How to end the Year at Work

The office doors are locked; the school is closed until the new year, and soon my Christmas vacation will begin.

In the meantime, the bosses and I are indulging in a little bit of Xmas spirit as we tie up all the loose ends ...............

Homemade salted toffee truffles and a wee dram of Grand Marnier in the coffee.

Isn't this what the last day at work before the holidays is supposed to look?

Easter Fun 'n' Food

The morning of Good Friday was spent in quiet reflection and calm as I thought about what Christ had done for me.  We don't hold a service at our church, but home with the kids still in bed was a nice place to be.  

That evening, my daughter and her boyfriend came for supper because they were spending Sunday with his family.  We had a delicious chicken lasagne.  And after dinner, we played Phase 10  and SkipBo.  Elly filled the table with her Korean snacks -- they were completely demolished by the games end!

Molly -- who NEVER wins at cards and is frequently quite verbally frustrated about it -- decided to adopt a positive attitude that evening ........................... and she won!  

Saturday afternoon while Elly was with friends, Ayaka and I prepared dessert for Sunday's meal. 

 I could only find hollow eggs at the Dollar Store (and you know how I feel about inferior chocolate!).  But we made do, and it was great fun to fill them with cheesecake and strawberry mousse.  The richness of the fillings made up for the chocolate egg.  Yummy!

There were six of us for Easter dinner and an extra friend joined us later for dessert. Dinner was delicious!

Prime rib, mashed potatoes & gravy, salad w/ strawberries & sunflower seeds, warm rolls & butter, and a lovely Butternut Squash Gratin.  I served dessert on my devilled egg dish but they were pretty heavenly tasting!  Everyone thought they were great.

All the chocolate bunnies have been eaten; so there's nothing to tempt me any longer.  But it was delightful to be with friends and family and to indulge.

Now, let's get on with healthy eating and with spring!

What was that white stuff on the ground this morning, Nova Scotia?

Friday Fill-ins - Apr 15.11 .... A Short, Demented Easter Love Affair!

It's time to play Friday Fill-Ins with host, Janet. And today, I want to tell you about someone who's near and dear to my heart. The "season" is right for me to share with you. Here we go!

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1. For me, it was love at first sight!

2. When I saw him at my local supermarket, I had to have him! I could feel desire growing in me!

3. I ran home with him. Behind the sound of the wind in the trees, I heard "Don't do it, Sandy! Don't give in to the impulse!"

4. But biting his head off is something I always wanted to do.

5. When it was over, I felt so happy .... guilty .... and a little bloated!

6. But even if our time together was short, with Mr Lindt Bunny in my hands, I never felt alone. He was delicious!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to eating salad; tomorrow my plans include exercise class and Sunday, I want to eat more salad and exercise!

The Bluebird of Happiness!

.BLUE BIRD OF HAPPINESS, MY BUTT!

. It's friggin' freezing!

There's snow up my to my cute fuzzy buttocks; all the food's covered in with
3 feet of this white stuff; and you want me to sing!

What? Anne Murray's "Snowbird"?

.Bug Off!

.Next year, I'm flyin' to Jamaica.

Gonna get me a little hut on the beach and smoke some of that funny bird seed!

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Yup, there are just some days when the optimism finds it mighty difficult to get out the door past the ice and the snow and the minus 14 deg temperatures! Brrrrr!

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How do I put a smile back on my face?

Wooly socks, an extra sweater and chocolate!

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Just call it necessary mental health intervention!

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Broken Dreams

In mid June, I entered and won a giveway hosted

by Barbara at if i didn't have a sense of humor. She has a hilarious blog - one of my favorites - where she takes old magazine advertisements and put a modern spin on them. Check her out; you won't be disappointed.

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I was pretty happy about winning. You see, I have a yellow kitchen full of yellow dishes, fry pans, kettles towels, etc. And THIS was the giveaway that I won ..

... three beautiful yellow planters.

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Alas, when they arrived on Friday, there were more than 3 items in the package.

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I think the smallest planter is the only one that I can salvage. If you look closely at the left corner, you can see where it's broken; but I can glue the pieces back into place. And I'm happy that I can do that.

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Barbara also added a couple of surprise items that arrived in one piece.

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But I've since broken them!!!

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And now ...

some of the pieces are missing so they cannot be put back together!

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And they were in my favorite color too ........................

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CHOCOLATE!..

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(You know; I think some things were meant to be broken!)

