I Have My Own Life to Live

Beautiful weathered statuary at Royal Roads University, originally Hatley Castle, home of James and Laura Dunsmuir.

After the tenure of the Dunsmuir family, the site became a Canadian military college, and more recently, Royal Roads University.

Hatley Park is now a National Historic Site.

Cold day Miso Soup

This post in reply to Chris Nohr’s request on Twitter:

It’s funny - people and “experts” often say that 1) they don’t want to hear what people have for breakfast and 2) you shouldn’t post inanities (ie: what you are eating) - and yet, these are often my tweets that will get people commenting the most!

I had:

Comments

Someone wondering what miso soup was

Several requests to share the recipe and/or photo

A link to someone else’s recipe

Variations others enjoyed

That’s when I realized - quick - that I needed to take a picture of the little soup remaining in my bowl.

Here’s my recipe, I have most of the fixings in my cupboard or fridge at all times.

4-6 cups boiling water

1 1/2 tsp - 1 T dashi (the dried instant kind)

small pinch wakame (dried seaweed - you can find it in Victoria at Fairway or Asian grocery stores)

3 big dried shiratake mushrooms, soaked in boiling water (10-30 minutes) and sliced

3 heaping T miso (or to taste) - make a paste with a bit of the stock when it has been made. Add at the last minute - you don’t want to boil it.

cooked leftover noodles

chopped vegetables (carrots strips, snow peas, broccoli, onion, Shanghai bok chok) - you don’t need much

1 beaten egg

METHOD:

Boil the water and add the dashi.

Add the vegetables, mushrooms and wakame and cook very briefly.

Take off heat and pour in beaten egg while stirring - it will “flower”.

Add miso and stir.

Place leftover cooked noodles in a bowl and ladle soup and vegetables over.

Enjoy!

You can also add - shrimp, clams, leftover meat or chicken, cubed tofu.

Please excuse the photo - it was really good, and I was hungry!

To: @Dancinginlife @jruthkelly @tanakacreative @chrisnohr @robseverin @chefheidifink thanks for weighing in on the miso soup debate!

23rd Nov 2011 | 3 notes

This building captured my attention.

Situated at the entrance to Victoria’s historic Chinatown district, it blends seamlessly into the landscape and perfectly complements the building next to it.

Note too, the sight line along the east-west access with the bookend to the old Hudson Bay building.

18th Nov 2011

the clouds this fall have been spectacular

look up and around

landscapes in the air

18th Nov 2011 | 16,590 notes

This is absolutely amazing! Way to go Tumblr!

staff:

Yesterday we did a historic thing. We generated 87,834 phone calls to U.S. Representatives in a concerted effort to protect the Internet. Extraordinary. There’s no doubt that we’ve been heard.

So just to keep you updated: The well-intentioned, but immensely flawed “Stop Online Piracy Act” is still in the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing was yesterday and now members will debate and bring amendments to the bill. The Committee will reconvene in a few weeks — the date has yet to be scheduled. Nothing has been brought to a final vote. Everything is still very much in play. We’ll keep you posted on what’s going on and what you can do to help. But for now, we want to thank you.

One encouraging thing we heard yesterday:

I don’t believe this bill has any chance on the House floor. I think it’s way too extreme, it infringes on too many areas that our leadership will know is simply too dangerous to do in its current form.

— Representative Darrell Issa

We also want to express our tremendous gratitude to our friends at Mobile Commons who, on 30 minutes notice, hooked us up with their amazing platform (and provided their expertise) to automatically connect callers with their Representatives.

15th Nov 2011

While loading my photos today, I saw a picture of Dolly and wondered how she was.

Dolly Desharnais was my late husband Yves Loran’s literacy tutor for many years, but more than that, she became a close family friend too.

Then in 2000, she decided to move back to Nova Scotia, and after Yves passed away in 2001, I gradually lost touch.

Searching Google, I found her obituary notice:

DESMARAIS, DOROTHY (DOLLY) I. - The death of Dorothy (Dolly) I. Desmarais of Saint John occured unexpectedly at her residence on Friday January 18, 2008. Born in Saint John, she was a daughter of the late James and Eulalie (Marchand) Montgomery. She had worked as a legal secretary. Dolly resided in B.C for many years, and returned home in 2000. She was an active volunteer in the local community, working with such groups as PRUDE, and ABC’s of Fraud and the Saint John volunteer society. Dolly was a very intelligent woman with an inquisitive mind. She read widely and sought new ideas and philosophies. In her later years she came to accept that human nature hardly changes over the millennia and that life will continue pretty well as it is. She sought to be as good a person as possible within this enviroment. Dolly is survived by two sons, Wayne R. Desmarais of Saint John, and Paul A. Desmarais of B.C; one daughter, Elaine M. Desmarais PhD of India; and their father, Jack; one brother, Robert Montgomery (Alice) of Aylesford, N.S; two sisters, Lillian MacDonald of Saint John East, and Margaret Malone of Saint John; several nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by three brothers, Raymond, Jerry and Roland Montgomery; and two sisters, Jane Duffy and Francis Richard. Although there is no visitation, friends are welcome to attend a memorial service to be held at the Cavanagh Funeral Home Chapel 91 Leinster St (634-1712) on Wednesday, January 23, 2008, with service at 11:00am. A reception at the funeral home will follow the service. Interment in Ocean View Memorial Gardens at a later date. Please visit www.cavanaghfh.ca to make donations, sign the guest book or express condolences.

Thank you Dolly for your many years of service to the Victoria BC literacy community. You gave unselfishly and changed our lives immeasurably.