Spring!

I was sitting here in my basement cave listening to the Flames-Wild game on the radio (1-0 for the good guys, early in the 2nd period) and saw a cat outside the window doing some bathroom-appropriate activity, or preparing to, so I opened a window to shoo it away, and I noticed these:

Yes, those are the very first TINY (maybe a centimetre out of the ground) shoots of tulips, on the sunny side of the house, February 24, Calgary. Calgary, Alberta. Sure, they’re 5 inches out of the ground in Vancouver (and spring is breaking out everywhere there), but this is still pretty cool.

Speaking of Vancouver, I had a great time, mostly. I had some really amazing meals- Gyoza King as noted earlier (a second visit there was just as good), some delights (with a gross ama ebi, though- raw shrimp ain’t my thing) at Hapa Izakaya, and a SUPERB dinner, a 3 course prix fixe (with an amuse bouche and a little “pre-dessert,” it was actually five courses, three full ones and two tiny ones) at Gastropod in Kitsilano. It was creative and great depth of flavour in everything; my main was a tuna belly done confit style but poached in olive oil (not “tuna fat,” which would have been interesting); it was on a bed of diced veg and black eyed peas (!!) and just shot through with a fennel broth. Appie was 3 BC oysters with horseradish “snow”; dessert was french toast made from brioche, vanilla ice cream and a little piece of real honeycomb. Incredible. Since I’d had a migraine the day before I eschewed alcohol and the $25 wine pairings, so the bill came to $50. You cannot find this sort of value in Calgary these days.

After this repast I went to see Juno. I loved it. It’s great to see a movie with a strong, young female lead that’s not a “chick flick” (not that I hate chick flicks, but you know what I mean), and not one where the lead has to be some sort of male fantasy ninja chick (cf Kill Bill) who is hot (by hetero male standards) but who fights and stuff. Juno gets pregnant and is cool. I’d want to be like her, minus the pregnant part.