Life in the Lower Mainland (BC, Canada)

Curious about Microsoft CoPilot's ability to research and aggregate data, I asked it to "Describe the typical male love interest in a romance novel of the 80's, the 90's, and later." Specifically I had wanted the 1980's and 1990's separated because it was around that time that libraries seemed to have whole shelves dedicated to Danielle Steel and Nora Roberts, prolific authors in the genre during that period. (Q & A transcripts below). In the 80s, the typical male love interest in romance novels was often portrayed as sexy and "smouldering" They were strong, aggressive, and sometimes even rough with women. Some characters were portrayed as violating women or acting like "assholes". These characters were often undifferentiated from other strong and aggressive men but transformed into a softer man capable of caring for the heroine. Fabio Lanzoni  was the iconic male model for romance novel covers throughout the 80's and 90's.

On sale this week at my local Real Canadian Superstore is Siwin brand  made-in-Canada  Sweet Tocino , a Filipino style heavily marinated pork product. It's quite hard to tell from the package because of all the red marinade, but the pork is quite fatty. Depending on how you feel about your meat, this can be good or bad. Because I was going to char it, and I don't mind tasty fat, I was definitely okay with it. The preparation is extremely simple as the product is already quite a thin slab. I chose to use a non-stick frying pan with a bit of oil: Drizzle a little bit of oil in the non-stick frying pan. Unpack the Tocino into the frying pan, leaving it as a single thin layer. Turn the heat to high and cover the pan. Let it sear for literally just a couple of minutes and check for desired amount of char. Turn the tocino over to char the other side. And just like that, you are done. Because you covered the frying pan, the steam will swirl about in there and leave you a light sauce /

This week at our local Walmart, Puck was on sale, although it took around half a week before any stock was actually available and put on the International Dairy shelf. The one flavour they had is made primarily from milk, and despite salt being listed third on the ingredient list, it is quite a salty product. In fact, it predominantly tastes like salt, with a faint note of some kind of dairy. It's hard to tell through all the saltiness but I'd say that underlying flavour is close to plain cream cheese. The texture is smooth and extremely soft, much softer than spreadable cream cheese, Nutella, or Cheez Whiz. It's firmness is closer to cake frosting. From their website FAQ: 1. What is Puck Creamy Spread made of? What are the ingredients of Puck Creamy Spread? Puck Creamy Spread is made with natural and pure milk with chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. It is free from palm oil, artificial flavors, nuts and contains 30% less sugar compared to other similar sweet spreads. 2.

Bikaji brand Indian style snacks are on sale at my local Walmart this week, so I took the opportunity to try a couple. Bikaneri bhujia is made from moth bean, so no surprise there's an underlying bean flavour that's tastes familiar even if you don't know what moth bean is. There's a spicy heat that slowly creeps up, so while it might initially taste mild... wait for it. I rate it at maybe medium spicy. You can see in the picture (slide 2) that my packet contained a long chunk of some kind of crispy dough. My guess is it evaded the machinery meant to press the dough into noodles, and fell into the fryer. Bombay Mix  despite the ingredient mix tasted predominantly like a mild chickpea curry, and only rather mildly spicy. Definitely less spicy than the bikaneri bhujia.

It's been a while since I had any coupons from SocialNature , but I recently qualified for a promotion of Only Goodness. I'd never heard of this brand before, but it is available from our local Save-On-Foods . A quick look at their many products including commonplace staples like rice and pasta, shows they are competitively priced with similar products of other brands. In the case of this couscous , I looked at the price of Casbah brand couscous sold at Real Canadian Superstore , which is generally a cheaper supermarket than Save-on-Foods. The couscous in particular I had trouble locating, though that is probably because I don't often shop for couscous or at Save-on-Foods. All the couscous was in its own "Natural" food section whereas I had initially thought it would be somewhere near grains/rice. Happily the Save-on-Foods staff were extremely helpful and polite and competent. She knew exactly where it was and walked me to the exact product. In many other superma

I went to Amay's House years ago and remembered it to be rather good, including a really decent roti prata with chicken curry that was just as I remembered eating them long ago in Singapore when I was still a child. They since closed and recently reopened near Joyce Skytrain Station -- basically at the busy intersection of Kingsway and Joyce, next door to the CIBC. Currently it looks terrible with the busted front door, but inside it's clean and decently maintained. Appetizers have appetizer portions and appetizer prices, but noodle mains had generous portions for price, which is not that easy to find nowadays. Great value! Burmese Style Samosas ($10 - samosas stuffed with diced potatoes, onions, traditional spices) Inside it looks like curried potatoes but the flavour is quite weak, though the subtle red onion does make itself known to impart some interestingness to the potatoes. The description doesn't say it's curried potato so they can't be faulted for not hav