& now, posting this, I’m really excited.

I decided to go the atypical route, and make an Afghani biryani (recipe here). This is because I grew up with Afghani biryani thanks to the family in the apartment across from ours. I still remember their lively dance parties, how the movements concentrated on the arms, and the events brought both family and friends together at least once a week. It didn’t matter if you’d never met the people before, by the end of the night (or should I say next morning?) you were like best friends. & without fail, there would always be a dish of nuts, lemon wedges, and a heaping tray of biryani. It was unlike anything I’d ever tasted. Very light and fragrant, with little candy punches from all the raisins mixed in. I don’t remember there being any meat, so I’ve left it out here.

To me this dish represents a home I once had, and that I know I can never go back to. Everyone moves away, and then you move, and the memories collect dust until a biryani challenge picks them up. So thank you, HH, for reminding me of part of my life I’d nearly forgot.

Mine ended up being a rather pared-down version since cardamom and cumin were not available. I substituted corriander instead, which is nothing close. But, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. I’m sure my neighbours would understand.

See what HH has been cooking, as well as the others in the challenge here.

You can kind of see what I mean by tails on our Blood Dupre. We ran into the Queen and had to take a photo – she made her crown and sceptre out of wood! I’m the geek in the pink trying to hold her skirt down against the wind. I’ll do a tute for wig-making in the next few months.

We’re not talking about animal tails or anything like that here, though these tails would be nice for Hallowe’en. Oh no, we’re talking good old-fashioned coattails here. These tails are super easy to make, and you can attach these tails to any jacket you already have. If you have any questions, please ask! I know our hatter needed me to show her how to make these in person since it was a bit difficult to follow online.

Difficulty Level: 1-2

Materials
+Newspaper
+Tape
+Outer fabric (amount will depend on pattern, should be <1 metre)
+Lining fabric (ditto)
+White chalk, pencil crayon, etc. (Be wary of using colours – they may bleed and stain fabric)
+Pins/weights

For Lexi’s costume, we picked her up a $10 jacket on sale at UB, and got some white fabric similar to the jacket material in the remnants section of Fabricland. The remnants section is a godsend. Since you shouldn’t need more than a metre/yd of each kind of fabric, you can probably get everything you need there. For the purposes of this tut, I’ll be using this paper jacket to show you how it’s done.

Measure across the back of the jacket, in between the side seams(A). Then with the jacket on, decide how long you want the tails to be(B). Measure from the base of the jacket down.

Now take your newspaper, and tape a whole bunch of sheets together to make a big rectangle. This rectangle should have the same dimensions as your measurements from the previous stage. You will also need approximately the same amount of each fabric. Remember that fabric is typically over a metre wide, so unless you want your tails to be longer than 1m/yd, you can probably buy a little more fabric than the measurement across the bottom of the jacket.

For example, pretend my jacket is 20 in across, and I want my tails to end 40 inches from the end of the jacket. Knowing that the fabric is usually 44 in wide, I would ask the salesperson to cut me about 25 in of fabric (20 in + a little extra). Width and other measurements of the fabric should be specified on the bolt or remnant label. Note that if the fabric has a special shot or pattern that you want to go a particular way, this method may not be appropriate.

Fold this rectangle in half the “hot dog” way, and trace out the pattern for your tails (in red in the photo). Cut through both layers of paper along the pattern you drew, and unfold. This will be your pattern piece.

Take your lining fabric, and lay it down unpretty side up. Place your pattern piece on it, and trace around with the chalk/pencil crayon. You can use pins or weights to hold the piece in place while you work. Remove the pattern piece, and you’ll have something that looks like this.

Now draw a 1-inch border around this tracing. Cut along this new line. You now have your lining piece.

Take your outer fabric (the one matching your jacket), and lay it flat pretty side up. Place the lining piece on top of it, unpretty side up. Baste the two fabrics together along the pattern tracing, leaving the top edge open. The purple represents basting; it’s on the inside of the line just for better visibility.

Cut through the outer fabric along the edges of the lining piece. Properly sew the two pieces together over the basting. Now, turn the tails inside out, and press.

You’re done! Use the extra inch up top to attach these to the jacket. You can also use velcro, and make these tails removable, or attachable to more than one jacket. Just sew velcro to the inside of all the jackets you want to wear them with!

Back shot!

If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll have seen that I don’t say much about my ancestral background. In part, that’s because I don’t feel much of a connection to it. I was born in Canada, and only conversed with my parents in Tamil when I was very young. That pretty much stopped when I started school, so that I would pick up English more quickly. I can’t speak the language now, though I can understand a bit. The few Tamil children I played with moved away before I was 10 as well. The rest of my friends were mostly Oriental, which is probably why I post so many Asian recipes on this blog. We began eating more and more “English” food, and dropping the traditional customs after the other Tamil people left. I don’t even look like I am of Tamil descent.

I lost a lot more “culture” when I first moved to Guelph. It’s nothing at all like anywhere I’d lived. It’s very sweet, charming, and polite. But it’s not as alive for me the same way Jane St is, with its loud racialized communities and large ethnic food stores. It’s lovely, like a vacation, and admittedly a less dangerous place to live in. But it’s not what I grew up with, and therefore not who I am. Not 100%. I just recently realised I would be two different people here and back home, and that they were misaligned. I can’t deny the influence this place has had on me, but I can’t forget my old self completely, either.

So I’ve begun the alignment of my two selves, sticking to the slang I’m used to, and cooking the foods I remember. This one’s a particularly special accomplishment for me. My mother used to make it for my birthday parties, but has forgotten how she did it. I also tried making it once as a young(er) child, but it wouldn’t set. I bought a can of condensed milk the other day, remembering how my family used to cart ourselves off to what seemed like the middle of nowhere (but was probably Rexdale) to buy a box of Indian sweets for Diwali. I may not be able to buy any sweets here, but I can certainly try to make my own. I don’t know the proper name for this sweet, or if it’s specific to Sri Lankan Tamils, so I’m calling it desert candy. Don’t the pieces look like cracked, dry earth to you?

~~~

Desert Candy
Makes ~ One 12×12 cm/5×5 in square, one pinky’s width in thickness.
1/2 can condensed milk (approx 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup sugar

1. Pour the condensed milk into a skillet. Warm over low heat and stir until it begins to get liquidy.
2. Add the sugar, stirring to completely incorporate.
3. Keep stirring the mixture so that it doesn’t burn. Eventually, it will become deeper in colour. Keep stirring; this is definitely a labour of love, but an oddly calming one. The mixture will slowly begin to thicken. As it thickens, stirring becomes even more important.
4. The mixture will begin to shrink. Do NOT give in to the temptation to up the heat. When you’re near the end point, you will be left with significantly less of the mix than you started with. The mix should be a very think paste when you’re ready to make it candy. It should have stopped shrinking. If you’re not sure, cook it for longer and see if there’s a change. The candy stuck to the pan should be dry, or drying very quickly, and the mix very difficult to stir. The mix will taste like it’s mostly made up of milk solids.
5. Now, spoon it out on to a piece of waxed paper, and flatten it into shape with your hands. You should have to use the spoon to get it out of the pan, and your hands to flatten it because it’ll be too stiff for the spoon. Let cool and set, then break up into pieces. Enjoy!

It is a lot of work, but desert candy is really so lovely. It melts in your mouth, and has a very slight caramel flavour. But mostly it is amazing, because it is pure sugar. One small piece will get you good.

New project! Shifting Frames #1 out now! Check it.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I haven’t done very much cooking lately. I’ve been eating an ungodly amount of delivered pizza instead. It’s not entirely my fault; I’m starting up a chapter of the HPA here, and my fellow exec have Pizza Pizza on speed dial.

I haven’t even had a proper grocery shopping session in a while. I was running out of necessities though, and did a quick Metro run. It was there that they found me – memories of my forgotten love, and the quinces that triggered them.

Sometime last year, I decided that if I ever had Michael Bublé over for dinner, I’d make him a quince tart. & he’d propose to me instantly after the first bite. A girl can dream, right? Alas, Mr. Bublé is now happily married to another, and I’m left to finish my quince tart alone. Not too bad a deal, now that I think about it .

Eating quince is a luxurious experience. While a lot like an apple, but bitter when raw, the fruit cooks down to a soft pear-like texture, with a beautiful, jammy, complex flavour. I cooked the quince in a sugar, using the contents of a chai tea bag, and ratafia for spice. I made this tart for me, after all. Sometimes, we need to remember to do things for ourselves. Especially labour-intensive things we would normally do for another only.

Quince Tart
Makes one medium-sized tart.

1 Quince, peeled and sliced into 16ths
2 Cups water
1 Cup sugar
3 Tablespoons ratafia
1 Chai tea bag
1/2 Recipe pastry dough (I like Devaki’s recipe, though this time I just kind of threw something together)
*NB: Measures are approximate. I kind of eyeballed everything.

1. Pour water into a saucepan, and warm over low-medium heat.
2. Add sugar to water, a little at a time, stirring until dissolved.
3. Once the sugar is dissolved, add in the quince slices, making sure they are at least 1 in below the surface of the water. If not, add more water.
4. Stir in the ratafia and contents of the tea bag. Cook the quince until soft and the colour begins to change, stirring occasionally. This takes a good long while.
5. Let the quince cool, and roll out the pastry dough. Strain the quince slices from the syrup, and place them in the middle of the dough. Save the quince syrup; it’s amazing in pumpkin lattes.
6. Fold edges of dough over towards the middle, like in a galette (only in my case, a lot more messy), and bake till golden brown.

I was volunteering at a Farmer’s Market when we were first introduced. These little beauties are called ground cherries, or Cape Cod gooseberries. They’re related to the tomato family, and grow on the bushes (I believe) of an annual plant. They grow inside papery husks that help preserve them, and indeed they stay good for about four weeks after being plucked, kept out of the fridge. From what the people I was selling these to were saying, I believe a similar plant grows in the Caribbean.

