Kitchen Fails: Garlic Press, I Curse You

So that Jamie Oliver cookbook I won has some pretty intense opinions about the types of things I should have in my kitchen. Admittedly, he is trying to give 15 minute recipes and is super up-front about the fact that if you don't have all the gadgets you will not be able to do it in that amount of time. Still, I think that requiring an immersion blender, a regular blender AND a food processor is a bit much. I'm still super pleased that I have a blender at all, but I got that mainly for smoothies (mmmm, smoothies).

But! I do in fact have a garlic press. I even managed to find a nice heavy metal one at a garage or estate sale or some such. And garlic always takes forever to peel and chop, so hey, just putting it into the garlic press with the skin on sounds sort of amazing. I'm game. Let's do that time saving thing!

Now, I'd had mixed results with the garlic press before, but I hadn't left the skin on, and maybe I hadn't committed to it properly? Surely it can't have gone as poorly as I remember it going. Time saving! Do this thing! Yay!

Did you know that garlic juice burns? I do now. And I don't mean in the frying pan. I don't know if it is me, the press, or some type of horrible cosmic cooking justice, but I sent garlic juice flying EVERYWHERE, and every drop that splashed onto my arms was like a tiny horrible acid burn (which makes sense, I bet garlic juice is acidic. Probably what makes them so delicious! mmm.). My hands were slippery, the press was fighting me, and there was horrible acidic garlic debris all up my arms. And I still had four cloves to go. And since you are supposed to just press the garlic right into the pan, the garlic needed to be added NOW and I didn't have time to stop and just chop it. Also my partner was "helpfully" mentioning that the garlic that had made it into the pan was beginning to burn in the more traditional cooking disaster sense.

Garlic Press, I curse you. I am also pretty sure this is the second time I have attacked myself with this garlic press. Which means if I don't get rid of it I will, in a couple of months, give it another go. I can tell you now, it probably won't go any better.

But you can totally leave the skin on when pressing the cloves. That was cool.

Kitchen Fails: No seriously, vinegars, whyyyy? or What's with all the vinegars part two

I like white wine.

But even I sometimes have half a cup or so of leftover white wine in the fridge which has maybe been lurking in the fridge long enough that I am not super keen on drinking it. It will maybe have gone a bit sharp.

No big problem, I thought. I know that people add white wine to vegetables or something. I know that I have glared at recipes that want white wine in them, but only like half a cup, and I hadn't been planning on opening a bottle that evening and I was annoyed about it making a demand that would require a whole bottle commitment when it only wants a little. This is great! I can add this wine to those recipes and I won't even be angry at the ingredient list! Perfect!

Plus I had some new Jamie Oliver cookbooks which I had won in a draw and this seemed right up his alley. So I opened the index.

The index was initially a bit of a disappointment. It did not have a list of all the recipes that had white wine demands. I am regularly disappointed by indexes, especially in cookbooks. But! It did have a WHOLE PAGE devoted to leftover wine. AMAZING. Maybe this page will tell me when and what I can add white wine to for flavour just because I feel like it.

No. No, this page does not tell you useful information like "just add it to those vegetables you are frying, it will be fine" (which is, by the way, usually true it turns out).

This page tells me that, despite ALL THE MANY TYPES OF VINEGAR I ALREADY HAVE, I should be making my own with leftover wine.

AAAAAARGH.

The worse part? THE WORST PART? I now totally want to make my own vinegar.

CURSE YOU JAMIE OLIVER. I JUST WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VEGETABLES.

That wine is still in my fridge.

Kitchen Fails: What's with all the Vinegars?

So I decided to make some salad dressing the other night.

I always thought I hated salad, but I have slowly come to realize that I hate Kraft Italian Dressing and that the salads my friends made with actual homemade salad dressings were lovely, so I've started making my own. Most of the time it is just balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and olive oil with some salt and pepper, and maybe honey if I am feeling fancy. Sometimes I add garlic.  But I was feeling chipper and thought, AHA, I will see what other salad dressing recipes are out there on the internet and perhaps make a different dressing for tonight.

