Not so fast...

Just when I thought I was almost Canadian, Canada said not so fast. Unfortunately, my passport has not been stamped each and every time I entered and exited the United States. Therefore I am required to submit a freedom of information act request to US customs and border patrol asking for a record of all of my entries and exits. I have to wait for this then submit that to citizenship and immigration Canada, and then I am pretty sure I will be invited to take the oath of citizenship. So for now I sit and wait for my FOIA request to go through.

In the meantime I turned 40. Someone in the moms group I attend had a bit of an existential crisis because he turned 30. I just laughed. I also thought I was kind of old when I turned 30, and surprisingly 40 doesn’t feel like anything particularly special. I think maybe because I have a lot of what I wanted at 30 — a stable job, a couple of kids, a house. A lot is different from what I expected, but a lot is just how I wanted it to be.

To celebrate my birthday we had some fancy “artisan“ ice cream. We brought home pints of three different flavours from a local ice cream shop that does small batches of high quality. Chocolate raspberry ripple, strawberry shortcake, and salted chocolate caramel “brookie” (a cross between a brownie and a cookie).

And you wouldn’t even know that they are vegan. The salted chocolate caramel brookie has a definite coconut flavor, but the other two don’t even though all are coconut milk-based. I am finding that there are really some good options for vegan ice cream. I made a coconut milk-based mint ice cream with Girl Scout thin mints, and it was really good and not at all coconut flavored.

I am going to try to make some chocolate and see if I can keep it from tasting too much like coconut. I may have a perfect and simple recipe figured out!