Too Lazy For Pie?!

The most disturbing verse in the Bible:

Some people dig a fork into the pie
but are too lazy to raise it to their mouth.

Proverbs 19:24 (The Message)

Back to Marshmallows

I'm pretty good at being poor.

When I was in university, I had no money. I was a scholarship kid, letting random organizations financially reward me for being smart. My first year ended up costing me a total of $63. This included my phone bill. I've never been handed fistfuls of dollars by mommy and daddy or trust funds when times got tough.

(I'll never let my mom live down the summer she sent me $20 when I had a mere $13 left in my bank account. On the bright side, I lost 5 pounds.)

When I was in my third year, I was broke. Really broke. No one knew, because there was no need to stress people out when I wasn't stressed out. God provided. I didn't starve. And I graduated. Happy ending. The only notable moment of poverty-induced unhappiness was a trip to my local grocery store. I was craving sugar. Desperately. It was nonnegotiable: I needed my fix. And I wanted a lot of it.

Sugar is expensive and unnecessary. It's the first thing I'm cutting out of my current shrinking budget. And I understood that then, too. But I needed that quick high. Must have been essay-writing time.

So I bought the largest bag of no-name marshmallows I could find. Pure sugary goodness.

Watch these kids. I understand their pain. Sometimes you just need a marshmallow.

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

Best Sandwich Ever

[via Funky Lunch]

This is suddenly a food blog. I apologize. Unless you like food. In which case, you're welcome.

Cupcake of the Day

[via Nick^D's flickr]

Mmm. Yes, please.

Maybe I should host a Cookie Monster Party. B.Y.O.M.*

*Bring your own milk.

The Usual

I ordered a spinach salad with chicken today for lunch. The guy at the counter looked at me and smiled.

GUY: Didn't we do this earlier this week?

ME: Yep. I guess I'm pretty predictable.

GUY: But you were wearing something different.

Apparently take-out guys notice these things. I hope he liked Monday's dress. 'Cause today was a jeans day.

And while some gals would be unnerved by such observation (and subsequently persuaded to cut back on spinach salads), I'm considering this an opportunity to finally be a "regular" somewhere. Because my new work neighborhood is full of strangers. I miss the convenience-store man who used to ask my coworkers about me when I failed to visit his little haven of junk food and carbonated beverages.

It's fun to be known.

TiLF: Things I Love Friday

Sleeping in.

And then rolling over and sleeping some more.

Eric Hutchinson.

On piano. On guitar. I think we'd be friends. But you already know this. 

Rob Thomas.

With and without Matchbox Twenty. I think I might love his new album. Time will tell.

iTunes gift card.

My family celebrated my birthday on Canada Day. Even though the actual date of my birthday is August 17th. That gives the rest of you plenty of time to figure out how to celebrate me.

(The iTunes card is merely enabling me. So addicted. Next up: Motion City Soundtrack.)

Dark-chocolate-covered coffee beans.

I like to eat my caffeine just as much as I like to drink it.

Writing.

Without direction, deadline or expectation. Sometimes it's nice to just let the brain go nuts.

Natalie Portman in Garden State.

I love this movie. And if I were a boy, I'd want to marry Natalie.

Google. 

Paul Rudd. 

Rumors of Zac Levi being Gargamel in the 3D Smurfs movie.

I'm so conflicted. And amused.

Doug the piano.

Even though he's almost broken. I guess 20 years is a long life for a much-loved digital piano. He's my therapist.

(A piano is a great gift idea. So if you love me and have a few grand to spare....)

myvintagevogue's photo stream.

I spent way too much time oohing and aahing over photos today. Next time I'm invited to the Oscars, I'm going vintage. 

Life as a Run-On Sentence

I'm not exactly bored, but I'm certainly distracted. I blame this on a lack of sleep. And on an eight-day social binge that has left me both financially wounded and girl-talked out. I miss my couch. And yet I feel as though I may have to retrain myself to live alone. It's suddenly odd that my living room isn't taken over by an air mattress.

 

Essentially, I feel like I've been living inside of a run-on sentence. This is that sentence:

 

My delightful cousin Grace arrived at my doorstep on Sunday and we went for a long walk to and from Lick's before staying up way too late chatting about life, which was probably not the best preparation for a nine-hour workday the next day that left me exhausted and not at all in the mood to pack for three days in Stratford, where I ate too much and got my annual fix of theatrical inspiration (while my cousins - yep, Martha showed up too - hung out my place in Toronto), and concluded with a text from another friend notifying me of Michael Jackson's death and asking to crash at my place on Sunday, an exciting request I couldn't refuse even though my Saturday was booked with all-day plans of concerts-at-Wonderland greatness that ended with a short collapse onto my bed after midnight only to be followed by a morning of church and lunch with friends before exploring the city and shopping for hats and old-school Our Lady Peace with friend-from-Vancouver Beth, who also happens to enjoy sweet-potato fries and chocolate cake as much as I do.

