How to explain Peak Oil to anyone

"More beer good. Beer comes from oil. Must. Save. Beer."

(big sigh of relief)

Hey everyone, thanks for sticking with me and checking back here despite my dismal failure at regular blogging. That may or may not change now that I'm on vacation - yes, for a whole month! Plans include beach bumming, Frenchy's shopping, family visiting and a combination of general productivity and utter sloth. Because as of September 4th I won't have time for any of the above for a good long time. If you think that's an exaggeration, there is actually a new-student guide on my school's website that pretty much says, "there is no such thing as 'after law school.' You won't have time for anything ever again." maybe not in so many words. But you have to read between the lines, y'know?

Anyway, Adam is partially moved in to his new place and it rocks my world. If anyone knows where I can find some fabulous art that is (a) big enough to fill most of a 12-foot-high wall, (b) suitable for a 20-something man-with-a-girlfriend's condo and (c) cheap, please let me know.

My mother has recruited me to help with her home repairs. The first stage is to get rid of anything she doesn't use, and today was Kitchen Day. To really understand the scope of this project, please consider that Mom has been hanging on to shower gifts from when she married my Dad in the late '70s. I came home with three boxes of stuff that may or may not fit in my closet-sized kitchen...

And that's all the news for today from the lazy and disjointed mind of a vacationing Hipster. I have a hankering to write some future posts about libraries, red currants, voluntary simplicity, how I ended up buying soap that looks suspiciously like hashish, my new lunchbox and other miscellany. In the meantime, please enjoy the new links!

Holy crap

I just got Scientology propaganda in the mail. No joke. I was about to put it in the recycle bin by the mailbox when I realized that it was in fact an offer for a consultation with the Hubbard Dianetics Foundation. Now I'm keeping it on the fridge so we can laugh at the perverse awesomeness of it all.

Still alive!

This is gonna be pretty much the most pointless post ever. But I wanted all (five or six)of my readers to know that I WILL be updating soon - with links, photos, more food porn, a little wisdom and a whole lot of stickin' it to the man! Don't worry, my vacation starts next Friday and then you might get more Tortuga than you can handle.

Love and bunny food,

A.

Photos, farmers, food porn and more!

My only observation of the Solstice on Thursday was to look out the window and say, "When's it going to LOOK like summer?" SO here are a few celebratory items to compensate for that oversight.


This is a photo I've been meaning to share for a while now - from back in May when Mark and I went hiking in Hemlock Ravine. The magic of this little nook, clearly inhabited by faeries, took my breath away. Mark was sensitive enough not to laugh at my delight.


two delicious events to check out:


"Musicians for Farmers" is the brainchild of a member of FAC who is also a local musician. It's happening next Thursday and proceeds go to Heliotrust, a wonderful organization run by the lovely Jen Scott. It's mandate is, quite simply, to keep traditional farming wisdom, heritage food varieties and small, local farms alive. For more details, please visit the website or better yet, come to the concert! There will be delish, local, organic food (included in the $10 cover price)and live music.


I'm also thrilled to be finally fulfilling my dream of learning to build a yurt! Selene and Alex at Little Foot Yurts are bringing their yurt-building workshop to Halifax in order to accommodate those of us who are without transportation of the car-like persuasion. Adam gracefully endured much teasing from his colleagues to get the weekend off work so that he could attend with me. I am one lucky girl.


And now for the much-anticipated food porn, I present to you my crowning achievement in the risotto category:


The recipe is from The Complete Vegan and the risotto is more Asian- than Italian-style. It's made with asparagus and oyster mushrooms, both readily available at the Halifax Farmer's Market. The red pepper was imported - I just had to make the splurge. This risotto was absolutely delightful - the flavours blended well, and the mushrooms were so tender they would practically melt on your tongue. *sigh*

And my fresh-fruit dilemma is finally solved. Just take a look at these beauties:



That's right, the year's first strawberries. Sooo luscious. I have other things to talk about here, but they'll have to wait because I need to go stuff my belly...

