I Love Montreal Smoked Meat!

I love Montreal Smoked Meat! Did you know I used to be a vegetarian? That's right. I was a very strict lacto-ovo vegetarian for four years. I hated meat. In my mind I couldn't justify killing animals for meat when there were so many other options for human beings. I mean, I thought that meat was totally unnecessary for life, so we were in no way justified in the needless killing of animals. However, there are always the childhood memories . . . . .

You see, I lived in Montreal in the summer of 1993 (at the height of my vegetarianism), and my friend Leslie came to visit me. He is originally from Singapore, but I met him when I was a student at the University of Calgary. Anyway, I was showing Leslie all of the sights, and taking him to eat all of the famous food from Montreal. We had bagels and creamcheese, we had blintzes and knishes . . . it was wonderful . . . but then I took him to Schwartz's for a smoked meat. (http://www.schwartzsdeli.com/index2.html) I had too, I mean, it is one of the iconic smoked meat places in Montreal. I had no choice. So, I ordered him a smoked meat, and I got myself a plate of fries. I ate a fry. He took a big bite of his meaty, juicy sandwich, the fat dripping over his hands. He let out a small moan of pleasure. It was the best sandwhich he had ever eaten in his life. I couldn't stand it. Childhood memories started to flood through me. I could picture my Granny pleading with me to just have one smoked sandwich when I became a vegetarian. An entire culture began to press down on me. I grabbed half of Leslie's sandwich . . . I bit into it. The first meat that had passed my lips in 4 years . . . I started to cry. It was so good.

And that, my friends, I how I stopped being a vegetarian.

The whole point of this little blog entry is to tell you about the Montreal Smoked Meat place on 11th Street and 14th Avenue SW (kind of) near 17th Ave SW in Calgary. It is so good. They fly the meat in directly from Montreal. Please go there . . . a 6 oz sandwich is $8. It'll be the best $8 you ever spent, and you can think about how I stopped being a vegetarian (an made my Granny very happy too).

Hello World! I put these pictures in here to show you some of the cool things that I have been doing lately. I had such a great weekend last weekend because I finally got to relax and have some fun (I'm definately not relaxing and having fun now, but that is another story!)

Anyway, last weekend my friends Nicole and Stefan came over for summer. We had such a great time. We ate Japanese food cooked by my friend Taka (actually, I made the sushi, and he make the tempura). We also ate on my grandmother's dishes. Do you seen the green and white plates? Those were the first plates that my grandmother bought when she immigrated to Canada. Cool eh?

The other cool thing that I did this weekend is I went to the movies. Did you know that right now, if you buy specially marked boxes of Oatmeal Crisp, you can get a free movie ticket? Isn't that great, because the cereal costs about four dollars, but a movie ticket costs 10 dollars. That means that I was a total winner! Hmmm, however, now I have about 10 boxes of cereal that I have to eat :-)

I was totally shocked today! I went to Bowness Park to go skating on the lagoon, and the city had dug the whole thing up! I guess skating is finished for the winter. I was so dissapointed because I had been looking forward to going skating all weekend. Oh well. I have put my skates away now at the bottom of my closet for next winter. Hopefully spring will come soon! The worst part is that I ate a double cheese burger and a strawberry vanilla shake from Peters' Drive In because I thought I would burn the calories off skating. Now I definately have to walk to school tomorrow.

Other than my skating fiasco there's not much to talk about right now. It's been a typical weekend . . . cleaning my house, doing the laundry . . . I need to think of some better ways to have fun :-)

I'm so proud of myself. I'm still walking to school every day. I have tried all kinds of different ways to get here, but it still takes me about 50 minutes to walk from my house to the Education building, but that's okay because the walk does me good. However, I still haven't lost any weight . . . . okay, I know, it's only been four days, but I was hoping for at least a pound or two. Naturally it didn't help today that someone put chocolate cake in the teacher's room. Now I guess I didn't have to eat a piece, but it looked so good just sitting there calling out to me . . .

Anyway, even if I don't lose any weight, I'm sure I'm going to be healthier because of all of this walking.

Holy cow, I just realised there are only 20 more teaching days until the final exams . . . ulp!

I can't believe it! I stepped on the bathroom scale this morning and I weighed a whopping 205 pounds. I was so disturbed, that I have decided to revolutionize my life. I am no longer driving to work. That's right. I actually left my car at home today, and I walked to work. It took me 50 minutes to walk from the door of my house to the door of the Education building. And you know what? I felt really good when I arrived at school. And I have been feeling good all day. I actually feel more awake than usual. Anyway, this is my decision. I am never going to drive to work again. I am always going to walk. I am sure that if I do this every day I'll get into better shape, and I may even lose a few pounds. Now, if I could only stop eating Tim Horton's donuts!