Cats in Istanbul

My friend Swiss Girl loves to travel and has a fun blog about her trips. She always takes pictures of the cats she meets along the way. She just got back from Istanbul so click on the pic if you've always wanted to know...

what Turkish kitties look like! 

I'm so tired...

I posted my day on the wrong blog.

This Month in Food

I've been a lazy vegan all winter because my husband's lactose intolerance got worse, and since I'm unemployed, there's no excuse not to eat the trail of milk products he's leaving behind him. (That is to say, can't afford not to eat it. Not to mention I do not throw out good food... once the animal's been killed or milked, that would be pointless and even more disrespectful.) And that made me lazy when I went to an Indian restaurant, cause I was like, I've been eating yogurt anyway, so I was all: lazylazylazy.

It's sad when one's laziness is stronger than one's compassion. But it's also sad when one's compassion is stronger for others' than it is for oneself. I'm on a journey to get back to my better self, here, one day at a time. Eez been a rough winter.

Though it was kind of good because I tried a little spinach paneer which I've secretly longed for since accidentally buying it years ago, and... didn't like it! I never really regret unveganizing, because it generally just keeps those foods demystified for me. I got pretty tired of those cheese packets two months ago, and last month I learned that goat cheese wasn't the fantasy I'd remembered it being.

But I'm still cooking from my vegan books and updating short reviews on my VeganEats page.

In other food politics news, I did have to give up my fight to resist palm oil. I won't buy it in processed foods (most store goodies), but I'm just not ready to give up margarine yet. Again, it was a good experiment. I kept that last tub of margarine going a long time and found some great recipes, like Dreena Burton's scone recipe with oil. Burton's always my first resource for less processed ingredients baking. But--once again the Emotionally Long Hard Winter--I finally broke down in a flurry of baking powder biscuits and shortbread. I've been eating toast with margarine, like, every second day.

And finally - I have a recipe. My one and only I Invented It recipe. I've always said I can't cook, meaning I can't improve and make something taste good, and always agreed with people that "I can make desserts only because they should NOT be improvised upon." But I recently realized I've been lying. Baking/desserting is the one area where I understand the properties well enough that I'm comfortable experimenting and substituting.

In this case, I was making Ani Phyo's "Lavender Chocolate Bars" but with none of the ingredients on hand. lol. So much so, that I think I can legit call it mine. ;-)

Mabel's Pecan Truffletude

 

Commentary in parentheses to see insight into My Brain When Baking (or not, as it was raw.) I've learned that baking is the only area of cooking where I'm comfortable experimenting.

1/2 cup liquid coconut oil (all I had left - original called for 1 cup)

3 TB honey (I use honey now, because I've become convinced now that if we don't support honeybee combers, there will be no foods, cause the wild ones are dying. But I buy local. But it's just a personal choice. The original recipe is for agave.)

3 TB maple syrup (cause it didn't taste sweet enough, but I was using a regular spoon, not a measuring spoon) 

[at this point her recipe has lavender, and it all gets mixed up]

3/4 cups cocoa powder (I'm not a raw foodist, so this is run of the mill cocoa - she called for cacao)

1/4 cup natural peanut butter (and about a TB or so of the oil, to make up for the lack of coconut oil) (original recipe calls for almond butter)

1 cup pecans (it was the only kind of nut I had in large quantity) (original recipe = almonds, and they get mixed in to keep their shape, not ground up like my lazy recipe)

1 cup dates (I don't like raisins, and all of Phyo's recipes seem to use raisins)

I put it all in the food processor and grinded the hell out of it. Formed into little balls, then pushed flat into cookie shapes, onto a cookie sheet, that was covered with a reused parchment paper. (Original recipe is poured into a pan and broken into pieces like a chocolate bar.) 

 

Put in freezer til hard. But this recipe, even with less oil, is the vegan equivalent of French high patisserie. Because as I squished it into balls it was almost DRIPPING. It was SO DISGUSTING. Maybe it was because of the maple syrup too which is watery. Can you imagine with 1 cup of oil??

