Life as a vagabond

I got a tattoo the day I graduated from my MBA.  My parents got in the car to drive home and I went to the tattoo parlour downtown.

I got "yes." tattooed on my left wrist.  There are a variety of a reasons for it - some related to the Beatles, some to life philosophy and outlook, but the main reason was to encourage myself to say "yes" to more things.  To embrace change and opportunity immediately and with open arms.  To stop analysing and considering every little pro and con and take the risk, leap into uncertainty.

I'd been thinking about it for a long time - I've wanted a tattoo for years and years and this tattoo pretty much since I was diagnosed last summer.  Having a health scare resets your priorities and, for me at least, was the shove I needed to take better care of myself.  That was not to say that I was going to let Crohn's control my life.  I went back to do my MBA, I traveled to South America, I spent times with friends and family... I went on steroids and went crazy for a little while (only slightly kidding... I was not the nicest person for a few months there).

I also made the decision to move to London, England for work.  It was offered and I started to think about the Pros and Cons and then stopped myself - I'd been asking for international work for years.  This IS what I want and has been what I wanted for as long as I can remember.  And yet, I was reverting to categorizing all these little things that were basically irrelevant.  I was being given the opportunity to go live, work, and play in Europe.  So I said yes.  I leave (hopefully) next Friday.

In the meantime, it's beautiful and sunny here in Bowmanville, Ontario.  I've been living with my parents and commuting to work when I need to since paying rent in Toronto seemed a bit silly for 3 months.  I've been loving it, but also needing to get back on the health track - while the steroids made me crazy, they also made me put on a significant amount of weight.  Hot and sunny, but no ice cream (not today anyway).  Not to worry - there are plenty of options, including one of my favourites below (no pictures because I ate it too fast):

Frozen Banana Almond Treat

1 frozen banana cut in chunks (I buy clearance organic bananas at the market and freeze a whole batch)
1 tbsp almond butter
2 tbsp almond milk
splash of vanilla
sprinkle of cinnamon

Blend all of the ingredients together in a Magic Bullet, food processor, or blender and enjoy.

Morning, weddings, and sweet potatoes.

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Buckhorst H1
Flash: Off
Film: Blanko

I love some of the lenses on the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone - it's insane how cool some of the photos turn out just by chance (see: my morning vanilla coconut milk cappuccino with cinnamon above).

So the wedding marathon is 3/4s over.  Three weddings in a row for three weekends in August.  Next weekend I have a bachelorette for another friend, then she gets married the following weekend.  While it was a bit insane, it's been really wonderful to see some of my amazing friends and family tie the knot with their partners.

Phil and Megan (Wedding #1 in Ann Arbor)

Dave and Amy (Wedding #2 in Guelph)

Pam and Jeff (Wedding #3 in Toronto)

I also got to spend a wonderful night with my friend Julie.  Given my love of cooking, it's not often that a friend offers to cook for me - let me just say this, if you cook food like Julie did, then you can cook for me any time!  She made a delicious dill sweet potato casserole that was incredible (and served it with some salmon and dill sauce... we like dill).  Eating this while watching the first episode of Firefly... incredible.  Below is an approximation of the recipe.

Red wine, sweet potato casserole, salmon, and Firefly.  Perfect night.

Sweet Potato Casserole

2-3 sweet potatoes

6 carrots

3 green onions

1/2 c. plain yogurt

2-3 tbsp. dill

1 c. cheddar cheese

Cook the sweet potatoes and carrots in a pot of water until tender (chop them up so that they cook faster).  

While they're cooking, chop up the green onions and fry them lightly in some butter.

Mash the sweet potatoes and carrots together and stir in the fried onions, yogurt, and dill (to taste).  I would guess you could also add some salt and pepper about now if you thought it needed it, but I'm not sure that Julie did... and it didn't need it.

Spread the sweet potato mixture into a casserole pan and sprinkle it with cheddar cheese.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20-30 minutes or until the cheese is all melty and delicious.

This is clearly a recipe that you could play around with using a base of any root vegetable and seasonings that you feel like - I could see using roasted squash and thyme.

The nail in the coffin...

First it was scotch, then it was knitting, now it's a hardcore pill box.  I'm officially a grandma.

In other news, the undergrads all arrived this weekend for Frosh Week.  I escaped to the cottage for the first time this summer and spent 3 glorious days up there.  More to come at some point.

Jack

I just lit a candle in my window for Jack Layton.

