… with a new member of the Brouhaha family!

This is JJ Junior (JJ was getting worried that none of the duckies were named after him, given that he has another son from a past life, also called JJ). Isn’t he lovely?

Although he is an adoptee, he is still a very welcome member to the Family Brouhaha.

I come back from my absence with some news. Everything being equal, JJ and I be moving to a new location in the next couple of months:

I hate to say it here, but it’s a condo. I know I’ve bitched and bitched about condos - but this one was built 20 years ago before I even moved to Toronto, so I feel OK about it.

Plus… this will be the view from our balcony:

This view, coupled with being able to stop paying out some $1,600 a month to THE LANDLORD, convinced to me get into the not-so-wonderful world of homeownership. And, not to blame anyone else, but part of my absence from here in the past couple of weeks has been due to getting into the realm of dealing with banks, real estate lawyers and so forth. It is far more time consuming than I would have thought, frankly.

When we move, we will be moving close to Greektown (for Toronto denizens, our new place will be at Pottery Road and Broadview, close to the Danforth). So, I’m holding off on displaying these inheriritances (I don’t know if this is a word, but anyway)… from my father Ted’s apartment until we move:

This is a bottle of brandy, covered with a female form.  There was also a male version which looked somewhat like Takis here:

…but I’ve left that bottle in Kingston for my brother.

Here is another vintage bottle:

He went and drank all the ouzo out of it.  Probably a guid thing, as any ouzo left would probably be 200 proof and would have killed me.

And finally, my favourite, given my new avocation as half-assed chef

This is a pepper grinder from Greece.  And I love it.  I’ll wait to use it, though, until we’re in our new house.

As for knitting?  Funnily enough, I’m still not back at it.  I have been hacking away at my never-ending mosaic project… and I’m hoping to start a simple squares knitting project with my scrap yarn soon.  Amy is working on a mitered square project which I’ve found inspiring in its simplicity.

As for the two lace projects I was working on… they’re on the shelf for now, and I probably won’t start up again until after the move in late November and settling in.  Sorry to my knitter readers - my energy is focused elsewhere right now (and if you want to tune in later in the week, I’ll bore you either with work crap or political crap or both).

Hope all is well with you!

Kristina

Hello to my baker’s dozen of dedicated readers:

I feel I must apologise for my uncharacteristic absence both from my own blog and from visiting others’. My time of late has been taken up with the following:

(a) settling into my new vaunted managerial position;

(b) looking at real estate (JJ and I have decided that it is time to stop paying $$$ to THE LANDLORD);

(c) trying to keep up with the political news up here - we have a rather ridiculous federal election coming up on 14 October - huge rant potential except the landscape shifts so quickly that by the time I start to write a rant, it’s out of date. Sigh; and

(d) getting Tedplaced into a more comfortable home for him. He moved to Toronto this morning. Although he has some complaints about the service in the restaurant (”wwhhhy don’t the rrestaurrants een Dorondo geeve you menus to look at”), he’s already made a friend and seems comfortable. And since he’s decided he is the top guy intellect-wise in the place, he feels right at home!

Oh, and I’m still scheming about knitting, especially because my log cabin blankie:

… and the recent felted clogs which JJ kindly sacrificed:

…have been a big hit in the nursing home.

“what do ye mean ’sacrrrrificed’, lassie!!! Ye telt me ye’d mek me another pair rrright away. In fact, ah notice ye didn’t want to get rrid of the gaudy lime grrrreen ones, but only the classy ones ye made fer me. Tek a guid long harrd look in the mirrrrrror…” etc. etc.

Well, perhaps by the next time I post I’ll have made a new fancy set of felted clogs for JJ!!

I’m going to try to get back to my schedule next week - because I miss it - and I’ll be checking in on the regular blogs as well once the dust settles.

In the meantime, I hope that all is well with you and yours out there.

Cheers,

Kristina

OK, OK, so it’s not a direct quote, and it doesn’t even rhyme. But it reflects how I spent a good part of the Labour Day long weekend…

Yup. The Mad Princess of Preserves is at it again, folks.

You see, I made the mistake of going to Loblaws on Saturday for…oh, toilet paper and other boring things. But for once they had some local Ontario produce going!

So, I had to buy about 20 pounds of plum tomatoes and 10 pounds of these Shepherd peppers. I’ve never really noticed these before - they taste like red bell peppers, but sweeter and better. So, my first thought was to try for some flavoured booze:

This, in about three weeks, will be Shepherdised Tanqueray gin. I have no clue whether this one will taste like anything you’d wanted to drink, but I had a bunch of Tanqueray left over from the recent party, so thought I’d give it the old college try.

