Cooking in Los Angeles

Over the weekend I was in Los Angeles visiting TJ, and we decided to do something we hadn't done in a while, but love doing together - cook! We chose a vegetable french cassoulet with white beans (yum!). The appetizers were french bread (of course!) and marcona almonds, accompanied by a chardonnay we picked up when we were tasting in Napa a couple weeks ago. Miraculously, I found a chardonnay I liked - I'm a red kinda girl (just take a look at all my white shirts, and my messy love for red wine is no secret) - so we snatched it up to enjoy. But I must say - the dessert rocked! We made a truffle pie (chocolate and peanut butter). The recipe was from Sinfully Vegan, a dessert cookbook TJ's sister Misty bought us. WOW! It was better than it looks. Here's TJ holding the masterpiece!

Niagara Falls: Ice Wine

I recently read about ice wine, which is a dessert wine made from grapes allowed to remain on the wine until after the first frost. The frost of course freezes the grape. We visited the Inniskillin and Pillitiri wineries, and at Inniskillin, we were given an opportunity to taste the frozen grapes from the vine. Here's a shot of the grape vines. Click on the photo to blow it up and see the myriad grapes!

Niagara Falls: Buddhist Temple

We happened upon a cool temple while driving around Niagara. A lot of really dramatic statues situated outdoors. I loved the look of this one, so serene amidst the lingering snow from the previous day's storm.

















The temple's vehicle (I called it the Zen-mobile) was also extra cool - painted on all sides, so I got a couple of shots of that as well.

Niagara Falls: Falls by Day

Sunday was our day to check out the falls during the day. Here's a shot of the omnipresent rainbow (due to the constant mist).
















And here are some close-ups.

Niagara Falls: Falls at Night

I was off to spend the weekend the weekend with my cousin Nina in Toronto. I was supposed to arrive at 9pm on Friday night, but with flight delays, I didn't end up arriving until 1am! Nina faithfully picked me up in the wee hours of the morning, bounded out of the car, announcing that she had a friend with her in the car, and that we were off to Niagara! We arrived in Niagara around 2:30am and went directly to the falls. To our dismay, the lights are turned off at midnight, so we instead retired to a hotel. The next night, however, we made it a point to check out the falls by moonlight (a full moon, no less!). Here are my cousin and I in front of the falls.













Here's a few of the falls from the Skylon Tower. A little eerie in the floodlights, isn't it!

Virginia/D.C.

This weekend I visited my friend Ruhi in Falls Church, VA. I had a great weekend, including one day spent in D.C. If you caught my September post on D.C. (which was my first visit there) you saw that the highlights of my trip included a visit to Ella's Woodfired Pizza, which offers all of its pizzas with vegan soy cheese. Ruhi and I ate a delicious lunch of piping hot pizza there on a cold Saturday afternoon. Here's a picture of us, satisfied after our meal. Notice the pizzas on the wall behind us.













Another highlight of my trip from September was a visit to Sticky Fingers Bakery, a vegan bakery also in D.C. I told Ruhi even before I arrived that this was one place that I HAD to revisit. So, I dragged her over there, and I bought some treats. We shared a mint brownie which was delicious, and later in the evening, we shared a "Little Devil" which I liken to an adult ding-dong. I had also bought two of their famous sticky buns, which we saved until the next morning, and warmed in the oven to enjoy with our coffee. Here they are, for your viewing pleasure. They were even better than they look!













I visited the Smithsonian Air and Space museum on this trip, where I got to see lots of interesting things, like a test Lunar Module, the "Spirit of St. Louis" (Charles Lindbergh's plane) and the red beauty pictured below, whihc is the very plane Amelia Earhart flew across the Atlantic.













Ruhi's apartment has a great view of the Washington Monument and the Capitol from afar, which looks really dramatic at night (sorry, I forgot to take a picture at night). You may want to click on this one to see it a bit bigger.













All in all, a great weekend, with lots of catching up, chatting, and good eats! Thanks for a great weekend Ruhi!

Portland

TJ and I visited Portland just prior to the New Year. Portland is such a great city with awesome public transportation (yay, no cars!) and really nice people.

Highlights including vegan donuts at Voodoo donut, and vegan biscuits and gravy and corn cakes at Vita Cafe. Oh, and don't forget the tofu scamble and FRESH orange juice at Bijou Cafe. Browsing in Powell's bookstore (beyond huge) and around Food Fight, Portland's very own vegan grocery store, made me very happy!


Portlandia on 5th avenue, protecting the city.















Classical Chinese Garden, in the middle of downtown Portland.