Day Three Hundred and Forty-Six - Drunk On A Beer

My love of beer is totally the fault of Joseph and my second year of university - therefore my beer tummy is also totally his fault. It's not to say that I was straightedge before my introduction to beer - but for 90% of my drinking I would just stick to spirits [the other 10% is champagne]. My dad was a beer guy [as was everyone really when I was growing up] and I could never get past the smell of beer [or the staleness of the cans/bottles sitting around waiting to be returned once the case was full again]. Even if desperate for a wild night out and beer was the only option - I really had to struggle with it [yknow - instead of just not drinking...not that I'm proud]. However, in second year Joseph arrived and as a group we all started actually going out and pitchers of beer were most plentiful and my bank account was rather...unplentiful. So, I grew accustomed. So much so that yes, I developed my amazing beer tummy and with it quite the taste for beer. And in recent years, beer has been elevated to a higher state in general - something I'm happy about as I don't drink wine. I wonder if beer snobs and beer sommeliers are far off? Anyway, having been thrwarted this morning from doing my original plans for the day [faulty alarm clock] today I arranged for a beer tasting. In my own house.


Most LCBO shops have a decent selection of beer, including some weirdo types of beer that are more expensive, but available by the bottle. Our closest LCBO isn't great on their selection [most people in this neighbourhood are most interested in getting as drunk as possible as cheaply as possible], but I selected three different beers, with the aim of sharing each with Joseph, so that we could discuss the flavours. Up first was the Smoked Oatmeal - our first impressions were the same - "this tastes like smoking!" because it really, really did. Surprisingly Joseph decided that this was perfectly acceptable [he has never smoked and really dislikes it - as do I]. For me though - it tasted too much like smoking...not enough smokey. Or oatmeal-y at all - although it was still an interesting flavour. Next up was the Chocolate Stout - we both agreed that in smell and appearance it was a lot like Guiness [which we both like]. Joseph thought that it did taste of chocolate. I thought that the description of chocolate referred only to the colour as I found this one pretty disappointing and unremarkable. Finally was the 666 Pale Ale. At 6% this is considered to be a strong beer, which I normally don't like as they taste too alcohol-y [if I want alcohol-y I will drink a martini or straight tequila]. It was shockingly good. A rich but mellow taste, it went down smooth [just like on a beer advert!] and didn't taste strong in alcohol at all. In the interest of full disclosure, I did start to develop a migraine soon after drinking this one though.

Day Three Hundred and Forty-Five - La Grande Bouffe

I believe that I am going through a rather unpleasant bout of food poisoning [brought on by unwisely choosing something too adventurous in a restaurant I knew full well could not handle this task]...so logically - what does one do when one is stricken with this ailment? Well, I made souffles. Four goat cheese souffles to be rather precise. I've learned a couple of things: 1. I don't think I like souffles and 2. souffles are deceptively simple to make. They definitely get a bad rap - but honestly if I can make them to great success [see below] while being sick and out of it - I think anyone can make them. It's all about obeying the rules, dude.


But yeah, I didn't love it. They are just so darn...eggy. I put in an entire thing [??? I dunno what it's called - the entire package? container? tube?] of peppercorn goat cheese and you could just barely taste it. So eggy. And for some reason I had a very hard time separating the eggs - which is so not me. I enlisted Joseph to whip them into soft peaks...but then we cheated out and used cream of tartar to speed up the process [this is amazing!]. I think he quite enjoyed the souffle [someone should - we have two more that are being frozen and then will become twice-baked souffles] - but it just made me feel like a little girl struggling to politely eat my lunch @ a strangers house. When I was about 8 years old one of my mum's slightly elderly, slightly eccentric clients [she has many of them even now] invited me and her out to her country house for lunch [I had a PD day from school and clearly this is the most fun way to spend it]. She served up crab souffle. And while I always loved to try "adult foods" - this was just not to my taste. I remember drinking glass after glass of water during the lunch - desperate to get the souffle down and not embarass my mum [and show how much of a little adult I was]. For well over a decade I thought I hated crab...but it turns out that it was the souffle to blame.

Day Three Hundred and Forty-Four - The Pledge Drive

I've actually had a few Seinfeld-inspired ETs and I hope to do one more [and for me, it's a doozy - time is ticking though]...but this one was a must. It all started yesterday @ the 7-11 [it is a magical place I tell you what] when I found something quite remarkable. Okay, not so much remarkable, but part of a marketing ploy. But still, I thought it was quite something.


