A Special Evening

I had a lovely night out recently at the Gardiner Cafe, inside the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art downtown. I was invited to a women's financial seminar which included guest speakers, and a 3 course dinner with wine pairings prepared by chef Jamie Kennedy in the Gardiner Cafe inside the museum. We were also able to do a tour of the museum. It holds collections dating from 700 AD.

I went with a girlfriend and we had a great time at the upscale dinner. At our table, the lovely young woman who sat on one side of me was a film producer and an aspiring author. She had started this book and got the idea to use Google Earth to visit 'locations' that would help her set the scene. You can zoom in on a railroad track in Vancouver, for example. She was a married mother of two young children and unfortunately had to leave before the main course to attend another event.

Another young woman had a busy job involving a lot of travel to the U.S. We spoke about the X-Ray scans versus the 'pat downs'. She said she missed a flight once just being stuck in security, because they don't move you up anymore if you are in danger of missing your flight. I mentioned I was happy at home simply raising my kids. Admittedly, I said, some people get their self-esteem from their job. The young lady assured me that while she had a good job, she didn't get her self-esteem from it and that she would be perfectly happy not to work! We laughed, but she did say she wished she had a job where she was actually helping someone, as opposed to working for pure corporate profit. It was interesting that she had already come to that self-knowledge and that was certainly a good thing.

The other ladies at the table were just as interesting, with different stories to tell, but this is not a book! Of course, we also spoke about finances, as boring as that can be, it's necessary to have knowledge of your financial affairs and indeed a will, because life can change at any moment. As we left, Jamie Kennedy presented each lady with his autographed cookbook. The weather was mild (-2C) and the big city, night time atmosphere was a great break from the daily routine. Oh, I had the pickerel for my main course, but I heard the squab (a deboned kind of pigeon) was equally delicious.

Sunday Sketches - Elephant

This week's Sunday Sketches is of a 'Drowned Elephant Calf' claimed by recent floods in Sri Lanka. The startling photo caught my attention in the newspaper.

Please stop by the other participants to see what they did this week!








News

Winterlicious 2011 (runs Jan 28 - Feb 10 this year)

'Every winter over a hundred fine dining restaurants in Toronto offer prix fixe (fixed price) lunch and dinner menus as part of "Winterlicious", which also includes special culinary-themed events. If you want in on the Winterlicious Prix-Fixe promotion, reservations are highly recommended and easy to make'

I've never attended one of these, but I've been hearing about it for years, it's a popular promotion.

Some Healthy New Recipes

I found some healthy new recipes to try:

Garlicky Baked Crispy Chicken

Caesar-ish Salad

News

Kindle books now outselling paperbacks at Amazon

Amazon sales up 40% in 2010

Baked Chips

I bought some of these baked potato chips. They are by no means calorie free, but they taste quite good and it says it has 80% less fat than the regular fried ones. I think they have improved on the taste, I remember trying them years ago and they weren't very good. To go with them, I made some dip with 3% sourcream, onion flakes, paprika and dried basil. But they are fine without any dip. They also come in other flavours as pictured.

News

Awesome Foundation offers cash for crazy ideas

What do you think of Starbucks' new size?

10 cheap ways to be happy

Droste Fudge Brownies

K asked me to make some brownies on the weekend, and I found this simple recipe on the internet for Droste fudge brownies. They were chewy, moist and quick to make! I will be sure to whip them up again, just about anytime I have unsalted butter on hand. It's just a matter of adding 6 or 7 ingredients to a bowl, mix for one minute and bake.


News

Polar bear swam for 9 days straight looking for ice

Looking at ‘food porn’ and imagining eating helps you eat less: Study
The article says:
'Morewedge believes that using visualization — imagining eating potato chips for a period before eating your first chip — could reduce the amount you eventually eat. But he warns that distractions, such as television or a second snack option would likely impair the process.'

Car Trouble

Well, K had to go to his Science exam early yesterday morning, except that my car wouldn't start. This was kind of stressful. Luckily, M was working at home that day and took K to school on time. M looked at us as if we had done something to the car, I guess he was stressed too. He thought the battery needed a boost, but we hooked the cables up to no avail. So we called CAA auto service to come and tow it to the car shop.

Meanwhile K called to say he had finished his exam half an hour early. He said it was easy. He is allowed extra time due to his learning disability. Maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all! He was well prepared to the point where we were watching old episodes of 'Entourage' the night before the exam.

The serviceman arrived in about an hour and a half. He used a portable kind of battery charger to boost the car. I didn't even know such things existed. So with these, you don't need to have another car around in order to boost your car battery. While the car was still running, I drove it to the car shop. We ended up having the battery replaced and fortunately it is still under warranty, so there was NO CHARGE.

I had a dental appointment in the afternoon, so I was glad to have the car fixed in a little over an hour while I waited.

News

Beautiful People

Here's some sensible eating advice:

Until vegetables dominate meal plates, weight loss will be slow

Photo Machine

M needed to print some photos, something we don't do often. So I was at Costco and snapped the photo machine to show him the different types of input the machines accept these days. I was surprised, it takes every imaginable type of input. We are really in the digital age.

I heard these young girls talking at the gym yesterday. They looked about 18. Anyway, they helped me figure out why I'm so comfortable with a scheduled routine. It brings a sense of order to your day, and being a fairly organized person, that's important. I think one of them had a crazy work schedule, and she said she needed some sense of order to her day.

The general conversation at the gym was about the weather and how cold it's been the past few days, although today is supposed to be the start of a 'warming trend' (-4C as opposed to -19C). At -19C, the car struggles to start in the morning!

While I was on the elliptical machine, Linda Evans (of Dynasty) made an appearance on the Rachel Ray show. First of all, she's a beautiful woman. She spoke about her life and she sounded like a really nice person. She and Rachel said they cook for love as opposed to having a favourite dish, meaning that what you cook depends on who you're cooking it for. You want it to be something THEY love. They got along famously. Now, I wouldn't say I cook for the same reason. My favourite dishes tend to be what 'I' love, lol.

K and I had an enjoyable lunch yesterday at Swiss Chalet after one of his exams. I had a 'buy one get one free' dinner coupon that expired this week, so we wanted to use that, and we love Swiss Chalet. We both had Super Sundaes for dessert, they have the best chocolate sauce and all the whipped cream on top of the cold ice cream makes it even better.

M celebrated the birth of a new great-niece yesterday! The family is growing. His niece now has a boy and a girl.

News

Dubai opens 'world's highest restaurant'