I'm on my way

Dave decided to give me a gift to congratulate me on finishing my thesis, and he hit this one out of the park.

He was trying to think of things that an academic needs, and thought that I needed worn-in leather satchel:

(source)

The wearing in process has to be organic, and the lived-with look earned, so he set about finding the same style of satchel, but new. Right now, it's a lovely pink natural leather colour. As I use it, hopefully the colour will darken and the structure will soften in.

Coco's Salsa

Now that this has happened:

A stack of seven copies of my thesis, ready for a trip to
the Psychology Department and Graduate Studies

I have time to do things I like again. Like make Mexican food.

I can't take credit for much beyond the photos here, because the recipe is a treasure from the Poolman family, courtesy of a neighbour.

Ingredients:

1. 6 medium-size tomatoes
2. 1-2 jalapeno peppers
3. 1-2 cloves of garlic
4. 3/4 cup cilantro leaves
5. 1 tsp salt

The recipe recommends getting bargain tomatoes from the old-food section, but I am using the only tomatoes I could find. Test the jalapenos for heat; I ended up using one big jalapeno but because it was pretty mild I threw in some seeds too.

Wash the tomatoes, remove any green stems, and arrange them on a baking tray. Bake at 250˚F for about 2 hours, until they begin to brown.

Allow the tomatoes to cool for a bit, and when they're cool enough to touch remove their skins and cores, working over a bowl so as not to lose any juices. Cut open each tomato to separate the seeds and juice from the meat.

Juice

Place the meat in a food processor and gently pulse until it has broken up into small chunks. You could also do this by hand, but I was way too lazy. Add the chunks back into the bowl.

Put the tomato mixture into the refrigerator, and mince garlic and jalapeno. Cut cilantro leaves coarsely.

When the tomatoes have cooled to at least room temperature, add cilantro, garlic, jalapeno, and salt. Stir to combine.

It's best with a bit of time in the fridge to let the flavours mingle, but is also delicious right away.

Why?

Source

This is a small thought, too big for a tweet, too small for a proper post, but here goes.

I put music on the websites I designed... awesome MIDI files back in 1998. Around that time, the convention in web design became "don't include music just because you can. Your audience is forced to listen to it, and they should be allowed to peruse the website at their leisure."

Given that, WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD do 99% of wedding photographers put horrible sappy "mood" music on their portfolios? I have my own music, or I might be at work. See the above reasoning for why the music on your website, if you choose to include it, should be on pause by default with the option to play. Web designers who create these horrendous Flash monstrosities for photographers: what are you doing? Have you ever opened the sites for eight photographers in tabs and then after a moment of aural assault had your (awesome) computer seize up and die under the weight of so much Flash??

Whatever your reasoning, stop, please.

An Appetizer Party: Grand Finale (Dessert)

They're just so darn classy.

Tuxedo Strawberries

Ingredients:

1. Fresh strawberries (~30)
2. White melting chocolate (~ 500g) 
3. Dark melting chocolate (~250g)
4. Milk melting chocolate (~250g)

Wash and dry fresh strawberries, skewer with toothpicks through stem for easy dipping and eating. Prepare a baking sheet or two with parchment or waxed paper - you'll set the strawberries here to cool once they have been dipped in chocolate. 

Melt white chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. Dip each strawberry in the white chocolate and place it on a baking tray. If you gently scrape the back of the strawberry along the side of the bowl to remove excess chocolate, there won't be a puddle of melted chocolate on the tray to deform the silhouette of the berry. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Combine dark and milk chocolate and melt. Dip each strawberry twice, at an angle, to form the sides of the tuxedo. Again, scrape the back of the berry to preserve its shape. Using a pastry bag with a tiny tip, pipe little buttons and bow ties (like squared figure-eights) to finish off the tux. Allow to cool one more time, then serve and bask in the praise for your adorable dessert.

We followed the method suggested by this guy on YouTube, but added the toothpicks because it made the process easier.