This, on the other hand, I can hardly wait to crack open:

Iceberg vodka with Shepherd peppers and ten jalapenos with the seeds left in. Better stock up on those ulcer meds… I love pepper vodka!

I also decided to make some infused rice vinegars, one with the peppers and one with lemon and lime:

Then I decided to roast the hell out of the rest of the Shepherd peppers:

…and start making some real stuff. First, I made a whole lot of tomato sauce with roasted pepper, roasted garlic and onion puree:

That took care of about half the peppers. So, what to do with the other half?!?

Initially I wanted to try to make some tomato/roasted pepper low sugar jam. Unfortunately, however, I made the mistake of musing about this aloud, at which point JJ overheard and suggested very reasonably that I not make any more jam until some of the stuff I made some weeks back was gone.

When I say “reasonably”, I mean this of course in the Scottish fashion:

Ye daft wee lassie, what on God’s grrrrreen airrrrth would possess ye to make more jam?!?! Every time ah open the cupboards, ah almost get murdered by a flyin jar of jam. And ye doan’t even eat the stuff! Ye should go tek a long harrrd look in the mirror…

He did, however, have a point. So, instead I made…

… salsa! Three bloody litres of the stuff. It has tomatoes, the peppers plus a third major secret ingredient. I first premiered the secret ingredient salsa at my party to great accolades (I must say I was shocked - I had only come up with it at the last minute when I realised I had 5 million bags of nachos and no salsa as I had dumped all the salsa into the slowcooker with IKEA swedish meatballs in a panic…). That version, however, did not have roasted peppers.

If it turns out at all good, perhaps I will post the recipe here. Or, perhaps I’ll just send it to the Food Network and wait for the telephone call offering me my very own programme.

I also made a V8/coriander jelly:

… and rehabbed some former jellies I had made which hadn’t set properly, including this bell pepper one:

So, I think that was a guid weekend’s work, don’t ye?

Off now to premiere the fabulous new salsa with the colleagues work.

Happy Tuesday, all!

I wanted to share with you all a recipe which you should try if you like Greek salad.  I know there are millions floating around out there - but this is the best.  My cousin G. reminded me of it quite recently.  Actually, this is always how I’ve made “village” salad but I’ve diverted of late to the Nigella Lawson watermelon version. So, G., thanks for the reminder!

Here’s G’s version of the famous salad:

… whenever I make greek salad (the authentic Horiatiki kind with just tomatos, onion, cucumber, green pepper (sometimes), feta and olives with lots of oregano) I always make it as your Dad taught me.  Make sure the veggies are a room temperature and put salt on the tomatos and let them sit of 5 minutes or so before you put the olive oil on.  That way they release their juice and the “sauce” that is left after the salad is eaten is the greatest thing in the world to dip bread into.

I have only the following to add: do not use any vinegar on this version.  It’s not needed because the liquid that comes from the tomatoes provides the acid.  Most greek salad recipes call for an olive oil and wine vinegar dressing, but this is over the top if you just let the tomatoes sit for a few minutes as G. says.

And if you don’t believe me, these guys give the salad two thumbs up!

I feel I should sign off on a crafty note because I’ve been derelict on that front of late. When researching photos for this post I came across this snazzy one from a tote bag:

Now, if anyone comes across a pattern like this, please do let me know ASAP because I would take up cross-stitch again if I had something like this in hand.  This, by the way, is saying a lot - given that at the age of 37… oops 38 … I blame the fact that I need bifocals on this little piece that I made for my mother one Christmas:

Let me just say that it was actually a LOT bigger that this photo will belie, and that the canvas was not preprinted. She ended up getting it for her birthday in June the following year.  And now I’m half blind.  So, Mom, this is the evidence that I do really love you.  

I should just, instead, have stuck with something like the minimalist art that my brother V. had come up with some years previously:

But no.  Instead, I turned myself off cross-stitch forever - aside from a little piece that I made for Holly the Zombie Fighter Extraordinaire a while back:

Now, when Takis

saw the zombie hankie, he started to give me a speech about proper Greek female behaviour. 

However, his wife Spiroula’s feedback?

She said “You go, girl!!!” with a strong grik accent. Or rather, “gggheeeeeiou ggggo, gkerrrrl!”

I think that this is enough rambling for now.  In observance of the Labour Day weekend, I will not be posting this Friday or on Monday.  So - see you Tuesday!

Fancy, eh?

I can only hope that JJ doesnae thieve it from me. 

Heh heh.

