Extracurricular.

Things have been really busy around here! As the teacher-coordinator for my school's Model UN club (funny story how that happened...) I have spent almost the entire weekend chaperoning the HSMUN conference at the University of Alberta with 24 students from my school.


Swap "debate coach" for "MUN coordinator"
 and we're on to something... From here.

It was absolutely exhausting (8-midnight Thursday and Friday and 8-4 Saturday) but so worth it. My student delegates had a blast, represented the school with the utmost class, and won several awards (beating out other, larger schools) even though we had small countries that made debate more challenging.

I am so lucky to have had such a great group of students to share in their experience. I hope to see wonderful things from them in the future!

Brunch.

I love brunch.

Breakfast foods are always so yummy, and brunch allows me to eat enough of them to tide me through most of the day... what's not to love?

Lindz and I tried to go on a brunch date today to a cafe near Mill Creek... forgetting it's Family Day and half the businesses in the city are closed.

We relocated to the Artisan Resto-Cafe on Whyte Ave for some delicious eggs, home fries, ketchup and catching-up.

Symphony.

I went to the symphony yesterday, for the first time in my life.

And I loved every minute of it.

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra put on a performance of "Disney in Concert" today, and it was fantastic. Mostly instrumental, with some imported Broadway talent to sing a few key pieces, and (since it was a very-child oriented show) a little sing-a-long for the Mary Poppins overture and (everyone's perennial favorite!) It's A Small World.

From here.

I am not ashamed to admit that I got a little teary during the opening medley. Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah tends to do that to me. So what?

Valentines.

I am not a fan of Valentine's Day. Hallmark holidays in general don't really appeal to me; if it takes the mass consumerist ideals of today to validate my relationships, something is wrong. The idea that you have to buy someone things on the feast day of a Christian martyr who was stoned and beheaded for converting people.... doesn't seem right. You should buy someone things because you want to, not because of guilt.

That being said, there are two things I like about Valentine's Day... cinnamon hearts and corny valentines.

Cinnamon hearts are my favorite candy. By far. Pretty much my crack.

As for corny valentines... the cheesier the better. (I once saw a Bob the Builder valentine with Scoop on it saying "Let's hook up!"... what's not too love?)

The power of the internet has introduced me to the fabulousness that is nerdy science valentines... the best of which can be found here... and here...

Hey Girl.

I came across this the other day in one of my random forays into the internet...

And it's pretty much the greatest thing I've ever seen.

Some day....

Some day I will get my attendance in on time...

Baking Soda.

I love tea.

I do not love the stains that tea leaves behind on my mugs. (Tea leaves... see what I did there?)

Luckily, there is a ridiculously easy way to clean tea stains from mugs that leaves them looking nice and shiny and clean.... Baking soda.

All that's needed is a bit of water and a bit of baking soda, and stains are gone. (Only a bit of water... you want a paste, not a solution.)

Before...

After...

Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is an amphoteric compound; that is it can react with acidic compounds or basic compounds to produce neutral ones. Bases in particular are good cleaning agents (bleach and soap are good examples) and neutralize odours, so baking soda can be used to eliminate bad smells. Baking soda has an abrasive texture that makes for good scrubbing, but it doesn't harm the surface you are cleaning. In water, baking soda forms a mildly acidic solution, due to the break down of the bicarbonate ion into carbonic acid, which helps attack stains.

Unfortunately, baking soda will not remove spoon marks from my mugs.

Vinegar is another useful, cheap cleaning agent. I highly recommend it to remove residue from the inside of the kettle.

Check this out for more useful ideas on using baking soda to clean around the house...

Cinnamon Buns.

In case you haven't noticed, I love to bake.

The problem I have with baking, however, is that I don't always want to eat what I make. Sure, I might want ONE cupcake, but you can't just make one cupcake. You have to make 30 cupcakes.

The other night I was over come with the urge to do some baking. And more specifically, I had the greatest urge to make cinnamon buns. So I hopped on over to my best bud Lindsey's blog to find her recipe for sticky buns.

