Friday, October 26, 2007

Monkey's Wedding

One of the interesting bits of South African English is the term "monkey's wedding" for a sunshower (rain falling when the sun is shining). It turns out there is a common theme in the folkloric names for a sunshower - many cultures talk about weddings between animals. (See this Wikipedia page).

Whenever I see a sunshower I still automatically think of "monkey's wedding" - it's amazing how phrases like this from your childhood get cemented in your head. Anyway, now some of my American friends will have a clue what I mean when I say this...

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Time to eat out a lot in Seattle (again)!

25 for $25 is back - except it's now called Dine Around Seattle. NWSource has a nice overview of the new restaurants on the list.



I'll definitely be going to a few of my favourites (like Barking Frog, Zoë and Yarrow Bay Grill), and maybe try a new place or two as well. (It's a fairly low-risk way to try a fancy new restaurant).



Speaking of Zoë, Yum Lass and I had a great meal their last Friday. It's been a while (2 years?) since we were last there, and they didn't disappoint. The chef's focus seems to have moved from seafood to meat, and his menu reminded me a lot of Mario Batali's Babbo (which is fresh in my mind after having just read "Heat"). I decided to be daring and try meat for the first time in ages (I've been pescatarian for a few years), and I ordered the wild boar pasta. (What made me cave in and eat meat? I think a mixture of the cold weather and a desire for something really hearty, descriptions of artisinal meat and boar pastas from "Heat", and a certain moral flexibility...)

The pasta was delicious, but seemed to stick around in my system for a day or two in an odd way, so I don't feel a need to eat meat again. Who knows, perhaps it'll be a 7-year-itch thing?

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Queue up the Queen song

'coz We are the Champions of the World! :)

South Africa won the Rugby World Cup final! Woohoo!

Normally I'm not much of a sports fan, but the 1995 Rugby World Cup was truly memorable, and managed to convert me somewhat to being a patriotic rugby fan.

I had a few friends around today to watch the match almost-live* and had a great time. Much beer was drunk during the match, and a celebratory dram of scotch followed in honour of their victory, so I had a nicely fuzzy Saturday afternoon.

* I ordered on pay-per-view and recorded it on the DVR so we started watching 30 mins after the game started.