Talking Coffee on Shaw GO Island · Tuesday January 15, 2013 by colin newell
Had a blast talking to Dan Kahan of Shaw community cable on Go Island South – great show…
The topic: Coffee culture… at its best, right here in sleepy Victoria B.C. Canada.
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Maple Bourbon Dairy Free Waffles Re-Boot · Friday December 28, 2012 by colin newell
I love breakfast. And waffles or french toast – well, they are the breakfast food of life. And there are no more popular recipes than my waffle recipes – the single most requested page on this blog!
1 3/4 cup of all-purpose unbleached white flour
1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt (or a pinch)
1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
2 Egg yolks
1 3/4 cups premium quality Soy or Almond milk
1/2 cup canola oil
1 fluid ounce Makers Mark, Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, or your favorite bourbon
1 Tablespoon Pure Canadian Maple Syrup
2 Egg whites
In a large mixing bowl (which will ultimately hold your several days worth of waffle mix) stir together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a smaller mixing bowl beat egg yolks. Add Soy milk, cinnamon, maple syrup, bourbon and oil.
Add to flour mix all at once. Stir or fold til mixed but still slightly lumpy.
In yet-another-bowl whip egg white to form a stiff peak.
Gently fold egg whites into soya-flour-oil mixture leaving a few peaks of egg white visible.
Heat waffle iron letting waffle mix work for about 7 minutes.
Pour batter onto greased and preheated iron. Do not open while the waffles are cooking! Timing will vary depending on your iron. Assume 3 minutes til golden brown.
Serve with butter, more maple syrup, fresh blueberries and hot, hot coffee on the side!
Enjoy!
The fun of electronics and the bomb scare that never was · Sunday December 2, 2012 by colin newell
I had a couple of 1st year students (apparently from the music department) come in to my shop a few weeks ago seeking advice on soldering some parts together to make a “pocket theremin” kit — a noise maker that is light sensitive.
Neither of them had much, if any experience in electronics or soldering things together. Their bag of parts included two integrated circuits, resistors, capacitors, a speaker, some light sensitive cells and a battery. They were missing several bits of modern electronics to hold it all together – a circuit board.
I gave them a primer on soldering and electronics and we all mutually decided that it would be in our best interest for me to assemble the circuit quickly using some modern technology. Which I did. I assembled the circuit successfully (and threw in a electronic engineering development circuit board) and much to my delight, it worked like a charm. In the dark, the little unit was completely quiet. As it was exposed to light it would squeal like a demon.
The gals reappeared within a few hours and checked out my creation.
They were delighted. Smiles and squeals all around, the gals vanished with the device (ostensibly for a project in their department…) and that was the last I heard of it. I never even got their name but I did leave them with a couple of personal cards if they needed any additional assistance – and I put the circuit in a cute little box… that had my shipping info on it.
The following Monday I got a call from a senior student in the music department that found the device outdoors near an entrance to one of the University buildings. Look at the video. It could have been mistaken for a small bomb – but it was not. The box that had the device in it I had provided for the circuit. It has some contact info on it – my contact info. Ironically, I recognized the University student who discovered the device and brought it to my attention. His 5 minutes of fame were from a recent viral hoax he and a friend had created. This whole thing started to smell like a fish market on a summers day.
I can just imagine a panicked call to campus security and the bomb squad – which was averted because a smart student found it first. Police. Bomb squad. Media. Yikes! Not good.
Moral of the story – be more careful about who you build and hand out electronic circuits out to. They seemed like good kids – and maybe the project was completed and they were discarding the product. Maybe they were trying to scare some friends. Maybe they wanted to create a viral video and everything went haywire. Who knows.
This was a perfect example of a University bomb scare that never happened because of some common sense responses from sensible people or foolish curiosity of a student or two. Still, I learned a lesson about giving out advice and technology that could potentially be misused.
Lesson learned.
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Talking Geisha coffee on Newstalk 1010 in Toronto · Thursday November 29, 2012 by colin newell
Talking coffee on CFRB 1010 Toronto!
We were talking to Jim Richards, affable and chatty host of Newstalk 1010 AM Toronto’s afternoon show.
The topic was coffee, $7 coffee at Starbucks – Geisha coffee – the exotic beans from Central America, what they are worth – who is drinking it and why.
Enjoy!
If you cannot see the audio thing above, click here for the mp3.
