supercook.com

Here's a site I just read about today - quite fun and really useful. If you're standing in your kitchen wondering how to create a supper from two or three seemingly disparate ingredients, you plug them in here - and following a discreet query as to whether you also have such-and-such on hand - voila!, a tasty recipe, mealtime salvaged.

(Image: ediet.com.)

What are these penguins doing? Going about their penguin business, obviously, but they could be said to be voting with their feet, making choices via movement. In this roundabout way (for some reason I just wanted to see some pictures of penguins) the NQ reminds any NL readers that today is municipal election day.

(Image: www.telegraph.co.uk.)

"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." we know what that means. Captain Jean-Luc Picard has just placed his favourite order with the Enterprise whats-it, and is headed for a little me time. Earl Grey has a long and noble history and its distinctive flavour has even been added to ice cream. Not for everyone, perhaps, but you could always try a London Fog Latte.

(Image: breweddaily.com.)

Harbour

A new show by John Hartman opens tomorrow at the Christina Parker Gallery of Fine Art. Called Harbour, it features oil paintings, pastels and drypoint prints, in vivid colours and impasto layers, views of Salvage and New York and St. John's Harbour. If you're on the go you should check it out, and then maybe treat yourself to this, what you might call your basic 'sight for sore eyes', as well.

(Image: wikipedia.)

Curriculum Night

aka Parent's Night, aka Meet The Teacher. Wherein parents roam the school halls like gazelles, child's schedule in hand, searching helplessly for biology class as the bells ring off another missed ten-minute interval. We might not learn much about the school programs but we definitely experience what it is like to be the new kid on the scene - perhaps the most valuable lesson.

(Image: toocoolforschool.com.)

American Pie

For some reason, and for some days, I have been craving lemon meringue pie. According to food historians, people started eating lemon desserts in the Middle Ages, but the meringue defied perfection until the 17th century, while the pie we all know and love comes to us from 19th century America. If the foregoing has whetted your appetite you can try this recipe.
(And, yes, I have seen the movies of the same name; took my daughter actually and, well, we learned lots and lots of new words that day.)

"An old wives' tale says that on the equinoxes, when the Earth is "balanced" and all things are equal, it is possible to balance an egg on one end. The truth is that it is possible to balance an egg on its end any day of the year, provided you have a steady hand."

For more information on the fall equinox (don't forget to put new batteries in your smoke detector!) read here.

(Image: wordpress.com.)

Children's Literature

We're at work on our Winter Issue; that's the theme and consider this lovely illustration a bit of a tease - one of our fabulous columnists is crafting a piece on this

alluring work...

(Image: wikipedia.)

Sex, the rules of

If you're looking for some good theatre this weekend, check out this play. Rabbittown theatre, 8pm, runs less than an hour - you're going to need reservations, though (call 739.8220).

Here's a sign I saw whilst riding the #10 bus into work today: ELF DEFENSE. Now, I knew those guys could be trouble, but that this problem had grown to such proportion that we needed a planned, co-ordinated response was news to me. I pass along the information - and a reminder that perhaps nothing provides a better shield than some bread in your pockets (please see our Fall issue for more info).

(Image: nyu.edu.com.)

As a sidebar of sorts to yesterday's posting, here are the lyrics and one sweet version of a (perhaps flawless) song.

(Image: mog.com.)

Some early mornings I luck into an empty gym and the freedom to switch the TVs to music videos for a workout soundtrack. (The radios at this gym were disconnected ages ago.) And amidst the latest Black-Eyed Peas or Lady Gaga they'll sometimes rotate a video from the 1980s - Whitesnake, say. And, boy, are they bad. We didn't realize it at the time, but they are really, truly bad. (Watch the opening sequence of Music and Lyrics if you don't believe me.) Of course, the 1980s weren't all Feargal Sharkey and Air Supply - there was Black Flag, King's X and Faith No More, for example. If you'd like to revisit those gems, or if your nostalgia for Aldo Nova is simply too strong, this is the site for you.

(Image: designerhistory.com.)

Municipal elections are coming up; the signs (literally) are everywhere. If you're in St. John's you might want to catch the forums the CBC Radio Morning Show is hosting at Atlantic Place this Tuesday and Thursday. Me, I'm hoping to hear something of the calibre of Greg Thomey's Jerry Boyle, the Newfoundland separatist who campaigned from his ex-wife's garden shed, and whose publicity featured the slogan: This time, why not throw caution to the wind, and vote for Jerry Boyle?

(Image: www.cartoplilia.com.)

The news is full of 9/11 anniversary tributes and commemorations. If you wish to mark the day in some way, may I suggest that watching this film may be the absolute best thing you can do.

(Image: movies.ign.com.)

Cuisine

We're getting a great response to our Cuisine (Fall) issue - readers are, ahem, just eating it up. If you'd like to experiment with just how well Newfoundland food measures against that of other cultures, here is a list of the ten tastiest cuisines in the world.

(Image: uwstudentweb.)

Look up, look way up in the sky this time of the year and see the harvest moon. (Apparently all full moons rise about the time of sunset, making them even more spectacular.)

(Image: www.daughterofhope.com.)

Fall issue mailout

We've labeled and binned, we've counted and stickered, we've compared the Ontarios to the NL Residue and Manitoba 2007 with Manitoba 2009. And its all good. And its all en route.

(Image: www.kaboodle.com.)

Saw Julia & Julia last night; quite a sweet-tempered film and full of luscious food and Meryl Streep is just so good again. In the discussion after I found myself recommending, encore as they say in France where Julia Childs loved to eat and learned to cook, The Fall. I've linked to it before but in case you missed that here it is again - really this is a most remarkable movie.

(Image: flickr.)

While that my soul repairs to her devotion,
Here I entomb my flesh, that it betimes
May take acquaintance of this heap of dust,
To which the blast of Death's incessant motion,
Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,
Drives all at last.

-George Herbert, Church Monuments

Wonder why those lines are so darn poetic? This fine essay explains.

(Image: nehemiahblake.files.wordpress.com.)

Coming up on Labour Day weekend now, and I hope you have some lovely plans. Of course this will include storing away your white shoes and clothing - if you still go by the old-fashioned rule.

(Image: www.polyvore.com.)

When model Naomi Sims died earlier this summer, she was properly heralded as one of the first African-American women to grace such magazine covers as Ladies Home Journal. But did you know that the very first such model was actually a MUN student? Her name was Katiti Kirondi II , and she was the cover girl for Glamour magazine in August 1968.

(Image: blogmagazine.com)