*Deborah*

There were five grownups (Moosh and Mr Mouse and Sr Mouse, who is in town visiting; canucklehead, and myself) and one Jr Mouse (who is going to be five in a few months). It was pretty great, and wow, am I glad I had left myself a night for decompression or a peanut butter sandwich for dinner, rather than programming every single minute! *** I'm having my coffee now. The damp spot on the dining room ceiling is still there, but not appreciably bigger than it was when I went to bed last night. Today I will be driving my car to work as I have to take my poor verklemmt computer in to the shop, I can't stand it any more! sorry, Enzo, I'll ride tomorrow!

I can scarcely believe that this dinner was so completely impromptu; Lee and I spoke around noon and figured out what I had in the house and what he's need to bring, and he just appears like Santa Claus with all this wonderful food for us, and prepares most of it, to boot! Thank you, canucklehead, we're not worthy! Thanks Mooshmouse! for the kitchen help (you look cute in that apron, baybee ) and for the dessert! I haven't had any of the cassava cake tonight...tomorrow snack I think. Hey, I forgot to serve the chocolates again! And now I'm just about off to bed. I'm having a well-deserved Jameson's with water. See you tomorrow: back to the grind of work, and the cooking extravaganzas (in my kitchen, at least) are over for the blog, though not forever ! I have two more restaurants in line for dinner tomorrow and Wednesday, and lunch planned for tomorrow. We'll meet another eGulleter! or at least see his shop. OK, Canada, it's back to work tomorrow! short week though. Good night, Gullet!

The prawns are just lovely, sweet, and they couldn't be fresher if they tried; they're local. I liked them with Ponzu and the spicy sauce that Lee made the best. There was more food (somehow, with Gulleters, there's always more food!) The best char siu I've had in a long time: The roasted salmon: The pancakes for the duck: Roasted pork belly: Shanghai noodles: Shredded pork and mushrooms on crispy Chow Mein: Pea shoots sautéed in sesame oil with garlic: The second course on the table, Mr Mouse carving the duck:

So Canucklehead (Lee) PMed me this morning, and said HEY! let's have some live spot prawns for dinner for your blog! do you have time? and I said, well, it will have to be tonight, as I'm pretty booked the rest of the time... and then it worked out OK. He was waiting at my little house when I got back from tea, with provisions! The prawns, still jumping: sorry, I wasn't able to capture the jumping, but trust me, they jump! I opened a bottle of Masi Masianco: very refreshing Lee brought some geoduck, too: Moosh came by as well, and made a marinade for the salmon fillet: Chili dipping sauce on the left, hoisin on the right: Pea shoots: Peking Duck and the salmon, marinating: You can tell that HKDave wasn't here to slice the smoked tuna Here are the prawns going into the pot: And in the pot: Blanched and seasoned geoduck: Plated prawns: And the first course on the table: Edited because I pushed "add" too soon

So, late this morning, I was a bit hungry, and remembered that bit of beef tenderloin left over from Saturday night. Mmmm. I toasted up some of Mrs BC's lovely rosemary bread that I'd hung onto, and added butter, a little HP Sauce, and the cold beef: Delicious! Then I put the duck fat on to render. That went quite well, and I have a little jar of duck fat in my fridge! how exciting! I will take a pic for you if you like. Then I noticed the damp spot on the ceiling.It has grown somewhat although not alrmingly (well, its mere existence is alarming enough, actually). I shall talk to the contractor tomorrow. Then I went off to tea to celebrate Victoria Day. The Fish House in Stanley Park is the most scenic spot for tea that I've been to in Vancouver, rainy day and all: We were a bit fewer in numbers than we expected to be, only Zucchini Mama and Mooshmouse and myself: Here is the menu: Zuke and I opted for Imperial Oolong to honour Her Imperial Majesty, Queen Victoria; Moosh had the Green Pear which is just lovely stuff. Tea service: The sandwiches: Cucumber, deviled ham, egg salad, and some of the best smoked salmon I've had in a long time. The Scones: Organic currant scones, very tasty and the perfect texture, with Devon (Clotted) Cream and preserves. The Sweets: Cherry Coffee Cake, (hiding) Lemon Tarts, Brownies, and I forget the other item; it was v good though. Moosh ordered separately and got some different, also very delicious, sweets: Here are some more pictures taken from Stanley Park: View of the North Shore Mountains from near Second Beach (there are sandy beaches as well as rocky bits).

