Industrial Cream Puff Accident Maims 1, Shocks All.

Tits McGee
Kill the Goat News
December 19, 2007 2:30 am EST

Eastern Ontario - The tragic accident that left dozens of puff pastry treats empty and aching for their custard filling has devastated an entire staff room of ornery elementary school teachers looking to soothe their frayed nerves with a chocolatey sugar fix and raised awareness for the plight of the custardless among the shaken but indomitable community.

The site of the accident, an ordinary residential kitchen, still smelled delightfully of vanilla and was lightly dusted with flour, a somewhat whimsical setting for what would ultimately become a grizzly, nightmarish scene.

A woman who can only be identified as "Jay" under the Suffer the Fools Protection Act, had been baking furiously for about an hour before the accident, which occurred at approximately 1:15am. The empty pastry shells of what were to become eclairs could be seen cooling on wire racks behind police tape. Alone and unsupervised, Jay was apparently gently folding whipped cream into a vanilla-based mixture while listening to The Kinks when a large mixing bowl, described as blue and plastic, which contained said mixture suddenly and inexplicably went from sitting politely on the counter to upturned and on the floor.

About 12 cups of not-quite-custard splashed an area including but not limited to the lace curtains, an oven that had just recently been cleaned, the counter top, the sink, the floor, the cupboard doors, the crack between the counter and the oven that's a real bitch to clean, and of course, Jay herself. The ensuing sticky puddle was so enormous that an innocent bystander named Max Keeping quite literally had to doggy-paddle through it in order not to drown.

Another resident of the home was the first respondent to the scene and described it variously as "fucking hilarious" and "still pretty delicious". Other four-legged witnesses didn't even bother invoking the golden 10-second rule, and were happy to lap up the evidence of an epic spill.

According to pastry-police Sergeant A. LaMode, the culprit, also known as Madame LaDropski, was probably mixing at excessive speeds and had been tempting fate by cracking eggs two-handedly and had not even replaced the cap on a very expensive bottle of pure vanilla extract. "People need to know that baking recklessly is a serious offense with serious consequences, as we can see here tonight. This needless accident could have been avoided if only she'd been using proper stirring technique and had not been under the influence of that damned rock and roll music."

Jay, who was treated at the scene for shock and stickiness, gave no comment except for an under-the-breath refrain of "My argyle, my poor argyle."

Meanwhile, clean-up crews dispatched to the scene were delighted to see the floor being eagerly licked clean. Damage to the remaining kitchen was extensive however, and was estimated in the range of 3-4 buckets of hot soapy water and at least one raging backache in the morning. Witnesses were visibly shaken by the carnage - crumbs were scattered haphazardly about the scene, and dozens of tiny eclair-corpses were piled into the garbage bin.

One woman, described as hungry and pre-menstrual, tearfully lamented the loss. "I know you can't make eclairs without the cream filling, but it just tears me up inside knowing that perfectly good pastry and devilishly sweet chocolate ganache are going to waste because of one bad decision. It's just not fair! Who's going to explain this injustice to my poor, exploding ovaries? They just won't understand."

Indeed, this reporter finds it difficult to understand what kind of God would allow such a heart-rending and grievous act of iniquity.

I'm Bringing Streaky Back

An Ode to Bacon
(Edit: if you're not singing this to the tune of Justin Timberlake's Sexyback,
you're doing it wrong!)

I'm bringing streaky back
Them other porks don't know how to act
I think it's special with ribs on babyback
So turn around and give your lips a smack

(take it to the bridge)

Salty Babe
With eggs for breakfast baby that I crave
I'll have to cure you if you misbehave
Pancetta doesn't make me feel this way

(take it to the chorus)

Come here girl, go head pig out with it
Come to the kitchen, go head pig out with it
BLT,  mayo for me
Lemme see what you're forking with
Look at those strips
You make me stockpile
Go head child and ... get your streaky on (go heavy, go with it)

I'm bringing streaky back
Them other fuckers don't go with cheese and mac
Girl let me make up for what prosciutto lacks
Because you're crisping up I got to eat it fast

(Take it to the bridge)

Salty Babe
Bits on salad baby make me rave
I'll fry you up if you misbehave
It's just that pork chops make a bland entree

(take it to the chorus)

Come here boy, go head chow down on it
Come to the grill, go head chow down on it
Ham and brie, not for me
Lemme see what you're smoking with
Look at those chips
Make me smile
Go head child and ...get your streaky on (go heavy, go with it)

I'm bringing streaky back
You mother fuckers, pork loin is whack
If that's your sausage, baby watch your back
Cause bacon's burning up for me and that's a fact

Constant Cravings

It sucks to be on the rag in this city.

Now, I realize that I may be in the minority here, but chocolate is not my thing. I'm just not a sweet person, I guess. I'm a salty girl.

What I want, and what I need, is pizza. Drippy cheese, burn-the-roof-of-your-mouth, grease on the napkins good pizza. But this stupid city doesn't have any. Not a single decent pizza in the whole goddamned city. At first I couldn't believe my dumb luck, and I combed the city for a worthy pizzeria. There were none. None!

