Flowers in the Annex
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Sape Creative Department goes to lunch at LEE – the secret vip backroom is amazing!
Halibut and Cod cakes on kale
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So it’s been about a week since we’ve finished our cleanse. (I absolutely hate that word with a passion, and the kinds of people that use it all the time, but I hate detox equally, so I am really at a loss here for nomenclature that doesn’t irritate me.) Overall, I would say this plan works really well for certain things and it definitely made us both feel a lot better.
Pros:
- Digestion is amazing now.
- Skin is clear.
- Weight Loss of about 10 pounds each.
- Bland foods taste amazing, and we have essentially reset our tolerance to both spicy foods and alcohol.
- Less time wasted digesting heavy foods.
- Huge money savings from eating out way less.
- My constant stuffy nose is gone (possible allergy to one of the foods we cut out.)
Cons:
- Way less energy than you’d think. My friend Trevor says that brown rice and complex carbohydrates produce insulin, which makes you a lot more tired than you normally would be. You can remedy this by eating less at meal time, and carrying some energy-filled snacks around with you, like bananas, seeds, nuts.
- A guilt and eating mentality that borders the eating disorder pitfall. We are both afraid of eating rich food now, not because we don’t want to gain weight, but because it actually tastes too rich and makes us sick even thinking about it. Things with lots of cheese, oil, and gluten specifically. We’ll have to reintroduce things very slowly in order to avoid feeling ill.
- Very hard to stop drinking coffee and alcohol for the first week, but the withdrawal headaches and social anxiety go away after a week. You get used to having water in a bar with your friends, and you learn to get your wakeup energy from porridge and bananas instead of caffeine.
Overall, I’d say this was a very positive experience. I just hope we don’t revert to our old bad habits too quickly, or the whole thing could be more than just a waste of time; it could have undesirable effects on our gastro-digestive process. We’ll see how the next few weeks go! My verdict? If you are having any kinds of adverse reactions to food, or you feel sluggish, slow and are getting sick regularly, you could try this out for a few weeks. It certainly did a lot more good than bad, and was a lot easier than we thought. More than anything, we found the most positive outcome of the whole experience was finding out how strong our willpower was.
You can buy his book online, but I don’t recommend the book itself. If you can borrow a friend’s copy (ours is up for grabs if anyone wants it). I don’t particularly think it’s worth buying because it’s poorly organized and doesn’t give you enough specific information about what you’re supposed to do. We did more reading about the detox online than in the actual book… It contains only a small handful of recipes and doesn’t have any instructions regarding process or rules. It seems more like it’s made up of slides from an investigative lecture than a book that can actually help you.
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I’ve been meaning to put something up about my trips to chicago for a while— Yes, trips. Plural. I have had the opportunity (or obligation?) to visit the Windy City on two separate occasions. The first was for my SapientStart training, which lasted a week in January, and the second was for a wedding; Meagan’s cousin Mark called us out, last minute style, for his wedding at the end of February. I was going to write two separate entries, on each respective return, but I found it would have been easier and more efficient to treat both visits as one long visit, since I was seeing different parts of the city on each trip. The first trip, mostly dominated by seminars in the Loop, allowed for my coworkers and I to explore the downtown core.
At night, it’s empty, and at rush hour it’s bustling. This isn’t really my cup of tea, but it was still an interesting cultural experience. We did most of the tourist traps, like the Art Institute, and deep dish pizza. I tried to get as much localite culture as you can within the Loop, but it’s not very accommodating. It’s like trying to find a good watering hole, or good cheap eats on King and Yonge. Luckily, a few chicago residence who were also in our training seminar showed us a few good spots that were easily accessible from our office.
Heaven on Seven is an authentic cajun restaurant, hidden away on the seventh floor of an office tower in the Loop. No signage, and no instructions, it seems like this place caters to financial staffers who know what’s up. We got drinks and watched a game at Blue Frog, near State and Hubbard, where we were applauded by the serving staff for playing quarters. Blue Frog is apparently Chicago’s oldest karaoke shit-hole, but they weren’t even doing any karaoke on the night that we arrived, so we just played drinking games until we had to roll back to our hotel rooms.
We went to the original Billy Goat Tavern, on lower Michigan below the Wrigley Building. Remember that SNL piece where Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd yell “Cheezborger! Cheezborger! No fries, cheeps! No Pepsi, Coke!” ? Well that was all based on this place. This place is also responsible for the Cubs Curse, so the localites we brought here actually had to bite their tongues since most Cubs fans hate this place. Burgers are 2.65, beers are 3.50. Can’t really go wrong there.
A few other local corner bars and restaurants were visited, and after the whole thing was over, I was exhausted. Working from 9 until 5, and then exploring the city from 5:00 pm until 1:00 am for five days was tolling. Leaving after only exploring the loop, albeit a lot of it, was pretty disappointing and uninspiring, though. I’m not the kind of guy that drives to work in a sedan and shops for briefcases at bargain basement department stores – I really wanted to explore the outer rim of Chicago, like Wicker Park, Logan Square and Wrigleyville, but I didn’t get the chance. Luckily I got invited to this wedding, and this gave me the perfect opportunity to explore these areas.
On the second visit, we had delicious tapas at Cafe Iberico. We had delicious tacos at Big Star; which I highly suggest for anyone in the market for a five page whisky, tequila and bourbon menu. Across the street from that is the super-stealthy Violet Hour; where they have one of the best cocktail menus I’ve ever seen. It’s modelled like a speak-easy, and again there’s no signage or branding on any of the walls outside; you walk in through what appears to be plywood scaffolding, and you pull the curtains back to reveal an experience straight out of the 1920′s. They have pretentious rules too, like no cell phones, no cameras, no swearing … Moving on, we had an amazingly rich breakfast at Longman and Eagle; where Meagan became satiated on Chicken and Waffles, and Alex had Biscuits and Sausage Gravy. In terms of Food and Drink, these areas are far superior to the places I went on my last visit, as was the shopping!
