Whether the Weather Matters, Matters to us Canadians

To My Youngers,

I love working outdoors. The sunshine, the breeze, the tan through 40 SPF sunscreen... Today I got the day off- with pay- because it was raining. Which made me happy for obvious reasons, but also a little sad because I actually like having to be outside when its raining (in the summer anyways)...

I used to be a house painter. I would wake up each morning and stumble downstairs to watch the weather network, check on what it was gonna do that day, that morning that afternoon. My work day revolved around the weather, and perhaps oddly, I absolutely loved it. It made me feel connected to the real world, to the indisputable real world. The world of clouds and rain and sunshine and tornadoes. Hurricanes and freak hail storms. Thunderstorms (best of all)! even the super cold days and the super hot ones, a little part of me dies when I don't get to experience the full range on a regular basis... In that way I am very very Canadian- I love the weather. I like talking about it sure, but I especially like experiencing it. Getting soaked, frying, freezing, not feeling your toes, having sweat drip off your nose...

For a while I even entertained the thought of becoming a stormchaser, except for that the twice I've seen a tornado in person it kind of had a vertigo type effect, I couldn't look away or drive away or anything. I find it fascinating. Literally. How else could you explain my love of Twister? I mean Helen hunt is pretty awesome but, really... ;o)

-E

Trying new dishes

To my elder and younger,

I was inspired by K’s post. As you know I have always been keen to experimenting in the kitchen and trying new and exotic dishes.

About a year or so ago, I rented the movie “Julie & Juila”. It was not more than 15 minutes after the movie ended that I went online and purchased “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” the 2 volume set. My goal from the moment I purchased the books was to make a few of the dishes successfully and share them with others.

I first tried “Poulet au Porto” which is a chicken with mushroom cream and port sauce. The dish was a success! It took no longer than a a standard home made meal (approximately 30-45 minutes).

After that I wanted to try “Beouf Bourguignon” which is a beef stew. This dish however takes about 4 hours from start to finish to make. I have been trying to find an occasion in which to make this dish, as it serves 6 people.

So instead I created an event in which to make such a dish!

Tomorrow night I will be having a dinner party and will be trying to make “Beouf Bourguignon”. We will see how the dish turns out.

Wish me luck!

-A

Mmmmmm

To my elders,

I bet you'd never have thought this would one day be the case, but I really enjoy cooking. I may have been a teenager who could make a total of Kraft Dinner, scrambled eggs and curry tuna (family favourite, for a future post), but I have slowly been building a (delicious) cook book of recipes. So say "thank you" to my friends who hold a weekly cooking club (vegetarian, experimental, often involves indian and mexican food) for providing me with a willing audience to test recipes on.

Mango-Avocado Salsa

(incredibly fresh tasting and especially good with pita)

1 mango

1 avocado

4 plum tomatoes

1 small red onion

1 jalapeno pepper

Handful of fresh cilantro

Olive oil

Lemon or lime juice

Dice mango, tomatoes, onion and avocado. Remove stems from cilantro and dice. Remove seeds from jalapeno and cut into small squares. Mix all ingredients in a medium size bowl with 3 table spoons of olive oil and 1 table spoon of lemon or lime juice. Stir and let sit 30 minutes (for flavours to mix).

Eggplant-less Ratatouille

(because I hate eggplant. Its slimy and gross. But ratatouille is amazing. Especially with fresh bread and some good cheese)

2 large zuccinis

1 large red onion

4 medium tomatos

2 green peppers

Olive oil

2 tablespoons each of:

Parseley

Basil

Garlic*

Oregano

Roughly chop the onion, and add it and olive oil to a large-ish pot over medium heat. Chop and add the zuccini, followed by the peppers and tomatos. Add a bit more olive oil. Add seassonings, stir, and let simmer over medium heat for 25-35 minutes. The vegetable juices will form a sauce.

*If using fresh garlic, add with onions.

Curry Potatoes

(possibly the more delicious potatoes I have ever eaten in my entire life. Super soft, super tasty, always a hit at pot-lucks, and I never have any leftovers to bring home. Good cold, better warm. Oh, and I always double the recipe. There can never be too much curry potatoes)

4 medium potatoes

1 shallott (sliced)

2tsp curry powder

2 tbsp coconut juice

1 cup vegetable broth

2 tsp soy sauce

Vegetable oil

Skin potatoes, rinse, dice.

