I'm going to Hell in a hand basket....

I'm going to hell in a hand basket.....

For baking cookies! Yep, you heard me right. Today is Orthodox Holy Friday. Today is a day of rest. A day of mourning. Apparently doing anything like baking cookies, cooking dinner, or cleaning your house is strictly forbidden.

I said to Hell with sitting on my ass and doing nothing, I have to make my Easter cookies TODAY. I got off of work early, I had some extra time so I HAVE to make my cookies. I called my mom to ask her something about the dough and she just about had a heart attack! "What? You are making your cookies today? You are doing something JOYFUL on a day like today!?"

Like seriously mom? I start to imagine what will happen to me when I die. Because I'm Greek and all, my little soul will wander around the world for 40 days saying good bye to everything I once knew. After that I float up to the pearly gates where St. Peter is guarding the door with a guest list.

St. Peter:State your name please.

Me: Jenny Georgio-who

*St. Peter starts to scan his list feverishly flipping pages*

St Peter: Oh no, I can't let you in. I'm really sorry. You baked Easter Cookies and Easter Bread on Good Friday in 2009.

Me: (all confused and laughing) Wait you mean thats the ONLY thing keeping me out of heaven? Everything else I've done is completely excusable but baking sends me to hell?

St Peter: Listen, its what the list says. I have no control over it.

Me: You mean you aren't impressed that someone 27 years old made koulraki and tsoureki? My sister in law was 42 that year and she doesn't even know how to dye her eggs much less bake this! Don't I get a pass for not waiting for someone to make them for me?!

St. Peter: You know, traditionally you were supposed to make the cookies on Wednesday and dye the eggs on Thursday. Why did you dye the eggs on Wednesday instead?

Me: (looking down sheepishly) Because I was really tired after work on Wednesday and I knew I wouldn't have time for making cookies on Thursday so I did the eggs on Wednesday. Isn't that great? I mean, my eggs were ready earlier...and I finally got the right shade of red!

St. Peter: What do you mean you knew you wouldn't have time on Thursday? What were you doing (giving me a stare down)

Me: (mumbling) Watching the hockey game.

St. Peter: I'm sorry I didn't hear you speak up.

Me: Watching the hockey game. It was game one of the Stanley Cup playoffs and I had to support my team.

St. Peter: (looking at his list again) Oh my goodness. And you had chicken tenders while you were watching the game. You broke your fast!!!

Me: Noooooooooooooooo!!!! I didn't break it. Didn't you get my memo, I'm only fasting every other day....C'mon have some sympathy Pete.

St. Peter: I'm sorry but I'm standing firmly by this. You are not granted entrance into Heaven.

Me: Just fucking great. Heaven doesn't want me, Hell is afraid I'll take over. I'm dead and still have nowhere to go.

After my momentary daydream I started to explain to my mom how it seriously didn't make any sense how there were only certain days I could do things. Why is Wednesday cookie baking day? Why do we dye the Easter eggs on Thursday and WHY OH WHY do they have to be red? Will we go to hell for having purple, blue, green, yellow, orange etc colored eggs? Yes, I get it. Red. Blood. Cross. Totally feeling you on that one but why do all the eggs have to be red? I have many colored eggs. Screw the just red. If I'm going to hell for colorful eggs so are 98% of the people who celebrate Easter. If colored eggs warrant hell I wonder what those heavily decorated eggs warrant? Being flogged, tarred, and feathered in the town square being being banished to life in eternal flames?

So I made a joke to my mother about how this wasn't the only thing keeping me out of hell. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm going there already. I bought my bus ticket there with a discount for advance purchase.... okay okay... I'm the one driving the bus!!!!

My mom didn't find it too funny.

Oh..... as for not doing anything work related today:

1. I went to work. I worked hard.

2. I came home and cooked dinner.

3. I baked 200 cookies.

4. I baked 2 tsoureki (seriously not very easy and soooo time consuming)

5. I baked 3 loaves of Rosemary bread and even decorated one of them for Easter by rolling out extra dough and writing a message on top of the bread.

6. I gave the dog a bath.

7. I'm going to jump off a cliff.

Flog: Scallops on a Lentil Bed and Salad

So being Greek Orthodox its now time for us to start our Holy Week and the ever dreaded fast. I never understood why people think its a great idea to fast. It makes you hungry and if you are like me, when you are hungry you are an evil bitch. So given the fact that I take a bunch of medications and might bite your head off I don't fast the entire Holy Week.

