Produce Drawer Spaghetti!

Folks, the last year has been a journey.

I get "Photo Capsule" emails of my Flickr photostream via Photojojo. In the last email there were photos from an event at Regional Tasting Lounge that I went to with M last year. In an instant, our visit to r.tl last year seems like a long time ago, and at the same time it seems like it was only days / weeks ago. And a lot has changed.

Two weddings ago (Rs, and the Ms). One engagement ago (my cousins). A 10-10-10-10-10 baby (born at 10:10pm, on October 10th, 2010) ago. Three funerals ago. A job ago...

A mixture of emotions (good, bad, and ugly) have come and gone; a couple seasons have past...I've made a lot of new friends and there have been a hobby or two that I've picked up along the way. :)

I'm going to try to ease into this blogging thing again - tonight, it was produce drawer spaghetti. I believe that my new career (as in, career, something that I love versus a job where I just show up to work...) has changed some of my eating habits. As you may have remembered, I embarked on a self-imposed meat ban late last spring . . . it seems that that simple fact transitioned me into the company where I am now.

I am not vegan, nor even vegetarian at this point - but I am definitely living a more conscious, awakened lifestyle (or so I like to believe). I have even gone jogging a couple times this month already. Lets see where this everchanging journey takes me.

Tonight, it was produce drawer spaghetti. This is not vegan - I used butter and topped it with finely grated piave mezzano, a cows milk cheese that is aged within a range of 60-180 days. The taste is slightly sweet, with slight bitter "barnyard" flavours that are associated with a baby parmiggiano, but without the same intensity.

There are no real rules to this "recipe". Slice up some onion. Melt some butter over medium heat with a couple swigs of olive oil. Saute. Add sliced veggies (I used mushrooms, green beans, and leftover cauliflower - yes, I still love my cauliflower). Sprinkle with some salt, chili flakes, oregano, and fresh ground black pepper. Add some more oil or butter if you have to. Splash with something alcoholic (sake used here). Splash with leftover stock or leftover tomato puree from the fridge. Add cooked pasta, mix in sliced olives. Twirl around your tongs to transport to a shallow pasta dish; grate with piave and love yourself for going easy on a Monday evening.

<3 Jessica

Oy Vay...Lets try that again, shall we?

Welcome to my "official" *i'm back!* post.

If you were paying attention (like Phyllis, or readers on facebook, or twitter followers), you may have noticed that I scheduled something to be posted this morning. It did, indeed, get posted. Alas, I was a day early...for a date that I had suggested (Thursday, August 5th). As I've posted on twitter - when you stop doing, you forget how. ;p

What have I been up to? Getting a kick ass job yo!

I work for a vegan analogue company in R&D (research and development / R to the D, mangz) and am very happy to do so. On the off day, I even get to play around with the product for recipe development (photos shown) and take photos for the website! It's like I'm getting paid to do what I do on this very blog!!!

Granted, I am not vegan, nor am I a supreme chef or even a good photographer. But I am getting paid to improve these skills! :) And that makes me very very happy.

Anyways, I hope to keep up the blogging. I was surprising family and friends alike when I showed up to dinners and meals without my camera. I guess they missed my blogging / food "paparazzi-ing" as well. (as in..."Jess...wheres your camera? Don't you have to take photos?"

Aside from work, I've also been busy with a series of cake decorating classes at the local Michael's craft store...they were having 50% off classes in the summer and so, along with HK, I took advantage of the discount (and subsequent weekly 40% off and 50% off coupons) to stock up on cake decorating supplies and other goodies.

So…I've covered work, and I've covered extracurricular. On top of that, I am also helping friends organize their small wedding. How small? ~30 person. “But Jess,” you must think, “its only 30 people, how much trouble can it be?” Well, since it is more intimate, the couple has chosen to put a lot of personal touches on the shindig. As in making their own food. As in making a lot of decorations. Oh, and we had a month notice. :D

Dude, I love them, but it had me really freaked out there for a while. Thankfully, they have taken the reins (like 95% taken the reins) but I’m sure in the next two weeks things will pop up. I am also making a series of “bouquet cupcakes” for the reception (putting my new-found cake deco skills to the test!) so I’ll be busy with that.

So that’s been my life in a nutshell. See you in two weeks?

Guilty Pleasures: Screamers at Danny's Market and Pizza (Richmond, BC)

I had another *fantastic* weekend (and a busy Monday!) that was kicked off by a Screamer at Danny's Market & Pizzeria in Richmond.

People who know me know that I have one of those "addictive" personalities - I pick something up, I love it, and then I *have* to have it. There was the first night when I logged on to the internet and stayed glued for about twelve hours straight (when my brother woke up and had to pry me off). There were the times when I drove to Sephora *just* to get Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer when I first heard of it (I still use it religiously, to this day). There was the time when I hunted down my size of Pumas when one of the only pairs was downtown - I drove there straight after work to pick them up (still in their box, well worn but still beautiful).

Sometimes I think I just love the hunt...it becomes part of the obsession and experience.

Such was the case when I read Five Loaves' review of Screamers, part of me said, "me want."

Being that I work in Richmond, I began to plan out how I'd take my prey.

I'm usually one of the unfortunate saps that make up the Knight Street traffic during rush hour, so being that Francis Road is in the opposite direction of home, I decided to drop by on a Friday to ring in the weekend.

It was a great choice.



I pulled up to Danny's on a hot Friday afternoon. It's one of those corner stores that has every kid in the ten-block (ok, maybe every five Richmond blocks) radius hanging out. There were kids sitting and sipping screamers on the plant stands outside - you know. The green painted risers that could be stairs leading up any east van porch. There were kids inside who had just finished their after school basketball pickup game and ordering a slice of pizza along with their screamer. There were even the one or two truck drivers / cabbies / off-work construction workers ordering a screamer combo.

All that was missing was the Street Fighter game in the corner and the "sore-loser" kid that would lose and scream at their best friend for pulling a cheap move...

Wow. What a step back in time.

A screamer, as posters around Danny's Market claim, are "The Best Drink on Earth". It is a perfect parfait-style layering of thick soft serve ice cream, and syrup-flavoured slush that results in a concoction that is not ice cream float, and not slurpee, but a thirst-quenching hybrid of spoonable, slurpable goodness.

Danny's Market is just around the corner from an outdoor go-kart track and a load of fruit farms. I'm thinking it'd make a good "trip back in time" afternoon stop after some go-kart racing and farmers markets.



Danny's Market & Pizza

9040 Francis Road [map]

Richmond, BC