End result = rich and chocolatey like truffles. I'd even serve to non-vegans except as they melt they get more oily. Maybe if you left in balls, dusted with chocolate, in little paper cups. I might make again and try less oil. Except coconut oil gets rock hard when cold, so it's a big part of what's holding the cookie together, methinks. 

 

Raw food is weird.

The Week in Cats: Haley Continues to Conquer the World

Friend Maewitch came over this week, and then Friend Midnightstreet. Minion, it turns out, flees from new visitors. Well we never have anyone over (usually our place is too crazy messy.) She'll come out after half an hour. Or in the case of the Videotron man, after I go get her.

Haley, though, was so happy to have guests--female guests. Tortoiseshell and calico cats--cats with an orange/black/white coloring--are almost always female. So Haley is a staunch feminist, one of the man-hating kind. She belongs to one of these ancient goddess-worshiping religions. So having girls over was great for Haley, it was like Sex and the City, let's break out the cocktails, let's talk about sex, let's wear high heels and designer clothes. (Haley can fight like Wolverine but you may have noticed her gorgeous coloring. She's wicked beautiful.) Midnightstreet maybe talked a bit too much about babies for her liking, but she was a chick so it was all good.

As for Maewitch, she is not only a feminist (non-man-hating) but also of a wiccan flavoring, so Haley instantly recognized in her an "âme soeur" (as it would be more accurately said in French.) She was rubbing against her legs in under a minute. Mae also looks like a model, sometimes glams up in super heels and purses, and runs an online store for indulgent and decadent (but natural and usually vegan) perfumes and soapies...

Haley was in for the whole package. The perfect combination of feminism, goddess worship, hippy-tude (Haley's from Vancouver), and glamor. Not since she met me has she taken so naturally to someone. Now I don't even know what she saw in me--I've always suspected she was just trying to seduce me into helping her escape a dog-ridden house (my mother's) and now I suspect her of trying to get Mae to take her away to what has recently become a pet-free home. Mae kept offering her "sisterhood fistbumps."

"I should be on the masthead of Mae's site."

"I am pretty and you know you want to indulge me."

While she did manage to wrap Mae around her manipulative paw, I could never let another person take Haley except under extreme circs because (a) Fernando and I have seen her in Wolverbean mode (we've both been clawed through our jeans and up to our shoulders) and suspect few people would have the patience for that (maybe Mae would, but her boyfriend would enter into a fight to the death and either one's death would be tragic).

(My money's on Haley.)

And (b) I lobes my Haley.   :-) 

But if Fernando and I die in tragic accidentaltude...

Minion goes to Swiss Girl.

Haley goes to Mae. (I'll leave instructions on preventing Wolverbean episodes in my will.)

Just to show how manipulative she is, both Mae and Midnight made the same comment when they left my home, on their respective visits: (in sweet voice, scratching Haley on the head) "I thought you were supposed to be the crazy one."

They didn't see the wicked wink Haley gave me behind their backs.



Here's the cartoon I drew about the visit for my husband, who's away. (Click to see bigger.)
 
(I drew a star of David lol. Clearly there's some Kabbalah thrown in here.)

Polska

Fave bit from book I'm reading. Our hero is talking to his musician friend, who wants to write some songs for his new singer girlfriend.

"You're not gonna make her sing your polka version of Highway to Hell?"
"It's not a 'polka' version it's a 'ska' version, thank-you."
"Mmmm. Yes. Of course. Can we agree on 'polska?'"

This Week in French

Instead of writing 50 postings this week about all my French Excitement, I decided to just save it all up in one ignorable posting.

* At the library, remembered they have an ongoing book sale, and there's always some French books. I was sorely tempted by a poetry book about the astral-plane life of cats.

* Continued watching the series Toute la vérité. I hope the CBC shows it one day with English subtitles, like they did Fortier, cause it's SO GOOD. The best show I'm watching right now. Thanks Swiss Girl! It's about Quebec Crown prosecutors.

