Easter – I like you, I really do!

One of the best tips I ever got from my Mum was to hide my dirty dishes in the oven when unexpected guests come over. Genius!

I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris has lots of little caramel nuggets of ideas, just like my Mum’s. It’s a big hunker of a book, filled with lots of recipe ideas and hosting ideas (like hiding marbles in your bathroom cabinet to trick nosy guests.) I wish Amy was the next door neighbor who would invite me over for fancy themed dinners and stop by with cupcakes and homemade lemonade on Sunday afternoons. In Montreal we had Mr. Piedlourds as a neighbour, and in Alberta most of our neighbours are strangers. Would you take cupcakes from a stranger?

Actually, I might. But they’d need to have a LOT of colourful icing.

If I can’t sway you to buy the book  (for yourself, a friend… your grandmother), maybe Amy can. Here she is in her own deliciously wacky promotional video.

Amy talks about two things a lot in her book: cheese balls and her rabbit. Maybe you have some time this weekend to make a cheese ball for your family. You can follow along as she makes them on Martha Stewart right here. I wish I had both these things, except I am poor and can’t afford cheese at the moment, and Chris is allergic to every conceivable animal. So, in honour of Easter, let’s take a peak into the world of Amy’s Easter Bunny-ish cupcake store. If I lived nearby I would visit every single day.

However, since I do not live nearby I decided to celebrate Easter another way. I visited every single candy store in town, and bought something gooey from every stop.Wooo! There are pics from the Sugar World Tour right here (and to your right if you click that little Flickr image.)

Hope you all have a great Easter weekend eating hams, perogies, cakes and cookies with your Mums!

xo Sarah

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From the raw to the cooked.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan’s excellent explanation of industrial and organic food production is a must read for anyone concerned about what they eat.  It’s more informative than preachy, and although it might not change your diet, it will make you more aware of what makes up the food that lines our supermarket shelves.There are a million tidbits I could quote from the book, many of which would scare or disgust the average consumer, but an example of a more reassuring practice is that of organic box salad makers requiring their employees to wear bright blue bandaids with metal filaments in them so that a metal detector can catch them if they fall off.  Nobody wants a bandaid in their salad and it is reassuring to see that the salad makers have taken this to heart.

A favourite quote in The Omnivore’s Dilemma comes from French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss who describes the work of civilization as “…the process of transforming the raw into the cooked…”  I have to admit that I loved that notion, a good book is nothing more than a well cooked idea.

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Westward, Ho!

Chris and I are officially headed out to Banff! Well, as soon as we are on the plane and have passed the rigors of snowy tarmacs and bulging suitcase approval… then we will be in Banff! (I’m still a little nervous about the bulging suitcase phase…)

When my brother was in Australia I used to find it a delicious torment to know what the weather was like in Sydney. It was nice to know that someone might be on the beach while I was making bank drafts and trudging home through slush at night. If you have similar tendencies, you can check out the weather out west while we are away. The Weather Network (.com) has amazing live cameras that let you take a peak at cities, parks, and ski hills across the country.

This picture was of Banff Tuesday morning. It makes me think of the opening to an Indiana Jones movie. The view is of Sulfur Mountain, and a quick click here will let you pretend you are watching us in a movie. Also, there’s a link to Flickr, over to your right, that will have lots of pictures of our trip. It will be just like traveling with us.. minus the dorky jokes and constant breaks for snacks along the way. Although, I really think those are the best parts.

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