i don't really have much to announce before i head off to edmonton for the week, except TRAFIKMAGASINET:



because i love everything about it.

see y'all on the flipside!

big thankies and respeck to my beautiful sister-in-law nicole for getting me hooked on the making of preserves. she recently gifted us a KILLER peach raspberry champagne jam, that's absolutely stunning on toast. ohh baby.

when i was last in upstate new york, i was fortunate enough to find a stand at the ithaca farmer's market selling prunus cerasifera, or cherry plums. these plums are, not surprisingly, about the size of a cherry and have an intense, sweet-tart flavour. what's really special about them, though, is their incredibly high pectin content, making them a natural choice for preserves. it's quite a laborious process separating all the plums from their tiny stones, but the sparkling, jewel-like tart red jelly you're left with is well worth the effort.



thus:

plum jelly

1 pint cherry plums, washed and pitted
6 tablespoons sugar

combine plums and sugar over medium heat, stirring to disolve sugar. simmer, stirring occasionally, until plums have cooked down to a uniform shade of bright red and a thick, jelled consistency. as jam is approaching readiness, prepare three 60 ml jars by sterilizing under hot water. spoon jam into prepared jars with a small funnel, seal jars and place in a heavy stock pot such that they are covered by at least one inch with water. boil for ten minutes, then remove jars carefully with tongs and place on paper towels. if jars have properly sealed, you will hear a "pop" sound shortly after they are removed from the water, and the top of the jar will not move when pressed. since this produces rather a small batch, you may skip the jar-boiling canning steps if you wish, and simply eat the jelly within 2-3 weeks. (chances are that it won't last that long regardless; i for one have been quite greedily having second helpings of toast every morning since our sudden influx of homemade preserves.)

*also: for an extra-special and very comforting autumnal treat, try adding just a teensy hint of cinnamon while the jelly is cooking.

moving on from last entry's self-pitying emofest, i now have an even more urgent, even more pressing matter to attend to.

and that's my pants.

namely: coloured jeans. gosh, i love them. basic blue's all well and fabulous, i guess, but i confess to owning about 1548797898346 pairs of black skinnies, each slightly different from one another and each designed to suit a specific sartorial situation. i've also strayed slightly from the ubergothness (and yes they ARE goth, seeing as i remember all this flouncy black stuff when it was cool the first time, thankyouverymuch. emo? i'd rather have the bubonic plague. but i digress.) of the black skinnies and gone so far as to purchase pairs in a subdued mustard yellow and white. (i've also since managed to stain them both.)

my point is, i'm having trouble deciding what other colours to introduce into my wardrobe of pants of craziness. turquoise? bubblegum? eggplant? seafoam green, perhaps? i saw a pair of red jeans that looked pretty fantabulous


(kind of like this)


but i also clearly recall owning red jeans when i was in about third grade and thinking back then that they were the most wicked awesome things ever. :|

when i was a youngster, i recall that all my wacky trousers all came with hideously outlandish and over-embellished faux-leather belts. i never wore them. i don't know why they insisted on including them with every pair of pants. they gathered dust until one day in probably sixth grade, i decided to try and sell them off to some of the neighbourhood folks in a garage sale.

all i earned that day was a sunburn.

i'm sure many of you often ask yourselves, "gee, how can i be as cool as sami?"

thankfully, i have the answer. and it's easier than you might think!



it's a mother flipping fanny pack.



very good

you buy

ladies and gentlemen,

everything ok!
everything ok!
everything ok!
everything ok!
everything ok!
everything ok!