This frigging city that prides itself on its diversity and international fare cannot make a pizza to save itself. In less than 50 steps from my door, I can find really great indian food, terrific mongolian grill, impressive thai food, and spicy caribbean, and a pretty good steak. But there ain't no pizza in this city, despite the yellow pages' 408 pizzeria listings for the Greater Toronto Area.

Clearly, I think about this subject way too much, but I've had about 5 days per each of the 16 months I've been here - 80 days of crampy, cranky, craving contemplation. The problem seems to be that the city relies on chains - crappy Pizza Pizza, Dominos, Pizza Nova, Pizzaville - and they all make the same crappy slices. Puke.

I grew up in eastern Ontario, where pizza is serious business. Back in the day, the mob in Montreal was running ingredients -cheese and pepperoni - and thus, they greatly encouraged restaurant owners to order generously, and those that wanted to live did just that. So pizzas were loaded with this stuff. Where I come from, pepperoni is not those gross little circles that dot most pizzas, it's ultra-thin shavings that are layered maybe an inch think over the crust (yes, ingredients go under the cheese, people!) and cheese is piled on at least that thickly over that. It's rich with calories, but worth every single one. This pizza has a heart attack waiting to happen right in the middle - a small ball of dough is placed in the middle of the pizza, and while it bakes, the grease runs toward the middle and gets trapped in the ball. Everyone would fight over this ball when the delivery guy would arrive - this is the po' man's delicacy.

I myself am very fond of the plain cheese pizza, but don't let the name deceive you. To me, if sex had a taste, that would be it. Pure indulgence. It's so sloppy and greasy and wonderful that you have to eat it with a knife and fork - the crust could never support the heaven that sits atop it. Jason, of course, prefers the "all-dressed" variety, which does not even exist in this retarded city. In Toronto, a pizza with everything on it is called "deluxe". How pansy is that? And in the lovely city of Ottawa, all of the worthy pizzerias have a special that combines pepperoni, bacon, green olives, green peppers, and mushrooms. Now that's good pizza. But the wester you get in this province, the grosser the pizza becomes.

It's probably not healthy to obsess over food like this, right? But this time of the month, I honestly believe I might die without a taste. I wonder to myself how much it might cost to have a couple of them fed-exed to the black hole of pizza (otherwise known as central Ontario). And I know that when Jason gets home from work, he'll see that look in my eye, and offer to make the trip (5-6 hours each way). He offers every time. I haven't let him yet, but every month I grow weaker.

Must.
Get.
...
Pizza...

Ah, fuck it. I guess I'll just become a raging bitch instead.

Yaaargh, Happy Birthday, Matey.

Jason turned 26 on Thanksgiving.

A long weekend.

72 whole hours of turkey-filled club-hopping at the end of which my belly was bloated, the underside of my eyelids felt gritty, and Jason got even older than he already was. Whew.

Normally, I think receiving flowers at work is one of the best parts of a birthday. Jason doesn't really get off on that stuff though. He prefers lavish gifts of the edible kind. So he smacked my bottom and put me to work in the kitchen baking him a birthday cake that any (2)6 year old birthday boy would squeal with delight over.

He loved it. He wasn't even embarrassed that I sent him birthday hats to match.

For his real actual birthday though, I made him the birthday dessert of his choice, which ended up being margarita cheesecake, which I think he chose because I don't eat cheesecake, so the more for him. Which is okay, because it's his birthday. And it's kinder to my hips.

He also wanted a special birthday brunch (which would hopefully be digested before his Thanksgiving supper) consisting of a special birthday smoothie and a special birthday manly quiche with 2 kinds of breakfast meat (sausage and bacon...as if there was any question).

All in all, I'd say we had a very festive 3 days, 3 days that we hope to be recovered from sometime before I attempt to turn 26.

Mashed Potato Gravy Time

The first time I ever cooked a turkey, I was 19 years old. It was a gift from work, and it rode the bus home with me, a chilly companion who rolled gently between my legs.

I rather bravely dealt with the giblets, and my knees only buckled once or twice trying to heft it into the oven. I'm pretty sure that damn bird outweighed me, and it certainly had a nicer complexion once I got done slow-cooking it to a goldeny-brown perfection. I'm pretty sure I over-basted that first year, but the over-basting produced such an incredibly moist and delectable turkey that I have adopted it as my new (and only) turkey tradition.

I don't know how many equally perfect turkeys I've turned out since (last Christmas alone I cooked 5 - I for us, and 4 for a homeless shelter), especially considering that I refuse to regard turkey as sacred holiday fare. I have often made turkey and all the trimmings just for the sheer extravagance of it. I mean, there's something about shopping for this meal that makes me a little punch-drunk: 1 heaving grocery cart, 300 dollars, 2 bellies, 1 day. Where else do you get those kinds of logistics?

But as much as I adore delighting Jason with more food than our modest dining table can support, my fondness for preparing the traditional fare is often compromised by the itch to always try something new.

I remember the first time I interrupted my Nanny's impressive holiday spread with the dreaded "something new." I brought dessert, or rather, a dessert selection. I do damn good desserts, or so anyone who'd ever eaten them had been telling me for months, so I thought I had a sure thing going. But when my Nanny's tried and true dinner was over and my desserts presented, I heard grumblings to the tune of "Where is Nanny's apple pie?"

