Traditions

I know I've written a lot about Christmas thus far... but you best get over it if you're sick of Christmas posts by me, because here's another!

Lately I've been doing the things I do every year the few weeks before Christmas... watching particular movies, listening to certain albums of music, eating certain goodies and decorating. So I wanted to lay out my Christmas traditions I've developed over the years. Some are traditions I've had since I can remember... I've been doing some of them forever. Others are more recent and influenced by the people I've met since high school.

So here goes:

1. The Santa Clause

I've been watching The Santa Clause since I was around 9, or whenever it came out. I even remember seeing it in theatres with my mom and sister. Every single year since, I've watched this movie. I typically watch it with my mom when I'm in Nanaimo. This year I watched it when I was home for the first weekend in December. Last year my mom bought all three movies - I like the other two even though they're super cheesy, but I don't feel the desire to watch them every year like the first. I've always loved Tim Allen, and this movie is just so joyful and sappy and funny! It's one of my favourites Christmas traditions. I also love Bernard!

Scott Calvin discovering he's the new Santa

Good old Bernard from the first movie!

2. Raffi Christmas Album

Ok, this one makes me super lame, but I've always loved Raffi's Christmas album... as a kid, we owned it as a record. A few years later, my mom bought it for me as a CD, and I've been listening to it every year ever since. Yes, I know I'm 24. But it's awesome!

Raffi's Christmas album cover

3. A Christmas Carol

This is my mom's Christmas tradition that has also become my own. I love this movie - it's a serious version of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge is played by George C. Scott. It is just really well done, and has always been something we watch a couple of days before Christmas at home.

Scrooge is such a happy dude when he discovers the joys of Christmas!

The DVD cover of A Christmas Carol

4. The Muppet Christmas Carol

My Mom definitely humours my sister and I when we want to watch this every year... I'm 24, Elyssa's 29, but we watch this every year without fail. Truly, it is amazing! Michael Caine is Scrooge and Kermit the Frog plays Bob Cratchit, and Miss Pippy plays Mrs. Cratchit! Oh it's so awesome. Blake and I have also started watching A Muppet Christmas Carol together every year, as well.

A Muppet Christmas Carol

Michael Caine discovering the true meaning of Christmas!

5. Elf

Although Elf is a relatively new tradition of mine, it's certainly one that will continue to be a holiday favourite for years to come. This movie cheers me up, it makes me happy... And it has so many good quotes... I like Will Ferrell, but in a lot of his movies he's just ridiculously silly... but I just love him as Elf. The entire movie is just so adorable! In fact, I typically watch Elf more than once per Christmas season... this year I've watched it twice! In 2007 I think I may have watched it like 5 or 6 times with various people. My Mom can't stand Will Ferrell, so it's not one of the movies we watch at home every year.

The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear!

Elf DVD cover

Will Ferrell as Elf

6. A Charlie Brown Christmas & A Charlie Brown Christmas Album

This again, is a more recent holiday tradition, as I only actually watched A Charlie Brown Christmas for the first time in 2006, I think. It was actually my roommate of the time, Alison, along with having worked at Starbucks, that introduced me to the joys of both the movie and the album. I love the movie, but I must say that I prefer the album. I'm a big fan of that kind of jazz, and I listen to the music pretty much all December long every year.