Some notes regarding Swag searching in Chicago:
- JCrew on Michigan ave. is not any different from the JCrew in Buffalo. Exact same stock, barely any collaborations, but helpful staff that are willing to order things from other stores for you.
- Both Levis stores, in Wicker Park and downtown, have amazing selections. They carry most of the collaborations, and each stores caters to different markets so they keep different stocks and different items. The pendleton and filson stuff was mostly sold out in my size, but was super cheap compared to the prices you find online. I tried to grab that PendletonXLevis workshirt, but they didn’t have it in my size… bummer. The Filson stuff was insanely good, too.
- Overall, the vintage shopping in Wicker Park is about on par with Toronto. I heard it was better in Wrigleyville, but we didn’t get a chance to checkout any stores over there.
- Stuff I got cheap: A Jcrew henley on sale, a RRL shirt on sale for 40 bucks, and a levis work shirt.
- We tried to find FAO Schwartz, to buy a Catan expansion, but we found out it had been gone for 6 years. Some infodesk lady at the Water Tower Place laughed in our faces for asking… Tourists.
This visit, we got a chance to visit the Field Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Both, I thought were a bit of a let down. The Field Museum not only felt like a day care, where the didactic nature of everything felt like it was speaking to children who can’t hold their attention on anything for longer than 20 seconds, but it also felt like they are seriously hurting for budget. The shows were cheap and they oversold a number of exhibits that were just rehashed permanent collection. It made me love our ROM a little more, through each room I traversed. The Museum of Contemporary Art was alright, there were a couple of good shows, but also a few really poor ones. I felt like the Art Institute, which we briefly visited on my first trip in January, was mostly permanent collection, but it was modern american classics; that we don’t get to see much of in Canada. The couple of exhibit shows that they did have were really good new media shows, and I wanted to go back to see more, but we couldn’t squeeze it in.
Couple more treats from the duty free, that you can’t get here.
As always, I’m on tumblr pretty much everyday, while I only use this blog for larger publishings.
Read MoreAs usual, I’ve travelled home for the holidays, and while I thought I would be getting a nice rest, I’ve fallen pray to a nasty winter virus – probably imbibed on the plane ride here. As such, I have been pretty weak and uninspired to take many photos. I did manage to get some photos of the ritual my mom and I usually do in the morning on the 25th. That is, eat bagels and lox, exchange gifts, drink mimosas, and be lazy. Pyjamas mandatory. Here are some others, while we’re at it.
- Certain Applications of Physical Principles to the Playing of Musical Instruments
- Interior Salish: British Columbia Heritiage Series
- A sign systems manual: Crowley, Fletcher, Forbes
I just bought some new treats from Monkey’s Paw. A couple little vintage guides and handbooks, but the real prize was A Sign Systems Manual, by Theo Crosby, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes. Incredible find! This book was published 2 years before the trio went on to form the incredibly prestigious Pentagram design studio. It has a few library stamps on it, but I feel like I really lucked out on randomly coming across this in a book store. It’s incredibly rare and is found online for about 3 times as much as I paid for it… Wow! A few pics below, but as per usual – more pictures on my flickr.
It’s been nearly a month since I’ve been back. I think we’ve both felt under motivated and over worked to do anything personal. We’re flooded with freelance gigs and we’re both working full-time on top of that so coming on here to post some self-absorbed nonsense has seemed superfluous to it all. Now that a lot of the projects are wrapping up, though, and I have some more time to calm down a bit, I’d like to catch up with the regular updates.
First, the holidays were great – albeit busy and a little stressful. I got a bad cold, so on top of running around like crazy trying to squeeze every person that I inevitably contacted into the small two week period, I had migraines, coughing fits, and muscle aches. You can imagine how I would want a second holiday after all this. I regret telling a lot of people that I could see them, when I actually didn’t end up having time – to you folks, I apologize profusely. I had a week alone before Meagan flew out to meet me, but was sick during this time, so I didn’t really get much done before she arrived. Some pictures of the trip can be seen in this set, but I’d like to post a few of my favourites here.
I got some goodies for the holidays, too. I wanted some new boots and a new coat so I got my parents to chip in and help me out. I’ve never owned a real wool coat before, and I’m tired of always embarassing myself; showing up to restaurants or work events in a puffy down jacket. I purchased the duffle coat by Surface to Air Paris and the boots are Red Wing.
Ok – I know I said that I would be updating more frequently, and while this has yet to be proven, it is the truth. The past couple of weeks have been work-hell. My co-worker took off last week for Jamaica, and basically I am the only designer on our joint accounts now, which means double time for me until next wednesday when she gets back. I can’t say the name of the new project on here, but I can tell you that it’s the leading Canadian publisher of women’s romance fiction and it’s coming along nicely. That said, this account allowed my agency to hire me full time, which means I’m actually employed now!
Despite the rapid approach of winter’s bitter decay, Meagan and I have been exploring our new neighbourhood quite a bit, and we found a great new vegetarian cafe that serves a mean brunch: Calico Cafe. Their breakfasts all have vegan options, or they can use eggs and dairy if you please. Being curious, I decided to try the vegan omelette, and M had the tofu sandwich. They use spelt flour and soft tofu to simulate the eggs. It was delicious, albeit not very eggy at all.
More updates coming soon!
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Saturday night – feeling ill still. I can’t seem to get better from this cold I got a couple weeks ago. While everyone’s going out, Meagan made some enchiladas for us so that I could eat well before she goes out. While they don’t look super appetizing in photo form, I can assure you they were delicious!
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Made in Canada.