So, NaNoWriMo didn’t happen. I was set and beat the word goal on day one, but on day two I had such a terrible day I couldn’t get back on the horse afterwards. I also started a new job on the 16th of November! Life’s been pretty busy but nothing too interesting for the blogosphere has happened.
The latest iteration of my quest for being able to make soup is pretty tasty. I stir fried some frozen veggies (asparagus, red and yellow peppers) and some tofu with some garlic in the bottom of a pot. I took the veggies and tofu out of the pot and added about a cup and a half of low sodium chicken broth to the pot, along with half of a pho spice cube (in retrospect I’d use less of the cube… maybe a third of a cube). I brought it to a boil and added a packet of udon noodles. It boiled away for about three minutes and then I added the veggies and tofu back in along with some green onion. Ta-da, soup! So good.
Maybe I’ll have something interesting to add later on 
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I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year! What’s that, you ask? It’s the National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Pretty exciting, right? The idea is to write as fast as possible and to not really care about the quality of the writing. If you’re really into it, you can go back and edit your novel later.
The official website is http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and there’s a good article by one of my randomly found internet friends from back in the day here: http://throwingupwords.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/expert-advice-on-nanowrimo-from-melissa-douglas-plus-a-few-words-from-john-green/
This seems like a pretty daunting task, but I’m pretty excited! My undergraduate thesis is only about 13,000 words, and that took a year (and y’know, research).
Another central tenet to NaNoWriMo is to tell everyone you know that you’re participating. This way, you can be motivated by the people around you to meet your goal, lest they mock you for not finishing. So this is me telling you that in November I’m going to try to write a novel!
Apparently it’s best not to plan too much of your novel ahead of time. If you do too much work, there’s a chance that you get too invested and instead of just writing junk, you want to do your planning justice. I have a little planned – I am basically working with a world that I came up with in high school and wrote a short story about, but I’ve renamed the characters and updated the story a bit. It’s a sci-fi thing and will involve cyborgs and genetic modifications, it should be fun!
I totally understand why it’s not a good idea to plan too much in advance. Since deciding on doing this, I’ve been looking for plot ideas everywhere. For example, I’ve recently been watching Gossip Girl (I know, so bad but so good) and I’m at the point where all the characters are worried about getting into colleges. The way the post-secondary system works in the States is entirely different from Canada, and I feel like media made me way more stressed out about applying to university than I should have been. Thus, I kind of also want to write about the Canadian high school – university transition experience. Maybe next year!
Anyway! Wish me luck!
Wow! It hasn’t been too long since I updated, but still fairly long. I have finished school and have spent the last six weeks or so being lazy and boring! Two weeks were spent at my parents’ and since September began I’ve been in Ottawa. I just found a place to live more permanently so I will be moving next week. I imagine once I have a job and a routine, blogging will become part of that routine!
Nothing too exciting has happened in the last little while. I did see Sweet Thing (http://www.sweetthingmusic.com/) which I missed earlier in the spring. They were so fantastic! The show was at Maxwells, and only about 10 people plus the bands’ friends. Mandippal opened and was accompanied by friends (one of whom sat on this box-thing and played it kind of like a djembe and it was mind-blowing).
Sweet Thing puts on a very energetic, very tight show. I even got serenaded! I didn’t bring my camera, but I got a good photo with my cellphone. It made me immediately regret not bringing my camera, because I was sitting in a great spot! I went to the show alone because all of my friends were busy or out of town or otherwise uninterested. It was still great, though!
In other news, my favourite pho restaurant in Ottawa has closed (nooo, Vietnam Noodle House)! There is, however, a pretty good place to replace it called Pholicious. I haven’t tried the spring rolls yet; I will try to remember to make note of them once I do! Otherwise, the rest of my food excursions in Ottawa have been fairly boring. Had too-salty shepherd’s pie at The Aulde Dubliner, and had a menu-mixup at Ahora (which was a little less awesome than normal, but still reasonable and soooo cheap).
Perhaps there will be some new adventures coming up for me soon!
