babette's feast

So one of things I'm planning to do during my sabbatical is to cook more. I actually did used to enjoy cooking, years ago, before I got on the Internet. :-) As wonderful as some frozen convenience foods are, sometimes I do get a hankering for food cooked from fresh ingredients. Last night, I decided to try two new recipes: Coconut Curry Fish, and Jamaican Rice and Red Peas. They actually turned out ok, and Jeff had two helpings (so I knew he wasn't just trying to be polite when he said the food was good).

After dinner, we watched Babette's Feast on DVD (a loan from our friend Craig); Jeff had never seen it. I love this movie. I know I've blathered a bit on food movies before, but this is one of my all-time favourites.

Our UT practice tonight had to be cancelled because Allison had some after-school commitments; we're trying to reschedule for tomorrow. The day after that, we leave for California!

Still getting feedback and questions about Inkspot; someone from Reuters called to interview me yesterday.

Catching up some more on weekend events...

Annie's birthday My niece Annie turned 4 on Sunday. She was very excited and proud of the fact that she was older, and Sara kept telling everyone how much Annie had grown. Annie is really into the Powerpuff Girls these days, so some of her gifts reflected this enthusiasm. She hasn't actually SEEN a Powerpuff Girl episode yet, but has obviously been influenced by the media, Powerpuff displays in the stores, and her friends at school. :-)

More on Ad Astra

Here are some more highlights (for me, anyway) from Ad Astra:

Tom Smith and Leslie dropped by the open filk circle on Friday night. They were on their way to a Barenaked Ladies concert in North Bay (Leslie's THIRD TIME seeing BNL on their tour :-)).

Running into my friends Amanda Foubister and Michelle Sagara/West. Poor Amanda was hobbling around with a cane as a result of an unfortunate encounter with a sauna door at her health club. I didn't get a chance to hang out with either of them that much, unfortunately, but I'm glad we at least had a chance to hook up, even briefly.

Our Filking 101 workshop. We weren't sure about how well this workshop would be attended since (1) it was on Friday night, and (2) Ad Astra has not been a particularly filk-friendly convention up to now. I was really happy to see people in the workshop who had very little experience with filking, and had come to the panel out of curiosity. Lots of great questions and discussion, including input from seasoned filkers like Tom Smith and the Haymans. (For those of you not familiar with filk, you may want to check out Tom Smith's " What Is Filk?").

Saturday night filk circle. It was one of those circles with very good vibes...easygoing, non-competitive, supportive. Here's a composite photo of the circle.

Discovering caffeinated chocolate. I was offered a piece in the con suite...apparently one small piece contains the equivalent of caffeine contained in 3 and 1/2 cups of coffee! I had some on Sunday morning, and it definitely helped.

Today's Blatherpics: - Annie at her birthday party on Sunday.
- Rick Green giving his Guest of Honour talk at Ad Astra.
- Allison and John waiting for the closing panel to start on Sunday afternoon.