Lilandra’s Bagel Dough, originally uploaded by Chennette.

I mean, look at me kneading … ;-)

I thought this a funny picture.

Chennette took four pictures of me while I was making bagels.

Mozzarella Cheese Pizza, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

We like Pizza.
I mean seriously like it…home made especially.
Every time we made our own pizza we wonder why do we buy? (1. cleanup 2. hard work 3. time)

But it’s a fun thing we do together.
So, last time we made homemade pizza we did a cross from Peter Reinhart’s (recipe found online before I got the book with the oodles of tips and instructions) and Alton Brown’s.
It was awesome.
I think we didn’t have enough and used the Naps cookbook recipe to supplement…and we could taste the difference.
*sniff*
Nobody wanted those…or at least we left them until last.

The great thing about making pizza is it can be a family affair. I couldn’t knead or roll dough to save my life (still can’t really roll…or TOSS!) but usually mom would make some dough for us in advance and then Chennette at the appointed time would roll it out. Sister the elder would chop everything (it’s never a hardship for her to slice onions and tomatoes or anything else. My brother and I would have burgers and hotdogs with only condiments partly because we don’t see the point of slicing for one person, partly laziness and partly because we also like plain burgers and hotdogs. Seriously!). I’d help out Sister the elder also…but usually my job would be grate cheese. Tonnes of cheese. My brother’s too I guess.

And then the serious production line starts.

As fast as Chennette produces a crust we’d top and shove in the oven.

So, I must admit, having every body in the house is perfect time for pizza. I made the dough balls waaaay in advance and kept trying to figure out the perfect time.

When Chennette flew in overnight on the way to that Canadian wedding, I figured yay!

And I thought everybody was on board with that.

Chennette, as usual, slept the whole day away.
Hmph.
We think we’re just a sleeping spot for her.
So…no help with the dough toss.

Sister the Elder has two children who decided to be awake and seriously it would be better her upstairs than the 2 and a half year old downstairs “helping”. (Thankfully she was there to bounce off my ideas).

Mom…who said we had no bread in the house and nothing to eat put up a bread in the bread machine.
Geez mom! I’m making pizza for the whole house. Even the non-cheese eater father will eat it, you know???

And…my brother and sister-in-law (and daughter) went by her parents for the evening. Didn’t you get the memo??? Didn’t you realize this was a joint effort?

My family.
Did they seriously think I wanted to spend whole day making 9 pizzas by myself and then be soooo pooped and sweaty…too tired to even eat or bathe???

Let’s not even talk about the family-bonding experience this was supposed to be.

Hmph

Thankfully, mom, who wasn’t supposed to do anything…she was supposed to be resting because her children (not just poor overworked Lily) were going to be making dinner, came to my rescue.

I sliced, made pico de gallo, grated cheese.
Mom defrosted spinach, found olives, hunted for the missing nachos which we seem to have hidden from the elder niece.
She listened to me when I wondered if I really should be making all these different pizzas.
Was morale booster when those people almost got only cheese pizzas! HA!
Unfortunately some of them might have liked that…

Tortellini, Mushroom and Pesto Pizza, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

So, I planned to make pizzas we loved and a sorta tribute to Antonio’s pizza in Amherst where I probably spent a lot of money.

I had 9 crusts and was walking around all week with a list of numbers and organzing what goes on what crust. I decided two cheese pizzas, two veggie pizzas, two avocado quesadilla pizza (in danger because people kept eating out the avocado and the niece wanted the tortilla chips), two spinach pizzas and one tortellini pizza.

So, during day light, I diced tomatoes, onions and tossed them with minced garlic, lime juice and bandania. This went in the fridge to chill or set. Oh man it smelled so good. Like a nice tomato chow.

I boiled a bag of Barilla cheese tortellini and then tossed it in some Barilla pesto (so what it’s not homemade).

I sliced local mushrooms and sauteed them in olive oil.

I took frozen spinach and sauteed that with…onions in olive oil.

I sliced tomatoes, onions, olives, pineapples.

In addition to a bag of shredded mozzarella and another bag of cheddar and jack, I grated more cheddar and sliced fresh (wet?) mozzarella and havarti and crumbled some feta and located the brie. Was there more cheese? Who knows.

