It’s been a lovely day today. A perfect Pacific Northwest afternoon, M. calls it.

The ideal day to do all the great little things I’ve been putting off, I went for a walk during my lunch break – I haven’t done that in a very long time. It just seemed like such a waste to be sitting indoors staring out forlornly at the sea and mountains.

I did a thirty minute nice leisurely thoughtful walk by the harbour and then came down to Pacific Centre to do a bit of window shopping inspired by the gorgeous summer dresses I’d seen on people.

Almost every summer I promise myself I’d only wear dresses, only to cave in on the fourth or fifth day. This year, my goal is to go longer, hopefully a whole month of wearing dresses only – we’ll see.

I didn’t find the kind of dresses I was looking for; although I wasn’t looking for a specific dress per se.

During the winter, through depressing rain, slush and snow, I’d think of beautiful colourful summer dresses, like the kind you see in J Crew catalogues or the kind worn by people who vacation in those New England beach towns.

I think I’ll keep looking; I’m excited by the thought of wearing only dresses for thirty days this summer. It sounds perfect… so perfectly me! I just might do it, and write about it.

Eat! Vancouver, the food festival, took place this past weekend at BC Place. I went with my mom and sister on Friday night.

Eat!Vancouver is an annual event that I’ve been attending for the past four years, and even though I didn’t particularly enjoy last year’s, my mom insisted we go because she had fun at last year’s. Friday was the opening day and we got there with about only three hours to spare.

Chef Anthony Sedlak from Food Network Canada’s The Main was on the cooking stage.

There were some new and interesting vendors this year.

Rabbit River Farms in Richmond, BC produces organic, free range and free run eggs and chickens. They also raise special breed chickens that lay naturally colourful eggs, I learnt about the Araucana Chicken that lays the bluish/green eggs.

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These women managed to turn their passion for olive oil into an aptly named business called Olea Europaea. The company sells ten premium olive oils sourced from all over the Mediterranean.

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I actually discovered Bosa Foods at the very first Eat!Vancouver I attended, and it’s become one of my main places to shop, I go to the Kootney Street store at least twice a month to stock up on pantry items like pasta, beans, Italian sodas etc.

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These beautiful ladies gracefully posed for this picture after asking if it was going “somewhere on the internet” That’s the food Chef Anthony prepared and they both agreed it was very good.

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More pictures from Flickr below:

When I was kid I had to look up the word ‘chanteuse’ for a class project and was rather disappointed that it meant ‘a female singer’ I felt it sounded far more superior to mean just that.

I’ve therefore always considered the word pretentious and have been doubtful whenever a singer’s been referred to as a ‘chanteuse’ – I take it as code for “she’s nothing special so we’re using fancy French words to make you think she’s great”.

I saw Alita Dupray perform at Capone’s on Saturday night and was pleasantly surprised.

Most of the write-ups on Alita Dupray referred to her as a “young chanteuse”, that coupled with the fact that I’m not a big jazz fan I figured my Saturday night wasn’t going to be anything special but I had to eat and Capone’s is always fun.

We arrived right before the start of her first set and had front seats; I didn’t necessarily consider this a good thing initially, things could turn very miserable if I didn’t like the performance.

Thankfully, Alita and her band were amazing! I’m surprised I’d never heard of her before.

She has a smooth sultry voice and her routine is quite captivating, her music is a combination of blues and jazz. She had a relaxed infectious energy about her and a sexy confident air that’s evocative of different era – I imagined a Speakeasy.

The food wasn’t bad, I just wish the menu had more fresh seasonal offerings but the great music more than made up for it.

I can’t wait to see Alita and her band again!

Chances are you don’t know Ibrahim Essandoh. I don’t know him either; not personally anyway.

I only heard of him this weekend – Mr. Essandoh is a soft spoken 42 year old immigrant from Ghana who lives in Vancouver, BC with his wife and three children.

I imagine the Essandohs were a happy family once, and at one time Mr Essandoh considered his life, family, blessings, magnificent views, his great friends,� neighbours and his new country, he even believed a little that he lived in the “best place on earth”

These days Mr. Essandoh is very sick, his liver is failing and is on frequent kidney dialysis, but what Mr. Essandoh needs most is a new kidney.

