Dabble in Dance

So you see, I haven't entirely given up on this blog! At least not the idea behind it. The past month or so, between scads of homework, work, and personal crises, I haven't had time for much, but I have squeezed in roughly an hour and a half every Monday for a hip-hop class.

This fact was greeted to shock and dismay by many of my friends and acquaintances as I am a) not into hip hop music, b) not into dance, and c) criminally uncoordinated. But in spite of all those things, I'M DOIN' IT! And you know what, it's really fun. I'm taking the class with a couple friends, which helps, but the moves and the workout are really satisfying in and of themselves. I was discussing with a classmate today how dance is stimulating for both mind and body. As beginners, criminally uncoordinated ones to boot, it takes an incredible amount of focus to remember the steps in our routines, much less execute them in a manner that does not look entirely ridiculous or result in the injury of ourselves or passers-by. So it gives you the opportunity to free your mind of all its current troubles, whilst releasing all those lovely endorphins from the exercise. Hello, stress relief!

I still have two left feet and sometimes it seems like an overabundance of arms flailing about, but I am learning the steps, I'm totally sold on dance, and I'm even starting to like some of the songs we dance to. Last Monday, we did a particularly satisfying routine, which was created by choreographers Napoleon and Tabitha for National Dance Day, and is viewable for your own learning pleasure HERE! It's upbeat, it's fun, and the song is catchy! I still cringe when I hear the title ("Club Can't Handle Me" - Flo Rida) but so long as I avoid the lyrics, I enjoy the beat.

I'm not gonna say everyone can do this, but I will say that there were more than 1 unlikely cases in my class, and we're all doing just fine. I think it's worth a try. Sign up for a dance class, or sign up for any sort of class or activity at a community center for that matter. There's a million more things I would have done if I had more time and money. One's a start, though.

The current session goes for another couple of weeks, and I've already decided that I'd like to continue if there's another session in 2011. I've also got a friend interested in ballroom dancing, so who knows? If I keep this up, maybe someday I'll be able to walk down a whole set of stairs without falling!

Screams in the valley

Why can't I just sit still?

This semester has possibly been the longest, hardest, most emotional and frustrating few months of my life. The whole year hasn't been for me, and it's been downright awful for a lot of my close friends as well. I can't help but get this feeling of impending doom.

I know negativity isn't the answer, in fact, it's probably a large part of the problem and something that I have personally drenched people in on many occasions. But I like to think that there's a lot of compassion in people, and how can you stay positive when day in and out, you watch misery after misery befall the ones you love? It's difficult, is all. It's easier not to care, but then where do you find yourself? Who are we but the imprint that we leave on others? There's so many people, so many problems, and we're lazy. I need to practice positivity. I need to get myself out of this funk, I need to get my generation out of this funk. I need to blow more bubbles, dance more, sing more, offer the cover of my umbrella to more people standing in the rain. Random acts of kindness change the world.

I often find myself trapped in a vicious battle between self-loathing and narcissism, particularly when it comes to stuff like "good deeds". When I feel I've done something particularly "good", I get an enormous amount of self-satisfaction and then feel extraordinarily guilty for my undoubtedly selfish reasons for performing said deed. Similarly, I think we all encounter situations in which we believe ourselves to be the moral/emotional/mental/physical superior of others. And even when something rolls along and reminds me how small and insignificant I am, I sometimes feel simultaneously shattered and yet smug that I should be so insightful as to come to this realization. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see myself as if I'm not myself, and I just think, "What an ugly girl". On some nights, I cry myself to sleep like an infant for reasons I can't articulate, and tell myself that no one understands. But people do understand. I talk to them about it and it sounds petty and childish. Many things, when I finally get the nerve to talk about them, are petty and childish. The words begin to lose shape and integrity as they fall out of my mouth and 9 times out of 10 the statement has turned into a shared joke before I've reached the end of it. I think it's about perspective.

But falling into that pattern of self love/hate nevertheless puts an itch in my heart that only the strong winds of change can scratch. For as long as I can remember, I've acted out against depression. Many of these actions have been hair-related. I've chopped off all my hair several times and dyed it almost every colour of the rainbow to fight constancy. I've quit school to work. I've quit work to travel Europe and live in Germany. While in Germany, I chopped off my hair myself, for the first time. I also took several impractical, impromptu trips to Sweden, in pursuit of adventure and a doomed romance. After that, I bungee-jumped 180 meters off of a parasail. You get the picture.

Now that I've upped the ante, a haircut alone just doesn't do it anymore. But I'm at that place, the eye of the storm, the calm that follows the chaos and inevitably precedes more chaos, and I can't stand it. I want adventure, intrigue. I think we'd all be better people if we had a little more of it. But it just gets harder and harder to get that satisfaction. I don't have money. I don't have a lot of time. I need people, and a storyline, and a reason to keep turning the pages. I want to be excited about life again! My friend and I spoke a few days ago about how we used to have sleepovers. We would stay up all night talking about our lives, loves, beliefs (in elementary fashion) and whatever else the time called for. Now, if we stay anywhere together, we just sleep. For so long, there were things that could only be said in the darkness and quiet safety of night. What can we say now? What else can we discover? What else should we discover?

I think if we were all truly honest and frank with one another, then we could learn a lot more about people in general, but it's hard to be that honest. Especially if you don't know what you're being honest about. If you stuck any two people in a room for 3 days, what would they find out about each other? Would anything besides small talk even come up? I guess it depends on the people, but I've always been curious as to how I would react in that situation. I'd almost like to try it. I'm completely useless at articulating myself on the fly, and I'm a terrible conversationalist in any and all regards, but I would want so badly to take advantage of the opportunity that I wonder if I could overcome it. Sometimes I just think it would be amazing to have that chance to talk, really talk, with someone that you never would have been able to/thought to otherwise.

Realistically, I have a feeling that if I were in that situation, we might get as far as names of immediate family members by day 3. I can be cripplingly shy. Everything I've written here, just now... I wouldn't say it aloud to most people. I couldn't even read it off the page. I'm trying to be honest right now, and it's really difficult for me to put that much of myself out there. I'm always kind of worried about weirding people out.

Sigh. It's late, and I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore. I guess what I'm saying is, I want to cut my hair, take another road trip to the island and end up stuck somewhere with a friend/stranger for several days with no outside contact. That's totally normal, right?

Don't be alarmed. Goodnight.

Lemon Vegan Cheesecake

This picture is totally unrelated to the following entry.

Ok, I admit that I'll probably continue to neglect this blog and only update on a sporadic basis. I've had half an entry on my road trip sitting in my draft box for weeks, and I'm not entirely sure I'll ever finish it. But I promise you, this vital recipe will very nearly atone for my lack of dedication.

Chances are fairly good, in today's environmentally trendy world, that you are associated with at least one person who is, or tells people they are vegan. If not that, then you certainly know someone who's body just can't deal with the dairy. Lactose intolerance is quite common in many world cultures, so if you don't know either of these people yet, you will.

SITUATION!

Said person is coming over for a dinner party! The main course? Psh, no problem, you've got a wicked vegetable curry up your sleeve. But what are you going to do for dessert?! Your aunt Gertrude made a fierce cheesecake, and you really want to share that joy with your calcium deprived comrades!

Impossible, right?

WRONG.

Vegan cheesecake is one thing. But vegan cheesecake approved by a genuine cheesecake lover? That is an entirely different story. That is the story I'm going to tell you today. The title?

The Mystical Lemon Vegan Cheesecake of Wonders

It started out with a simple vegan cheesecake recipe I found online. It was quick and easy, and reasonably tasty, but it was just so...vegan. The texture was too airy and there was a slight soy aftertaste. It was good, but it wasn't cheesecake. To be honest, this recipe still isn't cheesecake. If I had chosen to opt for pricey "wannabe dairy" products like Tofutti's Better Than Cream Cheese, maybe we would be a little closer to the real thing, but until I modify this recipe further, this is a good alternative that won't make your vegan feel like they're cheating.

So this is what you need:

500 g medium smooth tofu

1/2 cup coconut milk

2/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp lemon zest

juice of one lemon

Optional:

1/4 cup of flour, depending on your preferred firmness

Add a little lime juice

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175 Celsius).

The crust is a graham cracker crust. For a 9" cake, I used a heaping cup of crumbs, mixed with a couple tablespoons brown sugar, a dash of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and just enough canola oil to give me some fairly large clumps. Then just dump it all in your chosen pan (a springform works nicely for cheesecakes) and press it flat against the bottom, as evenly as you can. My crust was still a bit crumbly, so next time I might try replacing the sugar with maple syrup, and hopefully that will improve the consistency.

The rest is as simple as accumulating all the ingredients and throwing them in the blender! Dry off your tofu in a paper towel, and cut it into some manageable chunks. Everything else, just toss it in on top.

The coconut milk is key to this recipe. I saw a lot of recipes with soy milk, but soy milk lacks both the neutral taste and the creamy texture that coconut milk provides. It does contain saturated fats, but in small amounts that are supposedly beneficial to your health, so while you wouldn't want to drink it, it's perfect for adding richness to vegan cooking or baking.

Once blended, your ingredients should resemble a thick pudding. Feel free to taste at this point to see if it needs more of anything. If it's too runny, add some flour.

When you are sufficiently pleased with your mixture, pour it onto your pressed crust and pop it into your preheated oven. If you are using a springform pan, I would recommend placing it on top of another baking pan, in case any oil or liquid leaks through and causes a smoky, smelly mess. Leave it in the oven for about 50 minutes, or until lightly browned around the edges, and then take it out to cool. Then refrigerate for at least a couple of hours before serving. It's lovely on it's own or with some fresh berries or sauce to top it off!

If you want more of a New York style cheesecake, take out the lemon, add the flour, add more sugar (maybe brown sugar?) with a bit of vanilla extract. Try it with an oreo crust! Or try a different flavor! Mango would be nice. But whatever you do, try it! Even if you're not vegan, or lactose intolerant, it never hurts to expand your horizons.

Voila! Bon appetit!

**UPDATE: This tastes even better after a couple of days in the refrigerator!**

So busy...

A great number of this and thats have been keeping me from the excitement of the blogosphere lately. Tea parties, road trips, birthdays, and returning to school and work, it's enough to drive a girl batty!

So where to start?

Well, the first item on the list was the tea party, so let's start with that.

A number of factors played a role in my decision to throw a tea party. One of those was the unfortunate fact that I had hosted one in January to much acclaim, but two of my good friends missed out on it due to attending a university located on the other side of the country. With both of them home, and one of them working the local tea circuit during the summer, it seemed only too appropriate to make it up to them.

Another reason was that I found this incredible handmade spearmint candy-coloured ice-cream parlour party dress at the thrift store, which needed a little bit of alteration but more importantly an occasion to be proudly displayed. Such handiwork shouldn't be so lightly cast away to the bins. Although I'm fortunate it was.

Third, I came across this post by effervescent baker and blogger Bria of These Peas Are Hollow, which refers to yet another blog, that of the creator of these marvelous, ridiculous, and delicious concoctions, Bakerella. The topic: Cake Pops. Yes, that's right. Cake, on a stick. A sinfully simple idea, transformed into an unimaginably complex and time-consuming process with Bakerella's countless adorable designs. Bria seems so far to have maintained a simple, elegant look for her pops, but added her own gourmet flare by experimenting with different homemade cakes and frostings (not to mention food colouring!). I knew I needed an occasion to try these as soon as I saw them, and what better place to serve such sweet morsels than alongside cups and saucers?

Speaking of sweet morsels... who ever heard of tea and quackers?

First things first, the alteration of the dress. I didn't do too much to it because it fortunately fit me quite well to begin with. It was just a bit too "Little House on the Prairie." I ripped off the top buttons and flattened out the panels into a sort of lapel, fluffed up the skirt with a few meters of net-like organza and threw on a few accessories. The waistline was just a bit higher than my natural waistline, which was slightly unflattering, but a thick belt over top seemed to do the trick. Someday I'd like to shorten it a bit and have a few layers of pink organza peeking out of the bottom and adding more *pouf*, but for now I'm leaving it as is.

Different options for accessorizing!

So when that was all taken care of, it was time to start thinking about what to serve at this party. As usual, I came up with a far-too-long list of appetizers and miniature desserts and managed to lock myself in a constant state of befrazzlement for a week as I tried to prepare.

Due to this, I decided that my first attempt at cake pops would employ the most rudimentary method to success, involving a boxed cake and canned frosting. I chose Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Chocolate Fudge cake and Betty Crocker's Buttercream frosting. But, as Bria shows us, the possibilities are almost endless.

I won't waste too much time going over what others have already explained so well, but in a nutshell: Bake cake. Cool cake. Crumble cake into a bowl. Add frosting. Roll cake into small balls and place on wax paper. Chill. Dip lollipop sticks in Candy melts before securing sticks in cake balls. Chill/freeze for several hours.

When pops are sufficiently hardened, melt 1 package of Candy Melts as per the package directions. Take out pops, a few at a time, and gently dip them, tapping off the excess.

The result will be a taste sensation unlike any you have experienced before. Your taste buds won't know what to make of it.

In addition to those, I also made miniature cupcakes, Portuguese custard tarts, a fruit tray with chocolate fondue, jello kebabs, some boxed appies, cheese and crackers, a veggie tray, and some wraps. And tea. Most of which was supplied by David's Tea. If you live in Canada, go get some. If not, order some online and get your friends to do the same; big orders mean free shipping!

This was the final spread. Or just about, anyways. Threw on some jazzy tunes, opened the door, and I think everyone had themselves a darn good time! I did, anyways. Clean up went right into the a.m. and then I was up a few short hours later for some road-trippin' excitement! Perhaps I'll get into that next time.

Until then!

BBQs and Party Dresses

So things already seem to be taking a turn for the boring here. I've been unusually occupied the past week or so, between pet/house sitting and actually getting work and having a social life every now and then (thanks to incessant whining to my friends and boyfriend... not that I promote that). Amidst all that, I've still been doing a fair amount of sewing, and baking, and even some cooking, but it's too late to photojournalize the cooking and baking adventures and I fear the sewing may get redundant. So, I'll just try and give the lowdown on a couple different things to keep it fresh.

1) BBQing

Yes, I am that girl. The portrait of a female stereotype, incompetent down to what is arguably the least manly of the manly tasks (only because it's food prep related). Ever since I was a child, it's always been my dear father firing up the grill, delivering us those most glorious of meats and proving his ultimate leadership in the familial hierarchy. For that alone I would have remained ever submissive, but alas, my independence has been granted, and learning to navigate this bull of a contraption takes me one step closer to validating my own authority over the ones that I love and care about. Also, I was house-sitting and really wanted a barbecued hot dog, so it had to be done.

There's not too much knowledge or technique I can impart for a hot dog. Lighting up the BBQ was simple enough, much like lighting a gas stove, only you have to remember to turn the gas on, and more importantly, off, when you're finished. I waited for it to heat up a bit, plopped some dogs down and played the waiting game. I generally enjoy my hot dogs blackened so there was really no way I could go wrong. I checked them every few minutes and flipped them around to get all the sides, and once I deemed them dark enough, they were as tasty as animal entrails in intestinal casing ever were. I like the classic mustard and relish on my dog, but on occasion, some fried onions or sauerkraut or cheese and bacon or chili and mozza will do nicely. Just for an extra dose of healthy.

Next stage: Kebabs.

2) Dressmaking

This wasn't really my idea. I got it from this person who probably got it from someone else. But she clearly knows what she's doing, and has a lot of great pictures to go along with it as well. So take a gander at her website. Things basically went according to plan. Get a fabric that has at least one way stretch, if not both, and is the same front and back, because a lot of twisting is involved in the final product. Cut your lines in the fabric as even and snag-free as possible, because they won't be getting hemmed.

One part that I remember reading and yet don't seem to see on the Rostitchery page is how to calculate your measurements. So, what you do is: Take the measurement for your natural waistline (the place where your waist is smallest), and divide that by approximately 3.14. That's the diameter of the circle that you're going to cut out for your waist line on the skirt. The size can be approximate but try to make it an even circle. I made a paper template to start, pinned it to the fabric and cut around that. Be fairly precise with the waistband as well, you can put an elastic band in there later if your measurements were off. I did that, and it seemed to turn out just fine!

Waist circle... pin fabric around the edges of the circle.

I would only recommend machine-washing this one if you put it in a laundry bag. Otherwise, the straps may get wound up and tear (far more likely if you're an amateur seamstress like myself), but it should be okay in a dryer. As usual, wash and dry your fabric before sewing to see what happens to it.

It's not actually uneven, i just threw it on the floor with little care of appearance.

3) Improvise cooking

I was told the other day that there's actually a Youtube channel dedicated to this same subject: the task of making dinner when you're low on groceries. I can't remember what the channel is called, but hearing about it reminded me very much of an experience I had earlier this week.

I had worked a 12 hour day in sweltering heat and came home ready to prowl the cupboards like some kind of ravenous beast, ingesting anything readily edible. But lo and behold, I opened the cupboards and there was barely anything there that could be willingly consumed without some kind of basic preparation. Largely because I wanted meat. And there was no way I was dragging myself out to the grocery store.

So, after some scrounging around in the freezer, I discovered a half-used package of ground pork and thought, "What can I do with this?" I had used the first part to make gyoza, but I was fresh out of dumpling wrappers, green onions, cabbage, and most everything else that would have allowed me to recreate that delectable dish. So then I thought tacos, but I didn't have taco shells. I DID, however, have a couple tortillas, so I decided to pursue something along those lines.

To be honest, I've never really made tacos that weren't founded by an Old El Paso Taco Kit. So I didn't really know what I was doing. But I knew that I had to use up the green pepper in the fridge, and I love onions, and pork and lime is a winning combination, and thus the basic formula was born. I cut up the green peppers and onions while letting the frying pan heat up with a bit of oil, then plopped the pork in and let it brown before draining some of the excess fat with a spoon. Then I chucked in the green peppers and onions and figured it could probably use some spice. So I hit up the fridge and cabinet. Lime juice? Defs. Garlic? For sure. Slightly aged tempura sauce? Why not? Add a pinch of salt, a blast of oregano, some chili powder, celery seed, cumin, and whatever else smells good and you will have yourself a delicious, meaty concoction.

After everything in the pan was done doing whatever it did, I still wasn't really sure how to go about consuming it. It seemed like there should be lettuce in the tortilla, but there was none of that around. Instead, I found some acceptable looking salsa and smeared that down the center, and it might have been perfect, had cheese been present. Alas, I was also sans fromage but still desperately required that cheddary zip to complete the mock-taco (maco?) combo.

Fortunately, for SOME REASON there was a large container of that disturbing cheese-flavoured powder hiding behind the milk. It is essentially like pouring the contents of the white package in Kraft Dinner directly onto your food. Only saltier. Ordinarily, I shudder at the thought, but at that moment, it was just what I needed. So I applied it (sparingly) over the salsa, hid it underneath a layer of meat, onions and peppers and dug in.

And you know what?

I'd say the green peppers actually brought it down. Yes, it was the one moderately healthy part of the meal, but (potentially for that reason) the flavours just didn't work together. Everything else tasted surprisingly fantastic (though real cheese would still have improved the situation). Since I had to use up the green peppers anyways, they were okay, but if I tried this again, I would just avoid falsely convincing myself of anything healthy about this dish in the first place.

You can tell I'm all about eating healthy.

Regardless, I still feel that I've learned something here. And I hope you have too. Even if that lesson is simply not to buy cheese-flavoured powder.

Happy Birthday! (whenever you have one)

Beating the heat

Last week, the Vancouver region was staring sullenly at the thermometer, watching the clouds roll by, layering clothing in naive anticipation of partial removal, and patiently wondering whether or when summer would come. And just as we all gave up on the idea, pulled out our Christmas sweaters and decided to wait for next year, summer seems to have jumped out of nowhere fallen flat on it's face at our doorsteps.