The end of the movie, singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

Picking out the tree

Charlie Brown Christmas Album by Vince Guaraldi Trio

7. It's A Wonderful Life

Again, this is a more recent holiday tradition. I only started to appreciate this movie a couple of years ago, but since I have, I watch it with my mom every year. I don't particularly like old, black and white films, but I quite like James Stewart, and there's just something about this movie that I really like. The majority of it is so sad... poor George Bailey just can't catch a break. He wants to get out of his "crummy little town", go off traveling, go to school. His father dies, though, and he has to take over the business (a small credit and loan company), so that the evil Mr. Potter doesn't take over the company and completely ruin the whole town. The whole movie he's selfless and always does things for others, never thinking of himself. He marries and has Children but all the time resents the town, his family and his life because he just wanted out of town. Finally, his uncle thinks he's misplaced $8,000, which at that time I imagine was a huge chunk of change. His Uncle actually accidentally passes the money to the evil dude Mr. Potter, who keeps the money and then threatens to have George Bailey charged with fraud... George believes that he's worth more dead than alive because of his life insurance, and is about to kill himself when his Guardian Angel comes in to save the day. He then shows George what life would be like if he were never born... his brother would've died as a young child because George wouldn't have been there to rescue him from drowning when he fell through the ice of a lake, his wife had never married and was an old maid, and the entire town is miserable, and owned by Mr. Potter. Anyway, finally, at the end he just wants to be alive again, and goes back to his family, where his wife had found out what happened with the money, and gathered everyone from the town, everyone George Bailey had ever helped when they were in need, and they all pitched in and made up the money that he had lost. Finally at the end, a bell on the tree rings and George knows that his Guardian Angel finally got the wings he had always been wanting!

The whole movie is about Karma - When George selflessly does everything he can to help his town without asking anything in return. In the end, the town was there for him when he needed them... It without fail, makes me cry every time I watch it!

George Bailey with his family

Clarence, the Guardian Angel

Potter, the not-so-nice business man of the town.

That concludes the holiday traditions I watch and listen to... I have far more traditions in terms of things I eat and do and drink... Like, for instance, my mom always buys crackers and cheese and we nom on those on Christmas Eve or New Years Eve. We used to eat tons of really fatty foods, like Jalapeno Poppers and Mozzarella Sticks... but that ended when we all realized that they were 1) disgusting and 2) going to make us all super super fat if we didn't stop! My mom also buys chipotle dip and salsa from Delicado's with chips, we make quesadillas, or nachos... of course, I won't be able to eat many of the things I normally love because my health sadly won't allow it this year... I just hope I'll at least be able to have a normal Christmas dinner this year.

Carla and I are always in Nanaimo for Christmas, and we always used to eat a ridiculous amount of nachos and drink wine... ahh the good times! Maybe one day again, we can do that!

My mom also always used to make butter tarts, shortbread cookies and sugar cookies... but she stopped in light of again, not wanting to be super fat! But I still love shortbread cookies... and I want to make some but feel like I'm too lazy/busy to make them this year. Also it's not good for me. Ah well.

Anyway, this concludes my post on holiday traditions! I encourage all of you to write a similar post, telling us what you do every year to make Christmas special!

My happiness is...

In response to Carla's blog post: Top 5 and A Half Things That Make Me Happy , I've decided to write a list of my own sources of happiness.

1. Tea!

A few years ago, I made a somewhat official switch from coffee to tea. Not because I no longer enjoyed coffee, but mostly out of necessity. But tea became my new warm drink of choice! I discovered shortly that it would also become the most soothing, comforting, warming drink too! Now I'm thinking back to when I was a teenager, I remember having aspirations to open a Tea House then, too... So I must've liked tea in high school too, I just don't remember drinking that much of it. Certainly when I was little I drank a lot of tea. My parents would make us Earl Grey and I would drink it in actual little teacups with saucers... I can't imagine that much caffeine being good for a nine year old, but whatever... Now that I'm older, I love all tea. I have a huge collection of bagged tea, loose leaf and accessories.

Recently, over breakfast at the Naam, I was having a little pot of tea, and along with speaking about tea, we somehow were talking about the little birds that would periodically find their way into the heated outdoor patio. We were saying how intense the heat lamps look and how we sincerely hoped no little birds ever flew into them. And I said, "because then they would have some bird casualties!". Then Carla got this bright-eyed look on her face and said "Casualty! but CasualTEA! the name of a tea house we should start!"

The bottom half of my You Complete!

Doesn't this look delicious?

The Libre glass tea tumbler.

I DO love tea!

I also love my Libre Tea tumbler. It's plastic on the outside, glass on the inside, has a filter for loose leaf, this pretty metallic design on the lid and because it's clear, you can see your pretty tea steepin' away!

For one of my design projects, I have to make a mock website with 4 pages - home plus three subsequent ones... I think I may make it an actual, live website though. I need the practise. Anyway, I've chosen to take CasualTEA and turn it into a mock tea shop! That's what the top photo is for. I took my "You Complete!" and took photos of it from all different angles, to be later photoshopped into some sort of background or banner.

