Just a little something I whipped up

Yay for weekends, they generally don't disappoint. Mine started off very nicely catching up with a friend, eating delicious falafel at a new middle eastern restaurant near my apartment and then heading up to the Mile End to be introduced to a bar I hadn't been to before. It was great, really nice decor, excellent music, and we got there just at the right time, getting a table before the hordes descended. I am in love with the service you get here. Generally bars have table service (and they come often to make sure you have enough to drink/have a clean table etc) and they seem to just trust that you'll pay up before you leave.

I wanted a white wine so I asked the barman for a dry white and he suggested a Riesling. I wasn't so sure about this, and I voiced as much, so he said something to me that I didn't quite catch before walking off. My friend didn't catch what he said either, so I just assumed that I'd pissed him off or something. But no, he returned seconds later with three bottles of wine and three glasses to let me taste the white wines they had on offer! Can you imagine this happening in a pub in Perth? I ended up choosing the Australian wine strangely enough, my palate must be biased.

The place soon became packed with people, quite a few interesting looking one that kept us entertained. One guy in particular kept grabbing my attention because he was the spitting image of the driving instructor in Happy Go Lucky, though fortunately did not seem to have his personality.

Saturday was spent in more domestic pursuits, baking for the big birthday party on Sunday. I think I ended up spending 8 hours or so pottering around in the kitchen, more time than really necessary due to the fact that I hadn't baked in my kitchen or using my oven before, plus was using new cake recipes. A recipe for disaster perhaps? Ho ho. The first new cake recipe I used was really not up to scratch and I was unhappy with the results so I busted out another using a different recipe which turned out beautifully! Unfortunately this recipe produced so much batter that I had to make it in a big soup pot as my kitchen is somewhat bowl deficient. The upside of the amount of batter meant that there was enough left over for muffins, much to the joy of my housemate.

The result of Saturday was therefore 3 cakes (one subpar and not to be used), 9 chocolate muffins with Oh Henry!s hidden in the middle (they are kind of like Picnics), 9 vanilla muffins with M&Ms and chocolate covered sultanas hidden in the middle with cinnamon icing, and 15 M&Ms mini vanilla muffins.


And here's a bonus shot of the rainbow mix in the tin because it seems to interest people!


The fun bit came the next day when I got to assemble and decorate the cake. Doing this at my place and then carrying it to party central seemed fraught with danger so I took all the bits and pieces with me to their place and did it there. Walking through the city with a big bag of groceries over each shoulder, bags of cake in each hand and three containers of muffins was a little tiring but given the amount of tasting I did the previous night it was probably for the best.

Here is part of the assembly:


and then I started to stress out a bit because I didn't think I'd get it done in time so I stopped taking photos. So, here's the finished product:


and the most exciting part, revealing the inner secrets:


I had a great time at the party, and got to meet quite a number of Karyne's family, who were all lovely people, and who have insisted that I spend Christmas with them. I think that a good old Aussie trifle will have to be made for the occasion. Mmmm jelly.

Myriam also seemed to enjoy herself which is the main thing, and of course by the end of the day had an impressive pile of gifts. Her favourite seems to be one of those tablet things that you draw on with a stylus and then can erase by sliding the knob across. Like an etch-a-sketch but with a stylus. She might graduate to the etch-a-sketch by next birthday.

(Kelly, don't read this next bit)
In other non-cake news, I seem to have bought tickets to see Madonna tomorrow night!!! So exciting. I've had Madonna songs in my head all week as I've been trawling ebay and craigslist for tickets. I am a walking Madonna megamix at the moment. I can only hope she doesn't let the whole impending divorce thing get in the way, but she doesn't seem like the kind of person to let a little thing like a personal life to get in the way of business.

'tis getting colder still here, and my super-dodgy forecastfox is telling me that tomorrow will bring "a morning rain or snow shower". Perhaps Madonna will bring snow with her, like it is snowing in her heart right now...

Autumn!

We went for a walk up "the mountain" last Sunday and were rewarded for our efforts with this view. We were hoping to be rewarded with pizza but it wasn't to be.

I had another success last night with meeting strangers off the internet. I joined the Meetup group called "Cheap Ethnic Eatz" and was able to look past the z and go to a vietnamese restaurant with them last night. I had a really good time, and it wasn't all due to the absolutely amazing fried ice cream. Goddamn, it was good. Like a big giant icecream wonton, smothered in orange syrup. A wonton suzette. Unfortunately this restaurant is about a 5 minute walk from my apartment so I am hoping the fried icecream won't be calling to me in my vulnerable hours.

