News update and countdown!!

I'M GOING TO PARIS!!!

Right.

So my program offers a yearly, intensive 3 week study abroad course in Paris, meeting archivists and curators, going into archives and repositories and generally gallivanting around Paris. The draw was today. I got picked. So happy. 

A bit sad for the people I know didn't get their names picked out of the hat, which sucks quite a bit. I will do my happy dance and screaming in private as a sign of respect.

However, I think I will celebrate further by having French Toast for breakfast over the weekend. It'll help my jaw too, I had a wisdom tooth come out a few days ago and while the surgery itself went beautifully and I don't really have any pain, my jaw's a bit stiff. It's given me a great excuse to have a lot of chocolate pudding, cherry jello and peach yogurt at all times.

I'M GOING TO PARIS!!    I'll stop now, however a countdown will start popping up as soon as the flight is booked and a set leaving day is picked. Tentatively speaking, May 8th-26th.

Spring Rolls and Reading Week.

A break has come. I'm on my reading week as of Monday. I don't count the weekends since I work 9-5 Saturday and Sunday. Can't have it all can you? At the very least, it means time to cook!

To celebrate, I tried a spring roll recipe I found in the recent issue of Canadian Living. They were nice enough to put it online as well, so here it is!

Shrimp Spring Rolls!

Shrimp Spring Rolls
By Andrew Chase and The Test Kitchen
 

Ingredients:
1 lb frozen shrimp, thawed, peeled and deveined


1 can (227 mL) water chestnuts, drained and chopped


1 green onion


1/4 cup chopped cilantro


1/2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger


1/2 tsp salt
1 pinch white pepper


16 square spring roll wrappers


1 egg, beaten


Vegetable oil, for frying

 

Dipping Sauce:


3 tbsp rice vinegar


2 tbsp water


1 tbsp julienned fresh ginger


2 tsp granulated sugar


1/2 tsp minced seeded hot red pepper 


1 pinch salt

Preparation:
Dipping Sauce: In small bowl, stir together vinegar, water, ginger, sugar, hot pepper and salt until sugar is dissolved. Set aside. 



On cutting board, cover shrimp with plastic wrap and, using bottom of saucepan, smash until flattened and broken up; transfer to bowl. Add water chestnuts, onion, cilantro, ginger, salt and pepper; mix well.



Lay 1 spring roll wrapper on work surface with point up; shape 2 tbsp shrimp mixture into 3-inch (8 cm)long log across bottom third of wrapper. Roll up, folding in sides, until only 1-inch (2.5 cm) triangle of wrapper remains. Lightly coat triangle with egg; roll up. 

Repeat with remaining filling and wrappers. (Make-ahead: Refrigerate for up to 2 hours.)



In heavy-bottomed skillet, heat 1/2 inch (1 cm) oil over medium-high heat just until ripples appear; reduce heat to medium. 

Skimming oil between batches, fry spring rolls, turning and increasing heat if necessary, until golden and filling is pink in centre, 3 to 4 minutes per batch. Drain on paper towel–lined plate. (THEY DO NOT TAKE THIS LONG TO COOK. 30 seconds per side seemed to be more than enough) Serve with Dipping Sauce

 

I was pleasantly surprised by how easy this recipe was and they were so tasty! Instant (and better) Chinese food! You can also use the leftover egg for a single egg plate of scrambled eggs or a tiny omelet. Also, smashing shrimps with a frying pan is fun, and a good way to get your roommate out of her room, wondering what the hell you're doing.

Photo geekery. ACTIVATE!

So. Much. Photo conservation.

We just got back from a weekend of photo geekery! The Photographic Materials Group of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Artifacts hosted their bi-annual winter conference this past weekend. Professionals from all over North America and Europe came to present and discuss issues and new discoveries in photo conservation. Phenomenally boring to most people, but super fun for us!