Guys, I hate food blogs. I hate them SO MUCH. They give me rage outs. So I am looking for a salad dressing recipe, feeling pretty good about the fact that I have been making my own salad dressings for a couple of years and have a well stocked kitchen and should be able to do it.

And does the internet give me a nice alternative and simple recipe to make?

No.

No it does not.

No, it tells me that the vinegars I have are unacceptable and that I need to go out and buy YET ANOTHER TYPE OF VINEGAR.

For the record, I already have four types of vinegar in my house:
Rice wine vinegar
White vinegar
Apple cider vinegar
Balsamic vinegar

This seemed to me an already excessive number of vinegars. I was already cranky about the recipes with their super specific vinegar needs. But nooo, evidently I need Red Wine Vinegar too. No, I said, no, I don't want more vinegars. So I clicked on the next link.

What did it want?

Champagne vinegar.

No seriously,  I didn't even know that EXISTED and here the food blog recipe thing is just all ... and so you just get your champagne vinegar out of the cupboard and make salad dressing. Nothing for the vinegars I already had. What do people just have ENTIRE SHELVES in their houses of types of vinegar? WHEN WILL THE MADNESS END?

I have so far refused to buy these extra types of vinegar. I made my old recipe instead. Screw you internet.

grumble grumble Champagne Vinegar grumble.

Kitchen Fails: What happened to my pies?

So I'm usually pretty good at pies. They're one of the things that my dad makes, so I've taken part in lots of pie endeavours, and I usually keep them pretty simple. I make the dough recipe that's on the Tenderflake box because it is awesome and super simple (if you're in the states and can't find any Tenderflake, then I don't know what to tell you because none of the pie crust recipes seem to work without that lovely pastry lard. Australia, your pastry lard is kept with the butter) .

Anyway, usually my pies go easy peasy awesome (we've even been recreating Australian Meat Pies here at Home Base Canada, but that's another story). But the other day I got some Saskatoon berries and some currants and decided that I would just make pies with those and that it would be fine.

Guys, it was not actually fine.

First off, I somehow screwed up the dough. This was pretty much just the situation of me making the dough too dry and then FOR SOME REASON refusing to add more water, even though I knew it was too dry. Being stubborn is usually one of my strengths, but sometimes it means I refuse to add more water to dough that I know needs it. So yes, there was that to start, which meant that the dough was already giving me a bit of a headache.

Now, I figured that currants were not going to be the same as blueberries or raspberries, which is what I usually work with. So I looked them up on the internet. I knew they weren't as sweet, so I wanted to make sure I didn't screw it up.

The internet recipe said to cover the berries with sugar before plopping them into the pastry shells, so that's what I did. Usually I just pour the sugar over the berries once I've measured them into the pastrified pie pan, but whatever. This was a new recipe and I didn't want my pies to be too tart.

Then I topped off the pies and popped them into the oven.

Then I cleaned my bowls. And realized that ALL OF MY SUGAR had stuck to the sides of my white bowl, because the berries had been freshly cleaned and all damp. Yep, all of that sugar, not in the pies.

And yes, if you were wondering, currants are WAY tarter than blueberries. All I can say is, thank god for ice cream.

Cthulhu Pie

Have you seen the picture of the Cthulhu Pie? (There's a joke in there somewhere: "Have you seen this pie?" "No, is it new?" "No, it's an Old One" hahaha.)

I saw it, and then had the strange experience, which almost never happens to me on the internet, of looking at something awesome and saying "hang on a minute, I think I can make that".

