That time of the year

[Embedded video]

Not only is it time-lapse season, it's also baking season.

After this batch I decided to make a special, vegan version for Jeannette.  Hopefully the vegan version's as tasty and sought after as the original.

A Few Quick Notes 604

-It has been between about -24 and -21 for the past 24 hours.  Of course, the windchill's been dipping into the -33 range, meaning that we've been feeling it a little more than we might have.  Amazingly, it doesn't take long for -20 with no windchill to not feel particularly cold - but as soon as you drop that by -10 (either with windchill or pure chilliness) it has a much more effective bite.

-Though we did have a little snow today it wasn't enough to motivate me to head out to shovel.  If I had  to guess it looks as though maybe less than a centimetre.

-At about lunch today I started to prepare some pea soup in our slow cooker.  Unfortunately, I'm now a little nervous that the soup won't be ready for our normal dinner time.  I guess it's good that we don't have a strict schedule today and that a delayed dinner shouldn't be much of a problem.

-We're shockingly close to Christmas.  I guess because we didn't do much shopping this year, and the shopping we did do had to be done early enough to be mailed across the country, it hasn't really hit me that we're only a few days away from Christmas until now.

-I've really been doing a bad job at blogging this year.  Maybe 2014 will be different?

A Few Quick Notes 554

-Though we have finally dropped down to sub-zero temperatures in Wolfville, things are still looking quite nice today.  A few recent dustings of snow are making things look particularly festive.  I am even hopeful that we may manage to squeeze out a nice sunset this afternoon evening.

-My Christmas preparations, aside from some gift shopping and thinking about all of the cleaning I will likely need to do, started in earnest today when I made some bread that I eventually intend to use for the turkey stuffing.  As much as I am willing to admit that it does seem a bit weird to intention bake bread to allow it to go stale, it seems even weirder to me to buy bread with the intention of letting it go stale.  Anyway, the deed has been done and the bread is now working its way towards staleness.

-The individuals previously associated with our phone number are still receiving daily calls from creditors.  While I seem to have talked a collection agency into not calling, we are still receiving regular calls for another individual from a major financial institution.  As I have already spoken to the company once I don't really know what my next step is (the calls are automated, making one-on-one interactions with the staff difficult).

(While writing this I had to deal with another such call, though this time from a person.  I suspect I was talking to a collection agency, but as there number was blocked I can't confirm this hunch.)

-I probably listen to too many podcasts.  I consume them while cooking, cleaning, walking, procrastinating, and riding the bus.  They're the best.  And there's little I like more than discovering a great new podcast with an archive I can compulsively listen to over the course of a few days.

Anyway, this is a long way of saying that I have recently found two podcasts that I am in the midst of acquainting myself with.  The first one, HOW TO DO EVERYTHING, which seems to be NPR/WBEZ associated, is pretty light and concerns itself with a Richardson's Rounduppesque assortment of topics.  The second one, 99% Invisible (which I discovered thanks to a recent Radiolab episode), is a little more serious and generally deals with topics relating to architecture and design.

Apparently we are approaching that time of year again

For the past few days Jeannette has been slowly ramping up for the holiday season. One of primary ways that this ramp up has manifested itself is through gingerbread person themed ornament versions of people (fictional and real).

At first Jeannette started with pretty run-of-the-mill gingerbread men.

Then the neckwear started to change.

First there was a scarf.

Then a standard issue necktie...

...and a bow tie.

I am proud to say that a few of my suggestions were even accepted and gingerbreadized.

One of my earliest suggestions was 'construction worker.'

I then moved on to eighties classics when I suggested Richard Simmons.

Jeannette then decided to run with the popular persona theme and chose to do an Einstein, ...

...MJ (from the Beat It music video),...

...Freddie Mercury, ...

...Luke Skywalker,...

...and Han Solo and Princess Leia.

Oh, and because it was Jeannette making these there were also a few zombies.

And just to demonstrate that Jeannette's skills aren't anything special I decided to make one of my own, a school crossing guard.

Not to brag too much, but I totally nailed it. It's pretty clear that I have captured the essence of crossing guardness more than any other artist before me.

Then, to try to top my crossing guard, Jeannette moved to the 3D realm with this third rate wintery scene.

I mean really, can you get more hotel room art than this? Where's the passion and feeling that you see in my crossing guard? Where's the humanity?

Anyway, we're definitely in the ramp up phase. If we aren't careful we will soon be overrun with homemade seasonal crafts.

Christmas Recap

Christmas, at least for the most part, was pretty much as was expected.

After a night filled with mahjong and food at Jeannette's house on Christmas Eve, we awoke on Christmas morning to find filled stockings and plenty of gifts under the trees.

One of the items that I was pleased to find and immediately intrigued by was a small remote controlled helicopter. For years I have been taken with the idea of remote controlled flying vehicles, so it was nice to finally have one to play with. After charging the helicopter I was able to take it out for a test flight.



