July 16th, 2010

Things to do on a “writing day” that are not writing

Despite the fact that none of the activities listed below are actually writing, they all offerred comfort or encouragement to the heat-besieged writer, and I have no regrets whatsoever about anything that happened yesterday. (I also got a little writing in between all the other stuff.)

–go to the gym where, because of the air-conditioning, you actually sweat less than elsewhere
–pick raspberries
–eat the raspberries immediately. Do not even bring a bowl to put them in–eat’em right off the bush.
–read and read and read Russell Smith’s Girl Crazy. I am only at the halfway point, so I can’t fully tell you whether it is a brilliant novel or not, but I know that I am mad every time I reach my TTC stop and can’t read anymore for a while, so that’s a good sign.
–have lunch at Ackee Tree, where the staff is incredibly nice and everything seems to come with coleslaw.
–go sit on the lawn downtown that no one ever sits on (they sit on benches and stare out at it, as if it were the sea). I will leave out the exact location of the lawn to protect the identity of my partner in crime, but that is one nice lawn–all long and lush, with no worn bits (because no one ever sits on it or even walks on it) and certainly no cigarette butts or dog poo.
–give blood! I am still trying to figure out where to donate money, but at least there’s really only one place to give blood. I asked and the supply is currenly not bad, but they always need more, especially B- and O-, if you happen to have those. (Side story: as part of the usual intake assessment, the nurse asked to examine my inner arms to check for track marks. I had none of those, but I did have a cookie crumb embedded in the sweat of the crook my elbow–sex-ay!)
–watch Nicole Holofcener’s amazing film Please Give starring Catherine Keener and a really talented woman named Rebecca!! (Hall). I am not famous for my interest in complicated, serious, grown-up movies, but I did get blown away by Lovely and Amazing, also by Holofcener and also staring Keener, way back in 2001. I’m actually going to try to review this at some point, so I’ll shut up now.
–scuttle about the city in the heat, and enjoy watching folks in suits and ties eating ice-cream, skateboarders, children pitching fits, tour groups, street charity solitictations, and the nice people from a hair products company, whom I ran into both at Queen and Spadina and later at Yonge and College (I get around) and who gave me a mini bottle of conditioner both times.
–when you get home from all this, pour astringent on a white cotton pad, and then run it over your makeup-free face. If you are disgusting and immature like me, you will be fascinated to see the brownish colour of Toronto smog that has accumulated in your pores. I do this every night in summer! (Is this TMI? I never know.)

What a nice city I live in!

December 22nd, 2009

Rose-coloured and Mark review Milk Coffee Pocky

November 13th, 2009

Rose-coloured reviews Kimchi House, Jasper, Alberta

Note: this is review is in conjunction (but not consultation) with a review by my dining companion, AMT. Please see her blog for another perspective on the same meal (I’ll edit this to add a link when hers is up).

Right, so the small mountain town of Jasper, Alberta, is beautiful, semi-remote, mildly touristy and not at all the first stop on anyone’s Asian cuisine binge. Nevertheless, there is both a Chinese and a Korean restaurant in town, and as my dining companion had had previous good experiences at KimChi House, we decided to go there for our one dinner in Jasper.

I needed little convincing, being a lover of Korean food and inhabitant of a city that is a much more probable destination if one were seeking to (over-)indulge in the stuff.

So the first thing to report is that the kimchi was subpar. I eat a lot of kimchi, the spicy pickled cabbage that is so much of the Korean diet. I can’t really be called an expert, as I can’t make it (I think it actually takes a village to make kimchi) but I know what I like–lots of sticky bright red chili paste and salty-sweet-spicy flavour. This kimchi was overwhelmed with brine, and had very little chili paste–it was sort of pinkish beige, and very drippy. Also not so spicy, although it was the drippiness that really put me off.

Ok, that’s it for the negative–the rest of the food was excellent. I didn’t sample AMT’s bulgogi because I don’t eat beef, but it looked and smelled great. My own dak bulgogi (bulgogi only chicken instead of beef) arrived all sizzling on a cow-shaped platter and was stellar. I especially liked the random little bits of veggies–one broccoli floret, three mushrooms, a bit of celery, etc. The sauce wasn’t super-spicy (I’d ordered “medium”) but it had a good kick to it.

There was a thing of steamed rice that I didn’t eat (I don’t care about rice; sorry) and that was it for free side dishes. Unusual for Korean restaurants in Toronto, at least, which usually throw in two or three little dishes of pickles or somesuch. We paid $3 for the dribbly kimchi, plus $3 each for a wonderful if salty seafood salad (AMT’s choice) and a platter of lettuce leaves (my choice; the menu promised “leaf-lettuce salad). I made lettuce wraps out of my meat and the lettuce, which was quite tasty but not quite orthodox.

Ambience: a nice big restaurant, well-appointed but undistinguished. I appreciated the lack of “look, Asian stuff” art–it was just comfortable. The music was, unfortunately, some sort of classical hits album. When we entered, something from the Nutcracker was playing (full disclosure–AMT id’d everything that played, but I only nailed the wedding march.) The aspect that of course the restauranteurs didn’t directly control was the other patrons. On the night we dined, these were: someone waiting for takeout and fiddling with a laptop; a man eating alone who later came over to ask us what we’d ordered and if we liked it (I couldn’t tell if this was genuine culinary fascination or loneliness–I ran out of things to say about dak bulgogi, but I would have chatted with him more about something or other if I could have discerned what he wanted); a young couple in ski jackets, he with pants and a shirt underneath, she in a wedding down. Perhaps the classical march was appropriate. Anyway, it was all interesting.

The meal was a bit on the expensive side. Even leaving out the a la carte sides, $18 is more than most Torontonians would pay for bulgogi. But well, it is the mountains, I suppose you pay more for the ingredients being trekked into the mountains. And perhaps we were subsidizing the lack of other patrons. Anyway, the owner came out and talked to me while AMT was in the bathroom, and she seemed charming and dedicated and very very nervous about our liking the food. Her family immigrated 9 years ago.

So while I do have to disclose that my dining companion spent a small but striking portion of the night throwing up, I am not sure what to make of it. It seemed like such a nice place–maybe everyone screws up once in a while.

RR

June 29th, 2009

Web presence

My audiobook debut edges ever closer–Rattling Books has made me an author page for my contribution to Earlit Shorts 4. And now I know that my partners in audio shorts are Chris Benjamin, Michael Collins, J.J. Steinfeld and Leslie Vryenhoek. I’m stoked!

In other news:

1. I had a lovely weekend and was only outside during the sunny parts.
2. I’m starting to be ok holding babies, although only if a) the parents are present and b) the baby is awesome.
3. Ontario strawberries!!!
4. I’m the least-efficient writer ever.
5. This week has a holiday in the middle of it!
6. Yay, everything (except #4)!

And the girl at the top wearing tulle
RR