2. Christmas!

I can't make a "things that make me happy" post a few weeks before Christmas without actually mentioning Christmas. I've always loved Christmas, since I was little. It's just so... magical. And that love hasn't waned since that time. It's not so much the presents I love, I mean, I do like that part, but I more enjoy the spirit of Christmas. The feeling and the traditions, the music and decorations, the food! The music & movies I watch every year, the baking, the foods we make before Christmas, after Christmas and of course on Christmas! How my mom always decorates for Christmas right at the beginning of December and get a tree a week before - and since she bought this house, and has such high ceilings, she always buys huge trees! Now, Blake and I have started our own Holiday traditions. Next weekend we're going to buy our tree, and it'll be the third year we go to this tree lot, run by the Lions Club at Fraser and 41st. They have all sized trees, and all different types! Both of the last years it happened to be snowing while we went, too.

Tree-topper Angel that sits on my desk.

Yoshi chillin' with the Christmas mice.

Little Laura mitten Shanna made me.

Mine and Blake's Shortbread cookies, Christmas 2009

3. La Neige!

We all know that I love snow and that Genine hates snow. This is nothing new. I feel little elaboration is necessary here, as I've talked about snow a lot recently... And posted many snow pictures a few posts ago! I just felt it was worth mentioning! Because... J'adore la neige!

4. Kitties! - Well, animals in general.

I absolutely love animals. I've always liked animals, even though I didn't grow up with many pets. I sort of had a pet - Grosnounour. He was my grandma's, but because I spent so much time there before and after school, I felt he was also my cat. He was big and lazy and so sweet and gentle! He died when I was 12, I still miss him! Anyway, ever since I've been wanting a kitty, I've been loving animals more and more... I'm pretty sure I have Kitty Fever! I'm also sure that actually having will make me even more happy about kitties!

Blake and I might be moving to a new apartment in February - a place that allows kitties! Blake love kitties just as much, if not more, than me.

I have a folder on my computer called "cats from the internet" and it is all pictures of well, cats from the internet! The cutest, funniest kitties that I saw either on reddit, or lolcats, or wherever!

Dobby Kitteh.

I intensely want all of them.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Lobster Kitteh.

5. FOOD!
Why of course food would be one of the my favourite things! It always has! I've made it somewhat my goal now to create recipes of good foods and take beautiful photos. I don't always like food... mostly because it doesn't always like me... Quite often, food hates me with a fiery vengeance... So that's when I take a break from it and drink Ensure! But when food is nice, I love it.

Carla and I, however, have kind of evolved together since high school in terms of food... we used to eat ridiculously large meals, not knowing when to stop, until it made us sick. Nachos, pasta, garlic bread, pizza, with beer, wine, rum! Now, we are on a mission to eat better. But we still love food. We're just trying to appreciate good foods as much as the bad ones!

I would post pictures of all the foods I've taken photos of... but I have tons of photos in other posts, and will have more in the future.

6. New Media Design & Web Development, Photography & my Nikon!

I love my new program. It makes me so happy. I'm so excited about it! I love going to class in the morning (for the most part!), I actually enjoy doing homework, and networking with my classmates and getting to know them. I love where this program is taking me. In less than a year, I will be a full fledged Web Designer. Apparently, according to the instructors, we will even be experts in the field! Crazy! I've ever learned enough to create a pretty basic but very modern and nice website. Actually, I have to buy myself a Domain before Tuesday, and by the end of the term (in mid-January) I will have a website!

Me, my Nikon and my new sweet hat!

7. Finally, my friends!

My friends and Blake make me happy. They keep me sane. This is pretty much the cheesiest part of the post, but I can't deny its truthfulness! I'm so happy to be living with Blake, and I'm grateful for people like Carla, Genine, Karmyn and Alexis. It's unfortunate, though because Genine is far, far away! Aren't you, dude? I haven't seen you in over 6 months now! Alexis, too, is even further away, spending half a year or so in Europe. She's off studying French in France, and then she'll be traveling to Spain, southern France, and Eastern Europe. Karmyn is insanely busy with schoolwork, too, plus she's in Nanaimo and I only get to see her for dinner or tea once in a while. Carla is the only one I get to see regularly and even she is often busy! Well, we both are... busy with work and school, living in Langley and Vancouver!