For the rest of the party, catch:

The Cold Appetizers

The Hot Appetizers

An Appetizer Party: Hot Appetizers

In my true dedication to procrastination, I have delayed this post by nearly a week. It wasn't when we were preparing the appetizers that I thought "This a ridiculous number of different things to serve", it was when I had to go through and write up the recipes.

Without further delay, here is the thrilling next edition to "An Appetizer Party" the tale of New Years Eve 2010 chez Arsenault, in food.

In case you missed them, Catch the cold appetizers here.

Blue Cheese Bites

Ingredients:

1. 1 tube Pillsbury biscuit dough 
2. 4 oz. blue cheese (we used Stilton)
3. just under 1/2 cup unsalted butter

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Melt the butter in the bottom of your approximately quiche-sized pan. Or rectangular pan. It's flexible. Release the biscuit dough from the tube, and cut the rounds into quarters. Sprinkle crumbled blue cheese evenly over bottom of pan. Lay the dough on the cheese. They'll expand, so don't worry if there are a few empty spaces. Bake for 12-15 mins until biscuits are golden. Allow to cool for 3-5 minutes, and enjoy with sparking wine.

Mom's Marinara Sauce

This delicious marinara is used for both the olives and the meatballs. Leftovers can be reheated, thinned with milk, and served as an awesome tomato soup. 

Ingredients:

1. 106 oz. San Marzano canned roma tomatoes with basil (any brand will work, though note that the best way to get mediocre tomato sauce is to buy the cheapest canned tomatoes.)
2. about 1/4 cup of butter
3. 2 onions, diced
4. 2 stalk of celery, diced
5. 1 carrot, grated
6. Salt and pepper

Directions:

Put butter in a big pot, heat. Add onion, celery, and carrot, season with salt and pepper - no need to measure, just do what feels right. Sautee until soft. Add tomatoes, and puree. Reduce for 2-3 hours to enhance the flavour, if you have the time.

Best Meatballs Ever

Ingredients:

1. 1 lb ground beef
2. 1 lb ground pork
3. 2 cups bread, cubed-no crust (baguette or rustic italian)
4. 3/4 cup milk
5. 1 ½ tsp sea salt
6. freshly ground pepper to taste
7. 1/4 cup flat leaf parsley - finely chopped
8. 1/4 cup pine nuts - ground
9. 2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
10. zest of 1 lemon
11. 1/3 cup grated pecorino or parmasan cheese
12. 2 eggs - lightly beaten
13. 1 ½ cups Panko Japanese bread crumbs
14. 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil + extra if needed
15. Marinara sauce

Directions:


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl soak the bread in the milk. In a large bowl, using your hands, combine the beef, pork, parsley, garlic, pine nuts, lemon zest, egg, cheese, salt & pepper. And Panko. Then remove most of the Panko and some of the parmesan cheese. Squeeze the milk from the bread and incorporate into the meat mixture.

Wet your hands a little (prevents sticking) and take around a heaping tablespoon of meat and form into a ball, then flatten down slightly so they wont roll around in the pan. Next coat them in the Panko and parmesan you removed and set aside. Heat the oil in a large skillet over med heat and fry the patties until they're nice and brown. (note: you're not cooking them all the way through, just browning the outside.) Arrange them in a large casserole dish or roasting pan in one layer.

Pour the marinara sauce over the meatballs evenly, adding a splash of olive oil over the top and place in the oven for about 35-40 minutes. When they come out top with freshly grated parmasan or pecorino and some finely chopped parsley for garnish. Makes a ton of bite-sized meatballs.


Fried Olives

Posting this recipe makes me feel like an impostor, because I don't actually like olives, so I didn't taste it. I do have it on good authority that it is a delicious and unusual way to enjoy olives. Apparently the combination of sausage, olive, cheese, bread, and marinara is reminiscent of pizza. I think that's a good thing.