A great man who inspired me to care about politics, who let me know that my opinion mattered... even though I was young.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=159768760769587

A candle for Jack.

Jack Layton

July 18, 1950 – August 22, 2011

Fall is in the air

I just went for a walk through downtown London and it hit me that the summer is almost over. I moved to London during the hottest week of the summer to an apartment with no A/C. Today it rained pretty heavily, but after the storm passed it was a cool, breezy, sunny day - it felt like Fall. Fall is my favourite season; the cooler weather, warm colours, and late season fruits and veggies appeal to me. I snapped a couple of photos with my iPhone to capture the moment.

Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhoneLens: John S
Flash: Dreampop
Film: Blanko

Sometimes you throw caution to the wind...

That sounds like a pretty ambitious statement for what I'm going to post about, but I'm going to run with it.

Since my diagnosis I have been pretty stringent about what I eat - I'm keeping it healthy and working out a lot in the hopes that my body will function better... will feel better.

Some days, however, you need to let it go. Letting go for me means enjoying some comfort food. Some days are days like today.

Taken with my iPhone out my front window

On days like today, when I've been working hard and it's dreary out, I want some comfort food. For me, there's nothing more comforting than homemade mac'n'cheese - cheesy, carby, spicy (in my case) delicious-ness. I don't really have a recipe for mac'n'cheese, but all recipes I've seen include making a bechamel sauce, adding in some spices and cheese, and mixing the sauce with some pasta. Sometimes I add bacon or bread crumbs, sometimes I bake it, sometimes I don't. It's really one of those laid back dishes that can be changed according to your mood.

Cheesy comfort food... served with a nice bitter beer for me!

Basic Homemade Mac'n'cheese

3 tbsp. butter

3 tbsp. flour

Spices (e.g., paprika, nutmeg, cayenne, cajun seasoning, etc.)

1 1/2 cups milk (any kind - I used skim because it lets me think this is healthy)

1 1/2 cups cheese (any variety - I used a combination of mozzarella, old cheddar, romano, and some Laughing Cow flavoured cheese wedges... literally what I had in my fridge)

Cooked short pasta, about 4 cups (I think?)

Toppings (bacon, bread crumbs, chips, tomatoes, use your imagination)

You'll note the ingredients say "cooked pasta" - if you don't want to bake the mac'n'cheese in the oven then cook it according the package directions, if you want that old school mac'n'cheese casserole then cook it a few minutes shy of package directions.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan. Add the flour and cook slightly (this is known as a roux). Add your spices, I used cayenne and cajun seasoning this time, but my mom's always had tabasco, worcestershire sauce, and nutmeg. Add the milk and whisk, whisk, whisk (this will help ensure a smooth sauce). Flour acts as a thickener and as the milk heats up the sauce should begin to thicken - this is the bechamel sauce (plus spices). Add in the cheese and stir until it's all melted. I mixed in some turkey bacon (look at me being healthy!) at this point.

Cheese sauce - CHECK! Pasta - CHECK! Mix that shit together!

You can eat it just like that. I frequently do. To kick it up a notch you can top it with something crunchy like panko or regular bread crumbs, some bacon bits, or chips or you can do what my grandpa used to do which was tomato slices. Toss it in the oven at 350 degrees for a half hour or so until it's nicely browned and bubbly on the edges.

When homemade mac'n'cheese is that easy, why on earth would you eat the store bought stuff?

Big changes = big delays

So it's been a year since I've posted. Funny how that happens.

Why the delay? Well, a lot has changed. I decided mid- last year to make the move back to my home(-ish)town of Toronto. Work did not have any issue with me transferring offices, but it required a lot of organizing, packing, logistics, nightmares, and unpacking. After a bittersweet goodbye, I left the Windy City behind with fond memories and amazing friends. In the end, I love being closer to family and old friends and still able to visit new(er) friends in Chicago.

Around Christmas I started thinking about more changes and over the course of the next few months made the decision to go back for my MBA. Around the same I started having some pretty serious health issues. And was working 80+ hours per week. I was busy... not blogging.

