Fall Light

Photography is one of those hobbies that I say I do but really have no idea about. So basically, just like every other hipster with an iPhone, I too have succumbed to the taking of kinda pretty pictures and then filtering them through instagram, etc and calling myself a 'photographer'. I do actually have a pretty decent Nikon D80 that I also use (-plea of credibility-). 

My uncle gave me the old D80 a couple years ago when he upgraded to a new camera. I've read the manual, although it's incredibly confusing to a beginner, and learned about focal points and the different lens capabilities. It was all very math-y, which is fine by me. 

I supposed more than anything, I like taking pictures of light. Especially fall light. It ranges so much since Alberta is relatively far north; from pale white in the morning to syrup golden in the evenings. 

Really though, photography is about the pictures. So see them above! 

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

 

Cooking: Aged 11 and up

I started cooking for a family of four when I was a kid. This is probably the reason why I love cooking so much. From a young age I got to basically do as I pleased when it came to food. And, surprisingly, I only messed up a couple times. This is why cooking is my happy place, where I can create amazing meals that people enjoy, and feel accomplished at something.

Time for the Backstory! Both my parents were professional engineers and worked full time. So as a result, I had a nanny from when I was 8-months old on. When I got old enough to start looking after myself and my sister, my mom instructed Hilda, our then nanny, to teach me the meals she cooked for the family. I was probably around 11 years old. I was taught simple meals, that could be made in 20 minutes. (Also, to be fair, Mom taught me some meals too. I just don't seem to remember which ones.) Typically these simple meals, because I grew up in Alberta, had such staples as potatoes, corn and all the beef. 

So I learned how to chop onions and potatoes and other vegetables. I learned how much salt to add to a pot based on how much water you had. I learned how to cook ground meat and roasts. Little things that I figured out by myself over the years as I made the same 9 recipes for my family over and over. Now I definitely won't claim to have been a chef extraordinary by the time I turned 13, but I had mastered the meals I had been preparing, on rotation, for all those years. I'm not joking about there being only 9 meals. I made them Every Day.

It wasn't until I turned 17 that my culinary escapade really changed. After my horrible job at a Boston Pizza, I started to work for my then friend's, now BF/Husband guy's, Mom. She ran concession services for the city and a catering business on the side. That women can cook. The BF would talk, mouth watering, about dinners he was going home to after class at the University. Soon, I came over for dinner too and came to realize that all those years I had been making "food" in name only and not in flavour. I had never had a curry before, or sushi, or Chinese food, or Thai food, or any food that wasn't meat and potatoes. My eyes opened, I returned home with recipes and food ideas I'd never even knew existed. (Yes, I was super sheltered.)

I experimented with curry, much to the chagrin of my non-curry liking family; I made vegetarian chilis with different kinds of beans and actual vegetables; I made spiced chicken breast with basmati rice; I made risottos. I used spices I'd never knew existed and all was good in the world of the tastebud. 

When the BF and I moved out together in 2009, he taught me even more recipes that his mom would make. And we even improved on some of my favourite 'original' family meals. 

Really, the point is that I'm still learning about cooking even today. About really weird ingredients or about better ways to cook food X. It's been the longest and funnest adventure out of all my hobbies. The key: to always keep trying new things and learning. Sometimes things just don't work out and throwing out an entire meal out happens (which is a blessing in disguise, because then you have permission to order Indian food to comfort the Ego). But the next time will be better, and the next time after that even more so. 

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

 

Sewing: A Love Story

The #1 hobby that, despite being relatively horrible at, is the hobby I always come back too, is Sewing. Much like most kids in the Alberta curriculum, I learned to sew at school in Home Ec. And by 'learned to sew', I mean was given a square of fabric to sew a square pillow out of. (The teacher was more concerned about salmonella's over reaching power to kill everyone than to really show us how to sew. That women was raw egg crazy.) So I really didn't learn to sew until after I graduated university and wanted something to do with my new found evenings off. 

I bought an old Kenmore off kijiji for $30 (steal of a deal!) and started doing regular sewing party Sundays with my friend Lesley. Spoiler: Lesley is the one who taught me how to sew. 

Since 2011, I have done many projects, some I'm proud of and others I was proud of until the realization of how horrible they really were. For example, the drapery fabric skirt, yes, that I made and wear quite a lot. 

I did eventually get better though. My projects got bigger and fancier and more complicated. I made dresses upon dresses and high waisted skirts. All of which were nice. The most annoying project was the floral dress, which I lined myself, to much chagrin of my fingers who had to do all the hand stitching. My best dress was the linen one. Except I put a crinoline under it. Nobody, and I mean no one, like sewing mesh. Worst. 

