Category: Food

quiet work

I’m continuing to find small areas to clean up and dejunk; got rid of all the kitchen pens that don’t work, always a satisfying activity. Practiced on various instruments; tried to do a small shop but visited the bank instead; hung out with Paul and fed him a toasted ciabatta with chopped cooked asparagus and bacon, jalapeño havarti and sweet onion. He pronounced it tolerably edible and dragged away another piece of bacon like a damned dog to eat separately.

Fic’s up to 9500 words. I’m going to dab every trope on that damned bingo card, see if I don’t.

Finally got hold of the doc, now I have to check the req is there.

Disney Princess not

So a chickadee at Fraser Foreshore Park tried to cadge food out of me – twice, and I was still chuckling when an elderly German lady and her daughter/caregiver came along the path and held up a flicker feather, so I identified it for her, and she went along her way blessing me, so that was weird.

SO MUCH COYOTE SCAT, one lot was black as tar and shiny.

Saw a heron perched at the little pond. Went and looked at the mighty Stô:Lō from the Glenlyon observation platform.

After, took Paul to the Pho Hong and picked up some more cactus soil and little pots as the babies all germinated. Like….. all in the same day. Germination rate of over 90 percent for two year old seed, so that was nice. They’re all in pots now and I put them outside after getting the soil nice and saturated.

equilibrium

The president of Belarus shut off the internet in his country to prevent the spread of a viral video in which a large audience of workers started shouting at him to resign. (apparently he said the only way you’re getting rid of me is killing me and he got the response he oh so richly warranted.) The tankies are sad for him. What is a tankie? It’s a fascist who wants statist communists with brutal regimes to be perfect and powerful. They defend governments like North Korea. No, I’m not joking, I wish I was.

I have re-achieved emotional equilibrium. I wrote another 700 words after I finished the last edit to my blog yesterday. Jeff took me to breakfast. I wear a mask at IHOP whenever I’m not at my own table. I know it’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. My current fave mask is the one I got from Vancouver Aquarium. Next fave is the first one I made, the white one. It’s very comfortable and the most adjustable. Next fave is a standard medical mask. I ordered a bunch more cloth masks from an Indigenous supplier; one of them is a brilliant blue with Coastal art hummingbirds all over it so I bet I know where that one will end up. The other ones I think have stylized orcas, I might be wrong. Kima would be pissed.

There is fresh tea. I make a couple of pots a day and transfer most of it into the iced tea container, once it’s cooled off.

Operation Pee Constantly is still going well. The last lingering wackiness amidships from the kidney stones and the mild infection afterwards is done, thank glob. I’m still getting used to exactly how MUCH more water I have to drink every day to keep this happy state of affairs going, but hopefully I will retrain my body to properly experience thirst.

I am still drinking black tea, but it’s not recommended for a kidney diet, so I’m trying to have at most two cups a day.

Katie recommended bocconcini pearls for cheese and no sodium cheese is a wonderful damned thing, let me assure you. I’m also drinking the low sodium V-8, which tastes weird, which makes me want to put Worcestershire sauce in it, which vitiates its low salt status. La la la. Change of habits continues. Jeff hasn’t minded the not buying treats regimen – we have a whole line of treats we bought pretty much every time we went out to Save-On but I’ll have to make do with home made cinnamon buns, scones and cakes, what a tragedy.

There’s a Buy-Low opening August 26 walking distance from here; they’ll have in house butcher and bakery, among other things. I know people who dislike this chain but they are distinctly cheaper than Save-On, and possibly they will deliver, so we shall see. Anyway it’s close enough to walk. It will be interesting to see where to park for this critter and which roadway one exits from.

Glucose tolerance test on Friday. This will be the fourth time in my life I’ve taken it. This time it’s likely that the DIABEETUS DONE GOT ME although of course I can always adjust my diet (not really, but).

Used the word vitiate in a tweet today. Thought I was using it correctly, looked it up anyway, I was.

Jeff is home

Victoria trip a success by all accounts.

Fed Paul lunch (beef and cabbage stirfry, which was delicioso thanks) and went for a really most pleasant walk in the 12th Ave School yard. The weather yesterday was so delightful, everything fresh under mixed skies.

For some reason I felt like I should call Peggy, and we ended up talking in part about how the more sensitive among us are grieving for the whole world right now.

I’m watching Hannibal without Jeff. It’s kind of exploitative but that’s the whole point I think.

I donated to Red Cross Lebanon for the Beirut explosion.

This is Jim being silly.

This is beadwork by the stellar Gwich’in artist Margaret Nazon.

Lazy Day

While Paul was here I handed him the phone and a beer. It was delightful to see how much he enjoyed talking to mOm, and mOm has long considered him a worthy in-law.

We took two turns around the 12th Ave School circuit and sat in the shade and watched a number of people not wear masks. I wore a mask anyway, the one to support the Vancouver Aquarium, which has turned into my go to mask because it fits well and is comfy.

