I’ve spent the last thirty minutes trying to FTP to my site to upgrade my WordPress to 2.5, but my connection keeps getting dropped almost immediately after connecting. The closest I can get is through command line, but that also drops before I can do anything useful. The web interface, Plesk, only allows single file uploads, so that’s obviously not going to work either. It’s all rather frustrating.

This new version has built-in tag management, which is great. Ever since Flickr, I’ve been a huge fan of tags. It’s such a simple way to manage content. The new photo gallery tools are also interesting. I have very little storage with my hosting plan, so I just use Flickr for my photos, but it looks like a cool feature.

The most exciting part of this new version, however, is that they’ve finally stopped the visual editor from raping your HTML. This has haunted me in the past, so it great to see them address it. This, along with the new full screen editor, shows they’re trying to smooth out the writing process, which is something I’m glad they’re focusing on.

Here’s a preview of the new dashboard and photo management:

Tonight wasn’t a complete waste, though. I pulled out my new stock pot for the first time and made a huge batch of chili. After nine hours of what I can only imagine is some kind of black magic, my dinner was ready, and it was delicious. I used this recipe, and I’ll be making it again.

As a little experiment, I decided to keep a log of my eating habits for the week. I thought it would be interesting to see how much I actually spend and consume. Below I’ve listed everything I ate and drank last week, excluding water, and how much the purchased food cost.

Saturday

• Brunch: Two slices of French bread with a bit of dijon mustard and sweet mesquite turkey meat from the deli. Mixed-herb salad with crushed pecans, pickled beets, tomatoes, and a balsamic vinegar, olive oil dressing. A cup of V8 tropical juice.
• Snack: a bit of blue Stilton cheese with some sesame rice crackers.
• Drink: A slushie from the corner store. $1.50
• Dinner: A couple of small spring rolls with a spicy flank and steak Pho. $15
• Drinks: Three pints of Blue Buck pale ale from the pub. $10 My friend covered most of this for me, to cover a previous night out.

Sunday

• Brunch: Two slices of French bread with an egg salad spread on top (two semi-hard boiled eggs, a tablespoon of mayo, and some curry powder).
• Snack: a bit of blue Stilton cheese with some sesame rice crackers.
• Dinner: Spicy BBQ chicken breast, rice, Mixed-herb salad with crushed pecans, pickled beets, tomatoes, and a balsamic vinegar, olive oil dressing, and a slice of French bread to soak up the excess dressing. A cup of V8 berry juice.
• Grocery bill: $36

Monday

• Breakfast: Cinnamon raisin bagel with light cream cheese. Glass of soy vanilla protein drink. Cup of coffee.
• Lunch: Leftover chicken, rice and salad.
• Drinks: Two cups of tea.
• Dinner: Chicken curry and rice. Glass of V8 berry juice.

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Cinnamon raisin bagel with light cream cheese. Glass of soy vanilla protein drink. Cup of coffee.
• Lunch: Leftover curry and rice. Bottle of Coopers Sparkling Ale.
• Drinks: Two cups of tea.
• Dinner: Grilled jem salad with mango balsamic vinaigrette and pancetta crisps. Braised Lamb Shank with Yukon Gold mashed herb potatoes, roasted vegetables, and rosemary port demi-glace. Flourless almond chocolate cake with candied orange crème anglaise. Two glasses of Sumac Ridge Cabernet Merlot. $45

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Cinnamon raisin bagel with light cream cheese. Glass of soy vanilla protein drink. Cup of coffee.
• Lunch: Chicken chowmein, beef brocolli, sweet and sour pork, and won ton soup. $9.50
• Drinks: Two cups of tea.
• Dinner: Chow mein with fried tofu and zuchini. Couple of glasses of V8 berry juice.

Thursday

• Breakfast: Stale coffee cake muffin. $2.
• Lunch: Turkey club sandwich and a yogurt cup with fruit. $8
• Drinks: Three cups of tea.
• Snack: apple fritter
• Dinner: Spicy Baconator meal from Wendy’s. $10

Friday

• Breakfast: Slice of banana bread. $2.
• Snack: handful of smoked almonds and salted pecans.
• Lunch: Fish and chips with a pint of Hermann’s Dark Lager. $20
• Dinner: Chunk of filone with some garlic, bruschetta turkey.
• Grocery bill: $30

Conclusions
My total cost for the week was about $190, which is sadly fairly close to the normal. This means I’m probably spending somewhere between $600 and $800 a month on food, which does seem a little outrageous. I’m slowly moving towards packed lunches, which will help with the cost, as everything near my workplace is fairly expensive.

I do usually eat a little healthier than this. We have a special event happening in town, and many restaurants are offering three course meals at a discounted rate, which is what I had for dinner on Tuesday. On Thursday, I was just too lazy after rock climbing to make anything, so I ended up with the Baconator meal. Anything named Baconator has got to be all kinds of bad for you.

So, there you have it. Possibly not the most riveting reading, but I found it interesting to do. I may look at being a little more frugal in the future. Starting tomorrow. Right now I’m off to grab some Vietnamese.

This just seems wrong, somehow.

I went to Vancouver this weekend to visit friends, and it was a lot of fun. I should make an effort to get over there a little more often, but the ferry ride from the island makes the trip, however short, very irritating.

We ate and drank at some great restaurants, did a little shopping, and generally had a good time. Chris even made a nice home-cooked meal for us to enjoy, which was excellent and very appreciated. This last month, I’ve gone off cooking a bit. Sometimes it just seems like more hassle than it’s worth when you live alone, but it’s unhealthy and expensive to eat out too often.

I happened to visit during a freak snow storm, which is just my luck. I was catching a ride with another friend from Victoria, and we had to make a quick trip down to Abbotsford to grab his bike before returning, and for the first 30 minutes of the trip we were averaging about 10km per hour on the highway. The last thing you want to do when you’re tired and hungover is drive through fresh snow surrounded by Vancouver drivers.

I think I’m going to return to Vancouver in a couple of weeks to watch Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets, an avant-garde play from William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch, and Tom Waits, the coolest man on earth. It should be an interesting show, I think.

On an unrelated note, I made haggis tonight for a belated Robbie Burns Day. I now have enough left over to keep me frying for a week.

Here’s ‘Clap Hands’ from Waits’ Rain Dogs:

The New York Times has posted an article featuring 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less [via]. It’s not really a list of detailed recipes, because the meals are straight forward and common sense to cook, but it’s a nice prompt for quick ideas when you’re feeling like something different but don’t want to dig out a cookbook.

Another good reference list is the lifehack.org article Over 100 Quick and Easy Healthy Foods. It’s a list of recipes they gathered from recipesia.com, categorized by course.

I didn’t want to go shopping tonight, so I made my own quick and easy meal.

Spaghetti with Crab and Parsley

Ingredients:

• Spaghetti
• Fresh parsley
• Crab meat (I used canned, but fresh from the deli would obviously be a million times tastier)
• Garlic
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Capers
• Crushed red peppers
• Pepper
• Salt

Boil the spaghetti in salted water until al dente and scoop out into a bowl. Mince a clove of garlic and gently fry it in some olive oil. Mix the garlic oil with the crab meat, a tablespoon of capers, red chili pepper flakes, and ground pepper. Toss the mixture over the pasta, throw on a handful of chopped parsley, and toss it all together.

My cooking skills are fairly basic. I have a few staple dishes that I do over and over, and I don’t really branch out much from those. Maybe I’ll start posting recipes on here as a way to experiment a little. Who knows, maybe there are cooks as green as I am who will get something out of it.