Cheddar Sandwiches, Cake Pops and Shady Ladies

     I could not find my pants this morning. They were not in the landry hamper, not in the dryer, not on the floor of my bedroom, and certainly not folded on my shelf. My friend, Janet, was coming over in 10 minutes to take me out to lunch and I could not find my pants anywhere. I have 3 pairs of jeans that I wear regularly and I could only find the size 12s. If I was going to lunch with Janet, I would need the 14s, fo' sho'. Turns out they were on my daughter's bed. I must have got sidetracked by Facebook (which I would have opened on her computer) and left them there.
     With my comfy jeans and my grey suede boots, I was ready for Janet, who arrived in her oldladymobile. I prefer to call it a luxury vehicle, but it's true - The cops would probably not pull you over even if you squealed the tires, Janet.
     We drove all the way to Cherry Valley to have lunch at the Cherry Valley Restaurant, but they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Urgh. We ended up going to Schroedter's on the corner of Highway 62 and County Road One. I'm sorry. It might not be called Schroedter's anymore, but that's what I always call it and I forgot to look at the sign. It's that market on the corner going to Belleville that has organic and gluten-free stuff. I go there for the cinnamon sugar donuts. Had no idea they served lunch.
     Walking into the dining room is like walking into my grandmother's kitchen :'( Almost brings a tear to my eye thinking about it. There are straight-backed wooden chairs around all the vinyl table cloth-topped tables (including a long one that seats six), antique-looking chandeliers on the ceiling, wooden floors and wooden shelves lined with 100s of jars of pickles and relish. I guess there was a bumper crop of cucumbers this year.
     You can have soup and homemade bread for $4.00 or soup and sandwich for $10.99. Normally , I would call that pricey for a soup and sandwich deal, but I was excited to try the homemade bread. There were six soups all lined up in crock pots beside the kitchen. I remember there was chili, turkey vegetable, beef vegetable and tomato vegetable. Lots of meat with vegetables. And lots of meat and cheese sandwiches. I ordered the only meatless options - tomato vegetable soup and one-year-old cheddar sandwich.
     Janet and I chatted about her family a bit because there is always excitement in her family. In fact, her sister, Jenna, was having a grand opening for her photography studio across the road. Already, we were making a day of our lunch. All the while, a group of friendly-looking gramma and grampa people were busy in the kitchen. Reminded me a little it of a Santa's Workshop or something.

     The soup was so yummy on a cold, wet, November day. Lots of pepper and chunks of tomatoes. I just finished licking the bowl when my sandwich arrived. HOLY SHIT. My cheddar sandwich was as thick as my coffee mug. The bread must have been made in an 8x8 bar pan! This was not a regular cheese sandwich. There were 3 or 4 slabs of white cheddar topped with half a head of lettuce and brick-sized slices of tomatoes. lol. I exaggerate a bit, but you can see from the photo that this was a sammy of epic proportions.

     I ate half and our server wrapped the rest in plastic. Afterward, we drove across the road to About Image Photography - in part to visit Jenna and support the grand opening at her new location, but mostly to try her cake pops. Apparently, there's a website called Bakerella started by a woman who took a cake decorating class and just went bake-crazy. I will put a link at the bottom of the page because this site is a gold mine of ideas and recipes, including one for cake pops. Now that I have tried them, I am hooked. Definitely one of my favourite things of the week.
     Janet is always a source for some of my favourite things. Which is why I couldn't turn down getting a picture taken of the two of us by Miss Jenna. In between photos of small children hopped up on cake pops, cupcakes and Kool-Aid, Jenna snapped a cute duo of us big kids. The place was a bit of a madhouse; Jenna is a portrait photographer in high demand and she was giving out free 5x7s for the grand opening. There were about 10 toddlers running around thousands of dollars worth of equipment between three or four carseats stuffed with wailing babies and Jenna was just running around with them, snapping the occasional pic between tap-dancing and catching helium-filled balloons.
     When I got home, my daughter was doing a mountain of laundry. She had found my third pair of jeans in the trunk of her car :S

Climbing the Walls on a Friday Night

     I was so frustrated today. I never get a Friday night off from work (but this is not the reason I was frustrated). Weekends are the busiest days for a server and, in this season, they are basically the ONLY days to work and make money. However, I was very happy to have a Friday off because my friends and family are aways doing something on Friday nights. Christy's house to play cards, Sheri wants to go out to dinner with the girls, band is playing at the local pub... every other Friday night EXCEPT tonight.

