One Day Walking

One morning while we were out walking along our regular path along the Brunette River, we had a couple of interesting encounters.

A blue heron! We'd never seen one on this path before (there are a bunch at the nearby Burnaby Lake Park though). It was really close too, just across the river bank. I tried to capture it on photo, but for some reason, all I was getting was blurry shots.

Then, a big fish! We'd never seen fish in the river before, so it was pretty neat. The fish was swimming hard against the current, and looked old and tired.

Being city folk, these sightings were pretty interesting to us.

Under the Umbrella

In Vancouver we’ve had a pretty warm summer, with minimal rain. But the past few weeks saw a return to the Vancouver we’re used to: those gloomy, cloudy days, and those days that drop and drop with water. I don’t mind it too much though, ‘cause I guess I’m pretty much used to the wetness. The sound of the rain really helps me sleep at night and I especially like the sharp dings and plops of the water drops hitting my umbrella—when it rains really hard, that’s about the only sound you can hear, so it becomes a kind of silence almost, drowning out the noise of the traffic, and trains. It would feel like a meditation if your feet weren’t completely wet.

I lose a lot of things, namely earrings and umbrellas. A while ago I misplaced (?), dropped (?), or left (?) my black folding umbrella somewhere, and have been making do with the long, red, hooked umbrella, which is a perfectly wonderful umbrella, except on crowded skytrains, where you’re liable to poke innocent sitting someone in the head with the sharp pointy bit.

So a couple of weeks ago we visited the Vancouver Art Gallery (right now it's North American Landscapes, and a very interesting photography installation by local artist Owen Kydd), and I got this wonderful looking umbrella at the gift shop. It’s pretty neat, because the umbrella comes with its own pouch that can be turned into a shopping bag, and the umbrella pouch has a side zipper opening, which is so much more convenient than the vertical slip-on ones. The company is possum, and is the brain child of local designer Estella Lum. Umbrellas are her new thing, but she’s been selling her beautifully graphic and colourful bags that can be folded into the wallet-sized pouch for a while now. The umbrella sells for $40, and it’s pretty rockin’. It is a bright and cheerful bird print, and the waterproof material feels much thicker than any other umbrella I’ve had, with real solid spines.

Speaking of umbrellas, one of my favourite umbrellas EVER is one from MOMA, designed by Timor Kalman in 1992 called Sky Umbrella. On the outside, the object is just a stern-looking black umbrella with a curved wooden handle, but oh!, when you open it up, suddenly you’re under bright blue sky with gentle white clouds. It’s awesome, and very Magritte-like. We actually bought this as a birthday gift to one of our friends, and I hope he liked it as much as I do.

Hon's Wun-Ton House - Coquitlam

I always see Hon's as a safe place to go for Chinese food. It's never terrible, but it's not the best Chinese food you can have either. Over the years, I've gone to Hon's numerous times at its various locations. However, it had been a few years since we went to the Coquitlam location, so my mom, Shane and I decided to pay a visit last Friday. It was a horribly rainy day, which made us in the mood for noodles, for some reason.

Like a lot of Hon's locations, the room is nothing to rave over--the seating is basic and cramped, with rows of tables next to each other, and the service is rushed and unattentive.

To celebrate their 37th anniversary, the restaurant had 12 potstickers on for $3.37. It was a good deal. The pan-fried pork dumplings same with a sweet vinegar that I didn't care for, but the dumpling was crisp on the outside and tasty on the inside.

One of my favorite items to eat at a Chinese restaurant is jellyfish ($7.50), even though it really doesn't taste much like anything. It's really about the crunchy, cool texture I guess. Hon's version was nicely flavored with soy sauce and sesame oil, though the sauce was a little salty. Many people don't enjoy this (like Shane), but I liked this.

It was cold and rainy outside, so we shared a BBQ duck wonton noodle soup ($7.25). The noodles were generous, wontons were porky and okay, and the broth wasn't bad. However, we were a little disappointed at the duck pieces we got, which were bony and had very little meat. I did like the way the flavour of the duck seeped into the broth though.

This was the "Szechuan" Style Seafood with Bean Vermicelli ($11.95). The dish came in a big clay pot, and had a good mix of squid, fish, shrimp and tiny scallops. The vermicelli sopped up the sauce really well, but there seemed to be something lacking here--there didn't seem to be enough of flavour and the dish was quite bland.

Our last noodle dish was Beef and Vegetable Fried Rice Noodle ($8.95). We we expecting fried noodles, but instead got steamed noodles topped with cornstarchy gravy. The texture was the same as the previous dish, so eating this got kind of boring. Maybe I just wanted greasy noodles. The sauce itself again lacked a certain flavour, and was again on the bland side.

We probably ordered too many noodle dishes! Having not visited for a few years, Hon's in Coquitlam seems to have changed--the flavours seemed a lot more subdued than I remember. Not sure if I would visit this location again, because other locations seem to be quite a bit better.

