Ooooof! Winter is awesome!

After a weekend of excess (I think I ate out for every meal with barely any time passing between each), I've decided to make this week's menu all about salads. Specifically, salads from Donna Klein's The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen and Vegan Italiano. These two cookbooks are no How It All Vegan, a book I consider the worst of all vegan cookbooks. Its authors must invest in the vegetable oil industry they use cups of it in every recipe. No, there is not one meat substitute, not one ounce of tofu, soy milk or tempeh (barf!) to be found in Donna Klein's recipes. Tonight I'll be making Italian Bread Salad. Stay tuned for pictures!

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

This song was on Gossip Girl last night, I just love it! Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are coming to Montreal on November 23rd!

Last night I went to see Califone perform the music from their new album "All My Friends are Funeral Singers" which accompanied a movie projected onto a big screen on the stage. You can watch the trailer here. It's about a woman who lives in a big old house with a bunch of ghosts. They help her with her psychic reading business until one day they decide they want to leave the house. They think she's preventing them, but she's so fed up she makes it as easy as possible for them to leave, but they can't seem to get out. I LOVED the music, the movie was great too, but I left before it ended because I wanted to make it to my friend's birthday party (Happy Birthday Caroline!).

I keep missing her parties every year, birthday and otherwise, so I was happy I finally made it to one. And while celebrating with Caroline and seeing Califone were the brightest highlights of the night, I can't forget to mention, not one but TWO friendly cats I saw. One was hanging onto a tree on the sidewalk and letting two friendly pedestrians scratch its back and the other (with a shaved tail with a puffy pom pom of fur on the end) was sitting on a wooden box outside a depanneur letting even more friendly bar hoppers scratch its back. Too cute!

I love this song!

A(n) historial walk through the PSC yo!

I just know a lot of you are thinking, "Where in the heck does Michelle live!?" and more pressing, "What is the historical significance of her neighbourhood!?" Well I am finally going to tell you through the magic of my digital camera...

I live in Pointe-St-Charles in the South-West of Montreal. Now, the Grand Trunk railway, which opened in 1852, was Montreal's largest employer during it's time and shaped PSC back in the day. It had tons of local employees and called itself Grand Trunk because it was thought to be the trunk from which all railways in Canada would stem. Here's a picture of it's head office, now a government building.

As you can see, it's covered in scaffolding. It is a grand building with a beautiful marble staircase inside. PSC has a truly working-class history, from working for the railway to building the Lachine canal. This means its residents for the last couple hundred years have been relatively poor and needy, so that things like the flood of 1886, one of the worst in the 19th century, pretty much devastated the surrounding neighbourhoods and farms. Here's a mark on the Allan building (Hugh Allen was one of the richest men in Canada in the late 19th century).

Where does a poor working-class schmuck go when he's feeling down and out, his home is flooded and he's on strike again? Why, Joe Beef's tavern of course!

Famous for helping out those on strike and anyone in need, Joe Beef also helped non-humans. In the basement of his tavern, which he ran from 1870 to 1889, he was known to keep bears, monkeys, wild cats, and a porcupine. If those wild strikers got too rowdy, Joe Beef would bring up one of the bears to restore order.

And boy did the workers ever strike! Imagine building a 12km canal, it's back-breaking work. And then imagine widening it. And then imagine building locks. It takes time, it takes 16-hour days in fact. The canal also allowed ships to bypass the rapids in the St-Lawrence which allowed for steamships to reach Montreal and thus more industry into the PSC, which meant even more working-class Irish and Scottish to move in.

The Darling Brothers foundry is one of 20 that provided work for the residents of PSC and Griffintown in the late 19th century. Now, it's a restaurant and art gallery.

Back in the day, people got around by horse and buggy. The Griffintown Horse Palace, an Irish-owned stable since the 1860s, is still pretty much in working order.

Of course, all those Irish needed a place to worship and St Ann's Catholic church was built in 1854. At the time, as now, there were two types of people, the unskilled labourers and the rich industrialists. Everyone was Catholic, but poor Catholics went to St Ann's and the rich Catholics went to St Patrick's. Naturally, St Patrick's still exists, but St Ann's was demolished in 1970, which marks the beginning of serious decline in the PSC, but more on that in a bit. Here is what's left of St. Ann's. It's now a park which some of the foundation still marks the church's outline.

St. Ann's also ran a nursery around the corner from the Horse Palace. Here is the building which now houses a transport company started in 1926 and still run by the original owner's grandson.

