I’ve been having a lovely day, despite of an inauspicious moment this morning when I was getting dressed and wondered what happened to my sweater. I wondered if I had somehow shrunk it, which seemed unlikely since I never put sweaters in the dryer. The usually long, drapey sweater was fitting bizarrely like a crop top. I finally realized – and don’t think too hard about how I achieved this – that I had put it on upside down.
The boys and I have been reading Roald Dahl books lately, and it occurred to me while reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that no book of that type could be written in today’s cultural climate. For one thing, Charlie and his family are starving to death and take much joy and salvation in being offered a lifetime supply of candy. I need not reference the obvious objections to excessive sugar intake, childhood obesity, etc., but I will mention that throughout the book I kept thinking lawsuit waiting to happen. I mean, the children constantly going missing and then ending up a) stretched b) emaciated c) blue? I kept thinking that Mr. Wonka had better have a good lawyer, and then I recalled that back in the day of Charlie’s inception the children’s downfalls due to their own gluttony, greed, and general assholishness would have been considered just desserts (see what I did there?). In any case, the dramatic conclusion was much cheered by my own children.
Speaking of chocolate, I managed to get all of the teachers’ gifts purchased and arranged today, and chocolate featured strongly. I also stopped by my local Planet Organic to buy hazelnuts, and realized I also needed raw cashews, and hey, that’s a great price for tofu, and wow, coconut milk is $1/can less than at my regular, old-people, non-pretentious grocery store. I went to the cashier with four cans of coconut milk, two packages of tofu, and two large bags of bulk raw nuts, and I felt a bit like a pretentious douchebag. Then I realized where I was and felt that probably there were many, many more people who were many times the pretentious douchebag that I am, and so instead I just felt the kind of excitement that only comes from buying so many thrilling ingredients for various vegan recipes. Because yesterday I made the most delicious dessert from coconut milk, dark chocolate, hazelnuts and – of all things – dates; it was so scrumptious that my husband, my red meat loving husband, said it was the single best thing I have ever made. Honestly, he probably high-fived himself for marrying me, it was THAT GOOD. Or maybe he was just saying that to get me into bed; either way. Everybody wins! And nobody, hopefully, meets their maker in a violent ending a la Willie Wonka’s factory of near-death experiences.
Okay, by now everyone who watches Mad Men has seen this week’s episode, right? So I can say this without fear of spoiling it for anyone? OF COURSE BOB IS GAY. I called that weeks ago, based entirely on his short shorts. Also, was I the only one who loved the line “Imagine if every time Ginger Rogers jumped in the air, Fred Astaire punched her in the face!”? I giggle every time I think about it, which seems to be more often than is appropriate. That is quite the mental image. Also fabulous was the scene when poor demented Mrs. Campbell talks about her nurse, Manolo, awakening feelings in her loins and Pete snaps “Do NOT be more specific!” Hee hee, I feel like the line do NOT be more specific could be used in so many different situations. I’m saving that for later. Not to mention “Diplomacy Club is just another excuse to make out!” I have to disagree on that one; having been in Model Parliament in high school, there was no making out that I could discern. Although I could be wrong on that front; I may have been too absorbed in backcombing my spiral permed hair to notice.
Happy early Father’s Day to all you daddy-o’s out there. Hey Daddy-O. Don’t be a square.
Category Archives: Food
Nicole’s Favourite Things – Spring Edition!
It was such a long, cold winter, wasn’t it? Snow on the ground from October solidly through April, but I tell you this: May has been absolutely stunning in YYC. I keep expecting snow in the forecast every day, or at least hard frosts, and yet it’s been warm and beautiful. It feels like spring, but not Calgary spring – regular actual spring!
And so it’s time for the Spring Edition of Nicole’s Favourite Things!
