Summer Days

Wednesday evening I declared the Summer 2015 the best summer since 2008. I made the declaration over at some friends' house where we were preparing a salad collected entirely from their garden (save for apricots that they brought back from their trip to the Okanagan). We were sipping on glasses of white wine before starting the meal, which was paired with Hillside Merlot-Malbec. (Hillside is my favourite BC winery because they made a Muscat Ottonel that is very similar to my favourite wine, a Muscat Sec from France.)

Summer 2008, I recalled there in the kitchen, was a good one. I was subletting a place on Fraser and 12th with a colourful kitchen and spent many evenings that summer drinking Chardonnay on the back patio with Anna. I also quipped that the financial meltdown hadn't yet happened, so we didn't know our job prospects as young professionals were about to be doomed. (In a bit of back-to-the-future, there's debate again about whether Canada is entering another recession.)

In an entry that summer, I wrote:

I've been in my sublet for almost one month now and started my job at the museum almost two weeks ago. ...
I really like my place. It's big. Much better than the closet I looked at in the West End. It has a big turquoise kitchen with a blue formica table.

That was the summer I was beginning to discover my love of cooking.

I was reading a piece about food the other day. The author argued that produce bought locally always tastes best and that we should try and eat what is locally grown rather than what is imported from around the world. ... I'm nowhere near ready to embark on the 100 mile diet, but I will try my best to buy fresh Canadian-grown produce.

If we take the school's-out definition of summer, so far I've:

1. Been to Mexico
2. Visited Peter in New York City for three-and-a-half weeks (more on that soon!)
3. Visited my friend Jacky in Washington, D.C.

Then that lovely meal on Wednesday was icing on top. Or rather, I brought dessert--a Black Magic Bundt Cake from Whole Foods (my favourite chocolate cake), and seasonal black cherries, which we paired with a late harvest dessert wine. It was so delicious.

I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all the uncertainty in my life, what with the post-graduation multi-city job search and not knowing where I'll be sleeping in a few weeks from now. Fortunately I've got the latter sorted out for now (which is a big relief), and the former is going pretty well.

I was had lunch with a friend yesterday who is in a similar situation to me, having just finished law school. I remarked, it's actually kind of an exciting time in our lives, really. It is. Amid all the uncertainty, the story of our lives is unfolding and we just have to enjoy every day and trust that it will end well.

On Being Bicoastal

Tracking my latest flight from Vancouver to NYC.

Last spring, before I headed out to Ottawa for a summer internship, Peter and I had a house cooling party. We had never had a house warming because he'd already lived in his place for a number of years when I moved in. But a house cooling felt appropriate because--according to the plan at the time--when I came back from Ottawa, he'd have already moved to NYC for grad school. I'd be moving when I got back because the place was going to be sold, so we were effectively preparing to close up our home together.

We'd done long-distance before--the year I'd lived in France, or his tours with bands--so I wasn't worried about it. Also, with me writing my master's thesis and he just starting grad school 7 years after graduating undergrad, maybe some distance would allow each of us to concentrate. 

Last summer, Peter visited me in Ottawa, then he was playing Osheaga in Montreal and we had a fun time hanging out there. Before returning to Vancouver, I visited him in New York over the Labour Day weekend. We next saw each other for his birthday (conveniently close to the Remembrance Day holiday) in November. He was then home for a generous six-week Christmas break.

It's been hard, but we text and talk or facetime every day. I think the saddest I felt was for a moment, when we said goodbye after he had visited over his spring break for my birthday. Then in a split second, thinking about when I'd next see him, I realized it would be in three weeks in Mexico City! That was honestly the best realization: that we didn't have to visit each other in our cities, but that we could choose to meet anywhere.

I've been in New York now for nearly two weeks now. Newly graduated and job searching, it's nice that I can do that from anywhere, including New York, thanks to technology. I'm looking for opportunities pretty much anywhere, in an attempt to get closer, but we may end up being bicoastal for at least another year.

Soup Challenge

It's taken over a month, but I finally feel like I've got my kitchen groove back.

