Recipe: Peabutter Mousse with Chococado Coconut Whipped Cream

Last week, my boss pitched an idea to our temporary admin and me: a pulse-themed lunch. One person would bring a starter; another, a main; and the last, a dessert. Our temp - who is apparently French-Canadian - offered to bring a home-made split pea soup. My boss had some salad ideas. That left the dessert to me. At first, I thought I might try something with pea flour in it. Cookies, perhaps. But then I remembered that one of our very own Alberta pulse processors, Mountain Meadows Food Processing, sells a product that is made of peas but tastes quite a bit like peanut butter.

That's right. Peabutter.

My first experiment with it, however, did not turn out well.

A Young(ish) Communicator's Manifesto

I can be an insufferable know-it-all.

That’s not really that hard for me to admit; some of the know-it-all things I know are my own shortcomings. I like to think I come by this trait honestly: my dad collects useless facts and my mom likes to make confident-sounding statements. Combined, these traits have created someone who knows a lot of useless information and has no problem sharing it with anyone who will listen.

Yes, an insufferable know-it-all.

Recipe: Roasted Chickpeas

My dad loves chickpeas. When I told him I got a job working with pulses (and then explained that pulses include beans, peas, lentils, and chickpeas,) he was thrilled. It seems he eats them plain and raw; I fully support anyone who likes pulses that much.

So I gave him one of APG's handy little recipe books, which includes a recipe for roasted chickpeas. I myself enjoy roasted chickpeas and thought he would too, so I pointed out the recipe when I handed the book to him.

The recipe just wasn't very good.

Speak Out With Your Geek Out: A Post Mortem

Last week, my husband turned to me as he was sorting through his WoW cards and said, "Can you imagine if I were the provincial WoW card game champion? That would be AWESOME!" I raised one eyebrow and simply stared at him.

"Hey!" he chided. "You're looking at me the way that girl looked at that Magic champion!"

He was absolutely right: despite the fact that I myself play the WoW card game - despite the fact that I blogged three times last week about my geeky interests - I thought his desire to be the provincial WoW card game champ was about the geekiest thing I had ever heard.

Turns out he took the provincial championship on Saturday.

And I was proud.

Speak Out with Your Geek Out: Word Nerdy

I am a total grammar geek, a complete word nerd. Back in high-school English class, kids around me would groan when our teacher began her annual grammar lesson – but I secretly gave my grammar geek flag a hearty wave. I was good at grammar the way some people are good at math, and probably for the same reasons. Grammar, like math, follows a clearly defined set of rules, and if you simply apply those rules, you’ll always get the right answer.

Grammar is just that black-and-white for me. For the most part.

Speak Out with Your Geek Out: Oh, WoW

I revealed in yesterday’s post that I’ve essentially been living a secret life – a life of pure, unadulterated geekiness that I don’t talk about around non-geeks. Well, that’s not entirely true. You see, I’ve actually been living two secret lives: one as a closet geek; the other as a level 85 Night Elf hunter named Ephemere.

Yes, I play WoW.

Speak Out With Your Geek Out: Book Lust

I read a #speakgeek blog post on www.jesshartley.com yesterday that considered a question many of my fellow geeks have likely been thinking about this week: "I wave my geek flag proudly every day; what's special about this?"

Well, I don't.