à la bouche

while not pining over montreal, i have been busily brushing up on the habits and rituals of the elusive and wily "english-man" through many hours of bbc america while enjoying delicious organic beer.

tonight there was nothing veggie to eat in the house. i had been promised pizza, let down and decided to take matters into my own hands.

pantry pizza

crust : half-assed. pizza dough is pretty forgiving of such things. just throw together like 1 1/2 tsp of yeast, around a cup of water, 2.5-3.5 cups of flour, some olive oil, sea salt [and herbs, if that's your bag], knead her up, rise anywhere from 30 mins to 2.5 hours and roll her out. done.

topped : some generic store sauce, lovely fresh local mozzarella that mysteriously materialized in the fridge, sun-dried tomatoes, sauteed onions/fresh garlic, [dried and reconstituted] wild maine mushrooms and peppercinis. mmmh.

no picture because I'M JUST NOT GOOD AT TAKING PICTURES OF FOOD YET. there.

froze 1/2 the dough and have 1/2 a pizza left for tomorrow. nom nom nom.

a l'orée des bois

listening to: plants and animals, parc avenue.

i miss montreal. i am looking forward to london and further; it's a new challenge, a new step for mine and adam's relationship, but goddamn i miss canada. i know it wouldn't be the same if i was going back to mcgill in a week or so - most of my good friends have graduated, frosh looks younger and younger every year and with the first paper due, i would be moaning and writhing in agony - but i’ve only been gone for three months and i have been so nostalgic for montreal and mcgill.

i just graduated in may, and i miss the people most of all. i was in a small concentration, and the community of students and professors was really fantastic.

i miss bike-riding up to jean-talon to buy veggies and following the rachel bike path out to pie-ix to go thrifting! i miss montreal's bakeries - i used to take walks up up up parc and buy butter cookies from the jewish bakeries, where you’d go inside and everyone would be speaking in hebrew …

i miss bantering with mr. boustan on crescent with the aoiis and adam's st. laurent loft - where’d we drink whatever beer/wine that was on sale at the 4 freres and watch the sunrise over the mountain and the cross. i loved exploring the different neighborhoods - either taking the metro to some random spot and walking home or going for a three hour bike ride to see where i’d wind up.

i miss going to the gym with sarah and vanessa, and all-you-eat-sushi at osaka with the sisters and frolicking to l'avenue with kate . . .

of course, if you had asked me this question in january, i would have spat that i hated montreal and all it stood for, while desperately trying to salvage my favorite boots from the incessant salt attack …

lil'guy gets cozy

on the knitting front, i finished my leaf foliage scarf. overall, was not terribly pleased with it. the malabrigo lace weight was beautiful; really soft, gorgeous tonal monochromatic color that's hard to find. but the lace gauge given was really a little too dense for my taste and oh my god did this project drag on. blergh.

BUT moving away from tiny yarn and needles for a bit, i have recently acquired a new macbook as a grad gift and it is beautiful and shiny and still has that fantastic new-electronic-smell [sometimes i sniff its gorgeously white keyboard]. to protect the lil'guy, i've been swaddling him in scarves, but he deserves something custom, something tailored and lovingly made.

enter entrelac! it's one thing i have still never done, even after 10+ odd years as a knitter. there's a similar sleeve somewhere on the interwebs but googling is failing at the moment.
i'm following this tutorial and i'll tell you, this shit is easy.

i'm going to try alternating colors on the rows simply because this is meant to clean out some of the yarn lingering in tupperware underneath beds. then maybe some sort of decorative embroidery joining-stitch? i'm going to do two rectangles and take it from there!

things i love thursday

one of my favorite blogs to read is gala's. and without further ado, i present my tilt - listing good things in your life is supposed to do wonders for your mental health and happiness and i am happy to take even a placebo effect.

- chickens! my parents keep (6) hens for their eggs and during the day they get to roam outside. they love to sit and rest together under the peach tree in the garden and make little clucking noises to each other.

- macbooks! i will never return to the tyranny of vista.

- internet! we live on an island in maine, down a dirt road with no cable lines. and somehow! some technology has enabled me to be on the internet without using dial-up like its 1996. amazing.

- weeds! fantastic show.

- london and further adventures! this is both exciting and extremely anxious for me. in (12) days adam and i will be in the old world, and i can see kate, emma and dario again! i also spend most of my days researching further tefl possibilities - south korea? thailand? who knows?!

- akron/family - ed is a portal mmmmh so fantastic.

slowly surely

getting back to cooking.

as i am living at home, i don't do the shopping. and cooking for myself is likely to be whatever can be improvised from the fridge.

in montreal, i went food shopping several times a week and cooked almost every meal. sarah, van and i got sloppy towards the end and succumbed to dominos perhaps one time too many, but i genuinely enjoyed trying new recipes and shocking the roommates with what i planned to put in my mouth [kd and hamburger helper were staples for 2/3rds of the apartment].

yesterday, i made diy peanut butter cups. they do not photograph well, as they bear a striking resemblance to cow patties. i subbed regular sugar for the confectioners and some sort of gourment melting chocolate i found in the pantry - pretty tasty! i think i actually prefer the slightly crunchy texture of regular sugar. yum.

today, i embarked from normal lunch laziness and made a much modifed hot and sour soup. lacking any sort of leafy green vegetable, i added tofu, mystery dried mushrooms and sprouts. no mirin, but added a couple of tbls of honey to make up for its sweetness. lots of sriracha and reading about esl in thailand and it turned out pretty good.

sasquatch

from natalie dee. i love sasquatches.

hola

i have returned, minus a left ovary, 6 lbs of benign tumor and 2 more incidental lbs.
quickest diet ever.

i'm doing fine, feel pretty good but am on a reduced-movement plan, where i watch hours of crappy television, drink tea and knit. thursday marks 2-weeks and when i can drive again! adam is coming for a visit friday-monday, so i am very much looking forward to seeing him after two months.

we're busy co-ordinating and planning - adam and i are leaving on the 26th for london, where we'll bum with various friends [who may or may not remain friends after we crash for un-socially acceptable lengths of time] and try to budget-live with our crappy crappy american dollars. the plan right now is to take off for gloriously cheap and beautiful sarajevo at the beginning of october and hopefully hopefully hopefully land tefl jobs.

i am outside, enjoying whatever technology lets me get the interwebs without a dsl hook-up or wireless; watching the chickens roaming around, enjoying illicit cigarettes, trying to re-gain camp tan and enjoying this new little guy "macbook". i've made the switch!

in the crafty front, i've finished (6) log cabin blocks and have almost finished the leaf shawl! pictures to come. in the style front, i've been wearing the same three shift dresses for the past (9) days. blergh.

and if anyone asks about the scar, the story is it's from a tijuana bar fight.