hungry, hammered & home

rottumn

2011-09-13T18:08:00.004-04:00

i've taken one food photo worthy of posting in the last two months. ONE photo. TWO months. that's fucking crazy, right? ok sure, a couple years ago when i started all of this i was taking so many food photos that i had to space out uploading them to avoid throwing up 30 a week. now it feels like i've already got a photo up of every possible combination of food... or maybe i just haven't been cooking as much because it's been summer and summer is the time of auto focus film cameras with cheese and bread in the park. i can feel the warm nights slipping away already but they're ushering in my burgeoning sweater collection and passion for hearty, meaty meals so, hey, not all bad.

so why not consider someone else: stop canonizing animals

2011-08-13T19:25:00.006-04:00

i love eating with my hands. getting all up in the cut and shit. get dirty, get weird. you gotta eat to live, why not live to eat? i recently called a vegan dude a self righteous prick for voicing his support of an article on the hatred of "foodies" while on route to eat at au pied de cochon for a second time. we had scheduled our trip to montreal solely around our reservation; we had a table booked before we had a room. after a nice day of record shopping we cleaned up and had a gluttonous, coma inducing feast of foie gras and blood sausage tart, bison tongue and beef tartare with a raw quail egg... and every dish was amazing. i don't understand why most vegans have to be such party poopers all the time. i understand and respect your choices, why won't you understand mine and stop fucking pestering me?

the story of me: four (tee vee)

2011-08-02T22:08:00.011-04:00

i love television. i always have and always will. i can do without a lot of things. hell, i once went to the queenshead in 2006 and didn't have a single drink all night. that's basically a goddamn miracle. tv, however, is in my blood and i need it desperately to survive.

i grew up with tv and remember events in my life based around what was airing/what i was downloading. example? i remember that i broke my foot in 2003 because that's the year buffy went off the air and the year i finally began watching it. i was through the first season on dvd (and painkillers) when the space network picked up buffy and angel, airing them in syndication, back to back, at 3AM on weeknights. i was a half cripple that had just dropped out of theatre school so this fit my fucked up sleeping patterns. hmmm, i suppose my tendency towards keeping gonzo hours and obsessively watching days of television at a time are not mutually exclusive.

i was thinking about writing this blog at work today and my mind wandered to how many shows i have seen every single episode of... and liked! i wager it's an embarrassing list. fuck it, let's go: buffy, fishing with john, angel, friends, bored to death, seinfeld, fresh prince of bel air, rob & big, the simpsons, pushing daisies, undergrads, laguna beach, 30 rock, degrassi junior high, modern family, newsradio, arrested development, drew carey, saved by the bell, new adventures of old christine, freaks and geeks, party down, my life as liz, breaking bad, kitchen confidential, jersey shore, my so-called life, no ordinary family, californication, the golden girls, mr. sunshine, heroes, mad love, clone high, cougar town, how i met your mother, glee, supernatural, the office (us & uk), parks and recreation, louie, undeclared, bob's burgers, fantasy factory, bones and that's everything i can think of off the top of my head. i'm totally gonna keep this list updated though. hahah, what a loser.

driving around ontario

2011-07-30T19:42:00.003-04:00

we're playing a lot of out of town shows right now and trying to get our album together. so basically we've been a bunch of stressed out, drunken weirdos. i've, of course, had my camera with me the whole way.

fever dreams

2011-07-10T19:28:00.003-04:00

if you read the things i write on the internet or know me in real life, you'll know i smoke a lot of weed. i remember laughing so hard watching bored to death when zack galifianakis tells kevin bacon, "i don't know, i never dream. i smoke pot right before i go to bed and it shuts down the dream side of my brain." i've been saying that for years and nobody believed me! i've had a pretty bad sinus infection for a couple days that morphed into a wild sweatfest so i cut back on the weed and had some crazy fever dreams.

on tuesday i woke up, called in sick to work and went back to sleep. in my mind though i got dressed, rode to work, got a coffee, got changed and walked down into the shop and starting folding shirts. my co-worker turned to me and said, "uh, you don't have anything on." i looked down; i was only in my underwear. i ran out the door to get to my other job... selling merch for every time i die. they had, like, 40 albums though and i couldn't keep them straight so after getting screamed at, i was fired. lucky break for me because somehow my next gig was a cast member on parks and recreation. i tried to get andy to like me instead of april (we were somewhere around late season 2) but c'mon... i can't even compete with aubrey plaza in my own goddamn dream.

two face life

2011-06-05T21:20:00.005-04:00

my fucking throat has been killing me for two weeks now. the first five days were coupled with other cold symptoms that have all but withered away. the hacking, the phlegm, the inability to hold a fucking note, however, remains. we played four shows in the last two weeks and my vocal folds are completely raped. this weekend was a nice distraction though. we played in hamilton on friday; i got a footlong assorted sub for $3.20, a half quarter of good weed for $20 and strangers fought with hula hoops during our set and twirled fire afterward. oh, and we did two encores. hahah, that has NEVER happened before. on the way home we got pulled over for speeding and while waiting for the cop to write a ticket i was positive i was gonna piss my pants. after squatting on the front lawn of an apartment building in parkdale (with another spitfist member), i took out money and bought a chili cheese dog from 7-11. i puked it up later (with all the jager shots) so i felt pretty good about it the next day.

i can't think of a segue for this but i bought some awesomely old school italian kitchen tools (ricer, single stove-top espresso maker) with a set of dominoes and vintage cassette recorder at a sweet yard sale today. summer is upon us! my life is weird!

whichever dessert has the most chocolate, i'll take it.

2011-05-18T18:09:00.005-04:00

i haven't been baking as much as i used to because i'm trying to keep my weight in check, like, for real this time. (jesus christ. that's the worst. i'm the worst. who wants to read shit like that? blah, blah, i'm uncomfortable with my body. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. i digress...) recently, however, my fantastic boyfriend brought me home a selection of chocolate treats (read: for no reason at all) and while they were all astounding, the whoopie pie intrigued me because i felt like i could make it. possibly make it better. i already have a recipe for cake-like cookies that i found through the magic of google but i've never really nailed a super fluffy icing/filling before. hey, guess what, i didn't this time either! i over estimated how much icing sugar i had left and used too much butter so the icing was all fucking runny and didn't hold up between the cookies. also, i have zero patience when it comes to the "let cool" portion of baking so i iced while warm and ended up with a delicious mess. i popped some in the fridge and they set nicely. also, i ran out of milk so i used sour cream in the cookie batter and it fuckin' RULED! the cookie looked perfectly fudgy and melted in my mouth. you should make them too but have more patience or keep them in the fridge or something. they'll be fantastic either way but you shouldn't have to hose down afterward.

the snot rockets of the sea

2011-04-26T20:09:00.000-04:00

records and bodies

2011-04-14T16:26:00.005-04:00

spitfist played a whole bunch of shows in the last couple months and we started recording our first full length! well, technically it probably qualifies as an EP when it only clocks in at 20 minutes for 8 songs but, hey, that's huge for us. i'm really excited about getting it mixed and mastered because it's the first time i've ever been able to listen to the sound of my recorded voice without cringing. in other news, recording has led to stress eating and goddamn the new cupcake place by my house. you're not getting the best of me! not right before cut-off jean short season!

i'm glad summer is on the way, though. i've noticed that i haven't used my digital camera for anything other than food photos in a long time. i think i've grown tired of it. maybe i need to upgrade my body... i'm thinking about staying in the canon rebel family because, let's be honest here, i drop my fucking camera ALL the time. i'm not the type of person who can shell out a thousand dollars on electronic equipment because i will break, lose or grow bored of it before i ever get my money's worth. i'd really like to grab a camera that shoots video so it will force me to become a little more comfortable with video editing software. who knows though, i'll probably just spend all my money on clothes and tattoos. speaking of which, get ready ribcage - you're about to get club sandwiched!

i love tearing meat off the bone

2011-03-22T20:44:00.003-04:00

lately, i've considered abandoning my manners on the internet. i mean, uhh, i'm not exactly ladylike with my speech and shit on this blog but i generally don't scathingly humiliate people for no reason either. i always say please and thank you in public and i try not to swear when babies are around. recently though man, it is getting hard to bite my virtual tongue. everyone has given up! when was the last time you saw a comma in a facebook status? actually, fuck that. how often is there not a single instance of punctuation in your former classmates depressing update about getting new wiper blades? i hate that shit. it literally makes the internet unreadable to me.

i want to start retaliating and not just on poor grammar. i wanted to say so many hilarious (and snide) things today when the guy who used to fuck an old friend changed his relationship status and a photo of his new girlfriend popped up. orange skin, sparkle eyeshadow, high ponytail with that weird gloss covering it and all! what a fucking trainwreck and what a chance to read poorly spelled, half-witted comebacks!

am i wrong to point out the shortcomings of people i no longer care about? does internet etiquette even exist anymore? either way, i wish i could be as liberal with my insults as i am with my food. i'd love to tear the proverbial flesh off a lot of idiot's bones. i guess i'm just too goddamn canadian.

got this way...

2011-03-08T22:29:00.003-05:00

hahha, this weekend was such a trainwreck. beers at band practice on friday led to a flask of vodka at a die mannequin show at the garrison to a ridiculous bike ride before last call up to the three speed and lots of vomiting when i got home. i woke up the next day just in time to load gear at our show and was still hungover when we got onstage hours later. the show was like a giant reunion though and seeing about a hundred old friends brought me out of the darkness. of course, the tall cans probably helped as well.

we're recording a couple tracks and playing a couple big shows soon so check our myspace. also, check this! it's a video our friend emma made. it makes us look pretty cool... i guess.

busy bodies

2011-03-03T21:22:00.003-05:00

i've been trying so hard to keep up with the band, the blog, the photos, the food, the potential tv gig, work and life that i've sort of lost it a bit. i constantly feel like i'm forgetting something (even though i'm not) and it's fucking stressing me out. april will be calmer, however. i'm looking forward to that. for now, here's some spitfist stuff: an interview i did with exclaim!, some music videos we made and a list of places we'll be playing. i'm making some shirts for the shows coming up and if you've ever wanted my stupid face all over your torso... you may be in luck!

while we were in kingston for a show we stopped by the value village and i grabbed a minolta point and shoot. it's called a freedom and it's pretty alright. i was mostly shooting blind in case it was totally broken; i didn't want to get my hopes up, but in the end i liked some of the shots. now i gotta relax, man. this weekend's gonna get weird.

i wanted those chicken hearts, dammit!

