Just another dent in the damage…

My house is full of vegans – bar Bella, she eats fish with her Amicat – and it means there are a lot of cook books. I make it sound like there are a lot of people in my house but in fact there’s just the two of us and our cat, Bella. And I guess the reason we have so many cook books is due to Max’s obsession with recipe clippings, he has a whole lever arch file full! Being vegan is not difficult, it just means you have to think more about your food, plan your meals, your pack lunches for work and check menus before you agree to a night out. But to make veganism really work for you at home you’ve got to learn some darn cooking skills, make your food exciting and never settle for just a hummus sandwich or a dreadlock burger or that god awful sos mix. Veganism is better than that! But I hate cooking – I hate waiting for things to cook – anything that takes longer than 20 minutes makes my stomach hurt and I end up eating most of it out of the pan before it even hits my plate. Max calls me a picker, I can’t help it! Say you’re cooking with a pepper and you’ve got it nicely chopped up ready, for every piece the pan gets my mouth gets the other. It’s just the way it goes.

Max caught on to my dislike of cooking early on and figured the way to my heart would definitely be through my stomach. It worked. Five years on I eat like royalty… every day. Even if there’s absolutely nothing in he never fails to cook up a feast of feasts. Leave it to me and we’d be eating chilli and wedges every day, not that there is anything wrong with that either though.

So just as I was getting used to letting Max own the kitchen, except on my occasional baking days when I crack out super tasty cookies or cupcakes, in walks Vegan Yum Yum and turns my culinary failings into something more at home on Masterchef. I’ve turned a corner, I get excited about coating my tofu with a corn flour batter, whizzing up a tahini paste for my steamed broccoli and turning tomato ketchup into an incredibly mouth watering sweet and sour sauce. I’ve followed Lauren’s amazing blog for a while and always been insanely jealous of these rather special cupcakes from the Martha Stewart show but I never really thought I (the world’s most reluctant cook) could make any of this incredible food myself. Then I get a copy of the cook book and how wrong I was.

What makes the book so special for me and what makes me rate this more highly than any other book on our shelves are the beautifully shot images of the finished meal. Pictures of the food is something a great deal of our cook books lack and by being so anal about following craft patterns to the T I’m one of these that literally follows every instruction within the recipe and I like my food to look like the picture. Without pictures how can you really make your recipe appealing? Really? I like to decide what I want to eat by seeing how tasty it looks. And there are many many tasty things to choose from in this.

The added bonus of planning my every meal around the Lauren Ulm Bible is being able to take her recipes everywhere I go via my phone! Yes, she has an iPhone app [iTunes link] too that includes many of the recipes from the book and updates as and when she updates the blog. And again, as well as a handy ‘tick’ function to mark off your ingredients, there’s pictures!! Don’t just relay on making your food sound good… make it look good! Have a look at some of these master pieces from my very own kitchen:

Broccoli Almond Sweet and Sour Tofu

Nearly Raw Tahini Noodles

Spicy Tomato and Chickpea Soup (pp. 180) with a pepper, onion and avocado salsa topping

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread (pp. 13)

Creamy Broccoli Dal (pp. 173) with homemade roti

And tonight we ate Hurry Up Alfredo (sorry about the poor image quality on this one):

We added black olives on top for a little extra bite, and it was wicked! This cook book is amazing… seriously. It’s probably the best cook book in the world. When Lauren says ‘decadent (BUT DOABLE) animal-free recipes for entertaining and every day’ she actually means it! They are the most doable recipes I’ve ever read and some of the most yummy food I’ve ever tasted.

I’m not much of a New Year’s Resolution type person but last year I did write a list of 25 things I wanted to do in 2009. I thought it’d be worth going over what I did and didn’t do ready to prepare a new list of 26 things I want to do in 2010. So let’s see:

1) Set up an Etsy store and start selling small crafts: Well, I got the Etsy store bit sorted but getting the stuff to sell has been harder. I thought it’d just be a case of make a load of stuff and get it listed but it turns out a lot of the patterns I’ve been using to make consumables are all copyrighted and you can’t sell the stuff you make using them. Turns out I need to start writing my own patterns if I want to sell anything I make. The only things I really have for sale are my SSCS crochet whales as it’s OK to make money you intend to donate to charity, but a store with only one item to sell would be pretty naff right? I’ll work on this one. Promise.

