brighteyes's Profile

i work at a residential lodge for youth recovering from drug & alcohol addictions. We practice a consistent set of manners at our dining table, and its amazing how quickly the youth grasp that this gives them respect and a safe place for enjoyable and intellectual conversation.
Last week we ran a session on formal manners & etiquette as a means of simply having more skills to interact with the world - more skills equal more opportunity. We went to a thrift shop for ties, used new bedsheets as white linen on the tables, and served a 5-course meal. They RAVED about it all week, and are clamouring for the next 'formal night'! They responded that they felt special, empowered, and confident with taking on 'classier' aspects of society.
Just goes to show that graciousness, hospitality, manners, and etiquette will never get old.

i could never decide whether it was an terrible adulteration of a classic or heaven on earth, but the coffeeshop i worked in through college stocked Nanaimo bars in Irish Cream, Mocha, Mint, Lemon, White Choc, and Raspberry versions.
While i still think my grandmother's are the best, it was hard not to sample the different flavours at the shop on a regular basis.

Single sinks may save space, but they make efficient dishwashing so much harder, particularly if you're ditching the dishwasher too, or don't have one to start with. After years of single-sinks, i'm so grateful to have a double again. One sink for soap, one for rinse: washup is quick, easy, and doesn't waste water.
Besides, particularly in an apartment with little storage, where else other than under the sink are you going to store recycling?

Canadian.
Shoes off in bad weather. ....or, if it's really cold, and the shoes are clean, then wear them!
Couldn't care less in good weather....in fact, dust from shoes is easier to clean off of my hardwood than footprints from sweaty feet sans shoes/sandals. And shoes look better than most peoples feet. ..just sayin..

i've been freezing, canning, and drying fruit my whole life, and i've never frozen any fruit with sugar.
Berries get frozen on a cookie sheet, in flat, single-layer rows, then tossed into freezer ziplocs. While they might not have the same body as a fresh-picked berry, they aren't necessarily limp or mushy. They are delicious, and if the air is expelled from the freezer bag well enough, they should never develop any off-flavours.
i usually can sweet cherries, but i've ALWAYS frozen sour cherries - they are perfectly tart, juicy, and delicious in pies all winter long that way!
Since most of my berries/fruit that i freeze goes into smoothies, pies, other baking, or sauces in the winter, i'm not sure why there would be any other advantage to adding extra sugar.

i work long (5 day) shifts out-of-town all summer long. My garden is on a friend's property, and she waters it while i am away.
The deal? Whatever is ripe, minus the root crops, when i'm not there is hers. It keeps us both happy :)

At home - traffic, the occasional sirens, and people talking on the sidewalks below.

At work - wind rushing through huge pine trees, birds, crickets, loons, coyotes, mosquitoes, and the faint din of a diesel generator.

Slowdown has it nailed. Zarazame, many of us absolutely do not need bread, milk, and eggs every week.
In university, i kept my food budget to between $50 and $75 a month consistently, for all 4 years. My food philosophy? Eat like most other people in the world:
- Basic grains, pulses, and legumes, cooked from dry. Once a week, i cooked up a big pot each of rice, beans, and lentils, and froze half of each in small portions. They were extremely versatile, and the base for at least one meal a day: added salsa for mexi night, cooked into curry, added home-canned tomatoes to make a delicious soup, mixed with frozen peas & corn for grain salads at lunch, etc.
- Learn to eat the same food, or similar food, multiple days in a row (freeze into small portions if concerned about bacteria/going off). i would often work through a pot of soup for 3 or 4 days in a row.
- Packaging=added price. Buy bulk, buy dry. Eat oatmeal for breakfast, not packaged cereal.
- Explore ethnic foods! Often a source of inexpensive spices and intense flavors.
- Learn to can and dry your own foods, in season. The jars are a bit of an initial $$ output, but are 100% reusable! AND, these cheap, home-canned vegetables are a very inexpensive and welcome source of veggie nutrition in winter months when fruit/veggies are out of season.
- If you eat meat, buy meat with bones (like whole chickens) to cook down into soup. Like others have said, easily 2-3 meals, sometimes 4.
- Eat with other people, and share resources.

These foods are not fatty or filled with preservatives - on the contrary, they are vitamin, mineral, and nutrient rich... can't say i was worse for it after 4 years of eating this way.

i totally get the proudest warm-fuzzies when friends come over for the first time and (almost always) exclaim either "Cutest.Place.Ever!" or "It's SO like you!"

...mmmmm....success!

Calgary, AB:

50/50 tie between Kawa and Deville, both coffeshops

Fairs Fair, second-hand bookstore

Community Natural Foods, grocery/household goods