Conveniently, I was also going to Harvest Noir (a picnic flashmob where we all dress SUPER FANCY and ALL IN BLACK and eat local food in neato Ottawa locations) with the Ottawa Steampunk society and if that isn't a perfect situation to make and consume Cthulhu pie well I don't know what is. (I mean, we play a lot of Arkham Horror, so it isn't like my life is short on opportunities to add some Lovecraftian edibles to my life, but I did need something to bring to the picnic)

Guys, if any of you make pies, this is not actually tricky AT ALL. Which I wasn't sure of when I started, so I made two pies, but waited until the first one was baked before starting the second pie JUST IN CASE. Also I made them four days in advance because I still needed to make bread for the picnic and ALSO also there was the possibility I was going to have to start all over (which is why I bought two boxes of the lard/shortening). But it all turned out really well AND they tasted good, so double win!

I made the recipe for pie crust on the Tenderflake box, because I love that recipe and it is easy and I know the pastry dough it produces is easy to work with.  This time, I was super careful about not making it too dry (unlike last time). I also decided to make blueberry pie instead of trying the cherries from the photograph because I know what I'm doing when it comes to blueberries and I wanted to use something familiar (unlike last time). I also didn't do any of the strange berry prep things that books seem to think are a good idea and just poured the corn starch and sugar right onto the berries once they were in the pie (again, unlike last time. God last time did not turn out well.) I also avoided using the frozen berries I'd bought and used the nice ones from our local market, but that was mainly because we're supposed to be using local produce and I'm not entirely sure "Canada" counts as local when the country is as huge as it is.

I tragically did not have a krinkle cut cookie cutter or pastry cutter or whatever they used to get that nice edging, and also forgot to buy one on three separate occasions. My lovely boyfriend picked me this up to use instead.

I admit that I was skeptical, but it actually turned out just fine.

So I layered the tentacles all over the pie and shaped the head with some more blueberries. The eyes turned out to be really simple to do, I just wrapped a triangular strip of dough around a berry and then threw the whole thing in the oven at the temperatures suggested by The Joy of Cooking for berry pies (450 F for ten minutes, 350 F for 35-40 minutes until Golden Brown). I even did the thing I Never Do and brushed it with milk so that it would turn out all pretty and browned.

Guys, I love how these pies turned out. Look at that Old One, just hanging out in my oven, dreaming his dreams of destruction.

I ended up with two pretty distinct Ancients, Mr. Squinty and Bright Eyes.


Then I popped them both in ziplock bags and just hoped they'd maintain their awesomeness while hanging out in my fridge. I also hoped they wouldn't destroy everything else in my fridge. And then, on Saturday, I took them out into the wild. Turns out blueberry Cthulhu pie survives in a fridge for a couple of days Just Fine. The nice part is these guys are easy enough that they may be appearing at future parties from now on. ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn (1)

Kitchen Fails: People Lie

Kitchen Fails: Never listen to people who cook when they casually tell you an easy recipe, they are lying

Yes, that title sounds like a bold statement, but hear me out. I don't think they are lying On Purpose. I don't think they are maliciously looking at you and telling you recipes missing key ingredients and then cackling to themselves. At least, none of my people are doing that. If the people giving you recipes are doing that they are jerks and should just tell you that they don't want to share. Also, you should stop asking them for recipes.

Nono, people who cook will tell you recipes in shorthand and blithely neglect the fact that you will Follow Their Directions but probably not know to also do x, y and z which they know to do but which you don't because Kitchen is hard.

This happens to me. This happened to me RECENTLY.

I bought this awesome ginger-orange sauce mix thing from a guy at a booth at a local fair. It smelled great. The sample tasted great. The recipe the seller at the booth gave me sounded wonderful and easy.

Take fish. Rub mix on fish. Put fish on couscous in a foil packet in oven, fish juices will cook couscous and VOILA. FOOD!

I already knew that Cooking People Lie, so I looked up the recipe online as well. This jived with what Selling/Cooking Guy At Booth told me. I also added some cherry tomatoes and some spring onions because they looked good and I am not actually BAD at kitchen.