The 15 degrees Celsius of last week has more than doubled, and the air is thicker than this dog's fat skull.

That, by the way, is my sister's bullmastiff Kato, and best bud Delaney.

Anyways, for someone like me, who adjusts rather poorly to hot weather, it is necessary to find as many ways as possible to keep cool. So today I simply offer some suggestions.

Yesterday turned out fairly well for me. I started the day off with a cool shower, avoiding drying my hair despite the frizztastic quality it gets (fortunately it's long enough now that I can tie it up). I got in my non-air-conditioned vehicle for a grueling ride with a friend to Lynn Canyon, a heavily forested and deep trail within the mountain, serpentining alongside a wonderful, frigid river that I couldn't resist soaking my legs in for a while. We took some sandwiches and buckets of water along, and charged up as the clear, fresh water flowed past our feet.

After that, and another grueling car ride back home, we stopped for slushie beverages which I thoroughly enjoyed for about 4 sips before I proceeded to take a sharp turn and spill it all over my car. Fail. Good while it lasted, though.

When I got home, I stripped away the sweaty mountain clothes and wiped myself down with a cold towel before getting into a nice, well ventilated dress, and found a shady place out in the yard to veg out and read. By then, it was coming up on sunset, so my boyfriend came over and we grabbed some more icy-cool drinks and headed down to the beach to watch the sunset. It was a spectacular experience; we arrived just in time to see it creeping below the mountains. Then we walked down to a secluded sandy spot, shielded from the wind, where we again soaked our legs in the perfectly cool water, and laid in the sand until the sky was filled with stars.

At that point, being far less suffocated by the overwhelming humidity, I suddenly realized how hungry I was, so we went home. I ate a leftover half sandwich from earlier in the day, had one more cool drink, washed off my legs from the ocean, and went to bed with a fan in my face.

I woke up feeling good this morning, and wanting to repeat it all again! But I think today might be an indoor day. Most indoor activities seem to be air conditioned these days anyways. For example:

Movie theatres

Karaoke

Bowling

Indoor roller rinks

Shopping centers

Fitness centers (+swimming pools)

Restaurants

Furniture stores (I like to go pretend I'm buying a couch, and test all of them)

And more! Maybe. In any case, I need to turn off this computer. It's not very happy operating in this weather either. Best of luck to all of you, warm weather or otherwise, in enjoying it however you see fit!

Invent a recipe: Chuckleberry Chili Cakes

Baking is another thing that I've already had a fair bit of practice with. My abilities have gradually improved by many hours spent in the kitchen making batch after batch of assorted goods, largely for my banana-bread loving host family in Germany. And whenever I bake now, I'm always reminded of a brief conversation I shared with the father there, who said that, despite being one of my biggest muffin fans, he preferred cooking over baking, because cooking was less precise and formulaic... he didn't like following recipes.

I think that's a little unfair. I am, as you may already know or will come to know shortly, not at all precise, and my measurements, if I measure at all, are best described as vague. I think both cooking and baking require some form of instruction at the beginner level. I know I can't cook much without a recipe, so I definitely need a helping hand, if only to get the feel for where to start. Granted, you can boil, broil, fry or barbeque a potato, and you can pretty well only bake a muffin, but once you've got those proportions down, the opportunities for freestyling your recipe are endless, easy, and unlike cooking, nearly always foolproof.


So today, I took my favourite cakey-muffin proportions and decided I needed to do something with the nearly-too-ripe huckleberries in the fridge. I love huckleberries, and this is the first year in a long time that the plant seems to have thrived in my area. I slaved away in the forest for hours picking the tiny buggers, so it would be a terrible shame to waste them.


For those of you that don't know what huckleberries are, they come from a small(ish), oval-leafed plant that grows along the west coast of North America, particularly on dead cedar trees. I'm told there are multiple varieties, but the red ones are the ones I like; small, sour, and succulent! Lingonberries would probably be a good substitute, but if they're too tart (as in, totally unpleasant to eat fresh), you might need to boil them in sugar-water for a couple of minutes. I'm sure halved raspberries would be fine, too.


Anyways, huckleberries are always tangy, and sometimes very tart, so I wanted to have a muffin with a stronger flavour to balance the bite of the berry. Thus, I decided cocoa powder would be a nice addition. And being a huge chocolate fan, I didn't think a few tiny chocolate chunks would hurt. A little chili powder for some kick, and my recipe was born. So here it is in writing, and remember: The measurements are very approximate! In Germany, I used a teacup and a dinner spoon to bake, so like I said, as long as you have everything roughly in proportion, it's not a big deal.


Chuckleberry Chili Cakes
Makes 10 muffins


1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg




1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil (1/2 cup if you don't use banana)
Optional: 1 old mashed banana
Water/milk




1/2 to 3/4 cup huckleberries
1/4 cup chopped semi-sweet chocolate bits




So, first things first, heat up the oven to 350 degrees Celsius. If you've got an old banana that needs using, mash it up in a little bowl and set it aside. Then get out a bigger bowl and combine the dry ingredients. Mix them all together and you should have a light brown, chocolatey-chili scented powder. Please note: I don't actually have any idea how much chili powder ended up in my muffins because my container had a salt-shaker type lid, but I'd imagine not much more than 1 teaspoon. Use your best judgement.