Now, I will be the first to admit that Nanny's apple pie is very good. Maybe even the best. But the fact remains that we have had this pie at every Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving since time immemorial. And not just at holidays, but at any given Sunday dinner, any casual visit, or any time she visits you. In fact, I would wager that right now, every single one of my relatives, including my uncle out in Vancouver, has no fewer than 4 of my Nanny's frozen apple pies sitting in their chest freezers right now. So it's not like there's an apple pie shortage.

But that was the year I learned that there is a very fine line between tradition and boring.

Nanny's 'traditional' holiday meal includes, and does not deviate from: turkey, ham, meatballs, tourtiere (meat pie), mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, carrots, and dinner rolls. She usually has a platter with her homemade pickles and beets, and of course, cheese. There is usually one "grab bag" item - a chicken dish made expressly for my finicky sister - to Jason's amusement, it has often been a bucket of KFC, but can also be chicken pot pie or "crowd pleasing" dish.

Nanny is a cook of the variety of "plain but good." And I mean that in a flattering way. Plain, but good. But plain. But still good. But still plain. I don't even think she seasons things.

So, I brought "Nanny alternatives" to family functions and learned that to them, variety was the same as family tension. Oh sure, they ate my "hip" frozen desserts, the kids loved my beautifully iced cakes, people cried over the cream cheese frosting on my incredible carrot cake, and they inhaled my sumptuous cheesecakes like they hadn't just collectively eaten 24 pounds of turkey. And then they divided up the leftovers to take home and enjoy all over again. But they didn't like it.

Oh no, they didn't like it.

So it wasn't until I moved away from the family thing and started putting on the whole holiday myself that I really got to play around with things. Not only do I mix up the menu, but some holidays I stray from it completely. Last Easter I made a Greek feast, complete with rack of lamb. I'd never had lamb before, neither had Jason (he comes from similar non-imaginative white bread stock). It was to die for. This Thanksgiving (that is, Monday), I was going to eschew the whole turkey thing and make ribs and lasagna instead (these being Jason's favourite foods, Thanksgiving doubling as Jason's birthday this year). But Jason mulled it over, looked deep inside his heart, and decided that turkey would hit the spot.

So turkey it is. But not with mashed potatoes.....no, we dare to make sweet potatoes. Now, if this sounds less than shocking to you, congratulations. But up until 9 months ago, neither Jason nor I had so much as laid eyes on such a thing. Imagine our surprise when they were...well, good! And get this: instead of the ubiquitous corn, we're having asparagus (in bacon-cheese sauce, at Jason's request). Asparagus is among my favourite veggies, but again, no asparagus had ever passed through my lips until I moved away and started cooking for myself.

I guess what I'm getting at is this: what is tradition anyway? To me, tradition is not just the thing that you always do. That's called a habit. To me, tradition needs to have some sort of significance, or meaning.

But now that I have my own family and my own holidays, I realize that we have no real traditions to carry forth - we have no culture, no religion. Maybe all we ever had was Nanny's apple pie, and maybe we only had that because it's all she knew how to make.

But who needs tradition, anyway? Is it an antiquated concept? Is it mandatory for successful holidays? And if so, how do you go about making traditions, anyway? Is simply liking something enough to call it a tradition?

Last Christmas Jason and I drank champagne in bed all morning. It was good. I can see doing it again. If we do, is that a tradition? Do 2 consecutive years qualify for instant tradition status? Or do we have to wait 20? And what if next year we decide we'd rather have coffee spiked with Godet white chocolate? What happens then? It's not really tradition unless you commit to doing in the same way over and over - and to tell the truth, "same" is not really a concept I'm comfortable with.

But if we have no tradition, are we really celebrating? Are we doing it wrong? Are we being disrespectful? Is having turkey enough to call it Thanksgiving, or do we have to make horn-of-plenty centrepieces and watch football to call it a holiday?

Everyone who breaks off and starts a family faces this same problem: follow old traditions? make new ones? scrap it all and go to Chuck E Cheese? Are traditions even still relevant, or do you have to know someone from "the old country" for them to mean anything? But are these celebrations just shallow and perfunctory without tradition? Can our generation even tell the difference? And if the turkey is good enough, does it even matter?

The Bunny Has Left the Building

Jason was lucky enough to procure himself a nice 4-day weekend, and then generous enough to give it away. I had suggested that since we would not be visiting family, perhaps one of the other managers would appreciate the opportunity. Of course, someone was all too eager to accept...but not for actual Easter purposes. Turns out, he had a hot date. His first hot date in 8 months.

"Oh, so you won't be going to church, then?" Jason inquired of him.

The guy paled "Er...no."

"Well then I don't think you should get the day off," Jason admonished.

The guy blanched before Jason admitted he was just fucking with him.

So instead of a holiday weekend, we dealt with this mess: Tuesday on, Wednesday off, Thursday on, Friday off, Saturday on, Sunday off, Monday on...whew. It's not so much the hassle than the fact that I can never remember if I should be waking up alone in bed or not.

