Not To Be Trusted With Knives

From the unvegetarian blogger who brought you My First Turkey, comes My First Steak.

Ok, so this isn’t the first steak I’ve eaten since becoming an unvegetarian, but it is the first one that I’ve cooked! In fact, now that I think about it, it might be the first steak I’ve ever cooked, period¹.

So yes, I cooked a steak. I was out and about running errands yesterday and happened to be not too far from Prime Beef, the butcher shop where I bought my Thanksgiving turkey². And I decided to buy a steak³.

Here is the steak in all its pre-cooked glory:

And here it is in its sizzling goodness:

And here it is on my dinner plate shortly before making its way to my belly:

Verdict: delicious.

1. Given that I became a vegetarian when I was a young, starving student, I’m guessing that in my meat eating days of yore I was never able to afford something so costly as a steak! [↩]
2. Aside: I made turkey pot pie with some of the leftover turkey that I had in the freezer. It was freaking delicious! [↩]
3. This sudden desire for steak may or may not have had something to do with the fact that Devon was out with his buddies at their annual dinner at Gotham steakhouse, causing me to have steak on the brain [↩]

Tags: food, meet, stake, unvegetarian

I’m going after item #25 on my 101 list: ”bake at least one thing per month for 12 months in a row, without baking the same thing two months in a row.” Last month I made the skull cupcakes and since this month is nearly over, I decided to do an easy one: banana chocolate chip muffins¹. I have a long history of baking banana bread, because banana bread is freaking delicious. I used to use a recipe from an Edith Bunker cookbook that my mom has, but recently Sarah shared this recipe with me and it’s even more delicious! I think it’s the addition of yogurt – makes it so moist! I added chocolate chips, because chocolate chips make banana bread 125% more delicious. And I decided to make muffins instead of bread because then you don’t even have to slice it. Because slicing is totally for suckers.

So, there you have it. Two months down, ten to go!

1. I did bake scones this month, but they were craptastic, so I decided that they didn’t count. Incidentally, if anyone has a good scone recipe, let me know! [↩]

Tags: 101 in 1001, baking, banana bread, banana muffins, food, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo2011

I had my annual eye exam yesterday and, happily, everything is exactly the same as it was a year ago. In fact, I just read over my blog posting from last year’s eye exam and I could pretty much copy and paste it and it would be accurate for this year’s exam – my optometrist did all the same tests and said all the same things: my vision is still great, more than two years after my last laser eye surgery, my retinal latticing is still there, but hasn’t changed and she doesn’t really expect it too, but is keeping an eye on just in case. And I took another photo of my dilated pupils:

My optometrist showed me the pictures she took of my retinas, where you can just  make out  my retinal latticing – it’s slightly worse in the left eye than the right eye. Oddly, my right eye is also better in terms of vision – it’s 20/20, whereas my left eye is slightly less than 20/20 – even though the retinal latticing and the vision are in no way related. Fortunately, I’m right eye dominant, so if one eye has to be weaker, it’s good that it’s the left.

In related news, since my optometrist’s office is in my old ‘hood on the west side, I popped into Stong’s grocery store to see if they had any of my favourite coffee, as I’m running low. The last few times I’ve been there they didn’t have it in whole bean form, only in ground form, but since I’m running low I figured it was better than nothing. However, to my surprise, they not only had it in whole bean form, but it was on sale for $3 off! And they also had the decaf coffee I like¹ on sale for $3 off! Needless to say, I stocked up on as many bags of coffee as I could get. Translation: I spent an unholy amount on coffee beans today, but I save $27 (!) and now have coffee supplies to last me well into next year!

1. I use it half and half with the regular stuff so as to cut down on the amount of caffeine I consume. [↩]

Tags: coffee, eyes, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo2011, optometrist, rampant consumerism, rampant narcissism, retina, retinal latticing, vision

I’m in heaven!

Tags: food, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo2011, nostalgia, spruce beer, spruce beer float

I can’t believe my trip to Montreal is over already!

