This is a good one. It will get you laid or out of the dog house or whatever you currently require. It’s best if you can make the salsa & the potato salad early in the am so they can marinate in the fridge all day. Use tightly sealed containers & shake that shit up every couple of hours.

You will need;

A bevy to drink while cooking- I am going with a nice Shiraz. (I’m suspect of people who don’t drink while they cook- it’s like a bartender that doesn’t drink. Makes me think that I’m being poisoned.)

Lemon thyme potato salad;

2 lemons, about 15 baby new potatoes, 2 sprigs fresh thyme, 1 red onion, a big splash of apple cider vinegar, 2 cloves of garlic, hand full of trimmed green beans, salt & pepper.

Half or quarter the potatoes depending on size. Boil the potatoes & green beans (cooked, but still firm- not mushy.) strain them and leave to cool. Zest one lemon into a large bowl then add juice from both. Add a good splash of apple cider vinegar & garlic cloves, finely chopped.  Sprinkle with salt & pepper and add half a red onion, thinly sliced. Chop the shit out of the thyme leaves and add cooled potatoes & beans. Stick it in the fridge.

Pineapple Mango salsa;

Fresh cilantro, 1 very ripe mango, a few slices of fresh pineapple (please don’t used canned- it isn’t the same)  couple slices of red onion finely diced, 1 lime.

Chop up the pineapple & mango into little chunks- not too big- but not too tiny or they just get mushy. finely dice cilantro leaves (about 2 tbsp???) Zest the lime and then squeeze the juice into the bowl. Dice up the red onion small- again, about 2 tbsp? Sorry- cooking isn’t an exact science for me- it’s all about throwing good shit in a bowl & seeing how it comes out. Throw this in a sealed container in the fridge to mix & marinade into kick ass salsa goodness.

Blackened Snapper;

2 nice sized snapper fillets. A shit load of blackening spices. ( I personally use a pre-made Cajun mix to which I add a fuck-ton of Cayenne & smoked paprika & dried red chilies.) The fish can be VERY spicy as both sides are cool & fresh.

Slather the fillets in blackening spices- coat them very well. Add equal parts butter & olive oil (about 3 tbsp of oil and a half inch chunk of butter?) Heat the pan till HOT then add the snapper & cook a few min on each side till crispy and cooked through. If you like your fish cooked above the regular med rare then get thin fillets- this has to be cooked hot and fast and thick fillets will be burnt to a fucking crisp by the time they’re cooked through.)

Ok- not to state the obvious or anything but plate the fish, add a huge dollop of salsa & the potato salad & EAT. Check my contact page for the correct address for the gifts that you will now feel obligated to send me.

Check me out! I look pretty fucking good for 40, don’t I? I know these green plaid shorts really aren’t in style anymore but I like to consider myself a bit of a trendsetter. And yes, that gorgeous blond is all natural. I think it’s the smoking and drinking that gives me such a youthful glow.

Last night as I was making the greatest homemade clam chowder in the history of man, I was semi blinded by the sight of the Olympic torch passing by one block over and clearly visible from my kitchen widow. There were a lot of lights, some guy screeching into a loud speaker, and several parade like floats in front of and behind the runner. Let me just tell you how much the whole fucking spectacle pissed me off.

A lot.

Let’s just put it into context, shall we? The Olympics will cost us approximately 6 BILLION DOLLARS. Not millions, I said BILLIONS. Using the common short scale as we do in North America 1 billion dollars equates to a thousand millions. Do the math people- this little event is going to cost the Province of BC over 6 THOUSAND STACKS OF A MILLION DOLLARS.

Don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for (most) athletes and have no problem with global events to highlight them and their abilities. The Olympics as they are however are no longer financially viable. A new system needs to be created and it needs to be one that is financially responsible. Can you imagine if the money pissed away spent on the last decade of Olympic games were used instead to fight global hunger and homelessness? Hell, we could even chuck a couple of billion at disease research for things like AIDS, cancer, addiction, etc because we’d sure as shit have the funds.

