sunday night dinners

we've been making some very epic sunday night dinners as of late. by the end of the week i've grown quite a two day hangover and don't have energy for much but we always make it to the market for breakfast and groceries. we hit the butcher, cheese shop, vegetable market and bulk bins (sometimes a quick run through the vintage shops, too) then head home and cook. i love to eat a huge, home cooked meal and then just fuckin' zone out on the couch watching the simpsons. plus, the house gets all warm from the oven and i can just sit and baste in the glorious smell of cornish hens, squash risotto, curried oxtail or grilled pork chops.

i'm about to coin the term "food schwing"

we finished our table! it looks soooo sick. it's exactly like we wanted and, if i may say, comparable to the ones sold on queen west for a cool g... or more! we haven't started moving the other furniture around to accommodate it yet so i don't have any pictures (read: too anal to post evidence of an unorganized house) but there is a little teaser beneath the plate of that delicious fucking rib eye. did i mention it's nestled on a mountain of blue cheese risotto? that i made myself?! holy shit. it was so good. we've been making a ton of risotto lately (read: minimum twice a week since we realized we could) and this one was my absolute favourite. so creamy, cheesy and rich! so gluttonous and unnecessary! total food schwing!

ssssmokin... nineties are in, right?

sorry about october and september, readers. three entries in two months? that's pretty weak. however, in my short absence i have been cooking, working and partying up a storm. if you want to see the meals as i eat them and the drinks as i forget them (and feel free to ask for details/recipes) just check the sidebar to the right as my current photos/tweets will be circulating there. thanks & sorry again.

ahem, phil and i smoked meat for the first time! we bought hickory chips mooonths ago but felt summer wasn't an appropriate time to fill the kitchen up with smoke. now that it is cooler (read: fuckin freezing) we've been rocking risotto and roasts and yes, smoking chicken breasts in a wok lined with tinfoil. we saw chuck hughes do it on chuck's day off and have wanted to try it since. the chicken was moist and had great flavour, our house didn't reek too bad afterward and it was super easy to do (you could even smoke tofu, cheese, tomatoes or fish!).

time for yeast!

thanksgiving weekend went well. i had turkey and quail and peanut butter pie and yams with marshmallows and beers and star-gazing and nice times. last week, my mom brought us an old dining room table she'd found in the garbage (like mother, like daughter) so we bought some legs for it on the way home from phil's parents house. we've got to wash, sand, (possibly) stain and assemble it still but we're hoping to have it up by next weekend for a little dinner partay. expect photos.

if you follow me on twitter, you'll know we've buckled into making everything from scratch lately... including mini hamburger buns (that were so adorable with their little sesame seeds on top) and pizza dough (a killer thin crust to house tons of tomatoes, zucchini and a fresh cracked egg). we've been eating like fucking champs. coming up this week: risotto, carbonara, squash soup, prosciutto pizza and possibly pumpkin pie!

all the jobs i've ever quit, all the garbage i've ever picked

i was just reading this (go ahead, it's a quick read... i'll wait.) and hating myself for not thinking to write that first or maybe i was just a little disappointed in not being the only one. i have friends who are also paycheque to paycheque, i have friends with expense accounts. i have friends with cars and friends with heroin habits. it's an interesting dichotomy living in a big city. i ate creamy truffle risotto with a bottle of nice red wine last night but i've got $17 in one account and -$15 in the other. i called in sick to work today because i really just wanted to buy some used records and finally put my laundry away. i'll be pissed at myself when i see my paycheque but, hey, i'll have this chrissie hynde record forever.

so, for now, i'll continue to tweet about the brilliant things i should/could be doing with my life while digging change from my paint covered backpack to buy a pack of rolling papers. it's a common tale of pseudo woe. a generation of over-exposed, under-utilized brains starving for the simplest ticket to the top.

i wanna be covered in sauce

it's finally cooled down enough to get some serious cooking done! so... i tried a bunch of new recipes this week. i crusted some chicken in fritos, whipped up an arugula and walnut pesto and tried my hand at barbecue ribs! my mom used to make ribs on my birthday and special occasions because, well, i've always been a big fan of messy meat. it was hard to leave them slow cooking for two and a half hours but i knew the end result would be worth it. i threw in a roughly chopped cabbage towards the end and mashed up some celery root with potatoes. it was one hell of a meal on a fuckin cold night, lemme tell you...

OH! another thing. we've been begging our friend tiff to bring us to her parent's house for home cooked filipino food so, to tie us over, she showed up with some desserts one night. everything was covered in sugar and i was basically in heaven. i'd love to expand on that. i'd love to have some delicious witticism for you; unfortunately, i am too tired. however, i'm totally all over twitter. follow me to read about what i'm eating (real time!), how much public transit sucks and hilarious things my friends say while blacked out.

it's what i want

so, i got a job. i'm making t-shirts. it's long hours spent standing up with short breaks and genuinely hard work. it's nice to actually produce something. we printed 5000 shirts my first day; i felt a great sense of accomplishment looking around at stacks of fabric my hands had touched, piled almost to the ceiling... i think i'll freak out if i ever see someone wearing one.

i can't wait to have money again. i'm gonna buy clothes and books and go out for dinner and maybe get a haircut and illegally download new music to listen to on the commute because, well, some things just don't change.

s-s-s-samurai!

i got my first roll from the samurai back. it's the half frame camera i mentioned awhile ago and i'm not sure how i feel about the photos. a couple of them i really love but some are so under exposed it's pretty impossible to digitally edit them. the lab accidentally printed me copies of all the photos and some look far better printed.

after scrolling through the digital scans, however, i couldn't bring myself to split up some of the shots. unrelated images stacked on top of each other that form a loose timeline of events. it's an interesting format. i'm gonna shoot another roll with this baby and see how i feel. below are a couple of my faves.

tirahna

i love this city so goddamn much. anytime i'm down; i just peep it from a new angle.

happy birthday, kim. sorry i didn't get you any presents; see previous post.

the kimbot and i went to the island on monday for her birthday. we rode our bikes from edge to edge. when we were drinking some beers and eating some cheesey bread, a wasted dude that looked like jason mewes and his naked grandfather kept offering us booze, smokes and hugs. eventually grandpa fell down some rocks (he was fine) and we took off towards centre island. most of the rides were closed so we smoked a joint in the petting zoo and narrowly avoided being boxed in by massive, pigeon footed ducks. it was weird.

later, phil made us a delicious chicken dinner and we introduced kim to wipeout. those big balls, man... fat people getting catapulted is always funny!

in other news, i fainted last week. we were standing in front of the commie and i had the hiccups. bad. i held my breath with my head between my knees (like an idiot, duh). so when i stood back up, i collapsed. i didn't realize what had happened at first (i still had a fucking smoke in my hand) when suddenly everyone i knew was up in my grill asking, "you okay?" "oh my god!"... then i noticed i was on the sidewalk. afterward i was embarrassed, sure, but mostly just relieved those goddamn hiccups were gone. oh, and now i have a giant blood bruise thing on my arm. hmph. at least i didn't get a concussion.