Monday, December 3, 2007

The Spirit is Upon Me...



weirdly early this year!

Maybe it's because I have a little one now.
Maybe it's this motherload of snow that we just got in Toronto.

I dunno, but I just covered my windows with snowflakes my sister and I made out of crepey white paper from The Paper Place on Queen West, and now I am devising a vegan cookie coup which will overthrow the totalitarian regime headed up by egg white icing that has ruled Christmas with an iron fist for nigh on too long.

If any of you are looking for some awesome vegan cookie or dessert recipes this holiday season, or if you want to give someone a vegan cookbook as a gift, here are some of my favourite go-tos.

Vegan With a Vengeance - Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World - also by I.C.M. (all cupcakes!!)
Veganomicon - The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook - again, I.C.M. and Terry Hope Romero
La Dolce Vegan - Sarah Kramer
Fresh at Home - Ruth Tal
Refresh - Ruth Tal

All written by ladies! You vegan boys better get ypur write on!

Happy baking, doods.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Vancouver heartache,

I miss Vancouver.
This time of year it folds in on itself like a soggy Chinese food takeout box, and I love it.
You can truly hide behind a mug of tea there for the whole winter.
No striving through the whipping cold wind.
No echoing windshield scrape sounds at five am.

Toronto is my home now -- I know that.
I stil watch Canucks games once in a while, and when they are in the playoffs, but really I am phoning it in.
I still feel Vancouver on the inside, but I am plated in Toronto.

I miss sitting in the spitting molecular rain on a bench at Kits beach not needing anything.
I miss the pigeon gray skies holding out for days.
I miss the relentless ocean.

I haven't been there for more than a year,
I used to go every few months.
I am a visitor there now in many ways.
In other, more important ways, I am never away from it.