I won't eat meat on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (each of those days has a specific reason). So since its Monday and I didn't have work today I decided to make a nice fasting dinner for myself and my honey!

I knew I wanted to cook with scallops since its been a while since I had them but what would I make them with? When I went to 40Westt in Montreal they served me Chilean Sea Bass on a bed of lentils. I wasn't too thrilled with their lentil bed but it was a start right? So I sat my butt down and did some googling until I found what I wanted and then of course I had to change it up to be my style.

Lets start with the lentil bed since it takes the longest to cook.

Bed of Lentils

1 medium white onion, quartered

1 carrot, quartered

1 celery stalk

2 bay leaves

5 cups of water

1.5 cups of lentils

2 tbs. olive oil

Coat the bottom of a saucepan with the olive oil and put the onion, carrot, celery, bayleaves, and water. Put the heat to high and bring to a boil. Once its boiling add the lentils and reduce heat to low-medium and allow to simmer uncovered for about 15 to 20 minutes.

After that drain and discard the seasonings.

Set aside for now.

Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette

1 tbs. Dijon mustard

2 tbs. Balsamic Vinegar (I perfer to use a hot balsamic vinegar, the flavors are more intense).

pinch of sugar

.5 cups of olive oil

In a bowl whisk together the mustard, honey, sugar, balsamic vinegar and slowly add in the olive oil.

Cut up your favorite lettuce or spring greens and drizzle this on top.

Scallops

Heat up some olive oil in a saucepan (again I perfer a hot chili oil as opposed to plain oilve olive) and throw your scallops on it. Remember, scallops when cooked have a clear colour, it should only take a couple of minutes to throughly cook (pan sear) scallops.

While your scallops are cooking you can begin the second part of your lentil bed.

Add very little (like a quarter cup) to the lentils in the saucepan they are already in. Season with coarse salt and freshly ground pepper. By the time your lentils have absorbed the remaining water your scallops should be completely cooked.

Take a plate and scoop some of the lentils on it. Drizzle the lentils with a bit of red wine vinegar and then place your scallops on it! Tada. You have a great meal!

Mystery Date Night -- Keeping the Romance Alive.

So the other day I was reading a blog TheNearlyweds when Jen gave me an idea. Her and her boyfriend, oops fiancé', do a date night every once in a while. I thought it was a great idea and a nice way to spend some time together.

My husband and I were married for 2.5 months when his mother passed away and it hit him really hard and it affects our relationship big time. Not only were we dealing with him mourning the loss of his mother but we also had to "take in" his father. No we didn't move him into our home but we would have him over all the time, in fact as I write this blog he is sitting on the couch across the living room from me. So needless to say, George and I don't exactly get to spend a lot of time together unless its bed time. We enjoy entertaining so we invite friends over, we like to go out with our friends, and then the times we want to be alone, his father feels lonely so George will bring him over.

We’ve butted heads about this a few times. I don’t mean to be a bitch and not want his father over all of the time but c’mon, all of the time? When do we get our alone time? Why can’t your father go to your brother’s house? Why can’t your father get a hobby? How come he isn’t bored Monday through Friday but suddenly he’s bored the days he knows you are home?

But I give in and someone goes and picks up the father in law and drops him off at the end of the day. But any way you look at it, it too has strained the relationship. The “newlywed” experience wasn’t really grand for me; much less for George.

So when I read Jen & Ted’s blog, I loved the idea. We used to date a lot before we got married and engaged and it was so much fun. We’ve decided to do a mystery date night and we set out some ground rules.

1. We will do mystery date night every two weeks only taking off December because of the holidays and January of 2010 because we have a lot to do for my sisters wedding.

2. It MUST be done on a weekend (Friday or Satuday night or Sunday DAY).

3. Although it’s a surprise (mystery) you have to tell the other person how to dress. (No dresses for a surprise horseback riding trip).

4. Must be paid for through our joint account but it also has to be reasonable, we have no set budget for this but we will use our best judgement.

5. We can’t do something that will embarrass or scare the other person. (So no nude beaches (like I’d go!!) or jumping off of bridges or out of planes (being pushed out isn’t the same as jumping right!?)