His would have been a standard medical story (although medical stories are hardly standard), had it not been for his potential kidney donor. Mr. Essandoh’s brother, Thomas lives in Ghana, is a match and is willing to give his brother a kidney. The only set back is that the Canadian Embassy in Ghana has rejected Thomas’ application for entry into Canada – where his brother Ibrahim resides and needs the kidney.

This is where the details get a little sketchy; all we know for now is that the kind officials at the Canadian Embassy in Accra are “skeptical” of whom Thomas says he is, which confuses me a little because… how the heck then did the hospital determine he was a match? His doctor was on tv confirming his brother is a match, he even wrote letters to support his application. Is the Dr. in cohorts with Thomas to swindle the Canadian government?

They seem to be also concerned about Thomas’ “motives” – I’m not exactly sure what that means (possibly because I’m not trained in the art of weeding out fake visa applicants) but here’s a logical way out, since this is an established matter of life and death, how about we grant him the visa and let CIC take it from there (when he gets here), if Thomas has some maniacal motives to prey on his dying brother for a free trip and entry into Canada and squanders off with his kidneys intact, then let’s have the branch of government that deals with that handle it. But please, please do not deny Mr. Essandoh his life because we’re skeptical of Thomas’ motives. Mr. Essandoh could die.

Personally, I think Thomas is a hero and I commend him, I doubt that any of my brothers (I have three very healthy ones) will give up a kidney for me. He should be given an award not shut out of the country while his brother possibly dies.

It’s also imperative that we address this now, it’s vital that this doesn’t set a precedent. Canada is a multicultural nation, we’re a country of immigrants with family scattered all over the world. If my mom needed a bone marrow transplant tomorrow, and her only brother happened to be a match, I would hate for him to be denied entry into Canada because no one said anything when the first, second or third would-be donor from a developing country was denied entry into Canada — to help save a Canadian’s life.

Isn’t Ibrahim Essandoh’s life worth saving, isn’t he Canadian enough? The man has lived here for 25 years; he’s paid taxes and has been a model citizen.

Let his brother help him.

Links:

• CTV Article – 22-May-09
• CTV Video News Report
• Facebook group to help Ibrahim Essandoh get a kidney
• CTV follow up article – 25-May-09

I went dairy-free about a year and the half ago, except I haven’t been completely diary-free. I’ve given up everything except milk chocolate bars. I don’t eat them often but every once in a while I’ll have a bar. I’ve tried a few dark (dairy-free) chocolate bars and I’m slowly weaning myself off those milky delicious bars.

This was an impulse check-out item purchase; I was in line at Bosa Foods waiting to be checked out when the bright red packaging beckoned. I was a little hungry and for $1.99 I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it.

Kras is a Croatian chocolate manufacturer that’s been in business since 1911 and Dorina is the brand name. Kras has a popular Choco Bar (or Bonbonnière, as it’s also fancily called) that every chocolate lover who happens to be in Zagreb, (Croatia’s capital) should visit.

The bar I got was the 3.5oz milk hazelnut bar, it turned out I wasn’t as hungry and didn’t eat it until days later.

My mom took one look at it and asked “what is that?”

“Chocolate” I responded

“Why can’t I read what’s on here?” she asked turning it over

“It’s Croatian chocolate” I said

She says in a dumbfounded tone “Why would you buy Croatian chocolate?”

I have nothing, and she walks away shaking her head mumbling “Croatian Chocolate…”

It’s pretty basic rectangular bar with sectioned squares, comes wrapped in the standard foil and has bright red packaging on the outside.

The taste is rich, creamy and sweet, reminiscent of a Ritter bar. What surprised me was that the hazelnuts weren’t whole or in chunks. Instead there were tiny pieces of hazelnut speckled heavily throughout. I didn’t enjoy that aspect of the bar, maybe it’s because I’m used to huge chunks of nuts in chocolate bars. I felt there was something lacking with the tiny pieces and it had an annoying way of getting stuck in my teeth.

For $1.99 I probably would have bought it again if I weren’t giving up milk chocolate bars for good. It’s slightly better stuff than your average bar of chocolate and the taste isn’t bad.