Wearing the Pants

Happy International Women's Day. Celebrate by wearing pants!

I am in my birthday week of celebrations which is taking me to my happy place. However, I have a warning for you. Never go bathing suit shopping on your birthday. Talk about bursting the bubble! Oh la la. Anyway, I now have no excuse for avoiding the pool.

I'm very excited to be going to Saskatoon for the weekend to see family and friends and eating at Weczeria. Yayyyyy!

Dad's Birthday

Dad turned 77 this year and I was happy we were able to celebrate with him, since we're not often in the same province on his b-day. He has always been what a great dad should be: kind, funny, supportive, and generous. He has many incredible life skills and he is a curious and passionate life-long learner. Dad rocks!

P's B-Day at L'Abbatoir

Handmade gnocchi and lobster
Peas, lobster butter

We went for a really special treat for P's birthday. It has been ages since we had a fancy meal and so it felt like we were really spoiling ourselves. The food was very good. I am not a fan of the big noisy room, and as usual they have not dealt with sound issues and the tables are so close together you are forced to endure your neighbors' insipid dialogue. I loved the gnocchi--light, fresh, delicate and all about spring.

Part of the bread basket. We devoured the bacon brioche. I liked the flat bread with toasted cumin the best of the three.

Dungeness crab and chickpea toast
Toasted brioche, light crab custard, carrot pickles

Peter had three appies and he absolutely loved the sweet breads.

Warm steelhead and crunchy potato salad
Ramps, horseradish, dill

Pan fried veal sweetbreads on toast
Sauce gribiche with veal tongue

Scallops and oxtail dumplings
Beech mushroom, asian pear, spiced jus

This was my main dish. It was good, except it is weird that they called the spring rolls "dumplings" and the spring rolls were just not as well executed as the rest of the meal. I liked the five spice sauce--it had a pleasant savory depth of flavour.

Fizzy lemonade

Blood orange sorbet, tapioca pearls and earl grey granita

A candle for the birthday boy. This was chewy and fizzy--Willy Wonka land.

Rhubarb mousse
Strawberry rhubarb sorbet, graham cracker crumble

Oops, forgot to take a photo of my dessert. Too bad because it was so pretty with several layers of mousse and candied rhubarb garnish. it was really well done with the contrasting textures--the crunch of the crumbs, the snap of the candy and the smoothness of the mousse itself.

The cocktails were more interesting than the wine list, so next time I'm just going to stick with a couple of mixed drinks and skip the vino.

I Can Haz Birthday?

Hello, yes it is my birthday and thanks to everyone for their gifts, e-mails, cards and good wishes. I am over the moon now that spring weather has descended upon Vancouver and yesterday I celebrated by spending many hours in the garden killing invasive plants and other, more pleasant tasks.

We celebrated in style at Trafalgar's where Erik was kind enough to take our photo. Ullie chowed down on a lamb burger and fries, Peter ordered cassoulet and I had my poached eggs on a latke with salmon and spinach. Ullie had mango cheesecake for dessert and I devoured a chocolate fruit tart.

I saw my first honeybee of spring in a hellebore by the restaurant. We went to Pierre's parents for dinner where we had my favorite stuffed pork dish and apple pie with home made vanilla ice cream. Lots of wine, of course including a bottle of 2001 cab sauv from Nichol, which is my favorite BC winery. Have a nice day enough if it's not your birthday!

Family Birthday

BBQ rib roast dinner with shiraz, followed by a choice of raspberry or strawberry pie with vanilla ice cream.



A hummingbird doing its rounds at dusk sips nectar from pale pink fuschia blossoms.

Another birthday, another board game.

Birthdays are ephemeral, there is no way around it. In spite of all the documentation and attempts at shifting images into the drawers of long term memory they come and go with the ebb and flow of wishes, expectations, and a bittersweet sense of loss. Every birthday is an essential part of the the transformation of parent, child, friend, and family.

10 Years Old

The evening scented stock are blooming in the back garden and the scent mixes with the heavy scent of warm honey and wax emanating from the beehive. My sweet peas suddenly decide to bloom and I am surprised and delighted to see a pale mauve blossom that has emerged from a stalk that climbed up the lavender plant. Seems like it's always hot on Ules' birthday. Thank goodness he asks for an ice cream cake.

