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| The most exclusive happy hour in town -- YOUR BACKYARD - Photo by Wasabi Prime |
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog. Show all posts
Monday, May 18, 2015
OMG a Recipe: Happy Hour at Home and Bringing WineSpritzersBack
*Cue JT, boogieing across the screen, doing some kind of The Robot-type dance move* "I'm bringin' WineSpritzersBack... Them other drinks just don't know how to act..." Okay, so maybe Justin Timberlake didn't show up to my sunny patio happy hour, but let's be honest, with this great weather and perfect setting, HE TOTALLY WOULD HAVE. With summertime practically here (Hello, Memorial Day weekend!), it's not wrong to start enjoying the great outdoors, even if it's as simple as having cocktails and snacks in your very own backyard.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Mixed Plate: Introducing.... DOG!
So... indulge me yet ANOTHER week of short, non-food related posts. It's a really good excuse, I swear. We've gained a new addition to the family -- I'm happy to announce the arrival of BK, aka Bua Kao (white lotus in Thai), aka Beeks as we sometimes call her, and I'm a bit preoccupied with getting this baby girl settled in. She's had a long, storied life for her short three-plus years on this wild and crazy planet. She's been blessed with loving households, saved from a flood in Thailand by good people, and she's made her way to our household. And she totally knows where the kitchen is. But we're all about keeping her healthy, so no Pity Hamburgers for this dog. Although I admit, it's hard not to say, HAVE ALL THE HAMBURGERS, BEEKS. Anyways, if you're interested in learning her full story, feel free to read it on my other blog, the Jaunty Magpie. Otherwise, don't be surprised if this new little fuzzy girl makes a few appearances on the blog, looking mournful and longing for whatever I'm cooking up. Welcome to the blog-world, BK.
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| Oh... hai. I'm BK. Nice to meet you. FEED ME. - Photo by Wasabi Prime |
Monday, August 25, 2014
Mixed Plate: Farewell to My Fuzzy Taste-Tester
We said farewell to our darling Indy on August 19, 2014. It was in the early evening, we had her vet come over to our house, and she was in our arms, in her own bed, when she passed on. It was nearly a year of fighting a hard battle with cancer, one we always knew she wouldn't win, but we weren't fighting for a cure, we were fighting for good days, good food, and good times. We are blessed to have had all those things and more.
Indy has been with me from the start of this blog. She has been my partner in crime when I'm making something in the kitchen, and during these last few months, she's been enjoying whatever food she wants. I'm taking a couple of weeks away from blogging, just to readjust to the New Normal of life without my fuzzy taste tester.
I'll never be able to eulogize her perfectly, but I always return to my favorite passages from Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. The words always come to me when a loved one has passed on, and these words linger in my mind now. They're especially meaningful because on the bad days, when Indy wasn't feeling well, I'd be sitting with her on the bed so she wasn't alone. Like people, she didn't like uncomfortable silences either, she liked hearing someone's voice, which helped get her to sleep soundly, feeling safe someone was there. But I worried that all I would do was talk about how sad or scared I was, so I would read to her. I chose books with beautiful words and rich passages -- Brothers Karamazov by Doystoyevsky, and of course Ondaatje, who is glorious with prose.
This passage is the title character, Almasy (nope, not, in fact, English), contemplating the loss of friends and lovers. He thinks of his dear friend Madox, who commits suicide in a church from despair at seeing nations ravaged by the Second World War. The line, "It is important to die in holy places," is so simple but elegant. This is juxtaposed over the dying moments of his lover, Katherine, as he holds her body, as her life fades away after a plane crash.
And all the names of the tribes, the nomads of faith who walked in the monotone of the desert and saw brightness and faith and colour. The way a stone or found metal box or bone can become loved and turn eternal in prayer. Such glory of this country she enters now and becomes part of. We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
I carried Katherine Clifton into the desert, where there is the communal book of moonlight. We were among the rumour of wells. In the palace of winds.
- Chapter IX, The Cave of Swimmers in The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Indy has been with me from the start of this blog. She has been my partner in crime when I'm making something in the kitchen, and during these last few months, she's been enjoying whatever food she wants. I'm taking a couple of weeks away from blogging, just to readjust to the New Normal of life without my fuzzy taste tester.
I'll never be able to eulogize her perfectly, but I always return to my favorite passages from Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. The words always come to me when a loved one has passed on, and these words linger in my mind now. They're especially meaningful because on the bad days, when Indy wasn't feeling well, I'd be sitting with her on the bed so she wasn't alone. Like people, she didn't like uncomfortable silences either, she liked hearing someone's voice, which helped get her to sleep soundly, feeling safe someone was there. But I worried that all I would do was talk about how sad or scared I was, so I would read to her. I chose books with beautiful words and rich passages -- Brothers Karamazov by Doystoyevsky, and of course Ondaatje, who is glorious with prose.
This passage is the title character, Almasy (nope, not, in fact, English), contemplating the loss of friends and lovers. He thinks of his dear friend Madox, who commits suicide in a church from despair at seeing nations ravaged by the Second World War. The line, "It is important to die in holy places," is so simple but elegant. This is juxtaposed over the dying moments of his lover, Katherine, as he holds her body, as her life fades away after a plane crash.
And all the names of the tribes, the nomads of faith who walked in the monotone of the desert and saw brightness and faith and colour. The way a stone or found metal box or bone can become loved and turn eternal in prayer. Such glory of this country she enters now and becomes part of. We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
I carried Katherine Clifton into the desert, where there is the communal book of moonlight. We were among the rumour of wells. In the palace of winds.
- Chapter IX, The Cave of Swimmers in The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
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