Sat, Jan 7

Journal:

Yesterday I had the day off. It was in lieu of the stat holiday on Sun, Jan 1. Nathan came over at about 9:45am. I was in the middle of making bacon. I made bacon, sausages, eggs and toast for brrakfast. We stayed in all morning and afternoon. We watched a movie, played crib and played Scrabble. We finally left the house and walked to The Tipper restaurant for dinner. It was a 45 min walk each way. The food was less than impressive. When we were there Anna Lai and her bf came in for dinner. They sat next to us and we were chit chatting for a bit.

Gratitude:

I am grateful that I can walk for long periods of time.

Goal:

10,000 steps a day

Picture:

My pre breakfast snack. I havent had yogurt in a long time.

Tues, Jan 3, 2017

Journal:

I stayed home tonight. It is very rare that I stay home. it was cold outside. I wanted to clean my boxes. I went thru three of them. I also went thru my shoe holder in my closet. I threw out four pairs of shoes. I managed to do some exercises before I head to bed.

Gratitude:

I am grateful that I have the opportunity to buy lots of things.

Goal:

To clean / purge my boxes by thurs, jan 19.

The picture is from my dinner. My mom made it. It is nice to have a home cooked meal every once in awhile.

Jan 2, 2017

A start of a new year. New resolutions. The one I really focused on last year was getting better. Its been a year and I am feeling better. Im not 100% yet but on the road there.

This blog helps me create three habits: to journal everyday, express gratitute everyday and make a goal everyday.

Journal - that part may just sum up what happened today.. anything interesting happened?

Gratitude - put one item that I am grateful for

Goal - it can be a small or large goal

Day 6 - Redlands

I have been here for six days. Soo hot here. I heard it has been hot in Vancouver too.

Today was a pretty relaxing day for us. The only appointment was Emily's dentist appointment at 9am. Boy, it was early. My internal clock wakes me up at 6am. I don't want to get up that early. Everyone is still asleep. I would feel like a night crawler waking and moving around so early.

We did things one thing at a time. While Emily was at the dentist, Jeremy and I went to Stater Bros to do some grocery shopping. Emily finished at 930am. We picked her up at about 945am. We then went to Brookside Park. I wanted for them to spend some time outside. We hung out at the park till about 11am. We then went to lunch at Subway and got a bubble tea. We went back home and played board games for a few hours. I got them to clean up a bit. I started prepping for dinner at about 330pm. My sister and Edwin got home at 5pm and I wasn't finished yet. But it worked out fine cause we made it a 'make your own salad roll' night. After dinner I washed the dishes. I went out for a walk with the kids around 730pm. We only went around the block once. Since we got home, I cleaned up my stuff cause the cleaners are coming tomorrow. I'm watching Pulp Fiction again on Netflix.

Diner en Blanc

I was checking my Facebook one day (that's nothing new). One of my friends mentioned that he was going to this event. I checked the link (http://dinerenblanc.info/). It looked interesting. The pretty pictures made it look so glamorous and exciting. The event was happening in Vancouver. I read the page to learn more about it. It was going to be held at a 'secret' location. Ohhh..there's a start to the excitement. You had to sign up on their mailing list to receive an invite. The idea was that the organizers invited their friends first. If there is space, then they invite their friends and so on. If there is still space, then they go to the mailing list and invite people on there. 

It's a very new concept (for us Vancouverites) for a party. It's the first time in Vancouver. It started in France and it's making its way across North America. You have to wear white. Everything head to toe has to be white. You weren't allowed off-white or ivory. This rule applied to the men and the women. You had to bring your own furniture which consists of a small square or rectangle table and two white chairs. You had the option of purchasing food from renowned chef, Dale Mackay, or bring your own food. 

I signed up for the mailing list. They sent me an email letting me know that it would be $59 for two people. I was hesitate to commit myself to this party. They said the price covers the rental of the space and the entertainment. It seemed like a lot of work and effort to go to a party where I have to bring my own furniture and food and pay to attend. 

My friend, J, bought four tickets to the party. It was going to be her, her husband and two friends. They knew that I wasn't up to paying for the admission fee. I was getting their furniture for them for the party. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse..jk..I could've refused it if I really wanted to. They said that they would pay my admission and I would take care of the furniture. My job now was to bring a friend. Another rule was that my friend has to be of the opposite gender (unless you are a same sex couple). I asked my friend, P, to come. He has invited me to many events and I thought he would enjoy this event. His responsibility was to bring the food. J and her husband bought two packages from Dale. P only had to bring enough food for two people. 