2011-02-23T19:31:00.003-05:00

we had a minor grease fire last week. i think. it was my first kitchen fire so it seemed huge to me but we didn't die... so it's probably, technically, a minor fire. i was heating up some oil to chicken fry chicken hearts and i was pumped about it. i had all my bowls laid out in order; southern seasoned flour phil's grandma sent us from virginia, a couple beat eggs and a heap of breadcrumbs. this shit was gonna be delicious. on the side we were having some kale, i turned my back on the oil to tend to the greens (for what felt like two fucking seconds) and suddenly the pot was teeming with smoke! i thought it was weird, turned on the hood fan and BOOM the whole thing fucking erupted in flames. phil jumped in, threw a tea towel on it and BOOM the tea towel burst into flames. i ran for the baking soda (under his advisement) while he ran for a bath towel. our forces combined, we subdued the flames but ruined our dinner. after scrubbing the smoke licks off the walls and inspecting the various damage (hood vents melted, buttons singed, pepper mill covered in soot) we got take-out; and it was pretty good too... i guess.

don't wake me, i plan on eating in

2011-02-07T14:07:00.004-05:00

i'm so good at sleeping. seriously, man. i can wake up, roll over and fall back asleep for HOURS. easily. i could probably sleep straight through two days if i really had nothing else to do. if i don't have to work i usually only get up to make it to brunch on time. i managed to drag myself out of bed after only twelve hours this afternoon because i had missed my computer time. i love days alone in the apartment with the tunes on shuffle, joint resting in the ashtray, hands click, click, clicking away at photoshop, twitter feeds and nerd-related links. i'm currently searching through my flickr stream for meal ideas. i'm filming my on camera interview for come dine with me in a week and i need the perfect quick meal for the thing. i'm thinking pizza with weird toppings. is that too easy? i don't know. the dough will be from scratch so it should entertain them at least. i found a new recipe on the weekend for a dough that sits somewhere between terroni's cracker thin and libretto's fluffy na'an style. i was super happy about it and will have to make it again this week to be sure i've nailed it.

i'll be pretty stoked if i get on the show (if not a little stressed about cooking a whole meal without phil) but i can't help having bizarre questions run through my brain. should i hide the paraphernalia, my dirty laundry? will anyone be offended by my music collection, choice of rare steaks or sense of humour? what if i fart or subconsciously start smoking a one hitter on camera? jesus fucking christ. i'm gonna have to buy a lot of wine for this.

heart fart

2011-01-24T17:54:00.002-05:00

some real weird shit happened since i typed in this box last. first, i got a full body massage and the dude farted while massaging my legs. it didn't smell but it made a distinct brrrappp! and i felt trapped in a "what would larry david do?" moment. i just froze, pretended nothing happened and faked sleeping when he told me we were finished. second, i went over to kimbot's place to play with her new karaoke machine and we wound up singing from 9pm to 5am. straight. seriously. no fucking breaks; just chugging beers and singing for your life. soooo good... if not slightly psychotic.

also, spitfist made a bunch of videos of us playing live in our new jam space. we're gonna release one a week or something till we run out. the first video single is sXe boy and it's up on youtube now. head over and watch it or i'll cut your little chicken heart out and eat it on risotto. innard fucking risotto.

fatty fatty two by four

2011-01-12T15:01:00.003-05:00

well, i've been 28 for a couple weeks now. it's alright. i mean, lately i'm actually enjoying growing older. it feels empowering... i think? either way, i had a party for my birthday. i made a sweet chocolate slab cake that is slowly becoming my signature dish. we had dozens and dozens of raw oysters waiting to be shucked, cheeses, meats, RIBS, bread, booze, buddies... everything i could have hoped for! in fact, multiple nights over the course of the holidays were filled with more food than i should have eaten and i'm paying the price for that now.

so, phil and i are making a conscious effort to cut back on portion sizes because we tend to eat like kings, in the middle of the week, for no reason. jesus, if you knew how much butter we went through you'd think we were lunatics! we like rich food; we like restaurant quality meals when ever we want them and, honestly, i like having pretty food to take pictures of. there are a couple moments, however, when i'm struck by the beauty in a fast food burger, a dollar store chocolate orange or a heaping bowl of bright orange mac n cheese, straight out of a box.

the story of my home: part one (the table)

2011-01-05T17:50:00.007-05:00

well, here it is! the final reveal of the dining room table i started talking about months ago. i rushed and organized and cleaned all christmas break so this room would be ready for my birthday party but really i just couldn't wait any longer to take some sweet photos and post them here. i'm really proud of all the work we've put into our place (and how little money we've spent along the way) and could not wait any longer to share. so, here we are.

i've fit my camera collection on the left. i found this sturdy as hell shelving unit two apartments ago half buried in an unused flowerbed out back. i hosed it off and have since used it as a tv stand, bookshelf and now to anchor the center point of our living/dining room. the print hanging above is a collage of spadina avenue doorways taken by phil. the records and turntable are nestled in the corner with my current plant (black thumb) and some art done by friends. (clockwise: doublenaut, jesse harris, stephanie lund/paul ferguson).

the wood for the dining room table was salvaged from an old barn table my mom found at the side of the road. we sanded it, cut off the undercarriage and attached new legs from ikea. it's sturdy as hell and long enough to sit eight friends. if you follow me on twitter you'll recognize the photos hanging on either side of the tv (they're mine and i was pretty excited when i finally hung them). they're printed by a standard office printer on standard legal paper (easy to do at work, no?) and mounted on dollar store bristol board. we found the frames on the street, painted them black and boom! art hung for under two bucks. all of phil's geets are hanging on the far right. we really try to use the vertical space in our apartment and these wall hangers (that i got on discount when i worked at a music shop) were a great fit! while there are some things i'll be tweeking as we go i'm happy with the way to place looks now and we put it together for about a hundred bucks!

the story of me: three (personal steezy)

2010-12-11T17:43:00.005-05:00

personal style. huh. i've never thought i had any. i haven't changed much about the way i dress for most of my life. in one of the few home movies we have i'm on the front lawn in cut off jean shorts and a batman t-shirt. i'm 7 years old in the video and i wore the exact same outfit last night, 20 years later. it might be laziness; ain't nothin easier than jeans and a t-shirt. it might be inherent rocker syndrome from my parents (who were barely teenagers in the 70s). as a child i always looked up to skinny jeans and big hair, literally. my older siblings were tough as nails too and got me into metal realll early. my wardrobe grew darker and darker as the 90s eased me into my teens and i haven't changed since.

other than slight striations in cuts of denim*, different lengths/colours of hair and a mid twenties jump into mini skirts i look exactly the same as i did when all i wanted to do was play she-ra, ride my bike and listen to metallica. hmm, seems my fashion sense isn't the only thing maintainin'.

*remember when we bought jeans based on the circumference of the ankle opening? i generally had 30 plus inches! hahah, and now i wear jeggings. what a world.

sunday night dinners

2010-11-22T19:36:00.004-05:00

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"

2010-11-09T18:17:00.004-05:00

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?

2010-11-02T19:28:00.007-04:00

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!

2010-10-11T20:27:00.004-04:00

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

2010-10-05T15:37:00.004-04:00

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

2010-09-16T21:28:00.006-04:00

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

2010-08-29T23:22:00.004-04:00

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!

2010-08-20T16:01:00.010-04:00

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

2010-08-20T15:54:00.002-04:00

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.

2010-08-13T18:36:00.010-04:00

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.

blame it on my wild heart

2010-08-04T20:29:00.005-04:00

i'm feeling pretty depressed, guys. i've been sending out resumes for the last two months and nothing. well, actually, i got one phone call. one interview. i nailed it. we got along. it was a gig working with food and i fucking jinxed myself. that sounds ridiculous but i do this to myself all the time. get excited, tell everyone, assure myself it's happening and then... just... nothing. disappointment, i guess.

i dunno. what's a girl to do when she can't even get an interview at a fucking video store?! phil tells me that my resume reads like i'm over qualified. i was a manager (retail and tour); i'll get bored with remedial minimum wage bullshit. so, the question is this: how do i write my resume to show that i'm a pothead (but not on the clock) who doesn't want to take her work home and would prefer a tedious, teenage job so she can pursue her loves (photography, food) outside of working hours?

i'm broke! i will seriously take ANY job right now. my back tire is flat, my makeup is running low and, honestly, there's a new issue of bust that i would really like to read. i thought taking this huge step would allow my path to become clearer but it's still murky as all fuck and, while momentarily exhilarating, not even a giant pile of free records on the street can cheer me up today.

brains, guts, heads and skin.

2010-08-03T17:37:00.008-04:00

we went to a friend's place for dinner on saturday night. i was sitting here trying to figure out how to describe the experience but let's leave it at this: it's nice to have foodie friends. (l-r: chalkboard menu, pig skin sausage, lamb's brains pre-panko, proscuitto, peach and mozzerella salad, confit chicken wings with blue cheese and roast suckling pig [stuffed with sausages!])

my boobs are so sunburnt they look like bruises.

2010-07-27T15:32:00.003-04:00

i'm back from camping! what a wild weekend. we drove to guelph thursday evening, set up camp, got wasted and struggled to sleep in a wild storm. the rain was honestly so loud that it kept startling me awake. couple that with our mattress slowly losing air through the night and i was not a happy camper (haha, sorry) when i woke up damp, hungover and laying directly on uneven rocky ground. i went for a swim in the lake and started drinking at 11am so, well, i got over it fast.

friday night joel picked me up in downtown guelph so i could make it to the spitfist show we stupidly booked the same weekend i was out of town. i showed up tired and sunburnt but had a great time. we sold a shit-ton of cds, a feminist rag wants to interview us and people actually sang along to the one song we posted on our myspace. fucking incredible night.

saturday morning i grabbed a bus back to guelph and while i didn't make it in time to catch what i heard was an incredible set by our friends in the wooden sky, it was another fun (read: drunken) day at a festival that, honestly, i couldn't explain if i tried. i took a ton of photos on my new half frame camera and should have the film developed later this week. in the mean time, the two lone photos i took with my dslr are below. for now, i'm off to wash the campfire smell from my clothes and try to acclimatize myself back into city life... at least that fucking heat wave is over.

this time tomorrow i'll be camping. this time tomorrow i'll be...

