Out to a Concert : Best Coast and Those Darlins

A week ago Saturday Nick, our friend Meghan and I went to see the indie band Best Coast. They were opened by a new to us but quite excellent band called Those Darlins. I've mentioned before that seeing live bands in smaller venues is probably my favourite thing to do. It is so much fun especially when seeing/hearing two bands that put on the great shows that these ones did!

The show was at a venue called The Phoenix, to which we took a cab and met Meghan outside. We arrived at 9pm and were happy that Those Darlins got things started shortly thereafter so we didn't have to stand around long. Regardless of the time printed on the tickets (these said 8:00), you never know exactly when things will get started at these kinds of shows and sometimes there can be a lot of waiting, but not this time where the concert began about 10 minutes after we arrived.

Eddie has a new toy!

Our Edward was quite sick exactly 26 months and 16 days ago ... yes I remember the precise date because I was certain we were on the brink of losing our dear friend. Thank goodness he got better and is now doing fine. Anyway, at the time I did lots of reading up on cat health. One thing that kept coming up was the importance of daily play for a feline's health. And ever since I have made sure we have some fun every day. Most of this entails dangling string or ribbon, colourful candy wrappers left on the floor discussed here, a toy I made him DIY here, and his mouse on a spring ... see some fun pictures of him in action. Oh and catnip too. That is always a lot of fun.But until now, he hasn't had anything like this little hedgehog! If you pull his string he vibrates and moves about. So cute and Ed seems to love him.

Food Friday : Laura’s Apple Cinnamon Muffins

For this week's food post I am delighted to welcome my online friend Laura, who will be sharing a recipe. This lady is really quite exceptional! She is friendly, smart and talented in many ways. Not only is she amazing in the kitchen, she had been sewing her own lovely dresses lately. Laura is originally from my city (Toronto) but has followed her dream and is currently living in France! So I should add the word 'brave' to her long list of attributes! Check out her blog where she takes us along on her very interesting journey.

I was thrilled when she offered to share her recipe Apple Cinnamon Muffins, and while I won't be enjoying her exact ones, I will be enjoying her exact ones! You know what I mean? I have all the ingredients needed already, so you can guess what we'll be having this week-end. Can't wait to smell the aroma these are sure to emit. Perhaps you would like to bake some too.

And here's Laura ....

Muffins! My absolute favourite thing to eat in the entire universe!

One evening I realized that there was almost nothing left in the house for breakfast. I had a couple of apples on hand and I always have flour on hand, so I whipped these up! They were way too sweet for my liking but still so divine so I tweaked them a little to be perfect....the way muffins are intended to be.

So please make these, enjoy them, devour them for breakfast or lunch or dinner or all three. And then visit me in my (now imaginary) bakery in ten years time to eat them whenever you just don’t feel like whipping them up yourself.

Have a wonderful Food Friday and without further ado, here is the recipe!

You will need:

2 cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
½ teaspoon of baking soda
A pinch of salt
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup of butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
¼ cup of milk

Stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add in the apples to coat them. You need to coat the apples in the flour, rather than dumping them in the batter at the end, so they won’t sink to the bottom of the muffins during baking.

A Funny Sight on the Way to Buy Tickets

On Saturday we went to a terrific concert that I had hoped to show you pictures of today, but alas, the day got away on me (= we went to the movies) and I don't have the pictures ready. In the meantime I thought I'd show you the shots I took when I went to buy the tickets. The place where people in the Queen West neighbourhood buy tickets for smaller shows is called Rotate This. It's an independent record store that has been in the area for ages, though it moved from down the street to its current location a few years ago. I've been buying tickets here since I can't remember when. I actually used to kind of know and have a slight crush on a cute guy who worked there, but that was a long time ago! Well before I met Nick. (I have to put that in case he reads this, but also because it is 100% true!)

Goodwill Hunting : Recent Thrift Store Finds

ass="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9493" title="pyrex-nesting-bowls" src="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/pyrex-nesting-bowls.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="426">Here's my haul from a recent thrifting trip to Goodwill with my mom. This particular store located in the town where my parents live, is always brimming with excellent kitchen finds that are right down my alley. So everything I got is kitchen related but that's ok with me. And I got so many treasures for under $25 total.Every time I've gone there I have taken the time to look at the clothes but have never found a thing that I loved enough to take home. My mom found two really cute tops on this trip though, one little number that still had the store tags on!