Salt or what makes the cookie crumbles

Tasty!

I've never been a fan of cookies. I grew up in a household where my mother gave away store bought cookies to the neighborhood kids. So, we always had a well stocked pantry of cookies.

The kids mainly from my extended family would come, for their cookie fix, almost everyday.

When I was married, I quickly discovered that Richard was a cookie monster. We often bought cookies. Too expensive for the quality. If you want good cookies well their really expensive. So, I started to make cookies for Richard. I explored in making a few varieties: peanut butter, shortbread. But, the favorite so far is the oatmeal. The absolute favorite of Richard.

My recipe has evolved in the last 15 years. I am now satisfied with my new standard, chocolate coconut oatmeal cookie. I would like to share my recipe with you...

Chocolate Chip Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

Makes about 20 cookies.

1/2 C unsalted butter
1 C packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 t. vanilla
1C whole wheat flour
3/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t sea salt (important)
1/2 C wheat germ
1/2 C unsweetened shredded coconut
1 C dark chocolate chips
2 C quick oats

Preheat oven to 350 F

Mix well (I use my trusty food processor) the butter, sugar, egg, & vanilla until it is whiteish color. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, salt, wheat germ, coconut, & chocolate together. Add the wet mix to it and add the oats 1 cup at a time while stirring. You may need to add more oats to get the proper consistency. The consistency is just before it crumbles and sticky enough you can make balls from it. Roll the mixture into ping pong size balls & flatten on parchment sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a rack & try hard not to eat them for 10 minutes!

People who eat my cookies say that their delicious. There's no special ingredient here. It's all about the sea salt and balancing it with the sugar. Maybe that IS the secret ingredient!

My Coconut Dream Pie

My first homemade coconut cream pie...

and not my last one!

We had a special event last Wednesday. It was Richard's 50th birthday. He's requested a coconut cream pie for a long time and I decided that it was time.

I made it from scratch. After all I have my own handmade business. So, I went online for a few recipes to get ideas and just to get inspired. My favorite coconut cream pie recipe is here. I knew it was a winner, all from scratch with coconut milk for the filling gives the whole pie a freshness. It's deceiving; the look and the taste offsets the huge calories inside. For Richard, he's always looking for carbohydrates and for me I'll have to monitor my intake. Basically, I'll have to take it easy.

The recipe didn't call for real fresh coconut. I decided that; real is the deal. So, Richard helped me break the coconut with a hammer. He smashed it, outside on the cement landing, into little shards. I baked the ginger snap cookies in the morning. While the cookies cooled away from Richard. I dried the grated coconut in the oven. Later, I created the mix and put it into the ginger crust then I let it sit for four hours in the fridge.

Just before serving I whipped the cream and served it. It's an easy pie but planning is the key. You have to start in the morning. This pie is everything I expected it to be, it's wonderful. Two things I will change for next time; cut down on the ginger snap crust to half & make more coconut filling!

Discovering wine tasting.

Wine anyone?

I won!

I usually don't participate in contests. Well, I did and I put my name to win a free wine tasting evening. I receive an email from the Francophone College stating... I won! It's the first time I won anything from a contest. In fact, I plainly forgot all about.

It's not a huge win, worth 25 dollars. I would never go myself but why not? It turned out to be interesting. And it is the first time that I participated in a wine tasting. I'm a fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. I watch him with his blind wine tasting and I felt bad that he has to spit out all that wine. I've tasted some bad wine but the French Pinot Noir ($18) was the worse. It tasted like strawberry syrup with alcohol. Just to be nice I gave it 1/10. I thought of Gary and thought about spitting it out, too. I didn't have the heart.
After this experiment, I'm more aware or I'll take notice as to what I'd buy.

It was a fun experiment trying so many kinds of reds. The biggest surprise was the last glass of wine; Avalon from California ($25). Usually I don't like  Cabernet Sauvignon, in fact I loved it! It was full, bold and fills your mouth. You can taste the ripe fruit in it. It's only three years young but it tasted older. I gave this wine a 9/10.

Let's don't forget the bread and cheese. Everything I could live on. Not just any cheese. A special selection of Quebec cheese. A rare treat.