White is not a color in my wardrobe. My adventure with this party started with finding an outfit. It had to be white and elegant. It's an elegant white party. I had a chance to go to Metrotown. I thought at a large mall it would increase my chances of finding something. Man, I was so wrong. I think I wasn't in the know of what color is in season. I should've consulted my fashionista friends about what to wear. The salespeople at the stores told me that white wasn't in season anymore. It wasn't even in the clearance section anymore. I decided on getting a dress over white pants / skirt and a white top. I found a little white dress. It was a nice dress and I'm going to take what I can get within my budget. The weather report called for rain all week for the day of the party. I needed more layers. I found a white sweater to wear over the dress and white heels. I needed more layers.  I was looking for a jacket or coat. No luck. Nobody I know owns a white jacket / coat. Or maybe they just said that because they didn't want to lend it to me. Lucky me. It was sunny in the morning and warm. At the party, I was fine with the sweater I had with the dress. 

There was 1200 people coming to this party. The organizers needed some kind of system to gather everyone. Because my friend is the member, she was the one who selected our team leader. The team leader gathers their group together then they head over to the location. There were different meeting points with team leaders at various points in the city. I found out that our team leader was picking her rentals of chairs at my work. I took a minute to talk to her. Our group was to meet her at Waterfront Station. She told me that there would be 5 other groups meeting at Waterfront Station. Each group consists of 50 people. I was flabbergasted. There would be 250 people congregating at Waterfront Station. We were meeting our team leader by 6:30pm. Our team leader didn't know the location until 6pm. We were meeting J and G at the station. P and I took the skytrain over to Waterfront Station. As we got off the train to take the elevator upstairs to meet everyone, there were at least 4 people that asked us what was going on. I guess us wearing white and meeting a large group of people also wearing white made an impact. We waited for awhile before our team leader lead us to the location. The 'secret' location was Jack Poole Plaza. It was within walking distance for us. It was quite the sight to see a sea of people wearing white. 

We arrived at the secret location. It was blocked off by retractable guard posts and two security guards. We didn't have to show our ticket. We just walked in. Their instruction was to only let people in who was wearing white. Once we got in, our team leader had to let us know where to set up our tables. There were little markers on the ground to guide them. We stopped at a point where we thought it was our row. Our team leader walked away from us. We started setting up our tables and chairs. As we finished, she came back and let us know that we were in the wrong spot. We had to dismantle and move it to the new spot. Once in our new spot, we set up our table. We put on two layers of linen. We had paper placemats. We set up our plates, cutlery and glassware.When everyone waved their white linen napkins, it was time to eat. It was a big moment for us. We got to see what was in our bought dinner from Top Chef, Dale Mackay. In the box, which was for one person, there was olives, grapes, cheese, figs, sausage, bread, pasta salad and panna cotta. My friend, P, brought cheeses, meats and bread, chicken and salad and he made fruit panna cotta. We ate and ate and ate. We were quite full. Our neighbours on my left brought sushi. Our neighbours on my right brought salad and salmon and spinach orzo. 

After we finished eating, we got to light our sparklers. That signifies the opening of the dance floor. Throughout the night there was soothing background music. When dinner finished, there was live entertainment. They played French jazz. At one point they played some flamenco music with some flamenco dancing. Some people danced on the dance floor, some people danced where ever they wanted. We were done by 10ish. It was a good time to leave. I heard that the party ended at about 11pm. If we left the same time as everyone else, we would have to deal with the large crowd. 

Overall it was quite the experience. It was really neat to see the sea of people wearing white. It tested our ability to manage our group logistically. I had to think about how to transport 4 chairs and a table and a basket of food. It was a challenge finding the table. I was lucky and borrowed the folding table from my friend. My co worker had a dolly which I can transport my furniture. Next year, I will sit it out. Maybe in my black outfit and watch the next group of people fumble with their furniture and food.

1st Iron Chef

The Set up
In late May my cousin and I starting plannig an Iron Chef Competition within our group of friends. We have a group of about 15 of us. But a few of them couldn't make it on the date which we decided on.

The timeline:
3 - 6:30 pm - prepping and cooking time
6:30 pm - judging
7:30 pm - dinner

The secret ingredient was lamb. We picked the secret ingredient a few weeks prior because I knew the teams needed the time to prep and plan. None of us are professional chefs. We need almost double the time (or more) to prep and cook.The teams were allowed to marinate the meat the night before.

The teams had to make one appetizer and one entree in the three and a half hours.  Each team had a $100 budget. With that $100, each team had to make 10 portions of food; 7 portions for each team member and 3 portions for the judges.

The judging took place in my upstairs kitchen. Everyone gathered in the upstairs living room to listen to the results and ate dinner. 

