Sunday, September 07, 2008

Blueberry Pancakes

Yesterday Jer and I went to Kensington market to buy some meat and fresh produce, including blueberries. I had no immediate plans for the blueberries, but I remembered the beautiful pictures from Smitten Kitchen and knew for breakfast today I needed blueberry pancakes.

We made half a batch and put a small amount of batter on the pan because the first pancake doesn't work as well and I didn't want to waste too much batter. We watch it cook. Umm it looks weird. Okay okay, first pancake, whatever, throw it out and try again. The pan might not have been quite ready anyway.

Second pancake looked pretty much the same. Why isn't it rising? Pancakes are supposed to be fluffy and thick. This was flat and had a weird texture.

Well, the batter was a little runny, maybe if I add more flour that'll help. Nope, not so much.

What if I add more baking powder? Argh, it's a bit better but they're still not pancakes and taste bland and bleah.

Jer goes back to the computer and checks the recipe again. Oops, forgot sugar. That's not too bad, but I add some anyway. The recipe calls for baking powder and baking soda. Jer doesn't have baking soda so I just used a bunch of baking powder because baking powder is essentially just baking soda and cornstarch anyway. Oh crap. Realization hits.

See, one of the problems with splitting your time between two places is that rather than having two of everything, it means bringing things back and forth between apartments. For example, sherry for stir fry. Or what I like to do, is put some ingredient in a little baggy and just keep it at Jer's place. This is what I did for baking powder. And cornstarch.

Rather than adding baking powder, I had been adding cornstarch. That explains the flat pancakes and weird texture.

I dump some baking powder in and success!! Happy blueberry pancakes. So delicious.

Maybe it's time to buy some baking powder and cornstarch for Jer's place. Or you know, label the baggies perhaps.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

TIFF 08

For the film fest this year I decided to try the 10-ticket package instead of buying single tickets when they went on sale to the general public. Both ways are a lot of work, but I found the advance ticket procedure less stressful.

It took a few hours reading through all the 300(ish) films to find ones I wanted to go to, then figure out movies that won't conflict with each other, but I think it'll get easier after I've done it a couple times. I guess the one thing is I get attached to all 10 movies, but know I'm only going to 5 of them. I definitely had favourites and ones I was less interested in, so it made the process an adventure. I went and dropped off my selections the day after the advance ticket books were available because I went to lunch at a restaurant near the box office. I decided not to worry too much on when to drop my choices off because I'd go crazy debating when the right time would be to get in 'the' box. Rather, I went with when it was convenient for me to go. I stick by this decision, despite it not working out too well. My order was in box 7, and box 9 was randomly drawn to be the first box processed. I couldn't believe I was in the 2nd last box. What
bad luck. I had the usual reaction of pouting and grumbling, but in the end it turned out just fine. I am very happy with what I ended up with and think it'll be a good mix of movies.

I start the film fest off with a France/UK/Belgium movie called Vinyan. The description says it leads to a confrontation with madness in a storm-torn jungle alive with feral children. I can't think of a better way to describe it and I'm very intrigued on what this movie turns out to be.

I like to go to a Canadian film each year, which started unintentionally but I do like this idea and plan on keeping it up. This year I'm going to the world premiere of Cooper's Camera, which is about a Christmas holiday with lots of awkward humour. Should be great.

Hooked will be my first subtitled movie at the film fest. I can't think of a better way to start than a movie about a couple killing a prostitute, oh wait, she's not dead! And she won't get out of their lives.

I'm not sure exactly what this movie is going to be like, but Adam Resurrected is about the Holocaust and coming to terms with something so tragic. The description says to imagine a theology class taught by a sad clown to get an idea of how disorienting the film actually is.

And last but not least... I'm going to my first midnight madness movie! Sexykiller is a Spanish movie about a serial killer that sounds amusing, disgusting, and has zombies. I don't quite know how I'm going to manage to stay awake yet, but I am so excited! This is also a world premiere and only adds to the excitement.