Guys, I do not know what type of magical couscous and/or fish these people were talking about, but couscous does NOT cook itself in the oven in fish juices. It stays hard. And a little crunchy. This recipe only works if a) you cook the couscous first by following the directions on the box (remember to read those! See third post. They don't usually lie to you, although you can modify them later. I'm impatient, see all my kitchen posts, so I just add some hot water, and it is usually enough. ) or b) you know what the hell magic steps that guy was leaving out. Maybe there's a really juicy fish? I dunno. It is also possible that he did not think I would try this with uncooked couscous because that would be crazy and I misunderstood?

So yes, don't trust those cooking folk! Unless they've taken into consideration the fact that you need some extra steps spelled out, in which case thank them because remembering to tell people steps you take for granted is hard.

Kitchen Fails: Read the $&%@)& Instructions Right

Kitchen Fails: When you should really pay more attention to the cooking instructions

I like making muffins. It is one of my favourite things to make. So when my friend made these great Bran Muffins, and I discovered it was actually from the instructions ON THE BRAN BOX, I was in heaven. It had molasses! I love molasses. It had raisins. I love raisins! It did not and should never have chocolate chips, which I learned from experience by trying it, but that was an honest mistake and not the point of this post and really who would have expected chocolate chips to go poorly in a muffin? Not me!

So I mixed up the muffin batter, remembering what my mother told me to not overwork it and popped it in the oven. The box said 200 degrees C (390 F), so I put the oven at 200 and carried merrily on. And the muffins did not rise. They looked... sad. And not fluffy. And at 18 minutes I realized that my oven was in F and that I had put them on at 200 degrees F and that I had THOUGHT that seemed low but had just reasoned that bran muffins were weird and not bothered to read the instructions properly because come on, how hard was it to get the heat right on the oven?

Too hard for me that evening.

Luckily when I casually left the muffins in the oven at a higher heat for a bit longer they rallied and were totally tolerable. And the next batch was awesome (or possibly a little bit burnt, muffins are tricky. But also pretty hardy, thank goodness. They are like the aloe plants of the baking world).

Kitchen Fails: Yeast is a living organism

I love to bake bread. My dad's been making homemade bread for as long as I can remember, and one of my favourite things in the world is to happily feast on think trenchers of fluffy white bread covered in butter. Fresh bread doesn't last very long near me.

I have a healthy scorn of bread machines, but the prospect of only bought bread, no matter how lovely, was too tragic to face. So I was pleasantly surprised when I moved out on my own and realized that I'd watched my dad make bread enough times that I could do it too. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, loads of time, some therapeutic kneading and voila, fantastic bread. 

True, there was the time that I made it entirely out of wheat flour and it turned out like bricks. Or the time that I left in the middle of the rising period because I hadn't left enough time and it ... actually, wait, that may have been the same wheat bread brick fiasco. Anyway, needless to say there were problems, but that's what happens when you don't stop baking bread after your first success. 

But guys, Australia has been a DISASTER in terms of my bread making adventures. 

One of the reasons is simply because I've started making DIFFERENT bread. I have a sweetie to try it out on and enough time to experiment, but I am still the person that would just delete a half-cup of cocoa from a cookie recipe and things can go ....wrong.

I decided to try making the bread in the cook book. My dad always told me that my bread recipe was based off the white bread in the Joy of Cooking, with maybe a cup of bran or wheat flour thrown in for health and texture. Guys, this is not true. The Joy of Cooking asks you to do all sorts of things that I never bother doing, and sometimes it doesn't even want an egg. Madness!

But it is the ancestor, no matter how distant, of my recipe, so I decided to try it. I scalded the milk. I dissolved the butter and lard and then I ... poured the hot mixture directly into the bowl with my yeast. 

The bread did not rise. The moment I noticed it wasn't rising like normal, I knew that I had killed it with my stupid scalded milk. I had killed all my beautiful little yeast monsters with milk that was too hot. I felt like a monster. So I promptly primed some more yeast and added it in. Because of course adding more yeast most of the way through the first rising would fix it. >.<

The bread still not rise particularly well, and was dense like a block of bread dough which does not rise. Literally. I may have stormed resignedly out of the kitchen, muttering darkly. The happy ending is that it made the Most Amazing bread pizza base ever, but it was not exactly a triumph (actually, it kind of was, those bread pizzas were DELICIOUS). 

