After horse back riding, Tuesday we pulled into Canada. It was relatively rural until we pulled into Montreal at rush hour. We got to catch a glimpse of the city while waiting in traffic on the bridge. We we absolutely amazed when two long lines of traffic merged perfectly and politely, one car behind the next. We spent the entire trip pleased with how polite Montreal is.

Pulling into downtown. The Hangover Part 2.

We arrived in time to receive our complimentary drinks. We sat outside and watched the beautiful and fashionable Montrealeans walk and bike by. After our drinks, we found ourselves in Montreal’s Chinatown on Boulevard Saint-Laurent. We had dinner at an amazing dumpling house. It started me on my crazed search for dumplings once we returned to town.

We spent Wednesday morning exploring the city. This was a crazy cymbal at a big music store. They had Alabama brand banjos, which I had never heard of, but it amused me.

One thing I loved about Montreal is how people were outside everywhere, eating lunch, riding bikes, reading in the sun.

That afternoon we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. This was an exhibit that had paper falling like snow. For any Southerner, even fake snow is pretty cool.

After our lunch of bad (but good) Chinese buffet, we decided to take a cue from the locals and spent some time laying in a park and looking over a map of the city. It was like Spring all over, and it was so nice to just relax in the sun.

Kind of the unspoken Montreal motto. Such polite, non pretentious people.

Tulips in the city.

We spent the evening walking around the older part of Montreal, which has a very European feel.

These are some really modern apartments across the river called Habitat 67.

We rented bicycles and rode around the river and around Old Montreal. Later that evening we had pizza at an Italian restaurant.

Thursday morning we rented bikes again to ride further into town. The great thing about Montreal is that there are bikes to rent and return all over the city. The bad news is that I am out of shape, and by the time we reached the park, I was pretty exhausted. Later that afternoon (after some post biking rest) we visited the City of Montreal History Museum. We saw a decent exhibit on the history of wine, but the main exhibit, about the history of the city, was pretty disappointing.

So after leaving the museum, we walked around the river and Old Montreal some more.

While walking around old town Montreal, we found my dream store- an icecream and cupcake shop.

I can’t read French, but this was like the best version of duck, duck, goose ever- ice cream, ice cream, cupcake!

That evening we ate at the French restaurant we found that day on our walk. We hadn’t thought to make reservations and the place was packed (like even seats at the bar were reserved), but being so kind, they pulled out a table from a back room, and made room for us. How awesome is that? The entire staff was friendly and helpful. We had tasty wine, and amazing food that was brought out in countless courses. It was the best meal of the trip.

The next morning before leaving town for Toronto, we stopped and ate lunch again at the dumpling restaurant. It is really hard to beat a delicious and cheap meal, and they had this amazing wasabi salad that I would love the recipe for. After dumplings we left the city for Toronto.

While I didn’t document or even remember most of the awesome food we made, there was one recipe we kept coming back to that I wanted to share: cream cheese stuffed, bacon wrapped jalapenos. We ate them throughout the season and for the national championship game. They are delicious and easy to prepare. Unless you have some particularly fiery peppers, the dish is fairly mild once cooked, but you might want to wear gloves while you are preparing them.

1. Gather supplies: Jalapenos, bacon, cream cheese (I love 1/3 fat onion and chives), and anything you want to add to the cream cheese like chives or hot sauce or anything. If you use plain cream cheese, you probably want to add a little something because it might be a little bland otherwise.
2. Half jalapenos. Scoop out seeds and ribs.
3. Fill jalapeno halves with cheese filling.
4. Wrap with bacon. (I use a whole slice of bacon per pepper, but you can you less.)
5. Bake in the oven (350-ish) until the bacon looks good and done.

They always say the way to a man’s heart is through is stomach. Well I don’t know about silly gender stereotypes, but a sure-fire way to make me melt into a puddle of love and appreciation is to cook for me. To feed me is to love me, especially if you feed me perfectly cooked steak. Oh, and okra seasoned with Tony’s that is both perfectly cooked and seasoned. That will do it. I love my awesome husband.