Where am I now? Located in London, ON (another move!) having started my accelerated MBA 2 weeks ago at the Richard Ivey School of Business and diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. I am heading back to the employer post-MBA so there's no stress on the job front, but it's definitely been a change in lifestyle. The diagnosis has been a huge wake-up call for me about the manner in which I have been treating my body. While the verdict is still out on why some people develop Crohn's Disease (I do not have a family history), I realized how important it is to treat my body FAR better than I had been. As a consultant and a food lover, I have spent 3+ years sitting at a desk for many, many hours per day and then eating rich, unhealthy foods with little to no exercise. Over the past few months I have tried gluten-free, vegetarian, dairy-free, etc. while trying to figure out what would help me feel better. The answer is - no one diet is going to work for me. No single food type irritates my gut. What I have found is that when I make the conscious decision to eat well, I feel better. Not all the time, I still require daily medications and will likely require them for the rest of my life. There's a strong probability that even with the medications I will have to have surgery to remove part of my bowel. I cannot control all the variables in my life, but where I can make a difference in my own quality of life, I choose to do so.

I signed up for a personal trainer at the gym - yesterday was my first day in the gym and he kicked my ass. Apparently I have never done a squat correctly in my life and I still don't think I have even after him correcting me over and over again last night. I've talked with him about focusing on weight lifting with him while I will do cardio on my own (since I'm already comfortable with it). I'm really looking forward to working with him for the next few months.

Wake up call #2 - included in my training package was something called the "bod pod" which is a much more accurate measure of body composition. I'm tall (5'10"ish) and not generally considered overweight (153 lbs.) I've never had anyone tell me I have to lose weight. Turns out my body fat percentage is almost 36% - WOAH! This is wayyy higher than I've ever heard (and in the unhealthy "excess fat" range). As perspective, if you just calculate my BMI off of height and weight you get 22, completely in the range of normal. That's the bad news. The good news is that I'm working on it. I'm building muscle mass. I'm back to cooking with whole, organic foods for myself. I'm hoping to get back to sharing some of those foods with you.

Hot Doug's

"There are no two finer words in the English language than "encased meats" my friend."

- Hot Doug's, Chicago

My mind was, quite

literally, blown yesterday for lunch. Several of my coworkers invited me to go along with them to Hot Doug's - a sausage emporium in Chicago. If you are ever in Chicago GO THERE. I cannot put it more simply. However, GO THERE EARLY AND BE PREPARED TO WAIT (see photo of line).

Don't get me wrong, I hate lines. I refuse to stand in at bars and rarely pay cover (totally unnecessary in Chicago). This was worth it. Actually I was spoiled because we had friends who weren't working and got in line early for us so we only waited about half an hour, a couple of them that had gone before waited over 2 hours. Also keep in mind that if you get there too late they will close the door in your face at 4pm - regardless of how long you've waited.

It's still worth it. Quite possibly the best sausage I've ever had - the Game of the Week which was Antelope with some sort of pepper sauce and a reallllllly good chevre. And the side? Duck fat fries. I'm drooling just thinking about it. Anyway, here's the gang including a special shot of the youngest member of our party (no sausage for her).

Dad

I'm a day late on this one - yesterday was Father's Day.

I've frequently said (and been told) that I'm ruined for men because my dad is such a wonderful person. He works hard, cooks, cleans, is handy, and randomly brings home flowers for no reason. All in all, he's pretty much amazing. When I think about why he's so important to me, however, it's not any of those things - it's the fact that he laughs so hard he cries at some of the stupidest humour out there (anyone remember the cartoon Duckman??), it's the fact that I can talk to him about anything and he'll always have my back, it's the fact that we can say absolutely nothing and I know he has my back.

I don't say it enough - I love you, Dad. You're the best.

P.S. I got him the meat grinding and sausage making attachments for his Kitchenaid mixer for Father's Day - sausage making extravaganza here we come!

Cubs - Sox Game and Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

Friends at the Cubs-Sox Game (plus two unhappy looking blonds - typical of the crowd that day)
John Butler Trio from Friday night (see previous post)

I'm a thin crust kind of girl. There's nothing shameful in that, but here in Chicago it's a bit of a rarity. Without fail, when someone comes to visit they want Chicago-style deep dish pizza - the stuff that you can eat maybe one slice. If you're lucky.

So since my friends from home were down we decided to go to Giordano's for deep dish pizza post the Cubs-Sox Crosstown Classic Game (more on that in a minute). It took us about 35 minutes to order (with several tense moments), but everyone got what they wanted in the end. I split the spinach stuffed pizza and you know what? I may be converted. I've had Pizzeria Uno's, I've had several we've ordered through work, but this plain, spinach stuffed pizza really hit home for me. Or maybe it was just the excessive amount of beer and mai-tais and the really good friends I had around me.