2010-07-22T03:15:00.007-04:00

i'd been waiting to make some vegan pancakes for myself ever since phil returned from a wedding with some locally sourced maple syrup (the bride's father taps his own sap). i had to do a bunch of running around this week to get the spitfist demo ready (we printed and hand assembled our own cds) and grab a tent, bug spray and arrange rides to hillside! wooo! camping this weekend, motherfucker! i'm so excited. if you remember last year, i was a little apprehensive about going to the hippie festival but my expectations were completely exceeded and it has happily become part of my summer routine.

back to the point, though. today was the first morning i didn't have to run to the printer, wax something or trim cd sleeves. i was stoked. i got this pancake recipe from some website i can't remember. i think i've had it for about a year and modified it a couple times. basically you need a cup of flour, a tbsp of sugar, 2 tbsp baking powder, pinch o salt, glob of oil and a cup of (whatever kind of) milk. of course, everything is interchangeable. i've used white, brown and chickpea flour, all sorts of sugar, oil and while i recommend chocolate almond milk... any kind will do. i love to put a lot of butter (or earth balance or margarine) in the skillet to crisp up the edges but the pancakes will be great without any fat at all. just cover 'em in chocolate chips or bananas or any crazy thing you want. then relax. sit back. put on the golden girls and just have a half hour to yourself. mmmmm, indulgence.

spitfist's first cassingle!

2010-07-14T16:42:00.003-04:00

sooo, the tracks are finally finished! we just posted a new song this morning and you can listen to it on our myspace.

this song and two others will be available on a she-d at our show on july 23rd. it's at the bovine and you can get more information here. yum yum yum yum yum!

used to be one of the righteous ones...

2010-07-12T20:22:00.014-04:00

we shucked oysters in the park! we SHUCKED our OWN OYSTERS in the PARK! we've been talking about this forever and finally pulled our shit together last weekend. i packed the shucking knife with our beers in the afternoon and as the day cooled down phil popped over to oyster boy and brought us back a dozen and a half. the restaurant sells them off cheaper when they're unshucked so it only cost us (read: phil) $22! it was truly a luxurious day full of dufflet cakes, chippy's fries and oyster boy oysters. i also used the camera on my phone for the first time. i usually have at least two cameras in my purse so, well, why use a lo-res cellphone? well, i just downloaded a new app called fxcamera and, humph, it's pretty cool. there are holga, polaroid and pinhole "cameras" with adjustable settings and they all look pretty cool. i'm sure it's similar to the hipstermatic thing for the iphone, except, y'know... better because it's on android. HAHAHA. i love saying shit like that. mac nerds are so testy!

back to the point however, i love living in this neighbourhood! the food! the park! the bars! the taut young hipsters! erhm, i mean... whatever. i'm happy to still be enamoured with my city almost a decade (and two really loud world cups) later.

puffy hair and sweaty backs

2010-07-06T15:54:00.004-04:00

it is so hot. so, so hot. most of the city lost power yesterday and for an hour i feared we were facing another long term blackout. we spent most of the long weekend drinking in the park so, of course, my camera and ipod battery were completely dead. the restaurant across the street started selling off their melted gelato so i hung out my window and watched all the queen st. regulars gather. it was pretty calm and quiet (a welcome change after the earthquake, riots, protests, parades and unrelenting rain of last week). the electricity popped back on just in time to catch the double xander episode of buffy on tv. i hurried to plug in my gadgets in case the power was short term. when phil got home we cooked up some taco salads and tried to not sweat all over each other. overall, it was a good day.

i haven't got many food pictures for y'all because, well, it's too fucking hot to cook. seriously. however, all my time off has forced me to finalize some things in the apartment. here is a glimpse of our kitchen, bedroom and letterpress display (hilariously enough, last christmas i bought the letters and composing stick for phil and he bought me the drawer... great minds, man!)

my pants don't cut off my circulation anymore!

2010-06-29T16:58:00.005-04:00

it's official! i've lost ten pounds since phil and i moved in together. okay, okay, it's been months so the number may not be impressive but i fucking love to eat (duh) so losing weight is pretty hard for me. phil, however, used to be a sport-o in high school and is the master of geting fit - fast. we've been rocking huge salads and lettuce wraps and from-scratch soups and simple, light vegetable dishes. i gotta say, i feel real good about myself after demolishing a bowl of colourful, clean and crisp veggies... that are only occasionally covered in cheese.

o! canada stands on guard.

2010-06-28T15:53:00.011-04:00

i don't know what to write today. the past weekend was devastating and glorious at the same time. it's a really hard thing to revel in having the streets to myself (and my bicycle) because everyone has fled town to avoid protesters and police that are being bussed in from surrounding cities. riot squads attacked peaceful protesters in front of my old work while i happily (and safely) cruised through bike lanes not blocked by tourists and had a great night out with friends. i'm torn. here's a video that's been making the rounds.

the large yellow sign in the background that says "steve's" is my former work. originally, our owners wanted to remain open for the entire weekend. clearly, they had no idea how far these (out of town) protesters were going to push the police and how much harder they were going to push back. the summits are over now and pride celebrations are moving in this weekend. it's been an interesting time for toronto and i'm excited to see smiles on parade instead of police cruisers on fire, smashed storefronts and over-zealous cops posing in their riot gear like it's a fucking fashion shoot.

photo by phil babcock.

my elbow hurts and snooki's in town

2010-06-21T21:00:00.008-04:00

toronto has been so busy lately. last weekend my fair city hosted a tattoo convention (first time i've ever been in a hilton), the muchmusic video awards (see paragraph two), nxne music festival (zola jesus was incredible, x was full of losers) and the government has been systematically fencing off parts of downtown in preparation for the g20 summit coming up. there are so many tourists everywhere.

thursday night i saw the aforementioned bands, bought some vinyl and met dee at the hilton where we partied with tattoo folk from out of town. on the way home i made the mistake (as i always do this time of year) of riding past muchmusic and narrowly avoiding the streetcar tracks attempting to avoid all the gates, stages and various hoopla. i got caught once, recovered and as i was reassuring stand-by overnight security guards i was okay, got caught again. i bailed pretty hard through the intersection, scraped my elbows and knees up and bruised my hip. before i could collect myself a stranger (who was riding behind me) had picked up my bike and was eagerly reattaching the chain. thanks, dude! (ps. the vinyl was okay... it was the first thing i checked!) the next day, i ate a giant croque monsieur from clafouti in an effort to cure my hangover and later, when i was trying to see my friend kai and his work was blocked by all the fans, i had to muscle through little girls watching miley cyrus soundcheck in 30 degree weather (that's hot here, americans). basically, it sucked. after i saw him, however, things brightened up! a sample guy tossed me a free box of smarties and i ate them after we finished recording the new guitar tracks for the spitfist tape! we're SO close now, i swear! a track by the end of the week - promise!

in other news, i'm still enjoying having my days off. (duh.) i rode bikes around high park (who knew it was that big?!) with beau and sat by the little man-made pond. there were fish just chilling by the top of the water. it blew my mind! i can't remember the last time i could see anything alive when looking into a natural body of water... i guess lake ontario is just gross?

today, i reorganized the living room to spite my computer. it hasn't felt like turning on for three days so i unplugged it and hid it in our room. i put the tv in it's place, moved the cameras around and got the records up off the floor. it looks great in here now so: FUCK YOU COMPUTER. see how you like not getting used in the tight new setup... ahem. excuse me, i take personal offence when my electronics disobey me. it might take me a few days to get it up and running again (unless some nice pc based computer distributer wants to sponser my blog and hook this bitch up with a laptop?) so, in the meantime, why not 'like' me on facebook? c'mon, you really like me, don't you?

yeah, sure, i'll rummage through your garbage

2010-06-14T16:46:00.010-04:00

it's yard sale season! we tend to sleep in on weekends but managed to catch a couple yard sales recently. i found an old polaroid spectra camera for a buck and promptly snapped it up (i will buy ANY camera under five dollars... even if the film format no longer exists). when we sat down to brunch later (at starving artist where everything is made with waffles and they alternate frogs, broken social scene and tom waits records) and i pretended to take a picture - one popped out! this motherfucker had seven shots left! the film was mad expired (and almost completely unavailable now) so everything looks awesome. i haven't unpacked phil's scanner yet but i'll post the pics soon.

another cool thing we added to the living room was a little, vintage fan that phil grabbed for 5 bucks at the trinity bellwoods sale. we'd been looking for one for a while but they are always so outrageously expensive at the furniture shops around our place. phil cleaned it up, plugged it in and it works like a charm. we researched the name and found it was made in toronto in the 50s... that made us take quick stock of the stuff in our apartment. most of it was either locally made, repurposed garbage, or decade old hand-me-downs: quite the eclectic mish-mash of stuff, but it works. if only we could find that dream dining room table...

girls say the darndest things

2010-06-08T19:03:00.005-04:00

recording went great! there were some snafus, clusterfucks and when it all fell to shit, (the drummer dee and i originally started jamming with two years ago) philmill stepped up and recorded us in his band's space. we played through the songs once and nailed them all first take. gangs vocals were especially hilarious. at one point philmill's guitarist walked in to five half drunk girls singing, "yum, yum, yum-yum-yum: chew my food for me!"

after recording we went back to dee and alicia's place and ordered tacos from el asador on bloor. it was my first time trying this place (which was adorable, by the way) so i ordered one of every thing. pupusa virginity: lost! we ate till we couldn't move and drank into the night. the girl's have got a picnic table in their backyard and it felt like camping to crush beers, smoke butts and gab about... uh, farting probably. tacos, taquitos, toots!

thank you for being a friend

2010-06-03T15:18:00.005-04:00

unemployment is nice. i enjoy grocery shopping and going to the laundromat on weekdays. nobody is around: i can grab a coffee without putting makeup on. i've slept in, watched hours of the golden girls on cable (ps. blanche died today. she was only 76. real bummer, dude.), ate alphagetti, re-organized the living room, smoked a ton of weed and had dinner ready for phil when he gets home from work. what a happy fuckin homemaker i am!

in other news, spitfist is recording this weekend. a couple dudes from my old work are bringing over gear and beers and we're gonna try to bang out four songs. i hope the weather holds so we can hang out in the kiddie pool in dee's backyard between takes! i'm a little nervous because my previous recording experience was mostly guttural screaming between shots of scotch and cigarettes; this time i'm almost singing. there's like, harmonies and shit! i dunno. i'm sure it'll sound great on cassette. yeah, seriously... that's how we're releasing it. maybe you could snag a copy at our show on june 19th?