On Saturday, we started the day with breakfast at Cora’s and then did some more shopping. Did I mention how freaking fashionable everyone in Montreal? We looked at lots of stuff, but didn’t buy a tonne – I only bought a few accessories¹, as I didn’t have a lot of room in my suitcase and had to leave room for Christmas presents that my family brought for me so they wouldn’t have to ship them, plus a case of spruce beer, which, as far as I can tell, you can only buy in Quebec. Mmmm, spruce beer. But I’m getting ahead of myself. My mom bought some clothes and my sister got a hat at Ogilvy’s and stuff for my niece for her birthday and a few other things at Forever 21².

My poor nephew – he was so tired out from all the shopping!

After shopping, we headed out to my mom’s cousin’s Susan’s place in LaSalle, where we got to see my Auntie Maureen, Auntie Barbara, Uncle Michael, and my mom’s other cousin, Leanne. It was great to see them – I haven’t seen my aunts and uncle since my last visit in 2005, my mom’s cousin Leanne in many, many more years than that, and we think I might never have met my mom’s cousin Susan before! If I have, I would have been very little. We had a tonne of fun – had a great time catching up, ate a delicious meal from a Greek restaurant, the name of which I must have asked 16 times but I still can’t remember what it was, and had a super delicious birthday cake that my Auntie Barbara made for my mom. I’d love to show you a picture of it, but my camera batteries died, so we were taking photos with my mom’s camera, but it uses some sort of proprietary Sony card instead of an SD card, so I couldn’t get the photos off the camera. My mom said she’ll get my dad to email them to me when she gets home, so I’ll post them once I get them. In the meantime, picture a cake shaped like a book, with little mini books on top, plus two bookworms in the shape of a “6″ and a “5.” Adorable! And did I mention delicious?

While in LaSalle, we also picked up some spruce beer at the grocery store. Spruce beer, for the uninitiated, is a type of pop that, as far as I can tell, you can only get in Quebec. I remember my Grandpa Snow making us spruce beer ice cream floats when we were kids³. It tastes like drinking a spruce tree and I’m sure it’s absolutely disgusting to anyone else but I *love* it so much!

The next morning, my mom, sister, and nephew were going to leave mid-morning, as they had a long drive back to Toronto ahead of them. But I may have pointed out that we hadn’t yet had a Montreal smoked meat sandwich and that I’d just go get one by myself before I headed to the airport for my 3 pm flight. And my sister may have taken pity on me and so the stuck around a bit longer! We had a lovely coffee at Cafe Java U and then went to Reuben’s for smoked meat. I have “Have a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s” on my list of 101 things to do because I’d mistakenly thought that Schwartz’s was the place we used to go to get smoked meat when I was a kid. As it turns out, we used to go to Adam’s in LaSalle and Gregory’s in Verdun, neither of which exist anymore. And since the sentiment of the “smoked meat” item on my 101 list was to go to the place we used to go for nostalgia reasons, it makes the Schwartz’s part less important and so I’m counting “having smoked meat in Montreal” as “achieved” on my 101 list!

Me and my delicious Montreal smoked meat sandwich.

My smoked meat sandwich was exactly as I remembered them to be. Giant and delicious. The fries were a bit of a disappointment – I remember the fries we used to get with the smoked meat sandwiches when I was a kid were chunky and freshly made, whereas these were thin and clearly from a bag in a freezer – but the sandwich itself more than made up for that. And the coleslaw and the pickle totally completed the meal! My sister ordered a slice of cheesecake which was insanely huge and we shared it, plus she had some left over to take home. Also, freaking delicious.

