BLUEBERRYMOON — LiveJournal

11:32 am - Been a while

That should read....Where are you? Well, I've been posting away at my other blog on blogger. Sorry. I was cross posting from there to here and then got busy and then stopped. I also have an art page on Facebook so if you are on there, please feel free to "like" me and then you can see when I post because I always pop a link up. I will try to post things here occasionally.

If you are someone that loves books and book stores and cafes like I do, this one is a GEM!  The Biscuit Eater in Mahone Bay. I always try to stop in each time I pass through. This is Kim, a lovely girl who was kind enough to let me take her picture as she was reading. She looked so cosy when I entered the room.

This charming wee cafe/bookstore is tucked away on a side street behind "P'lovers". Not the kind of place you would find by yourself, it is one of those special spots that is passed on by word of mouth and treasured by the locals. In the summer you can relax outside in the back under umbrellas and majestic trees.

Another great thing about this place is the food. You can order "raw" selections and gluten free and of course all the other good stuff. They serve meals as well as "treats". This was what we stopped in for on our way back to Halifax.

I adore the way they have labeled their reading selections. So creative and whimsical. Just my kind of spot.

Wish I lived down the street !

08:11 am - Valentine's Day half price sale

James Jowers, taken 1968, London

HappyValentine's Day! We need more than just Groundhog Day in February don't you think?

As a kiss from me to you, I am having a one day, Valentine's half-price sale in my Alice in Paris Etsy shop! Just type in smooch as the coupon code.

I'll be at the market all day, so cannot relist things as they are sold.  If there is a print that has been sold that you would like,  please send me an email and I will relist it for you when I get home. xoxox

08:46 pm - Trip to Persia

Fifteen minutes from the center of Halifax on the Bedford Highway there lies beautiful Peresopolis. I was taken there for another birthday lunch! A lovely wee Iranian market and cafe.

Inside there is a wealth of foodstuffs and interesting items to be had. I had fun looking around. Gorgeously displayed.

Shisha/ ḡalyān/ hookahs( they have many names) and supplies, dried figs, fruits, seeds, packets of biscuits, tinned goods, tea sets, something for everyone.

Camran and Vida Khandan are the owners and rebuilt the place themselves using no contracters. Really a labour of love. They will be offering Persian cooking lessons soon too.

Stepping beyond the shop, there is an open rustic cafe. Pillows and backgammon games invite one to while away the afternoon, sipping tea and having some fun. You can see the snowy scene outside. In summer it will be lovely with sides open.

The menu is small and features delicious kebabs done by traditional charcoal cooking and panini sandwiches but there are also a few warm dishes to be had. This is the Aash soup, with parsley, dill, coriander, chickpeas, black eyed beans, lentils, onions and rice noodles. Wow. Stick to your ribs for sure! It was tasty and very filling. Look at those crispy fried onions on top!

We also ordered the stews, which come with a simple crunchy salad.

The star was the fesenjan, a dark fragrant stew cooked for ten hours!Usually for special occasions. In it are ground walnuts, pomegrante paste onions and chicken. We also ordered the gheymeh, with chicken, split peas, tomato paste and dried limes. All served over Persian rice.

So good! Yes, we had dessert too. Not quite as good as the mains but nice to finish off with something sweet.

Cardamom tea. Really yummy. You can also bring your own wine here and there is NO corking fee.We had a lovely relaxing time. Spent a few hours here.

And as a special treat, my friends ordered a shisha. I've never tried it.These are normally only available at night but there was no one about on this snowy afternoon so as a favour the owner let us try it. There is no nicotine in the mixture that burned, it was flavoured with fruits and a most delicate perfumed wafting permeated our table. I think there are 24 flavours to choose from.

01:40 pm - 18 reasons to be cheerful in January

1. The extra light in each day is becoming a little bit more noticeable.

2. We can wear our favourite socks and woolie sweaters every day.

3. Soups and stews taste better in this weather.

4. We can hide our extra lumpies under winter clothes.

5. Skating, skiing and snowmen.

6. If you have an Amaryllis, I bet it is blooming.

7. The One World One Heart event starts soon.

8. No guilt about not getting outside more.

9. January is the best time to buy:
- Air Conditioners
- Gas Grills
- Homes
- Bicycles and Sporting Goods
- Furniture
- Linens and Bed Sheets
- Carpeting
- Digital Cameras

10. You can enjoy flannel sheets

11. For those who enjoy whiskey, poetry and things Scottish, Burns night!

12. If you are reading this, you have a computer with internet access and with that, you can travel the world and learn about things that interest you, definitely something to be cheerful about:) Cyber escape!

13. Great for games nights and getting together with friends and watching old movies and eating cheese fondues and warm chocolate chip cookies.

14. February is next and it is a short month and then it is March!

15. Perfect month to visit museums and galleries, get in out of the cold. Here in Halifax you can go visit Sue at our Museum of Natural History.

16. Good time to dream about the summer. Planning fun things chases the chill away.

17. Hot water bottles

18.When the sun is out, the sky is REALLY blue.

19......any more?

Don't wait for the storm to pass, dance in the rain, or snow, or wind....

