Random meme questions...

[fajrdrako]

Just another random LJ meme.

1. What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?

My father taught me to make pancakes when I was - what, six? Seven? No idea what age. The next specific things I remember learning to make were in school. Our first challenge: cinnamon toast. Followed shortly by chicken paprikash, which I'd never even heard of before. I thought chicken came in slices from the deli counter.

2. When you go out to eat, what kind of dressing to you ask for with your salad? What about at home?

At home, currently I'm using Renée's Gourmet Vinaigrette Pear Guava. In restuarants, I usually order blue cheese, or ginger, or sesame, if they have it; otherwise ranch. I always order the salad dressing "on the side" because they always use much more than I like.

3. What size clothing do you wear?

Large.

4. Do you collect anything at the moment?

Comic books. That's been true since I was eight years old. And quotations.

5. What would you eat every day, if you could?

Cinnamon toast.

6. What would you never be caught dead wearing?

A sleeveless shirt.

8. Favourite team?

Liverpool for the cup. (maaseru will understand this one.)

9. How do you vote?

For the best, most intelligent candidate whose party I can tolerate. This pretty much rules out the Conservatives. I usually vote NDP, occasionally Green or Marxist-Leninist.

10. What is your heritage? Related to anyone famous or infamous?

I like to call it Anglo-Celtic. On my mother's side, Irish and Scots. On my father's, English to the dawn of time, with a tiny smattering of Welsh.

I am, according to family legend, descended from an Irish fairy, the Scotsman Black Peter Grant, the English martyr Bishop Ridley, and related distantly to Mary Quant.

11. Someone's baking you a birthday cake, what kind of cake do you want?

Spice cake or carrot cake with vanilla or lemon cream cheese icing.

12. How far are you from a major metro city area? (London, Manchester, Glasgow, Sydney, Paris, New York?)

• I live 5,378 km (3,195 miles) from London, England.
  
• 5,142 km (3,342 miles) from Manchester, England, England, across the Atlantic Sea.
  
• 4,948 km (3,o74 miles) from Glasgow, Scotland. (Hi to silverwhistle.
  
• 15,868 km (9,860 miles) from Sydney, Australia.
  
• 5,650 km (3,510 miles) from Paris, France.
  
• 10,385 km (6,450 miles) from Tokyo, Japan.
  
• 556 km (346 miles) from New York, NY; but that must be as the crow flies. It isn't so easy to get there.
  
• More interestingly, I live 965 km from Halifax and 3,565 km from Vancouver, but only 365 km from Toronto and 162 km from Montreal.

13. Favourite holiday?

Christmas. I really, really love Christmas.

14. Best party you've ever been to?

Well, my Halloween party this year was fun. I have great memories of the party held the first night of the first Dorothy Dunnett convention in 1990 in Edinburgh, where I first met many cool people who have remained dear friends. I have good memories of all the Who Cares parties held over the years in Ottawa.

15. Favourite supermarket?

Until a few months ago it was the McKeen-Willis IGA on Bank near Third. Since that's now a Metro, I don't like it as much. I like the Farm Boy at Merivale Mall, and some of the Loblaw's Superstores.

16. Your life: Drama or sit-com?

A bit of both. More like a symphony.

17. Last song you listened to?

John Barrowman singing "The Perfect Year".

18. Ever left the cinema before a movie was over?

Yes, twice at least. Once when I was a teen, at a movie with my friend Paula... I don't recall what the movie was, but it was terribly dull. Then in (probably) 1967, I went to see Doctor Zhivago in Montreal, but we'd misjudged the length of the movie, and had to leave before it ended to take the last bus back to Ottawa. So I still don't know how that movie ends.

19. Are your parents married or divorced?

They are both dead, but were married as long as both were alive.

20. Do you drive an automatic or a shift?

No.