Ingredients:

1. Pitted, big, green olives
2. An italian sausage
3. about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
4. a splash of olive oil
5. about 1 cup of flour
6. 2 eggs, beaten
7. about 2 cups of Panko (Japanese bread crumbs)
8. A lot of oil for deep frying. We used peanut oil because we didn't have enough vegetable oil.

Directions:

To prepare the stuffing, cut the italian sausage out of its casing and sauté to cook, breaking it up into small pieces of ground meat. When it is cooked, put it into a food processor with some parmesan and a bit of olive oil and puree into a paste. It should be about the consistency of paté, so add parmesan and olive oil slowly until you reach the desired consistency.

Using a pastry bag and tip, pipe the filling into the centre of the olive (we had to dig out cloves of garlic to do this, you may need to remove pimentos or seeds depending on the olives you buy). 

Once the olives are stuffed, bread them by coating in flour, then egg, then panko. If they're too dry for the flour to stick, you can brush them lightly with olive oil. They can be kept refrigerated in this state for a while (up to two weeks) if you want to get your prep work done in advance, and then you can fry them right before they will be served. We fried them later that day. 

Pour oil into a large pan (with deep-ish sides, the oil will be very hot) so that it is about 1cm deep.  Lower olives into the oil (I think we used tongs to do them one by one). Cook for about 2 minutes, turning halfway through. They should be golden brown when they're done. Remove to a paper-towel-covered plate and then serve in marinara sauce, though rumour has it that cocktail sauce works well too. Watch them disappear. 

Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts

Ingredients:

1. 1lb of thick-cut bacon (smoky, not maple or honey, or any other strange flavour)
2. About 40 large, whole water chestnuts 

Directions:

Cut the strips of bacon in half. Wrap each water chestnut in half a strip of bacon, and skewer with a toothpick. These can be set aside overnight and cooked later.

Lay the skewers out on a baking tray, and cook at 350-400˚ for about 45 minutes, or whenever the bacon looks done. Serve immediately with some sort of dipping sauce. Cocktail sauce is delicious.

Chicken Skewers

This recipe came from Allrecipies.com

Ingredients: for 10 skewers

1. 3/4 cup soy sauce
2. 1/4 cup sugar
3. 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4. 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
5. 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
6. 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch pieces
7. 6 green onions, cut into 1-inch pieces
8. 8 ounces fresh mushrooms, stems removed (for easier skewering)

Directions:

To prepare the marinade,  in a mixing bowl, combine first five ingredients. Stir in chicken and onion; allow to marinate for 30 minutes. Soak wooden skewers in water. On each skewer, thread a piece of chicken, onion, mushroom and another chicken piece. 

The original recipe gives these instructions for broiling: 

Place on a broiler rack. Broil 5 in. from the heat, turning and basting with marinade after 3 minutes. Continue broiling for another 3 minutes or until chicken is done. 

We grilled them on the barbecue instead.

Serve immediately. We served them with a spicy peanut sauce for dipping.


Stay tuned for the single-recipe finale: dessert. Hint: it's going to be adorable.

An Appetizer Party: Cold Appetizers

We closed 2010 with a party at my parents' house. We spent much of December 30th and 31st planning and preparing a suite of appetizers to serve in lieu of a sit-down dinner. Following is an account of what we decided on, how we prepared it, and most importantly: how it looked.

Shrimp Cocktail

Ingredients: 

1. Raw, frozen shrimp
2. Lemon
3. Sea Salt/Kosher Salt
4. Ketchup
5. Horseradish
6. Worcestershire Sauce
7. Sugar
8. Tobasco

Directions: 

Thaw shrimp and toss in kosher salt. Bring a huge pot of water to a boil - if you forgot to let the shrimp sit in kosher salt, add some sea salt to the water. We squeezed a lemon in too. 

