I went to San Diego for Christmas. All we did was go shopping. I didn’t even buy much!
Here are some pictures of UTC, University Town Centre, the mall. I’ve been going to this mall since I was like 7 or even younger!

Hello my dear three readers. I have not forgotten about you.
I want to wish you all a Happy 2010, I was in California for a few days at the end of the year but I’m back, ready for working and having a great time this year.

I had a really good 2009, a year in which I sold my old condo and got a bigger one, moved and got a dog that we both adore. I also quit a job that was not working for me and was actually making me sick, and I got a new job that seems amazing. All in all I had a year full of good news and promises. Hopefully 2010 will stay like that.

It is December and I haven’t updated this blog in two months! I think it’s the longest it’s ever been between updates.
I just have been so busy, and happy, Molson is a great dog but it takes lots of our time, I barely have time for cooking anymore, so I haven’t been making anything special.
But I have taken up crochet, so I expanded my repertoire from knitting to crochet. Basically I was making a scarf and it was too skinny, I decided to do a round of single crochet and I liked the look of it a lot, I remembered that I had a book called Crochet Scarves!: 16 Hip Projects for Dressing Up Your Look by Candy Jensen, so I went and fetched it and made a whole scarf with Noro Silk Garden. I enjoyed doing it a lot and it was so fast, compared to knitting. So I made a trip to Romni Wools and got the materials for making the Orchard Mitts and the Leaf Pepper Hat (”teen” model”) from the Fall 2009 issue of Interweave Crochet. I made the mitts in about 1.5 weeks and the hat has been taking me a bit more. I’m done with the red but I am still to start with the contrast colour. I’m very excited about that, though.
I guess that’s all the updates I got for now. I’ll keep you posted and will probably have a recipe soon (I took the pictures, I just haven’t sat and written it down).

This recipe has been cross-posted with Garlicster.

How to make a creamy soup when no milk or cream is to be added? I found a few recipes but they all said to mix everything with the blender, but then the leeks would not be visible. I wanted the soup to be creamy but the leeks to be recognizable within the soup. To make this recipes you need to prepare the leeks and the potatoes in separate pots, this will allow to puree the potatoes and leave the chopped leeks to add chunky texture to the soup.

I used:
4 cups potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 large leeks, chopped (there are 3 in the picture but I only used 2)
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups vegetable broth or water (or more depending on how thick it is and/or how liquid you like it
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon chopped ginger
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
In a large pot brown the garlic in the olive oil, add the potatoes and sautee until lightly browned. Add the broth to the potatoes and boil until softened.

In a separate pot, sautee the leeks in the olive oil for 2 minutes.

When the potatoes are cooked in the broth, puree with the hand blender, the texture will be that of a vichyssoise. Add the leeks and simmer for 2 minutes for flavour.

Add the chopped ginger and the curry powder to the soup. This will make the soup look a bit yellow, not the usual white, but will give it a distinctive flavour of deliciousness. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve and enjoy!

Yesterday I tried this delicious recipe and a totally new thing for me, I knew that the dish existed because I saw it once on the Food Network, but I had never thought of trying it. I was trying to come up with original veggie ideas for grilling and that’s when I remembered the lettuce. I did not follow the recipe on the Food Network, but I followed the technique and main idea.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon minced ginger
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
3 heads of romaine lettuce

Instructions:
To make dressing, combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.

Slice each head of lettuce in two, lengthwise.

Brush the lettuce with the dressing.

Grill the lettuce on both sides for 5 minutes total. Brush with the dressing when turning around. You don’t want to grill it for too long or it will wilt. You want it to be warm and grilled, but not soggy and wilted.

Here is the grilled lettuce. The picture is not very good, but I can assure you it was crunchy and soft at the same time, and it had nicely absorbed the delicious Asian-inspired dressing. Each person ate a whole half of lettuce and other veggies as well.

I just realized that I haven’t blogged about any recipes since I moved in April! I have still been cooking, I promise, I just haven’t taken pictures and haven’t cooked anything new/original, at least nothing that I can think of.
Tonight I’ll take pictures of a new recipe I’m making, I’ll post soon.

When we were looking for a new condo to buy we had one big consideration, we wanted a dog. Both James and I had dogs when we lived with our parents and we wanted to have one ourselves, especially now that there were two people in the household, it would be easier to take care of him if it was two of us.

We were advised to look for dogs that were given up because of health or death of their owners, and to watch out for dogs given up for behavioural issues, since we wouldn’t have time to work with the dog on those problems.

We looked for available dogs on Petfinder and liked a black lab mix called Max. He lived with a jack russel terrier and a cat, and his owner couldn’t take care of him because she had been sick. The adoption agency is called Adopt-A-Dog Save-A-Life and we sent the application on July 22nd. Almost two weeks later, we had our home visit. They do the home visit to ensure that the house is good for the dog, that there are no hazards… and that we are not freaks (we tried to hide it, haha).

After the home visit on August 5th, they called me and asked me if we would be interested in Molson. Molson was in more urgent need of “rescue” because his owner could not take care of him anymore. Also he was used to being alone, while Max was probably going to be lonely, being used to being in a house where there were other dogs and cats. Molson looked super cute on his pictures and we agreed to go visit him and potentially adopting him.

We reserved a car to go all the way to Markham, by then I was pretty convinced we were going to get him, but we still had to meet him. We went to his house and took him for a walk. Here we are when we had just met.

We totally fell in love with him (as we were expecting!). So we brought him home.

