Sunday Afternoon Salmon Tartare 5:53 p.m.

One of the blessings of leaving near the Atwater Market is that you can choose to have a salmon tartare on Sunday afternoon for no reason in particular. This recipe is borrowed, probably mostly in spirit, from Bar & Boeuf. Bar & Boeuf is a wonderful restaurant in downtown Montreal across the street from my office, where my roommate also happens to work. Because my roommate works there (and is such a wonderful person) I was able to spend a shift in the kitchen, mostly observing but also deveining fois gras poorly. Watching orders of tartare being prepared reminded me that I loved these raw bits. I also realized that I had yet to make one at home. Anyway, this is a very basic salmon tartare that's lovely with a glass of Sauvignon blanc on a Sunday afternoon.

From Cooking & Food (Montréal)

Ingredients are as follows:

• sushi-grade salmon
• dash of olive oil
• minced shallots
• chives
• finely chopped dill
• coarsely ground sea salt
• fresh ground pepper
  
• lime zest
• fresh lime juice

Rinse your salmon in cold water and pat try. Cut the salmon with a sharp knife into small cubes. There is a specific way to cut sushi, I'm not entirely sure if it does in the case of tartare. Well, I'm sure it does to some people but it doesn't really to me.

Add a dash of olive oil and coat the salmon until it's got a bit of a sheen. Add everything except the lime juice and mix gently together. Refrigerate for about an hour.

From Cooking & Food (Montréal)

Now that that's done, slice baguette into to fairly thin pieces, drizzle with a bit of olive oil and bake in an oven at 425 for a couple of minutes, or until they're slightly brown.

Assemble and enjoy!

From Cooking & Food (Montréal)

You Know You Work Too Much When... 1:32 p.m.

You propose to your partner a surprise date night tradition whereby each of you, every month, plans a surprise date for the other. You add that each surprise date should be evaluated using a set of criteria mutually agreed upon in advance and that all evaluations should be compiled so that the health of the relationship can be charted over time. Um, yeah. Vacation, anyone?

From April Holiday (France)

Found Poem 8:20 p.m.

So it's a found poem sort of, I found it in an old notebook from a decade ago...

C'est la grande ville
et c'est
la belle et éclatante maternelle
Ma copine mélange
de la peinture
dans son verre de jus
et elle me promet, me promet
du noir
C'est la grande ville

Smoking: Epic Love & Hatred 6:46 p.m.

It's expensive, useless, smelly, deadly. And we do it anyway. I do it anyway. Not regularly, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I do it sometimes and shouldn't at all.

Is it because I did it when I was young? It's like a first love: the best parts manage to pierce the thick weight of memory loss. And the bad parts? Well, what bad parts? Oh yeah, the ones yet to come.

How is it that in the midst of all this Progress that companies are still allowed to sell a product that kills people? Not maybe kills people, but definitely kills people. And a lot of them, at that. Money, power, a lot reasons I guess. But none of them good. None of them good enough.