Speaking of good food...

This week I keep finding myself saying "I had so much amazing food!" This is as a response to "So how was the in-service last week?" You can tell what's important to me.

The first evening, a couple girls and I went to a retaurant called the Economy Shoe Shop for dinner. I ordered a lovely linguine dish with an aioli sauce and a very pleasant glass of red wine. An Australian wine... I'm not sure which one. The pasta was a tad salty, but very good on the whole. Just spicy enough that it made my nose run. Mmmm.

Dinner at Opa! Greek Taverna was a part of our mentorship program, and I enjoyed the chicken souvlaki. Mmmmmm. Lemon-garlic marinated potatoes on the side, along with a greek salad. Another teacher and I shared the vanilla bean cheesecake for dessert. We were seated at several tables in the restaurant, and I happened to choose to sit against the wall, in the centre of the table. Meaning that there were four people to my right, and three to my left. As I chose my seat, I thought "Oh, I don't pee as often as most other people... I shouldn't have to get up and weasel my way around the chairs." Two hours later, it was a much different story as I was certain my bladder had never in my life expanded quite so much, and I tried to hold it in to avoid asking four people to scooch their chairs in. I eventually did. (Both hold it in and scooch past). But my favourite thing about Opa is the after-dinner mints. No, not mints. Candies. They are lovely little spherical candies which feel very pleasant in your mouth. Blue wrappers are licorice flavoured, but not nasty black jelly bean flavour. Yummy wonderful licorice flavour. Red wrappers mean cinnamon. Not cinnamon heart yucky plastic kind of cinnamon. Yummy wonderful cinnamon.

A retirement banquet was part of the week's festivities, and a reception was held just prior with wine and hors d'oeuvres. Coconut shrimp, mozza sticks, bacon wrapped scallops, curry chicken skewers, marinated beef skewers, zucchini sticks, and other oh-so-greasy delights were available in abundance. I partook cheerfully.

Shrimp stuffed chicken breast, snow peas, and wild rice were the menu for the meal. The appetizer was a mesclun mix salad in a cucumber bowl. I googled for a picture, but was unable to find one. It's a strip of cucumber, shaped into a ring and set up to resemble a bowl and held together by a ring of red pepper. Beautiful! An almond vinaigrette made it perfect.

Mmmmmm...