2013/03/31
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2013.03.27Scènes de Montréal – Montreal Scenes Fine palate
The above critter seems quite fond of freeze-dried sage. Maybe it’s Italian.
Playing silly games
That Kim Jong-un is one heck of a dangerous freak. You don’t spread matches everywhere when you’re sitting on a keg of powder. One day a stray and uncontrolled loose cannon on the deck could light one up and kaboom! He’s also got a funny haircut. Maybe he’s overheating in there and needs some kind of ventilation. Maybe his brain is too small. It’s like with computers. If the CPU is too small, it can’t handle the job and is always running with the pedal on the floor.
More Poperies
Pope Francis moving in his newly renovated appartments.
Cartoon © A-P Côté, Le SoleilCatch-22
I went to see my family doctor this week. The last time was last summer, before I entered the hospital. She told me she was awfully glad to see me. Alive I mean. I had managed last month to have the hospital (the second one) send her a resumé of my medical file so she was aware of what I went through. She asked me if I was still taking alcohol, adding that in my condition stopping completely would be kind of mandatory, but the choice was mine. Of what I understand, not stopping completely would mean dying sooner, and stopping would mean dying later. Is this what they mean when they talk about “losing some quality of life”?
Ah!… Decisions… Decisions…
Repeat
The large demonstration in Paris against gay marriage reminded me of what happened here last year. At first it was strictly about student tuition fees, but it soon became a funnel for all the anger and resentment towards the then government. François Hollande is not very popular these days (a euphemism) and there is a lot of discontent about the economic situation.
Gay marriage
I have not much to say that hasn’t been already said, except that from all the arguments against it that I’ve heard, I’m still waiting for one that is rational and based on proveable facts.
Jazz
My friend who built that castle came to Montreal last week and paid me a visit. I had the TSR (Swiss) radio on and he mentioned a Jazz station in Paris called TSF Jazz and which I think he has playing as background music in the rooms of the castle (there a loudspeaker in each room which guests can turn on or off). Anyways, it’s 24 hour jazz and blues and to my knowledge, there’s no ads. At least not when I listen to it, which is in afternoons or evenings, but most importantly during night-time over there. Night music, so to speak. The French were always great jazz fans, and it shows on this radio. I didn’t find any direct link to the player, probably because they offer many of them. The link to the site is http://www.tsfjazz.com/accueil.php# and once there click on “Ecouter TSF” (Listen to TSF) on the left then choose Flash or one of the other players.
Easter follies
The doorbell rang early this afternoon. It was a delivery man for a flower shop. Needless to say, I was surprised, no one having ever sent me flowers. It turned out it was flowers sent by my mother for Easter.
. My first problem was to find something to put them in. I don’t collect flower vases. Eventually I went to the nearby dollar store and bought one for 2$, a glass tubular one. The flowers in the arrangement are tulips. I don’t know if it’s because they were many hours without water, but they don’t seem very vigorous. I’ll see tomorrow if their spirits get better.
On my part, I went to Marché Jean-Talon this afternoon, foremost to buy some sausages and a jar of kumquat marmalade. Sign that I’m recovering and that I am still a food slut, I ended up with much more than that in my recyclable bag. I even ended up with a second bag. At Zinman who are my pusher as per sausages go, I bought a pack of chipolata and one of merguez. I also bought some hefty chicken drumsticks. They were in packs of six but the butcher offered me to repack them in three packages of two, which saved me the trouble to do it at home. However, there’s a bunch of Italians working in that butcher shop, which sells many other items. For Easter, they had fancy panettones on display. They also had a woman there who was very convincing in enticing someone to buy one.
I don’t buy often large panettones since they are too much for me but she had smaller ones and this being that, I ended up with a Colomba di Pasqua (Easter dove) which she put in a fancy little bag with stylized flowers printed on it. Not to mention the other ones part of the panettone’s wrapping. So all in all, today era il giorno dei fiori (was the day of flowers).
It’s been a while since I made onion soup and for that I needed a piece of Swiss Gruyère, which I bought at Capitol. For munching (and protein) purposes, I also bought a piece of firm cheese and it ended up to be another Swiss one, a Vacherin Fribourgeois. Smelled good. And tastes good also.
There’s a store at Marché Jean-Talon which sells St-Dalfour jams for a price that’s a steal, 3,99$ while almost everywhere else it’s about 5.50$. But more so, they have jams not often found elsewhere, like kumquat and mirabelle. Mirabelles are small yellowish prune grown in northern France. Kumquats are shrunk oranges.
