pork for dinner, pork for breakfast

I am fasting until tomorrow night. Long story, support for Conrad, nothing horrible, don't be concerned. Just me, being sensitive.

I am starting to get crabby.

I. Love. Food. And a glass of wine with it. Tomorrow night's dinner will be most welcome.

So I sit, having downed a third mug of the permissible broth, and obsess over food, killing time until bedtime. Wedding photos from the weekend, mostly, but I wanted to sneak this in just to torture myself a little more:



A big, thick pork chop, oven braised in a tomatillo sauce. A poor iPhone photo, but it's enough to make me yearn for tasty tasty pig products. Like what I had this morning:



Yep, that's an omelet - an egg dish. But friends, it is studded with pancetta. A good way to start a day wherein I would forego all other food the rest of the day. Mmmm. I wish I had that omelet now.

Round Barn Winery

Many are the states that make wine - all of them, in fact. A week or so ago, Conrad and I decided to finally open a bottle of a Maui Syrah we purchased from a winery there last year. It was... interesting. Far better than the Carlos and Noble. More "interesting" than the Missouri wine. We thought it was kind of watery, and as we went on, the initial appealing funk became more than we cared for.

We've also had Michigan wine before, both at wineries and at restaurants and homes. We've been told the names of some good wineries, too, though we don't think we've stumbled upon them in our travels. Tabor Hill is a name that comes up, and we enjoyed generous pours of it at the rehearsal dinner I have yet to blog. But it's not our favourite, no. Instead, we turn to Round Barn Winery, a place we came upon while out with Darth and Heidi a few years back.

(Long story about ViJ's here, ask me another day.)

The day after the wedding we dropped by Tina's parents' home for the send-off brunch, and - with a little food in our bellies - we set out through gently rolling landscape clothed in cornfields and grape vines. Ah, the vines, heavy with ripe berries.
When will they pick them all.

Frankly, I'm not a fan of the grape wines from Michigan with rare exception, and the visit this time to Round Barn didn't dispel that notion much. The Chardonnay, for example, had a big, oaky nose, but was like water in our mouths. Conrad liked the regular Cab but thought the reserve Cab was lacking. We tried several grape wines, in fact, and at best they were ok.

Ah, but the fruit wines, the fruit wines. Oh, scorn fruit wine if you will, but it can be a lovely thing to sip alone, or with cheese or desert or even some savoury foods. We're huge fans of the black walnut, and were dismayed that they had none. Our spirits (ha! see what I did there?) lifted when they told us it was coming out later this year.

The fruit wines were as lovely as we recalled from years past, and we happily bought a handful of bottles. Declining the beer tasting, we headed outside, took some photos, and began the (happily not too long) trek back around the bend of the lake to Chicago.

Darth! Heidi! Niles!

First in a cluster of blog postings to appear in the next day or two, most of them related to the recent weekend in Michiana. Ah, glorious Michiana. Home of many strip malls, as we learned. The stretch from South Bend, IN, to Niles, MI, is replete with them.

But never mind, for Niles is also the home of friends: Darth and Heidi.

Yes, you wonder, I know: what sort of name is Darth? A nickname, of course. Darth is better known to our library school classmates and others by his real name, Conrad. But that, as you may guess, gets to be confusing in conversations among the four of us. Whether he approves or not, he is Darth, and Allison will back me up on this one!




Given the schedule of wedding events and things going on with Darth and Heidi, we had to settle for a quick visit with them at the library in Niles, catching up on our personal events, wishing for a future longer visit together. Funny coincidence: Darth is taking part in a community theatre production of Escanaba in da Moonlight, a play of a movie set in Conrad's (my Conrad's) hometown. Yooper jokes popped out for a minute or two.

And then we had to leave Darth to his work (Heidi, by then, was en route to Ann Arbor). At least he gave us a must-see/must-do in Niles recommendation before we left: Veni's Sweet Shop. Conrad and I had a little fun shopping in there, restraining ourselves somewhat. And, as a thank you to Darth, dropped off a little treat box with him from the shop before we drove on out of town.

