Thursday, April 30, 2020

Restaurants

Anyone remember restaurants?

They were places you'd go to with family or friends to order and consume food and drink.  They were great places for socializing, celebrations, meetings, and dates.

Haha!  Someday, hopefully, sooner rather than later, we can venture back out and check out the restaurant scene.  Until then, let me tell you about some of the restaurants we visited before the whole world got grounded.

For our 5th anniversary in February, Christopher and I went to Avenue, one of our favourite restaurants, in the most beautiful building downtown.


Their pork belly appetizer is a must-order each time we go, so we shared that to start:


We also ordered the perogies (large plate), and then three small plates (trout cake, beef tartare, and a vegetable dish that I can't remember) and shared all of them.

Way too much food, but worth it.
It was a nice evening out to celebrate five years of marriage.  The traditional anniversary gift for five years is something wood, and we are still on the lookout for what we will get.  We like to choose something together as a memento for each anniversary.  We don't own candlestick holders, so we are thinking of getting a pair of those.

Back in October, we got a gift card for our birthdays to Bar Willow (thank you again Mel and Steve).  We had been before when it was Willow but had not visited since they changed the concept and name.

We shared the gnocchi, scallops, coffee-roasted parsnips, and vegan ravioli.

 
 
 
 

The ravioli and gnocchi were both really good.  Unfortunately, the parsnips were undercooked, so that was our least favorite part of our meal.  I'd be interested to go back and try the breakfast at Bar Willow in the summer, as the morning view across Wascana Lake would be beautiful.

Before the pandemic hit, we took my dad out for supper to The Rotisserie, a buffet restaurant that we've been to before.  I don't know how they do it, but they manage to make really good food, perfectly cooked at this buffet, better than what we have experienced at the buffets in Vegas.  The fries and other foods that should be crispy are perfectly crisp, and their chicken, steaks, etc. are always juicy, and never overcooked.


They have a different theme each night of the week, and we went on Tropical Night.

Last time we were in Saskatoon, we went to a newer Indian restaurant near our hotel, called Angeethi Flame.

 
 

We ordered a lot because our hotel had a fridge and microwave, so we could get a couple meals out of this food.  Everything was excellent, and we will definitely go back.

Just days before quarantine started, we stopped in at a relatively new restaurant in town, Tipsy Samurai.

We started with the togarashi fries and chicken yakitori.


The yakitori was superb!  We loved the charcoal-grill taste, and the meat was tender and juicy.

I had ramen and Christopher ordered an udon noodle dish.  I loved my ramen!  It was spicy, flavourful, and it totally hit the spot.


Christopher thought his udon dish was average, but we'd go back for sure for the ramen and yakitori.

With social distancing, restaurant visits are no more, but many places in town have done an incredible job of adapting to a new way of doing things.  I am impressed with how quickly new menus popped up, as well as front-step delivery, and online ordering and payment. 

We want to help our favourite local restaurants stay afloat during this time, so we have decided to order pick-up or delivery from one local restaurant each week. (Before this we only ordered-in or got takeout about six times per year!)

So far we have had The M:eating Room twice.  Their food is so fresh, healthy, and flavourful.  The vegan pizza blew us away! 


One day we ordered from The German Club.  With this place, you call in the order and then drive up to the front doors, and they run the food out to your car.  They do different lunch specials each day, and the schnitzel is so good!  You get a massive plate of food for $13.


We also ordered from Juliana Pizza one day, but I forgot to snap a picture, as we could not wait to dive into it.  They have such a good crust and are definitely one of the top pizza places in town.  

Two of our favourite restaurants, Siam and Caraway Grill are not open during this, but we look forward to supporting them when they open back up.  For now, we'll have to decide where to order from for tomorrow evening!

Have you been ordering in or picking up food at all during the Covid-19 quarantine?

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Only 24 Hours in a Day

One of my motivations to drastically limit my Internet use for 10 weeks (from January 4th-March 14th) was a desire to make more time for other activities and hobbies.  We all have the same 24 hours in a day, and there is only so much we can do with that time.  The mindless scrolling, the checking of email, the random searches - all of these add up.  Blogging and creating blog content takes up a lot of time too, and I was finding that there weren't enough hours in the day to do all of these things, and also to take up new hobbies, and dive back into old ones that I missed.