I decided to go back to my original recipe. Similar, but not quite as drastic, rising bread problems. I did it AGAIN, but primed my yeast for longer (this is where you dissolve the yeast in water with a bit of sugar first). This time it turned out almost right. 

By this point I had begun to suspect that my yeast was perhaps not the one I was used to, and that the package didn't tell me to prime it because Maybe I Wasn't Supposed To. Priming yeast is one of my favourite steps, and I had figured that even if Dried Yeast wasn't the same as Active yeast, or some such that it would still benefit from a bit of activating time with water and sugar, but after the failed batch of pizza dough (it should still be fine, if maybe a bit denser once again) of tonight, I think I will try not priming it at all. 

Australian ingredients being Almost but Not Quite what I am used to keeps tripping me up. I shudder to think what is going to happen when I make pie crust from baking lard as opposed to Tenderflake. Everyone wish me luck! 

(Also, to those Canadians moving to Australia [Americans, I have not checked for your Crisco, you crazy people, that stuff is gross], they totally have baking lard, but keep it in the chilled area with the butter instead of near the baking stuff. There, two hours in the grocery store saved!)

Kitchen Fails: Cocoa is a Dry Ingredient

You know how there are a billion gazillion food blogs on the internet? And how most of them seem to say things like "ohmygosh, it is so easy to make your own prosciutto/tea biscuits/glazed fizzywigs/whatever" and then there is a really simple looking list of instructions and some very lovely photographs of some very attractive food and then the comments all say things like "Wow! This was so easy! I can't believe I've been buying this all these years, and also my children/husband/greataunt'sghost all really love it!"?

Yes, of course you know, because the internet is FILLED with these things. And they drive me a little nuts, because I tend to screwup in the kitchen pretty regularly. This is because I am impatient. And often trying to cook while hungry. Which makes me EVEN MORE IMPATIENT. That, and I only vaguely know what I am doing, so there aren't many super useful cooking instincts for me to fall back on. So, because I am an oversharer and because I think we all feel better when the internet isn't insistently telling us that everyone else is super perfect and interesting and confident while we are trying to not burst into tears about losing our toothbrushes AGAIN (please note, this is just a random example. I actually know where my toothbrush is at the moment), I give you

KITCHEN FAILS: Cocoa is a dry ingredient

I wanted cookies. My old roommate used to make the most awesome cookie explosions, so I tried a recipe at her suggestion: Dark Chocolate Chip Comfort Cookies. 

The problem here is that I didn't have a half-cup of cocoa. I didn't even really want the double chocolate, so I said, hey, no worries, I have all the other ingredients, including awesome peanut butter, and carried merrily along.

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, a tiny red flag went up about the fact that just deleting a random ingredient probably wasn't going to end well, but I. Wanted. Cookies., and just kept going.

Well, the batter tasted great, and I plunked them in the oven. Where they started to spread. And spread. And SPREAD. Please note that my cookie tray also doesn't fit in our apartment oven, a fact I discovered while trying to bake these, so I had them on an improvised tin foil sheet over the oven rack (I say this like I have since then replaced the cookie sheet, but I have not.). And these cookies were still spreading.

Now, the moment they had started spreading, my brain finally acknowledged the little red flag which finally got a chance to say "you know, a half cup of cocoa is actually a lot of dry ingredient" and "maybe you should substitute that with something, and not just delete it?" and "Don't do this. It never works when you muck with backing recipes" but by then it was too late. It was also too late to put them in a baking dish and make cookie bars. It was basically Just Too Late.

