Gourmet Cabane à Sucre

After reading a review on the Au Pied de Couchon Cabane à Sucre one year ago in the Montreal Gazette, I called to make a reservation. The young lady was kind enough to inform me that they were only taking reservations for the following year. 2010! Having forgotten that I did this, I got a call 2 weeks ago to inform me that it was our turn and that we could come on opening night. So, six of us made the trip to St. Benoit de Mirabel about 45 minutes from Montreal for what was about to be a very memorable night. Not only was the food fantastic, the company was even better! Fixer Mamma was my date as Gord is away and we were joined by C and P and their friends D and P.

So dinner begins with a split pea soup with foie gras, maple-glazed gravlax, homemade creton and maple buckwheat pancakes. Then as a little nibbler, we got BBQ chicken feet (ugh!). Found this to be a little disconcerting but tried it anyway. Then the main dishes arrived and it wouldn't stop. Scarmbled eggs with smoked sturgon and brisket, homemade tourtière with duck meat, salad topped with oreille de christ, beef tongue (more ugh!) and maple-lacquered duck leg and finally the lobster-stuffed cabbage roll and lentils.

And if this wasn't enough, on came the many desserts. Banana split with maple roasted pecans, the most gimormous millefeuille you have ever seen and grand-pères which are fried dough swimming in maple syrup. Oh and we musn't forget the traditional maple syrup on snow.

OMG! It is now over 24 hours later and I am still full. No word of a lie. I woke up at 4AM and could not sleep from the discomfort I was feeling. And I had no breakfast and no lunch today followed by a very small dinner.

I am going to yet another cabane à sucre this Sunday but this time the traditional Quebec kind but I am sure that I will be feeling the same again. Help me!

A Quick Summary...

Before the big day. Things have been hectic the last little while. It just seems that every day I am trying to do what is really necessary for the very next day. Let's just say, it has been very relaxing around here :)


Last week, we attended our very first Hannukah party at V's house. They had a bunch of their friends over for a Latka and Vodka party. Brilliant! Everything was fabulous and we were very grateful to have been included. Cara-Li was very much intrigued about the whole Jewish thing. Besides SQ and NJ, Cara-Li has only one other Jewish friend and it always makes for interesting converssation later. The are too cute! As you can see, Gord brought his torch to the party and the kids thought it was the coolest thing!

And since I am not busy enough, I organized a Children's Christmas Party for the following afternoon for our Italian Association. 25 children, 25 gifts to buy and wrap and lots of parents and grandparents to feed. But it went well. Everyone loved their gifts and everyone ate. Party over in 3 hours and I was back home in my jammies. As you can see, Alexia is still not too sure of the Big Guy. Don't blame her really!

Ah, yes. I forgot to mention that the morning prior to the Christmas party, I had to bake 12 dozen cookies for my annual cookie exchange that I host. Yes, I was up at 6:00 AM, measuring, mixing and baking for app. 5 hours in order to complete this task. The party was held a few days later. Lots of nibbles and lots of drinks later, everyone went home witha huge variety of cookies. We are certainly ready for the holidays now!

Tis the Season!

It's official! The Christmas season is upon us. Festivities have begun and my Christmas shopping has not! What has happened to me? Usually most of my shopping is done before Halloween... And now I look at my Blackberry calendar and there are no openings in it whatsoever for shopping! Yikes!

Last Thursday, we played hookie as we do every year to go see Santa Claus at Complexe Desjardins with our friends J and C. We headed down a little earlier this year to beat the crowds and saw Santa in record time! Afterwards, it was off to our annual lunch at Baton Rouge before letting the girls play on the inflatables slides while one Mom shopped. We have this down to a science since we are now on our 7th year. And the day always ends with ice cream for the girls and an extremely large latté for the Moms!

This past Sunday was the Adoptive Families of Quebec's Annual Holiday Party. I help a dear friend plan this event à. My job is to purchase and wrap the children's presents. All 42 of them! Yup... that's right... 42. Perhaps I did not have time to worry about my own shopping as I was otherwise preoccupied...

All went well. We had over 100 in attendance this year. We had a lovely lunch of dim-sum folowed storytelling and then Santa's visit. Sadly, it was all over so quickly. It was sooo nice to see all the children especially all the new arrivals that were not around last year! Congrats to all those families!

Busy Times!

It is been a busy couple of weeks. Thought I'd take a minute to recap.

Two weekends ago, the girls attended Gabba Gabba's 5th birthday party at Kazoum, one of those indoor playgrounds. They had such a great time running around and surprisingly, Alexia was able to keep up with all the big girls. Of course, she had her big sister to make sure she was OK!