I have always been obsessed with learning new things, and I am not afraid of being terrible at something, because I know with practice I will improve.  People have said to Christopher over the years that he is lucky that he can play drums.  He always responds that "luck" had nothing to do with it; he worked his butt off to be able to play the drums, and he experienced the blood, sweat, frustration, and blisters that come with hours upon hours of practice. 

I've been asked how I learned to cook and bake, and although I sat on the counter with my mom as a kid here and there, the real way that I learned how to cook and bake was through practice.  Lots and lots, and lots of practice.  I have thrown out cakes that I screwed up and then immediately started again from scratch.  I remember making three loaves of cornbread in a row one day because the first two weren't good enough. (Fortunately, I have a human disposal system for the second-rate versions of anything I've made.)  I wasn't born with cooking or baking skills.  I just put many hours into doing something that I enjoyed and wanted to be better at it, and with time and practice, my skills got better.

This blog was a great motivator for me to press on with cooking and baking, to try new things, to experiment and take risks.  My goal was never to become a Michelin-Stared chef or even a chef at all.  Actually, the idea of cooking or baking for a job is unappealing to me.  I like having it as a hobby, and I like being able to share my creations with friends and family when I have the time and desire.  A sense of obligation seems to kill my motivation in the kitchen.

During my 10 weeks away from my blog and other online activities, I made a lot of time for reading, which was an old favourite hobby that I was really missing in the past few years. I started doing some other writing, jotting ideas down that had been swirling around in my brain for a while.  And, as usual, I cooked with Christopher:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

On January 4th, the day I left the Internet for 10 weeks, it was +3C outside!


Christopher smoked some jerk chicken and threw it onto the BBQ, and I thought, wow, 2020 is off to an amazing start if it's January 4th and we're already BBQing.


At that time Covid-19 was barely on our radar, and we were looking forward to a trip to Japan in the Spring and many other fun activities for 2020.

I came back to the Internet on March 14th but by the end of March life changed a lot for everyone, with the announcement of Covid-19 as a global pandemic.  I started working from home, and instead of embracing some extra time to cook and bake and blog a lot, Christopher and I took advantage of the opportunity to just chill out, take care of ourselves, and to learn something new.

We didn't stock up on anything, but while grocery shopping at the start of this, we decided to eat simpler meals during this time.  We've been eating a lot of plant-based meals, with loads of beans, nuts, seeds, greens, and other veggies.  We used to cook quite elaborate recipes at times, which required trips to multiple grocery stores, and sometimes hard-to-find-ingredients.  Since we are limiting our grocery trips, we've kept our meal planning very simple, and have been winging it a lot, which is relaxing, fun, and low-pressure, but isn't really conducive to food blogging.  I don't have too much to say about our eats unless you want to see the same tahini spinach multiple times per week.

So, for a lack of blog content, I haven't been on here much lately.

Instead, I've been investing at least a half an hour a day to learning Spanish (I want to up this), and at least an hour a day to learning drums!  I have never played an instrument, but I figured my brain and coordination would benefit from the new neural connections of drumming, and it would be super fun and rewarding to be able to play something.  I could spend an hour a day scrolling through Instagram, and years later, I wouldn't have anything to show for it, or I could spend an hour a day practicing something new and the cumulative effect of that practice would be very noticeable years down the road. I am satisfied with my current cooking and baking skills and don't want to worry about finding ingredients for new recipes, and I am bored with spending all of my free time working with food, so I am putting that hobby on the back burner for a while, and I'm going to focus on learning and practicing new skills.

That being said, I do plan on checking in on here every once in a while, but I might post about what I've been reading, or how my drumming is going, or where we have traveled (when we can again), and sometimes I might post about food.  I have no rules for myself about how often I'll post, or what I will post about, I am just going to write when the mood strikes. 

How has your Covid-19, social distancing time been going? 
What is something you've always wanted to learn?  
What hobbies do you make time for?