Category Archives: Food

Contradiction

Yesterday was another odd day.

I met with Ceri to exchange our creative efforts for the two previous weeks, and I was late; I had been involved in my writing, finally looked at the clock, and proceeded to dash about trying to print things out, change, and catch a bus. I hate being rushed. I also dislike waking up and being slightly out of sorts, which I was yesterday; not in a bad mood, just slightly out of step with everything else. Ceri offered me tea and made me a grilled cheese sandwich, like any good Maritimer would if you collapsed in their kitchen and said, “I feel wrong.” It helped. So did the Advil.

I had dinner with MLG which was as enjoyable as always, and yet uncomfortable on other levels. We’d made the date previous to my implosion on Sunday, so rather than having an evening getting away from it all, we ended up troubleshooting and problem-solving, which isn’t a bad thing, just not what I had originally intended. Although I am an excellent listener, I am admittedly reluctant to ask people for help, and these days I’m incredibly blessed to have people who see that I need it and give it to me whether I’ve asked or not. I think that reluctance partially stems from the belief that my feelings and problems are private, and partially from the desire to not burden others (who have their own problems) with mine as well. To a certain extent, it’s also learned behaviour: throughout high school and CEGEP, my friends would pour their problems out to me, but when I tried to share my own, they were uninterested. The idea that people are determined to get me to talk and open up is rather new. I am, however, looking forward to a day when I can have a conversation with other adults that doesn’t revolve around my problems. I get twitchy when a conversation rests on me for too long and start looking for a place to hide, and when you’re in a corner at a pub with a single rather sharp individual, hiding is rather difficult. I suppose this is good for me – doesn’t it build character or something?

Apart from dinner being terribly delicious (nothing like colcannon when you need comfort food!) and being introduced to Boddingtons, I acquired a battery for my laptop, hurrah! I got home and spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for the slot to install it before realising that the only logical place for it to go was the CD-ROM drive slot, so I took out the disc drive and lo and behold, the battery slid right in. The unit didn’t self-destruct when I turned it on this morning, so I must have done something right – it has even produced a battery indicator on the display. I feel more freedom already. The Loyola campus library is three minutes away from me, and I have many fond memories of hours spent there before and after class during my BA years; there’s also a perfectly lovely park across the way which I will have to test out soon as a writing location as well.

I have an odd contradiction of feeling about my home these days. I want to cocoon, to stay home, read, and write; on the other hand, I’m feeling a little house-bound by the recent weather and want to be Out Doing Things. The latter is a very new experience for me, so I’m indulging it at the right times. In fact, Ceri and I are headed for more fabric stores today, questing for the perfect trim for sewing projects. Little expeditions like this are just perfect; they get me out, I can read on the metro, I share a couple of hours with another intelligent life form other than a cat, and then I’m home again. I have discovered by not working for an employer during the week, I no longer feel like I Have To Have Fun on my days off; as a result, when the sun goes down I no longer feel as if I’ve wasted a day somehow. This is a definite improvement.

They say it will rain this weekend. They said that last weekend too. I’ll believe it when I see it.

The Morning After The Farewell To Retail Party

Traditionally, I dislike parties. I especially dislike parties at my place because I can’t get away from them. I’m unsocial that way. Only once did I actually leave; I walked out of my own birthday party a few years ago. I called off holding parties for that very reason: you’re stuck there. You can always leave other people’s parties.

Last year I decided to give it a try again, and we had a successful housewarming. Might have been a fluke, I thought. We had a couple of small gatherings throughout the year, getting me up to speed again. Nothing huge. It’s not like I’ve suddenly decided that I’m throwing myself a big birthday party or anything. Let’s not go to extremes.

MLG suggested I have people over to mark my last day of work before my sabbatical. I anticipated a quiet evening with much conversation. Sure, why not, I said.

Well, this morning, I walked into my kitchen and looked at the number of empty bottles on the counter and the table. I have no idea how few people could drink so much. I’m afraid to do the math. The glorious thing is, though, that it wasn’t an alcohol-fest (I just don’t do those); it was simply a terrific evening. I think everyone needed to relax. And for once, I was happy to be the excuse everyone used to kick back.