*update: this show has been cancelled. we will be playing a make-up show sometime in july. you'll be posted. sorry!

take this job and leave it empty

2010-06-01T17:32:00.005-04:00

i quit my job. i gave my resignation and was offered severance an hour later. i left without saying any goodbyes; i didn't have to hug a single person. it was perfect. i've worked at this music store since 2007, in varying positions and had grown tired of it. same shit, day after day. i had been calling in sick pretty frequently and (according to the hi-lighted print-out) i'd been late 29 of 37 days. sure, i felt bad but i didn't care. the weight has been lifted, or maybe it was the fog? either way, i'm happy. s'long retail. i'm not sure what i'll do without you... but i'm eager to find out.

it smells like campfire and cornmeal

2010-05-25T14:01:00.010-04:00

man, a lot of birthdays this month. three of them had fireworks (if you count queen victoria as a friend) and two occurred on a long weekend. my store, for whatever reason, was open on the holiday monday so i wasn't able to get three-night-hammered... bummer. i did, however, witness a four alarm fire just a couple doors down from my apartment. i swear to god there's like a fucking bat signal that goes off as soon as any sort of disaster happens. the photographers were out in droves. soooo many nice cameras outside my window, many in hands of the inept. morons with money make me jealous.

in other news, we made pizza again! i'm really getting the hang of the pizza stone thanks to some great online tips. (parchment under the pie makes it so much easier to get into the oven and after five minutes the browned paper slips right out) there is a place on the east side of town that serves their pizza with an egg or two cracked on top. we were always curious about it and could resist the urge no longer! (in posting this i found a name for such a creation - pizza bismark) i chopped up montreal smoked meat for the top, cracked an egg in the middle, dressed the finished pizza with lemony arugula and never looked back. so, so good. we'll definitely make it again. perhaps for breakfast next time?

old garbage desk = new rad coffee table

2010-05-18T20:50:00.005-04:00

phil found an old desk in the garbage last week and after hours of sanding, dismantling, staining with tung oil and sawing - it's ready for a reveal. the feet cost us $2 at the hardware store down the street, the tung oil was super easy to use and gave us the exact look we wanted and thankfully the side panels weren't load bearing so we popped them off no problem! so stoked about the new table. thanks for all the hard work, honey!

*update: this post was featured on design*sponge for before & after thursday. fuckin' eh!

the story of me: two (fake performances)

2010-05-14T20:06:00.008-04:00

i love karaoke. i love rock band and guitar hero and singstar and generally just being the center of attention. i hosted my own karaoke night when i was in theatre school (whole other story dude, whole other story) and frequented so many karaoke joints, so regularily, that i would get recognized at drive-thrus (a cop at a country style in oshawa once said to me, "i saw you at five different karaoke bars last week!") and regulars would submit songs (from my expansive roster) in my honour. this sounds fucking crazy i know but, an 18 year old girl with a fake id, musical theatre pipes and a penchant for bad 90s rap is (apparently) what every drunk old man at every dive bar is dying to see.

the karaoke phase may have passed as i became legal age and starting singing in a real band but my desire to do something at a bar other than drink couldn't be sedated. i started a guitar hero night at a bar called the queenshead (rip) in 2006 and it really took off. at the height of it, patrons would be forced to sign up and wait an hour for their turn. you fail: you're out. no second tries on my fucking night. oh, and, if you're boring... i'm taking over. the phase passed, as they do, and it turned into a straight up dj night that slowly withered and died.

these days, ten years later, i'm more into rock band. i go to kimbot's place, we get bombed, blitzed and bawl through classic rock, old no doubt and hilarious renditions of dragula, chop suey and battery. she recently bought the american idol game and it has opened my eyes, man. never did i picture myself, pbr in hand, singing 'my heart will go on' for all it's fucking worth with tears in my eyes and a flutter in my heart. i could just picture my 15 year old self crying and clutching the radio while sound clips from titanic played through the bridge of the song (anyone else remember when they did that?) fuck man, teenage girls are whiny little attention whores but boy, can they entertain the barflys.

we ate their little heads

2010-05-11T23:35:00.003-04:00

i love trying new restaurants. i especially love places that i discover through a friend who happens to be 'in the know'. i used to live in on the little italy/little portugal border but was too intimidated to enter the family owned churrasqueira and barbecue joints that seemed to be everywhere. the smell was intoxicating but the large, rowdy families out front always freaked me out (because i am usually high) so i'd pass right by and end up eating chester chicken from the starbank on the corner.

recently however, we got a posse, our bicycles, a trumpeter and rolled up to the barbecued meat party. we had queijo fresco (fresh goat's milk cheese) with an incredible fucking hot sauce. the sausage was brought to our table, ON FIRE, and tossed around like a baton at a parade. oh, right, we were outside, on a huuuge patio, on a warm spring night with grilled sardines and mammoth quails and sweet portuguese wine and a goddamn rock garden with ivy covered fences to block out the dirt of the city, the wrath of real life.

it felt like another universe on that bench. that yard without pretension; just stories of back home. i was covered in grease and brine with wine staining my teeth and i was happy. there is nothing better than food with friends. beers with bros? coke with confidantes? roofies with roommates? sex with superhero sidekicks? ok... that last one sounds fucked but intriguing.

happy mother's day, mom.

2010-05-09T19:33:00.002-04:00

my mom is the bravest broad i know. she taught me to never be ashamed of who i am or where my interests lie. she taught me that black clothes hide pit-stains (we're natural sweaters) and laying flat on your back to zip up your jeans (with pliers) is no big deal. she told me that women can accomplish anything and don't let that fucking man tell you what's what. my mom makes me feel smart, creative, beautiful and strong. i couldn't have asked for a tougher bitch to guide me through my childhood nor a more loving friend to help me through my maturation into women-hood.

thank you, tobey wan-kenobi. you've been a mother to many but a true inspiration to me. i love you, mom.

the chicken came first

2010-05-06T18:11:00.004-04:00

it's weird to plan meals as a couple. i mean, eating has always been a solitary thing for me (up to and including eating two pounds of chicken wings, in bed, drunk in the dark, alone) but lately sundays are spent discussing what we'll be cooking next week and who will have kitchen command on which night. i wanted to try my hand at homemade stock so we bought a whole bird. the chicken store in kensington was sold out of single birds but the adorable, tiny clerk ripped open one of the wholesale bags and said, "i chop off head and feet for you, okay?". after she lobbed off the extremities, we walked away with a fresh, local chicken for $6.50. how many days will this feed us? let's find out! come along!

the first night we gently seasoned the chicken with sea salt, cracked pepper, thyme and promptly shoved a can of pbr up it's ass. i acquired one of those stands that helps in the beer-butt chicken process from my old roommate and i don't know what i would have done without it. what was formerly a useless kitchen gadget has been deemed essential. good for you, metal rack thingy! i digress. the chicken roasted beautifully in a couple hours and we had legs and wings that night. after allowing the rest of the meat to, literally, fall off the bone i covered the carcass in carrots, celery, onions, a couple spices (secret blend!) and water and let it simmer till we went to bed. the stock was a beautiful golden colour and smelled like grandma's kitchen during the holidays. perfect!

the next night we used the shredded meat and some stock for a corn and chicken chowder that turned out even better than expected. roasted chicken sandwiches were had the following night and the frozen stock is continuing to prove useful. i would recommend buying an extra ice cube tray or popsicle mould (if you can find one with a lid - bonus) for storing the stock in the freezer. it'll be easier to dole out portions and you won't have to hack at two litres of frozen soup base with a knife... not that i have any experience doing that. nope. i'm a fuckin' old hat at this.

between a rock and a nerd place

2010-05-03T12:01:00.007-04:00

where do i fit into this blogosphere? as a reformed party girl i'm mostly grossed out by tit-flashing, misspelled, poorly edited "lifestyle" blogs but completely bored with run-of-the-mill, my husband builds things while i cook "food" blogs. i don't provide recipes and i don't gossip. i'll never post links to things i want to buy or talk about people i met at church (because i'm a proud heathen). i can't put up recipes because i usually wing it, when stoned, and don't remember what the fuck i put in the food (let alone measurements of such). i dunno.

lately, i feel like an anomaly. sure, i've been listening to beach house and best coast (as well as the new dillinger escape plan, old bikini kill and everything julie christmas is involved with) non-stop too, but i don't feel the need to tell you about it because that's what EVERY OTHER BLOG is talking about. i bake a lot and eat out at delicious local restaurants but, really, do you care? my apartment is filled with vintage housewares and i shop at urban outfitters for cheap dresses. i like records and film photographs and cupcakes and beer and, fuck... who doesn't?

it's coming up on a first birthday for this blog and i think i've settled in. there'll continue to be photos of friends blacking out, clouds looking pretty and food i've made to quell the hangovers, heartaches and hungry house parties.

thanks for being around if you were. thanks for staying if you did. talk to me. tell me where you, i and all the other in-betweens belong.

i'm so corporate

2010-04-30T16:09:00.003-04:00

hey guys. i bought a dot com. if you're a follower, please change your links to point to hungryhammeredhome.com and stay tuned!

you can't be anal retentive if you don't have an anus

2010-04-26T17:00:00.007-04:00

i'm revelling in the joys of simple tasks being completed. i organized my books by colour, alphabetized the dvds, downloaded new records with proper track listings and album art, repotted a plant, replaced the shower curtain (hotel style, yo!), hung some stuff and tidied the bedroom. it was quite an anal retentive weekend complete with levels, measuring tapes and pencil markings.

speaking of anuses, phil has wicked bad salmonella poisoning! crazy, huh? we eat all the same food, at the same time and he gets sick while i get bombed for five days in a row. bizarre. before his stomach started betraying him, he whipped up some of his patented philly (get it?) cheesesteaks. i made him add spinach to the mix and it turned out splendidly. who doesn't love meat, mushrooms and spinach doused in hot gravy over melting, smoky cheeses? IDIOTS, that's who. people who hate deliciousness. retards who are scared of jus running down their forearms while engaged in a hunchbacked, mouth breathing love affair with a sloppy, drippy sandwich of glory. oh god, yeah.

spitfist vs. a thousand beers

2010-04-23T16:48:00.004-04:00

i had a wild weekend. on friday night my new band played our first show. we played at a bar i used to frequent (we're talking five nights a week here) a couple years ago and it was fun. i think. i mean, we got through a case of beer and a twenty sixer of vodka before we got onstage so it's all a little hazy. people said it was good and we partied at my place till six am so, success?

side note, farkus/little titus/dude from postal was there! i can't remember if he caught our set or not but this picture is soooo worth whatever embarrassing things i said to him. b actors are the best!

i do it to freak out the squares

2010-04-20T14:05:00.005-04:00

i made pizza last night. it was delicious. the last time i started from scratch was, well, a little bit of a disaster. the dough didn't rise, was too crunchy and (although my old roommate was a chef) we had to eat it with forks because the toppings were too heavy. this time i bought pre-made dough from the bakery in kensington market so i wouldn't have to deal with yeast and rising and all those bread terms i don't understand.

