It all began a little over a month ago, when our cousins, aunt and uncle (or CAAU) got us a crepe maker for Christmas.  I had never made crepes, though I am partial to them.  Actually, I suppose I’m partial to anything in the flat-baked-breakfast-batter family, which includes pancakes and waffles.

But back to the crepes.  When we first brought it home and unpacked it, we carefully read the instructions for clues on making the perfect product.  According to the manual, the general technique was to crank the heat to volcanic levels, dump the batter onto the griddle, and then hustle to spread it into a circle before it cooked too solid to do so.  “Okay,” I thought.  “Seems simple enough.  Pour it n’ spread it.”

The challenge was that, with the griddle being so blisteringly hot, we had about 4 seconds to get the batter spread in a uniform thickness to all edges of the pan, which seemed to grow larger with each passing instant.  It got to the point where the crepe making became an increasingly stressful affair.  The air was thick with tension as we prepared to pour the batter.  A deep breath; then one of us would take the plunge,  and the race was on.  Batter splashed onto the griddle, sizzling and popping.  The one wielding the crepe spreader would leap (literally) into action, dancing about the pan and frantically whipping the batter about, trying to make something approximating a circular shape.  The seconds raced past as the liquid cooked and thickened, and the situation became more urgent.  The batter-spreader began hopping from foot to foot, resembling a squirrel with an overabundance of Coke in its system, desperately looking for pools of batter that could be spread out.  And then time was up, the crepe was cooked, and a misshapen, slightly lumpy cake would come off the grill.

It was tasty, but the experience felt slightly lacking.

So last week, on the way home from work, we stopped by the crepe truck that sometimes parks outside our apartment.  This was partly to enjoy a savory crepe for supper, partly because we like the friendly people that run it, and partly so we could spy on their technique.

We learned two valuable things from this stop.  One, we had the heat way too high on our crepe maker.  And two, that the recommended “short, quick strokes” approach to spreading batter was not necessarily the most effective.  So yesterday morning, as we were making sweet crepes for breakfast, Elizabeth employed a new tactic — one that involved low heat and a sweeping circular motion — and produced a perfectly even, perfectly round, perfectly baked crepe.  As we ate our breakfast with strawberries and syrup, she sat there with a big “I’m the best crepe-maker ever” grin on her face, occasionally calling my attention to the beauty and deliciousness of the food she had prepared.

I am going to need to practice, because apparently breakfast has become a competitive sport.

City living.

I really didn’t imagine that, at any point in my life, I would actually be grateful to live in the city. Having grown up in rural Ontario, I very much appreciate open skies and wide spaces and the freedom to run about bellowing at top volume without anyone around to see you and quietly judge.

I have, however, come to appreciate living in a place where the commute to work is short, and a goodly number of entertainment sources are within walking distance. The inspiration for today’s post comes from Friday evening, where Elizabeth and I wandered up the street and revisited a restaurant we haven’t been to in a while. The ambiance was just what we were looking for that evening, the food was quite tasty, and they had a Quebec beer on tap which I’d never tried before. I won’t get into pretentious language of hoppiness and fruitness and bounciness; I’ll just say that it tasted like the love child of Guiness and Blue Moon, and the world is a little bit better for it being here.

Being that I had not sufficiently achieved my gluttony goals for the evening, we toddled across to our favourite cafe, the Beechwood, for an après-supper latte and dessert. Here I incurred Elizabeth’s ire when I stole a tiny bit of icing from her cupcake.  Given the deliciousness of said cupcake, I would say a little ire was worth it.

We pretty much froze solid on the walk home, which is one more reason why I was glad that our place was relatively close by.  Settling onto the couch at our homestead, we got to discussing how much more walking we did now that we lived in the city, and the fact that we’re probably the better for it.  It’s not ideal for our pocketbook, and having cupcakes and lattes in such close proximity to the house will surely come back to haunt me in 20 or 30 pounds, but there is certainly something to be said for the experience of having a neighbourhood we call our own.

photo credit: joiseyshowaa

“Perhaps we could take a cooking class,” one of us ventured.

“Maybe we could go to one of the museums,” another of us proposed.  This was instantly shot down in what was, I must state with some indignation, a most abrupt and non-collegial manner.

“Let’s take an art class,” said another of us, in a somewhat huffy tone given how his previous suggestion had been eviscerated before even being given the chance to spread its wings and soar toward the sun.

An art class, we agreed, was a Good Idea, and so we set forth to the Interwebs to find ourselves a class to take.