     Tonight, I was sitting in front of my Facebook page, trolling for excitement and feeling abandoned. My daughter had been bugging me since 2 p.m. to go to the climbing gym, but I was having a little pity party for myself and I kept shooting her down. It was quarter of seven when I finally relented. "What the hell... they're open to 10:30 p.m. and I'm not doing anything worthwhile here at home," I said.
     We left for Kingston at 7 p.m. and got to The Boiler Room climbing gym at just after 8 p.m. The 401 was pretty quiet and the radio was playing some really good tunes for my drive. It took a few minutes (17 to be exact >@) to sign in because four people arrived before us and expediency is not their forte at the BR. (No offense intended: This attitude was leftover from my pity party.)
     Every time I go to climb the walls, I forget how much I enjoy it. My daughter has to practically drag me kicking and screaming, but when I'm finally there it's such a rush. You have to take at least one other person with you to do the belaying (operating the safety ropes) while you climb. Whether you are using the handholds/footholds to climb to the ceiling (about 30 feet) or working the ropes for your partner, you are bound to feel the burn the next day. There's also a climbing cave, where you can hang upside down from the ceiling if you have the strength, and the 100 foot chimney climb for the over-achievers, like my daughter <beams>.

     She didn't do the chimney tonight, but she did spend a muscle-destroying 15-20 minutes trying to conquer a route with a sustained overhang. At one point she declared she was going to kill everyone in the (bleeping) room as she dangled 15 feet over my head, having lost her grip on the wall. This made me laugh hysterically. I could see the headlines - Girl Loses Mind Climbing the Walls, 7 Dead.

     I prefer the easiest climbs that I can quickly scale, touch the roof and rappel back down so I can remove my harness wedgie. We each climbed about 4 times and it took about an hour and a half. Now, I'm 5'4" and 189 pounds (on a good day), so that's enough of a workout for me. Cost me $25 for shoes, harness and access, which is about how much money I spend at the bar on a Friday night.

It's Blumen amazing!

Just doing a quick update before I go to work. urgh. :P

     So, Amanda (of Kickass Superhero fame), Jolene, and I went to Blumen Garden Bistro on Highway 49 just outside Picton to sample their Countylicious menu. What is Countylicious? Just about the greatest idea a restaurant has ever had! Every spring and fall, many of the... er, fancy shmancy restaurants in the County come up with some interesting meals using local, seasonal produce. Then, they give you an appetizer, entree and dessert for about $35 plus tax!
     Now, just to put this into perspective for you - let's say you're having dinner at Kelsey's. Nice place, and the food's good, but it ain't REAL food. It's just a couple steps up from McDonald's really. Don't get me wrong, I like a nice meal at Boston Pizza or Montana's or one of those other chain restaurants with all the neato shit on the walls. But, I know I'm not doing my body or my farmers any favours by eating there.
     Anyway, let's say you get the potato skins, some smothered chicken and a molten lava cake. Not only are you going to get diabetes immediately, it's going to set you back $8.99... plus $16.99... plus $6.49... that's about $32 altogether. With Countylicious, you can live like rich folks, eating fancy, homegrown food for the same price! It's one of my favourite times of the year, for sure.
     It's very nice in the Blumen Garden Bistro. Nice and warm on a brisk November night. Decor is simple and neutral; nothing funky. Sucks that they don't offer Bring Your Own Wine, because that would have saved me a bundle. Instead of my lovely $14 bottle of Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau, we had to order a bottle of Rosehall Run Cabernet Franc for $27. Strong bouquet, smooth finish. There's just something about County wines that I don't like. Probably because you can't usually get one for less than 17 bucks and I'm a cheap bugger.
     The Countylicious menu includes three choices for each course and all three of us ordered the same appetizer and main - braised radicchio and pear salad with gorgonzola fritters, candied walnuts and honey drizzle to start, followed by herb-crusted mushroom, celeriac and leek confit tart with arugula, pear and pecorino Romano salad. Lots of salad, right? Unfortunately, that's what you get when you're a pescatarian ordering from a prix fixe menu. Some of my other options included oxtail soup, pork belly hash, veal cheeks and turkey legs. Blech. Hell, at least it's not Prairie Oysters.
     The appetizer was sooooo good. I find radicchio a little too bitter to truly enjoy it, but it did mix well with the sweet pears and salad dressing. The best part of this course, though, were the gorgonzola fritters. MMMM MMMM MMMM! I could have eaten a plate of those fritters. Poor Amanda was more interested in the candied walnuts and, because of her poor karma, she was the only one who didn't get any on her plate. Haha. I joke. There's nothing wrong with her karma. It's just weird she wanted them so bad and she didn't get any. I shared mine with her and she gave me one of her fritters, so her karma should improve :)
     The entree was basically a quiche that was very good. The crust wasn't flaky, but definitely light and crumbly. I really liked the lightly battered leek rings and potato crisps that were piled on top, however, there was a marked difference between our low pile of rings/chips compared with another table's rings/chips. Apparently, their dinner had been assembled by the chef while ours had been topped by a lackey :( I couldn't have eaten more than I had anyway. The only thing I didn't like was the size of the chunks of leek in my tart (as opposed to on my tart). Too much mushy leek in one spot. But, that was Amanda's favourite part, so "to each his own".
     Throughout dinner, we spoke of bowel movements, baby daddys, precocious children and drunk sex. If there was more inappropriate subject matter for our fancy bistro conversation, it might have involved Catholic priests and Jewish circumcisions. You can dress us up, but you can't really take us out.
     Finally, we each had a different dessert. Jolene got a steaming hot cup of fall fruit crumble and Amanda got the  apple cheesecake. I got the churros, which were very phallic, and if I'd had a couple of more glasses of wine I would have shared that information with the rest of the patrons.
     One thing I found really odd was that there was another Lightfoot in the room. The dishwasher, who was Amanda's mother, found the name on the reservations list and told me about it. Now, "Lightfoot" is not a common name in Prince Edward County and I was pretty sure if there was another one nearby, I would have to be related. Turns out, my dad's cousin's wife, Maureen, from Belleville was out enjoying Countylicious with two of her friends, as well, that night. It's a small (delicious) world.

