I wasn’t going to post about this, because I do it so often and it’s so simple that I never even think about it. But the Pie suggested it might be a good idea to let you in on the deal.
Gren also gets hot in the summer.
I get dehydrated really easily in hot weather and summer in Ottawa is very, very HOT. Hot and long, temperatures often going up as high as 50°C (122°F) on humid days. And when I get dehydrated I tend to faint and that is super embarrassing. Therefore, I drink a TON of water. But water gets so boring after a while, so I dress it up a little and then I can pretend I’m at some fancy spa.
We have to keep the curtains shut to keep out the afternoon sun. It makes the shadows very interesting.
I have a pretty glass bottle that I keep in the fridge full of water, and it’s a simple thing to just add a bit of natural flavouring to it. My go-to refresher is lemon water. I just cut the ends off a lemon, and slice the rest of it small enough to fit in the mouth of the bottle. Then you just leave it for a few hours and BOOM. FLAVOURED WATER.
Another good refreshing option is adding a sprig or two of freshmint from my mini garden to a handful of fresh raspberries.
For something more subtle, try cutting up half a cucumber and sliding that into the water.
And the extra fancy option is a few sliced strawberries and some fresh basil leaves. I think this one is actually my favourite now.
I find that I can keep topping up the bottle for a couple of days before the vegetable matter in it starts to get squishy and needs to be composted, and the water starts to lose the flavour.
You might not know this, but there is a giant farm smack dab in the middle of the City of Ottawa. And our new place is right across the street, so it’s become Gren’s new stomping grounds on his morning walk.
There used to be an Experimental Farm in every province in Canada at one point; due to budget cuts and demands on space, there are only a few left. The flashy heritage/tourist stuff, and the baby cows and things are all on the opposite side of the farm, and it’s a little bit of a long walk for Gren’s short legs, but he loves wandering between the different fields.
He also loves rolling in all sorts of objectionable materials on the verges. I suspect it’s mostly goose poop.
Dogs must be leashed in this place (they don’t want them mucking about with their farming experiments) but Gren has adapted quickly to his Flexi lead.
I used to walk through the other side of the Farm every day to get to Carleton University. You can see Dunton Tower, part of the school campus, in the distance:
Looking back the way we came, you can see the gray Ag buildings across the street from the farm.
The day I walked through and took these shots they were just getting ready to seed some of the fields on this side, so there were people and equipment everywhere. I’m excited to watch it change as planting season begins!
You may recall me saying that I was going to take a photo a day for the month of August, seeing as it was going to be such a momentous month. Well, here’s my little August gallery. You can see the ones that didn’t make the cut on my Flickr here.
1 August:
Dad admiring the new paint job on the old Cape Spear lighthouse.
2 August:
Last day at work in the Lawffice Liberry. For five years this was my exclusive domain.
It was raining, so I painted the bathroom. Apparently yellow wasn’t neutral enough. Oh well.
5 August:
Still raining. HARD. We stayed inside.
6 August:
Dad and I went to the Crow’s Nest (a members-only club for naval officers) in January of 2008 when we were thinking of moving here. Today we bookended our time in Newfoundland with another visit. Here is the angle from the “hidden” door down the stairway.
7 August:
The first Wednesday in August (weather permitting) is Regatta Day, the oldest regatta in North America (195 years old in 2013). This is our view from blueberry picking up behind the Johnson Geo Centre.
8 August:
After some hectic back and forth, we sent Gren off on the plane to stay with my parents. This is one of the extremely nice and helpful security officers using cable ties to make sure Gren stays put.
9 August:
We had to re-paint my office to a more neutral colour. I was trying to get excess paint off my brush.
10 August:
Down to the essentials now in our pantry: booze, Oreos, ramen …
11 August:
Our house is surrounded by trees, and the moving shadows the sun creates as it shines through the blowing leaves is quite spectacular.
