Hot Chocolate Festival at Cocoa Nymph

Whoever thought of a hot chocolate festival in January/February is a genius. I stopped by Cocoa Nymph and tried the hazelnut drinking chocolate with crown royal whiskey marshmallows. It was deliciously rich, thick and boozy, the kind of hot chocolate you eke out in spoonfuls and sips. I had to have a Barnabus chocolate too for some crunch and even more chocolate.

Cocoa Nymph is a cozy, quiet place that is perfect for a hot chocolate meditation. I am one with the chocolate, OM. I am filled with chocolate OM. I will never have enough chocolate. Oh, oh, that's not very zen.

My sister sends me chocolates from Cocoa Nymph. She orders them online and they arrive by magic at my door. At first I assume I have a secret admirer. Especially that time they forgot to enclose the card. Then my sister calls and all is clear. She is so thoughtful.

Here are the chocolates they make displayed on their white grand piano, which is not made of chocolate. Trust me, I know because I gnawed on the keyboard. Be sure to check out a hot chocolate festival venue near you, or just have your own festival at home.

Winter Spaetzle

You know when you're shopping for groceries and you just feel an intuitive gut pull towards an ingredient? Today it was brussel sprouts. They're green, cute, and in season. I built a meal around them. I decided on baked salmon and baked squash. I had a kuri in the back porch which I operated on and put into the oven. Brussel sprouts have a bacon fetish, so I obliged them by baking some until crisp in the oven and chopping it up into bite-sized pieces. I sweated some onions and garlic, added the bacon and halved brussel sprouts and then braised them in a cup of chicken stock with a tablespoon of agave nectar mixed with about a teaspoon of sherry vinegar. Add a bit of lemon juice to preserve the green color of the sprouts. I fried up some homemade spaetzle I had in the fridge with more bacon and more onions. Then I toasted some lovely local walnuts, gave them a whizz in the old food processor and there's your garnish.

We had a 2005 Poplar Grove's "The Legacy" which is a rich, rounded mouthful of bliss. And for dessert, some of my own milky way sesame chocolate bark. A nice way to mellow into a Friday night deep into January.

I'm a Regular

I've just been reading a mystery novel by Martha Grimes with a character who has his own pewter mug at the local pub. It hangs on a hook on the wall and he and he alone uses that mug. Well, guess what? Today Maria and Tanya gave me my own mug at Shaktea. I'm officially a regular! It's a beautiful hand crafted cup made by a New York artisan.

Soon I'll have my own chair by the fire, like the pub cat. Woe betide anyone who sits in MY chair or uses MY cup. Arrrrr!

We're Breathing for You

I have a friend in Winnipeg who is very ill and has been in the hospital for several weeks. She caught a respiratory viral infection and ended up with a collapsed lung. It's been very upsetting as I have slowly realized through bits and pieces of revealed narrative how serious things have been for her. Her friends have set up a website and an e-mail list for her so now she has 72 friends in a shared vigil that spans several provinces. The language of the e-mails is upsetting, but also comforting. G visits Pranna D. at 10 am, N and B visit at 2pm. J and S pick up her partner to feed him dinner. "She is eating well," someone reports, "She had an egg, some yogurt and a piece of toast." My friend is a yoga teacher, so a couple of people visit her and perform the gestures of pranic healing. One friend e-mails and tells us to meditate on breathing. Take three deep breaths and tell yourself you are breathing for her.

I have met one of her Winnipeg friends who is a writer. The three of us sheltered in the rain at the Regina Folk fest four years ago in a tiny tent I used in my first appearance as Madame Beespeaker. We laughed and shared snacks. Now A. will take my e-mail letters and read them to our friend, Pranna D. She is getting overwhelmed by visits and is now asking for cards and letters. We have a long history of writing by hand to each other, but I like the idea of A. reading my e-mails to Pranna D. I can be chatty and au courant. My goal in sending these letters is to take her mind off her situation, if only for a few moments. I want to create a virtual window on the world outside that hospital room.

My friend is a fighter. I know she will build on the stability that she's already won in the fight to breathe and to keep her CO2 levels down. She will draw in the energy her friends are giving her and she will put it to good use. And it's good for us all to take at least three breaths a day and send them to someone in the world.

Taco Trucks and Tonics

On Saturdays Per and I had tacos at the winter market. The line-up and wait wasn't too bad, especially considering it was close to noon. (He slept in, not me!)


You get a choice of two tacos for just under $7. We both got a pulled pork one and the black bean and sweet potato option. I preferred the pulled pork with its eye-popping purple slaw. The vegetarian option tasted a bit soapy to me. I was wishing for three tacos with less filling so they would be easier to shovel in without getting sauce dribbled down your arm. I don't like over-stuffed tacos. Do you? I know, I'm being picky. The pulled pork taco was awesome. They put the salsa on for you, which also bugged me.

