Sammy's Dot

There are two things that I like to do when I don’t want to do schoolwork (well, three, if you count knitting, but two are more likely activities): read and cook.

I’ve been in the mood to cook recently.

Tonight’s dinner was, therefore, a chance to experiment. I joined the Daring Cooks too late to participate officially in the January challenge (though I’m really looking forward to the next one!), but it turned out to be something that I really wanted to try for myself, satay chicken.

To go with it, I made the “coco-vegetable rice” from Jay Weinstein’s The Ethical Gourmet. (I’ve made this before, but I really, really love it.) I’ve been making this recipe for a couple of years, and I think it was this that first suggested to me that “slaw” need not be synonymous with a soggy, stodgy mess of sad vegetables in too  much mayo, and that cabbage is in fact delicious. And since cabbage is one of the very few Ontario vegetables available in January, this was a happy discovery. (Even if it is served with rice and coconut, neither of which grew here last time I checked. But still. Cabbage! Local!) read more »

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

***

I have to begin with a confession. I think this may cost me some of my Canadian cred – even more than the time I blithely said that the animal on our quarter is a moose.

I don’t particularly like Nanaimo bars.

I do love the idea of them: graham cracker crusts (with nuts and coconut, no less!) are yummy, custard is always good, and chocolate is chocolate and nothing else need be said. But put them all together, and for some reason we Canadians tend to produce something so sweet it makes my teeth ache.

I’ve made them twice before, the second time just this last December, while visiting R in Belfast; we brought them to a potluck dinner his co-workers put on, as they asked us to bring something Canadian. It took a good chunk of our last day before coming back to Toronto to track down the ingredients. We never did find graham crackers (though plain digestive biscuits turned out to be more or less indistinguishable), and had to go to five – FIVE! – grocery stores before we found unsalted butter. I was pretty pleased that we managed to make anything at all, given the under-equipped kitchen we had access to, but they turned out like ordinary Nanaimo bars – painfully sweet. I’m not sure R’s colleagues were impressed. (Probably a good thing we didn’t make poutine!) It convinced me that if I made Nanaimo bars again, I was going to do something different.

Fortunately, a few days later I signed up for the Daring Bakers, and the opportunity presented itself. read more »

Wow.

I really am surprised by this; given the clear nation-wide dissatisfaction with the decision to prorogue and Harper’s usual political acuity, I wouldn’t have expected quite such a blunt statement. And now I’m just waiting to hear Harper announce “L’état, c’est moi.”

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper is offering a new wrinkle on his reasons for suspending Parliament – the government can do more important work without MPs sitting in the Commons.”

In fact, it’s possibly true that the government can get more work done without the inconvenience of rowdy Opposition MPs demanding accountability. It’s just, you know, totally contrary to the democratic ideals that most Canadians hold. Parliaments exist to hinder the government in its quest to do whatever it pleases.

Although it’s an interesting new take on small government, I suppose, since the government does pay the MPs.

What Dawg said.

Perhaps it’s not right for me, as a non-Liberal voter, to criticize Ignatieff’s decision to try to get a sense of what Canadians want; after all, proposing a bold new policy direction didn’t work very well for Stephane Dion. However, as a Canadian citizen concerned by Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament for the second time, effectively killing the Foreign Affairs Committee’s investigation into the treatment of Afghan detainees, I want the leader of our Opposition to be leading, not trying to follow the disparate directions of hundreds of Canadians who are divided, regionally, ideologically, and culturally.