It was yet another birthday party the following day. This time it was one of Alexia's music classmates, William, who turned 1. They had this most incredibly large inflatable set up in the local high school gym. His dad being a techer there obviously has connections. You may notice that there are more photos of this party as I knew no one there.

Last Saturday morning, we went to the Santa Claus Parade in downtown Montreal. We have been going to this event for the last several years and although it is fun for the kids, it is truly a huge effort for the parents. It's usually cold, you have to park miles away, lug your chairs and cameras and stuff all those miles only to sit there for an hour anxiously awaiting Santa Claus' arrival. And what does he do?? He zips by soooo quickly that I didn't even have time to snap a picture. And right behind his float is the street washers, you know spraying water and all! So I didn't get to see Santa but I got a free boot wash!

That same evening was the annual Fall Party for the Italian Association that I helped plan. All went well even though things were looking a little meeger days earlier. I nearly got an ulcer as no tickets were sold prior to the event. All tickets were sold at the door. A little difficult to plan when you don't know how many will show. In the end we had 130 people attend when we had planned for 140. Not a bad guess!

I wasn't really thinking when I planned a mini-reunion for Cara-Li's adoption group for the very next morning. We went for an early dim-sum lunch followed by another visit to an indoor playground, this time in Laval. We were there for nearly 4 hours and the girls were soooo exhausted by days end. They were both snoring in the back seat 5 seconds after we left! This day got me thinking. How many of our parents would have sat on terribly uncomfortable chair drinking terrible coffee for 4 hours while their children played? I know my parents wouldn't have!

And finally for this weekend, since Gordie is in St. Louis having a grand old time with the boys, we decided to sort of lay low. I took the girls to see Fantastic Mr. Fox last night. It was Alexia's first time at the movies. She was pretty good but didn't understand the concept of using her little voice when the movie was playing. Good thing we had lots of popcorn as that kept her mouth busy! This morning, after dropping the girls off at our friend, J's, house, I headed off for some power shopping. 23 kiddie gifts for the Italian Xmas party and 43 for the Chinese Xmas party! I had a plan and was able to purchase all but one gift. And all this before a 2:30 birthday party on the South Shore for M who turned 3. M's party was a snowman theme so it was snowman all the way from snowman foam art to snowman cookie decorating to a snowman BD cake. A great time was had by all!

Well, that's it for now. It is pretty late now on Sunday night and I need to get my beauty sleep! Night-night!

Please Join us for a Tea Party!

Stick a fork in me... I am done like dinner. When planning your daughter's 3rd birthday party with approximately 30 guests, here's a word of advice. Do not, under any circumstance, plan to have the party the day after Halloween! Halloween is already a day that requires lots of preparation. Costumes to plan and make, hundreds and hundreds of treat bags to pack, piles of pumpkins to carve. Not to mention the traditional dinner of pumpkin soup, chili and corn muffins. Add to this, a tea party. Oy!

I spent most of Saturday preparing the stuffing for 4 different tea sandwiches, baking teeny tiny cupcakes and scones, not to mention doing all the shopping. Then all of Sunday morning was dedicated to decorating and actually making and plating all the food. Good thing high tea is in the afternoon!

All little guests were asked to wear hat and gloves if they wished and were invited to bring their favorite teddy or doll for tea. We had some games for them such as 'Pin the Tea Bag on the Teapot' and 'Hot Tea Pot'. Not to mention some arts and crafts. Several types of teas were served (of course) along with the food. I forgot to make coffee (I was really concerned about the tea) and some people made comments that it was somewhat strange not to see any coffee in sight since we are afterall in the coffee business!

ll in all, it wa great. Alexia enjoyed her day and that's all that counts.

Here are some pictures of the day.

The Angry Post

I have to say I am pretty upset about a couple of things this evening. It all started with last Thursday evening at Cara-Li's soccer game. All the parents were sitting in the stands watching their kids practice. Our team, the green team, was shorta player so the other team, the purple team, passed us a player. The mom of the said player started huffing in the stands stating that she wasn't sure that she wanted her daughter to switch team. Puhlease! They are 7 years old. But wait. It goes on. Besides the fact that she wouldn't shut up about this and that, she still managed to find time to make comments about how the green team really could not manage without her daughter. So every time her daughter came to her for water, mom begged her to return to the game quickly as her team really, really needed her. Double puhlease! She even made a comment about green player #5 (my Cara-Li) which I did not catch. Lucky for her as I was ready to deck her! Soccer Mom rage! But no. I kept my cool as I did not want to be confrontational with her. She was just not worth it!

