Stolen Salad

Hurrah! I managed to recreate the summer pasta salad that I like so much at Pete’s Frootique. My eyeballs identified the main ingredients when I first saw the lovely dish among the offerings at the Frootique – tortellini, cherry tomatoes, string beans, and parm. My taste buds told me there was lemon in the mix. And

Opportunity cost of mini meatloaf

I’ve never been so fired up about math in all my life. In fact, I’ve always hated and struggled with math. Homework routinely ended in tears when I was a kid. I knew just enough to figure out the pre-calculus mark that would be pounded in harsh black typewriter ink onto the first report card of my

Hairy carrots

How many times have you looked in the back of your vegetable crisper to find half a bag of hairy carrots? C’mon, you know you’ve done it. We all have. Neglected our produce. Used some and tossed the rest back, out of sight out of mind. I always seem to do this with carrots. I

Sunny, lemony birthday

This is my friend, Yvette. She’s been one of my best friends since we met at age 13 in junior high. She was cute as a button then, and she still is. Just look at that smile. Today is her birthday. She’s posing here with her birthday present from her significant other. He not only

Feeling good

Birds flying high, you know how I feel Sun in the sky, you know how I feel Breeze driftin’ on by, you know how I feel It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me And I’m feeling good… I can’t put my finger on why, but I feel good

Sling shot with a smoothie

The new bus terminal in Dartmouth has a one-way bus lane that’s like a long skinny track around the building with numerous bays where the buses pull up to load and unload passengers. Most buses enter and exit at one end of the track, so those that pull up at the first couple of bays

Fabulous fish cakes

I’ve tried making fishcakes without a recipe before. They were meh. Then during one crazy busy week at work in June, I stumbled upon the recipe for fish cakes that I’ve savoured several times, mostly as a hungry cyclist at the end of a ride around the Aspotogan loop. The loop is a pleasant seaside

Stay Cool

OK, here we go, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps with a new post… We don’t get a lot of melting hot weather in Nova Scotia, but we usually get a stretch of it at some point every summer. This week, we’ve had temperatures hovering around 40 with humidex. I almost perspire just thinking about

Saucy Christmas

Well, here we are, Christmas Eve 2012. I have a purring cat on my lap, a little snack on my side table, and all the fixings for tomorrow night’s turkey dinner ready to go. Yes, I’m using simple make ahead techniques to ensure I spend most of Christmas day relaxing with family rather than feverishly

A Baker’s Dozen…Almost

Christmas just isn’t Christmas without baking. I grew up with mom’s holiday standards: gumdrop loaf, brown sugar fudge, fruitcake for dad, pork pies (that don’t contain pork), and shortbread cookies in festive shapes that we kids loaded with coloured icing and sprinkles, hanging some on the tree and gobbling down more. I think my first