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Happy long weekend! I’m off to New York to meet my girlfriends. I’m looking forward to spending time together, eating, having coffees, walking along highline park, seeing shows, chatting, checking out hipster brooklyn, drinking more coffee, finding the chicken and rice food cart and chatting until we can’t take each other anymore :)

The skyline photo above is a sketch by Wendy Macnaughton, and lucky for us she has a showing at the ace hotel this weekend.

Oh and maybe, just maybe, run into Ryan Gosling.

I recently came across Amanda Jane Jones’ website and instantly fell in love with it. I realized soon after that she is the designer for Kinfolk Magazine, which explains why I was drawn to her minimalistic design approach and the natural sense of calm that she conveys in the images. Kinfolk is a little publication that celebrates the natural approach to shared gatherings, whether you are a company of one, two or a few.

Amanda has this super cute column on her blog called My Better Half where she introduces different artists and shares a few facts about them. They make me smile and giggle. My favourite one is the one with the dinosaur! All pictures can be found here.

And of course this is my attempt at Andrew and I..

spring is finally here!

farmer market fiddleheads, asparagus, salad greens, baby potatoes and rhubard.

What a weekend! Eric and Lori came to visit us – we rode bikes, relaxed in the back yard and celebrated Andrew’s birthday. The sun was shining and it seemed like everyone in montreal went outside to play. Did anyone else see the ‘supermoon’? I wasn’t as big as I had hoped (imagine the planet in melancholia), but it was still bright and beautiful.

 

Eric photobombing..

We celebrated Andrew’s birthday with a lamb kebab party and middle eastern mezzas. Delicious spiced lamb, tabbouleh salad, tomato and eggplant stew, yogurt tahini sauce with warm pita. I made a milk chocolate peanut butter cake but didn’t get any pictures because it was devoured so fast!

It’s been a long time. Too long. There are many reasons I haven’t written in the last month. I’ve been busy - school, the job hunt, weekends away, volunteering, spring cleaning, out of town visitors, DIY craft projects, and on top of all that, I feel that I haven’t had anything exciting or creative to share with you.

But to be completely honest, I’ve also been hiding. Hiding behind my school work, hiding behind my to-do lists, hiding behind my workouts.

I’ve been feeling a bit stuck lately. Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m doing anything meaningful or productive. I wish I could get a job. I wish I could communicate in French. I wish I could get back to being creative. So when I’m feeling frustrated and overwhelmed I start making projects for myself to help me feel like I’m actually doing something and as you can probably guess, the list then overwhelms me. It’s all very cyclical and self manifested.

As my girlfriend (chum de fille – just learned how to say that in French yesterday!) told me, I’ve got to get the big rocks done first, then worry about everything else. And, I have to give myself a little more credit and fewer projects. I’m working on it, I’m letting go. BUT, I do have an exciting project in the works right now that I hope I can share with you soon..[[MORE]]

On another note, I ran my first half marathon in Montreal last weekend! It was a gorgeous sunny day and the race took place on ile Sainte-Helene and ile Notre-Dame, where the Grand Prix race is every year. The course was beautiful, through the park and along the canal. There were moments where I thought I was running on the seawall. And I remember seeing the Molson building near the end of the race and thinking that I was just running over the Burrard Bridge to the finish line (at this point I really really wanted it to be over). I achieved my personal best too - 2:02.

Good luck to all of those running BMO this weekend, be happy that you won’t have to do the prospect point hill :)

Okay I promise not to be away for so long this time. There are some exciting things coming up in the next few months so I look forward to sharing them.

Happy birthday to my dearest friend elisha who is celebrating her birthday this weekend!

Here are some words of wisdom from jay z about turning 3-0..

This pie, is just like how after I read a really good book.. I need to recommend it to everyone I encounter. The YMCA staff member I see every morning, school mates, every email to friends back in vancouver and even random messages on facebook have had this pie slipped into the context.

If you haven’t heard of shaker lemon pie, let me introduce you to its awesomeness. Just imagine, a slightly warm double crusted pie with an eggy, marmeladey, curdy filling made with meyer lemons. It’s kind of grown up, not overly sweet nor tart.

Meyer lemons are absolutely necessary. With a more complex flavour than regular lemons, they have a subtle tartness, minor bitterness (because they don’t have as much of a pith) and a lovely sweet aroma.

The shakers were a notoriously frugal group of people in Ohio around the mid 1800’s. They were thrifty enough to create this pie made with the whole lemon, including the peel.

This pie comes together super easily, just plan for the lemons marinating 24 hours in advance.

Shaker Lemon Pie

adapted from a sweet spoonful

makes one 9-inch pie

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Dough for one double crust pie (this one if you believe in using shortening or this one for an all butter crust)

4 meyer lemons
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 tbsp flour
4 tbsp butter (1/2 stick), melted

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Prepare your lemons 24 hours before you bake your pie. Thinly slice the lemons into a glass or ceramic bowl, removing any seeds. The thinner the slices, the better (use a mandolin if possible). Add sugar, toss and let sit for 24 hours.

Make the pie dough according to the recipe and chill.

Grease a 9 inch pie pan with butter.

When it’s time to make the pie, take out the dough and roll the bottom half into a large round circle, approximately 13 inches. Carefully lower dough into pie pan and place in refrigerator while you roll out the top half in the same manner. Place the top half on parchment paper and chill in refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Whisk eggs in a medium bowl until frothy. Add butter and flour and mix until combined and lump-free. Add lemons and all the accumulated juices. Pour filling into the bottom of the pie and place the top half of the dough on top. Trim both crusts so that 1 inch hangs over the lip of the pie plate. Pinch the crust edges of together and flute in a decorative pattern (or just imprint fork tines all around). Brush top of the pie with egg wash (1 egg white whisked with 1 tbsp water) and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Cut steam vents in the top crust.

Bake for 30 minutes, reduce temperature to 350°F and bake for an additional 20-30 minutes, until the top crust is golden brown. Allow to cool.

I preferred this pie slightly warm but it’s also very good at room temperature. Whipped cream or vanilla ice cream would be great as well.

This weekend was a food projet weekend. Andrew made meat in the form of sausages and bacon and I baked homemade spelt bread.

I tried an easy bread recipe from Home Made, a cute little cookbook by Amsterdamian Yvette van Boven. She is an illustrator, food stylist and runs a restaurant in Amsterdam. She makes amazing paper cut outs and has cute illustrated recipes.

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