 One day I watched 7 episodes in a row, and my French really improved--in the sense that I started thinking in French. So that encouraged me to keep listening to French radio, and keep watching lots of TV. (TV as homework! Woo!)

I believe this is supposed to be very good:


And I started watching this, but... not sure yet, though it has all my favorite actors in it. (Well I love most Quebec actors. It's like the British film industry, full of all these amazing actors who pop up over and over, and you just love them every time.)



* Got some grammar and spelling books to start playing with--wee toys!

* Thanks to an amazon reviewer, finally found an online course.



* I mostly listen to Radio Canada now. Fave program this week: "Une enfance pour la vie" which included an interview with one of the Passe Partout stars. She had a farm for troubled children, and talked about helping a kid who'd tried to kill himself four times.

* Recently a Videotron technician came to fix my cable. We spoke French the whole time, so yay! I'm preparing for my headache doctor in April, because I've always suspected she wants me to try speaking in French. She has the eye of a French teacher. A nice one, though. Like... she just wants me to TRY.

* The French book I'm reading is great. Dompierre's one of my new fave authors and I SO regret giving away the pirate book!! This book--Un petit pas pour l'homme--would fit in the Nick Hornby genre, High Fidelity-esque, they really should translate it. But funnier, and the character is more likable. And the pirate book wasn't Hornby-ish at all, and definitely funnier. ("He's going to kill us with apples!")

But I don't like to stop and look up words, so I'm just marking them with a pencil for later. When I watch TV I write the words down on paper. Except "Toute la vérité" is so good I don't even want to stop between episodes and look up words. As an early birthday present I'm buying myself an electronic dictionary, which my lovely parental units are chipping in for as well. :-)

Expanding my vocabulary is one my main goals, cause not being able to fully express myself is the main thing that frustrates me when I speak French.

* The only thing missing is the chance to speak French, so I talk French to the cats. "Behn, apporte-moi donc ton stick--je veux dire, ton bâton, que je joue au mur avec toi Diablotine!" And I'm trying to think to myself in French, and then think out loud to myself in French. "Okay là, là, c'est 5 cinq heures du matin, alors fermer l'ordinateur, faut que tu fasses dodo maintenant, hein?"

* In other news... I need to share with you how useless my French dictionary widget is. (And there are no others, I looked.)

Here are my widgets, the French dictionary is upper right:

 Here is the word "mèche" when I take the widget and make it full screen:

I'm supposed to read 2.5 screens worth of information every time I need to learn a new word?

This Week in Cats: faux fire alarms

We get so many fake alarms in this building, most people don't come out for them. I always take them seriously, cause the building is shaped like a U so it could be on the other side and I wouldn't know. Anyway, it's my responsibility for my kitties that I take seriously.

I keep a cat carrier by the front door, and another one at the other end of the apartment, by the window that's closest to the ground. But all of our windows are just low enough that I would risk jumping out of them if I had to. I'd break something, but probably live.

I also take the alarms as a chance to practice my kitty corralling skills--this time sans Fernando. I was pretty good, I had them boxed in I think under a minute. Haley is key because she got spooked by one of the alarms once, hid under the bed, and then I shoved the bed aside and grabbed her anyway. So now anytime she hears a fire alarm she's really spooked and heads for the hills. And cats are SO good at hiding. So the second I saw her trotting past me I grabbed her and caged her.

Funny how the plastic cage lock, which I can't seem to close 99% of the time, I managed to shut with no trouble on the first try. Wonderful what adrenaline will do for your muscles, motor skills, and brain puzzle thinking skills.

Minion was in the kitchen and she had a "Should I keep moseying or take flight?" look on her face. As I walked towards her, she'd take a step or two back. So I just kept talking nicely, as I had to Haley. Scooped her up, and she got the big cage. Got my wallet, my boots, my jacket, and we were off into the night (in my jammies.)

When we returned I gave them Snappy Toms and all returned to normal.