Pan fry in vegetable oil (about 3 tbsp) until slightly brown. Set aside.

In a large skillet, heat 2 tbsp vegetable oil, curry powder and shallot.

Add potato back in. Stir until well mixed.

Add vegetable broth. Bring to boil. Reduce to medium low. Add coconut juice.

Stir occasionally until sauce thickens (about 20 minutes).

Bon Appetite.

-K

Its OK to Not Like Things

To My Youngers,

I recently (aka like an hour ago) stumbled upon a very short and very silly song that perfectly sums up something I struggled with for a loooong time. No, not anything so serious as depression or anorexia or something, I'm talking about not-liking-things.

Listen to 'Its OK to not like things!' Though I should warn you, its terribly addictive...

This may sound like a weird problem to have, but throughout my childhood I felt compelled to at least sorta like pretty much everything I came across. From music to movies to people. Doesn't sound so bad, but the problem is that when you like everything its hard to tell what you actually like... what you love, whats really important to you. And that's kinda, well, important!

I don't remember exactly when it happened, but at some point during high school I started to be ok with disliking things, and a whole new world opened up to me. No longer did I have to force myself to like chemistry class (all other sciences are so much better!) or be friends with the annoying guy from drama (just because other friends are friends with him... whatever, he was annoying!) or to enjoy the first half of Catcher in the Rye (I liked the second half, but man, first half Holden is an arsehole!!!)! I started to have opinions more often, I started to get into friendly arguments with people who disagreed with me, and best of all I developed a few arch nemesises (nemesi?)- and yes they do exist in real life and they are just as entertaining as in comics ;o)

Its not even just the disliking that makes things more fun/better/awesomer its loving disliking them- like  The Empire Strikes Back, green peppers, and Vin Diesel (to name a few)! It gives me the opportunity to argue with people without hurting anyone's feelings or making them actually upset! Arguing sans consequence. Mostly anyways. the trick is to stay away from hating things, and only let yourself go so far as to have a strong strong dislike. That way you don't let the evil in, only the fun!

See for yourself how much fun it can be and not-like something today!

-E

Mix Tapes

To my elders,

Well, I say mix tapes. But I suppose most people say "playlist" these days. Possibly because they're not technically "tapes." Not of the "Cassette Tape" variety anyhow.

Historically, I have not been one to make tapes or playlists in the traditional sense. I have a habit of making mixes by the album. And not shuffling the songs of an album. Shuffling music by the album. The entire album. I think that generally, music should be listened to in the order it was intended. But I admit that some songs are better than others, and that those songs that just get stuck in your head, that you love so much you play them all the time, that you skip back to them, or skip to them and play the album from them as a starting point, those songs are worth separating out. And then there is the whole time-limit aspect. Mixing by album is incredibly long. Like, hours and hours. And that just don't fly on road trips. (Get it? Flying? But road trips require a car? :s)

It all started a couple months back. It was the end of the semester. I was ridiculously bogged down with end of term projects and E and I had plans to drive to our parents' place. Which required road music, you see. And so while I could stop myself from watching tv or surfing the web, I could not stop myself from reshuffling the music of the album list I was working on. So I dumped all the best songs into a new playlist and went with it. And then spend close to 2 hours and the next 3 weeks perfecting the order, deleting songs that simply did not fit anywhere, and somehow still ended up with 2 Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin songs next to each other. Though they sound different enough that E didn't even realize they were the same band for like a week. And I made a dance list. The track list of which can be found in my first post, here. Ain't my first post cute? Maybe?

Well I ended up making 3 mixes for that road trip. The Yellow Mix, the Blue Mix and the Green Mix. And I left them with E for her listening pleasure. And she has basically been listening to them constantly. I like to think the ridiculous amount of time I put into them has at least something to do with it. tehe. Not to say that I don't listen to the playlists just as often. It may become the soundtrack for my summer. So now I am in the process of making playlist 4, aka Road Trip 3 (because the dance music mix is its own thing), aka The Orange Mix. (Yes, the colours do refer to the colour of the cds I've burned the mixes to. I'm obvious like that.)