For those of you who do not live near me and have not been subjected to seeing the man’s face on your television screens about 25 times a night or reading his open letters in all the newspapers, Michael McCain (no relation to the guy south of the border who is running for president, as far as I know) is the President and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods.  As such, he is currently busy dodging flak dealing with the fact that several people have died eating meat from the Maple Leaf factory which had been tainted with listeriosis.

Dear Maple Leaf:

I do hope the families who have lost people find your recent messaging about the bacteria crisis which arose at your plant 97B comforting. For my part, I find Mr. McCain’s “heartfelt” expressions of sympathy combined with legal @$$-covering to be disingeneous and… well, rather annoying. A prime example of this new “we’re a corporation but we still care about YOU” trend.

<

Given all of the talk in the media that it’s going to cost Maple Leaf at least $20million in reimbursements for product recall and God knows what else hush money for relatives of those who died eating some precooked pot roast other expenses related to this crisis, I was flabbergasted to see on CTV News last evening that experts predict there will be no long-lasting damage to you at Maple Leaf - partly, apparently, because of your crisis-management skills.

Colour me stupid, but I really don’t begin to understand how the world of high finance works. However, I do understand that most Canadians will not be buying anything made by Maple Leaf any time soon because of fears (whether justified or not) of contamination - and so it didn’t make sense to me that Maple Leaf would not take a hit.

Until, that is, I had a look at your website (http://www.mapleleaf.ca/Aboutus/default.aspx) and learned that you have some other holdings.   And - lo and behold! - one of those holdings is J.M. Schneider’s Foods!

If I sound catty, it’s because I detest all those Schneider’s Ads featuring an actor playing long-dead Old Man Schneider yakking on about how really Schneider’s is just like a family business, bla bla bla. However, I had also assumed that Schneider’s was actually your biggest competitor - given that they seem to sell the identical line of meats, bacon, frozen foods, etc. to you guys.  (Oh - and it was also interesting to learn that you own Dempster’s breads - so you’ve really got the baloney sandwich market covered here in Canada, eh?)

But instead, I guess that many of those people who want cold cuts but do not want to buy from Maple Leaf any more will end up changing to Schneider’s instead - especially in smaller centres where they lack the choice of goods that I enjoy here in Toronto.

So - and again, I’m rather daft about things financial - it seems to me that you might well end up with more money in your collective pockets as a result of this food scare at Maple Leaf.  But then again, I’m no economist. 

I am, however, someone with a relatively high bullshit meter.   So, phrases like the following, which I read in Mr. McCain’s open letter to the world his customers this morning, make me see red:

This is the toughest situation we’ve faced in 100 years as a company.  We know this has shaken your confidence in us.  I commit to you that our actions are guided by putting your interests first.

As long as “your interests” involve tossing out everything in the deep freeze from Maple Leaf and replacing it with Schneider’s, I guess, eh?

Well, my interest now officially include never buying anything produced by your various outfits again, quite frankly - not because of the bacteria but because I find your approach to the situation rather cynical and calculated.  This might mean I never get to eat cold cuts or bacon again, given that you seem to control the supply. Given my addiction to fondness for bacon in large quantities, this will be not be easy. But I will survive, I’m sure.

And, I would suggest that you, Mr. McCain, amend your little “open letter” to make the link between you and Schneiders a tad more clear. Something like “Our biggest competitor, whom we own, will be happy to take care of your ongoing food needs” would suffice.

Yours very truly,

Kristina M. Brouhaha

A WEE DISCLAIMER: although those of you who read this blog regularly have gathered (I hope!) that I don’t really talk about intensely personal stuff here. However, in the past couple of weeks I’ve been quite occupied with settling the affairs of my father, who is currently in acute care a couple of hours north of here suffering from Alzheimer’s. So I hope you’ll bear with me for a bit of a personal story - it will be long and photo intensive, and I hope it’s not too maudlin.

I was too young at the time to remember the day that this photograph of me and my father was taken. However, the other day when cleaning out my father’s apartment in Kingston, I came across a bunch of stuff that helped me remember his story.

My father’s name is Theodosios B. Brousalis. In English, they call him “Ted”. I’ve never quite been sure why, except that in the days he came to Canada it was not a good idea to have an ethnic first name.

He arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1960 from Greece on a boat called the Queen Frederica:

His passage cost $285.30 US and the boat took 14 or 15 days to arrive here. He had no real plan about what to do when he got to Canada. By that point, he had served in the Air Force in Greece and then worked as a cigarette delivery person for some years. He hadn’t done very well in school, probably because he was a smartass who didn’t take direction well. The Air Force experience didn’t really change this, either.

