Don't Call Me......

Okay, so I get how people mistake me as the secretary. I sit at a desk outside my boss' office that faces the main door of the office suite, I do all her filing, scheduling, and expense reports and the like and I answer the phones.

However, contrary to most of my tasks and my desk placement I AM NOT THE SECRETARY. I have been called the "secretary" 3 times today and I fear that one more utterance of the word could drive me over the edge. Not that there is anything wrong with being a secretary, its just that this is not what I spent 9 years in University and 6 figures in student loans trying to accomplish. Yes I am being a snob but I am just being honest and venting, AND I am part of the generation that thinks we deserve far more out of life than we probably do.

I suppose the only way to solve this problem is to request a fancy name plate that reads "Research & Administrative Assistant." Oh who am I kidding, thats a fancy name for secretary. Well C'est La Vie.

Christmas in the kitchen.

When I go home for Christmas, there are only two things I want to do: ski and cook. Fortunately, the weather this year provided me with plenty of snow on the trails and time in the kitchen. As my time spent x-country was uneventful (though thoroughly enjoyable), I'll spare you the details and focus instead on a couple of unexpected masterpieces and catastrophes that made their way out of my parent's kitchen.

With Erica's inspiration, and my father as my sous-chef, I attempted Gordon Ramsay's Beef Wellington. It was an adequate first attempt. Apparently neither my father nor myself have a great attention to culinary detail. He neglected to follow Gordo's very specific instruction to be careful NOT to over chop the mushrooms in the food processor, lest they become a "slurry." And slurry, they were.

My own mistake was equally unfortunate as I had taken out a box of phyllo instead of puff pastry to thaw throughout the day. I realized this in the eleventh hour and was forced to microwave a rock solid, frozen package of puff pastry. Needless to say, this was not ideal.

The dish itself did come together eventually but the mushy mushrooms and sub-par pastry did not bake perfectly and left more moisture (almost sogginess) than I would have liked. However, by the time we pulled it out of the oven, it was almost eleven pm. My hunger overtook my critical eye and we ate the dish as it was; soggy and slightly under cooked. I feel that if it was edible despite all these shortcomings, then my second attempt is sure to impress.

You may be wondering what I did with my mistakenly thawed phyllo. Well, being of the waste-not-want-not school, I incorporated all of it (yes, the entire package) into the following evening's meal. Specifically, I made a few dozen phyllo cups- some savory, some sweet. I baked into the savory cups goat cheese souffles, which I served as appetizers. The sweet cups were served as dessert with dark chocolate mousse inside.

These phyllo nightmares (though delicious, they were horribly time consuming. And let's face it, phyllo doesn't add much in the way of flavour), bookended an otherwise delicious meal. We made a duck confit served over greens, pears, blackberries and Gorgonzola. This was followed by a chermoula carrot soup and then a handmade butternut squash, prosciutto ravioli. Turns out, I'm not such a fan of butternut squash. Who knew?

Overall, I returned to Ottawa content with the time I'd spent cooking. Though really, I never get enough of my parent's ample counter space, stocked pantry, and plethora of kitchen equipment. *Sigh* One day, standing Kitchen Aid mixer. One day.

Fiiiinally.

WELCOME BACK ERICA! I feel rejuvenated and shall join you in a glorious return to blogging, shortly.

BREAKING NEWS: Hiatus Comes to a Close

Hello Bloggie Followers,

I have been MIA for a while but this was due to the fact that I had 1 too many blogspot accounts and the one that allowed me to contribute to this blog was all jacked up......you know what, I do not feel like going into it cause I am in a mood today.

So anywho I am back and feel confident that KMont did not disappoint in my absense, as her posts are generally more clever and contain fun pictures (I am so adding a fun picture now to one up her Christmas Grinch style.)

So basically whats going on with me is that I am now working (pretty much full time) and have never hated the morning more in my life. (PS. this blog is going to be very pissy as that is the mood that strikes me today) However, having money is pretty sweet, so I can deal I suppose.

Today it is not work that I am thinking about however its Christmas. With Christmas only a few days away it seems that everyone is getting more insane by the minute but isn't that was the holidays are all about.

