Easily Distracted

I try to make all my purchases on credit card. This lets me easily review all my expenses each month, or at any time using online banking. (wooh, technology). So for my last statement, I downloaded it as a spreadsheet, did some grouping, and made a chart. I had to pull in some data from my debit card statement, as well, which wasn’t so accommodating (no CSV download), but I managed.

Monthly expenses: mid-April - mid-May 2009

The three categories at the top with a bold line around them are pretty static and not going to change much in the immediate future: rent, bus, and phone. The three categories at the bottom with grey outlines were exceptional and help make this month a more expensive one: a trip to whistler (all expenses, including eating out, hotel, etc), some clothes (which I don’t buy often), and a new computer. These make up more than half of my month’s expenses. The rest of it is the interesting stuff. Eating out and liquor account for the greatest remaining expenses…. and eating out includes drinking out, whereas liquor is basically for drinking in – so already I could drastically reduce my expenses by drinking in more and drinking out less, right? (I don’t see drinking out decreasing drastically, any time soon, however….)

Food is miscellaneous groceries I’ve bought, and is very small because I live at home and don’t generally buy groceries. For that same reason, my rent should actually be half of what it is, but I plan on paying at least double, for the time being. I find it funny that coffee (when I buy a coffee and or any muffin or baked good) has its own slice of the pie – but not unexpected. Because I don’t have a car, gas is ridiculously small, but I like to replace what I use when I borrow my mom’s car.

For me, it will be interesting to see what changes next month. And who knows, at this rate, that might be the next time I blog! haha. ^_^;;

Oh, and I’ll be going to EAT!Vancouver, this weekend. I might even attend multiple days. I went last year and enjoyed it. It’s a barrage of samples and people trying to sell you stuff… and it’s where I tried and bought my RADA cutlery, which I like quite a bit. Thinking I might get a tomato knife or something. It’s only $12. If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, give me a shout.

We have a potluck lunch in the office, tomorrow, so I did something I never do: bake. I know, I know. Anyway, I decided on these things called Tuna Teasers – I remember enjoying when my mom had made them. Then I looked at the recipe. My god, was it simple! And quick! It’s from a recipe book called Fast and Fantastic, so I guess it holds true, in this case. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 c flour (I used whole wheat flour)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp onion salt (I substituted with onion flakes)
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• dash of cayenne pepper
• 1/4 c butter
• 1/2 c milk
• 1 can flaked tuna fish, drained
• 1 c shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 tbsp finely minced green pepper (I substituted with green onion)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450F (230C). Combine first 5 ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add milk and stir until blended. Add last 3 ingredients. Mix well. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes 36 small puffs. About 15 medium sized.

Woooh… time to start catching up with some blog entries! I’ll start with the little bit of budget fine dining I was able to experience. I went to a few nice restaurants during Dine Out Vancouver 2008 with Shirley, John, Alex, and Ben. Thanks mostly to John for picking the restaurants! I just kinda tagged along. The pictures were taken by Shirley, the official Gifu Gang photographer. The descriptions were taken verbatim from the menus. This is what I had:

The Cannery

Black Bean Lemon Soup
with habanero pepper, sour cream, chorizo and herb croutons

Grilled Wild Pacific Salmon
sauteed Portobello mushrooms, wilted arugula and chive, in a mussel jus nectar cream sauce

Bitter Chocolate Tower
with a concassee of caramelized Agassiz hazelnut

Cru

Beef tenderloin Carpaccio
with caperberries, truffle aioli and shaved parmesan

Roasted Lamb Loin
with blue cheese souffle, oven-dried tomatoes and haricots vert (green beans)

Grand Cru Chocolate Torte
with raspberry mousse and coulis

Bluewater Cafe

Seafood Trio
prawn in filo with mango-chili puree, clam fritter with cumin-tomato sauce, scallop ceviche with blood orange

Arctic Char a la Plancha
stir-fried rice with shiitake mushrooms and long beans, lobster sauce

Chocolate Melody
dark chocolate mousse cake, madelaine, sorbet, lady finger

All three were $35 set meals. That was the order that we went, and I’d say they increased in quality: The Cannery being the least impressive (but certainly not bad, and they have a very nice view), Cru being very good (but they’ll rape you for a glass of wine, their selection of which is something they’re known for), and Bluewater Cafe being excellent (but I think Bluewater will pretty much rape you for anything). Service was great at all three. Food was generally great, as well. That lobster sauce from the Bluewater dish was pretty much the best thing ever. Both the desserts from Cru and Bluewater were absolutely delicious. Bluewater was was a little more formal and the only place which I felt I may have been under dressed – it’s also the most expensive normally, making the $35 dine-out more worthwhile.

Head over to Shirley‘s Flickr to see more pictures. John didn’t take as many, but the ones he got are also very good.