They are somewhat sweet, and a bit tomato-y in texture, but don’t actually taste anything like a tomato or a cherry. It’s a bit difficult to describe, but almost everyone who tried them was hooked, including me. It was a bit difficult to deal with because I kept giving out samples of them while not being able to eat any myself. But then the farmers were nice enough to let me take some home for free! If you ever have a chance to try these, I highly recommend you do, they are to die for!

& I’m having a giveaway over on my Facebook page!

Our spread, minus 1 pizza that was too big to fit

We went to the Danforth location, at my son’s suggestion. He’s the only one who’d ever been to Magic oven out of the four of us. So he knew exactly what he was ordering – a large Vegan Magic pizza with daiya cheese.

I had a bit of this. It was very good, but I couldn’t really taste the daiya cheese.

I shared with Lexi, my “daughter”, model, and now associate for our new pet project, Shifting Frames. We got a large Cali Bruschetta Magic pizza, and fettuccine with pesto and toasted walnuts. The pasta was fantastic, mildly refreshing but very filling, so I could only have a little of it.

The pizza had this amazing tomato-ginger sauce, which was nice and kicky with the cilantro. Good contrast with the cool avocado.

Maybe it’s because I’m not used to white carbs, but the pizza crust was rather sweet. It was somewhat thin, but with the airiness of a thicker crust. I loved it. But what I loved even more was dessert – white chocolate blueberry cheesecake. The top was probably a mix of whipped cream and some kind of cheese, very light and mildly sweet. But the actual cheesecake-y part made me realise how much I’ve missed cheesecake. IT was so soft and creamy, with just the right amount of blueberry flavour. The tart, alcohol-based sauce set off the sweetness nicely.

There were only two small slices of cheesecake left, so they were nice enough to give us both. Score!

They did take some time preparing our food, but I’m going to take that as a sign of freshness rather than poor service. The bill did run a little steep, but it was definitely worth it. It was all rather healthy, too. We all ended up with a good amount of food to take home. I will definitely be going again.

Look at the adorable grease heart! Um…

Ohemgee you guys, my last tutorial made it on to Geek Crafts! I would like to thank my mother, and my father, and my stuffed teddy Theodore for always believing in me. Love you, Teddy!

Anyway, remember that purple plaid from a while back? Well, it’s all sewn up now, and as lovely as ever. As it was already patterned, I wanted to go with a simple design for the dress. Summer is all about simplicity, right? & being lazy =P.

So for this month’s tutorial (let’s pretend it’s still August, shhh), let’s hold on to the last easy-breeziness of the summer with this super simple dress!

Difficulty Level: 1

Materials
+Fabric (I bought 2 metres and had a good bit left over)
+Thin elastic
+Newspaper
+Scissors
+Chalk
+Safety pin
+Needle and thread
+A belt
*N.B.: This tutorial assumes the reader knows what it means to hem something and how to do a drawstring.

If you’ve never sewn before, this dress shouldn’t be too difficult. You will only need to take two measurements: around the widest part of your body (width), and from where the “neckline” will start to where the hem will end (length). I made my “neckline” right above my chest, and the hem at my ankles. Divide the width by 2, and add 5 inches to the new number. Make a rectangle out of paper with this new number as the width, and the previously measured length. I did this by taping together a bunch of newspaper pages, and trimming the resulting sheet to size.

Lay the fabric out so that the “outside” (the side you want to show) is facing up. Fold the fabric over on itself. Pin the rectangle to the fabric, and trace around it. I prefer to use white chalk for this, but you can also use a chip of a bar of soap. Remove the paper rectangle, and trace a margin around the outline. Make the margin 5/8 of an inch around all the sides except one of the short sides – make the margin around that side 1-inch wide. Baste up the long sides through both layers of fabric.

Cut through the two layers of fabric along the margin lines you just drew. You should have two rectangles of fabric loosely sewn together on the sides. Sew the sides up properly, and hem the short edge with the smaller margin. Now hem the opposite end, but leave a gap near one of the side seams. The farther down you make your stitching, the easier the next stage will be, and the more of a ruffle you’ll get at the top. I made mine very close to the crease, so not so much ruffle or easiness.

Finally, it’s time to make this thing wearable. Take your elastic, and cut a piece less than half the circumference around yourself where you want the “neckline” to be. Now to thread it through the channel you just made in the previous stage. This is probably the most difficult part of all. It’s a lot like threading a drawstring, use the safety pin to drag the elastic through the gap and the channel. Bunch up the fabric along the way to help you get the elastic all the way through. Once you finish, sew together the ends of the elastic, and close the gap to seal.

Et voilà! It’s kind of shapeless, but that’s easily fixed by a lovely belt. So easy, and you can customize it however you want! This dress is also perfect if your weight fluctuates depending on which city you live in (aka: Toronto makes you fat), since it’ll probably fit you through any changes you go through.