A while back, some friends and I gathered for a bit of a potluck dinner. The main course was to be what I consider summer rolls: spring rolls that haven’t been fried. My task was to bring an app or side to complement it, and I turned to crispy tofu!
Originally, I had crispy tofu at a restaurant called My Thai in Waterloo. It was pretty good, but mine is better. I wasn’t able to convince my tofu-hating roommate to try it, but my vegetable-hating friend was addicted!
Here’s what I did:
- Slice up some firm or extra-firm tofu into slices approximately 1 cm thick
- Sprinkle with seasoning (I used thai 1-step seasoning)
- Leave for ONE HOUR on some paper towel, not in the fridge
- Put some oil in a pan and fry up the slices, trying not to move them around too much, and flip them over to cook both sides
- When golden brown on both sides, take the slices out and put them on paper towel to absorb all the excess oil (this part is important)
- Eat!
I served the tofu with sweet and sour sauce, which was the real hit. I followed this recipe, but substituted hoisin sauce for the ketchup. It’s a real winner!
None of the completed tofu pics were very good, but here’s one while it was resting:
Hopefully more blog to come soon
I just successfully attempted making my own sugar scrub, it was super easy! All I did was poured some body lotion onto a couple tablespoons of sugar and mixed it around. Scrub into wet skin, and rinse off! I washed thoroughly after, but I’m not sure that’s necessary… I was afraid of being sticky!
Originally, this past winter, I used a sugar scrub by Neutrogena that smelled great and felt awesome but I never really felt clean after using it (though my skin was super soft and nice, including the terrible rough patches I get on my back where my pants rub dry spots). This way, I don’t feel guilty about washing away expensive product.
This would probably be a good way to get rid of lotion that you want to get rid of for whatever reason. In the case of the lotion I used – the stuff was just not moisturizing enough for me. One could probably also add stuff to the scrub… perhaps essential oil or aloe vera.
In other news, the spring term is in full swing! I have a bunch of tests coming up and I should probably be studying, not blogging. My super crafty roomie has some fun projects on the go, and I’m jealous of her ability to craft! She’s making some knitted knockers and felting a cute sheep.
So! I am still in school! I was so incredibly stressed out last term. So, priorities were re-arranged and I am taking an additional term in order to get things done.
That didn’t help me out much in catching the last few bands I wanted to see though! Unfortunately I missed the Sweet Thing (who I saw several years ago at The Drake Hotel in Toronto) and Electric Six show in March. Boo! Nothing much on the horizon, either. No one plays university towns in the summer and my regular concert-going friends aren’t in town.
Regardless, here’s who I did see!
The fall kicked off with a bang when I went to see Two Hours Traffic (The Danks opened) at The Bomber, the on-campus pub. Both were excellent! I went with friends, who each managed to grab set lists at the end of the show. I am no concert photographer, but here’s Two Hours Traffic:
Next up was a show at Maxwell’s Music House featuring Mandippal (who is local, and a high school friend of one of the folks I went to the show with), Hannah Georgas and Said The Whale. All of them were great, and the encore for Said The Whale was so intense – something came unplugged so everyone was super quiet and the band played without amps and mics and such. So amazing, and so nice in such a small venue like Maxwell’s. Hannah Georgas just released a new album, This Is Good. It’s not good – it’s amazing! Seriously, this girl rocks so hard.
We caught The Junction at The Bomber in November. We didn’t stick around for Paper Lions, the headliner, but I definitely danced my ass off for The Junction while I was there! I picked up a shirt, my first band shirt from a show, and I am so in love with it. It features one of my favorite lyrics of theirs: “if you hear my song sing along”. Apparently Paper Lions were decent, but my roomie had to get back to writing a paper!
In January, the Arkells played at the Bomber, and since my non-regularly-concert-going friends were really excited, I decided to see what the big deal was. The show was sold out, and they put on a great show, no lie. However, I wasn’t totally sold on their music when I heard their album – good, but nothing that stood out or engaged me. Maybe in the future I’ll be into it – such is the nature of my taste in music!
