Christmas cooking recap

Every year I get drafted into making two things at Christmas: our now-traditional Christmas day breakfast crepes, and cookies.

This year, along with the usual gingerbread and sugar cookies, I decided to try something a little fancier, and found Martha Stewart's Linzer sandwich cookies. They looked complicated, but ended up being not much more difficult than gingerbread cookies.

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 cup raw hazelnuts (I ended up adding some almond to mine because the bag of hazelnuts I bought turned out to be slightly less than a cup)
• 1/2 pound unsalted butter (it's so much easier if you take this out a few hours before...!)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• confectioner's sugar
• jam (raspberry or cherry will do, but I was told that red currant is traditional so I hunted all over {okay in three grocery stores} for some. It was delicious, so I do recommend it if you can find it!)
• you will also need two cookie cutters - one that is large and round and one that is small (see pictures)

Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees. When the oven is ready, spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast them for about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on them though... mine could have used a couple more minutes, but you don't want them to burn! When the nuts have cooled, rub the skins off using your fingers or, for more stubborn ones, a clean towel.

Using a food processor, grind the nuts as finely as possible. I didn't have a food processor, so I destroyed the motor of my mother-in-law's coffee grinder instead. Fortunately she wasn't upset because it was only $10 and she ended up getting another one for Christmas, totally coincidentally. If there are some chunks left it's not a big deal because it'll be interesting in the finished cookie... but try to get most of the nuts to a salt-like consistency. Set aside for now.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. If you are so privileged, you can use an electric mixer. I used my good old muscles. Add egg, and beat until smooth. Mix in vanilla.

In a medium bowl, whisk together ground hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. In parts, add to butter mixture and stir until combined. I had to use my hands at the end. 

Get two large pieces of plastic wrap, and divide the dough onto each piece. Flatten to form a disk, then wrap each piece in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

When the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out the cookies using the large circular cutter and place onto a baking tray. Using the small cutter, cut out the centres of half of the cookies. Bake for about 12-16 minutes, checking to make sure the edges don't get too brown. Cool on wire racks.

Separate the whole cookies from the cookies with the cut-out centre. First, sift some confectioner's sugar over the cookies with the cut-out centre. Then, spread some jam on the whole cookies. Then make a sandwich!

I thought these cookies were super tasty - a nice break from all the chocolate we had, and the nuttiness combined with the tartness of the currant jam was delish!

Christmas bird count

This is the third year we've taken part in the Audubon Society's Christmas bird count, where for over 100 years groups of ornithologists and bird-lovers count each and every bird they see on one day in a specific area in a specific time period. All the sightings are compiled for one region and eventually form one giant database that allows researchers to look at large-scale trends in bird populations to see which species are doing well and which are decreasing in certain areas.

The weather was mild this year but the snow was falling thickly, which made for a beautiful winter wonderland as we walked through the forest, listening for the soft phoe-bee of black-capped chickadees or the clear birrrdy birdy birdybirdy of northern cardinals.















Oh right, but we were also looking for birds.

This was a record year for me - we saw 23 different species of birds including common goldeneye, mergansers, a merlin, two red-tailed hawks, three types of woodpeckers, cardinals, chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, greater black-backed gulls, robins, sparrows, pine siskins and my personal favourite: the eastern screech owl (can you see it?).
And here's a little white-breasted nuthatch, and below him a downy woodpecker.


I wasn't able to get as many photos of the birds as I would have liked because we saw so many of them from far away, but my little owl more than satisfies me.

The morning commute

I couldn't ask for a better one.

A day at Marineland

Yesterday, Davis and myself and another veterinary student had the amazing opportunity to spend a day shadowing one of the veterinarians at Marineland in Niagara Falls.

I'll preface this with a short blurb saying that I have worked with marine mammals before during a summer as a research assistant at the Vancouver Aquarium. I wanted to visit Marineland because I am interested in working with wildlife - though not necessarily in a zoo or aquarium, more likely with wild animals in a research setting.

I do have an ethical stance on keeping animals in captivity in zoos and aquaria that I won't delve too deeply into at the moment. Suffice it to say that I don't personally believe that zoos and aquaria are inherently cruel, and I believe that captive animals can serve a greater good for their species in the wild, however for me to be morally comfortable with it I have my own minimum requirements in terms of educational and conservation goals of the institute, as well as habitats for the animals. I have visited places that I felt met these standards, and others that really did not. Again, this is just my own beliefs, and in no way do these reflect those of Marineland or the vet college, nor are they a judgment or exoneration of these places.

Anyway. The veterinarian at Marineland was really excellent, and was kind enough to take us around on her day. We started off with breakfast for belugas, and were able twice in the day to feed them! We were each assigned a beluga and mine, serendipitously, was named Tofino. I was shown how to scratch them under the chin to signal the start of mealtime, then slide the fish into his pink and fleshy throat. Beluga skin is quite soft and yielding, and they peer at you with mischievous and intelligent blue eyes. We followed the trainer and vet as they checked over the orca, and were shown where you would take blood from - it's the tail fluke vein and (thank you fotolia) can be seen in this photo crossing the tail from the corners diagonally to the centre.

Between beluga feedings we went to visit the pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), walruses, and dolphins. The vet stopped to check out one of the dolphins who had been reluctant during the morning's show, but fortunately she was given a clean bill of health. These are bottlenose dolphins of the Black Sea subspecies, and enjoy getting a head scratch. Dolphin skin is a little firmer than beluga skin and more rubbery - apparently they are always shedding dead skin and love getting it rubbed off - like me and my Biore exfoliator, I guess.


In the afternoon we went to check on some bison that had been injured in fights. Bison are massive animals - males can weigh nearly a ton with huge shaggy heads and pointy horns. To treat them you have to get them in a chute much like you do with cattle - our squeeze looked much like this one and basically secures the animal so you can examine it. All the wounds we saw were pretty superficial and were treated with a thorough antiseptic wash, skin regenerating cream, and antibiotics.

After the bison, Davis decided he wanted to end our day with a ride on the Sky Screamer. So we voluntarily catapulted ourselves 450 feet in the air.

It gave us a nice view of the belugas.

Random August Photos

... of fireworks in Montreal that I never had a chance to post due to moving, etc. I wish I'd had my SLR with me, but even with a point-and-shoot I think these turned out okay.