Juin Bleu

Taking a day off in beautiful Nanaimo, B.C. Sitting on the patio couch, 11am, drinking coffee and listening to Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart wail away. Many adventures passed in the last month, where winter brings a necessity to entertain ones self via drink and dance, summer brings rebirth of the body and soul. Where to start?

So the new house is amazing, I really do miss residence a lot, living with the Frenchies and Todd was probably really suitable for a winter lifestyle. We drank and we laughed like boys do, now it's summer and I'm in a healthier kind of home. Many special dinners have gone down on the patio and I've only been here a month. On Friday night I made perogies using a recipe that is simply flour and sour-cream, kneaded and incorporated until a pasta dough consistency is achieved. I filled half of them with mashed yam and the other half with fried ground pork, but I mixed the pork fat into the yam mash and didn't tell anyone. Like a true Ukrainian. Swimming adventures are already happening, the dam is cold as hell but I've been in twice, first time I fully rescued a drowning friend. Apparently I've saved a life now, sweet. I also apparently look like a full-blown Californian surfer, I'm about 2 shades of brown away from being a legitimate middle-Eastern immigrant.

Adventures to Salt Spring are in gear, spontaneously went camping a couple or three weeks ago. Had some 95 proof moonshine, tasted like rubbing alcohol.













But this weekend was the number one hit parade so far. On Friday I made perogies, played crib (yeah I learned, Sproules, watch out for me, comin' up), and just hung out with the usual troop of passersby that find themselves here.

On Saturday morning (holy crap there's a spider somewhere on me right now and it's gonna bite me) I woke up bright and shiny and shaved, met Todd and my friend pirate-Steve and drove to Victoria and I hit the streets with a pile of resumes in my satchel. I visited many of the Victoria hotspots, Cafe Brio, L'Ecole Brasserie, Camille's...I met a lot of cool people and had a lot of nice, genuine conversations. It's amazing the collective personality on the island, this island belongs in the Caribbean or Mediterranean, people here are tooooo cool and easy.

After I finished job-hunting (wandered the city for 7 hours, brutally hot) I walked to Ogden's Point wharf in downtown Victoria. I was meeting Hasi, the cruise-ship he works on was docking in Vic for 6 hours. Hasi arranged a personal tour of the ship's kitchens and restaurants for me. It was truly humbling and incredible. The ship had large separate rooms for processing different categories of meat, it had half a dozen (or more) full-sized kitchens all for different restaurants, whole departments allowed only one-way traffic so as to discourage outbreaks via contamination (ie. only dirty comes in, only clean leaves), it was all stainless steel and absolutely impeccably spotless. After the tour, the food and beverage manager gave me a copy of all the ship's menus plus a list of their weekly passenger consumption which I assure you was horrendous and disturbing. He arranged a free dinner for Hasi and myself. I had a nicely cooked shrimp cocktail, a smoked salmon pate sort of thing, and a massive 12oz. ribeye roast steak with real jus! I also had a screwdriver and white Russian and a dessert tapas. It was an incredible experience, I feel really lucky to have seen that, and visiting with Hasi was enriching and revitalizing as it always is.

Around 10:30pm I began my next trek to Royal Hill Park to Donna Ashford's house. I got to the general area and tried finding her house but I'd misheard the address on the phone and spent 20 minutes walking back and forth on her street looking for a house that didn't exist. We sorted out the confusion and had a short visit, everyone was healthy and happy, new home is very beautiful.

Around 7am the next morning, every one got up and Donna and Guthrie drove me right downtown where I was picked up by Jenn, Taryn and Angelo, all friends from class. We drove to the incredible Fort Rodd Hill which is a retired fort turned museum/park. There was a large food-festival happening in behalf of the Island's Chef Collaborative. It was seriously incredible, reps and chefs were present from tons of local farms, wineries, breweries and of course restaurants. I tasted countless types of beer, wine, ciders and even a really weird gin flavoured with licorice aromatics. I ate SO much, I had a portobello mushroom burger, lamb sausage, oysters on the half-shell, grilled tuna albacore sandwiches, bouillabase with octopus, lavender shortbread, and all sorts more. The gin was by far the most intriguing and provocative taster present.

So now, with good reason, I am lounging in the sun and basking in the good fortune that was this weekend, if I went into more detail I could fully explain the karma that landed dumbly in my lap in Victoria but this is long enough as it is.

Good day every one, enjoy June.