The winter was pretty busy, and the last concert I saw was Tokyo Police Club, who I’ve wanted to see for years! This show was in April at The Starlight, and Parlovr opened. The show was pretty great, despite the tall guy who managed to stand like two people back from the front and block everyone’s view! I’m excited for TPC’s new album, due sometime soon. They played a lot of music from it, and it all sounds great. I was surprised at how young their lead singer looked!
It was a great eight months for shows, I am so happy to have managed to see so many awesome bands with so many awesome friends.
I’m not sure what exactly defines Pho, but this probably isn’t it. However, it was pretty tasty. This is what I did:
- Cook noodles – in this case, some dried “udon” noodles I bought. I have yet to figure out how to make them big like you would expect from udon. I boiled these for about 8 minutes, rinsed with cold water, and set aside.
- I left a little bit of the water from the noodles in the pot, and put it back on the hot burner. To the few tablespoons of water, I added chopped red bell pepper, broccoli, and onion.
- cooked the pepper, broccoli, and onion for a bit, until it was pretty much done.
- added LOW SODIUM vegetable broth and some water. Probably about 3/4 of a cup of broth and 1/2 a cup of water.
- added half a pho spice cube, a random find at the Chinese grocery store. I figured it would be a better purchase than trying to find all the spices that go into pho.
- brought the broth and stuff almost to a boil, stirring some, and added the noodles back in
- added bean sprouts and boiled for a few seconds more
- added green onions, chopped basil, and chopped baby spinach
- took off the heat, and added a squeeze of lime juice
Worked pretty well… I just need to learn how to use chopsticks and get those nice soup spoons that you get at pho places! Some tofu probably wouldn’t go amiss in this!
Blogging is hard! I really admire those people who can get up the ambition to blog daily or weekly. I guess they all have something they really want to say, and often they have a specific topic (cooking, fashion, etc.). When I started this blog, I intended on documenting cool adventures that I’d had, especially bands, restaurants, and events. Now that school is kicking my ass, I have very few adventures!
I’d like to keep a list of what I’ve accomplished on a daily basis, but I doubt that a public blog is a good place to do so. It would be really boring to read, but I think I could use the motivation of people knowing when I’m slacking off!
Hmm. Well, something interesting I’ve found lately on the internet is a recipe for pho that I would really like to try! http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/soup/recipe-vegetarian-pho-107312 Unfortunately, my grocery store kind of sucks and it has a very limited selection of stuff I would like to buy! Especially spices. I didn’t think star anise was so rarely found in grocery stores. Although, last week I did find miso paste, and managed to make a reasonable pot of miso soup. Next time I will try it with broth instead of water. And hopefully some baby spinach, which I forgot to get last time I was at the store.
I got a breakfast cookbook for Christmas, and egg muffins have become a really yummy dinner for my roommate and I! This is what my first attempt looked like, and although not the prettiest, it was definitely the tastiest attempt so far. Now I’m hungry!
Long story short, fourth year is kicking my ass. Caroline moved her blog and kept her link to my blog, so I felt like I should write something! I will try to write more again soon… in the mean time, have a photo of some pretty leaves!
Nothing too exciting has been happening lately. It’s been pretty rainy for about a week. Yesterday I went with my brother and his girlfriend to see a parade in the rain. The parade was for the opening of a new cultural centre/museum for the Vietnamese Boat People. We had pho for lunch, it was a very Vietnamese day!
I’ve recently re-discovered how nice it is just to chill out/pig out and watch movies with friends. This past weekend I watched Wall-E with some Carleton friends, and the weekend before we watched the 1990′s Romeo + Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio. Highly amusing!
I’m having a bit of a tea identity crisis. I like to drink tea at work since it’s not coffee and I can just pop it in the microwave (blasphemy, I know), but I haven’t found a caffeinated tea that I really like. In non-caffeinated tea I LOVE Yogi Tea’s Tahitian Vanilla Hazelnut. It’s so delicious!
In the books world, I just finished reading “High Fidelity” and I loved it. I watched the movie too, which was pretty good and true to the book.