The first Easter Jason and I were together, I got jewelry. The next 6 netted me nothing. "Except," Jason reminds me, "for the joy you get seeing me discover hundreds upon hundreds of chocolates." Oh right.

This year I hid 281 pieces of chocolate: big ones, small ones, caramel ones, peanut butter ones, slightly obscene ones. All the good hiding places were taken after the first 13, and I quickly morphed from the happy hippity-hop of the Easter bunny to the evil clop of the 3-horned devil woman. Meanwhile, Jason slept in bliss. Fucker.



Running solely on Diet Pepsi fumes after a solid 32 hours awake, the last 5 of which were spent kneading dough (ow, my freakin ulnas), I finally grabbed Jason's hunting bucket and headed for the room.

"Wake the fuck up" I told him, pleasantly. "It's Easter, goddammit, get your ass in gear."

He hunted like a trooper, I tell you. And in the end, 278 chocolates were found; 2 are still missing, one rolled under the furnace where it is probably meeting a bubbly fondu-like death as we speak.


And then, for the rest of the day, Jason repeated his 4 favourite words over and over and over and over:

"Can I eat this?"

"Can I eat this?"

"Can I eat this?"

"CAN I EAT THIS!?!?!?!"

So my new Easter tradition involves allowing him to burn the roof of his mouth severely on the first loaf of bread that comes out of the oven, and then secretly relishing his tears for the rest of the day as he contemplates all the delicious food he is too sore to eat. This may not catch on in other families, but I think it's a keeper at our house. An alternative to this tradition may involve raw lamb, but something tells me that puddles of chocolatey vomit all over my kitchen floors may deaden my appetite as well.


After supper, Jason's Momma called. She has a knack for calling as we're about to crack open a third bottle of wine, with hillllllllllllllarious results. Jason has the uncanny ability of chatting inanely with his mother while communicating with me via increasingly enthusiastic eye-rolling. Jason recounted the blow-by-blow of our herbarific Easter meal, which Jason's Mom found to be very non-traditional. Of course, her idea of traditional includes ham, potatoes, and macaroni salad, to which Jason shouted "A fine feast for the plebs!"

Hehe. Plebs. That's like, practically my favourite word. I taught him that. I also taught him to be a snob. It's tough to teach a boy who will wear buckets on his head to be a snob, but he's learning. In fact, it's illegal for me to publish the word he called her when she confessed that she was reading a Danielle Steele.

All told, it was a fun, funny weekend, barring that one incident with the new neighbour whom we've not yet met but who now knows where and how I wanted Jason's penis "in the next 5 minutes or else." And after we sizzled, we baked. Baking with Jason is an exercise in patience; baking for Jason is an exercise in futility. No matter what I bake, or how much, it may as well not exist because it's already gone. I baked an apple pie on Thursday. He ate half for dessert, and half for breakfast the next morning. For Easter we baked a white chocolate raspberry swirl cake. It's too bad I liked it because I sure as hell will never get another taste.



"Can I eat this?"

"Yes, Jason, if you can find room for it in your tummy, you can eat that."

Even after 8 pounds of chocolate, 4 lamb chops, and a loaf of bread, he found room not just for a piece, but for two. And if I'm not mistaken, I can hear the familiar noise of someone raiding the fridge right now...and I doubt he's in there for the cauliflower.

My Funny Valentine

Valentine's Day has never been a must-celebrate holiday for us. Some years we shower each other with gifts, other years we exchange kisses. This year Jason bought me a right front break pad. I bought him the left. We're romantic like that...well, we don't wish fiery car crash deaths on each other, at least there's that.

Otherwise, we stayed in and enjoyed ourselves the same way we always spend quality time together - by cooking.



On the weekend I let Jason do the choosing, which is his favourite part. And Jason, as Jason does, chose the most expensive thing on the menu - beef tenderloin. If you haven't cooked with tenderloin before, it is indeed the choicest cut of the cow; when you slice it, it makes chateau briand and filet mignon. When you buy the whole tenderloin, you have to take out a small loan. Which we did.

But Jason didn't want just any tenderloin, no, he wanted lobster-stuffed beef tenderloin in a white wine sauce. So basically, you take the most expensive meat, stuff it with the most expensive seafood, tear up a $20, sprinkle it over the meat, and hope for the best.

Jason isn't terribly good at making foods "match." He picks his main course first and then just adds side dishes that he likes, but don't necessarily go together. If we're having company, I try to steer him on the right path, but when it's just us, I give him free reign and I only worry a little. This time he picked an accompaniment of Greek salad (which was kind of him, I know he picked that for me, not that I would have picked that to go with tenderloin, but...), and stuffed baked potatoes (butter, sour cream, green onion, bacon, shrimp) and garlic cheese shrimp cocktail to start. Oy.

We were very lucky to get a good deal on the lobster tails, actually...the Gourmet Garden Basket happened to have a nice price. Of course, we still had to go to 4 different stores to accumulate the rest of the ingredients. Most shockingly, I let Jason pick the wine. I told him to find a "nice" Chardonnay, but I know Jason's wine selection criteria: coolest/funniest label. Inappropriate name a bonus. Actually, he picked some decent stuff to my taste (which isn't that discerning anyway), and in the end it didn't matter much because after 11 solid hours of cooking and cleaning prep work, I was feeling no pain after the first 3 sips.

