Random Thoughts

Riley's Birthday Cake

This wasn't an official birthday cake - the official birthday cake was a filipino purple-fleshed ube cake. This was a supplemental cake - a good thing since the official cake was several hours late.

Anyway, this was a sheet cake that I gussied up with icing and berries and glaze. The recipe came from The Pioneer Woman (even though it looks nothing like it!) - it's a pretty standard chocolate cake made with cocoa, melted butter and baking soda. The icing is super easy too - melted butter blended with cocoa, then icing sugar to the desired consistency. One of the nice things about this recipe is that it uses salted butter - cheaper and easier to have on hand. Baking it in a half sheet pan is easy, but makes getting the layers even a bit touchy - I used greased parchment.

Anyway, it was a great success - it was pretty much devoured :)

Sitting Naomi

Jen drafted Eric to build her brick patio. My role was playing with Naomi at my place so that she wouldn't be underfoot! Hey, that works for me - it's a lot easier than lifting patio stones!

We had a great time. We played outside in my neighbor's swing set and picked chive flowers from my garden. My other neighbor's little girl, Gabriella, also came out and played, so I didn't have much to do other than pushing swings.

When Gabriella went in for dinner, we went for a snack. Naomi looooooved the alphonse mango that I gave her. They're a lot less fibrous than regular mangoes and more consistently sweet. After eating the chopped pieces, she asked for the pit to chew on. We took the other to show Jen so she'd know what to buy. Predictably, the sliced apple went ignored after the mango came out.

We played for a bit inside on the beanbag and the piano - that's her pretending to sleep in the beanbag. Just as Jen called for Naomi to be brought home, Gabriella tapped on the back door wanting to play again. So we played for another 10 minutes before heading back to her house.

Making Perogies

My super awesome neighbor had me over so that her Polish mother-in-law could show me how to make the perogies that I enjoyed so much previously. Grandma doesn't speak English, so my neighbor acted as translator as we put it together. Everything was pretty simple, so I'll have to make a big batch to freeze sometime soon!

The recipe below isn't really meant to be a recipe, just notes on how things were made.

Ontario Food Terminal

Sean's father-in-law owns a nearby farm on the Holland Marsh. Sean and I offered to accompany him to the Ontario Food Terminal (fall harvest pics), where he and other wholesalers go to sell their product.

At this time of year, Mr. Wong sells flowering annuals and seedlings. We left REALLY early - about 4am from the farm. The most popular thing seemed to be Chinese melon seedlings which were selling briskly all day for about $8/flat. Other stalls were selling produce and plants. The place is huge, and most vendors here have motorized skid lifts which they scoot around on. Sean and I delivered a bunch of stuff for the vendor in the neighboring stall, but all we had was a non-powered lift.

Trucks line a huge covered pathway with cold storage for the importers. Everything's wholesale quantity,so I didn't actually buy anything, though I did score a couple pots of basil in return for making deliveries. Most of the deliveries that we made were to various trucks and some are a fair hike! Everything's cash-based here, it seems. (Most interesting produce: Sean saw a couple of people haggling over the price of some marijuana.)

As we were repacking the truck to leave, the lift on the back of the truck stopped working! Mr. Wong is pretty handy, so after a whole bunch of fiddling it finally kicked back in and we were on our way home - with me falling asleep in my seat.

2 Moves

16 hours of moving crap has left my arms like limp noodles.

On Thursday, Trev took ownership of his new Mattamy house. It's really awesome and Mattamy did a lot of nice finishing touches - keyless electronic entry on the door from the garage, counterbalanced fiberglass garage doors, CFL light bulbs, ledgeback sink in the kitchen with a sprayer attachment, granite lintel on the front door, drawers lining all the counter tops in the kitchen and much more. It's really nice.

His dad and a few friends helped move all the boxes and small items from his old place to the garage of his new house, filling it about 1/2 way (though we took the beds in). What a lot of STUFF Trev has! Not so much furniture, but a lot of random stuff. It took numerous trips back and forth in their vehicles and was a bit complicated by duct cleaners and appliance deliveries. Also? It was raining a LOT and dealing with mud and puddles was a pain.

On Friday, I helped Melanie move from her house in my neighborhood to a basement apartment. For the rental price, it's a LOT nicer than my previous basement apartment! It has a great kitchen, 2 bedrooms (as opposed to my 1 bedroom without a window!) and laundry facilities. The bathroom is a lot nicer too.

