Pretty much anyone acquainted with me knows that I am a huge Harry Potter fan. I was a late bloomer with the books, reading them all in the span of a week in grade six, but I made up for my lateness with my enthusiasm. I held viewing parties of the movies with friends, making cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties. I went to the exhibition twice when it came to Toronto. I've watched all three of the Potter musicals no less than five times and have all the music on my ipod. I've knit hats that look like the ones Hermione wears in the movies. One time I greeted my new flute section in a Canada wide wind ensemble by saying, "Hey! I'm E! What's your Hogwarts house?". When I really want to veg out and relax, I giggle at bad HPotts fanfiction on the internet.
Yes friends, I am a nerd.
However, I do not regret nor try to deny this fact. I think there are plenty of wonderful reasons why everyone should be a Harry Potter fanatic. The books are wonderfully written, and teach us important lessons about friendship, love, and courage. They foster community, and have encouraged a generation of kids to get their noses in a book.
So, I try every year to celebrate Harry's birthday in a quiet thanks to JK Rowling and her brilliance. This year I made a chocolate fudge pudding that I think that Molly Weasley would be proud of.
I got the recipe from a cookbook my Gramma gave to me a few years ago from one of her trips to Scotland:
The other day I discovered the funniest thing I've seen on the internet in a very long time. This guy Zack 'Danger' Brown on kickstarter has raised $61,186 (as of 8:00 PM on 21/07/14) to make potato salad (Link). I have no clue what he's going to do with all the money - hopefully some will go to charity as he proposed in an interview. However, it got me thinking. How much potato salad could you make with that amount of money? Naturally I had to put my grade 11 university math skills to the test.
First, I found a good potato salad recipe. I picked this one, since it calls itself the world's best, and has a ton of good reviews backing up that claim. Then I did some research and tried to figure out the price of making said recipe. Here's how it seemed to break down:
6 potatoes - $2
1 small onion - $0.17
1 cup of celery - $0.33
1 tsp salt - $0.0026
8 eggs - $1.33
1/2 cup sugar - $0.23
1 tsp cornstartch - $0.02
1/2 cup vinegar - $0.07
1 can evaporated milk - $1
1/4 cup butter - $0.3
1 cup mayonnaise - $1.50
1 tsp mustard - $0.2 (if you use the really good stuff)
That totals up to about $7.15. One recipe of this stuff serves 6 people, assuming each person eats about one potato's worth.
$61,186/$7.15= 8557.5 recipes of potato salad.
8557.5 x 6 servings = 51,344.9 servings.
So in theory this guy has enough money to feed 51,345 people. That's 20,000 more people than the entire population of Nunavut. You could feed every resident of Monaco. Madness.
So yeah this is how I'm spending my time lately. Summer is great.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about my future in a field that is pretty male dominated. Historically, music has been a man's business in almost every aspect. In the past century or so women have made large advances in this respect, but in a lot of music related careers we are still vastly outnumbered.
Thanks to blind auditions, female participation in orchestras has greatly risen over the last few decades. However, there is still a large gap between the number of males and females on the podium (according to this article, American orchestral conductors are 80% male).
In composition as well it seems that we are outnumbered. I recently discovered that I've never played a piece in band written by a woman. After a search on the wind repertory project, I found a total of 29 female composers of band music, versus 706 men. Perhaps this is because historically there haven't been a lot of women trained in composition, and that wind ensembles were very male exclusive for most of their history.
What I think we should do is celebrate the few women who do advance in these male dominated fields, and hopefully they will inspire the next generation of girls to pick up a baton, or try out their school's copy of Sibelius. So today I'm going to list a couple of the cool female composers of band music that I've recently discovered.
Well, I am now the proud owner of a high school diploma. Let the summer of baking/flute playing/weird craft projects begin!
Cake, feat. my cat coming down the stairs
It is blueberry season here in Ontario! Today some family came over to visit, and I was in charge of dessert.
It's this recipe for a one layer vanilla cake. Usually what I would do is just whip up a bunch of heavy cream and dollop it on, but sadly we didn't have any. Instead, I made a simple syrup of lemon juice and sugar, then added to that 3/8 cups of icing sugar. This made a nice glaze to go in the middle. Then I made a cream cheese icing (1/8 cup butter, 1/8 cup cream cheese, about 3/4 cups of icing sugar, 1/8 tsp. ground vanilla beans, milk as needed) to spread on top. After that I just dumped on a bunch of fresh blueberries. It was pretty darn good.
