App Alert and Recommendation: Foodspotting

My new favorite app combines foursquare and food photographs. Foodspotting! This is a location-based iPhone app that lets you share photos of particular dishes at restaurants, and post them to Twitter, Facebook, and whatever.

You know how sometimes you go to a particular restaurant because of the specialty dish? Or you know how you’ve heard about this poutine for ages? Or how that other restaurant does amazing homemade ravioli and so on? Well, this app is to help you share and find more of these cool items.

You create an account, and then upload photos of particular dishes. There are tons and tons of dishes listed already, so chances are you won’t have to create a new one. Pick the right one, pick the restaurant (there is surprising a large and global variety! When I typed “Ajisen Ramen”, some ramen place in Bangkok popped up, and was populated with 11 dishes already, whoa).

You can add friends via scanning your email address book. You can follow all sorts of people, leave comments and such. You can check your profile from the Foodspotting website, or see it from the device. You receive points for uploading photos, for having users “nom” your photos and want your photos. The summary page looks kinda like this:

Oh, there are badges too! Below is the list of badges I already won. The faint ones are the near-completion badges:

Overall, it’s fun. I’m loving what’s happening here and hoping that more people in Toronto and Canada in general get to uploading their pics. Us foodies and food lovers already take a ton of restaurant food photos, so why not upload them and help fellow food seekers decide what foods to nom in their hood?

Fancy Grilled Cheese Family Project: #2

This is the Distant Eastern European Relative (Hungarian) fancy grilled cheese sandwich. It’s a less lavish option than the grilled cheese #1, but you must understand that eating thick slabs of cheese – however tasty – is not a good idea. So this is a “healthier” and a very filling alternative. This Eastern European fancy grilled cheese sandwich is simple, redolent of the geographical area it imitates, but still is exotic. Our Hungarian relative here enjoys a good wine and Dutch cheeses (his first wife was Dutch, too).
My grilled cheese project is coming along and here’s another sandwich I prepared and share with you. This is the modest result:

List of ingredients:

• I used a thick slice of Beemster cheese from Leslieville Cheese Market.
• Two slices of Edam from the Kiev Moscow Vilnius Russian store near my house.
• Wine salami (as many slices as you want)
• A dash of Hungarian paprika
• A bit of non-salted butter
• And dark rye bread. I got it from the Euro store and this is the proper Borodinsky slab of bread. I don’t know what it’s in English. I just know that this is the bread I loved as a kid back in Russia. Still love it!

You know what to do. Order is of no particular importance here, as long as the salami is in the middle. This grilled cheese sandwich tasted more like a regular sandwich that I grilled on the pan instead of being a grilled cheese creation.  The wine sausage played well with Beemster and the Hungarian paprika really made itself known against Edam. All in all, a little spicy creation, definitely savory, and great for a cold night outside.

I will put more cheese in next time. And will hopefully feed the other half to my roommate or nearby friend. Wanna have a grilled cheese date?

Fancy Grilled Cheese Family Project: #1

I came up with a new idea. The Fancy Grilled Cheese Family project, which includes me coming up with all sorts of fancy cheese recipes, taking ingredient photos, and then resulting photos. I’m suspecting each grilled cheese family member is going to come with a story. So this is a cooking and a creative writing class, two in one.

So here goes #1. It was amazing! Delicious! Decadent!

The Swiss Uncle Fruity

Final product:

In the Fancy Grilled Cheese family this uncle Fruity lives in Montreux, Switzerland where he enjoys the fresh air, attractive ski instructors. He has a sweet tooth and he sends lavish gifts to his nephews and nieces. He may or may not have a lover in Paris and likes the perceived no-nonsense lifestyle of the American cowboys (that he gathered from old movies).

We start with the following ingredients:

Bosc pear slices, salted butter, Gruyère slices, red hot chili pepper Jack, sourdough bread, and coronation grape compote (if you happen to have a grape compote sitting around after you preserve some of the specimens).

