December 27, 2012: Snowed in!

No, not some back country trail in the early evening hours. This was my mother’s street at 10:00 a.m.

And another reason why moving back to Montreal holds little appeal: the snow and the cold.  It’s miserable out there today.  Pretty.  But miserable.  Especially when you’re trudging through two foot high drifts with your mom’s dogs, the wind whipping your exposed skin to a rosy pink.  The plan was to head downtown today for a little underground shopping followed by dinner at a Japanese restaurant (after three straight days of heavy French and Italian, Akemi is dying for Asian cuisine) but the weather has put a little hitch in that schedule.  It’s looking more likely we’ll be going with the alternate plan: season 2 of Modern Family, George MacDonald Frasier’s Flashman, and leftovers.

And not even last night’s leftovers!  We left those with sis!

Last night, we went to one of my favorite restaurants in town, Au Pied de Cochon, for a truly rustic, down home, Quebecois meal…

We were joined by my friend, fellow writer, and former co-worker (way back when I held an office job, developing animated shows for kids), Anne-Marie and her boyfriend, Jerome.

Sis and Daisy.

Akemi, off to a good start = bread and butter.

The tarragon bison tongue, a can’t-miss menu item.

The foie gras poutine temaki. Not bad but I wasn’t completely sold on the potato-rice combination.  It came with a foie gras sauce for dipping/pouring.

The melt-in-your-mouth foie gras terrine.

The guinea hen liver mousse.

Akemi – not the biggest fan of foie gras.

The blood sausage tart. It’s an acquired taste – which, yes, I’ve acquired.

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The headcheese. Fear not. There’s no actual “cheese” in the dish. Only parts of the head. And tasty potatoes!

Other menu items sampled included some bison rib, cromesquis (tiny deep fried foie gras bites), two types of pork chops, creamed squash, onion soup, tomato tart, and this interesting dish – duck in a can (served table side):

And, of course, dessert…

The uber dark chocolaty dark chocolate pot de creme.

Sugar pie. Yep. Pretty damn sweet. But tasty.

The lemon meringue tart.

Maple ice cream.

And to wash it all down – everyone else ordered coffees and teas, but I went with the maple milkshake.

I guested on Blog Talk Radio last night, the first part of a two part chat on SGU and the Stargate franchise in general.  It was fun, interesting and, occasionally, a little bewildering.  One of the early discussion points was character creation and I explained how screen presence and chemistry will often steer character development.  I cited the case of Dale Volker, a character we had planned to kill off halfway through season one – but who won a reprieve on the strength of Patrick Gilmore’s impressive performance.  He was too good to kill off!  We covered a wide range of SGU-related topics (the creation of the series, ratings, its premature demise) and I fielded a few questions.  Join us next week for the second part of our Stargate-related discussion during which I’ll field some more of your queries – and fill you in on my plans for 2013.

Apparently, Montreal isn’t the only area snowed-in.  But it’s nice to see our very own gforce making the best of it -