Left-to-Right: Genine, Karmyn, Laura and Carla

Left-to-Right: Laura, Erika, Karmyn and Trevor

Blake and myself

A big shoutout to Carla!

Hello all!

Today is a special day for all the world... well, some of the world. It's Carla's birthday! Happy Birthday to my best bud! You can all check out her blog here! If you want.

That is all.

It's coming on Christmas

So today we went and got the Christmas bins from the storage locker in the basement and I put up some decorations. There are 3 boxes of decorations, 2 of which are lights and ornaments for the tree that we don't yet have. So there are only a few things put up. A light up angel, a big Santa, a Nutcracker, a couple of stockings and a centre piece on the coffee table with candles and garland.

I love Christmas. A lot. Always have. My mom made it so special for us growing up - she was so into it. A couple of years ago she painted her giant living room, which has 11 foot ceilings, a really nice dark red, and put in hardwood floors. So whenever she decorates, the entire room becomes so festive. And because she has such a high ceiling, we always pick out a huge tree - sometimes up to 8 feet tall. In recent years she's wanted smaller trees. I think she thinks that since Elyssa and I are old now that we aren't as into it, but we are! I'm super into it. I can't wait to get a tree. This coming weekend I'm going to Nanaimo and going to help decorate my mom's house. Blake and I are going to get a tree in a couple of weeks from the Lions Club. They set up at Fraser and 41st in a highschool's yard. We discovered it while we were living just off Fraser and 45th. We got a tiny little tree for his basement suite - It was very Charlie Brown Christmas tree, we named it Buddy. And after buying the tree we proceeded to this Thrift store where they were selling ornaments for like 10-25 cents a piece, and strands of lights for a buck or two... Unsurprisingly, few of the strands we bought actually worked.

Last year my mom came over for an Alan Jackson concert out in Abbotsford... Oh mom. I stayed at Carla's out in Langley and the day after she came to pick me up and we went for lunch at the Olive Garden, which was tasty! But in all honesty, NO one needs endless soup, salad and breadsticks. It's highly unnecessary. After lunch, we went to Willowbrook and she bought me all these Christmas decorations - she said that when she first had my sister and I, she started collectings tons of decorations and has a really nice collection now, and that she was starting my collection.

I just hope it snows around Christmas, so I can have a white one! I grew up on the west coast and have so seldom had White Christmases!

Anyway, here are a couple of my decorations: The light up Angel, and the Yoshis, chillin' with the baker mice, no big deal.

Snowy Gastown

A couple of posts ago I posted old snow pictures that I had taken with my old camera. But now, I have DSLR snow pictures!

I walked to school this morning, basically. I didn't intend to, I took the bus to the skytrain, and upon getting to the platform, realized how ridiculous my commute to school would be were I to take the train. My instincts were correct, too, because others in my class who came to class on the Canada Line arrived between 1-3 hours late! Well, they were from Richmond, so I probably wouldn't have been terribly late... But I wanted to walk in the snow!

At lunch I wandered down to Gastown to take some shots. It was awesome. While I was down there it turned to rain so I meandered back to class where it was dry and warm!

See the rest on my Flickr account . I will post some more once I've colour corrected and edited more of them! But for now it's very much my bed time!

My omelette, I love it!

This post is going to be mainly just a recipe. I love eggs, and truth be told, I'm really good at making them. My specialty lies in either scrambled or in omelette form. I also love a leisurely Sunday morning for omelettes, and possibly bacon. So, I give you, my omelette:

Olive oil - for frying vegetables and eggs.
4 large eggs
1/4 medium red onion - diced
1/4 red pepper - diced
handful black olives - pitted & sliced
spinach (optional)
one clove garlic (minced) (optional)
cheese - cheddar, havarti, swiss, mozza, monterey jack, almost any cheese will do! depends on the taste you're going for. I usually use grated cheddar or sliced havarti.
dried basil & oregano, or an italian seasoning mix
salt & pepper

1. First, heat a non-stick frying pan on medium and add olive oil. About a teaspoon is enough, but feel free to add more. Saute the onion, red pepper and garlic until onion is translucent and all are browning.