So, he decided to leave Greece. His original plan was to join his mother’s father in Alton, Illinois to get work there. (Ted had never actually met his grandfather, who had left the village when Ted’s mother, Kristina - yes, I’m named after her - was still in the womb. The grandfather came back once more to Greece, impregnated the grandmother once more and then went back to Alton, Illinois, never to return to Greece).

However, in order to get to the US, it was easiest to come to Canada first and apply from here at that point. So Ted came here on a landed immigrant permit having promised to marry someone here - this was something that had been set up as a sham for him to get here in the first place.

However, once Ted got here, he decided he liked Canada. I’m not sure why as he had a bunch of crap jobs in his first few years here. He ended up in Montreal working in a nylon factory for 50 cents an hour - the factory was hot and the workers had to buy water from the boss to keep going.

He then ended up in Kingston, Ontario - where I grew up - when he was offered a job with some friends from his hometown. He had to teach himself English and in this regard went to night school while working six or seven days a week as a dishwasher.

From there, he ended up in the restaurant and bar industry. At the time he came to Kingston, there was no liquor service in Ontario. The photo above with the snappy red jacket is the first photo taken of anyone in the place he worked serving liquor when they made that legal. He was always very proud of that (people who wanted to serve liquor had to take a two week course) and still had the snazzy red jacket hung up in his apartment.

After that, he bought his first business with a partner. It was a burger and snack shop .

Ted introduced the souvlaki to Kingston. At the time, Kingston was a very “English” town. Ted said this to me in 1986 when I interviewed him about his life for a high school project:

I think this… this mixture of multi-nationalities has created some culture in Canada, which no other… not too many other countries have. If is wasn’t for this mixture…well, the first I came here in Kingston, in the restaurants, you could only eat… hot beef, one type of steak, club sandwich, liver… it was limited, the menus in the restaurant… and all these people they came from overseas, and they just brought some of the ideas here which they adapted and started working, and that’s why you have such veriety here… I don’t think you can go too many places in the whole world where you can find this… like, you go to Greece and that’s all you find, some Greek food… everything, and you go to China, you find Chinese food… here, name it, you… whatever type of food you want, you can eat, specially in the big centres…

When I was growing up, Ted was a very hard worker. I didn’t see all that much of him, and usually he was either asleep…

… or handing out rules. Some of the Greek father rules and superstitions can be quite strange, as you will know if you have ever watched “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”. Ted could have played the lead role in that movie quite easily. Ted also had weird beliefs, such as that white vinegar on french fries would give you leukemia.

But I digress. Ted ended up having some other restaurants which were successful for quite a long time.

He and his business partner then ended up falling on hard times due to the recession and other problems, and lost everything.

However, Ted ended up working as an upholsterer and refinisher after that:

He was still working until a couple of years ago, at which point his health started to go downhill.

This is the most recent photograph that I have of Ted, taken in December of 2007:

There will probably be no more photos taken of Ted - at least not by me. At present, he is not looking all that well and his brain is about 20 years in the past, the best we can tell. Before he went to hospital he was not eating or cooking for himself and lost a lot of weight. This makes me quite sad as one of the good things I remember about him while he was living alone is that he loved to cook big meals for people.

AN ASIDE: Like me, Ted liked to experiment with cooking techniques. These either worked out brilliantly or not at all. I remember one Christmas some years back when he had me and my brother over and had decided it would be a good idea to try to cook a 15 pound turkey in a paper bag. This theory originated from a cooking method called “kleftiko” that some Greeks use for lamb chops. It originates from when some Greeks a long time ago were hiding either from the Turks or some other invaders in the hills and buried meat in the ground in paper over coals and cooked it that way to avoid detection. It works very well with lamb chops, but not at all well with turkey. The bag caught fire after two hours in the oven. I forget what we ended up eating, but it wasn’t turkey!

Because I won’t be taking any more photos of Ted, I will leave you with the best photo I ever took of him:

This photo was taken in 1996 in the apartment I lived in during law school. Ted was just leaving on his way back to Kingston from Toronto and had asked for some coffee. I had no coffee mugs in the place and gave him the coffee in the beer stein you see him holding. So, I got a little speech about my hostessing abilities. However, he then asked me to take the photo of him with the coffee in the beer stein and told me he was pretending that I’d actually served him Guinness before letting him make the three hour drive back to Kingston. He then said:

I would have thought that if you only have beer mugs that you would actually have some beer to give an old man before sending him back on a long trip. But no. I guess you drank all your beer even though you knew your baba was coming to visit. Next time, have some beer here for me, plis. And - (raising the coffee/beer mug) yassou! (cheers in Greek).