I say I alot because it was rather a blur. I know mom was there. But I really needed her help for the crusts.

I took out two bottles of sauce (yes! bottles). Barilla N** something and some artichoke sauce.

When all the prep was done we covered everything and I went upstairs and relaxed until the sunset prayer.

All to start again.

I tried to find 9 pans…I think I found 7 and then had to use some deep pans. Yikes!

Mom and I tried tossing crusts but haha. No.
So mom started rolling and stretching on the table for me.
They were rather small.
And we wanted them too big.
We ended up joining a few of them together.

And…MWUHAHAHA!

Cheese and Veggie Pizzas, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

We still wanted 9 pizzas so we took the almost done rising dough from the bread machine (you remember this, don’t you?) and mom made two pizzas out if it. These two pizzas got one veggie pizza (tomatos, onions, pineapples, olives, mushrooms, cheddar, mozzarella) and one cheese pizza (cheddar, mozzarella, anything left over).

THere was another veggie (almost same toppings except one of them had more mushrooms and a touch of olives and the other more olives and a touch of mushrooms).

Also, we made a mozzarella only cheese pizza.

Oh…I should say none of these went in the oven while we were topping because I didn’t want to get confused and forget them or have toppings and no pizza…so we were doing all this in a 550F kitchen. It was HOT!

We spread ricotta and pasta sauce on two crusts. Not a lot of sauce, just enough to get a little taste. Then we ladled out the spinach and onion mixture and topped it with the crumbled feta and olives. I think this pizza was a great hit. When I woke up the next morning I had some difficulty believing only half of it was left.

Then there was the carb on carb special (yes lifted from Antonio’s not because it was my favourite pizza there but did hold a special place in my heart…fascination? train wreck?). We spread more pesto on the crust and then topped it with tortellini and mushrooms and brie and mozzarella cheeses. Of course we only made one of these. We’re not silly!

Avocado Quesadilla Pizza, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

And then the pizza I’d been craving forever. Avocado Quesadilla. Really just cheddar, jack, ole tortilla chips, sour cream, pico de gallo. Anything else I forgot? Who knows. I should’ve put more avocado. But regardless it was good and spicy and…I loved this at Antonio’s but…I don’t remember it tasting so good. Has four years really done a number on my memory or my cravings or was this just better? Who knows!

It took forever to bake. 9 pizzas at about 10 minutes in a 550F oven. I tried putting two pizzas at once but it got too hot and things dripped and burned and smoked so we scratched that idea. We??? ME!

Mom left me I think after the first pizza came out.

And Chennette, elder niece, nephew and their mother came to eat. Finally.

ANd at the tail end of our eating…brother, sister-in-law and baby niece came home to a nice smelling house at about 11pm? And couldn’t wait.
Would you like a slice?

A plate of pizza for breakfast!, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

I left them to do some clean-up.

All the pizzas were done and laying on the table…I took out cloths to cover them…told them to wipe up, wash up…I’m not sure if I had swept already. All my baking endeavours involve sweeping. Gah! I may have passed a wet swiffer but decided it needed real mopping.

ANd I was tired.
It was worth it by taste alone.
We couldn’t even tell that mom’s bread dough wasn’t the same as the rest (except I could…but it blended okay).
I would do it again…maybe
But I’m not crazy.
9 pizzas and only my mom to help???
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

But HA! At least they all ate at the dining table because the kitchen table was unavoidable occupied.

Our Kitchen, aka the Pizza Making Extravaganza, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

You can see the whole set here.

No, mom, you are not allowed to guess or say anything. You know everything in your freezer down to the dirty ice at the bottom.

:-)

This is the lovely sweet potato plant that I mentioned before

We’re also planting peas and look at this little sim plant:
Only a couple days before it was *tiny*.
And about a week after, dad and them finally put stakes down for it and…lo! it twined itself around it overnight.
Plants are both freaky *and* amazing.

I mean…one day you have a bucket of soil in which you scattered zinnias
and the next day there are these green things poking up. It’s so gross!
Seriously! It’s weird to see things poking up in soil all by themselves.

