Author: Alexandra

WeblogPoMo AMA #3

Published by Alexandra

Today I thought to answer another of the great #WeblogPoMo AMA questions floating around. This question was originally asked by Hiro and answered by Gabz and also, Helen. “What’s the best music-related experience of your life so far?” Narrowing my answer down to just one person or act is impossible given the sheer number of concerts I’ve been to over the course of a long life (so far). I could say the best was meeting, inadvertantly, the Rolling Stones when I was about 7-8 years old, and getting my photo taken with them. Though it’s true I didn’t, at that age, get to go to their concert or see them live on stage. Though decades later, I did get to see them from afar on the Plains of Abraham here, in Quebec City. Fast forward to my teenage years at high school, and as a bunch of pimply teens, my coconspirators and I where just at the right age, at the right time, to be around just as a number of emerging and rising stars …

July Holidays

Published by Alexandra

The deed is done! We finished booking all the extracurricular activities we want to do while on our anniversary holidays in Montreal, in July. I am so excited. We have a lovely hotel booked that is within easy access to the Botanical Gardens, which we’ve booked a passport for, so we can see the various gardens at our leisure. Plus it includes access to the Bidome, Planetarium, Insectarium (though I’m not sure how I feel about looking at a lot of creepy-crawlies). Also, there’s an evening showing of a Planetarium show we booked for fun. We also booked for a full-on Afternoon Tea at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Montreal. Something we love doing and have done in both London, and Paris. So of course, we have to do it here, on home soil. Throw in a walking food tour of the Jean-Talon market and, we’re all set to eat our way around Montreal. The only other thing I fancy is doing Chinatown and eating there one or maybe two nights, as I do love me …

Recipes: Pork in Garlic & Mushroom Sauce

Published by Alexandra

I love making this simple but very adaptive recipe. You can use either a cheap cut of cubed pork, pork chops, or even pork loin. The choice is yours. Ingredients: 8 oz of cubed pork or chump pork chops ½ tsp of paprika 4 tbsp butter 8 oz of sliced mushrooms 4 cloves garlic, minced/diced 1 tbsp dijon mustard 2 tbsp all-purpose flour 1 cup mushroom broth (or beef) salt & pepper to taste Method: Season the pork with paprika, salt & pepper. Heat a large skillet over a med-high heat, add 2 tablespoons of butter. Sear pork till golden brown and no longer pink. Remove and set aside. Melt remaining butter in the skillet and, over a medium-high heat, sauté the mushrooms for about 5 mins. Add garlic and mustard and cook for a further min till garlic is fragrant. Add flour to the skillet, stirring to remove any lumps. Slowly add broth whisking until incorporated. Season with salt & pepper. Reduce heat to low and simmer, stirring often, until sauce thickens (about 5 …

How to Forget

Published by Alexandra

I was reading something this morning that made me think of something my mother once told me. I don’t know if it was something she learnt herself, or was told, but I distinctly remember her saying to me: “One of our greatest gift is our ability to forget.” It wasn’t till much later in life that I fully understood what she said in the context of why anyone would want to forget, especially the good things in life, but after a handful of painful events in my life I realised her words made perfect sense. While we might not forget the essence of something that happened to us—a car accident, the loss of a parent, a nasty breakup—time and fading memory do a good job of lessening the emotional impact of these events, which is what I think my mother was trying to convey. That, while at the time we’re feeling an unimaginable pain or hurt, time really does make the emotion of that moment fade to acceptable levels. I think it’s one of life’s …

7 Random Facts About Me

Published by Alexandra

So, are you ready to be bored dazzled by 7 Random Facts about me? Probably not, but here we go anyway. FACT #1 : I was in the military. Yeah, and I survived! Ha! Ha! I did 8 years in the Women’s Royal Air Force, to be exact, as an Air Traffic Controller. Does that fact scare you knowing I was in charge? Well, okay, maybe not in-charge and it was military fighter jets, not passenger flights, that we landed! FACT #2 : I jumped out of a hovering helicopter over the sea. Not once, or twice, but several times. No, really! See, this one ties in with being in the military. We got to do some really stupid things, like this. But it was all in the interest of teaching Search and Rescue techniques to SARs Crews, and survival (that would be me, bobbing around in frigid waters) — yes, we had survival suits on. FACT #3 : I was an qualified All-England Netball Referee. See, I bet you never saw that one coming …