Considering Cameras

I still haven't replaced my camera but am planning on doing so very soon and have been researching like crazy the past couple days. My head is kind of swimming with all the details of the similarities of and differences between the different cameras I've been considering, so for simplicity's sake I'm going to break them down into two basic categories. The first category is compact point-and-shoots and here is what I've been looking at (unless otherwise noted, prices and photos are from Amazon's website):

Canon PowerShot S90 ($399)

Leica D-Lux 4 ($779)

D-Lux 4 carrying case ($129) I just had to include this because it's so nice to look at.

Olympus Stylus 6000 ($212) Shoots underwater!

Panasonic DMC-LX3 ($391) I've read that this is almost the same camera as the Leica D-Lux 4—same lens, same sensor, etc. Not nearly as pretty as the Leica, but significanly cheaper.

And then there's the second category, which includes slightly larger cameras with larger digital sensors than the first bunch, but still made with compactness in mind. The first one here is a Leica that's not actually available yet but should be soon. Way beyond my pocketbook, but I'm so impressed with it's looks! At first glance, I'd likely assume it's a much older camera. And the flash! So cute!

Leica X1 (~$2000, rumored)

(Above photo borrowed from here)

Sigma DP2 ($570)

Olympus E-P1 ($671)

Panasonic GF1 ($860)

I have to admit, I feel kind of dumb/intimidated shopping for a digital camera. I think because of my stint at photography school I feel like I should know these things—the digital terms and jargon—but I really don't barely at all. I never got a stitch of experience with digital the whole time I was at school (it wasn't part of the first-year curriculum), and have done little since to educate myself in that field. But I do feel like that's gradually changing, and this latest camera quest has really helped bring a little more clarity to some things for me.

Unrelated P.S. Ok, so the caramel does not look so ugly after all and it probably would have been dark like that regardless because of the sucanat. But it really didn't taste right.

Nothing says I Love You like ugly burnt candy.

I'm not sure where I went wrong, but my suspicion lies with the pot I used. Although it's not the lightest-weight pot ever, I don't think it's quite "heavy-bottomed" either. So I think that's a good candidate for the culprit. Or maybe it was that I subbed sucanat for white sugar, but I can't imagine why that would cause burning. Or maybe the recipe stinks (I'll admit I was a little leery of the source), and I should have been stirring it more as it was cooking. But I was eager to make these and didn't have the rice syrup on hand I would have needed for David Lebovitz's recipe. Having a tolerance for burnt flavor and being the caramel candy lover that I am, I've been munching away at these regardless, so it wasn't a total loss (I should say crunching, really, as they are a little on the hard side). But my vision of cute little wrapped caramel candies adorned with dainty, decorative Valentine hearts is dashed for now. This is not a candy for giving. Oh well.

A Treat I Can Eat

The other day I adapted a truffle recipe from the latest (Feb.) issue of Martha Stewart Living to one I could actually eat (per my resolutions). The original recipe (which is not on the Martha website but is almost identical to this one that is) called for chocolate that was already sweetened, so I had to make some adjustments so that I could control the sweetener myself. In place of the pre-sweetened chocolate, I used unsweetened chocolate and sucanat (which is basically just unrefined cane sugar—or, probably more aptly, less refined cane sugar).

The result was a complete success! I have a preference for milk chocolate so would like to try to incorporate even more cream next time, but they really are very good as is, and I think most chocolate lovers would like the cacao content just where it's at.

Ingredients:
8 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sucanat
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (or orange, peppermint, etc.)
1/4 teaspoon salt
Unsweetened cocoa powder, for rolling
Directions:
Put chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan, gently heat cream, sucanat, and vanilla, stirring frequently until sucanat granules are dissolved and mixture is just at a simmer. Tip: I forgot to do this when I made these, but you can easily grind the sucanat granules to a fine powder in a coffee grinder, which will greatly help them dissolve more readily in the cream. Once simmering, immediatly remove from heat and pour over chopped chocolate. Let stand 2 minutes, then stir until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, atleast 30 minutes. Once chilled and firm, spoon out chocolate and form into balls with hands, then roll in unsweetened cocoa powder. Store in the refrigerator and serve at room temperature. I'll let you be the judge of how long they're good for—Martha's recipe stated 3 days, but I think they could easily last way longer, just depending on the length of life of the cream.

The cream mixture, before added to the chocolate, is quite reminiscent of caramel and got me wanting to make caramel candies, too. My dad and I went on a candy-making jag one winter, experimenting with caramels, toffees, and brittles, and I'm pretty sure I remember one toffee recipe we tried that was nothing but equal parts butter and sugar. The simplicity of that really appeals to me, and in my search for something similar in a caramel recipe I found this, which I might try but with the addition of salt. This tempting recipe is another candidate that a friend pointed me towards. I'd opt for brown rice syrup in this case, and I am curious how that would turn out. The recipe choice and outcome will likely be posted here soon enough.

Edible Exfoliator

On this cotton ball is an alpha hydroxy mask I made based on a recipe I jotted down from a magazine I was reading in a waiting room a few months ago. It was from the author of this book, which I'm making a mental note to flip through next time I'm at a book store. The recipe for the mask is this:

Ingredients:
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup orange juice (the original recipe actually called for grape juice)
1/4 cup apple juice
1/4 cup sugar
Directions:
Combine all ingredients and stir until sugar is dissolved. Apply to face using a cotton ball and leave on for 10 minutes or more, then rinse off. Refrigerate the remainder and use before it goes bad (1 week?).
*I used all fresh juices (with the help of a juicer), but bottled could be used, too.

I just did an internet search for homemade face masks and now my head is swimming with more ideas! Finally, a use for sour milk!

Meet Agnes

This is my new (obviously old) sewing machine, and I am pretty beside myself about it. I might just be kidding about naming it; I just typed that on a whim. I like the idea of naming inanimate objects, like I've always wanted a name for my car, but they just never seem to stick. Does anyone else have a name for thier sewing machine? Or car?

What I had before was also a Singer, but a much newer, cheap-y (a little under $200) one I bought new just over a year ago and which began to break down on me about a month ago, during my Christmas sewing projects. And I really hadn't put many miles on it—pretty much everything I've sewn with it I've shown here on this blog, and it does not amount to much. So, piece of junk, if you ask me. Cool thing is, I bought it at CostCo and they have just about the most liberal return policy ever known to man and will allow me to return it, over a year later, used and broken, for a full refund, which will more than cover what I spent on this used one I just bought off Craigslist.

As you can see in the close-up pictures, it's kinda grimy, but I think I can clean quite a bit of that up. It didn't come with a manual or any attachments, and I don't know much about all the knobs and things, but I think I can start here in figuring out and finding those things. As far as I know it works fine and was serviced recently. It was actually my mom who did the leg work and found this machine, and she got the sense that this particular model has somewhat of a following, so that's a good sign. But what really sold me on this machine was when I tried it out. Being a pretty novice sewer, I don't fully get how different one machine can be from another, and have always been a little perplexed by the huge price disparity there is among sewing machines that seem to offer basically the same features. But today, sewing on this machine, I was blown away by how different it felt from the pile of poo one I've been using the past year. It was like there was butter in there somewhere! What I'm saying is, smooooooth. So, I'm pretty happy at this turn of events and reminded how, sometimes, what starts off as a bad thing can really be a blessing in disguise. Thanks Mom.

Update: Speaking of sewing, I just saw these new fabric samples from Heather Ross and am freaking out, I love them so much! And I don't think I've ever seen the "Part 1" of these, now I have to go look at those, too. I generally buy really cheap fabric, cheaper than what these are going to cost, but I've been having all these fancy fabric visions dancing in my head lately that I don't know if I can shake!

Into the Light

Two completely unrelated but interesting things I've recently seen:

1.) The art exhibition (of the same name as this post title) of my uber talented artist friend Christine Gray. It's going on right now over at the Okay Mountain art gallery here in Austin and will be running through February 13th (for anyone who's interested in checking this out, you can check the Okay Mountain website for gallery hours).

2.) A speech given by Jim Marrs, conspiracy journalist extraordinaire.

I have only very recently heard of him, but have been indirectly familar with some of his work for years—the Oliver Stone movie "JFK" (such a great movie) was partially based on a book he wrote on John F. Kennedy's assassination. His ideas likely seem pretty farfetched to some, but hey, people used to think the earth was flat, so who knows. I'm mostly of the mindset that many things are possible and there's not really much I know completely for sure, and I found what Mr. Marrs had to say certainly worthy of my time and consideration.

Random Winter Snapshots

Outside

(The lake again, minus the greenery.)

Inside

(Pearl onions for Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon--yes, a direct response to the movie, which I actually didn't think was all that great, but still worth seeing for the food talk and seeing Meryl Streep as Julia.)

(Spices for a big batch of chai, enjoyed when it was particularly chilly out.)