Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Wonderful Foods of Disney

It has been forever and a day since we got back from Disney World (World not Land - Land is in California). We went back in August.

One of the things I did to prepare for the trip was research the restaurants we would be eating at. Partly out of vegan-necessity but part of it because if you are on the meal plan, you have to have reservations for your sit down dinners - or you have to wait forever. Fletchers hate to wait.

So, 2 months before I started searching the Disney website for places for vegans to eat at Disney. There are a lot actually.

But, before I start describing my glorious meals, I must tell you that I didn't keep completely vegan on vacation. HELL - I was on VACATION. I had some baked stuff that more than likely had eggs in it. AND I had some cheese. I love cheese. But I didn't cave and eat ice cream. Oh okay, I did have some whip cream but I'm sure it was edible oil product and not real cream. (God it was good though!)

K.

First night...we went to the Animal Kingdom lodge to a buffet restaurant called BOMA. It is African themed and was recommended by the nice lady who was doling out the reservations on the Disney phone line.

Because it was African, there was a HUGE amount of vegan products. On my plate you can see evidence of the nice salad bar. And the selection of dips (black bean hummus, red bean hummus, and red pepper dip) on the right hand side. The giant flat bread that i dipped is the triangle on the top right on the table.

Next is corn bread, Spanish rice, ratatouille, baked pumpkin and of course, falafel and sauce. Mmmmm. I think I ate my own body weight in falafel!

I recommend Boma because the Animal Kingdom lodge was gorgeous. Because everyone in my family loved the food and because it was so unusual and delicious.


The next day we spent the day at Magic Kingdom. Lunch was an awesome veggie wrap with carrot cake and fries that I wish I had a picture of. It was awesome. Snack - funnel cake with powdered sugar. Messy but good.

And dinner was at the "Crystal Palace". This is a "character dining experience" which I wasn't sure we would like but, it was a buffet where we could watch the amazing fire works show so I thought it couldn't suck that bad.

Turns out, the kids loved the idea of visiting with Winnie the Pooh and friends while they ate.

The food was really basic but fresh and quite nice. I really liked the salads and the breads. Again, all you can eat. I should have stopped eating long before I did but hey, I was on VACATION!



Day 2 we were at a water park - Blizzard Beach where I ate the worst veggie burger of all time. Veggie burgers can be so very hit and miss no matter where you are. I don't blame Disney really.
That night we went to Epcot - to the Fresh Dinner place...I can't remember the name really. It was "family style" dining.
We had big salads with the largest cherry tomatoes I've ever had. They were also the best cherry tomatoes I've ever had. All served with hot biscuits and corn bread. Yes, I ate my own weight in corn bread.
Hubby and the kids got platters of steak, catfish, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, roasted potatoes and veggies. Later we learned most of the food is grown underneath Disney in their super farm place - we went on a cool tour of the place.
I, as a veggie, got the best risotto ever. Made with veggie stock and peas and asparagus. SO good. Sure, it had Parmesan on it but it was so amazingly good I didn't care.
The next day we were at Hollywood studios. We had excellent Pizza and giant salads at "Toy Story Pizza Planet" which I didn't get pictures of. Frankly, we didn't like Hollywood studios much. We enjoyed the Muppets theatre and the stunt driver show but, we didn't like all the scary rides and the High School Musical crap. ICK.
Dinner was another story!
We went to this 50s diner. Very kitchsy. They check that you don't have your elbows on the table and that sort of thing.
Ben had the best fried chicken he's ever had - or so he said. He also fell in love with collard greens and bacon. Who wouldn't?
And his dessert was gorgeous...photo....
I think it was M&M brownie cake.
It was smothered in whip cream and came with ice cream too!
My dinner was good. It was a rice stuffed pepper with ratatouille (I should really learn to spell that word!) on the side. Good but not very filling.
I could easily have eaten two peppers. AND there was no protein in the meal at all. No beans. Nothing.
It was one of those meals that I'm glad we were on the meal plan or I would have been pissed at paying a lot of money for it.
Dessert was a different story...
I had an angel food cake - most likely full of egg whites - oh well - with berry compote. It was all fresh and yummy!
The dinner was good but we were all hungry later. Sorry Disney, but it isn't exactly filling in the 1950s!
We ate in the German Buffet the next night. It was a cool place where you share tables with other families. We had dinner with a nice lady (it was her birthday) and her daughter. They were from Florida and just there to celebrate her day.
It was a challenging meal for the family though. Wayne told sammy that the schnitzel was chicken nuggets and he ate it - but they he went back to get more, figured out it was pork, and was pissed off.
Ben ate his own weight in mini wieners and sauerkraut.
Wayne loved it all.
I liked the salad part. You can see here - pickled cabbage, roasted potatoes, pretzel bread, apple sauce, carrots, spetzel, and tomato salad. MMMM.
AND all of that while listening to a live polka band. Does it get any better than that?
The last night we went to Planet Hollywood in downtown Disney. I didn't get a picture of my meal. Or the meal of the guy beside me - although I wish I had!
The emo/semi goth kid sitting beside me had vegan fajitas. They fried up onions, peppers, broccoli, tomatoes and stuff and served it with tortillas, lettuce, guacamole and salsa. It looked amazing. And wasn't on the menu. If I'd known about it before I ordered, I would have had that!
As it was, I had yum-o-lish pasta with fresh tomatoes, herbs, peppers and mushrooms. Really huge portion and really really good!
Everyone liked their dinner there - and it was on the meal plan!