I've also been doing a lot of gardening lately. I took charge of the vegetable boxes this year, and it is extremely fun. I'm growing a whole bunch of things, including two varieties of tomatoes, red and green lettuce, onions, herbs, cucumbers, swiss chard, rhubarb, and watermelons (we'll see how those turn out).
I found the first flower on my tomato plants this afternoon!
Rhubarb slowly taking over the planet
I'm also very proud of my small basil pot. It's my favourite herb, but one that I've had very little success in growing over the last few years. I caught some earwigs trying to munch on it yesterday, but I seem to have gotten rid of them with a solution of dish soap and water. Fingers crossed!
So far summer 2014 is very successful. I think it was worth the wait. And I'm only on week one!
Well, it looks like my high school career is very soon to end. Tomorrow is my last day of school, and the day after that I graduate.
By chance this afternoon while cleaning out my closet I stumbled on a letter I wrote to my future self at the beginning of grade nine. It was quite enlightening.
"Dear Future Self, I'm fourteen this year. I have braces, I'm a flute player, and I opened a letter today from myself at age eleven. It was weird. She told me not to smoke. Duh. I'm wondering what I'll be like at age 17. Am I tall? Am I still into music? Do I have nice friends? Have I dated boooys? What will I be? Will I have decided what to study? Have I gone to Paris? Did I go back to music camp? I hope you made the right choices. I hope you're happy. Keep your head up, there's only one shot at life."
I thought I'd grace her with a response:
Dear past me,
I'm eighteen this year! I also have braces, but they're coming off next week (praise the lord almighty). I'm also a flute player, but I play piccolo and piano too! You'll be relieved to know that I don't smoke. Duh.
I guess I'm kind of tall now, 5'4'', not bad. I'm still very much into music. I have a bunch of lovely friends, some of whom I'll be very sad to be parting with soon. I dated a booooy for a while. It was a good learning experience.
I don't really know who exactly I am at the moment, so I can't really answer that one. I've decided to study music education! I haven't gone to Paris, but I've been to Shanghai (which I've heard is one of the fashion capitols of Asia, so almost the same thing right?), and I've lived in Quebec! I did go back to music camp for one last summer in grade ten.
I hope I've made the right choices too, but I'm happy at the moment, so I think so! I hope that you'd be proud of me.
Love,
Future E
P.S. Please learn to use semicolons.
You know, I'll be sad to leave high school. But I think that letter was exactly what I needed to see today. Providence? I've grown a lot (more in a mental sense), and accomplished a lot in the last four years. Yeah, it's nostalgic to have to leave a place, and it's a little scary to think about the future, but things usually turn out. Just gotta keep that head up. Thanks 14 year old me.
Hope I don't trip on my gown on the way up the stairs!
See? I told you that the regular obsessive baking posts would return soon.
Today I made a cake based on a beautiful one I saw here a while ago. Mine is quite a bit smaller, as I only made one layer, but I think that doing so made my first shot at the surrounding chocolate cage a bit easier. I would recommend doing the same to any other newcomers to chocolate decorations.
The cake was for my dad, as today is father's day here in Canada. My father is a big fan of all things chocolatey (a trait he passed on to me), so I thought this would be just right!
My dad's a pretty great guy, even though I don't tell him that enough. He and I have a lot in common. We both are foodies at heart, and often try out new restaurants before my weekly flute lesson. We both are huge fans of live music, and like to go to festivals in the summer time. We're both interested in history and morality, and he's one of the few people I feel comfortable sharing my philosophical musings with. He's also an extremely hard worker, and a person who's determined to do what's right.
So thanks dad - for trips to the gum store, teaching me how to ride a bike, for eating my early attempts at baking (and saying it was delicious), for the concerts, and for always being enthusiastic and encouraging.
(I think my photography skills are indeed improving)
Hi, it's me again. Sorry it's been a couple months (whoops). Life's been pretty crazy. I'll be back to posting pictures of baked goods with unholy amounts of butter in them soon I promise.