i rolled the springy, whole wheat dough with some cornmeal because we were planning on using a pizza stone for the first time. so many rules with those things! put it in the oven cold, let it heat up sufficiently, dust it with cornmeal/flour to prevent sticking and then try to slide a sloppy, dressed pizza onto it without ripping the dough, spilling the contents or touching any part of the burning hot oven. suffice it to say, i started the pizza on a plain, old cookie sheet and once the crust had firmed up a bit, transferred it to the stone. it worked! it tasted better than takeout and we demolished the whole thing in no time. i even made the sauce from scratch and it was easier than i anticipated.

i can't wait to make it again with crazy toppings that will inevitably freak out the squares. that's like, my motto for food now. phil and i were joking about having a dinner party and providing kraft dinner with hotdogs for anyone who couldn't handle our tastes. you don't like brains and sweet breads? eat this cold, boxed pasta! you're scared to try pig's face? here's a hotdog: eat the anus! sissy...

fuckload of finger foods for friends

2010-04-12T15:33:00.005-04:00

we had our first dinner party this weekend. sure, we don't have a dining room table or enough plates to serve everyone at once but that didn't stop us! we made a fuckload of finger foods for friends and it worked out splendidly.

we were woken up by our new internet provider. we had an "appointment" scheduled for 12-5pm. they showed up at 9am. whatever. at least i got a chance to watch 'french food at home'. laura calder is so sensual in her cooking and i generally feel like i can make everything just as well as she does... if not better.

after several attempts to connect our computers and phones to the new (fibre optic!) connection we spent the afternoon in kensington market trying to plan the menu. we wound up with a whole lot of cheese, meat, bread and basic vegetables. i organized a cheese plate, smoked salmon hor d'oeuvres and plated food as phil fried up parmesan tacos to stuff with steak and arugula, grilled some smokey chicken for bite size club sandwiches and marinated tomatoes for a goat cheesy bruschetta.

we ate, drank, listened to records and had a really fantastic time. for me, the highlight was laura's recipe for french slab (think a silkier version of flourless chocolate cake). i whipped up some vanilla creme and topped it with blackberries. i ate it in, like, two bites. shit was delicious... especially with a plethora of cheap merlot, a thousand beers, hazily rolled joints and dirtbag friends to share it all with.

time tested techniques

2010-04-08T19:11:00.005-04:00

the bf and i made dumplings for the first time this week. we bought the wrappers in chinatown awhile ago but couldn't agree on fillings. we settled on some ground pork (only .83 cents a pound, by the way) and ramped it up with traditional chinese spices. neither of us could figure out how to form the wraps into cute little dim sum-y packages so phil used his ravioli techniques and i just sort of rolled them around until parts stuck to other parts. they were really delicious, if a little ugly, and i got a chance to witness phil's masterful spoon-over-spoon filling forming tactics. he's like an encyclopedia of time-tested techniques and he always knows the reasons behind them. i may have to remind him who people are over and over but he'll never forget anything anthony bourdain has told him. ever.

antique barns and vintage appetizers

2010-04-06T15:35:00.005-04:00

we ventured out of the city to visit phil's parents this easter weekend. they surprised us with a flat screen television (we have been watching an old 13" tv/vcr combo) and some weird products from the states. the thing i was most excited about, however, was all the antique markets surrounding peterborough. i found a lot of total scores (read: vintage pyrex, wood crates, mason jars, juice glasses, buffy figures (?), cookie cutters, rusted out ricers and hand mixers) in a barn with an enormous novelty rocking chair out front. i ate my weight in deviled eggs and roasted lamb. we bar-hopped small town pubs, played 90s simpsons pinball and watched on-demand satellite tv (just like the celebrities!).

we're getting ever closer to finishing our apartment. the wood crates went in the kitchen in lieu of drawers, we hung our letterpress tray and metal alphabet in the bathroom and the glass jars we found in phil's parents' cold cellar have invaded our shelves forming a unified, reflective front. the hilarious part? i haven't unpacked all my clothes, yet, i've arranged and rearranged my mason jar collection about thirty times and can't stop searching craigslist for the perfect counter stools. speaking of which, anyone know a way to get around "US only" shipping?

paint under my nails, tofu in my belly, chefs in my ear

2010-03-30T13:56:00.004-04:00

it's great to have someone to cook with. i've had roommates who were never around, didn't eat vegetables or just hated everything i wanted to make. phil and i have the same taste in food (except, of course, when it comes to mustard and raw onions. BARF!) and we've been cooking up a goddamn storm this first week of living together.

i stole a couple recipes from other blogs, he pulled out some of his staples and i completely improvised energy bars for the first time, ever! it's always scary to just wing it in baking (it is a science after all) but everything worked out. i'm excited, too, about all the new techniques he's introducing me to. we just discovered an existing cable hook-up in the living room and while daunting, distracting and devious (i haven't had cable in at least eight years) the food network is ruling my life. martin picard, food jammers, diners, drive-ins and dives and, hell, even michael smith are consistently in the background while we cook, eat and paint shelving (more on that next week). here are some of the things we ate so far... and evidence of alli$on being a crazy (fun) person.

i've accidentally slept on the couch for three nights

2010-03-25T20:04:00.017-04:00

we moved. we're in. we're fucked... ok. not really. sure, i've been wearing the same clothes all week because everything is packed or dirty, we have more knick knacks, usb cables, picture frames and original nes games than we know what to do with but it's coming together. i found a great canadian version of a vintage eames chair for ten bucks yesterday and we're having a dining room table custom made to our specs in the next couple months. my computer isn't unpacked and we won't have internet at the new place for awhile yet (food pictures are piling up) but i should be in the full swing of things soon. hold tight!

in lieu of our home cooked curries and decadently delectable nights eating out, here are some pictures (i know, i know, i hate when people just repost pictures of shit instead of personally creating pieces too. afterall, i've said it before and i'll say it again: the way that most people utilize tumblr is a fucking joke.) i've been drooling over for the last couple weeks. white walls! white furniture! kitchen accessories on display! it's like a little mini design orgasm with every gleaming picture.

* stolen from desire to inspire, apartment therapy and emmas design blogg.

why do i have so many empty bottles of jager?

2010-03-17T12:20:00.003-04:00

moving is a weird thing. it forces you to look through all the embarrassing shit you've collected, clothes you've grown out of and dust you've neglected to vacuum from under your bed. while i was throwing garbage into bags and keepsakes into boxes i tried to tally up how many times i've done this. i think it's my thirtieth move. that's fucked.

in six years i've evolved from living out of backpack to having more books, cameras, movies and kitchen gear than i know what to do with. (ok, ok, i know what to do with all of it: hoard, display, stare, love) i've decided that i no longer need to cart around empty booze bottles, broken skateboards, childhood stuffed animals, band shirts i haven't fit into since high school, movie tickets from dates with exes, every piece of furniture i've found on the street, etc.

you remember that time you had a house party and in a drunken, coke-fueled stupor you just had to bring out your grade eight valedictorian plaque, childhood home videos, pictures that prove your high school haircut/flatchestedness and onesie your mom took you home from the hospital in in an effort to, i don't know, entertain your bored friends? yeah, well, i've done all those things and it's over! i'm ditching the baggage, losing the junk and giving away the unopened promo cds i only acquired because they were free in the first place. it's a stacey mccool sale and none of you are invited. well, unless you regularly hang around outside my apartment waiting for me to throw boxes labelled 'free' into the night. in which case, look up! i'm all nekkid on the third floor... just playin'. i'm at work. sicko.

the paint got in my blood

2010-03-10T18:56:00.004-05:00

i can't 'no-bake'. i don't know what's wrong with me or my recipes or my patience but everything comes out a slop! i tried no-bake chocolate macaroons the other week and chocolate pie last night and it all ended up in grossness. well, that's not true... it ended up a delicious slop i had to eat with a fucking spoon and not at all what it was supposed to be.

does anyone have a tip for me? am i too impatient, constantly shaking the pie plate to see if the gelatinous goo has formed into something biteable or does everyone have this problem? either way, i suck.

in other news, we signed a lease (and, of course, ate at the black hoof [bacon jam! sweetbreads! tongue!] to celebrate). the bf and i have been busy painting, cleaning, removing, shelving, taping, sanding, filling and planning. i'm totally exhausted. we should be fully moved in by the end of the month so expect a shitload of before and after pictures, outrageous dinner parties and maybe even our first big fight. i know, i know, it's been four years - i think we're safe too.

the story of me: one (josie grossie)

2010-03-01T23:06:00.009-05:00

i'm sitting here trying to recall high school. the formative years of my adulthood are but a faint memory. i'm looking through pictures of faces i recognize and names i've forgotten. i can't remember what classes i took, who i sat beside, my teacher's name(s) or what time the bells rung but i can smell that favourite blue plaid, feel the crunch of saran wrapped shitty weed in my jean pocket, hear the snicker of clear skinned seniors and clean nosed achievers. i probably hated you in high school: you probably made me feel like shit without knowing i existed.

the four, long years were spent bouncing between the quintessential loner (for me: robin tunney in empire records) and a try-so-hard-to-fit-in-you-stand-out rebel (lindsay weir, anyone?). angst! fear. rebellion! tears. i would never, ever do it again. the bad poetry, awkward attempts at romance and complete social ineptitude that encapsulated my life is not uncommon among teenage girls: i know this and i feel for you. stick it out, try not to get knocked up and hold onto your journals... you'll laugh at them in ten years. right before you set them on fire.

is this spatula mine or yours?

2010-02-24T18:49:00.004-05:00

there's a great new rummage store in the market called funky junky. i've bought a couple old mason jars, bottle openers, lighters and cigarette boxes there (you can see where my lifestyle lies) and i'm always tempted to snag the rusted super 8 cameras in the back. however, i need to set boundaries on my spending right now. no more cameras, records, books, vhs or glassware until i move! packing sucks!

anyway, i was in the shop a couple weeks ago and and saw a candy thermometer in a bucket of dirty hammers and saws. i got phil to hold his lighter to it to test and boom! works. i got it for five bucks and have been really stoked to put it to use. i had leftover syrup from the chocolate peanut butter pillows so i found a recipe for simple maple-peanut candy (ok, she said walnuts and i used peanuts. so, what?). i gotta tell you, it was pretty exciting watching that needle rise, rise, rise to 200+ degrees... definitely more fun than dropping hot sugar into a glass of water. totally definitely.

i can do more than exist.

