And now I am at the point of the sculpture where I knit over 5 feet of lace over 275 stitches in the round, five times over. UGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH.
Ahem.
RECIPE: Roasted Beet & Citrus Salad
While Calgary is a super good city for foodies who like to eat out, it totally sucks for cheap fresh produce. I was totally spoiled in Montreal – fruit markets were pretty much on every corner and stuff was cheap. It’s really easy to be inspired to eat fresh things when it’s staring at you every time you leave the house. Calgary is a little different. Fruits and vegetables are more expensive and usually rough around the edges. It’s easier to buy things frozen or settle on eating out. However, maybe this culinary laziness has more to do with my busy schedule and general levels of stress than access to good grub. At any rate! We had our first warm day of the season yesterday and it inspired me to actually put effort into eating.
Despite being vegetarian, I’m not the biggest salad eater. I guess it has to do with my early vegetarian days when salads were usually the same thing again and again because 1) I didn’t know any better and 2) neither did anyone else. Salads were boring: iceberg or romaine lettuce, green pepper, tomato, button mushrooms and cubes of cheddar cheese. Totally not appealing. Especially when the only salad dressings I’ve ever had to choose from were things like Ranch, Catalina, or Thousand Island (barrrrrf!). It’s like you only eat the salad so you can get to the meat on the other side of it.
I’m way more considered about this stuff now, thanks to a maturing and more adventurous palette. I’m trying to make salads a staple within my daily meal plan, even though most of the time I just want to carb-it-up with some pasta and bread. And springtime is totally the beginning of salad season, isn’t it? Giving up those heavy, rich winter dishes for light plates and zesty flavours. Mmmm!
Anyway. Yesterday, I made this salad and it was delicious. It comes from the cookbook, Way To Cook Vegetarian – an awesome reference for any kitchen. This salad turned out really great and I saved all the ingredients individually so I could make it again for lunch today. Next time I think I might change up the citrus by adding Caracara oranges instead of plain navel, and use golden beets rather than red. Mmmm!
Roasted Beet & Citrus Salad – serves about 6
Ingredients
- roasted beets, halved and sliced thick (about 5 beets)
- organic navel orange, chopped (about 2 large oranges)
- toasted walnuts
- mixed salad greens
- fresh parmesan cheese petals
Dressing
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- pinch salt & pepper
Combine orange juice and dressing ingredients in a medium bowl, whisking with a fork. Add chopped beets to dressing mixture and toss to coat. Remove beets with a slotted spoon and place in another bowl, reserving liquid. With salad greens in a large bowl, toss with reserved liquid.
Serve in plate or bowl as such: greens, roasted beets, oranges, toasted walnuts and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Eat immediately. Tastes great with pear flavoured cider and even better when eaten outside 
The accumulation of labour.
I keep sleeping past my alarm. With the exception of this morning, I have been finding it increasingly difficult to drag myself out of bed before 9am. This morning, I couldn’t sleep past 6am thanks to pub-induced dehydration and one whiny elderly cat who can’t seem to eat enough treats or get enough attention. Sometimes waking up super early because of a hangover works out to be a good thing – it’s kind of like resetting my internal clock. The whole morning lays ahead of me and there’s some semblance of anticipated accomplishment. And I’m so tired by the end of the day that I have no choice but go to bed early.
However, things aren’t really going that way today. Already nearing midnight, I’ve had at least two naps and three cups of coffee. I worked for 3.5 hours patiently solving the usual plethora of eBook problems from library patrons over the phone. I walked to Inglewood in the rain with Lana Del Rey on repeat, a thin shawl from England wrapped around my head in place of an umbrella. I knit myself in half-hearted semi-circles until my hands stiffened. I read until my eReader conked out mid-sentence, the one major downside to eReader technology (because real books don’t run out of battery power).
I feel a little loose at the edges. A kind of nagging feeling that I’m not being as productive as I could be, as I want to be. The upside is I know this feeling won’t last long, I just need to institute some sort of routine that promotes active studio practice. Sometimes I think I’ve been using my lack of a proper studio as an excuse to not make work, but there is some truth in it. It’s not very encouraging to work when after a few hours everything must be dismantled again so the space can be used for something else. I mean, I can adapt fairly quickly but the daily uprooting of my practice isn’t conducive to success. At least not for me.
It’s got me thinking about how I place value on productivity. I think I only feel truly productive when I can see the accumulation of labour manifest itself in an object or series of finished things. This could be as simple as clearing out the fridge or doing laundry and as complex as finally penning an idea down after weeks of mulling about. I guess this is kind of the same for everyone. Lately, though, I haven’t felt productive at all. Maybe there’s just too many things just out of reach, out of my control.
I may have mentioned it a while back but my living situation is finally changing – my brother is moving out so R and I get the place to ourselves. The condo is currently in an awkward state of transition as my brother packs up his things and we unpack our own stuff. Once the switchover finally happens at the end of the month, I’ll feel a little more in control of my environment and finally routines can develop. So far the only routine part of my day is waking up at 6am to a whining cat. And reading for twenty minutes every evening before falling asleep.
Anyway. It’s late and I think I’m gonna quit this while I’m ahead. Anymore introspective bullshit and I’ll pull myself into a cycle of insomnia.