[Embedded video]

Unfortunately through subsequent flight attempts I haven't been able to get the battery to hold enough of a charge to get the machine off the ground. This is all the more frustrating because I now know that the machine is actually capable of flight.

Much to my surprise, one of the items that was found adjacent to the stockings was a Nintendo Wii. Though I am not a big video game player and am generally skeptical of such endeavours, in the days since Christmas I have had plenty of fun playing with the basic games on this system. So far we haven't marred the experience of owning a Wii by having any of the type of mishap that are documented in the video below (though from time to time Kirsten does inexplicably opt not to wear the wrist strap).



[Embedded video]

After our stocking-related acquisitions were adequately examined and breakfast consumed we moved on to a quick round of gift opening and scratch-ticket bingo playing. Eventually we realized that we could cut Neil and Rebecca in on the action even though they were in Halifax by using video chat technology.



[Embedded video]

We were even able to have the play bingo with us by scanning and then emailing them a game card. While I don't know how much Neil and Rebecca enjoyed this, I can say that everyone on this end thought it was pretty good.

Much of the rest of the day was spent preparing for Christmas dinner and then consuming Christmas dinner. Along with another couple, we were joined for dinner by Jeannette and her family. As far as I could tell, a good time was had by all.

I imagine that there are a few more things I could mention, but unfortunately I am drawing a blank right now or have decided that they are too unimportant to be worth the effort of re-telling them. Hope everyone else had as enjoyable a Christmas.

The Shepherd on CBC

For years at Christmastime (likely Christmas Eve) I remember listening to CBC and again and again hearing the same story about a pilot running out of fuel and then being guided by a phantom plane to safety. Only a few years ago did I learn the name of this story (The Shepherd) and that it was being performed by long-time CBC personality Alan Maitland. Even without the basic details regarding the origins of this piece it became an important part of my Christmas celebrations.

Presumably I eventually learned these facts about the broadcast when I received a CD copy of the story (along with a few other Christmas classics as read by Alan Maitland) for Christmas a few years ago. Not surprisingly, I was really quite excited to get this CD so that I am able to listen to the story as frequently as I like, and not have to wait for the one a year broadcast on CBC.

For most of the years that I listened (and looked forward) to this story I assumed that almost everyone in Canada felt similarly. I guess I assumed that even if they were not fans of the story they would at least know what it was and know to respect it as an important part of Christmas.

It seems that, once again, I was wrong - listening to this story just isn't as widespread a Christmas tradition as I had imagined. When I tried to throw on the CD a few nights ago when Kirsten and Jeannette were in the car not only were neither of them interested in listening to the story, neither of them had heard it before and neither of them could figure out why it had anything to do with Christmas. Both were incredibly underwhelmed by the whole thing. Though they didn't mean their reactions to be so, they were definitely disappointing to me.

Anyway, if you are one of those people that routinely listens to The Shepherd, as read by Alan Maitland, at Christmas I am pleased to be able to provide you a link to an online version of the recording (which can be downloaded by left-clicking or the equivalent).

Christmas Shopping Drama

My Christmas shopping for this year has not gone the least bit smoothly. Not only have I routinely been stuck for ideas, and then not particularly pleased with the items I have settle for, but I have also had problems acquiring a few of the things that I have thought about.

For instance, a few days ago I finally had an idea for Kirsten. Unfortunately, though, the store I was then in which might have been expected to sell the product I was looking for did not seem to have a copy. I then started looking at other stores we visited with no success. Then, today, Christmas Eve, I made a last minute run to a street populated with many chain stores only to have a similar level of success. Fortunately, I was, eventually, able to find a store that contained a variation the theme of what I was originally going for.

After this moderate success I still had to head to another shopping centre/district get ideas/gifts for two more people. It was emotionally tiring.

The only aspect of this experience that I might frame as positive was my ability to enter stores and buy absolutely nothing if they didn't have what I was looking for. Thus I don't feel that I bought too many pieces of crap just for the sake of buying something.

Anyway, we now have about 12 hours until Christmas and I think that I have purchased (or it has been purchased on my behalf) everything that I will be buying for Christmas. And while I am frequently quite late when it comes to shopping, I don't know if I have ever before made Christmas Eve morning emergency runs to such a large number of stores.

Now I just have to wrap all of my purchases.

Christmas Bread on the Video

Finally, what you have all been waiting for, my time-lapse video of my Tibb's Eve baking activities.



[Embedded video]

As you can see, we did a fair bit of food prep today.

I am just glad that the bread came out tasting fine. For a while I was a little worried that we had a hot bowl of $30 worth of wasted dairy products.

Editor's Note: I presume that no one caught my pointless allusion to TV on the Radio in the title. And to think that I thought it was so clever and funny.

Christmas Bread Pt. 14

The bread is now all baked and the oven is off. I am happy to report that after all of this work the bread is quite edible, even tasty. Just a moment ago I finished off the loaf that we had for dinner.

I guess this brings the live updates to a close. Hopefully I will have a few videos or photos to upload in the near future.

Christmas Bread Pt. 13

My mother just removed the cinnamon rolls from the oven, thus freeing up the space required for the final loaf of bread. So just about 8 hours after my first post we are ready to start baking the final loaf. This has definitely been a full day of baking.

While these last few loaves have been baking I have been working on preparing dinner. To cut down on cooking we decided to have 'make your own salads.' To prepare for this meal I have been chopping up all kinds of vegetables and salad ingredients.

Anyway, the end is definitely in sight now. In about 25-30 minutes most of the food prep should be completed for the day.

Christmas Bread Pt. 12

I just realized that we are about 7 hours, or more, into this project and have another hour or two left. Wow.

Christmas Bread Pt. 11

We are now down to three completely unbaked loaves and the cinnamon rolls that need to go in the oven. Of course, none of this can go in the oven until the two half-baked loaves presently in the oven are removed.

As bowls and pans have been emptied or used we have been washing them. So even though we will have made about 20 loaves of bread, rum ball, and hummus in the kitchen it isn't too much of a mess.

For those of you who are curious, we made about 12 batches of the recipe. It seems likely that next year we won't knowingly make a similar quantity. I suspect that about 8 batches worth of dough would be sufficient.

Christmas Bread Pt. 10

So it seems that in total we will have 22 loaves of Christmas bread and one set of cinnamon rolls.

Two are in the oven, five are ready to go, and the rest are done. A few of those that are done have been decorated. I suspect that it will take about two hours before everything is out of the oven, maybe three.

Wow, this was quite a lot of baking/food prep.

Hopefully I will be able to throw up a few photos and a video or two once everything is out of the oven.

Christmas Bread Pt. 9

I just heard my mom say "Oh, I forgot what I was looking for - a piece of thread."

Christmas Bread Pt. 8

I just rolled the dough for the cinnamon rolls. Hopefully my mother will return with the cutting thread so we can make a little more progress.

A few of the bread loaves have now been decorated and Kirsten has even tried to deliver a few. So things are definitely moving towards completion, though we are still a ways away from finishing.

Christmas Bread Pt. 7

We now have 8 complete loaves, 2 in the oven, and 5 that are ready to go in the oven. We also have enough dough for about 7 more loaves.

Apparently Kirsten and I made a little more dough than we really needed.

I think that the cinnamon rolls are now definitely a go as we really don't need 20+ loaves of Christmas braid bread.

Possibly the worst part of this is that we are now more than 5 hours in and we have about 10 loaves left to bake. This project just keeps keeping on.

Christmas Bread Pt. 6

We now have six loaves that have been baked, two that are baking, about four that are ready to bake, and a bowl of dough left to shape and bake.

The gingerbread that Kirsten and Jeannette were working was completed just a few minutes ago. Just after the finishing touches were put on the decorations and a few photos were taken Kirsten made the ill-advised (AKA unadvised)decision to move the gingerbread house. Of course, because it was still somewhat wet, it started to shift and disintegrate with each step she took towards the living room.

By the time she was convinced to return to the dining room (where it had been assembled) it had almost completely fallen apart.

Fortunately there was some spare icing. This icing was called into action and used to reconstruct the newly destroyed gingerbread house. So while we now have a close to functional gingerbread house, some of the original decorations and details have been a little obscured.

And in other bread news, we may re-purpose some of the bread dough for cinnamon rolls. I guess a final decision will be made shortly

Christmas Bread Pt. 5

We now have two loaves out and another two in the oven. I am hoping that those two loaves in the oven will be out shortly and that we can throw another two in.

At the moment things have slowed down on the baking front as we are basically just waiting for things to bake. Once we have cleared out the back log of prepared loaves we can start to prepare a few more. I suspect that we will have at least more more hiatus period after this one ends.

On the food prep front, Jeannette and Kirsten are working on decorating a gingerbread house kit. They have assembled the house and are waiting for some of the structural icing to harden. As of right now things are looking pretty good.

Though I wasn't able to post them immediately after they were taken, I now have a few photos of the early stages of this affair.

The first is of me spreading some jam on some dough.



After the jam was spread I braided the tentacles.



Ok, I will get back to work.

Oh, and I should say that Jeannette gets the photo credit for these and any other photos that I post of the bread project.

Christmas Bread Pt. 4

Well, the loaves of bread are now starting to come out of the oven (well, the first one is now out). In the next few minutes we should have at least three complete loaves.

The main problem that we have presently is that we have all kind of dough left. We are likely on pace for about 15 loaves of Christmas bread. I think I expected about 11 or 12, at most.

I have been able to have a few chips with some hummus while working on the bread, otherwise I haven't really eaten much since starting on this project. I really think that I need to make an effort to have some real food in the near future.

Ok, I should head to the oven and take the second loaf out.

Christmas Bread Pt. 3

The bread is still rising, though I guess we are just about ready to punch it down. As my mother is not present I guess I will have to continue being in charge of the project.

I just finished making the hummus, a project whose remnants we are now cleaning up.

Maybe eventually I will remember to take a lunch break.