Now, I want to take wine classes. The more you learn the more you want to learn about it. It's so addictive. What would be fun is to grab six friends, six bottles of wine and have a blind test.

Cheers!

Kicking out of bed

For me to get up early is unnatural. I like to linger in bed, but my partner, has the bad habit of getting up early. And he knows, to get me out of bed is to have a cup of my favorite coffee made.

It's the transition of leaving my warm & comfortable bed that is the challenge. I'm a sleeper. I remember when I was in kindergarden, mom ask me to choose if I wanted to go in the morning or afternoon. I said, "I cannot go in the morning, I'm sleeping." I was practical back then. As a kid I use to sleep in until 11 AM. Most of the time I was eating cereal while mom was serving lunch.

I always found a way to get my first cup of coffee. When I moved into a new apartment (my younger days), I couldn't find my French press. I consider using a Turkish coffee technique leaving the grain at the bottom of the cup. It's not my prefer method as the coffee taste is too bitter. I used a corner of one of my t-shirts as a filter. It worked but the t-shirt did not survive!

I love my coffee strong, preferably French roast. Trying out a new coffee brand is one of my favorite activities. It's essential. One of my favorite coffee's is Kicking Horse Coffee from Invermere, BC. I love the blend called Kick Ass which kicks my ass out of bed. I'll always love sleeping in but knowing a good kick ass coffee is waiting gets me out of bed earlier!

Fun Fridays

One may believe that working from home is fun. Working at home, I find, is a whole new concept of time, space & work. I'm lucky and privilege to work from home. It's an personal achievement to work for myself while being appreciated by my customers. I've never had so much recognition for my work. I barely had any before with a 9 to 5 job. In my experience, when I worked for someone, because the employer pays your salary they didn't give me the much needed appreciation.

Now, when I sell to someone, I feel appreciated with every sale. Someone, somewhere likes my products and wants it. It blows my mind.

Working from home I discovered unlimited freedom but I also had to organize myself so I don't burn out.  I work seven days a week but I also take time for myself. As long as the work gets done within a set time and your work is making you happy is hugely important.

When I work at home, with my partner, we work better following an informal schedule. Basically, it allows room for both of us to work more efficiently. And to make sure we include activities to have fun and to enjoy ourselves. That's why Fridays for now on are so important. Traditionally, Friday sparks the end to the work week. It's a point to finally let your hair down and celebrate. I know that we'll be working on the weekends.

It's easy to have Richard's fond love for beer aka the podcasts. He suggested it first. So, I declare officially, Friday afternoons as Beer Break. We slow the production and make room for a tasty beer. Whatever you do in life, try to find joy in it. Because if it doesn't make you happy...  please do something else!

The new La Piccola Wallet!

The new La Piccola Wallet...

Fun, practical, & handy!

You know, after producing this new product, my excitement has grown more intense. I'm talking about Galstudio's new La Piccola Wallet!

This is our first run and we made 20 of these cute little guys and I kept the first one. We first made three prototypes to fine tune them. Working with rubber seems to have it's own mind. I really have to work with it within the constraint of this material. Rubber is not easy to work with but I find it rewarding when I can make something I truly love. Simple details happy fun fabric wrapped in inner tubes is the perfect handy wallet to hold 8 cards and a few bills. It can probably take a few more cards but that's to the owner's discretion.

I had left over pieces of fabric and I used it in the wallets. So much fun just choosing from the funky bright fabric designs. I'm having a lot of fun creating new designs with inner tubes and I hope people will enjoy them as much as I love making them!

Sushi anyone?

Both images by Galstudio.

Bring it on Podcast!

Stage 2: Bikes, Books, & Beers from Bikes, Books & Beers on Vimeo.


I'm having fun producing the Podcast's. I love the behind the scenes detail of directing Guy & Richard. Enjoying being the camerawoman and loving the post production aspect of it. Yesterday was a cloudy and dark and we had to solve the lack of lighting in our 'studio'. Never fear we have the daylight balance lights available and thank's to our background in photography we rigged up an appropriate lighting setup. Placing the two lights apart and aiming them as high as we could close to the ceiling to evenly disperse the light. It worked well.