My Garden
On the fourth of May, this is what my front yard Mayday tree looked like:
This is what it looks like now:
Leaves! Flowers! All in a nine day span, which is not great for the allergy sufferers in the house, but it sure is pretty. Speaking of pretty:
This is the prettiest the Nanking cherry has ever looked. Usually the buds freeze before the flowers come out and/or the flowers get blown off by gale force winds, but not this year. I’m soaking up every second.
I know people in other parts of the world have had lilac bushes, the blooms of which have already come and gone, but look at the adorable little buds on my lilac:
There are many, many other exciting things happening in my garden right now, but if you are NOT a gardener, you may be falling asleep with boredom at all my squee flower talk. Moving on.
Embracing Colour
Well, kind of. I was shopping with a girlfriend who just so happens to have gone to design school and has a fabulous sense of style, and she practically forced me to buy this top, which I was unsure about, but now I love.
IT’S SO COLOURFUL! I feel a little bit peacock-y in this outfit, but my husband informed me that I am now no longer allowed to shop without my friend in tow. Hope she doesn’t mind her new career as my personal stylist.
I also wore a blue – BLUE – scarf to my 20th high school reunion. I don’t know if it’s spring fever or what, but all this colour is going to my head.
Anyone else feel like I need to clean my bedroom mirror? Seems a little dusty.
Mascara
I am a sucker for different formulations of mascara, and yet I don’t actually notice a difference between any of them. None of them transform me into a Megan Draper lookalike, possibly because I don’t look anything like Megan Draper and also she has fake eyelashes and professional makeup artists and she’s a TV character, not an actual person. Anyway. I did buy this mascara called “The Falsies” and although I was at first disappointed with it (see also: non transformation into a TV character) the more I use it the better I like it. My husband snapped this picture of me on Saturday night and I can actually notice my eyelashes in it:
Spring Food
I am in love with everything berry and green these days, so I’m enjoying these recipes I have up at Yummy Mummy Club: Green Goddess Bowl of Goodness, Overnight Coconut French Toast, and Lemon Mini-Cakes with Whipped Coconut Cream. Fun fact: that last recipe is a vegan riff on my dear friend Hannah’s famed Lemon Muffins.
Mother’s Day
I’m not hugely invested in Mother’s Day, but this weekend my boys gave me homemade cards and hugged me approximately one zillion times. They also had a blast playing in the sprinkler, which NEVER happens in May!
That series of photos just makes my heart happy.
Ground Control to Commander Hadfield
Commander Hadfield is the BOMB. I have never been a person even slightly interested in space. In fact, one of my strongest memories from Grade One is lying to the teacher of the gifted enrichment program about already reading a book about a dog who becomes an astronaut because, hey, books about space? Snore. I think they gave me an equally snore-worthy book about a dog who dug a hole in a garden but whatever. At least I didn’t have to read about space.
But here comes the amazing Canadian Chris Hadfield and suddenly I’m completely obsessed. I can’t wait to watch him come home tonight, with the kids. Is there anything that man cannot do? Plus, his song Is Somebody Singing makes me tear up every time I sing it (which is often, in the shower). The kids sang it for Music Monday and it was just so special.
This Fabulous Spam Comment
Anonymous wrote: I don’t even understand how I stopped up here, however I believed this put up was good. I do not know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger in the event that you aren’t already. Cheers!
Anonymous goes on to post his/her website entitled “tits movie”. Oh boy! Thanks Anonymous! I sure hope you’re right, and I think I’ll just go click that link now.
More, More, More
Has it been a weirdly long week? Not a bad week, but a long week? On Tuesday I told Mark that he had better get his library books together for school, to which he answered that library was on Thursday. I knew that but honestly thought it was Thursday. Wednesday I was planning for Friday, which I thought was the next day. The fact that it’s the third of May is not helping matters either; I feel like I’m in a weird time warp in which I don’t have any idea what day, month, or year it is. I realized this morning that there is only seven weeks left of school, which was shocking. Time is slipping, slipping, slipping into the future, my kids are getting older and I’m getting older too, and the cat’s in the cradle with the silver spoon.
