We can make eight pancakes at one time  :D

Seriously, this thing is awesome.  Griddle on one side, grill on the other.  Slightly makes up for our lack of ability to cook meat over fire.  I broiled one too many steaks and couldn't stand it anymore.   

omg omg omg.  Trader Joe's Swedish pancake mix = The Original Pancake House's 49er Flapjacks.  Almost.  But soooo close and soooo good.

*devours all cookie monster-style*

Hot on the heels of reading this article, we had our first Planet Organics food delivery for the first time since the fall, which had been indefinitely on hold due to lack of funds.  So I'm sitting here having an afternoon mini-meal of a very yummy pre-made whole grain, pecan, and mango salad, instead of something like a bagel or nuked pasta.

Sad but true that salty, fatty carbs are going to fill up your stomach cheaper and more tastily than something healthier that took the same amount of time to prepare.  I like to cook, but not three times a day.  I don't mind taking some time to make a nice, healthy dinner or lunch, but I don't love it enough to take away from time I could be doing other things for every meal.

Four food chains from Canada that I really miss:

The Keg

Swiss Chalet (*shakes fist at Buster*)

Lick's

New York Fries (particularly poutine) 

There are also Timmies' sour cream glazed timbits, and Cultures' spinach salads.

But here in California, there's The Counter, Peet's iced coffee, brewed iced tea, Claim Jumper, cheap and awesome Mexican food and sushi everywhere.

Now that I'm drooling, I think it's time to make dinner.

I HAVE KETCHUP CHIPS AND AN AERO BAR!

:D

It started by looking up the roots of the Canadian thanksgiving (Wikipedia -- solving bar debates and dinner conversation questions since... umm... whenever), and then I ended up on the fascinating Wikipedia entry for Tim Hortons.  Did you know that there's an RCMP radio code for Tim Hortons, and that the chain accounts for nearly a quarter of the Canadian fast food industry's sales??

I miss Timmies! 

Sooooo... which one of us gets to change the emergency thawing turkey water every half an hour? The one who suggested going to the store late, or the one who should have known better but went along with it anyway? :P

PS. It's strange having Thanksgiving so close to Christmas.

Someone's in a typey mood tonight... that would be me :) My back is bugging me today so I'm kinda hanging out in bed right now and trying to avoid painkillers.

I've been meaning to share the beautiful night when Chris proposed... no, it wasn't completely out of left field. We'd talked about it a while back and agreed that we were completely certain that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and saw no reason to wait any longer. But the night itself was so very unexpected :)

We went out for a special evening. He took me to a bookstore we'd been meaning to check out in San Francisco and had a blast flipping through their selection for a while. Then we pulled up to this stunning Moroccan restaurant called Aziza. My jaw dropped when I walked in. The ambience was absolutely incredible. We snuggled up in a booth and proceeded to have literally one of the best meals of our lives. After several small dishes and plates of mind-blowing appetizers, we shared a pot of beef stew. Ok, you might be thinking, what's so special about beef stew? Words cannot describe this stew. If you speared a piece of meat with your fork and lifted it up, half the chunk of meat would positively drip off the fork, it was so tender.

We followed up this transcendent meal with some simple fruits. I managed to squirt a grape's worth of cold juice directly into Chris's ear somehow. We were about to leave (I thought) when suddenly he pushed the table aside and it was all a blur from there :) He said the most amazingly beautiful and profound things that were all wrapped up in a swirl and lost their individual meanings as words. He presented me with a sapphire (my birthstone) and diamond ring that was my mother's. It's funny... I've seen this ring so many times in my drawer, but it seems to have taken on an entirely different appearance residing in that box and on my hand...

I squeaked "yes" and cried and hugged and next thing I knew, the waiter was discreetly handing us champagne. I hate champagne, but it was still sweet :P

This is where we were. I couldn't have crafted a more perfect evening myself...

*glows and sighs happily*

Looky what we made!

 

It turned out quite well  :D  I didn't know you could just buy the little inari pods in a can... mmmm.

Avocado is my new friend.

PS. Anyone know what this tree is and what kind of water/light it needs?

 

Ok, ok, this re-hurting of my back has scared enough sense into me. People keep talking about this taking months to heal, resting, needing to take really good care of it... and I'm finally listening. The back itself is feeling somewhat better but now I have this wonderful stabbing pain in my left butt cheek and down my entire leg (yes, sciatica of some sort). Yes, "taking it easy" for another month or two is seriously going to suck, but not nearly as much as it would to drag this out any longer.

Good thing I have a built-in massage therapist (ok, he's not technically one, but he gives really damn good massages) whenever I need it :)

Painkillers keep me from tensing up too much, and I'm going to do my absolute best to still take a rest and go lay down off and on. And I'll start sitting on my ball chair a little bit as I feel up to it. And gentle stretching.

~~~

After finishing the second coat of paint at least in the bedroom part of the loft, we got the clothes rods up behind the bed and were able to unpack the last boxes, move back the furniture, clean up the plastic, etc etc. It feels so wonderful to have a big, open bedroom space again! This truly is the best living space ever.

Mmmm I've been really enjoying cooking lately, but we're going out for a nice dinner tonight :) We got some sushi-making supplies today to finally try our hand at it sometime soon. Anyone else made sushi before?