Nobody, it seems, is very interested in teaching art on Saturdays anymore.  We scoured websites high and low in search of individuals or institutions who would be willing to impart on us a hint of culture.  Initially, I began by searching for someone who would teach us to execute oil painting on canvas, preferably in a ne0-Renaissance manner.  I soon scaled this back to just “oil painting”, then “painting”.  Then we began searching for “art”, and “culture”, and finally in a desperate flurry of keystrokes I found myself looking at the Google results for “makin’ stuff”.

It is a bleak and barren landscape out there for the weekend art class warrior.  The one course we did find that looked interesting was a class on digital photography.  This perked us up for a moment.  Then we realized that: a) the course extended through Saturday and Sunday, and we had already made commitments for Sunday; and b) we would need to get showered, get dressed, purchase a digital camera, learn to use it, and get to the class within the next 55 minutes if we were to make this work.

I was okay with most of those, but just didn’t think I’d be able to get dressed in time.

Instead we made crepes and watched really bad TV.

photo credit: mikebaird

1. Cragganmore.  Particularly of the 12-year-old variety.  Elizabeth, with gentle coaching from Brad, offered this to me this evening in celebration of a recently completed project.  The only thing that is preventing me from getting completely fuzz-bombed on the stuff right now is that it is entirely too fine a product with which to get completely fuzz-bombed.

2. The Museum of Natural History.  I visited this fine institution once again today, and once again was a kid in an academic candy store.  A candy store with giant replicas of the universe and the fossilized carcasses of carnivorous predatory beasts.  To me, it just doesn’t get much better than that.

3. Elizabeth.

1. The French press.  Elizabeth recently procured one of these for me, which means that I can now enjoy a cup of coffee of a weekend morning without hauling out the Buick-sized, coffee-by-the-gallon brewing monster that lurks in our kitchen.  I feel simultaneously more refined and more rustic, as I grind the beans, boil the water, and pour myself a hit of caffeination.

Also, the fact that this particular press was manufactured by Bodum means that I can intone “Bodum, Bodum, Bodum” in a middle baritone whilst preparing the beverage.

2.  Coffee.  This sort of goes hand in hand with the one above, but it bears special mention.  One of my Christmas presents this year was a pouch of a truly splendid blend, grown by leprechauns in the forested hills of Chile before being roasted over St. Elmo’s fire and carried to our home on the backs of homing miniature donkeys.

3. Family.  We are moving about the apartment today, prepping for a couple of my cousins to spend the weekend with us, which is sure to prove entertaining.

My plan is to serve them fresh coffee.  I haven’t really planned much beyond that.

photo credit: Gideon Tsang

1. Vacation.  There probably isn’t a need to elaborate further on that, but let me just call out that it is the holiday break, my projects are done, and I am in full-on not-thinking-about-work mode.

2. Skiing.  Elizabeth and I have decided that we need to take up a hobby.  We’ve been looking for something we can do together, that’s active, and that we both enjoy.  Skiing (of the downhill variety) fits the bill, and has the added bonus that it’s frigid cold and offers an unparalleled opportunity to wrap ourselves around trees at high velocity.

3. Lasagna.  Diggory got a great recipe from his mother for the stuff, and it makes for a fantastic meal.  Plus, it’s one of the very few dishes that actually tastes better as leftovers.

photo credit: gregor_y

Blu-ray, as you are likely aware, is the current standard for high-definition content.  High definition, as in more definition than a DVD.  That point becomes important in a moment.

Coincidentally, we have also just procured a home server, and I am currently in the process of ripping our collection of movies down to it so that we can watch them on any of the TVs or computers throughout the house.  This is the advantage of a media server; your movies are always at your fingertips, and you don’t need to trudge over to wherever you store your little plastic discs and stuff said disc into your movie player of choice.

I’ve started with ripping our DVD collection, primarily because I don’t yet have a Blu-ray drive attached to my computer that would allow me to rip high-def movies to the computer.  My goal, though, is to eventually have our entire collection on the aforementioned server to avoid the aforementioned trudging about with little plastic discs.  Imagine my intrigue, then, when the Watchmen movie I purchased boldly declared that it included a Digital Copy.

Hurrah!  thought I.  WB has heard my pleas, and is providing me a quick and convenient way to get this movie I purchased (and I do stress purchased) onto the server so that I can enjoy it anywhere in my home.  I will be able to enjoy its high-definition richness and surround sound awesomeness wherever I choose, at a moment’s notice, without the fetching of pointless pieces of plastic.