And yes, it's totally Batman/Christian Bale approved [yes, I think that Batman and Christian Bale are kinda the same entity], so you know there is unlimited goodness inside. There are few things better than the combination of chocolate + peanut butter, no? And sometimes things like these should be savoured [yes, peanut butter cups are widely available, but not special Batman ones - I imagine this one was a bit past its prime, what with the film coming out in July and all]. What better way to savour this treat than by dining on it prim and proper. Surely, Batman peanut butter cups deserve the same respect as one gives to even the most mediocre of cheesecake or etc. so tonight I did just that I ate a candy bar with a knife and fork.


I didn't have Joseph take the picture of me actually doing this because to be perfectly honest I felt like a bit of a jackass. Okay, a lot of a jackass. And yet - I will say that most of the time I am more fulfilled by a meagre candy bar as opposed to overblown restaurant desserts. The chocolate in the North American variety might not be as fantastic as in its European counterparts...but there is still something about a candy bar when one has a craving. The bat-shaped peanut butter cup was a bit different than regular ones - thicker and more dense. Truthfully, it would have been difficult to eat the traditional hand to mouth way. I really think that I will do this again, given the opportunity [ie. not just eating a candy bar on the subway]. I tend to eat my food [all food] too fast and this really helped me to slow things down. You can mock me and my pretentious ass if you would like.

Day Three Hundred and Forty-Three - Kwik-E-Mart

I'm a big fan of viral marketing and such like and I thought that The Simpsons Movie did a great job @ working this new medium [as did TDK]. One of the coolest things they did was to transform a number of 7-11 shops into Kwik-E-Marts and they served some of the same things that Apu does in the show - things like Squishees! Anyway, even the existence of 7-11 is pretty darn new to me and I'm not sure how available they are outside of the GTA. That being said, I don't often go into one as they are pretty few and far between. I'm consistently amazed by their sterile environment...combined with a machine devoted entirely to nacho cheeze. Today I had a beyond trying day attending a full-day training workshop that ended up being entirely useless to me. Except for the fact that on the corner by the subway station there was a 7-11 and I finally indulged - I drank a Slurpee! In Canada @ Mac's convenience stores [also called the Kitty Store by me since I was a little dumbass] they had/have Frostees, which yes, are the same damn thing. And yet, it's still a bit of a bad cover version so I felt the need to try the real thing. Oh, it was pretty amazing [only could be more amazing if it was Coke Zero instead of Coke].


Yes, I didn't finish it. Initially it was so good and cold and also with lots of syrup because that's the way I pour [even though I haven't poured in well over 15 years]. However, the weather is also very cold and I was without gloves. I ended up drinking most of it on the subway and gulping it so it didn't touch my teeth [I do use Sensodyne, but this was beyond cold]. But then I got home and our house is roughly 150 degrees and all of the icey bits were instantly vapourized. The Slurpee then lost its appeal, obviously. And yes, this is actually a pretty small size. They had two sizes smaller, but the cups were not recyclable. And besides, I think that part of having a Slurpee is having it be ridiculously big so people stare @ you and think you're a bit strange. Right?

Day Three Hundred and Forty-Two - Break And Enter

When I was still living with my parents [due to me being a kid] one of the main things I used to get in trouble for was leaving the front door open. To be clear, I don't mean that I would leave the door unlocked, but I would leave our front door wide open [with a screen door in front, but not locked]. I would get into all sorts of trouble for this. However, in my defense I was extremely scatterbrained and also, it was a small town. Highly unlikely that anything would happen [though now it's like the meth capital of the county so it's entirely possible that bad things would happen]. Since moving to the big city though I've been pretty vigilant about locking up whenever I leave the apartment. When we lived in the dodgy high rise I would lock my door while taking rubbish down to the chute.

So today's thing is silly, but meaningful to me. Today I left our door unlocked as I went to the shops. Nothing happened, but I was freaked out the entire time I was away from the house and I checked the closet and stuff when I got home to be sure that no one got in while I was out. Of course, the queues @ the shops were extra long, too. So, you see - Michael Moore was wrong [as he frequently is - I really don't get his insane love of Canada] - Torontonians DO regularly lock their doors [even when in the house during the middle of the day]. Our door is always locked [windows too]...and this little experiment made me freak out too hard to consider changing our policies on this matter.

