Wednesday, 3 Jun 2009

-- I made some banana bread yesterday, so as to not waste a few bananas that had gone brown and to use some of the maple syrup that my grandma supposedly tapped herself. I don't NOT believe that she really did such a thing, but it seems a slightly out-of-character and random activity. Anyway, it's amazing maple syrup. What's a tree doing making something that good? I used this recipe, but I subbed the cup of sugar with 1/2 a cup sugar + 1/3 cup maple syrup. And I used one egg+one egg white. And I put it all in one regular-sized loaf pan (it was done in about 45 minutes).

-- Thank you all for the tips for using Japanese patterns. I wound up using tissue paper, since that's what I had to hand, and it was fine. But mostly, I'm grateful you guys mentioned adding on the seam allowances. Once a read that, I did remember having heard it before, and it made the diagrams make more sense. I started with a pretty basic pattern and then made it a second time, with a few tweaks, and I think it was actually less confusing than most of the English-language patterns I've used! I'll show you the finished product soon.

-- The bulk of the hard labour in the garden is finished now, thank goodness. It's been a very dry spring for these parts, though, and my lawn has reached its late-summer crispiness distressingly early. Even when I do try to water the grass, the ground is so dry and hard that the water just pools above ground. Arg. I uploaded a few photos to flickr last night, though, including this one, which has labels to show what's currently planted where in the veggie beds.

-- Speaking of flickr, I went through my 'food' set and turned it into a collection with themed sets inside. Here. I also tried to sort previously uncategorized photos into those sets (although I haven't got through everything yet). One of those satisfying-only-to-me type of projects.

-- I have to go read an exciting werewolf sequel now. Ugh, work, right?