Crazy thing #1 - I recently went to Shanghai for music related reasons and it was really cool.
Shanghai is really a city of contrast. There are some of the tallest buildings in the world (pictured above), but smack in the middle of the city is 'old Shanghai', full of buildings built hundreds of years ago. Some buildings are in the traditional Chinese style, and some look like they belong in a major European city. There are Prada stores and Starbucks, but if you drive for five minutes you can find people living in shacks next to demolition sites.
My travelling friends and I were visiting on the generous invitation of the Chinese government. We played a bunch of concerts, and found that the local people really loved classical music, and were extremely enthusiastic audiences (much more so than I ever saw back home!). We also had lots of time to explore the city - here's some of the stuff I saw.
A really long street filled only with music stores
Good advice
A Buddhist temple built in 200 AD squashed next to skyscrapers
Crazy thing #2 - I am graduating soon (and related things)!!!
As soon as I got home from Shanghai, I had a lot of end of year/graduation things hitting me up the back of the head. I played in a bazillion concerts, wrote a harmony exam, went to provincials, and locked myself in a practice room for a while. School is almost done now, and I'm graduating very soon! I'm very excited for a summer of baking and fluting before university starts this fall!
Anywho, regularly scheduled programming should be returning soon as school is winding down.
Good luck on the final stretch to fellow highschoolers,
Sometimes I bake cakes and things for family friends to make a bit of money. These were for a lovely grandmother's birthday. I wasn't quite sure what she wanted, so I just made what I was in the mood for - spring!
As well as showing off my recent handiwork, I though I'd share some tips about cupcake decorating I've figured out over the years.
1. You can't really go wrong with American buttercream.
While Swiss-meringue might be the bomb on wedding cakes, there's really nothing like a big bite of pure sugar and butter on top of a cupcake. Along with the taste factor, it's also really tough to screw up this kind of icing.
I like to start with either 1/2 cup of softened butter, or 1/4 cup of butter and 1/4 cup of vegetable shortening. From there, you can pretty much do anything you want. Alternately add cups of icing sugar with a tablespoon of milk until you reach the desired consistency. Then, add flavouring (vanilla? cocoa? marmite?), and/or food colouring. How thick you want it really depends on what you're doing with the icing. To get the icing to keep its shape on the cupcakes, I tested it by lifting up the beaters and seeing if it held in place for 30 seconds or so.
2. Good piping tips = pretty cupcakes
Some people have been able to magic beautiful icing shapes out of plastic bags, but for me (and probably for beginners) it's much easier to just invest in a nice icing tip and piping bag that you can reuse many times. For these ones I used the wilton "1M Swirl" tip. To make the rose shape, start icing from the middle and spiral your way out.
3. Fondant isn't the enemy
I used to believe that fondant was extremely difficult to handle, disgusting, and to be avoided at all costs. That was until I figured out how easy and affordable it was to make marshmallow fondant at home. It's a dream to work with, and costs a fraction of the stuff you buy at the store. Use it to cover the tops of cupcakes, or use cookie cutters to cut out little flowers like I did.
Happy cupcaking, and a very happy Easter to those celebrating!
Well, spring has come to Ontario. Kind of. It snowed this morning, but I'm getting good spring vibes. Plus I read that it's going to be 17 above on Friday. So, SPRING!
Life's been interesting lately. Also very busy, hence the non posting. I found out last week that I've been accepted into my two top universities, so HURRAY! I'll be studying music education this fall! Audition success!
Now that my school schedule has cleared up considerably, I've also had a lot more time to practice, which makes me very happy.
Lately I've been thinking back to last May when I was part of a really cool auditioned wind orchestra for a week. It was intense; we had about nine hours of rehearsal sometimes. There were also only four flutes, and I was the only person on my part, so there was a lot of pressure to get things right. But we also did things like visiting the Toronto Symphony's dress rehearsal, listening to the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and eating way too much pizza. I got to play some beautiful music (including 'Aurora Awakes') with a lot of incredibly talented people.
So I have a lot of hope for the next six years of my life, if it can be anything like last year. I'm so lucky to be able to study what I really love.
Regular obsessive baking posts will return shortly.
Well, I've made it to the other side! Two auditions down in the span of about a week. Whew.
I thought I might share some of the wisdom I've gained after completing this stressful stage of life so that future youngins may benefit.