Living alone this past year while in school I often had a bare kitchen. I love cooking, but I didn't have the time while writing my thesis. At Christmas break I thought maybe trying to make large batches and freezing portions might be a way to avoid those busy weeks where I don't have time for cooking and therefor eat out. Though well-intentioned, that plan didn't work out.

So the day before yesterday, feeling like I had nothing to eat in the house, I gave myself a what's-in-my-kitchen soup challenge. Kitchen Sink soups are great and I think I rose to the challenge quite well.

Food politics, as I call it, has been an interest of mine since I moved out in undergrad. Eating local in an environmentally sustainable way, but also in a way that recognizes that the cost of organic foods are not within everyone's reach. I currently live in a non-market rental situation in an expensive neighbourhood so my grocery store tends to be pricey. I prioritize what I buy organic using the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen lists (apples are the main thing I buy organic). A magazine article I read in 2009 even got me thinking about food waste beyond discovering something past its prime in the back of the fridge, but about the fact that many foods are still edible past their Best Before date.

I feel like I normally waste little food. I usually make trips to the grocery several times a week and buy only what I need for meals I have in mind. But with school and living alone this year, I've been a pretty bad offender. I've felt better about my food waste now that my building has compost because it's returning to the earth, but still (I'd been carting it to school in an old salad box to compost there during the fall term).

So what were the results of my kitchen sink soup challenge?

Chicken Soup-inspired Vegetable Soup
~3/4 of a red onion, diced
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
3+ stalks of left over, wilted celery, including leaves, chopped
half of a leftover zucchini, sliced
~1 bunch of parsley
~1 cup of frozen peas
1 carrot, peeled and diced
~1/4 tsp each of thyme, sage, rosemary
~ 1 tsp poultry seasoning
a few shakes of cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Chicken stock is usually my go-to for soups, but I didn't have any stock on hand. Instead I used of spices that google said are used in chicken soup, before remembering that I have poultry seasoning. I sautéed the onion and garlic in butter before adding the celery. After adding the other vegetables, I added enough water so that they were just covered, about two cups. Bring to a boil then simmer for 20 minutes. Taste and correct spices as needed.

I blended the soup. To serve, I stirred in one spoonful of Greek yogurt to give it a creamy taste.

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I think this soup challenge re-ignited my passion for cooking; now that I'm done school and it's not a functional chore, I can enjoy it again. Last night I made a Niçoise-ish salad for dinner (didn't have eggs), and tonight I think I'm going to try my hand at making a paella because I saw mussels were on sale for $2.50/dozen.

Viva México!

I realize I haven't maintained this blog since going back to school. But last month I defended my thesis! So to celebrate being done I went to Mexico.

The view from the plane on descent to land

The all-inclusive resort thing has never appealed to me (although a nap on an Ottawa beach last summer has persuaded me of the merits of such vacations--if an Ottawa beach can do that, then a white, sandy beach must be exponentially better, right?).

If you'd asked me this time last year my planned grad trip destination, I would have told you likely Savannah, Georgia. But then some friends of ours told us to save the date because they'd be getting married in Mexico. As the bride's family is from Mexico, this was not going to be the Mexican destination wedding thing.

Our trip was short but sweet. The bride and groom did such a wonderful job planning everything, and had such great taste in friends(!), that it felt more like a vacation in which there happened to be a wedding, rather than the wedding being the sole purpose of the trip. The other exciting part is that it was the first time that I realized that Peter and I, now  being in a bicoastal relationship, could meet up in cities other than Vancouver and New York.

The bride and groom were married in a village outside of San Miguel de Allende, which is north of Mexico City. We flew into Mexico City, from which the bride and groom chartered two 20-passenger vans--one for the out-of-town guests and one for the groom's family. We all stayed at Casa Carmen bed and breakfast, so we had the place entirely to ourselves.

The courtyard of Casa Carmen had orange trees!

San Miguel was magical. The cobble streets were lined with warm-hued buildings. Days there seemed to go by at the perfect pace--not to fast and not too slow. 

Our visit to Mexico definitely whet  my appetite to see more of Latin America!