 

I had a couple of days, most of a week, of feeling much better, but I’m feeling very jaded and unhopeful at the moment. I despise Trump and all of his minions and supporters so much, but I guess there’re historical precedents for an entire culture of people being so convinced of their superiority that a devastating war is the only way to slow them down.

Buster trained twice yesterday with vigour. Then he flops on the floor and looks cute. Yes Jeff he got his Sunday dinner.

Saved seeds yesterday. Practiced. Watched some TV but not a lot. Watered the garden. Fed a friend. Made soup. Cleaned a few things. Finally used up that cabbage head which has been unprofitably rolling around the fridge, and made fried cabbage with onions and chunks of steak. Only added half a teaspoon of salt as seasoning, but damn it was good, and that was dinner. Also phoned Mike to tell him there’s some really good soooooop waiting for him here.

the indescribable parking meshugas at Burnaby Farmers Market

I’m not even going there; I got out of the vehicle to make faces at the dash cam about how ludicrously inattentive, rude and incompetent the other drivers were and we parked and then immediately trotted back to the car and left due to the lines. Good thing something so bad is free, ‘s all I can say. Stopped off at the equally sloth-tastic experience of the Save-on at Liquorgate and now I can console myself with a medicinal amount of Pepsi (a 2 litre bottle usually results in colonic blasting so we go for the small one) and apple turnovers.

 

a letter

26 June 2020

Provincial Agricultural Land Commission

 

&

Hon. Lana Popham

Minister of Agriculture

 

 

Hi! I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe or recovering well.

 

My name is Allegra Sloman and I’m a science fiction writer, musician and blogger/essayist, living on Coast Salish land in Burnaby. I believe that fertile, well-watered land that is put aside by the Province of B.C. for agricultural purposes should stay that way.

 

Earlier this month I learned from Cedar Isle Farms that a small chunk of land in Agassiz, (the ‘Teacup Properties’,) which has been earmarked for residential growth for almost twenty years, may be removed from the ALR, since there is tremendous housing pressure on the entire lower mainland. This is in part thanks to the naïve / corrupt succession of provincial governments, which, ably assisted by the Harper Government and the absence of any credible federal investigative oversight, enabled a multi-billion dollar property bubble to develop hereabouts.  Of course there are many, less provocative, reasons why building-lot land is scarce and expensive in Agassiz and why the city government would want more of it. 

 

In 1948, Agassiz, indeed the very part of Agassiz which concerns us today, was underwater for a month, during what is referred to as a ‘century’ flood of the Fraser River.

 

If residential land is flooded, especially for that period of time, all the houses must be razed or remediated at extortionate cost. If farmland is flooded, next spring you plant again. Farming is the appropriate use for this land, if we’re using a risk/reward model.

 

Given the climate instability staring us all in the face, is it possible that anyone charged with making the decision to build on this land may be subject to legal action for knowingly allowing residential or business construction? We can expect that ‘century flood’ any year now. It is a reasonable thing to both foresee and wish to mitigate.

 

Was the permission of the local Sts’ailes people to change the use of the land from reserved to development asked? 

 

Until these and other questions around food scarcity and sovereignty are answered, I believe that changing the land use is unwise.

 

Best regards,

a nested series of sad realizations

I saw Tammy at her Airbnb yesterday. It’s very nice; hilariously, out of all the buildings in downtown Vancouver she could have ended up with (her booking was changed twice before she settled) she ended up in the same building as Patricia used to live in, in a mirror image of that same apartment.

Her life is very trying right now; as a provider of psychological counselling to half a dozen front line health care workers she’s hearing and processing stuff that’s hard, cruel hard, and the fact that it isn’t happening directly to her doesn’t take the pressure off trying to do her best for them.

Thanks to Justin McElroy for the tip about Chambar, the food was fantastic. also to keep my self honest I had two 5% beers

DUCK AND LAMB, DUCK AND LAMB GOD IT WAS YUMMY DUCK AND LAMB the tajine was mmmmwaaaaaah and the duck was PERFECTLY COOKED also asparagus and olives and pistachios and nomnomnom

but in some respects the visit was a bunch of painful realizations that I’m simply not the same person I used to be. And that I’m a coward.

I’ll see her again on Thursday, she’s going home on Sunday, Paul is apparently seeing her today.

 

life is not returning to normal

Sadly, Katie has put the kibosh on an visits by Tammy to Planet Bachelor because she does not support Tammy coming out from Toronto, that known festering pit of COVID. If she comes to Geekhaus she’ll be on the back deck and only coming inside for the washroom.

I don’t know what she has planned but I hope to get together with her SHOOOON in some reasonably social distancing way. Jeff took me to Cockney Kings and we ordered takeout (people were eating on the patio) and my god that haddock was so good.

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MAZEL TOV COCKTAILS are one thing, the comments were something else. @pjcarey11 said, Next, scream at the police: “Why don’t you call your mothers? Would it kill you to visit once in awhile?” anyway usually the comments thread is a trash fire but the comments after this post were a howl.

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This morning we had to shut off the smoke detector, it blasted off at 4 am and Jeff climbed onto a chair and killed it. I guess I’ve set the fucker off so many times that the battery died.