2) Make more use of sewing machine and create at least one skirt from scratch: Again I kinda half did this. I reorganised my craft room so I can actually get at my machine without having to carry it about everywhere and I sorted out all the stuff I need to get on with making things – I just didn’t get round to making the skirt. But, I did make a lovely cushion (and embroidered it) and ploughed through one of my sewing books so I can learn more about what my machine does. I think this coming year will be my skirt making year so watch this space!

3) Learn to dive: CHECK! I actually did this one. This year I not only got my PADI Open Water but I completed my PADI Advanced Open Water and got qualified in Enriched Air diving. I’ve got about 20 dives logged now and am super excited about getting out and seeing more of the world’s oceans. At Christmas I went to Malaysia and got to play about with my new camera, here’s Nemo:

4) Learn Photoshop basics to improve photographs: So Photoshop is harder than I thought and there is definitely a lot to learn on this… but I’ve made a start. I’ve managed to cut three people out of one image and put them in to another, I’ve rubbed out plastic bottles and lamp-posts and learnt about image size and how to crop (ya’know – the simple stuff). My cutting out skills definitely need working on though. Max also showed me how to open my eyes – i.e. cut out Claire’s open eyes and stick them over my closed eyes!

This is a photo taken of Claire and I with Todd Kowalski from Propagandhi. On the original picture we were outside a pub and my eyes were closed. Here we are in Hawaii with my eyes open (if you look very closely you’ll notice they’re very similar to Claire’s eyes).

5) Take more photos and get uploading to Flickr: My new camera has helped with this one. On my last holiday I took about 1000 photos! Can you ever imagine doing this with an old camera that needed film? Crazy! Anyway I’ve slowly been making more use of Flickr and you can go and see my photos any time – lexrigby’s Photostream.

6) Make Donna a big granny blanket: Yes yes I did this. It got completed on March 18th for her birthday. Here is a picture of me admiring the finished product:

7) Print some Moo cards: Totally failed on this one. I figured I didn’t really need any if I didn’t get the store up and going. They’ll come eventually when I’m all business like.

8) Get funding for the IATUL conference in Belgium: I failed this too but it was kinda out of my hands. I wrote my statement about why I should be awarded the funding but at the last minute one of my bosses decided to write the entire thing himself on my behalf. I don’t blame him for not getting it or anything as I was told the application was exceptional, just not exceptional enough. Life goes on.

9) Design a cross-stitch pattern to raise more funds for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: This was another one of those half did/half didn’t ones. Whilst I didn’t get around to design the pattern I longed to do I did get all subversive after buying Subversive Cross Stitch and started writing some cross stitch patterns inspired by Propagandhi lyrics.

10) Organise another SSCS fundraiser: This one is another ’still to do’. I think time ran away with me on this one. Whilst I didn’t organise a fundraiser myself I did volunteer at a number of events this year (including the International Dive Show at the NEC) and completed the first round of volunteer training. I’m now listed as an official volunteer on the Sea Shepherd UK website, so it’s all good in the hood still.

11) Make sushi: No making but plenty of eating. I’m going to get Donna to show me how to do this, she makes amazing sushi!

12) Finish Ursula tattoo: Yep, done and dusted. This is on my back:

13) Start work on Kali tattoo: I didn’t do this but I did get a whale instead, I think Kali needs more thinking about. This one is on my left inner arm – it was pretty swollen so excuse the chubbiness, I think the photo is a bit squished too (I got it off Myspace because I couldn’t be bothered to take a photo):

14) Keep up the weekly postings on my work blog: I did this! Want proof? See Librarians’ Blog for Science and Engineering.

15) Master the art of false lashes (just because there’s got to be at least one vanity thing in here): I did this too but none of my pictures are close enough for you to see them clearly. I’ll work on getting proof of this.

16) Keep up with the personal training sessions: After a year I figured these were just getting far too expensive to continue. I went from about August 2008 to August 2009. I fully intended to restart them but really £120 a month on top of my £42 a month gym membership… really.

17) Tick off the to-do list and write up results: I guess the result of this is this blog post. I did tick items off in my book and did refer back to my list to remind me what I needed to do, I just didn’t do as much as I wanted. I had planned to do a scrap book but I definitely think a blog post is more my thing.

18) Start open uni short course on marine biology: The Open Uni course I wanted to do is a short module called Life in the Oceans: Exploring our Blue Planet. It looks like the greatest short course of all time but a las I’ve not had a spare £150 to do it yet. I will though, studying Richard Attenborough’s Blue Planet sounds like the best thing ever.