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Thank you Barbara. I shall enjoy my gifts!

Friends, Sunshine & Good Food

What a perfect way to spend Saturday! I began yard saling at 8 am, visited 3 before hitting the Farmer's Market for lovely French pastries, picked up Adriana, and headed out to the Mahone Bay area to meet my friend Winnifred and hit 2 more yard sales. I've got lots of great finds to show you this week.
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(I didn't make any silly promises about no more plants, did I?)

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Then the 3 of us went for lunch at The Biscuit Eater Cafe. The weather was perfect for sitting on the deck.
I had the cranberry chicken salad on croissant with pink grapefruit iced tea.

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Winnifred and Adriana had the Tai spicy veggie wrap with humus.

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I was the only one for dessert! But I wouldn't/couldn't leave with some of their dark and decadant chocolate layer cake.

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We spent probably 3 hr there relaxing and talking. It was so wonderful.

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The Biscuit Eater is featured as one of THE places to eat on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. And with good reason! Absolutely yummy!

CHOCRI CHOCOLATE

In late November of 2009, I found a post which spoke about free chocolate bars! NEVER one to pass up on free quality chocolate, I searched it out. It's for a company called Chocri out of Germany; they were promoting the launch of their US newsletter slated for January 2010. Here's a little background info on Chocri.

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"Chocri is a German startup, founded in September 2008, but launched in the US in January 2010. What we do is we allow you to customize your own chocolate bar here on our website. You get to choose a base chocolate white, dark or milk chocolate), and then your favorites out of more than 90 toppings. Those can be nuts and dried fruit, but they can also be real gold flakes, roasted almonds, pretzel, chive rolls, jalapenos... you name it! We hand-make the bars in Germany, and ship them to you.

We want you to eat chocolate and fully enjoy the good feeling it creates, hence we use only the best ingredients, such as

organic, fair trade chocolate from Belgium. We also donate a percentage of our revenues to DIV Kinder, an organization that supports children at the Ivory Coast, and you are free to add your own donation at checkout"

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The 3 free "design it yourself" chocolate bars were only part of their promotion. I encountered a few problems (because I'm from Canada and not the US --- Can you scream discrimination!!). But the Chocri people were very lovely and very helpful; and I finally managed to get online and design my custom chocolate. And you also get to name what you design.
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Joy of joys! My chocolate arrived last Friday!

At first, I was all in a dither!! because it being post-Christmas, I was trying to keep away from sweeties (see 8 lb of chocolate at Xmas reference in a previous blog!!). But part of my "PLEASE give me free chocolate!" speech to Chocri when I was having my online problems was that I would blog about it ........................ and who wants to blog about 3 month old chocolate! That's just not fair to my public!!

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So, in the interest of science, I opened up those 3 little puppies and did a taste test.

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"Hmmmm! Interesting flavors!"

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This required a further taste test.
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"Hmmmm! Subtle use of dark and light notes!"

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So, I did one further taste test. And here are my results.

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Chocolate Bar #1 - Spicy Orange Almond Delight

This one was my favorite of the three, but only because I'm a huge fan of chocolate and orange together. The quality of the dark chocolate was top notch; it's got great rich flavor without any bitterness and it's smooth and creamy in texture. The orange chocolate drops are a great size and give you a good jolt of intense orange flavor. The roasted almonds are a little dry and crumbly, but not overly so; and they have a nice flavor and add a good crunch. The orange pepper is very subtle -- you hardly know it's there: as a matter of fact, I would have liked perhaps another sprinkle! But this one was a sure winner with me -- I'd order it again.

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Chocolate Bar # 2 - Hot Cashew 'n' Raisin

This was my next favorite. I'm also a big fan of nuts and raisins in a bar, and this one didn't let me down. Ditto on the quality, taste and feel of the dark chocolate. It really is divine! The cashews, especially the volcano cashews, were very nice -- that slightly meaty texture with just enough hot to heat up your tongue a little. And when you married that with the sweetness and chewy texture of the raisins, it was quite lovely.

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Chocolate Bar #3 - Fruity Coffee Milk Chocolate

Just because I choose this chocolate bar as my 3rd favorite does not in any way mean that it wasn't good. It is very, very good. But it's 3rd because I ALWAYS choose dark chocolate over milk chocolate. (I'm only thinking of my health here, people! The sacrifices I make!!!)
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The quality of the milk chocolate is once again top notch. Chocri make a wonderfully smooth and rich chocolate. The dried strawberries, blueberries and cherries are very nice, especially the strawberries. When your mouth encounters one of those, it's so big and chewy that it requires a little work; but then your taste buds are met with the loveliless taste of strawberry. Yummy! (And I believe that this extra work is burning off excess calories meaning you could eat more of this bar than perhaps the others which are hidden in your sock drawer!)