Throwing a 2 week carnival style party every couple of years is a higher priority than making sure every person on this planet has food, water, and shelter. I’m not talking about using that money to buy us all fucking Hummers and flashy gold watches, I’m talking about FOOD, WATER, AND A FUCKING ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD. We are saying as a species that the Olympics are more important than that. More important than homeless children, more important that bellies swollen from hunger, and more important than the man wasting away from cancer as his family watches. The argument of “it’s too expensive to fix the problems of our poor” is simply not fucking valid when you look at that 6 billion dollars we’re willing and eager to spend on a sporting event.

We humans are one sick and twisted fucking people.

How creepy would it be if puppets were still dressed and painted but ever so slightly see through? I think the only thing creepier would be a clown.

Or a see through clown.

ps- Friday is my birthday. In lieu of gifts, feel free to send gifts. Unless it’s a clown- in that case you’d be dead meat motherfucker!

There really is no good reason for me posting this. I mean other than because I’m a bitch.

It is January 19 and for some freakishly weird reason it is flip flop weather here in the beautiful BC interior. No snow, blue sky and fucking flip flop weather. I’m not even exaggerating! I walked my dogs in a flimsy little summer cardigan this morning.

SWEET!

oh- and in case you were wondering (of course you were) I pulled an entire dump truck of stuff out of my mother’s house and it now looks lovely. Until next year.

And as us cool cats (Gray & I) are January babies, we had our own little birthday party during my week of minding that adorable crazy little man. Needless to say, he was wearing most of that blue icing when all was said & done.

The only word that I can think to describe Haiti right now is………

Actually, I can’t think of one. It’s a nightmare being played on every channel in vivid colour and images that break your heart. There are people and planes and boats from around the world trying to flood the area and creating a logjam of aid banging at the door to get in and help.

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be the sour chick here that dwells only on the past but the US response to Haiti immediately slams my conscious mind straight back to Katrina and the scene in New Orleans after the levees broke.

Jan 12th the quake hit and today- Jan 14- three (of the eleven scheduled) US airplanes have already arrived.

“You will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten.”

-President Obama to the people of Haiti.

Katrina made first US landfall on August 25th and we all remember these horrific images of the people stranded without food or water and begging desperately for help at the Superdome or the Convention center until the were finally rescued on September 4.

What is my point? I don’t really know. Maybe when stuff like this happens it reminds me how much I fucking hate Bush? Wait a sec- don’t some of the scenes that we see everyday on the news from his un-winable war bare some striking similarities to what we’re seeing from Haiti? Oh, I mean except that one was a natural disaster and one is a man-made sideshow of death.

We’ll run to help the poor and innocent here, we’ll drop bombs and “accidentally” kill countless poor and innocent there, enny meeny, miny moe. It can make a person dizzy.

Haiti is a country already crippled by political turmoil, poverty and a lack of fundamental necessities like access to food, water, shelter and even basic medical care and mother nature just kicked them in the teeth. I hope that whatever god or thing or thought gives those people strength and hope is there for them now.

I’m sitting here on a chaise lounge with a laptop while drinking a steaming coffee and relaxing after having put my lovely godson Gray to bed, and watching these images of Haiti make me feel like a spoiled selfish bitch.

As of tomorrow guess what I will be doing??!!

GUESS, DAMN YOU!

Fine. Be that way. I’ll tell you anyway though because I am FAR TO EXCITED TO CONTAIN MYSELF.

So…. as of tomorrow I have my squirming wiggling baby Gray all to myself until SATURDAY while his lovely parents are strolling around New York. Yes- me & the little man- learning new words and dramatic gestures to stun and anger thrill his parents upon their return.

But wait- there is more. While the wee one is in daycare I shall be cleaning up my lovely crazy mother’s house. (Think A & E’s “Hoarders” but with no emotional attachment to the billions of items, no dead animals and far more laughing.) I try to do it once a year but missed 2009 so who knows what kind of goodies I’ll find!!! I know- it doesn’t sound like fun to many but I dig it. My aunt has rented me a dumpster so clearly I mean fucking business.

Sigh. Baby Gray and organizing someone shit. It’s like the heavens opened up and are peeing tropical flavored skittles on to my upturned & smiling face.