2010-02-19T20:40:00.003-05:00

i've lived about thirty different lives. it's left me a connoisseur of city life, an expert in minimum wage jobs, a guru of illegal partying, an old hat at dodging creditors, a sage in customer service, a veritable encyclopedia of the entertainment industry and a fucking dynamo in dive bars. i'm better than average at most tasks but excel at none. my quarter decade of existence is a cornucopia of half forgotten stories, exaggerated memories and a hundred thousand pictures in a tattered box behind a non functional vcr.

winter isn't inspiring to me. february does not instill an artistic longing. snow and cold deter me from moving, speaking or creating. i will, however, scan some old photographs and recall some old times to (gradually) share with you all: the story of me.

meat is murder. murder is delicious.

2010-02-18T02:25:00.005-05:00

i ate a lot of fantastic food these last couple weeks. i've been meaning to write about most of it but have been too busy attempting to occupy the perfect place with my perfect partner. we're this close to securing the place of our dreams and the anticipation is killing me. i've tried occupying my time with altering recipes and having dinner parties. so far... it's worked.

i made chocolate peanut butter pillows that i read about in post punk kitchen and ate a shitload of food at other people's houses. phil and i don't believe in valentine's day so (unlike the majority of the blogs i follow) i don't have some cutesy story. we did, however, attend two awesome get-togethers that revolved around food. the first was at the boyfriend's roommate's co-worker's house. he's british and made a ton of shit i'd never had before (ie: black pudding, cracklin). there was another couple there who made me feel as if i could have a kid. don't get me wrong, i still don't want one - but they made me feel as if i could successfully raise one.

on valentine's day we headed over to chadrad and aeryn's with a bag full of fresh seafood and a ton of drinks. we proceeded to eat until none of us could move. seriously. i was comatose on the couch for at least an hour. sure, it was weird to murder a live crab by smashing in it's crab brains... but the corpse was delicious and made the whole experience worth it. remind me to kill more animals immediately before i eat them. thanks.

i talk about shitting too much.

2010-02-04T19:51:00.009-05:00

i finally got around to making those vegan energy bars i wrote about awhile ago. i've been busy apartment hunting for the past week: all my online energy is targeted at craigslist and viewit. my boyfriend and i are finally moving in together (just in time for our four year anniversary) and i am pretty fucking excited. i've lived with dudes before and it always ends in disaster. i'm so glad we waited this long because we are completely on the same page stylistically and neighbourhood wise. i really don't want to leave the small independent markets, butchers and cheese shops surrounding my current abode but i'm anxious to start building a life with phil. plus, we're avid cyclists and, to be honest, toronto ain't that big. our sundays will probably still be spent in kensington market. i'll keep y'all abreast of our hunting and stay tuned for (more than likely) a shit ton of diy projects and vintage furniture finds. i can't wait!

now, onto the food. i have a terrible habit of either not eating breakfast or eating a three egg benedict with four cups of coffee. my body hates me. so, when i saw a post on (neverhome)maker a couple weeks ago for vegan energy bars i freaked out a little. it usually happens when i see something delicious that i know i could so easily make myself and completely alter to my own tastes. i am totally in love with the result and, to be brutally honest, my shits have been fantastic!

these bars are loaded with fibre and goddamn delicious. i used flax seed, all bran cereal, almonds, coconut, organic rolled oats, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, soy nuts, natural peanut butter, tahini, organic honey and local maple syrup. the key is to keep adding honey or syrup until the whole mess is sticking together. pack it in a brownie pan, bake for fifteen minutes and boom! portable breakfasts for days. your bowels will thank you.

phacebook, phlickr, foto fone.

2010-01-26T16:34:00.004-05:00

i'm wearing a bathing suit instead of underwear right now. it's okay, albeit a little embarrassing to admit. i meant to do an unmentionables laundry session yesterday but got all caught up trying to update the software on my phone. i lost 3g and wi-fi connectivity over the weekend due to a 911 error with magic/rogers costumers. since this is my first foray into fancy handheld technology; syncing contacts with my pc, upgrading the ui, re-adding contacts (anyone know why google contacts are stored differently than phone contacts? i lost all the numbers i had added since buying the phone and can't figure out why) and customizing the home screen ending up taking over five hours. it was pretty fucking frustrating but now that i'm fully enabled, i'm stoked.

the sense ui is slick, fast and doesn't have any of the hang-ups my old android os did. facebook, flickr and twitter (which i'll never use) now come built in as well as really fun widgets for texting and email. (i can flip through messages like a sticky note pad!) i feel like i have a completely new phone and, while daunting, exhaustive and frustrating, the upgrade was well worth it. (added extra: rogers is providing customers with an additional month of unlimited data... that's means i'm free till march. hey-o!)

looks like i'll be doing laundry tonight while baking some vegan energy bars. i found the recipe on a cute (read: hyper-positive, athletic, married couple's) blog and can't wait to compress twelve kinds of nuts, grains and seeds into portable, fibre-tastic, shit-inducing, healthy breakfasts!

bacon, bacon, bacon

2010-01-24T11:57:00.006-05:00

i friend gave me fifteen pounds of bacon for christmas. it's too much. it's thick cut, locally sourced and goddamn delicious but, it's too much! i froze most of it in individual portions and kim (my roommate) has no problem helping me it eat but, honestly, i can't wait for it to be gone.

have you ever googled 'bacon recipe'? the results are surprisingly vast. i've candied it, baked, broiled, wrapped, crumbled, sandwiched and even fried tofu in the rapidly expanding vat of fat we're accumulating. i fear i'll smell like grease until the day i die. it's seeping out my fucking pores and i swear i only covered it in chocolate once... okay, twice.

chain grocers can ess my dee

2010-01-19T14:17:00.005-05:00

i went to a grocery store last week after yoga. i was on the other side of the city at 9pm and hungry. i saw a 24 hour metro and wandered in. now, i haven't been in a grocery store since... well, i don't remember. that place is daunting, man. i found myself wandering through thirty aisles, dumbfounded. everything was either frozen, rotten, over-priced or completely indiscernible as food. $3.50/lb for small, wilty tomatoes from peru? no local option? no fresh option? i left with a bag of day old french rolls, a can of zoodles and a single tomato for close to seven dollars. that's what i would normally spend for a week's worth of produce!

the whole experience left me saddened for small town/uneducated eaters. is this the only option in your area? how can people afford to shop like this? please, if i am alone in these thoughts - let me know.

thank christ i'm not forced to shop in a big box that carries pads alongside frozen vegetables and imported bread. i'm still in shock, clearly.

cleanse, feed, rest.

2010-01-07T18:46:00.004-05:00

the last couple weeks have been dreary weather-wise but really inspiring food-wise. all the colourful, seasonal vegetables tempt me from the local markets and i felt encouraged to try something new. why not a warm, hearty soup?

i had never made anything like this before so after a couple vague googles and experimenting with different vegetables, creams, broths, puree vs. chunk, etc. my absolute favourite end result was a puree of butternut squash, green ontario apples and fresh cauliflower. i roasted the apples (diced) inside the halved squash with maple syrup, butter and some thyme. when mushy, i boiled the pieces with some chicken broth, more spices and tossed in steamed cauliflower right before pureeing. it was absolutely unbelievable and, honestly, two really fun hours for a week's worth of delicious, healthy soup. i'm so proud of myself.

in other news, i did laundry for the first time in months and now the sweet smell of detergent on my clothes is making me sick. seriously.

twenty ten.

2010-01-04T22:50:00.005-05:00

alright. it's a new year. it's the first day back at work after the holidays and i'm going to... call in sick! weeeeeeee. i woke up this morning after tossing and turning all night while my residual two-week hangover sunk in, already late for work and realized i hadn't done laundry in months, groceries in weeks and that i could smell myself. i mean smell myself.

so, fuck it. i emailed in asking for a personal day and slept till 2pm. a hot shower and four hours of laundry later, i feel like a whole new woman. i made a nice tomato bisque tonight and uploaded a shitload of pictures. i've spent so much of the last month partying (four birthdays, three dinners, two holidays, several stress-relieving mid week bombings), baking (cookies, bars, muffins, cupcakes, bread, libraries, pies) and waiting on retards (if you don't know how to connect to the internet, i'm not going to sell you pro tools) that i just needed a me day. a day, alone, to reset my world and get ready for the next step. i'll begin the voyage with vegan chocolate pancakes!

fuck christmas, celebrate my birth.

2009-12-28T22:22:00.009-05:00

this year i have baked, boiled, beaten, braised, brunched and barbecued more food than i previously knew existed. i've gone from blurry breakfast cell phone pics to post processed pig part pictures from a digital slr. alliteration almost aside, this has been a fucking fantastic year for food.

i'm going to be twenty seven in an hour and a half and, well, i'm stoked. getting older is getting better and i finally feel like i'm headed in a direction. i can't see which direction right now but i feel like i'm doing something right.

here's a link to the food i ate this year, people i got drunk with and stuff i rode past on my bicycle(s). thanks to the fellow gluttons, drunkards and well-wishers i've had over a hundred blog posts, a thousand photos on flickr and hazy memories of all of it. see ya next year, assholes!

goodbye, old friend.

2009-12-21T20:22:00.003-05:00

you carried me home on drunken summer nights. you flew through ice and sleet like a fucking atv. your brakes barely worked and your chain fell off if i changed gears but, i loved you. thanks for the rides, the bails and all the ripped pantyhose. you will be missed, blue bike.

ah yes, another bike stolen at christmas. god rest ye merry thieves. i hope you pawned my only mode of transportation for cash... your crack babies and fat wife need presents!

gotta double bag those girls from oshawa

2009-12-10T17:22:00.006-05:00

i have been eagerly awaiting the re-opening of stem restaurant on queen st. for almost a year. when they closed "for filming" and never reopened we were all worried the fucking croc store would expand or some other bullshit would move in but, last week a sign finally went up. when i saw the bqm logo i was a little disheartened. i mean, there's already two bqm's in toronto and neither is exceptional.

i ate at this location for the first time about an hour ago and it was alright. they aren't rocking the full menu yet but promise to have daily rotating blue plate specials (read: roast beef, meatloaf, pulled pork sandwiches, etc.) and all day breakfast seven days a week. i got the cheeseburger. it was bloody, tasted like meat and, in my carnivorous opinion, pretty perfect. the fries were thick but crispy and the staff was overly attentive (i was the only customer). if only those tattooed line cooks hadn't been making fun of "dirty" oshawa girls the whole time. i mean, i can say it because i lived there for twenty plus years and i have the right. you, sirs, do not... regardless of how many of us you've tried to fuck.

beet arthur

2009-12-07T21:35:00.002-05:00

i'm often thankful for the neighbourhood i live in. i'm wedged between chinatown and kensington market so i've always got fresh goodies near by and the late fall/early winter is quickly becoming my favourite produce season! i bought three kinds of beets this week (who knew, right?). i roasted them all for awhile, ate a few burning hot chunks and threw the rest in with my brine mixture (getting better by the pickle, thanks for asking). the candy cane beet has weird colours like, uh, a candy cane and the golden one is a completely different taste than the classic purple guy. next up: local squash and apple soup. boom.

it's supposed to snow tonight, my phone told me so.

