by ·2 Comments

Last last weekend I headed out to Abbotsford with a bunch of other food bloggers to check out the Fraser Valley Food Show. Just like last year there were lots of samples and things to look at. FVFS is a lot less busy then Eat Vancouver so you get many more opportunities to chat with the vendors and learn about their products.

Again they had a sausage competition where you could try about 15 different types of sausages for $2 and then vote for your favourite. I liked the crunchy chewy sausage sticks from Dressed To Grill the most. The silky smooth smoked liver pâté was also really nice.

I also attended TWO cheese tasting sessions with Reg from The Dairy Farmers of Canada. Thirteen types of cheese, OH YEAH. I loved the spoonfuls of mascarpone with honey and cranberry.

I haven’t eaten any sugar in one month (!!) in an attempt to stabilize my blood sugar and break my addiction to candy. Anyway because of this I was kind of limited to what samples I could try. I did manage to find some awesome balsamic salad dressing that didn’t have sugar, and some unsweetened almond milk for Scott to use in his coffee (he’s off sugar as well). And a bunch of gluten free crackers for Lesley. So… a successful day!

PS I’m off to the Food Bloggers of Canada annual conference this weekend. A whole weekend of learning how to be a better blogger, I can’t wait! All food is provided… so it’s going to be a cheat weekend…. can’t lie, I’m pumped.

by ·5 Comments

Scott and I bought tickets to Australia! We are going from March 28th to April 15th. We got a fantastic deal on flights. It’s been more than four years since I’ve been there so I’m super excited. I haven’t even met Seth yet and he’s like a grown up boy now! And we’ll see April for the first time as well. :) Other than visiting family, some things I really want to do there: visit Cassia, visit Rae, see all my old Aussie friends, watch footy, eat Tim Tams, eat Savoys, have another piece of wedding cake (not literally, just the same type)… lots more that is escaping me at the moment.

Oo and Scott passed his citizenship exam. Now we just wait for the letter notifying us when the ceremony will be. We are totally having a Canada party.

This week was a good fitness week. I did four yoga classes! Despite having a yoga instructor mom, this was the first time that I went to yoga. I like it so far. I also went to the gym with Rosemarie one day so we could do her fitness assessment. Verdict: we are not very good at pushups.

I have also signed up for barbell weightlifting club. I will go once a week to learn how to do the Olympic lifts (clean and jerk, snatch) and improve my other lifts like deadlifts and power clean. Hopefully all this helps me get a little more powerful for my skeleton starts.

I am being very optimistic and hoping hoping hoping I get to move up to the top of Whistler early this season. However who knows what is going to actually happen this season because our old coach quit (to coach the national team in Calgary) and we have no idea who he is going to be replaced with. Fingers crossed it’s someone who will continue to work with us in-between sliders who are not quite just recreational and not quite provincial.

The Whistler season is set to start on November 12th, by the way.

by ·1 Comment

Harry Potter alphabet is done! This one took me ages. About 2 hours per person!!! I love how it turned out. My favourite characters are Dobby, Umbridge and Ron Weasley. I also love that James Potter looks exactly the same as Harry, except monochrome dead colours.

Still plugging along on my blanket. It’s so big I can’t even lay it out and take a picture very easily! I didn’t work on it that much over the summer because it was too hot, but now that it’s cooling down it’s really nice to drape over my feet while working on it (and watching tv). I think I’m going to keep going until it is square.

Jessie gave me this cute Canada pattern for my birthday. I didn’t work very much this week so I’ve been working on it a lot lately. I don’t think it will take me too much longer to finish. The fabric has bigger squares than the Harry Potter alphabet so it’s been easier.

Lastly, something different. My mini version of the mutato print that I love so much. These were heirloom tomatoes that I got at the Vancouver farmers market. I made the prettiest and tastiest bruschetta ever with it. I still can’t get over how cheap and amazing the tomatoes were this summer.

by ·0 Comments

And it’s fall.

We did squeeze in another games day on the patio before the summer was over. Scott and I taught them Agricola. Agricola is quite complicated, but it’s my all time favourite game. Even though it makes me really stressed.

I have never been so excited about a used pair of shoes. And check out my new speedsuit!! My skeleton friends Jane and Madi were so nice to send a pair of spikes and a suit my way from Calgary. It can be so hard (and expensive) to get gear for skeleton so getting anything, even used stuff, is extremely appreciated. Up till now I had been using track spikes for skeleton, but my goal for the year is to start from the top of Whistler and the track crew will not let me do that with them. Now I am fully equipped! I am so so so excited for the season to start, especially now!

I have been working a lot lately, lots of full weeks of shifts, which is fantastic. I am also supposed to get trained at our remote site out at UBC too, but there hasn’t been any time yet where I haven’t been already working! I keep expecting my amount of work to drop off drastically, but so far it hasn’t happened. Fingers crossed it keeps going the way it is!

Ooo also in exciting news… Scott got notification of his citizenship test!! This happened about 1.5 YEARS ahead of what we thought!!! Everything we read told us the application would take about 2 years, but now his test is in a couple weeks and the ceremonies tend to be about a month later! We are totally having a Canadiana party.

And lastly, I spent like two whole evenings reading through the old emails Rosemarie and I used to send each other back in 2003-2004, when I was off in Halifax and Holland, and she was in middle school/high school. They are amazing. My sister is the best. She used to send me all sorts of hilarious pictures. And now I have determined that it’s been too long since this one was last seen….

by ·1 Comment

Fancy lunch at the restaurant at Burrowing Owl Winery. We got there a little early so we could look around and taste some wines in the tasting room. I guess they also have a hotel there too? It definitely had a beautiful view.

We ordered the breads and spreads appetizer which ended up being this enormous platter with roasted carrot hummus, shrimp salad, and olive tapenade, with three different types of bread. The mini herb loaf was delicious and the soft baguette was so good. I really loved the shrimp salad and the salty olive tapenade. The carrot hummus was ok too, nice and sweet. We must have tried every combination of bread and spread several times. This platter is definitely big enough for several people to share!

I ordered the duck leg confit, which comes with basil gnocchi, a random piece of chorizo, with some vegetables and aioli. It was all very nice, the duck was nice and tender and the vegetables and sauce were prepared nicely. I didn’t understand the inclusion of chorizo at all, I actually thought they had put it on the plate by accident.

Scott ordered the lamb sausage sandwich which ended up being like a fancy hotdog. Which is funny because Scott doesn’t like hotdogs. It had aioli and cheese on it and came with a nice salad. I think he enjoyed it alright, but it wasn’t as nice as my duck.

All in all, a nice meal. Be sure to make a reservation ahead of time as we saw people without being turned away.

The Sonora Room Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato