intertext

I was going to call this post "State of the Intertext," but it seemed altogether too postmodern...

I got a new fridge today. I like it. It's clean and quiet, and rated just about as low as it's possible to be in terms of energy consumption. Physical memory is a funny thing, though - it's strange how difficult it is to get used to opening a door on the other side, or looking for vegetables in the middle instead of the bottom (this fridge is one of those with the freezer at the bottom and it has lovely big vegetable crispers, in the middle). But it holds a lot, including my wine bottles.

There is a catnip mouse in my bathtub. Just saying.

I made a delightful salad for supper with canned salmon and greens from my garden and a dressing made of one part sour cream, one part mayonnaise, one part buttermilk and a collection of chives, dill, sorrel and parsley all blended together.

Oh, and new potatoes. There are new potatoes! These are cooked with mint from my garden. Bliss.

I'm reading Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, and it's really good.

Also, GLEE. GLEEEEEEEEEE!!! (I can't believe I haven't watched this before now...)

One of my hidden talents is that I can make an extremely good cheese and spinach souffle from scratch, without a recipe. This evening, a friend came over to meet Tabitha and stayed for dinner, so I made said souffle and also a salad with pear and walnuts, and we had some white wine from the fridge. It was all extremely good.

So, now you know where to come if you would like someone to make you a souffle :)

I've just returned from dinner with some family friends who are in town for a high school reunion (probably a 40-year or something). We went to the Queen Mum Waterside and it was Good. Very nouvelle cuisine and fusion or some combination thereof whatever that's called (sort of Thai when it suits them or steak at other times, or seafood, all beautifully prepared and presented, expensive, small portions, conducive to having dessert afterwards). I had poached halibut with a ginger compote and grilled vegetables and jasmine rice. We had dim sum to start with and chocolate raspberry sponge to finish and some nice white wine to wash it all down with, and it was all lovely. The restaurant is right on the Gorge, and it was pleasant and airy with high windows and there was a jazz guitarist playing but not so loud as to preclude conversation.

This could become a habit. I think I'm going to become a foodie when I grow up.

The sun was shining (hip hip hooray) this morning, so I decided to go to Montmartre. I heart Paris, but I especially heart Montmartre. Yes, it's touristy, but it's very charming and beautiful. And I walked and walked and walked today - all the way up the hill from the Metro station to the Sacre Coeur, then ALL the way home. I just wandered until I found myself close enough that I figured I'd just keep going.

Of course, I had another wonderful lunch - this time in an Auberge that was once frequented by just about all the famous artists you can think of, AND Zola. Its garden served as the model for one of Van Gogh's paintings. What I liked was that it had a nice shady terrace out of the way of the throngs on the street, but I could sit and watch the world going by. Also, apart from a couple of Germans, I was the only non-French person there, as far as I could tell, which made a nice change from all the touristy ones closer to the Sacre Coeur. Here, because lidocafe asked for it, is a picture of my lunch.



Chicken with chervil, the best bread so far, house white wine and coffee to follow. The beans were overcooked again - I'm surprised by this trend, having thought the French knew better. However, the chicken was delicious. I can't believe how much I'm eating on this trip; it's a good thing I'm doing so much walking or I would definitely get fat!

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention: I saw two cats today. After all the hundreds of dogs (that I love a lot) it was nice to see a couple of felines. One was obviously the "house cat" of the restaurant where I had lunch.

And today's musical offering was a harpist on the steps of Sacre Coeur. Rather nice until he started to play "My Heart Will Go On"...

Happy Birthday Handel!
It's been a pleasant week so far. Tuesday was my friend KP's birthday, so we not only went out for dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant, and had cake and coffee with some of her friends afterwards, but went with another friend to Butchart's Gardens in the afternoon. You'd think that in February there wouldn't be much to see, but it was beautiful in a spare kind of way. You could really see the bones of the landscaping in the sunken garden, for example, and we noticed the rocks and the shapes of the trees more than you do when the place is rampant with bloom. Both K and I bought yearly passes; she because she often likes to take visitors to her guest house there, I because I fully intend to spend long hours taking more photos. I spent a happy time taking shots of many things, including a series of hellebores that were blooming in the perennial border.

Then, yesterday evening, I had dinner with MW, who has hitherto been more my mother's friend than mine, although she's actually younger than I. It was enjoyable, though, and M was more relaxed and down-to-earth than she often seemed with my mum. We had Japanese food, which I am greedily fond of, in a hobbit-like way (though it's hard to imagine Tolkien's hobbits eating sushi). But my greed for it matches theirs for mushrooms. I ate more that I've eaten for months, which was a Good Thing (having lost about 20 pounds due to stress in the past 6 months), especially as I suffered no ill effects. And enjoyed M's company, so hope we may meet again and get better acquainted.

This afternoon I took the beardie-hounds out for a walk to Mt. Doug, which was beautiful in the early spring light. The forest there is quite open, more like a pine-wood than a forest, rather like the landscape where Jackson shot the "Breaking of the Fellowship" scenes in LOTR. The late afternoon sun shafts in bars across the path and was striking all the new growth in a very pleasing way. There were so many shades of green. The bright almost lime-green of the new leaves on the ribes, the lovely pure green of the new ferns, the mosses, the holly, and of course the cedars. The floor was littered with branches and twigs after all the wind storms we've been having, rather as if some big party of drunken dryads had been racketting through - I wouldn't have wanted to have been walking in there during the storm! The dogs love a walk in the woods - they seem so relaxed and happy just snuffling along the path, never far ahead or behind, not precisely _with_ me, but always within reach.

And then I return to find that the Japanese girl has won the gold medal in the figure skating against all expectations by Americans and Russians, and am inordinately pleased.