 

And now I'm going through withdrawal.

 

Highlights: 

• It's so much fun to be frends with your family. I highly recommend it. (And I also love it when age gaps disappear and everyone's just straight-up cool.)
• I have a growing book and music list. I like recommendations. The filtering work is done for me.
• On Friday, Grace and I had a YouTube party that happened to include Audio Adrenaline's Never Gonna Be As Big As Jesus. We laughed. And then we heard it played live the next day. Sometimes I love life.
• I'm pretty sure my twin lives in Vancouver. We have the same hat.
• Nutritional math: organic vegetarian salad + Oreo cheesecake = balanced meal.
• I saw "that actor." On stage. He doesn't hang out in bars on Tuesdays like I do. Whew.
• I wore a necklace from North Africa today. It was fabulous. It made up for the earring I lost this week.
• I ate at a restaurant once frequented by Kevin Spacey. And discovered I like cornish hens, chickpea frites, goat cheese tarts and Pinot Grigio. Almost as much as I love garlic fries after midnight.
• I don't have much money. And don't particularly aim to spend all of it. But once you start to splurge, it's tough to rein it in.
• Ever hang out a merch table only to realize that the guy selling the T-shirts is the son of your old Sunday School teacher? My life is amazing.
• I have had the same song stuck in my head all week. I blame Grace. But because she first heard the song at my place, I suppose it's my fault. So I blame myself.
• I bought an assortment of dark chocolates in Stratford. Rheo Thompson. Practically legendary. But with exhaustion comes lack of self-control. And it is all gone. I'm sure an object lesson can be found in this.
• Apparently I need a new wingman. I like friends who are super-curious on my behalf. Competitively so.
• When I'm famous, I will endorse Neutrogena sunscreen. I'm still sunburn free.
• I'm taking next weekend off from all social insanity. So if you need me, you'll find me in sweats. Lazing around. Maybe finally writing. And not eating Stratford chocolate. Sigh.
• I really like happy people. Laughter has been in abundance this week. So addictive.
• And tonight, I'm one of those happy people.

G'night, all.

Doing Lunch

When I was quite young, in the first or second grade, I often went home for lunch. But on those days when I chose to stay at school, my mom would put a little note in my lunch bag. It would tell me that she loved me. And so did Jesus. And sometimes a fun sticker accompanied said encouragement.

In university, I worked this little anecdote into a monologue. My prof, an award-winning playwright who shall remain nameless, was quite moved by this. A mother of five, she wished she had done the same. Probably without the Jesus part.

A year or so later, I attended her newest play in Toronto. The lead actress stood on the open stage and told a story about her mother leaving notes in her lunchbox, reminding her that God loved her.

My brother told me to sue. Instead, I chose to be flattered. And greatly amused.

There's a father who takes personalized lunches up a notch or two. He designs a new lunch bag for his kids EVERY DAY. And they're amazing.

Check them out @ Lunch Bag Art.

P.S. I miss my Pound Puppies lunchbox. The one with the gimp strand tied to the handle.

Whatever happened to my
Whatever happened to my
Whatever happened to my lunchbox?
When came the day that it got thrown away
And don't you think I should have had some say in that decision?

~ John Mayer, "83"

Cooking With Nadine

I went to the market yesterday. I came home over $600 poorer.

I did not spend $600 on vegetables.

My trip also happened to include the purchase of the coolest glasses ever (to be ready in three weeks), expensive greens+ drink and protein powder, and the writing of a food-bank cheque. Yep, it hurt. But only because my nickname should be Ebeneezer.

Back to the produce.

If you look in my fridge right now, you will see little of yesterday's bounty. In my attempts to be organized (and to consume massive quantities of vegetables daily), I've prepared most of my week's meals in advance. I heart leftovers.

Oven omelet:
(4 breakfasts - each slice served with one Roma tomato)

8 eggs
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Paprika, chili powder, cayenne pepper (I like red spices)
Entire bag of arugula
Can of mushrooms
One diced red pepper
One diced sweet onion

[Vegan-friendly] Pasta:
(tonight's dinner + three lunches)

Whole wheat pasta
Chick peas
Tomato sauce
One diced sweet onion
Entire bag of white button mushrooms, sliced
One diced yellow pepper
Minced garlic
Oregano, chili powder

I find one long afternoon in the kitchen (with one large mess) is far more productive than half-heartedly throwing together lunches every evening. I'm lazy. I know this about myself. So I'm trying to circumvent my own weakness by doing it all in one fell swoop.

