the dining experience: hard rock cafe yonge & dundas

Let me preface this by saying that as a general rule, Bunny and I tend to avoid chain restaurants. We've been known to enjoy such deliciousness as East Side Mario's Italian Wedding Soup or the Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits but we prefer to go to smaller places. Sometimes fancy restaurants owned by friends or that Bunny used to work on, or smaller hole-in-the-wall but amazing places to anywhere in between. The food is invariably more interesting, even if it's not always better (there are some shitty independent restaurants we've eaten at, of course).

The other night, though, we were out shopping and decided to do a bit of a dinner out. On a lark, we decided to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe - not quite sure why, just that it seemed like a good idea. Bunny had never been, and the only time I'd eaten at one had been a band trip to New Orleans in 2003. So we went.

We waited about 20 minutes for a table, which wasn't terrible. Very much enjoyed that the little lobby had a few interactive items and displays for us to occupy ourselves with during the wait. The waitstaff was also great - polite, friendly, on time with everything and happy to help.

The food? Enh.

To start Bunny had wings (he choose the hottest variety) and I had an order of onion rings. I have a love affair with a well made onion rings. Unfortunately, both were a little bit underwhelming. The wings were hot, sure, but there was no other flavour to them, really which I found disappointing. I like some complexity to my heat. As far as the rings went, they were large and lovely and had a beautifully sweet onion taste to them. Unfortunately the batter was lackluster at best. Flavourless again, but crunchy, and far to thin for my liking.

Dinner itself was a pulled pork sandwich for Bunny and chicken & beef fajitas for me. Evidently they'd had some nasty surprised with the fajitas in the past, because our server said "Just so you know, you have to assemble them yourself. Are you ok with that?" Hahaha. To be expected, and it's something I love with restaurant fajitas.

Bunny's sandwich was a hit. The pork & sauce had a great smoky flavour that Bunny was quite thrilled with. I snagged some of the fries and was quite impressed. Nice thick sticks, little bit of skin still on the potatoes. They had that beautiful crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside texture that makes fries amazing.

As far as my fajitas go, they were fairly solid. Good but not great. Personal pet peeve was the tomatoes in the guacamole, but that's just a quirk of mine (hatred of all things tomato). The chunks were big enough that I could avoid them, so I was happy. I greatly enjoyed the chicken and the fajitas vegetables, though I wasn't so keen on the beef. It looked beautiful, I just didn't enjoy it too much.

The biggest impression, and perhaps the best thing: the iced tea. Brewed iced tea, which just tickles me. It was lovely and tea like, sweetened at my request. Just a hint of sugar, not too much. The addition of squeezed lemon made it blissful. Fresh iced tea always impresses me.

Overall, it was what I expect from a chain. I would have liked to say it was better, but it wasn't. My biggest complaint was that everything was really overpriced. Price and quality were not on par. That's really my complaint with a lot of chains - that the food is a little bit boring and the quality doesn't justify the price.

Would we go back? No.

Were we disappointed? Not really. I wanted to be more impressed, but it was right around what I expected.

confessions of a (former) fat girl - adventures in shopping

Most of my life I have worn a size 14-16. Maybe not "fat girl" material to some people, but it certainly felt fat to me. Not large enough that I always had to shop in plus sized stores, but large enough that it could be a stretch to find things in normal stores at times. My weight has dropped at certain points, and tottered back up (I have sugar love. It's a bad thing. And a terrible lack of portion control at times), just enough to give me hints of what I like best about my body. At any size, I have a fairly hourglass shape, with is helpful. I have a defined waist, even at my largest, and I have collarbones I love when I get smaller.

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been losing weight and needed to go get interview clothes yesterday to accomodate that. Bunny and I went to a couple of really nice stores first, to try on suits on sale, see if I could find something that was perfect. No dice. If I was going to spend $200 I didn't want to spend another $50 on alterations right now. I needed something a bit more affordable.

I did, though, have a pleasant surprise in the size department. My jeans that fit are a 10, but I didn't necessarily take that to be too much of an indication of anything, so I went into the fitting room with pants in sizes 8, 10 & 12 while fully expecting that I would be wearing the 10s or 12s. I was wrong. I haven't worn a size 8 in eight years, actually, but apparently I do now. I can live with that.

