things that amuse me

I happened to notice a coin on the floor in papersky and rysmiel's home, the day I got here. I said something, rysmiel suggested I put it on the nearest flat surface, and I did, noting that it wasn't Canadian or American, and taking a closer look. Slovenia. 10 somethings. A nice picture of an eel, specifically Proteus anguinus. It says so right there on the 10-stotinov coin.

This morning, I went looking for more pictures of Slovenian currency. This is the old Slovenian money, not the Slovenian design for the euro coins (there's a Wikipedia article on the latter). I found an old page hosted at Angelfire (which I do not love as a hosting site, but that's a separate matter). Somewhat blurry pictures of the coins. Asio otus (an owl) on the 20-stotinov, some sort of winged insect on the 50 (they're not very good photos), and so on. Then I got to the next set of names, and was distracted from the "what animal is this?" theme by the realization that Slovene uses the dual: 1 tolar, 2 tolarja, 5, 10, etc. tolarjev. Typing this out, I note that there's that German word for "valley" again, "tolar" being slightly closer, to my ear, to "thaler" than "dollar" is.

things that amuse me

I happened to notice a coin on the floor in papersky and rysmiel's home, the day I got here. I said something, rysmiel suggested I put it on the nearest flat surface, and I did, noting that it wasn't Canadian or American, and taking a closer look. Slovenia. 10 somethings. A nice picture of an eel, specifically Proteus anguinus. It says so right there on the 10-stotinov coin.

This morning, I went looking for more pictures of Slovenian currency. This is the old Slovenian money, not the Slovenian design for the euro coins (there's a Wikipedia article on the latter). I found an old page hosted at Angelfire (which I do not love as a hosting site, but that's a separate matter). Somewhat blurry pictures of the coins. Asio otus (an owl) on the 20-stotinov, some sort of winged insect on the 50 (they're not very good photos), and so on. Then I got to the next set of names, and was distracted from the "what animal is this?" theme by the realization that Slovene uses the dual: 1 tolar, 2 tolarja, 5, 10, etc. tolarjev. Typing this out, I note that there's that German word for "valley" again, "tolar" being slightly closer, to my ear, to "thaler" than "dollar" is.

Two quotes

One from memory, one from the arts section of Wednesday's Montreal Gazette:

"America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel." —Allen Ginsberg

"I'm not as pessimistic as I was after Hiroshima. —Pete Seeger

(Pete is doing five concerts in Quebec, all sold out well before the article appeared, of course, or I'd have asked rysmiel whether I should get one ticket or two for the show tonight, which is in this neighborhood. The article talked about his music, artists he has influenced, and his political history, including both Clearwater and the blacklist.)

Two quotes

One from memory, one from the arts section of Wednesday's Montreal Gazette:

"America, I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel." —Allen Ginsberg

"I'm not as pessimistic as I was after Hiroshima." —Pete Seeger

(Pete is doing five concerts in Quebec, all sold out well before the article appeared, of course, or I'd have asked rysmiel whether I should get one ticket or two for the show tonight, which is in this neighborhood. The article talked about his music, artists he has influenced, and his political history, including both Clearwater and the blacklist.)

Yum

L'atelier is as delightful as rysmiel and papersky had said last year. I got rysmiel to come with me for dinner, self-indulgence (and other-indulgence). We walked our feet off earlier in the day and on our way to dinner (we used a sub-optimal Metro exit and got somewhat turned around, but still arrived in plenty of time for our reservation).

The approach is several small plates; they recommend three/person, but we were indecisive and hungry and ordered seven for the two of us. They started us off with an amuse bouche, one grilled shrimp each in a fennel-and-pineapple sauce. Rysmiel isn't a pineapple fan, I'm not a fennel fan, and we both mopped up the sauce with bread.

