Garlic and the City

Currently sitting in my living room eating yam fries and curry veganaise (one of my favourite lazy meals) and aparently sharing with the cats... It's been a long week but an eventful one! Today was my last day of volunteering for My City is Still Breathing - a four day conference in Winnipeg that gathers artists, architects, and city planners to talk about the current and future relationships of art and design to city-making. The whole conference was named after a line in John K Samson (lead singer of The Weakerthans - a Winnipeg band)'s song Left and Leaving.

Overall the event was very exciting to be apart of and I can't wait to get involved with more things like it!

I also just finished a submission to the first issue of the Chesterfield Zine - a spin off zine of the SOFA zine that a group of fine arts students last year organized. Each artist gets a full 8 1/2 x 11" page to themselves and it will be put together in a magazine size zine. It's been really freeing with these artist cards for Pakistan and the zine submission to just make things for the sake of making things and to not over-analyze what I'm making so I had a great time putting togteher my page. I'm making those chicken/human ceramic pieces right now so I thought I'd tie those in so collaged and drew two human chickens walking their dog dressed as a hot dog in the exchange district with one saying to the other, "What garlic is to food, insanity is to art" (a quote by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens) and the other says, "Hmm... Yes quite." And I feature two vegan recipes, a ginger/butternut/lentil soup from 'La Dolce Vegan' by Sarah Kramer and another for chocolate covered garlic for dessert.

Darrin and I made the chocolate covered garlic last night

[photos taken with Darrin's iphone Salvador Dali Hipstamatic app]

but I thought it would be a great idea to leave some of the garlic cloves raw for a bit of a kick because I love garlic, so I scarfed down two of the cooked garlic chocolates which were fabulous and then popped a raw one.... DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME... I doubled over as I felt the garlic traveling down my esophagus.. Not fun but funny later. So make sure you follow the recipe and cook the garlic! Here are the recipes typed out in case you're curious and can't read the tiny writing on my zine page!

Jen's Ginger Butternut Lentil Soup

- 1 small onion chopped

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- 2" fresh ginger grated

- 2 cups butternut squash cubed

- 2 cups veg stock

- 1 14 oz can diced tomatoes

- 1/2 cup red lentils

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1/2 tsp ground black pepper

In a medium soup pot on medium heat, saute the onion in oil until translucent. Add the ginger and sauce and saute for 5 mins. Add the stock tomatoes, lentils, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then reduce heat. Simmer for 15-20 mins or until squash is cooked. With a blender, blend half or all until smooth. Return to pot, reheat and serve. Makes 2-4 servings.

So if you're looking for a great hearty soup that will last you through your work/school week just double or triple this fast recipe Sunday night and you're set!

and the Chocolate Covered Garlic!

I would recommend this for a fun appy or dessert at a cocktail or dinner party...

Peel a ton of garlic and boil for 8-10 mins. Remove garlic and wipe dry. Heat dairy free chocolate chips (I use 'Enjoy Life semi-sweet chocolate chips' from Organza or Vita Health) on low stirring constantly until melted. Remove from heat and add garlic. Stir cloves until coated. Spoon out onto plate covered in wax paper. Toss in the freezer for 10 mins and enjoy!

I'm happy this upcoming week will be a little bit slower than last and I will have more time to make my chicken/humans (I'm aiming to make a dozen by the end of the week). Here's my list of things to do for this coming week!

- Helga's Opening at Edna Fedya (the student gallery I curate on campus) this Tuesday

- make 11 more chicken/humans, dry to leather hard state, hollow out, and set up bisque firing the following week

- start going back to hot yoga with my roommate Kate

- listen to Darrin's radioshow SoulPatch on UMFM Tuesday @ 1pm (101.5 fm)

- go to Darrin's student group 'DOCS' showing of The End of Suburbia Tuesday from 2-4pm

- get together with an old friend for coffee

- see Human Hybrid Dance Performance in conjunction with Wanda Koop's show at the WAG Wednesday

- see Alexa's band Chic Gamine's 2nd CD release of 'City City' this Saturday at the West End Cultural Center!

- and on Friday Cinematheque is playing Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child - so that will be a must-see!

Sook Yin Lee from Definitely Not the Opera on CBC radio has also made a movie - Year of The Carnivore - which looks awesome and opens at Cinematheque Dec 1 so I'll be penciling that one in

Hope you guys have a great week ahead of you!