Now, the Lachine canal was crucial in Montreal's growth which is why it was built (requiring tons of workers) and why it was widened (requiring more workers). Not only did it allow ships to bypass the rapids in the St. Lawrence, it also provided hydraulic energy to the early factories built in the area. Foundries, silk and ribbon factories, sugar factories and mills filled the area and so a lot of manpower was needed and a lot of manpower was taken advantage of. The working-class of the PSC could not escape hard times. When the canal was widened, the workers were paid in company money that could only be spent at company stores.

After all this hard work, the canal was closed! The St Lawrence Seaway took over and the port end of the canal was filled in and closed in the 1960s and the Lachine end of the canal was closed in 1970. St Anne's was demolished in 1970, the locals lost their place of meeting and worship. In 1963 the whole area was zoned as industrial. Hence the decline of the PSC into poverty.

As if to foreshadow the area's decline, typhus swept through the area in 1847 killing the most vulnerable, the poor unskilled workers who'd help built it up with their own hands. At the opening of the Victoria bridge is a monument to those Irish. A 30 ton piece of black granite pulled from the St Lawrence during the building of the Victoria Bridge marks a mass grave of thousands of Irish who died during the epidemic.

Stayed tuned for Part 2...

I don't think I've posted this photo here yet. It's Willow trying to curl up and disappear into the woodwork. She had a fever, after throwing up all day, and could not get comfortable. Poor kitty!

Something that I'm finding annoying in design blogs lately is the overuse of the term "pop of color". A "pop of color" is used to add colour to a room with a very plain palate, usually cream or white. I was seeing people use "pops of colour" in the rooms in their own homes and in the redesign of rooms in other people's homes so much, I started to wonder just how blandly they decorate! I doubt any colour I add to my house would "pop" as there is already a colourful palette to begin with.

I searched younghouselove.com's site for their use of "pops" of different colours and I got over 100 results! I searched apartmenttherapy.com and got over 8 pages of results! I don't think I like these white and cream homes that need pops of color, I find it very boring.

I guess, as my brother likes to remind me, I have too much time on my hands.

A few pictures from our trip to the Gaspé Peninsula. More beautiful than I'd imagined!

I am officially funemployed!

Four must-eats I found at chowhound.com, about which I will blog in a couple of weeks:

1. A gelatto place Les Glaces Ali-Baba. 521, route 132 Est Cacouna, Québec G0L 1G0 Canada.
2. Fromagerie des Basques, just before Trois-Pistoles.
3. Cantine de la Gare for Poutine de la gare, which is a poutine steak haché but with creamy coleslaw on top. 2 Rue Saint-Jean-Baptiste Est, Rimouski, QC G5L 8Y3, Canada
4. Capitaine Homard in Ste-Flavie, less than 10 minutes east of Ste-Luce.

After reading this review of Lobsterfest at Magnan, I knew I had to finally try it out. Magnan is an institution in Pointe-St-Charles and has been for 75 years. Here I am with my lobster:

I ended up going bibless. It was delicious! I skipped the rice and corn it came with; I was really there for the lobster and melted butter. After a couple of frustrations at work, cracking that sucker open felt pretty good. We started with the shrimp and cucumber salad (just like in the review) and some grilled vegetables - all delicious.

F.A.Q

Margaret asks "Which one of you has more than 2 bikes?!?"

I suppose they are all Mark's bikes as he's the one who bought all of them and maintains all of them.

Margaret asks "I don't meditate. Yet. I'd like to. I think I need to. I've been thinking about it for a while and would like to hear more about where you did your group thing yesterday."

It's an 8-week program about using meditation to manage stress. If anybody is interested, email me and I'll give you the details so you can sign up for the next session!

Margaret asks "Well, of course I'm still asking why!" (about why I want to give up coffee)

I just know that if I don't have even the smallest coffee, I will feel like sleeping all day. I think I'd rather wake up feeling refreshed than have to wait until after I've drunk a coffee to feel awake.

Dana asks "What the heck are you wearing in that picture?"

It's a cotton robe Mark brought back for me from France.

Margaret asks "Just what exactly does 'guf' mean? Is it an acronym?"

I really have no idea what it means. I take it to mean, "Wow, what a day!" or something like that.

Ah, Los Planes! The best (albeit only) El Salvadoran restaurant I've ever been to! Here is a picture of Mark's recreated typical Los Planes breakfast. Refried beans, sour cream, sliced apple (at Los Planes you usually get pineapple, apple and some other fruits), tortilla (at Los Planes they give you real tortillas, these are just from my chain supermarket), scrambled eggs, rapini (our addition) and salsa. At Los Planes, you also get plantain and tamale. And that is because Los Planes is the bomb!

