On becoming a better cook

People assume that because I am Italian, I must be a great cook.

Although this has not always been the case, my skills in the kitchen had improved considerably in the last few years thanks to (a) becoming vegetarian, (b) buying my own home, and (c) tips from Jamie Oliver.

Before moving to the Plateau, I lived in an apartment located in a quaint (but remote) residential area wedged between NDG and Lachine. This alone gave me every reason in the world not to cook.

1) Recipes are generally dosed out for four portions. As any person who lives alone can tell you, making a standard recipe is condemning yourself to a week of the same dish. At least if I had friends to share the food with, I might have been more enthusiastic, but...

2) Since none of my friends lived in the neighbourhood and found travelling there a great inconvenience, I rarely had visitors. It was far easier - and more pleasant - to drive out and meet them in a restaurant.

So then I moved. And become a vegetarian.

Now that I had a fabulous new home, in close range to many friends, I want to lure them to my home with promises of homemade pizza dough or asparagus lemon mint risotto, so a 4-portion recipe no longer seems daunting. If you cook it, they will come.

Even though I was initially worried that becoming a vegetarian would limit my range, it forced me to become more creative. In fact, it made me a more mindful cook. Instead of grilling a slab of chicken and covering it with a layer of salt, I now had to find new ways to make broccoli tasty. Even tofu (it turns out) is quite tasty if you know how to season it right.

So I've been experimenting and researching, and learning how to improvise, and the results are increasingly exciting. I am more attentive to the food I eat, my mind remembering which flavours blend well together and my tastebuds recording reactions for later reference.

The following list contains the discoveries that have helped me most in my journey to being a better cook. Perhaps readers might be so kind as to add some discoveries of their own.

• Fresh coriander. Adds a fresh flavour to food that it's blander cousin parsley cannot provide.
• Use red, orange or yellow pepper instead of green. The price per pound is fairly inexpensive if you shop in fruiteries and you don't need to use a lot to add some serious flavour to your food.
• Lemons and limes. A squish of lemon or lime juice - even the zest - adds a freshness to salads, marinades and sauces that lifts the flavour instantly.
• Marinades. Stop rolling your eyes - marinades are not hard to make. If you can make a simple salad dressing, then you can make a marinade for vegetables, tofu or meat. I quickly got tired of eating steamed vegetables with salt, so I started playing around with marinades. I make a simple marinade for veggies (before tossing them on the BBQ) which consists of garlic, coriander, fresh ginger, sesame oil, lime juice, and salt. Squisito!

Now, of course, I'm hungry.

Why we love Jamie Oliver

I was looking through my cookbooks for a good risotto recipe, and I found a great one in Cook with Jamie.

I'm a big fan of JO. And not just because of his Bottoms Up Mugs.

So what's the big deal with Jamie Oliver, you ask? Why do all the ladies get a little giggly at the mere mention of his name?

It's not because he's famous.
It's not because he's cute.
It's not because of the adorable lisp.

It's because he really loves what he does and he gets crazy excited about it. He really believes in what he's doing and isn't afraid to take risks now and again.

That, is hot.

Good Sunday

Plenty of clean clothes for the week.

And sweet snickerdoodles from Dina.

Update

Yoga teacher training is three sleeps and two work days away - and I am *so* ready.

The bedroom is finally painted, and my nest is warm and feathered. I've moved all the furniture back in. Installed the drapes. Bought a bitchin' new alarm clock. I look forward to the massive amounts of sleeping I'll be doing there during training.

I know the difference between medial and lateral rotation, why bowlegged people are bowlegged, and that the radius crosses the ulna when the hand pronates.

I have done all my laundry and discovered that I'll need one more yoga outfit to get through the month. I'll need to swing by lululemon tomorrow to check out new pants and a top. What do they put in their clothes? Cocaine?

I really am going to miss my coworkers. To compensate (i.e. make sure they miss me),  I made them lemon loaf for this morning and chocolate cupcakes for tomorrow morning. You'd be amazed how long it took to find a simple recipe for chocolate cupcakes.

T's have been crossed. I's have been dotted. Bring on the learnin'!

Home decor

I think I'm falling in love with my home. I mean, it's been a pretty heavy crush for the last year and a bit, but our relationship has changed recently - deepened.

