How I spent my summer vacation – 2011 edition

Tonight I made a batch of raw chocolate, which turned out even better than the first time (meaning I didn’t spill it all over the kitchen). It’s made with “non-Dutch” — that is, uncooked — cocoa powder, vanilla, cocoa solids, and agave syrup.

There was a little bit left over, so I put some in a bowl, and Craig and I dipped strawberries into that, then I made the rest into caffe mochas (decaf at this hour!).

It was one of those moments that made me think, “Should the end-times come and we find ourselves living on the plains somewhere, foraging for food and running from hillbilly cannibals, we’re going to look back at this time and say ‘We had it made then’.” (Yeah, my thoughts run into quotes within quotes.)

Before that was the maiden voyage of a new device for our home called a “spiraliser”, which I learned about from a recipe book in a Charlottetown shop. It’s a kind of crank-handle lathe that makes pasta out of vegetables.

I haven’t minded not eating wheat for the past two months, except that it’s meant:
a) No sandwiches, the default on-the-go food, and
b) No pasta.

The latter wiped out the quickest, ‘can’t be arsed‘ category of dinners. But tonight I think I got all that back. I twisted a marrow through this little plastic torture device and got perfectly serviceable pasta! Hooray!

~

Oh yeah, the rhino’s head on the table: I haven’t blogged in a month.

I was in Canada, getting my batteries recharged at my client’s headquarters.

I had a weekend away visiting my friend Kirsten and went canoeing.

Then Craig and I got away to stay with his relatives at their cottage in Algonquin Park.

And, finally, we went to Prince Edward Island to spend time with my folks.

Now I’m back in this little town we’re calling home, feeling a little displaced, but buoyed up by all the happy relationships and meaningful work in Canada, the breathtaking sights of this quirky old borough, and a literal stack of books I’ve brought back with me — so many projects and ideas to explore that I had to lay out a little curriculum for myself so I can begin to approach it all.

I meant to write and paint about it all while I was away, but I was too busy living to be documenting. The trouble with that, though, is that the longer you’re not doing something, the more daunting it is to get back to it. So here I am, back.