Saturday morning cooking classes is something I look forward to. This weekend was especially rewarding because I finally learned how to make cantonese chow mein and it was surprising how easy it was. I cannot wait to test out my recipes on my Wednesday Night Dinner crew and for any of my Blogger buddies who wish to stop by. After class we made it just in time for Seyla's bowling pizza party. We were greeted by Virgil and Charissa who welcomed me with a big bear hug. All the kids looked so cute as they bowled. As usual, when I see Ella my goal is for her to come to me (which she did) but quickly turned around to go back to Mommy. Just when we thought the party was over, we went to Trae and Fran's. There we opened gifts, played Leapster, ordered Lin and played games. The game was: Trae held up Seyla's flash cards and Norm and Fran competed. After they perfected their addition, they made it 'harder' by doing both multiplication and addition.
Did you know 3 + 3 = 3? You had to be there.

Getting to know me 2008

This is in response to A day in the life of...

2. What is on your mouse pad? Le Petit Prince

3. Favourite magazine? Oprah, Cuisine at Home, Glow

4. Favourite smell? Fresh baked cookies or a coffee cake

5. Things to do on the weekend? Exercise, cooking classes, fam jams

6. Roller coasters deadly or exciting? deadly

7. Croutons or bacon bits? bacon bits

8. Thunderstorms cool or scary? cool and scary

9. What's under your bed? dust bunnies

10. What's your favourite number? 29

11. What was your first car? Toyota 4Runner (We called him Junior)

12. Morning or night person? Definitely morning

13. Favourite sandwich? Chicken & eggplant from the Market; Chicken Milano from Richtree

14. Favourite ice-cream? Jamocha Almond Fudge and French Crisp

15. Favourite flower? roses, gerber daisies, hydrangeas, tulips....anything pretty.

16. Last person you went to dinner with? Has & Flo at Olivier Bonacini

17. Last concert you attended? Coldplay

18. Your favourite book as a child? Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

19. What jobs have you done? CNE Food Clerk, Disney Store Greeter, YMCA kids club, bank teller, HR

20. What do you prefer sunrise of sunsets? Sunrise because I can't stay up long enough to watch the sun set

Happy Days

Last night Chef Diana had us all over for Wednesday Night Dinner (on a Thursday!). She had a "happy day" theme going with some burgers, onion rings and milk shakes. The best part of the night was dessert. Diana always comes up with the best desserts. She gave us each an apple on a stick, we swirled it around in melted caramel, dipped it in chocolate scor bits and finished it off with a sprinkle of peanuts. Delish! But how does a lady eat such a thing? Ev lead the way by cutting it in nice bite size pieces. Norm & Gerwyn on the other hand ate it right off the stick.

It's my turn next week. Let's see if my Cantonese Cuisine classes have paid off.

North Pole

We ventured up north for Rayanne's birthday party and as soon as we hit 16th it felt like we reached the North Pole. Snow, ice and even white out conditions! Every time we drive up this way for visits, the weather is always extreme but worth the drive to visit family and friends. Our drive home was a bit slow with a few cars slipping and sliding. As we drove south, the snow disappeared and our car somehow drove us straight to Lin Garden. Sometimes our car has a mind of his own and knows what we need. Seyla even said so herself, "I missed Lin Garden". It seems Uncle Norm did, too.

Chicken 3 Ways

I must say I am really enjoying my cooking classes. It's one thing to watch Barefoot Contessa and Giada but it's even better taking courses because you can actually feel, smell and taste the food. Immediate gratification. Today we were taught to make shredded chicken with celery, lemon chicken and chicken corn soup. Although the recipes are easy enough to follow, there are tricks to the trade that our teacher often shares with us that you won't be able to find in a book. For example, today she made us each de-bone a whole chicken. She could have easily bought chicken breast for everyone (as per the recipes) but she thought it was a 'good to know' exercise for us...and that it was. The one thing I enjoy at school is being able to cook on high heat (as you should with Cantonese cooking), use cooking wine (flame and all) and not be at all concerned with all the smoke I am creating. Here at the condo the smoke will definitely trigger the building alarm followed by the sound of the fire trucks. It hasn't happened to me (yet) but ask my sister about her experience.