Yassou, Ted. And I hope that wherever you are living right now in your mind, you’re happy.

Unlike the photo above, there was no smile on my face last night.

Why not?

Well, for the first time in my life on Tuesday, I had broken down and bought one of these pre-made pot roast thingies.

It’s the one on the right hand side. I have avoided them in past because they cost way too much money ($10 for about 1/2 pound of meat plus a bunch of sauce!!) … but this week has been hellish busy and I thought this would save some time.

So - I got home from work yesterday at 7 or so and prepared to pop this thing into the microwave.

Then JJ spied the package and shrieked at me “Didn’t you hear about Maple Leaf???”

No, I hadn’t. So I went on the CTV website and read this:

Maple Leaf recalls meat products after outbreak

A nationwide outbreak of listeriosis has killed one person and sickened at least 16 others, officials confirmed Wednesday as one of Canada’s largest meat packers temporarily shut down a Toronto plant and recalled nearly two dozen packaged, ready-to-eat meat products.

Yay. The one time in my life that I break down and buy some way overpriced convenience roast, there’s bacteria at the plant!

Now I should stress that this particular item was not on the recall list. However, the expiry date was three days off of some which were. I’m not all that paranoid about food safety, but I figured why take the chance.

So, I ate potato chips and JJ ate some fruit. I’m sure that tasted better anyway!

Happy weekend! (I have to take a wee break tomorrow as well as I’m going out of town). And see you Monday!

During my wee hiatus from the blog last week in which I had to deal with some family issues going on well north of the city, I was forced to drive more in one weekend than in the 15 years preceding it.

Perhaps I’m just naive, but what is happening on the roadways these days made me feel somewhat like this:

Now, given that I don’t drive all that frequently (perhaps once every two months!) and that until four years ago I had not driven at all since I moved to Toronto, I started to think that perhaps the rules of the road have changed since I took my driver’s test some four score and seven 20 plus years ago.

So, I decided to check out this handy Ministry of Transport reference guide which I read back in 1986 and then threw out:

However, I must say that the MTO guide did not really describe what I’ve seen happening on the roads of late.  So, I’ve begun to think that there must be another Driver’s Handbook out there - probably titled “Wankers of the World Unite” or something along those lines!

Anyway, the apparent new Rules of the Road raise some questions for stupid little me:

• why do the car makers continue to put turn signals in cars if no one actually has to use them?!

This one I actually find very confusing because they actually have these digital signs on the 401 now which flash such useful information as “Don’t drink and drive”, “Follow Ye Not Too Closely” and… my favourite … “Use appropriate signals when changing lanes”.  I actually drove right underneath the latter sign about 30 seconds before being cut off by a bastard driver who - of course - had not used the signals.  To cut him some slack, though, JJ told me that I had missed the part on that sign which read “…except for the guy in the white hatchback”. 

• when did they start letting you make a left hand turn from the right hand lane on a red light?

• are there unwritten rules as to which people/vehicles those signs which say “Turn ye not left here between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.” do not apply to?  If so, where do I register?

• where the posted speed limit is 100 km/h and I’m in the slow lane on the 400 highway and doing 120 just to keep up with the Joneses, why do the people behind me think that I should actually be doing 150 km/h and honk at me and give me the finger then zoom past?

• is it actually now legal to drive while doing your makeup, consulting your GPS system and talking on your handheld mobile phone?

• is there some new rule that says you have to let in those people who speed to the front of the merging lane when the traffic is backed up and then try to butt in?

And, one last but very important question indeed:

• when in God’s name are ye gonnae learrrrn how to parallel park, lassie?!?!? 

…and I’ve aged a year since the last time you saw me!

This will be rather a lame post as I don’t have a lot of guid photos on my own camera.  They turned out blurry.  However, on my 38th birthday I convened a party of 40 plus people to celebrate both my birthday and my mother’s nameday. 

Where are the photos of my mother, you ask?  I’m not posting them because she actually looks younger than me.  No joke.  Those of my friends who hadn’t met her already were shocked that she was my mother.  

So, I’m posting a photo of our mystery guest in her place: 

She brought along some mystery gifts:

(I guess she didn’t know that I’m a knitter!)

I also got lots of other fab gifts, including these:

… and these:

… and these… 

This was despite the fact that I said “no gifts or you’re not getting fed”.  But the friends who brought the gifts all told me “We can’t really read… so we didn’t understand what your Email said”. I had to accept this and feed them anyway. 

There was a little mishap with the cakes in the photo with me above, by the way.  I managed to give out the wrong buzzer code to my apartment, which was a problem with the cake delivery that my friend and colleague KP had arranged for me and my mother.  This caused a bit of drama at the party… but then every party needs drama - and the cakes got here eventually, more joy to us. The cakes were amazing - and for those in the Toronto area they were ordered from She Takes the Cake.  And surely she does take the cake as they spent an hour trying to deliver the cakes before the mishap was made known.  Sigh.  

There are photos of the big spread that we prepared, but apparently not on my camera.  I catered 20 different middle eastern / greek dishes, my mother prepared a tremendous tiropita (greek cheese pie) and my friend Jennifer provided tofu kebabs which disappeared pretty quickly.   I will be boring you with all of those photos when I get them, no doubt. 

The “I’d like to bore you with photos of my food” will be made far easier once I manage to get this gift from JJ installed:

(I guess he got sick and tired of me saying “I have to print out it out at work!!”)

I also got this fabulous lawyerly gift from my mother, who got it from ECCO Shoes where she works (in case anyone is looking…):

… and she threw these in among other gifts:

We also acquired eight bottles of wine and 50 beers from various generous friends, so we don’t need to hit the LCBO for a week some time. Not to mention a fabulous cookbook from my friend MT at work!

So, I had the best birthday ever, really.  And since I’ve been away more than a week from here, I have LOTS to rant about in the current events realm but I will save it for tomorrow whenever it seems appropriate.

As for my family emergency - thank you for all the kind Emails off list!  The emergency is sorted now and everything is fine.  

I wish you all a guid week, and leave you with a parting recipe for two salads which were an unexpected big hit at my party.  

Baby Spinach and Pea Salad

(original idea for the recipe from Jamie Oliver’s “Naked Chef” book)

- 4 cups/1 litre baby spinach

- 2 - 3 cups green peas (fresh if you can get them, but frozen and thawed would work)

- 113 g/4 oz crumbled feta

Combine all of the above.  Dress with extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice (the original recipe) or strawberry vinegar (my version).  Add salt and pepper to taste.  

Carrot and Orange Salad

(original recipe came from Claudia Roden’s book on Middle Eastern food, now out of print). 

- 1 1/2 lbs carrots, grated

- 2 tins of mandarin oranges, drained of all syrup

- 1/2 c lemon juice

- 2 T rosewater (which you can get at a middle eastern shop)

- 1/2 bunch of coriander (cilantro), ripped off the stems - don’t chop

- salt and pepper to taste. 

Combine all of the above in no particular order. 

A happy rest of the week to you all!

Regards, 

Kristina

Hi all: to those kind people who keep reading, I realise that I haven’t been following my regular blog posting schedule.  I wanted to let you know that I will not be posting anything again until Tuesday 20 August… between my new job and a family emergency (fret not - both JJ and I are OK!) I need to take a wee break.

I will return on Tuesday 20 August refreshed, relaxed and re-witted (I hope, anyway!)
Wishing you all a wonderful week,

Kristina

Well, I’ve been trying for a couple of years now to become rich and famous. However, the knitting blog/foodie/rant thing is not leading to the big cash grab that I had hoped.

So, I’m going to take another tack. I’ve decided to run for President of the United States.

That’s right.

“President Brouhaha” has a nice ring to it, no? (I actually prefer “The Right Honourable Brouhaha” but I figure the perqs and benefits are better with the top gig south of the border).

And I think JJ would make a stunning First Man, don’t you?

Besides, if Paris Hilton can do it… so can I!!!

I mean, what does SHE…

…have that I don’t have to electrify an entire nation?

Yeah yeah yeah… huge breasts, blonde hair, and billions of dollars. Not to mention a folding lawn lounger. I know, I know. But surely that kind of thing is passe, no?!?

And besides, anyone can become a blonde:

Hey, do you think Paris was born with that colour of hair? Come on. If you’re that gullible, can I count on your vote in November? Because I’m, like, you know, ready to lead too, eh?!

Oh, that reminds me. Oops. I forgot that I’m not an American citizen -so I guess I can’t run for prez after all.

So much for that bright idea. I guess it’s back to the day job now.

Happy Thursday!

Now that I have a brand spanking new job back with the Tenant Advocates, I’ve been doing some high-end legal research. Here are some of the results:

The more things change…. I figured JJ would like that one too, because of the puir wee scottish tenant wearin the kilt. That should be guid for a full scale “bloody English” rant! Heh heh.

Here’s a more modern depiction of The Landlord, just to be fair:

 
Yeah, OK, landlord - now, can you replace my 20 year old stove and 25 year old fridge, do you think?!

And then of course there are those situations dealing with luxury rental accommodations:

Sigh.

