Food Survey results (part 2)

Part 2 of the Food Survey results...

Which of the following is the type of chocolate you prefer the most?

13% chose white chocolate, 21% chose milk, 54% chose dark. Comments included: "Just not white", "Milk. No white. Hmm, maybe it's milk after all.... Could be white. Um - do I have to decide???, "I like all chocolate, can't eat dark it give me a migraine."

What is your favourite kind of ice cream?

1. Coconut
2. Chocolate
3. Fudge swirl! (You know, the kind with the chocolate stuff swirled into vanilla?)
4. Swiss Mocha
5. Gregs
6. Chocolate, maybe with added Baileys, or Cointreau...
7. Jamocha Almond Fudge
8. Ben & Jerry's Cool Britannia
9. Mint choc chip. Though I haven't had any in ages because there just aren't any manufacturers in the UK who make a decent brand. The Ben & Jerry's variant is quite nice but the chocolate 'chips' are too big (what an odd complaint, but it's true. They get in the way of enjoying the ice cream). Another answer would be - that ice cream made in the original Swensen's store in San Francisco. I get to make another pilgrimage there in August and I'm totally looking forward to it. I'll be on my own so maybe I'll just camp out on their doorstep for an hour or 2, having a variety of cones and watching the fog roll by.
10. Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough followed by a flavor called Moose Tracks.
11. fudge marble
12. Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia
13. Baskin Robbins chocolate mint chip
14. Mint chocolate cookie. Most anything by Breyers. Most any homemade icecream. Velvet's Moose Tracks. Ben& Jerry's Chunky Monkey and Chubby Hubby. Knight's chocolate raspberry (local scoop shop) Young's Pumpkin (local dairy w/ scoop shop)
15. Commercial: White Russian by Ben & Jerry's. Specialty: Gianduia by Ciao Bella Gelato. Restaurant: any by Redwood Park in San Francisco (ice creams that are handmade when order is placed). No longer available: Dark Chocolate by Vivoli Gelato (specialty shop in Berkeley, California went out of business at least 10 years ago) and Wild Maine Blueberry by Ben & Jerry's.
16. Cherry
17. varies from time to time -- Ben&Jerr's Full Vermonty is the current passion (maple icecream with caremel and pralines....yum)
18. Deep Chocolate combined with coffee. Perhaps Mocha.
19. Pralines and Cream.
20. chocolate
21. heavenly hash
22. Breyers Oh Henry ice cream.
23. Chocolate-chip
24. Tiger Tail





What would you have for your Last Meal?

1. Steamed onaga w/ ginger sauce White rice Grilled asparagus Steamed beet greens Deep fried chicken thighs from Zippy's Pasta with shavings of white truffles Fresh oysters on a half shell w/ mignonette sauce
2. Lots of different potato dishes, probably.
3. Something that would take a LONG time to eat.
4. Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding, green beans, potatoes, and creme caramele for dessert.
5. Onion Pie
6. Start with melon and Palma ham. Follow that by rare(ish) grilled sirloin steak with a mushroom and pepper sauce, chips (aka fries), grilled mushrooms, and a good red wine. Then some fine Stilton. For dessert, rich chocolate ice cream and Cointreau, and good coffee and mints for afters.
7. Chicken chimichangas and fried ice cream at Casablanca Restaurant in Pulaski, TN.
8. Starter of smoked salmon on brown bread with lemon to squeeze over it. A juicy filet mignon steak with jacket potato (with butter and sour cream) and snow peas. Some Swensen's ice cream. Probably quite a lot of it. A cup of coffee and some really good chocolates. A grape flavoured tootsie roll lollipop. Guess I'm easily pleased.
9. Turkey dinner with chocolate pie for dessert
10. mabo dofu
11. Something that takes a very long time to prepare.
12. No idea
13. Hope to never have to pick that out, so...whatever I ate last. I hope it was satisfying.
14. Assuming I had all my dining/eating faculties: the multi-course dinner from The French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley, California (since I haven't tried it yet -- this may change if I go this year and it's not all that). If my taste buds are fading or gone: my mom's meatball pancakes, my dad's spaghetti, my sister's potstickers and my grandmother's chocolate chip cookies, just to know I had them.
15. Spiced parmesan shrimp with snow peas on pasta. Raspberry/black currant crumble.
16. I intend to live forever, or die trying. :)
17. Squid or Octopus, as served by a Greek resaurant I know, Loads of sushi, Some read fruity drink, perhaps with alcohol, Deep, dark, moist, chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream
18. Prime rib, little roasted potatoes, Caesar salad and rubarb cream pie.
19. cereal, croissant & instant coffee
20. sushi
21. Chocolate and ice cream, but NOT chocolate ice cream.
22. I have no idea! Probably bagel with hummus, with an ice-cream sundae on the side.

