Settling

It's been about a month since I moved into my new home and my room finally feels properly settled. I've got glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and artwork on the walls.

I'm still swamped with homework but there's only two and a half more weeks of school to go. It'll be nice to have the holidays off to relax and recuperate. Cheers!

Busy Cooking

I'm responsible for the Dark Chocolate Mushroom Millefeuille with White Bean Purée in the college restaurant this week. The flavours aren't to my liking but I'm happy with how it looks at least. Chocolate, rosemary and mushrooms shouldn't mix, so far as I am concerned! Still, it's fun to assemble. Cheers!

Scholarship Weekend

I was one of the lucky few to win a scholarship from the Canadian Hospitality Foundation and part of that was being invited to their gala award ceremony and charity ball down in Toronto. My boyfriend lives about halfway there so I took the opportunity to visit him too. Unfortunately only the scholarship winners were given a free dinner, everybody else had to pony up $450 a person so I attended alone. The food was divine though! Not to mention how I felt in the lovely dress my boyfriend bought me for my birthday so I could have something decent to wear to the ceremony.

My mountain-man and I :) And yes that's a bear skin rug on the floor behind me. I love his cabin home. I didn't get to stick around too long though since it was still several hours drive to the ceremony in Toronto. The food alone was worth it!

They did a lot of modern stuff with their food presentation, like this plastic 'papillote' instead of using wax paper, which was really neat. Although I got the impression that non-foodies were more than a little confused by it.

 

The wine was free-flowing and delicious, including a sparkling wine later in the evening. Their sorbet presentation was gorgeous too; instead of in a dish, it was served in an specially made ice bowl with a little electric candle in the base lighting it from the inside. There was even live entertainment!

By the time dessert came around I felt like I was going to explode. There was even a cheese plate after the dessert, but I didn't photograph that because I was too far into my food coma. But I actually got to eat some edible gold leaf, fancy! I drove home late and slept like the dead that night.

The Sunday with my honey was leisurely. We went out for a paddle - he paddled, I enjoyed - on the lake and generally just enjoyed each other's company. I cooked us up a leg of lamb for dinner and we drank plenty of tasty wine. I snapped this last photo off the Monday morning when I was leaving to drive home and head to my afternoon classes. It was a decadent and most enjoyable weekend all around. I still have a bunch of photos from my class trip to Niagara to share too but I have a ton of homework to finish - which explains my general absence here - before I get around to that. Cheers!