And after that, it was time to hit the road. My family dropped me off a the airport, which was on their way home to Toronto, and I hopped onto my plane, which also happened to be going to Toronto, as I had to catch a connecting flight to Vancouver from there. And I nearly missed my plane in Toronto, because there were so many people with too much carry on luggage⁴ that the flight attendants took a good 15 minutes to figure out where to put it all and I only had a 45 minute turnaround time at YYZ! I ran from the gate where my Montreal flight landed to the gate where my Vancouver flight was leaving from and, happily, arrived just as the last of the passengers were boarding. We had the same issue of too much carry on luggage on this flight, so we were delayed about 10 minutes while everyone tried to stuff their luggage in to the overhead compartments, so I hope that gave my checked bag enough time to make it’s way on this plane! (Oh yes, I’m writing this on my flight from Toronto to Vancouver and will post it when I get home)

Anyhoo, I’m home now and I’m freaking tired! I’ve been fully adapted to Ontario time (i.e., living in the future) since I got to Ottawa and went to bed super duper early, so it feels like it’s three hours later than it is here in Pacific time (a.k.a., the past). I’m hoping that being on Ontario’s future time will help make it easier for me to get up early in the morning!

Other random stuff:

• There’s a place in Montreal called “Club Super Sexe.” True story. Here’s a picture to prove it:
  
• Did I mention how fashionable everyone is in Montreal?
• Did I mention how excited I am to drink my spruce beer?
• I did, in fact, convince my mom to have a Caesar so that I could try it. Verdict: delicious!
• I really do love Montreal, even in spite of its frigid temperatures. I hope I don’t have to wait another six years before I go back!

 Thomas and I came prepared for the cold Montreal weather with our matching hats!

1. Two pairs of earrings, two bras, and two headbands, to be exact [↩]
2. Yes, we realize that they have Forever 21 in both Toronto and Vancouver. Minor details [↩]
3. Both my parents grew up in Montreal and we have relatives from both sides of my family who still live there, so whenever someone would go back to Montreal to visit, they’d bring back spruce beer [↩]
4. Which ticks me off, because I had to leave behind some of the Christmas presents my sister brought for me because I couldn’t fit them in my bag, what with all the spruce beer and the other Christmas presents. But if I’d known they’d let me walk on with three giant carry on bags despite the rules saying you only get two carry on bags, like I saw another lady do, I’d have done that too! [↩]

Tags: 101 in 1001, auntie blogging, family, food, Montreal, Montreal smoked meat, NaBloPoMo, NaBloPoMo2011, planes, Reuben's, spruce beer, travel

It was recently brought to my attention that this is back in stores:

Granville Island Lions Winter Ale is one of my favourite beers! You can only buy it in the fall and winter, so its arrival in stores is sort of bittersweet, because, while I love its deliciousness, it is a harbinger of cold weather. And I’m not a fan of the cold weather. Happily, though, I can drown my sorrows at the frightful weather with delicious Winter Ale.

Another one of my favourite beers is this:

It’s Phillips Service 1904 Scottish Stone Fired Ale, a beer of such epic deliciousness that after taking my first sip of it on my recent trip to Victoria, I said to Dan, “Oh my god, I want to marry this beer!”¹. According to the description in the menu at the pub where I first drank this deliciousness, they drop hot stones into the beer while they are brewing it, which results in caramelization and thus adds some extra awesomeness. Also, I believe it contains ground up angels – it tastes *that* good!

The strange thing about all of this is that, until recently, I didn’t really like beer all that much. I mean, I didn’t hate beer, but it wasn’t my drink of choice and I’d usually only drink it if it was a lot cheaper than the other available drinks². And even then I wouldn’t drink a tonne of it. But earlier this year, out of nowhere, I really developed a taste for beer. It happened around the time of the NHL playoffs and I’m guessing that the copious beer drinking associated with the Canucks extended playoff run might have had something to do with it. Between this and my recent unvegetarianisming ³, I think I might have experienced an invasion of the taste bud snatchers!