Unfortunately some days later mom found a frog squatting in the pot and it damaged the zinnias :-( So must wait longer. One day I will tell you about frogs and this house.

=>

Or my dwarf pineapple (yes! remember the dwarf ornamental pineapple from the orchid show? A couple days later we went to the place mom buys a lot of her plants and there was one! Just one! Waiting for me! To buy! Well. I bought! Okay mom bought it for me :-)

If you look at that picture you can see purple tips…barely.

But as it grew…white spikes with purple tips started poking out from the pineapple (must upload picture). I mean how gross is that? Things spiking. EW. To cap it all, it looked like the pineapple had acne…a pimple…ripe and discoloured on your face waiting to be burst!!!!

Doesn’t it look like it’s having a breakout??

Now the spikes are gone and there are little flowers or something in its place. See. the pimple spike burst into flowers…

This was a summary of my entry into gardening.
I have to repot stuff soon.

Well, at the orchid show we bought a bamboo orchid, a brassia rex, D Uraiwan x Lasianthera and a D Black Spider x Lisa Kanayama.

We didn’t just buy orchids but also lemon basil and rosemary.

Rosemary, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

I guess a true photographer would’ve catalogued and taken awesome shots. Oh well.

Mom had a hole in her stomach and a little plastic cup of fruit cocktail didn’t satisfy her.

So, I asked her if she wanted a milkshake?

Hers was Haagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche Ice cream with Malt Soy Milk.
Mine had Chocolate ice cream.

We didn’t do extras like whipped cream and sauce and toppings. It was pretty late at night and well…didn’t feel like oh so much work.

Also, it was the first time I ever used a blender.

Mmm :-)

I bought this Chocolate Croissant in Guyana from The Roti Hut.
Then, I sat down and took many pictures of it, which helped me to decide, YES! I want a DSLR!

:)

Bjørk – It’s Oh So Quiet Lyrics

Shhhh, Shhhh

It’s, oh, so quiet
It’s, oh, so still
You’re all alone
And so peaceful until…

You fall in love
Zing boom
The sky up above
Zing boom
Is caving in
Wow bam
You’ve never been so nuts about a guy
You wanna laugh you wanna cry
You cross your heart and hope to die

‘Til it’s over and then
Shhh, Shhh
It’s nice and quiet
Shhh, Shhh
But soon again
Shhh, Shhh
Starts another big riot

You blow a fuse, zing boom
The devil cuts loose, zing boom
So what’s the use, wow bam
Of falling in love

It’s, oh, so quiet
It’s, oh, so still
You’re all alone
And so peaceful until…

You ring the bell, bim bam
You shout and you yell, hi ho ho
You broke the spell
Gee, this is swell you almost have a fit
This guy is “gorge” and I got hit
There’s no mistake this is it

‘Til it’s over and then
It’s nice and quiet
Shhh, Shhh
But soon again
Shhh, Shhh
Starts another big riot

You blow a fuse
Zing boom
The devil cuts loose
Zing boom
So, what’s the use
Wow bam
Of falling in love

The sky caves in
The devil cuts loose
You blow blow blow blow blow your fuse ahhhhhhh!
When you’ve fallen in love

Ssshhhhhh…

Well, technically our Lebanese cookbook said the rolled up Baklava is called Asabieh. We actually made a very thin Baklava (the phyllo was very broken up so…) and a tray of Asabieh.

The book also said Greek style is walnuts and Arab style is pistachios so…I guess this is Greek style.

Here they are (click on the thumbnails!):

Actually front page news.
This link will go just now.
This might last a bit longer.

So…Lenovo laptop? MacBook? or iMac? :)

Help Lily decide!

heheh

Eek…to Captain D’s.

So we all got sorta sick and I raced off the bed after morning prayers to throw up. A lot.
And so, I cancelled class which would start in two hours because in the intervening time, I would have to eat and feel better which is a no-no. So there was me, sitting over the phone at 6 in the morning calling students (who have no voice mail! or have their phones switched off or are asleep) cancelling class.

*sigh*

Nice thought.
Tuesday is public holiday.
So the next class I have to teach is next Saturday (them again)!
Hopefully I don’t have to do a makeup or need to do one.