2. Prepare the eggs in a bowl. Crack them into the bowl and add a pinch each of dried basil and dried oregano, or Italian seasoning, and salt & pepper. Whisk eggs and seasonings with fork thoroughly. Remove vegetables from frying pan and set aside.

3. Pour egg mixture into the same heated frying pan. Add a bit more olive oil if the vegetables have soaked most of it up, if not then the original amount of oil should be sufficient. It really depends on the frying pan and stove...

4. Make sure the egg mixture is evenly distributed over the pan for even cooking. Also make sure the pan is at a medium temperature so that the bottom does not burn. Let the eggs cook to a point where the top of the eggs don't "wiggle" very much when you shake the frying pan. Then add an even layer of cheese over the eggs, about half an inch from the edge. I like a lot of cheese, so I usually put a fairly thick layer of cheese.

5. Once cheese is laid on the eggs, add the vegetables - the sauteed onion, red pepper, garlic, then the black olives and spinach. Make sure to only place the vegetables on one half of the omelette.

6. Once you're sure the omelette is cooked all the way through (that there is no more "wiggling" egg whites!), fold the side of the omelette with no vegetables over the vegetable half. Let the cheese from each side melt together for a minute or so, flip if you feel the need, and then remove from pan. Sprinkle with more cheese, salt or pepper, if you desire and serve! Yum!

I love snow!

I'm sitting in my apartment, it's 10:15pm and I have the blinds fully open onto the alley, watching the snow falling under the street lamp.

I grew up on the west coast, I'm used to rain, not snow. Growing up, I would wait impatiently for snow, and get really upset and disappointed when the Weather Network would "lie" to me about snow in the forecast. The disappointment in a lack of snow would double if it were christmas morning and I was hoping so much for a white christmas! Alas, it rarely happens. But maybe this year! Two years ago I had a white Christmas, the first I'd had in a long, long time. Anyway, that's basically it, I love snow, and it's snowing! I hope it sticks! So far it's sort of sticking to the dumpster - Of course, that's the only thing I can really see from my viewpoint, seeing as I face the alley... The dumpster and the bare back of Toys R Us, which has had graffiti painted over multiple times... This year, now that I have my DSLR, I hope to get some really nice snow shots. I have these from my little point and shoot:

These were from Winter of 2008, before I went to Ireland and when Blake lived at Main and 41st. These are at his place.

The following are from when I was living in residence at SFU. I loved my time there, especially when it would snow so much that the entire school would shut down, and we'd get stranded! The buses would stop running, and we'd be stuck. The beauty about SFU being on a mountain is that there are tons of hills to go sledding... And one of my favourite things to do when I stayed up ridiculously late was to go for walks around campus, and this of course was especially awesome in the snow.

J'adore la neige! Isn't that right, Genine? Do you not agree??? Mais non, je sais, tu deteste la neige...

Anyway, I will be posting more about food, soon. Especially if I can start eating full meals again soon...

On a side note, Arrested Development is on one of the really high-up channels on shaw, and it's reminding me of just how much I love this show!

Anyong!

For us, food is tradition.

Oh hai!

It's time for another food update. Today the topic will be pizza. I love pizza, but it does not love me. But I've found that if you do the pizza a certain way, then it works out! The trick is to get the right ingredients and make it light. And also fresh!

Carla, my best bud, and myself, we have been friends since high school, and since grade 12, we've been getting together with the purpose of eating. In grade 12, I used to make her wraps for lunch at school because she'd always be running late for school and not make one! She's deemed me the food fairy for a long time, now. She has a vlog about life and its craziness, and if anyone is interested, this is the link!

For years we'd get together to eat big, heavy, unhealthy meals. Our favourite was nachos! Nachos with green onion, black olive, tomato, lotsa cheese, chipotle dip and sour cream! Either made at home, or out at Moxie's or something. Occasionally I'd make my "Laura-tastic pasta", which involved linguini, onion, garlic, red pepper, sun dried tomato, half and half cream and a whole lot of parmesan. Usually with garlic bread, and occasionally with home made caesar dressing and croutons on a caesar. It was delicious but so unhealthy!

I discovered this pizza in Ireland when I was living there. One of my friends/brief roommate (or flat-mate, as the Irish/Brits like to call it!) introduced us all to this recipe, as she had made it previously. She was from Texas and liked to say "y'all" a lot. The Irish didn't really understand her, it was funny. Anyway, I suppose this pizza isn't terribly healthy either, but it's a hell of a lot lighter than nachos or "Laura-tastic pasta" and after eating it, we don't end up feeling disgustingly full.

So here we go - Naan bread pizza with pesto, pear and brie cheese! Mmm!

It's simple really... just buy some:
(Serves 2)

Naan or pita bread, preferably whole wheat - 2 pitas/Naan
Basil pesto - approx. 200 grams
1-2 d'Anjou pears
Brie cheese - the stronger tasting, the better - a large triangle piece or half a small round wheel.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lay Naan or pita bread on a large cookie sheet, and then spread the pesto on the bread. You'll want a decent amount of pesto because some will dry up in the oven, but not so much that it overpowers the pear and brie. Then slice the pear into thin strips, leaving the skin on, and lay the strips on the Naan/pita. You don't have to cover the pizza in pear, there can be gaps! And finally, cut slices of brie and lay it on the pear. Here you don't need to cover the pizza with cheese because when the brie melts it spreads, and it can often be overpowering if overdone. So what I usually do is lay one slice of brie per strip of pear. Then place in oven and cook for 10-15 minutes. But be attentive to the pizza, it cooks really quickly. It'll be done when the brie has melted and started to bubble around the edges, and the pear's skin has gone brown. Then serve!

We used to get our ingredients for this pizza just at any old grocery store or market, but recently I've started making pointed trips to Granville Island when I know we're going to be making this recipe, because the Naan/pita (sometimes I can't find Naan there so I go for pita) is local, the pesto is freshly made at this Italian deli, I'm not too sure where the pears come from... and the Brie I always get is from Comox on Vancouver Island! I just find it tastes better that way. Anyway, here are pictures!

Test Blog!

So this blog is simply to test if I connected my Blogger account to my Twitter successfully!

So testing, testing!

Fresh is Best

There's this salsa company based out of Kamloops called Fresh is Best that makes salsas, nacho chips, guacamole and a garlic spinach dip. They sell their products at certain places throughout BC. They have this little store on Broadway near MacDonald in Vancouver that sells all of their products, and places like Save on Foods and Whole Foods carry their chips. They are so delicious. The chips are always so light and crispy, and their dips taste as if they're made with the freshest of ingredients. My boyfriend is originally from Kamloops, and his mom introduced us to the garlic spinach dip over a year ago. Coincidentally my mom discovered the nacho chips in Nanaimo, and introduced me to those. They have a website here .

This past weekend I ate out quite a bit. On Saturday afternoon, some friends and myself went to The Foundation on Main and East 7th. It's this total hipster restaurant with 70s furniture, jam jars as glasses, and sort of crappy service. But the food is great. The menu is odd... It really takes you a while to decipher what the items are. It's difficult to describe what I mean, but if you ever go there, you'll immediately know what I mean. I had a spinach-chickpea salad in a sesame dressing. It was called Goman Salad - once I started eating the salad I realized that it was named after Spinach Gomae at Japanese restaurants as it tasted almost identical. I also had a carrot, yam and ginger soup.

Saturday evening I had my first concert as a violinist with the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, and it went wonderfully! Afterwards, a few friends and myself went to Earls for a late night appetizer/drink/dessert. I had these two mini flour tortilla chicken tacos, with lettuce, avocado and this hot sauce. I also had a martini and shared a vanilla gelato sundae with Carla.

Sunday morning, Carla and I went to The Naam on West 4th and MacDonald. We aimed to go for breakfast because we really felt like eggs! She and I had been meaning to go to The Naam for a long time - I had been a couple of times for lunch, and she had never been at all. It's quite a famous Vancouver restaurant, notorious for its vegetarian menu, its poor service and the fact that it's open 24 hours for those cram-studying UBC students. We both had the special, which was scrambled eggs with cheese, mushrooms, zucchini, red pepper, onion and parsley. It came with a slice of baked-in-house multigrain bread, home-made raspberry jam, and little square potatoes fried with green onion and parsley. I also asked for a side of peanut butter and found out that even their peanut butter is made in house. I also had a small pot of "Catnap" relaxation tea, where the tea blends are made in house, also.