Culinary Arts

Today I went to my first Cantonese Cuisine cooking class. I was a little bit hesitant to take a course that was held on Saturday mornings because I love to sleep in on the weekend. After debating with myself I thought it was time to get off my butt and to start my long list of things I've always wanted to do. Besides, George Brown college is only a hop, skip and jump away. Class is from 8:30 to 12:00 which seems long on paper but when you're actually there you don't seem to notice the time. Most of the time spent is on preparing the food and washing your utensils in the end. The first thing our teacher taught us was that chinese food should only takes 10 minutes of actual cooking. If you take longer than that, it is overdone and dry. (My Aha! moment) It's prepping the food that takes long. Today I learned to make the following:

Stir Fried Beef with Scallions and Ginger
Deep Fried Tofu with Oyster Sauce
Deep Fried Bean Cake Puff

Anybody hungry? C'mon over and Wok with Mel!

Welcome back WND

We're back on track for Wednesday Night Dinners although this week dinner was on a Tuesday. Chef Norm worked hard to bring us a wonderful Italian dinner. First we started off with italian bread with cheese pimentos. Not sure if the cheese pimentos is Italian but it was good! (Thanks Mama Nitz) The main dish was pesto penne or penne with a rose sauce - most of us mixed both together. Even Sally who does not like her food to even touch each other. He paired the pasta with chicken cutlet which he breaded with panko. The main event was the tirimisu or as Norm calls it Trae-amisu. Everything was delicious. Maybe this year we can include WND in Winterlicious. Make reservations now - seats are limited!

Mama's, Coit, and Addison

San Francisco trip continued...

Our chowhound search took us to a place called Mama's in North Beach (Little Italy). It was a tiny little restaurant that was open only for brunch. Like all good things, we had to wait outside until a table was ready but we were glad we did because the food did not disappoint. Josh is into crepes and french toast so he got the biggest chocolate banana french toast on the menu. After a calorie rich brunch, we ventured uphill to Coit Tower which is located atop Telegraph Hill. Apparently the Coit tower was used to watch for incoming boats and potential enemies. This is probably the best view of the city. Unfortunately it was a foggy day (what else is new) but we made the trek up to Coit another day but this time with Auntie and Uncle in tow. I didn't think Auntie would make it but with a little bit of stretching in between, lots of coaching and self determination she made it up! So proud of you Auntie. After Coit we hopped on the Bart (subway) and made our way to San Leandro to visit Marie, James, Addison and Tita Sylvia. I was happy James (my cousin) came with us in case we got lost. Although our visit was short, we were really glad to finally meet Addison. We are avid followers of her blog and love to watch her grow.

All in all it was a wonderful trip to the west coast. Next trip: Barbados.

The lonely travellers...

Let's be clear

It wasn't me who let Frank, Traela and Boola in on the "wearing red instead of green" joke on Christmas. Are you kidding me? I would have loved to see Frank the Joker Tank get pranked. And to be clear, this was Norm's idea. That's right. I am innocent.

(until proven guilty)

Napa, Yoda & Sausalito

We managed to squeeze a trip to Napa Valley despite the difficulties in finding a rental van. The trip to Napa was very scenic with the rolling hills and valleys. I can only imagine how beautiful it is during the summer months. Fall would be even more breathtaking. Our first stop was to a vineyard called Plumpjack (or Fatjack as I like to call it). I think it was the name that caught our attention. I can't really tell you which one I liked best because honestly, they all tasted the same. What I can tell you is that I prefer white versus red. Our next stop was the Rutherford Grove winery. Again, we tasted about 6 different wines and by the 3rd round a few of us were getting the red face syndrome. It was a lot of fun and if we were to return, we'd do it right and take the Napa wine train. That way, no one has to drive. On our way home we stopped by the outlet mall. It was a small outlet with only 40 stores but it had everything we wanted: Banana Republic, Coach, Benneton, BCBG, Kenneth Cole and Nine West. By the end of the night we were all smiles whether it was the shopping, the drinking or maybe both.