12 August:
Today I packed up the kitchen. My parents bought these plates at the Denby factory when we lived in England over 30 years ago. I bet they’ve moved almost as many times as I have.
13 August:
One last walk along the jetty after breakfast at the downtown Cora’s.
14 August:
I had a job interview over Skype today, so this was where I spent the most important part of my afternoon.
15 August:
Moving day. The movers were late and when they arrived they were unaware they were supposed to be moving the whole house so it was a little frazzling but we got it done.
Our first morning in Ottawa. Gren was very happy to have us back with him.
18 August:
Brunch at the new home of Mags and her boyfriend, the Flying Dutchman. YUM FRESH FRUIT!
19 August:
Best shawarma in the city is Castle Shawarma on Rideau Street. They have spicy garlic sauce that is incredible.
20 August:
Today we got the Pie fitted for some suits to wear to interviews at Moores. Looking pretty slick.
21 August:
My dad was painting the woodwork on the ground floor. He may have accidentally painted me in passing.
22 August:
Our fourth wedding anniversary. Crazy how time flies.
23 August:
Grenadier reunited with his sister Bakhita at Bruce Pit. Both of them reunited with some mud. This is the picture I took BEFORE Bakhita stuck herself in the middle of an enormous puddle and refused to come out.
24 August:
Gardened with Mum today. Harvested a ton of rhubarb. Obviously I made pie.
25 August:
ICE CREAM! THERE’S AN ICE CREAM TRUCK ON MY STREET! ICE CREEEEEEEEEEEAM!
26 August:
Out for a misty stroll on the Ottawa River Parkway. Reminds me of St. John’s.
We weeded out the path at the back of my parents’ house today, and got to use the weed torch on the remainders. I love setting things on fire.
29 August:
Hanging out at a cottage with some friends. Gren actually swam voluntarily.
30 August:
Cottage life: early morning on Mississippi Lake.
31 August:
The Pie started growing this beard at the end of July, just to see if he could. He’s a little tired of it now so I recorded it for posterity and he’ll shave it off tomorrow.
We sent Gren ahead of us to Ottawa a week before we moved, so he wouldn’t get stressed out during the chaos of moving. But in the days following his departure, we kept finding ourselves looking for him, or expecting him to suddenly appear. We kept having to remind ourselves we would see him shortly, but it was still sad. Anyway, you all know that we feed Gren pumpkin regularly to keep him, well, regular. After he left, I had almost a full can sitting around, so we decided to use up the last of our flour and whip ourselves up some pumpkin pancakes for breakfast one day. Not very seasonal for August, but they were darned tasty anyway.
Turn your oven on to 250°F and chuck in a heatsafe dish (this will keep your cooked pancakes warm until it’s time to eat).
In a bowl, whisk together 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour (or a gluten-free equivalent), 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice, and 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves. If you have pumpkin pie spice on hand, that will do instead of measuring out all the other spices. If you’re feeling lazy. I also added in 1/4 cup sweetened desiccated coconut, for texture.
In another bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups milk, 3/4 cup pumpkin purée, 2 tablespoons melted butter, 1 egg, and a drop each of vanilla extract and coconut extract (optional).
Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ones. The batter will be pretty thick.
Scoop about 1/3 cup of the batter into a heated pan and cook for however long it takes for you to be happy with the consistency of your pancakes. These ones are pretty thick so it took a while at medium heat. The batter makes about 12 pancakes.
Serve with butter and maple syrup, or whatever else floats your boat. LIKE BACON.
Every year during the winter holidays we get together with our Ottawa friends and have a potluck. We started doing this when we were all students because it was the one day we could guarantee that we were all in town at the same time and we could spend some time together. We even get fancy with the planning, starting with a Doodle scheduler to pick the right date (if you’ve never used their free software to make an appointment, check it out). Then we set up a Google spreadsheet to figure out who is bringing what, to ensure that not everyone arrives with chips and dip and that the people who are bringing appetizers don’t show up just as we’re starting dessert. Inevitably the spreadsheet gets hacked by someone (or everyone) and chaos ensues. Graphs and pie charts and graffiti abound. It’s madness. But fun. This year the Pie and I decided to host, and as each person brings a dish, this was the Pie’s contribution to the festivities: Baked’s Root Beer Bundt Cake.
