Monday, September 14, 2009

Scene: Walking back from breakfast Sunday morning.

Vanessa: "So there's this rhinoceros I really want to buy..."

Hayley: "What are you? An eccentric billionaire?"

Vanessa: "No! It's this porcelain rhinoceros I saw at Front that I really want."

And I've found him on the internet!


But at $38 I think I would like him better if I found him at a thrift store. If I did spring for it and buy him I would give him a good home on my bedroom ledge and use him as one half of a bookend or display him prominently in my home some other way.

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posted by Vanessa at 10:49 PM


Sunday, September 13, 2009

So along with probably every other woman in North America and the blogosphere, I saw Julie & Julia.

I really enjoyed everything about the experience of seeing Julie & Julia. I saw it with my best friend Hayley a few days after it came out in theatres. It was really funny to walk up to the box office just shortly before the movie time and see a long line of women with a few husbands and boyfriends in tow. There were women (and men) from all age brackets in attendance, which really enhanced the experience as the older ladies would laugh at Meryl Streep's re-enactments of Julia Child's cooking show; for them there was an added layer to laugh at because many of them had likely seen Julia Child's cooking show. Meryl Streep did such a phenomenal job as Julia Child, I'm sure she'll at least get a nod for Best Actress.

It was hard to leave Julie & Julia not feeling excited about cooking. Cooking has become a greater interest of mine in the last year or so. I really enjoy cooking well for myself and others. A few culinary projects of mine that I've been meaning to get to are:

- learn to roast vegetables properly (last winter I tried to roast yam but I burnt it/dried it out instead and it didn't really taste cooked);

- cook fennel. I've been coming across this vegetable at the grocery store and at markets so I want to learn how to cook it.
Julie & Julia also had me thinking about my dream kitchen. Julia Child's kitchens were so spacious. I would love to have a kitchen large enough for me to have a work table like the one pictured above. I would also love for that table to be able to double as a harvest kitchen table, but I would also want to have a dining room as an option too.

I love my place. The kitchen, however, has very little counter space. I have two small counters. The main counter space is about 2 feet wide by 3 feet deep and is where most of the chopping and food preparation happens. It can really get cluttered if dishes are not done right after a meal. The other counter is maybe only 1.5 feet wide and holds a dish rack, a block of knives, paper towel (which I use sparingly) and dish soap. My room mate has a chest of wicker baskets which holds kitchen things, the top of which gives us another surface.

We didn't have a kitchen table for nearly two weeks when we moved in (I wasn't bothered, I was on vacation for a week). We decided that to maximize our living space (our kitchen and living room are one big open concept room) a drop-leaf table was ideal. On Craigslist I found the perfect vintage arborite drop-leaf table--the pattern of the arborite even matched that of my grandmaman's kitchen tables. The nice thing about the drop-leaf table is how compact it is when the leaves are down. We now have enough surface space to cook and I will continue dreaming of my future kitchen when watching Julie & Julia when it comes out on DVD.

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posted by Vanessa at 6:17 PM


Wednesday, September 09, 2009

The boy and I left early Sunday morning and made it across the United States border in record time.

Although American culture inundates Canada so much so that it's nearly impossible to avoid, I anticipated culture shock. The first instance of culture shock came less than half an hour into the trip. We stopped to fuel at the first gas station we passed. We also decided to pick up some apples and bananas to eat in the car during the drive. I'd seen a self-checkout before, but only one at the Home Depot or Canadian Tire, not a dozen at once. It was strange. We didn't use it and instead let the lonely cashier ring our order.

We stopped for lunch in the Seattle neighbourhood of Fremont, where we'd gone to see the Lenin Statue. We ate a a funky diner that reminded me a lot of Sophie's and indulged in a weekend tradition I love, that of all-day breakfast. I had Eggs Benny and was mildly disappointed when I got hashbrowns instead of home fries--I prefer my breakfast potatoes cubed rather than slawed.

We walked around Fremont a bit after lunch and passed through a Sunday street market. I would like to have been able to check Pike Place Market, but we had to hit the road because or destination for the day was Portland. I saw the Space Needle from the car--I think it was my first time seeing it in person.



To be continued...

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posted by Vanessa at 9:18 PM


Tuesday, September 01, 2009

I'm pretty much settled after my latest move August 1st. In a city with a less than 1 percent vacancy rate, I find moving quite a stressful ordeal. This move, however, was rather serendipitous.

As I knew of many people who did not find places for September 1 last year, I began my search early. Initially I was looking for a bachelor or one bedroom, but this would have stretched my finances. In June I found a room mate, a girl I've taken four classes with at university. I wasn't going to start looking for places until she returned from her trip to Africa in mid-July but it so happened that I decided to browse Craiglist out of curiosity a few days before July 1. I came across a great sounding listing: a two bedroom suite in my preferred neighbourhood, which happens to be a transit hub, with on-site laundry, utilities, internet (and basic cable) included. As my boyfriend and room mate were out of town, I called up a friend who used to live in the neighbourhood and asked her to come see it. As luck would have it, this was her old place (she lived here in 2007/08). The landlady recognized her immediately and I got the place!

Apparently I have a penchant for travelling on the heels of momentous events. My boy and I moved my stuff August 1st and left the next day on a road trip down the Oregon Coast to San Francisco--a trip I've wanted to take for four or five years.

To be continued...

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posted by Vanessa at 8:32 PM


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