Another hot topic this evening was the following. Our dear friends who live two blocks away on our street are moving away. Well, in fact, they are only moving two streets over. There was talk some months ago about throwing them a going away party. Great! I thought. Something to look forward to and plan. Well, guess what? The party has been planned and scheduled without our consultation at all. And it is going to be on a dayt hat we are not even going to be in town! Not only was I not asked to help plan it but it was planned on a day that we can not even attend the said party. And the party planners know that we are very close to this family. I mean really close! The 9 year old daughter of one party planner mentionned the date to me this afternoon and when I said that it would be impossible for us to be there, you know what she said?? Well, we'll just have to have a seperate party for them!! OK. I am really pissed off about it this and the more I think about it, the more upset I am getting. Ughhhh!

However, someone good things happened this weekend. Alexia is pretty much potty-trained. She's had no accidents during the day the entire week (we only started last week!), has been dry during her afternoon naps and was dry last night! Yeah Alexia! Gord and I finished up the few things in our bathroom that was renovated last year. And I did some paint touch ups around the house. We also went to a garage sale at Mortimer's Mom's house. They were raising money for Breast Cancer. The girls had fun with each other as usual. And finally, tonight, as we were going to bed, Cara-Li and I had a really nice talk about China. Just as a reminder, Mortimer's Mom's daughter Dumpling comes from the same orphanage as Cara-Li and they were together there for 5 months. Cara-Li always picks a different stuffy to sleep with every night and tonight it was Prescott's turn. Prescott is a fox that came to China with us when we went for Cara-Li. Cara-Li wanted to know what other stuffy had come along for the trip and that other lucky fellow was Canada Bear. But what she didn't know was that we had brought along 4 Canada Bears, 3 of which we put in a care package (along with other donations) to give to the orphanage the day we went to visit. We were not allowed to visit so we left our packages at the gate with a note stating that these goodies were for the babies and the nannies. Cara-Li then states that perhaps Dumpling had played with one of the Canada Bears that we had brought since she was a tiny baby in that orphanage at that time. Yup, perhaps she did. In fact, I hope she did. Anyway, it sure brought a smile to Cara-Li's face to think that our bear might have been in Dumpling's little hands before we actually even met her. So now I will go to bed with this thought instead of all the other nastiness that goes on in this world. Good night!

Sugar Shack 2009

It is that time of year again when everyone in Quebec flocks to the Sugar Shacks to ingurgitate everything maple syrup. Eggs and maple syrup, ham and maple syrup, pancakes and maple syrup, beans and maple syrup. Well, you get the picture. We attended the Adoptive Families of Quebec Sugar Shack event again this year which was held in St. Eustache. It was lovely and quaint and the girls got to see their friends from China once again. They seem to get closer and closer with every event which what makes these get togethers so important and great!Myself, I had such a sugar high upon leaving as there was no stopping my intake. Diet, what diet?

As a side note, these photos were taken with my old 35mm Canon Rebel as I forgot my digital one at home. Anyway, you should have seen the guy at Costco's face when I brought in a roll to have developed. Priceless! But, these photos have been printed as opposed to the thousands I have stored on my PC from years gone by now. Now there's a project... actually printing them! I am on it.....

More Festivities and Could it be?

UPDATE: I have finally included the pictures of Chinese New Year.

Another wonderful evening was spent with fabulous friends celebrating Chinese New Year. We decided to hold our annual dinner in Chinatown a few days after the fact so that we could get better service. And it was so much better than last year! The food was great, the service was great and they let us relax after dinner. Unlike like year where they were hovering over us to get us out ASAP! This year, we were a total of 24 people, with 7 girls from China ranging from 2 yo. to 16 yo. and one 9 yo. who is not Chinese but wishes she was! Along with these 6 families, also present were the godparents to our children. I can remember our first CNY back in 2004 where we only had about 8-10 people for our dinner. Our adoptive circle is certainly growing. I love it! As I was not much in the mood of taking pictures, Cara-Li went around with my SLR wrapped around her neck and snapped away. As it was late last night, I did not get a chance to download them yet. I will post them Sunday when we get home from the cottage. Anyway, it was great to see all the girls have such a great time. Everyone found a buddy and new friendships were formed. We now have lots of BFFs!

As a sidenote, my watching what I eat (well, except for last night) has been paying off. In the 15 days that I have started, I have lost 5 lbs. Could it be? I am dumbfounded! And thrilled! If I could only figure out what my target weight should be, then I would actually have a goal. And I am still wearing makeup daily and the recycling thing is also going well. And finally, Gord has not returned anything for me yet this year! Things are good at the Farrell residence!