Quote of the Day

"I think I should start drinking at work because its got to be healthier than all the chocolate I eat...right?"

~ Trudy A of Seattle (one of my colleagues)

You know you've acclimatized to the Pacific Northwest when...

rain is threatening and you still choose to sit outside at Starbucks. That's what I did yesterday while waiting for my car's oil to be changed.

Flee fleas!!!!

That's right - the Rivard-Cook household is currently home to a pack of unwanted visitors - fleas! This morning as I was finishing up getting ready for work, Moose was on our bed playing when I noticed a bug race across him. When I took a good look at him, I realized he was covered in little black dots and saw second bug! Disgusting! So I called my colleague Trudy who happens to be a very knowledge and long time dog owner and she informed that he has fleas. A google search confirmed her diagnosis. Friggin awesome.

So after some minor panicking at my inability to be a good puppy-mommy, I went out and bought some flea/tick shampoo and flea/tick medicine/serrum and Moose had a bath. While he dried off, I went into overdrive with washing everything I could think of that he had touched/sat on and then went out to Pet Smart when it opened at 9am to get carpet and upholstery santizer. The laundry is done and the furniture has been sprayed down and our bedroom has had the carpet cleaned but there's still more to do and all the fun from this morning awaits me when I get home tonight. Good times.

Moral of this story, if you take your dog to a beach, make sure he's wearing a flea collar.

Bon weekend! I hope yours is flea free!!!

You, Me and Francis Ford Coppola

Long time, no blog, what gives? So I’ve been absentee from the blog for a week mainly because I’ve been distracted by other things but I’m back and with a photos and updates of our trip to San Francisco which we took over the Labour Day weekend. San Francisco is a great city and we had a really nice time as the weather was perfect and we got to see nearly everything we had set out to see. We had two fabulous dinners, one at the excellent Café Claude which was feet from our hotels and came recommended by Time Out magazine and it certainly lived up to its praise. The other meal was at Kuleto’s, recommended by a colleague, and for being located on a street that looked and felt like a tourist trap, this restaurant was anything but a trap – it was lovely Italian food served in a lovely and surprisingly intimate (for a large) restaurant.

As for the title of this post – as you’ll see from the photos (I took about 300 photos so below are a smattering of them), Mike & I stumbled upon Mr. Coppola’s very own restaurant in which we not only enjoyed our late afternoon lunch but were also treated to a unintended sideshow by Mr. Coppola’s family/friend v/associates (we’re still not sure the connection these guys had to the director but it was obviously close) who were without a doubt members of the mafia from New York. Awesome.

All in all, San Francisco is a great weekend visit and an excellent cardio/leg work out. If you’re ever down there, my recommendations would be this: 1) you must have at least 1 meal at Café Claude and 2) avoid the wharf unless you want to see the sea lions or take a tour of the bay – it’s a total tourist trap and could do with a good power wash.

Without further adieu:

Here is Mike inside Francis F. Coppola's restaurant - Mike wanted me to take the mafia godfather's picture but I dare for fear of ending up by in the bay with bricks in my pockets...just joking! I'm sure deep down, he was a very nice man.



After a rather epic trek up one of the many many hills in the city, we were awarded with this lovely view



We took a boat tour of the bay as part of our Expedia package and nearly missed out on seeing the Golden Gate Bridge up close and personal - this is what the bridge initially looked like - a black specter in the fog




but then the captain turned to boat hard starboard and then we got this view

Yay! Its a bridge!...

One of the great things about San Francisco is the amazing architecture and architectural details that you can see pretty everywhere in the city, here's a sampling (and this is only a small sample of all the photos I took of houses):















This sign is a fixed to the fence shown above - I guess this hood was a bit rough during a time when $10 was a serious award









How amazing is this gate?!







Chinatown in San Francisco was very impressive





We also went out the the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, designed in 1915 by Bernard Maybeck - it is a very beautiful park and it is definitely worth making time for.





On our last day there we made our way to the Gaybourhood and it was fabulous! It was very warm that day so we stop in at Orphan Andy's for root beer floats - it had an awesome 50s/60s dinner dive feel and the burgers were the size of a small child!








Also in the hood is the Harvey Milk Plaza



Hopefully sometime soon Prop 8 will be shot to hell (where it belongs) and Mr. Milk's dream for equality will finally be realized.

San Francisco is known for its trolley but perhaps what is less known is that the city is also where vintage trolleys go to find rebirth. Below are two trolleys from the 40s mid-West America and the early 20th century from Milan, Italy. Both were very pretty!







Lastly, I swear this is the end of the deluge of photos - one of the only things worth going to the wharf is the sea lions. They're amazingly huge stinky beasts and here are 3 of about 20 photos I took of them.







All in all, I give San Francisco...

Oh Yum!!!

At lunch time I like to torture myself by reading delicious recipes online while shovelling salad into my mouth. Incidentally, none of the recipes I read are ever for salad.

I came across this gem moments ago on The Times (London) website and knew it had to be shared! We're hoping to have our friends Shaun & Melissa over for dinner soon so perhaps this will be the after dinner sweet treat. I'm also thinking my friend Kate would appreciate this as a pick-me-up during our résume bonanza in a few weeks.

