LOLAfest

Two weekends ago, here in London, we had a ripping good time in the form of London Ontario Live Arts festival. If you weren't there, you truly missed out, but you can come next year:) It was a delightful blend of visual art, sculpture, various forms of instrumental and vocal music, and all of these combined. What's great is it was all free, since they had a corporate sponsor as well.


In case you can't tell, I loved every minute of it!

I volunteered to show the art, and also at the info booth, and the rest of the time just enjoyed the shows and the people mingling around the stages. Some friends of mine that I get my organic produce from had a table there, and I visited them from time to time as well.

The first night kicked off with a show featuring Jamie Lidell and also Zeus. I love love love Jamie Lidell and find him to be a musical genius- you should check out his myspace. That man has style! A style all his own.

Throughout the weekend, I attended the shows of Leaf Bird, Land of Talk, Caribou, My Brightest Diamond, and others which I am not remembering at the moment. I felt very alive, standing there, alternately freezing and being really warm (on the different nights), surrounded by a crowd of hipsters in skinny jeans, toques, and plaid. Many were students, many had bicycles. There was a tremendous sense of energy in the crowd that warmed me up in spite of the evening chill, and even though I couldn't see the stage all the time, it was great to be there with friends old and new, and meet people who are so creative and artistic- it was inspiring overall.

I guess that's what I'm trying to say- rather than just be a great music festival that you look back on with fondness, it does so much to promote the arts in an ongoing sense, inspiring those involved to create, themselves. I went home and wrote some poems afterward, and still have some simmering under the surface that I need to flesh out.

The fun thing was I have a friend who played a huge role in the whole shebang and it was neat to hear about it ahead of time and then see what came to fruition after a ton of effort and hard work. And may I say, the committee has great taste:)

Well, that's enough of my ramblings...Photos to follow...

Ah, fall!

I've been taking another break from writing, but have now accumulated events to talk about:)


This past weekend, my friend Lisa and I participated in the Scotiabank Waterfront Half-Marathon in Toronto, where they block off a chunk of Lakeshore and some downtown streets. I was feeling pretty grim about the whole thing, because I've been injured for the past month, and didn't love this race the last time I did it.


We stayed with Lisa's family and they drove us to the start and watched us along the way, which was really thoughtful. It was Lisa's first half and I have to say, she did incredibly well!


I made the mistake of leaving my sports watch at her house so had NO watch the entire run! I was pretty stressed about this, because even though I wasn't expecting a personal best, I didn't want to be too slow just because I didn't know the time. The funny thing is, I beat my time from the other year by almost eight minutes and did quite well overall, so I was pleased with that. (It doesn't mean I'll leave my watch at home from now on, though!)


This Friday, my new roommate is moving in, and although we are still ironing out some tenant/landlord dynamics, it should be a go! It's all happening pretty quickly, but it will be good to have a roommate again I think, once I get used to the change. When I'm living alone, I love the quiet but sometimes it's too quiet; when I'm living with someone else, it's good to have them around but then I sometimes miss the quiet. It may take us a little while to find the middle ground, but I think it will turn out well.


Now I remember what I was going to write about- LOLA! Check out the next post for that:)

Family and Food

This past weekend, my dad and three younger brothers came to stay the night with us after dropping off our other brother at college on the way. The boys had never been here so it was exciting for them, and fun for me, too, to have them here.


On Saturday, I bought some organic veggies at the market that I'm hoping to cook up tonight- some kind of eggplant-tomato-cheese concoction, as I love that combination and it reminds me of Italy- and was given some tomatoes from some friends' garden as well. I have to cook them up in the space of a few days since, being organic, they go bad more quickly, so I have to stay on top of it better. Don't they look delicious?

Now for the fun stuff- I finally made another batch of macarons, which I've been thinking of for a while but got lazy when thinking of all the prep work. I don't have a food processor, so it takes a few steps to get the icing sugar and ground almonds fine enough to use, but I was very pleased with the results I got this time by sifting them through a colander.

I made a bittersweet chocolate toffee ganache that I have made previously, but the toffee bits must have been a bit old and I found it tasted kind of gross, so ended up caving and using PC Dulce de Leche. Originally I'd hoped to put together a salted butter caramel ganache, but by this time it was close to midnight and I went for the easy alternative. I'm looking forward to trying it next time, though.

For some reason they didn't turn out very round...maybe I should just invest in a pastry bag instead of cutting a corner from a Ziploc freezer bag :)

I hope you all had a great Labour Day weekend!