June 22, 2008
Online video is exploding. I’ve been watching quality videos online for awhile now and am looking for more in an effort to basically never have to purchase cable.
Todays mission for myself was to find some shows online all about Food. Tips & Tricks, Science of Food, Recipes, and whatever else.
Unfortunately, the internet is plauged with boring and un-imaginative videos from people all over the world telling you how to cook something awesome. Don’t get me wrong, I thank you for trying and being different but seriously, yawn.
However! There is good news. There are many interesting and well produced cooking shows out there that only took me a bit of looking around to find.
First, I found the best sources of quality online food shows to be from: blip.tv, iTunes directory, and vimeo.com. I recommend you check out those sites and do your own looking around for what interests you, but here’s some of my top picks from what I found. Since there is no direct url for these shows, I will put in brackets where I found them:
Epicurious: Food & Drink: (iTunes) These are small 2-3 minutes tips and tricks and simple recipes. Epicurious is a great site for recipes and the guys from there have done some high quality, well produced and enjoyable videos. If you’re looking to learn some neat tricks or need to figure out how to make a sauce or syrup, searching through it’s massive episode directory will help you out.
Food Science: (iTunes) Neat show that has 5-8 minute clips about how food and science go together. Let’s you truly understand why bread rises, why sauces thicken, and so on.
Le Gourmet TV: (iTunes) Fancy! A nice show with quality hosts that is not as snobby as the title may percieve. They do a mix of recipes, reviews, and tips/tricks.
Restaurant Food Fast: (blip.tv) Not the highest quality in terms of playback but pretty good. From what I have seen, he purely does recipes and they are generally very simple. Good if you’re looking for something basic and fun to do
Hands on Food: (blip.tv) Only a few episodes in but looks promising. Well done videos and very simple recipes. The host seems like an enjoyable guy to hang out with and is usually pretty excited when doing his videos. I like this, as it’s not common in the videos I’ve seen.
That covers a few unique and interesting cooking shows I’ve found online so far. I’m still looking, but the free stuff is very limited in quantity and quality!
Online video intrigues me greatly and I’ve been contemplating doing it myself. With my allergies, I have to expirement constantly with different recipes and I may try my hand on some videos to hopefully help people out. But that won’t be for another month or so until I settle down in my new place later this month.
February 16, 2008
It’s the weekend. I’m sitting here at work about to get ready to finish a project I’ve been working on for a few hours each day this week and I figured I’d just put a few of my thoughts together in a post.
 How I code …
Everyone seems to have a different way of doing things when they code. Some like it in absolute peace and quiet, others need distraction, some can’t code without tons of planning, some just go at it.
For myself, I need music, a good cup of tea, and no other distractions. My biggest problem when it comes to coding is if I am not in the groove for it, for whatever reason it’s very hard for me to get into it, but it’s still possible.
Setting the mood is very important for me (and others!). I like to brew up a big pot of green tea, turn on some quality programming music (see here for a list of my favorites), set the music at the perfect pitch, relax for a bit, and then get going. Additionally, I turn off MSN and any other IM services. All they are is a distraction.
Having a plan is a must. It’s almost impossible to code just on a whim without a basic idea. I have a plan usually, and when I do not have any real documentation laid out I write pseudo code! Pseudo code is basically allowing me to do all the coding logic without the syntax. I then mess with the psuedo code until I am happy with the flow, and I can begin coding the real thing. Knowing the syntax is not even half the battle after all 
Just gotta keep going! One thing I like to do is just get into a flow and do not stop. Next thing I know, 4 hours have passed. It’s perfect because I know I am in the zone and can get things done, and I have my night set up in such a way that I do not need to worry about other obligations and distractions. Even with a girlfriend, she can understand you are busy and give you your time to yourself so it’s not a huge issue.
Python Resources this week
Once again this week saw me playing with Python, albeit not as much as I wanted to. Regardless, here’s some more great blogs I found for Python resources:
- Pythoneer is not exclusively a Python resource, but has some great posts now and then.
- Just like the above, Artful Code is not Python exclusive but a great resource for well, Artful code!
