Filled the crack in the ceiling with latex and repainted the ceiling

Fixed the cracks in the wall

Started the floor, half done

Tomorrow I guess finish floor and varnish.

Will I [...]]]>

Tonight will be my 4th night camping in the living room. Yesterday nothing was done. Today they:

Filled the crack in the ceiling with latex and repainted the ceiling

Fixed the cracks in the wall

Started the floor, half done

Tomorrow I guess finish floor and varnish.

Will I be back in my bedroom for Saturday night? Please !!!!!!!!!!

Today the repairs (done by the building owner) began. The parquet floor in my bedroom was removed and my carpets were cleaned professionally.  I had [...]]]>

A little update for my regular readers. As you know 10 days ago my apartment was flooded by a broken pool pipe which is 2 floors above me.

Today the repairs (done by the building owner) began. The parquet floor in my bedroom was removed and my carpets were cleaned professionally.  I had to remove everything from my bedroom (except the bed). So now I am sleeping on my mattress on the floor of the living room. There is furniture everywhere. Its not easy feeling so cramped but I am actually really excited…feels like a free renovation. Here is a pic of the floor today…

So life is a bit crazy right now. I also bought yesterday my plane ticket for my summer holiday…in 3 weeks I am out of here. And lots of exciting things are coming shortly here on the blog.

• Wednesday I will have an exclusive review of a very special new store opening on the same day I will post.
• Keep an eye out at the end of the week for an article I am writing for the Daring Kitchen.
• A really great review of a restaurant in Toronto.
• Reviews…great stuff: a ceramic knife, an expresso machine and nice ethnic flavored vinaigrettes.
• And a tease picture below about a really amazing outing I had with a fellow Montreal food blogger, Foodessa.

canolli stuffed with homemade blackberry ricotta

Why is Hollywood trying to mess whit jewels of my childhood memories. The Karate Kid was the first teenage [...]]]>

Totally unrelated to food…I saw the most awful thing I have seen in a while on TV last night. A preview of a New Karate Kid movie….with Jackie Chan and Will Smiths son. WHAT???????

Why is Hollywood trying to mess whit jewels of my childhood memories. The Karate Kid was the first teenage movie I ever saw with out my mom sitting next to me. Its a freaking classic. What they think Jackie Chan can replace Mr. Miyagi? Jackie does Kung Fu…not Karate. HELLO?

From

To ?

I DON’T THINK SO! Is that kid on steroids, look at his arm muscles. Lord knows you can’t really learn martial arts either your are actually STANDING on the Great Wall of China!

I wish Mr. Miyagi could just chop stick this away like he did with that fly. Bet Jackie Chan can’t do that!

I live in a high rise with a pool [...]]]>

I had a weekend from HELL. After an absolutely lovely dinner with the Cheap Ethnic Eatz group I went home. After the initial shock subsided and I confirmed I had not been robbed I realized there had been extensive water damage to my apartment.

I live in a high rise with a pool on top on the 20th floor. I live on the 18th. Apparently a pool pipe burst (actually heard rumors now some opened the wrong valve) and leaked in the building. Apparently visible damage in apartments were felt all the way down to the 6th floor. When I got home 3 area carpets where thrown in the bathtub, the bathroom still had 1 cm of water on half the floor, there were to mystery mops in the hall way, 2 pans where taken from my cupboards to collect dripping water from my pantry in the kitchen, and worse was the bedroom: the bed was pushed across the opposite side of the room, the mattress was standing up pushed against the commodes, my bedding (ALL OF IT) wet AND they used the cat’s liter box as a water collector to for water dripping from the ceiling…a dirty wet liter box!! Thank god my mattress has a plastic wrapping on it. It smelled of dirty pipe water and half my place was affected.

Its 9h30pm on a Friday night. No one even tried to contact me about this during the day! I call the landlord and am told what happened…apparently 6 firemen and 3 employees where mopping up my place for a while. Nothing can be done till Monday we’ll see then. Cats are hiding terrorized. I wanted to cry! Neighbors I met in the hallway over the weekend told me what they witnessed. The guy upstairs had his place destroyed and the firemen had to break down his door to get in.

Tally: I took pics and will see with the Quebec rental board before contacting the building owners. I only lost 10$ worth of food. Everything else is laundry or cleaning. But the apt is damaged in the kitchen, my bedroom floor has buckled up on 1/2 the floor surface, etc.