Jamie Oliver's bread pudding and chocolate-beer sauce

Serves 8-10
*I've added the imperical measurements next to the metric

For the pudding

~ 5 large eggs, preferably free-range or organic
~ 5 tbsp cocoa powder
~ 5 tbsp golden caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
~ 300ml single cream (10.5 fluid ounces)
~ 700ml semi-skimmed milk (24.5 fluid ounces)
~ 1 x 800g loaf of white bread, ends removed, cut into 1cm-thick slices (1.76 lbs or 28.5 ounces)
~ 100g good-quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) (3.5 ounces)
~ 1 small handful of pecan nuts, roughly chopped
~ 1 punnet of strawberries, to serve (optional)
~ Vanilla ice cream, to serve (optional)

For the sauce

~ 100ml dark beer (3.5 fluid ounces)
~ 100ml double cream (3.5 fluid ounces)
~ 2 tbsp golden caster sugar
~ 100g good-quality dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids) (3.5 ounces)
~ Sea salt

Heat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Crack your eggs into a large mixing bowl with the cocoa powder and sugar and whisk until smooth and silky. Gradually whisk in the cream and milk until combined. Cut your slices of bread into rough triangles and add them to the mixing bowl. Push them down gently and leave for 30 seconds, or until they’ve soaked up that lovely chocolate custard. It’s best to do this a few slices at a time rather than all at once.

You’ll need an ovenproof dish or tin about 30cm x 25cm x 6cm (12 x 10 x 2 inches) deep. Layer your soaked bread triangles in the dish, then pour over any remaining custard so it fills the dish. Leaving the chocolate in its wrapper, smash it against the worktop to break it into chunks. Unwrap and poke these chunks between your slices of bread. They’ll melt into wonderful warm pools and be nice little surprises as you’re eating.

Scatter your chopped pecans over the top of the pudding, then sprinkle over some sugar evenly from a height. Pop the pudding into the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until it’s golden and the custard is delicately setting, but still wobbly.

While that’s happening get a medium pan over a medium-high heat and add your beer, cream and sugar. Keep stirring and as soon as it comes to the boil, take it off the heat. Smash up your chocolate as you did before and stir the whole lot into the hot cream mixture with a small pinch of salt. Serve your pudding with your chocolate-beer sauce drizzled over the top. Lovely with a few fresh strawberries and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Extract from: Jamie’s America by Jamie Oliver is published on Thursday September 3, 2009.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/recipes/article6809206.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1


And should I run out of time to prepare the above described delight - I'll make this instead from The Times Five ways with peaches article:

Baked with almonds

Halve and stone the peaches and pack them, cut side up, into a baking dish. Crumble some amaretti biscuits and soften them with a little Amaretto liqueur. Spoon over the top of each peach, scatter with flaked almonds and bake at 180C/350F/gas 4 for about 20 minutes or until the peaches are tender and the topping golden.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article6734485.ece

LOL-tastic!

Check out this video I just came across on facebook from my undergrad friend Bruce.

Hy-freaking-sterical!!!!



Enough said!

Part 3 and the last installment

Before I start with the last installment of our trip home, I just have to brag about the meal Mike made me last night for our anniversary! The boy did good! For dinner he prepared swordfish with a champagne and grape sauce! What kind of sauce is that you say? It’s the ridiculously good kind!!! The sauce consisted of champagne, butter, thyme, dried mustard, fish stock, capers and sliced grapes. The fish stock, mustard and thyme were cooked together first and allowed to reduce by half, then the fish, champagne and capers were added and once the fish had been cooked through, the butter and grapes were thrown into the pan and it was moved from the burner. It was delish!!! And I think this is a sauce that could be nicely paired with a roasted chicken because swordfish doesn’t have a fishy taste to it but does have a very meaty flavour and consistency. Anyways, it was a great meal and I really appreciated his efforts!

So, back to Bytown! Part of the reason for our visit home was to witness my baby cousin Shawn getting married to the lovely and fun Miz Chrissy. I can remember Shawn as a newborn – my first memory of him was watching him getting his diaper changed and he still had the remnants of his umbilical cord. But I digress, on August 22nd Shawn and Chrissy wed to the delight of their family and friends! The wedding was a lot of fun and Shawn & Chrissy both looked fabulous as did their wedding party!

Their vows, with my super zoom on so the image is a bit hazy


I stayed for their photos to drive them and their truck back to the reception - as you can see a storm was rolling in. This is Shawn and Chrissy with their maid of honour and best man - Sarah & Simon.






A few days after the wedding and the day before we flew back here, we went up to my Uncle Danny’s cottage on Lac Leslie. The lac/lake is about an hour and half drive from Ottawa on the Québec side of the river and is a really pretty and peaceful place. Danny and Sally’s cottage is located in a cute little bay and the lake itself was named one of the top 5 cleanest lakes in Québec in 2008. It was great to be able to spend time with my parents, sister, uncles and aunt! And yet again, Moose had a whole new set of adventures – it turns out he’s a boater – he loved being on my uncle’s pontoon. I can’t wait to get back up there next year!





The amazing brother and sister duo of Jake & Jersey! My uncles 2 year old golden retrievers



Kisses in the mud




Even though Moose doesn't seem to care for the water, he proved he could swim




The amazing duo amazingly spend hours fishing every day as evidenced by these photos. They walk for hours in the shallow water looking for fish. Their attention span and focus is pretty cool.






Out on the pontoon - I swear my parents have eyes and not just sun glasses as place holders!



Beth & Moose riding the waves




Captain Dan, Uncle Garry and Sally




My dog boats...seriously, its like he lives the high life everyday or something...



Nessie of Lac Leslie and her accompanying boat mark some of the shallower and rocky patches in the lake