Drop the shrimp into the boiling water and watch carefully. It's done when it curls/turns pink/floats in the water (experience finds that they tend to be done 30 seconds before you're confident they're done). Drain the hot water, and rinse the shrimp in cold water to keep them from cooking any more. Shell the shrimp - you don't want to buy pre-shelled because all the flavour is in the shell - and then pop them in the fridge until ready to serve.

The cocktail sauce is prepared by combining ketchup, horseradish, worcestershire sauce, sugar, and a touch of tobasco to taste. For details, ask Dave.

Garnish with leaf lettuce and lemon wedges, and serve in a bowl over ice to keep them cool.

Oyster Roll

Ingredients: 

1. Two 8 oz.  packages of cream cheese
2. 1 clove of garlic, minced
3. 2 tsp finely minced onion
4. 1 Tbsp mayonnaise
5. 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
6. 2 packages of smoked oysters

Make sure the cream cheese is soft by leaving it out of the refrigerator for a few hours, then mix together all the ingredients but the oysters. Spread this mixture on a waxed paper-lined baking sheet to form a rectangle that's about 1/2 an inch thick.

Chill.

And put the baking sheet in the fridge until firm-ish (about an hour or so).

Prepare the oysters by draining them and patting them dry. Smush them a little as you arrange them on the cream cheese rectangle for even coverage, leaving a little bit of space at the edges.

Roll along the long edge of the rectangle (like a jelly roll), and then smooth the surface with a knife.

Garnish with parsley or tomatoes and baby spinach and then serve with crackers or baguette.

Tomato, Basil, and Bocconcini Skewers

Ingredients (for 40 skewers):

1. 40 Cherry tomatoes
2. Fresh basil
3. 40 "small" bocconcini balls
4. Olive oil (about 1/3 cup)
5. Salt (about 1.5 tsp)
6. Fresh ground pepper (about 2 tsp)
7. 2-3 cloves of garlic

Quick recipe: get a toothpick, skewer a tomato, a small piece of basil and a bocconcini ball. Repeat. 

For added yumminess, flavour the bocconcini in advance by soaking them in a seasoned oil. 

To make the oil, mince garlic and (about a tablespoon of) fresh basil. Add these to about 1/3 cup of olive oil with salt and pepper. Heat until quite warm, then cool. Dry 40-45 bocconcini balls (it's best to do a few extra in case of accidents or snacking), then put them in a ziploc bag with the cooled oil. Let them sit for a few hours in the fridge, and then execute the quick recipe outlined above. Leftover oil can be drizzled over the plated skewers. 

Prosciutto-Wrapped Asparagus

Ingredients:

1. A small wheel of Boursin cheese (garlic and herb flavour is delicious)
2. 40 medium-sized spears of asparagus
3. 20 slices of prosciutto
4. Zest from one lemon
5. Cracked black pepper

Break the tough ends off the asparagus spears. We also trimmed these rough edges with a knife for presentation purposes. Blanche the asparagus by submerging it in boiling water for about 2 minutes, and then drain it and rinse it in cold water to stop any further cooking. Pat dry and set aside. 

Prepare the prosciutto by spreading a thin layer of cheese on each slice and then cutting it in half (along its shorter dimension). Sprinkle cracked black pepper on the cheese, and then wrap the prosciutto around the middle of an asparagus spear. One slice of prosciutto should do two asparagus spears. 

Red-Green 3D glasses are festive, right?

I'm currently in the depths of revising for an exam, trying to get some grading done, and dreaming about baking cookies shaped like Christmas trees instead of doing any of this nonsense. Today's revision project is a chapter on 3D vision - like Avatar or the red-green glasses that used to come in cereal boxes and were way cheaper than going to see Avatar.

My textbook came with red-green glasses, which is awesome.
It was more expensive than seeing Avatar, though.

One of the things I learned along with how 3D vision works, is how to make pictures that look 3D. And so, I present to the world my very-own home-made 3D work of art. red-green glasses required.

And people still think a PhD in Psychology is impractical.

