• Food

    Grilled Cheese Steak

    For lunch today I made a grilled cheese with a little something extra — leftover steak and sautéed onion.

    The sweet onion paired with the savoury meat and the crispy grilled rye is pretty yummy.

  • Beep Beep Boop

    The Learning Pit

    I first heard about the learning pit from my wife, a marvellous grade 3 teacher. I was feeling frustrated trying to learn a new skill and she encouraged me to have a “growth mindset”. Uh, what?

    Before you step into the learning pit you have a clear idea of what you want to learn. As you stretch outside your comfort zone and begin learning, you begin to experience conflict and confusion — and frustration. The way out of the pit is to construct meaning that will lead to a new clarity and understanding of the situation.

    Follow along as I experience a little cognitive-conflict while I create a blog… It’s called a pit for a good reason.

  • In the Beginning

    Origin Stories

    We all have origin stories. We really have many as we continue to grow and redefine ourselves. The truth is… my origin story will continue until my story ends. At least I hope it does.

    Our origins come from chaos & darkness. From that darkness emerges light and being. We are formed in the conflict between good and evil – fire and ice.

  • Gibson cocktail ingredients
    Cocktails

    The Gibson

    Tonight’s cocktail of choice is the Gibson — essentially a martini with a cocktail onion. Create your own ratio of gin to vermouth.

    • 2 oz Gin
    • 3/4 oz dry vermouth
    • 1 pickled cocktail onion

    With ice in your cocktail shaker add the gin and vermouth and stir until cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Add the onion and enjoy.

    I decided to try the Gibson after watching the Queen’s Gambit and got a bit hooked.

    *cough* It’s good. Is that a martini?

    A Gibson. I find the onion slightly more refined than the olive.

    The Queen’s Gambit. Season 1. Episode 3.

    At first I bought cocktail onions from the grocery store, but found them a bit too sweet. This past summer I decided to try pickling my own and created a hybrid recipe that I really liked.

    • 1/2 cup white vinegar 
    • 1 cup dry vermouth 
    • 3 tablespoons sugar 
    • 2 tablespoon coarse salt 
    • 1 pound peeled pearl onions 
    • 1 teaspoon coriander seeds 
    • 1 tablespoon allspice berries
    • 1 teaspoon black peppercorns

    Bring vinegar, vermouth, sugar, and salt to a boil. Pack pearl onions, coriander seeds, allspice berries, and black peppercorns into a glass jar. Pour in liquid; let cool completely. Cover; refrigerate 1 week before using.

    To make the onions easier to peel you can blanche them in boiling water for 1 minute after trimming the root ends. Submerge them in an ice water bath and drain. Simply pinch them and the onion pops out of their skin.

    Sláinte!