HOLY CRAP.

i am the summertime queen. what makes me say this, you ask? i just invented something better than ice cream. the other day i decided that one of my mangoes was getting a little too overripe, and since i wasn't ready to eat it just then, i decided to hack it to bits and freeze it. when i came to thaw out the results this evening, it had of course become a giant orange frozen block. i supposed therefore that the only reasonable way to try to eat this was in the form of a mango smoothie, and this is what happened. it's got the creamy, buttery sweetness of ice cream, except that it's vegan, the fat content is next to nothing and, because of the mango's high water content, it's way lighter on calories and sugars as well, yet somehow so very VERY satisfying. ohh, baby.

i recommend, also, that you try and use a variety of mango that's not too stringy, as the fibrous stringy bits are a real pain to blenderize.

mango ice cream

1 mango, cut into chunks and frozen until a nice firm block
1/2 cup plain soymilk
sweetner, if you must (but you really don't need it!)

first, unless you have a very powerful blender, you might want to get a good sharp knife and try to hack that frozen mango block into somewhat smaller frozen chunks. place these chunks into a blender (or hand-blender friendly dish if you, like me, have a hand-blender) and pour in soymilk. whizz until smooth and thick. spoon into a big bowl and tuck in!

because some people want to hear me make an ass of myself on talk radio:

ontario today

scroll down to wednesday's barbecue segment, about 15 minutes in. there's some interesting chitchat and talking with other folks, and then there's me.

and then there's maude.



(am i the only person who, upon hearing the words "and then there's" always mentally fills in with "maude"?)

RADIO ONE
RADIO ONE

since our television died, i've kind of got into the routine of listening to radio one during the day while i cook and sew, instead of watching star trek. (i still watch star trek on the computer, in the evenings, mind you. heaven forbid i let two days go by without watching star trek!)

anywho, i've officially transitioned from being somebody who listens to radio one, to someone who telephones radio one. so if you happened to hear some spazz on ontario today talking about cajun blackened tofu this afternoon, that was me.

(and it IS delicious.)

so last night i dreamt that i was at my dayjob, doing dayjobby things, but then david schwimmer (that's ross from friends!) was my boyfriend, and then i was being hassled by some apparent library executives who were evaluating my work skills, because david schwimmer kept being all cuddly on me while i was supposed to be working.

then some crackheads stole david schwimmer's van. if i remember correctly, it was a wood-paneled van. it was pretty much awesome, and we were pretty pissed off when some crackheads stole it.

then i woke up. i have no idea what david schwimmer had to do with anything, given that i haven't so much as thought about him in a couple of years, and never particularly gave him much thought in the gee-i-wish-he-was-my-boyfriend department.

i blame vicarious drug smokage. i guess i also blame vicarious drug smokage for the fact that i ate ice cream for the first time since forever, and even the cardboard-wafer cone it came in tasted pretty fucking wizard.

curse youuuuuuuuuuuuuu, internets! i shouldn't be buying things. i know very well that i should not be buying things. i am being dispatched on an academic cross-country adventure OF AWESOME, and, while this will bode well for my CV (in desperate need of some more padding) it doesn't bode so fabulously for my pocketbook.

therefore, internet, i must protest. please to be stopping making me look at things like this:




since it is obvious to resist their lovely plaid charms OF AWESOME.

sigh.

this is my favourite recipe for potato salad. i loosely adapted this recipe (with a good many tweaks, of course) from a wonderful french cookbook some time ago, the result being a strange french-swedish-hungarian hybrid that i can hoover a six-serving bowlful in the space of time it takes to watch an episode of star trek: voyager. i like to use new potatoes when they're in season in ontario and have that wonderful creepy-looking skin that falls off with a good scrub. failing that, i'm also quite fond of the creamy texture of red potatoes, but whatever your favourite potato is will do. a mix of white and blue potatoes makes for a really visually interesting salad, too.

thus:

pommes de terre en salade

serves six (or less, depending on just how voracious you are)

1 1/2 - 2 pounds potatoes (unpeeled if new and tender-skinned, peeled if older)
2 tbsp white wine vinegar (or just plain old white vinegar, if that's what you've got handy)
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 handful each fresh chives, parsley and dill, chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

boil the potatoes in lightly salted water until soft but not mushy. drain and transfer to a bowl. while the potatoes are still warm, toss with vinegar, and leave to cool a little. once the potatoes are approaching room temperature, add the olive oil, chives, parsley and dill, tossing to combine. season to taste with salt and pepper. et voilà!