What really changed things was my decision to beautify the place. New closet doors. Wall hangings. Photo gallery. Fresh coat of paint. New curtains. I still don't have enough furniture to fill the space, but what is here looks prettier - more "me".

I even backed out of a girls' shopping weekend in Burlington to spend the weekend repainting my bedroom. My mom's manning the roll and I've got the paintbrush. She's also in charge of sweeping up all the cobwebs in my bedroom (no jokes, svp).

Once this room is done, I think my home and I will definitely be going steady.

Pinching pennies

I had the pleasure of going to the ballet tonight - Sleeping Beauty by the Grands Ballets Canadiens. Since discovering ballet some three or four years ago, I have tried to see one performance every spring. It's generally a contemporary piece.

I love the powerful surge of bodies against gravity. Ballet's ability to unfold intricate stories with a flick of a wrist or a turn of the head. Le gestuel. And how to describe how sacred I feel when beneath the silence of the room, I hear the dancers breathing.

It's a privilege to see such beauty. And I feel especially fortunate to afford such a privilege.

For many years, when I worked as a freelance writer, I would lie awake at night calculating and recalculating expenses, trying to find a new strategy for paying everything off on time. There was no pocket change for ballet tickets.

Although I'm not 'rolling in it' today, I can afford the occasional ballet tickets. Or pedicure. According to my mother, I spend too much - and she's right, given the fact that she calculates costs based on 1970s standards. It feels good to be able to afford these little luxuries, but the mental calculations never really stop. I still find myself making purchase decisions based on how much money I actually have in my pocket.

"How much...? $7! Right. Then lunch will just have to cost $7."

"Gum would be good. Hmmm. No change? I can live without gum right now."

Certain habits never fade. I'll bet that even if you're rolling in it, you still make calculations... just on a much larger scale.

"How much...? 1.4 million! Right. Then I'll only buy a company worth $1.4 million."

They can probably afford better ballet seats too :)

How my garden grows!

Spring!

Hyacinths growing in the backyard.

Lilac tree sprouting in the front.

How I find stuff

There's a little saying I have: "If you want to find something in a Palanca house, then you have to think like a Palanca".

Thankfully, I'm fully qualified.

So when I was unable to locate the cling wrap this evening, I began searching in all unlikely places.  Part of me would like to pretend that I keep cling wrap in the bathroom as part of some esoteric and sexy beauty secret, but the truth is, I probably wandered in there with the cling wrap in hand and unconsciously switched it for something else that seemed more important at the time.

My suspicion is, I'll soon find my deodorant in the pantry next to the rice.

Petal, it should be noted, did not utter a word of criticism when I found the cling wrap. Bless her wooden heart. 

Fabric softener

Have you ever read the label on fabric softener? Neither had I... until I bought a new fragrance on Saturday afternoon.

Click on the photo and read the first warning. If you can't see it, the warning reads:

Do not use this product:

• On children's sleepwear or garments labeled as flame resistant as it can reduce flame resistance.

• On garments made with fluffier fabrics containing cotton (such as fleece or terry cloth) as it may increase the flammability of these fabrics.

On a positive note, my clothes smell fantastic.

An evening well spent

Monday nights are what I call "sweeper nights". After dinner, I begin cleaning up the odds and ends of my life.

Opening mail.

Paying bills.

Recycling.

Laundry.

Dishes.

Running the dishwasher

Cleaning up files on the desktop.

Nothing special.

And yet, it's one of my favourite nights of the week.

Maria + Serafino Palanca, May 18, 1963

I'm finally starting to decorate at home. After almost a year, I finally have a feel for how I want my home to look and I'm starting with photos. I ransacked my mom's photo albums and came up with stacks of vintage snaps. Family members at various ages. Taken in Italy, in Canada. Black and white, sepia, and colour. I want to surround myself with reminders of who I am, and where I came from.

This picture from my parents' wedding day is already a favourite.

My dad is so handsome, my mom so beautiful. I wonder what became of the little boy peering back at the camera from the left side. I can feel the sumptuous fur of the woman's shawl on the left. You can almost hear the whisper of her wedding dress as she strides up the aisle.

Such elegance.

Making, not buying

This past weekend, the mother of a friend asked me what my mother had taught me to do in the kitchen. I told her about the years spent helping to make pasta and bread and sausages. Then she admonished me, saying that I should only learn to make the things that I can't buy.

