Spicy Vegetable Ramen

I’ve been craving ramen noodles for ages now. It was out of the blue, just hit me that, “Yes! Ramen noodles! Make it happen!” Which I did. Then I hit up some of those million posts that are floating out there about how to amp up your lunch if you’re one of us who stay at home. From there I just did my own thing, dug around the fridge for things I could stick in it and improvised with what I had. Improvising is fun! There’s something about finding an unexpected combination and taste tasting something you’ve thrown together that makes you go, “Wow!” that’s just really fun for me. Also about using up food already in your refrigerator. Yes, good, bonus! 

Favourite Photogs: Paul Paxford

I linked back to Paul Paxford‘s site ages ago, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have him in the ‘Favourite Photogs’ list. If you hadn’t caught on by now, I kind of really like football. (Or soccer. It totally depends which continent we’re on. Or which team we’re talking about. I have a system in place, ok?) At Pitch Side Photo, Paxton does an amazing job of capturing non league football. And I do mean amazing.  Even though these matches might not take place in big stadiums or in front of roaring crowds, he makes this simplicity a good thing, an intimate and warm thing and shows us just how dramatic and heartfelt football at this level is. 

[about today]

Today was opening the mailbox and finding letters from my Grandma and my sister tucked safely inside, right on time for my birthday. It was watching Corner Gas and eating nachos with a friend I haven’t spent time with in what feels like forever. It was almost missing the bus but running the last block and catching it just as it was ready to pull away again and there’s something about getting on a bus that you really shouldn’t have made that just feels good. 

Favourite Photogs: Sebastião Salgado

Sebastião Salgado is another one of those names that popped up quite a bit while I was at Loyalist. Another photographer big on black and white,  his photos all have an intensity I think would be almost too much in colour. He originally started out as an economist and while working for the International Coffee Organization, he would often travel to Africa, which was where he first started seriously taking photos. Then in 1973 he moved from his native Brazil to Paris, France, where he started out doing news before eventually moving on to his current documentary style photography. 

Of Picnics, Parks & Second Hand Shops

Most of my favourite days, ever, have been a result of half baked plans. Of knowing where we’re starting but not quite sure where we’re going and how we’re going to get there, but just being ready to go. Saturday was like that. Claudia and I took an early afternoon bus into Madrid, with the beginning plan of having a picnic in El Retiro park (where I promised myself, again, that one of these days, I’ll venture into the library there, because: library in a park. Can you think of anything more perfect?) So we stopped by a Rodilla’s for our picnic before hopping on the metro to start our day.