What was even better, though, was getting to try on different styles of clothes and seeing how the fits worked. I tried on several suits that just weren't quite what I wanted or needed, and as I said I'm not paying $200 right now for not quite right. When I have steady income, sure. That's what tailors are for. Right now, no.

In the end, RW&Co ended up making me happy. I got a gorgeous jacket with some interesting flair (I'll post more about it later) and some nice matching black pants. A slim boot cut pant. Pants that are cut very close to the body, that don't do a whole lot to camoflage the size and shape of my thighs.

Two years ago, this would have been a no go. I tried the straight cut and skinny jean look and it was terrible, went nowhere. I do have a pair of straightcut pants from larger sizes to wear tucked into boots, but it hasn't historically been the most flattering. Now? I can wear pants that are cut close to the leg and still look good. In fact, look amazing.

In the change room I had one of those "I don't want to take this off" moments that I dream of. When those moments happen I try to listen, as I don't think I've ever been disappointed in the purchases that result from them. I felt smoking hot. It was amazing.

I'm excited to wear these pants. (And we'll talk jacket later, I promise. I do have a love affair with them, after all.)

Holiday Win: carrot & turnip mash

The circles I follow within the blogosphere have been talking a lot about one thing, lately: how to navigate the early(ish) years of a relationship and newly married life in relation to the holidays. The give and take, the things that you do just to make your significant other happy, the things you miss out on - and sometimes the things you gain.

In Bunny and my holiday scheme, I have an urge to shout out "I WIN!" Because for the most part we do have the easiest holidays ever. The only thing that separates his mom's front door from my mom's front door is a driveway, so we bumble over here and there all the time. Our first year we really did our holidays separately but met up on the drive every hour on the hour, and both spent some time with each other's family. We've since moved to primarily spending different days with one family or the other, but we do see them both fairly equally. Both our parents are super understanding, and we also have to be respectful of his sister, brother-in-law and neice's holiday plans, so the flexibility comes easily.

That's not what I mean by "I WIN" though. What I mean, is I get all the best benefits. I grew up with big extended family on my father's side, and would spend large chunks of time over the holiday travelling for family dinner after family dinner, seeing a million cousins and aunts and uncles. Ever since the divorce, though, and other messiness, I don't get that. The closest relationship I have on that side of the family occurs on Facebook. My mom's family (grandma, aunt, cousin) all come down for the holidays, but it's not a super festive big exciting thing.

I get a big family gathering back, though, with Bunny's Dutch side. This is only the second year that I've gone, but I do feel very welcomed into the fold there. Win. I love the extra love there.

There's another holiday win, though, that comes from his mother's kitchen. I think the first time I had this was a couple of Thanksgivings ago, when we all (and by all, I mean BOTH our families) piled into Bunny's living room to eat. It was better than the mashed potatoes ... and for me to say that is something else.

Mama Bunny's Carrot & Turnip Mash
a rough approximation of Bunny's mom's recipe

Ingredients:

• Carrots - 1 to 2 cups, peeling and roughly chopped
• Turnip - 1 to 2 cups, peeled and roughly chopped
• Note: very the amount of vegetables based on your audience. I make 1 cup each carrots & turnip if I'm only feeding Bunny and myself, plus leftovers
• I like to use equal portions carrots and turnip, but if you prefer to load up on one over the other go for it!
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• Butter or Margarine - 2-3 tbsp (or to taste)

Directions:

1. Prep your vegetables. Peel, cut into pieces roughly the same size. Dump vegetables into large pot, cover with salted water. Bring to the boil.
2. Boil approximately 10 minutes, until fork-tender. Drain water. (If making a gravy or sauce, set some of this aside. Vegetable water adds a little more "oomph" to gravies.)
3. Add butter to the pan, and then MASH away. If you prefer you can always use a blender or processor to make it super smooth, but I like my carrot and turnip to be a little bit chunky.
4. When thoroughly mashed, taste. Add more salt or butter as necessary.
5. Enjoy! They don't replace mashed potatoes, but they're easily as good.

Also, leftover mash is amazing when mixed with breadcrumbs & parmesan and fried up. In fact, it's maybe even better than the original.

wardrobe and the job search

With a steady paycheque not coming in right now, I'm not really inclined to be buying to many clothes right now. Makes sense, right? The issue there, of course, is that I now need new things from my clothes, and I'm no longer sure that my closet provides.

For the past eight months, jeans and a nice shirt were considered appropriate work wear. Of course, I love dresses, so those played a fairly large role in my everyday wear, as they always do.

