Mapo tofu and more libraries

Yesterday a friend and I ticked two more libraries off the list. 

We started at a SkyTrain station in East Vancouver, found a dim sum restaurant and had a great lunch, and then walked to the Collingwood Branch. It's a small branch, in a purpose-built building from 1951 -- they had some pictures in the foyer of it being opened. My friend actually remembered going there as a child! 

There was a Chinese language section, a decent-sized children's collection, and enough books and magazines, including a good shelf of "things to do around Vancouver" books. 

I was seduced by the Vogue Knitting magazines and picked up two; there was a display for Veganuary so I got a cookbook to look at; and I even found a book about trails in Stanley Park, so I was well loaded-down when we left. 

We discovered that another branch was not too far away, and getting there involved walking by a ravine, so we tried that out. 

It's great to see the mountains to the north of the city from a different angle. 

The Renfrew branch is in a community centre complex, and we first went in the building with the swimming pool and some 8-year-old's birthday party, but a friendly dad sent us in the right direction.

 

My selfie skills need some work

A new building, with a large, airy main room for the library, really quite nice! We looked at more and more books, but didn't burden ourselves with any more to carry. We also didn't look around for a coffee shop or anywhere to have a muffin, but just walked back to the station and headed out. 

It was a good walk and a good lunch and I found a ravine, so a successful day!

Since it's the end of the month I should update you on the cookbook situation. We had a great success with Moosewood's Mushroom Mapo Tofu. You marinate cubed tofu in chili-garlic sauce with vinegar, soy sauce, ginger, tomato paste, sesame oil, water and sherry, except we didn't have any sherry. Then you cook up onions and a ton of mushrooms, add the tofu and cook it all together for a while. Serve it on rice with broccoli, voilà. Throw some green onions on for pretty, and they suggest walnuts as well. Oh, yes: this is vegetarian, but if you happen to have some ground lamb around and you wonder what to do with that, it goes in this very nicely! 

I've also made coconut rice, which is rice cooked in coconut milk: not very thrilling really. I made their ratatouille as well, which is a bit crazy for January, since we used canned tomatoes. It was eggplanty spaghetti sauce, which I like, but Stephen said was "not very exciting." And there was hummus: a very basic recipe in which you throw chick peas and tahini and lemon and garlic in a blender with a bit of spice and whoosh it up. 

There are other recipes I love in this book but I wanted to try new things. The mapo tofu will certainly be a recipe we go back to. We have to eat today and tomorrow, so who knows if we will get another recipe in? For February, we get to look at Jamie at Home, a good Jamie Oliver book. It's quite familiar, but I am sure we can find some new treats. 

Zigzag month is also coming to an end. We have some human-made zigzags, like a staircase and a pattern in bricks. 

We also have a couple of natural zigzags: a leaf and a crack in some bark. 

I like these things that are not too clear-cut. What exactly is a zigzag? 

I have one more zigzag to show you tomorrow.