Eight of us drove up for the two day conservation road trip. The PMG was nice enough to host a gala as well, which was held at the Museum of Nature in downtown Ottawa. It's a beautiful old building that has had a recent renovation to include a lovely reception hall. We were treated to some very nice catered finger food and a bar! The museum was also in charge of the table centre pieces, which we played with after a while.

RAAWWWWWWWRRRRRR!! (Ooo, crackers!)

As it turns out, conservators like their alcohol. not only was the free-ish bar stocked with nice wine and beer, they had had a Vodka luge made for the reception. That would be a vodka dispensing ice sculpture.The older guys were frequenting sneaking shots when the bar tenders weren't looking. Quite the fun evening.

We also learned a very interesting way of dealing with unexpected disasters in the conservation field. I may have to carry holy water and a rosary in my tool kit from now on. Note the word "again" at the bottom of the slide. This presentation was a retelling of how things can happen without any warning in the preservation process. 

For now, however, back to Toronto, back to school and back to work. And back to home cooked meals... except that my roommate and I ordered sushi the Sunday night I was back. It was glorious. I have had home cooked since, and will post soon.

Runny Eggs

As I sit here at my computer, writing this blog to put off doing more research about 20th century cameras used by professional photographers, I look at my lunch and realize that I really need to work on how to cook eggs.

I love diner style breakfasts with runny, sunny-side up eggs, loads of hash browns and ham slices. I try to redeem the lack of nutrients and vitamins by having Oj or extra fruit with it. Either way, I love cheap, greasy diner breakfasts.

Sadly, I have a hard time cooking them myself. I guess not having the flat, griddle surface that diners have might be my first problem, but I suck at cooking eggs in general. I can hard boil them, and that's about it. My scrambled eggs are a little weird and I can't do sunny-side up eggs without them exposing at one point or another. None the less, I will still try, I hope it's down to practice and a decent frying pan. Today's attempt was going fairly well until the last flip where the yolk started to rip, and moving it to the plate was the breaking point, as can be seem. Tasted really good though, and I was really happy with my potatoes and onions.

In other news, CONSERVATION ROAD TRIP!! Eight of us from my Master's program are going to the 10th Biannual Winter Meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works next weekend! Not only have we lucked out that the conference is focusing on photography this year, it's happening in Ottawa and not in the States like previous years. We've all scrapped together our pennies for the conference fees, hotel and the rental cars, and we're hitting the road on Thursday night for the drive to Ottawa.

Professionals from all over North America are giving lectures and workshops about preservation issues in photography, and it's being hosted by the National Gallery of Canada, Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian Conservation Institute.

I am ready to thoroughly geek out for two days.

Also, thank you to our Chemistry professor, Chris for not being understanding about us missing class on Thursday to go to the conference, but for actually encouraging us to go since it's a great opportunity. Thank you Chris, you're amazing.

Back home and some eggs.

So New York was amazing!!

The bus rides sucked quite a bit, but the weather held out and we had a fabulous time.  A lot of food was had and I think I walked off everything I ate. The feet were slightly ruined by the time we came back to Toronto.

We hit all the regulars, 30 Rock, the MoMA, International Center of Photography, Times Square and we happened to be living in Upper Manhattan, so it worked out well I think. We found some great restaurants along the way, although bar food had to be avoided for the most part, there not being too much by way of Vegetarian for one of our traveling companions. However, we were able to placate ourselves with "Wine product" that was $6 at the local 24 hour convenience store. We enjoyed it just for the fun of not having to go to the LCBO during strict business hours.

We found a great sushi an seafood restaurant called Ichiumi on our last day and I wish this was in Toronto! It was like an awesome Mandarin, with MUCH better quality and variety. And Sushi up the wazoo, so much sushi. We didn't have breakfast that day, had this at about noon and we were set for the next 8 hours. Soooo good.