The little red bits are, of course, the cranberries. They're ok, and I appreciate that they're cut up tiny because cranberries can be pretty overpowering. But this is my 2nd bar lately with dried cranberries; and I have to say, I'm just not a fan of cranberries in a chocolate bar. And then there's the coffee flakes. While I love coffee and chocolate flavors, in my humble opinion, these flakes could have been ground a little finer and sprinkled on. I found their bitterness didn't mingle well with the softer more delicate flavor of the milk chocolate. (Although I'd try them again in a dark chocolate bar.)

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So, there you have it -- my review of my own personal designer bars.
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Please check out Chocri. There are lots of other options -- many other interesting toppings and fillings. And they do white chocolate (--- which is an oxymoron as far as I'm concerned! There's no such thing as "white" chocolate! But some of you out there probably disagree with me.)

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Now I'm hoping they'll venture north into Canada!

(And hire me as their official taste tester and spokesperson!! Most truly a job I could "grow" with!!)

Breakfast is Served....

Oh my!! It's been a while since I blogged. What on earth have I been doing?
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Well, after several days of turkey sandwiches (and I'm still not tired of them) and dozens of sweeties and a goodly number of glasses of wine, my digestive system was screaming this morning. It was saying:
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"Please don't eat a banana and 5 shortbread cookies for breakfast again today!!"
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So, I listened to my body. And this morning for breakfast I had this --

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Wasn't I a good girl? Then I took my tea and went back to the table to finish jigsaw puzzle number 3. But what's that next to my mug?

Oh dear! Are there STILL chockies left? Why that's such a glaringly obvious oversight on my part!
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Ahhhhh! A chocoholic's work is never done ................ THANKFULLY!!

NATIONAL CHOCOLATE DAY --- NOVEMBER 29th??

My calendar of "American Food Holidays" says November 29th is National Chocolate Day!

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That came as a huge relief to this little Canuck because I've been enviously salivating at the thought of American Thanksgiving. "That's great!" I thought. "I have this wonderful day to look forward to now!"

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But then when I check "National Chocolate Day" online, there are a number of sites that say October 28th was National Chocolate Day!!
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WAS!! What the ????



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Now, I'm not upset that I've got the date wrong. No, no, no indeedie doo! I'm just upset that if I'd known, I would have had 2 days to celebrate!

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Ah; c'est la vie!! At least now I'll know for future reference!

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In the meantime, I will go ahead and spend Sunday, November 29th indulging in and celebrating the joys of CHOCOLATE!



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This link (http://www.health-women.info/family-health/chocolatology.html) contains some very informative and interesting facts about chocolate that you might want to check out.

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Chocolatology -
The Healthy Benefits of Indulging


Things like:

• It’s good for the environment


• It’s good for your mood


• It's high in antioxidants (even more than a bowl of blueberries)

• It has beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system (reducing blood pressure and helping to promote healthy blood flow)



• It’s not bad for your cholesterol (thanks to those antioxidant flavanols)



• It actually contains nutrients (rich in vitamins B1, B2 and D, as well as the essential minerals magnesium and iron)



• It won’t give you a caffeine buzz (An ounce of milk chocolate contains only about 6 milligrams of caffeine, while an ounce of dark chocolate contains about 20 milligrams)



• The higher the percentage of cocoa, the larger the amount of antioxidants.

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With all this information in mind and knowing with full confidence that you are only doing yourself GOOD when you eat chocolate, Chocoholics Unite! Move your chocolate to your right hand and place your left hand over your heart (you may need to lick it off well first) and repeat after me:

The Pledge of Chocoholic Pride

http://www.squidoo.com/chocolate-affair

I am proud to be a chocoholic, I dip my cookie with pride.


The days grow cold and the nights grow long when I don't have my bar by my side.


Whether by bar or by spoon a mouthful won't do. The cocoa craving must be satisfied.


Domestic or imported, it has been reported that by cookie, cake, bar or drink, it will keep your true love alive.


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Now eat.

And we all know that regardless of the date, every day is Chocolate Day!