Happy birthday handsome man!

No, Conrad will not mind this post or its title. He's well aware of my unrequited crush on the NBF's BF. In any case, as handsome as I think Brett is, he's sooooo darn fussy with food that it would drive me nuts.

Brett = hot. Jeph = a saint for putting up with Brett.

:-)

Happy birthday Brett, you handsome man! Your BF better be treating you right!

turkey breast

This will be a short post. I have plan B in the oven right now, baking for an office function tomorrow. And while I'm not hugely confident in how it will turn out, I will say that the kitchen is beginning to smell really awesome.

So then, while it bakes, a photo and comment on dinner tonight. I came home, put season 2 of Big Bang Theory on the laptop on the kitchen table, and set to work on roasting a turkey breast for us. Seasoned, browned it, chucked it in an oven for a while. Took it out, checked the temperature/juices, rested it. Sliced it up.

In fact, I was pleased. Turkey is often so dry, but this was fairly moist even before I drizzled some pan drippings over it. I plated slices atop parsnip-leek puree and added mustard-glazed Brussels-sprouts to it all. A simple, compact plate. We sat in the living room and ate, sipping a Foxen 2006 Pinot Noir.

sunrise, YVR

Pretty, colourful sunrises aside, coming home from vacation is altogether bittersweet. By last Sunday morning when we were passing through Vancouver Airport, I was yearning for sleep in my own bed at home in Chicago but otherwise not even remotely keen for vacation to end.





My life sucks, he says melodramatically.

A few Vancouver shots

Let's finish off the recent vacation with a few blog entries!

By the time our trip was ending, the Vancouver weather was fairly ideal. Warm without being hot, sunny. Truly, it is a shame to have to leave when the weather is so fine.

On the Friday we spent some time downtown. Lunch with Chris was the focus of the day (and a tasty lunch it was, at Cafe Medici, a place new to Conrad and me).


Chris, in case I haven't said it enough on this blog, is a super guy through and through. Plus, he had us over to his handsome West End apartment and made us dinner. So few people cook for us, it almost makes us weep with delight when it happens. Good to have such friends in Vancouver.

Before and after lunch, though, we strolled, poked in shops (not buying much, though I did buy a CD by Dan Mangan, an artist Giuseppe had recommended), and enjoyed the day. Much of the city had the same idea, it seems, and a good many people were on the sidewalks or in plazas and parks. Who can blame them? Good weather can be fleeting on the west coast, so best to grab it while you can!

Shots of the city - MK, if you read this, note the countdown clock!

YVR art

Waaaaay back when I was young, in the age of the dinosaurs, Vancouver airport was, well, it just was. Far better shops/dining than O'Hare (and on the non-secure side of security, to boot), but just kind of meh when it came to its look.

Don't ask me to pinpoint when, but at a certain point, the airport authority took on the idea of building, renovating, redesigning, and redecorating seriously and enthusiastically. Nowadays, the arrival at YVR from the US is a small thrill, a stroll amongst museum-quality First Nations artwork. Many is the time I've seen fellow passengers stop to take photos.

Last Saturday Conrad and I drove out to the International Terminal to pick up Beloved Sister, arriving home from a vacation in Ireland. Given a bit of a wait, I slipped upstairs to the departures level to take photos of a magnificent piece, Bill Reid's Jade Canoe.



The Canoe, the companion piece to the Black Canoe the sits in the Canadian Embassy in DC, is there, out in the open, touchable. No, really. You can go up to it and touch it, really get a close look. Remarkable. And it IS remarkable work. I keep an image of a Bill Reid work on my laptop desktop and have done so for quite some time now. The Haida art stirs me greatly.