To be honest, we kind of needed the pick me up following what might possibly have been the most boring baseball game I've ever been to - and I like baseball! I read a couple articles following the game and even reporters seemed to agree - the crowd wasn't into it. I don't know if it was the unseasonably cold weather, the poor playing/standings of both teams, or the hangover from the Stanley Cup parade the day before, but I have to say, I was disapointed.

It didn't matter in the end - like I said, surrounded by friends we would've had a blast anywhere.

John Butler Trio - the Riviera, June 11, 2010

I really wanted to love this show. Really, really wanted to.

This weekend I have a group of friends down from Canada - friends who drove 8-15 hours to be here to see John Butler Trio last night (and go to the Cubs-White Sox game today). We've been planning this for months and I was so excited to see the show last night - John Butler is a great guitarist, I love the old style of the Riv as a venue, these people are some of my favourite concert go-ers, and it's just a nice break from how crazy work has been. In fact, two of us saw him and his former back up band at Lolla two years ago and it remains in my top 5 for Lolla shows I've seen.

So we got to the show around 8:30pm after eating at Smoke Daddy's for some bbq dinner (it was great). The opener was State Radio and, to be honest, if I'd known that they were playing I'd probably have pushed to come earlier and see them, but no harm there. The dance floor was busy and we weren't feeling it so we went upstairs... to sit... because there are seats. Apparently sitting in seats at a concert is a strange concept to the three girls in front of us. They stood up and danced the entire show. Don't get me wrong, I love when a crowd really gets in to the music (and these girls were) and if you want to get up and dance for some of the fasters numbers that's great, but there's a dance floor and there's the seating area. So basically, when I say I saw John Butler Trio play a show at the Riv, I actually just heard them - all I saw was three girls who frankly aren't very good dancers. I get that I'm really there for the music, but John Butler is exciting to watch and it was a real bummer to see maybe a quarter of the show (I gave in and stood for a bit).

I'm sad to say, it kind of ruined the show for me. The music was pretty good, his former back-up band was better, I was with good friends, we had beer. It had all the makings for what could've been a very good show... and three inconsiderate girls took a lot of the fun out of it.

GO HAWKS GO! (Hartford)

For the past few weeks I've been traveling back and forth to Hartford, CT for work. One of the great things about the case I'm currently on is the team's insistence on 3 meals per day - sometimes work gets so crazy that we skip meals. Even better is that we usually hit a pretty nice restaurant for dinner.

I admit it, I love dive restaurants, those hole-in-the-wall places that have regulars who know the menu really well, but when I'm traveling I really like being able to go to some nicer places and not worry about the bill (even in Hartford, CT). With that in mind, if you are ever in the area, I have to recommend The Pond House Cafe in Elizabeth Park. The food was easily the best I've had there and the atmosphere is unparalled for incredibly reasonable prices. I suggest the scallops - perfectly cooked.

Short entry today - it's the Stanley Cups playoffs and I'm watching the Hawks go for the Cup in Game 6! GO HAWKS GO!!!

Women in Music

So yesterday I was sitting on the bus listening to one of my favourite female artists - Susan Tedeschi. She's soulful and passionate and incredibly musical... and totally not what I think the majority of my friends are listening to. It got me thinking about the role women play in music. You see super-acts out there like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera, etc. and, while I agree they're talented in a way, they don't hold a candle (IMHO) to some of the historical women in popular music. What do you think Janis Joplin would say to Ke$ha (or however the hell she spells her name) today?

Don't get me wrong- I love that women embrace their sexuality in music, but does it have to be so overt? The song that got me thinking was "Soul of a Man" by Susan Tedeschi. It's moving and sensual - but in a way that infinitely more sexy than "Maneater" by Nelly Furtado or "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry. I'd love to see some of the top 40 female artists start to perform in a way that owns their sensuality without making it so obvious that they have to dance around in bikinis gyrating... maybe I am getting old.

Update - So last night I was discussing this with my friend D. and he called me out - basically saying that women have been sexualizing themselves in music for a long time. He gave a couple of examples and... is right?? (Yes, D., you read that correctly.) I'm going to rephrase - people often say that "sex sells", and while I think there's a definite market for sex, I would say that "stories sell." My example was pulling from experience at the automotive company I worked at. I tried to convince our ad agency rep that we weren't marketing a car, we were marketing the lifestyle associated with the car. It's the story, not the product that's interesting.