On the job hunt, though, that doesn't quite fly. Not only would it be terribly unprofessional to show up to an interview, or drop off resumes, in (nice) blue jeans, even worse it doesn't make me feel powerful and compentent. In my mind, a good interview outfit feels like a uniform or a suit of armour. You should feel powerful, strong, compentent. The message that's coming off should be that this chick is professional and she can do the job you need her to.

Jeans don't do that. Even dresses, don't always do that. I do love me a dress, and think they are a great choice for office wear as they can be played up or down, formal or informal. In an interview, though, I don't want anyone noticing my personal style or cute shoes or anything. Instead I focus on coming off as polished and professional. Nothing does that like a suit (or, failing a suit, a great pair of slacks and a blazer. Even a skirt and complimentary blazer seem more dressed up to me than a dress and a blazer).

Issue: I don't have a single pair of dress pants that properly fit. I've lost a fair chunk of weight since I started my last position, and have gone down something in the range of two dress sizes. Or so - I haven't bought clothes since .... July? I'm not sure entirely where I fit on the clothing scale anymore. Plenty of pieces in my closet will still work - dresses are forgiving to weight loss, as are shirts and blazers (maybe it's just because of my chest? It always necessitates something bigger than the rest of my body). Pants, though, are an issue.

So I will be buying some kick ass interview pants today. Something that makes me feel sharp and powerful and in control. Maybe a great dark grey, which I almost think of as more of a staple than black.

There's also a glimmer of hope in my mother's house: there should be a suit, in something resembling my size, hanging in my closet. She's going to check, and if it's there she'll bring it for me to pick up sometime next week. I should have looked while I was home for Christmas, but wasn't thinking of it.

Plans

This is a slow week in the kitchen for me. There's no real meals on the horizon that I intend to make this week. Mostly that's because we have a fridge and freezer full of leftovers and Bunny and I would really like to eat our way through them. I will throw out food, sometimes (when it's gone bad, or when it's just two mini roast potatoes that neither of us are going to eat that night, or what have you) but I really don't like to.

Anytime I clean out the fridge or throw out food, poor Bunny gets an earful. So we're trying to avoid that.

I'd be lying, though, if I said there wasn't a bigger reason that nothing's happening in the kitchen. It's this little itch in my hands, the back of my mind just begging for me to scratch it. Something sitting, still in its box, down in the foyer waiting for us to create space for it and start using it. Something that comes in beautiful, gorgeous Empire Red. Not to mention the hand mixer and the flan dish and mini casseroles that ALSO came home with us for Christmas.

Really, nothing can be done in the kitchen until Bunny and I re-organize a few things and create more usable space. First, we need space for the KitchenAid, and it needs to be both stable and near a plug. I don't want to put it on the bench table we use as a counter, because it's away from the walls and it isn't stable. Seeing as my mother is of the bigger-is-better mindset and bought me the biggest available mixer, I need to make sure it's stable.

So, plan at this point, is to bring Bunny's workbench in from the back balcony and move all his engine stuff to that so I can have the dining room table for the mixer. Yeah, we don't use our dining room table. Plus we will need to reorganize our cupboards and find space for the hand mixer, flan dish and mini-casserole dishes.

Next week, though, I have some kitchen dreams. They include:

• Risotto! I finally have arborio rice, and I'd like to pick up some fancy mushrooms.
• Fruit tart! I'm thinking maybe pears? And my own flan dish certainly calls for making my own pie shell. I could do a quiche in there, but where's the fun in that.
• Gratin of some sort. Maybe scalloped potatoes (I think I'm going to pick up a mandoline in the next few weeks), but some sort of beautiful gratin served in my new mini casseroles.
• So many mixer recipes - meringues (and then macarons, when I get the meringues right), cookies and cupcakes, mousses
• BUTTER! Because how cool is that, really? And then buttermilk pancakes with the leftover milk, of course

Surprisingly, the casserole dishes are lighting my imagination slightly more than the mixer. I look at them and all I can think of is having guests over for dinner, serving mini mac and cheese side dishes, souffles, so many ideas. Yum.

budget smudget

I'm a little bit peeved with myself right now, financially. Not that I've done anything wrong, per se, but I'm frustrated with what I have not been doing.