1. It's good to ask other people about what their audition experiences were like, but take what they say with a grain of salt.
Before my major audition, I was told by one girl that the panel was really mean, that the acoustics were terrible, and that I should basically prepare myself for failure. Turns out that the acoustics weren't bad at all, and that my panel was very nice. Experiences vary widely - don't psyche yourself out.
2. If you can, play for an audience beforehand!
Three days before my audition, I was up being a teacher's assistant at a music retreat. The retreat had a small concert on the last day, so my teachers encouraged me to play for the kids. Doing so was a great experience as it helped me to overcome some nerves. If you can play for 100 people, you can play for two people sitting behind a table.
3. Realize what your body does when you're nervous
Playing a wind instrument requires you to be very in tune with your body, so it's a good idea to figure out what happens to you when you're nervous in order to overcome these idiosyncrasies. Do your hands get really sweaty? Bring a small towel to your warm up room. Does your mouth get dry? Bring a bottle of water.
4. Remember that stress is your body's way of preparing you to do something awesome
I listened to a really perspective changing TED talk a while ago which explained that when you see your stress in a positive light, you often are healthier and have more positive experiences.
5. Don't be too humble
Although humbleness is a virtuous trait the majority of the time, it's really not helpful during auditions. Stop comparing yourself to other people, smile, and play like you're the best.
Good luck for people who are still auditioning! There is light at the end of the tunnel!
Hello internet friends. I'm sorry for neglecting you these past few weeks.
Right now I'm in the jaws of audition season. My first audition is tomorrow, in fact, and then I have two more shortly after. Ew.
I used to think that I was pretty knowledgeable about auditions. However, I've found that university auditions are a whole other emotional beast entirely.
First of all I went though a blind panic phase. This included questions such as, "WILL I HAVE MY PIECES READY ON TIME?!", and generalized superlative statements such as, "I AM THE WORST AT EAR TRAINING!". Secondly I went though a major doubting my abilities phase with fun thoughts such as, "I WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED INTO ANY UNIVERSITIES!". Thirdly I went though an existential crisis phase where I said things such as: "WHAT IS MY PURPOSE ON THIS EARTH?! DO I ACTUALLY REALLY LIKE MUSIC THAT MUCH? I SHOULD MOVE TO CHINA."
Right now I feel like I've reached stage four, an odd mix of calm acceptance and perfectionism. After much thought, I've decided that yes I actually do like music that much, that I want to spend my life helping people through the medium of education, and that the stress I'm going through right now is probably worth it if I can improve the lives of others in the future. And that in a couple weeks, life is going to get a lot calmer, and I will be happier.
Sometimes life is hard. But it's sort of like a pendulum on a clock - there will be dips, but it always swings back up again.
I just have to remember to breathe now! And if it goes terribly, I could always open a bakery. Cookies are another way to improve people's lives, I think.
But wish me luck, internet. And best wishes to all the young musicians out there going through the same thing right now.
I've noticed that the songs I put on top of these posts no longer relate to the subject matter, and are just what I'm listening to. Oh well. Enjoy the Earth Wind and Fire.
(does this make up for last week)
Today my family went out for dinner without me. New Semester is fantastic, and I now have way too much time on my hands. So basically I made a three course meal.
I think bread is widely regarded as something extremely finicky and difficult to make. I don't really understand how it got such a bad rep, because really it's not like that at all. I made this loaf in about an hour and a half by just throwing together 2 c. of flour, 2 tsp. of quick rising yeast, 1/2 tsp. of salt, and about 1 c. of water. Let rise for about an hour until doubled, shape into a loaf, and bake in a hot oven (mine was 385 degrees F.) for about half an hour until it looks pretty and sounds hollow when you knock on it.
This method makes a good loaf of bread in a short amount of time, but it's quite dense. If that's not what you're going for, I'd suggest trying a recipe for 'No Knead' bread. There are a bazillion on the internet. It makes a super easy loaf with lots of air bubbles.
Gnocchi is one of my favourite things to make. I learned how to make it at a cooking seminar type thing a long time ago, and became slightly obsessed. It's so versatile! Nowadays when I make it for just myself, I use a large potato then freeze half of the pasta for later.