1. I mentioned in the footnote of my trip to Victoria posting that I’d never had any Phillips beers before and my coworker told me they sold it at the Liquor Store. So when I was in the Liquor Store today buying my Winter Ale, I looked for some Phillips and realized that I have, in fact, drank Phillips many times before – I just didn’t know it was Phillips! I guy I used to date often had Phillips Big Buck, Slipstream, and Phoenix Gold at his place and I quite liked the Phoenix!  Sadly, Service 1904 isn’t available at the Liquor Store. You can only get it on tap at three pubs in Victoria! Clearly, I need to spend more time in Victoria! [↩]
2. Like, say, if I were out in a group and everyone was sharing a pitcher. Or if I was at a kegger. [↩]
3. Similarly, I’ve suddenly developed a taste for Earl Grey tea. I used to find that it smelled like floor polish and thought it was atrocious. But recently I’ve really liked it. Weird! [↩]

Tags: beer, mmm

My office’s annual Halloween potluck was yesterday and, as has become my custom, I decided to make a dessert. Specifically, I decided to make skull cupcakes. And while they weren’t as impressive as the eyeballs I made last year, they turned out better than the short fat ghosts I made the year before that.

The skull cupcakes, the recipe for which I found on the interwebs, were pretty easy to make – standard cupcakes, buttercream icing, Junior mints for eyes, a chocolate chip nose, and slivered almonds for teeth:

The trick to making the chin is to tuck a half a marshmallow into the cupcake liner.

When I did this, however, the liner kind of hung loose, so I used a bit of icing to glue the cupcake liner to the marshmallow and it was good to go.

In related news, the wax paper people weren’t kidding when they put this warning on the package:

Tags: cooking, cucpakes, food, Halloween, potluck, skull cupcakes

The other day at work we got fridge magnets that are little erasable whiteboards where you can plan out your family dinners for the week. I filled out my meal plans for this week:

Tags: doing it wrong, food, meal plans

Today is Blog Action Day, a day where bloggers, not surprisingly, take action. They take action, not surprisingly, by blogging, but on this particular day they all blog about the same topic, thus calling attention to said topic. This year’s topic is “Food.”

From the Blog Action Day website:

This year Blog Action Day coincides with World Food Day, a time that focuses the world’s attention on food, something we all have in common.

There is so much to say about food.

We use food to mark times of celebration and sorrow. Lack of access to food causes devastating famines, whilst too much is causing a generation of new health problems. It can cost the world, or be too cheap for farmers to make a living.

The way we companies produce food and drinks can provide important jobs for communities or be completely destructive to habitats and local food producers. Food can give us energy to get through the day or contain ingredients that gives us allergic reactions.

Food can cooked by highly skilled chefs with inventive flair, or mass produced and delivered with speed at the side of road. It can be incredibly healthy or complete junk and bad for your health. It can taste delicious or be a locals only delicacy.

Food is important to our culture, identity and daily sustenance and the team at Blog Action invite you to join us to talk about food.

Now, I blog about food all the time – it comes with the territory when one is both a foodie and a nutritional scientist – so I’ve been wracking my brain to figure out what I should blog about today. And then I remembered that I’ve been meaning to blog about a book that I read that changed the whole way that I think about food and eating. It’s called “Intuitive Eating” by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch and you should totally read it. Here’s why.

First of all, this book is written by two registered dietitians – R.D. being the protected title for those who have gone through a rigorous post-secondary program and internship in nutrition, food, and eating¹ – and these two R.D.s happen to have many years of experience working with people and through that experience have learned a lot about people’s relationships with food. Second, unlike “diet books” (think Atkins, the Zone, the blood type diet, etc.), this book doesn’t promise a quick fix. Because there is no quick fix when it comes to nutrition. It doesn’t promise you that you’ll lose 20 lbs in a week while eating copious amounts of every food you ever wanted to eat – because that’s just not how bodies work. So, right away this book is different than a lot of others on the market that purport to be about nutrition. OK, now that I’ve told you what the book is *not* about, let’s look at what it *is* about.