Molson is an adorable dog. He is a purebred Labrador, he will be turning eight in December and he is very well behaved. He is used to being inside, but loves to go for his walk.

He has been a little bit nervous, I think because he doesn’t know what’s going on. I think he is waiting for his previous owner to come any minute and pick him up. He got a little bit of diarrhea, probably because he is excited/nervous. But he has taken to us and gets excited to see James or me.
I am so glad we got him, I will have all this week to be with him and get him used to us and the house before starting my new job on August 17. Then he’ll stay here during the workday, but I’ll come right after work for his walk.

Here is a copy of what I wrote in January 2005, it was called “Reconnecting with old friends“. I am re-posting it because the post that gets the most hits on this blog is the one titled “What’s left of Chateau Mont Choisi” written in August 2007. Currently it has close to 30 comments. So here is what I wrote back in 2005:

I know that some people have been performing Internet searches for Institution Chateau Mont Choisi at Lausanne. I would like to reconnect with some of the girls that were in school with me, back in 1990, especially my fellow boarders at Le Bercail (that was the name of the house we lived in, since we were over 18 we had less restrictions than other girls who lived at Wellingtonia, the Chateau or the other house, the Rosemont, where the dining room was).

I’d like to post their names but I don’t think I should, because of privacy issues, so I’ll just write their first name:

Marcela, from Cali, Colombia (haven’t seen her since December 1990, when I left the school)

Veronica, from Cali, Colombia (haven’t seen her since December 1990, when I left the school)

Carmen, from Mexico City (last I knew she had moved to Monterrey and was studying at ITESM, this was probably in 1992)

Gretta, from Sweden (she was something like the housemaster at the Bercail) (haven’t seen her since December 1990)

Ana Paola, from Sao Paolo, Brazil (haven’t seen her since December 1990)

Victoria, from England (haven’t seen her since December 1990)

Penny, from Venezuela (haven’t seen her since December 1990)

Pili, from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (haven’t seen her since December 1990 I saw her at Maribel’s wedding in 1992 or 1993, December)

Montse, from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic ((haven’t seen her since December 1990 I saw her at Maribel’s wedding in 1992 or 1993, December)

Alice from Puebla, Mexico (I actually have her email address, the last time I saw her was in 2001, I think, and I also know she had a baby about 2 years ago)

Mariana and Ana (they were sisters and Mariana was one of my best friends, I know her last name and she is from Mexico City so I can probably find her easily just looking for her parents’ number)

Maribel from Mexico City (OK, I have been in touch with her, I went to her wedding and I met her twin girls, but haven’t known much about her since 2001 or so)

Marina from Mexico City (she is the one who told me that she had been to Lausanne recently -and for recently I mean probably 1998- and had seen the Chateau in very bad shape. I know she got married because my mother saw the pictures in the newspaper)

The big problem is that I have moved around so much that I have lost track of almost everyone, and it’s difficult to track me even if you Google my complete name (which almost no one knows). It would be nice to know what happened to all these girls.

So everyone if you know anyone that was at Chateau Mont Choisi in 1990, tell them to check out if they are on this list, (and remember, they probably know me as Lolina, or Maria Dolores).

UPDATE 2009: Thanks to Facebook I have somehow reconnected to Maribel, Montse and Mariana. Penny from Venezuela now lives in Australia and we were connected for a little bit. I also am “friends” (Facebook friends) with Gilda, Karla, Alicia, Eman and some other girls that were students at the same time as me. Little by little some of us have reconnected.

We went to Cabo San Lucas for a week. We flew Continental to Houston from Toronto. I just want to warn my fellow travelers that fly out from Pearson Airport to beware that if their flight is supposed to leave before 6:30 AM do not take a tight connection.
Apparently flights are not allowed to leave Pearson before 6:30, even if they’re scheduled for 6:00 or 6:05. The neighbours around the airport have complained about the noise of the planes taking off, and that is why 6:30 is the earliest planes will take off. Which is all good, except airlines should just schedule starting at 6:30, this will prevent people from having REALLY TIGHT connections and having to run from one gate to the other to catch their Houston-Cabo flight. We could have been scheduled for the later flight, if we had known that planes never make it on time due to the time restriction (apparently it’s the same in Washington DC, again, hopefully airlines do not schedule flights for earlier hours when planes can’t take off).
In short, we made it to Cabo, but our suitcases didn’t! Yes, we were in Cabo with no clothes. James’s suitcase made it in the afternoon but mine didn’t get there until late at night. I just want to commend the ground personnel of Continental in the San Jose del Cabo airport. They were amazing, I mean they didn’t do anything that was not the standard (report the missing luggage, take our name, etc.) but it’s just the manner that makes a difference. They were super nice and courteous and in this day and age of bad service by earlines and airport employees, the good manners and pleasant service makes a BIG difference.

18:34
Firemen are here!

(sorry about the crappy unfocused picture, I was too excited)
18:38
The fire truck is waiting in the street for the firemen that are inspecting my floor.

18:40
Getting ready to possibly evacuate. Firemen still inspecting.
18:42
Ok alarm has been silenced, no need to evacuate.
18:44
Oh, for goodness sakes, the alarm is going off again!
18:45
Decided to just wait here until I’m called out by the fire department.
18:46
They’re knocking on everyone’s door except mine. Weird! (they probably want me burned down or something!)
18:58
What is it with firemen that they’re always cute? Apparently it’s all clear now. Good, because alarm was giving me headache. Now, beer.