En Plein Anniversaire

Making art, visiting, eating: these are a few of my favorite things and today I attended a birthday party where that's exactly what we did. J chose to draw one of her exquisite savoy cabbages and I continued to work on my moth series in pencil crayon and ink.

The sun came and went, but it stayed warm enough for us to work and eat outside in J's garden where we watched her chickens roam the yard. Apparently one of the chickens is starting to look and act more like a rooster, and if she turns out to be a he, he's in big trouble because of the noise bylaws. J. is hoping she's transgendered. We're waiting to see if Rusty crows or she lays an egg. What if he/she does both? J's friend the nurse keeps turning to me and saying sotto vocce, "I don't know chickens, but that is a rooster." And whatever the gender, it is a prime example of a glittering Rhode Island Red. The poultry pair are inseparable, taking dust baths together, and otherwise remaining within eyesight of one another.


Princess is ambivalent towards the poultry, because they are the peasants of the animal world.


J's green house is absolutely teeming with tomatoes.

When I saw the cobalt blue color of this dish I had to pick some borage flowers to set it off.

I made these fried chick peas, inspired by the appetizer at Campagnolo. I fried them up in a tbsp. of olive oil, 1/4 tsp. coriander, 1/2 tsp. turmeric, 1/2 tsp. harissa, salt and pepper and some orange thyme from my garden. When they start to smell like popcorn, they're done (about 7 minutes). (The recipe is modified from Ceci Fritos by Kevin D. Weeks at About.com.)

J made Jamie Oliver's zucchini salad with basil and a lemon juice and olive oil vinaigrette.

Plus she made this Greek salad with her own tomatoes. It was bursting with flavor.

C made an intensely flavorful raspberry blackberry crumble sweetened with jam. I want the recipe!

We drank Earl Grey rooibus and sang for the birthday girl.

Sweet summer.

The Trough in Canmore

On the way back from mom and dad's place we stayed at the Bow Valley Motel in Canmore. We took a short stroll and ended up having a lovely meal on the patio at The Trough. It was a warm evening, and the view from the restaurant patio is stunning. Of course I took pictures of the food instead!


This was my meal. The curry was tangy and complex and the meat was full of flavor and very tender. I loved it. We also had an order of pakoras to go with it.

Peter had seared tuna with a mango sauce.



It's fantastic that Alberta can important such interesting wines. We'd never seen a zweigelt rosé before.

U. ordered sticky toffee pudding of course!

Beach Boys

Good friends. The best weather you can imagine. A dog who loves the ocean. Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. Hot dogs and iced tea. Chocolate chip banana muffins. Crackers with cream cheese and tiny tomato halves.

Fishing buddies. Mussel bait. Time. My son declines. He says, "I'm not into patience." Cracks shells instead. A woman who grew up doing this can't imagine why you'd order mussels in a restaurant. "I just think of the smell," she says.


The boys turn over barnacle-covered rocks to search for little burgundy crabs.

On the way to West Beach we find a three inch long bug. Everyone keeps asking, "Is it real?"

Tiny tug boats carry sawdust. Where does it come from? Where does it go? What is it for? Should I lay on my right side or left? More suntan lotion anyone? Should I cross my right foot over my left?


Crossbows and mean boastful boys. "Do you own your cabin? We do. Whaddyou mean you don't have a DS? That's so gay. I forbid my son to play with them, wishing I could protect him from this kind of boy all his life.

Breakfast in the cabin with milk and plenty of sunlight.

The long trip home to hot-tempered Vancouver. Wish we were there, but the memories give us something to look forward to for next summer. Summer as it should be.

Easter Pastels

These lovelies are from Butter Bakery. The chocolate ones were good, but the vanilla cupcakes were quite dry. MIL cooked us a lovely feast of ham, scalloped eggs, asparagus, and twice-baked potatoes. For dessert: homemade rhubarb pie and vanilla ice cream. Classic.






And for the piece de resistance: The lovely white and dark chocolate Easter bunny from grandpa!

Foodzie

It's like etsy for food and it will be the death of me. Better keep that credit card locked up somewhere...so much chocolate, so little effort to have it shipped to my doorstep.
It's called Foodzie.

White Rock Blues

The weather during spring break did my head in and I really needed to get out of the city. We headed south to the seaside town of White Rock for some fresh air and seafood. I love spotting herons and red-tailed hawks looking for easy prey on the flat soggy delta flats . We saw pairs of courting crows and raptors in leafless trees in stark relief against the grey skies. Once we'd arrived in White Rock we wound our way down to Marine Drive and scoped out the place with the most promising signage. (I'm a sucker for a blackboard.)



Inside Charlie Don't Surf, we huddled in a chilly, over-decorated atmosphere that reminded me of gloomy days spent in British seaside towns that seem to specialize in that particular brand of gloom-tinged coziness.



The food was fine. I liked the spicy deep-fried calamari and my well-dressed beet and spinach salad. The service was absolutely awful, with a narcissistic waitress who didn't bother to veil her absolute distaste for our table. We basically had to flag down other waitresses to do her job while she sulked and straightened cutlery at empty tables.


This is a new place opening up next door to Charlie Don't Surf.

I love the little museum across the street from the restaurant, with its one-room diorama of how the railway station looked in days gone by. It also has an excellent tidal pool aquarium and some taxidermy of local fauna.


We tried to find a quaint little shopping area in the centre of town and failed. Perhaps there are hidden delights to be found here on a warmer sunnier day.

Mysteries of the Brain

So it seems there's a bit of a problem with my brain these days. Even though I have created a performance piece called Brain Dress it's been a few years since I did any reading on the subject on the "leetle grey cells" as Hercule Poirot would say. A few weeks back I began to suffer from some persistent and egregious symptoms affecting the way I perceive the world. I'm being somewhat oblique here because I'm hoping it (whatever it is) just goes away. Here's the thing--I'm curious how much people actually think about the health of your brain. Apparently meditation keeps your brain young. Someone I met recently highly recommends it to stay youthful. Our culture is so focused on the body that we forget about the health and beauty of the mind.

I am looking for answers when and where I can. In the meantime, I just have to make my life as simple as possible right now and just try not to get too stressed out. I am looking for simple physical tasks I can do in my art practice to re-connect those wires in my mind that seem to have fried themselves out.