I really did think before I left for Florida that I would end up eating nothing but french fries and ice burg lettuce salads the whole week. Instead I had really good meals that for the most part were better balanced nutritionally than I eat at home. Bravo Disney for a good vegetarian menu!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Thanks giving feasts

I had to look back and check last years blog to be sure that I wasn't repeating the same blog again and again and again - you know how easy it is to do that, right?

Today I was asked for my 5 things that I'm thankful for. And I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Hahahaha. No really, today I want to talk about the Thanksgivings of my childhood.

As a kid we would work for a week on Thanksgiving projects in art. Making turkeys from potatoes or cut outs of our hands or tissue paper. Sometimes we even did American Thanksgiving crafts and made pilgrim hats and Indian head-dresses. In the 70s it was like we were drunk on the Brady Bunch or something....and we just blindly followed along untouched by the fact that Canadian Thanksgiving is a tribute to the harvest and NOT a copy of a Pilgrim dinner party held centuries ago.

In my family we never did anything normally. Not even thanksgiving. But normal, it has been said, is all relative. Right?


From the time I was born we would always take off on the Thursday before the Thanksgiving long weekend in a "convoy" of the Burt Reynold's variety with all of my cousins following behind. Vans and trucks with trailers attached, making their way across South Western Ontario from Stratford to Sarnia. We would snake our way across the highway stopping at the border to chow down on egg salad sandwiches, cut in thirds and wrapped in tin foil.

We drove across the border (at that time it was a hey-how-ya-doing no passport required kind of border crossing). Our convoy headed over to the state park on the St. Clair river. Camping. We were going camping.

Well, camping of a St. Clair family fashion. Sure, we all had campsites. We put all of our picnic tables together commune style and built a HUGE fire pit. BUT, our main purpose was not to camp in the chilly fall and enjoy the changes in the colours of the leaves. Nope. Our purpose for our visit was to shop. Every day. From sun up to sun down. Target. Kmart. Farmer Jack.

We would go from store to store and load up on whatever we could get our hands on. Cheap underwear and socks! Purses and coats and all kinds of clothes. And because even then in the 70s Americans were fatter than Canadians and we could get unusual and somewhat more fashionable clothing there.

My favourite Thanksgiving outfit was the matching swan sweatervests and checked baby blue gabardine pants my Mom and I got. Awesome early 70s chic!

Often we would go to Mary Maxim the world's (as far as we were concerned) largest craft store. There I began learning from my mother how to stock pile craft projects - so many that I can never be truly finished! When my Mother died - she had about 3 dozen balls of un knit yarn. Hoarding hobbies was a habit that neither of us have ever broken.

