Everything tastes good when campfire is involved

Left over Red Lentil and Cauliflower curry from the Veganomicon, and Garlic Naan

Marinated Tofu, Rice Cheese, fried eggs and fresh blueberries.

Just a peek into our Dinner and Breakfast over campfire. We went up to the Elora Gorge Conservation area this summer and had a fantastic time. Clear, deep lake swimming, fishing, hiking...oh and eating!

Make the reservations, fill the cooler, pack the car and GO!
Don't think, Don't stall, just go!

1 - 2 - 3

Summer this year has been the most rewarding summer I have ever had. And the most thinking I have ever done, in one small period of time. Hop into my head and I'll tell you all about it.

I don't usually stop and think about all the good things there are, because I am so busy living through the daily stuff. Unless a cool breeze blows my way, or something beautiful catches my eye, I don't stop moving. I never stop moving. But this week, I have had alot of time to think, which is what vacations are for right? But this vacation I took to get away from daily life. I took it to find the connection to myself that was quickly slipping away. The hustle and bustle of daily life, is a common theme for almost everyone, which leads almost everyone to say the same cliche lines like 'You have to stop and smell the roses or time will pass you by" things like that, ya know?

I am a victim of always thinking one step ahead. When I am eating breakfast I am thinking about lunch, when I am driving I am thinking about what I will do when I get there.

I saw an ad in a magazine for Le Creuset cooking ware, and it showed one of their amazing pots on the stove beside a pile of fresh veggies and herbs, and in the background a group of smiling women around a table. The caption was "This is my Happy Hour" and I laughed because that is the perfect way to describe what I feel.

So I stopped to think about all the good things...

Everyone has their release, and as Happy Hour at the bar is a relaxing thing to do after a hard day, my kitchen is the bar to me, and food is the vice that grips my racing mind and brings me back to the ground.

Standing in my kitchen, chopping, smelling, washing, dicing, every step of the way, is pure instinct. I can pick up two items and smell them and know if they will taste good together. I know by the sound of the oil in the pan if its too hot, I know by the way a mushroom cuts under my knife how old it is. I know by the density of the pizza dough, how long it will need to cook and what temperature I should put it at, so that it cooks slow enough to cook the veggies on top while not over cooking the crust. All these things calm my senses. Knowing things without a doubt, calms me, Life, on the other hand isn't a bowl of produce, I can't anticipate it.

My routine has been thrown off lately. My direction in life is changing. My habits, my complacency in the job world is gone, I am back on the market. There is nothing more sobering than updating your resume and putting yourself through job interviews. Some say that starting fresh is invigorating and wonderful when you are moving in a forward positive direction. But dammit its scary! Its like being the new kid in school, so much to learn, and yet, so much excitement.

But things are different, the jobs I am applying for are in the Adventure Industry, well, the gear and equipment sales of the Adventure Industry. But long story short, is that I know Adventure gear and equipment like I know food. Funny eh? If you were camping, climbing, paddling, hiking, skiing, in hot, cold, wet, dry, high, low, I would know what you need to outfit your entire trip.

So here I am waiting for calls from future employers, waiting to go to another interview on Monday and cooking, at home, on a much needed vacation.

But no matter, what, everything always comes back to food.




Roasted Veggies

2 cloves Garlic
10 cherry Tomatoes
10 yellow Heirloom tomatoes
2 jalapeno peppers
1 green pepper
a few turns of fresh cracked black pepper
a pinch coarse sea salt
a few gulps of olive oil

• Slice these all together roughly, toss with olive oil and place on tinfoil. Bake in preheated oven set at 350 for about 20 mins, you don't want the garlic to get too brown so stir the veggies around on the baking sheet every once and a while and pull them out when they are soft and roasted.

• Dump all the veggies into a small high sided container and add:

a handful of fresh chives
a handful of fresh basil.

• Pulse with hand blender a few times for chunky sauce or lots of times for smooth sauce. Toss over some warm pasta with:

a small tab of butter about 1 tbsp.

• A Delicious side dish to accompany a piece of pan fried salmon, or tofu or chickpeas!

Always come back to the things you love.

earth+water+sun= life

I picked up a mixed packet of wild flower seeds at a local flower shop and threw them into some soil, watered and waited and here they are (except for the portulaca). I planted these a little later in the season, so they are just coming alive now, which is nice, because many of my other plants are finishing off their season.

Like so many gardeners, many of my tomato plants turned into trees bearing just a few green tomato's which never ripened before their branches broke and withered away. There has just been so much rain. I mean, I wasn't complaining, since carrying my watering can into the apartment for refills, 8 times a day, was tiring! But the rain was just too much, this season. So chop-chop went a few of my saddest tomato plants to make room for those that were producing.

These are some photos of the tomato's I harvested this week. Mmmm, roasted in the oven with a little olive oil and Hosin sauce.

It is late August, you can feel the night becoming cooler, and I can't help but think that summer is coming to an end. I am dedicated to my outdoor space though, still clinging to the idea that I can sit out there anytime I want.

Coltrane and I still frequent the garden daily. I end up checking all the veggies and pulling off dead leaves, he sniffs around, chases flies and eats any flecks of grass that try and poke through the stones. We are a good team!

Summer is and will always be, my favourite season!

words

Be the change that you want to see in the world. - Gandhi

Action expresses priorities. - Gandhi

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. - Gandhi

Where there is love there is life. - Gandhi

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. - Gandhi

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. - Gandhi

Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.