"All those years that my sister and I made tortellini into the middle of night, it wasn't because we wanted to, it was because we couldn't buy them anywhere. Now that you can buy pasta, why would you make it?"

I didn't reply properly at the moment because my mouth was busy deconstructing some fruit, but here is my full response now.

It's a health thing. Although there are many grocery stores, brands and eateries that I trust, there are three times more stores, brands and eateries that I don't. When you make something yourself, you can choose quality ingredients that you can feel good about. You know what's going into your food... which is not something you can say most of the time.

It's a social thing. There is great pleasure in creating food and eating it together. I don't make everything that I eat, but sometimes it's a nice excuse for bringing people together. Even if she did make tortellini all night long - she was doing it with her sister.

It's working with your hands. Understandably, this woman works with her hands every day and it must be a pleasure to just buy the stuff and give the digits a break. But for the rest of us that make our living staring at computer screens and tapping at keyboards, it's a pleasure to switch skill sets and make something with our hands instead. When my work day is drawing to an end and I'm exhausted between the ears, I long to clear my head by plunging my hands into soft dough.

And lastly, the food just tastes better.

Rant. And help needed.

The previous owner of my condo suggested I put up a NO BIKES PLEASE sign on my front fence, warning me that bikes left locked on the fence could be a hazard in wintertime.

You see, in deep snow, those zippy sidewalk sweepers cannot gauge where the fence ends, and it's happened that while zipping along, they have missed the mark. Now I don't know much about physics, but I do understand that when a speeding object hits a stationary target (unless it's a moose), the moving object wins.

On two occasions, the sweepers have hit bikes on the front lawn - and have taken the fence with them. In fact, the previous owner even took the City of Montreal to court to have her fence repaired last year - and she won. Today, the fence is still a little bent near the entry to the path.

Also, I had beautiful rose bushes that grew around the fence. I didn't want them crushed!

So I put up the sign, using tie-wraps to make it nice and tight against the fence. To be kind to my neighbours, I placed the sign near the opening, where the fence is less stable. This still left them two places - near the outer, anchoring posts - in which to lock their bikes.

I have this cranky German man renting a flat next door who has been heard complaining about my sign, grumbling that people should be allowed to lock their bikes anywhere, that the owner promised him he would always have a place for his bike on the street, and other anarchist-type comments that display a disturbing detachment from reality.

Now let's remember:

• Cranky German man (CGM) is not my tenant and lives in another building
  
• I own my condo, therefore making the fence private property
• Numerous times, while he and his less surly girlfriend have been standing by my fence locking their bikes to the sanctioned corners, I have walked out of my home and smiled at them, never being mean or asking them to cease and desist.
  

In the summer, I tried say hell to CGM (sans girlfriend), but he stared at me coldly like I was dirt. Two days later, I discovered that someone had defaced my sign with a sticker featuring a tree and a line drawn through it (anti-nature? wha??). I calmly peeled it off.

Two days ago, I bid him good morning. More cold stares. And this morning? Someone had stolen my sign. And considering how firmly it was affixed to my fence, CGM (or whoever it was) had to bring tools with him.

Could someone please explain to me how I became the bad guy in all this?

My only thought? Putting up another sign, and then asking my father for big wire cutters so that I can"liberate" CGM's bike the next time he locks it to my fence. Maybe even lock it my balcony and force him to come and ask for it.

This is obviously not the *adult* way to deal with the matter. So, any suggestions?

Andrew Bird

This no-Internet-access-at-home situation is starting to pose a problem with my productivity. I have two amazazing posts in the brewing, but I can't find the time to finish them. I tried to come in early to work today to finish them, but sleep is sometimes nice.

I have to start considering other Internet access alternatives.

In the meantime, here's a video by Andrew Bird. The video is, um, well, I leave it up to you to decide... But the song is very beautiful.

Moving the bedroom

Big decisions to be made, I tell ya'. Now that I've been living here for almost four months, I've started to get some ideas about how better to arrange my living space.

Some people are visionaries and can see the possibilities in 3D as soon as they walk into a new room. Others (this is me) need to understand how they function - and navigate - in a new space before they can understand how it needs to change to be more ergonomically/aesthetically pleasing.

Context

Currently, the bedroom is in the front, with its window directly below the outside staircase. The living room is dominated by a huge TV that I don't turn on more than twice a week, and the back room is still the repository for all stuffy stuff I can't deal with at the moment. Although I still toy with the thought of getting a roomie, I think I just need to move ahead with the improvements.

