Tag: Food and Drink

Best Time

We live in cycles even as modernity trys to drive them out. With the fall comes the quietening of the FM band so that weak but neighbouring NPR comes in clearly without the irritation of co-channel soft rock stations from Ottawa. With each week comes the end of the week and the end of work if only for a time. In the day there are the three parts of plot: the beginning, middle and end. Some points in these cycles of cyles seem exceedingly good and just like I notice – since the digital clock became common when I was exactly nine – when it is 12:34 pm more than most times, I notice how good 8:21 am on a Saturday is when there isn’t much planned. Cheese toasts!

The Day of Fri Is When There Is Chat

What a week – a blur. I swear I was 27 when it started and now I have kids
and a mortgage. Thing I learned? Buying gifts for a kids party was easier when
they were two. You can buy an old shoe and stick some red masking tape on it and
a two-year old would be happy. Now they have taste and ideas. I am doomed.

  • Rummy Update: You know I am a Powellista so find these things Rummy says funny in a really sad and depressing funny kinda way:

    “Many of the terrorists who have not been killed or captured are on the run. They have lost their sanctuary in Afghanistan. And they have lost a supporter in Iraq, which paid $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers…”

    The observation I would make is that the actions the Canadian Forces have made in Afghanistan in the last few weeks to clear an area of the Taliban happened “about 15 kilometres southwest of Kandahar city” and so far “about 65 per cent of the contested area, measuring perhaps four kilometres by five kilometres, has been formally cleared of insurgents.” I am a big booster of what our Canadian Forces are doing there but characterizing what has happening so far after almost five years of continuing warfare as a “loss of sanctuary” in a country of 652,225 square kilometres is not quite an accurate statement.

  • I came across a blog by an English Magistrate, including this
    post     complaining that not enough prosecutions are being brought before
    her/him for short-pouring beer. That is my kinda judge.

  • Everytime I read articles like this about Alberta’s
    oil windfall     I get the giggles over the twit that argued the difference
    between Alberta and the rest of Canada was not the largest oil deposit in the
    universe but the prevalence of socialism elsewhere.

  • I just finished Pete Brown’s book Three Sheets to the Wind. I have to
    do a proper review over at A Good Beer Blog after fellow beer blogger Knut of Norway and I pose the author some
    questions. I reviewed his last book here. This one
    is even better – a romp around the world to figure out how each culture includes
    beer.

  • Was yesterday the day that lame duck
    began in the US presidency?

    Democrats are rapt spectators, however, shielded by
    the stern opposition to the president being expressed by three Republicans with
    impeccable credentials on military matters: Senators John McCain of Arizona,
    John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The three were
    joined on Thursday by Colin L. Powell, formerly the secretary of state and the
    chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in challenging the administration’s
    approach.

    It is one of those rare Congressional moments when the policy is as
    monumental as the politics.

    When you look ahead, the road to
    January 2009 could be a very long and weird path. That being said, Democrat Eliot Spitzer, the next Governor of
    NY, has really good TV ads. The public good as a matter of responsibility – who
    knew? If I were in the southern sector of Easlakia, I could see myself getting
    involved.

  • Say
    it ain’t so, Dog    .

  • How to identify when you have a Jr. B pope on your
    hands. And get in line, Islamic world. He was giving
    us the gears     last week. Time again for the Avenging Lumberjacks of the
    Reformation, Canada’s moderate protestant underground based in the Yukon, to
    come out of the shadows of the forest to take a stand.

Well, that is
enough for now. What to look forward to this weekend? Syracuse at Illinois
Saturday at noon if you have the 37 billion channel universe. Sox and Yankees if
you like human sacrifice.

I Never Liked Starbucks

I went once in Vancouver, paid waaaaay too much for essentially a 25 cent product and never went back. But apparently some people want their Starbucks coffee quite badly:

A Starbucks customer in the US who was told her free drink voucher was worthless is launching a $114m (£60m) lawsuit against the coffee colossus. Starbucks pulled the free drink offer, saying it had been redistributed beyond its original intent.

There is this thing in law called de minimus, things so tiny that the law can’t see them so it doesn’t bother with them. A free coupon for a coffee is about as de minimus as I can imagine.