Melanie rented a full sized U-Haul moving truck, which was awesome because it fit just about everything in one trip (Trev, for the price of about 50 bucks, it would've made things much easier - could've moved the furniture and everything on Thursday in 1 trip!). Melanie didn't have quite as much random crud as Trev's family, but her furniture was CRAZY heavy in comparison and there was more of it, bunches of it were on the top floor and only me and her ex were there to help load the truck. Despite the low ceiling going down into the apartment (and a king size bed!), unloading went a bit easier. There was no rain, but we were sweating buckets.

Anyway, glad that's over! After Thursday I was a little sore, but after Friday I was really sore! Should be working out, I guess! Both Trev and Melanie still have a lot of unpacking to do...

Restaurant: Akita

Akita is a new all-you-can-eat sushi place in Bradford and it's pretty tasty. In fact, it's my new favorite AYCE sushi place - the sushi tastes slightly better than Ajisai (and a bunch better than Sushi Itto). The sushi selections are a bit more limited and not very creative, but they offer a lot of non-sushi dishes as well. The sushi is a little loosely made, but seems to be freshly made upon order, as the slightly warm rice attests to. Fried items arrive piping hot.


Service is a bit inattentive, but polite and cheerful. Lunch is just 13 bucks and dinner $19-21. A 10% gratuity is added to the bill, which is both obnoxious and a bit low. Personally, I think they would do better not charging the tip, as the standard tip is around 15%.

Recommended.

456 Holland St. W., Unit 1
905-775-1688

Lack-ing Shelf Skills

This evening I hung this Lack floating shelf from Ikea that I've had since the old apartment. It was not fun.

First, I bought the wrong drywall mounting set from Home Depot - they were marked "Shelving Toggles" but were meant for a proprietary shelving system and didn't mount flush with the drywall. Taking the one I put in out made a big hole in the drywall that I've yet to fix (but it's covered by the stereo system).

After returning to Home Depot and getting the right hardware, the bits that I had for the screws that were going into the studs weren't fitting properly - I stripped one (it's never coming out) and the other one barely hit a stud. SIgh.

On the other side, screws that I thought were going to hit a stud totally missed. So it's being held up mostly by the anchors! I would've put more anchors, but I could only put the anchors in BEFORE I mounted the base in (and it can't come out because of the stripped screw.

Oh well. Supposedly the anchors that I have in there should support 500 lbs (125 lbs recommended). The stereo plus the speakers are probably around 60 lbs. So it should be good. I hope. Fingers crossed.

The stereo itself was another pain in the butt - it's so old that I couldn't find a manual online without paying for it. And the controls for the alarm clock are NOT easy to figure out. But I got it eventually (apparently, the CD player has to be turned on to set the alarms, but off to set the clock. You can't set the clock if there are any alarms on. To turn the alarm on, the CD player has to be off).

Ikea Akita

Jen, Naomi and I had a quasi-international day out today. First we headed to Ikea where Jen picked out a whack of stuff and I mostly drooled over kitchens. Naomi was happy to spend time in the Ikea play park (Smaland) while we browsed.

After that, we went to Akita, a new sushi buffet in Bradford. A full review will come later, but suffice it to say that we gorged ourselves. Naomi mostly ate tempura shrimp. She was in a bit of a mood all day, whining and crying for no reason at all ("I don't want to wait for the shrimp to cool!") but her mood improved after the third, very lengthy trip to the bathroom in Akita. So maybe stomach troubles were making her irritable.

Trev's House Almost Done

Trev's new house is almost done! The last time I posted about it here, it was just a hole in the ground. Now it's almost done and the move in date is the end of May!



The most striking feature of the house is the upgraded maple staircase. It looks great! I would've liked a hardwood staircase, but they were too expensive (and plus, living alone, I stand a better chance of surviving a fall down the stairs if they're soft).

Best. Cheese. Ever.

Lately, I've been randomly choosing some cheeses at the deli counter of my local grocery. I'm ashamed to admit that I've just polished off an entire wedge of La Sauvagine(PDF, site is annoyingly Flash), made by La Fromagerie Alexis de Portneuf in Quebec. It is unbelievably good.

Picking it out of the store, I thought I was just getting a brie. But this is so much better. The cheese tastes distinctly like buttered mushrooms. Unlike brie, it doesn't have that slight bitter kick at the end. In general, I don't eat soft cheese rinds. The rind on this cheese is delicate and tasty - a first in my experience. In fact, the strongest mushroom flavor comes from the rind and it melts in the mouth.

I googled the cheese and found that in 2006 it won the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix. in 2006.

This is the best cheese I've ever had. Sadly, I'm wearing it around my waist now.