He’s made it before, for my birthday, and it’s always a favourite. Anything Baked does is a favourite with us. The problem is that because I was busy doing my own thing and making a superb leek and leftover turkey pie (which I will save as a post until the next turkey-related holiday), I didn’t actually get a chance to photograph the finished product. So you’ll just have to guess as to what it looked like. Sorry.
Now, the recipe calls for 2 cups root beer to go into the batter. Don’t you dare use diet root beer — you’ll regret it enormously. Use a stronger-tasting brew like Dad’s or Stewart’s or even Barq’s to get the best flavour, and feel free to replace some of the liquid with a root beer schnapps or even a tablespoon or two of root beer extract. Not having any of these things, however, the Pie decided to make himself a root beer concentrate.
He started by pouring two cans of root beer into a pot. Then he simmered it for about half an hour to boil off the water and reduce the liquid.
The resulting fluid is dark and opaque, and we hoped it would enhance the flavour of the cake when added to the regular root beer.
While you’re doing that, preheat your oven to 325°F. Generously butter a large bundt cake pan. Dust the inside with flour and knock out the excess. If you don’t have a bundt pan you can make this in an angel food pan. If you have to make it in a pan that doesn’t have a hole in the middle you will need to cook it a bit longer and keep an eye on it so the bottom doesn’t burn.
In a small saucepan, melt together 2 cups root beer, 1 cup cocoa, and 1/2 cup butter and stir until the mixture is smooth.
Add in 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar and 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar and whisk that until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is smooth.
Remove that from the heat and allow to cool a little bit. You want it to cool a bit (enough that you can poke your finger in it and it will be nice and warm but not hot) because you’re about to add in 2 lightly beaten eggs. And if you add the eggs in while it’s still hot they will cook on their own and that will be super gross.
Add the eggs in and whisk thoroughly.
In a big bowl, whisk together 2 cups flour with 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda.
Gently pour the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture and fold with a spatula until just combined.
You don’t want pockets of flour or anything but you want the batter to still be a mite lumpy.
Pour that into your prepared bundt pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until you can stick a skewer into it and it comes out clean.
Set that puppy on a rack to cool completely.
In the meantime, you can make your root beer fudge frosting. In another bowl, whisk together 2oz melted dark chocolate and 1/2 cup room temperature butter. Add in as well 1/4 cup root beer, 2/3 cup cocoa, and 2 1/2 cups confectioner’s (icing) sugar and beat until smooth.
When you cake is cooled, plaster on that icing in a haphazardly charming manner and eat it all up. Cover what’s left over in plastic wrap and keep up to a week at room temperature. Sorry again that I have no pictures. It disappeared! Instead you can have a picture of Gren in the Christmas hat that he hates.
One day, way back in December, it was brisk and sunny in St. John’s, and then by the afternoon it looked like this:
Fortunately, a few days after that, we had a rare sunny day, where the light poured into my kitchen even into the afternoon (which, considering my windows face north and east, is amazing).
But BAM. It was that alluvasudden-it’s-winter phenomenon that seems to happen to many Canadian cities. I was preparing for a pre-holiday potluck and Kª had just informed me (online from tropical Kansas) that Kº had gotten a job in Russia and that they were moving back there in February, and taking Il Principe and the Incredibly Little Hulk with them (not like they would have left them behind, of course).
Having recently read Sasha’s recipe for Russian Potato Salad (or Olivier Salad) over at Global Table Adventure, I thought that it would be fitting for me to make this easy and cheerful salad for our holiday potluck (and I definitely left a substantial chunk of it with Kº when we left for Ottawa). So this one’s for you, the Russians-who-formerly-lived-downstairs. Прощайте и удачи. Have a safe trip!