I think the order really matters here:

Spread some coronation grape compote on the insides of the sourdough slices, place them facing up. Add a slice of Gruyère to each side. Pick a favorite side and carefully place the bosc pears (you can sprinkle a little cinammon here if you like, but just a little), add the liberally sliced Jack, then put the sourdough together and spread some butter on both outer layers. Grill each side for 2 minutes or until the cheese starts spilling onto the pan. That’s your cue to place the sandwich on a plate and to devour!

Suggestions and Tasting Notes: It was AMAZING! Red hot chilli peppers radiate the flavor for a full few minutes after I ate the sandwich. And when pear met coronation grapes I mentally leaped with joy.

Try dipping the sandwich in compote is not a bad idea. The red hot chili Jack leaves a pleasantly warm aftertaste and the compote notes are like the cowbells of heaven. Delightful!

It’s been decided that on the cheesy days like this I’ll have to be eating salads and generally lighter food fare in order to over

Less emo photos (blurry realism, if you like) after the cut.

My Amelie-like Experience With Toy Cars in This ‘Hood

I mustered up some enthusiasm and set out to walk to my most fruit and flower stand (in my hood). Actually, it’s been disappointing me lately but I only wanted to buy asparagus, tomatoes and cucumbers. That I could find there!

I walked up my usual street, and then noticed approximately a 15-cm long toy car. And what car! Teal color, 70′s feel, and unsupervised! Whose car was it?! Who left it right on the street, and without any child in sight? I took a dreamy photo:

I continued my walk to the fruit stand, spent 10-15 minutes shopping, and started walking back. Being naturally very observant I kept looking around until my gaze fell on the bush by pavement. AND WHAT DO I SEE? Another elegant car. It was burgundy red, sleek and delicately “hidden” just enough to fall into observant person’s line of vision. Or a short child’s.

I dropped my bags and took another photo. I was on a quest. This couldn’t be a coincidence, especially considering that the two cars were a block apart! I kept walking. I saw the first car on the pathwalk to someone’s house: did a kid move it?! Where is everybody?

Walking by the children’s playground near my house I stretched my neck in hopes of catching  a sight of more cars or any indication of who this Amelie-like gamester was. No idea.

As I was getting close to my house, I squeaked when I saw a third car! What! I took a photo.

I should’ve gone out to hunt more cars in our neighborhood, because there must have been more. Cars like these probably don’t come in sets of only three, and if someone planted them around the hood, that someone must have had more than three. Yesterday my roommate saw a carcass of a similar yellow car. The children got to them and already destroyed these beauties that shoulda been on someone’s toy mantelpiece instead.

I Embrace My Country’s Flag <3

At the Russky Dom – Russian House, – in Vancouver. GO CHECK IT OUT NOW. AND WRAP YOURSELF IN A FLAG FOR CHRISSAKES.

I was a little bit disinterested about going into the Russian house at the winter Olympics in Vancouver… until I found out that Cheburashka will be making an appearance and everyone can purchase a furry friend for themselves ($25)… in white, blue or RED! Isn’t that a mood lifting thought??

That’s me:

Even president Medvedev is as cool as I am:

Olympic Spirit in Vancouver

I have been in Vancouver since Thursday night and I’ve had the best visit to date. The XXI Winter Olympic games in Vancouver have transformed the city into a colorful, buzzing and enticing place to be! I wish it was always like that – streets full of friendly crowds (to a limit),  Canadian hospitality in top form (not that it usually isn’t) and a warm community spirit and generally positive vibes. I enjoyed myself so much.

Let’s back up a little. Back when Vancouver won the bid to host the games, I didn’t really care. I also didn’t care that much all the way until the moment I booked my ticket. Anticipation on the plane to Vancouver (via Calgary) grew tremendously and then I burst into endless patriotic cheer and devotion (to two nations) the moment I was greeted by my family.