So how does viewing that picture with 3D glasses make your brain think there's a hole in your monitor? And why doesn't it work if you have lazy eye?

Fact #1: Unless you have lazy eye, by virtue of having two eyes, your brain always gets two very slightly different pictures of whatever it is you're looking at. One from your left eye, and one from your right eye. If you do have lazy eye, your brain ignores one of these pictures in favour of the other one.

Fact #2: There is a systematic relationship between the differences in the two pictures and how far (in depth) something is from the thing you're looking at. 

Here's what's really cool - the brain can exploit these relationships at high speeds to give us this extremely vivid perception of depth. Usually, we don't think photos are 'missing' anything, but the difference between a perceived depth and a projection of a 3D scene on to a flat surface is really amazing once you see a 3D photo. 

There are a ton of beautiful stereo-photos of old japan, taken by Japanese photographer Enami, collected on Flickr by Okinawa Soba. 

From Okinawa Soba's set

If you make them into animated images, the depth appears.

I used photoshop to make this one

Again, from Okinawa Soba

into a 3D image that works with red-green glasses: 

Fun! Unfortunately, I don't think photoshopping 3D images is going to come up on the exam.

Mon (Notre) Beau Sapin!

On Saturday Tory and I went to the Atwater market and procured a beautiful five-foot fir tree because we were both in need of some Christmas spirt to see us through December.

We brought it home on the bus, which was not as difficult as it sounds.

This afternoon we dusted off the decorations and decked the tree out in blue, silver, gold, and not-quite-enough aubergine.

A beautiful (lonely) not-bright-violet ornament.

Apparently aubergine is out and the purple of the year is violet which will not do. It turned out well, anyway.

A full view of the tree.

A bit of a snowflake theme emerged, which
we picked up in the ribbon we got for a garland.

I love these disco-ball ornaments we got at dollarama. They add just
enough of a playful bling.

Not bad for a dollar store star.

Cute things!

Tiny cupcakes are cute 

Cookies shaped like onesies are cute

Macarons are cute - especially in little
paper cups

Tutu-inspired skirts for little girls at Baby Gap made me
want to be six again they're SO CUTE.

And I didn't manage to take a photo of the gift I brought with me to the baby shower (a hand-knit touque, and Gap-knit mittens) as I was finishing the pom-pom for the touque on the way to the shower, but I assure you it was adorable.

Happy Birthday To Me

It's so pretty and red, and will geotag my photos so I don't have to add all the pins in iPhoto's Places after the fact. No, I am not at all neurotic about organizing my photos. I ordered it this evening, hopefully it will arrive before I head to Ottawa for a wedding on the weekend!

The difference a bit of cropping makes!

Here's a pretty mediocre shot from the Rockies trip Dave and I took in June:

While it isn't spectacular, I found myself coming back to it for the sense of scale. We didn't take very many photos with people and landscapes together. After a bit of cropping, the sense of scale is maintained, but the composition is tidier and more powerful:

Details

My favourite kind of photos to take are the ones of the little things. I've been putting together an iPhoto album of the pictures Dave and I took in the Rockies, and the detail shots are the ones that make the multi-photo layouts work.

Detail shots from a birthday picnic in the park:

Details from out west:

Mardi Gras...?

Mardi Gras - also known as Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, and Pancake Tuesday - is more than just a wicked party in New Orleans. It marks the beginning of Lent, a time of fasting before Easter, and so is always in the spring. Apparently, it is also at the beginning of July in Montreal.

The Festival International du Jazz comes to a close today, and they have put together a Mardi Gras parade .... because it's Tuesday? And New Orleans - which is all about jazz - celebrates it spectacularly?

I think it might just be because Montreal loves a party. I like walking home and seeing this guy driving down my street:

Followed by the biggest marionette ever suspended from a crane:

These photos were all on my phone during the last couple of blocks of my walk home. I have 20 minutes to decide if I want to grab my SLR and try to get some better shots before the parade gets underway...