A little history for you: I was terrible with money in high school. I worked like crazy, but I didn't save. I viewed cash as expendable. Now, money does not control me, and it's something that can be replaced, but to have control of your own money and to have money available for me whenever I need it is important. In high school, though, I had no concept of control or budgeting. Whatever money I have, was available for spending - and in fact would be spent.

University was a little bit better. I had a semblance of a budget, because the money had to stretch for the school year, but I didn't truly understand the concept of budgeting and the importance of saving. I funded my education mostly through private bank loans, and because I hadn't worked for the money, I had no attachment to it. If I wanted to buy a dress, or a book, or new shoes, the only question was "do I have the money available?" It didn't matter that it wasn't really my money, just that it was there to be used. I missed payments, avoided collection calls, and was just generally stupid with my money.

After I graduated, I quickly decided that I didn't want the black cloud of student debt hanging over my head for the next ten to fifteen years. So, I learned how to budget. I learned that just because money is available doesn't mean that I should spend it. I started aggressively paying back debt, I started building an emergency fund, I created a budget that I can understand and live with. That isn't so strict that I can't stick to it, and can be flexible when I need it to be.

The past month or two, though, I have been avoiding my budget. I've been sticking to it, but avoiding looking at it or thinking about it. This all started when Bunny and I got engaged, and I avoided sitting down and making a super formal budget (which I still have to do. Dang it!)

I haven't looked at my budget, really, since then. I mean I've looked, but I haven't truly reviewed the budget and adjusted it too much, which is unfortunate. I really do need to start doing that more. Especially given that my financial situation has changed, and it's time to really look at how to make the funds that Bunny and I have available to us last. I'm not quite sure why I'm avoiding it, because at the end of the day knowing how my financial situation stands, and where it's taking me, is very satisfying.

pancake accessories

I don't know anyone who doesn't love a pancake every now and again. They're a perenniel favourite for me, as I always used to make them Sunday mornings growing up. Every week. When I was little, my mom always had boxed pancake mixes on hand, ususally Aunt Jemima but sometimes other brands.

As I started to spend more time in the kitchen, I really realized that I wasn't always entirely happy with boxed pancake mixes. There's never enough baking powder in the mixes and the pancakes don't bubble properly, which is a constant annoyance to me. I like my bubbles damnit! I later realized that this is an easy enough fix (add your own!), but I also came to another realization.

It's just as easy to make your own pancakes from scratch as it is to use a mix.

Hear me out here. I know there's lots of recipes out there that call for whipped eggs whites and other craziness. I've never bothered with these, I'm sure they make lovely pancakes, but I certainly don't want to spend all that time getting a batter together in the morning! I do fully intend to try these sometime in the near future (with the help of the new KitchenAid!!!!), but they aren't necessary. If you have the Good Housekeeping cookbook (my first, and my base cookbook for most traditional recipes), the recipe in there is great. Almost equal portions of flour and milk, some oil, an egg, and a touch of sugar, baking powder and salt.

Easy peasy.

Even easier? Making custom pancakes. Everyone knows of course the standard blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes, which are perhaps the easiest. But why stop there? Banana can be added, either smushed and beaten into the batter, or sliced and placed into the cooking cakes. Apples and pear and great when shredded and mixed in, especially if you add some cinnamon and nutmeg. Those are the obvious ones, though. Just adding fruits, or sweets to the batter.

My favourite pancake customizations all involve actually changing the batter itself, the proportions and ingredients to really transform the pancakes. Whipped egg whites, to me, fall under this category, as does the classic: buttermilk pancakes. Other great ideas I have heard involve different types of flour, or adding cottage cheese (that's courtesy of Oversized Cliches). My favourite, though, addresses Bunny's most common pancake complaint:

He says they are like Chinese food, in that he's hungry again in an hour.

So, add some bulk. The cottage cheese would work, but I like adding some bulkier grains to the batter myself. My favourite: the oatmeal pancake. Replace about half of the flour with rolled oats. This bulks up the pancakes and makes it a lot more filling, with fibre. You can really use any sort of grain, I'm just partial to oats. In my experience, though, you do in fact need to leave some flour there.

In bullet form, your pancake tips are:

• Additives - add fruits or other lovely bits to your batter
• Basic recipe changes - buttermilk, whipped eggs
• Change the flour - oat flour, rye flour, whatever you like
• Add a grain - Swap half the flour in your recipe for something more fibrous and filling, like oats
• HAVE FUN! If you can think of a simple swap, add it or switch it up