We admired the eggs and watched the market folk as we ate our tacos. You know what ticked me off? There were people standing because of a lack of chairs and just as we were leaving a woman who had been sitting and eating took her bags off a chair. We all assumed it was being saved by someone in line. How rude.

It's that time of the year when forced cheerfulness can quickly turn sour. I have a tickle in my throat, so I am feeling particularly moody and vulnerable. Tonight I made an awesome funky winter tonic. Please do not try this at home. It has: ginseng, linden blossom tea, propolis honey, acai juice, fresh ginger, a bit of "wise woman tea" that tastes absolutely awful, apple cider vinegar and cranberry to mask the taste. I hope this vile rocket fuel blasts away the cooties.

Roses and Taxis

Fun times Friday night with Anankana Schofield and Helen Potrebenko, author of Taxi. I had a good time asking people about their own anecdotes relating to cabs and two separate stories related to taxis in Buenos Aires. Apparently the taxi drivers there are often quite interesting characters. Eleven people even bought copies of the book, which is part of what this performance is setting out to do. Helen was quite chuffed.

I read a Martha Grimes today, The Old Contemptibles, which was a good read for a cozy cat napping kind of day. Last night I watched an episode of Jericho of Scotland Yard called The Murder of Johnny Swan which I also enjoyed. If I was an academic, I think I would write a book about the role of food in murder mysteries. I love the way food often winds its way into character and plot in mystery novels--sometimes in quite disturbing ways such as in Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo's novel: The Devil's Star. A woman who used to work in kitchens realizes that the black drops coagulating in her boiling potato water are blood because her husband says it tastes like eggs (albumen). There is an even more disturbing reference to food later in the novel, but I'll leave that for you to discover. I am loving the Scandanavian mystery writers, as are many Canadians, according to this article: http://www.emb-norway.ca/News_and_events/News/Nordic-crime-novels---a-hit-in-North-America/

Tonight I had some Parisian Red Rooibus tea from Shaktea on ice with some cranberry juice which was really nice. You can really taste the rose petals in the tea. It would be good in a champagne cocktail, methinks.

Taxi Stand at Not Sent Letters

Tonight I am going to be an Insecurity guard at an impromptu taxi stand where Anakana Schofield is going to re-contextualize the act of reading and being read to with Helen Potrebenko's book called Taxi! This is the first of a series of interventions with the aim to making audiences aware of this Vancouver novel with the ultimate aim of inspiring people to read the novel, buy copies of it, and engage in critical dialogue about the work. I've never been to one of these events, but I'm looking forward to it, even though my feet are killing me today and I want to put them in nice warm booties and elevate them.


NOT SENT LETTERS & GUESTS
@ dharmalab
Friday Night, January 14, 2011, 8pm SHARP!
@ dharmalab, Vancouver, 1814 Pandora
(N. of Hastings, E. of Commercial @ Salsbury)
$5 suggested donation (toward production expenses)

Please join us for an evening of interdisciplinary works by

ANAKANA SCHOFIELD & LORI WEIDENHAMMER
KATHERINE SOMODY
LEANNEJ & MY NAME IS SCOT
RINA LIDDLE & NOLA SEMCZYSZYN
RON STUBER & COLIN McLAINE
SORESSA GARDNER & DENNIS E. BOLEN
JEREMY TODD w/ MARGOT LEIGH BUTLER, NATASHA McHARDY, DINKA PIGNON, YI XIN TONG, DENNIS E. BOLEN & ANDREW SHORT
w/ postlude music by CORNER & friends.

NOT SENT LETTERS & GUESTS form public constellations of engaged interdisciplinary and durational practice, uncompromised by the realpolitik conditions of contemporary art as a professional sphere. Artist Jeremy Todd organizes each event as an extension of his continuous Not Sent Letters project (see below). The interrelatedness of art, society & everyday life is critically explored amongst a diverse plurality of artists & publics.

ANAKANA SCHOFIELD & LORI WEIDENHAMMER (two Vancouver-based interdisciplinary artists & friends) expand Schofield's dialogue w/ Helen Potrebenko's 1975 Vancouver novel Taxi! through an embodied exploration of transaction involving readers/listeners. Weidenhammer's Security Guard examines these encounters by providing "market research" on various sitters.

KATHERINE SOMODY (part artist, critic, skeptic & cautious romantic) screens the first in a series of self-portraits exploring relations between music & video, memory & storytelling, textual & somatic language - while trying (perhaps in vain) to disentangle the personal from the socially prescribed.