Then dump your almost-liquified banana in, followed by the egg, the vegetable oil, and maybe a half cup of milk. Again, note: I used canola oil because I had it on hand, but it just occurred to me that chili oil might have been brilliant... could have even replaced the powder. I'll try that next time. Anyways, then just take a spoon (you really don't need an electric mixer) and mix it all together until it's a thick paste. It'll probably still be a bit dry at that point so add milk or water until it's just right. If it's still looking just a little dry, put the berries and chocolate in first. Sometimes the water on the berries (from washing them) is just enough to get it where you want it. The mixture shouldn't really hold its shape, but it shouldn't just pour out either, so be careful not to get it too runny. But if mistakes happen and you do over-water it, bake it anyways. It's likely that it will still taste good, the only problem might be the berries and chocolate sinking to the bottom and burning.


So, then you take your greased muffin pan and start emptying the mixture into the compartments. I usually start with a heaping spoonful in each of the ten and then spread around and even out whatever is left at that point.


Then just pop them in the oven... 12-15 minutes later they should be done! I usually check every 2-3 minutes after the ten minute mark to see how it's going. To make sure your muffins are done, you need one of these little metal prods (or a toothpick, if it's long enough), and when you can insert it all the way into the center muffin, and it comes out dry, your muffins can come out and start to cool! After you've taken them out, leave them in the pan for at least five minutes before putting them on a cooling rack. This keeps them moist. After another ten minutes or so, you can either put 'em away or chow down!





Mine were quite delectable, if I do say so myself. If you find them dry, try slopping in a bit more oil next time. Any problems or successes, let me know!

Another sewing escapade - T-shirt reduction

So it's back to the sewing machine for the skill-seeking adventure of the day. But this time, I've done something quite different.

Last Thursday was Canada Day and my darling boyfriend showed up to my house (with flowers!<3) wearing a far-too large "I Heart BC" shirt. I asked him about it and he told me that he had purchased it when he was a heavier chap but kept it around for such appropriate occasions. I couldn't deny that it was indeed suitable, but it looked like an absolute tent on him, so I suggested that he let my try to cut it down to size. Since all he had to lose was an ill-fitting shirt, he agreed. So a couple days later, I had him bring me that shirt, as well as a properly fitting shirt to use as a template, and I got to work.

I started by turning the shirts inside out and laying them both out flat on the table, just to see what kind of work would be involved. Clearly, some serious width needed to be removed, so the first thing I did was remove the sleeves. I got out my seam ripper and, being more fond of shortcuts than of added care, started pulling out every 6th stitch or so, and then ripped the whole thing off Hulk-style at the end. Repeat for the other sleeve.

At this stage, I wanted to be a little more careful. T-shirts can be hard to lay against one another without any of the fabric bunching, and since I was going to be adding completely new seams to the side of the shirt, I didn't want any unevenness, so I quickly ironed both shirts before placing them very carefully on top of one another.

At that point, it was just tracing. I used my chalk pencil and traced a line along the edge of the purple shirt, approximating where the new sleeve would start. The white shirt was a little longer but I opted to keep the length for simplicity's sake, since my boyfriend is something of a giant, anyways. Once I finished tracing, I moved the purple shirt aside and pinned all along the lines.

Then I went straight into sewing! I started out doing a tight straight-stitch from the bottom of the sleeve to the bottom of the shirt. I did that on both sides, and then did a tight zigzag stitch on the outer edge of both of those lines to make it more secure (I hope?) and then cut off the excess fabric as close to the stitches and as neatly as possible.

I should also mention that the use of grey thread was intentional. I wanted to be able to see my stitches, which came in handy, as I had to take many out while I struggled with the sleeves. I actually ran out and had to use white on one sleeve, which was a nightmare.

Anyways, after that, I took my removed sleeves and placed them up against my new sleeve hole. I cut them down to size, removing the seam. To make the new seam, I followed the same process as the sides of the shirt, removing the rest of the pins from the body of the shirt and continuing that same line straight down to the edge of the sleeve, and then adding the zigzag for good measure. The measurements needed to be quite precise here to make sure there was just the right amount of fabric for the sleeve to be attached all the way around.

The sleeves were a bit tricky. It was the same process again, line and then zag, but it involved a bit more careful pinning and making sure that no tiny folds of fabric got sewn over as I fed it through the machine. But after a heaping handful of mistakes were made, and excess fabric and threads were trimmed, the finished product looked surprisingly neat!

The new seams might be a little itchy and it might be a smidge tight in the armpits, but it's certainly no more tent! Ready to wear come BC day! I'm casting this one as another success.