The asteroid has crash landed and it sizzles with the magical pop rocks that I've poured over top the cake. The boy chose frozen soya milk so that his aunt could have a piece too.

I can't believe he's into the double digits. Sigh.

We all giggle as the pop rocks explode in our mouths and tickle our tongues.

After dinner we play a (Neopets) board game that we bought at a thrift shop several years ago for a couple of bucks. Then we played three rounds of Mad Libs.

Here's a close up of the cake so you can see how I used measuring spoons to dig some craters out of the surface of the cake. The top layer is a kind of cookies n' cream flavor and the bottom was chocolate decadence as requested by the birthday boy. He loved his ice cream maker ball and the fancy popsicle molds I bought him and he was very grateful for all his gifts.

Coming off the Meds

Happy days since I am gradually coming off the super-strength migraine meds. I have more energy and consequently feel more focused and more like the old me. I've been having some really good days.

Tomorrow is our boy's tenth birthday, so I will be making a space-themed ice cream cake. I thought I'd make it planet ice cream. I hope I can make it look like the picture in my imagination. The birthday itself will have a space/ice cream theme since the presents I bought center around the making of ice cream and popsicles. I searched for chocolate-covered sunflower seeds for decoration this morning and luckily there was one rogue box at Winners/Home Sense. It's amazing and weird what you can find at that place and today they played really good music, so I enjoyed my shopping as recreation experience. Sometimes I just really like to shop n' chill.

Today is the last day at camp. The boy stayed home yesterday because they were going swimming and he hates going swimming with a group. He is so different from me. I used to live in the pool in the summers. I can't wait for the new pool up the road to open. I will drag him there for sure.

I heart Trafalgars. They have a new crepe that comes with a fantastic salad that is my new fave and the waitstaff are so fab. I am in luv with them. It makes me so happy to go there it is worth its weight in antidepressants.

Birthday Stitch n' Bitch

I was really excited to be able to gather a group of my favorite girlfriends together for a good ole stitch n' bitch. "Chef Pierre" agreed to cook for us, and made a curried mushroom quiche and a roasted pepper quiche. We had locally made Bean Boy dips and crackers, and spanikopita.

I made Crimini mushrooms stuffed with garlic, onions, panko crumbs, almonds, thyme, and Parmigiano Regiano.

M. brought delicious fig and goat cheese tarts, which went down nicely with the Prosecco.

She also gave me this darling jar of meringues.

I hadn't made dessert, so I was delighted when B. showed up with cream puffs and strawberries drizzled with chocolate.

After chowing down, we headed to the living room where the knitters showed us their current projects and I handed out a little take-home moth craft I'd devised for the evening. we stitched cut-out moths onto pieces of fabric in tiny embroidery hoops. (I didn't get photos of them because my camera performs so poorly in low light I didn't think I could do them justice.) They were beautiful and some day I'd love to have a show of a bunch of these moths done my people in the community. They'd look great together amassed on a wall.

We stitched, we kvetched, we whined, and we laughed.

We talked at length about the education system and our frustrations with the schools we deal with. It was good to share our worries, our heartbreak, and our little victories.

The kids got to hang out upstairs, watch videos, play games, eat popcorn and stay up late. I hope everyone had as much fun as I did. Let's do this more often!

Growing Old with Grace (I Hope)

This weekend I enjoyed some of my favorite things for my birthday, like almond cha at Shaktea. Maria makes a special version for me by mixing in a bit of crushed organic black sesame seeds. It's mellow and nutty and very grounding.

Ules goes for the chocolate mouse cake and rooibus chai.

These are the tasting pots.

Here's the almond cha with a chicken pesto sandwich on toasted focaccia--perfect for the three-o'clock munchies, or for a quick lunch.

Next we head across the Street to Chocolaterie La Nouvelle France where the guys buy me another of my favorite treats: rich and buttery chocolate caramels.

Finally we head over to the in laws for a family dinner.

Veggies in phyllo cups.

We also had roasted vegetables and a pork roast stuffed with Oyama sausage, bacon and stuffing. It's a favorite! We drank 2001 cabernet franc from Nichol and Burrowing Owl.

To finish, we had a cake with a 1986 Barsac.


A feisty game of scrabble by the fireplace ensued, while I periodically checked the television for the final winners of the Academy Awards. Thanks everyone for a cozy happy tasty birthday!

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.