For D., I think the point would go home a little more for green energy (his line of work). There is a very compelling financial reason to invest in green energy - especially in Ontario given the current rates and regulations - but, and it's a very big but, I doubt that the financial (read: rational) aspect of the decision is the reason why people buy solar panels/Green Frog Power/wind mills. They invest because they want to be green, the want their lifestyle to reflect their values.

As to how that relates to the sexualizing of women in music... I'm not sure. I just think that story is more important than product.

Bread Pudding and Broken Bells

Monday I saw a fantastic show - Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley fame) and James Mercer (lead singer of The Shins) have a collaboration called Broken Bells (http://www.brokenbells.com/). I picked up a free download at Starbucks awhile ago and then bought the album. They came to Chicago to play at the Vic - an old theatre that I also saw Ben Harper at a year or so ago. I went with a good friend, M., and we ran into the chef/owner of the dinner club we go to so we joined her and one of her employees. We're getting old, so we sat up in the seats at the top but the show really blew me away. They've only released one album so far (10 songs), but played an original, unreleased song as well as a couple of covers. The entire show probably lasted an hour and a half and we were home by 10:15... which actually worked out perfectly because I had to get to work early the next day and was travelling all week. While I love, love, love their original stuff, one of the highlights for me was their cover of "Crimson and Clover" by Tommy James and Shondells. It's a total summer-up-north song for me and reminds me of late nights around a campfire.

That covers the music part... now onto food. I woke up this morning and realized that the bananas that I bought last weekend were well past their prime and demanding to be made into some sort of baked good. I chatted with my roommate, O., about it over brunch and ran over to the grocery store to pick up some eggs for whatever we decided to make with it. At home, I picked up the Williams Sonoma Baking cookbook my (other) roommate S. got me for my birthday a couple of weeks ago and came across the recipe for Chocolate-Banana Bread Pudding.

I have a confession to make... I am a sucker for bread pudding. I don't know what it is, but without fail, if bread pudding is on the menu at a restaurant, I will order it. Friends look at me funny, tell me that it's old fashioned and weird, but I don't care. Having said that, I had never made one. O. stopped at the grocery store on her way home from some errands to pick up some bread and chocolate and we were good to go. This is pretty much the simplest recipe I have ever made... and one of the tastiest products.

Chocolate-Banana Bread Pudding

2 large eggs

1/4 c. melted butter

1/2 c. packed dark brown sugar

2.5 c. whole milk - I'm a bad chef and used lactose free skim

2 tbls. dark rum

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

4 ripe bananas - worked out perfectly for me

6 oz. semi sweet chocolate, roughly chopped into uneven sizes is the way I go

4 c. day old bread - unfortunately, the bakery didn't have day old bread so O. just grabbed a loaf and it turned out alright if a little soggy - in the future this would be very good good with slightly stale challah bread

1 c. heavy whipping cream - for topping (optional in my case)

Basically, you just whisk the first 7 ingredients together in a large bowl, mash in one of the bananas, and add the other 3 chopped bananas and the chocolate. Gently stir in the bread and throw the whole thing into a greased baking dish. Bake at 325 degrees for 50-60 minutes - until it's golden brown, set when you jiggle it, and bubbling around the edges.

Delicious!!

Food blogging for idiots

"Long time reader, first time poster" - I've always wanted to post that on one of the many blogs I read every day. My minimal comments on those blogs (I have posted, just never that quote) have given me the urge to start something up... but what?

I read it all - PostSecret, Mommy Blogs, Tech Blogs, everything... but, far and away, my favourite are food blogs. I love the photos, the recipes, the ideas, the community. I've played around with the idea of doing a blog solely about cookies or pies or fast cooking or slow cooking or some specific aspect, but my favourite part about the blogs I read are the lives and stories that are attached to the recipes, products, and events that are posted. So this is it... my blog about food.

Also, music - because I love it and the two seem so intermingled to me. Drinking Bud reminds me of listening to Lou Reed at Lollapalooza last year (I rarely drink Bud, but options were limited). Eating a good meal should be combined with good music in the background. Cooking a good meal requires it.

Hi - I'm Sarah. I'm 25, single, and currently living with two fantastic roommates in Chicago (which I am, sadly, leaving in a couple months to return home to the great white north... Toronto). I work long hours, travel, and when I get home I like to eat good food. Welcome, I hope you stay awhile.