We decided to give our feet a rest and toured James' neighbourhood in the van. Norm decided he wanted to speed down the 45 degree angled hill. Luckily I was sitting directly behind him so I can pull his ear when ever he got overzealous. My poor Aunt and Uncle were yelling from the back seat. Thank goodness for blood pressure medication. We also made a trip to ILM where James and other ILM employees work hard to bring us Pirates of the Carribean, Transformers and Indiana Jones (coming soon). Yoda greeted us at the front door. It's always great to see Yoda but I was hoping to personally meet Mr. George Lucas. Maybe next time.

Sausalito is a little seaside town outside of San Francisco. The best way to experience it is on a bike but we had limited time...and plus, we already paid for a van. So after we explored the marina we parked our car, walked around and took pictures of San Francisco (great view of the city from here). This little town reminded me very much of Nanaimo. It seems like a great place to retire but I'm sure it comes with a price.

After a day with Yoda, Napa and Sausalito we decided to end it with a nice dinner in Japantown (J-town as some call it). It's not really a town. More like a mall. We found a small restaurant that had "home food" or the closest we can find to home food. By now my family was craving rice. Too bad we couldn't locate Jollybee. I wanted to see what the hype was all about. I guess that will have to wait for next time as well.

Golden Gate & New Years

So let's work backwards here as I fill everyone in on our San Francisco vacation. New Year's Eve was spent walking halfway across the Golden Gate bridge. Why only half way you ask? Because the wind was so strong that it made my straight hair go up in a gigantic mohawk. I would have walked all the way across had there been something nice waiting on the other side of the bridge (ice cream perhaps?). I still wonder what the big attraction is with this bridge but like everyone else, we took tonnes of pictures. After 5 minutes of looking at the bridge, we went to Golden Gate park in hopes to find a hippie sighting. It was a beautiful park and can only imagine how beautiful it is during the summer months when everything is in bloom. As an amateur photographer I was clicking away. What a great place to take wedding pictures! After a day at the park we made our way to Haight and ate at Cha Cha Cha as recommended by a local. Thanks Eric. We enjoyed the food and the sangria! We slowly made our way uphill until we saw a bus (thank goodness). Before heading home we stopped off in Japantown where we had dessert - bubble tea and crepes. Marie says these crepes are similar to the ones she had in Japan so of course we had to check it out. We finally made our way home to James' studio. We checked out from our hotel because they were charging $279 for one night (New Year's Eve) so instead we crammed into the studio with our family and tried to see how many people would fit on the bed sideways. Turns out we were all pretty comfortable except for Norm. As my cousin would say, "Norm is like Yao Ming to us". James took us to his local mediterranean restaurant that he frequents once a week. When the belly dancer came out to perform and dazzled Norm with the hip shaking - we came to the realization that this is why James likes this restaurant so much. After dinner we tried to make our way to the Embarcadero where they had fireworks and ice skating but the bus wait was too long so we ventured back home on the rooftop and had a quiet family countdown. What a nice start to the new year.

Welcome back melandnorm

I was hoping we'd be able to extend our stay in San Francisco due to the bad weather in Toronto but our fearless pilot did not let the threat of 15 cm of snow scare him away. Shucks. This morning I could hear my bones cracking due to the below zero temperature. My first thought was - I wish I were still in California - but then again, it's good to be back home.

Paul & Dad greeted us at the airport and whisked us away to the house where Mom prepared a proper Christmas spread complete with peanut butter cocoa. What a great way to end a wonderful vacation. I think Pre-Christmas and Post-Christmas celebrations will be a new family tradition. It's a smaller version of Christmas with simple, homemade food and lots of holiday cheer!

This year I have a few goals:
I hope to lose 5 lbs or gain 20
I hope to save enough money to buy my very own SLR
Take swimming lessons (this seems to be on my list every year)
Learn how to knit or crochet (yes, I'm getting old)

Happy New Year my fellow bloggers.
If you're reading this and you don't have a blog, your goal should be to start one. It's a lot of fun, right Trae?
It's about time...