I am excited that things around the casa are getting more Southern. To be more specific, we are planning on painting to screened in porch ceiling haint blue. Now you might be saying to yourself, “What? Who paints a ceiling, especially one on a porch?” Well, superstitious Southerners do it to ward off bad luck and haints. I had a friend in New Orleans who painted every ceiling in her house blue after Katrina figuring she could use all the good luck she could get. Now I am a porch lover, and it would be hard for me to live in a house with no porch. In the spring and fall, my heart would ache with no where to go to relax with a glass of gin and a book to read. Our porch is getting a make over, and I thought it was the perfect time to add a touch of sky to the ceiling. Not only that, but I convinced my poor husband that it would be fun to paint the bathroom ceiling blue too. He loves me. In addition to painting the ceiling (and the trim needs a touch-up as well) we need to re-screen and lattice the porch and install our outdoor ceiling fan. I can picture myself now this autumn laying in the hammock staring at my blue ceiling and being cooled by the nice breeze of the fan. So here are the blues in the running.

Filed under: Home, Projects, Southern ]]> http://bethbking.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/haint-blue/feed/ 7 bethbking http://bethbking.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/crooked-little-watermelon/ http://bethbking.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/crooked-little-watermelon/#comments Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:39:44 +0000 bethbking http://bethbking.wordpress.com/?p=1988 ]]> Things are so slow going in the garden this year. I don’t know if it is the heat or if our veggies need more nutrients. But our crop is few and meager. These are supposed to be small watermelons, but this is absurd.

We are getting okra, but since slugs killed off all but two of the okra plants, we are getting one or two okra at a time.

I have hope for you little jalapenos.

Squash is dead. We got a couple nice sized zucchini before the plants died out.

Very few, and very tiny grape tomatoes.

I can go out in the garden for ten minutes, and end up with five mosquito bites like this. I swear I didn’t even scratch it. This is like five minutes after being bit.

We left on a Friday evening after work, and got as far as Chattanooga. Saturday we worked our way to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We ate lunch at this hotel/country restaurant, where we picked up some really offensive Christian comics that we took turns dramatically reading to each other during the car ride. We stayed in a small college town called Salem, had a nice dinner, took a walk downtown, and happened across an old-time music jam.

Sunday we drove through Shenandoah National Park, and everything was beautiful and in bloom. It was like time traveling back into Spring. On the way up, unfortunately I had to finish up applying to grad school, so we didn’t adventure much. We stayed the night outside of Hersey, PN and Dave picked up a pizza, while I worked on essays.

Monday was Memorial Day, and we drove through Scranton (for Dave’s Office love) and ate lunch at some town Joseph Smith got kicked out of. Our hotel for the evening was near Albany and we got a sweet swanky room upgrade, and the hotel had a very nice indoor pool. To celebrate me being finished with grad school crap, we ate at an overpriced steak house with creepy stuffed bears placed every where.

Us in Shenandoah

Yankee azaleas blooming.

On Tuesday we drove through the Adirondacks, and stopped for a few hours to eat lunch and ride horses through the mountains. It was a sweet little surprise Dave worked out.

It was an old mill town with a rapid stream running the length of the town.

This is the place we stopped to ride at. Pretty river and mountains.

Dave meeting the barn pony.

I am riding Gizmo. Dave had to inform the guy at the barn that I did not get this Gremlins joke. They were both so disappointed in me.

Dave doing some horseback photography of Copper. He kept letting his horse stop and eat so they would have to trot to catch up with us. Every time I would look back, Cooper was getting a big ole mouth full of grass.

Next stop Canada!

Mystery blue flower, which I now realize is purple. Opps. It is super cute, and the cuttings last for a long time.

The full bed. Isn’t it pretty?