Tag Archives: Main Distractor

Bestie!

Leave a reply

Yesterday was the official opening day for Bestie, a new venture at 105 Pender Street in Chinatown. They bill themselves as a “beer and sausage joint” but until the bureaucracy manages to un-SNAFU itself, there are only soft drinks available. Good, tasty soft drinks! with cane sugar! you don’t have to drink all the time, you lushes!

20130618-130827.jpg

But yes. Sausages. Tasty sausages! sausages bursting with flavour. Homemade sauerkraut, beet salad, kohlslaw, pretzels! homemade ketchup and mustard, bitches! Serious snacks, here: don’t take them lightly, because the kitchen doesn’t. Colin, who not long ago left the Durbach/Stewart empire to do something different after spending years delighting me and many others at Parkside, l’Altro Buca and the prep kitchen (his was one of the hands twisting things up, from parfait de foie gras to pithiviers, some of the most sublime food I’ve ever eaten)… Well, Colin has landed on his feet, and my belly is grateful. Although my waistline isn’t.

20130618-130930.jpg  20130618-130938.jpg

My Main Distractor and I had one of almost everything, and everything was gooooooood. And the Currywürst was authentic-tasting as hell! Echt, as they say. Dialled right in. (If you’ve been reading this for a rather long time you may remember my all-Currywürst diet when I was last in Berlin.)

20130618-130949.jpg

So go. I don’t write about restaurants often, and when I do, it’s because I love it, not because anyone’s paying me. I count Colin as a pal, but the kind of pal where it’s a privilege to be able to eat something he prepares. So I’m really stoked to have him back at it :D

Modern Grace, continued.

Leave a reply

Some time ago, I posted about a thing I called “Modern Grace.” It’s a concept, or a protocol, for how to navigate this modern world of social networks, where we’re all friends with each other on multiple platforms.

I try to follow a guideline of logic. Some things I tweet, some things I put on facebook, some things I definitely DON’T put on facebook because relatives and not-close friends with whom I don’t want to get into a fight, however little I may agree with them about this or that. Or because I don’t want to write a dissertation about every little meme that crosses my path that I find worth reposting, for whatever reason. I also have a tumblr, which tends to just be stuff that others post that I like, and I do not tweet everything I tumble, because why would I do that? Once in a while I will tweet a link to something I’ve seen on tumblr, mostly for the benefit of my Main Distractor, who doesn’t do tumblr. Actually I don’t have many tumblr followers at all, so I wouldn’t feel that bad if I did tweet everything I tumble!

But I know people who put everything across all of those platforms. Or who instagram, and then tweet, tumble and facebook every picture they instagram. And for people who only post 5 or 10 things a day, that’s not a big deal…I skim their tweets since I know I’ll see the photos later on tumblr in a better format.

But then there are the people who (like me) tend to tweet a lot….and they’re tweeting, and they’re facebooking, and tumblring, and vining! everything! across all platforms, all day! or maybe in massive bursts once a day, so that your feed becomes overwhelmed with stuff that you just know you’ll be bombarded with elsewhere, too. Oh, goody. Even if it’s stuff that you’re interested in, from people you like, there’s a limit.

I tend to tweet in bursts during the week…when I wake up, when I get a break at work, and lunch time are probably my postiest times. Other than that it tends to be sporadic. Most people follow some kind of similar pattern…retweeting things as they come up, and then talking about stuff that goes on as it goes on.

People who follow me on twitter might not believe this, but I actually do give some thought to the amount of stuff that I retweet, and try to limit it when I feel I’m just too freakin posty. One thing I can promise, though, is that I won’t be spamming you everywhere with everything. So if I tweet too much for you, but you don’t want to be so drastic as to “unfollow” me, I suggest either disabling my retweets, or muting me for a day or a week when I get on your nerves :p Or friend me on facebook, instead, because I don’t say too much there at all any more.

Yo, Baby, what’s up?!

So there have been a few things going on since last I wrote.

The MD and I went to Victoria at the last minute last weekend, to say hello to some friends and to visit a friend‘s art show at a gin distillery. We had some fantastic pizza at Prima Strada. Cannot recommend too highly if you’re on the Island. The show was a success (although we didn’t get anything; we still haven’t put up most of the art we already have, and buying more at this point seems a bit silly. But one day I will! I love his stuff!). The weather was pretty good if on the cool side, and the hotel was cheap although the number of hairs stuck to the wall of the shower gave me pause. We’ll spend another $20 next time to save me the shudders.

The night before we went, some douchebag scraped the side of the Bunny pretty badly, oh yay, another massive deductible. No note, of course. How do people live with themselves, wrecking people’s stuff and just fucking off? The side mirror was totally snapped back and even the wheel cover is all scraped, so there’s no way the driver didn’t know they’d hit the car. Maybe they said “Oh, their insurance will cover it, who cares?” Yeah? well, I care, $500 isn’t something that comes so easily that we won’t notice. So, a big, hearty, “FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE,” to all the hit and run drivers out there. I hope karma bites you on the ass a little extra-hard.