 

schnitzel, not korean

Paul and I went for a walk. New Generations Grocery is closed except for pickup orders so that didn’t pan out, but Paul found the last of the Granville Island Lion Winter Ale and I succumbed to one and a half of them when I got home. We also picked up schnitzel from the Balkan House restaurant and so that was a 2k walk, half of it under load, so no surprise I was tired. We ate on the deck for social distancing (I got SO HOT in the mask, how will I cope in hot weather, I have to think of a dodge pretty soon or I’m going to be quite circumscribed in terms of what I can do and where I can go.)

I was fine for allergies for a while but I’m now feeling tender in the brain again.

Damn that schnitzel was good. Literally just got up and devoured some out of the take out container for late lunch or early dinner. The spuds were fine as well. NOM.

Painted on Oh! Zzhu Sam restaurant on Edmonds

 

 

 

Impossible pie

I have here, in Sue Gillespie’s handwriting, a receipt for Impossible Pie.

4 eggs
1/4 cup margarine
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups milk
1 cup feather strip coconut
1 tsp vanilla

blend ingredients in blender
pour into 10 inch greased deep pie dish
sprinkle with coarsely chopped pecans
bake at 350F for an hour

NOBODY CARES BOUT MAH POOP

except me, of course.

So I was communing with my output in the water closet this morning as one does when one is a hypochondriac like I, and thinking TERRIBLE THINGS ARE HAPPENING TO MY LIVER and then I chanced to remember two facts. One, I’m looking at a perfect 3.5 on the Bristol scale, (so firm, so cylindrical, so fully packed) so relax, ya cheesewit, and second, I’ve been eating nothing but leftover pizza, egg salad with a ton of paprika and half a dozen mandarin oranges for the last two days, so that dreffle bright orange colour is…. nominal.

ah, the relief.

I stopped making masks for a while because Jan in Toronto nearly put her fucking eye out when a needle broke while she was making masks. Mask making involves really large changes in the height of what you’re sewing together and if you go too fast it’s super easy to break a needle. (She’d never had one break….fortunately spouse was home and dealt with the bloodination.)

I realized I was doing it bare-eyed because I don’t have functioning bifocals (I hate them) and realized I was asking for an industrial accident. Fortunately Jeff had a pair but he said the elastic had perished. I learned that I had THE IDENTICAL elastic and both cleaned and maintained the glasses, which are now waiting for me by the sewing machine, so I have no further excuse for my dilatory mask making ways. I also found a bunch of still useful stamps from my granny.  They were on a poster like this.

John H. Talman - Stamps for Sale - Auctions and Retail

courtesy John Talman stamps for sale

I thought pOp would like to know that when I mail him some masks the stamps will be from his mOm, who continues to look out for him, the way mOms do.

 

Starting to think about UPSUN again. Couple hundred words on latest fanfic.

Made raspberry scones this morning.

East Van love

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Jennifer Yaeger LPC in Newnan Georgia has this to say

lutte loose

‘Twas thirty-nine years ago this summer, that I first laid eyes upon the comic masterwork, ‘Green Tits and Fur’, a adult-oriented Suess rip-off, set at a furry convention. I thought it was hilarious. I have since realized it was arguably exploitative and totes appropriative. I have an appropriative and cruel sense of humour which I attempt to quell, so my fandom of that – and Crad Kilodney – makes sense. I don’t feel shame the way other people do (or so —— have you guessed this is 2020 talking —— 61 coddled years have shown me) but I make up for it by acknowledging where I erred, hopefully to make it easier for other people. Because… you know, this isn’t all about me, it’s in very minor part about helping people understand how they think, how they prune their own brains.

Better arts in the now soothe (in sooth!) the sting of not-that-great arts when you were young and impressionable. If you’re lucky you got older and stayed impressionable. I know I have. It’s what the ADD will do to you.

—–

I think I’ve talked before about mOm and pOp and brO as being my way of customizing my own family into English. I like the visual pop of the words. I find it amusing —–I found some evidence today that the design of a piece of my childhood might have had something with pOp’s moniker as in looooook belowwwwww. But as I was looking at them again today, and why not, my thought processes have galumph and will travel, I thought how Jeff and I were inside the ring of being cared for, so the m’s in mOm are hands, like one hand out for each of the kids or caring for them. And the p’s in pOp are arms. Also guns. Pew pew. Facing forward. mOm is books. When you look at the m’s can you see books open, being read, the curve of the pages in the m’s. brO is the comrade at your shoulder. I am next to him. And brO is for the solid unassuming wholeness that Jeff is. brO is a goofy looking word, and he is goofy, though that’s hardly his distinguishing characteristic. That O is the emblem and stamp and sigil and symbol and visual hug that says you can say bruh or brah or bro or mah brother but this is my brO and I set the words down to make that entirely clear.

Image result for pop shoppe logo

As for the goofy, I have recent evidence. They closed the playground equipment at the end of the street; Jeff makes his feelings known. Isn’t it a handsome hoodie she hinted hintingly with lollopping Monty Python eyebrows.