Mission accomplished! The two tasks are done. - Unfortunately that was it, apart from them, my to do list is still exactly as long as before the weekend.

I just loooove grocery shopping! It would be even more expensive fun if I had somebody here who could cook with me things of all those things I don’t buy because I don’t know what to do with them. (For example fish, seafood and all the exotic ingredients.) Actually this shopping tour was already a bit exceptional as I abstained from some of my usual choices: Leech (good for soup, sauces, Chinese style dishes), mushrooms, eggplant and courgette (good to combine with minced meat and for pasta). Here’s my complete list of yesterday’s raid through Safe-on-Foods:

• 3lb carrots
• 3lb potatoes
• 2 chorizo sausages (These first three are meant for a so-called Garden Stew, one of zitali’s and my cooking favourites. Unfortunately I forgot to buy herbs and soup cubes.)
• 1 head of salad
• 475ml bottle Caesar salad dressing (Am thinking of adding some bacon - yummy!)
• 180g can of tuna (emergency reserve for another week like this one.)
• 2 apples (Golden Delicious)
• 2 nectarines
• 378ml can of pineapples – always good for a curry or a sweet and sour (or rather hot) chicken.
• 2 peppers (1 green, 1 red) – peppers, like carrots are a must for my fridge.
• 390g broccoli – I’ve hardly ever bought broccoli, but I like it, so why not include it into some Chinese style dish or the like.
• 2 packs of instant noodle soups (spicy chicken, oriental) – Sometimes it just has to go as quick as possible, and a small meal for 33c isn’t bad either.
• 370g imitation crab salad (flavoured Pollock) – just looked nice so I picked it.
• 180g piece of herb & spice cheese – ditto.
• 1kg brown sugar – safety for two more months..
• 1l milk (Homo - by accident. When I realised the choice at home I at first wondered: What on earth was I thinking when picking it. But as soon as I had opened my fridge I knew the answer: Safe-on-Foods’ Homo is yellow, just like Safeway’s Partly Skimmed which I bought last time.. And by the way, Safe-on-Foods too does not sell real full fat milk.)

Total: CDN $35.91 (ca. 25€) – Not bad isn’t it? Converting it now, I’m actually quite surprised. In general I have the impression that Edmonton prices are a little bit higher than the Austrian, especially what concerns cheese and ham. (Shall I give you the price of the individual items so that you can compare? :-)

That stuff should bring me through the whole week, right? So I thought as well, after I had put all these things into the basket. And suddenly I realised: There is no whole week this week. Thursday in the middle of the night early morning David and I will already be flying to Vancouver and we’ll return Monday evening. So better prepare yourself for a couple of days without your favourite blog. (Although your endurance in reading is flattering, don’t complain now; rather ask yourself how many days have passed since you last wrote me an e-mail and use the days accordingly! :-)

Do you also want to know what I had for dinner? I had one of my "Put some more or less random things together and see how it works out" – creation. I bet you all know this situation: You suddenly have an idea of something you could paint or do by handicrafts. You develop the idea in your mind. Than you try to put it into reality, and realise that your hands just can’t follow your mind. The mind’s great picture ends into a feeble experiment. That is sooo depressing, isn’t it? (Usually with my cooking experiments it’s something in between. The results are quite edible – at least for my not very spoiled palate – but I don’t feel confident enough to cook them for somebody else.) However, there are also these scarce occasions when it just works out. This, fortunately, happened yesterday.

I inherited a glass of sour cherry sauce from Lilla. Actually the label says it’s meant for dipping, but I thought, I should try to experimentalise a bit: Chicken meat, carrots, onion, curry, salt, pepper, a bit of hot chilli – and sour cherry sauce, apple pieces and nectarine pieces. It would be David’s nightmare because he hates the combination of fruits and meat – but I was very, very satisfied. Yuuuuummmyyyy! In the end I think it didn’t taste much of the cherry sauce, apart from the fact that the sauce was as sweet as I wanted it to be. Well, maybe I’ll try dipping plain meat net time. Or what about trying to include the sauce into the batter or.. (Actually I quite like cooking, I would just need some professional guidance...)