07:13 pm - Been a while

Look what I managed to get done at the market today! It was very quiet this morning so I worked steadily away on it until finished. It has been a few month since I've done a painting like this. The original is available for sale HERE and prints can be found HERE.
I'm feeling accomplished but very tired now:) Wonder what's onTV tonight.

06:53 pm - Saturday's Sunrise

Today's sunrise from the market.
What you are looking at off in the distance is called Hangman's Beach (originally called Maughers Beach) jutting out from McNab's Island in the Halifax harbour. You can see the tiny lighthouse at the end of the spit. The beach has a gruesome if not interesting history.

This was taken from a pirate fact sheet ...our local museum put together
Around the 18th Century, law required that the pirates be executed with their bodies displayed in public as a warning to other sailors. The body was covered in tar and hanged from chains in an iron cage called a gibbet. The Royal Navy used the same treatment on mutineers. Two pirates were hanged this way on George's Island in 1785. Another, Jordan the pirate, was hanged at Point Pleasant Park, near the Black Rock beach in 1809. At the same time, the Navy hanged six mutineers at Hangman's Beach on McNab's Island, just across the Harbour. Any ship entering Halifax Harbour in 1809 had to pass between hanging and rotting corpses.

The lighthouse you can barely see also has an interesting story.
The light at Maughers Beach ( Hangmans Beach) was used in 1851 by Abraham Gesner to test out the new fuel he had invented, kerosene, to replace whale oil. Although lighthouse officials were skeptical, the careful recording of the efficiency of kerosene by Maughers Beach keeper David George helped establish the fuel for standard use.

And in other totally unrelated vein , the winner of the olive oil and balsamic vinegar is Sara Harley of Dream Big! #15 drawn by the number generator at random.org. Congratulations:)

So I'm back at the market tomorrow. I wonder what adventures await!

03:39 pm - Esape to the Mediterranean

That's what I did last week!

Liquid Gold is a lovely wee olive oil/balsamic vinegar tasting bar found in the Hydrostone Market on Young street. Yes, a tasting bar!

The oils and vinegars here are top quality and are kept in metal containers called 'fusti". They are grouped in flavours from very mild to strong. One starts with the softer ones and works up to the more robust flavours using small spoons or tiny cubes of bread to sample them. You can even mix the various oils and vinegars in tiny cups to make dressings.

The oils come from all over the Mediterranean. Spain, Greece, Italy, France...and the vinegars hail from Modena in Italy. The oils are pure, single fruits called cultivars or are cultivars that have been flavoured with yummy partners. In spring/summer, the oils come from the southern hemisphere where the winter crop is harvested between May and July. In the fall & winter, they come from the Mediterranean. I was in heaven!
Myrna Burlock opened the business with Bill MacArthur in September and business is booming. We had a lot of fun with her as she helped us choose what to buy.

Each oil has a card describing where it came from and the flavour profile (very much like a wine) as well as the IOCC standard for it.
IOOC Standards. FFA: Measure of free acidity that indicates decomposition. EVOO must be less than 0.8 OLEIC ACID: A monosaturated Omega-9 fatty acid. It makes up 55-83% of EVOO. PV: Peroxide value. A measure ofrancidity due to oxidization. Must be less than 20,less than 10 for high quality extra virgin olive oil.

People were popping in and out during our visit and Myrna told a story of a husband who brought his foodie wife here for her birthday. He brought a bottle of wine which they opened and a lovely afternoon was spent here sampling all the combinations of flavours. I mean...look at them and those are just some of the oils!

I adored the balsamic vinegars. One of my all time faves was the chocolate balsamic! Really! Remember I said you could mix? I tried blood orange olive oil with the chocolate balsamic, amazing! The vinegars almost taste like liqueurs. There were organic varieties to choose from too.

So what did I choose? It was difficult but I figured it out.

I went for the Koroneiki , a strong green olive oil from Greece

It was one of the robust flavours near the end of the line.

The balsamic vinegar I chose was the Pomegranate balsamic. It was SO hard to choose. I wanted to take them all home. I guess that's why they are doing well:)

So the exciting part of this post is that a local reader or anyone that can physically make it to the store is going to get a bottle each of vinegar and olive oil. Just leave a comment over here and if you are interested, you can follow Liquid Gold on facebook. Oh and if you are lucky, you might get to meet Riley, the resident napper.

10:23 am - a bit of my story....

The bold Monty trying to catch some zzzzzs in a tiny patch of sun but somebody with a camera keeps pestering him.

Guess what? I've been interviewed by La Salonniere. Want to know how I started painting?

01:53 pm - good things

My pre-birthday lunch:) So glad I was taken out for this treat because on my "real" birthday I worked ALL day. Thanks Cathy:) Mmmm, pasta with all kinds of yummy things and a green pea tarragon soup.

For dessert....a Meyer lemon pie with vanilla ice cream. The pie had sliced lemons in it with rind and all. Melt in your mouth citrus-y wow. I didn't get a birthday cake this year but had this wonderful concoction and a delicious wee cupcake at the market.(Thanks Michelle)

and now.....ta dah! The winner of my birthday present giveaway according to the random number generator is ....#15! Karen of This Old House 2! Thanks to everybody for your lovely birthday wishes! I'm a year older now and looking forward to the next one!

11:46 am - Birthday GIVEAWAY!

My birthday is TOMORROW January 8th and I share it with with.......