2009-12-03T19:02:00.004-05:00

i bought a new phone yesterday. it's an htc magic. i'd been eyeing it for months and, honestly, couldn't be happier with it. i never thought i would have one of these cool, touch screen, smart phone, gps enabled, app downloading monsters but, hey, it's sleek and allows me to remotely download torrents, check the blogs i follow, learn about constellations, ensure shelves are level and make hilarious fart noises. who could ask for more? (actually, for reasons unknown the magic is incapable of caller display outside of my contact list. it's the one infuriating thing in an otherwise glorious device. hopefully a firmware update is in the midst.)

also this week, phil and i went out for ramen. i know what you're thinking (mr. noodles?) and you're half right. we were debating which ramen hut to visit and after an email from our mutual crushes, the food jammers, we stopped by their endorsed place, kenzo on dundas. the meal was simple but delicious. i would recommend it to anyone in the area with six bucks and twenty minutes to slurp, slop and savour the winter blahs away.

pho-pho-photura photos.

2009-12-01T23:15:00.006-05:00

so, that camera i got for twenty bucks? it's pretty much the best! it really feels great to shoot film again.

a hundred posts later.

2009-11-28T19:45:00.004-05:00

i rolled alone today because phil went to his parents' for american thanksgiving. i took the opportunity to buy him some christmas presents, take some pictures and visit the one of a kind show. shopping for others has become my favourite part of this quickly approaching/highly aggravating holiday season. i love the feeling of finding the perfect gift. i almost cried at the show because i was so excited. oh man, some of the shit there is extraordinary, over-priced in places, but really exceptional.

i was surprised at the amount of food vendors. i got to sample candied atlantic salmon, chocolate covered everything, coconut cashews, lobster mousse, country peach vinegar (wow), tons of smoked fish, locally grown herbal teas and endless bins of flavoured soybeans, nuts and dipping sauces.

i'm trying to think of a better way to spend a day but how can you beat wake and bake, groceries in kensington, breakfast with the paper at tequila bookworm, quick stop at the camera store, bike ride along the lake, one of a kind shopping followed by beers, food and photo editing? YOU CAN'T... but you should feel inspired to try.

oh, granny... you're so stylish.

2009-11-27T21:39:00.004-05:00

i finally got my boots in the mail! i am so fucking pumped. go, online vintage shopping! best 29 bucks i've spent in a long time.

how can i help you today, dickface?

2009-11-26T18:50:00.002-05:00

you know that feeling when you've helped someone? i mean, really informed them and provided excellent service and got them the product they didn't know they wanted but now cannot live without? it's like a first kiss or a great meal or a satisfying shit... it disappears as soon as some retard comes along and stares at your tits for twenty minutes while asking pointless questions in an attempt to start a conversation with a hottie they wouldn't have a fucking chance with in real life.

this is the bain of customer service. the idiots out number the friendlies. the perverts, assholes and sexists will continually ruin my (and maybe your) days at work but thank christ for the simpletons: the polite and eager-to-learn custies hold a place in my heart.

i would like to thank you, mr/s. considerate and smiling, for making an otherwise shit job a little more tolerable. if i could high five your parents, i would.

i'll be broke in a month.

2009-11-24T11:21:00.004-05:00

i saw a mouse launch out of my cat's mouth last night. kim and i were screaming in our rubber boots and frantically chasing a tiny rodent around the living room until we lost it somewhere in behind our 500 vhs movies. i hope it doesn't chew through the kevin smith collection.

in other news, i found some fantastic gifts (for myself and others) online in the last week. i can't wait to start receiving packages in the mail. i know i'm a little late to the whole online shopping world but, fuck, i am having an outstanding time perusing vintage stores while at work. it really helps to pass the day.

i met up with a dude yesterday to buy a canon photura (20 bucks!) from craigslist. i'm pretty stoked to have an old 35mm camera that actually works and damn does it look cool. it's all pop can shaped and glorious. i'll keep everyone abreast of my delicious finds as they arrive at my door. damn that's convenient: this paypal business could be trouble.

the taste of blood, the taste of wine.

2009-11-19T23:26:00.005-05:00

i went to active surplus yesterday and bought a glue gun that i'm pretty stoked about. we put it to good use last night when assembling our ornaments for the buffyfest holiday swap! how fucking nerdy is that, huh? i'm STOKED.

on the food front, i'm the best. i made some goat cheese and chocolate truffles one night (holyshitholyshitholyshit) and added some fresh beets and more eggs to my jar of brine the next. everything is purple and pickled and i couldn't be happier about it.

i'm in this weird part of my life where i'm working less but making more money than i ever have. i keep buying stuff online (read: vintage jars and granny boots) and worrying i'll run out of cash but it just doesn't happen. perhaps all the little transitions from party girl to dinner party lady have eased the money tensions. for me it literally pays to be responsible. weird.

hey chuck, feminism isn't the right word.

2009-11-16T19:28:00.007-05:00

during our weekly friday-night-spitfist-jam-session-booze-fest some guys from work showed up at the space. we were a couple songs and a couple more tall cans in when they shyly shuffled through the door. the room was smaller than they had imagined so five of them were wedged up between amps and unused floor toms. i watched their expressions as they watched our sludgy, fart-filled set. this group of men "raised by women" gulped warm beer as we plowed through songs about terry fox being lazy, our vaginas being stretched by massive dicks and mouths being sliced apart by cpt. crunch (another dick).

stunned isn't the right word, but it's the only one that fits. it might have been my imagination. it could be that most girls make goat cheese & chocolate truffles and giggle over bacon before chanting "my dick is a clit" at 140 bpm... i wouldn't know.

i think the work-bros had a good time. i'm pretty sure it was a little more raucous than expected. i'm totally positive having hidden hard-ons in the room got our creative juices flowing (see what i did there?) and i'm alright with that. i mean, back in the days of playing live that was always my goal: to make people want to fuck me... and hey, if a bunch of babes hoarking, belching, screaming, gyrating and making fun of cripples is what does it for you: you're fucked. just like us. hello to you.

what the fuck is a tumblr?

2009-11-12T20:29:00.002-05:00

it's pretty rare that i will link to anything i didn't personally create (actually, i can't really see the point of having a blog when it only consists of cross posted links and embedded videos the 'writer' had nothing to with) but i couldn't resist opening your eyes to this video. it is such a relief to find a current band that still writes songs! with structure! natural voices! skilled musicianship! artistry! this album is great and reminiscent of all my favourite late eighties euro dream pop. go fuzzy feelings and imperfect recordings!

2009-11-10T18:39:00.002-05:00

i just found a blog called "food in jars" and well, it's self explanatory but AWESOME. i wanna make my own butter and preserve pickled carrots and banana ketchup and oh my god i'm so excited.

it's the same old song and bad dancing.

2009-11-09T14:43:00.005-05:00

once a week, while on route to collect a cover charge at a local dance party, i pass by a group of thirty something women in a knitting collective. they're always drinking tea and gossiping and building elaborate scarves for their friends or etsy pages and i can't help but wonder if i belong there instead. i mean, why surround myself with children who, in the 90s, were learning their abc's while i was learning the fine art of fingerbanging in basements? for one day a week i sit, alone, in a room full of pretty young boys who struggle with the concept of a line and overtly sexual young girls who struggle with ill-fitting clothes inappropriate for their body type.

i think this foray into mainstream youth culture forces me to "act my age" the other six days of the week. i've found myself perusing diy renovation blogs at work in place of punknews sites. i've begun to slowly build up a life collection: an assembly of items i'll never have to buy again. (oh, how proud ed-norton-pre-tyler-durden would be.) i am constantly looking ahead to the day phil and i have our own apartment and i can build shelves, bake cookies and have (hopefully) amassed an analog graveyard/vintage closet so impressive and over-taking that i will be forced to open my own little shop.

in the interim (five more months!) i will endure the shiny clothing, the black outs and the dance floor handjobs because, well, adult life doesn't come cheap and this pseudo-babysitting gig has got me makin' it rain... on these stores.

the dead shall walk the earth... and eat pastries.

2009-11-02T20:34:00.007-05:00

i fuckin love halloween. while this year was a slight disappointment on the raging front (read: waaaay over capacity party full of non-costumes) we ended up at a friend's house that was completely chill and she had made motherfucking dirt and worms! so, well, i was stoked.

earlier this week, kim and i painted up some mini pumpkins. you probably won't understand the images unless you're a buffy fanatic... but they're below... and cute!

on sunday (after washing my hair for the first time in years in an attempt to undo the rat's nest i teased up for my lydia deetz costume) phil and i went to honest ed's. i love junk and weirdos so i was pretty much in heaven. when i got home i cut open our painted pumpkins to make mini pies! after boiling them to remove the skins i was a little short for the recipe so i topped up the pureed pumpkin with fresh sweet potato. tons of sugar and some baking later... delicious yam & pumpkin tarts! i tried to whip some cream by hand but gave up after ten minutes and used the magic bullet. three seconds to vanilla infused whipped cream, buddy. i honestly ate six of them.

after all the sweetness last night, i felt i needed a big, greasy burger today. i stopped by avenue open kitchen and ordered a banquet burger with fries and gravy. it was life changing, artery clogging and goddamn perfect. i mean, hey, you don't go to a greasy spoon and get a fucking salad, right?

pickled egg recipe.

2009-10-28T01:22:00.004-04:00

a bunch of people have been asking for my pickled egg recipe from a couple posts ago. here it is, you maniacs.

"beet root pickled eggs"

you can used canned beets - i juiced one. it's up to you. also, i couldn't find one big mason jar so i bought two little ones. they held three eggs each but use whatever size you have. these measurements worked for a half dozen eggs. adjust accordingly.

1/2 cup beet juice
3/4 cup cider vinegar (or any other flavour you like. 5% acidity minimum.)
1/4 cup white vinegar
clove of garlic (chopped in big pieces)
1 tbsp brown sugar (or any sugar other than white)

boil eggs for about 6-7 minutes. they shouldn't be wobbly or runny. let them cool completely. like, totally cold. carefully peel, put in jar(s). mix vinegars, beet juice, garlic and sugars until dissolved. remove the garlic (eggs will be deadly otherwise), pour liquid over eggs, seal the mason jar, pop it in the fridge and wait. i dug in after four days and they were fine but feel free to wait a week or longer!

mmm, bright red brine.

brine, sugar and lydia deetz.