Challenges

• The bedroom is too big for me
  
• The TV takes up too much space
• The back room needs to be organized
• My stone Buddha is cute on the floor, but he needs a home

Creative solutions

• Move the bedroom to the back room (but keep the closet up front)
• Turn my current boudoir into the entertainment/TV room (must purchase new couch)
• Change current living room into a détente area with lots of colourful cushions and pretty tapestries
• Move Buddha into the détente area??

Does anyone have any ideas? Suggestions? Who wants to help me paint? I'll need some premium primer to cover up the sheep. I haven't even thought about the bathroom yet... buh.

Hey, speaking of getting rid of stuff, remember that brilliant Ikea commercial by Spike Jonez? Let's see it again...

Housewarming party tips

Busy, busy day today. Pendaison de la housewarming is tonight, and I need to empty the fridge, stash the breakables, get ice, etc.

I awoke early, my brain already running through a shopping list before my feet hit the ground. I've been keeping a steady pace since then, but my brain is dwelling on more bittersweet matters as I putter and neaten.

There are a lot of important people that won't be there tonight - whether it's a question of distance, previous engagements, or social damage control. So this post is a shout-out to everyone that can't be here tonight. 

You're being missed hardcore and I wish like crazy that you could be here. mucho. xx

Now excuse me while I go buy some cushions (people have to sit somewhere, no?)

To end off, here are some Martha Stewart entertaining ideas that won't be wowing guests at my party tonight. Just because I'm not inclined to make a flag sheet cake, that doesn't mean my readers shouldn't have the opportunity to learn how. So patriotic!

NB. Exciting news! I seem to have received a comment from someone I don't immediately recognize! I have deduced that the comment was written on a French keyboard - tell-tale space between the last word and the exclamation points - but beyond that, it could be just about anyone. Whee!

Oh, the shame!

Nobody tell my mother... but I may hire someone to give my house a good cleaning.

If she finds out, she'll insist on doing it herself and then I'll have the added guilt of dragging my 69-year-old mother across town to scrub my floors and dust my shelves. The last time I complained to her that I was having a time management problem when it came to cleaning my house, she replied, "You spend too much time with your friends. Leave your friends alone for once and clean instead."

She has a point. But I think a cleaning lady may be a better idea.

It's not like I want to make a habit out of it. In fact, I would even be open to having someone come over and help me do a big clean. Frankly, the job is presently too big for the time I could allot to it and I need a little boost. The floors are still patterned with dried slush that fell from the movers' boots. Oh, just a little help...

But the guilt! I don't know if I can do it.

I have all the respect in the world for those who make their living cleaning other people's messes. When my mother came to this country in 1963, not able to understand a word in English or French, she began cleaning offices in Place Ville Marie. After she had my brother and I, she found occasional work cleaning private homes. I would sometimes go with her, quietly playing in the living room, while she went about the business of cleaning. One of her clients - Mrs. Bercovitch - was so fond of my mother and I, she remained a friend of our family until she died not long ago.

Cleaning houses put a roof over my head, food in my belly, and books in my hands. It's a respectable trade that gives honest employment to people who want to work. And yet I'm so ambivalent - it seems so unnecessary, so lazy of me.

Help!

While I have your attention, read this article on Slate.com about the carbon footprint of the Olympic flame.

Goodbye NDG, Hello Plateau!

I have spent the last week scraping, plastering, priming, painting, installing, packing, unpacking, breaking, fixing, etc. It was a slog, but I am now in my new home - the best present a girl could have on her 35th birthday.

As a newly-minted Plateausarde, I have the following to report as regards my fitting in/not fitting in:

GOOD: went shopping and used my enviro-bag
BAD: got up at 8.30 every morning (this according to Mr. Robertson, may get me kicked out and toot sweet)
GOOD: went to Belgian bakery and bought croissants and chocolatines on Saturday morning

BAD: did not shovel my front steps and wave jovially to neighbours as I did so

GOOD: walked everywhere

BAD: did not check my email, visit Facebook, text message or read blogs for two whole days (does this mean I will be set upon by a gang of rabid Gen Ys?)

I'll keep y'all posted. Now could someone please tell me how to use the thermostat? It's freezing in here...