All three of us were not feeling great today.
Dad came in after noon prayers with doughnuts and I felt like my saviour walked in :)

Well, here’s a link to one.

There are more and you should be able to find it.

On another note, on flickr, there is this option to view the EXIF data of a photo. I thought maybe my pictures had no EXIF data because I never see the link. Turns out, I just had the privacy settings set to not display it.

IDIOT!

Edit: Just changed my settings to hide EXIF data once more. It seems I saved my name on the camera.

DOUBLE IDIOT!

I wish to leave academia behind.

When I was in secondary school, I dreamed of being an Architect. I even did Technical Drawing for CXC (O Levels). I might’ve been able to get an internship at a firm in town. It was one of those lovely old houses. I’m not sure what happened aside from there was no thought of going to Jamaica (safety) where there was some sort of institute I could’ve done some stuff.

So, I went the safe route…a degree and decide afterwards!

Before I started my Maths and Comp Sci degree, I had dreams of languages. I did French and Spanish for A Levels. My abilities have lapsed. I can still manage some level of reading. I intend to recover this somehow. Maybe conversational classes. And I’d like to learn Arabic for pretty obvious reasons. And Japanese for maybe some less obvious reasons :-)

Then I went away to Grad school.

Once upon a time my siblings and I all had a mutual sort of dream of a restaurant.

And someone introduced me to the art of making truffles (decadence! much better than buying from Godiva or anywhere else) and I dreamt of being a chocolatier (or a dessert chef). It could still happen.

Well, who knows.

Maybe it’s really Academia which is not for me.

Since I’ve returned home I actually read all those technical websites, all those reviews. I am interested in hardware/networking/practical stuff. I intend to build my first computer from scratch regardless the cost.

I fell in love with Linux. I miss having a computer with Linux. I want to know how to share internet, setup a mail server, do NAT thingies and loads of other things with it. I am such a newbie and it hasn’t been helped by almost 2 years without my own Linux machine. Anything that I did know is going bye-bye and that is horrible!

I got bitten by the Mac bug too. I have this year old PowerBook which I love. I dream of an iMac (and my super duper 64 bit Linux box). But I have no need of 3 computers. But I want a big screen. I also want to know what this developing for the Mac is all about.

Wait, did I say Mac? I have this little desire (it’s small and bud-like) to develop anything. I’d like to work n some FL/OSS project but I neither have the courage nor the time. But I am going to dedicate some time to do that! I need to. I want to know if I can contribute to the community even if it’s just a little thing.

I also dream of finding a job which makes me happy! 

I can’t just sit around without a plan.

I need to make decisions about what I intend to do.

So far, here they are:

• Leave current job!
• I am going to try to find some OSS project in which I am interested and try to get involved even if it’s in some small way. It doesn’t have to be major…I just have to start!
• I am going to build my mom the Linux machine (and help her choose a laptop).
• Then, I’m going to spend some serious time figuring out how to network them properly, not just internet sharing and using the Windows machine and Linux machine as sort of file servers. I’m going to try to figure out what security is, set up a mail server and who knows what else!
• I need to refresh my language skills!
• Gym here I come. You might not believe it, but I sort of miss you. Or if not gym, exercise equipment!
• Once and for all, fix my room!
• And last, but certainly not least, make Hajj and prepare for it (and hope and pray to become a better Muslim)

I didn’t go searching for it.
And, it’s probably random just like how telemarketers do it…well, okay maybe not quite like telemarketers.

It just feels a bit odd.
There I was today fixing up my resume for my whole lot of “thinking” and evaluating my life. I ran downstairs when mom came home and then came back up to continue my editing and perfecting and figuring out if I want a resume or CV. And how much is too much. And after having worked this much, what can you or should you omit from your CV. Very stressful, I know.
And then I checked my inbox.
Rather surreal.

Oh well.
Maybe it’s a hoax.
I believe in hoaxes.

Gah!
I don’t know anything about telephone interviews.
Maybe it isn’t and I’m reading between more lines than there are.

Edit: It’s probably not a real interview. Just one of those pre-pre-screening things. You know before they decide if they want you to interview for real.
Relief!