Key Take Home Messages From This Book

• Essentially, this book is about mindfulness brought to eating. When we are born, we eat when we are hungry and stop eating when we are full. Somewhere along the way, we develop messed up relationships with food and eating and lose our ability to respond to hunger and satiety cues. The simple act of paying attention to what we eat while we eat it goes a long way to preventing us from over eating.
• The idea of “dieting” is all about deprivation. But you can only deprive yourself for so long before you lose it and scarf down an entire cake! The worst part of this is that you don’t even get to enjoy that cake you are eating because you are shovelling it into your face so fast in response to having deprived yourself. And then you feel guilty about having “failed” – and not recognizing that “dieting” is just setting yourself up for failture.
• There’s no need to deny yourself the things you like to eat – but there’s also no need to eat copious amounts of them either. I mean, think about it: have you ever had a lovely meal or a scrumptious dessert in front of you and you wolfed it down so quickly that, afterwards, you realized that you barely even tasted it? Or finished off a giant bag of Doritoes in front of the television without even really being aware that you were eating them? If you actually make a conscious decision to eat, say, some chocolate mousse, wouldn’t it be better to be present in the moment, paying attention to the taste and the mouthfeel, savouring each spoonful, than to down the whole thing in 5 seconds, not really tasting it at all?
• Eating “everything on your plate” when you aren’t actually hungry is just as wasteful as throwing it out. A lot of people were raised to “eat everything on your plate” because to do otherwise means you are wasting food. But eating more food that your body needs, eating past the point where you are satisfied – you are still “wasting” it, but instead of it going into the garbage or the compost, it’s just adding unnecessary weight onto your body.
• Do you really need to lose that “last 10 lbs,” or are you already pretty awesome as you are? This is probably the hardest part of the book for many people. We tend to focus on what we see as our physical “imperfections” – things like, “my thighs are too fat,” rather than “my legs get me around, let me go for a walk, let me run, or play hockey” or whatever else it is that you do. I mean, don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with being fit, with striving to run fast or be stronger. But is dieting to get rid of those “last 10 lbs” really going to make you happy? Or would that effort be better expended on being happy with who you are?

As per usual, I have no affiliation with this book or these authors. I don’t get any money if you buy the book – in fact, I got it from the library myself. But I really do think everyone could benefit from reading it@

1. As opposed to “nutritionist,” which pretty much anyone can call themselves. [↩]

Tags: #BAD11, blog, Blog Action Day, dieting, eating, food, Intuitive Eating, nutrition

My friend Alicia and I went for a walk around the seawall today – something I haven’t done since Dr. Jen moved away¹ – and afterwards we went to get some sushi with Alicia’s husband and daughter. First of all, a toddler eating sushi is adorable. Also, a toddles insisting on eating with chopsticks even though they don’t know how is also pretty adorable.

We were originally going to go to a sushi joint near Alicia & Paul’s place in Yaletown, but it turned out to be closed between lunch and dinner, so instead we headed over The Eatery. The Eatery is a funky sushi place in Kits that is known for its Astroboy-laden decor and weird combinations in their sushi rolls. Being that I’m new to eating fishy sushi², I asked Paul to recommend the best things to try (as Alicia is a vegetarian). And we ended up having a whole bunch of deliciousness. There were some basic things -salmon nigiri, tuna nigiri, ebi nigiri, and chopped scallop roll – and then some of the crazy Eatery specials – Erotica roll (avocado, salmon, tuna, roe, mayo, crab & cucumber), Malibu roll (smoked salmon, crab, cucumber, papaya), and Miss Piggy roll (bacon, scallop, asparagus, roe, unagi sauce).

The verdict: other than the ebi (prawn) nigiri being pretty tastless and the Miss Piggy roll being odd³, everything else was delicious!

At the end of the meal, Alicia suggested that I should write a blog posting about the Eatery’s crazy rolls and, over time, try to eat every single roll on the “Funky Creations” section of the menu. Well – challenge accepted!  I’m going to consider this my unofficial 102nd “to do” item!

Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far:

Note: As per usual, I’m not getting anything from the Eatery for blogging about them. Sadly. I just like eating there.

1. Dr. Jen and I used to walk the seawall almost every Saturday [↩]
2. I had never tried sushi before I became a vegetarian, and since becoming an unvegetarian, I have only had a basic tuna roll and salmon roll and it was at a run-of-the-mill sushi joint, not a really good one. [↩]
3. I always thought that bacon makes everything better, but it turns out that this is not true when it comes to sushi [↩]

Tags: food, friends, sushi, The Eatery, unvegetarianism, Vancouver