More Farmers Market Shi- uh, Stuff

from top left: salty-sweet kettle corn; Happy Grater Is Happy; another bag filled for $20 with eggs, garlic, sweet onions, lettuce, eggplant, zucchini, and bunches of orange (orange!) beets.

RIP Ninja Video. NOW where the fuck am I supposed to watch 'Supernatural'?

The US government has ridden into town and saved us all from Archer cartoons and Supernatural reruns! I mean, their economy is in tatters, they're stuck in their longest-running war EVER and assorted biblical plagues, yet they still have time to save the world from streaming video. Thank GOD the US government is here to make things right.

Unlike past anti-piracy efforts, the sites did not actually offer the movies for download, but instead streamed the movies and TV shows against ads.

Dear Operation In Our Sites, please feel free to eat a bag of dicks. It's all yours. Enjoy.

Happy Canada Day

RCFM, again (hat trick!)

I know you all miss the hash joint-fueled Supernatural-obsessed posts, and I promise we WILL be getting back to that starting June 30th when Season Six filming begins (woooohooo!). I have a lot of prep work to do: getting my hair did, trying out vampy new shades of nail varnish and busting out my lucky leopard-print bra. It's work being fabulous.
Until then, you will read about farmer's markets and you will like it. (It's good for you.) Below: the contents of today's market bag. Not seen: huge head of organic butter lettuce @ $1.50 and a big orange heirloom tomato for, um...I forget.
Between the garlic scapes, tomato, itty-bitty baby carrots and butter lettuce, dinner tonight is going to be an EPIC salad...which is good because it's too fucking hot to cook.



Boom Giada: I Love/Hate the Food Network
(Boom Diada parody)

Royal City Farmers Market, part deux

OMG SCAPES!!!1!! Plans are to thinly slice, then roll around in, the fresh, garlicky goodness of 4-for-a-buck scapes as if they were catnip. My GOD I love garlic.
Oh yeah, more tomatoes. Maybe I'm just impressed by pretty colours, but they are growing on me. A bit.

RCFM: first farmers market of summer

Above: sweet, sweet, farm market booty: baby finger-length carrots picked this morning, a half pound bag of fresh, crisp, pea tips, and a half pound of mixed wee heritage cherry tomatoes, all for under ten bucks (the pea tips were the big ticket item at $3.50).


Above: gingerly getting over a lifetime of tomato hate with (L-R) bright orange Sungold (promising “tropical fruit flavour”), the unsurprisingly pear-shaped Yellow Pear, bruise-purple Black Cherry, and the round green-yellow Lollipop.
The verdict? I DO like tomatoes...if they're tiny, and pretty colours, and if you dip them in vodka before dipping them in salt. So, yeah, still hating the tomato. Sorry.



Above: the ruins of a beautiful lunch. Y’all are lucky I managed to halt smushing this sexy buckwheat cheese-on-ham action into my mouth long enough to get a picture: hot, crisp, paper-thin buckwheat crepe folded around béchamel sauce, ham, mozza, greens & thinly sliced tomato…this is beyond OM NOM NOM - this is mouthgasm. As I type this, there’s still an hour left in today’s market, and I’m wondering if it would be too piggy to head down for another one before the market closes. Hey, don’t look at me like that! Creperie la Boheme people are taking a two-month break and there’ll be no more crepes FOR ANYONE until August. AUGUST, dammit. I'm jonesing already.
Edited to add I passed on that second crepe and am regretting it big time, they're that good. Next Thursday I'll sample the other stalls' pakoras or beer brats, but it's just not the same. Sigh.

Hyack Anvil Battery Salute (yes, really)

It’s time for Hyack festival (the formal name given to May Day celebrations in New Westminster) and that means the Ancient and Honourable Hyack Anvil Battery Salute. It's a New Westminster tradition going back to Queen Victoria’s day, when in lieu of an actual 21 gun salute, gunpowder was placed between two anvils and then ignited from a safe distance (thank you, Wikipedia). So I've slept through every other chance to see this for myself...what? Trust me, day 3 of a 3-day weekend is the worst possible time for waking early to listen to loud noises.



The far end of that metal pole (I believe the technical term is ‘boom stick’) is glowing hot and will ignite the 2 oz. of gunpowder between the two anvils, sending the smaller, 150-lb anvil a few feet in the air. Note the guy standing fourth from the left protecting his junk from the ensuing blast wave.



Woo! Action shot! Note the anvil in midair at head height. Maybe Mr Fourth From the Left has a point; a rogue anvil to the crotch is no joke.



Wanna see it again? You would? Okay!



In between salutes, these guys would run in and quickly lay down new gunpowder and lift the 150-lb top anvil into place. What looks like a weenie roast in the foreground is the metal pole's tip being heated to red-hot to ignite the gunpowder.

After the anvil salute ( I lost track of how many exactly; I quit counting after 8 or 9 times) we all stood up for “God Save the Queen”.

Sometimes being a colonial is both charming and bizarre.