Which is a method of getting really neat, old-fashioned, artfully flawed images using a digital camera - along with a old twin lens reflex cameras’ viewfinder. I’ve always loved the way these shots looked, I had no idea producing them was so easy. If this works with my little Canon point and shoot (which it should - it has a pretty awesome macro setting), I’m totally gonna start searching for an old twin lens camera when I thrift.
Just a new blog find filled with pretty-pretty things of all varieties. The kind of pretty that inspires rampant and uncontrollable urges to be materialist. But so do many of the pretty-pretty blogs I read. Sigh. It might be time take a break from reading those for a little while. Just until I stop hemorrhaging money.
A retro-revival nineteen-thirties-style carnival - complete with concessions, candy apples, carousel, ferris wheel, and circus show. I was very sad when I found out I missed this entirely this summer. There’s always next summer though.
We had some on the weekend. They were delicious - totally the best hot-dogs I’ve ever had (although, it should be said that they don’t really resemble traditional hot dogs all that closely, so consider yourself forewarned). They are little artisinal sausages (that taste a bit like teensy fresh salamis) accompanied by one of four (locally sourced) cheeses and a one of a dozen sauces (cooked up individually by the best chefs in the city using fresh, local ingredients). A lot of internet types seem to be upset that portions are small, and the concept pretentious. I would tell them that if they want street meat, it’s readily available. This is not street meat, it’s a culinary novelty (and a cheap one at that - certainly the cheapest way to have lunch made by Jamie Kennedy - via his 25 cent sauce offering). If you’re a foodie, you’ll love it. If you’re more of a steak and potatoes kinda person, feel free to steer clear. I, for one, found it delicious and delightful.
Last week my friend Christine kept talking about banana bread on her blog, and if there’s one thing I can get on board with, it’s a delicious baked good. Luckily I had some bananas that were just about ready to rot sitting on my microwave, so I whipped up a batch.
I used this recipe (called Aunt Holly’s Banana Bread) because, who doesn’t love a baked good that invokes somebody’s beloved auntie? Also, it came from Cookie Magazine, also known as the number one reason I want to have children (to have a legitimate reason to get a subscription).
It turned out delicious. As you can see.
It was also really, really easy. I recommend it, highly.
I also recommend not skimping on the chocolate chips.
Believe it or not, devoted Mac customer that I am, Apple hasn’t done much that has gotten me excited. Not in years. Not even the iPhone.
But I do like these new Nanos. Mostly because I’ve always been a sucker for a good chromatic rainbow. Also because, wow 16 gigs? That’s a lot. That’s a real lot when you consider my first 2nd gen ipod only held a measly ten gigs, and was the relative size and weight of a brick.
But mostly? They pretty.
The whole iTunes Genius thing sounds pretty cool too, I guess.
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea 3. Huevos rancheros (I don’t really get how you could have NOT eaten this - it’s sooooo yummy!) 4. Steak tartare 5. Crocodile (Seriously guys. One of the best meats I’ve ever had!)
6. Black pudding 7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp (I may have had this, but I can’t remember for sure - this is what you get when you have gourmets for grandparents - a faulty memory of things you may or may not have tried when you were four) 9. Borscht 10. Baba ghanoush (there should be a separate way to indicate things I make really good at home - this is one) 11. Calamari
12. Pho 13. PB&J sandwich 14. Aloo gobi 15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle 18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes 19. Steamed pork buns 20. Pistachio ice cream 21. Heirloom tomatoes 22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (Gah. I’m missing out on all the good stuff. Somebody rectify this!) 24. Rice and beans (One of my favourites, actually - all though I prefer to call it rice and peas) 25. Brawn, or head cheese (This grosses me out. I will not eat it. It’s almost more the gelatinous consistency than the actually head-meatiness though. And the fact that I once saw a whole pigs head encased in one once. *shudder*) 26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (not that bad if you stay away from the seeds) 27. Dulce de leche 28. Oysters (This is a recent one, thanks Vivian!) 29. Baklava 30. Bagna cauda 31. Wasabi peas 32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi (I’ve had lassi - just not salted) 34. Sauerkraut 35. Root beer float 36. Cognacwith a fat cigar (I love cognac - but I have never, nor will I ever, smoke) 37. Clotted cream tea (I fell in love with clotted cream in England) 38. Vodka jelly (Jello shots. We were all teenagers once.) 39. Gumbo 40. Oxtail 41. Curried goat (One of my favourite childhood memories is delicious Jamaican curried goat at a friends house)
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal 44. Goat’s milk 45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more 46. Fugu (Too much risk involved. Read too many horror stories. No thank you.) 47. Chicken tikka masala 48. Eel 49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone 54. Paneer 55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal 56. Spaetzle 57. Dirty gin martini 58. Beer above 8% ABV 59. Poutine 60. Carob chips 61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads 63. Kaolin (it is the main ingredient in Kaopectate guys. We’ve all probably had it).