In hindsight, caving to this particular urge wasn't the best idea. At 6 pm when it struck me, I didn't have any yeast or eggs. And as much as I enjoyed making the buns, waiting for things to come out of the oven around 11:30 at night isn't the brightest idea. (Note to self: next time, start earlier.)

However, when they were finally ready, they smelled heavenly. And they tasted pretty darn good too. Not a bad first attempt.

There are a few changes I made when I went along, and a few I would make in the future. I only had soy milk, but that didn't seem to make a significant difference to the dough. And since I don't have a stand mixer, I mixed and kneaded all by myself, so I was very proud when the dough turned out looking great. I'm not really one for pecans, so I passed those by in favor of making half my batch with raisins, and half plain.

Unfortunately, my oven seems to be a bit hotter than Lindz's, because 40 minutes at 350 was too much - the outsides of the buns are a bit dry, and the filling kinda caramelized onto the bottom of the pan. But when you drizzle it with cream cheese icing (oh yes) who's going to notice?

Talented Friends II.

My friends are awesome.

In this installment, the talented one is my friend, Nick. He's an artist extraordinaire; co-editor of The Anthology Project, illustrator of graphic novels, and concept artist for video games. He's got a brand-spanking new webcomic debuting, The Songsmith's Heartland, that you should all check out. I think it's gonna be grand.

Aloo Gobi.

I love Indian food. There is a fantastic, family-owned place near me, with the best butter chicken and samosas. It makes me so happy.


Last weekend I wanted to try my hand at aloo gobi (a potato and cauliflower dish). I've attempted it before, but the recipe I had wasn't great, and my potatoes ended up uncooked and not very flavorful.

Cumin seeds and onion.

A friend pointed me in the direction of this recipe... courtesy of the director of Bend It Like Beckham, but blogged about by Steve Chatterton. I followed it for the most part, but adapted a bit here and there.

I used the amount of potatoes it called for, but that was waaaaaaay too much for my pan, and that meant I had to add more water, and stir a lot so things would cook. The stirring meant that I pulverized my cauliflower into tiny pieces.

After adding tomatos... Looks
questionable... smells like heaven.

I also wasn't sure about what chilies to use - I ended up getting 2 green serrano peppers, but probably could have used 4. Better safe than sorry when you try a recipe for the first time! I also had to use cilantro paste instead of fresh, but that didn't seem to make much difference. Instead of simmering for 20 minutes, I cooked it for about 40, otherwise my potatoes would not have been anywhere near done.

Poor mangled cauliflower...

The end result was just what I had hoped for! It was flavorful, but not saucy, and the tomatoes added some nice variety that was missing in the last dish I tried. I particularly enjoyed it steaming hot with a dollop of sour cream on top.

The only issue... it made a LOT. Definetly half the recipe unless you have lots of people to share with!



End result. Mmmmm.



Vermicelli.

I absolutely love vermicelli bowls.

So when my friend Jamie asked if I wanted to go to the best place in Edmonton for vermicelli bowls (The Golden Bird) I said "HECK YES!". Or something similar.

You can imagine my dismay, then, when we got to the restaurant, and it was closed. Being a family-run business, I suppose any time something happens, all the employees need to leave. (At least that's how I'd explain the sign out front saying "We will be closed from January 15 until February 26. We will reopen February 27.")

We were devastated. I'd been looking forward to a vermicelli bowl with nice, crisp, hot spring rolls on the side for hours.

What's a girl to do when she finds herself in Chinatown and her favorite Vietnamese place is closed? Well, I guess the answer is go four doors down the street to the Pagolac for a different vermicelli bowl.

Pagolac is a Vietnamese-Chinese restuarant, and we started with kim-chee and some slightly watery jasmine green tea. The vermicelli bowls were wonderful - Jamie had the lemongrass beef, and I got the beef shish kabob (mostly because it came with egg rolls). The beef was tasty, but insanely difficult to eat with chop sticks, and the egg rolls were just okay. Jamie's lemongrass beef was nicely spicy, and if I went back again I would probably go for it.

I was so hungry and so excited I totally forgot to take a picture.
And now the countdown is on until the Golden Bird reopens...