The Competitors
We decided to have two teams of 6 members. It was my team and my cousin's team. We were the team leaders. My team used my kitchen. My cousin`s team used her kitchen. We are neighbours in the same house. We randomly picked our team members. We put everyone`s name in a bowl. Then we started picking one name at a time.

The final result:

Team Lisa
Aileen
Carrie
Roger
Geoffrey
Anne Marie
(Anne Marie's friend was supposed to come but didn't end up coming.)

Team Annie
Donald
Brian
Frank
Jenny
Jessica
Jenncinne

Our Dishes
We had a meeting a few days prior to the Iron Chef to plan out our dishes. There are gazillion recipes for lamb on the internet. We had a hard time deciding what to choose. Some of us were on our laptops and phones to surf the internet to see what we can find. A few of our team members found pictures of lamb dishes without recipes. That's what started the ball rolling.

There were so many aspects to consider when cooking and plating the dishes. The cooking we couldn't prepare ahead of time. We  just did it on the day of Iron Chef. With the plating, there was some pre planning. We had to think about the colors of the food, the height of the food and the contrasting flavours.

Lamb 'sushi'
The picture we found didn't have a recipe. It said it is made with lamb in the inside with chicken mousse in the middle and then wrapped with spinach. We didn't know how to make the chicken mousse and thought it would be too difficult to learn by the end of the week. Geoffrey suggested we use egg for the middle layer instead of the chicken mousse. Egg would be easier to work with. Because we didn't have the recipes to work with, we had to do a lot of experimenting. We used an onion sauce as a dip for the sushi.

It was 545pm and we were still trying to make the sushi. Six pm rolled around and two of the judges arrived. I kept the judges company upstairs. While I was talking to the judges, my team continued to work on the two dishes and plated it.



The judges thought it was original but it needed a bit more flavouring. They wanted chopsticks because it was a 'sushi' and expected it to be served with soya sauce and ginger.

Lamb roulade
I thought it would be a good idea to make a roll. It would have some flavouring inside and we made a sauce for the outside. Inside the roll was toasted pecans with honey. On top of the roulade was apricot sauce. It was served with yam puree and beans wrapped in bacon.



The judges thought the lamb was still too gamy. They really enjoyed the yam puree and the bacon wrapped green beans.


Team Annie's Dishes

Our team had no idea what Team Annie's dishes would be. We tried to poke and probe the team members on what they would be cooking and they wouldn't budge. Even the day of Iron Chef, we tried to peek into their kitchen to see what was brewing in their kitchen. The recipes on both teams were top secret until the day of Iron Chef.


Their appetizer was Deep Fried Lamb Wonton with Mango Chutney and Apricot Sauce. It was served on top of a bed of deep fried noodles. I was very impressed. I didn't think that wontons were that easy to make. I liked their plating. It was round'ish wontons on a square plate. It had a variety of different colors but not too many. 




Their entree was a Braised Lamb Shank Stew with Raisin Quinoa and Herb Chips. Their lamb was really well done.  I am not a big fan of quinoa but I thought it was a good combination. The quinoa soaked the stew to make the stew less salty. The judges liked it because it wasn't gamy.




Only three portions had to be plated for the judges. The rest of the food was on platters for everyone to share.  We brought the food upstairs and had it buffet style. When the judges were deliberating, we started eating our food.

The Judges

I didn't know who to pick as the judges. I ended up picking some of my friends. I had to have an odd number of judges (to be a tie breaker). I thought 3 portions would be appropriate for the judges. They just needed to taste the food, not necessarily have a full portion. After the judging, the judges joined us for dinner.

Vaughn
For Annie's team, she ended up with 7 team members. I ended up with 6 team members. Since she had one more member, I thought we can make that extra member a judge. We then put all her team members in a hat. This way we found Vaughn as judge. Vaughn had one portion to himself.

Vanessa and Anthony
A married couple. I met Anthony years ago at one of my dinners. He is a foodie. He really enjoys to eat and cook. I thought it would be fun to have both of them be judges. Vanessa became the judge spokesperson. They had to share one portion of food.

Warren and Christine
Warren is a good friend of mine. He just got married to Christine. I thought it would be more fun if both of them were judges. They had to share one portion of food.


 I had asked the judges to bring some drinks or desserts. Vaughn, Warren and Christine brought some pop and juice. Vanessa and Anthony brought a strawberry pie right from Kraus Farms. It was delicous!




The Results / Aftermath 
After all the prepping and cooking and plating, we wanted to see which team made the better dishes. Team Annie won. The judges like the braised lamb shank. There was no award or metal presentation. The winning team won bragging rights.
I am very lucky that this group is really good with cleaning up. Once we were done, everyone chipped in to help clean up. The next day I only had a little bit of cleaning up to do.