- Gandhi

The pleasure lies in making the effort, not in its fulfillment. - Gandhi

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind. - Gandhi

It is health which is real wealth, not pieces of silver and gold. - Gandhi

Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances. - Gandhi

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. - Gandhi

All true art must help the soul to realize its inner self. - Gandhi

******************************************************

They are simply words, arranged in different order. Words which you can choose to hear, or choose to ignore. Each day that passes, Words are getting stronger. When I lived overseas for a year, I entered an English word vacuum. No longer susceptible to subliminal messaging, subconscious reading. There was a splodge of English here and there, but as the Chinese language is mainly symbols and characters. I found myself grasping for books like I was gasping for air. I would lay on the couch all day, and read, line after line, feeding my mind with what it craved.

But why did I crave the Word? Why do 'we' crave the word?

Actions speak louder than words... I want words. I want them on my shirts, I want them in my kitchen, I want them on my body.

Words speak to me.

These quotes I found today, will be stamped on my walls within the week. Why? Because I have lost focus, things have been blurry. I have been back to Canada for years now, but with the onslaught of English advertising, highway signs, cereal boxes, that need to read, left me. It didn't even leave a forwarding address until today. Today it called from within and told me I need to start CHOOSING what I read.

I only really know one language. One set of words which when arranged in one way, makes me feel good, while when arranged in another can shift my world, bring me down, hustle me out of my drive to be me.

Since positive words make me feel so good, I must surround myself with them. I will let these words affect me, effect me, penetrate my being. I want these words to be my mood, my mantra, my food.

What do words mean to you?

Needing pencil crayons, leads to theories of living

I had an urge today, to draw something with pencil crayons. That was the medium I needed. I needed to sharpen and shade and blend as hard or lightly as I wanted. Which brought me to my options, go out and buy a new box of pencil crayons, or drive out to my parents house in the boonies*, to get my art supplies out of the basement.

(* for those of you not familiar with this term it is affectionately used to describe houses in the country, outside of the city or in the "boondocks".)

I am passionate about reusing and I am on a budget, so I think I will have to drive out to the 'rents house tomorrow and pick up those pencil crayons to scratch this sketching itch.

Whenever I end up needing something from my parents house, I feel the weirdness of living with only half my stuff.

I am in this transition period, not completely out of my parents house, but not completely into my own house. Apartment living is that dimension where semi-adults my age, thrive. I thought I should document this time in my life, because it is a time that I may not remember going through years from now.

But are those pencil crayons really mine? Technically they are from my childhood, so I should split them with my brother, and my Mom may still want to use them...

I have to explain that I hate feeling burdened by stuff. I hate clutter, I love organization. My apartment is small, but clean and simple. So, the idea that I have boxes of stuff in my parents basement gives me the sweats... As much as I need stuff, I hate having too much stuff.

(People say Hate is a strong word, and that it should not be used frivolously, so consider this not a frivolous use of the word.)

This transitional period started when I was 17, working away from home. Only bringing what I thought I'd need. Then each summer away, the list of "needs" would change based on how much I wanted to lug around and what I wanted to do. One summer, my paint-kit came with me, the next summer my knitting-kit came with me. This travelling side-show life I had is over, but I am still technically living this way. I can't afford a place big enough to fit all my stuff, nor do I want to lug all my stuff in and out of every place I move to, but I still feel the need to keep this stuff. Why? Because of the FUTURE! The future may hold a kitchen with tons of storage, an Art room, a Green house, a Garage! So I will hold onto this stuff because one day, I will have to choose to let go, but not today!

This week, I will drive into the boonies, pick up pencil crayons and draw. And my happy semi-adult-pseudo-house living will continue to thrive.

RANT

"i'm not trying to meddle, but you might wanna cool it with the coffee, there guy."

Some days at work when I am forced to interact with some of the people at work, I feel like shouting DAYS OF THUNDER!

Those three words just came to mind, this morning, at 9am, when I was having yet another conversation, if you could even call it that, about Tim Horton's coffee. Tim Horton's should be registered as a gang slogan! In this building if you mess with a persons morning cup of Tim's you are persecuted and lectured till you turn blue!

I don't even think Tim Horton's heartburn brew should even be allowed to call itself Coffee based on the composition of its mass consisting of, just guessing, less than 50% actual coffee beans.

But besides that, this morning I had a run-in with a senior member of the staff who I had to treat like a five year old having a temper tantrum, because of TIM HORTON'S COFFEE. This guy could fire me on the spot, but if he thought that was going to stop me from telling him "This is nothing to get angry about" he was mistaken.

I love telling people who are angry that I know they are angry and they can kiss my ass, in not so many words, of course. But this guy was spouting off the most stereotypical 'angry dad' voice I have ever heard all because the staff coffee fund isn't always stocked and it's too much work for him to restock it and I should be making sure that he gets his morning coffee without a hitch.

Even though it has NOTHING TO DO WITH ME and I don't even participate in the staff run coffee fund. I just happen to be at the front desk -where I work!. I believe there was even the line " I have spent more time on this coffee stuff, in the last two weeks than I have on my own work!" Well that says alot champ! Thanks for the perspective into how important you are to this company!

My main point.....

I think it is inexcusable that some people in the working world believe that when they step into their workplace they think that being polite, having common sense, common courtesy, and having a conscious don't apply. Being given a position of power in a company does not give you the right to raise your voice to another employee or talk own to them, for any reason, ESPECIALLY over a cup of lousy- cheap -dull- brown- liquid, masquerading as coffee.

I may be on the lower end of the corporate ladder, where, if I compared it to a pool ladder I would be one of the steps under water. So i'm low on that ladder, but I don't kiss any ass or let anyone get away with talking crap to me.... lets hope I have a job next week!

Get a grip people, if you can't be decent, stay home!

Kung Fu Fighting!

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