I’m depressed now, so I’d best get back to my real job. But before I do… something that has been plaguing me. I must admit I’m very curious to know how many people read this blog for some reason. In my brain, I have it at a dozen people or so - but I think there are a few more than that.

Anyway, I thought a poll would be a safe way for people to let me know whether they read or not, and still keep lurking. So, if you wouldn’t mind, would you just take a moment and answer the poll below? I can’t find out who you are, but I may get to learn that it is actually a baker’s dozen who read the blog, which would make me happy (my standards are rather low).

So, many thanks in advance. I wish I could promise all respondents a prize… but then again, I won’t know who you are. So, I’m off the hook. ($#*$&@$#*&#* lawyers, eh?!)

Happy Wednesday!

Hello all: I should note that the subject line is rather misleading as this post will actually not contain any direct wording from our greatly esteemed PM, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper.

Mr. Harper is the guy on the right, in case you had a problem figuring it out.

WARNING/ATTENTION/ACHTUNG: this post will contain a political rant which might offend some Canajan readers, and which will probably make no sense to readers from other countries.  You may, accordingly, wish to skip to the (blurry) photos at the end.  Consider yourselves warned.

Mr. Harper has, however, spent lots of time in recent months apologising to all and sundry for stuff which happened away back before he was born.  Most recently (and in fact, he managed to pull off this one on a long weekend when people aren’t typically paying all that much attention), he apologised for an incident that took place in 1914 - 376 Sikh and other people from the Indian south continent came into Vancouver on a boat and were not let in to Canada.  Many were murdered upon their return to Calcutta, after spending two months on a dock in the Vancouver harbour.

Now, it’s not for me to say that the Canadian government shouldn’t apologise for that, really.  But, in fact, the community he tried to apologise to has rejected the apology, saying it should come from the House of Commons rather than from Mr. King Stephen Harper trying to gain favour in their community when he shows up for a festival.

And, frankly, I don’t know if these apologies matter whether they come from the legislature or not.  However, it seems that he should have figured this out by now because he’s already issued apologies to the First Nations (without offering up any cash to back it up.

He’s also apologised to the Chinese-Canadian community for a head tax imposed on newcomers between 1885 and 1923 - and offered compensation to those who actually paid the tax, or their children.  Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t most people that got penalised under this old system be dead now?  And I’ve had at least one client who tried to negotiate the compensation scheme and was told “without original documents, you get nothing.

Now, I think that Mr. Harper is actually quite shrewd (or rather, that his advisors are geniuses) by hitting on a great way to deflect from what’s going on now - just apologise for what has happened in the past.  I mean, we are a nation of people who are socialised to say “sorry” if someone else bumps into you on the street.  And - they say “sorry” too and everyone moves on.

So, the apology as a political concept makes a lot of sense… and hey, the guy is apologising for stuff which happened well before he was even born!  How Canadian… and how dishonest.

Why dishonest?  Because this party is doing a whole hell of a lot of stuff right now that someone fifty years down the road will no doubt be apologising for.  Stuff such as decimating our health care system, reducing public pension entitlements for those who have paid in for 40 years or more, and so forth.

But hey, someone’s sorry - so that must count.  But you don’t see him shedding any tears either:

So, Mr. Harper, thank you for apologising, and I’m sorry too.  In fact, I’m sorry that you’re not offering some of my homemade preserves to those who have been wronged in years past, such as my tomato jam:

… or my jalapeno/green bell pepper jelly:

So, Mr. Harper, should you read this, have my people call my people and we’ll set up a proper “apology basket” for you to give to everyone who has been historically wronged.  JJ is, after all, retired, and has lots of time to can produce.

Happy Tuesday!

Well, I couldn’t help myself. You see, I had to go to the local farmers’ market on Saturday to replenish our stocks of produce and fruit.

(And, of course, a wee treat for JJ: apricot loaf!

Looks decent, eh? It’s all gone now!!)

Then I got home and realised that I’ve been bringing in produce etc at a rate that JJ we just can’t seem to come up with.

What to do with all of the leftover stuff? Why, get my cauldron going, of course!

And find my special preserving outfit to go with the cauldron…

And… voila!!!

This one is blueberry and apricot jam with lemon zest and lime juice.  It’s my first effort in making jam without pectin, which just means that you have to boil the fruit mixture a lot longer.  There is also a little extra ingredient in there… cherry tomatoes (I didn’t have enough of the blueberries and apricots, so had to improvise.  Not telling my chief taster, JJ, about the tomatoes though!!!)