I should have my own cooking show: How to throw everything in your fridge into one dish.

With red grapes on the side. I'm addicted.

P.S. As a single lady (and hardly active in the pick-up world -- although I did wear a dress today. Apparently that means I'm on the prowl), I am free to consume as much onion and garlic as I please. There are perks to going solo.

Breakfast Vs. The Afterlife

I read Heaven: A Breakfast-Free Zone this morning. And laughed. Out loud. And almost cried. There HAS to be breakfast in heaven, no matter what the the "No mo' bacon" guy sings.

(Oh, and you should blogstalk Jason Boyett too. He's brilliant.)



See, I spent most of my adolescence* with a certain Newsboys song in my head:

When the toast is burned
And all the milk has turned
And Captain Crunch is waving farewell
When the big one finds you
May this song remind you
That they don't serve breakfast in hell

*I also spent most of my adolescence wishing my hair looked like Phil Joel's. Best blond curls ever. He's from the land of Bret, Jemaine and Brooke Fraser. And New Zealanders have to be awesome. It's in their DNA.

I assumed, naturally, that the absence of breakfast in hell alluded to a breakfast utopia in heaven. With streets of Golden Grahams. 'Cause breakfast is important. Even Jesus thinks so.

Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast."

John 21:12a

So I think I'm gonna risk it and anticipate an eternity full of Cheerios. Please bury me with a spoon.

This is me (in Muppet form). I am a cereal girl.

Sunshine and Kale

notebook by twoguitars

"Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money."

~ Jules Renard

Today was gorgeous. Perfect. I wanted to hug a weatherman. Unfortunately, the sunshine damaged my work ethic. I took a lovely long break around midday, walked to the newly renovated library about a half hour away, convinced myself not to take out every single book, took a few photos of my not-all-that-pretty neighborhood, and meandered home two hours later.

So good.

I did get enough writing done to make the day financially worth it, but it felt a little labored. By the time I sent off my invoice, I was ready to reward myself with piles and piles of nutritional greatness.

Try Kath's Kale Chips, folks. You will never look at kale the same way again. I will probably die of a Vitamin K overdose now. Yeah, my once leafy-green-packed fridge is now empty.

My window is open. I am not cold.

It has been a good day.

Do You Like Waffles?

I do.

And tonight is waffle night at home church. I'm pretty sure Jesus likes waffles too.

Brothers Vs. Gingerbread

Stuffing the Joy

Main Course

Dessert

A Real Apple Pie

pastry + 45-watt carbon-dioxide laser = genius

I am currently craving edible technology.

Apple apple pie from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. 

Table for One

When you live alone, you end up eating strange combinations of food. Mostly because no one expects your meals to look appetizing. Or to make sense. This usually suits me just fine, but sometimes being the sole consumer of refrigerator contents becomes a burden. Especially when I impulse-shop at the grocery store and end up with enough produce to feed a family of 8. A family of 8 that really loves vegetables. 

So after a week of edible-plant-stuffed whole-wheat pitas (accessorized with alfalfa sprouts), I was at a loss as to how I was going to eat the rest of my perishables before their short lives came to an end. I do not let food go bad. That's my rule for living.

Folks, I should have my own cooking show. Tonight, I sauteed mushrooms with broccoli sprouts, wilted some arugula, then poured two beaten eggs (seasoned with chili powder and black pepper) over the greens. I grated some old cheddar, blessed my veggie concoction with cheesy goodness, and ate like a queen.

So good. Ugly, but good.

And the vegetation-overload situation is now under control. I won't have to eat arugula for breakfast out of about-to-wilt guilt.

*I don't particularly like the peppery bitterness of arugula. Or the texture of broccoli sprouts. But they're healthy. And apparently much more appetizing when cooked and covered in full-fat dairy products. 

I Don't Live in a Real City

A martini is not a martini without an olive.

That, at least, is the thinking of a true connoisseur.

And to Siouxland residents, many of whom consider themselves connoisseurs of fine food, a city is not a city without an Olive Garden. So as of Monday, Sioux City becomes a real city.

What for years has been a local obsession -- the OG's manicotti formaggio, chicken vino bianco and zuppa toscana driving Siouxlanders to Omaha and Sioux Falls -- has become a reality.

Sioux City Journal

I went to the Olive Garden for the 13th birthday. Shortly thereafter, the restaurant disappeared from my province. And I cried on the inside.

