wrapping

I generally try to avoid making excuses for why I haven't blogged but I'm just going to say: moving. no internet. computer passed out (again). followed by a nice round of hysterical cyber-bullying. Anyway, I'm back.

A birthday in three parts: the first, a heavenly dinner with enough wine that I didn't notice the clock ticking me into a new decade.









The second: a birthday picnic in my new apartment before we brought the furniture in. I'll give you a proper tour when the last box has been broken down. On this occasion, we put blankets on the floor and I enjoyed no fewer than FOUR birthday cakes.








Alicia, who made me a wonderful little wooden birdhouse necklace!




The guest book!

The third: a quiet home-made dinner with two close friends who couldn't make the party, with chocolate brioche and warmth and laughter and yes, very red light!







I was worried I'd feel sad being away from my family but really, it's just another birthday, and I couldn't have felt more loved in the home I'm building in my adopted city.

full-blown summer

I love Montreal architecture, Canadian summer fruit, sun-shiney terraces, and old friends who can't wait to show you there hometowns. I was so happy Emilie had time to meet me while I was there (she made herself very available as my personal tour-guide in fact). We met ten years ago in Vancouver, waiting outside a classroom for our first Canadian film seminar, and the conversation went like this: "Hi, I'm Emily." "Oh! Me too!"

I spent a good portion of my time in Montreal wandering, picking out my future home based on how pretty is was, eating poutine, and ogling the fresh produce at the outdoor markets.


poutine


Emilie

foodporn and fun nyc

I'm left with my usual bunch of photos that don't make up a coherent whole from a trip... most of them of food, naturally. Like I said, I ate super-well in New York: everything from a posh macaroni and cheese with truffle oil to a ravishingly good pulled pork sandwich to dumplings with the best dough of all time...

Here's a lightening tour of my happy stomach moments, occasionally contextualized with what else I did that day (let's face it, eating was the most important part).

On Saturday Kallie and I went to walk down Park Avenue for Summer Streets, a festival in which they close the street for pedestrians, runners and cyclists, with art installations along the way. We made friends in line and went through a tunnel of light, and then wandered happily chit-chatting...



Athletic people, boo, hisss. I think I was still compulsively clutching an oversized coffee and nursing a hangover at this point. But I'm always a fan of taking the streets back from traffic.



eating an amazing shrimp salad and The Best Dumplings Ever at Moon.... (what was this place called again Kallie?)




Glamorous picnic-ers in Central Park shortly before I dozed off


We regrouped, we redressed,


We went for brussels sprout pizza


And amazing, in-house made raspberry, mascarpone and cashew (oooooh) gelato.

On Sunday morning I went with these people (Kallie's boyfriend Rich is super, super, nice)


To this place:


To indulge in sinfully magnificent American breakfast (I had a BLT benedict, Kallie and Rich both had amazing breakfast sandwiches of various types)


The day involved some other stuff (my spending yet more money), but we didn't forget the important things in life and wrapped it up with a beer and cheese pairing:


And late-night pizza consumed on the floor and washed down with rosé.


Right... who's hungry?

mint tea and couscous

Last week I went to Fez, Morocco, for a grand total of two days (flights were cheap, I´ve been wanting to go to Morocco forever, etc. etc.) It was amazing! I´ll show you monuments and street views tomorrow, but meanwhile, enjoy some of the tastes!

Freshly squeezed orange juice for less than a dollar, tagine, coucous, breakfasts in tiled riads, honey cookies (can´t believe I didn´t get a picture of those), fried egg and potato sandwiches, street stands with delicious fish and sandwiches and hungry cats, hungry cats everwhere, fresh fruit, and mint tea with sugar, sipped while gazing into the hustle and bustle of the ever-moving marketplace.









tagine!


There were also a bunch of cats inside the restaurant on the second floor, they came in via the balcony and no one seemed to want to kick them out.

electronic picnic

I feel like a broken record going on about my long absences all the time, but in this case it´s my laptop that´s broken - for real this time - which is making everything from blogging to writing to talking to my family on skype a total pain. To fix it or to replace it... I still haven´t decided.

Anyway, these photos are from the electronic picnic, and event that takes place every Sunday of the summer in a park in Barcelona. There are DJs and electronic music and you bring your own food (and in our case, vermouth smuggled in as Coca Cola). For all that, it´s a child friendly event; there are lots of families. The day we went it threatened rain, but we camped out under the trees for the duration of the shower, and then climbed the trees, and then went to dance with everyone else. You can also play volleyball, or badminton, or simply pass out on blow-up mattresses, but the tree climbing was probably my favourite part!





P.S. Skirt by Family Affairs and top by Q´s Daydream

comfort food and friends (and comfort absinthe)

I've been going out like a maniac the last month or so. Dinner, lunch, coffee, vermut, debauched nights at the absinthe bar, coffee again in the morning... you name it, I was there. Mostly I just wanted to surround myself with people as much as possible. I totally burnt myself out (so much so that, arriving in the U.K. for a family holiday two days ago, I pronounced I had no intention of leaving the house at all and stayed all day on the sofa reading and eating cheese).

Since I'm also one of those people who refuses to eat breakfast until I've photographed it, ignoring that everyone around me is rolling their eyes, you get some of the food-centred highlights of the month fashion blogging forgot for me. :)

I made a Canadian pancake brunch for friends, and we ate them while drinking sparkling wine


A dinner at home with Amandine and Aga, to which Aga brought the most mouth-watering carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing.




Spring time is calçots season in Catalonia (calçots are large sweet onions, barbequed and eaten with Romesco sauce. Accordingly, some friends and I drove to a barbeque area outside of Barcelona, where we nearly died from smoke inhalation, and comically failed at making a fire. Finally two of us decided the only solution was to make friends with the locals, so we did, and they built the fire for us, and taught us how to cook the calçots properly, and it was amazing (though I smelt like smoke and onions for a long while afterwards)...


Luckily one of our number was more accomplished at how to eat the calçots, which can definitely be messy.


Despite smelling like an arsonist, I headed out to Barcelona's famous old Absinthe bar that night, as it was/is being threatened with closure. It's currently staying open semi-illegally I believe. It's a grand old institution where I lost a reasonable portion of my youth and beauty, so it was definitely worth turning out!



blurry but realistic...



And quieter afternoons, having coffee and cake with Aga after work (another one soon I hope).




P.S. I promise I'll be back to posting regularly. Have had emotional chaos, job-leaving, flat-changing, and sister-visiting all in short order, and currently am sharing one internet-enabled computer between five people but I should be up and rolling again by the weekend.

P.P.S. Despite this post rhapsodizing on food, I currently never want to eat again. I'm in the U.K. and have eaten about a pound each of cheddar, brie and wensleydale since I arrived...