And here’s another experiment:

This one is mixed bell pepper jelly with rice vinegar and rosemary.  The experimental component: midway through I realised I didn’t have enough sugar.  So, I’m not sure it will set.  But what the hey…

I also had a heap of fresh herbs, so decided to make some Sassy Scarborough Fair oil.

Parsley, garlic, rosemary and thyme… with some lemon zest added.  The garlic and the lemon are the “sassy” components.  I don’t like sage.

So, please do wish me luck - and don’t tell JJ about the tomatoes, eh?

Happy Monday!  Today is a holiday for us up here - yippee, yahoo, etc!!!  No big plans although there will surely be some patio or other calling our names out later this afternoon.

The two topics addressed in my subject line today, by the way, are meant to be read separately. I just thought it was too anal-retentive-lawyer-lingo-like of me to put (a); (b) in the subject line.

WARNING/AVERTISSEMENT/ACHTUNG! Today’s post is excessively verbose, even by my wordy standards. Don’t say I didnae warn ye.

Today was my last official day at my legal research workplace. I would have been a bit sad to leave but they’re finding they can’t get rid of me that easily - I’m going in tomorrow to excavate clean out my office. I’m only moving one floor up in the same building (we Legal Aid types can be fairly incestuous) and the person who will be using my office won’t be starting until mid-August, so had no real incentive to put the full push on for today. Also, I have to go back next week Tuesday for my official going away pizza lunch.

So, I was well surprised to get this lovely gift today:

This lovely bunch of sunflowers was presented to me by the reception/support staff J. and L. I hadn’t expected this at all and was almost moved to tears quite chuffed - particularly when they told me they had picked sunflowers because it was something different and I’m a weirdo they thought I would prefer that. I believe they will miss me because I was by far the noisiest person in an otherwise very quiet office sent them lots of Email jokes, bitched at them about consulted them on important issues, and brought in snack food.

J. runs the office lottery pool, and has also kindly granted me a dispensation to keep playing with the research office team (only after I whined at length that if they won next week when I’d kicked in my $2 a week for the past year and a half, I would sue).

Anyway, please accept my thanks, J. and L. (as I was too verklempt frazzled to tell you properly yesterday). And I thank you for providing a very friendly presence in the office (it’s so nice to come into work and have friendly people say “hey and how are you”) - and, more importantly, for providing that invisible and seamless support and help that is really so invaluable but which is probably not always recognised just because you’re so good at your jobs. You’ve made my work life a lot easier during my time at the research office, and I thank you for that.

Sniff. Sob.

Where was I?

Oh yes, generosity. This very hectic week was also greatly improved when I received a swap package from Clarabelle. Unfortunately, because J. and L. have not committed to running my life in addition to making my work life smoother, I can’t show you my own photos right now. However, she sent me a 1200 yd merino laceweight skein of yarn from the Natural Dye Studio and the colourway looks something like this:

She also enclosed these brilliant UK sweeties:

.. and the UK version of Skittles (one of my favourites - and she didn’t even know that!):

Clarabelle has also mentioned that my recent obsession about preserving food has inspired her to make some jam. Huzzah! So, now I’m mulling over whether I can make jam out of these stems I had to cut off from the sunflowers from J. and L. to make them fit into my vase:

Sunflower stem jelly, anyone? No? Hey - suspend your disbelief… and there is a long weekend coming up for me after all. This coming Monday is “Simcoe Day” - the Toronto excuse for “you need a long weekend in August”. And so we do. The fact that the holiday is called after a long-dead white settler guy shouldn’t really matter.

However, I’ve often wondered why they don’t just call these summer long weekend Mondays “Beer Day”, being in Canada and all. This trend has already started here by the way… the long weekend organised around “Victoria Day” after this person who was born on 24 May:

… has morphed into a whole weekend which many of us Canajans affectionately refer to as the “May Twofer Weekend”.

Huh?!? you people not lucky enough to be living in Canada are saying? Herein starts the grammar lesson.

Well, not quite yet. The necessity of the grammar lesson was brought home to me when, on the way home from my “last day at the research office” dinner, I told JJ that I wanted to deke into the LCBO to buy a six of beer. He started to laugh at me but I was too busy deking into the LCBO to investigate the cause of the laughter until he drove up in his chariot to carry me home with my six-pack.

He then telt me “Well, lassie, ye’re always so big on the grrrrammar, yet ye’re saying “a six of beer” and that makes no grrramatical sense”.

And (as almost always), he is right. It doesnae make any grammatical sense… unless yer Canajan, apparently. Since he has been some 18 years in Canada, it is surely not the first time that JJ has heard reference to “a six/twelve/twentyfour/2-4/twofer” of beer, and I of course reminded him of this. He said (and I quote