Olympic events happen once (or a few times) in a lifetime. Sure, one can fly around the world and attend summer and winter games. But hosting the top-notch sporting event of such calibre in your home doesn’t happen so easily. The feeling of being the host city is incomparable as well. One just can’t miss. Whether you’re into Olympics or not, you’ll get in with the program the moment you enter the curious, energetic and friendly crowds enjoying the town.

Few things I’ve noticed:

Almost every billboard is Olympics-related. It’s understandable – the whole city is a canvas for sponsors, they do whatever they like, – and brainwashing. It’s exciting, it’s passionate, it’s positive and it’s fun. But it’s awfully tiring and feels like a constant reminder. You can’t get away.

The city lifted a lot of rules. Drinking seems to be happening from the moment a cultural house opens (10?), many people glued to the screens. Apparently there have been cases of 24 hour shopping hours designed to suck up as much tourist spending money as possible. Lots of streets are closed down for pedestrians. Traffic decreased by 30%, and public transportation use soared (150,000 people used the Canadian line on Feb 12 or 13, can’t recall).

Pizza joints downtown ran out of pizza on Saturday night (by the way, Vancouver pizza is really good and there are tons and tons of places all over downtown), which is shocking. Anarchy-inclined protesters trashed the Hudson’s Bay window displays and embarrassed the city a little. I wonder if the protest was organized via LiveJournal.

The cheer is contagious. Exploring with a friend on Monday, I was way more excited than him about what we were getting ourselves into. After checking out several houses, interacting with national and provincial exhibits and sitting down in front of men’s alpine skiing on a large screen, my friend leans to me and says, “When a Canadian comes on next, I swear I’m cheering”. He sure did.

Lineups were intense on the weekend, so we thought they’d subside by Monday-Tuesday. Didn’t happen. Irish House was a hot spot at 11am on a Monday, heh! Granville street, parts of which are closed off for pedestrians, was a real zoo and made me, a former local, irritated nevertheless. It’s been impossible to speedily get a table at any of the major restaurants on Granville Island. Despite a busybody shit show, it’s still a once-twice in a lifetime experience.

I’ve taken a lot of photos with my bouquet of cameras, and I could probably write a lot more, but I better get to sleep if I want to wake up early morning and get some work done pre-flight. I realized I haven’t had a chance to finish a couple of personal projects and tasks, despite thinking I’d have a lot of free time during the Olympics.

Adventures in Moody Film

I’ve been busy following my objectives, clearly and passionately. One of them was to take more photos, so below are some results of my work. Infrared film – Ilford SFX 200, camera is Holga. I added a little poem for each shot. Full set here.

there will be fragrant life when earth awakes.
the quiet chirping of the creek
will be replaced
by vulgar shrieks of birds

apres:
sharp, angsty spears of winter
replaced by a standing ovation
of eager reeds

* * *

you can wait for an angel
or you can make one yourself
by imbibing the snow into shape

* * *

attempting to forever possess a bird
- a noble, blue gray white flutter, -
i managed to imprison the light
blinding self and
disgusting the game

* * *

it is not a black forest
but really a negative of the blanched, clear sky

the birch trees of my motherland
sprout endless crowns to heaven

it is all but negative space

animal rituals of the night before – the proof.

* * *

35 And 120 Are Very Special Numbers

Before the New Year, secretly, in November I thought about what I wanted to accomplish (from the creative perspective)  in 2010. I’ve got my career goals outlined all right, and I’ve a plan, and, in fact, tonight after leaving the office I plan to attack said goals with vigor inspired by the new Starbucks VIA instant coffee (oh what a nice plug, can I get a pack of it for free now?). Or the espresso machine that got installed in our office.