Once Upon a Time...

       A few days ago, in a wet and windy land, there lived a wise woman named Anrol. She was a descendant of the Amish clan; short and strong like a bear with bright blue eyes and hair like short strips of bronze without the silver of her years. She had the power to bring the birds and the gift of a generous heart. She could also make awesome chocolate cookies, which is just what she was doing when she received a vision from far away to the West.
     The vision described a beautiful and kind princess who was being held prisoner by an evil sorcerer and his two ugly henchman far away to the North. Anrol knew well of this princess, who was a true woman for Christ and had spread charity and goodwill throughout the land. She was kind to all animals and children and was renowned for her potato soup. Though she was of royal blood, she was not ignorant of hard work and domestic skills.
     With this in mind, Anrol collected a few things and made plans to rescue the princess. She gathered her magic purse (that was always filled with gold), her magic mirror (that connected her with the spirit world) and wrapped herself in her best woolen cape. Then, she hopped on her golden Palomino and set off for the story teller's house.
     The story teller had risen early that morning. Although she was not gifted with the sight of the wise woman, she could tell that this would be an auspicious day. Aliehs, as she was called, was a child of the woolly-headed tribes and was forever forgetting where she was and what she was doing. So, getting ready for the day was proving somewhat difficult. She was just collecting one of her whatsits for her thingamajig when there came a knock at her crooked, little door.
     The wise woman, Anrol, quickly explained the situation to Aliehs, who was just pulling on her second  adoraboot made of thick, brown angora. Time was of the essence. Anrol reminded Aliehs to bring her magical memory saver and her enchanted script before mounting the Palomino and heading West. They still had to collect the healer and her little, pink-haired pixie.
     When they arrived, the healer was distraught to hear news of the princess. She, too, had heard of her generosity and her potato soup. In fact, she had spent many joyous hours at the castle before the princess had been captured. But, there was not enough room on the Palomino for Lyrehc and her pink-haired pixie, Eely. So, the story teller, who had learned some witchcraft in her travels, turned an eggplant into a special coach that would seat seven people comfortably.
     The coach traveled fast along the highway. Fast enough that they managed to help a stranded maiden in the city of Starbucks whose Roan horse had fallen ill along the road. With the help of the healer and the gentlemen of Caa, the fair maiden was able to make it safely home.
     Soon, the four women were heading North. The further they traveled, the more beautiful landscape they saw. Although the coming of winter had stripped the trees of their brilliant colours, the deep greens of the conifers shone like emeralds against the brilliant blue sky. The many lakes in the North were like dark, blue looking glasses. They longed to stop and appreciate the beauty of the land, but thoughts of the poor princess urged them ever onward.
     Although the land was beautiful, it was also filled with danger. The roads were treacherous and, eventually, the magic items of the South lost their power. The magic mirrors and enchanted script could not function between the rocky hills of the north.
     They continued for days (or about an hour) to the city of Bancroft where they prepared for the pending danger with the sorcerer and his evil henchmen. They traveled east towards McArthurs Mills and soon came to the inconspicuous wooden shack on a hillside where the princess was being imprisoned. The sorcerer himself was sitting on a wheeled throne just outside the shack. His two evil henchmen, dressed in green uniforms, were perched on their horses on either side. When they saw the eggplant coach, they knew there was trouble and the sorcerer scurried off his throne and escaped into a hole in the side of the hill. His henchmen followed quickly after him, but not before the four women saw them; their faces pulled tight against their skulls and their teeth bared like rabid raccoons. They wore masks over their big, beady eyes and they lit from their horses like crippled monkeys before disappearing into the hole in the hill.
     Anrol, Aliehs, Lyrehc and Eely raced into the shack, expecting to find the princess in shackles and poor health. However, they were surprised to find her doing dishes in a thin, cotton apron and singing gospel songs. Anrol was confused and panicked. Surely the princess was sick and required attention from the healer. The princess insisted she was fine and suggested that they go for lunch at a nearby inn.
     The princess was not only healthy and happy, she was also free to go as she pleased. The vision had been misleading. However, Lyrehc determined her blood sugar level was low and confirmed that food would be a good idea.
     They ate and drank at a dirty little inn at McArthurs Mills. The serving wench was grouchy, the potatoes had been cooked in dirty oil, there was no milk for the tea and not enough roast beast for everyone. But, it mattered little. The princess was elated to be breaking bread among friends.
She explained that she had decided to help the sorcerer and his henchmen many years ago and, although she missed her family and friends in the South, she felt that her god had called her to do his work in the North. It was true, she had lost some of her beauty after living among so much evil and hate. But, she had lost none of her enthusiasm and love for all the things her god had made. She was thankful.
     The four women returned the princess to her shack on the hill and traveled back home to the South. They understood the princess felt she had a duty to perform, but they hoped to return regularly to the North country for visits. They talked of people they had been in past lives, spoke of the terrible prices of gas and guessed about future events - including what their next misadventure might be.