I had a good Christmas. Hung out with family (and a couple students), ate copious amounts of turkey and sweets, and drank a pleasant variety of cocktails. I got a few interesting gifts, including: a larger tripod (used when taking the photo of the tree, above), Holey Soles (wearing and loving them now), and a Wii Zapper (with Link’s Crossbow Training). All of these things were on my wishlist. Turkey dinner #2 is coming up tonight… but I’m still full from last night. I think my new year’s resolution will be to lose the weight I will have gained in the last week of 2007.

To all my friends and family around the world, Happy Holidays!

I had this yesterday and it was so good I’m having it again today. It’s a nice salad for a hot day, made from a bunch of stuff that happened to be in the fridge:

• Mixed organic greens
• turkey
• avocado
• red pepper
• apple
• orange
• pine nuts
• dried cranberries
• raspberry vinaigrette

Okay, so the pine nuts and dried cranberries weren’t in the fridge. Eaten with a bowl of cherries and ice water. If I was fancy (had money), I think I’d have some nice white wine.

On Monday, May 28th, 2007, I had the fortune of officially graduating UBC with a Bachelor of Science. The degree fails to mention both my major, Computer Science, and Co-op. Anyway, feels very good to be done!

You can’t tell, but that piece of paper has writing on it written in my blood (sweat, and tears – especially tears). I know, the hood isn’t on straight… it kept moving around… hard to pin those on by oneself!

Some of my family were nice enough to come out and take blurry pictures of me walking across a stage. Speaking of which, I should get the pictures from my dad’s camera… I don’t have that many in my own camera. I did, however, take quite a few pictures of our dinner, later in the evening. We went to the Arm’s Reach Bistro (dinehere), in Deep Cove. I’ve been there for breakfast, and enjoyed eggs benedict (probably my absolute favourite breakfast!) but never for dinner. During dinner, I received a couple cards of congratulations that were quite touching, and I very nearly shed a tear! (That’s saying quite a bit for me!) Thanks to everyone that came out.

From left to right: my brother’s girlfriend, my brother, my mom, my younger sister, me, my dad’s fiancee’s daughter, my dad’s fiancee, my dad, my oldest sister. Unfortunately (for her! ) my other sister, who lives in Squamish, couldn’t make it.

Now for the food. Descriptions were taken from the site’s menu… cuz it’s easy that way. Added comments in parentheses.

Appies

baked brie with basil pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and drizzled with aged balsamic reduction. served with grilled pita wedges. $9 (This was very good, and the picture was the only one I took without flash… got lazy.)

The calamari ($8) was also very good and not too oily. They could have been more generous with the marinara sauce, and they surprisingly did not have any tzatziki sauce, but the marinara sauce was excellent, anyway.

Main Dishes

seared jumbo scallops wrapped in pancetta served with an asparagus cream sauce. $25 (This was awesome. It came with four scallops, a wedge of both roasted yellow and red bell peppers, a bit of asparagus and some risotto with an excellent asparagus cream sauce. Yummy. It was my favourite dish I tried – it was also the most expensive.)

CBC curried butter chicken with cashews, ginger, cilantro and madras in a tomato, yogurt sauce served with jasmine rice. $12 (I didn’t try this, but I’m told it’s good.)

penne chicken with asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, extra virgin olive oil and basil chiffonade. $12 (My mom ordered this dish. It was very good.)

I also tried the seafood linguini ($14) and wasn’t very impressed. I found the “white wine and pesto” sauce lacking flavour. I only tried the noodles and sauce, however, so I may not be best to judge on it – but my brother also said it was just “alright.” My younger sister ordered the gorgonzola and prosciutto penne ($14) and said that there wasn’t enough prosciutto. I got to try a bit with some prosciutto and it was quite good, but without the prosciutto I’m sure it loses a lot.

Dessert

vanilla bean creme brulee. $6 (I took this picture after the fancy caramelized top had been consumed. Apparently, it was very good.)

So dinner was very good, overall. I’d recommend it and return myself. They have a varied menu with something that should please everyone and dishes within quite a large price range ($12-$32) catering to how rich you’re feeling. Appetizers didn’t take long and the main dishes came shortly after – the service was very prompt except for the long wait we had for the single creme brulee at the end. The service was good except for missing an order of salad. Also, there was an automatic gratuity of 15% added (because we were a large group, I presume). This seems to be the becoming norm, and I don’t really mind it (unless the service is bad, I suppose) but I don’t recall being informed of it prior to and it seems like the customer should have control over the tip. Anyway, I recommend it! If you’re going for breakfast, I recommend the excellent Timo’s Benny:

two poached eggs on english muffins with smoked salmon. spinach red onions and house-made hollandaise sauce. $10

And if you go, be sure to let me know! My house is a mere 10-15 minute walk away.

Steve likes scallops. He does.