Kitsch:  something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste (so says dictionary.com).

Well, when Tara and I were out on Thursday evening and spied the flamingo and fairy-light covered patio of the Rumpus Room, we had to investigate.  This establishment definitely appealed to our tawdry and undiscrimating sensibilities.  The menu contains items like deep-fried pickles!  Breakfast waffle burger!  Burger with a side of waffle!  To be sure though, they have lots of "real" food to choose from as well, and I was impressed with the extent of their vegetarian options.  We stuffed our faces with spicy green beans, chicken for Tara, waffles for both of us, and some delicious strawberry mojito. 

As a bonus, we had the nicest waitress ever, who could not wait to go chanterelle picking; apparently she makes a mean boozy chanterelle soup too!

I'd like to talk about how great the Yellow Aster Butte trail is, and how great Sunday was...  but as today marks the end of a recent spate of busy-ness, and as I have baked oatmeal just coming out of the oven, some beautiful alpaca yarn to swatch, and a few things on my to-do list before meeting up with friends later on, I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.  
The bottomline?  Any hike in the Glacier / Mount Baker area is bound to be pretty spectacular.  What better way to work up an appetite for a glass of pinot grigio and a mammoth bowl of pasta puttanesca?

Last year I went to Garibaldi Lake for the first time, and thought it was about the best hike ever.  But in some ways, this Saturday's Cheakamus Lake trail was even better: it incorporated the best elements of the Garibaldi Lake hike (not surprising since the two lakes are quite close to each other) with a fantastic effort:reward ratio (this trail is basically flat; Garibaldi Lake has about 800m of elevation gain).

The most difficult part of the outing was driving to the trailhead on a dirt road with some potholes.

The trail is flat and well-maintained, and goes through a lovely forest and alongside a glacier-fed lake. 

The campgrounds - about 3 km in - were definitely filling up on a Saturday afternoon, but would probably be fairly vacant on a late-September weekday.  We had the beach at the end of the trail all to ourselves. 

Trees, trees, and more trees.  Lush green everywhere.  A perfect fall day.

Given my fascination with cakes that have grated vegetables in them, I needed only the tiniest of excuses to get around to making Joy the Baker's chocolate beet cake (as in, I've eaten all my brownies, and have buttermilk to use up). 

Side note: I had leftoever buttermilk after making the buttermilk-basil-lime sorbet from Sprinkle Bakes.  You should totally check out her blog; she is amazing.  

Anyway, back to the cake.  I made half the recipe, which yielded 10 cupcakes.  While I'm no calorie-counter, I did shy away from the icing called for in the recipe, as it was replete with cream cheese, butter and icing sugar, and I've had a steady diet this summer of brownies and gin cocktails.  This icing consists of a half a cup of icing sugar, and small quantities of softened butter, milk, vanilla, and grated beets.  There wasn't quite enough icing to go round, but it's alright to have a few naked cupcakes.  

And while we're on the topic of Joy the Baker recipe winners?  This crostini is one of the best things I made this summer.  Hurry while there are still decent peaches and tomatoes to be found!

Edited to add:  Since I still had buttermilk to use up, and since I thought that leftover pancakes would be good food to take on a hike (I was not wrong), I subseqently made JTB's buttermilk pancake recipe.  Now, I thought that I knew pancakes (as in, mix together flour, milk, eggs, and a bit of sugar, salt, baking powder and melted butter).  I was wrong.  These are the best pancakes I've ever made.  Pancake epiphany.  Amen.

The tripods were out in full force this evening along the False Creek seawall.  (And the urbanites were out in full force at Whole Foods.  Did you know that it's the happening place to be on a Saturday night?)

Susannah and I (also known as mutual hat-enablers) went to the antique fair on Sunday.  Out of the whole skating rink, this was the one item that needed to come home with me: a fantastical, freaky, yet totally-awesome pink feathered hat from the 60s - in pristine condition.

Over the last several years, I've thought from time to time about how, at least once in my life, I would like to have hair the colour of candy floss.  But... think of the maintenance; the commitment; the unprofessionalism.  And while I rarely go for novelty purchases - functionality is just too important to me - this seems like both a happy compromise, as well as instant mood enhancer. 

(The seller noted: "I was sure this would be bought by a drag queen."