Whistler

I haven't been to Whistler since last summer. I don't go to Whistler very often, especially in the winter to participate in the winter activities.  

My friends and I planned to go to Whistler from Saturday to Monday. We rented a apartment with a loft with a kitchenette. We knew we had a kitchenette so we did some Costco shopping. We bought enough food for all of us and then some! Between all of us, we had shepherd's pie, lasagna, pizza, 2 flavours of chicken wings, a BIG box of Oreo's, chips, bagels and cream cheese, pop, salad, gummie bears, red wine, chocolate milk and ice cream (I might have missed something) for the 3 days we were there. What a feast!





We arrived on Saturday afternoon. The roads were clear so our drive was pretty easy. We settled into our apartment and relaxed for a bit. We had dinner then walked around the village for a bit.

Sunday was an activity filled day for me. My friends went snowboarding and skiing. I don't know how to do either and I didn't want to take lesson that weekend. The week before I went to Grouse Mountain and I went sno-limo'ing and snowshoeing. This weekend in Whistler I wanted to do something different. I decided to go sno tubing and then snomobiling.

My friend told me about sno tubing a few day priors to me heading to Whistler. It sounded easy and something I can do without taking lessons. I had to take the Excalibur gondola up to the first level then walk thru what seemed a like forest. It was a paved path with stairs and was about 500 feet. Then I arrived at the Coca Cola Tubing Park. There was the pay booth. You had to come up to the booth and let them know how much time you are planning to spend there. There was a choice of an hour or two hours. Of course it's a bit cheaper going for two hours. Eventhough it was cheaper, I felt an hour was sufficient. After the pay booth, you walk over to pick up your tube. It is a like big inflatable tire. There is a string attached to the tube which you have to put around your wrist. You pull the tube towards the Magic Carpet and up towards the top. At the start of  the Magic Carpet, there is a person that scans your pass. The Magic Carpet is a really long people mover (like the on in Superstore but not as wide). At the top there are two levels you can go down; Blue (medium run) and Black Diamond (fast fun). There are three rows of blue and 2 rows of black. I started with a blue run. I didn't know how fast it would go. I went down and it wasn't so bad. I did the blue run three times before I headed to do the black run. I did the black run twice before I was finished.

 

After defrosting a bit and fueling up, I was ready for the highlight of my trip. I signed in at the snomobile office. There are about 4 companies that provide snomobile tours and the names are fairly similar. I booked it from the Whistler / Blackcomb website. Their office is right beside the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. The tour company also does ziplining. In the office, there was three of us that checked in for snomobiling and four people checked in for ziplining. Once everyone checked in, we were whisked away in a shuttle. The shuttle drove us about 10 minutes away to their location. Once we got there, there were tour guides picking up the zipliners and then our tour guide picking up the snomobilers. We went into a small building. They outfitted us with whatever we needed: gloves, helmet, googles and boots. We then walked over to the snomobiles. Our guide taught us the basics about the snomobile; how to start the engine, how to steer, and how to stop. Because it was a small group, it was easy to learn and understand. We were ready to go for our snomobile ride. We started off a bit slow to get the hang of things. The trail we went on seemed like a deserted area. There wasn't anything close by. All I see was snow and trees. We went thru the forested area and what seemed like a side of a cliff. I was just focusing on not going too fast because we had to stay a safe distance behind the snomobiler in front of us. For a portion of the trail, it seemed like we were riding along the cliff. It was quite scary for me. I had to be careful steering. If I steered it the wrong way, I could've fallen off the cliff. You were supposed to push the throttle with your thumb. After about 30mins-45 mins, my thumb was getting numb. I kept on having to stop and rest my thumb for a few seconds before starting again. By the time I got into the groove of steering my snomobile, the tour was over. I paid for a 2 hour tour. Twenty minutes was driving back and forth to the location. It was about 10-15 mins for the short lesson.The actual riding time was only about 1.5 hours.

 

After an activity filled day, I was ready to go back to the apartment to defrost. We made and ate some dinner. There was the Fire and Ice show in the village. The show was only on Sunday nights. It was some snowboarders and skiiers having a friendly competition. Before they did their competition, there were some fire dancers (hence the 'Fire' in the title). The competitions consists of jumps and spins. The show was about an hour long and was entertaining. We went back to the apartment and  rested and watched some TV.




Monday morning we walked the village to sightsee in the snow. Some of us went to the washroom and a few of us that didn't go to the washroom decided to make a snowman. It was fun watching them make the snowman. It was nice to see 30something years olds feeling like they were young again. I saw a nice untouched patch of snow where I wanted to make a snow angel. While walking around to the area, I slipped and fell and hit my head. It hurts. I still feel the effects of the trauma to my head. I am glad I fell at the end of my trip.