- codekite is a great blog on programming in general. Funny his latest post is also a link to various Python resources
- Eric Florenzano’s blog, posts tagged as django. I am 99% sure he is a contributor to the Django framework but I can’t be sure
Food: YUM YUM
I’ve got a hankering to make some new and unique food this week. Here are some things on the menu that I hope to post recipes for (with pics perhaps!) this week or so:
- Mussels! I have only had mussels about twice, both times at a chinese buffet so I’d like to take a shot at them on my own. With some white wine and a great onion/garlic marinate for them, they should turn out great. I will definitely document this when I make them.
- Bourbon Chicken. This is easily one of my favourite take-out foods ever. Problem is, it’s generally very bad/greasy for you from the fast food places so I am going to attempt to make a healthy alternative at home. Already got some good recipes.
- Pizza dough. Although I cannot eat pizza at all (yay gluten-free/dairy-free life!) I want to attempt to make a pizza dough I can eat. Once I achieve this, I can make a very simple cheesless pizza.
Well that’s about it. I’m going to probably redesign this blog a bit to fit more into what I’m posting about as my left menu doesn’t really correspond to much anymore. But for now, I really should start working!
January 2, 2008
It’s the new year, and for many their new years resolution is to lose weight. It’s hard to lose weight for a lot of people, and it takes a lot of dedication and commitment, but it can be done without too much hassle.
About 2 years ago, I lost 50 pounds in about half a year. I initially lost it really fast because I went on a very strict diet, but it slowed down and I finally evened out at a now healthy 160 pounds. It wasn’t easy initially, but once I got into it, it felt like normal.
With this new year, Miranda wants to go on a diet and lose some weight. She had the idea in about December but it’s pointless to begin a diet during Christmas, even I ate a ton of sugar! We’ve decided to both go on a Yeast-free diet, which are very good post-Christmas due to all the sugar/cookies/cakes you had which has built up in your system.
Miranda’s goal is to lose 20 pounds by February 20th, in which I will get a nipple ring for her if she does (I am an idiot, I know). My goal is to simply stay on the diet, and help her out. I will be cooking most of the meals and trying my best to keep her full and happy without sugar, bread, milk and all those other goodies.
With that in mind, here’s some tips I learned from my own weight loss a few years ago that I found helpful (Some are probably common sense!)
- Help is the number one motivator you can get. If you have someone with you doing the diet, then you will feel much better. When I was on my diet, I lived with my parents and my mom did a lot of work to research foods I could eat and cook me delicious meals. It’s how I discovered the joy of Sushi.
- A diet need not be bland. When I was dieting, I had no sugar (Except Brown only later on) for about 6 months. Not a single teaspoon. However, after I dropped the initial cravings it was no problem. I learned of all new kinds of delicious foods like Sushi, Sweet Potato, Risotto, and all sorts of things.
- Never be hungry. You may feel hungry initially if you’re used to snacking all the time but if you provide yourself with big wholesome meals and snack on some fruit and/or veggies throughout the day you are golden. You do not want to be going to bed starving.
- Get in a routine and follow it. I had Sushi every friday, it was way more calories then I needed but it was filling and I loved it. I would go out once a week for some nice restaurant food (After my initial detox). It’s slightly expensive to go out every week, but it was nice and I could afford it.
- If you’re not enjoying it, adjust your diet so you can. This is a diet you will have for the rest of your life. You need to follow something that you don’t mind keeping. For me, I have dropped Bread and Dairy from my diet and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t need them, I don’t crave them. If you can drop Pop from your diet, that’s already a big step.
Hopefully those few tips helped. I love helping people with diets and working things out so drop me a line if you’d like some help. I’m now off to the grocery market to buy about a weeks worth of delicious meats, veggies and fruits for us.
November 22, 2007
Here’s a bit from the fruits of my labour this evening. I was craving honey glazed anything and I looked up some sauces, this one worked great and tasted just how I wanted it.
Add a bit of honey or reduce the balsamic vinegar to taste, I added maybe 2 more tablespoons of honey.
- Â 1/3 cup of honey
- 2 tbsp soy sauce (I used gluten-free sauce)
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Adding some sesame seeds to the mix on top of your meat would be perfect. Let your meat marinate in this sauce or just toss it in when cooking. I let the pork simmer in the sauce at a low heat for about 10 minutes until it thickened, tasted amazing!
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