Thirsty/Tasty Thursday

Well, for a blog called “drinks like fish” I guess I better get around to talking about liquids other than coffee eventually.

An online friend runs a great blog called the how to mommy. She organizes a tasty Thursday recipe swap blog hop. It sounds like a great idea but I don’t have a recipe ready to share with pics and the whole shebang so I think I’ll alternate Thursdays – today will be a Thirsty Thursday for me and next week I’ll have a recipe post to contribute to the blog hop. So if you’re here today from the recipe hop I’ll understand if you want to just skip on by. Unless you like whisky of course. Or whiskEy if you’re American (or Irish).

 

This first post is mostly just an inventory really. I am, fortunate or otherwise, possessed of a family of enablers. My dear darling husband often goes shopping on December 24^th, or if he thinks of it, on the 23^rd. Consequently I am guaranteed of two things – something silver in a lovely blue box and something liquid from the LCBO. When we were in England in 03-04 there was this awesome whisky shop within spitting distance of the flat. I never ever went in. It would have been too risky. But there the tradition was solidified. Toby would get a Le Creuset pot and I would get a bottle of whisky. Stereotypes? What Stereotypes?

And so it continues. I was 8 months pregnant at Christmas 2010. I still got a bottle from Toby and one from my folks! Enablers, the lot of them.

The Glenlivet was my christmas present in 2008 I believe. We opened it during a pilsner tasting we hosted in October 2010. Damn, gotta finish it up soon. Damn, we've got to host another tasting night soon too! Anyway, it's 21 years old, the most amazing amber colour. The taste is sort of sweet and peaty. I am in love.

That Snow Grouse is one you'll have a hard time finding. Apparently PEI is quite the test market for whiskies and during one of Mom and Dad's visits (my brother and his family live out there now) Dad stumbled across this in the liquor store. He bought the last three bottles. There was only one of another kind. He kept it for himself!

My in-laws draw names for Christmas and that Isle of Jura Superstition was my present from my sister-in-law C. It's not been opened but with a name like Superstition I'm torn between trying it now and holding on to it as long as possible.

The Dallas Dhu we picked up on 2004. Toby's nephew was just born so he flew from London England (where we were living for a year) to Victoria British Columbia to go meet the little guy. My Dad flew to the UK and we took a train up to Scotland and hired a car. Next time we hire a driver too. Or take a coach tour! Oh and that distillery closed in the 80s so not sure how much more they've got to sell.

Monkey Shoulder. Sort of like Superstition; torn between keeping it around and cracking it open!

I'm going to have to go through the cupboard again. Do I really have TWO Snow Grouse? Damn! I do. I guess I know what's just jumped to the next on the list to be opened.

These are half bottles. They should do more of these. That way I can try more!

Ah this bottle is all gone now. Lovely golden honey colour. It was sweet with a hint of lemoniness. It will be missed. 

This is an AWESOME tasters pack I got from a dear friend for Christmas in 2009. 

And yeap, Canada is represented too.

There are a couple of bottles missing from this inventory though...Hmmm. I need pictures of the Japanese whisky and my birthday bottles! I'll add those as soon as I can.




July 4, 2011 EDITS - here are the bottles I was missing earlier:

Japanese - one of those "last minute" purchases from Toby

I had to go look this one up. I'd never heard of an Indian whisky before.

Yep, from Mom and Dad - $160 at the LCBO. Enablers I tell you. 

Wordless Wednesday - Tribute to H

EASTER 2011

Yes, I know it’s the end of June.

I was talking to some friends about Easter at my mom and dad’s place and I figured that as there might not be another one (at least not at that house) I really ought to do a post about it even though it’s a couple of months late.

Yes, my mother has an Easter Tree

I think my mom divides the year into Christmas, Christmas prep, Easter, Easter prep and Hallowe’en (Dad's in charge of the Hallowe'en prep). To say she loves the holidays would be a bit of an understatement I think. But Easter at their house is something else. I really don’t remember how it started, or when. I have some vague memories of my brother and I hunting around the house we grew up in but it was nothing like what goes on today.

It must have been sometime while I was in high school and my cousins, who are all years younger than my brother and I, were all wee ones. Start adding some friends of mom and dad’s who didn’t have other places to go on Easter, and then some friends who’d come by before or after their own family obligations. Add some of my brother’s friends, then some of ours. Then throw in everyone’s kids now and it’s a bit crazy. I think at its apex there were easily 150 plus people through the house on Easter Sunday. It’s gone down a bit to a more manageable 60-70 or so with about an even split between adults and kids I think. 

When I send out our email invite to our friends I always include something along the lines of “Easter Egg Hunt – so long as you define “egg” as chocolate.” Anyway, back to being in high school. I remember waking up at 6 a.m. to help Dad sort out the chocolate. We would have spent Friday and Saturday labelling all of it and then a couple of hours on Sunday planting it all around the yard, cars, window ledges, bird feeder, tree etc. Yep, you read that right. LABELLED. Kids have to find 12-14 pieces of chocolate. Adults get 6-8. There’s no way to actually HIDE 800+ pieces of chocolate so it isn’t that you have to find any 14 pieces of chocolate. You have to find YOUR 14 pieces.

 

We’ve had Easter in the snow (actually my third favourite kind of Easter) and Easter in the rain (not as bad as it sounds but not ideal). We’ve had cold and crisp Easters (my second favourite kind) and we’ve had blazingly hot Easter (the absolute WORST kind of Easter – everything melts. It’s the only time we actually didn’t place anything and just handed out bags of chocolate. No fun at all). And, more often than not, we’ve had Easters like this year – a little cool, a little overcast, but nice enough to eat outside. My favourite kind – perfect.