Today, after class, I met Carla again for lunch downtown at a little soup, sandwich, salad and hot meal place called The Dish, on Davie near Burrard. I had a simple turkey sandwich. It had real sliced turkey, mayo, lettuce, cucumber, tomato and a wonderful cranberry-pear chutney.

Let's review all of these places so I can demonstrate why Fresh is in fact, Best!

• The Foundation - Goman Salad & Carrot, Yam and Ginger soup - $11.50
• The Naam - Breakfast special and a small pot of tea - $11
• The Dish - Turkey sandwich - $6.25
• Earls - Chicken taco appetizer, martini ($1 off special) - $16.60

The three first are all single-location restaurants, and they all focus on creating foods with in-house made, fresh ingredients. All three of the first serve decent portions, at reasonable prices. After having eaten at the Foundation, Naam and Dish, I felt really well. I felt little to no pain from what I ate, and also felt energized, and even if I was full, it wasn't the uncomfortable, painful kind. 

Earls, however, was the most expensive, had the smallest portion of food, had foods that were I'm sure, mostly shipped in or frozen, and ended up hurting me so much I woke in the middle of the night from the pain. 

I'm finding this pattern more and more as I eat... the fresher the foods, the more simple and natural the ingredients, the better it is for me. Not only that, but places like Earls, Cactus Club, Moxie's, Milestones, etc. all have really pricey menus and small portions. As franchises, they need to have consistent recipes for their menus, so that means that everything is pre-prepared at a different location, and that the cooks in the kitchen make the food via a very strict formula - meaning that they're usually not necessarily trained cooks, and generally, they don't give a shit about what they're doing... Whereas in the small, single-location restaurants, everything is made on site, by trained cooks who, for the most part, generally care and take pride in what they're doing. I myself have worked in the food industry for quite a few years, in places where all the food is made on site. One place I was the main cook, and I used to create recipes and would do all the prep and a lot of the cooking, and I took so much pride in that food, and made sure that what I prepared was as fresh and delicious as it could be!

... So, all-in-all, I think we can now see that Fresh is Best! I apologize to Elijah, as he has to read these long posts for class... Sorry!

Until next time!

Quinoa and Concertos

So tomorrow is the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra's first concert of the season. Tonight we had a dress rehearsal for it. We did a run through of everything we're going to play, and we played the trumpet concerto with the trumpet soloist for the first time. It's amazing how the acoustics change when you're in the 25-foot ceilinged chapel of a church versus the church's little side hall. All of a sudden, the out of tune passages become much more apparent...

So that covers the "Concertos" part of the title, and now I will enlighten those lucky individuals reading this about the joys of quinoa. 

I discovered quinoa in the summer when my sister was here visiting. I always knew vaguely about it because I used to work at Whole Foods, which of course, is packed full of natural and organic foods, so quinoa was a big thing there. I had never really tried it, though. Then one of my sister's friend brought this delicious quinoa salad. I've altered the recipe to my particular tastes and now I make big batches of quinoa in various forms with various ingredients about once a week now. Quinoa is hard to explain, because it's not really a grain, and not a vegetable, but technically a seed, I believe. Here is more information.

The quinoa recipe I wish to share is a Greek Quinoa Salad.

What you need for the salad:

1 cup of quinoa

1/4 of a large red onion, diced

1/2 a large red pepper, diced

1/2-2/3 large cucumber, quartered and sliced

1/2 can of chick peas 

approx. a dozen kalamata or black olives, pitted and sliced

feta cheese - crumbled

approx. 8-10 leaves of fresh basil

For the dressing:

juice of half a lemon, squeezed

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp of Dijon mustard

1 large or 2 small cloves garlic, minced or pressed

a pinch of dried herbs such as oregano, basil, thyme, and/or dill

salt and pepper to taste

So for the quinoa, it's made a lot like rice - so bring 2 cups water and 1 cup quinoa to a boil and then simmer on medium-low for about 20 minutes. It should be fragrant and look fluffy when it's ready. It should have also soaked up all the water in the pot. Set the quinoa aside when it's ready and let it cool.