Last weekend the Main Distractor and I both had haircuts, and I started the road back to blonde. I am currently sort of orangey-gold, or prawn, depending. Which is fitting since we went to the Spot Prawn Festival on Saturday and ate some lovely fresh little dudes. The lineup to get some to take home was too long, though, so my planned prawn dinner will wait.

Instead we went to Cafeteria because it had been too long and they had shrimp and grits with cheese and bacon on the menu, and it had been calling me, “Deeeeeeeeeeb!” It was delectable. You know, if you follow them on twitter, you can keep up to date with important happenings such as the presence of shrimp and grits with cheese and bacon on the menu.

Spring seems finally to have arrived. Not a moment too soon!

***

The post title is, of course, a Beastie Boys line. Today Maurice Sendak died, and that’s a pity, too,  but he was 83 years old, so….it’s nothing like the big glaring pile of awful that came with the news of Adam Yauch’s death last Friday, aged 47. My friend Sandra, whose boyfriend Robert was from Queens, introduced me to the Beastie Boys in 1983-84 or so. We were already listening to Run-DMC and Grandmaster Flash et al., but Sandra and I were about the only people who would race to the dance floor for “Cooky Puss.” (Take me home and eat me, yeah!)

“Licensed to Ill” was just so much awesome punctuated with the dumb jock song…had some great times listening and dancing to that record. Oh my. “Hello Nasty” was a big part of the road trip P. and I took up to the Yukon in 1999, too. Is there anything quite as fun as listening to loud music with the sunroof open, on an empty highway on a beautiful day?

Anyway, I have 100 Beastie Boys songs on my iPod, from the old days to newer stuff, and I listen to them still, all the time. Other people, more eloquent than I, have said all kinds of lovely things about MCA and the difference he made to so many people’s lives. I just know that my life wouldn’t have sounded, or felt, as great as it has all these years, if not for the Beastie Boys and Adam Yauch. Thank you.

Sardine Can

I know I talk about the Andrey Durbach/Chris Stewart restaurants a fair bit. It’s because I love eating at them, and have done for some years now. I have celebrated more birthdays at Parkside and Cafeteria than anywhere else, the MD and I ate our wedding dinner at Parkside, and according to my Foursquare whatsit, we’ve been to Cafeteria 19 times since it opened, nearly two years ago now. Pied-à-Terre and La Buca are also favourites, although simple geography tends to keep us on the East Side.

So they’re expanding again, into a tiny little hole in the wall at 26 Powell Street in Gastown, to be called the Sardine Can.

They posted a taste of menus to come earlier this morning.

Menu in theory……..

gambas pil pil — spicy garlic prawns $10
lomo embuchado — dry cured pork loin ham $10
guisado de pulpo — octopus, chorizo and potato casserole $10
albondigas — meatballs in tomato and Rioja wine $10
pa amb tomaquet y manchego — tomato, manchego & olive oil toast $5
arroz la bomba — Spanish rice with paella bits $10
queso cabrales — blue cheese and carrot jam toasts $5
chorizo y jerez — full flavored sausage cooked in sherry $10
piquillos rellenos — imported piquillos filled with salt cod $10
empanadas — beef cheek and potato pastries $10 (for 3)
bocados — mixed olives, spiced almonds, chickpea spread $5
diablos espanoles — warm dates stuffed with bacon and Mahon $5
pan — terra breads sourdough $2

terrine de chocolate — chocolate terrine with sea salt and olive oil $5
flan de dulce de leche — baked caramel flan $5

I think it’s fair to say that I will be a customer reasonably soon after they open, later this month.

Tales of the Cocktail II

So the Main Distractor and I went to Tales of the Cocktail last year. Did I mention it? maybe not. Not the one in New Orleans, but the little cute mini-one they started doing here.

We had a blast: stayed in the city near the hotel where it was held so we didn’t have to stumble too far home, tried a few new bars, tasted all kinds of different cocktails, made Ramos Gin Fizzes for breakfast.

This year, we decided to go again in spite of not being very flush, because it made a nice break (over Valentine’s Day even), and it’s fun to be a tourist in your own town. Plus of course we didn’t have to fly anywhere or spend a lot on gas. We actually took the bus to our hotel :D but we downsized the hotel budget, and ate some low budget meals instead of room service, and generally planned a slightly less exuberant version this year.

Then of course the Main Distractor had this horrible cold that kept him home from work for a day, the week before, and we had extremely abridged nights out with it (although we did manage a lovely dinner at Diva at the Met…that was the “Hey I sold my car finally!” dinner). He was coughing and sneezing and blowing, and needing all kinds of sleep, so we were home by 10:00 mostly, in spite of naps. Then one day he slept in and I went to the venue to check things out and taste a few things, and we both managed to go to two seminars out of three we’d signed up for on the second day. But that night (Valentine’s Day, and the awesome Bar Crawl event), my throat started feeling like it was on fire, and so yeah, another early night. We enjoyed our seminars, though, and the few bars we managed to hit (we aimed at six or seven, and managed only three, one of which is where we ate our dinner).

