I'M A LUFAVORE

This weekend, my friend invited me and my family to a greenhouse tour of the Lufa farm. The tour was of a rooftop garden that was an impressive testament to hydroponic technology.  It was pretty cool to have a tomato picked that day and served on fresh baguette with olive oil, and see cucumber vines growing from flower to vegetable in a subzero February day. The idea is that the greenhouse uses half the energy it would need if it were on the ground, and even cut the energy needs/cost of the building below by one quarter. The baskets are filled the same day the veggies are picked. It's a cool system of barter and trade among a whole group of local vendors. We were convinced by the fresh veggies, but can change up the basket any day with goods that vary from pastries and bread to various mushrooms and herbs and even trail mix. My husband convinced me to sign up and we are expecting to pick up our basket on Friday just a short distance from my house on Friday. Glad to be back in the local food movement, and if it continues to move towards more sustainable means with this quality, I might be a lufavore for life!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Lately I have been on a comfort food baking spree, motivated by my homesickness intensified with my parents winter snowbird adventure for 3 months. I have baked bread and homemade egg noodles and I found myself at the end of it with 3 extra egg whites. Well, I have finally been gifted a replacement hand mixer, and have learn with multiple failed attempts that egg whites are finicky unless at room temperature so I left them out for a few hours until this was so, and with a simple pavlova recipe, I added a couple drops of red dye, and watched them like hawks because they needed way less time than a pavlova to cook completely.
My daughter and I have come to love Nerdy Nummies and Ro has made a couple of meringue recipes that inspired me to try to elevate my game. I got out my reusable icing bag and my biggest Wilton attachment, and made some valentines.
Here's the picture of some of them.

They remind me of some family size meringues we saw when we visited Venice.

We visited a mall we had heard about  in Brossard called Dix30. It had one of my favourite restaurants, Elixor, so we ate there for this year's valentine's celebration. Our first choice was the lovely restaurant at  Auberge Handfield, but their winter hours do not include lunch. So we were happy to find Elixor, although the lunch was almost too big to consider the amazing cheesecake for dessert, but I powered through! I had the parpardelle with mushrooms and my husband had a great burrito with house made salsa and guacamole. Yum!

BOOK REVIEW: PRETTY LITTLE SECRETS by Sara Shepard

There are not very many times that I read a book after the movie, but as tv shows go, Pretty Little Liars is fun, and the book is equally entertaining. This book is an afterthought in a well thought out time line. It's Sara Shepard's 11th book but it fits in time between the 4th and 5th stories. Actually, I found it a fun stand alone read, set in December, so involving Holiday frivolities.
The story is divided in quarters, each from the point of view of the main characters. If you haven't seen the tv show, read the books first! Unlike many shows, the characters do not match the books' descriptions, which is very confusing sometimes if you'll seen the show (I'm a visual person, so I remember the physical characteristics from the show better than the books' description). Some of the plot lines differ also, but this pretty little book is full of fun stories that do not confuse. They flesh out the characters a little better, because they are on their own for the most part, with their families and other friends, and you get to know them a little better with a little less stress than usual!

BEST BURGER IN MONTREAL OUEST:BURGER DE VILLE

BOOK REVIEW NUMBER ONE:NIGHT SHIFT BY BRIAN GOLDMAN

I have listened to the CBC podcast by Brian Goldman, called White Coat Black Art on and off for a while since I found subscribing a much more reliable way to listen than the radio. I have sometimes liked and sometimes disliked Dr. Goldman's take on a subject, but I always found them interesting.
This book is a collection of stories that happened in the ER. Although I suspect the times are fictionalized, it's written as though I was the observer following Dr. Goldman from his home to the subway in Toronto through the night in the Emergency Department and then back to the subway to make his way home again.
I felt like I really was working with Dr. Goldman. He is a human first and "ER doc" second, dealing with the person and the disease; managing crises and reflecting on the ironies, realities, and miracles of day to day human contact. It didn't seem to be frantic, or pointless, but he was well organized, flexible and knowledgeable.
If you want to take a walk through the emergency without losing a night of sleep, this is well worth the read.

THE DAY I BECAME A VEGETARIAN - MAY 2006

It's a little surprising that I never considered vegetarianism before. I guess being brought up in a meat and potatoes house was the main reason. So it was a process, brought on by motherhood, the book Fast Food Nation and the movie Food, Inc. and the preparation of a frozen salmon to serve this Jacques Pepin special (the puff pastry was homemade, with butter cubed by my own hand) to my friends. I was unable to eat it that day, and have been a vegetarian ever since!

SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER

When I moved away from my childhood home, I soon realized that I would spend a lot of Christmases without my family.  So I started some traditions on my own, all of which I try and keep still. Athough it usually happens that I spread them over the advent, and even up until the epiphany, I now share them with my new family. Over the last couple of years, the hardest tradition to keep is the watching of this movie, So I Married An Axe Murder, because I nearly always fall asleep at some point! So here I am, watching the last half of the movie I started on Christmas. I find it amazing that I still enjoy it, although it is the only one I can think of that I have watched over a dozen times! Just in case you are wondering, it all started in a hot little apartment with a miniature Christmas tree and a too short phone call with a long night ahead alone. Videoconferencing has made that no longer possible, but I still drink eggnog, eat chocolate, mandarin oranges, a pomegranate and watch this movie, in honour of that, the loneliest Christmas tradition. And why this movie? Can you believe that I have no idea anymore why this movie is the one?! It's not the best movie ever, and it dates itself a lot, but I have to say that I still love it! When I visited San Francisco a couple of years ago, I was able to retrace the movie's highlights, and every year, I revisit the city again in my mind while I watch. When I was San Francisco, I even found the scene of the movie's ballet dance at dusk, and adored the rich history of the residual buildings of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. It is an enjoyable travelogue of the city! Check it out, if you've never watched it.

FOODIE FRIENDS AND FINE CUISINE

I am lucky. I know a lot of ladies who know a lot about food. Back in the day, I had a few tricks up my sleeve. Now, I'm a little hit and miss. Luckily, my friends are not. Here are a few highlight over the last few years.

Dining at friends

http://healthishappiness.com/2012/12/09/amazing-vegan-bowl-recipe-with-nutritional-yeast-sauce/

I USED TO BE BETTER - AND, BOY, I'M HUNGRY!

MARION KEYES COOKBOOK

When I was on maternity leave, I was very tired and had a lot of time on my hands in a seated position. I read a lot, one handed. I devoured biographies about Castro, read fantastic gothic books like The Shadow of the Wind (or as I like to think of it, The Library of Forgotten Books), and Love in the Time of Cholera (pedophilia warning), and then came the phase of what I refer to as "pink books", more commonly referred to as chick lit. Marion Keyes was my first. If I imagined her Irish accent, it was even more fun. I started with Sushi For Beginners and have read since almost her entire collection. This was a different kind of discovery. She has a great website: www.mariankeyes.com/. It talks largely about her characters, and she comes across quite clearly as a character herself, but she is honest in her struggle to overcome depression, and this cookbook is a result of one period of self-discovery with baking as therapy. It's a little biographical, and a lot pretty with more than a few good ideas. I have, alas, tried to avoid baking as therapy since I hit my 40s, but I hope to get though the highlights over the next few years. Get yourself a copy, if only to read and drool, but I suspect you might be tempted to a little therapy yourself.

RAINBOW LOOM ADDICTION

My daughter got a rainbow loom from Santa this Christmas. I hadn't realized that she liked it so much, and in her disinterest, I started making different patterns and colours to order for her and her friends. Then she got a rainbow loom for her birthday, and finally she was free to "have her own"! I didn't realize I was holding her back!
Here's a sampling:

PINTEREST FAIL?

My daughter's birthday was this past weekend, and yet again, I found myself the day before attempting to make cake pops that my daughter requested - owls and ice cream cones, peppermint flavoured. This year she chose the inspirations very seriously, and she was very pleased. I'm not so sure I deserved her admiration. I think it was closer to a Pinterest fail, but you can be the judge! Actually, the ice-cream cones were pretty reproducible, and all tasted great to a pack of 8 year old girls!
Check out Bakerella.com for some really admirable stuff!  Last year was the 2nd attempt with the panda bears. The first year was not recorded, as I think not one survived to be witnessed (not for popularity, but because the cardinal trick of chilling before mounting on the stick was not known to me, and every single Hello Kitty head was skewered through to devastating effect!)
No wonder I was up so late last year - I even made cupcakes for the family party! The last photo was an attempt to fancify the rice krispie cake. I think more even cuts might have improved the aesthetics a little!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

This is a cool little kit! It looked impossible that the icing would be enough, but it was!

Here is the kit we used last year, with some extra Halloween fancy leftover!

O Tannenbaum!

Snow men and icicles

Botanical Gardens decorated for Christmas

Cutest gingerbread ever, with a cup of Good Earth tea.

Here is what we left for Santa and his Reindeer this year!