We ate well in the US. Sure we were "camping" and did the burgers and dogs on the bbq - but we ate at the Sweden House buffet. Back in the day it was the most awesome buffet ever. I am not certain but I think the lunch buffet was $5. Sure it was! Hell, I was a kid - I didn't know anything about money! It might have been free!

Funny thing about the Sweden House, it was not Swedish food. It was all the goodness of an American buffet. Yepper. Meat - carved meat. Many kinds of potatoes. And I guess there was a salad bar but I don't remember ever visiting it. Of course, all the dessert you could carry.

The blue slushies from Kmart stick in my head as a big deal. We loved those slurpee like drinks - so blue and totally full of air. I can remember getting one and sitting out in the front of KMart and waiting for my mother to meander around the store endless times. She'd pick up nylon nighties and packages of knee highs. It was a happy thanksgiving for all of us.

But no traditional turkey dinner. Not for the St. Clair family. Not ever. We would, on thanksgiving Monday, stop at the Arby's (this is before we had Arby's in Canada) and pick up a dozen junior Arby's sandwiches. Once we smuggled all of our purchases across the border, hidden in the bowels of the trailer, we would stop just outside of London and have our sandwiches. Mmmmm cold roast beef.

But no turkey.

Until one year when my mother got tired of hearing us whine and complain about not having the thanksgiving that all of our friends had.

So she cooked up a turkey on the Wednesday before we left. Put it, all wrapped in tin foil, into the cooler and surrounded it with ice packs.

Off we went to Port Huron with the thoughts of stuffing and turkey and gravy swimming in our heads.

"I'll make the potatoes on Monday" she said.

Every time all weekend someone tried to sneak a bit of turkey my mother smacked their hand. She guarded that turkey like a rabid Tiger guarding its prey- perhaps a dead Zebra! (okay gross analogy but I'm making a point) She was adamant that we have this dinner on Monday and she would be the one to ensure it was perfect.

Monday came - socks and underwear and nighties are bought - and we open the cooler. Out wafts the most horrific smell ever. I was about 11 years old and if I think about it today - 31 years later, I can still remember that smell. It was vile. Barfaliscious. Horrible. Just nasty.

Oh but it got better. As my Mother pulled back the tin foil, the entire turkey was GREEN - grass green with mould and slime. Just awful.

My mother cried.

We all laughed.

Then she cried and laughed. We all still laugh about the thanksgiving turkey that never was. We ate the mashed potatoes and of course, Arby's. Yum. Roast beef sandwiches.

Now the point of me telling you this story is that I wanted you to know, I put a lot of importance on the holiday meals I serve. I am likely compensating for a life time of Arby's. I also know that every time thanksgiving comes I think of my Mom laughing and crying all at the same time over that stupid green turkey. Its the company you keep not the food that you eat that makes the day the day and I give thanks for that.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Crying over you




I was 14 before a boy made me cry.


He wasn't my boyfriend. He was just a boy that I knew. That I liked. He was my friend. Well, in retrospect, I suppose he really wasn't. He made me cry by telling me that no one would love me because I was ugly.


He used my insecurities to manipulate me.


He even had me come back for more - I needed more - I needed to have him completely tear me down.


He said that I wasn't the right person. That I didn't have what it took.


That it was something that I did.


And then he laughed. He laughed AT me - not with me - but at me. And that ripped my guts out through my nose.


I did what you are supposed to do. I kept a stiff upper lip. I said he was full of crap. I stared him down and sat eye to eye with him in full possession of every ounce of self confidence I could muster. I was un-affected.


And as soon as I left - I was a mess. I cried so hard I heaved sobs. I thought in the fashion of a 14 year old that it would be LESS painful to actually be dead than to feel what I was feeling just then. It very likely would have.


But, I stuck it out.


And amazingly, it happened again. Another boy. He and I were making out. He lifted my shirt and traced the silvery spidery lines of my stretch marks. And he laughed. I don't remember what he said - but I remember the laughing.


And at the time, I blocked it out, carried on, let him kiss me again and again and then again - as soon as I was alone - I exploded with that same painful sob.