Poor Jason. He only worked 9 of those 11 hours, but I made him stay at work the extra 2 because I just wasn't ready yet. When I finally let him in the door, the stage was set: candles flickered, the carpets were sprinkled with a trail of red hearts, the music was actually soft for once...and the moment he looked into my eyes, I crumpled to the floor, convulsed in laughter.

We're just not the cornball romantic types. He took one look at my "romantic" efforts and said "Oh Jamie, you're so witty" and I love that he so totally gets me.

Then I let him help me with the finishing touches of the meal, and then we sat down to a romantic meal that could have fed a romantic army, and I watched Jason find room for more food than you would have thought anatomically possible. I could have cried over how well everything turned out.

I am, however, a little miffed about this photo. I let Jason take a picture of the cake because I was too full to even look at it, and the picture sucks! You can't even tell that it's heart-shaped, and there's berry juice on it! I'll never be able to use this in my portfolio now, the bastard. Ah well. Jason assures me that it tasted delicious, and he was so surprised at the pinkness of the cake inside that he lost his balance and almost fell over (remember: roaring drunk by this point).

We capped the night off with some naked slow dancing, which is all you really need to make any occasion special, in my opinion, and then we went to bed to reminisce about the first Valentine's, and the many more to come.

And if you were thinking that all this sounds a little too easy to be an adventure in the life of Jay, well, you're right. Good eye. There was one small little incident where I almost burned the house down, but see how easily I glossed over it in the retelling?

Meet my shelf. It's just an ordinary shelf...it shelves things and whatnot. It holds pictures and candles and other crap that I have no real use for.

And it catches fire a little too easily, if you ask me. I mean, it was a small flame, and it was at least an inch or two away from the surface! Goddamn candles. They should come with a warning!

How do you like me now, bitch?

Yeah that's right: a futile attempt to win love with baked goods.



You don't win friends with salad...






Think it'll work?

In Which Our Heroine Encounters a Pink Confection.

Something funny turned up on my doorstep this morning, and her name was Janice.

Her stringy brown hair looked like it hadn't been washed in a month, and clearly she allowed a sugar-high 3 year old to cut it, but it was still her best feature; her best feature by far. In fact, the clump missing from her greasy bangs highlighted her pasty forehead in such a way that it almost detracted from the large, protruding mole she had over her left eyebrow. Well, to clarify, she really only had the one eyebrow, but I'm talking about the portion of that eyebrow located on the left side of her face. The eyebrow was an intimidating mess of hair; one single strand of hair had grown out the mole and joined the jungle of the eyebrow beneath it.

I tried to meet her eyes in order to stop staring at the mole, but this was difficult to do since only one of her eyes was able to stare back at me. The other one, the left one, the one underneath the hairy mole, lolled about in its socket, seemingly watching my bare feet and the cloudless sky at the same time. The right one, bloodshot as it was, met my gaze. The white of her eye was better described as yellow, and the iris was more oval than round, sort of like a cat's eye turned on its side.

Her nose was enormous, but in a thin, beak-like way as opposed to round and bulbous. It looked raw and red, so I quickly looked away. Not to her mouth because for all intents and purposes, she had no mouth. No lips, anyway. Not even the thinnest of lips, as far as I could tell, and she kept darting her tongue out to lick where lips should have been, and it was just wrinkly, spotted skin. She didn't smile. Maybe she couldn't. All she did was grunt.

I backed away just slightly from the door, imperceptibly, I hoped. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of her, but that she smelled, in a stale, stagnant kind of way. There was body odour to be certain, but something more than that, something that vaguely reminded me of gym shoes, incontinence, and cheese. Possibly her crusty clothes were contributing to the smell, they looked stiff with crud and impossibly uncomfortable. I would have thought they might chafe her skin, except all of her exposed skin, gaunt as it was against the sharp bones of her body, was covered in dark, downy hair, reminiscent of an aborted bird fetus found on the side of the road.

She wore shorts, curiously, though the weather is still a bit cool for them. Her legs were so skinny they couldn't even support her knee-socks, which drooped about her big, floppy shoes. On anyone else I would have called them clown shoes, except on her, I didn't doubt that they were real, and that her feet really were that big. I tried not to think about the dirty people you read about in the Guinness Book of World Records with 16 inch long toenails.

I shuddered involuntarily, but all in all I thought I had remained pretty composed. I was pretty sure that Janice (I read her nametag, pinned to her concave chest) was used to far worse reactions than mine. She grunted once more, and shoved a small brown box into my hands.

Oh Canada Post, where do you do your hiring?

Anyhoo, Project International Twinkie Exchange (PITE, for short) has crossed the northern border and landed at my doorstep.

I used my iron will to leave it unopened, unmolested, and unexplored until Jason came home, and then all hell broke loose (not that hell is ever very well restrained at my house anyway).