LEANNEJ & MY NAME IS SCOT (two interdisciplinary artists engaging issues of class, identity & agency while living in Vancouver's DTES) screen Calculating 63: More than 15 years, over 63 lives, way too many excuses, endless questions, zero good reasons & only 1 perpetrator? Something in this equation doesn’t add up. This collaboration sifts through the statistics, looking for feeling & meaning behind the numbers and finding out that poverty, violence & exploitation can disappear just about anyone.

RINA LIDDLE & NOLA SEMCZYSZYN (two interdisciplinary artists exploring art making as a methodology for analysis & criticism of social structures) present DIY Lover, a performative inquiry into the material configuration of dating guides.

RON STUBER & COLIN McLAINE (a drummer/percussionist & visual artist/composer) perform Shed, a work composed in a Strathcona shed for electric guitar and drums that might also involve the shedding of light, skin and inhibitions.

SORESSA GARDNER & DENNIS E. BOLEN (a singer/composer/performance artist & novelist/editor/teacher/journalist) combine prose, poetry and electronica within a new collaborative work @ Not Sent Letters & Guests.

NOT SENT LETTERS is an ongoing series of epistolary detours by JEREMY TODD (an entanglement w/ practices of the self & the politics of meaning) involving online image/text posts, digital film shorts & multi-media performances. The dharmalab letters set will include live scores by ANDREW SHORT, image projection, & letters selected from the project blog & read by MARGOT LEIGH BUTLER, NATASHA McHARDY, DINKA PIGNON, YI XIN TONG & DENNIS E. BOLEN.

Explore previous Not Sent Letters & Guests events here: http://notsentlettersandguests.blogspot.com
Email Jeremy if you'd like to host or contribute to a future N. S. L. & G. event: jeremytodd@shaw.ca

Seeds, Spies, and Spooky Blooms

I have been watching more of watching M15 series, loving the art director's palate because it complements the greys and taupes of London so well with the black iron railings. There's nice accent shades of pale blue greens which look good in that city, also a bit of light muted coral which works well--and what a good-looking cast.

Peter made a lovely lamb stew for supper. I baked chocolate chip cookies with hemp hearts--a modification of David Lebowitz's Chocolate chip cookie recipe which is my current favorite. These can go in the lunch box because they don't contain nuts.

I've been breaking tasks down into seasonal components and winter is a time for sorting and labeling seeds, garden research and goal setting. I've decided I want the garden closest to the house to be strawberries, culinary herbs, edible flower and tea garden. I am also going to grow a few climbing beans at the very back because they grow so well there. It's time to pull up my strawberry garden because the plants are getting old. I'll put bush beans and clover in there to remediate the soil.

I've got to do more research on shade plants for other areas of the garden. In the raised bed I'm going to put lemon cukes on a trellis, and grow salad greens, zucchini, marigolds, beets, squash, sunflowers and arugula. I'm going to plant holly hocks on the west side near the fence and to be try something absolutely different I'm going to order a mix of seeds for "black" flowers. I think they will be a nice contract next to the brightly colored fleurs. I won't plant them all in one spot, just a little bit of a gothic touch here and there. It will be interesting to see if the bees like them.

A Studio Day Tuesday

I get quite jealous of my friends who schedule studio days and stick to them, I have "studio minutes" and "studio hours." So today I actually managed to have a studio day, apart from a couple of errands. First thing--a phone call from England because are trying to sort out how to send me royalties. Yay! Oh, and before that a weird dream that I was performing a kind of magic burlesque show in Iceland while staying in a pastel post modern trailer park in a blinding white snowscape. Quite surreal, as dreams should be.

I am making cozy Valentine buntings which I'll post photos of as soon as I finish one. This involved getting all three of my sewing machines out to see which one of them was going to a) work and b) do zigzag. That's not much to ask, is it???!!! I have one sewing machine circa 1940, one circa 1965, and one contemporary one. The 1964 one is my favorite because it's turquoise. Oooh. Anyway, I bought it at a thrift shop and the first time I used it it started sparking. So on a day Ules is learning about electrical safety at school I asked Per to fix it. What he did was shake the pedal, so a couple of bits of metal fell out and it works fine. Phew. I felt very much in the crafty zone and I'm thinking maybe an Etsy store is in the cards for me sometime in the future with the goal of using up all the craft materials and art supplies in the house. Yes! That's a good resolution.

So I made a mishmash studio day supper of refried Navy beans, minced pork, homemade taco chips and salad. We had vegan chocolate banana cake for dessert. Also, I am drinking sparkling pear juice with cranberry these days which I LOVE.

