There’s nothing better than a busy, intimate coffee shop in the evening – when you can feel the caffeinated buzz in the air, and conversations are almost instinctively spoken in a moderate hush. As great a venue as that can be, the opposite works as well – spacious, dimly lit dining areas light on patrons [...]

On Wednesday, May and I attended a lecture by Maher Arar at the Winspear Centre sponsored by the University of Alberta Political Science Department. I know it’s a formality at such events to have people of high academic ranking precede the main speaker to, in a sense, soften up the topical ground with grand introductions [...]

May and I had been to Three Bananas Cafe (9918-102 Avenue) just after it opened a few years ago, but haven’t been back since. Strange, especially since we had a positive experience and it has such a great location – right on Churchill Square. Well, before an event at the Winspear Centre tonight, we decided [...]

I’ve been using the Food Network (U.S.) recipe index quite a bit lately, and for those of you who haven’t perused the website before, I would encourage you to do so. The recipes duplicated on the website are the same ones that are published in cookbooks (e.g. Ina Garten, Giada de Laurentiis), and being the [...]

Slowly edging up the solid food chain, I decided to satisfy my pasta craving with Rachel Ray’s More-Peas-if-You-Please Penne. Eye-rolling recipe name aside, I know I give Ray quite a bit of flack for her grating on-screen personality, but I must say, she does have a knack for creating quick and easy weekday supper savers, [...]

I’ve been itching to make soup from scratch, in particular one that would make use of the immersion blender my Mum unearthed. So when the March 2007 issue of Chatelaine came with a gorgeous-looking Smoky Roasted-Potato Chowder on the cover, I knew exactly what would be on the menu. The most time-consuming aspect of the [...]

As I’ve been immobile over the last few days, I’ve finally had the time to watch, from beginning to end, the first season of Laguna Beach. In contrast to season 2, the drama really wasn’t as entertaining, and the storylines were slim – reduced to the Kristin-Stephen-Lauren love triangle. As a whole, the season demonstrated [...]

Yes, the title is a bad joke, but one I’ll only use once in my life, so it’s permissible. I won’t subject anyone to the gritty details of my wisdom teeth extraction, but I will say that the entire procedure only took 40 minutes or so (I didn’t even get to watch #1 on the [...]

My Mum was sweet enough to make me one of my favorite dishes (and one of her specialties) before my wisdom teeth extraction – sweet and sour pork (with tomatoes, bell peppers, and loads of pineapple). Her thoughtfulness was reason enough for a blog post: Sweet and Sour Pork

At a recent HIV/AIDS session I attended, each participant was asked who their inspiration was that brought them there that day. I can’t remember what my ultimate response was, but had I answered honestly, I would have said Stephen Lewis. At the time though, his name seemed much too cliché and pedestrian for that particular [...]