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down...

So, I'm driving out to Milford to take some photos of a live theatre production in which my friend, Sarah, is performing. She asks me to take pictures of the dress rehearsal so she can put together a scrapbook of the event. And, I like to see live theatre for free. It's a symbiotic relationship. Anyway, I got to thinking how great my life is (even in rural Canada). Not only is it great, it's a little... kooky. Maybe some people would like to read about it. Maybe not. But, I have all kinds of ideas about living here. My days are part Auntie Mame ("Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!") and part Yes Man (I have difficulty saying "No" to my friends and strangers). Obviously, a lot of my inspiration comes from books and movies. HAHA! Like that time I made my friend, Amanda, dress up like a super hero just to watch Kickass on opening night at the movie theatre.

But, I digress. The County Theater Group is putting on a little production of THE DRESSER, by Ronald Harwood this weekend at Mount Tabor Theatre in Milford, ON. Tickets are 15 bucks. Sarah, plays the part of Irene, an ambitious young actress who is a bit of a whore. Nothing like Sarah in real life. So, I was shocked (and kind of grossed out) to see her getting fondled nose-to-nose with the man playing Sir in the second act! Not that she wasn`t asking for it.

It was a really good story anyway. This old fart, Sir, is a fancy English theatre actor who's losing his marbles. Luckily, he has a very patient and entertaining "dresser" (the person who dresses actors before they go on stage... who knew?) named Norman. He singlehandedly, and in spite of an air raid courtesy of the Luftwaffe,  manages to straighten up the poor senile bugger and get him on stage as King Lear. What's a Luftwaffe, you ask? Beats the hell out of me. Google it.

I just thought it was hilarious that the guy's wife is called Pussy.

I would <3 to let you know who plays all of these characters in the County Theatre Group, but the names of the actors are not listed on their website or their Facebook page and, quite frankly, I didn't know I was working as a reporter/critic anymore. I gave up my job with The Picton Gazette about nine years ago. Next time, I will be more prepared and provide more details. :)