DIY - Before and After

With a student sized budget, I have been trying to outfit my apartment as best as possible, still I won't settle for junk. Inspired by the DIY sections of the design blogs I have become addicted to, I decided to rescue some furniture from the backyard of my old apartment and create my own 'IKEA hack'.

Here below is the before and after, which I think turned out wonderfully!

Before...

After a good sanding, two coats of white varnish and two more of varnish. Finally, I took apart the smaller of the two pieces and then screwed the pieces down to the back of the shelves. Here is the result!

After...

Family Secrets

"What is that smell!?!" my roommate exclaimed poking her head around the corner from our hallway into the kitchen."I thought you were making cauliflower, not something that smells that good!" 

In our house cauliflower dinners were me and my brother's favorite, we developed stealthy skills to steal a piece or two away from my mom as she was cooking and always invited friends over for a taste of our mom's culinary genius. 

This week when my mom decided to air-mail a full head of organic cauliflower, I had to use it up quick and could think of no better way than making my mom's famous dish. Not only that, but I decided to document it so that I could share it with you all!

With no further ado:

Mom's Cauliflower

Ingredients:

A head of Cauliflower sectioned up

4 eggs

2-3 cups of breadcrumbs

1 1/2 cup of vegetable oil

Steps:

Place all the cauliflower into a pot and cover with water. Bring water to a boil and boil until cauliflower is tender, but not soft. You should be able to stick a fork in it without resistance, however watch that you don't boil it till it falls apart. The difference between the two extremes is about a minute in boiling time, so watch closely.

Remove from water when the cauliflower is done and allow to cool.

Prepare your egg wash, by beating the four eggs until you have an even consistency. Coat your cauliflower in egg and then transfer into the breadcrumbs. Cover the cauliflower in a small mound of breadcrumbs, pressing firmly on top. Take out your little 'tree' and toss it back and forth between your hands to remove any excess crumbs, and then place on the side. Repeat until you have all your cauliflower covered. 

In a pan, heat the vegetable oil on a medium heat (this is important so that your cauliflower doesn't burn) and fry your cauliflower until golden brown. Rotate the 'trees' as necessary trying to get them as evenly brown from all sides as possible.  When finished place on a paper towel to absorb excess oil. When you put the next batch of cauliflower in, remember that your oil will be even hotter so watch more closely that your breadcrumbs don't burn.

Serve with tartar sauce and potatoes. 

My mom used to just make boiled potatoes with caraway seeds, salt and melted butter. 

The tartar sauce I got once again from Chuck's Day Off, though I didn't use the arugula I still found that it turned out great! Here is the recipe below:

Tartar Sauce

• 4 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 bunch arugula, chopped
• 1 large shallot, finely chopped
• 1 large dill pickle, chopped
• 1 tbsp capers, chopped
• 2 anchovies, minced

 

Tartar Sauce

1. Place 4 tablespoons of mayo in a bowl and add all your ingredients finely diced.
2. Mix together. Mixture should be green, chunky and not too runny.

 

Market Daze

My mom's black-currant jam left me eating cheese like it was going out of style last week. Not that I am complaining, each time I dug in to the good stuff I had the company of great friends, but I could do without the breakouts and subsequent guilt of living off brie.

I decided to turn repulsion into prepultion and finally make good on my summer-long-promise to go exploring and seek out the farmer's markets around the city.

I did a little research and found a comprehensive list of Farmer's Markets in

Toronto here at the Toronto Farmer's Market's website.

After teaching a 8:30am yoga class on Saturday, I made my way down to the St.Lawerence Farmer's Market, which hosts a market that has been going since 1803 and continues to run every Saturday 5am to 5pm. Finding it was slightly trickier than I thought, as the market happens in the North building and spills on to Church as opposed to happening in and around the main South building. Happily, I found it and spent a blissful hour walking around, meeting farmers and buying their amazing goods.

I forgot just how good peaches can taste!

Other surpises included the selection of Ontario grown melons, amazing olive oil vendors (where I picked up an amazing Black Olive Tapenade) and amish ladies selling the most beautiful of Dalia's .

I quickly acquired a decadent bunch of goodies in my bag and set off home to put them to good

use.

I used my purchase of green beans (yeah mom, I am eating beans!), new potatoes and farm fresh eggs in an amazing salad I had seen featured on Chuck's Day Off, a great new show on the Food Network. The show follows Chef Chuck Hughes, who whips up recipes for his friends on his 'days off ' from running his successful restaurant Garde - Manger, in Old Montreal.

His hands on, simple cooking style peaked my interests so I decided to give his 'Warm Potato Salad' a go and use up some of my green beans.

