Exploring Aperture

About a year ago I finally splurged and got myself a DSLR camera. I love it! In December my partner got me an online class from The Great Courses on "Fundamentals of Photography" with the National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore. I've completed 4 of the 24 segments and I already feel a lot more comfortable with my camera and understand how to use the manual settings better. Today I worked on aperture and used nerdy things around our apartment:

Aperture F5.0

Aperture F20

There are plenty of nerdy things around our apartment to use as material so more of these may be posted in the future. :)

Strawberry Pie

Not the prettiest, but tasted good.

With the leftover pie crust I decided to make a pie - a full pie this time.  After searching the internet I found the recipe for Old Boy's Strawberry Pie.

Ready to go in the oven.

I don't own a pie dish, but in this case the dish I have worked well because this was a lot of filling - it would have bubbled over even more in a traditional pan.

Right after pulling it out of the oven.

More thickener needed, but tasted so good.

A la mode

This recipe has been added to my collection. :)  Summer is wonderful.

Rhubarb Cup Pies

We've been watching Pushing Daisies lately and Chuck's 'cup pies' made me crave some.  Having some more rhubarb I decided to give them a try.  The only issue being that I couldn't find a pie crust recipe with honey baked into it. 

So I made some alterations.  These are based off of Martha Stewart's rhubarb pie recipe.  I cut the amounts in half and used a muffin tin for the 'cup' size.  Some of the pies had honey brushed on the inside of the crust before the rhubarb filling was added and it definitely made a difference - a yummy, sweet difference! :) 

Before topped with the crumble and baking.

After baking for 30 minutes (a few more minutes wouldn't have hurt).

Tasty, tasty cup pies.

 The cup version is a bit more finicky, but it is nice to have a small version of pie.

Love Notes

"Essaim: Ma Lune et L'eau (Started 6-23-13, Finished 7-1-13)"
by Nate Reid for his Swarmy

Her eyes are my moon and water
they calm me
silver waves sigh into the nighttime shore
till every worry is but mist.

Soft roaring tongues make harmonicas of the beach
bending sweet tones over castles
under piers
funneling into the dreams of seashells.

Her lips are beams of hallowed light
they calm me
before them, I had worn the dense night
had roped the ocean around my neck

till the first crescent arrived

burned a hole into the darkness
white columns breaking the black sky
searching
landing upon my face
ending the collapse of gravity
with her eyes
my moon and water.

She calms me.

Rhubarb Crunch

 Rhubarb reminds me of home.

The fact that this rhubarb came from my childhood front yard and the recipe is one of my dad's favorites made this treat taste that much better.  Big city meet country rhubarb. :) Yum!

Rhubarb Crunch

1 cup flour                                    

1 cup brown sugar                       

½ cup butter, melted                        

¾ cup oatmeal                        

1 tsp cinnamon                        

5 cups rhubarb, diced

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

2 Tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp vanilla

Combine flour, brown sugar, butter, oatmeal and cinnamon.  Grease 9 x 13 inch pan.  Press half of the oatmeal mixture into the bottom of the pan and then add rhubarb.  Top with remaining oatmeal mixture.  Cook sugar, water, cornstarch and vanilla until thick and clear.  Pour this mixture over the mix in the pan.  Bake at 350° for about 45 minutes.

The tasty finished product with all the oatmeal on the bottom (oops).

Eat warm and topped with cool whip or vanilla ice cream. :)

Gaiman, Pratchett, and Adams - Oh My!

My to-read pile of books has been growing rapidly over the past few months.  Everywhere I turn there is a new book that I need to read - it's heaven.  Add a huge bathtub to read in and I'd be golden. :)

How I've managed to get this far in life without reading any works by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, or Douglas Adams is beyond me.  Where were Gaiman's books when I was a teen?  They existed, but I never heard of them...I needed a science fiction guide like I have now. :) I believe I will be able to make and break my reading goal of 50 books this year.

New Eyes

My eyes have needed new contacts for a long time - longer than I've lived in this town, longer than I've held these jobs, much longer than I should have let them go.  One plus to this need is the wonder of seeing the crisp edges of the world again.  The trees have so many branches (no leaves or greenery in this neck of the woods yet), people have facial expressions and I can recognize individuals from a fair distance, street signs are readable.  Just walking to my car after work can make me grin - I probably look like a tourist gawking at my surroundings, but the details of the historic buildings on my walk are beautiful, the lines of distinct cars down the street are beautiful, the construction of a new apartment building a few streets away is beautiful, that bird flying by that I can identify is beautiful, all because I can see it.

In addition to these benefits I can spend more time geeking out in the Whoniverse because the vision/computer induced headaches have vanished.

A fellow Whovian and I have been digging up all sorts of Doctor Who related material and been lobbing it back and forth across the internet to our mutual delight.  This Whovian was a former coworker from years back that I kept stumbling over on facebook because of their writings and nerdy nature.  Eventually we decided we needed to hang out because not doing so just seemed silly.

Now I have a fellow Whovian to pester in person, one I can actually share this nerdiness with.  In getting to know them my world has expanded, my outlook shifted, and it seems to happen every time we're together.

So not only did my vision physically change and the world sharpen, but now I have more to see. :)