Buffaloed at The Garrison house

My friend Nadine, who is another retired teacher told me about a restaurant in Niagara-on-the-Lake that she had seen featured on the Food Network.

It is called 'Gartrison House' and she wanted to try it.

I said I would go with her.

As we were looking at the menu I noticed a dish that had Buffalo cheese in it.

"Well," I said to Nadine, "the best chicken wings in the world come from Buffalo, they must make good cheese too."

Nadine said, "Francie, mozzarella cheese is made from buffalo-the -animal-not-the-city milk."

I squinched my eyes at her."You mean to tell me somebody hooks buffaloes up to milking machines?"

"Well, I'm sure I don't know," she said slightly offended, "all I know is what I told you.

Now my understanding of buffaloes is that they a big, hairy, dirty, smelly beasts that live and defecate  on the Saskatchewan prairie.

I passed on the dish with buffalo cheese.

Nadine did too for some reason.  

She had the halibut which she said was yummy.

I had the chicken curry.  I forgot to copy down the name of that giant potato chip but it started with a p and was really spicy good!!   

The curry was great and the amount I was served was just right.

Nadine had the cheese cake with rhubarb topping for dessert. 

She said it was delicious. 

I had to choose between the raspberry creme  brulee and the strawberry tart.

A choice no woman should have to make.

I had the tart!  ♪♪♪☺

And this, ladies, was our waiter.

Thought I'd celebrate Canada Day with a picture of a handsome young Canadian man.

:)





Note:  

The next morning I was talking on the phone to my friend Jane.  

"Nadine says mozzarella cheese is made from buffalo milk," I said.

She googled it while we were talking.

"It is," she said, "water buffalo milk, although because water buffaloes are only found in a few strange places like Bulgaria, most of what we get is made from cows milk.

Jeesh.

Water buffaloes.

If I had only known, eh?





The Garrison House

You really should eat there!

http://www.thegarrisonhouse.ca/






***

I Love VistaPrint

Ain't it great??

My business card!

(Oh the bottom isn't really all smeary - I did that so that cyber ax murderers won't find out where I live.)

It is beautiful and I am very proud of myself.

But of course being a teacher I never read instructions and ran into a bit of a problem when I sent VistaPrint the wrong address for my website.

I was in a total panic when I realized what I had done and decided to go back and read the directions.

The directions said that once I pushed the final button there was no turning back. I had to live with what I had ordered.

I decided to throw myself on their mercy and wrote a pitiful letter that would make tears come to the eyes of Gunga Din.

But I didn't expect clemency.

Good grief my cards arrived the next day with the corrections made and a wonderful e-mail from one of the workers!

I'm so not used to good service and a company that goes out of its way to assist its clients.

If this is online business, I like it!

Taking the Falls

One of my cousins from Scotland came to visit for a few days this week.

She was a huge amount of fun and because she was here I decided we should do something I've wanted to do since I was a kid.

We took a boat ride to the base of Niagara Falls.

The Niagara River turns up in a lot of my pictures. It has always rolled and roared across the backdrop my life. But it doesn't ever take centre stage.

This picture, however, is all about the river and the legend of the "Maid of the Mist".  I've already blogged about her, how she went willingly over the Falls in a canoe to save her people so I'll just give you a link to one version of the legend:   The maid of the Mist

The maid Lelawela can be seen in the water at the base of the Falls, the Thunder God is on the right. 

The healing and fertility of their love is represented by the canoe.  

Maleficent - a Commentary

Spoiler alert: Don't read this if you don't want to know.

Maleficent movie trailer

It should have been much darker.

But the truth runs so close to the surface of this movie

you can almost see the version that should have been made.

Maleficent is a powerful faerie.  She lives in an idyllic world and loves a young human man whom she trusts.

One day he sees a chance to gain worldly power and steals her wings.

Maleficent's  grief is unbearable. 

She withdraws from the world and vows revenge.

The young man becomes king and has a daughter.

On her christening day while the other faeries are blessing her with beauty and happiness the dark side of the Goddess, oops, I mean Maleficent , turns up and curses her.

But 16 years is a long time, (maybe 5,000 years in our time),and as the princess approaches her birthday, Maleficent realizes her mistake in cursing all women, oops, I mean the princess, whom she loves. 

She tries to undo the curse but of course she can't and the girl pricks her finger on a spinning wheel and will sleep forever unless she is awoken by the kiss of her true love.

The handsome prince rides up and kisses her but she doesn't awake.

It isn't until Maleficent speaks of her own love for her daughters, oops, I mean the princess, and kisses her, that the princess awakes and the battle to defeat the evil king, who is by this time quite mad takes place.

I don't like fantasy as a rule, and I really don't like cutesy wootsey Hollywood muppetty creatures unless they are in an actual Muppet movie.  

But this is a Hollywood movie and it was made primarily for the kiddie market, so I guess you have to accept that part of it.

Because really, the underlying message, sent chills up my spine.

Am I Saleswoman of the Year Yet?

The last few weeks have been a time of

High  anxiety.

But I've finally, (thanks to a very kind woman named Sally), been able to see some of my work for sale online in the form of glicleé prints.

They are expensive so don't be shocked.

(I had some cheap prints done at first but the

quality was poor and I stopped selling them.)

Fortunately, I don't have to live on what I earn

from my art work. 

Anyway

Sally's awesome store can be found at  

store.csourcewisdom.com





PS For all that I write and considering it is my own
art work you'd think I could come up with a better
sales pitch! I'll have to work on this marketing stuff.

And hey, I added some big words and colour.  
That has to count for something!

The Yin of It, the Yang of it

I'm sure this makes perfect sense to you so I'm not going to bother explaining it.

Hahaahaha

Actually for once I have no words other than to say that maybe it is about fertility/creativity or maybe it's about how sometimes events seem to happen because they have to happen and we are just ticket holders trapped on a strange cosmic merry-go-round??

Or maybe I just like drawing fish.

:)