Hunting for chocolate

Getting lunch ready

Hanging with Dad

Q and Uncle George

This year was obviously also Q’s first Easter. He was a champ. He got passed around from family member to friend and on again. He maintained his standing as the world’s easiest baby by hardly fussing at all and sleeping in his stroller in the backyard.

Thursday afternoon at the baseball game

I am a bit of a sports fan. If you’ve ever spent any time with me you might know this to be a bit of an understatement. I’m the kind of person who watches ski cross if it’s on television never mind the big name stuff i.e. hockey, baseball, football (either soccer or NFL almost never CFL).  About the only things I cannot watch: basketball, golf, bowling. Even darts and billiards are okay if I’ve got a pint and my knitting to keep me company as well.

I am, with the sole exception of hockey, pretty much a “casual” fan. I kinda sorta know the rules. I might kinda sorta have a team I cheer for (Toronto Blue Jays, Toronto FC/Tottenham Hotspur, Buffalo Bills, anyone Canadian, Latvian, or Danish). But I don’t always “get” it. Nothing is more fun for me than watching an NFL game with my brother. Eventually he just throws something at me. So my plan for this summer is to try and learn more about baseball and soccer – rather than just go to Jays and FC games and have a beer or two, I’d try and pay attention, learn the strategy and so on.

Dad and I have season tickets to the Toronto FC and Mom and I went in on two Toronto Star Blue Jays season passes so that part of the process is taken care of. The Star season passes didn’t include the home opener so Toby and I watched from home – turns out Toby actually likes baseball and was telling me a bunch of stuff about left-handed vs. right-handed pitchers and playing the outfield. So far no one on Twitter or Facebook has offered up anyone good to follow to learn about the game though. I’ve just checked the Chapters/Indigo website and found Baseball for Dummies – in print the last one is from 2004 but there’s an ebook from 2011.  So this is a first, I’m downloading their ebook desktop app. Then I’m gonna buy my first ebook! Sort of like buying stuff from iTunes on my iPhone though – this could get expensive once I figure it out! (yes, although my reading time has vastly diminished, I still get excited enough by books that I need a couple of exclamation points thrown in.)

Toronto's Angry Bird

There have already been six home games for the Toronto Blue Jays, which is a bit crazy if you ask me. There’s such a huge range: 16 in the NFL (and they’re fighting about increasing it to 18), 82 in the NHL and 162 in MLB. The sixth home game was an afternoon game on Thursday April 7, 2011 against the Oakland Athletics. I figured an afternoon game wouldn’t be as busy as a night game and would be good for testing out Q’s attitude to the whole endeavour. I put out a call on facebook and a law school friend whose son switched birthdays with Q said she’d love to come and we had a date. Here are some pictures from the game.

All bundled up

Q wearing his ballgame stripes

Proof my boy can sleep anywhere

Needless to say, there wasn’t a great deal of attention played to the game – more to the boys and each other. Jays lost 2-1 and we both missed the winning run. Maybe a couple of games with my friend’s other half (a big sports fan) and my cousin David (the kind of cousin someone who wants to learn about sports wants, this is the guy who dreams of being on sports radio and should be too!) 

Wednesday morning coffee

Interesting how with a title like drinks like fish my first post is actually about coffee.

I decided today was going to be a “stay in pajamas” day which means making myself coffee as opposed to going out and getting it (which is hard to deny being a good Canadian and all and Roll up the Rim still going). After a few years of buying a monthly/bi-monthly coffee delivery for my brother and sister-in-law I bought one for myself after Q was born.

I can’t remember how I found Birds & Beans (http://www.birdsandbeans.ca/) in the first place but they’ve done a great job with sending coffee out to PEI and now, with some confusion on my part, to BC (to my sister-in-law).  You basically sign up as a customer and then order away. You can order ½ pound, 1 pound and 5 pounds of most beans as one off orders. There’s a great little description of each offering and a bit about it’s pedigree (i.e. “100% Rainforest Alliance Certified”, or “Organic and Bird Friendly Certified”)

There’s two “coffee of the month” options – a bird friendly and a regular. It’s important to note that it doesn’t have to be every month. I LOVE coffee but I’m not a connoisseur, honestly, Tim’s is fine for me most of the time. I drink my coffee black – no flavours, no milk, no sugar. I figured anything “special” would be lost on me. So as an introduction I signed up for a pound of coffee to be delivered but every OTHER month.

I’m just finishing my first pound (which is good ‘cause the second one should be here any day now!) It’s from Costa Rica and called La Amistad.  (https://secure.birdsandbeans.ca/4DAction/wShowCoffee/COS-LA) It’s nice to read a little about where the coffee comes from. Turns out La Amistad is also the name of a national park in Costa Rica. Because I’m a geek of course I’ve now got to go to Google Maps and look up exactly where Costa Rica is (Central America between Nicaragua and Panama). According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica) it’s one of the greenest countries in the world. Hmmm maybe somewhere to visit when Q is older? Have you ever been?

Oh and just as an aside, my brother and sister-in-law used to live in Kensington PEI. The town has a population of about 1300-1400. The high school my brother and I went to in Toronto had about 1500 students. Just so you know. When the coffee arrived at the post office in Kensington, they all knew. Apparently the post office employees loved the way it made the place smell. My sister-in-law commented that she knew the stuff was recently roasted before shipping out because it would still taste great when they were finishing off the pound of beans.

 

Oh and a second aside I guess. I have a decent, okay just barely passable coffee maker. It supposedly makes 8 cups of coffee. Now I know it’s a proper cup of coffee which I think is only 150mL/5 ounces but I make half a pot and I get one mug out of it. Mind you this is my mug:

(and just for completeness sake, you can also buy unroasted beans, chocolate and accessories at Birds and Beans)