If anyone wants to sweep me off my feet, pick me up for a spontaneous road trip to Buffalo. Just for Italian food. And I will love you forever. Or at least blog about it. And maybe write you a song.

My New Diet: Eating Like a Champion

Because Michael Phelps is my new hero....

Phelps lends a new spin to the phrase "Breakfast of Champions" by starting off his day by eating three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.

At lunch, Phelps gobbles up a pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches slathered with mayo on white bread - capping off the meal by chugging about 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

For dinner, Phelps really loads up on the carbs - what he needs to give him plenty of energy for his five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week regimen - with a pound of pasta and an entire pizza.

He washes all that down with another 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

source

Best. Breakfast. Ever.
If I can't compete like an Olympian, I might as well eat like one.

P.S. For those of you who like math, he eats 12,000 calories a day.

Nia & I: Darlings of the Danforth

It's Taste of the Danforth weekend. And once again, I'm leaving town. My absence is tradition.

My grandmother's birthday always coincided with the Greektown festivities; even though she's gone, the family's still hanging out. As much as I love baklava dripping off my napkin and down my arm in the hot sun, a barbecue with toddlers I rarely see is something I just can't pass up.

Because I live with the Greeks, it's impossible to walk down the street without seeing signed photographs of Nia Vardalos in the windows of small family-run restaurants. She's the hometown hero. And not only did she make a spectacular splash in Hollywood a few years ago, she did so by embracing her culture rather than melting into a cookie-cutter romantic-comedy sweetheart.

I should probably watch her breakthrough flick again. Firstly, because I'm inspired by Nia the writer. By the fact that she created her own material. She wanted to create and perform, so she wrote a one-woman show. And Tom Hanks (and his lovely wife) happened to love it. Just as I'm sure he'd love this blog.... But I could also justify a viewing as wedding-article research. With my new writing gig, I've embraced a new nuptial radar. It's actually quite fun to think about the weddings of others. Fictional planning has a lot of freedom in it.

Over at MovieZen, I posted about Nia's upcoming project. She's making a comeback, and hopefully not of Connie and Carla proportions. No offense to David Duchovny.

Read it here.

And then eat souvlaki on my behalf.

Good Enough For a 6-Year-Old

Today, I indulged in a yogurt-honey-banana concoction that took me back to grade one. The year I learned that a perfect summer's day was 23 degrees Celsius. The year Jim Henson died. The year I starred as Goldilocks in our class play.

My best friend was a boy. We were best friends in kindergarten, boyfriend/girlfriend in the first grade, and husband and wife in our make-believe world. And he lived in a church.

You would think that the pastor's kid wouldn't be impressed by church architecture, but his converted home (the master suite was the balcony) was the coolest building I had ever been in. And the kitchen was elevated, where the platform once was. Instead of preaching, there was cooking. "Give us this day our daily bread" indeed.

I loved his mom. She was a gentle, soft-spoken woman with curly hair. I've always wanted curls. And one day, she sliced bananas into our yogurt, drizzled honey over it, and served me the greatest snack I'd ever had. A treat I still crave 20 years later.

(His father was another story. The kind of story that deserves its own blog entry. Or novel.)

I haven't seen my church-dwelling friend since the fifth grade. But he'll always be my first husband, albeit a pretend one.

And as the most awkward segue ever, I read about the origins of the honeymoon today (I was talking about fake husbands and honey, so this is almost related). Abduction and mead. Very romantic. I need to get myself a Viking.

The honeymoon
The more I research the origin of the honeymoon, the more I wish I was a Viking. (To be fair, everything makes me wish I was a Viking.) Legend has it that Northern European men in the mood to marry used to abduct their wives from neighboring villages and take them into hiding while the bride's father and brothers hunted them down. This hiding period came to be known as the honeymoon. How romantic.

The name itself came from a drink the bride and groom would share — mead — that was made from honey. Couples would drink a cup of mead per day during the first 30 days of marriage, presumably to take the edge off the wife's recent kidnapping. (Admit it. There's a part of you that longs to be kidnapped by a take-no-prisoners Norseman who never wears shirts. I know how you women think.)

In a twist of fate that surely has generations of Viking fathers rolling over in their fiery ship graves, many parents now pay for their daughter's honeymoon. (To keep up with modern times, perhaps we should rename the whole tradition boxedwinemoon. I'm just throwing that out there.)

source

Side note: Apparently you can write like a blogger on MSNBC.com. What could have been an informative little piece of journalism reads as pretty on her toes-ish, don'tcha think? I need to line up a writing gig like that. Side comments about Vikings and renaming the honeymoon as "boxedewinemoon"? I could do that. While eating bananas and honey.


image source