Sp. Creative side. I dusted off my Holga. I’ve had it since 2005 and I have been taking photographs with it, but not many. I’ve thoroughly researched various Ilford films and found places where I can buy a fun variety of film rolls:

• Ilford SFX 200 120:  medium speed black and white camera film for creative photography. It has extended red sensitivity and is especially suited for use with a filter to create special effects. By using a deep red filter skies can be rendered almost black and most green vegetation almost white. Its unusual tonal rendition ensures interesting results for a range of subjects, including portraits, landscapes, townscapes and architecture.
• Ilford XP2 400 120: a sharp, fast, fine grain black and white film. It can be used for any photographic subject, but ensures excellent results when there is a wide subject brightness range. The film yields high contrast negatives and has an extremely wide exposure latitude making it suitable for use in varied lighting conditions.
• Ilford Delta 3200 120: an ultra-speed black and white film, ideal for fast action and low light photography such as night time, sport, or indoor architectural applications where flash photography is ‘forbidden’. This is a genuine high speed film with an ability to record highlight detail that sets it apart from other films.
• Ilford H5 400 120: a high speed, medium contrast film making it especially suitable for action and press photography and also an excellent choice for general purpose photography. Nominally rated at ISO 400, it yields negatives of outstanding sharpness and fine grain under all lighting conditions.

I used to take pictures like this. And I even had them printed, but prints have disappeared into a storage abyss:

Update: Last weekend the wonderful Colleen and I went uptown to relax and hey, I used the Holga. I’ve got 12 shots that are being developed as we sit here in front of our computers. I also have 24 b&w exposures and 24 color exposures from last year. It’s happening.

Atlas Not Shrugged [Projects]

My friend and a very talented photographer Eugen Sakhnenko started a 52-week long project on November 30. It is called ATLAS, and it is a weekly portrait blog that features interesting people. In his own words, it’s about “people that are doing something interesting with their lives.”As it stands, most of the people are from Toronto area, although Eugen has photographed bestselling authors and successful entrepreneurs from New York, too.

During the week of December 7, 2009 I was a featured person. I’m very glad that Eugen asked me to participate after he attended Slow Art (which I hosted in Toronto on October 17). I feel that it’s important to highlight and encourage people that are doing something exciting with their lives. Moreover, I like that this is a year-long project and social media-fueled. Readers can connect with those featured in the project, they can learn more about them and strike up a conversation. We’ve been retweeting announcements at the beginning of each week. I personally am lobbying for an excellent wrap-up party next year.

Please check out my profile and leave a comment It would be much appreciated, and you can learn more about me, if you’re interested. Moreover, stay tuned to more awesome peeps popping up every Monday morning on the same photo blog.

Master Organizer

I took this in Vancouver in 2003;
uploaded by dreamtiger

I have issues with time. I keep thinking – I know, – it goes away somewhere and is never coming back. Which is not a lie to be thinking. I try to fill up my time with meaningful activities, good people, cultural enrichment, jolly delicious food and drink, and generally good things for me.

I, like many of us humans, tend to forget things as well. That’s where the electronic, Internet and old-school analog productivity and remembrance tools come in:

Since 2004 I have been keeping a series of To-Do Books. They are the classic 32-page, 7mm ruled Exercise Books with a Canadian map on them; I believe children practice writing in those; those exercise books are relics sort of. I’ve been using them (am on book 6) to write down tasks I had to do. All tasks fit into either the Career/Academic column or Personal/Hobby one. It works, folks. When I’m not at home, I jot stuff down in the Gmail tasks feature – it’s split into work/career activities and personal/whatever lists.

I downloaded Awesome Note for my iPhone, which I love, and which is helping me manage various types of lists, from what to buy at Shoppers Drugmart to Business Books I want to read to longer-term professional and personal goals.

I love me wall Calendar and scribbling in the little squares. I’ve a weekly Organizer which is something I miss from the days of school – weekly agenda with homework, appointments, dates, parties, and big due dates.

Every evening i prepare my Daily To-do post-it. It’s usually for the day ahead type a thing – key tasks and pressing issues that need to be resolved. Usually no more than 3-5 tasks, although I personally find that if I overwhelm myself I’m more likely to start working on them at 10am instead of waiting till 2pm on a Sunday afternoon.