Forays into Fashion - Making a Skirt

Besides not being able to pay for basic necessities and general entertainment, lack of a job also means that shopping sprees are completely out of the question. So, I already know that I'll be getting in knee-deep with the sewing machine to spruce up the old and create the new! However, as mentioned in my last entry, I have literally ZERO experience with a sewing machine. Well, HAD, I should say. I've dug through the manual and gotten a couple tips from my mom on the basics over the past couple of weeks, and figured I had enough practice sewing on an old t-shirt to make one of these relatively simple-seeming ADORABLE elastic-waisted skirts a la Dress911:

I went down to the fabric store and hit up the discount section, grabbing 2 meters of this sweet black-with-pink-roses fabric for 5 bucks, plus a meter of thick black elastic and some black thread. Firstly, it will not take you 2 meters to make this skirt. But it's nice to have a long piece of fabric so you can use just one strip, rather than having to cut out two sides, thus increasing your seams to two and doubling your chances for error. Also, if your first attempt ends up in the trash bin, you will have more than enough fabric to try again, or use it for something else.
As for fabric types, I think pretty much anything will work (by hook or by crook), but ideally I would recommend something with horizontal stretch, that doesn't need lining. The fabric I ended up with is almost corduroyish, does not stretch, and was probably intended for curtains, but it's nice and thick without being disgustingly heavy and it eventually worked!

Additionally, for any item of clothing that you intend to wear multiple times, it might be a good idea to wash your fabric before sewing, just to make sure it doesn't bleed or shrink or dissolve or some other unthinkable travesty. Worse, it might be a type of fabric that needs ironing. Who needs that kind of trouble?

So anyways, I started out by laying my fabric on the floor, and cut a straight line lengthwise down the middle. Since mine had that corduroyish feel, it was easy enough to keep it straight, but get a piece of chalk or something and mark down a line if you need one. You don't need to be super precise but a big squiggly line that starts in the middle and ends up an inch away from the far left corner is just wasted fabric.

So I've got my long piece of fabric. Then I started to do things in a completely illogical order. This is how it went.

I took my piece of elastic and placed it around my natural waistline (where your waist is the smallest) ...always a good spot to accentuate! If you want the skirt to sit higher or lower, make the appropriate adjustments. I was happy with it at the waist so I snipped the elastic to almost the exact circumference of my waistline. With the amount of length lost from sewing the two ends together, I thought it would be comfortable but secure in that position. And it might have been, but this was a learning experience.

So, I knew I didn't want the skirt fabric to be flat against the elastic. I wanted it to have a little "pouf" at the waist, so naturally, I pleated it (?!) and pinned it irregularly onto the elastic, thinking to myself that this would somehow let my non-stretchy fabric have a little "give". I pleated it all the way along the elastic and cut off the excess, and immediately straight-sewed the fabric down.

Above: What you should do. Maybe. Below: What I did.

Any chance of my skirt having stretch was destroyed then and there. The fabric poufed out just the way I wanted it to, but there was no elasticity at the seam, thus no way that I could simply sew up the ends and slip the thing on when I was finished. With the particular fabric I used, I don't know if it would have helped, but I am almost certain that with a stretchy fabric, your piece will still have some elasticity if you use a ZIGZAG stitch. To zig the zag:

Turn dial A anywhere higher than zero for a ziggier zag. I like 3 or 4. Depending on how close and you want your stitches, adjust dial B. 5 is the widest interval, 1 the most narrow. Again, I like 3. It seems like a good compromise. But do some test stitching on spare fabric to see which will work best for you. If your sewing machine looks completely different from this, consult a manual or find yourself another website.

So I wanted to salvage my nicely-poufy-but-not-stretchy pile of muck. Since the elastic just about reached all the way around where I wanted it to go anyways, I decided I could put a small zipper there, thus completing the length and enabling me to actually get it on and off. I bought an inexpensive black one, about 4 or 5 inches long. I decided I liked the way it looked just sitting on top of the fabric, so I just slapped it on to the end (conveniently giving me a nice clean edge) and then tucked the end bits under what would be the back seam. After pinning everything in place, I sewed it on and then turned it inside out to do the seam.

So neat!

I didn't really know what I was doing but it turned out ok. Just pin it, make sure your fabric is flat, and try to keep it as straight as possible. As you can see, I discovered the zigzag here.

With that out of the way, I then realized that I should probably cut the skirt to the actual length I wanted it to be. Ideally, I would have done this first. But then, why would I have this blog? So I measured from my waistline to about where I wanted the bottom to be, and laid my skirt out so that the bottom fabric was flat against the table. I pinned the fabric at that length in the front and back center, and then folded the excess fabric under, flattening it and pinning it all around.

Then came the hemming. Once again, clueless. There was an excessive amount of fabric tucked underneath at that point so I hacked a bunch of it off above the pins. Then I just used the lines beside the needle on my sewing machine to make an even stitch all the way around. After I took out the pins, I cut off a little more excess fabric with a little more care. It worked fine, but it would have looked neater (at least with this particular fabric) to have folded the raw edge under the sewing line and pinned it down like that. But this whole project is a complete atrocity if viewed from the inside anyways, so let's just keep it external.

Hooray for fraying!