Flower update:
The flowers have nothing wrong, finally. It’s me who is not flower litterate. I spoke to my youngest brother today. He has worked at times as a helper in a flower shop near my mother’s place and told me what I didn’t know. Like for instance that those little vials the stems are stuck in at delivery time are used to keep the flowers alive until they are sold and must be removed before putting them in a vase. I stupidly thought they contained plant food and therefore should not be removed, furthermore that the water in the vase enters in them to water the plant. Well, it doesn’t. Not a drop. The stems are very tightly inserted in the covers of those vials. No wonder those tulips looked like the were supporting on their shoulders all the sins of our current federal government. After removing the vials, cutting the ends bevel-edged and replacing them in the vase, it took only a few hours for the flowers to get all perky again. Too bad we can’t get rid as easily of the forementioned government.
On a side note, I’m not that crazy about those vials. They remind me a lot about those they use to collect blood samples.
Da food section
Kind of an eclectic week as far as food goes….
Tuesday, I had that second eight of pizza from Motta. This pizza is their “campagnola” which means country-style but in this case it means essentially veggie. Since rapini (a variety of Italian broccoli) is delicious on a pizza with black olives and onions, and since I didn’t have any rapini but did have lots of broccoli, I added my personal touch, along with a few sliced kalamata olives (it already had sliced black olives). I also add hot oil at service time. It’s not hot because I heat it, it’s hot because I take olive oil and let it simmer a while with whole habanero peppers in it. I can guarantee that hot here means HOT. A cupful of this oil will last me a long time, since for obvious reasons, it is only used sparsely at a time. This is the thick crust type of pizza and after eating a piece like this one, I’m full.
On Wednesday, I made some curried chicken. Normally the chicken parts are to be kept whole, but since I cannot cut meat once it’s served or at least it’s a pain, I try to cut it in smaller pieces before cooking. In this case, I have to use breasts instead of thighs or drumsticks. You will notice the absence of a glass of wine. This was on the day I had that [gentle] sermon given to me by my family doctor and I was still a little freaked out about it. I also did this meal at around 21h00, which was a dirty trick to play to my upstairs neighbors. When you prepare to go to sleep, the scents of curry and other spices is not necessary what you want to smell. Because besides the curry, there was also cinnamon (too much), allspice and garlic in there.
Friday afternoon, I noticed that my corner supermarket sold already cooked (on location) and sliced roast beef, and in small packages. That’s one of the advantages of living in a big city where single people are a dime a dozen. You can get most everything in individual sizes. Anyways, there were many packages. Some were a bit rare, others well done. The rare ones were too thick for me so I chose a well-done one. I made a mushroom and Madeira flavored sauce to drape those slices and with a few vegetables, I called it a meal. This time around, having had no beer nor wine for two days, I permitted myself a sip of wine, which I measured to be about 70 ml. I’ll ask my hepatologist in May where 70 ml stands in that scale between soon and later (see above). Anyhow, I didn’t even finish it.
And of course… to all
Joyeuses Pâques!
Happy Easter!
Buona Pasqua!
Not a kumquat —>
Comments (8)
Now that I know what a kumquat is I’m so glad I’m not a kumquat. (really I’m not)
Your food pics inspire me. (in a good way)
Happy Easter my friend.
Love those meal-in-a-slice pizzas.
Maybe the squirrel is using the sage to clean his teeth. i knew people they did use sage for cleaning teeth….yes, Italians.
Every I read the word Motta, my mind goes back to Milano (I was there in the 1963/64).
Colomba pasquale is almost disappeared here in Vlaanderen, too much taste for chocolate here.
Rapini must be goood to use with orecchiete, but you already know that.
About the alcohol is not very sure the doctor knows everything, in the case you could already try some alcohol free wine, or beer, or just a little bit. Perhaps the problem will be in the medecins you’re taking now that interact with alcohol..
Buona Pasqua
I was surprised about the gay marriage protest in France. So far as I know the French don’t have any problems about it, they are not very church-going at all. Could be that the name ‘marriage’ disturbs them? just call it something else and it would be okay, I think. Important is to have the rights granted.
good food.
The tulips are beautiful.
When I scrolled past the cartoon of the Pope sleeping I thought it was Tilda sleeping.
I’d rather watch Tilda. 
Parsambleu, je n’ ai pas la berlue et je vois un verre de bon vin sur la table . Il semble que comme le Héron de la Fontaine tu pense qu’ un mauvais accommodement vaut mieux qu’un bon procès ou avec Molère qu’on peut avec la règle médicale avoir certains accommodements !
. la vie n’ est -elle pas une suite d ‘ accommodements ?
Oui quand j’ étais jeune nous aimions le jazz qui était une musique bien différente que le rock . Qui ne se souvient de Sidney Bechet ou de Duke Ellington et j’ en ouklie .et excuse l’ orthographe approximative de ces noms .
Merci pour tes souhaits de Pâques . J ‘ espère quant à moi que tu vas mieux
Amitiés
Michel