Speaking of getting older, I received – completely unsolicited – a copy of More magazine in the mail. More! The magazine for mature women. I was very startled to see it in my mailbox, with my name and address on it, being I didn’t subscribe to it. I realized this must be some kind of promotional item; perhaps since I actually have a subscription to the mature suburban Canadian women’s magazine Canadian Living I am actually on some kind of mailing list. For mature women. More magazine! I scoffed a bit, picked it up, and then realized that I really am this demographic now. Much more so than, say, Cosmopolitan. Not that I’ve read Cosmo in years – I know all the sexy tricks, Cosmo. I don’t need any more lists. – but it is a little startling when you realize that you’re more More than Cosmo, is all I’m saying.
Anyway. It’s Friday. I’ve been busy in the kitchen all morning, preparing for some girlfriends to taste test some new recipes. I’ve also been doing a little bit of taste testing myself, in other words, I’m feeling a bit FULL. There’s not much that I love more than preparing desserts and appetizers for my open-minded girlfriends, while singing along to the station that plays all the ballads from the 1970s. Cause I’m easy…I’m easy like Sunday morning.
Segueing right into the eighties, I was heading into the grocery store (because where else do I go?) and I saw this amazing license plate.
If that doesn’t immediately make your day just a little bit brighter, then I don’t know what will. That is the single greatest license plate/ car combination ever, better even than 1Bruce1 or HotCarl. I wondered who owned this fantastic vehicle; perhaps a sexy, hirsute, moustachioed man. I was not at all disappointed when the owner approached:
I kid. I did not see the owner, mostly because I felt it might be weird and stalker-ish to stand at the car waiting for someone to bring out their groceries. I did keep looking for Hawaiian shirts in the Co-Op, but alas, none were to be found.
I have only ever seen one episode of Magnum PI. I know! You would think that I would be more up on that, but you would be wrong. I’m sure there are reruns playing somewhere but I seem to be too busy these days watching and re-watching Mad Men episodes and making Tom and Lorenzo-like notes on the fashions. How did Betty become so frumpy? Is Megan wearing hair extensions? Is it weird to have a crush on Henry Francis? He’s wearing a Christmas sweater! What is WRONG with me?
But back to Magnum. My husband watched it a lot in the eighties, and every time he hears Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight he says “Best. Magnum. Ever.” Then he explains the plot to me and I think it sounds interesting and maybe I should watch it, and then I end up wondering if I could wear a gypsy scarf as a headband like Megan did that one time or would that look weird. So I will probably go through my entire life without actually watching Magnum PI but still enjoying photos like this:
Remember back in the day when men didn’t shave and/ or wax their chests?
Somewhere hidden in a family album is a photograph of my mother in the late eighties, standing next to a life size cardboard cutout of Tom Selleck. If I didn’t think my mother would disown me I would blow it up and frame it, or at least post it here. However, I like to maintain good relations with my mother and so I will leave that photo where it lies. My mother is a big fan of the moustachioed man, given her penchant for Tom Selleck and the famously stached Sam Elliot. But I shall not make fun of her mature women fantasies because I picked up a copy of People at my hair salon and flipped to the men who were deemed to be “Sexy at (fill in the age decade)”. I realized that the only appealing demographic was the Sexy at Fifty category. HENRY FRANCIS? I guess I am ready for More magazine after all.
Yeahhhh, that’d be great.
I enjoy Facebook for many reasons, but those reasons do not include certain pictures that get posted with political or inflammatory messages on them and pictures that are prefaced with “Share If You…” Share if you love your mom! Share if you love your kids! Share if you have a dog! Share if you hate cancer! Whoops, I didn’t share. Guess I hate my mother. (I don’t hate my mother. Hi Mom!).
However, on occasion a picture will be shared that I think summarizes a certain situation up admirably.
