Chúc Mừng Năm Mới

Some photos from the Vietnamese New Year's Festival that took place at the CNE. People really enjoy the mock-up of the country hut and the fake road-side food stall. The irony is that most there left Vietnam because they don't want to live in peasant homes and own food stalls. Sadly, the hột vịt lộn (fertilized duck eggs) was just for show.






Chef Don of Dessert Trends carve some fruit.









A girl wearing an áo dài (Vietnamese long dress) sells gambling chits for a poetry game. A few verses from poems are presented with a key word missing. Spectators bet on whether the word is 1 of 5 choices while the "barkers" attempt to sway opinions one way or another via appeal to metaphor, rhyme, similarity to other poems and so on.

Confucius + Lao Tzu + Sun Tzu = So Sage Party?

I attended Cowbell's first annual Sausage Party. It's a 5 course sausage-beer pairing. The beer came from a microbrewery called Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery.

I can't say very much about the beers, except that some tasted light and others had a stronger, more bitter taste.

The first dish was a couple of slices of a pepper sausage. I liked the small kick that this sausage imparted. The beer was a very light-tasting beer.

The second dish was my favourite. An elk sausage infused with strawberries (crushed? grounded?) No matter, the slight fruity perfume was an excellent addition to the strong gamey taste. The pierogies were thumb-sized, chewy, and stuffed with mashed potatoes/cheese. Delicious. Don't remember much about the beer.

The third dish was a piggy-in-a-blanket maded up of a kidney sausage wrapped in pastry. Couldn't really taste the kidney (but then kidney isn't liver) but the sausage was strongly salted. I guess that's why the pastry and rapini are there. Don't remember much about this beer either.

The fourth dish was a sausage stuffed with fermented meat, accompanied by sauerkraut and kozliks (mustard seeds). You can definitely taste the slight sour tang of the fermentation. The sauerkraut was some sort of red cabbage, and tastier than the stuff you find at hot dog stands. By this time, I'm starting to get tired of eating sausages. The beer is supposed to have a citrus aroma with a finish that changes between bitter and sweet. I did taste the citrus a bit but mostly the bitterness at the end.

The last dish is a breakfast sausage on a waffle. At first, I could only taste the sweetness from the chocolate covered waffle. A little bit later, I thought I could detect the honey in the sausage. It had a crumbly texture unlike all the other sausages. I didn't like the texture at first but it grew on me. However, I had reached my limit for meat so didn't really appreciate it. The beer was very bitter and I could not detect the coffee aroma that was supposedly present.

It was a tasty and reasonably cheap ($30) prix fixe. I would have preferred smaller sampler size dishes like the first course, though the sausages themselves were mini-sausages and not full-sized, followed by a main that uses the sausage(s) in a interesting way. Otherwise, it was simply too much meat and reminded why I'm glad I don't live on a Bavarian/German diet.

Quin-essential

I attended Tegan and Sara's first Massey Hall concert last night.

Good: A lot of catchy pop tunes with infectious hooks, funny banter between the sisters although there seemed to be less of that compared to youtube videos of their concerts. The middle portion sagged a little because the songs weren't quite the same calibre.

Best: A number of acoustic songs with just the Quins during the encore. Shows off their harmonies, catchy melody and lyrics. Would have actually preferred the whole concert to be like this.

Worst: The entire audience on the ground floor stood up for whole concert, plus a scattering here and there on the balcony and gallery sections. I would have been pissed. (People standing at concerts is a bugaboo of mine.) Luckily, I was in the second row balcony right over the stage and no one stood up. Note to self: always make sure to get front row balcony seating for concerts to avoid the inconsiderate jerks who stand.

???: As I was sipping my stout in the Massey Hall basement lounge before the concert, two girls plopped down at my table. Small talk was made, funny stories told, pictures taken. I bought a round of tequila shots, and made a discrete exit. The lesbian one even offered to take me to a lesbian bar some time and introduce me to her bisexual friends who are available. Why did I make such a quick exit given such interesting possibilities? I guess I'm too old and dull to find loud and drunk girls lively and fun, and more slightly amusing but quickly tiring.

However, I can't lie to save my life. So the red-head knows my facebook identity. But I'm sure she will realize what a fuddy-duddy I was when she sobers up and will not "friend" me.

Here are some Tegan & Sara videos from the concert.
Feel It In My Bones:


Call It Off:

Basia I Knew

I was ecstatic over a hamburger I ate at The Gourmet Burger Co. on Parliament before Christmas. I returned this past Saturday and was sadly underwhelmed. Better than fast food, yet not quite justifying the $7 tag. It may have been an off day. On the other hand, the previous time I was feeling jittery from a tasting contest of 24 desserts from amateur chefs. So maybe at the time, a nice hit of oil and salt was what my body craved.

A much more pleasant discovery was the singer Basia Bulat at Trinity St.Pauls. A singer with a warbling hitch to her voice, kind of like a slightly countrified Tracy Chapman. Whether being backed by her 5 member band (her drummer brother provides the propulsive beat for her more uptempo new songs) or singing solo, she sings (and writes) great songs. I was impressed enough to pick up her 2007 CD "Oh, My Darling". I wanted her new album, too. After all, it was a CD-prelease party. Unfortunately, she only brought 100 which were all snapped up thanks the appreciative sold-out crowd. A longer review with some tracks.

Here are some youtube clips of some songs from "Oh, My Darling". Her voice, and songs, have only gotten richer since then. The first video is taken from her singing a cappella at the end of her show at Trinity-St.Paul's.

Spiritual/Gospel Song:


Before I Knew:


Little Waltz:


Snakes and Ladders:

Above The Fold

I was looking at some origamic architecture and the Japanese Foundation. There were some arts and crafts sellers at the One of A Kind Show I attended before Christmas that were not half as clever. Hmm ...

1. Create origamic architecture with colourful shiny paper
   
2. Encase in transparent lucite display (removable)
   
3. Go to One of A Kind Show
4. Profit?

On a related note, a pop-up lego temple:

Like a Fuehrer?

This is a very long post about WWII written in 1997. Folks at metafilter can better comment on the quality of the piece. But for me, the following stands out:

But the transcripts are revealing in one sense: a certain recognizable style of thought comes through unmistakably. Hitler was, to the last degree, a self-taught explainer. He was one of those guys you hear droning on and on while you're standing in line at the post office or stuck on a train between stations -- the monologuist who can't stop explicating, to anybody who looks like he might be listening, everything that's wrong with the world and exactly who's to blame.

Boy, that's a little too close to home for comfort. My 2010 New Year resolution? Don't be Hitler.