Day Three Hundred and Forty-One - D'oh!

A couple of weeks ago fellow thing-a-dayer [by the way, I'm going to miss all of the fellow thing-a-dayers when their years are up - I hope they do continue blogging] Jen did something amazing. As one of her good deed she MADE HER OWN PLAY-DOH! I was entranced. I wanted to make my own right away and I was delighted when I saw that the components were things that pretty much everyone would have in their pantries. Except for one thing - cream of tartar. I looked in many different grocery stores and I consulted Al [he seems to know everything], who told me that due to the short shelf life of cream of tartar it is not widely stocked. But yknow who stocks it? Of course, the frakking Price Chopper. I located it on Friday evening [yes, grocery shopping is what I do almost every Friday night - woo!] and today, ta-dah I made my own Play-Doh! I am so pleased!


I know, it kinda looks like a ball of blue bread dough. Well...it is non-toxic! And I was surprised to learn that Play-Doh was based upon bread dough. Interesting! And while the official ingredients to real Play-Doh are a trade secret, they are essentially the same things I used [which is to say that Play-Doh is kinda food]. Still, I wouldn't recommend baking it up and eating it. And yes, mine is slightly more of a tye-dye blue, not a pure blue. What can I say? I'm lazy [we all know this already]...and I do think it looks pretty cool this way. To say nothing of the fact that I totally "blue myself" a la Tobias on Arrested Development. The whole process was very easy, although since I cut the recipe in half it was a bit more of a process to balance wet and dry ingredients. I was worried for a while that it was just not going to happen - mostly due to the smell [as a kid I LOVED the smell of Play-Doh and it made me want to take a bite, which I never did]. Then, as if by magic [okay, the addition of more flour], that familiar Play-Doh smell emerged. And yes, I did take a [little] bit. It's extremely salty and I wouldn't recommend it as a snack. So now...I have to think of something to make with the Play-Doh - mostly I just like squishing it.

Day Three Hundred and Forty - Deja Vu All Over Again

In the small town where I grew up there is only one movie theatre and it plays only one film @ a time. There is also a totally amazing drive-in that is totally amazing [I love drive-ins - they are the only thing that is amazing about cars]. Anyway, the movie theatre is called the Paramount Theatre [not sure if they named it after the movie studio or not] and it was our main source of entertainment when between the ages of 11 years old and 15 years old [after that drinking was the main source of entertainment - don't get me wrong, some people drank AND went to the Paramount, but less so]. The movie would change on Friday...but not every Friday. If a film was particularly popular then it would be repeated for a second week [or sometimes even a third week!]. The fact that it was the same movie would not distract us from going to the Paramount each Friday night [unless it was hockey season, then we would go to the arena - both areas were prime sources of public school boys, who were, for obvious reasons, highly desirable]. And the movie wouldn't matter either. The ticket takers didn't seem to care about ages [oh, except for once when me and my cousin were busted for trying to see Child's Play]. So, we saw a lot of crap. Repeatedly.

I'm not sure if it's because I know what it's like to live without choice...but these days I never go see films in the cinema more than once. Oh, except for today when I saw a film for the second time in the cinema. The film was obviously The Dark Knight...because...duh. We originally saw it in a big box cinema and this weekend it was on @ the Bloor [where we were able to buy both tickets and a membership for me for less than what it would cost for one ticket @ a regular cinema]. The film definitely stands up well on repeat viewings [I actually like it even more now and I didn't think that would be possible] and while I plan to get it on DVD, I wanted one last chance to see it in a theatre with all the loudness and darkness and sticky floors. I have to say - it is definitely a better film than the one that I willingly saw numerous [yes, more than two times] times @ the Paramount - Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. For a span of two weeks, that film was my whole life.

Day Three Hundred and Thirty-Nine - Hide And Seek

I had visions of this ET being so much more fun than what it ended up being. Tonight I created my own word search. I used only words that mean something to me and represent some aspect that I like about Battlestar Galactica. Therefore, you will find no mention of "Quorum" or "Romo Lampkin" or "Leoben" as I do not care for any of those things. If you are interested in printing out and completing my word search [and I do recommend that you do this], you can find it here as I have decided to leave it online for any other BSG/word search fans. I'm sure thats a grandiose source of crossover.