Conrad and I have a funny little in-joke about the canoe. On our first trip to Vancouver, we flew separately - I was staying in BC longer, and I was on a tighter budget back then. I told him we'd meet up, post-flight, at the canoe. He had a heck of a time figuring out where it was we were supposed to meet. Such a large sculpture that I evidently took a little for granted. I assure you, he knows where it is now!

breakfast of lazy vacationers

With this post, I officially give everyone permission to run wild and eat cake for breakfast. After all, it's not like we'll see Michael Phelps (the Ryan Cochrane of the US, for my Canadian readers) on the packaging of this "breakfast".



Having a slice of Battenburg cake just makes me realize how much I miss Marks & Spencer in Western Canada.

casual dinner on the balcony

Even as I type, it's a sunny evening, albeit dimming slowly. Conrad is reading out on the balcony. I'm not in a reading mood tonight (even if I happily browsed used book stores today), and so I'm post-dinner blogging. We'll put a movie in a little later. We have a bottle of a 2006 Quail's Gate Merlot, and we're relaxed.

So, of course I'm blogging!

Just another short note from our Vancouver vacation. We dined simply on the balcony tonight. Our farmers' market expedition yesterday plus a bit of shopping today (not much, I promise - well, other than the books and the wine) yielded the makings of an easy meal that required no cooking. Tossing together. Plating. C'est tout.

So then: jamon serrano, cashews, olives and cornichons, little stacks of heirloom tomato slices with feta from Qualicum and some basil, a simple salad. Conrad made us martinis (in highball glasses - we need to gift Marie with proper martini glasses for her birthday next month).

You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that we're kind of living the same life here as we do in Chicago. Not at all a bad thing, but interesting to observe in ourselves. Well, without the going to work thing, of course!

close to perfect Vancouver day

Yesterday was just wonderful. A handful of days into my week of vacation, and at long last I really felt like we were on vacation. Relaxing. Seeing some friends. Eating well. A very good time.

It was pouring all morning here in Vancouver, but that's hardly a surprise, so it does nothing to detract from the day itself. Conrad and I spent time over at Safari Cafe, sipping Adam's terrific coffee, munching an omelette each. We also took care of some basic chores around the house, not least of which was trying to get rid of more of Marie's hair and dust bunnies. And then off to meet Giuseppe for lunch.

Giuseppe is so darn adorable (and so is Brian, I truthfully have to add). I was thrilled that he moved out here and I hope Brian can follow soon. Giuseppe is up to eyeballs in work these days, but at least we could grab a good lunch. We ended up at Nuba Cafe, which was new to me and Conrad and a nice revelation. Inexpensive wine list. An appealing Lebanese menu. I quite liked (and was more than filled by) my cauliflower dish, and the guys both liked their chicken.
Our waitress was super to chat with, and a glass of wine washed it all down happily.

We walked Giuseppe back to his office, then decided to catch the Sky Train home and relax a while. I was a little tired - I love to get in naps while on vacation - and the afternoon was still kind of grey anyway. We had sort-of plans, but an hour or so of dozing kind of killed them. Ah well. Instead, post-nap we wandered over to the Main Street Farmers Market and picked up some local products. Great time of year to be here: we picked out a variety of tomatoes

as well as cheese, basil, blackberries, radishes, and chocolates. Back home with our bounty, we got the place ready for Sherri to come for dinner.

We'd originally thought to head up Main to The Whip for a meal, then that morphed into a cocktail out but dinner at home. By the time Sherri arrived, it was a nice evening and we decided to just open wine we had and dine in. I set out some snacks for us to have on the balcony along with the birthday bottle of Joie Noble Blend.




We took our time, and eventually I moved us in to sit down to a green salad and a plate of lamb sausage in a tomato-saffron sauce along with some roasted and sauteed pumpkin.
We sipped a Cotes du Rhone, then moved on to more cheese, grapes and blackberries, and an Oak Bay Pinot Meunier. The night ended with Conrad doing dishes (LOVE HIM!) and Sherri showing me photos from her class reunion last month.

What could have been better? I forgot to make Sherri coffee at the end of the night. A small failure as a host, I blush to admit. Otherwise, though, what a terrific vacation day all around.