You sort of need to mess around with the ratios for gnocchi until you find a consistency you like. I prefer a firmer piece of pasta, so I use about a 1:3 ratio for flour to potato, and then one egg for every 900 g. of potato. So today, I had 300 g. of potato, 100 g of flour, and 1/3 of a beaten egg.
Roast the potato until really soft, take off the skin, then squish it though a potato ricer into a bowl. Mix gently with the flour and egg, roll into ropes, then chop into what my cooking teacher called 'little pillows'. Boil them until they float to the surface, drain, and enjoy with pretty much any sauce on the planet.
I had mine with brown butter and sage. Yum.
I have also recently fallen in love with 'rustic tarts', which are basically pies without all the fuss. I got the recipe for the dough here, but made up the rest myself. Roll out your dough quite thinly, then arrange apple slices on top in a spiral like pattern. Fold in the edges until it looks vaguely hexagonal:
Dot the top with butter, brush the dough with melted butter (Julia Child would be proud), and then dredge the whole thing with sugar. Transfer it onto a preheated baking tray, and bake for about 30-40 minutes at 385 degrees until it looks nicely browned on top.
Ah, the single life ain't so bad. Happy early Valentine's day to me.
I made a cake not to celebrate this fact, but rather to procrastinate studying for my last exam. Haha whoops
Not the most beautiful thing I've ever made I dated a Peruvian guy for a while, and through him learned about the glory that is Peruvian food. People always think of countries like France when asked about the best places in the world for eating, but from what I've heard and tasted, Peru is 'da bomb. Peruvians have a whole holiday dedicated to eating roast chicken (Día Nacional del Pollo a la Brasa - Look it up, I'm not even kidding), and have some wicked awesome pastries. My ex's mother is an excellent chef, and one day she sent over a tupperware container with a large slice of cake, the likes of which I had never seen before. It was absolutely heavenly. After being given the recipe months and months ago, I finally decided to give it a shot yesterday. Mine isn't nearly as beautiful as the first one I tried, but oh well, it tastes great!
The secret to the cake is anise, a spice that tastes a lot like licorice. For this recipe, it's toasted in the oven, then ground up before being added to the dough.
The dough is shaped into long rods, then baked in the oven until golden. They're then stacked on top of each other in layers, and drenched with syrup.
The syrup (honey) is made by first simmering water with some fruit and spices, then adding a lot of sugar and boiling the heck out of it until very sticky and quite thick. I didn't boil mine quite long enough, so it was too thin to stay on top of the cake. Lesson learned!
Since I don't have permission to reveal the possibly top secret recipe I was given for this cake, here's a link to a website with a pretty similar recipe (and a cool post about its history!).
So I accidentally created something delicious this weekend,
I was not at all intending to be making ice cream in the middle of January. What I wanted to make was a recipe for chocolate truffles made with coconut milk which I saw on the super cool website "The Bojon Gourmet". You should read her recipe - it's hilarious and includes a story about a dead pig hanging from the ceiling of a cold room.
Unfortunately, I decided to conveniently forget the section of the recipe where it says 'only use 70% chocolate or else your ganache will be way too runny and it won't work' and I decided in my infinite wisdom to use chocolate chips. After a very sad 24 hours of praying that the pudding like substance in my fridge would somehow solidify, I decided that I needed to improvise. I added more milk, whisked it up, and stuck it in the freezer overnight. Yum!
Here's how to make it if you don't want to make a batch of failed truffles beforehand:
In a saucepan, combine a can of full fat coconut milk, a big pinch of cayenne pepper, a pinch of salt, and two or three cinnamon sticks. Cook on medium heat until it's steamy and starts to bubble around the edge. Then reduce to low and simmer covered for 20 minutes.
Measure six ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips into a large bowl or a measuring cup. Strain the hot coconut milk on top of the chocolate, and leave to sit without stirring for 2-3 minutes (this allows the chocolate to melt properly), then stir to combine.
Let the mixture cool to room temperature, then you can either put it into a tupperware container and place it in the freezer, stirring every half hour until frozen, or just put it in an ice cream maker if you're making a double recipe.
Julia Child once said: "Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?" Be fearless, internet friends.When life gives you runny ganache, make ice cream, because who's going to know? And if it doesn't, make ice cream anyway, because it's delicious and you deserve it, damn it! Hope exams go well for you all. E
Well internet, I'm in the mood for sea shanties about people dying and that means one thing - it's almost exam week!
"Oh me, oh my, I heard me old wife cry,
Oh me, oh my, I think I'm gonna die!
Oh me, oh my, I heard me old wife say,
I wish I'd never taken this excursion around the bay!"
Going into highschool a lot of people told me horror stories about how terrible the workloads were. Luckily, I have somewhat decent time management skills, so for the last 3.5 ish years I've managed to get a good night's sleep and get my homework done.
However, the next two weeks of my life are destined to fit the stereotype and be absolute hell. Oh well! I'm already out in the water, no turning back now.
Good luck fellow highschool friends. Listen to lots of disco music, put a fake smile on your face, and we'll sail through this!
While in a practice room last week, I overheard one grade nine violin player say to another while struggling with tempo:
"Guys, we need to get our shit together!"
I had a good giggle. Don't we all need to get our shit together around January.
The more I think about this time of year, the more I am willing to believe that it is some type of cruel plot to suppress rebellion in late teenagers. You know, keep them so freaked out about their future and mountains of homework that they don't have time to go against the man like in the olden days. It certainly has worked on me lately. I'm much too tired for world domination.
I was in a variation of this state around exam time last year, and I came up with a sort of backwards, nonsensical, yet useful mantra. It was something like:
"Everyone expects you to be stressed. People keep giving you all these things to do to make you stressed! However, being too anxious and obsessive keeps you from doing all the important things in life. Thus, to be overly stressed is to let them win, and to fight against the man is to be happy and calm."
Yes, I am a philosopher.
I learned a new word this weekend,
equa·nim·i·ty
noun\ˌē-kwə-ˈni-mə-tē, ˌe-kwə-\
: calm emotions when dealing with problems or pressure
I think it's a word I should try to take to heart a bit better, this week especially.
Hope you all are surviving and not catching senioritis, internet,
E
So today to celebrate the end of stress-day and the commencement of this blog, I attempted to make Danish butter cookies. You know the kind in the blue tin you probably ate at some point? Yeah, those.
I found the recipe here on the blog "Travelling Foodies". They made it seem very easy. I soon learned that Danish butter cookies are one of the challenges of life mentioned in the title of this blog.
(please excuse my lack of photography skills - I'll get better, I promise)
First you start with an unholy amount of butter.
You mix this room temperature butter in with flour, icing sugar, an egg, and 'vanilla bean paste'. I am ashamed to say that I have never heard of vanilla bean paste in my life, so instead I used 1/2 a tsp. of ground vanilla beans.
Eventually you'll end up with a rather stiff cookie dough. This is where the challenge comes in. I could not for the life of me find my piping bags, so I attempted to use a thick ziplock bag with the corner cut off instead. For the love of God, do not do this. I wasted five bags and a lot of my sanity while trying to make this work. Eventually I got fed up and searched my kitchen to eventually find my piping bags hidden in a cupboard. Lesson learned.
if at first you don't succeed
just go and find the piping bag ok - it's so much easier
They were as delicious and caloric as you would expect for a recipe with the word butter in the name. Happy Thursday, internet.
Hello! Welcome to the inaugural post of this blog. I don't have readers yet, so I will ask myself questions to get things started. Don't judge.
"So, author of this blog, who are you?"
I'm E, an almost-adult-like person living in Ontario. I play the flute, piccolo, and piano. I am a proud band nerd, and I hope to be going into music education this fall. I love to bake and cook in my free time. I'm semi-fluent in French. Terrible puns are my favourite form of humour. I have a vast knowledge in all things Harry Potter related that is sadly under utilised at present.
My mom writes the blog "I can fly, just not up". She's funny and likes Benedict Cumberbatch a lot.
"What can I expect you to post on this blog?"
Hopefully I'll be posting pictures and recipes from my baking adventures. Music anecdotes. Flute related frustration. Funny stories from my fascinating life. Sad break-up poetry (but not really).
"Why are you starting a blog anyways?"
I'm currently enrolled in a writer's craft in school, and it's a ton of fun! I hope to keep writing even after my semester is over, so this is a good place to do that. (also my deep wisdom needs to be shared with the world)