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs (I feel like I have had this, and that it tasted like chicken - I can’t be sure though) 67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake 68. Haggis 69. Fried plantain 70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (I’ve had wild boar sausage, in natural casing - that’s intestines - which is very similar, so I’m going to count this one). 71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (I’m kinda sad about this one. I’ve had roe, of course, in sushi and tarmosolata but not caviar, and no blini - anybody know a good Russian place in Toronto?)
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost 75. Roadkill (It’s not so much the concept, as the possibility for nasty parasites. No thank you.)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie 78. Snail 79. Lapsang souchong 80. Bellini 81. Tom yum 82. Eggs Benedict 83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (I wish! - although I have been to a 5 diamond AAA restaurant - which is actually almost the same thing)
85. Kobe beef 86. Hare 87. Goulash 88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate 91. Spam 92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa (I want to change my status on this one ASAP! - anyone know where to get it?) 94. Catfish (not that great. Kinda fishy) 95. Mole poblano 96. Bagel and lox 97. Lobster Thermidor (I’ve had Lobster, and I’ve had Thermidor, just not both at the same time) 98. Polenta 99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake (I would actually love to try this!)
I got 67 or 70/100 - depending on how many points you give me for things that I have only half tried. Yeah, that’s right. I rock.
Other than the four I crossed out, I’m planning on trying all of these, at least before I die. Probably (hopefully) way before then.
UPDATE! Liam reminded me that we had Lapsang Souchong at a Tibetan restaurant a couple years ago. I am up to 71. Liam says we probably also had sea urchin in sushi, which is possible. So it’s a tentative 72.
So we got back yesterday - that last day of driving is always a real doozy. Going up can seem like a breeze, but no matter how long the drive home is (and admittedly Thunder Bay is 15 hours away from Toronto - that’s a very long drive by anyone’s standards) it always takes way, way too long.
Sooo…More pictures!
This is Liam’s parent’s big doggie (she’s half border collie and half poodle). I think she looks exactly like Sprocket from Fraggle Rock. She doesn’t ever stop moving, and has a serious oral fixation. She’s only trying to tell us about them rascally fraggles though.
We spent much of the week helping to get things ready for a good friend’s wedding on the weekend. These were the crafty little centerpieces - button flowers - I spent a good few hours making dozens of them (they were also the brides bouquet and the grooms boutonniere)..
Besides the buttons, and a gnome theme, there was also a Finland meets Scotland thing going on at this wedding (the groom being of Scottish decent, the bride being of Finnish).
This is one of my favourite shots of the day - a group of ‘Finns’ (denoted by their Nokia boots, fur hats, and ski gear) kidnapped the ‘bride’ (or in this case, the groom, who everyone was calling the bride, since he had the much more expensive outfit on - traditional highland garb doesn’t come cheap).
Nothing to worry about though, simply an old Finnish tradition called “the stealing of the bride”. All the bride had to do was prove herself worthy of marriage to her groom - by answering a bit of trivia about him - and he was returned safe and sound.
Then we broke out a bottle of 12 year scotch and passed it around.
Well, we’re still pretty busy ’round here, especially since we are leaving for a bit of vacation soon (nothing too exciting, just returning to Liam’s hometown for a week to attend one of his oldest friend’s wedding).
