Fun at the Toronto Zoo

We went to the zoo this past weekend. It was hot and humid in the morning, hot and raining in the afternoon and evening. Here's a video of a grisly bear cooling off, and having fun, in a pool.



And from the Australasia pavilion, the jellyfish.

Titly's Busy Kitchen

I stumbled across an interesting video (below), that led to a very interesting site: Titly's Busy Kitchen. Titli Nihaan does cooking demonstrations for various recipes, with a slight humerous slant. They're both fun and informative. I've also embedded her most recent video, how to make chocolate mousse. Yummy. Check out her site for more video recipes.

Jane Austen's Fight Club

I found this on Janet Reid's blog. It's a pretty funny video wherein Austen characters create a fight club.

Kitty Moment

As a quick addition to yesterday's post about painting window frames, be careful when removing the taped edging. I accidentally took some of the caulk and wall paint when I removed it. Oops.

Here are the kitties examining my work.

Window Frame Painting for Writers

The wasp nest was taken care of and yesterday our new windows were installed. That left me painting the plain wood frames today. As the paint shop inexplicably closed at 1 pm yesterday I had to go today to get the paint. I wanted a flat white paint thick enough so I wouldn't have to do more than one coat.

Well, apparently that paint doesn't exist. I was told you can't get paint that thick and flat paint can't be wiped clean so it's not as good for indoors. So I got a white pearl (that's the glossiness not the colour) latex paint and a 2 inch brush.

I'd already taped the inside and outside of the windows to make things go faster today (which takes longer and is more annoying than you'd think). Now, as to the writer portion of this story. If you've got a character doing any house painting with a brush and you haven't done such painting recently, here are things to consider.

1) Painting around the window handle is difficult, even if you've taped the handle so it won't get mucked up. I wanted the streaks to go length wise down the frame, but the handle was so low that those parts were a royal pain.

2) The paint brush has a slight angle to it to make corners easier.

3) After holding the brush for 5-10 minutes you hand starts to cramp so you have to keep changing how you hold it (or change hands. And painting with your off hand's not as hard as you'd think, just don't plan on doing the finishing strokes with it).

4) Painting a window over a sink is painful. I basically had one foot on the ladder an the other alternated between kneeling, standing and sitting on the sink to reach different places and alleviate the pain from the awkward positioning.

5) Also, windows near cabinets make doing the sides of the frames difficult. I kept painting bits of cabinet by mistake, and wiping that paint off invariably took some of the frame paint (as there wasn't enough room to maneuver).

6) Wait a few hours for the paint to dry and then spot paint areas that don't look good.

7) Oh, and when you clean the brush, don't leave it sitting upright in water. Rinse it under running water and dry it flat.

I actually managed to cover the frames well enough that with a bit of spot painting I won't need to do a full second coat. Yay!

Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger of a Single Story

This is a powerful TED talk detailing why it's dangerous to only have a 'single story' or one viewpoint about individuals, races and countries. It's a fascinating look at how stereotypes work and what makes them so dangerous (the 13 minute mark has some great quotes).

For some reason the video doesn't show up in google reader, so here's a link to the TED page for this talk.

Crepes from Cooking for Geeks

I've been going through several cookbooks, looking for new - good - recipes to try. One I got as an eGalley from NetGalley is Cooking for Geeks. It's coming out August 3rd. I'll have a full review of the cookbook once I finish reading it (there's more text than recipes, but as it's fascinating text I don't mind).

The recipe I tried is crepes. I've never made crepes, despite their relative simplicity and ability to adapt to the occasion. Now, though the author, Jeff Potter, emphasizes reading the recipe through before starting, I didn't. Which caused problems when I got to the actual directions. So, the recipe, as printed in the book (*actually it's pretty long so I'll condense it after the ingredients and the 'let rest' segment I messed up).

1-2-3 Crepes

Whisk or puree untilentirely mixed, about 30 seconds:

1 cup (250g) milk (preferably whole milk)

2 medium (70g) eggs

1/3 cup (40g) flour (all-purpose)

pinch of salt

Let rest for at least 30 minutes, preferably longer, so that the gluten in the flour has the chane to thicken the batter. (Stash the batter in the fridge if you're going to leave it for more than half an hour.)

- ...expect to completely screw up the first few you make...

Butter: Grab a cold stick of butter with the wrapper partially pulled back, and using the wrapped part as a handle, spread a small amount of butter around the pan.

Wipe down: Use a paper towel to thin out the butter over the surface of the pan, wiping up almost all of it (and on repeats, any crumbs left behind from the previous crepe). The pan should look almost dry; you want a super-thin coating of butter, not noticeable streaks

Pour: Pour in the batter while swirling the pan: pour about 1/4 cup /60ml of batter into a 10"/25 cm pan, adjusting as necessary...

Flip: Wait until the crepe begins to brown. ... Once the crepe has begun to brown around the edges, use a silicone spatula... to push down the edge all around the circumference. This will release the edge of the crepe so that it lifts off the pan. Carefully grab that little edge to flip the crepe with both hands.

Flip again: Let the crepe cook on the second side for half a minute or so, until it's cooked. The first side should come out a uniformly brown tone, so flip the crepe again before adding the fillings. This will leave the better-looking side on the outside of the finished crepe.

Well, the author was right on that first point. My first crepe looked pretty horrible.

But first, my adjustments and what that meant for the crepes. Instead of all-purpose I used whole wheat flour. I also 'messed up' my packaged hollandaise sauce (for the better) by adding all but half a cup of my remaining milk. So, while the sauce was very creamy, the crepe batter ended up a mix of half milk and half water. Which probably explains why the half hour I letit stand didn'tthicken the batter as much as I expected.

Oddly enough, this didn't cause any problems. Yes, the batter was thin, but it worked. Instead of using butter I used oil on the pan, and after using too little for the first crepe and trying to turn it too soon, I added more oil and waited until I could swish the crepe around the pan (indicating the bottom was cooked) before I tried to flip the rest.

The recipe gave 4 large crepes. I filled two with sauteed asparagus and mushrooms, topped with the hollandaise sauce, and the other two with a nutella/milk cream spread and bananas.

Guess which one tasted better?

The cookbook gave some ideas for fillings, but I picked the meal one from a website, and the desert one from memories of crepes I'd had in the past.