6. No other couples unless its agreed upon by both parties.

7. The non planning person must agree to go wherever the planning party says. Person planning must do the driving.

8. Once I become pregnant I am allowed to veto any planned date night due to feeling sick, not in the mood for it, or I’m just being emotional and want to cuddle in bed with Dallas and Twilight.

9. We sign a 25 year contract for this (like a mortgage) with certain terms for 5 years (current terms) and we can renegotiate the terms every 5 years.


So the rules are pretty straight forward and George decided that he wants to be the first to plan our date night. We are doing our first date night on our Good Friday (Our as in Orthodox) so I’m wondering what its going to be. I hope its not something super religious but he did tell me to get dressed up.

Now I need some ideas on something we can do together that we’ll both enjoy since George made sure to take away my best ideas (bungee jumping and sky diving). A few ideas I had were:

Going to a vineyard and doing some wine tasting
Going to some museums downtown since George loves history and we’ve never gone to the museums in Montreal.
Go to Granby Zoo when it opens.
Horseback riding
Fishing (ewwww this one is going to kill me)
Take a cooking course together
Surprise picnic.
Sending him away for the majority of the day so I can cook and clean and then have a nice romantic night in, with candles and all that usual nonsense I laugh at.

Any other ideas? Can you guys help me out with things that guys enjoy doing that won’t make me squirmy?

Another Twilight Blog - A Rant

So I'll try to remember the words of my grade 5 English teacher and KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)...

I know that I'm a bit late to jump on this Twilight bandwagon. Most people have read Twilight to Breaking Dawn at least a year or so ago and I'm late to clue in on this. What bothers me? When people write their blogs raving about the series or ranting about how it sucks but then they go on to mention DETAILS of things that are happening in ALL the books!

Seriously, do you think the entire world has already read the books? Do you think that people want to be spoiled? What is so wrong with saying "SPOILER" in your blog title so that someone who hasn't read the entire series won't know what is goin on?

Last night I was with my sister and best friend and we were talking about the book very vaguely because I'm nearly finished with New Moon, my best friend just started New Moon, and my sister was about to crack open Twilight. We discussed things about the book and movie very generally but not enough to spoil my sister. How is it that people don't have respect for others?

So I log on to Networked Blogs two days in a row and see a post about Twilight and of course I go to read it because...well... I'm FINISHED with Twilight....and within the first two paragraphs I'm finding out what happens in book 4. Ummm Excuse me? Isn't that called Breaking Dawn?

Like, I'm not going to read a blog called New Moon or Twilight pt 2 until I finish the book. I don't want to be spoiled and look forward to NOT being spoiled but now I basically know how the entire series ends and I fucking hate it.

So, here is my suggestion ladies and gents who want to write blogs about books and movies. If you are going to give away plot details how about you write: SPOILER in your title so I know not to read it!

*grumble grumble*

Stupid is ...Stupid does

So I seem to have fallen into some kind of blog writing rut. Well to be honest, I've fallen into a rut when it comes to all aspects of my writing. Reading has sort of taken over right now. I'm reading the Twilight series and reading a lot of Derryan's writing. The story is coming along so great I'm excited and very happy to be a part of it. A part of it as his agent, a part of it as his creative inspiration, but the biggest part of it because we are cell mates. :) Friends for ever and I'm so proud of him.


Anyway this blog isn't about Derryan and his writing (although for a sneak peak you guys should make friends with 'Angel Morland' on Facebook). I spent a lot of time today reading blogs and I noticed a common thread on most of them: STUPID PEOPLE. No I don't mean the writers were stupid, but they were complaining about stupid people and who am I to ignore such a delectable topic?

I've had a lot of recent run ins with stupid people but the one from a couple of weeks ago really really stood out. I was home sick for 3 days with gasto (seriously the most unfun sickness you could have. You can't do anything but stay close to the bathroom!!) So since I was home Georgie called me and asked me to call Bell Canada about our satellite upstairs. For some reason the satellite in our bedroom would constantly lose the signal and more than half the channels wouldn't show up. It was the most annoying thing ever but we never had time to call because we only watch tv up there for like 20 minutes before bed. I was home so I might as well call them.

Now before I get to the phone call let me give you some backstory to me. When I was 13 years old I was diagnosed with a disease called myasthenia gravis. It's an immune disease where my body produces too many antibodies and therefore gets bored of me not being sick and attacks my ATP cells which totally reduces my energy and my strength. It is managable but when I am sick or stressed my disease completely skyrockets and I feel like I'm dead. It ends up affecting my muscles so I'm pretty weak and have hard time going up and down stairs etc. When my disease acts up it can be bad to the point that you'd think I am physically disabled. In fact, the goverment of Quebec seems to think so and I have a handicap parking tag. Don't worry about me, I've come to terms with it...anyway.... By now you should know HOW I felt when I called Bell.

So I'm downstairs in my living room watching TV when George calls me to talk to Bell. I sit down and dial their number and go through this whole automated thing where I enter my phone number, say why I'm calling and blah blah. The lovely automated operator, Emily, informs me that I must be in front of the tv that I am calling to trouble shoot. I hang up the phone and drag my sick ass up the stairs and have my puppy nipping at my heels. Heaven forbid he be downstairs alone!

Now I'm in front of the tv that isn't working properly and I call Bell and when I get a human on the phone I realize that the trouble is starting, not the trouble shooting process. I get a guy named "Sam" on the phone and I can tell you one thing. Wherever "Sam" comes from Sam is NOT a common name. A more common name in his area is probably something along the lines of Harminder or Abu. His accent is really thick and heavy and I'm just trying to understand him clearly. We start trouble shooting by pushing a bunch of buttons on my remote and checking the settings on the receiver and all kinds of other not fun things. Finally "Sam" decides that it is not something he can fix by having me push buttons and now its time to see if the problem is with the receiver or not. He asks me to unhook this receiver and take it downstairs to see if it will work there. At this point I proceed to tell "Sam" that I am physically disabled and unable to move heavy furniture, disconnect the receiver, struggled down the stairs where I would have to move more heavy furniture, disconnect the currently set up receiver and reconnect this one.

At this point "Sam" tells me that it is protocol and that he can not skip a step in the trouble shooting process. I tell him that I work for a company that also has a lot of calls for customer service and that we too have protocol but there are special circumstances that require us to skip our protocol and just make executive decisions. I told Sam that I think he should send a Bell tech out to my house in order to replace the receiver to fix this problem as it is not the first time I am having the same problem with the same reciver. Sam basically tells me to go fuck myself and that he can't skip any steps. I ask to speak to a manager. I get a floor supervisor named "Dan". Believe me he wasn't a Dan either. After explaining the situation to him and getting the same result my blood is pumping and I'm furious. I want to beat the living shit out of everyone where Dan and Sam work. I ask to speak to someone else and then I must have gone though 5 customer service reps /pseudo tech agents and I start to demand to speak to someone in CANADA. I tell the last person I'm on the phone with, "John" that when I pay my bill I pay it in Canadian dollars at a Canadian bank for a Canadian service and I'd like to speak to someone in my country which is when I get a line like "Yes Jenny, I understand but Bell Canada has many offices all over the world if you hang up and come back into the queue you may get your call answered by someone in Canada or India." I roll my eyes and hang up the telephone. Are these guys serious?

I pick up the telephone again and start the process again. Instead of asking for tech support when Emily asks why I'm calling I say CANCEL. Wouldn't you know that within 10 seconds I had a lady named Sarah on the phone, and guess what, she probably was a real Sarah, from Canada! Sarah asks why I'm canceling since I'm such a valued Bell Canada customer and I explain to her how Sam over in India wanted me to risk my life, at the very least, my face, in order to save Bell some money by having a tech come out to my house. She's completely horrified at the situation and schedules an appointment to have a tech come to my house early the next morning and gives me 30% off of my entire Bell bill for the next 12 months.

What I don't understand is how you can ask someone who is telling you they are HANDICAPPED and UNABLE to go down the stairs to still do it just because the script on their screen tells them to. I was completely shocked.

A few days later I get an apology letter from Bell telling me they are sorry for my experience calling their call center and they gave me a telephone number to call in case I have any further problems with their services which they hope I don't.

So yeah, I kind of found that to be pretty fucking stupid. How does one go about asking a cripple to hobble down the stairs? And for those of you who know me, I can be really descriptive. I was explaining to Sam, Dan, and John how much work it would be for me to get the reciever and carry it down the stairs without me misstepping, falling, rolling down a flight of stairs before landing on my face and hitting my nose so hard that fragments of broken nose bones get into my brain and render me dead within seconds....

Ah, the wonders of outsourcing for cheap labour.

iLife in iMusic

RULES:
1. Put your iPod on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.


IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
"'Lonely World" -- Bryan Greenberg (LOL How fitting considering my mood today)

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
"I'm Still Breathing” — Katy Perry (What is this the depression playlist?)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"Shy Girl" — Tyler Hilton

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Number One" — Skye Sweetnam (Damn straight...)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"Enemies” — Ryan Cabrera (Wow how sweet!)

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
"Shut Your Mouth” — Automatic Loveletter

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"Freckles” — Natasha Bedingfield (How funny they always comment on my cute little nose freckles!)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"Hollow" — Forty Foot Echo (Wow....thats harsh)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Short of the World” — Ben Jelen

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"Before He Cheats" — Carrie Underwood

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"Blue Suitcase" — Erin McCarley

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Sober" — Kelly Clarkson (Well I guess that means I'm not a freakin drunk!)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Cellophane Girl" — Graham Colton

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Consider This” — Anna Nalick

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"Just For the Record" — Jordin Sparks

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"Chemical Party” — Gavin DeGraw

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
“Unbelievable — Kaci Brown

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
"Fairytales — Sara Bareilles

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
“Beautiful Soul” — Jesse McCartney (shhhhhhhhh don't tell anyone I'm actually nice deep down inside)

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
“Love” — Matt White (Awwwww how super duper sweet!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Kindly Unspoken” — Kate Voegele (A very fitting song!)

Yummy Yummy in my Tummy pt.2

So besides having a last minute party today at my sister in laws house my husband and I are going to be entertaining my parents tomorrow. We figured we could either take them out to a really expensive steak house and then argue with my parents over who pays the bills or we could have them over here to have steaks that we had our butcher cut to order (yes daddy, you get a 1 3/4 inch thick steak! EWWW).

So tomorrow we are grilling steaks on the BBQ grill, making some baked potatoes, Tzatziki, an eggplant spread, some homemade rosemary bread and this delicious sage stuffed pancetta wrapped shirmp.

We made this for Christmas and people went bonkers over it.

Want some ingredients? You should know this is made to serve 4. Adjust your ingredients accordingly.

12 jumbo shrimp, peeled, de-veined and partially butterflied, tails left on
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
10 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil divided (You'll need more later for drizzling)
24 sage leaves
12 slices pancetta, unraveled

For the salad:
1 bag croutons **
2 carton multi-colored cherry tomatoes, halved
2 shallot, minced
2 roasted red pepper, chopped
1 cup basil, chopped
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

What do we do now that we have the ingredients?

Place a large skillet over medium-high heat, add 2 tablespoons of your olive oil

Open up the butterflied shrimp and season them with salt, freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil Place two sage leaves into the slice along the back where the shrimp has been de-veined and butterflied, then wrap each shrimp from head to tail with a slice of pancetta.

Transfer the pancetta-wrapped shrimp to the hot skillet and cook until browned and cooked through, about 2-3 minutes per side.

While the shrimp are cooking, make the panzanella salad: Combine the croutons, tomatoes, shallots, red pepper sand basil in a large bowl. Toss the ingredients together with the red wine vinegar, 3 tablespoons of olive oil , salt and freshly ground black pepper.


Divide the salad between the plates and top each with three shrimp.


Want some tips?

I hate using crutons out of the box! C'mon we can all make our own stale bread but why does it have to be stale? I make a lot of fresh bread at home by myself. When I need to make crutons I just take a hunk out of my loaf of bread and cut it into cubes and drizzle it with olive oil and then season it the way I want to (salt, pepper, oregano, and some rosemary) then I put it on a cookie sheet and bake it until its dry! Tada! Insta-cruton! If you don't make your own bread you can always buy fresh bread and then make your own crutons! (Also if the bread goes stale before we get a chance to eat it I cut it into cubes and put it into the magic bullet and I have my very own bread crumbs!)

You should also considering using Extra Virgin Olive Oil because it does have a better flavor then just regular olive oil but don't fret, if you don't have EVOO then just use whatever type of olive oil you have! I sometimes like to mix it up and use something special like avacodo oil! Yummy!