2009-10-27T12:00:00.006-04:00

the pickled eggs were, as doctor nick would say, a complete success! they've inspired me to try other food related experiments. i bought some little pumpkins in kensington this weekend that i plan to draw faces on (read: spike's rendering of angel on the punching bag) and later make mini pies with!

this weekend was a real blast. good friends, food and blacked out band practice. i took a ton of pictures of stuff i ate and ventured into the world of continuous shooting/gif animations with my new slr. the vice party was a joke, le petit dejeuner is my new favourite brunch spot and i teared up when michael j. serenaded us (with vocals and trumpet) at the communist's daughter when the jukebox shut off. on sunday, during groceries, phil and i slipped in a bunch of clothes shopping (again). i got a great slutty skirt, new gloves and the perfect dress for my halloween costume. pumped!

last night we started first season x-files on dvd and made some peanut butter cookies. i read a recipe online that suggested mixing the egg with the sugar first to make the cookies fluffy. good goddamn, it made all the difference in the world. i'm not quite a happy homemaker but i am on my way to being the queen of stoner couch eats. go, go ganja goodies!

inspired by the commie.

2009-10-19T23:32:00.003-04:00

i decided today that in order to skip the gym i must do something creative or active. so today (in lieu of kundalini chanting) i ventured deep into the kitchen supply stores of chinatown and bought mason jars to make pickled eggs in. i saw a recipe last week that involved beet root juice and couldn't stop thinking about it. i had never used the juicer attachment on the magic bullet and beets are totally in season right now so i was stoked for the experiment.

while i was waiting for the eggs to cook i started the crossword from the newspaper the jars came wrapped in. it was too hard so i flipped the page over and found a word search. i totally finished it before the eggs were done. no big deal.

after cleaning and cutting the beet into manageable pieces i revved up the bullet and started shoving the chunks in. that didn't work (an infomercial lied to me!) so i eventually pureed them as mushy as i could and then juiced the pulp. it worked alright. i yielded 1/2 cup of juice from an eight ball sized beet... i added two parts cider and one part distilled vinegar, some brown sugar and smashed up garlic cloves. after mixing well, i poured the liquid over peeled hard-boiled eggs and screwed the lids on tight.

it's been three hours and all i can think about is eating a briny, red egg. i must wait, though. pickling takes time and i will respect the laws of nature. for now, kiiiiiiim! gimme a mini butterfinger!

i'll eat your glands with polenta and pine nuts.

2009-10-19T16:15:00.006-04:00

saturday afternoon phil and i went to dufferin mall. i bought new tights (eight bucks!) with the intention of making them last. we got home, got dressed and went out to dinner. they caught on a snag the moment i sat down at the restaurant and exploded from ankle to crotch. FUCK.

i can't manage to keep pantyhose intact for longer than a night. i remember my mom washing hers and hanging them to dry over the shower curtain rod. i always assumed that was normal but, now, it seems completely fucking impossible. i've bought cheap, expensive, thick, thin, patterned, flat... i even bought thigh high socks in an effort to not shred them apart. no luck. within an hour of wriggling into them i'm either reaching for the clear nail polish or leaving my tights in shambles, crumpled in the washroom garbage at the bar.

are you a train wreck too? is it just my lifestyle? either way, don't wear expensive hose to the black hoof. the food is mind altering (read: fatty, smoky, creamy, decadent) but the booths are unfinished. you've been warned.

break downs and break beats are no longer mutually exclusive.

2009-10-15T18:58:00.004-04:00

time passes and society ~~evolves~~ morphs. i get this. but, within change should come improvement, no? when one thing dissolves into another it becomes something else entirely and should therefore be titled as such. for instance, when a solid becomes a gas we don't still call it a solid. it's not a gasolid or a solidous mass or some other stupid term: it's a fucking gas. so, why, when "punk rock" dissolved into half-grown men gyrating in their underwear pseudo rapping about ho's or diamonds or "talking with your hips" did the labels not change?

a co-worker just forced me to watch a live performance by her favourite "band" because "dude totally can't sing live". what? is there some new wave of idiocy that humans over 25 are immune to and can't convey to their younger counterparts in monosyllabic enough sentences for them to realize that what is happening in today's "music" industry DOESN'T MAKE ANY GODDAMN SENSE?

i'm going to listen to analog recordings of poets whispering in forests in sweden because that's the closest antithesis to the trite i just subjected my eyes, ears and mindgrapes to. thank you youtube, you've confirmed my belief that the generation below, beneath and after mine is completely fucking doomed.

+ a friend (ally in the fight) just said it so poignantly, "bring it back to ugly people playing beautiful music."

i'm in love with martin picard.

2009-10-14T10:57:00.004-04:00

feeling much better today. fresh snip, favourite shirt, fairly sunny.

maybe it was gluttony withdrawal. i ate my weight in foie gras this weekend and most of it was coated in gravy or maple syrup. my opinion of montreal has changed. quebecers are still pretty rude but the architecture more than made up for it. why does toronto tear down historic buildings with character to erect condos for yuppies? it's embarrassing, no? i live in a city with a rich history that is constantly erased and rebuilt. even in the (just shy of) ten years i've been here so many (personal) landmarks have shifted, disappeared or been completely destroyed by gentrification.

i would love to see myself living in a flat in a bike friendly city with a fire escape that faced into a secret garden with wafts of duck fat and smoked meat slipping heftily through the air. if only it weren't so goddamn cold dans la belle province.

humph.

2009-10-13T19:09:00.004-04:00

i feel bad today. i don't feel sick or unhappy or mad. i don't want to cry and i don't want to scream. i tried to buy things. i wanted to change my mood with clothes or books or make-up. i spent the weekend in montreal and came back to the exact same situation i left. same job, same apartment, same bike, same city, some life. i'll probably feel fine tomorrow. i'll cut my hair and shave my legs and find some shirt i forgot i had and eat this chocolate and drink this wine and take this painkiller and capture it all in neat little sentences for strangers to read while i watch the same tv shows over and over and wish it was fucking spring already.

torontonian authors > canadian authors

2009-10-06T19:30:00.003-04:00

across the street from my work is one of those little temporary stores that sells books no one wants to read and 4 for $20 dvds that no one wants to watch. occasionally i'll wander over on my lunch and see what's interesting. mostly i laugh at the newly packaged, straight to dvd "films" that star celebrities when they were nobodies. you know those? (don't buy them - they're always terrible... unless you love michelle pfieffer. she's in, like, a hundred of them.)

last week, a book caught my eye. the withdrawal method by pasha malla. i bought it (five bucks) and, honestly, i read the whole goddamn thing straight through. this is the best collection of unrelated (but eerily similar) short stories i have ever read. some of the prose was so fucking poignant that i actually read it aloud to my coworkers. grab this book if you see it somewhere or download it. (can you get books illegally, too?)

when one of the characters, a struggling writer, forces himself to try and find the metaphor within the situation, to make the natural beauty mean something else, something he can use... i wanted to scream. it was just too perfect.

divacup rules.

2009-10-06T19:08:00.003-04:00

there are a lot of things i don't understand. i'll admit it. i can't trust women who can't stand the sight of blood. it just doesn't make any sense to me. do you close your eyes for 5 days a month? YOU FREAK ME OUT.

it's weird when i'm the most normal.

2009-09-30T14:21:00.008-04:00

last night was unsettling. i was wedged between two old broads in yoga class. the one on the left kept panting and groaning and had no fucking clue what she was supposed to be doing which, ordinarily, would have been fine except when she ripped a giant blast fart beside my face and followed it up with a whispered, "oooh." needless to say, the whole class reeked like the women's bathroom at the legion by twenty minutes in. when the lady on the right let out a seeping 20 second fart (sans apology) later on that sounded like a marble rolling around in a mason jar - i couldn't help but laugh. old people just do whatever the hell they want, huh?

seriously though, the workout was tough. my thighs haven't burned this much since high school. just kidding, i didn't get laid in high school. i looked like this.

lookatme lookatme!

2009-09-25T18:52:00.003-04:00

i didn't know how to break this to you guys. i feel so embarrassed about it, actually. i feel like a cam whore. i'm not sure why i started it. i don't know how long it'll last but, screw it, here it is: the threesixfive project starring my stupid face, every day for a fucking year.

jobs for knobs.

2009-09-24T19:31:00.003-04:00

i think i'm done with apple. i'll continue to eat the fruit, maybe, but after last week's itunes update fiasco, (it took three days, a video card reinstall and two system restores to get my pc working after updating to 9) my ipod getting stolen from work today and having to watch assholes wave their iphones around for the last couple months showing off new, useless applications and shaking their fists around to find something they could've seen had they used their goddamn eyes - i just can't take anymore.

we have macs at work and i am routinely frustrated and confused. are they built for people without common sense and/or computer knowledge? why is everything white and shiny? i don't want to touch a keyboard to right click. i shouldn't have to drag fucking icons all around to mount them or whatever the hell it is that you have to do to install new programs. i'm finished with you, jobs. take all your ingenuity and 'brilliant' technology and get out of my life.

can't we go back? i want to add you on icq, listen to napstered tracks on winamp, call your landline to see if you're home and make eachother mix tapes again. the nineties were so much better than this shit.

brews, dubes and grease.

2009-09-17T23:18:00.004-04:00

i haven't really been to the gym in a month. i hurt my leg a couple weeks ago and i've been busy and working and i know you don't care and i kind of don't either but, i feel like shit. i'm lazy and tired all the time and i'm craving fast food and sleeping in for work and, shit, i miss sweating it all out. i miss my yoga teacher. i need his bright, white, warm light all over my life.

i'm gonna do this. for real now.

get ready soft body... i'm gonna fucking destroy you.

is common really the best word for it?

2009-09-10T20:16:00.004-04:00

i'm afraid of violent reactions. i'm afraid of pain. i daydream about strangers completely freaking out on me. i sometimes imagine customers smashing my face through a display case. i fear normal people on the street will become suddenly outraged and push me down to the sidewalk for passing them too quickly.

i'm scared of these things because i constantly talk down to everyone. maybe, subconsciously, i feel i need a punch in the fucking throat.

i don't want to be like this. i don't want to be afraid of your reactions.
i just need you all to be a little less moronic so we can simply speak like fully formed human beings. i'm tired of trying to explain myself to your lifeless, empty eyes.

read a book. eat a salad. smoke a joint. get laid. get your goddamn shit together then, get back to me. get back to earth.