19) Prepare for Cilip (this is the professional association of librarians) chartership: I simply changed my mind on this one I’m afraid. I just don’t know if I want to charter just yet. The chartership means doing a lot of work I just don’t want to do at the moment. Career development portfolios and all that malarky… snore.

20) Cook for Max at least once a month: I managed this one I think for a few months. I mainly make him puddings like cookies and cake. This will change this year though as I’ve a new cook book and it’s amazing. I won’t tell you anything else yet as I’m working on a post for this beauty that stands alone.

21) Visit Stef in Canterbury: Sorry Stef, you just come home too much. I’ll visit her this year for sure.

22) Read Moby Dick: I didn’t do this either, but I did read a lot about other whales!

23) Cycle to work at least twice a week in the Summer: This is my main regret I think. I should have done this, but I didn’t. Curse me.

24) Watch a broadway show: For my 25th birthday Sarah got me some gift vouchers for a London show and after loads of faffing about she never got to come with me. Instead, Max and I went to see Wicked… and it was wicked. I’d already read the book (and thought it very strange) so was interested to see how it would translate to stage. I liked it, it worked well and luckily they kept all the sexy scenes out.

25) Finish decorating the kitchen: YES, YES and YES and it’s the greatest kitchen of all time.

I’ve already written this year’s list… I might put it up later but in the meantime, thanks for reading.

Last week saw the return of Sheffield’s FREE vegan food fair. We had a great time making up soups, chillis, curries, pizzas, vol au vonts, dips, cakes, cookies, displaying fresh fruit and serving up jo-public. Although essentially the fair was 100% free, donations were welcomed and ended up covering the entire cost of the venue and extras. What a result! We welcomed the homeless and the Big Issue sellers – sending them on their ways with full tummies and take outs. Take a look at some of these!

There seems to be a lot of stuff flying around at the moment about what the Noughties will be remembered for. What has happened in the last decade that will make it stand out from other decades? Well…

In general:

9/11?
The ‘War on Terror’ (i.e. two unjustified unending wars)?
America’s first black President?
Iran’s disputed elections?
The Large Hadron Collider?
The horrific Mumbai terror attacks?
The death of Michael Jackson?
Global warming?
Google?
The Indian Ocean tsunami?
Swine flu?

(notice a theme?)

Personally:

A whole load a shit and not so much shit.

Check out this wicked QR Code scarf on the Craft Video Podcast. I’d knit this by hand if I was actually good enough.

CRAFT Video: Machine-Knitted QR Code Scarf from make magazine on Vimeo.

…but like Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s modern dictator.

After the death of his brother, Basil in 1994 (first in line for Presidency), Bashar left the UK and his studies in ophthalmology to assume the mantle of President in waiting. Six years later his father Hafez al-Assad (in office 1971-2000) died and the new President arose.

Unlike Hafez, Bashar is a believer in the democraticisation of Syria and the liberalisation of its people, but to change a stagnant old-fashioned dictatorship is no easy task and will little (if any) leadership training is Bashar even capable of such a thing? Look at Barack Obama for example, has he actually met his promise of change yet? Hardly, to change anything means changing a system of doing things and we all know how bureaucratic these things can be. Change is difficult – even trying to change information on a webpage at work is complex enough for me. Changing the whole mentality of a nation is big and it’s probably why after a decade of Bashar we haven’t seen much happen.

It’s quite ironic that even the Internet, which Bashar himself introduced, is heavily restricted and is in itself an example of how to ‘deliberalise’ the people, limiting their freedom of expression. Learning about the decision making processes of Syrian politics came from reading his father’s meeting notes. And it was here where he learnt that ’unlike performing eye surgery, running a country like Syria requires a certain comfort with ambiguity’.

November’s edition of the National Geographic magazine featured an awesome piece about Syria and the Assads and is definitely worth taking the time to read.

Syria really is a beautiful country and the BEST place in the world to eat falafel… seriously. Aleppo’s citadel is breathtaking and if you happen to find this dude (on the left) in Damascus stop and have a chat, eat his patties – they’re awesome.

Have a look through this photo gallery too, the images are stunning.

I’m back from Egypt… now a qualified Enriched Air Advanced Open Water diver. Yeah, check me out! The weather was great, the eels a plenty and I found Nemo!

And here’s a couple of giant moray eels courtesy of Lerotic:

The first couple of weeks of term are always the busiest for an academic librarian, mainly because it’s the god awful induction time of year. To be fair I got off quite lightly by only seeing about 300 students, but of the sessions I did a couple of those were to over 100 at a time! How scary is that! I’m not a teacher and never envisioned having to ‘teach’ but alas for your average librarian information literacy skill sessions are just a part of the job now. I think once over the nerves I’ll be cool with it and the more practice I get the better I’ll be…. right?