First, we boil.
Plop 4 large eggs into a pot of water, bring that to boil, then turn the heat off and let that sit with the lid on for about 20 minutes. In another pot, boil up 3 large carrots and 2lbs potatoes. Boil them until they’re just tender, not mushy. Rinse them with cold water to cool them down and then peel them. It may sound tricky, but it’s actually easier.
Then, we chop. Gren helped/cleaned the floor.
Chop up those eggs quite fine.
As well as 3-4 large dill pickles. Make those into tiny cubes.
In fact, cube everything, your potatoes, your carrots, as well as 1lb cooked ham. You’ll also want about 2 cups peas (I used frozen), but you don’t need to chop those. That would end badly. I also chopped up those green onions I’d been saving.
Mix all that cheery goodness together and season with salt and pepper.
I also decided that potato salad isn’t potato salad without some paprika. This is a sweet smoked variety from Spain.
Then you slather on the mayonnaise, about 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups, depending on your preference. Only dress the salad you plan to eat, as it will get soggy after a while.
Good morning! Today we’re taking Ali Does It west as we travel home to spend the holiday season with our families. We’ll be in Ottawa for a WHOLE MONTH. During this time, Gren will have his second birthday (hopefully he’ll be able to celebrate it with his sister, Bakhita, who also lives in Ottawa). And Cait and I will be starting on a new category of blog posts for you: Mad Science. Because who doesn’t love science? I know I do. Especially when it involves things that fizz or glow. So stay tuned for a wide variety of madcap experiments in the coming months.
From left to right: unnamed female puppy, Gren, Paddy (Gren’s dad), and Bakhita (Gren’s sister).
And not to fret! I will continue to blog while I’m home with the family — in fact, I will probably make them help out, so we should have uninterrupted posts all the way into the new year!
Before we go, though, I have a quick cleaning tip for you. I hate leaving a dirty house. I just can’t stand coming home to a mess, dirty laundry and expired food and stale whatever. I’m not in the mood. So the Pie and I tend to do a whole-house clean before we go, just making sure the surfaces are clean, things are dusted, the laundry and dishes are done, and the fridge is empty of anything that might expire in our absence. It just makes for a better homecoming, especially when the first thing we do upon our (usually late night) reentry is open our suitcases in the middle of the living room and make a big mess.
Now, there’s a lot of work to do in the days leading up to our travel — usually the Pie is writing exams and I am packing and getting Gren ready for the airplane. So anything that saves me time and effort is number one in my books. So here’s a handy tip for quickly and lazily cleaning your microwave — while you do something else. And this even works on super gross, super crusty microwaves. Trust me. I own one of those kind. I’m a terrible housekeeper. And I’m freaking LAZY.
Take a small bowl and fill it with about a cup of water, maybe a cup and a half. Whatever floats your boat. Then add in a few tablespoons lemon juice (you don’t have to be all elitist and use fresh lemons for this — bottled lemon will do just fine).
Pop that bad boy into the microwave in the middle and nuke it for 3 minutes. Then leave it in there, without opening the door, for another 5 minutes. While cool and awesome science is going on behind that door, you can work on cleaning something else. Or check Facebook. Or play with your dog. That is up to you. What is happening is the steam from the boiling water is loosening baked on goo, and the acid in the lemon is breaking up all the grease.
Then take your handy dandy scrubby sponge and simply wipe away all that grease and grime. That’s all it takes, is a little wipe. I kid you not. It’s that simple.
Even gets the stuff on the ceiling of the microwave. Easy peasy. And even if you forget about the microwave, all that lovely condensation will have done its job, even if you come back an hour later.
And once the lemon water in the bowl has cooled, you can dip your sponge in it and use it to sanitize your counter tops and cutting boards. BLAMO KABLAM.