I also joined the Aussies in Montreal meetup group and will be enjoying a beverage (possibly Fosters, hopefully Coopers) with them next Saturday. Apparently the night will involve trivia and a raffle, so fingers crossed I can pick myself up a nice meat tray or a jar of Vegemite.

Anyway, speaking of Aussies, I had best document my weekend in Kingston over the Grand Final weekend (coincidentally it was also the Queens University homecoming weekend which apparently is the biggest busiest weekend of the year). It is already a bit of a blurry memory, which is everything to do with the 3 weeks that have passed and nothing to do with the amount of alcohol consumed. The grand final actually started around 12:30am or so Fri night/Sat morn and conveniently was shown on Jona's cable so we didn't have to squint at the little screen with no sound at the Irish pub we frequented before the game started. We tried to get the Festival of the Boot going online but JJJ decided for some reason not to play it live online this year and we were stuck with Bruce and Dennis.

Fosters was drunk, I will admit. Many many anzac biscuits were consumed however (we had a drinking game style thing going for a while where you had to eat a biscuit if your team got a goal but it was an unsustainable endeavour) which I think makes up for the Fosters embarrassment. The cans of Fosters are actually something like 750mL which is ridiculous, it's bad enough drinking 375mL from a can let alone a longneck's worth of beer.

Of course the next day got off to a bit of a seedy start but this was soon sorted out with a massively calorie dense fryup breakfast and a mad run through the city to get down to catch a boat which we missed by 10 minutes. Yes, nothing like a huge feast followed immediately by a crazed run to sort out a hangover. After checking out the nearby ChiliFest we managed to get on the next boat and had a glorious cold, wet journey through Lake Ontario, resisting the urge to get a hotdog just to see how bad they really were (plus we had coupons for a free postmix drink with any hotdog purchase!). Throughout the trip they played a recording telling you about the sights, which involved a woman telling you things and a Scottish man interjecting (he was apparently the ghost of some historically significant man, and judging from his voice was related to Sean Connery). Oh the witty repartee, it was all I could do to stop flinging myself over the rail, grabbing a hotdog on the way.

After the trip we walked through ChiliFest again, thinking it was some magical festival where you walk around getting free food. We lined up and were given some corn chips and asked for our cups, only to realise that you are given the cups for the chilli when you pay at the front gate. We showed them though - we didn't pay and we kept the free corn chips! Ate them all! It was actually a charity event though so the only people that suffered from our stinginess is the war orphans or whoever it was.

The hours to come involved drinking giant coffees, eating our weight in delicious Greek food, and then getting stuck into the crazy party night of Queens Homecoming Saturday night.

I'm quite fond of this photo, what with the "No man, seriously, I love you!" guy and the brainsucking hand of the guy to the right. Actually, both of these guys are dressed the same...maybe they are the same guy?!?!!!

In a nutshell, it was a mad mad night of thousands of drunk hooligans roaming the streets. I have never seen so many police in my life, it was nuts. My shoes were filthy by the end of the night, I'm not sure why though, possibly it was just the filth of youth. Fun was had into the wee hours, then sleep called as I was all too aware of the train trip home I had to make the next day.

So all in all it was a most enjoyable weekend and I am very grateful to my gracious host, thanks Jona, the boat trip wasn't all that bad ;)

I'm partying it up BIG TIME this weekend with Myriam's 2nd birthday party, man it's going to be wild! As many artificial colours as the eye can see, enough tea to knock you out. Actually I'm in charge of making the birthday cake and I'm quite looking forward to my first foray into cake decorating. If all goes according to plan I will be posting photos of an amazing cake and a very happy 2 year old in a few days. If not then there are lots of good boulangeries/pattiseries around these parts so I could always cheat (oh but you know I won't).

Oh, and one last thing, Australia was in the news here today as there was such a pissweak turnout in the federal election here on Tuesday that there are talks of bringing in compulsory voting. John Howard was in the news lately too as apparently Harper (the PM here) ripped off some of one of his speeches, nice taste there Harper. Anyway Harper is still the PM but I'm glad the election is finally over so I'm not constantly having to avoid eye-height cable ties holding election signs to poles. Some of the graffiti on the signs was funny though. Oh, speaking of graffiti, here's a nice picture to bid you adieu

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Just to let you know I've changed the settings so anyone can post comments as I need to store them up for the cold winter ahead. Hopefully this won't attract unsavoury types (actually, that's an odd saying...surely an unsavoury person is sweet?)