After using Vimeo I'm convinced and happy to use it. It took me a while to choose from all the other video providers but Vimeo is simply the best, so easy to use.

They're planning a different setup for the next podcast. I don't know if it's possible. But I do like a challenge!

My sourdough starter called Giro.

Like a weird experiment, so far it's going well...

I have something growing inside my oven...

The story began 10 years ago. I already was into bread but my first attempt at making yeast was a flop. Surprised me. I can bake and cook fairly well. But I could not make yeast. Now, the challenge is back and I'm hungry once again.

This is day two of growing my new pet, Giro. Of course, in honor of the race. I use organic rye flour, natural spring water and honey. The glass jar is the perfect container or environment for the yeast to develop in. And the wooden spoon is a must.  Because a metal spoon would contaminate and kill it.

The suggestion is to leave it for 5 days. So far so good. It's nice and bubbly and I'm keeping the temperature constant at 80 F. Stay tuned for further developments!

Behind the Podcast.

I love everything about computers. Now, I'm not an expert but I have owned four Macs and I must say a computer is more interesting to me than fashion. Apple is in my eye.

Richard and Guy has a cool podcast on their cycling history and beer. What is it with guy's and beer? Us girl's love it too! Ok I'm starting to rant.

I knew my camera is just a basic digital one. Four years old, the Canon PowerShot ELPH is a little workhorse. I explored the video mode and discovered I could shoot for 8 minutes with a nice definition. Tested it on Richard and used available light and the sound was surprisingly good. I'm not ready to spend 1000 bucks for a better one. My Canon is good, very good for what I want to do.

The approach was simple. A low key casual podcast. Two guys with their beer and books. No tripod used, in fact, I am the camera operator. I used iMovie to insert the text and edit. It was so easy to work with. Good ole Apple, they make their products FOR people. There's talk in the air for part two. I'm so excited for them. Guy is showing enthusiasm and being part of this project, I'm happy.

As easy as it was to edit, it was a challenge to launch the podcast on line. I couldn't go through youtube because the clip was too long. Youtube takes only maximum ten minutes. So, I checked out Vimeo & Viddler... Viddler was too expensive charging for product content. Vimeo was the choice. Easy to use and the best thing, it was FREE up to 500 MB a month. I can do one a week. And it looks like the guy's will go for two per month. But, you know, when it comes time for the Tour de France it begs to have more often.

I'm so proud of Richard and Guy talking about the history of cycling. Happily, I get to play with my computer and learn about cycling history and have the chance to sample a brew!



The Prologue. Bikes, Books, & Beers from Bikes, Books, & Beer on Vimeo.

My Grate Pizza!

One of my indispensible tools I cannot do without in the kitchen is the hand grater. I use it for grating garlic, ginger, citrus, chocolate & Parmesan cheese. Friday night is pizza night. And who doesn’t like it? I started making it once my partner moved in with me during our time in art school. I have a special ingredient  that I discovered from an Italian chef. Here’s my Friday Night Pizza recipe. Bon Appetit!

Le Pizza Dough

1C. Semolina Flour (the special ingredient!)

1C. Whole Wheat Flour

1C. White Flour.

1C. water 110F (1/2 t of yeast  + 1 t of sugar mixed in water)

¼ t of salt

Mix dry ingredients together add in water mixture. I use a kitchen aid blender because it’s faster. You can also knead it by hand but it will take longer. The dough should form a nice slightly sticky & moist ball. It should hold it’s shape. Place in an oiled bowl. I use olive oil which prevents it from sticking. Put plastic wrap or wet towel over and place into the oven with light on. Place a cup of very hot water next to bowl for two hours.  While the dough is rising make the sauce well before so it can have the time to sit.

The Tomato Sauce

1 small can of tomato paste.

7 cloves of grated garlic (a metal grater is recommended)

2T Olive Oil

Black Pepper

10 squirts of Tabasco Sauce

1/3 C of Oregano

1T Red Wine Vinegar

Combine ingredients and set aside while the dough is rising. This is a good time to enjoy a glass of wine or two!