One of the reasons I do like Facebook is that my twenty year high school reunion is coming up and I already pretty much know what my graduating class has been up to, which will cut down on awkward “So…what have you been doing these past two decades?” conversations. A number of people have said things along the lines of I can’t believe it’s been twenty years! to which I strongly disagree. It feels more like fifty years since I was in high school. I have only to look at photos from my high school graduation to feel that it was a lifetime ago: my shiny red off-the-shoulder dress with satin clutch and shoes dyed to match, ringleted hair in a fancy updo, and the piece de resistance – a white rose corsage on my wrist. My high school boyfriend was wearing a tuxedo with a red bow tie that matched my dress, for the love of god. I wouldn’t relive those years for anything, and not just because everyone wore belted, high waisted pants with baggy t-shirts tucked into them.
Speaking of exes, I don’t know about you but I never have the urge to get in touch with any of them. I was at a wedding once where the bride prided herself on maintaining friendships with all her ex-boyfriends, and so there was not one, not two, but SIX ex-boyfriends in attendance. There was also an open mike at the reception which was a terrible error in judgement. One of those exes got up and started a long and inebriated ramble about how much he loved hitting that (I’m paraphrasing here) and how jealous he was when she was with a man who was not the groom, but who was another ex-boyfriend, seated at table 12. It was more awkward even than the wedding I attended where the brother of the groom, who was also the best man, gave a thirty-five minute drunken speech about his brother that started with their childhood dream of becoming Stampede wrestlers and ended with the groom being so drunk that he vomited after offending every woman in a bar with his interpretive dance to the “Thong Song”.
You know, the last giveaway I did was so fun, I think I might just do another. To enter, leave a comment either telling me a funny wedding story OR what you wore to your high school graduation. Or both! I’ll do a draw on Monday April 22 (EARTH DAY! Maybe the prize will be Earth Day related! Or maybe not…)
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In case you haven’t already heard, I’ve got an exciting new gig over at Yummy Mummy Club! I’m the new food blogger, and I will be putting the yum in Yummy Mummy with tons of recipes for the whole family to enjoy. So, check it out, pretty please, and maybe subscribe to my feed over there? I’m the Meatless Mummy Con Carne, so I’m going to spill all my secrets on how I cook vegetarian meals and adapt them for those meat-loving boys of mine. I’d be ever so grateful if you took a look – maybe you’ll find some recipes that you can enjoy as well. xoxo
Spring Break! Put your (paint covered) hands up!
It’s only, technically, day two of Spring Break and it is the Most Exciting Spring Break Ever. Yesterday I looked out the window to see a Canada Post truck parked in the middle of our road and a delivery man struggling up our sidewalk with a giant box addressed to me.
What is it, you may be asking yourself. It’s an early birthday present! A food dehydrator! I’ve wanted one for a long time, and was completely surprised. Welcome to Dehydration Nation!
I spent the rest of the day spinning off the earth with excitement, and reading the user’s manual. I felt dangerously like Crazy Eddie from Friends, the guy who was briefly Chandler’s roommate and who dehydrated everything. This is a strawberry! This is a cantaloupe! Pineapples were on sale last week at my local grocery store, and fortuitously I had picked one up. You’re first, Mr. Pineapple.
Mark kept stealing pieces, and I felt bad telling my child to lay off the fruit.
It’s in the dehydrator right now, and the entire downstairs, according to the boys, smells exactly like Maui. It’s a very pleasing smell, and I hope the end result will be tasty as well.
This morning I took the boys to the dentist, which was as pleasant as could be hoped. There was a high degree of agitation in the five minute drive to the dentist, and much slumping and sighing in the waiting room, but it turns out that asking for the fluoride to be brushed on, instead of using those little trays can turn an entire dental visit around. Who knew that fluoride trays could be the cause of so much sadness? To celebrate our excellent visit, I took the boys to Colour Me Mine, where you can choose a piece of pottery to paint, and the Colour Me Mine people glaze and fire it for you.
So far, spring break has been pretty excellent. Next up: cleaning up the dog’s fecal matter in the melting backyard. This is the downside of the exciting spring melt. But the snow is melting, the sun is shining, and my house smells like pineapple! Things don’t get much better than that.