Today featured afternoon Tea at the Fish House in Stanley Park, and a Chinese dinner featuring live spot prawns and Peking Duck! Pics downloading as I type, more to follow soon

Excellent!!

Oh, *Deborah* this is NOT good. Good luck getting that looked at before it gets worse. Can someone put a tarp on your roof today?? ← Not sure. I guess I'd better call my contractor. It's a flat roof, not peaked, and I think it's probably leaking at the flashing of the hood fan and running along a joist, but I can't be sure. There could be a hole in the membrane. Anyways, impromptu dinner plans have come up, and you'll all get to see what happens with it!

Oh, no, thank you Arne! I love a good pork-out! It was so well done! the beautiful pulled pork, the spicy glaze on the roast! all the great sides! Is it you I can blame for the rain? it appears to be seeping into my dining room ceiling...I might blame the guy who installed the hood fan exhaust instead. We'll see. I just hope I can avoid a big puddle on my hardwood...I know I owe you a kitchen designer thank-you dinner, I think I'll wait to issue the invite until I'm sure I'll have a room to serve it in

Two nights straight! I hate it. It's not like he has a little kitty cell phone I can use to make sure he's OK. Oh dear.

Frigidaire, seems to be this one. I like it because it's sturdy in spite of having a few bells and whistles. It shows you how many minutes are left (wow! I love that!) and has some real overkill wash options, but so far the "speed cycle" is working well. truly, the smear isn't on purpose, and I thought OH NO! I BROKE MY CAMERA TOO! until I realized it was probably just dirty. HKDave did the duck, semi-pulled, semi-chopped, to around julienne circumference but in short bits, about an inch or shorter. It's pretty tasty! I think it would be better if I had used blacker tea: my instinct was to use Gunpowder Tea, so smokier to begin with, but I couldn't get my hands on any that day. It worked well with the Oolong too, and Chef Tony in my cooking class used Jasmine tea, which gives a nice perfume also. You can also do this with chicken.

Today is Victoria Day, celebrating the birth of that fecund, diminutive Imperialist, Queen Victoria. Her birthday is May 24th, and is often known, in Canada, as May 2-4 (a 2-4 being common slang for a case of beer (24 bottles, natch). Leave it to the Canadians to reduce the birth of Empire to a tasty beverage). Today is, for us, like Memorial Day is for our neighbours to the south: the kick-off of summer, time to open up the cottage (if you're lucky enough to have one. I don't have a cottage or country house; I have a Wolf range ). Compared to the rest of Canada, the Province of British Columbia has a particularly high proportion of citizens (we used to be subjects, eh?) whose bloodlines go back to the UK. Our Provincial capital is called Victoria. I live four blocks from Victoria Drive. It's just Victoria everywhere you turn! This afternoon, I will bring the camera along on a bit of a tour of Stanley Park. Stanley Park was dedicated in 1888--during the reign of Queen Victoria--and named after Lord Stanley, Governor General of Canada at the time. According to the City of Vancouver's website, it is the third largest urban park in North America at 1000 acres (larger than Central Park; smaller (by 17 acres) than Golden Gate Park). (This fact seems to be in dispute: the wikipedia entry has Stanley Park around 13th, behind several state parks in places like El Paso and San Diego. I speculate that the City of Vancouver list includes Fairmont Park in Philadelphia and Golden Gate Park ahead of us, and disregards the others.) It's a lovely place! you can walk or bike or rollerblade your way around the Seawall, and see the Vancouver trifecta of forest, mountains, and ocean. But that's for later. I should unpack some more of my kitchen now, and perhaps do some even more mundane chores, like laundry. See you all later!

On the weekend, I tend to clean up the kitchen before I make my coffee. My kitchen is now fairly clean, the dishwasher has been run for the 8th or 9th time, I think it is, since it came online on Thursday night (wow, when you barbecuers/smokers were complaining about running the dishwasher last week, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry--two and a half months of breaking my back washing dishes in my utility sink later!), and here is the current state of the kitchen: (I think I may have gotten some pork on my lens yesterday! I need to clean it) Here is this morning's coffee: Overcast again, but fairly bright. And here are my two little Manxes. Actually, they're not little at all: *Ziggy* weighs in around 9 kg/20 lbs., and even *Ilya*, who is smaller, was about 7 kg last time he was weighed. Here they are coming into the kitchen. They don't photograph all that well against the dark floor, I'm afraid.

I forgot to include the pig's head with the luau pics! Sorry!

