replica

GoodFood Box

Many thanks for Alex for sending a free box, t'was very tasty:

Some impressions:

• Each 2-person portions served more than 2, the leftovers can probably feed a regular appetite person
• The instructions were easy to follow
• There was a lot of plastic packaging, would prefer if it was compostable
• There is a good variety of cuisines / types of dishes for a week 

spread

Made some pizza yesterday per Kenji's Sicilian Pizza recipe:

Overall quite yummy, but the bottom of the crust did not crisp as much as I would've liked. Should've added the full ¼ cup of oil (I probably added about half of that), and not use a sheet of parchment paper in between. I was also concerned about leaving the dough out in room temp for 24 hours, thinking it would over ferment as my room temperature is on the high side during the summer. But it turned out fine, there was decent oven spring and crumb was good, some large air bubbles remained even though I wasn't delicately stretching the dough to fit. 

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I've made even more tofu dishes from Woks of Life, all turned out great: home-style tofu and vegan 1-2-3-4-5 (would reduce the sugar by 1 tbsp tho). If it was up to me, my meals would be roughly 75% plant based protein. 

At the Existentialist Cafe

This is my fifth book review for Rui & Ben. I finally finished reading this book ;o; 

I believe I started this before quarantine, got through 4 or 5 chapters, then dropped it for the longest time. But I am finally done now. It's a little puzzling why it was such a struggle for me to finish this book, as the subject is very interesting to me. Maybe it's because the format is similar to biographies, which I have little interest in (how come? no idea, I can't think of any biographies I've read so I have no basis for writing them off). 

Prior to reading this book, I never heard of Simone de Beauvoir. But the few quotation I've jotted down are all from sections related to her:

It is simply the way human beings are. Our condition is to be ambiguous to the core, and our task is to learn to manage the movement and uncertainty in our existence, not to banish it.
[...]
The ambiguous human condition means tirelessly trying to take control of things. We have to do two near-impossible things at once: understand ourselves as limited by circumstances, and get continue to pursue our projects as though we are truly in control.

the rich confusion of [a] person’s life

In fact I have her Ethics of Ambiguity on my reading list. But first, Don Quixote, last of the books lent to me by Rui & Ben. Maybe with a few fictions in between as well. I am behind my reading goal for this year of 14 books. 

eleven

Alrighty, this is the total (hopefully) damage from the recent covid sales:

• Burberry two-tone trench
• Sandro lace shift dress 
• Frank&Oak wide legged pants
• Proenza Schouler PS11 chain bag 
• Stuart Weitzman  lonnie boot 

Some thoughts on each of the above items: 

While I've wanted a Burberry trench coat since middle school, I always thought I would get one of the heritage designs. But I'm really happy with the two-tone trench, and not primarily because I got it at 50% off. I like the more prominent storm flap detail at the front, as well as the two colours. I do wish the length is a tad shorter, since it comes to a midi-length on me, but the silver lining to that the bottom silhouette is a stronger full silhouette. 

This dress is my first item from Sandro, and it is a brand that I'm interested in finding out more about. The aesthetics is very much my preference, and apparently the cut is suitable for asians since a Chinese company bought the brand a few years ago. However, even though they have physical stores in Canada, they don't have official e-commerce -_- I believe The Bay is the only Canadian site that stocks them? They don't have the full line, the photography is super standardized (I suppose this is a positive since it helps buyers to be more objective), and the product names are different than the official site. Browsing Sandro's store is on my to-do list once covid is gone.

Frank&Oak is another brand that I want to like. Amongst the many sustainable or ethical brands, Frank&Oak at least has third-party certification (B-Corp). Recall a few months ago where I was smitten with the idea of a wide legged pants in the perfect earth tone. Well I've found them. In fact I was sucked in by the claims that this pair is naturally dyed. The appeal of that outweighs the potential colour-transfer and fading, but perhaps it shouldn't...since I'll be avoiding wearing my new bag with this. 

Which brings me to my new bag. I'm definitely more of a shoe person, but have been browsing bags lately. Originally it was because I wanted a bag for special occasions, but then covid came and cancelled my friends' weddings. Regardless I kept browsing, and came across this PS11 chain bag. It is so wonderful that this bag has both silver and gold hardware, hardware color was such a difficult decision while looking at other bags. But the design point that got me was that, at a quick glance, the inverted studs look like a clover. 

Finally, I broke my promise to myself that I wouldn't buy another pair of boots before I get the Zonkeys. I'm really close to giving up on the Zonkeys, maybe I'll just settle for the C&J jodhpurs which look good too. Aside from jods, the other boot style on my list is the sock boot. So I snatched these up when I saw them on SW's official website's sale. I've heard pretty much entirely positive reviews of SW, so I'm looking forward to wearing these when winter comes around. 

...and I've used up my clothing quota for the year. I predict with almost certainty that I will end up buying more stuff during the end-of-year (which is now like...October all the way to December?) sales. While I can easily come up with excuses to extend my self-imposed quota, such as I've gotten rid of a few items, but let's just see where I end up by the year end. 

ninety

These days have been really hot and humid (well, at least by Toronto standards. I'm proud that I'm unfazed by days when it's less than 30 now). The silver lining is this unique creamy light, or perhaps it's really just haze. But the result is a beautiful creamy light nonetheless.

I like the flatness and the composition of the photo, but boy does it not reflect the creamy light 😭

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In other news, I'm still waiting on the final item I've bought during the covid sales to arrive before making a post about that. But as a spoiler, I finally got my grail trench coat. here is a nice long read about the history of the trench coat in celebration. Here is also a short film on Kashmir shawls, which is unrelated to any of my purchases. What both links have in common is that they're resources from MOMA's Fashion as Design course that I'm going through. 

breeze

Hi friends I am back. 

Went back to my mom's house for a while and then came back to downtown with Jeff's little brother staying with us for a while. I find that I have exceedingly little motivation to blog when I'm with other people. But here's a post to offload some photos from my phone as it's perpetually close to full storage.

First off I finally started & finished the embroidery kit that I bought when I went to Atlanta last year:

  

For my first piece, I think it's not bad? I found keeping each stitch a consistent length to be the most challenging. It was nice to work embroidery into my routine, I typically worked on it for about half an hour after finishing work as a distancing activity in lieu of commuting. I have several ideas for future projects, but they are contingent on making a trip to the craft store (via subway) which I'm still not keen to do. Maybe I'll order another kit in the meantime?

My second accomplishment is making my mom a birthday cake. I haven't been in the same country as her during her birthday for a few years now, so I really enjoyed celebrating with her this time around. Made a black sesame cotton cake and topped it off with a peony from her garden. Flowers are such cheat cake decoration. 

The cake turned out really well! I feel that watching so many baking videos paid off even though it's my first time making a meringue dependant cake. 

This is the same peony a few days prior before it had the honour of topping the cake:

I'm pretty disappointed that the rest of the flowers in mom's yard reached peak bloom a few days after I left.

Another aspect of summer that I love is the long blue hour. Although this photo barely does the time period any justice:

Life at my mom's really is idyllic haha.