So, the method didn't really work out like I expected, but the skirt more or less turned out the way I wanted, so I'm gonna call this a success. I've worn it twice and it's survived the wash, so I'd say it's worth the 7 dollars and the fun I had making it!

Cheers!

Today is the day.

Greetings, internet! I come to you on this not-so-fine summer day to begin writing what will be a blog about my attempts to get by in the world without skills, or a particular knack for anything useful. Essentially, I am attempting to find and share the things that those of us without talent may nevertheless enjoy, and perhaps use them to decieve our friends and foes into thinking that we may actually be resourceful, functioning members of society after all. And perhaps, after enough practice, we may even fool ourselves.

So, a quick bio. Somehow, in the 13 years of elementary and high school education I recieved, I managed to slip out of the entire field of courses involving practical application. In the first year of high school, a course appropriately called "Life Skills" was offered and actually mandatory for all students, unless the student in question was taking band class, which I, of course, was. Not really an adequate tradeoff. While the other kids were learning to cook and sew and work with tools and computers, I was fumbling around on my bass guitar. Say what you will, I do believe in the greatness of the world's truly talented bassists, but it doesn't take much to be able to pluck your way through high school band. I will say this much for myself: I am not tone-deaf, and I have a decent sense of rhythm. But it stops there. And for what I was given in natural ability, I was disproportionately deprived of in social ability. I plan to address this as well. But moving along, band basically annihilated any opportunity I had to learn something useful because all of the useful courses were, naturally, electives (ZING, school board!), and band ate up 2 of 3 slots, the other occupied by French, which was an elective that was mandatory to take. For reals, that's what they told us. I probably would have taken it anyways, because I've always felt bad that French is an official language of my country and I can barely understand a lick of it, but I suddenly realized on a later trip to France that all 7 years of French class gave me in the BC school system was the ability to order pizza and go to the mall. TANGENT

Anyways, soon enough, high school was over and after another lazy, unskilled summer, I found myself in college, partaking in a smattering of humanities courses that didn't feel very far above the high school level but suddenly cost a lot more. It was about then that I realized that I should probably have some sort of a goal in mind. And it was just shortly after that that I realized achieving said goal would probably involve some measure of success in a given category, which was vastly foreign territory in the landscape of my life. I almost got culture-shock just thinking about it. Even so, I worked my way through two misguided semesters before finally giving up and going the way of the immigrant, finding a full-time job in unskilled-and-not-even-requiring-muscle-mass labour: Housecleaning.

A brief sidenote: The comment about going the way of the immigrant was not meant to be derogatory to immigrants, but rather a bop on the government's head for failing to have in place appropriate transfer certification for skilled workers from other countries. I live in British Columbia, Canada, and while I was cleaning, I worked with, among others, a medically trained woman from ALBERTA who couldn't get certified to work in her field in BC, as well as a man from Thailand who had degrees coming out his ears and years of experience as a general contracter and massage therapist! Weird combo, I know, but the guy did nothing but study on his free time for AGES, and then he came here and had to start from the bottom all over again. It's just sad.

Back on track. I did the cleaning thing for a year before I decided I needed a change of scenery and sailed (in a plane) off to Europe for around 16 months to backpack, live, nanny and totally fail at learning foreign languages. I spent most of my time in Germany so I could probably be quite proficient in German by now if I were not myself, but fortunately the constant repetition has at least drilled a little bit of it into my mind. Even so, my time there was the real, conscious start of my skill-seeking adventures. Goal number one upon arrival to Europe: Learn how to dress. I didn't realize how awful I was until I landed and realized almost immdiately that those European fashionista stereotypes are entirely valid. But I think I may count this now as my first acquired skill. I never quite got the hang of it while I was there, but after I returned to Canada and had a bit of money to invest in some key items, I like to think I'm fairly fashion friendly. Also, I got a full length mirror. I cannot stress how necessary that was. Formerly, it had only been upon the embarrassing revelation of photos that I realized what I looked like. Now I can see before I even leave the house!

With this newfound sense of fashion came a desire to be seen! Since my social circle was still lacking, I decided to go back to school, with a new set of goal ideas in mind. That was last fall, and the past two semesters have definitely been slightly more successful, and I feel like I'm getting closer to knowing what that goal is. But I need to make money to continue to go to school to get there, and THAT so-called-brief bio brings us here. No, I am not HERE to make money. I am 3 months and about 200 applications into the job search with no results, and no life. But I am tired of feeling like a torn and melted cheese string so I've decided that it's time to put down the potato chips and ice cream and spend my abundance of free time trying to be good at things. Low budget things. So as I go about these things, I will try to share and photo-journalize so that any positive experiences I have may be repeated, and any negative ones avoided. I'll work on any skills I can when the opportunity arises: social, practical, technical, financial... and I welcome suggestions of things to try, though at this point, I'm sure that seems pretty vague. Once we get rolling, I'm sure we can reel that in a bit.

With that however, I welcome you to the recorded beginning of my quest for talent and personal betterment! Thanks for putting up with the wall of text and I hope that my next entry is significantly more useful.

Cheers!