So they came out in sort of a strange film of mostly cooked cookie dough, and were delicious, but also a total fucking disaster. Which I then compounded by just sort of throwing the whole, not quite cooled, cookiesque mass into a bowl where they promptly adhered to each other into a big blob.  Which I sort of carved pieces off occasionally and ate in a rebelliously desultory way. Stupid cocoa.

Baking Bread

So, I like to bake bread. My father always made bread and it is something I am actually good at (unlike say, cookies. I have a tragic cookie failure to tell you about later).

The bread I usually make is just the normal white bread recipe from my ancient Joy of Cooking, modified as I see fit, because it is a dough that I understand (except for that time I used all wheat flour and ran out on it while it was rising and maybe ended up with bricks. But whatevs! Usually it goes well. Unlike the cookies.).

But Australia, as you may have gathered, is hot. Not super hot, because evidently this is the Worst Summer Ever (hah! It is to laugh.), but warm to the point that they don't have furnaces (I know, my head exploded too. My mom was all "Would you like the quest CLEAN THE VENTS as an add-on to your vacuuming skill" and I realized that I did not have the pre-requisite item vents. It was odd. As is the way vacuuming is spelt. Better not type it again, it will just get weirder.) So I am waiting to break out the All Day Bake That Bread Event, but I do get very testy when I am recipe surfing and all the meal plans involve weird ingredients and kitchen implements I don't own and probably some type of eldritch knowledge because it shouldn't turn out wobbly, but the bread recipes have things like "Easy! Quick! No kneading!" What the hell internet? This is the one thing I would like to take at the Advanced Level. Or at least Intermediate (because yes, usually it is just me and the white bread hanging out. Why get fancy when it is so good and warm and yummy?) But I LIKE kneading bread.

ANYWAY, I figured I'd do a couple of lower level BREAD QUESTS to keep from going stale (hah! I am so funny.) and I came across a recipe for Beer Bread that involves Self-rising flour, which was the only flour in the house at the time (also I had no yeast. Setting up a kitchen = hard).

It turned out AWESOME.

RECIPE: Beer Bread

3 cups self-rising flour
3 tablespoons of sugar
1 beer

Mix. Put it in a loaf pan. Bake for 45 minutes at 375 degrees.

If you don't have self-rising flour (because seriously, who has that? Why do we have that? Being in a couple is weird) you can do it the way Farmgirl Fare does it:

3 cups organic all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder 
1 teaspoon salt

Personally, I like it with the little extra sugar. The best part? Trying it with different beers. I think my favourite so far is Corona with feta and rosemary, but the Guiness beer was interesting (and tragically popular with the ants, damn their eyes! Eye stalks? Visual Sensors!)

Leaves in my hair (or at least on my desk)

It has been quite the month for trips to Toronto, and my dear friend (who is terribly awesome) was so kind as to pick me up some tea at The Tea Emporium.

So, my workspace is now the happy holder of

Madame Butterfly, for when I need something a bit fruity. I do love the hint of peach in the afternoon.

and

Fujian White Rose, as I am hopelessly in love with the delicate blends of white tea. So subtle, so lovely.

Of course, nothing can compete with my Iron Empress Oolong (or is it Empress Iron Goddess? I know where to find it on the shelf, which is what counts). Which reminds me, I need a trip to The Tea Store. My work supply has run out, and I do not know what will become of me if a craving hits before I replenish  my supply.

Upcoming Event: Fancy Dinner at Play. And shenanigans.

The Ottawa Small Press Book Fair

Walked the all of two blocks to the Ottawa Small Press Book fair on Saturday, and it was... well, small. 

But I found neat stuff! The Grunge Papers a papermaker who has four presses in his apartment and let me muck about in the moveable type. (I am linking you to the etsy page, but there is a real website too. I love my little handmade paper calling card). 

I picked up a nicely printed copy of A Modest Proposal (which will always have a satire-rich spot in my heart), a small chapbook by Helen Hajnicksky called A History of Button Collecting after seeing her talk at the pre-fair reading.

I also signed up for xraymagazine.ca, a emagazine about canadian politics and goingsons.