I didn't really get any photos of the food we ate over the weekend since I was kinda busy eating it. I'm not very good at this whole taking pictures for my blog, thing. My buddy Rob (who was also, incidentally, the gentleman who took pictures of the Christmas party, and hasn't posted them yet) took about 400 pictures over the weekend a lot of the food as well. So I've stolen one of his to show off this restaurant. His name is Rob, and he's on the Flickr. Check him out.

Dessert bits. Mango, blueberries and apple tarts, oh my! (Photo by Rob.)

This was one of the two photos of food I took while on the trip, or I guess technically in this case, what was left of the food. We had our first breakfast at a place called Metro Diner on Broadway. Each of us would have paid about $7 for a full plate of food and tea, but the waiter kind of cornered Rob into paying for the ladies.

Dude at diner: "So, are you going to buy these lovely ladies lunch then?"

Rob: "... I guess I am now!"

This is the other photo. Leo's Scrambled eggs with Nova lox and onions with fries at Artie's Deli. Good, greasy dinner for the 12 hour bus ride home.

I did fairly well money wise on the trip. We lucked out with the price of the trip to begin with, it was only $165 for the bus and hostel, and the Canadian dollar is doing phenomenally against the US dollar at the moment. We didn't do as much shopping as we had intended, but we still did the museums, gift shops and a trip to B&H, where I geeked out thoroughly and got a whole bunch of archival materials for my photo collections. Despite that, I'm trying to be frugal for the rest of the month to even things out a bit in the finances. So eggs, pasta and campbell's soup for the next full weeks. That can work though, just have to get creative. Hence, deviled eggs with dill and crab.

 

Back to class, so back to infrequent blog posts... sorry.

The revelers have hit the street, with pots and pans their throats completely knackered from another ringin' in... Let another New Year begin!

Happy New Year everyone!

Right, enough of that.
I don't really do resolutions, never really have. I have however, decided to stop eating pizza pizza as much as I do. I'm starting to notice how awful it is for me, and not just because it's unhealthy, I'm talking about the fact it's just awful. Fortunately, my roommate feels the same way so when we order take-out it's usually something slightly more edible, like sushi or Chinese. She has introduced me to a great sushi delivery place in our neighborhood, and I think we'll be ordering from them a lot, they are great.

I am, however, starting the new year with some major awesomeness, I'm going to New York this weekend! A few amazing people in my department at school decided to organize a trip just for us which included a financial subsidy from the school to help cover the costs. So, $165 covers the return bus trip and 3 nights stay at a hostel in downtown New York. Yep.

I've got a few plans for myself and the group of friends that I'm going with, assuming we all survive the 12 hour bus ride to get there, the only bad part about the trip. For one, I hope that this amazingness is still up on Wall street. It's some pretty cool vandalism if you ask me.

Obviously we'll be hitting up some galleries, and the Met and MoMA seem to be the top choices. Also, since there are three girls in our group, we've planned to do a fair bit of shopping throughout the weekend, and I'm definitely checking out the Antiques Garage in Hell's Kitchen. I have had to make a promise that I won't buy any furniture or carved, wooden bears. Why carved wooden bears you ask? My roommate isn't too fond of Fred, one of my only souvenirs from my working days in Niagara Falls. She was slightly terrified that I'd put it in the living room when I brought him home. I admit that this photo of him is a little scary... but he is quite sweet and innocent as he guards my closet.

He doesn't look so bad in this photo.

Anyway, I can't technically buy furniture since I am relying on a coach bus for my transportation to and from New York. We're also limited to one carry-on and one stored piece of luggage. It was never specified how big that stored luggage could or couldn't be, so I imagine a few people may be taking advantage of some of the shopping opportunities, and the Canadian dollar being above par with the US dollar at the moment.

I will post some of the food, shopping and art excursions when I get back, I've lucked out in the sense that all of us are huge foodies and are going to enjoy ourselves while we're in New York. See you next week!

By the way, my post title is from the wonderful band, Spirit of the West and their great New Year's song, Another Happy New Year. Canadian rock folk at its best.