August SW Ontario Road Trip

Mucho fried after 17 hours in 48 driving, driving, driving along with the questionable food and the more questionable guest bed arrangements. I could have been to Boston or even farther and back. Not too much to complain about as I dropped by a couple of breweries on the way, including my first trip to Neustadt Springs, home of the excellently named 10W30 dark ale and also picked up some new ones for me from Church-Key.

Start Your Christmas Shopping Now

Care of a kind word from a co-worker, I learned that the LCBO Vintages folk released 375 ml bottles of Lustau East India Sherry on Saturday. As I know my mother does not read this blog…or the internet at all ¹…I know I am safe to admit this is her stash for wee cakes and scones and after a nice bit of lamb and with a wee bit of blue cheese and beside a dish of trifle…and before and after a nap. Here is a review from one wine site’s review of the Lustau range as well as one from a wine blog. Note: “A blend of Soleras averaging 15 to 50 years of age.” Yum! Wee whisps of the 1950s in the glass.

¹’cause onywin tha’ dae is gang tae Scots Prrrrresbyterrrrian HELLLLLLL!

Friday Chatting As Cats Glare

So I figured if I was qualified to act as judge and executioner over the life of a
cat I was at least qualified to be amateur boy vet. Seems likely from what
you read on the internet that the old thing is anxious from the move, creating
alkaline pee and over eating. I’ve been doing that too so I am not slightly
sympathetic. Away with the all-night cat food buffet and in with the locking
them up with slightly acidified water. We’ll see. I know there are alkalined cat
lovers out there so I will not be grim or overly Nero-like with these decisions.
See you keep me on a moral path.

  • Update: The Flea writes good.

  • Gary wants you to know that he has a
    myspace blog     now. I do not know if this is wise of him as there is a heck of
    a lot of flotsom and jetsom around the MySpace world but Gary will let us know.
    I would tell you but as a joke I set mine up in German just to see and now I get
    emails from teens in Leipzig whom I have no interest in having as mein
    Freunden    .

  • On a fancy-grade whim, I bought one of these
    which I saw on deep discount. It is, as far as I can tell, is a junior
    gin-soaked popinjay training kit and pairs with the subterranian stash
    nicely. Suggestions for accessories welcome. I already have housed the pair of
    Greenock golf club whisky tumblers so you can rest easy on that account.

  • It appears that talking
    with terrorists     is in fact what one does after all. Of course, we knew this
    and did not buy into the pre-post-post-9/11 thinking that conveniently forgets
    the IRA, ETA, the MPLA and every other acronymed militant insurgent radical
    political movement in human history. As these people are people in the
    neighbourhood and not cyborgs in a robot army,
    settlement and reconciliation at the end of the day is the only end game.

  • I am concerned for the lack of respect that imaginary mystic
    dwarves     are getting these days.

So it is the end of another week
and another week’s worth of bullet points. I hope to be off to the Antique Boat Regatta
at some point on t’other side of the bridge as I wants to hear wee boats go
VVRRROOOOOOOOOOOM but it all depends on the weather.

Sunday Without Travel

I am sufficiently dimwitted to have not twigged to the fact that this weekend is a single break amongst six where I am not on the road in some way or another. How luxurious is the ability to do nothing. And I have. But this is something you really ought to try. Frozen scallops. Get your morter and pestle out and fine grind some good crackers like stone ground or water crackers. Then make a paste of chives, olive oil and garlic. Hot sauce, too. Mix in the cracker dust until you have a glom. Pat dry the scallops and roll them in the tasty glom. Put in a pan and bake in a 500 F oven for three to five minutes. Lordy lordy. Even the scallops are grateful for having given up their bivalvey lives in such style.

And yet I missed the 25th Northeast Dulcimer Symposium.

I Went And I Didn’t Blog It…


Team GX40

…but now I am so I am a big loser. We zipped across and I didn’t even take a picture for you:

  • TnT ties! Reminds me of how I felt on 16 June 1990.
  • Got made fun of by a US border guard again and got the chilly and very professional treatment from the Canadians on the way back. The difference in style still is weird.
  • Note to file: Fairgrounds Inn in Watertown is good. I am coming to the understanding that there is a thing called New York Italian that is different from Canadian Italian and Italian. It is also different (thankfully) from East Side Marios phoney baloney roadhouses. It is just a family restaurant that offers food of their fathers with a comfort diner angle. Not unlike the best small Chinese-Canadian places in a way – the Shanghai in Ottawa or the Lucky Inn in Pembroke come to mind. Anyway, encountering an excellent cream, red pepper, parsley, garlic and mushroom sauce on a $5.99 dish is dandy. Plus eight pies, most of which have confounding undescriptive names like “Kentucky Derby Pie”. Here is a link to lists and lists of “You haven’t lived in Watertown if you haven’t…” stuff.
  • The Antique Boat Museum at Clayton, NY was amazing as well but on a dreary 10C day likely not the best for photos. It reminded me of another principle of difference in small museums on this side or the other. Yesterday was family free day. Otherwise we would have had to pay at least $30 USD for us as a family. That ticket price shows up in the quality of the facility and exhibits – you are paying to support not just enter the place. And I now have a keen desire to have a woodstrip sailing canoe from 1910. 250 boats in all including mid 1800’s first nations canoes and dugouts.
  • We then proceeded to hang around the Salmon Run Mall at Watertown, mainly because of the George Rhoads of Ithaca sculpture. Here is a site about his ball-drop clangy pieces. There is a short short movie of the one at the Ithaca Sciencentre here.
  • Got canned Indian pudding, Beal St. BBQ sauces and even oyster chowder at the Hannafords. Nice having a New England grocery store so close by.

You are permitted to use this space for World Cup chat today. Gotta conserve post templates, you know. Only got so many. Big hopes for Serbia v. the Netherlands for a good game.

Friday + Bullet Points = Chat

That is the magic formula, the secret to all idle thought and a crushing blow to economic production. Even though this is the shortest weekend of the year, it is still worth anticipation and therefore chattery:

  • British Columbia is passing an Apology Act. Here is the text in first reading. It is a little wee law that basically says you can say you are sorry for something without that being used against you. It does not mean that you are excused for the thing you are apologizing for but it does also mean the apology in itself does not serve as a GOTCHA! sort of thing. It is an interesting idea as ultimately there is no real barrier to legal action and, frankly, if you do apologize you are still highlighting that there may be a case to be brought against you if someone were to investigate further. But it speaks to civility and also levels the community so that, say, a professional who has done something they are not comfortable with but which is within the realm of normal non-perfection can actually say “Oops” or maybe something even kinder.

  • It’s been a rather adult week around here between applying for a mortgage and growning out my sideburns. I am under orders on the latter point. The trouble is I do not have the most robust near-ear fuzz and what is there is snowy white as is my whole beard now. That is why I shave – to look more 37 rather than 57. But apparently the suggestioning of a mini-moutasche near each of my temples is an important fashion statement so on I go.

  • Speaking of manliness…am I the only one who is noting our new Prime Minister is getting rather large rather quickly? As a fellow traveller in this regard, it concerns. Heaviness especially at pace is not necessarily good for you. I know, I know…but some people actually are saying so. Here is my evidence over time. He has even taken to wearing gut covering vests when he is in the stinking hot jungle while the guys from Texas and Mexico wear thin searsucker. I don’t expect he is a devotee of the beery world so what is he up to? Is he a secret pastries man? A two litre a day of Coke guy? What does a nerdy policy wonk do to get out of shape this fast? But if he wants to do it well, he really should get in touch with me. Two words: boston chocolate.  Again, the man needs my help.

  • Oh, yes. I went on a cable TV splurge just to check it out. Last year, I signed up for a movies/super-station package and got the Friday night Red Sox game. OK, I signed up for the Friday night Red Sox game and happened to get a movies/super-station package. But then the Super station lost the Friday night game rights. What to do? Well, dump the uber-transmissions and get the sports. 1600 baseball games. Seven bucks more. But what about the east coast stations? Nothing like watching Carl Wells on CBC Newfoundland tell about how the Burin is getting battered by storms again this week. One day I fully expect him to have a panicked look mid-hurricane and turn to the camera screaming “SWEET JESUS IN THE MANGER! WE’VE LOST FOGO!!!”. So that’s another seven. Then for another four bucks or so they guy on the phone said – I clearly heard him say this – “we can turn the tap on full.” Best value, too, said he. So now we have 247 channels. Including One, the channel so generically named you can’t find it on Google unless you use the counter-intuitive long form of the name: One – the Body, Mind & Spirit channel. My leafy green consumable and skin balm awareness is expanding as I sit here. I know it is.