Altogether, a fairly successful morning, and then I made pinwheels, which turned out fantastic! Huzzah for arbitrarily adding allspice!

Upcoming Events: Mayfair Theater SILENT HORROR FILM FESTIVAL

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

"The ultimate act of expressionist filmmaking, Caligari tells its tale – of a hypnotist who uses a somnambulist to commit murder – on the underside of a tightrope stretched between dreams and reality. Featuring a suitably dreamy live score by HILOTRONS."

YES, do you know who I love? HILOTRONS! whooo! And drinks and food at Irene's Pub beforehand!

 

Long Weekends

Since becoming single again I have found long weekends to be particularly challenging. Suddenly there is time that weighs heavily in my hands, and no matter how many games nights (yahtzee!), outings (Vintage Urban Cabaret - a belly dancing show with steampunk leanings) or breakfasts at Elgin Street Diner I plan, I always end up with just a little bit too much time in my apartment. This is of course compounded by the fact that on the holiday, things aren't exactly open, which makes running errands slightly less likely to happen.

But, this long weekend involved a couple of exciting developments. One: I discovered I can make raspberry pie as good as my dad's (this is unfortunately also coupled with the discovery that I am fully capable of eating most of a pie all on my own) and Two: I have missed crochet.

I have just finished a hat, and started a new one. I tend to like very simple projects, often ones that I can work on while watching something with subtitles (Today's korean drama is Sunkyunkwan Scandal which is ACTUALLY a school drama set in historic times and involves a young lady disguised as her brother so she can go to the all boy academy and get stuck in a room with a honourable lord and a guy described as "a crazy horse" [oh god, I love it so much])

So honestly, the hat is totally not worth showing you. BUT, I recently finished a project with a friend for an other more different friend's baby. We made a baby blanket. And because this friend is part of The Who Council (I may have been out at a show, slightly intoxicated, and decided to inform my friends that we were all Wise Owls and as such were on The Who Council. I may also demand they fistbump me and say Who! The Who Council is totally awesome), and is in fact one of the founding members, we made him a baby blanket with crochet owls. Guys, these owls are ADORABLE. The blue one is the tiny owl once I'd worked him into a granny square.

 and this one is the one that lives on my office wall. I call him Puppy. (The Poppy is for Remembrance Day! Remember! It is coming up!)

You can find the pattern here. Umm.. the eyes aren't supposed to come out mismatched, but be warned, that happens a lot.

From Toronto: A Bento Box

Work sent me to Toronto last week (no, wait, week before that? Why is keeping track of past time so very hard?), which was v. fancy etc, (despite not getting to train business class as I was promised. NEXT TIME! Very keen to try out the fancy travel), but I decided to stick around and see the sundry family and friends that I have kicking about that city.

Which of course meant I went shopping.

In the course of Saturday, I went to Chinatown, Kensington Market and bopped around Queen's and King Street. This was by far the best trip to Toronto  I have yet had, and I finally FINALLY understand why some people really love the city. Although riding the subway with baggage is still not my favourite thing.

So what did I buy while I was in Toronto, you ask?

Well, a number of things, one of which I am still keeping a secret (Can we say Halloween Costume?). But one of things is that I finally found a bento box!

Yes, it has Happy New Year written on it, but I have crafty plans for this little lunch pail, which will hopefully involve awesomeness and not disaster (there may be chalkboard paint. but only if it takes well to plastic).

Part of why I am so pleased is this partitioned lunch box is a size that is actually useful, unlike the previous lunch box I bought.

Yes. Here it is beside the much prettier bunny bento box I purchased from the internet. And which, when it arrived, I realized was of the appropriate size to house three celery sticks. Four if you were VERY determined.

So Happy New Year to you guys, and I am very excited about bringing my lunch to work. Of course, I am going to have to also bring a plate because I can't go putting metal into the microwave, but Whatever! I needed to stop microwaving plastic into my food anyway.