Posted on 1 Comment on Scanner

Scanner

This guy has kindly loaned me a film and negative scanner. I’m looking forward to making copious use of it, as I’m running out of ideas for my Monday Morning Photo Blog (and I don’t seem to be creating many new photos — at least not interesting ones).

I have thousands of negatives and contact sheets in the basement, just waiting for a chance to be seen. Most are crap — just stupid pictures from my university days — but there are a few gems in there, I think (I hope). I had a few negatives scanned professionally a few months ago and was very pleased with the results. But going that route is both time- and money-consuming. Hopefully this loaner will do an acceptable job so I can scan many negatives, gratis.

arctic hareThere is also the issue of the thousands of colour slides I have lurking in the basement. Most of them are edited and categorized, and carefully tucked into clear sheets. Unfortunately, most of them are crap too (more on that next week), but again I hope to find a few gems.

In fact, I have already. This week’s Monday Morning Photo Blog entry is the result of my first test with the scanner. It’s a shot of an arctic hare that I took in 1991 when I was working for the summer above the arctic circle. The hare itself is mildly interesting — what works for me is the crazy context.

Click the picture of the hare to see the full image. While you’re there, click on the “Places” link in the “Categories” section on the sidebar — in my photos with tagged “Places” you’ll find half a dozen or so other images from that summer, all in black & white. This hare shot is the first time that any of my colour images from the arctic have been seen publicly.

Posted on 11 Comments on Another kitchen rampage

Another kitchen rampage

It began with a simple bean salad, enough to supplement a few lunches during the week. A can of mixed beans, some chopped up red and green peppers, a bit of grated carrot, some slivers of red onion, all tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, a bit of white vinegar, and a handful of fresh herbs (thyme, basil, and Italian parsley). Oh, and a sprinkle of salt and a generous scratching of black pepper.

Next up: chick pea curry, to serve as a side dish on Monday night (or Tuesday, depending…) as well as a lunch or two during the week. It’s my basic recipe – supposedly Thai, but it uses Indian curry powder in coconut milk with tomatoes, potatoes, some aromatics, and a lot of basil. Mmmmmm, yummy!

Then it was a chicken tikka masala – main course for Monday (or Tuesday). This was no great feat since I used ready-made sauce from a jar. Still, I had to skin and bone the chicken breasts. I also added a couple of roughly-cut onions. I just have a thing about chicken tikka masala – it’s gotta have onions.

While the chick pea curry and tikka masala were bubbling I set about making dinner – a Sunday roast. Specifically, a small pork loin roast.

I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I stuck with the classic approach, I scored the fat on top and rubbed in some fresh thyme, rosemary, salt, and pepper. I arranged some small onions around the rack, and plunked down the roast. What the heck, I also peeled an orange (a mineola) and arranged the chunks on the rack. Then I got the bright idea to arrange some finely chopped onion bits, garlic, and celery at the bottom of the pan, along with some water, in anticipation of a sauce.

That went in the oven with some chunked-up, oiled, and herbed potatoes.

Next, a salad. Lettuce, arugula, red onions, and endive. A vinaigrette of olive oil, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, white wine vinegar, pepper, and basil. Shake shake shake!

Time for the side veg. Chunks of carrots cooked in orange juice until reduced to a glaze, and topped with a bit of cilantro.

The roast is ready. Tent it in foil for a few minutes while I add some stock and white wine to the pan drippings. Reduce, strain out the lumpy bits, reduce again with a very light sprinkle of flour to thicken it. (I would have used demi-glace instead of the stock and flour, but I didn’t have any on hand.)

Bingo. Three-and-a-half hours of intense kitchenery, and we have a great dinner, plus another dinner ready-to-go, and lunches for the week.

Posted on 2 Comments on My בלוג isn’t getting any cheaper!

My בלוג isn’t getting any cheaper!

My Monday Morning Photo Blog has caught the eye of a Web site in Israel. It’s nice to see that my humble little photos are being viewed around the world, but that link alone has cranked up my page views by an order of magnitude.

Between that and the huge amount of linkage I’m getting from the stop-action cheerleader through the hoop animation that I posted last week, I’m already way over my monthly bandwidth limit from my domain host. Although both of my blogs are hosted at TypePad, I host all photos and images at my own domain (blork.org). I got "the call" from my provider two days ago, and that was before the link from Israel.

Maybe I should set out a tip jar, or solicit micropatron funds, like Kottke.

By the way, in case you’re wondering:

בלוג צילומים של תמונות שצולמו בימי שני בלבד.

…means "Blog of photographs [photographs blog] of pictures that were photographed on Mondays only." Unfortunately, the translation is not entirely accurate — the photos are posted on Mondays only, but they are taken any day of the week.