---

Today's Blatherpics:

Steve Scherer making my dragon figurine in the dealers' room at Marcon.

Food Survey results (Part 1)

Jeff and I had dinner with Reid, Luisa, Ronnie and Ian last night, then hung out at their place in the evening. Or rather, Jeff and Reid and Ian played with Jeff's new laptop (he traded in his old one) in the basement while Luisa and I chatted in the living room. Just before Ronnie's bedtime, he clambered up on the couch and read Katie's Babbling Brother to me. I -love- hearing/seeing kids read books, and Ronnie was an amazing reader. When he read the blurb on the back about what Ruth said about our brother Jim (the book was published two years before Jim died), I got all teary-eyed but hid it well.





Thanks to those who answered my Food Survey. Here is Part 1 of the results; Part 2 will be posted tomorrow.

Number of respondents: 24

Do you like pineapple on your pizza?

58% said yes, 29% said no. I told Allison that more people liked pineapple on their pizza than didn't, and her answer was, "Well, they're just WRONG." :-) One person said they only liked pineapple on their pizza if it was pepperoni pizza.

Ordering pizza for a group is usually hellish. Occasionally you'll come across a group that's pretty easygoing and will eat anything. Most occasions I've seen, however, have a lot of strong opinions on the topic. I like pretty much all kinds of toppings, though if given a preference I'll lean towards less meat and more unusual toppings.

Do you consider yourself a coffee drinker?

42% said yes, 42% said no. One person said they preferred instant coffee. Yes, that's right, INSTANT COFFEE. I confess I used to drink instant coffee, but only if there was a whopping pile of powdered creamer and sugar as well.

I generally have a couple cups a week of straight black coffee (no sugar or cream). Its my personal indulgence on some afternoons when I'm starting to fade but have a lot of work to do.





When at an all-you-can-eat food buffet, which of the following best describes your strategy?

25% chose "Load up my plate as much as possible the first time." 54% chose "Go light the first time, visit the buffet many times." 21% chose "Check out the desserts first." One person described their buffet strategy as follows: "Big salad, then a meat plate, then a "what did I miss" plate, then a dessert".

Which of the following foods do you like?

30% like liver, 58% like lima beans, 17% like marmite (!), 70% like sushi. Comments: "Eeeewwwww!", "Liver and kidney are on my avoid-at-all-costs list...", "Brussel sprouts! Asparagus! Artichoke! Yum! but lima beans? Eeew!", "Vegetarian sushi only (but is that an oxymoron?)".

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	Ian and Reid at Swiss Chalet last night.
	I've met David at several conventions, usually Confusion. I usually find him in the hallway or lobby of the convention hotel, playing his flute or recorders or drums. More often than not, I end up jamming with him. :-)
	Andrea in the open filk.
	Daniel taking a picture of me taking a picture of him.

kidvisit

I got a registered letter from the CCRA yesterday, saying that I was negligent in paying a late filing fee for some form, and that if I didn't respond, then Bad Things would happen. I had a brief panicked interaction with my tax lawyer (panic on my part, not his). It's funny that after all the vaguely threatening letters I've been receiving over the past couple months, I'd have grown jaded by now.

Nope, not going to happen. The CCRA has the potential power to make my life pretty miserable if they wanted to.

Anyway, turns out that someone at the CCRA had accidentally recorded a U.S. cheque from Xlibris as a Canadian funds cheque. Though they DID cash the full amount, their computer records showed that the funds weren't sufficient. We've asked them to send me paper proof that they did receive the money they needed.

I am doing my best to cooperate with the CCRA, but I have to admit that it gets pretty frustrating when things like this happen (and they've been happening a lot in the past month).

Hope this all ends soon so I can get back to my own writing fulltime again.





I went to my sister's yesterday afternoon to hang out with my nieces. It's been a very long time since I've visited with Sara and Annie during the week, and without Jeff. Annie was delighted to have me to herself during the first part of the visit while Sara was still in school.

