nerdy teacher humour ahead, proceed with caution: so there are a variety of learning styles which include, among other things, auditory learning (i hear it, i learn it) and kinesthetic learning (i do it, i learn it). the other day mom was doing a crossword puzzle and the clue was for a 5 letter word meaning surrender. the answer was uncle, but mom had never heard of crying uncle as a term for surrender. so my father and i explained it to her. thus, mom had an auditory lesson on the use of the term uncle.

today, mom got a kinestetic lesson. she hired a new cleaning lady to come to the house. this woman was so painfully slow at her job that eventually mom had to cry uncle and ask her to leave. i have a feeling that you had to be there to fully appreciate the hilariousness of it all. the whole reason for hiring the lady is that mom's arthritis prevents her from doing a lot of the work, but even she could have done it faster than this lady - who, by the way, was engaged the entire time in incessant conversations and arguments with herself.

current mood: laugh riot

keeping up with the joneses: i forgot to mention the other day that our neighbours got the exact same car as us. different colour but otherwise same car. definitely gives you a strange vibe when they are parked side by side in the driveway.

eating habits: took out steak for dinner last night and it totally wasn't done defrosting by dinner. cooked it anyway. two days ago i took a chicken out of the freezer and put it in the fridge. totally still frozen solid today, so that meant bacon and eggs for dinner.

nose to the grindstone: i am so completely out of student mode. reading scholarly articles is driving me absolutely batty. i'm trying to do as much as possible outdoors to decrease the tedium but it isn't working for me. at least the course is only 22 incredibly intensive days long. i did manage to accomplish a lot today though, doing a rough draft for one of my assignments and researching/making notes for another.

my laptop rules: it is going to take me a very, very long time to get used to the shift button on this keyboard. i hate it. otherwise my laptop is the best in the world. so there.

current mood: exhausted

stream of consciousness: we've eaten nothing of interest since we got back. just usual summer fare like grilled steaks, corn on the cob, and cauliflower. lunch has been cleaning out the fridge fare. the dog took a tumble off the couch yesterday and has been really sore so i've been stressed about that. plus i just started a course and am not entirely clear on some of the directives/expectations. hopefully it will become clearer soon. not to mention the fact that my surgery is next week. oy! trying to work ahead. better go get my readings done.

current mood: frenzied

eating habits: yesterday k and i decided to do brunch at schwartz for some of those delicious smoked meat sandwiches and fries. the fries pushed me over the fried potato edge though, so we had to cancel our tentative plans for a poutine dinner. this sent us down to old montreal to see if garde manger would be open mondays. alas it wasn't and we ended up strolling the old town for a few hours shopping (and discovering a cupcake store, the sweet scent of which made me very queasy).

later in the evening we walked down the street from the hotel to a local fast food type thai restaurant. i know, i know. my green coconut curry was insanely spicy so we ended up walking a few kilometres to ben and jerry's to cool our palates.

this morning we decided to take part in the great montreal bagel debate and got a sesame bagel each from st viateur and fairmount. we ended up falling on opposite sides of the debate, but for the same reason. k liked fairmount better because of the slightly crunchier crust. i prefered st viateur because it did not have the slightly crunchy crust. go figure.

on the way home we ate cinnamon apple danishes from olive et gourmando for lunch. who knows what dinner will bring. something simple, i imagine.

current mood: good to be home

eating habits: last night was dinner number two at au pied de cochon. our stomachs are not too happy with us, but i am sure they will forgive us eventually. we were so full yesterday that we barely snuck in a brunch of a frozen lemonade and a pastry at noon before heading off to pdc. once there we started off with the foie gras cromesquis (the little melted foie fritters) telling ourselves that we'd go easy on the appetizers and then negotiate with our stomachs about dessert.

for mains, k got the signature pied de cochon and i got the happy pork chop and we split an order of their killer duck fat fries. both orders ended up being about a pound of meat. k's came with choux croute, garlic mashed potatoes with cheese curds in them, and a large porky pate filled fritter. mine came with the restaurant's standard wine/stock/mushroom/carmelized onion and some mustardy savoy cabbage cooked with carrots and bacon. i'm proud to say that it was the best pork chop i've ever had. it was juicy, tender and delicious - the exact opposite of all past chops. the pig's foot was actually quite delicious as well, but i avoided the fatty, gelatinous bits. k said it was a little too fatty even for him and he loves fatty pork.

even though we were both stuffed to the point of being in near food comas, we couldn't resist the pecan pie and ordered it at the last minute. needless to say, our stomachs spent the rest of the evening in fully stretched screaming discomfort - but it was worth it!

