Drugs, curry and Sharpie joy

Though I feel considerably better than last week, my cough is really tiring me out as well as keeping me up at night, so I went to see my doctor. She's prescribed two inhalers (Albuterol and Flovent) as well as a super-powerful cough syrup for nighttime use.

I've only used inhalers once before, years ago, and am still fascinated by the technology.



Above: new Sharpie pens! Jeff recently introduced me to Costco. I've only been there twice, and always feel overwhelmed when I walk in. Holy toledo. I had no idea how many products you could get in bulk. I gravitated immediately toward the office supplies section, of course, and bought a big package of colour Sharpies for much less than what I'd pay at a regular office supplies store.

Any other office supply fanatics out there? Just LOOKING at my new colour Sharpie pens fills me with a sense of contentment and well-being.

Hm...or could that be the cold drugs?



I spent much of my sick time not having the energy to go shopping or to cook while Jeff was at the cottage, so overdosed on tv dinners and processed food. Ugh. Now I'm overwhelmed by a need to COOK using fresh ingredients.

Above photo: Chopped ginger and lime zest, about to go into my slow cooker. Dinner tonight will be Slow Cooker Thai-style Coconut Fish Curry, with red snapper and shrimp. The seafood is added at the end of the slow cooking period.

I got the recipe from Judith Finlayson's The Healthy Slow Cooker, still one of my favourite slow cooker cookbooks. The book's recipes require somewhat more elaborate preparation than other slow cooker recipes, but so far I've found the results well worth it.

I took today's photos with my new Canon Rebel XTi with my Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens. I am SO lovin' my new camera set-up!



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Surfacing (and a mini-rant)

Feeling semi-human again, for the first time in about a week. Thanks so much for the get well wishes, everyone. My cough still lurks like an unwelcome house guest, hiding around corners and leaping out at me at inopportune moments, particularly when I have to talk out loud. Fortunately I work at home all day and do most of my work communication by e-mail.

I've spent most of this week in a slug-like state: sleeping, reading, watching videos, and sleeping some more. In this manner, I've read or watched the following:

- Watched the first season of The Tudors (thanks, Reid!). I've been fascinated by King Henry VIII since reading Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and that led to my obsession with Elizabeth I (and several biographies and movies about her). I would love to do a Tudor-theme book for young people someday, except there have already been so many.



- Read through my Canon Rebel XTi manual several times. Since getting my camera, I haven't been well enough to go out for a good long photo shoot yet, so have been comforting myself by reading technical specs instead. I did take a brief walk through a cemetery earlier in the week (see above) but was somewhat feverish at the time so couldn't properly enjoy it. Once I catch up with work and my cough eases up, I'm hoping to take a longer walk later this week.

- Re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

- Read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which arrived at 2:03 pm on Saturday. I think I scared the postman.

I had already seen a semi-spoiler in a newspaper headline last week (what were they thinking?!?); it's hard to avoid them when I have to research publishing news for Writersmarket.com every day. Anyway, I LOVED the book. I won't say more about it for fear of spoilers but also because there are already so many interesting discussions going on online already. If you've finished the book, do check out my friend Allison's interesting observations, for instance. Sherman Dorn has also started a Facebook group called Harry Potter Loose Ends, for those interested.




Above: freshly picked chocolate mint leaves, in prep for making tea.

Link O' The Day (and a mini-rant)

Why Harry Potter Won't be a Bestseller by Michael Glitz: excellent piece. Do read it!

It SO galls me that the New York Times has decided that kids' books don't count when it comes to their (main) national bestseller list. Yes, there's a separate list for kids' books, but why not have a separate "adult books" list as well? And keep the bestseller list for, well...the BESTSELLERS, regardless of genre or age range?

Once I've caught up with work and e-mail, I plan to write up a proper rant about this for Inkygirl.

Thanks to Ray for pointing me to Michael Glitz's article.

By the way, this isn't an excuse for you Harry Potter haters out there to do your usual rant about the quality of the book, etc. The New York Times bestseller lists aren't a reflection of any particular book's quality; they're about hard numbers/stats.

As Glitz points out in his article:

"This isn't just about bragging rights for J.K. Rowling. This is about accuracy and fairness...and about the next Harry Potter. One major reason the books became a phenomenon in the first place was because they broke onto the New York Times bestseller list."

I'm working on a letter to send to Clark Hoyt at the New York Times.





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How I'm feeling right now

In case you were wondering why I haven't been Blathering this week...



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First National Post colour photo credit!

Check out the photo credit above; I had two colour photos in the National Post on the weekend, accompanying Gina Mallet's three-star review of Amaya the Indian Room (Toronto supplement, p16 & 17). This is my first colour photo credit in the National Post, and the first time I've had photos accompany a feature piece in a national publication. Woohoo!



Both photos were taken with my little Canon PowerShot, before I bought my Canon Rebel XTi.

Unfortunately I didn't find out about the photos being in NP until this morning, else I would have bought more copies. :-) If anyone out there has an extra copy, please do let me know!

In case you were wondering, I did submit these photos to the National Post for possible use with my own review (which appeared in the paper a few weeks ago). I don't mind that they used them elsewhere since they included a photo credit; at this point in my photojournalism experience, I welcome all the professional credits I can get.

For those who missed it, here's the review of Amaya the Indian Room that I wrote for blogTO.



Sick today, ugh. Going back to bed now, but before I leave I had to post a Ratatouille video about food, found through Megnut. If you'd like to watch more Ratatouille videos, here's the YouTube page.





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Cha Liu Dim Sum Shop

A while back, I mentioned that Jeff and I had started going to a dim sum shop at Yonge-Eglinton called Cha Liu when we moved into the neighbourhood. Two years later, it's still one of our favourites. As I mentioned in my earlier post about the shop, the term "cha liu" refers to small shops in ancient China, where travelers would stop for tea and snacks.



When I started writing for blogTO, I wanted to do a review of Cha Liu but discovered that it had already been reviewed several times before (see this blogTO review of Cha Liu, for example). Ah well. Hey, but that doesn't mean I can't keep writing about it in my own blog! :-)



The Supreme Shrimp Dumplings are my favourite:



Jeff's favourite -- the bbq pork buns:



Everything Jeff and I have had at Cha Liu has been delicious, and we've brought family and friends here many times. The interior is gorgeous; I especially like the ceiling painting in the front dining area:




I've always been a big fan of tiny food, e.g. food that comes in small packages or small servings. Dim sum is, as far as I'm concerned, ideal in this regard.



For those of you not familiar with dim sum: the term is a Cantonese term meaning "order to one's heart's content", is often is served in small dishes of three or four pieces each. I prefer having dim sum with several people than by myself because I can sample more dishes that way.



Our visit to Cha Liu was also an opportunity try out my new camera. All the pics on this page were taken with my Canon Rebel XTi with a Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens.

Here's a photo of Jeff with his Dad (and part of me :-)) in the mirror reflection:



Jeff's Dad, while he and Jeff were talking:



The staff at Cha Liu were very patient with my camera experimenting. :-) In the following photo, I forgot to change the autofocus from single point to auto (all) points, so the woman on the left is a bit out of focus.



I've been going through my Rebel XTi books a little at a time, taking a bunch of photos, going over them to see how I can improve, then reading more. Each session, I learn a little more. I found some of my Cha Liu photos to be a wee bit dark; next time in a similar environment, I'm going to pump up the ISO a little.



You can see other pics I took in my Cha Liu photo set.

Jeff has also been trying out my camera (when he can pry it out of my greedy hands, that is :-). Here's a photo he took using the Sigma lens by the dining room table, when I was chatting with his father:





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