Stainless Steel Makes Any Day Better

Isn’t it beautiful? Ever since I’ve started cooking I’ve only used non-stick pans because they were given to us by Nhat’s parents. I’ve always wanted a stainless steel pan but their price range put it out of my reach. Everyday, sitting on my beaten beige sofa, I watched in wishful awe as the cooks did their magic on TV. Using their gorgeous stainless steel pan with the heat perfectly distributed to their wondrous foods, meats browning nicely, a perfect deglazing with their fancy red wine, in my eyes, every dish looked better with stainless steel.

And now…surprise!!! For my birthday, Nhat surprised me with my very own All-Clad 12 inch stainless steel fry pan. So new, so beautiful, so perfect I could almost cry, but I won’t. Instead, I will contemplate on the perfect first dish for this stainless beauty. I just ordered the book, Eat Feed Autumn Winter, by Anne Bramley, so perhaps I will find inspiration in there. Until then, my new pan will just have to sit in the drawers high among my other pots and pans waiting to be beckoned upon to test its wonders and all its glory.

One stainless steel pan, check. Next, kitchen rug.

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Downsides and Upsides

I like where I live. I don’t love it. But it’s nice. Most days are quiet in the complex and the neighbors usually mind to themselves. I have most of the major shopping stores and probably any other store and restaurant I will ever need near by (within driving distance of 10-20 minutes), so it’s all very convenient. I feel safe walking my little Basil around the complex. Sometimes I even walk her outside my apartment complex (I make sure to do it with the company of Nhat of course). Maybe one day I’ll walk her outside the complex by myself, but not anytime soon. But yea, it’s a great area to live. It’s fairly peaceful, stores nearby, nice neighbors…all that good stuff.

BUT…I can think of one VERY big downside here and it IS a deal breaker. And by deal breaker I mean as soon as Nhat’s done with school, we (the whole happy little family) Nhat, Basil and me, we will be packing our stuff and looking elsewhere for residence. What is this downside that is so bad you ask? This terrible, awful, God forsaken downside is that there are NO farmers’ markets nearby! Well there is a Henry’s Farmer Market, but it’s not the kind I like. I want the open air market with all of its individual vendors with all their local goodies. I want the market close enough where I can walk or drive less than 20 minutes to get there! I want an open air market that will not charge me an entrance fee! Is that too much to ask for? I really don’t think so.

The closest open air farmer’s market to me is about 20-22 minutes away…AND you have to pay an entrance fee. Maybe one day I’ll fork up the money to see how that market is like, but I don’t see that happening yet. I did happen to find ONE more farmer’s market. After reading the reviews, I could see that it wasn’t an open air market (boo) but they seemed to have cheap and fresh produce and they carried specialty Indian and Mediterranean goods! And so yesterday, we ventured out to this market and did some exploring and grocery shopping.

After driving for about 20 minutes and thinking we might be lost, Nhat and I were relieved to find a huge sign that read Ontario Farmer’s Market. The name was surrounded by bright illustrations of beautiful vegetables. We pulled into the narrow parking lot with the narrow shaped store. There were glass and ceramic vases lined in rows outside the entrance. For some reason, the sight of miscellaneous goods for sale imparted a good comforting feeling on me.

As we walked into the store with our unusually small, kid-size shopping cart, I saw immediately why the carts were so small. The store was neat and organized but the rows between the aisles and barrels were tiny. This didn’t bother me one bit. It only added to the quaintness and authenticity of the market. My eyes quickly browsed the aisles of the many Mediterranean items, but I went straight to the produce. The reviews were right! They were very cheap. Hot house tomatoes for .49/lb! Boston lettuce for .99! Yes this market was cheap. My heart was fluttering was relief and excitement. As I walked around the bins of fruits and vegetables, the only thing dissapointing I noticed was a lot of their vegetables were very ripe. It took me some effort to find a few produce that were at ripe-but-not-going-bad -soon stage that I was looking for. We left with a few apples, tomatoes, nectarines and quite a few sweets. Oh the glorious sweets.

They had a bakery area with lots of cookies, cakes, and candies that we wanted to try. But being the well-behaved budgeting students we are, we only limited ourselves to a few. So we took home a bag of dark chocolate covered raisins, some pistachio nougats, and a little box of Turkish Delights.

Turkish Delights-fun name isn’t it? We both have always wanted to try Turkish Delights ever since we saw the little boy engulf them in Chronicles of Narnia. When we saw that the store sold it, we didn’t hesitate to purchase it. Maybe we were over zealous, maybe we just purchased the wrong kind, maybe we entranced by the magical name of “Turkish Delights”, but the yellow citrusy jelly interior was too sweet for my liking. Turkish Delights aside, we still purchased enough sweets to last for quite a while. Overall I had a very pleasant experience at Ontario Farmer’s Market and I look forward to going back and checking out their produce again. Yay.
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Julie and Julia Movie

Yesterday Nhat finally took his exam that he’s been studying hard for all weekend, so we decided to celebrate and relax with dinner and movie. Where did we eat? Why none other than the Home Town Buffet (his choice hehe). I still left full and content after eating three different types of their desserts, a slice of banana crème pie, chocolate mousse, and some type of marshmallow crème thing (not t0o bad for Home Town eh?). And what did we watch? Well last night, I was thinking Nhat and I were due to watch a girly comedy. I felt the Julie and Julia movie was appropriate for our mood. Because of the all the mixed reviews, I wasn’t sure if I should just wait to rent the movie on DVD. But after much debate, I finally decided to watch it in theatres.

I know it’s been out for weeks, but at least this way I wouldn’t have to share the room with tons of other people. Sure enough when we walked into the dark theatre, I could see there were only two other girls sitting in there. I couldn’t tell if they were relieved or disappointed to see us walk in. Later on, 3 ladies came moseying in, making it a total of 7 people watching the movie! Not too bad for me.

I went into the movie not expecting too much, but I have to say I was pleasantly pleased through out the movie. Even Nhat laughed out loud many times while watching it. I thought that having two story lines would be a little confusing and maybe slightly annoying, but I think it was just doubled the affect of the movie and made it much more fun to watch. Although I do have to admit, I found myself a bit more captivated with Julia Child’s story line than Julie Powell’s story line. I still found both characters fun to watch and easy to love. I think I enjoyed the movie because I could relate to both Julia and Julie’s love of food. I understood their need to be involved with it.

I found it interesting that Julia lived to such a ripe and admirable age despite her love for butter and her diets consisting of foods high in saturated fats. In current times when all you hear about is eating low-fat and healthy organic foods (which I still think is the best diet if you can do it), it makes me wonder why some people can work so hard to be healthy yet end up with cancer and health problems when others can eat whatever they want, do whatever they want, and still live longer?

This is my THEORY. I think Julia lived to such a good age, because she lived a fulfilling life. While being aware of what you eat and what you put in your body is important for a healthy and happy life, I think what is even more important is your outlook on life. Find what you love and do what you love. Spend less time worrying about things and more time just enjoying your life day by day. I think the combined factors of how active you keep your life, how much you enjoy your life, and how much you push your limits each day is a better remedy for any illness in life than any food you put inside you. I do think eating healthy foods and having a healthy balanced diet is important, but not AS important as how you live your life. Live a lot, laugh a lot, and just be happy.
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