Tonight I went to a party celebrating the recent Boreal Forest Agreement. I was invited by a non-profit organization called Canopy Planet – they promote the use of recycled paper in business.
What I didn’t realize is that:
- Canopy Planet worked on this project to help negotiate this agreement for 2 years.
- This agreement includes cooperation between 30 organizations – including private companies and non-profits.
- The size of this area that’s being conserved is the size of Texas. TEXAS! But not all in one area – it’s across Canada.
- Margaret Atwood was at the party.
Yup. You read that last sentence correctly. Author, Margaret Atwood, was at the party. I saw her, but didn’t know that’s who she was. I recognized her only after the party when I saw her photo on the Canopy Planet website. She was standing right beside me during a speech by the Executive Director. She was also inside enjoying the party while I was outside on the balcony of this beautiful loft apartment taking the photo above.
Yup. So that’s how that went. Mind you, had I known? I would have been too nervous or goofy to say anything. But it would have been nice to have taken some candid photos of her.
Man, I have really got to do a better job of schmoozing or paying attention or preparing for parties or SOMETHING.
I was reminded that I sneakily took this photo last month through the screen door while Donner was taking a nap. Donner is mostly black, but he’s got a white patch of fur on his tummy we call his “bathing suit area” because it’s underwear shaped and it’s right around the part of his body where underwear could be worn. Also, he has white under his arms, like reverse armpit hair.
We have been watching an Australian Cop show called Underbelly this weekend. We’ve finished the first season and now have started season 2 – this season is based in the 70′s and Matt Passmore is in it. He’s the “American” cop in the A&E show called The Glades. But he’s not really American! He’s Australian. And his voice is much softer when he speaks with his Australian voice.
I love this photo my Aunt took of my Grandma. Look! Fresh cookies!
Meanwhile, I tried out Grandma’s potato salad for dinner last night. For the cookbook, I’ll keep the recipes exactly as they are. But last night I added a couple of ingredients to the salad, so I think I’ll put those things right here on my blog. Here’s what I made last night:
Original recipe:
Grandma’s Potato Salad
4 or 5 peeled potatoes
3 or 4 eggs
1 or 2 green onions
1/4 cup of mayonnaise
milk to thin mayonnaise
1/4 tsp mustard
salt and pepper to taste
Method:
- Peel potatoes and cut into pieces. In a large pot cover potatoes with water and add salt. Boil until soft, drain and then leave to cool.
- Boil eggs until hard boiled.
- Put cooled potatoes in a bowl, cut up eggs and mix with potatoes. Combine mayonnaise as desired with milk to thin and add 1/4 tsp of mustard.
- Mix with egg and potatoes.
- Add salt and pepper and add sliced green onion.
Simple and yummy. And perfect just as it is.
My additions:
I wanted a little pickle action in there, so I added 6 baby dill pickles, sliced chunky and 1/2 tsp of dill.
That worked!
I looked up some tips for getting the potatoes the right texture. I found a suggestion to under-cook the potatoes a bit. I tried this and cooked my taters for 12 minutes. I think it may have been better to cook them for 10. They were nearly too soft. After I drained the water off the potatoes, I sprinkled some apple cider vinegar on them and seasoned them with some pepper while they were still hot. The vinegar keeps them from turning grey and apparently seasoning them before they cool off is better for flavour. I read somewhere they don’t absorb the same amount of flavour when they are already cold in the fridge.
For the eggs, I wanted to make sure they looked nice and fresh, and to avoid getting that grey-colour on the egg yolk. It just looks bad. I tried this technique (boil for 3 minutes, let sit for 8 minutes) and that worked just fine.
This was a test run so I will have some good final products to take photos of for the cookbook. I’ll have photos for the potato salad soon.
I found this licence place on a car in the BCIT parking lot downtown – located at 555 Seymour Street, Vancouver.
Just an aside – that’s a good parking lot because 1) it’s $14 for the day = a good price for an entire day in these parts and 2) it’s well lit and very clean. And by clean, I mean it doesn’t smell like a toilet. For realz.
But I laughed when I saw this because it was only a few hours after Mike found out he got a new job that he’ll start on Monday morning. Thank goodness. The last few months have been pretty worrisome, but I don’t like to talk about that here. This is the place I get to talk about my favourite things, and I’m glad to have my blog to remind me to remember the good things.
Anyway, tonight we drank iced tea and watched a show called Monkey Thieves on the Oasis Channel.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…..