When I feel that I won’t be able to make the most of the groceries in the fridge, I sometimes write out meal plans. But they’re the least successful as I scramble things around.

NOW. That does not mean that I never relax. I also plan Days of Nothing, where my biggest task for the day is to go to a spa, make my way to a coffee shop, or just walk for at least 30 minutes.

I don’t beat myself over uncompleted tasks, some of which have been known to carry on from page to page in my To Do Book for weeks!

PS. One more blog post tomorrow and my blog-writing will equal that of August 2009. This December I will try to beat last December’s numbers, but 17 entries is a lot and I want to enjoy my time with the family.

Quadruple Myself

I am a sucker for photo apps. If you didn’t know, back in the day I used to be heavy into photography, including spending my high school lunch hours in the darkroom, looking at photo books, magazines, walking around the city experimenting with shots, learning Photoshop a year prior taking photography class so that I’d be prepared to edit the negatives… Anyway, I love photos, taking photos and playing with photo toys.

I bought a QuadCamera iPhone app for $1.99 and, when it doesn’t freeze my screen, it is a fun little application. I think it requires way too much iPhone thinking power to work smoothly; sad story. Last night Josue took some fun shots of me and Lisa, and I thought I’d share them. Apparently there are not enough photos of self on this personal blog, har har.

The cool thing is, this app will give you both lomo-style four shots AND a gif file! You can select the desired filter and really experiment. Below are some shots of me horsing around According to Josue, “i’m really good at this”.

And nowwwww, the gifs!

Having a seizure yet?

All That Jelly

Took these shots in Boston at the New England Aquarium. The place was a lot of fun! After conquering the long line to get in, we delighted in the micro-processing, never hurrying jellyfishes, counted as many weed sea dragons as we could, and learned that the giant tank in the middle of the Aquarium is actually tuna can-shaped as opposed to the “apparent” soup can-shaped. 40 feet wide vs. 20 feet tall, ha!

Besides enjoying and photographing unique creatures (and reading their “facial” expressions), I also made a friend with a penguin whom I named Bob. Bob was swimming in the pool as I watched him from above (the pool extended beneath the area where humans walked) and I started waving and calling him to get closer. He looked up and seemed to have gotten mesmerized for a minute there (yay red hair)! Then we continued the wave – swim underneath – swim out – watch for the Karin – swim to where she’s walking – swim out – hear her call – look again… It went on for several feet until he got an ADD attack and quickly swam away with his buddy. I’m telling you, I am princess Mononoke.

The rest of the photos are here

Post title inspired by the homie Egyptrixx.

clear out the junk

Originally uploaded by dreamtiger

I used to allocate a lot of my personal & precious time to things like being mad at my boyfriend for insignificant things. In reality, there were maybe about five things I should have really been mad about. I must’ve had too much time on my hands. I also loved to devote my time to getting angry at friends for silly things, although those frenzies didn’t last long.

Behold! I noticed that on Friday Darren kept apologizing and apologizing, and asking me if I was mad about x, y, z, and then not believing me. It was actually cute. But I wasn’t mad. I’ve spent so much time of my young life worrying about insignificant things and ruining mine and other people’s days that I simply don’t have the energy or desire for that anymore.

I’m proud of that development. I am quite easy-going, and don’t vigorously succumb to the drama. I don’t want to hurt anybody anymore (and, obviously, do not want to be hurt myself). There is no time to waste, no need to be angry with one’s close folks.

why hello

Originally uploaded by dreamtiger

this is from such a long time ago! well, well…. 2004. I remember, those were the days. Summer after we graduated from high school, the days before university, texting my boyfriend at the time (finance engineer guy, heh), we just spent the afternoon shooting 35 mm and speculating about the future. The sun shone brightly, the belt felt heavy, we felt the lightness in our stomachs and were so full of optimism… Speaking of, the positivity is even higher now.