bran muffins
April 28, 2010
Not sure if my new (secondhand) embroidered apron was an excuse to bake something, or if baking was an excuse to try out the new apron (which I initially bought to cut up into something else). Either way. I have a funny new apron with a creepy flower-sniffing lady on it. And some muffins.
This recipe was a favourite of mine growing up, pretty much the only muffins I liked on account of their not being overly sweet or cakey. Back then I’d pile a huge blob of Imperial margarine (all through the 70s and early 80s, one of my all time favourite foods) (ew!) on top rather than cutting into the muffin. Nowadays I eat them plain.
Here’s a scan of my mom’s original recipe. I make mine a little differently because I’m all snobby about whole grains and the like (changes below):
Refrigerator Bran Muffins (Mom’s way)
2 eggs
3/4 c. oil
1 c. sugar
2 c. milk
2 c. flour
1 c. bran
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. raisins
Sift dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients and stir in. Don’t overmix. Stir in raisins. Spoon batter into greased muffin tins. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes. *Batter keeps 10-14 days in refrigerator.
Over the years I’ve made a few adjustments to suit my taste better: less sugar, about 2/3 cup instead of a whole cup (when I was living on my own in Athens for grad school I liked to use organic raw sugar; today I used white sugar because it’s what we had), mixing half unbleached all purpose flour with half whole wheat flour, adding about 1/4 cup of flax seeds. As I don’t recall my mom ever making these with raisins, I don’t use raisins either (too sweet anyway). If I’m making these for myself (like when I was away from home in grad school) I’ll use soy milk instead of cow milk, but if I’m making them for my family I stick with the cow. Even when I do substitute soy, I still grease the pans with butter, because there is no other way.
Posted by jodi on April 28, 2010 at 6.10pm
photos
April 26, 2010
A busy and at times frustrating day, with too much emailing, too much running around, not enough progress, and a knitting machine showing up in the mail right at a time when it was impossible to drop everything and set it up and play with it RIGHT THEN. Started rainy and cold, turned to sunny and just on the cusp of warm enough for a t-shirt, then the winds rolled in like banshees.
Posted by jodi on April 26, 2010 at 8.53pm
buying local
April 25, 2010
Saturday was Dr. Disc day, the long-awaited opening of Windsor’s Dr. Disc Records in their palatial new quarters at 471 Ouellette Street. Peter and I are avid record collectors, and as our collection is currently in a period of rapid expansion in preparation for an exciting! new! project (which I PROMISE I will write a little bit about this week), and because we just plain love this store and have ever since our youthful days spent happily shopping at their (sadly departed) flagship location in London, we headed downtown to celebrate the reopening by showing them some good old fashioned loving. And by “loving”, I mean “cash on the barrel head, hon”.
Shiny!
The store’s been open for less than a day and already someone has discarded a Tim Hortons coffee cup on an empty bit of shelf. A sort of christening, I suppose. (No, we did not buy either of those records you see above there).
This new location is two floors, with all of the used vinyl upstairs. There was a whole second room up there that was mostly empty but for some (empty) record bins, so I foresee lots of exciting expansion there. Here’s hoping this means all of those milk crates of overflow vinyl will soon be up off the floor and more readily accessible to those music lovers like us who are pushing geriatric, because y’all, I just can’t crouch for an hour sifting through those crates like I used to.
What we bought:
1. Half Man Half Biscuit Dickie Davies Eyes (an extended single, which normally we don’t collect, but we make exceptions for bands whose work is hard to find)
2. The The Soul Mining
3. Sleater-Kinney Dig Me Out
4. Tom Waits Mule Variations
5. Lene Lovich Stateless (Peter said “don’t know much about her but she looks like a weirdo so let’s get it”, a strategy that has worked out for us in the past)
6. Iron Butterfly Ball
7. Jerry Jeff Walker Mr. Bojangles
8. Marianne Faithfull Rich Kid Blues
9. Alanis Morissette Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie
10. The Shins Wincing the Night Away (containing the song that was recently stuck in my head for a month or more, making buying this possibly a bad idea)
11. Dwight Yoakam Hillbilly Deluxe (yes, I like this. Shut up).
Posted by jodi on April 25, 2010 at 9.37pm
cleo
April 24, 2010
It’s hard to see because she’s all one colour, but the tip of her tail is sticking out from between her front paws.
Posted by jodi on April 24, 2010 at 7.41pm
across and back
April 22, 2010
North America’s most traveled international border crossing is eminently photogenic even through the dirty windshield of a moving car.
Here’s one taken last month from the parking lot underneath the bridge.
Bonus! In the tunnel, coming back home.
Posted by jodi on April 22, 2010 at 8.48pm
video
April 20, 2010
I figured out how to switch the Harinezumi digital to black and white video mode, which involves a complex sequence of button pushes, a few incantations and a bit of waving a dead chicken around. This video was shot while flying into Toronto a few days ago. Sitting at the airplane window watching the mediated version of the experience in the camera display instead of out the window itself is strange enough, but add in the low-fi Zumi video’s resemblance to black and white 8mm film, and it’s almost possible to fool oneself into believing that flight was in a zeppelin instead of a plane.
Posted by jodi on April 20, 2010 at 9.25pm
arrival
April 18, 2010
Flying into Windsor Friday afternoon. It’s awfully shaky, but the turbulence was nasty. About two minutes before the video started, the plane did one of those stomach-flipping drops. Fun!
Windsor sure has a lot of swimming pools.
Posted by jodi on April 18, 2010 at 6.38pm
goodbye, north bay
April 16, 2010
I’ll miss you.
Posted by jodi on April 16, 2010 at 6.00am
student drawings
April 15, 2010
A few more from the Life Drawing II class.
Laurel Gough
Laura Randall
Lexi Dixon
Posted by jodi on April 15, 2010 at 9.40pm
what a seven hour faculty meeting looks like
April 14, 2010
in my day planner/colouring book.
Posted by jodi on April 14, 2010 at 9.15pm
