have you seen the video where the chimp and the baby puma are best friends?

Have a happy week, monkeys. 

Photos from frou frouu, a beautiful mess, tahti, miss fashion liason, miss moss x2, maffashion x2, and sneak+peek. 

groovy

I highly recommend Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon. I am going to classify this one as a psychedelic California crime novel. There is A LOT going on. But you can handle it. 

It is hard to give you amusing and eerie tidbits, not because the book is not amusing and eerie but because you get caught up in the words and then tidbits turn into chunks...

By the time they got to the checkout, they had somehow acquired an extra hundred dollars' worth of goods, including half a dozen obligatory boxes of cake mix, a gallon of guacamole and several giant sacks of tortilla chips, a case of store-brand boysenberry soda, most of what was in the Sara Lee frozen-dessert case, lightbulbs and laundry detergent for straight-world cred, and, after what seemed like hours in the International Section, a variety of shrink-wrapped Japanese pickles that looked cool. At some point in this, Sauncho mentioned that he was a lawyer. 
"Far out. People are always telling me I need a 'criminal lawyer,' which, nothing personal, understand, but - "
"Actually I'm a marine lawyer."
Doc thought about this. "You're a Marine who practices law? No, wait - you're a lawyer who only represents Marines..."
In the course of getting this all straight, Doc also learned that Sauncho was just out of law school at SC and, like many ex-collegians unable to let go of the old fraternity life, living at the beach - not far away from Doc, as a matter of fact. 

Offshore winds had been too strong to be doing the surf much good, but surfers found themselves getting up early anyway to watch the dawn weirdness, which seemed like a visible counterpart to the feeling in everybody's skin of desert winds, and heat and relentlessness, with the exhaust from millions of motor vehicles mixing with microfine Mojave sand to refract the light toward the bloody end of the spectrum, everything dim, lurid and biblical, sailor-take-warning skies. The state liquor stamps over the tops of tequila bottles in the stores were coming unstuck, is how dry the air was. Liquor-store owners could be filling those bottles with anything anymore. Jets were taking off the wrong way from the airport, the engine sounds were not passing across the sky where they should have, so everybody's dreams got disarranged, when people could get to sleep at all.

Image from Google Images. Quotations from Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon (New York: Penguin Books, 2009).

salt obsessed

I will choose salty over sweet almost every time and one of my favourite things about the first few weeks of the Kits farmer's market is the presence of an outgoing (and more than a little bit eccentric) man who peddles salt, pepper, herbs, and other seasonings. Check out his website, here.

The goods come in a variety of sizes but if you go for the large bags, a bag and a half will last you an entire year (suddenly $8 a bag or 3 for $20 seems vaguely reasonable...).

I usually go for two types of salt and an herb mix but this year I chose pepper over herbs and it may have been one of the best decisions I have ever made. This chipotle pepper mix is the bomb. The smell of it makes me salivate. 

The hibiscus is left over from last year (I used all the lemon-thyme). This year I went with seaweed, mushroom, and the aforementioned pepper.

Photos by Aubrie Chaylt.

garden hack

I found a neat little hack for starting seedlings, let's talk about it. 

Planter trays are great. You start your seeds indoors, they sprout, you transfer them. Then you tuck your planter trays away into storage. If you have storage. But why buy, use, and store planter trays when you can use the rinds of citrus fruit after you've eaten the fruit? There is no answer to that. Planter trays are now obsolete. Boom. 

 
Poke a hole or two in the bottom for drainage, fill with soil, add two seeds and some water. When it comes time to move your seedling outdoors, plant the whole damn thing. The peel will compost in the soil. 


Photo from My Roman Apartment.

zip zow

Welcome to the summer, darlings. Have a most excellent week.

Photos from 5 inch and up, born to be wild, maffashion, born to be wild x2, and tomboy style. 

roll up

There is this one tiny pho spot on Davie St (@ Thurlow) with a yellow awning that is my absolute favourite. This is because I am a picky eater and when it comes to sketchy food, I always go vegan. Luckily, at this particular noodle joint they have a most excellent veggie noodle soup with fantastic deep fried tofu AND salad rolls with the very same tofu. 

Andrea had assured me salad rolls were simple enough but I had never used rice paper before so I was not exactly a bucket of confidence going into this one. However, great success. (The second of my experimental summer food successes if you are counting). 

SALAD ROLLS WITH TOFU 

1 package rice paper wraps (expect leftovers)
1 package rice noodles 
2 medium/large carrots, julienned
2 cups of finely chopped lettuce (I used romaine)
1 cup of finely chopped cilantro 
1 package smoked tofu (which happens to be firm), sliced lengthwise into 1/2 inch-thick slices
Peanut sauce and hot sauce of some sort

Boil some water and prep the rice noodles according to the package instructions (you will end up using 2 of the 3 noodle clumps in the package so might as well not boil the third and save it for something else). When they are finished, run cold water over them, drain, and set aside. 

Assemble your veggies and tofu, a large bowl full of warm water, and a large plate for assembly. Take one rice paper sheet at a time and soak in the warm water for ten seconds (or whatever the package recommends). Lay it out on the plate and pile up a few slices of tofu and carrots with some of your lettuce and cilantro and some noodles in the middle of your rice paper sheet. Proportions are really up to you. 


Fold one side of the rice sheet over the filling, lengthwise to the filling. Roll once over. Then fold the short ends in and roll up the rest of the way. 


Keep going until you've used up all your resources. I think we made sixteen. Serve with peanut sauce (and sirahcha). 


Nom. 


Photo and recipe by Aubrie Chaylt.

tumble

It is summer in Vancouver.

I am really good at summer. And despite the fact that a certain Evidence course led by a certain hilarious and loud man will have me and 67 of my peers stuffed in a classroom three mornings a week for four of the sixteen weeks I get for break, I am still excited.

Beaches, beverages, crossing borders, thrift shopping, yoga in the morning, reading fiction, craft projects, and the smell of sunscreen perma-etched into my skin.

Annnnd CAMPING in the van! This tumblr got me all excited to explore. Checkk itt.

Image from Shelter Co.

untitled

Have a sunny week, lil babes.

Photos from three dead kings, achy breaky hearty, a beautiful mess, born to be wild, miss fashion liason, and frou frouu.