Cor blimey it's cold!

Right then, autumn is here. And it's colder than a Perth winter. Not all that surprising really, but still a bit of a shock to the system. I am conscious of keeping warm whilst not being too ridiculously rugged up in comparison to everyone else. I don't think I'm embarrassing myself too much. I haven't had to bring out the big guns, my thermal pants, I'm trying to keep them in reserve for when the actual real proper winter comes.

As someone who for the past few years has consistently gotten sick multiple times every autumn I am super happy to have two autumns and no spring this year! Of course being aware of this phenomenon I have stocked up on vitamins and minerals and echinacea and all the good stuff but keep forgetting to take them. Actually, excuse me while I go squirt some echinacea under my tongue...

Things seem to be on the up now though, and today I finally felt well enough to go join a gym. There is one just around the corner from my apartment, so I went and signed up and had my first proper training session for MONTHS. It is going to take a bit of work to get myself back to where I was before I left Perth! The machines are a little bit confusing because I am used to working with kilometres, not miles, so I fired up the treadmill to what I would normally run in km/hr but I quickly realised that it was miles/hr.

So yes, my new apartment, I'm finally here! I moved last Wednesday, and was lucky enough to scam a lift so I didn't have to traverse the plateau with my suitcases in the rain. The guy whose room I am in actually left me all his bedding and manchester stuff so I don't have to borrow/buy any of that stuff which is great. Also left all his books in his bookcase and CDs on his shelf, but while he has a decent taste in music he is also well and truly a francophone so the books aren't all that useful. Other strange things in the room include an old typewriter, a light table (good if I need to bring some plankton home for counting?), an old school sewing machine, a scary mask and some precision electronic scales. So it seems I am living in the bedroom of an author with a penchant for photography who moonlights as a masked drug dealer (complete with home made costume).

So far I am really enjoying living here, and getting on really well with my new housemate. He even made me soup the other night in my sickened state, so that has to be a good sign. The place is a bit cold and old but with all the busted arse rental houses I've lived in over the years I will certainly manage. The area is just so good. In less than a minute I can be at my local dépanneur (like a corner store/deli, but it sells alcohol too), and in five minutes walk I can pretty much buy anything, including very famous smoked meat.

I fought through my manky cold the other night and went to see Hot Chip at Metropolis, which is a pretty cool venue in a slighty dodgy part of town. Even in the slightly dodgy parts of town though you still feel safe as there always seems to be enough not-so-dodgy looking people around to counteract the dodgy vibe. It was actually my very first time at going to a gig solo, as a miscommunication between myself and the friend I was meant to be going with meant she ended up in Quebec City that night (just to clarify, the miscommunication didn't involve me telling her to meet me in Quebec City). I had already bought my ticket and really wanted to see them so I went on my lonesome and it was actually still a good night. Going to a gig alone means that you don't have to worry about where anyone else wants to stand, and it's much easier to find room to dance down the front amongst the crowds when you only have to find enough room for one person.


The following night my friend who ended up in Quebec City took me out for tapas and flamenco (watching, not doing) at a really nice little tapas place. This place has flamenco on Thursday nights, unlike the Spanish Club down the road which has it on Wednesdays, so they don't compete against each other. We dined on rich chorizo, huge baked sardines, and fried goats cheese balls served with honey and caramelised onions, yummm. The flamenco and band were great, and by the end of the night I had convinced myself I was going to take up flamenco dancing. It seems like something I could do, or at least have fun getting dressed up for. When we got back to my friend's car there was a smallish rubbish bag sitting on the windscreen. We gingerly picked it off and threw it on the footpath, but curiosity got the better of us and we spent the next five minutes trying to open it without really touching it, and giggling. Could it be cash? A human hand? After finally busting through the bag, we could spy the contents.... another rubbish bag. After playing this rubbish pass the parcel for another layer we were very disappointed to discover the next bag held some old newspaper.

Walking home from the gym tonight I realised that I am now living very close to a big sports bar (the one I was going to watch the footy GF if I didn't end up going to Kingston) so I will have to go suss out the cricket watching possibilities at some stage. Ah yes, Kingston, I have yet to discuss this weekend of boozing and cops and thousands of drunk hooligans and Greek food and snoring and chilifest and stupid girls on trains and of course the footy. Perhaps I will elaborate next time..