She dragged out every piece of artwork and writing she had done in class recently to show me, then asked me to play "pony family" with her using her pony figurines. I was the baby pony, and she played the older sister and the mother, who would take the baby pony for long swooping flights through the air (these ponies could fly) while I made gagging noises because I had motion sickness. Annie loved that.

Finally it was time to pick up Sara from school. Annie wanted to show Sara the German flag she had painted in her class, so took it on our walk. We got some curious looks from passersby on the way to the school.

Several mothers smiled and said hi to me when we arrived. The way they said hi made it clear that they thought I was Ruth (some people think Ruth and I look alike). This has happened before in other school pick-ups. I used to try explaining that I wasn't Ruth, that I was her sister, that haha yes I knew we resembled each other, but now I just smile and say hi back and then ignore them.

I resist the temptation to do something really uncharacteristic of Ruth, though the idea is fun. Ruth would kill me if she found out later, though.





Annie made us wait right in the middle of the main walkway in front of the entrance because she wanted to make sure that Sara could see us. I tried telling her that we were fifteen minutes early and suggested we play in the nearby park or go visit a nearby store with me. "No thanks," Annie said, keeping her eyes glued to the front doors of Sara's school, clutching her German flag.

One of the smiling mothers came up to me while we waited and asked if I was Ruth's sister. I said yes.

"Thank God," she said. "I was wondering how you managed to get long hair all of a sudden."

Finally Sara appeared! The girls are only let out of the school when their appointed guardian arrives to pick them up. I felt very proud to be Sara's appointed guardian that day. I saw Sara look around, and then give a huge smile when she spotted me. That grin made me melt inside, of course.

We went to a nearby convenience store to get a treat before we headed back home. I got a frozen fruit bar; Sara and Annie opted for ice cream sandwiches.

It was a wonderful and very relaxing afternoon, and helped remind me that there are things in life other than CCRA audits and bureaucratic hassles. It's hard to be stressed when a five-year-old is beaming at you with chocolate crumbs all over her face.

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	Annie took this photograph of herself with my camera.
	Annie with her German flag.
	Treat stop on the way home from school.
	Sara trying out my guitar.

fluff

Short and fluffy Blathering today, sorry (as opposed to the ponderous and deeply introspective works that my Blatherings usually are, of course :-)). I need to get my Writing World column finished this morning. Here are are some more Marcon photos, meanwhile.

The photo at the top of the page is of Andrea getting her hair braided by Mary Bertke at Mary's table in the dealer's room. For about $12, you could get your hair braided into one of a wide range of styles. I was tempted but passed; most braids tend to make my head feel like it's in a vise. It was very cool to see Mary's work around Marcon; even Zander got his hair done. :-)

Speaking of Zander, here's a somewhat blurry shot from the sound test before his concert:





A close-up of Erica:





Here's the pre-reg line at the beginning of Marcon:





Jodi and I postponed picking up our registration until late that night. I found it ironic that while the pre-reg line seemed to stretch for miles, those who hadn't pre-registered could breeze in and get their badge with no problem.

Back to work...

sun worship

Went running late yesterday afternoon. Harbourfront and the Martin Goodman Trail was more crowded than usual, the warmer weather bringing out more rollerbladers, bikers, runners, and walkers. Lots of bare midriffs and chests, too, which makes a nice change of scenery along my usual route. :-)

You'd think fear of skin cancer would have discouraged sun worshippers by now, but there were still a few young guys sprawled on their backs along the lakeshore, checking their pasty white chests hopefully every few minutes, trying to look nonchalant.





Even when sun-worshipping was more fashionable, I could never do it with real enthusiasm. I got too bored, or I'd fall asleep and wake up with a raging headache and the outline of my paperback book sunburned across my stomach. The couple of times I did try it, I felt like like a marshmallow being roasted over a fire, needing to rotate every so often to avoid getting overly browned on one side, etc. Way too complicated.





My 5-year-old niece Annie asked Ruth recently about Barbie anatomy, wondering why all Barbies had such big chests and narrow waists. She is wise beyond her years.

---

Today's Blatherpics:

More photos from Marcon.

	Just another Stormtrooper checking out the dealers' room.
	Juanita Coulson. I was blown away by an amazing blues song she did in open filk.
	Ed Wright, Scott Edersheim and Rand in the food court.
	I found it somewhat disconcerting that a shop could be so proud of its buckeye milkshakes (what the heck are buckeye milkshakes?) and peanut butter sandwiches that it would proudly advertise them in their front window.