My secret? Transitions. I go over playlists multiple times, listening to the first and last 20 seconds of each song and the song before and after it, to mape sure it flows well. Because flow is key. You can't change the tempo too quickly, and you can't have a depressing song or an acoustic song next to one that uses a synthesizer, nor one that is lyric driven next to one that is heavy on the guitar. These things matter. Some songs will never fit with a mix because they just don't have the right feel to them. They don't gel. Not that they're not great songs, but for another mix. And you basically top out at 3 songs per artist. Any more than that and spacing them out appropriately is difficult, to say the least. And that's on a 20 song mix. And my personal favourite touch, is the cap it with a funny last song. So far? Charlie McDonnell. On all three. No, there are no proper instruments in the entire video. It was a Challenge Charlie. Well, one mix also has an extra secret song, better known as "Dujour Around the World." Yes, that is Seth Green and Breckin Meyers. I miss the 90s sometimes. Well, almost.

-K

p.s. you can thank E and the uber cool website Spoonflower the the awesome cassette tapes at the top there. Buy the fabric here.

Whistle while you work

To My Youngers,

Work.

Sounds kinda not-so-great eh? Kinda un-fun? Non-exciting? So what do you call your job when its not any of those things... even "Job" sounds like something you have to do, somewhere you don't want to be! I don't know what to call it, I just know that I've been fortunate enough to have several 'jobs' that were pretty much as far from 'work' as you can get.

Some nameless smart person once said something like "choose to do something you love doing, and your work will never be work." I'm sure the original quote was much more eloquent than that, but its a pretty simple idea. For me that workless-work comes from being surrounded by people you get on with, doing something you enjoy, and getting to do most of it outside! When I'm working I like to keep busy, to try hard, to ask questions and learn how things function or how to do them better. Working with my hands, creating something, doing something physical... At the end of the day having something to point to and say "look what I helped do!" if only in my own head.

I don't have any advice on how to go about that, though I do know something that makes it easier- to save your money for the things that really matter to you. For me that's concerts, good pens, visiting with friends and family, and the odd block of really good cheese. Fill up the rest with free stuff like bicycling, and almost free stuff like drinking tea on the deck, add the odd tub of chocolate ice cream and you've got it made.

I suppose I should also mention that this kind of work doesn't always pay very well, at least not in the money sense. The one or two craptastic jobs I've had showed me pretty quickly that its better to have less money and be happy than it is to have more money and be miserable! Again a pretty simple idea, and a pretty obvious one, though its not always quite that straightforward. Too many people tread the line, preferring just that little bit more pay for something they like doing just a little bit less... It isn't easy to keep plugging away at something you like doing, but trust me it is definitely worth it, despite the low points and the hard times (especially if you have the support of wonderful friends and family!!!).

Old Man Luedecke says "Don’t kill yourself about making it. Just be takin it easy but be takin it." and I agree with him about both of those sentiments. 'Making it' should never be the goal and you should never super stress about work, but you should also always be actively doing something, creating something, contributing to life the universe and everything.

One of the things I like about my job is the late nights and the fresh air, but that also often results in fuzzy-brain at this time of day (night? or is it morning now?) hence my ramblyness... Time for the takin it to give in to the takin it easy..!

-E

Oh Canada

To my elder and younger,

As today is Canada Day I thought I would make this post extremely patriotic. And so I will take this opportunity to create “top 10 lists” of great Canadian things.

The top 10 “classics” (or the one day will be classics) in Canadian musics, in no particular order:
1. Our Lady Peace,
2. Sam Roberts Band,
3. Dragonette,
4. Bedouin Soundclash,
5. Metric,
6. Elliott Brood,
7. City and Colour,
8. Barenaked Ladies,
9. The Guess Who,
10. Great Big Sea

The top 10 most awesome places to visit in Canada:
1. Whistler mountain, B.C
2. Banff national park, AB
3. Prairies wheat fields, SK
4. Churchill (whale watching), MB
5. Niagara Falls, ON
6. Old city Montreal, QC
7. Old city Quebec city, QC
8. Bay of Fundy, NB
9. Sand dunes, P.E.I.
10. L’Anse aux Meadows, Viking settlement (Timber-and-sod longhouses), NS

The top 5 things to do TODAY!
1. Parliament Hill celebrations, evening light show in Ottawa, ON
2. See Duke and Dutchess of Cambridge William and Kate in Ottawa, ON
3. See fireworks at any local park, town hall
4. Run around with sparklers with your friends
5. Watch everything on the television broadcasts!

Those are my 3 lists of Canadian for this wonderful day, Canada’s 144th birthday! So with that I say Happy Birthday Canada!

-A