Anyway, I thought that making my own word search would be neat-o because I thought I would be able to write my own clues, instead of including just a list of words. In the interest of full disclosure as a kid, I absolutely, positively *loathed* when I would get word searches like this. I guess I figured that I was working hard enough just finding the words in the jumble...I wasn't going to try to determine what words I was supposed to be searching for like some sucker. God knows that I would have spent many precious minutes...possibly even hours [lifetime total] searching for completely wrong words. I am not great @ puzzles of any sort. However, as the puzzlemaster I thought it would be fun to develop a list of clues to really bust the brains of the word searchers. But the websites that allow you to make your own word searches - they would like you to pay actual money for the privilige of creating clues instead of a list. Boo! I'm not about paying for anything on the internet.

Day Three Hundred and Thirty-Eight - Lacto-Ovo

So, it's entirely possible that I've done this thing before...maybe even more often than what I would think. And yet, I do love dairy products [even though they oh-so frequently *hate* me], so maybe it has never happened. Today I went vegan. And lived to tell the tale! Although, I did have to tuck away the honey-roasted peanuts of yesterday or else I would have been mightily tempted [although I also learned that apparently some vegans do eat honey]. For the most part I felt totally satisfied and didn't miss the animal by-products. I have been considering vegan-ism for a while, but I don't think I will ever fully commit. I am hoping to try to choose the vegan option more often though...mostly due to the aforementioned fact that it seems many animal by-products do hate me. So I've been trying to develop my tastebuds in that direction.

My main challenge for my day o'vegan came first thing in the morning. I love me some yogurt and I eat it by the bucketload [yum...buckets of...anything...so appetizing]. But, no yogurt for me today - instead I had rye bread toast with jam [I love jam almost as much as yogurt]. I wonder though - would being a yogurt-vegan really cause that much suffering to the wee animals? I ask mainly because a friend of a friend was a meatball sub sandwich vegetarian...and I found that high-larious. Then for lunch I wasn't feeling entirely hungry, but I knew I had to have something as I was heading out to the museum so I had some fruit and a couple of parathas and brought along with a few handfuls of those spicy asian rice snack things. Another semi-challenge arrived @ the museum as they were having a special event that was catered and free found was abounding. However, it was either meat-tastic or cheese-tastic so I couldn't try anything [aside from this tea that was called 'blood of the pigeon' - it was both melodramatic and delicious - I asked and though there was a secret ingredient, it was not blood]. Then I came home to dinner that had been a-cookin' in the slow cooker for hours. It was actually a meat recipe that I made vegan - a hearty chili macaroni dish [yes, I used fake meat - I don't usually eat it - except in tacos, which I love]. It was really good and comforting.

So, in honour of the big VP debate...suck it Sarah Palin! You moose killing, wolf shooting [from a helicopter!] psycho! Meatless is coolness...

Day Three Hundred and Thirty-Seven - Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut

It seems like everyone @ work for the past week and a bit has been eating lots and lots of almonds. Not the fun almonds like the over-priced chocolate covered ones you buy to support local youth hockey or whatever [it's seriously the best thing about hockey]...but just regular raw almonds. There is some new nutritionist/diet thing going on that I'm not a part of due to me not needing more people/things telling me what to eat or how to eat it. Regardless, I've been trying to develop a taste for almonds, nuts, legumes...etc. as I think it would be a good thing to snack on [okay, I know they are super fattening, but they are certainly better than Cheetos - which I have already developed quite a taste for, thanks muchly]. Today I found an entry on Wikihow that seemed especially appropriate and tonight I made honey-roasted peanuts. Here's a photo of some of them [the ones that have not been eaten].


As you can see - a good tip would be to follow instructions. The instructions said to continue stirring after they were roasted for TEN WHOLE MINUTES or else they would all stick together. See - I don't find standing in my kitchen to be all that thrilling so I didn't do that...now I think my baking sheet is properly frakked. I'm going to try reheating and melting them off. Anyway, they are super simple to make - just buy some non-raw peanuts, create a melty mix of butter [real butter please] and honey and combine with peanuts, roast peanuts for 10 minutes. Ta-dah! Honey-roasted peanuts! Success! They are super delicious and nice when warm, though a bit painful on ye olde fingers.