We spent the other night on the set of a TV show, which was pretty cool. Even cooler was seeing a good friend, an old friend, take charge and kick ass like the awesome producer she is.
Sometimes it seems like just yesterday that I was just a kid, and now my friends are lawyers, and producers and doctors. It’s weird to know real, live, important grown ups. It means I must be one myself (scary).
Anyway, I might try apprenticing on set in the art department - which has always been one of my (admittedly many) dreams. I even took a course or two in set design.
Talk turned to the completely unglamorous work that goes on behind the scenes of these things, and it was mentioned that one should be prepared to get covered in all manner of messes at this particular shoot.
Of course, only I would turn that conversation into an opportunity to wear a cute outfit… But of course I did.
People are always surprised to find that I have no fear of getting messy - but you can’t do things like art or cooking or gardening without getting a little dirt under your nails, a little flour on your collar and a little paint in your hair.
You just have to prepare yourself for a mess - and that includes wearing proper attire.
So at the moment, I’m dreaming of cute kerchiefs and cuffed coveralls, worn Rosie the Riveter style. Something like this gorgeous little pic from this months Marie Claire (found via Jezebel, of course):
Which is probably more the route I’ll take. Particularly the scrounging thrift and surplus stores for a deal part - because I’d rather not get cement, and mud, and wood glue, and paint all over something I paid more than twenty bucks for. It’s kinda the point of wearing coveralls in the first place.
I was uploading pictures, when I realised I actually have a lot to share, even if I haven’t been sharing. It gets like that in summer I guess - too busy making up for our vitamin d deficiencies to spend much time on the internet.
Well, in between getting my hair-cut and a yearly physical (and having strange hands on pretty much every part of my body) I went into one of those discount housewares stores, downtown. They had a whole display of barbecue stuff, and mixed in with it was the cutest, teensiest little barbecue.
It’s a Sagaform bucket grill. It’s available from a bunch of different online retailers. Apartment Therapy recently gave it a pretty goood review. In fact, we had first seen it at an expensive gourmet shop around the corner from us here. It was 30 dollars there (not bad) and, being barbecueless we were considering getting it.
It was 10 dollars at the discount shop. There were also a bunch of pretty, matching, off-white, Scandinavian designed tools for it too. Also at a deep discount. Score. Altogether I spent 25 dollars, including tax on pretty much everything I needed. Awesome.
Last night was pretty hot. I did not feel like cooking indoors.
Instead we hunted down a bag of charcoal (not as easy as it sounds on the cusp of Canada Day weekend) and a terra-cotta tray to put the little guy on, to keep him from burning the wood on the top of my little cafe table (my genius idea BTW, and I highly recommend it - it holds the bbq in place and catches all the ash to boot - and it was cheap!).
Then we hunted down something to cook. There was not a lot left at the grocery store (again, Canada day weekend and all) but some nicely marbled striploin was on sale. Third score of the week!
The little bucket grill was pretty easy to light. There’s a bucket inside of the bucket proper that sits on top of a little second grill which is where you put the charcoal. This keeps the air circulating around the hot bits, lets the ash fall into the bottom of the bucket proper, and keeps that pretty off-white finish from burning (or from burning you - the exterior actually stayed suprisingly cool).
Altogether, it’s a deceptively simple, but clever design (them Scandinavians are good at that sort of thing it seems).
After doing a little research I learned that lighter fluid, beyond being scary, is also just generally no good. It makes food taste like chemicals. So instead we used these wax and sawdust things we usually have around when we need to start a campfire. I lit it and piled about a dozen bricks of charcoal on top of it, and that seemed to do the trick. After about 10 minutes I rearranged them to make sure they were all getting evenly singed, and then after another 10 minutes I mixed them all up, popped on the grill top, checked the heat with my hand (3 Mississippis and I had to pull it away - that means it’s hot enough) and started barbecuing.
A little while later, we had a delicious steak dinner, with some grilled asparagus and green-garlic couscous, and a salad of simply dressed tomatoes. It was pretty perfect.