Dear, sweet Becky thought it was a tragic, sheltered life I was living, never having come across pink Sno Balls before, and so she kindly sent them upward, with a cautionary word that they may or may not be actually fit for human consumption. But she didn't just send those, no, she send a whole boxfull of treats for us to squeal over (correction: Jason insists that he did not squeal).




The Kit Kat, for example, provoked a "Oh look what this looks like!" reaction from these fine lips of mine. We do of course have this particular chocolate bar up here, but the packaging is much different. Perhaps this is a testament to the boring life I lead, but we spent quite a long time studying the wrapper. "It's orange!" I exclaimed, with wonder. I generously described it as "retro" while Jason more pessimistically dismissed it as "ghetto".

At any rate, the box of goodies was a big hit at our house, maybe sadly so, considering our chronological ages. Luckily, we're as immature as they come, so Becky, we thank you sincerely. We are now in the throes of thinking up a 'Canadian' package to send in return.

Jamie: "Should we send fudge? Maple fudge?"
Jason: (sternly) "No. Nobody actually likes fudge."
Jamie: "Well God in heaven, what else is there?"
Jason: "Syrup?"
Jamie: "Oh don't be retarded, Americans have maple trees too you know."
...
Jamie: "I'd send poutine fixings, but considering Americans don't have free health care, we should probably keep our heart attacks to ourselves."
Jason: "Well, you could always send her a Kit Kat from here so she could see our far superior packaging."
Jamie: "Yes, yes, we could do that."

Woops, sorry if I spoiled the surprise there, Becky.

Valentine's Dinner

A romantic dinner for two.

After many requests, I have provided the recipes to this dinner over on my cooking blog, Sweet Jay's. Enjoy

Life is waiting for you, it's all messed up but we're alive. Life is waiting for you, it's all messed up but we'll survive.

Item number the first one: Remember that plumber that we needed last Thursday? He came this morning. Meanwhile, I had been swimming laps in the laundry room.

b) We had a very pleasant night last night, even if it was cut short. Jason didn’t get home from work until 10:30 pm, and as I was telling Kelly, I was ready for bed by 5. It took a lot to muster up the will to get things done, but I did. I only received 2 minor injuries, and both times I was able to staunch the bleeding fairly quickly. I was a busy been from 6am until 10pm, and had foolishly only taken Diet Pepsis for nourishment. When Jason came home, we started with a fresh tomato and mozzarella salad, which is one of my favourites. Jason opened the Chardonnay and I was a lost cause. We finished off the bottle with the adorable potatoes, glazed carrots and sante fe stuffed chicken. Dinner was very good, but by the time I served the chicken, I was too drunk to be hungry so I ate maybe ¼ of my chicken. Jason, of course, ate all of his, and the rest of mine. And had seconds of the potatoes. We curled up on the couch, I lost all feeling in my legs, we giggled about Jason’s work wife, and agreed to watch Moulin Rouge. I served up dessert: death my chocolate trifle. And then, when the movie was barely 1/3 of the way in, I begged to be put to bed. You can tell this was a “romantic” dinner because we had wine instead of margaritas, and because I bought pink napkins from the dollar store.

Next: Some of you may remember early in January a post I had written about my sister. Briefly put, I had baked a cake for her on Christmas Eve, didn’t charge her for it, only asked that my cake board and box be returned since I have a hard time getting them in this city, and they are overpriced. 2 weeks later, I wrote her an email reminding her that she still hadn’t returned them, she sent me back some snarky reply, and because I pointed out that this was rather mean of her, my whole family went on the offensive and sent daggers flying my way. Fast forward 2 months, and here we are, still no closer to getting my stuff back. Except that my mother suddenly remembers that she had lent me something that she needed back, so she sent me a snarky email requesting it. Jason, who filters all mail from my family, apparently wrote her back with a list of things of mine that they have in their possession, including books, a purse, a wrap, my wedding hairpiece, shoes….Anyhow, today the cake board and box got dropped off, so in a gesture of goodwill, I sent my mother’s item back to her, even though I still haven’t received any other of my things. Upon closer inspection, I realize that my sister never wiped off the cake board. For the past 2 months, the icing has grown mould. It’s disgusting and has to be thrown out. Now, I occasionally bake for other people, and even though some customers have been complete strangers, I have existed successfully on the honour system until now. Moral of the story: when it comes to family, always charge a deposit.

4. Last week I sent Jason out to get subs at 3 am. For once, I did not go with him, and this is pretty rare. Probably my back was too sore for a car ride, but the point is, you’d think Subway is a pretty safe place, and that you can send your husband there and be confident that he will return. Not so. Well, he did return of course, but it was touch and go for a while. I don’t know if it was the disheveled bed head that was working for him, or if he just looked mighty good compared to all the truckers who normally stop for subs at 3 am, but apparently the ‘sandwich artist’ or whatever they’re called had the hots for my husband. What you have to understand is that I am the least jealous person in the world, and I think it’s funny…Jason, however, is so easily embarrassed (and usually oblivious) that he would rather die than have a woman flirt with him. So this chick was all like “What are you doing tonight?” and being quite forward while she was putting mayo on MY sub, until Jason finally blurted out “I’m married!” Poor guy. I think he’s off subs for a little while.