Note to self: drink O’Casey’s with cream again sometime. Mmm.

So people had fun. Yes, we had that good conversation thing; there was also much laughter, good music (in my CD changer at the beginning of the evening: Buffy – the Musical, Ella Fitzgerald, the LOTR soundtrack, Great Big Seas’s Turn, and Classic Yo-Yo Ma… I am nothing if not eclectic), good food (I made baked Camembert with sage and then forgot I’d made it, although everyone else tells me it was terrific), and of course, good company. I know good people. And it’s good when we all get together.

My first day of my non-retail life was lovely. I went for a walk at 9 AM, grinning like an idiot. I practiced. I read. I napped a bit. I tidied up all those bottles and cans (still unable to comprehend how much alcohol was consumed). I nibbled bread and cheese. All in all, a wonderfully relaxed day. My parents should be en route to Montreal from Oakville; I’m really looking forward to seeing them soon too.

Life is pretty darn okay.

Irony

Call from Concordia Sports Medicine last night:

“Hi! It’s about your appointment next Thursday.”

“The seven-thirty?”

“Yes. We’re really sorry – we have to cancel it. Your osetopath just had surgery on her elbows.”

What the heck are you supposed to say to that?

“Argh!”

“Has it been long since your last appointment?”

“Well, about five weeks.”

“Ouch! Any problems?”

“My back is going “crunch” in the middle.”

“That sounds bad. Would you like to see another osteopath?”

“Well… I lived like this for months before I saw someone, so I’m not dying or anything. Tell my doctor to not worry and that she needs to heal just like everyone else. If my back gets really bad I’ll call you.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll shoehorn you in somewhere as soon as you call. Thanks!”

Little do they know that I now have a secret weapon: Excedrin Extra-Strength, with acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine. Somebody who loves me has family that goes to the US. It was a lovely surprise. That plus finding a nice flat spot in the park so I can simultaneously lie in the sun and realign my spine sounds like a terrific idea.

Speaking of border-crossing, Vanilla Coke makes its new debut of the millennium on Wednesday. You know, I’ve never been to Plattsburgh…

On Diets, Both Physical And Spiritual

Anyone else ever forget to eat? Or sleep? Sometimes I think so much I forget that I need to fuel the body. I know that thinking uses calories, of course, but not as many as, say, raking lawns or prepping beds for planting.

I just wondered, because yesterday was The Christening of The Elspeth Morrigan (yeah, yeah, tell me about it) and I forgot to eat (a) before we went, and (b) after we got home. I had little nibblies at the reception afterwards, but nothing approaching a meal.

I do this all the time. People make nasty little remarks like, “Oh, so that’s why you’re as tiny as you are.” Well, no, because that has everything to do with my metabolism, not my diet. My diet ranges from prim and proper to grossly indecent: for a week I will crave salads and sandwiches, then the next week I’ll snack on nothing but mini chocolate bars (and that’s all my boss’ fault, for bringing in a five-pound bag of snack-size Oh Henry bars and Caramilk squares and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups) with the occasional lasagna. This has nothing to do with bingeing; I don’t pay enough attention to what I eat to binge. Working without a set lunch hour makes eating normally difficult as well. I refuse to eat if I’m not hungry, so when I have the opportunity to eat (i.e., it’s quiet on the floor) I don’t, preferring to get as much work done as possible before the hordes descend, which is usually when my stomach starts growling. By the time things quiet down, I’m not hungry any more. (Lose weight – work retail!)

So I don’t eat regularly, and I don’t eat a lot, and what I do eat is on average something that resembles balanced, I suppose, taken over the week.