Today I cleaned up the grill - everything washed right off him, good as new. I popped back the little legs on the bucket, and tucked it into a shelf. It’s like last night never even happened. He’s so compact, I’m thinking we can definitely take him camping with us later on in the summer.
If you’ve got a small deck like we do (and if you can hunt one down) this little barbecues’ going to be your new best friend. Even if you don’t have any outdoor space (in our last apartment we didn’t have any), this guys worth checking out to take camping, or to the beach.
He’s a bit more complicated than a gas grill would be, but the flavor and convenience (not to mention the price, and beautiful design) far outweighs all that in my mind. He’ll look cute sitting on your patio, but he can also be folded up and hidden away. Plus, he’s a whole lot of fun! I’m looking forward to using him all summer, but first we’re heading up to my family’s cottage for the weekend.
It will be nice to get away from the city heat - if it doesn’t rain on us all weekend.
I don’t get how the Euro’s are doing it, but it’s getting to the point where I’m not really bothering to listen to music if it didn’t come from a country where they eat a lot of smoked fish.
Alphabeat are makers of such music. There are pretty much a billion ways I could describe them, so I’m just going to mention the most fun ones:
A Scandinavian S Club 7 with Cyndi Lauper meets George Micheal vocals? Sure.
The Thrills - but from Denmark instead of Ireland and obsessed with New Wave instead of Surf Rock? Yep, that one’s good.
Infectiously-sugar-coated, eighties-pop-tinged, happy-music from the land of modernist teak furniture? That pretty much sums it up, actually.
They also have a pretty cool typographic motif going on, not to mention the cute outfit factor (them being Dansk and all, it’s pretty high).
I dare you to watch this video and not get into a cheery mood.
This is the best outfit I have ever seen on a celebrity (Lily Allen, BTW).
Pink!
Turquoise!
Sparkles!
Bambi!
Who’s her stylist? Hello Kitty?
It’s all sooooo cute! If i had gotten married at the age of 11, I probably would have worn exactly that, pink hair and all. Actually, I will probably still wear something like that when I do get married in the next couple years. I just can’t help it, when I see vibrant pastels like that all in one place, it just makes me happy. It must take me back to some childhood place where Rainbow Brite and Jem and the Holograms still scamper about.
Also adorable: the apology she put on her blog for gettting drunk that night
And I Quote:
“Last time I wrote here, I was defending my honor and dignity, explaining my innocence and also outrage at the press for insinuating my behaviour was embarrassing. This time I’m putting my hands up, I got very drunk last night, too drunk. It’s not cool getting that drunk, I feel awful and I have to thank my little brother Alf for getting me home safely.
Kids, drink responsibly or you’ll end up looking like this, not pretty! Was quite fun though, from what I can remember. Need fry up now.”
If you watched the Hills this week, then you probably rocked out a bit to that great French pop they played in between sweeping shots of the Eiffel tower.
Well, I am here to lead you to the source of it’s awesomeness. Although frankly, Jezebel beat me to it.
Her name Yelle, and she reminds me a heck of a lot of a certain other talented young European as she has a penchant for wacky - yet surprisingly flattering - Euro trash fashions and sweet and poppy elecro.
But where Robyn is like Bjork meets Gwen Stefani as raised by Missy, Yelle is like the secret French love child Peaches and Princess Superstar were always meant to have, with Francoise Hardy as her godmother.
When I watched horribly dubbed European childrens shows on TVO as a child, I never imagined that all those wacky/tacky clothes and all that cheesy Casio music would come back to haunt me in the most fabulous way possible.
How do Europeans get away with being so sophisticated all of a sudden, by doing the same things they’ve always done? We used to at least have their weird clothes and musical tastes to make fun of, even if everything else they did was pretty much superior in every way. Great, now you guys have a sizzling economy, unparalleled culture, excellent social programs, and all the good pop music and outfits. Unfair guys, unfair.
(Sidebar: If you’re unfamiliar with Francoise Hardy you should click on this link ’cause Francoise Hardy is the bomb. I can never get over how pretty she was, and how modern she looked and sounded - fourty years ago BTW - and she’s pretty much even hotter now that she’s older - hrmmm… maybe the French have always been good at the whole music and outfits thing…)
