The Perfect Tea

I have found the perfect tea - 'Chai Green Tea'. It's the perfect blend of the spices used in Chai - fennel, cardamom, cinnamon, etc. - with your typical green tea taste. I stumbled upon it by accident this morning while roaming my mother's somewhat dusty herbal tea collection. She grinds her own Chai spices and makes her own tea but Chai is usually too milky and too thick for me. Fruity herbal tea didn't really suit me this morning either so the Chai Green Tea seemed like an interesting experiment. And what an awesome discovery! It satisfies the need for something more spicy and flavourful than a herbal tea and doesn't overwhelm your senses with too dark a steep and an overload of caffeine (for those of us who can't handle too much caffeine...). So, while continuing my attempt to read a french novel, I curled up and enjoyed the first of many rendez-vous with a cup of Chai Green Tea ;) Never underestimate the healing qualities of the perfect tea.

Words are not as Romantic across the Atlantic

I booked my flight to France today.

I was listening to The Rentals song 'Story of a Thousand Seasons Past'. I thought the lyrics were particularly interesting.

I also started my final essay for my Romantic lit course. It will be my last undergraduate essay.

I gave up writing my essay and started searching for more Rentals songs. I came across their site. Someone is learning French in the video on their website. I thought this was nice.

Giant Crystal Caves

Because I saw this awhile ago in National Geographic and just thought it was really ridiculously cool. I want to walk in these caves...

Butterless Brownies

Have no butter? Fear not! you can still satisfy your brownie craving with vegetable oil! I've been trying to resist buying a new block of butter for the past week and a bit now knowing that the minute I do I'll start baking like a madwoman. However, today I overcame the barrier of having to BUY more butter by using vegetable oil instead! Oh it's a terrible terrible discovery indeed, now there is virtually nothing stopping me from making brownies whenever I want...
So I thought I'd share the doom with everyone! Here is the glorious recipe I found:

1/2C vegetable oil or melted butter
1C sugar (I might try brown sugar next time...)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2C all purpose flour
1/3C cocoa
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease a 9inch square pan and coat in cocoa.
mix oil and sugar in large bowl, add vanilla and eggs.
mix, in seperate bowl (which I never do and it works anyway), flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.
sift (I never do this either and it works anyway) the dry ingredients into the wet gradually and mix thoroughly after each addition.
pour batter into baking pan.
bake for 20-25 mins or until brownies start to come away from the sides.
cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.

Ah today has been a very blog filled day. Check out the updated Lascaux Du Monde and this pretty little design blog I got stuck on for awhile. Anyways that's it, enjoy those brownies ;)

TOMATO

my closet environmentalism

It's just so simple sometimes. I'm not an environmental fanatic, there's tons of things I still don't do to keep our planet a little healthier I admit it, but sometimes it really is just so simple. Like throwing your little paper Tim Horton's bag in the paper recycle instead of the closer and more convenient garbage can. Or remembering to fill up your water bottle in the morning instead of relying on your work's water dispensers or free water bottles (and most tap water is healthier for you anyway! unless of course you are at my cottage...).

Today I drank from a bottle of water and the whole time I was thinking about the fish in that area of the ocean where all the plastic circulates who are contaminated with little particles of plastic. I couldn't help it, the image just surfaced and all I could think about was how sick they were because I was drinking from a plastic bottle of water. I also feel bad if I forget to bring my re-usable grocery bag when I go grocery shopping. These things are just so simple to adjust to your regular habits that it just baffles me when people claim they can't or just don't bother because they don't think their effort will change anything.

But we've seen the change already with the 5 cent charge for plastic grocery bags at most stores. The fact that there are more and more people using re-usable bags out there gives me hope for the anti-plastic bottled water cause. There's just no need for bottled water. We could put all the wasted money which bottled water companies use to keep their businesses running and gear it towards providing cleaner and healthier tap water... everywhere.

Ok that's the end of my environment rant. Here are some useful/interesting links for you on plastic:

JunkRaft
World's Biggest Garbage Dump - just some interesting facts in here.
Message in a Bottle
Plastic Ocean

"In your life, you meet people. Some you never think about again. Some, you wonder what happenned to them. There are some that you wonder if they ever think about you. And then there are some you wish you never had to think about again. But you do." (The Wonder Years)

Maybe not the most poetic way of putting it, but I just read it and it is true and it felt like a sentimental day. Unfortunately for us, we have no control over this. A mystery of our minds. Agreed?