Straight from the Muppet's mouth

Seymour Green's new blog

Love in my tummy, vol. 2

Have you heard of The 100-Mile Diet? These two people spent a year eating only food that was grown, caught or produced within a 100-mile radius of their home. In an era where tomatoes from Mexico and apples from New Zealand are the norm in our grocery stores and refrigerators, that's a really remarkable thing - but please don't be scared off by the idea of it. Eating locally is getting trendier by the day, and the beauty of it (aside from the joy of really fresh, healthy food and the experience of living within nature's rhythms) is that "local" is open to interpretation. It might be 100 miles, it might be your community, it might be your backyard. Or, it could be bigger. I personally consider food to be at least relatively local if it was grown within the Atlantic provinces, although I try to opt for things grown closer to home when possible. I don't compare myself unfavourably to the 100-milers because most of my 100-mile radius is ocean and I'm not ready to go back to eating fish. And, after about a year of striving to eat primarily Maritime-grown food from the farmers' market, I've found that that these boundaries offer a stunning variety of flavours and textures. That's why I've started the Love in My Tummy segments: to celebrate local foods and the many glorious things one can do with them.

So, we're used to the usual four-seasons-in-a-year thing. But the truth is, there are seasons within seasons. Strawberries and blueberries both grow during the summer, for example, but not at the same time. Get my drift? Similarly, in the spring you start with the winter hangover - the last of the coarse, starchy produce like potatoes, onions and apples, plus a taste of the season's first hardy greens. Then you get to where we are now, surrounded by a smorgasbord of tender green foods that clean the winter out of your body and get you ready for the warm days of summer. These include asparagus, fiddleheads, green onions and beet greens. They're heaven if you've been living on a local diet all winter, but there is a slight conundrum: where's the fruit? Apples, which have been my default sweet food since October, have all but disappeared from the market. Rhubarb performs a solo as THE fruit of the season, and while I adore rhubarb I'm not about to start chewing on a raw stalk of it after dinner (but I won't judge you if you do). Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of modern refrigeration I was able to combine some free 'barb from my Mom's garden with last summer's frozen strawberries into a luscious strawberry-rhubarb crumble.



My photography leaves something to be desired but I am proud to say that my desserts do not.

If you have any local food recipes to share or if you have any special requests for LIMT reviews, please post! I love to hear from you all.

P.S. For more local-food porn, check out Slow Food Nova Scotia or the EAC's Food Action Committee - the latter website is slightly out of date at the moment but is soon to be updated by moi.

Following yesterday's ridiculous hotness, Adam suggested that we have a picnic in the Public Gardens today. We took some samosas, fiddleheads, rice and fruit downtown and lay on my recently-unearthed picnic blanket in the sunshine. Then we went to Dio Mio for some trendy douple-scoop frozen desserts ensconced in waffle cone - he had Cappuccino and Chocolate & Vanilla gelato, I had Green Tea gelato with Pear & Cardamom sorbetto.

Life is tasty.

Let's all wave to Mark in Scottishland!

Just opted myself out of the Canadian Marketing Association's mailing lists.

Link

I'll let you know if it actually cuts down on my junk mail.

I'm also considering this

Love in my tummy

Nothing says "FINALLY, winter's OVER!" like the lowly fiddlehead (photo from New Brunswick Tourism). Yes, they look like alien appendages but they're SO delicious and made even more so by the fact that they're only available for a few weeks out of the year - after that they turn into full-grown ferns and are no longer tender and delectable.

I developed a taste for these suckers when I was a wee little tot living in backwoods New Brunswick and they grew all around my home. Now I gleefully shell out $5 a pound and patiently stand at the sink rinsing off the weird brown stuff for the privilege of eating wild green stuff at the end of a winter full of squash and potatoes.

If you live in Atlantic Canada and have never tried them, I command you to get thyself to a farmers' market (the ones at the grocery store just DON'T COMPARE) and pick some up. They don't need any fancy seasonings - just steam them and add some olive oil, lemon juice and salt to let the flavours shine through. They're good on linguini (that's my plan for tomorrow's supper) or served alongside a light entree, but for the purist (or anyone, really) nothing beats a big plate of lightly-seasoned fiddleheads at the beginning of the season. They're a feast in their own right and will proudly stand alone in all their alien-appendage-y glory

Do you feel pretty?

