movie pretty much saved my soul.
If you have never seen it, I recommend that you run (not walk) to your closest video rental store (erm, do these even exist anymore?) and rent the crap out of it.
You will not be disappointed.
Unless of course, you detest the accordion, because then, well, we may have hit the one and only snag.
No! I cannot say that. Because even if this was the case I would still recommend this film, because I am of the mind that even those who are intolerant (wrongly so, might I add!) of this fantastic instrument will still appreciate the soundtrack – a score that is beautiful and haunting and romantic and sublime.
Just listening to the beginning notes of the first song makes me want to dance in the middle of cobble-stone streets, kiss under water-stained, moonlit bridges, and ride bicycles with baskets filled with fresh herbs, sunflowers, and one (very) well behaved cat – don long, flowing skirts, and fitted, cap-sleeve blouses, and take round the world trips, – drink wine by the gulp, and cafes by the sips.
Alas…
Also, I have also decided that my favourite word in the French language is ronfle. (This, to be fair, is not so romantic. But still awesome.)
To spring, or not to spring, that is (Mother Nature's) question...
In the spirit of adventure and intrigue, on Saturday afternoon Mr. M and I threw caution to the wind, and went on the hunt for escapades and exploits a-plenty.
We started off on Commercial Drive, walking the length of the neighbourhood, stopping in at the fine art and clothing vendors along the way.
We had run pretty hard earlier that morning, so when it came time to eat, we decided to have lunch at the absolutely delish La Grotta Del Formaggio.
Oh my goodness.
Seriously people. GO THERE.
What I love so much about this establishment, is that it is like stepping into a time warp. I’m pretty sure the layout of the store hasn’t changed much in close to fifty years (and I’d wager a guess that the same can be said for the management) – the shelves are stocked with everything you could possibly imagine: dozens of different brands of olive oil, biscotti, dried pastas – a veritable smorgasbord of good eats!
Their sandwiches are also to die for – chose your bread, topping, meat (and if you don’t want meat, you get extra cheese!) and then they toast it up for you in jiffy.
We found two seats outside, sat down with our sammies, and just watched the world go by, stuffing our (very happy) faces with roasted red peppers, and eggplant, artichoke hearts and jalapeno havarti.
NOMNOMNOM
That’s another thing that’s so great about this part of Vancouver. The people-watching is tip-top and fabitty fab (aka DA BEST.) The range of individuals passing you by is mindboggling, and it’s unlikely you’d witness such diversity in many other areas of town.
Also, since I am incapable of walking the Commercial corridor without visiting the (always) taste bud tickling Fratelli’s baker (seriously my friends, it is a sensory overload and a half heading into that establishment) I made sure to make a quick pit stop while M was waiting for our paninis to toast.
After finishing up our first course, we set to work on this box of treats:
NOMNOMNOM REDUX
Due to rampant and soul-crushing indecision (and one massive, massive sweet tooth – or is it many, many sweet teeth?) I couldn’t decide on what to order, so I ended up buying a whole swathe of treats, of different sizes, shapes and varieties.
I think overall, my favourite was the red velvet cupcake, and M gave his gold star to the pistachio cake.
Next we continued on our merry way, ever on the look-out for a used edition of either Mind Trap or Trivial Pursuit.
Mr. M wants to play Mind Trap with his students, whereas I want Trivial Pursuit so we can play it every night for the rest of our lives. I’m a little unclear as to why I find playing this game pretty much the most humorous thing to do ever, but there you have it.
Needless to say, the end goal of this mission did not come to fruition (we are still on the hunt – so heed this search flare (or request) my fellow weirdos: if you know of where to procure good quality, used trivia games, do tell (but also consider letting me know ifncode, just to, you know, appeal to my geekiness.)
Okay, I feel as though I’ve fallen quite a bit from my introduction on the brilliance and beauty of love to some strange tangent about board games and nerdiness (one and the same?).
If I can't have Trivial Pursuit, I'll take this awesome sauce desk.
Soldiering on.
Remember how last Monday I wrote about a dress I tried on at Zara and my feelings towards it hadn’t really disappeared and the fact that I hadn’t purchased it was kind of sticking in my craw? Well, I considered taking Mr. M to the store for a second opinion, but before we even made it halfway there, we made a strange, and rather off-the-cuff pit stop at The Bay.
Now, The Bay has recently decided that it is Holt Refrew Part Deux, so I can’t go in there too often lest I begin to convulse compulsively and just start shouting (at no one in particular): Who do you think you are kidding with this crap?
But as long as I make it to the third floor in relatively stable condition, I am good to go (and not bait for the men in the white coats.) Anywho, to make a long story short, I ended up trying on and purchasing this majorly cute BCBC dress for twenty dollars!!!
YAY!
(For serious, this may be the most proud I have ever been of a purchase in my life. Plus it has little stars and planets all over it! And pockets! My head explodes with happiness just thinking of it.)
Make it so!
I should also say that I really, really love clothing from BCBG. I know a lot of it can be pretty kooky and out there (two characteristics I should never judge, lest I break all the glass houses with all the stones) but most of their pieces are so beautiful my heart beats faster just thinking about them.
And here I was, purchasing one at an eighty-five percent markdown.
I. Just. Couldn't. Help. Myself.
Bliss.
Which, I feel I should point out, probably wouldn`t have happened, had it not have been for a love-fuelled adventure, inspired by a love-filled movie.
So there ya go.
Haters gonna hate, but this lover is gonna rock her discount frock – until the sun supernovas, the stars fade away.
Rant and Roll 