I did have to change things up a little in lieu of some of the ingredients. I made the dressing out of 1tsp of Dijon and 1/2 tsp of Yellow Mustard, instead of white wine vinegar I used a 1/8 cup of white vinegar and 1/8 cup of rice vinegar, finally, I switched up extra virgin olive oil for the canola. This recipe was such a success that I think Chuck is in the running to replace Jamie Oliver as my fav. new celebrity chef. Check out the recipe and more here.

My thoughts as of late have been dwelling on the issue of resentment. One of my particularity colorful employers posted a quote on our staff computer about the shackles that resentment imposes upon us. It read as follows:

“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.”

As I have moved through life and accumulated experience through my relationships, most of which have fallen apart in the most un-pleasant of ways (then again is there a pleasant way to fall apart?) I have also accumulated resentment to the heartaches of the past.

But as I received an email in the last week from one of the very exes it seemed to take forever to recover from, I started to think about the ways we chose to view our departed relationships. "This is completely innocent," he wrote, "but I wanted you to know that I still think about you."

I realized then that I had two options, to either get frustrated that I could still feel a pang of emotion toward the comment, or to graciously accept the compliment and smile for all the good that had existed between the two of us. I did the former.

Further, as I passed the apartment and epicenter of my most recent love-life fracture, I felt that nostalgic lurch in my stomach, and thought,' I can change this. '

If reality is nothing but a perception, then certainly we can chose the way that we perceive the very real things that tug at our hartstrings. For the longest time, I thought that being 'over' something or someone just meant no longer caring anymore. That in order to be healed and to move on I had to feel a complete dismemberment from events and players of my past. But as I move forward, I realize that thats just not me. I will forever care.

Whether its about the boy who still declined to date me after I made (oh god, I can't belive I am admitting this on the internet) a secret admirer puzzle for him in 10th grade, or the last person who I dreamed of puppies with, I will never be rid of it. I have discovered that I am a woman who will forever hold her past loves close to her heart, and who will on occasion feel a tentacle reach from the past, suction to her heart and pull upon its strings.

And so I am left with a choice of perception.

Do I go forward forever carrying the chip on my shoulder of the relationship that ended because of a lack of commitment, or infedelity or the communication crisis that robbed me of both my lover and my friend... or do I look back and remember the good.

I realize it is my choice whether to continually open my wounds by resenting the hurts of my past, or to remember the fond times, treasure the lessons I so painstakingly came by and forgive the heartache. So, from now I will remember instead the late night dinners: muscles, soups, and Venetian pastas. I will remember the wealth of knowledge, learning about brush-stokes, composition and art history, about design, fashion history, energy orbs and the backstage secrets of Madonna concerts.

Relationships are about the coming together of two people, and so two steer the course of the vessel. But when the two once again divide we are once again the masters of our own course, only a little different, more experienced, hopefully wiser and better for it all. Each of my former partners has changed me into a different friend, partner and woman. Ultimately as I stand on my own two feet I get to chose how the rough seas of the past continue to dictate my course of exploration in the future.

And so I have chosen to sail boldly, to remember hard lessons learned but to still dream of thrill of unchartered waters without the shackles of resentment but instead with the wisdom of experience.

I chose for those lurches of emotion to not make me upset with what I devastation tore at my heart, but for them to let me remember that I did, that I do care.

So, I am responding to emails with notes of thanks for kind sentiments. I am passing apartments and choosing to smile, to giggle even at the memory of happy moments. I am choosing the good over the bad.

I am choosing to view my past in a way that is conducive with what I want to see in my future: hope, love, faith, compassion, kindness and honesty.

Picture of the Week

New Obsession

Spices have always proven to be an organizational problem in my house. The only favourable solution to spice storage was one developed by a close family friend and interior designer who installed an insert into what was to become a 'spice drawer' in her home. As this was not an option for me, I have been forced to search out the perfect solution to my spice woes. 

Stealing a page out a from a friend's book who used old small jam jars to store her spices, I headed to Home Hardware and purchased two sizes of mason jars to store my growing s

pice collection. The end result is well-sealed spice storage that is easily accessible by spoon or hand (for those moments when Jamie Oliver calls for a pinch of this or that). 

The labels were made from heavy card-stock, handwriting done by yours truly with a Steadler Brush Tip felt and invisible Scotch-tape (this way they can easily be peeled and re-labeled). 

Here are some other great Mason Jar ideas that I've come across since my new-found obsession. 

To the right are the light fixtures in the soon to open Sam James Coffee Bar, just down the street from my new place. 

Below to the left are some of the Mason-Jar displays put together by the geniuses behind the window displays at Anthropologie. 

So many pretty jars, so little time!! More jar-rific ideas to come!!

♥ B