When I saw this post on Design*Sponge last fall I absolutely itched to try it out. I love autumn, and having grown up near Gatineau Park, I have learned to appreciate the beauty of watching a large forest slowly turn from green to a million shades of yellow, orange, and red. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really happen in St. John’s. In the autumn here, we have green leaves on the trees, and then we get storms like Leslie, and all the leaves fall to the ground and go dry and crunchy and brown almost immediately.
So when I knew I was flying back to Ottawa for a weekend in September, I came determined to carry out this simple project. The problem is that even in Ontario it’s too early for most of the trees to have made the change. Cait kept me updated with leaf reports leading up to my flight, and her reports all said the same thing: the leaves are all green, dude, it’s not going to work out for you. As I flew into town, however, I could see a few orange and yellow trees dotting the Greenbelt, so I knew that with a bit of searching, this thing could happen, despite Cait’s protests.
So one afternoon, after Teedz and Tego had made it to town, Tego and I took a stroll in the nearby park to see what we could come up with. Lo and behold, there were two big old maple trees whose leaves had just started to turn and fall to the ground. They weren’t totally orange or red, but the splashes of green I think added to the character of the thing.
We started gathering, picking up maple leaves of different sizes and shapes. You need probably 10-12 maple leaves with stems for each flower, plus a variety of thin, relatively straight sticks to use as stems. And floral tape, which you can buy at any craft store.
You start with smaller leaves at the centre and get bigger as you move outwards. Take a relatively small leaf and fold down the centre and two outside points towards the middle of the leaf.
This gives you the basic shape for a petal.
Roll that tightly up to form your “bud”.
Now take another leaf, fold down the points, and wrap it around your bud.
Keep repeating that, rotating the flower the whole time so it looks natural, until you get something that is a size you like.
Tego and I found that if we weren’t careful our buds started to stick out past the reaches of the other petals, so you want to make sure to keep that sucker tamped down inside.
When you get something you like, pinch the bottom of the leaf where the stems are and start wrapping it up with floral tape. Take one of your sticks and lay it at the base of the flower and keep wrapping, taping the stems to the stick.
We learned that floral tape is not actually sticky. It sort of relies on tension to stay stuck to stuff, so make sure that you pull it tight. We found that once we got to the end, if we wrapped the tape several times around itself tightly enough it wouldn’t unravel on us.
We kept on until we had a full dozen, then Tego trimmed the sticks so they were approximately the same length — you don’t want them exactly the same or the bouquet will look weird, but you don’t want them to be radically different either.
Then we tied it up with ribbon and gave it to our cousin as a hostess gift. Everyone thought we had bought them at some fancy craft fair, and were super astonished when they found out that we’d made them ourselves during a walk in the park!
As they are, I think the leaf bouquet will last about a week or two, depending on the freshness of the leaves themselves. If you want them to last longer (if, as Cait suggests, you have an autumn wedding coming up and you need time to make a large quantity of these suckers), then you can dip each flower individually in gel medium (which you can get at art or craft stores) or even spray the bejeezus out of them with hair spray or another form of lacquer and they should last you several months.
I’m also interested to try this with non-maple leaves to see if I come up with a different shape. I will let you know if anything comes of that.
***EDIT, 30 January 2013***
The florist who supplies the flowers at work did this to dress up a bouquet. Very nice, don’t you think?
Atlas’s dad has a philosophy that we are born with a spirit and a body. The body is tied to this earth and will return that way when its time is finished, but the spirit can live on in a new body. And that spirit is always looking for the good in life, the good people, the good experiences, and so it will actively seek out those who it remembers were good in a previous life. His family and our family, he says, get along so well because our spirits were friends in a previous life. It’s a lovely sentiment.