I remember walking into the kitchen and cutting some cheese and getting some saltines - still crying crying crying and choking on the cheese and crackers the two kinds of salty mixing and making me gag on the tears.


I have a delicate relationship with crying.


I can cry during movies like a normal person. I cry in commercials for Hallmark and at funerals for ANYONE (its the least I can do for them). I cry gently and lady-like. I cry in a controlled manner. I cry for show. But some days I could cry like it was the last time ever.


That pain wrapped up in the same cocoon that contains all that hurt - whether its mine to feel or not - that's how it escapes.


I know I'm not unusual. I know that we all cry.


Hell, I'm crying RIGHT now. For no reason at all. I'm not hurt or sad or upset or lonely or disgruntled or even inconvenienced. I just feel intolerably upset.


My husband tells me that the problem is when I'm upset by something or someone - I don't SAY anything. I let it go. I pretend "fake it till you make it" and the "suck it up buttercup" with my "stiff upper lip" and all that jazz. And then, well then I just break loose. Cry like the blubbering puke I know deep down inside that I am.


I remember going to the doctor once and having my eyes dilated with orange dye. And when I left he handed me a giant WAD of Kleenex. He explained that I would need it later when my nose started to run - orange snot. Where do you think your tears go when you don't cry? Good question. They are just snot.


Today I cried. Tomorrow I'll cry again. For as many times I've cried I've laughed 100 times more. For all those days I forgot or just didn't get around to crying, my guess is that I blew my nose more that day.


As for those boys that made me cry? They were the first and likely not the last. I'm a delicate flower of a girl!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

One, Two, Three and Four

You think that the only truth that matters is the truth that can be measured.
If I'm right, then I win.
If, in theory, a 9 gets a 9
then a 3 gets a 3.
If, in theory, you can only move the spaces that you roll on the dice then shit isn't always fair now, is it?
What if a 2 gets an 8?
Is everyone around them bound to check thoroughly and completely that everything is even and in balance?
That rarely happens though, does it?
The Honeymooner's.
I guess really it only happens on tv - The Flintstones, Happy Days, King of Queens, According to Jim...there must be more.
Big fat guy with his trophy wife. How often does that REALLY happen?
Remember that song that went "Three dressed up as a Ni-eye-eeeye-ne"?
You know I had to google it to remember it was Trooper - right?

Well you can say what you like
Be what you wanna be
You can suit yourself baby
But you don't suit me

What makes a 3 a 3?
It's only physical right?
What you can see from far away.
Have you ever seen Trooper? Like they should judge, am I right?
But what is my point today?
The point is, today in the paper they said that the national association for fat acceptance is trying to convince everyone that fat can be healthy.
Steve Harper is running the country I love and he has the ugliest hair of anyone I've ever seen. Its like painted on Ken doll hair.
Madonna is hailed as superfit superstar 50 year old woman and I can see the individual strands in the muscles on her legs and it makes me have a little vomit in my mouth.
The point is, that once a man told me that I was "quite unattractive" and while I think his momma needed to teach him some manners before he gets himself killed, I think he was also a giant idiot.
Who is he to judge?
Well, actually, he is the judge.
And so am I.
And so are you.
Every last ugly warty pimple covered one of us can judge the other.
Because if the only truth that matters is the one that can be measured, today I am a 4.
Please feel free to score yourself below.

Monday, October 6, 2008

"You used to be fun"