Once cooled, combine the quinoa with the red onion, red pepper, cucumber, chick peas, olives, fresh basil and feta cheese in a large bowl and mix well. 

In a bowl or measuring cup combine all of the dressing ingredients and stir or whisk well. Add dressing to bowl and mix again! Give the salad and the dressing little tastes along the way and add or alter the ingredients to your tastes as you go!

Anyway, that's a sufficiently long post, so I will end it at that! 

The Purple Onion Revolution

Hello world... Or rather, those few people who will ever read this.

I'm starting this blog as a sort of combined food and recipe blog, photography blog and general life blog! I will intermittently post recipes of dishes I've made along with pretty pictures of the food. I also live in one of the most beautiful areas in the world, so I will sometimes post pictures of Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

I'm currently entering a new phase in life... I've just started school in New Media Design & Web Development at BCIT. Prior to this, I kind of didn't have any idea what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I wanted to do something that I enjoyed, that also earned me a comfortable living. I also spent most of this year sick. I only started feeling well enough to once again be a functional member of society in mid-August. So that, and other factors (such as the aforementioned wanting to do something), led to me sort of spontaneously signing up for this program. I just decided one day I was just so sick of not having a real job and few prospects to get one. Along with school, I just started playing in the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra as a violinist. It's a lot of fun, and it's just so nice to be playing again, since I spent the majority of my youth playing - to the point where violin took priority of high school. I travelled with my violin, I played in orchestras and groups for years, ensembles, and performed as a soloist. I missed it quite a lot, and decided to join so I could play once more!

I had taken Photoshop at BCIT a year earlier, and I really enjoyed that. I also bought a Nikon D3000 on my birthday in March. So now I am combining my photoshop and photography interests with my food and cooking interests. Enter blog!

I would also like to mention briefly the "revolution" part of my blog's name. I am realizing more and more what my body needs in order to feel well - and the biggest aspect of that part of my health lies in what I consume. Like I said, I spent most of 2010 really sick... (Crohn's Disease...) And now I'm feeling better, I feel as though my perspective on my health and my environment have changed. So I'm in the process of trying to do what I can to feel better by eating as naturally and as well as I can. Not necessarily organically, but certainly naturally. Eating organically may come, but it's quite a lot more expensive and I frankly don't have the money for that yet.

So long story short, I'm going through my own personal little "food revolution". That's what Carla and I have started calling it, anyway. She's discovering similar things, about portion sizes and foods that are just not good for us. I grew up loving food, and eating more than my body required. I was never fat because of this, but certainly felt like I could use to lose some weight. But mostly, I never felt well. And I got used to that. I didn't care and came to expect the pain. That's how it was: Eat a big, heavy and unhealthy meal, and then suffer because of it. But I was so used to it that I never stepped back to realize just how stupid it is. If there's a way I can prevent feeling that way, I'm going to try! I'm now consciously aware of every meal and I try to stop myself when I know that eating any more will end up hurting. I also, sadly, barely drink any more. Not like I was ever a big drinker, but I certainly enjoy alcohol and savouring it. So that's another huge change. I never have more than one drink at a time anymore, or I just "mooch" off others and don't have my own at all.

Anyway, that's generally what I'm looking to do with this blog. Share my pictures, share my recipes of foods that I find particularly delicious or healthy, and just general life updates!

Before I finish this post, I want to share a photo of the dinner I ate tonight. I didn't make it, but wanted to share it anyway. It's a tortellini-type pasta (but huge tortellini), that I got at Granville Island at the little Italian deli called Duso's. They're based in Langley, I believe. The tortellini is hand-made, and I bought two types: one is stuffed with Gorgonzola cheese and walnut, and the other is Brie, apple and caramelized onion. I tossed the pasta in a Cilantro pesto I bought at Whole Foods. The pesto is also local - from Victoria, by a company called Golda's. And then I sprinkled some parmesan cheese on it! It was all local and super delicious!