This year I mainly stuck to a traditional ‘I speak, you listen’ type format yet with inquiry-based learning on the rise I guess I’ll be expected to try new things soon. It seemed to work quite well and by keeping it short I hope I didn’t bore too many people. I can’t ever remember being told how to use a library catalogue but I guess I must have been at some point. Maybe I just used common sense, who knows, but for a lot of students this could be the first time they’ve ever used a library and we can’t assume that everyone is good at simple searching. Amazon wasn’t that popular when I was at university but I guess the majority of students these days are familiar with how to search that… and it’s not that different to searching a library catalogue. Is it?

It’s not until you have to prepare induction sessions that you realise how much there is to tell people. I kept my actual speaking time to about 30 minutes because I understand that new students have so much to take in during those first couple of weeks and most of what I say probably went in one ear and out the other anyway. I simply just covered the basics: how to find the library, how to use library systems and general house rules. I think the main thing is to give the library a face. Students need to know who I am and where they can find me.

I also ran a session for post-graduates. The difficulty with these is that you need to focus more on databases and how to access/search journals. Therefore you need to know what databases they’re likely to use and come up with good examples of things to search. Lucky for me these students were from Animal and Plant Sciences and given they’re my second favourite department I was quite comfortable with search terms and strategies.

This year is the first year we’ve had the new Liaison Librarians (i.e. myself and two others) in place as support for the Faculty Librarians and so it’s been the first year my equivalents have also done these induction sessions. One of my colleagues was a little braver than me and decided to introduce the Cephalonia (or Kefalonia) way of doing these. The ‘Cephalonian Method‘ is the brain child of Linda Davies (Cardiff University’s Science Librarian) and was introduced to ‘freshen things up and give induction some sparkle‘. I managed to sit in on one of these sessions and it definitely worked as a good ice-breaker. It made the session more interactive and students were very responsive… it even led to more questions at the end. I’m not sure if I’ll do something similar next year but at least its given me something to think about. If anyone wants to share any induction ideas with me then please… get in touch, I think I’m gonna need a lot of help.

Emptying my bins on Thursday night is a weekly task and little thought ever goes into it but this week I had a revelation! Opening up the bathroom bin to see pretty much a whole carrier bag full of cotton wool pads got me thinking… ‘what if I could find some alternative that is better for the environment and cheaper for me to buy’. It was a little thought, one that was there and then went as quick as it came and life went on until morning. Anyway as the daily routine of opening up Google Reader came about I whizzed through a few hundred boring news feeds and then BAM Eco Peek-o from Craft Candy hit me smack bang in the middle of my falafel sandwich! The answer to my prayers: Machine washable exfoliating round facial scrubbles from ‘Buy Hand‘ on Etsy.

So after browsing a few more of these little scrubbies I was just about to hit the buy button when I had a second brainwave – why don’t I just make some myself? And so, I did. I tried with single crochet, double crochet, magic circles, amigurumi spirals etc and settled on the pattern you’ll find at the bottom.

I think the double crochet ones worked the best. First off they’re an actual circle and not a sort of flattened hexagon like the single crochet type on the left. I also preferred starting with a magic ring rather than the typical chain method as you’ll notice in the picture below a magic ring means the centre hole is much smaller – but seen as this is just a preference I’ve included both in the pattern.

You’ll need:

• Kool Kotton – machine washable double knitting in white (or a colour of your choice);
• 5mm crochet hook;
• tapestry needle;
• scissors.

Instructions:

rd 1 – chain (ch) 3, 12 double crochet (dc) in 3rd ch from hook, slip stitch (sl st) to join round OR make a magic ring with 12 dc in round, sl st to join round (12);
rd 2 – ch 3, 1 dc in same stitch *2 dc in next stitch, repeat from * 11 times, finish round with sl st in 3rd ch stitch (24);
rd 3 – ch 3, 2 dc in next stitch, *1 dc in next stitch, 2 dc in next stitch, repeat from * 10 times, finish round with sl st in 3rd ch stitch (36).
Finish off and weave in ends.

Voi la and see you later disposable cotton wool pads, I’m hanging out with my new friends now.

I saw this a while ago but considering it seems to be doing the rounds again I thought I’d throw in a quick “what the hell were you thinking woman!?” I love granny squares but this is seriously yak. I’d be a little impressed if Cate Blanchett actually made it herself… but only a little.