And here is Mark riding home on the new (to us) folding bike he bought last night. He insists we need two of these for our trip to the Gaspesie. I suggested we get a bike rack for the car or rent bikes at the parks we're staying in but when he gets a bee in his bonnet, he can't let go.

So here are the two bikes he bought in a matter of 24 hours all folded up and waiting for action:

We now have 5 bikes between the two of us!

There is nothing much to report, not even a few pictures. Mark and I took a beautiful bike ride along the canal today to Parc Rene Levesque, had lunch there, biked back along the river. Last night we spend a couple hours planning our trip to the Gaspesie! I'm so excited! We will camp the whole time which is a bit nerve-racking for me, I'm not a very laid-back tent sleeper, but I'm going to try. We just came back from setting up our tent in a nearby park to see if it has any rips. It's perfect!

Edit! I thought this post was too boring, so I'm adding a few photos...

First, here is my balcony where you can see I'm all set up to enter final grades for the year.

Here is Willow caught in the act of trying to get to the neighbour's balcony. She spends a lot of time hanging out here even though there is a balcony railing, chicken wire and a shade preventing her from getting there.

This is a view from my balcony down to the sidewalk. I'm on the third floor, so you can see the very edge of the second-floor balcony, plus the outside stairs.

And here is the view of the street to the right of me:

I spent almost the whole day yesterday meditating. Starting at 9:45am, I stopped talking and started meditating with a group I've been learning about meditation with for the last 5 weeks, led by an instructor.

From 9:45am to noon, we did some kripalu yoga and a sitting meditation. From noon until 1:15pm was a lunch break; I went to a park and soaked up some sun, totally in silence. From 1:15 to about 2:30 we did a body scan meditation and a walking meditation.

Finally we sat in a circle and everyone was invited to say a few words about how the day affected them. Let me tell you, that was an intense way to wrap up the day. A few in the group became very emotional, including me!

Today I'm still feeling the effects of yesterday's meditations: peacefulness, calmness. I never thought this meditation program would have such an effect on the rest of my life, even though that was my goal in getting involved. I wasn't so much suspicious, as much as simply not convinced that it could be so powerful.

Do you meditate?

Ahhhhh! That was so much fun! Last night, Mark and I joined 11998 other cyclists for the Tour la Nuit, a 20km bike ride along city streets. It was really so much fun. The sidewalks were filled with people cheering us on! It's so funny to ride down the streets, very very leisurely I might add, and have all these people yelling, "You can do it! Keep going! Don't give up!" - it's certainly undeserving, but makes you feel so good and happy!

So much about the ride was great: getting to see parts of Monteral I'd never been to like the Complexe environmental Saint-Michel, seeing all the funnily dressed-up cyclists and riding down the most supportive street ever, Avenue Louis-Hebert. I don't know what it is about the people who live on Louis-Hebert, but they were out in droves with noise-makers, lawn chairs and babies waving us through!

And of course the big party at the end at Jeanne-Mance park - it was bigger than I thought with circus acts, all the sponsors giving away free stuff (none of which I took) and the other 11998 cyclists. After that we biked home which meant biking along the path that cuts through the new intersection at Parc and de Pins which since that intersection was completely redone, I'd never biked through. What a breeze it is now! So clean and organized. Ta-da!

Today, during second period (first grade), one student said qu'il me trouve belle (three weeks ago he told me liked my shoes), another gave me a little cutout drawing he'd made (after spending the last 10 months spending each hour-long class disrupting pretty much everything) and another punched his friend in the stomach. What a year!

Well I'm thinking of giving up coffee. Margaret might remember me saying this..oooh, sometime during our History of English class back in 2006 (! that long ago!) and her reply was, "Why?". Good question. I don't know why I say these things, but I just feel it's time. And I don't even drink that much, one measely little stove top espresso each morning. And I mean TINY. But still, I'm addicted.

In the past when I've tried to give it up, I ended up having to take a 3 hour nap in the middle of the day so I this time I'm going to wait until my summer vacation which starts July 1st.

What I would like to know (and I can't find a straight answer on the internet) is if an infection can be treated with antibiotics, does that mean that that's the only way to get rid of it?

I'm pretty sure I'm suffering through a second sinus infection! The first one was about 2 months ago. I went to the doctor who prescribed antibiotics and the infection gone in 3 days. But now it seems it's back. I can't explain exactly how I know it's a sinus infection and not a regular cold; I can just feel it. But I don't want to go back on antibiotics, so I've started doing sinus rinses! And I've got Mark (who suffers from seasonal allergies) hooked on them too! 

But I just need to know: can you get rid of a bacterial sinus infection without antibiotics? Can other infections that are usually treated with antibiotics be gotten rid of without drugs?