Things I Am Excited About

Or, Reasons I Don't Want To Have This Baby Yet, Because Doing Things Is Way Easier With Her In Self-Watering Mode:

Lunch with our friends Grayson and Caley tomorrow, whom we have not seen since, I'm going to say, July.

Dinner with our friends Carl and Anna and their two hilarious children tomorrow (Gemma makes me feel like I am Very Good With Children, when really she is just Very Good With Adults).

Lunch on Friday with my Fun Friend Alicia Who Is Going To Med School Far Away, as well as Anna (again!  So much Anna!) and Fritha who I haven't seen since, oh, let's say, September.

Probably we will go for at least one walk along the Vedder River, which is lovely and weirdly full of eagles (the walk, not the river).

Christmas Eve service, in which we try to find a Church That Doesn't Butcher The Carols In The Name Of Cool, Because We Just Want To Sing Along And Don't Care For Your Guitar Soloing.

Chinese food after the Christmas Eve service, in which we cheerfully complain about the carols and the butchering thereof.

Stockings on Christmas morning.  Also, Joel's mom's eggs benedict.

Spiral ham for Christmas dinner.  Ham is disgusting, people.  It is slimy and fleshy and tastes like undercooked bacon.  The only serviceable ham is a spiral ham, and that is TO DIE for.

More presents on Boxing Day morning.  Also, my mom's eggs benedict.  With leftover spiral ham.  And probably we will watch Spartacus or Planet of the Apes or The Ten Commandments or whatever else Charlton Heston movie is on A&E.

Extended Joel-family gathering on the 27th, in which there will be mashed yams with cheese, and carol singing.

Extended my-family gathering on the 28th, in which there will be that game where you steal the presents and everyone is ruthless about it.

New Year's Eve.

And then ok yes, we can have a baby.

The festivus beginneth!

I know, sometimes this blog devolves into Things I Ate While I Did Stuff.  But you know how I feel about holidays (hungry), so don't expect that to change soon.

Joel came home Saturday and we went to the German Christmas market with his family and he had the currywurst and I had the weisswurst which I NEVER would have ordered if I'd been looking at it because it is The Zombie Hot Dog (i.e. it is dead-flesh-colored) so I will spare you a photo but it was veal and pork and that is DELICIOUS and instead, here is a nutcracker.

And then Joel had a pretzel and I had a waffle on a stick because I make more delicious choices.

And then we took this photo, which we take every year.

Tradition!  And then we had a baked apple YOU GUYS.  Baked apples.  With hot vanilla sauce.  Somebody bring me another one.

And I sampled some pickled garlic and it was weirdly amazing and I WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT SO.

And then last night we went to the VanDusen Botanical Garden Festival of Lights with my family and Joel and I had never been and it was OVERWHELMING.

But festively.  Lights!

And music!

And mini-donuts and cider and hot chocolate!

And the Mistletoe Monster!

Let the non-stop celebrating continue apace!

New Bewts.

I needed new Serious Business Boots because my old ones

(these ones)

have lost a lot of the insides and now they eat my ankles and make me bleed.  So.

I freaking love Sorels.  I can't even tell you.  But Serious Business Boots are for the three times a year it snows plus the one time it sleet-snows and then the one time we go sledding.  I cannot spend $200 on boots on the best of days, let alone boots I wear five times a year (for the next forever).

But then today I was in the Old Navy picking up a Christmas gift and I saw a decently Sorel-ly pair for $70.

$70 is still too much.  YOU GUYS.  So much money.  But I thought to myself, I will wait until Boxing Week and I will remember that these are here and then I will come back and hope they still have my size.

And then I saw the All Boots 60% Off sign.

$27 is ok by me.  Let it snow now.

They can't all be winners.

I'm starting to think my Pies and Tarts cookbook might be kind of terrible.  Every recipe I've made from it so far has been either DIFFICULT or LABOR-INTENSIVE, and none of them has been azmazing.

The Crème Brûlée Tart was no exception, and what's WORSE is that if they'd thrown in one extra step, it would have been a thousand times easier and there'd be less brûlée on the bottom of the oven.  Oooh, and it would be in the tart still, which would help with the crust-brûlée ratio!

action shot!  I am badass at stuff

Because ultimately, the crust is just there to operate as an edible bowl, not to equal half the dish.  Maybe I need a deeper tart pan.

Regardless, it was very pretty

and easier to serve up than a traditional brûlée

but sacrificed the this-is-just-custard-and-sugar simplicity that makes brûlée So Very Good.

(This is not to say that I didn't come home and eat the last piece just now, or that I didn't enjoy it.  It's EGGS and CREAM and SUGAR and then you TORCH it.  Come on.)

I could brûlée all day.

My Fun Friend Alicia got into med school, which is awesome for her but terrible for me because she got into med school in the Caribbean (which, despite sounding like earning a degree online, is Actually Legit) and takes off very shortly, leaving me with fewer fun people within shouting distance.

Anywert, I took her to Pied-à-Terre for Fancy French Appies and Fancy French Desserts to celebrate and she had never had crème brûlée so we fixed that.  And at one point she's like, Amazing, obviously, but is this a particularly good crème brûlée and I was like, Well, yes, but it's almost never bad.  It's baked custard, for crying out loud, with a burnt sugar crust.

And then last night my book club met at the Six Acres Café in Gastown and, after our usual poutine and popcorn and mac & cheese (with a gorgonzola hot pot thrown in for variety) we turned to the desserts.  And there were five of us in the Dessert Camp and five desserts on the menu, so we got One Of Each.

Whatever, you love pictures of my food.  They are, from top left, a crème brûlée (obvs), a lemon tart with whipped cream and raspberry coulis, a sundae with dulce de leche and candied nuts, chocolate cookies with caramel whipped cream, and the feature dessert, a cranberry-apple streusel on a custard base.

elapsed time: 38 seconds

Myarm.

I had planned dessert for tonight's Thursday Night Dinner earlier in the week and I see no point in changing it, even though it's a Crème Brûlée Tart.  All the custardy burnt sugarness of crème brûlée in an easy-to-serve buttery crust.  I'll let you know  how that goes.

The indignity.

When I want to roll over in bed, I have to slide a hand under my belly and flip myself like a pancake.

I get that if I had a car I wouldn't have this problem.

Dear bus driver,

I'm sure, as a bus driver, that you know a lot about driving the bus.  But as someone who TAKES the bus, I know a lot about taking buses, and I'm not totally sure you do.

I'm not sure you know, for example, that the bus you are driving is, for most of the people on that bus, the sole way they have of getting where they are going.  Like work.  Or class.  Or aqua-fit.  And I'm not sure you realize that if you drive a fairly infrequent bus, like the 110, the ramifications for you not picking up a passenger are slightly more dire than if you drive, say, the 99, which comes every two minutes.  Waiting an extra half hour makes you LATE for shit.

And I'm not sure you realize that my aqua-fit class is what keeps me from feeling bad about all those scones I ate yesterday.  NOW I HAVE TO FEEL BAD ABOUT THOSE SCONES, bus driver.

And I get that your bus was full-ish, but the bus at this time is ALWAYS full-ish.  Every other bus driver has found a way to pull over and let me on.  Usually they get on the horn and ask everyone to move back because, and you might be new to this, there is always room at the back of the bus.  The back of the bus is like Northern Saskatchewan.

Next week the pool near my house re-opens, and I can get there on my own legs and will no longer need your bus-driving services.