*and another thing: if you prefer your potato salad dressing to be a little bit creamy, feel free to add a tablespoon or two of sour cream or plain yogurt to the dressing. it's pretty flipping awesome too.

woohooooooooo

so i decided to see what would happen if i held a fisheye lens



up to the lens of my colorsplash



and it actually came out pretty awesome.

PICTURE POST!

here are some things that happened in the past few months

JINKIES! some trekkie put together a complete list of everything kes wears on star trek: voyager.

which is kind of awesome because i was watching voyager with my mother the other night, and we simultaneously commented "i LOVE what kes is wearing."

hands up who thinks i could pull off this outfit without looking like an elf?

this is a FLIPPING AWESOME bit of animation.

it's kinda cute how angry they get about beer ads, though.

*cough*

this is officially one of my favourite dishes ever, just something i threw together last night. i'm calling it a ragù for lack of a better word, though it's not technically because i use fish and not red meat, so if anyone has a better word for this, do tell. also, feel free to try different kinds of fish or pasta or grains with this recipe. i used linguine, but i suspect it'd be wicked with something like couscous or quinoa as well.

linguine with pseudo-italian (kinda) fish ragù

2-3 glugs olive oil
1 small onion, roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 green bell pepper, roughly chopped
1/2 to 2/3 cup crushed tomato, give or take
a small handful of fresh basil leaves, ripped or chopped into small bits
1 dried thai chile or other small chile, crumbled
juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tilapia filets, or other similar white fish, defrosted if frozen and cut into smallish pieces
generous pinch of salt
3 good handfuls linguine, broken

in a large saucepan, heat the olive oil over low-medium heat. add the onion and garlic and cook until the onions are translucent, stirring occasionally. add the pepper and continue cooking for a few minutes, until peppers begin to soften. meanwhile, cook the pasta in boiling salted water until al dente, and drain. set aside. add the crushed tomato and fish and cover, cooking for another few minutes. add the basil and chile and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until fish becomes opaque, breaking up a few bits of fish as you go. you want there to be some chunks remaining, but much of it should fall apart, almost melting into the sauce. at this point you might want to check and see if the sauce is sufficiently thickened. squeeze the lemon over the sauce and stir, and cover again for a few minutes. add the salt, stir, check seasoning and adjust if necessary. serve the ragù over a small portion of linguine. and you're done. brilliant. give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done, and have a nice glass of red wine.

serves 4

Copyright deal could toughen rules governing info on iPods, computers

uhh, and this is enforceable how? i mean, i know that the whole "downloading" thing is perceived as a terrible threat to the music industry (and i won't get into my rant about that now or we'll be here until we're all flying hovercars and wearing matching silver v-stripe jumpsuits) but really, is there even a way to tell that i bought the music on my ipod? i mean, what if the songs come from a cd that *gasp* i borrowed from a friend and then transferred to my ipod? or one from the library? there is also the school of crazy governmentman thought that argues that copies made of purchased music, even if only for personal use, are illegal, in which case anything on your ipod would be considered as such, but i mean come on, that's ludicrous. i'm surprised i'm not hearing more from apple and their mp3-player colleagues raising more of a stink over this kind of crap.

i guess, however, if they raised too much of a stink, they could be seen as condoning the illegal download of music and film, despite their lucrative itunes store and other such paid-download developments on sites like amazon.

damned if you do, damned if you don't.

it's stupid.

i'd like to offer a little sartorial advice to some of my fellow old goths.

(and i say this out of the kindness of my heart) if you're over 40, i don't care how much of an affinity for the darkness you have, you should really give up the goth makeup. i've seen many an otherwise good looking middle-aged person RUIN EVERYTHING by thinking they can still pull off the eyeliner and crap. you can't.

this doesn't mean you can't still be all about the darkness and stuff, it just means finding new ways to be all about the darkness. leave the crazy makeup for the kids these days, unless you really want to look like robert smith, who has gone from avant-garde hotness:



to slightly mental:



simply by insisting upon rocking the same look for 25 years.