Posters I Have Had

I

One day the phone rang in the kitchen with the avocado oven and it was the dead boy. He wanted to know if I had the schedule for the local movie theatre. I was not used to talking to boys on the phone, especially not dead boys with soft blonde hair the colour of ripe wheat. I didn't know what to say. I think I snickered inappropriately. It was all wrong. I wish he'd phone again now so I could tell him how much his mother grieved for him. I wish we could have skated on the ice together at twilight, making snow angels by the side of the rink with a sky for a ceiling and marveled at those pin prick stars, the way stars used to be before I had to wear glasses and they never looked the same again. I wish I could share with him my sadness about the way the stars have changed. Maybe then I wouldn't have been driven mad by the need to tell someone about those sorts of things. But his death wasn't about me and my isolation sickness, it was about him and how we lost him on a flat prairie gravel road.

II

I had a poster of John Travolta in my bedroom. He was wearing an intensely blue shirt which brought out the blue of his eyes. I wasn't even a big Travolta fan, but the colours in the poster cheered me up. I also had a life-sized poster of Shaun Cassidy on my bedroom door, but it wasn't really life-sized because I could reach his lips no problem, which was fine by me. I also had a picture of a kitten that said, "Hang in There!" and a poster of a rainbow with a quote from Tennyson's Ulysses:

 I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world,
whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

I still love that quote. Shaun Cassidy? Not so much.
And I'm still hanging in there.

Practising

Last night I suddenly dreamed

of the clock face on our avocado stove

when we lived in the trailer after our house burnt down.

And I used to set the timer on the clock on the oven

for a half an hour to practise the piano, but I put it off and daydreamed instead,

I could never play the piano anyway,

but I could sing, which was a blessing.

Some nights I turned off the timer on the clock on the avocado oven and I took my skates out to the open air rink and I'd skate by myself under a twilight prairie sky.

I could never skate very well, but good enough to get a taste of what freedom meant,

and flying.

Desperately Seeking Baklava

I am seriously craving good warm homemade baklava with lots of butter and honey. MMMMMMmm--seriously jonesing for it. Plans are in the works for a baklavapalooza chez Zucchini Mama. I just have to say that word again because I'm so excited: BAKLAVAPALOOZA!

In the meantime, I may just have to make some of this baklava style French toast. Swoon! What an amazing idea!!!!!! Okay here's my rap: Eating baklava in my balaklava, drinking java with my hungry homies, and my foodie peeps. Anyway, you get the idea.

Diet, what diet?

Organizing Seed Packets

I've been feeling like I've had a bit of a sluggish start to 2011. I need to get my mojo back. One thing that I'm excited about is preparing for some workshops I'll be giving on creating garden journals and collecting garden memories. After a quick look on the web I discovered a great idea at Shelley Inspired that is incredibly simple: organize your seed packets by putting them in photo album sleeves. Brilliant. For smaller packets you can use the plastic sleeves that game card collectors use. I now have a small album bulging with seed packets.

Hey, I won another contest: two tickets to the Push Festival. Yay!

Wonky Wonton Soup

Sunday lunch on a sunny winter day: H20+squash purée+miso+green onions+pea shoots+cilantro+rice wine vinegar+soya sauce+homemade frozen wontons=wonky wonton soup listening to Rex Murphy on the CBC. Question: Should we censor Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in order to make them more readable for a young, contemporary audience? I say yes. Only you must have an intro that states what has been done to the original and explains why this has been done and it has to be a book in the public domain.

Game Night

Another great formula for a 2 block social occasion: freshly baked sticky buns, beer and board games. We must do this again. Only next time I've got to bring some hand-sewing because J was looking so and productive cozy knitting her wrist-warmers between turns. "Idle hands do the devil's work" and all that. How can hands be idle and working at the same time? Only satan knows for sure.



Now J was mentioning her mother used to put the sticky bun sauce on bread pudding and now I find myself fantasizing about this. (Must not be tempted to break diet.)

Folding Wontons: A Tutorial

The Alchemy of Wontons

I bought a new cookbook from Banyen Books called Kitchen Alchemy: Transform Yourself Through Food by Ann Bowen-Jones and Phillippa Lee. I like the lush design and the thoughtful text which explores a mindful approach to eating, and preparing food. I loved the look of nearly every recipe, and wanted to try to make it at home, which is rare for me. I saw the recipe for squash wontons and knew that I wanted to make that first, so I roasted two delicata squash and also made some filling with free range unmedicated pork from Windsor Meats.

I fried some of the wontons, and boiled some for my slimming diet. The boys liked the wontons both ways, boiled and fried. Ules didn't like the water chestnuts in the pork filling, but I LOVE them. The delicata squash is so flavorful that all I added to the purée was salt. These wontons are fine with soya sauce, but I also made a sweet chili sauce with sri racha and J's quince glaze for the fried wontons. I served the wontons with fresh raw pea shoots.

P.S. I'm looking for a Security Guard costume for my next performance collaboration with Anakana on Friday, so if you see one in a thrift shop please let me know! Details to follow.

Winter Market Day

Going up to the market has become a date for Per and I. Although he is very focused and just wants to buy and leave, whereas I like to hang around a bit and just enjoy the scene.

We bought lots of dried fruit today, tuna, apples, and pears and we waited in the longest line at the market for Pure Bread. It has really caught on.

I love the Seriously Seedy loaf, with its perfectly chewy crust and nutty, moist crumb. It's perfect with a slab of cold butter. That was my lunch. It's worth waiting in line for. However, the "Adult Only" chocolate cookie is a complete fail. It didn't taste freshly baked to me.

It's fun to people watch at the market. This winter I've really noticed the gap between the wealthy and not-so wealthy. I've seen selected people wearing ostentatious jackets that are obviously new and say "Hey, look here, I'm dear." Whereas a lot of other people are wearing their plain old winter coats that say "Hey, I may not look fancy, but I do the job." What? Outerwear doesn't speak to you? Just put your ear up to a pocket and wish very hard.

Klippers has their usual selection of awesome apples.


Their squash collection continues to fascinate me.


Some people just can't let go of that Christmas joy and a sleigh pulled by eight tiny polar bears.

Not Sticky Enough

One of my favorite British foods is sticky toffee pudding made the proper way, which is steamed. There is nothing like light, moist, steamed STP. However, I will settle for an easier substitution: sticky toffee pudding cake with a buttery toffee sauce. The version I made tonight had a nice variation: macerating the dates in stout; however, the cake was not moist and sticky enough for me, so back to the drawing board. I also made the mistake of deciding I wanted to make creme anglaise instead of toffee sauce. Oh well--I also had a craving for bananas so I had sliced some on top of my portion and then topped it off with the creme anglaise (a lower fat version). I got Ules to help scrape the vanilla seeds from the pod.

Per made lamb stew which we had with the leftover Paella rice and winter salad.

Easy Peasy Paella

You know, paella is a lot simpler to make than I remember. It's based on much the same principal as chicken byriani, which I do know how to make. Now that I've made that connection I'm not so afraid of paella anymore. The trick is getting the rice to absorb the stock and adding in the fish at the end so it doesn't get overcooked. I made my stock with garlic, paprika, saffron, turmeric, a bay leaf, a couple of Tbs tomato sauce, chicken stock and white wine. Added some organic jasmine rice, then waited until it was about 7 minutes from finished absorbing the water and added pieces of cod, shrimp and crab. We had it with a lovely Spanish red and a simple winter salad.

Weird fact: Every year, several people in Japan seem to choke on New Year's mochi. You have been warned!

Atonement

"It's funny to see the difference in what people buy before and after Christmas, " the cashier at Choices remarks. "Right now I'm seeing tons of vegetables, diet foods, vitamins, and protein drinks--lots of protein drinks." She should know. It's time for atonement. Time for wild rice cooked up with dried oyster mushrooms. Tofu cubes rolled in toasted sesame seeds, baked and served with orange bell peppers, carrots, over brown jasmine rice with tamari. Time to meditate over a bowl of rice and lentils. Time to oust the pasta and refined flours and sugars. It's a SHIFT, people. I feel better already!

Last night I made chunky apple sauce with some galas that were past their prime. The secret ingredient? Lots of cardamom. Just apples, cinnamon, and cardamom. Last night we had some fresh, warm applesauce for dessert. The perfect atonement.

I also tried to figure out a recipe for those power snowballs. I came up with this:

1 cup cashew butter (or any nut or seed butter)
1/2 cup toasted flaked unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup chia seeds
2/3 c oatmeal flakes whirled in the food processor
1/8 cup agave nectar

I think you need to adjust the amount of oatmeal according to how much oil is in the nut or seed butter.

I melted 2/3 cup white chocolate chips for the outer coating and rolled them in about 1/2 c coconut flakes.

Girl Talk?

To Shift

Shift: to move objects, dried leaves, grass clippings.

Shift: To see things from a new perspective, to switch viewing positions.

Shift: To have some emotional or spiritual change happen inside oneself.

Shift: My word for 2011 to be carried about as a talisman in order to see or create change in the world.

These are flowers I'm making out of felted sweaters. I'm going to try to shrink them again so they become even thicker and chunkier.