The toll of shopping at Costco
Congratulations to Maggie, for winning the random draw! I picked up the prize yesterday on my trip to Costco. Can you spot it in my minivan?
No, silly, it’s NOT the case of tetra pak almond milk. Nor is it the giant family size package of Snapea Crisps – those are ALL for me, family size be damned. I don’t share my Snapea Crisps (although, this isn’t a point of contention in my house. I am the only person who appreciates their snacktacular attributes.) You’ll just have to wait and see, Maggie!
A few weeks back I was shopping with a girlfriend and she reached into her bag to pull out her wallet, when something popped out and fell onto the floor. We both reached for it and started laughing hysterically when it became apparent that said object was an o.b. tampon. You’d think we were in junior high, gauging by our level of merriment. Although, truth be told, if that had happened in junior high, we would have probably died of embarrassment.
I thought of this incident with amusement yesterday while shopping in Costco. I was in the feminine products aisle, and the gigantic boxes of Tampax Super were stacked underneath the gigantic boxes of Tampax Regular. I selected a box of Regular but I also needed Super – SUPER! I know, my feminine mystique is going to take a bit of a beating here – and so I tried to shimmy a box from beneath the flats of Regular. Slowly and nightmarishly, all the Regular tampons started to tip over onto me. Now, as a person who has a (probably irrational) fear of being crushed to death in a warehouse setting, this was a bit alarming. I tried to push the boxes back but several still tumbled to the floor. Fortunately for me, a box of Super also fell to the floor so I had only to replace the gigantic scattered Tampax boxes and wheel my giant cart away, relieved that I now possessed a two year supply of tampons and that I probably would not have to endure narrowly missing death by tampon crushing until early 2015.
There are a few more humiliating ways to die – I’m thinking specifically of death via heart attack while on the toilet, Elvis-style – but death by crushing in a warehouse would be one of the worst. Especially, somehow, death by crushing by giant pallets of tampons.
I actually really like grocery shopping, but the loading up of the van and the unloading of the van and then the putting away of the groceries are big negatives to me. You may be saying to yourself why don’t you get your kids to help? but they are generally in school when I shop (see also: why I like grocery shopping) but even if they weren’t, the baskets that I load the Costco offerings in are probably half their body weight. Yesterday was cold and snowy and grey, and by the time I had unpacked my giant cart into the van, driven home, and started to bring the groceries into the house, I was pretty cold.
Slight digression: remember, people, that I have what is called Raynaud’s Syndrome, which is characterized by poor circulation and cold, somewhat painful, purple hands and feet. By the time I reached home my hands were numb and cold, but since that is their normal state in the winter, I kept calm and carried on.
Once everything was neatly put away, everything in its place, I washed my hands. Hmm, I thought, my right index finger sure must be cold. Even the warm water isn’t helping. Then I looked at my right index finger, which was enormously swollen, purple, and had a giant dent in it. It started to feel like it was going to explode. Huh. I realized that I must have pinched it somehow, bringing in the baskets of groceries, but my hands were so numb I didn’t even realize it was happening.
If that isn’t reason enough to move to a warm climate, I don’t know what is. I am a Delicate Flower who needs warmth and sunshine to bloom, people. Or at least for me to not accidentally and unknowingly injure myself. It’s still pretty painful today, but what was more alarming is that I was typing away this morning and it spontaneously went completely pins-and-needles numb and tingly. And I tell you this: do not google these symptoms or you may think that you have somehow become gangrenous or the like. Is my finger going to fall off? you may nervously ask yourself. Fortunately I have feeling in my finger now, thanks to me turning up the heat and anxiously washing the floors, on the belief that moving around might increase circulation.
Last night while I was waiting for the boys at karate, I tried to take a picture of my finger. I discovered that a) it is very hard to take a picture of one’s right hand when one is right handed, and b) I’m not going to become a hand model any time soon.