I was not alone with bad news. One friend had her car stolen Saturday night and my other friend was over for dinner last night got a call and got fired at 10pm from her part-time job. This week-end SUCKED! I twitted to death about all that was going on this weekend. Matt from Menu Musings sweetly offered to help.  Thanks, Matt, that was really sweet!

We actually just did an exchange I did not have time to post yet but this is appropriate now. he had told me before hand, but funny enough instead of getting local products I got all Asian products (not that he is Asian either). I got quite a package from him with unusual items. I got a spice mix to make Kimchi, chop sticks, a spice  mix to make a hot pot…and Jelly Fish.

Yes jelly fish. I have actually already eaten jelly fish before in my life but its the first time I have some in my house. This will be interesting! I had posted a recipe for it a long time ago. It is mostly used for salads. I found this recipe to find out what I had been served at this restaurant…I guess now I can actually do it myself!

Mother’s day is a day to mark everything Mothers do throughout a day, a week, a month, a year and a lifetime for their children.

Now I [...]]]>

Happy Mother’s Day

I have 15 min to spare before my parents arrive for dinner to celebrate Mother’s day…and I have 1/2 a recipe to go.

Mother’s day is a day to mark everything Mothers do throughout a day, a week, a month, a year and a lifetime for their children.

Now I am not trying to steal anybody’s thunder…but a daughter’s love is solid and devoted too.

Mom….I accidentally bought the wrong pita flavor for the bouchés with the cocktail. I swear I read multigrain but I saw this morning it was sugar and cinnamon. I know you hate cinnamon. I did not have time to go to the store and get more. So I took a (new in package) tongue brush and brushed of as much as the cinnamon as I could on every single piece for you so you would not have to taste it. Here is the proof:

Of you can expect a following post with the dinner. Actually it will be three posts spread out a bit. I had 3 various cooking challenges to do so That was my dinner menu he he. I cooked my butt off Sunday. So make sure to come back to find out what I made:

- May 12th: mystery dumplings from the Iternational Incident Party
- May 14th: Cooks challenge for the Daring Kitchen
- May 27th: Bakers challenge for the Daring Kitchen

Our group is on ning.com, a social network platform. It used to be free until they announced yesterday it no longer will be. And the fees are ridiculous. We are already to big for the mini [...]]]>

I wanted to share with you the message I sent out to all my Foodie Exchange members.

Our group is on ning.com, a social network platform. It used to be free until they announced yesterday it no longer will be. And the fees are ridiculous. We are already to big for the mini package, the next one I would have to take is $19,95 a MONTH! It’s OUTRAGEOUS, that is more then hosting a website for a year! Here is the message I sent…

I got a nasty email today from ning….a rumor I had heard that was confirmed.

the ning networks will no longer be free…read the announcement

So we have two options:

1. move somewhere else that is free. I did this once, it was a pain and not everyone followed. Worse case do you have a service like this to suggest that is free.

2. Everyone contributes to pay a year’s worth of subscription. We need the Ning Plus which is 199.95 per year. If eveyone sent me 2$ via paypal we could cover it easy. Its only 2$ a year.

Also if you are PISSED like me about this write a complaint here:
http://blog.ning.com/2010/05/introducing-ning-pro-ning-plus-and-ning-mini.html

There are school classes, city groups, non-profit organizations and people like me who offer a ‘service or concept’ for free. We have to pay out of our own pockets? Are you kidding me. i am really furious about this.

Ning…SHAME ON YOU !

Rather because I finally got the courage to go ahead and do my freaking system restore of my laptop at home. For various reasons I had too but I knew my biggest headache was the wireless encrypting [...]]]>

It’s been a quiet few days on the blogging front…but not from lack of posting material.

Rather because I finally got the courage to go ahead and do my freaking system restore of my laptop at home. For various reasons I had too but I knew my biggest headache was the wireless encrypting portion which I never got right in the first place. So a friend of mine came over yesterday to help. He definitely knew more then me but he was just checking a million things, and trying, and rechecking. After 2 hours of my sitting there watching him and asking question I was ready to KILL someone or cry. “Just get my connection going in a safe way PLEASE!”

Argh…so frustrating. Anyways I think it worked…will see next time I disconnect and reconnect. I have not had the courage to do it yet. But now I want to ask you…is Windows 7 really better then Vista. I have Vista on my laptop but he says I should upgrade to Windows 7. He showed it to me on his laptop but I did some research online and, although Windows 7 is faster, it is only by a little.

Wondering if its really worth it. Any feeback please?