Many years ago, I used to be a lot of things.
I have always been tall.
I have always been fat.
I have always been smart, and funny, and nice.
But, much to my regret, I have not always been fun.
Oh I have had fun.
But I haven't always been fun.
Back in high school I knew that I was a weirdo. Frankly, I think most of us do know that. A whole building FULL to over flowing of people who feel that they don't belong. Taught by people who likely feel very much the same way.
I was not fun. I might have had fun. I even might have created some fun - but I, was not fun. I was scared and smart and studious and a slacker. I was a liar and a hard worker and even a thief. I was running away and looking for love but I was not FUN.
My favourite favourite movie of all times, the Sterile Cuckoo with Liza Minelli says it best and every time I watch it I think to myself "she gets me - she really gets me" but really, she likely gets us all when she says, "It's gonna be nice to get away from all these weirdos".
When I left high school, that's what I really thought I'd be doing. But little did I know I would be taking all the weirdos with me - they were weird only because I made them weird. I looked at people like they were different from me, which in all reality they weren't.
At university I spent more days terrified than not. My roommate scared me stupid. We were instant best friends that hated each other on sight.
I didn't have many friends there and the ones I did were weirder than I was.
The gay army cadet poet who lumbered around drinking root beer schnapps from a mug every night.
The girl next door with 6 inch high hair who wore blue mascara on her eyebrows and was having an affair with her 60 year old boss while dating his 20 year old son.
I wonder what ever happened to them?
At that point in my life I sought out like minded people -like the fat girl across the hall who tried to kill herself and had all gay friends- she was like me, right?
These people would not be my weirdos - they were just like me.
Like a pretty girl who wants to be beautiful surrounds herself with ugly girls, I wanted to be normal so I surrounded myself with the super weird. Did it work? No idea. But they were good people and I adored them.
Did I have fun? Sure. Was I fun? I think I was starting to become fun.
I was funny.
I was charming.
I was learning to be fun.
When I was out on my own I was alone and awfully lonely. At 20 I lived in the largest city in Canada with few friends. To be less alone I clung to the friends I had - I cultivated my gaggle of gays and became their diva hag.
I made myself into an amazing companion - I did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.
I had the best time - probably the best times of my life.
I just let stuff happen.
I enjoyed everything I did no matter how small or insignificant and as far as I can remember - that is when I used to be fun.
But life encroached on my fun.
I fell in love, which was fun. But it isolated me a bit from my friends.
Then I had kids - again fun - again isolating me from my old kind of fun.
The "let stuff happen" fell out of my life and was replaced with real grown up responsibility.
I am still tall.
I am still smart.
I am still fat and funny and nice.
But I'm the Vice Chairperson of the School Community Council.
And a Manager.
And a Mom.
I am an orphan.
And a wife.
And a Privacy Officer.
I have a mortgage and debt.
I have life insurance.
The dynamic of what makes up who I am has changed.
I still have fun.
Fun is karate tournaments.
Fun is this blog.
Fun is being with my friends the two times a year (maybe) I get to do that.
Am I still fun?
Not every day.
So when someone said "you used to be fun". They weren't wrong. I had no right to be as GUTTED as I felt.
I "used to be fun" though - I suppose I'll always have that.
In that same movie, Liza Minelli gives the most moving speech about how short life is. And it is. But, when I was fun, I had more than my one minute of good things. I know I did. Lucky me.


You know what the trouble is? The trouble is that probably all the good things
in life take place no more than a minute - I mean, all added up. Especially
at the end of 70 years, if you should live so long, you still haven't
figured it out. You spent 35 years sleeping. You spent five years going to
the bathroom. You spent 19 years doing some kind of work you absolutely
hated. You spent 8,759 minutes blinking your eyes. And, after that, you got
one minute of good thing.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Blog-sharing

Yesterday I was off work and trying to clean up my horribly messy house. In the kitchen I found fruitflies and rotting bananas.
Banana cake, I said. Banana cake.


Not loaf - cake.


Too lazy to walk up the 15 stairs to look through my dozens of cook books and WAY too freaking lazy to sort through the shoe box of my Mom's recipes to find Shirley Pugh's banana cake, I googled Banana Cake on my laptop.


I found this site http://seasonalontariofood.blogspot.com/ and a recipe for the most deliscious banana cake ever.


I tried to "vegan it up" but I left in the eggs. Instead of buttermilk I used soy milk with 3/4 tbsp of cider vinegar added to it. And instead of the chocolate icing I used the "Vanilla Butter Cream Icing" from the book Vegan Cupcakes.


The cake is yummy and I didn't end up having to make banana smooties. Again.


Check out that other site too - last week there was a recipe for minted carrots that looks AWESOME........