After that (I'm working from memory, and will ask rysmiel to supplement this later): a mushroom tartare with lots of lentils and some goat cheese; duck tartare (which has rice and shiitake mushrooms); a scallop-and-monkfish dish, served over cucumber, which showed me that monkfish is much better than a previous experience had led me to believe; tuna-and-bison tataki; a snail and wild rice risotto with fois gras (I'd been wrong about risotto, too); a rabbit dish, including one raviolo, with a cream, pea, and bacon sauce (I wasn't impressed; this is the only thing we left any significant amount of, and not just because rysmiel doesn't like peas; and a poutine with rabbit, a slightly spicy barbecue sauce, and the cheese as thin, unmelted slices on top.

For dessert, I ordered the strawberries with balsamic vinegar, caramel, and watermelon sorbet. Once the server said "Quebec strawberries," she'd have had to list something I actively disliked for me to not order that, and I am also very fond of watermelon. This one worked very well; I should get some balsamic vinegar for my own local strawberries. (The other dishes, I either wouldn't know how to reproduce, or wouldn't have the time and attention for, but that bit of goodness is in my grasp.) Rysmiel got a pistachio goat cheese cheesecake, quite nice; it came with hazelnuts and some odd yellow fruit, both warm. We asked the server, and she said they were ground cherries (she gave a couple of other names I didn't catch, at least one of them French); I think this is the first time I've had those. Interesting, but I was much happier with my strawberries. (We shared tastes of the dessert as well, but mostly each ate one; with the other dishes, we mostly did half-and-half, except for the risotto, of which rysmiel got about 2/3, and the rabbit in cream sauce, which I had most of.)

cattitude, it's not actually Joseph-Robert's Maison du Fungus, we just ordered most of the mushroom-focused stuff, because we both like those and you were safely hundreds of miles away.

Yum

L'atelier is as delightful as rysmiel and papersky had said last year. I got rysmiel to come with me for dinner, self-indulgence (and other-indulgence). We walked our feet off earlier in the day and on our way to dinner (we used a sub-optimal Metro exit and got somewhat turned around, but still arrived in plenty of time for our reservation).

The approach is several small plates; they recommend three/person, but we were indecisive and hungry and ordered seven for the two of us. They started us off with an amuse bouche, one grilled shrimp each in a fennel-and-pineapple sauce. Rysmiel isn't a pineapple fan, I'm not a fennel fan, and we both mopped up the sauce with bread.

After that (I'm working from memory, and will ask rysmiel to supplement this later): a mushroom tartare with lots of lentils and some goat cheese; duck tartare (which has rice and shiitake mushrooms); a scallop-and-monkfish dish, served over cucumber, which showed me that monkfish is much better than a previous experience had led me to believe; tuna-and-bison tataki; a snail and wild rice risotto with fois gras (I'd been wrong about risotto, too); a rabbit dish, including one raviolo, with a cream, pea, and bacon sauce (I wasn't impressed; this is the only thing we left any significant amount of, and not just because rysmiel doesn't like peas; and a poutine with rabbit, a slightly spicy barbecue sauce, and the cheese as thin, unmelted slices on top.

For dessert, I ordered the strawberries with balsamic vinegar, caramel, and watermelon sorbet. Once the server said "Quebec strawberries," she'd have had to list something I actively disliked for me to not order that, and I am also very fond of watermelon. This one worked very well; I should get some balsamic vinegar for my own local strawberries. (The other dishes, I either wouldn't know how to reproduce, or wouldn't have the time and attention for, but that bit of goodness is in my grasp.) Rysmiel got a pistachio goat cheese cheesecake, quite nice; it came with hazelnuts and some odd yellow fruit, both warm. We asked the server, and she said they were ground cherries (she gave a couple of other names I didn't catch, at least one of them French); I think this is the first time I've had those. Interesting, but I was much happier with my strawberries. (We shared tastes of the dessert as well, but mostly each ate one; with the other dishes, we mostly did half-and-half, except for the risotto, of which rysmiel got about 2/3, and the rabbit in cream sauce, which I had most of.)

cattitude, it's not actually Joseph-Robert's Maison du Fungus, we just ordered most of the mushroom-focused stuff, because we both like those and you were safely hundreds of miles away.