As a child in a military household I moved around quite a bit, and I never stayed in any city longer than five years — until I moved to Ottawa, that is. So every time we moved I felt like I was starting a whole new life, with new friends, and that my old lives were somehow over. Visiting the west coast this summer was for me a revisiting of an old life, a way of showing my husband the way I used to be (and I’ll have more on that in a later post).
I had a friend in elementary school when I was living in Esquimalt. Her name was Jordana* and we were friends from when my family was posted out west in grade three, to when her family, also military, was posted away at the beginning of grade five. When she moved away I thought I would never see her again. This was of course before Facebook and even email (this was the early nineties) and so the only way to reach each other would have been through letters, and if you’re never going to see a person again, what’s the point in wasting a stamp?
Our grade four class picture, for embarassment’s sake. Jordana is third from the left in the centre row, and I’m sixth, with my bad-ass Casio watch and my hefty bangs. This photo is courtesy of the gentleman sitting directly below me in this shot.
I joined Facebook in 2007, twelve years after leaving the west coast and fifteen years after I had last seen Jordana, and we reconnected over the internet. At this time I was getting ready to move to Newfoundland with the Pie and she was settled in Vancouver, so it was unlikely we were going to run into each other any time soon. Even so, we communicated back and forth sporadically and learned we had much in common.
Then my brother decides to get married out west, and Jordana and I figured this was our chance to finally meet up after TWENTY years apart. She and her partner Daniel live in False Creek, a nice old area next to the water. On our last night on the mainland, the Pie and took the SkyTrain from Coquitlam to Vancouver and trailed our way over to their place for dinner.
Their view of False Creek.
And you know, it was instant chemistry between the four of us (which, if you have ever tried to make friends as a couple, you know is a hard thing to accomplish). Jordana and I talked our faces off for about four hours straight, while the quieter gentlemen exchanged views on computers and other manly endeavours. We took a walk along the seawall after dinner, and Jordana and I both took a ton of pictures. Obviously.
And the food, cooked by Daniel, was excellent (yes, I’m finally getting to the recipe, sorry). We had an amazingly tender chicken and a barbecued pork dish with the most incredible dipping sauces. While Daniel’s not super keen to share his recipes, Jordana was very persuasive and so I now have them in my hot little hands. And while Cait and Jul were here (and since they brought most of the spices from Ottawa for us), we decided to try it out.
For the Chicken:
First you start with a whole chicken, about 1.6kg or 3 1/2lb. Take off all the fat that you can see and wipe down the inside with a paper towel, or two, to remove any goop in there. Gross, but worth it, trust me.
Then find yourself a pot large enough to fit a bunch of liquid and a submerged chicken. Into that pot, chuck 1.5L (6 cups) water, 250mL (1 cup) soy sauce, 250mL (1 cup) shaohsing wine (also known as shaoxing), 150g (2/3 cup) light brown sugar, 1 large knob of ginger, peeled and sliced, 3 cloves garlic, sliced, 4 heads of star anise, 2 sticks cinnamon, and 3 pieces dried mandarin peel.
Yeah, that’s a hefty load of ingredients. Cait and Jul brought the more far-out stuff with them from Ottawa, as I can’t get it here. Anyway, bring all those ingredients in the pot to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer all that spicy goodness for about 20 minutes.
Then you can submerge the chicken, breast side down, in the pot and raise the heat again to bring it to a boil. Then turn it down again and simmer for another 20 minutes.
Flip the chicken over and allow it to simmer for a further 3 minutes, then pop a lid on the pot and remove it from the heat. Let the chicken cool in the stock.
When the stock is cooled you can take the chicken out. If you plan to use the stock later (which you really should), then you need to strain it, bring it to a boil again, and then cool it and chuck it in the refrigerator.
As for the chicken, well it’s now up to you to do what you want with it. You can chop it up in a salad, or slice it thickly and re-form it on a plate (which is what we’re going to do). You can also fry it in peanut oil and serve with salt and pepper and lemon juice. It goes well with cilantro and the dipping sauce we’re going to make in a minute.