I should live so long.  First, the Digital Copy is on DVD.  DVD, as in “I’m a format that is capable of holding roughly one-tenth the content of a Blu-ray disc.”  DVD, as in standard definition.  As in not high def.  As in, “I could have sworn that my decision to purchase a Blu-ray movie would have been a strong indication that I have both the means and the motivation to enjoy high-definition film.”

And second, the [insert adjective of choice here - be creative] Digital Copy, so far as I have been able to readily see, can only be loaded onto one computer.  So you drop the disc in the drive, go through some arcane ritual involving typing in a product key and swearing to seven different deities that you’re an honest-and-true customer, and then wait while WB drags the movie over to your computer and then locks it there.  I suppose, technically, that I would repeat this process on each computer in the house, up to whatever limit WB has imposed, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of a digital file?  What if I want to watch the movie on a PlayStation?

To me, it’s as though they had promised me a portable copy of the movie, and then shipped me the disc and a bottle of crazy glue.  “Just glue the disc to your laptop’s DVD drive”, they’d say.  “There.  Now it’s portable.”

I don’t want to watch this movie on my laptop.  I want to watch it on my TV.  Or a different TV.  Or on a different computer.  Or pretty much anywhere I want to watch the movie that I just bought.  I want to put the movie on my server so that it’s available to me wherever and whenever I want.

No, says WB, you really, really want to watch this movie on your computer.  This computer, actually.  And only this computer.  And not in high-def, because high-def is for suckers.

I must say, these guys are making it hard to be a customer.

photo credit: DeclanTM

1.  Farmville.  Diggory introduced me to this goofy little Facebook app, which has since been sucking my time away like a Shop-Vac in a box of Cheerios.  Perhaps it’s because it connects with my fond memories of growing up on a farm.  Perhaps it’s the bright colours and pleasant looking fruits and vegetables it sends prancing about my screen.  Perhaps it’s because it is free and yet of comparable quality to a farming sim game I remember paying good money for about 10 years ago (Don’t ask.  Please, don’t ask).  Whatever the case, it’s one of those simple, simple games that I find myself almost unwillingly wandering back to from time to frequent time.

2.  Trail mix.  Elizabeth took it upon herself to make our own last week, after doing some quick math and realizing that she could manufacture trail mix at roughly one-third the cost of what the grocery store would charge for the pre-mixed stuff.  To her great irritation, Diggory and I then proceeded to scarf the whole gallon of it down in the space of a day and a half.  Elizabeth has threatened to visit all manner of horrors upon me if I do not ease up on my trail mix consumption.

3.  Mint.  We’ve been using this site to track our finances and attempt to uncover the black hole that seems to absorb a startling amount of our disposable income each month.  The black hole may or may not be chocolate; the jury is still out on this one.  Still, the site has proven a handy way for us to keep tabs on things and track where the money’s coming in and going out each cycle.  The good news is that it’s free; the bad news is that it isn’t available in Canada yet.

photo credit: kevindooley

Pie.

Just pie, today.  Elizabeth is baking up a storm here, and pie is one of the principal foodstuffs in production at this point.  She has gone to considerable lengths to make it cosmetically appealing, as well as tasty.

It will be out of the oven soon, at which point I expect it to disappear in very short order (mostly into the inner recesses of my own doughy self), but in the meantime I am amusing myself by gazing fondly at the picture I took of it before it went in the oven.

Delicious sweet awesomeness

Not intentionally, unfortunately.  Elizabeth was whipping cream to grace the strawberries we spent last Saturday picking, and I popped into the kitchen to check on things.

“How’s the whipped cream look?” Elizabeth asked me.  I peered into the mixer bowl and deemed the cream still unwhipped.  “Needs a few more minutes,” I replied, and cranked the mixer to its highest setting and sent it on its merry way.

Turns out there’s a very fine line there between whipped cream and whipped butter.  We crossed that line, and not in a timid or exploratory way.  No, we launched across it, riding on rocket-powered dune buggies with air raid sirens strapped to their roll cages.  When I came back into the kitchen, we had a gooey glob of butter thrashing about in a sickly looking bath of buttermilk.

All’s well that ends well, I suppose.  I bolted out to grab another carton of whipped cream while Elizabeth pressed the butter, and for breakfast the next morning we had buttermilk pancakes with strawberries, whipped cream, and homemade butter.

I figure that fact that it was homemade counteracts all the usual health issues generally associated with butter — or whipped cream, for that matter.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan