Onigiri Party.

Yesterday evening Jessie and I got together to make onigiri and a bit of sushi, and it turned out to be a super successful endeavor! We made approximately 2.5 cups of calrose rice, which ended up yielding around 22 onigiri and 2 rolls of sushi, enough for our dinner plus multiple future meals.

We used Jessie's rice cooker, and made sure to thoroughly rinse the rice beforehand. I've read on other websites to allow the rice to drain for 30 minutes after rinsing, but we didn't do that and it turned out perfect anyhow. We stuffed them with the tasty combination of smoked salmon and avocado, using a 3$ mold Jessie had recently purchased. The mold worked extremely well, and we made sure to have a bowl of salted water close at hand to help eliminate the rice from sticking to our fingers and spoons. Oh, we also added rice vinegar to our onigiri which supposedly technically changes their title to sushi, but we didn't care because rice vinegar is damn tasty.

The sushi were a bit of an after thought, as we had run out of salmon and avocado, but still had a lot of rice. We stuffed them with cucumber and carrot. They're a little plain, but not bad at all.

And ready to bring home! We each ended up with so many that I decided to freeze half a dozen of mine. To do so, I individually wrapped them in saran wrap and enclosed them all in as airless of a ziploc bag that I could manage.

Earthquakes and sugar cookies

A 5.0 magnitude earthquake hit close to home today. The epicenter was less than 50 kilometers away from Ottawa, where my family and friends felt it strongly. The earthquake was even felt in Toronto and beyond, but I did not feel it here in Montreal, which I will admit I am a little disappointed about.

Quebec has always been considered one of the world's 'safe zones' as it is a good height above sea level, and no where close to the edge of the North American tectonic plate it resides on. To have an earthquake hit here, and at such a strong magnitude is unnerving, to say the least. Luckily it wasn't so strong as to cause intense structural damage and casualties.

2010 has been an atrocious year for natural disasters, and I can't help but think we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. It is no longer a question of if another disaster occurs, but when it'll strike. And in times of anxiety I tend to bake; when I first found out about the 2012 theory years ago, I remember baking a huge batch of cupcakes. Today, I iced my sugar cookies.

In unrelated news, Phil and I began learning ASL today. It's a lot of fun memorizing and practicing, and I hope I can stick to it. It may come in handy in the future (if not for anything other than secretly signalling to Phil, hehe).

Apple Pie.

Yesterday my friend Carolina came over for the day. We made banana cake and two apple pies. I had far too many black bananas, so this made great use of them. I like banana cake, but I think I prefer banana bread as it isn't so sweet. The apple pies turned out phenomenally, and I was amazed by how easy they were to make. I definitely need to make more pies in the future (especially since I have a bunch of frozen pumpkin innards stored away).

June has been a slow month to start, but I'm hoping it'll pick up. For the most part, it has been spent at home in a bit of a lazy stupor, which truly goes against my nature. It's unnerving to not have a busy schedule, whether my time is being taken up by school or by work. I have been applying to a lot of jobs, and I'm hoping that I will get hired soon. At the moment I'm actually waiting on a call for a contractual job which would take me to Ottawa for a couple of weeks. It is not what I would call a job in any of my usual fields, but it would pay me enough to cover my rent, utilities, and food for July. Since I'm visiting family in the Dominican Republic next month, this contract is as ideal as my situation can get. I don't really wish to get hired full time right now seeing how I would probably have to quit in a few weeks time to travel. I have my fingers crossed, please cross yours for me too!

p.s. I got the job!