This year I decided to attempt to have an "easy and relaxing" Christmas that did not involve the usual mayhem of travel logistics that have come with previous years. However, I have discovered that "easy and relaxing" can never accuratly be uttered in the same sentence as Christmas. There are hard feelings, guilt, impositions, eye-rolling, lots of sighing, and flabberghasted responses when I tell people that its just going to be my boyfriend and I having dinner.

I guess you can't really complain about people wanting to see you however, because it would be far more depressing to have no one care if you were here or there than have many people upset because you are not with them on Christmas day.

Regardless I still think Christmas is insanity wrapped up in pretty paper with little snowmen on it.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight.

....more to come from the cynical brain of me. Stay Tuned!

The busiest!

But not too busy for a good pun. NEVER too busy for a good pun.

The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
He acquired his size from too much pi.

Apostrophe

I know it's sometimes difficult, but these rules are important. Know the rules of grammar and punctuation. Live them. Love them.

Learn one here:
APOSTROPHE

Words to live by:

"Be excellent to each other." Bill S. Preston, Esquire
and
"Party on dudes!" Ted Theodore Logan

Any guesses what I did tonight?

Porter Airline? More like Porter AirLAME.

AirCanada flights have always had their ups and downs (get it?!?) but lately I've been hearing that the airline has really had it's work cut out for it with the much smaller (but reportedly better) Porter Airline moving in. I took a chance with Porter this week for a short business trip to Toronto. Verdict: adequate. When it comes down to it, the experience was so ordinary, I don't even feel the need to elaborate. I've booked my Christmas flights through Porter, so I'll give them another chance to live up to their hype. Honestly though, if those flights don't go above and beyond (get it? I am on FIRE!) I'll revert back to my usual plan of purchasing flights on a lowest fare basis.

Decisions, decisions...

It's that time of year again, Nanowrimo time. Well, almost. It's, at the very least, almost time to decide if it's something worth participating in. For those of you who haven't heard, Nanowrimo is a 50,000 word, 30 day writing challenge for the month of November (National Novel Writing Month). 50,000 words is a difficult feat, particularly for novice writers such as myself. Still, having a deadline and a concrete goal is sometimes a great motivating factor to finally sit down and get some writing done.

I attempted Nanowrimo (website here http://www.nanowrimo.org/)last year and did not fare very well at all. I seriously underestimated the amount of writing necessary and was just really unprepared and unable to balance the writing with school, work, and various other commitments. Working full time, I have a more static life schedule this year but I also have more extra-curricular activities. I ALSO have a concrete concept for a manuscript and am in need of some structure and motivation to sit down and crank this story out. So you see, friends, there are a number of pros, and a number of cons. What to do?

At the moment I'm leaning towards a 'yes' because it's a great way to distract from what a bitch of a month November otherwise is. But that is another story, for another day. I'll keep you posted on my decision because, obviously, I'll need eyes for editing afterward! That's right, I'm looking at you.

Recipe for Disaster

This weekend I prepared the most delicious Thanksgiving feast. I got up early to bake fresh artisan bread and then roast a 7kg turkey. It sizzled with thyme butter and was basted with a maple-balsamic peppercorn glaze. I also roasted several bulbs of garlic for a very special batch of roasted garlic mashed potatoes with cream.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to taste any of these items, nor did my roommates or guests. With only a short hour and a half left before my beautiful turkey was set to come out of the oven, disaster struck. After noticing a slightly smokey smell in the air about ten minutes after a baste, I took a peek in the oven to see what wasn't right. I was greeted with a small row of flames along the bottom piece of tinfoil. Not such a big deal, but as I pulled that out and tossed it into the sink, another row popped up and these were much bigger. It was only seconds before everything in the oven had caught up and the flames began to rise out of the oven and upwards.

Fortunately, everything was contained with the help of our kitchen fire extinguisher. However, it was at the expense of my beautiful dinner (seriously, Martha Stewart you guys)which had been completely ruined by the smelly extinguishing powder. My gracious guests were quick to step up and picked up the hosting duties with some delicious roasted chickens, so all was not lost.

The next day was complete clean up since everything in the kitchen and dining room had been covered with a film of powder and soot. So, that was fun.

While I do have the excuse of an old oven and too many hours spent on a high temperature, the fire was certainly preventable. My advice to others: Clean that jerk as often as possible. Even the smallest amount of baked on crumbs are enough to ignite should some grease happen to drip over the element.

My advice to myself: Buy a self cleaning oven.