highlights of the evening include: the couple sitting behind k. the lady ordered the braised lamb shank while her partner ordered the foie gras stuffed pigs foot. after polishing off her own shank in less than 5 minutes (again about a pound of meat) she dug into her man's pdc.

the couple sitting behind me ordered the duck in the can and the lamb shank. then got very upset when they thought that there might have been some sort of pork product in the sides that came with the duck in a can. keep in mind that the restaurant is called the pig's foot so cross contamination with pork is pretty inevitable. turns out they were kosher. what they were doing at pdc is beyond me if they were really concerned about pork touching their food.

the couple next to us were also from toronto and it was their first time at the restaurant. they decided to order and share the seafood platter for two with a venison tartare starter. they loved the tartare and then almost fell off their chairs when they saw the size of the seafood platter. the woman was clearly taking deep breaths and trying to pace only 1/3 into the thing, but i am happy to say they determinedly made their way through the whole thing. unlike us, though, they managed to resist the call of the pecan pie. they wanted it, but they said the room was starting to orbit.

complaint department: when the air conditioner in our room turns on and off it sounds like a natural disaster and wakes you up. it also causes bad monster nightmares.

current mood: thinking about skipping breakfast

eating habits: traffic was pretty bad. weather was terrible. we arrived after a long, long drive to find our hotel's parking lot full and the complimentary breakfast mythical. slightly stressed, but not completely deflated, we left our car in the 15 minute hotel loading zone, hurried to our room (only to be impeded by an interminable elevator wait - two tiny elevators for 256 guest rooms? c'mon!), changed, and headed straight out for the restaurant. we found parking and nervously/excitedly killed the hour before our reservation.

the excitement was normal but the nerves were two-fold. first, what if we had built it up in our minds into something better than it was? second, i knew we were going to try the foie gras poutine. this wasn't going to be like the creamy, hard to identify gravy like melted foie from last time. this would have some of that same creamy goodness in the foie gravy (oh lord my arteries cringe!) but it would also have a nice, thick slab of the lobe. there would be no escaping the fact that this was fatted duck's liver. would i be able to bring myself to eat it? oh yes. even as it came to the table i was worried and uncertain but after that first bite (creamy soft inside, crispy bacon/chicken skin taste outside) i dove right in. it was a little on the salty/fatty side but that's what poutine is supposed to be. it was unreal.

k ordered the bison steak frites for his main and i got the duck magret in mushroom sauce. i have to admit that i was jealous of his fries. pdc fries are pretty amazing. the bison was good too, like slightly gamier beef. the duck was oh so very delicious. i want to order it again tonight, but know i should get something different.

dessert, yes we found one last cranny in our stomachs to stuff with dessert. we ordered the maple churros with the most luxurious custard dipping sauce ever. we ate every last drop and bite. nothing completes a meal started with foie like the added fat content of deep fried batter.

did i mention we had bar seats? as in right where bourdain sat with full view of the open kitchen? we were like kids in a foodie store watching them prepare everything, drooling, counting scars, laughing giddily.

current mood: another somewhat sleepless night

eating habits: yesterday i got a delicious but imperfect butter chicken wrap at the staff luncheon. it was oh so very tasty but i thought there was room for improvement. for one, the chicken was served piping hot in copious amounts of butter chicken sauce. this meant that it sogged/tore through the hole and oozed out lava-like burning your fingers. this also meant that the cilantro/cucumber/carrot salad that was mixed in was cooked by the radiant heat and tasteless. it would have had much more of an impact had it been crisp and cool. lastly, it came with mango chutney. but it came with so little chutney, and so much sauce, that you only got two chutney-ey bites.

i'm a little concerned with the fact that this stuffed me so full that i couldn't even eat dinner. this doesn't bode well for two back to back nights of au pied de cochon. what's a girl to do?

reading habits: i finished citizen girl. i was totally disappointed. the first half of the book was great then it just trainwrecked. you knew something bad was going to happen but the something bad was just so uninteresting. even if i agree with a lot of her views, i didn't need to be bashed over the head with them. and the fact that she sold out for so long was pretty unadmirable.

luckily my diane schoemperlen book finally arrived and i am so, so, so very excited to read it. i quickly read the first ten pages before falling into a coma/nap and i was so pleased to be drawn completely in within less than two pages. hurrah! too bad it's such a short book (190pgs).

current mood: tired

bragging rights: dude. my new computer is so awesome. i'm all kinds of nervous about getting all my old files off of the other computer / breaking it when i replace the fan. still though. this one's a beaut.

current mood: starving

randomization: summer holidays have officially started.

i ate way too much at the end of year party and am totally stuffed.

i am writing this on my new laptop which is so very cool and even has fingerprint id for extra security. oooh la la.

current mood: stuffed!