Migraine Medicine

Drink Me!

I knew from the moment I got into the office that it was not going to be my day. I could feel the pressure around my temple and the heavy feeling around my eyes. I knew what was coming: a migraine.

I worked through it as much as I could, but then I couldn't do it anymore and went home.

The next day, I woke up and my migraine was slightly better, but not by much. So I worked from home and made myself some "migraine medicine": hot chocolate with coffee.

I swear this stuff keeps migraines at bay!

You make hot chocolate by combining cocoa, sugar, cinnamon and milk to make a paste, then you add boiling water a capful of (real) vanilla. Stir. Let cool so you don't burn your palate, and drink.

For migraine medicine, you add some instant coffee to the cocoa, sugar and cinnamon mix.

A few minutes after you drink it your migraine will miraculously go away.

Except when it doesn't and you end up in the dark, curled up in the fetal position.

Couscous!

This is different, isn't it?

Plastic makes it better. Kinda.

OK, not really because it's still an empty container. But the crumbs are different! See? They're couscous crumbs! Or rather individual couscou (one couscou, two couscous?). They were topped with stewed chickpeas that were made with lime and cinnamon, not that you could taste either because both flavours were obliterated by the tomato. Or maybe they were so harmonious that the flavours smoothly combined.

The last time I made this dish, the stewed chickpeas came out better, but the couscous was stale. I had just bought the friggin' couscous that day and it was already stale! That was the last time I bought boxed couscous. This couscous was happily hermetically sealed in a cellophane bag. Better living through plastics.

Faux Bagels

Unless the name of your shop is St-Viateur Bagel or Fairmount Bagel, I'm sorry to say that you make fake bagels.   And, depending on which side of the St-Viateur v. Fairmount bagel argument you lie, one of those two places also makes fake bagels.  (Between you and me, Fairmount is the imposter.)

No real bagel would be caught with these toppings.

Anyways. 

Since real bagels aren't available fresh in my area, I can either eat bagged real bagels or fresh fake bagels.  I opted for fresh fake bagels.   The selection above was an "everything" bagel and a "cinnamon crunch" bagel.  (Neither of these flavours, btw, is acceptable in a real bagel.)  

The cinnamon crunch bagel was too sweet, but was OK once I slathered it in butter and salt, and topped it with stinky camembert cheese.  The everything bagel was OK just with the butter and salt.

And of course, I had coffee.  It was a "fair-trade" Sumatran dark roast made in my Bodum.   It was very, very tasty.  It sure beat the hell out of anything Silvia ever produced.