The Christening: in a beautiful Catholic church (I was last there singing The Messiah with CAMMAC several years ago), with a wacky priest (who was fine for one afternoon but who would drive me nuts if I had to listen to him weekly), and holy water that didn’t melt or burn any of the Pagan contingent who were there to witness the daughter of an occult store owner be baptized. We giggled a lot, particularly when The Morrigan yowled as the priest exorcised her with chrism on her chest. His comment? “Well, she’s got the makings of a fine preacher!” We enthusiastically replied that we would support her in her growing faith thorough all her trials when we were asked in the ceremony, and rolled our eyes at the tacky little sorority t-shirt all the babies got that said “I’m a Christian!” on them (I kid thee not). I always enjoy looking through prayer books to see how a particular sect worships, so I made sure I took a look at the books ranged in the pews. Know what? The first service in it was Christian Initiation. I wonder how many people actually realise that much of the Christian faith is based on universal rituals found cross-culturally in many religions both living and dead. It just got better P.R. along the way. There is such universality to the concepts expressed in various religions that I truly cannot understand why people try to insist that theirs is the Right Way. Religion is about how you view your relationship to the Divine. What gives anyone the right to impose their Way on someone else?

Anyway, it was a wonderful afternoon, and a terrific experience of one of the Catholic Sacraments. I’ve grown so used to universal, non-denominational services that this was a pleasant change.

The Lure Of Schnaaps

I have found Nirvana, and its name is Vanilla Schnaaps.

I’m not a drinker. I have a beer now and then, a cider if we go to a pub; some wine if I feel like it and someone’s already opened a bottle. Otherwise, nice cold water or Coke or something is more than fine with me.

We went to a SAQ Select last weekend, though, to pick up some Scotch and some Irish Cream for our Ostara celebration. (Our spin on Irish coffee — mmm.) At the sleepover I’d tasted O’Casey’s, a lighter and smoother Irish Cream than the ubiquitous Bailey’s, so I was searching the store for a bottle of that when I came across the liqueurs section.

Now, I detest peach flavouring. The fresh fruit’s okay, but peach cream or peach chocolates or even tinned peaches are just yucky. So when all my high school friends went crazy for Fuzzy Navels and peach schnaaps in general, I was unimpressed. (Apart from the fact that I couldn’t get past that sharp taste of alcohol.) That general distasteful impression of schnaaps stuck with me until Sunday afternoon when I found myself staring at Dr McGillicuddy’s Vanilla Schnaaps. Suddenly, all I could think of were Vanilla Cokes.

I brought it home.

This stuff is way too easy to drink. A splash in some Coke, a splash in some root beer — divine. You aren’t really drinking, you’re flavouring with alcohol. Evil. Insidious.

I can’t wait to experiment further. Hot chocolate. Ice cream floats with this stuff poured over top. A splash in lime soda.

Mmmm.

I’m so dead.

Expanse Of Poetry

We now have a new refrigerator. “New” in this case means “new to us”; it’s actually about eight to ten years old, possibly older. It’s huge! Being used to a five-foot high fridge with a single door that opens up to reveal a freezer unit inside, I was highly unprepared for the reality of a grown-up fridge. It has room to stand pop bottles and wine upright! And it has two freezer doors on the left – the upper one has six ice trays and boxes, the lower one has room for lots of ground beef and chicken and frozen juice. Best of all, though, is the fact that it has seperate temperature controls – I can turn the freezer temperature up high enough to keep ice cream solid while not freezing lettuce and celery in the crisper. Woo-hoo! We hosted our book club last night, and it even fit the drinks and food that guests brought over without having to take out things like salad dressings and jams (foods that don’t spoil during a single evening without refrigeration). It’s glorious!

So with this new expanse of fridge door, I’ve just spent half an hour moving around my magnetic poetry and discovering all sorts of potential hidden messages within the seemingly random mess. I adore magnetic poetry, but I think I miss the point most of the time: I see a couple of words and a whole line of poetry leaps to mind, so I search for the other words to make up the phrase and I don’t have them. I think other people use the words which are there to create unique sentences – sort of like a Choose Your Own Adventure with the English language. I have two poetry sets – the original set I got for my birthday last year, and an out-of-print Hallowe’en set that I found on eBay last fall. It glows in the dark. That’s a lot of words already, but I want one more – the Shakespearean set. Maybe the Cat set too, because it has words like “purr” and “whiskers”. Just think – I could have poems like “believe and summon arms / of sweet spring / call forsooth thy knavish gods / and purr o calico creature / in worship of raw steel”. Or something equally outlandish.