After two hours, it’s time to assemble your pizza. Warm your oven to 475F. Sprinkle enough cornmeal (about 2-3 T) on a baking sheet. Spread dough out and stretch it over your baking sheet. I use a 10 X 15 inch rectangular baking sheet. Spread sauce over the dough. I use two types of grated cheese, usually old cheddar and Friulano. My favorite toppings are bacon, olives, cooked chicken, zucchini, and mushrooms. Place in the oven for about 14 minutes. Afterwards, put on to the top grill and turn the oven to broil until it’s golden and crispy. You will have to watch it from burning.

Let it cool 5 minutes or you’ll burn the roof of your mouth because I've already experienced that!

Enjoy!

My four favorite cyclists.

Allez!

About a month ago, I was cruising around Etsy and fell in love with these plastic cyclist figurines. I showed Richard and he nearly fainted with joy. I knew I had to have them and buying them for Richard was justification enough. They were not cheap. So I ordered and waited,  and waited,  and waited...

Richard kept checking the mail for them and after 3 weeks ...they have arrived! They look from board game and appear new rather than old. The detail is amazing. Especially how they are hunched over in a riding position. I started to play with them right out of the package. So fun moving them about. They measure 2 X 1 1/2 inches. Richard says they ride  singlespeed bikes with  balloon tyres. The period from the twenties or thirties. One thing ...they are cool.

Richard is planning to build a diorama for them. It should be a lot of fun. The light blue racer is my favorite reminding me of the old racing bikes. I guess I'll have to give these to him, but for now the cool little racers are on my side of the table!

Eureka!

My Eureka Moment!

You know it when a eureka moment happens. Well, I had one and as I looked at Richard we both knew...

We had Peter over for dinner on the weekend and asked him for his iPhone. It's important to have the actually item to model with. Our idea was simple make a fun iPhone holder, the Galstudio way. My first prototype was a sad one. Just a sleeve. Even Peter wasn't moved by it. But, then on his second visit over he liked it. Caressing it he liked the second version the best and even gave us input on how to close it.

My inspiration came from my handmade journal and kept with the design of the gray & black textured strip. I've added a new sexy twist like a corset with reusable bicycle chain links. It's stunning.

Look for it in my Etsy shop in a week or two!

Gold Apple Olympics!

Well, there's one GOOD thing about the Olympics, is the offer from Apple. A few days ago, I kept Richard company by going over to the Apple store. His Macbook needed repair, his airport was kaput. We walked inside and I discovered a pleasant surprise. One of the blue t-shirted personal shoppers handed me a cool pin for free. It was an iPod special edition Olympic pin. We both took one. I admit I'm a Mac nerd so I noticed right away he was wearing another one with the apple design. So I inquired and he said that each store has a different one. I told myself to avoid the downtown area during the Olympics but this was an emergency. I had to get this pin. Last Sunday we parked and walked through the maze of Olympic tourists and Russian coaches to the downtown Apple store. Inside, I wasn't disappointed, as a personal shopper handed me the Apple pin. I'm complete and happy. Mac happy!

Sharing the Vaynerchuk love.

A few weeks ago my partner, Richard told me that I should check out this wine guy. We both love our weekend wine and this could help us make a better choice. At the same time, I was telling Richard that I had bookmarked a video that he must watch. It's about this really inspirational guy who was at the Web 2 Expo. Well, it turn's out that we were talking about the same guy! Talk about synchronicity...

If you don't know Gary Vaynerchuk, PLEASE check him out. I can't promise you will love him but I will tell you that he is the kind of guy that you ether love or hate. With his unique 'in your face' presence one thing is for sure, you will not be indifferent. I love you Gary!

A major story with Major Tom.

Steve with his Major Tom!

One of the wonderful things selling my cycling caps is that I sometimes come across interesting stories. I received a very nice image from Steve over in Whitney UK. That's Steve above in the top image sporting the Major Tom cycling cap. He's standing under the Bridge of Sighs and looking very cool. I want to thank Steve for sharing his story and letting me use his image.

Steve wrote me that his mother was a track cyclist and knew the famous Tom Simpson. Talk about a fabulous connection with the two Major Tom's!

"The Major Tom Simpson"