In conclusion, Madame La Dropsky strikes again: Jason insisted I tell this story. It’s really not funny. I had made Italian chicken in the crockpot, and Jason was served it up on Sunday night. I had to send him back because he didn’t give me enough juice. We were eating quietly, watching Stuck on You, when suddenly my plate completely upended itself, spilling the entire contents (and all that extra juice) on my lap. The kafuffle caught Jason’s eye, and he was almost laughing before he realized that said juice was scalding me. We got the chicken, potatoes, and carrots off me in a hurry, but all that extra juice soaked into my pants (I was wearing my new jogging pants, which apparently are ultra-absorbent) and my calf and ankle were burning up. Anyway, when Jason got me a new plateful, I took it dry, no juices at all. And the jogging pants are now stained permanently, it seems. But the burn blisters are healing nicely, and I’ve certainly learned my lesson. Italians are evil.

Good Charlotte

It starts with the perfect, moist chocolate cake, laced with honey and rum, and filled with surprising but delightful coffee-flavoured Bavarian cream. The whole thing is piped with chocolate chantilly cream, surrounded with Viennese hazelnut and cocoa cream piroulines, and topped with chocolate curls and shavings. And that, my friends, is a good charlotte. A great charlotte, even.

Now if you can add to this good charlotte some good company, or at least hungry tummies, then you have a wonderful mix. There is nothing better than an appreciative audience for your delectable creations. I only wish I had more time to devote to baking new masterpieces, especially since I seem to have moved on to treats that I can actually indulge in myself (unlike my trademark cheesecakes).

Being married to a great big walking hungry tummy, I have had plenty of practice for my new hobby, and hopefully my future career. One day, when I've had enough of whatever it is that I settle on doing, we can stake our whole life savings on my crackpot idea of opening up a dessert bar so I can spend all my days surrounded by chocolate and booze (what else could a girl want?). By then, I shall have tried out hundreds of samples on families and friends, and I will easily be able to pare down the choices to a very select menu of only the best, most mouth-watering desserts. By then, dear Jason, you will be able to buy me that stand mixer ($400!) and write it off, so it won't hurt you so much. I can spend the whole day in a kitchen making everything perfect and pretty. And if need be, I already have a list of people willing to accept positions at Sweet J's Dessert Bar as official taste-testers.

All of this, of course, is so far into the future that it's just a nice thing to think about when I lay awake at night, wondering what the future will look like. Will my hair turn grey, or will I still be dying it purple when I'm 60? Will I ever shop at Northern Reflections, and think that I look good in a sweater with ducks? Will I live in a big house that needs dusting, or will I have spent all my money on shoes that pinch too much to wear, and live in a little houseboat down South? Will I ever learn to play the banjo, or stop after 8 tattoos, or start a collection of brooches, or take up lawn-bowling? I guess the thing about being 23 is that all of these questions are unanswered, and should be. I don't even know what tomorrow will bring, although I think I have a pretty good idea. And I must say, that as long as I have a nice cake (or a good charlotte) to soften the blows, I can be brave about what lies ahead. Life is sweet.

The 10 Men I'd Like to Find Under my Tree this Year!

10. Pacey

I have a pedophile-ish confession to make: I have had a crush on Joshua Jackson since 1992, when the first Mighty Ducks movie came out. Thank heavens in 1998 the world gave us some more acceptable images of him, so I was no longer forced to swoon in private. It was while watching Dawson's Creek that I first decided that the back of a man's neck was a luscious, luscious thing, and it was my hots for Pacey that got me through the show's sappier moments. By the end of its run, Pacey was the only thing that made the show worth watching, and in my opinion, he was VERY worth watching. That devillish smile coupled with his witty remarks...my Wednesday night just has not been the same since!



9. Matthew Broderick

This man will be 87 and still have a baby face…those dimples are to die for, he's got a wink on him worth a million dollars, and those puppy dog eyes... he is the only man in the world who makes me think that cute is not such a bad thing. Adorable, really! He is the kind of brooding quiet that is mysterious and very attractive He's got that kind-of-nerdy- but- incredibly
-delectable thing going for him. You just can't take your eyes off of him in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and he makes a god-awful movie called Godzilla almost bearable if you keep your focus on his shy smile and the bumbling way he makes any cheesy line seem actually funny. I just want to eat him right up!




8. Hugh Grant

What the hell is it about this guy? There is nothing about him that is obviously sexy: he often has that floppy hair thing, so mid-90s, his body is thin, his grin is lop-sided. And yet the whole thing culminates into this alluring package that drives me crazy. The accent probably helps a lot, and the little wrinkles around his eyes. And the way that even when he's playing the bastard, he still comes off sweet and charming. And when he really smiles, it gets me every time.






