For all the harping I do about excessive consumption, I'm addicted to Gala Darling and her fabulous dressing-up blog. I guess we're both just trying to make the world a more beautiful place, in our own ways. Plus, you have to dig that she's all about finding your personal style and using it to enhance - not define - your life (which should be satisfying in and of itself).

I'm inspired to see what I can create with the items I already own, and maybe a few vintage finds for good measure. Oh, and maybe something from Maha Devi because I could easily spend upwards of $500 on their hemp-and-bamboo, LOTR-inspired fantasy designs and yogawear. At heart, I'm really just a geek and a girly-girl.

If there's any interest in seeing it, I might finally figure out how to use my camera and take some photos!

Documentary about Dr. Bronner! Everybody celebrate by taking a bath and practicing the Moral ABCs!

I have found my American counterpart. She hugs trees, refuses to use disposable coffee cups, anthropomorphises her cat and has an unholy love for Martha Stewart and argyle socks.

New and Different

Spring is slowly returning to my little corner of the world, even though the weather is being even more of a tease than most girls I knew in high school. I felt it was time for a new look - to hold us all over until such time as we can finally put our winter clothes in storage. I've actually spent some time lately doing this strange girly activity called shopping. I got some brightly-coloured work clothes from Twice-Shy and "American Apparel. They're so summery and fun, I can't wait for the warm weather to come back so that I can show off my pasty legs.

No amount of retail therapy, however, can ever beat the thrill of a clothing swap...getting together with the girls, bringing a bunch of old clothes and dumping them into a pile. Everybody jumps in and takes what they want - absolutely free - and the leftovers go to charity. One of my friends had one recently and while I couldn't go, she invited me over the next night and I scored bigbigbig just from the castoffs. I got a gorgeous, earthy scarf that made a perfect cover for my computer desk, a nearly-new purse, two shirts, a pair of jeans that fit my ass perfectly, and best of all - a fab fedora-type pink hat. All free, all second-hand (and thus without the ecological and social costs of manufacturing)...and my old stuff will be loved once again.

In other news, after about two years of saying "hey we should join the Grainery Jenny and I finally did just that. I had my first shift at the Farmers' Market last weekend and it was such a blast. I got freebies from the other vendors (and this girl LOVES freebies) and saw a bunch of my friends who are market regulars but who I somehow never manage to run into. As a result of this socializing I have a potential biking buddy (for when I finally get my bike) and maybe, possibly, I'll get my guaro and my copy of The Lorax back from the person who's had them since 2004.

Life is good good good.

Famous

This is KC. He is two years old and lives in Halifax with his two Mommies.

KC is hot stuff and he knows it. He likes to accessorize with shoes and bags. He also likes to perform spirited musical numbers in the wee hours of the morning while everyone else is trying to sleep.

Of course, celebrity has not come without its costs. Being adored by millions has led to an embarrassing nip habit, but so far KC has been successful at keeping any incriminating photographs out of the tabloids.

If you love KC, feel free to send cards, gifts or money.

Proof that you really can find anything at all on the Internet

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

Maybe I'll let my bangs get really long

I'm having an emo day today, and obviously I can't let that go by without sharing my imaginary, middle-class-white-girl anguish with the rest of the world. I'm looking forward to this long weekend as a welcome respite from dress pants, makeup, email and the general 9-5 gig that seems to be slowly sucking my soul out of my body.

It's an interesting trap that we get ourselves into, the attitude of "my life would be perfect if I just had x" where x = money, a car, a significant other, chocolate cake, hot girl-on-girl action, beer or, in my case, a vacation. I tend ridicule that attitude, but here it is invading my consciousness. There's no reason to be exhausted, cranky and useless, except that I'm focusing too much on what's "out there" and not enough on how I choose to engage with it.

Lately I've been (slowly) doing a big, multifaceted Spring clean-and-purge in the interest of maintaining my sanity and lowering my ecological footrpint. I think I'll be putting a greater emphasis on the mental and emotional overhaul that is part of that process.