and things went downhill from there

There is this old joke that went, "How can you tell if somebody owns an iPhone? Don't worry - they'll tell you."

There were variants on it as well: "How can you tell if somebody is into cross-fit?" "How can you tell if somebody is vegan?"

In fairness, the last one makes a bit more sense since it's an important distinction when one is perusing a menu, or trying to determine if an item they want to buy is made from leather or Pleather.

So I thought this would be a good opportunity to stress that I'm not vegan, nor am I into cross-fit, and I don't own an iPhone.

But that doesn't mean that we've been eating a lot of vegan/vegetarian themed meals of late. That's partly by choice, and partly because we're cheapskates and meat is expensive these days.

Even when we have meat, it's usually chicken or pork. We don't dislike beef, but chicken and pork are perfectly cromulent proteins. And - generally speaking - they're a cheaper option.

When I went shopping on Tuesday to pick out some meal ingredients for the week, I got it into my head that I would do a pork roast for dinner on Thursday. Not just a roast, but one of those slow, all-day ones. I picked out a decent-looking rump roast (which, in spite of the name, is actually a shoulder cut) and while I was in the area, I had a quick look at the beef equivalent so that I could be smug about how much I was saving by having pork.

And to my astonishment, they had a sirloin roast of about the same size for cheaper. I had a closer look at the unit cost on both pieces of meat to make sure I wasn't getting caught up in different sizes, but the beef had a lower unit cost. Huh. We'd had ham for Easter, so I decided to treat us with a nice, slow-roasted chunk of beef.

atara picked up some cookbooks many years back that were aimed at families where both parents were working. Since we were both working full-time, they were a good fit for us. One of them had a recipe for an eight-hour roast, where you set it up in the oven and left it to cook unattended while you were at the office. The lone downside to the recipe is that if you happen to be working from home, you have to contend with a house that smells delicious for an entire day.



I also picked up some baby potatoes along with the roast, and I did them up in the toaster oven while the roast was resting. When I do these again, I'll skip the fresh garlic and just toss them with a bit of garlic powder. The garlic cloves burnt and turned a bit bitter in the high heat. Oh well - I was worried about that when I added them, and included them anyway.

The black thing to the right of this picture is a piece of garlic. The dark bits on the steak are in the gravy that I made from the drippings. I could have strained those out. But I didn't.

We went shopping at a big Asian market called "Lucky" this afternoon. While not quite as impressive as some of the places out in Vancouver (like T&T), it still manages to pack in quite an eclectic selection. I love this kind of store, from the Engrish labelling to the products that make you look askance. Three of our favourites (well, four if you count the pigs heads below) are the Mannish Water brand of "Ram Goat Flavor Soup Mix" with "artrificial goat flavor & other natural flavors".

Or the bag of gizzards that were declared to be "vegan". I was particularly fond of the bag of powdered POCARI SWEAT, which billed itself as an "ION SUPPLY DRINK".

They have quite an impressive meat selection in this store - much more comprehensive than any of the major chain stores in town, or even most of the local butchers. I can't speak for the quality of the meat, but there is no part of the animal that they don't sell here.


We celebrated the start of what promises to be a whole week of temperatures above freezing by draggin the grill out of storage. I thought I cleaned it up better than this when I put it away in the fall, but in retrospect I seem to recall that we put it away in a bit of a rush as part of our preparations for our MWFF trip. We did not want to come home to find it buried in snow.

The grill seems to radiate attitude in this picture, juxtaposed against the stubborn mound of snow as if to say, "It is spring when I say it is spring." I fired it up briefly to make sure all the burners were working, but I am going to head back out there once I have posted this entry to give it some spit and polish before we put it to use on dinner.