So a few notes.

The Refinery – We had a dinner here, which was pretty good, and the cocktails they came up with worked well with the food. It’s always interesting to do these, because you end up trying things you wouldn’t normally order, and it can expand your horizons.

The Pourhouse – We ate here on Valentine’s Day, and I’ll just warn you that the starters are large, so order wisely. We had a savory to start, and I had the Chopped Salad, which I really enjoyed, but it was so massive that I hadn’t a hope of finishing my main course. Mind you the pound of meat on my plate most likely would have discouraged me even if I’d been starving. Those massive portions just don’t work for me. But everything was tasty. The MD had a steak which he enjoyed greatly, and the mac and cheese is a lovely thing. The cocktails were smart and delicious, but the bartender who was on duty doesn’t shake very long–the MD was not able to get even one photo :D

Clough Club – A Donnelly Group newcomer, with a very engaging man behind the bar. We liked this place a lot. The drinks look fabulous (the one we tried was incredibly inventive without being precious, and involved cedar smoke), and there’s an interesting menu that will likely lure us back for brunch once we’re healthy again.

The Revel Room – A little piece of Americana apparently staffed exclusively by (charming) Australians, we liked their special cocktail a lot. It’s a lively spot, with another interesting menu, that we will not be averse to trying again another time.

Due to our general illness, we decided to skip the cochon de lait at the Chambar closing lunch event the next day, opting instead to go home early for MOAR SLEEP. I hate being sick on holiday time :( we’re both still sick, too! very annoying.

So I do have some (phone) photos, and I may add them later, but I’m still feeling crappy and I must husband my strength to go to the grocery store.

Maybe one year when finances permit we’ll hit the NOLA TOTC, but being as it’s in July and being as my constitution doesn’t really like New Orleans in July, it’s hard to say. But it would certainly be fun to see it in its native habitat.

Oh, and

Remember my friend who does the art, her Cat and Canary blog is over there on the right….

She made me and the MD this super-awesome greeting card, and I meant to post it once everyone had received theirs, and if you didn’t get one and you read this, either I don’t have your snail mail address, or the ink got smudged, basically.

Anyway, I think it’s JUST ADORABLE!

From our house to yours

Ain't it kewt?!

And Now: Renovation Hell

It really isn’t that hellish. Well, it’s had hellish moments though. The weekend after our return from London we had to empty out a whole storey of our (admittedly tiny) house so that it could be renovated.

Don’t get me wrong: we wanted the renovations to happen; we even wanted them to happen just at about that time; however, we had hardly any warning of their imminent commencement, and that made for a kind of crazy weekend, packing, boxing, shifting, sorting…you know the drill. Quite a lot of stuff, I had accumulated in the past 5 years. It was made even more fun and interesting due to the fact that both of us still had lingering symptoms of the London Cold. So disrupting masses of dust was a uniquely enjoyable experience, this time.

In any case. The lower floor has been duly emptied, and gutted, and re-framed.  New windows (for downstairs and the windows upstairs that were not replaced during the first reno, when I moved in) have been delivered, and may have started to be installed this very day. Or may not. The concrete floor of the bathroom has been jackhammered out, the plumbing has been repositioned to suit the new locations for everything, the dirt and sand there that has not yet been recovered in concrete has been peed in by the small dogs, and we can see where our New Slightly Fancy Shower! will be installed. (Yay!)

The tile we liked the best was impossibly expensive, but the one we liked second-best was the cheapest; the floors will be heated; we got a new furnace; our wiring will be all up to date and yes! we will have more than one outlet per room! imagine that. We’ll have hardwood in the master because that’s the way I like it. There will be new carpet in the guest room, and no it won’t be fancy, but hey it beats what’s in there now! The guest room will, however, be provided with–wait for it–an actual closet. The kind with a clothes rail! and the plan is to put a smallish chest of drawers in there as well, for guests’ delight.  Given what our guests have had to put up with, they most likely will be delighted, don’t scoff.

My Main Distractor has been photographically documenting the work on his flickr page. You can check progress there, if it pleases you.

I thought it was yesterday,

…and find that my total is not as close to where it should be as I thought.
:(

(As a matter if interest, if you have any, my cheesy pseudo-literary fiction has become a sort of murder mystery, although I don’t know that the presence of a corpse is enough to make a murder mystery, in the end. I have some fairly interesting characters, at least.)

8991 words down, far too many yet to go.

Oh and may I say, that my Main Distractor, my dear darling adorable husband, is the best cheerleader a NaNo person could possibly want. Thank you, baby! :wub:

A plug

For Quinn’s awesome music blog, From Blown Speakers. There’s been a link in the sidebar for a while, but then again, he’s been on hiatus for a couple of months. In any case, he’s back, and always has good listings for upcoming concerts in Vancouver. He and Sean both reviewed the recent Pavement show.

The Main Distractor and I have a pretty good concert calendar coming up ourselves: Arcade Fire, Sakamoto, Grinderman, Blonde Redhead, and Sufjan Stevens, not in that order. A bit eclectic, I guess. :p