Another good night's sleep! I, like Zucchini Mama, was awakened by the sound of the rain--on my vent hood exhaust pipe, rather than the roof itself --but the rain seems to have let up, and the birds are chirping! My fingers are crossed that it turns out to be a nice Victoria Day. My wandering cats are both home at the same time, and *Ziggy Palffy*'s brother, *Ilya Kovalchuk*, is nestled v close to Mummy right now. I have pictures of small black cats to down- and upload, see you soon!

South China Trading on Granville Island, I believe.

It was really tasty meat! this has been a good couple of days for meat.

Urgh, I think I'm fat enough already, Moosh! It's really good though, as good as Josephine's, easy!

I see you've got your dairy priorities right. Whipping cream container as large as your milk container. ← Somehow, I've been going through quite a bit of cream these days

Well, now that I see it written down, I think DOH! but I haven't rendered the fat yet. Thanks for the kind words

Well! Daddy-A just sent me a bunch of pics from the luau and the preps. These are the pork butts that were smoked: Mmmmmm, pork: Daddy-A, the mad smoker! (thanks for this pic in particular, Arne, as I didn't happen to take one of you today!) Chef Fowke with a piggy over his shoulder: Pig on a spit: Chef Fowke and Daddy-A applying the glaze: Pork puller extraordinaire: Mmmmm, this stuff is the bomb. Pork belly when I arrived: And upright: Ling and hhlodesign (Lorna and Henry) were at the luau: (So were a lot of other people, but I was seriously remiss in my picture taking. A nice plate of pulled pork will do that to you ) They took the pig off the coals: Then Chefs Fowke and Wyles started slicing: I don't remember the joke, but it looks as though it was funny Matthew, Arne's eldest, and I share a giggle I'm not sure what happened to my camera at this point, but here's Lorna's Lemon Buttermilk cake with coconut filling and cream cheese icing and mango gelée and brittle: And here is what's left of Mooshmouse's divine cassava cake. Moosh, don't you ever give me that recipe! way too good. And that was the luau, for me. It was great to see everyone! and that pulled pork was something else.

At this moment, I am sipping on a bottle of The Edge 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon. Yum! I like this stuff. My feet are up, and I'm relaxing. Yeeessssss. My kitchen is a mess again, but I don't feel like cleaning it again just now This afternoon, I made a tropical trifle to take to Daddy-A's luau. I started out making a custard with some coconut milk and some Bird's. Sometimes I make a custard from scratch, honest, but I like Bird's. I also wasn't sure how the coconut milk would take. I had a nice refreshing Fresca: Here is the custard: Then I cut up a nice ripe pineapple. I chopped it up and put it in a bowl with a little bit of Malibu coconut rum. I sliced up some mango sponge cakes I picked up at T&T the other day, and lined a bowl. And I sliced up a couple of mangoes. They looked about the same from the outside, but one was much more ripe than the other, so I reserved one for garnish. I put the pineapple chunks in the bottom of the bowl on the cake, and put the riper mangoes too: Then I poured the custard in, and whipped the cream with a little sugar and some coconut extract. I put the cream on top of the custard, and then sprinkled some banana chips, the leftover mango, and some coconut on top.

Hey, Sandy I don't know how exciting it is, but here's my fridge! lots more full than a week ago The door. Asian sauces mostly in the top left, butter on the right. Capers, jalapeños, maraschino cherries; mustards and yuzu. Strawberry jam and caramel sauce, Black Diamond cheddar slices. In the bottom, salada dressings, mayonnaise, Cinzano Aranciato, barbecue sauces, maple syrup, Ch. de Sancerre, Heinz, I think that's a Grey Monk Pinot Auxerrois. And the fridge itself: Milk, water, Light Cream; Gulden's mustard, El Paso salsa, pickled beets, eggs. San Pellegrino Aranciata and Limonata, Fresca (got a craving in the store!) and Coca-Cola. Joie A Noble One, Grey Monk Pinot Auxerrois, Veuve Cliquot, some Strongbow, Crisco, a few eggs left in there, more salsa, cilantro, Italian parsley. Piper Heidseck Rosé Sauvage (I think that's what they're calling it), a bottle of Masianco, some Corona, some duck fat, some Red Snapper, an English cucumber, dill, Hellman's. In the drawers: on the right, that half-butchered duck; on the left, those cheeses and some shredded Asiago and some dill dip.

Thank you kindly

Well, I don't know if two days' use is "around the block a couple a times" but so far, what's not to like?