Entries Tagged 'Living' ↓
June 29th, 2008 — Family Adventures, Hot, Cross Buns, Living, family
Today’s my birthday! Yay!
Although birthdays are kinda quiet around here they’re still very special and today was a great day. Up early to watch Ben play soccer, then off for a light lunch with Cindy (hot dogs at the Peavey Mart and Milky Way ice cream, then watch the Euro 2008 final before joining up with the kids and Cindy’s family for a movie (Wall-E) and finally homemade bbq burgers. And I got some community association work done, some wood chopped for tomorrow’s pizza party and some dough mixed. Not bad for a Sunday!
My birthday gift this year was the best ever. Cindy signed the two of us up to the MS-Bike Tour this September in Waskiseu. 66km of hilly parkland and possibly bears. Awesome! The only problem is that neither of us has done much riding so far this year, so the training regimine starts, erm, tomorrow. But early tomorrow. And I’ll eat pizza standing up or something. Tuesday for sure.
Photo credit: riacale, on flickr
March 20th, 2008 — Living
January 28th, 2008 — Daring Bakers
I love pie. Fruit pies are my favorite, but I have a special place in my stomach for lemon meringue pies, especially real pie made from real lemons. So when the Daring Bakers, an internet group of amateur bakers which I recently joined, announced Lemon Meringue Pie as their challenge for January, I was very excited. So excited that I actually missed one of Robyn’s hockey games to make the pie without any time pressures.
Lemon meringue pie consists of three distinct layers — pastry, lemon custard and meringue — and each layer has its unique challenges. Will the crust be too tough? Will it leak? Will the custard set up properly? Will the meringue be firm enough to slice without getting all hard and crumbly?
I had not made a pastry crust in quite a while and it took some time to get my confidence up. It took a couple extra mils of water to get the crust to stick together, but it rolled and shaped well, even if it did puff up a little while baking. My happy pie weights didn’t do a complete job this time. Next time I’ll bake it a little longer with the weights and make the flutes a little higher since the dough shrunk back quite a bit while baking.
The custard was a lot of fun to make. It thickened up quickly and the flavour was spot on. There was a little extra which I kept in a bowl to test how it set up.
The meringue also went really well, I thought. I don’t really know my soft peaks from my firm peaks but it seemed to work find and looked gorgeous before and after baking.
After waiting a loooong 2 1/2 hours for the pie to cool (and Cindy and Robyn to get home from hockey) we dug in. I was stunned that a pie which looked so beautiful had so many problems! Tough crust, runny custard and a meringue that didn’t stay together.
I did a little internet research and have a couple ideas as to what to do next time:
- crust: Use a little more water early so I don’t have to work it so much. Use the pie weights for another 5 minutes or so when baking. I might even go to my traditional pastry crust with shortening for some added flakiness.
- custard: chill the pie prior to slicing so it sets up more.
- meringue: top the pie while the custard is hot so the bottom of the meringue bakes well. Possibly beat the meringue a little stiffer too; I may have only had medium peaks after all.
In the end the pie tasted really good, even if it didn’t look the best. I had enough ingredients to make another pie but life took over and even though my Daring Baker pie was made on January 5 I haven’t had the time for another attempt. Maybe in March.
Thanks to the folks at Daring Bakers for the challenge — I’m looking forward to February already!
April 2nd, 2007 — Living, Working
Just finished Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. I picked it up because I struggle whenever I’m at ‘networking’ type events. I’m not exactly shy, although that’s part of the struggle, but I do have a tough time engaging in conversations.
The author takes his “connecting” activities to an extreme; although he warns against becoming someone who is driven to do nothing but expand his Rolodex he seems to come pretty darn close to the line. However, there were two good takeaways for me to work on:
Focus on helping others: Finding how you can help is easier than worrying about how others can help you. If you’re helpful to others, you will get help when you need it.
Develop a ‘Network Action Plan’ for every major project you are involved in. That is, look for ways to get people in your network engaged and involved in your projects. Engaging your network is an important part of successful projects, and your Network Action Plan is a key piece of your Project Plan.
I really want to improve in how I recruit people to join in my community projects. Heck, recruiting one person would be an improvement. I’m going to try looking for how I can help others through the community association to see if that helps get some reciprocation down the road.
A Question: How do you recruit people to help on projects you think are important?
December 9th, 2006 — Living
It’s snowing for about the fifth day in a row now and as I look out the dining room window at the brick oven I can help but wonder what effect all that snow has on the brickwork. I didn’t get a chimney cap installed (or designed) in time so there’s about 4 inches of snow on top of the chimney and inside too. My wood pile is buried too so the wood certainly isn’t seasoning the way I’d like. I think the best approach is to split it as small as I can manage and store it under the oven till spring. At least it’ll stay dry that way.