Above are all the pictures of the projects I've attempted. Some good, some hilarious. I'll be making more of both variety in the future. Guaranteed.  

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

The Knittering

In the spring of 2012 I was unemployed. And what better to do than pick up a new hobby! Since I had only ever half-assedly tried to learn when I was a child I thought I'd take up the yarnning past time and learn to knit. 

My first experience with knitting had been at my Oma's house when my sister and I had attempted to knit skirts for our barbie dolls. Needless to say, I took the knitting project home, promptly forgot about it, and some many years later I found a foggy plastic bag filled with old knitting at the back of a desk drawer. This second attempt, I promised myself, would be a lot better (and hopefully I wouldn't find any projects stuffed in the back of a drawer in a decade). 

So I went to the craft-iest place I could think of, Michaels. I bought some sized 7 single-ended needles, some dishcloth yarn, and a booklet for beginners. 

Firstly, if you're trying to learn to knit via cartoon pictures of needles and yarn it's very hard to know where your hands go. Secondly, Youtube is a knitting beginners salvation. And thirdly, it helps to have someone straighten you out who knows how to knit. In the last case, my Oma helped me out. 

My Oma

My Oma

So between all these sources I learned haphazardly how to knit. Even if the booklet was rather useless it did provide lessons on the lingo, knit and purl and yarn-over, etc.  Youtube provided visuals that a book can't convey (which even to this day I check out when I run into a new stitch). And Oma was there to teach me the basics of hand placement and the difference between knit and purl (even though she taught me the 'european backwards way', said another lady who saw me knitting in waiting room, who also told me I was knitting wrong). Since I really don't do things the way they're supposed to be done anyway it didn't matter much. And I still get the exact same results.

Honestly though, I was horrible at knitting. Seriously. The tension was off or I forgot what side was 'wrong'. If knitting were breathing I would be very very dead. But if there is a hobby where you can erase your mistakes like it never happened, it's knitting (unfortunately my breathing analogy falls short here...). Practice was it and since I was unemployed at the time, I had lots of availability in my schedule to do just that. 

Eventually I got better. Except at reading patterns... which I'm still horrible at. But I half-assed my way through lots of projects. My favourite was probably a multicoloured scarf whose pattern I made up because the pattern I tried to follow was hard. I even upped the difficulty to making gloves in a round with 4 double-ended needles (which sounds more impressive than it really is, but shhhhhh). 

My escapade into the old-ish art of looping yarn was a relative success. And I really only had half-assed the hand positions, the pattern reading and learning the differences between different yarns.... So basically I'm a professional now. Obviously. 

 -Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist

 

Thunder Thighs: The Pie Reckoning

When I was a kid we had this apple tree in our backyard. Every year my mother, sister and I would make pie after pie after pie. For about 2 weeks straight in the end of August, weeknights and weekends, we would make pie. One year we made 24. Needless to say, I don't ever make that many pies anymore. Having that many pies around might unleash Thunder Thighs: The Pie Reckoning .

But I do still enjoy making pie. Specifically apple. So when we were invited to dinner at the BF's Aunt's and the option of picking their huge garden grown apples was offered I jumped at the chance. And by that I mean I made the BF go pick some. 

The recipe I used is a simple recipe that my mom drilled into me as a child. 

Dough

5 cups flour

2 tsp salt

1 lb shortening 

(I used butter.... and crisco.... cause that's what was in my apartment) 

1 egg

2 TBSP white vinegar

Cold Water

Instructions: 

  1. Measure out flour and salt into a large bowl. Mix. 
  2. Cut in shortening until pea sized.
  3. Crack egg into a 1 cup liquid measure. Beat egg.  
  4. Add vinegar to beaten egg.
  5. Add cold water to egg and vinegar mixture until 1 cup measure.  Mix.
  6. Pour liquid mixture into flour mixture. Mix till a dough forms. (Add extra flour if dough is to sticky to handle)

Make enough for 3 pies (top and bottom).

Freezes well! 

Pie Filling

7-8 cups peeled, cored and sliced apples

1 cup granulated sugar

2 TBSP flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

Instructions:

Mix everything together! Let sit while you roll out the pie dough. Stir once more before filling pie.  

Bake at 400 for 1 hour or until filling is bubbling and pastry is golden brown.  

Future Apple Babies

Future Apple Babies

Not even needing to look up the recipe gives me a feeling of mild pride, mixed with a sense of lost potential as a human recipe book. Anyway.

I managed to get some primo apple seeds out of the hugest apples so hopefully I will have a baby apple tree in the next couple months!  

Cheers! 

-Andrea

The Half-Assed Hobbyist