There’s an old adage that you can tell the age of a woman by looking at her hands. By this picture, one might think I’m one hundred years old. The waiting room at the karate dojo DOES look a lot like a nursing home. I’m just watching my stories, dearie.
Lego, Eyelashes, and an IMPORTANT QUESTION
This morning Jake was playing with his Star Wars Lego when I heard a frustrated yell. The back window had fallen out of his Palpatine’s Arrest set, and when he tried to fix it, a couple of other pieces came off. There was no time to figure things out before school, and so I decided I would try to fix it before he came home from lunch.
This is not, by any means, the first time I had attempted to build or fix Lego. I will start by saying that I am not gifted in the Lego area. I can barely build a simple box house, and those Star Wars sets are very complicated. This is probably somehow related to my complete inability to catch a ball without flailing my arms and shrieking. However, I remembered where all of the instructions manuals were kept, and so I flipped to what seemed to be the appropriate page and bravely began.
Shortly after that, I burst into tears.
Happily, when Jake got home at lunch and I showed him my attempt, he said cheerfully that I did a great job, and he didn’t really need the window to open anyway. He never really used that window anyway!
What a sweetheart. I have a School Council meeting tonight, and I have a feeling his dad is going to be kept busy fixing the window.
Speaking of bursting into tears and having to subsequently fix my mascara, the other day I was shopping and saw a display for a mascara called “The Falsies”, and although the word “Falsies” makes me think of bra-stuffing, I was intrigued. I had read a few reviews about this mascara and I thought I should try it. I am going to have amazing, traffic stopping eyelashes, I thought, although to be honest I’m not sure how eyelashes would stop traffic, especially if a person has light sensitive eyes and wears sunglasses all the time, as I do. Nonetheless! I have a few girlfriends who regularly get false eyelashes applied – the kind that last for a few weeks – and they look amazing. So amazing that when I’m talking to them I get completely distracted by their eyelashes and forget what we are talking about. I’m like one of those guys who can’t take their eyes off your breasts, but with eyelashes. I briefly thought about getting them myself but decided against it. Although I’m high maintenance that is a line I just cannot cross, so this mascara called out to me.
Isn’t it funny what you think buying a product is going to be a glorious, life changing experience? I get that sometimes. A new pair of panties equals a new lease on life! New lipstick? Transformative. I am a new woman because of this scented hand cream! So I could hardly wait to try out my new mascara which would give me false lash glam instantly.
People. Building hopes up too high can only lead to disappointment in the end. I wish I could say I was fluttering my enormous eyelashes at you right now, but I’m not. I mean, the mascara is fine. Possibly slightly better than my regular mascara. There is nothing inherently wrong with the mascara, although there might be something wrong with me in falling for the advertising. I tried to take a picture of my eyes, but have you ever tried to do that? I looked like I was preparing to make my own tinfoil hat, or that I lived in a small apartment with one hundred pets who were all named Pookie. So you will have to take my word for it; my eyelashes look nice, but not LIFE CHANGING. Certainly not traffic stopping. No one is going to become distracted by my eyelashes while talking to me.
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Some of you know that I’m currently working on a cookbook, filled to the brim with lovely vegan and vegetarian recipes. It’s an exciting project, and now that Justin Timberlake is singing the praises of coming on down to Veganville, I hope it will be a popular project as well. Nothing like a little advertising by JT. In any case, I realized I have a very biased and warped view of the world since I have so many vegetarian and vegan friends; it’s like I live in my own little meatless bubble. As my husband said to me the other night, most people actually eat meat, Nicole. Not everyone loves beans as much as you do. I’m beginning to realize this is true! So my question for all you meat-eaters is this: how often, if ever, do you cook/serve/eat meatless meals? If never, why not? Please leave your answer in the comments. Maybe we can make it a giveaway! Random person will win a prize! Prize to be determined, I promise it won’t be a can of beans, or a tube of mascara.