For the Pork:
This recipe calls for pork neck, which I can’t find here. I know it’s a poor substitute, because the consistency is all different, but I’m going to use a pork shoulder here. I’m sorry. If you can’t get a neck, try to find something with a bit of fat on it, if you can.
First you want to mix up your marinade. Take 4 tablespoons fermented bean curd, 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 5 tablespoons shaohsing wine, 3 tablespoons yellow bean sauce, 4 tablespoons hoisin sauce, 4 tablespoons fine sugar, and 3 garlic cloves, minced. Stir that into a frenzy.
Cait described the Yellow Bean Sauce as looking like “someone threw up in a bottle.” Seems about right.
I was more grossed out by the fermented bean curd though.
Cut the pork into 4cm (~2″) strips and pour the marinade over the meat. Leave that for about 2 hours.
Preheat your oven to 240°C (this is 464°F, so I would err on the side of caution and go with 450°F).
Fill a baking dish with water and fit a wire rack over top. The ones with the folding legs are handy here, as you can use more water, and then it will keep the pork moist. Put the pork onto the rack and cook for 30 minutes.
Remove the pork from the oven and heat up 6 tablespoons honey. Brush that over the pork and leave it to cool.
For Sprinkling:
Slice up some fresh cilantro to sprinkle over everything. As well, mince up some ginger and mix it with some black rice vinegar and leave that to sit for an hour or so — it goes fantastically with the chicken.
Serve the whole thing with some scented rice and some steamed greens. We fried up some baby bok choy as an accompaniment over jasmine rice.
*Jordana is a blogger herself, and a much busier person than I am. She writes about fashion here and here, and about travel here. She even has her own online clothing store. Check her out if you’re interested!
As you know, my eldest brother Krystopf got married to the lovely Atlas on the 7th of July in Vancouver, and the Pie and I took the opportunity to head out west and explore both Vancouver itself and Vancouver Island, where I spent five years of my childhood. It was a good opportunity to see old friends and old places again, and we met so many new people who are now part of our (extremely large) extended family. It was also fun to show the Pie some of the places I remembered growing up.
We saw and did so much in the 12 days that we were gone that I can’t even begin to cram it all into one blog post. I will therefore be doling it out every couple days (interspersed with your regular DIYs, so you don’t get bored!) for the next little while. I learned some new recipes while I was gone and we ate soooooooooo very much food, so you’ll get to hear all about it.
We’ll start off slow, though. The weather while we were out west was remarkable, in that it was sunny every day (which you know is rare for that side of the Rockies). We stayed at Atlas’ parents’ house in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver, and their house is perched halfway up a hill with a great view of the river and surrounding cities. This is the night-time view.
Atlas’ parents have a fascinating little garden at this place (they also have a hobby farm outside of town where they keep all sorts of things). I’m a sucker for sunshine shining on plants (because I see it so rarely here in St. John’s), so I took tons of pictures of the wee garden, which was right outside our bedroom window.
These look like giant thistles, but I’m sure they are something else entirely.
Those things that look like beans are actually curly leaves.
But I wish they were beans. I like beans.
And so many flowers tucked in every corner.
And some illicit flowers as well.
You might be familiar with this plant. It’s called giant hogweed, and its sap, if you get it onto your skin, acts as a magnifier for UV rays, so you can easily get yourself a third-degree sunburn if you aren’t careful. They are a banned plant in Ottawa, and probably many other cities as well. Atlas’ parents, however, cook with the seeds, so they keep the plants around.
They made me feel quite tiny wandering between their stalks (careful not to touch them, of course).
And it seems I wasn’t the only visitor to the garden on this day.
The ladybug kindly stayed still long enough for me to take a million photos.
More to come in the next little while: new recipes, daring tree-top adventures, massive festivities, and me with tons of makeup! Stay tuned!
Ali Does It Herself 