7. Thom Filicia

When I first started watching Queer Eye, I fell in love easily with Kyan, who has obvious good looks and the benefit or great hair. Then I went through my Ted phase, because a man who can cook is a total prize, plus he has this dry wit that holds the group together. But as the weeks go by, I realize that it is Thom that I absolutely want under my tree. He is not only super good looking and totally funny (Quote: "Lemme get this straight: your friend is a straight hairstylist with wicker furniture? I have a feeling he's not telling you the whole truth."), but he is one talented dude! Yeah, I know he's gay, but I'd still totally make out with him. And even if he's never more than a shopping partner, he's still worth his weight in gold. What woman doesn't want a handsome man with great fashion sense and who knows the importance of throw pillows...plus, gay men can dance, and that is hard to find! To top it all off, he decorates beautifully...this man can do no wrong!


"Gays love their frostings!"

6. Robbie Williams

What is it about Robbie that I love? More like what isn't it! I mean come on, he's the ultimate bad boy, sooo hot, and sooo confident (I love cocky men!!) There is just something very magnetic about him, he looks at the camera and I start yelling "Take me, I'm yours!" at the TV. And the man looks as good in a suit as his he does in his underpants, and that says a lot. Ladies: if you haven't seen the video for Come Undone, I totally recommend it. Grrrr...why does a black eye just look so damn sexy on some guys?






























5. Will Smith

When I watched him on Fresh Prince, he was just a funny guy. But he certainly made all us ladies take a second look when he started making movies. Tall, handsome, broad shoulders, and incredibly smart (he was accepted at MIT but didn't have the $): the total package. There's a scene in Bad Boys 2 when he's walking into a lobby pulling on his suit jacket, and you can literally hear dozens and dozens of panties sliding to the floor of the movie theatre. But he's most drool-worthy when he's wearing that bullet proof vest that says POLICE. Yum! Plus, he's a great guy, he treats his wife like a woman is meant to be treated, and that makes any man irresistable. Quote: "I'm human viagra. I'm Willagra. I'm a sex machine now. I'm raring to go every second of the day. My wife's loving it." What woman wouldn't? Perfect man much?




4. Dennis Quaid

I can't really remember a time when I didn't love Dennis Quaid. It must be those bedroom eyes, which is creepy, because I think I had a picture of him under my 90210 poster when I was 9. But anyway, he has the greatest smile on the face of the earth, and he only gets better with age. I have never seen anyone look better in a baseball shirt (in The Rookie), and lucky me: it rains when he's wearing the white one...hard.



3. Raine Maida

From the moment I first heard his voice, I was totally smitten. He has such a passion and power in his voice when he sings (as part of my favourite band, Our Lady Peace) that my heart literally beats a little quicker every single time I hear one of his songs. And his lyrics blow me away, so that I could love him without ever seeing him. But then I did see him (in the video for Naveed when he sings "trying hard to understand why Naveed would let a young man...die, it's during the ... that I completely melted and have been his ever since) I was like, "whoa, there's a total hotness factor here." I won't even begin to tell you about when I held his hand and sang with him. It's just too much for me. Feast your eyes on this:


This picture doesn't do him justice, but after all, he's just a Canadian rock god.

2. Mr. Adam Sandler

I don't know if words are necessary here, because there is probably not a person alive who hasn't heard me rant about Adam before. I have adored him since 1992 when I first fell in love with Opera Man and Lucy Brawn, the Gap girl. There has not since been one single thing about him that I don't like (later ammended: actually, he's republican. Eep.). Nothing makes me happier than the eager anticipation of seeing something new of his on the big screen (Stay tuned for Spanglish, hitting a theatre near you on December 17th). He makes me laugh constantly; I have seen Billy Madison more times than I've written my own name, and it still gives me the giggles. He is incredibly successful and yet still humble. I love him to pieces, which may turn out to be a problem when I'm 50 and still in line with teenage boys to be assaulted by scatological humour. And yes, I find him incredibly sexy.



1. Jason

He will do anything to make me laugh, and unlike Adam, I never have to wait for new material. He's as witty as Pacey, and yeah, the back of his neck is quite delightful, especially since I tattooed it (and he used to watch Dawson's Creek with me weekly, while hopelessly trying to explain geometry to me, back when we were just friends, and he and I were both seeing other people). He indulges my love of OLP and takes me to concerts and doesn't even complain when I'm swooning over another man. And he does try to sing to me, although his favourites are Toni Braxton songs, for some insane reason. His eyes put Matthew Broderick's to shame...they are the most interesting colour, brown with gold in the centre, and I could get lost in them for hours. And he wears the baseball shirt I got him from the Gap even though he knows it's an homage to Dennis Quaid. But he looks good, and he knows he looks good, so it all works out. Jason and Hugh Grant both shared a former penchant for bad haircuts, but miraculously, both have since recovered. Now he lets me tease him about it, and he teases me back, and that is the hallmark of a great, secure relationship. Jason is good to his wife, to all the women in his life, and though he doesn't earn $20 mil a movie like Will Smith, he does plan on becoming a cop, and promises to bring home his vest for some exciting Saturday nights. He may not be as cocky as Robbie Williams, but he drives me crazy anyway. I want him under my tree the most, this year and every year, and not just because I have to say that. He has absolutely nothing in common with Thom, but that's okay, I sort of prefer straight men for husbands. And as much as I love Adam, I wouldn't ever trade in my Jason. Because Jason was made just for me, and though I bug him all the time, but he knows I wouldn't change a thing.