Cake and Cats

At long last I finished the baby blanket for V. I pulled it apart several times before deciding on what you see. As I lay it down to photgraph, big ol' Gryphon decided this was a great place to role. This may be my favourite picture of him to date - you can see his seafoam eyes clearly.



In the next photo, Monkey is enjoying her first taste of catnip... Then Gryphon came in and found it... Poor Fenwick, if she wants to play with the new toy she'll have to venture upstairs...



Robin's been feasting at a workplace potluck today and I'm heading out soon to a departmental potluck. Good food day. I baked my famous vegan chocolate cake. I even tried an alternative ingredient - frozen berries. I haven't tried the cake yet... but I imagine it's fabulous! I also topped it with the accompanying vegan glaze-frosting (the best recipe I've ever come across) and THEN I took the microplane to a bar of 'Endangered Species' chocolate (fairly traded) with raspberry (the 'Grizzly Bear' one).

Oooooh yummy.

The only thing that kept me from cutting a slice already was that I got to lick the frosting bowl!

(Post-potluck update: the cake was a hit! And I enjoyed hearing from several colleagues that they can always count on me to bring the best baking. See, I told you my baking is famous!!)

Boa Nova

OMG
Brunch was absolutely DELICIOUS!
Boa Nova has, hands down, the best brunch of anywhere I've ever eaten.
The buffet was amazing: Imagine french toast (that's not soggy), waffles (with whipped cream and fruit to add on top), sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, etc - the standard stuff.
Add pastries, cereal, bread, cheese, fruit, and so forth (still pretty standard)
Add shrimp, smoked salmon, mussels, fish cakes, pasta salads, of a vast variety that I could not describe.
Add desserts (which I didn't even have to try)
And you have the BEGINNINGS of the buffet.
But that is just the beginning of the brunch!
I had a fabulous omelette made to order (red pepper, ham and cheese for me).
And in rodizio style, they bring to your table skewers of peameal bacon (which is juicy and crisp and oh so good), chicken drumsticks (which was not my thing, but Robin enjoyed) and roasted pineapple that is pure heaven.
Add the best coffee I've ever had
and you have the best brunch ever.

You'll find us back there again soon!!!

We can't wait to try dinner!!!!!

Video Fun - Kitchen and Kitten

Kitchen Reno in 360


Welcome to my first video blog. After attempting my first youtube upload (above) I decided to try another (below).

Enjoy.

The Joys of Kittenhood starring Monkey.

Message Received Sabrina

Okay Okay, I get the message Sabrina. If you're commenting on a post from two years ago then you must be desperate!

What can I say? Tomorrow I will post new photos of the kitchen. Everything is in place now. Not everything is functional, but it's in place!
This evening I made my world famous oatmeal-chocolate-chip-coconut cookies. First baking since before the reno. Tastes all the yummier.

Also, this afternoon I bought coupons for a new restaurant in Kitchener called Boa Nova. It's a rodizio grill house advertised as Portugese dining with a Brazilian twist. It's essentially an all you can eat buffet according to North American descriptions, but is quite different from a standard buffet. Robin's been talking about it since he noticed the new restaurant and looked it up online. It's all you can eat MEAT (plus salads etc). But at $35 each for dinner, we've been waiting for a special occassion... Today for $30 I bought a promotional card that gets us 50% off a meal (up to $100 value) plus 4 x buy one get one dinner free, plus 6 x buy one get one lunch/brunch free. Usually I send these sales people away (someone tried to sell me one for East Side Marios, yuck), but as soon as he said Boa Nova I was sold.
So guess where we're going for Sunday brunch this week! Robin's excited.
I've never been to a rodizio before, but apparently they are everywhere in Brazil. This is the first in the area. I'll let y'all know how brunch was.

I also took some cute videos of Monkey today. Maybe I'll try my hand at uploading a video to youtube or something similar tomorrow and embedding it here. I missed the really funny stuff when Monkey and Darla were playing tag/chase around the couch.
So stay tuned for images.

What else can I mention?... My sister is being treated to a baby shower this weekend. I'm excited for her. But I didn't know the date until recently and I've not quite finished her baby blanket. I've restarted it several times now... She's due in a couple weeks, but realistically it could be any time now. She's having a home birth at my parents' house. Poor mom - she's supportive, but I know she would feel much more comfortable if V was at St. Boniface.

I've also recently learned that I need to get a flight to New Zealand in the next couple years because my friend is moving there to teach in March. She just got back from England where she was teaching for the last two years. I'm very jealous!!

What happened to the furnace???

Well OF COURSE just when winter finally gets cold... the furnace stops working.
It's COLD in here and getting colder. Robin's at his warm workplace.
I would go down the basement and turn on the fireplace but Robin still hasn't put some parts of it back in place since the renovation.

I guess I'll just pile up the blankets, make a lot of hot tea, and not try to type - because my fingers are icicles and the top floor is coldest. There goes my productive day of work I had planned.

UPDATE: Turns out the fireplace wasn't working anyhow because the battery in the remote receiver needed to be replaced.
We were without heat until 8:30 when the repairman finally arrived.
Oh sweet sweet warmth!

Sweet warmth and clean carpets and a new kitchen and a rockingchair... this is the life.

Is Winter finally arriving???

Flurries outside the window tease us with the prospect of winter.
We've had a very warm season in southern Ontario this year. We've been without snow since December. It was a very green Yule. Many of my indoor flowers are flowering - even the geraniums I brought in from the garden. The parsley was still green and I cut some to dry yesterday - just in time! I never expected to be harvesting herbs in January! lol But the parsley just kept growing through the winter. I would have cut some earlier, but I had nowhere to dry herbs during renovations.
It doesn't look like the snow is here to stay yet. It should warm to above zero again for a few days, but perhaps we'll have a blanket of snow in a week (looking at weather forecasts). I'm sure Mother Earth would appreciate a blanket of snow so she can rest.
Maybe we'll have snow just in time for the neighbour to take down their inflatable snowmen which have been sitting on the green lawn forever.

Monkey was spayed today and I pick her up tomorrow. I called and she is doing well - not that I expected worse. I was a little concerned because the vet office (not my usual vet) tried to recommend additional proceudres such as blood testing and fluid checks - which would cost an extra $110 or so. I declined, never having used such procedures before (or heard of them). They also require post-surgery medication, which I've also never seen required before. Unfortunately, I can't decline the meds, but they're only $15. Still... seems odd to me that I've never encountered this before with several cats and several vets. I'll be asking my cousin and sil about this next time I see them.

Ooops, time to pick up Robin from work!

They're Here....

There's a new pile of boxes cluttering the house again.
They're welcome here.
Inside are our new cabinets.
Beautiful new cabinets!
And the countertop is on the floor in the dining room.
It's gorgeous! (Okay, it's no marble top, but still lovely.)

I've got to shut down ... wait a minute. No I don't. I was going to say I have to shut down the laptop to unplug it incase we need to kill the power during installation (want to be prepared). Hello Mandy - laptops have batteries. I forgot.

Well, for anyone who may be a morning blog reader, I'll leave this entry as is for now and update it as soon as I have photos!!!
You will just have to wait with anticipation like me!

At this time the oven and hood are already in place. Sink will be installed tomorrow. White pantry is back and loaded.

I know I know, it's looking GOOD!