Ikea Restaurant

A Saturday or two ago, my mother-in-law visited us for the weekend. Being from Nanaimo, she asked about the Ikea here in Coquitlam—it turned out that the last time she was in Ikea was about 25 or 30 years ago, so of course we had to visit. I called my mom and so two mums and two children (Shane and myself) went off on a Sunday morning. The bright cobalt blue building was enormous and hard to miss.

It was all about the breakfast. We arrived around 10:30, and there was already a long line up for the food at the Ikea restaurant and cafe. So we waited. The place is cafeteria style, kind of like your typical school lunch room. The breakfast is a super deal there, with the basics of scrambled eggs, 2 sausages, and potatoes being only $1. Incredible. There were add ons as well, like 50 cents for 3 slices for razor thin bacon, $1 for 2 apple pancakes, garlic bread, etc. My plate was $2! It was amazing. And the food was not bad, actually pretty good. Okay, so the sausages were dry and salty and potatoes were dry, but the eggs were good, the bacon was decent, and the garlic toast hit the spot. I imagine that it definitely helped that the egg tray was replaced just before we were served.

It was really busy that day at Ikea. We ended up with these cute and colourful toy dishes that I couldn’t pass up (they can be used for dips, and cat food, people!), and Shane’s mum bought us a big bowl and a white serving dish. Very useful, as we don’t have nice serving dishes.

Ah, Ikea! Always an experience....

Two Recipes from the Wonderful Orangette

# 1 - Chocolate Featherweight Cookies with Walnuts and Cocoa Nibs

Last week I stumbled upon these chocolate cookies from Orangette, and from her gorgeous photos and description of the chewy, dark and chocolatey cookies, I knew I wanted to make them. The cookies are basically flourless, and use only egg whites, icing sugar, and cocoa as the base. I used pecans instead of walnuts, and regretfully omitted the chocolate nibs, which I couldn't get a hold of. The batter is quite runny and the cookie that I ended up making turned out to be flat, pancake-like things, but the taste was out of this world. Fresh from the oven, the cookies had this miraculous crunch to them, and when they cooled, a chewy chocolateness developed. These puppies were basically gone in a day or two.

#2 - The 'Plumble'

I adore baked fruit desserts. They still are dessert, but without that richness or that sickening feeling you get when you've eaten something that's bad for you. I mean, it's fruit, right? There must be something good to it, even though it may contain a barrelful of butter and sugar. And here was the perfect recipe for plum crumble (or as Shane says, "Plumble") from Orangette (you order this from her new restaurant Delancey in Seattle, by the way).

When my mother-in-law visited I wanted to make this simple recipe, since it basically consisted of cutting up plum and making the topping. I didn't have the Italian plums that were demanded of in the recipe, so I used black plums instead. It turned out to be a great sucess. There was a crunchy, almost cookie-like crust, and the wonderfully not too sweet plums. This went great with ice cream!

Mairuru - Hand sewn

Mairuru is one of my favourite blogs to read on a regular basis. She’s a Japanese blogger who sews everything from little bags, to scarves, to little dolls by HAND. It seems that she sews incredibly fast, because she produces an awful lot (she even makes clothes by hand). Everything is cute, neat, and well-made. Japanese fabrics are so beautiful. Since I’ve put away my sewing machine, I haven’t done any sewing, but reading her blog is very inspiring. I have a hand-sewn project in mind already....

The blog is mostly a chronicle of her hand-sewn projects, but there are picture stories of her travels and pictures of her neighbourhood as well (there is a nice collection of pictures of cats on the streets of Japan). I also really like seeing everyday life from Japan—things seem very different there. I especially like to look at the food pictures. It’s fascinating!

She also has an etsy shop where you can buy some of her creations (photos in this entry are from there).

Miniature Nature

I was browsing through Apartment Therapy and stumbled upon this entry, which more or less opened the door to a fantasy from childhood: dollhouses! I wouldn't consider myself to be a girly-girly as a child, but I did have a particular fondness for Barbies (my favorites were the non-blond ones, heh heh). I fashioned Barbies' house out of stacks of plastic milk crates; I sewed clothing for them and made them furniture from my dad's Gitane cigarette packages. I also for some reason loved going to the cheesy and touristy Miniature World in Victoria, which remains a happy memory for me.

When I saw some of these images I was amazed and awed. These rooms and houses are incredible works of art.

This, of course, is a whole other world....

These are a couple sites I admire....

The above pictures are from the beautiful Mini Modern. Mini Modern's houses and rooms are contemporary, clean and amazingly well put together. I would love to live in a full-sized version of any of these houses!

The Call of the Small has a wonderful retro aesthetic. Call's rooms are colourful and fun. You can imagine having a party there and listening to records while you're lying on the floor.

It's down the rabbit hole from there, folks. Enjoy.