Saturday night was the annual Christmas party. This is an event I particularly loath but this year is my the last one.
I had already spent the entire day rushing around Vancouver dropping off soap orders and eventually got home giving myself no more than 15 minutes to change into the right dress and meet with Wilson and be on our way. For some reason others felt that I needed to let loose a little and dance with the rest of my co-workers, something I generally work to avoid but they nearly had a $100 on the table to get me to do it. Sadly they smartened up before I caved. Too bad – would have been great for spending money;)
Somehow, having Wilson around was disarming for me. It did make it a little easier than all years previous and when my boss and several others had left we all hit the dance floor, well all of my usual lunch crowd at least. I didn’t make it to bed until 1.30 and I just couldn’t believe I’d let it happen but it happened and it was fun I suppose…
This morning was more of a gong show. I woke fairly early a little dehydrated and so I drank some water and read a book I’ve had on the go for some time but soon realized I was not ready to meet the day just yet so I lay back down and fell asleep for far longer than I’d expected to. Before I knew it I was behind in getting ready, I couldn’t find a recipe I’d promised to make for Rowenna and Cheri and the ingredients were near impossible to fish for in my abyss of a cupboard (seriously, it’s atrocious… don’t get me started. I’m very embarrassed about it.)
I had volunteered to get herbs for our breakfast (turned brunch) I hadn’t been thinking that the place I had in mind isn’t open on Sundays so I drove in the opposite direction on an empty tank only to have to turn around and visit two more grocery stores and a gas station before having what I needed. There were more irritating details but I’ll spare you the long winded explanation. Suffice it to say we all arrived at Ro’s house and got started making Herb Baked Eggs. My mouth waters at the thought of these. If it’s possible to be addicted to eggs, I might just be. I couldn’t be more thrilled it was what she wanted us to cook in her kitchen! Her house is so lovely, it’s what I hoped it would be. I can only hope to have such a stunning home one day that has so many great pieces to fill it. If I’m lucky, maybe it’ll even be in France!
We laughed about silly questions of age and appropriateness and Ro showed us how to make origami whales, which I believe she said they put on the Christmas tree at UBC, where she works as a Marine Biologist. Only once we’d already started did Cheri informed of how highly offensive it is to make things in white in Japanese culture – oops! Thankfully she’s gracious toward us and she made the little one in the photo, just this once!
At some point during the day Cheri had told me about a scarf at Chapters she thought I’d really like and about a great sale on Jamie Oliver cookbooks which everyone knows I can’t resist. While I knew I didn’t need either of these things I didn’t mind at least wandering the aisles and getting some holiday inspiration. I was feeling a little bit restless so when we all left that’s where I went. Cheri had told her mom she’d drive her to work so shortly after completing the task she sent me a message and I let her know I was at chapters so she left her house and came and joined me and we had a cup of tea together and were wide eyed at all the lovely cookbooks. It’s one thing I know I’ll really miss. No kitchen seems as complete as when Cheri is in it with me. She’s one of the best accessories you could ask for. She knows I’d like her to come to France with me one day and we could cook together for all those that would wander through our doors… I’ll keep trying, perhaps one day she’ll decide it’s the right thing to do. I’m not sure how long we were there for but I’d already been on my way out when she was arriving and we’d nearly exhausted all that we could see and I got a message from Ro asking me about the blog address. Moments later, there she was… in Chapters and we reunited once again.
Clearly we all like looking around this place…
There was one thing that particularly caught my eye. For the last two and a half years I’ve been looking for a decent foraging book. I love edible plants and that’s what I told my employers in France when I was applying, I wanted to learn about the edible plants of southern France… only I want to know about them in whatever locale I find myself in except it never seems I can find one quite right. Well today I think I found one. It was more than just a scientific book it was a COOKBOOK! The Wild Table looked so phenomenal being a delightful blend of foods that are local to me and methods of preparing them. I was especially enthralled by the spruce tip cocktail! I wanted to pick it up but it was a little more than I could scrape together at the moment. One day…
