Here are links to the food that will be served at Anya’s birthday tea (and dinner, if you chose to stay)
- Parsnip and Maple Syrup Cake
- Tofu Banh Mi (vegan) and Grilled Steak Fondue Sandwich (*very* not vegan)
Anya’s Birthday Menu
Tofu Bánh Mì Chay Recipe
Ingredients:
One 14-ounce package extra-firm tofu
1.5 cups of shredded carrots
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons palm sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
Sriracha sauce
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1.5 teaspoons black pepper
Fresh baguettes (
English cucumber, shredded
Method:
1. At least one day before you plan to make the sandwiches, cut the tofu into slices and pat dry. Freeze the tofu overnight, then thaw it in the refrigerator. Once it has thawed, squeeze it dry again.
2. Combine the carrot, 2 tablespoons of the vinegar, 1 tablespoon of the sugar, and a large pinch of salt in a medium bowl; cover and refrigerate while you prepare the other ingredients.
3. Whisk together the oil and a few drops of Sriracha (personal taste how much) in a small bowl.
4. Put 1 tablespoon of palm sugar and 1 tablespoon water in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Cook, shaking and swirling the pan occasionally (but not stirring), until the sugar is mostly melted and golden brown. Slowly drizzle in the soy sauce, then add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until the onion is tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the thawed tofu and the black pepper and cook, turning the tofu occasionally, until it has absorbed most of the sauce, about 15 minutes.
5. Split the baguette horizontally with a bread knife.Spread the Sirachah mixture on the bottom half of the baguette, and top with the tofu mixture, the carrot mixture, and the cucumber.
Stars
A dozen little squares of paper later, I am starting to think that using a template and cutting stars is going to yield better results. I finally found a process that works for me (http://www.firstpalette.com/Craft_themes/Colors/foldingpaperstar/foldingpaperstar.html). And a little bit of wonkieness can be accommodated in the applique process … But I think I am getting more than a bit!
Baked French Toast Casserole with Maple Syrup
Ingredients
- 1 loaf French bread (~16 ounces)
- 8 large eggs
- 1.5 cups heavy whipping cream
- 1.5 cups milk
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Dash salt
Directions
Slice bread into 20 slices, 1-inch each. Arrange slices in a generously buttered 9 by 13-inch baking dish in 2 rows, overlapping the slices. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, half-and-half, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and beat with a rotary beater or whisk until blended but not too bubbly. Pour mixture over the bread slices, making sure all are covered evenly with the milk-egg mixture. Spoon some of the mixture in between the slices. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake for 40 minutes, until puffed and lightly golden. Serve with maple syrup, fresh fruit, and fresh whipped cream.
Star Quilt – Phase Zero
A few weeks ago, my mom sent me a picture of a pieced circle skirt made with rainbow colors:
That is fantastic, but with Anya being so small … seven different colors would yield very tiny little slivers along the top. So I thought I’d make something like this, but using Newton’s five color spectrum divisions. Even sharing the fabric with my mom so she can make another skirt, I’m going to have a good bit of fabric left over.
I think I’m going to make a quilt. It is possible to cut a five pointed star from a square of fabric with a bunch of folds and one cut (http://www.ushistory.org/BETSY/more/flagfoldcut.htm). The mariner’s compass will be challenging, and attaching all of the stars to the background fabric will certainly be time consuming even on a machine. But I think it’ll be worth the effort. Quilt design below – the rectangle is where a twin size mattress would be.
Below is a blow-up of the star. There are really three different triangles cut from two different colors. Piecing it together, though, is a challenge. I found a good paper piecing tutorial at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlF1J05OV4U … the process actually makes sense now. At least in theory!
Rainbow Skirt – Fabric Acquisition Completed
I have finally acquired all fifteen half-yard pieces of fabric to make Anya’s rainbow circle skirt.
Once the pieces are cut, I can sew the arcs together. Then when all five arcs are completed, I’ll sew the straight lines to join the arcs together into a circle. Once I have one big circle, I can get the waistband attached. Mom bought a few yards of a rainbow elastic for these skirts:
Unfortunately the next step is the hardest — I have to find the box that contains my scissors and rotary cutter!
Back online …
Well, our servers and network equipment have been unpacked, and it looks we are back online!
Halloween 2014 – Little Red Riding Hood
For Halloween this year, I made a cape for Anya’s Little Red Riding Hood costume. The process came from http://www.doityourselfdivas.com/2013/10/diy-little-red-riding-hood-costumecloak.html – but I made a fully lined cloak instead of just lining the hood. As a result, I needed two one yard pieces of fabric. There is a real lead-free pewter cloak clasp too, it is just hiding behind her mouse.
It turned out beautifully, and we even managed to get her to wear it long enough to take a few photos 🙂
It was not difficult to sew … Mostly a couple of straight line seams. I had a lot of trouble with the top of the hood – too much bulk sewn by machine. Two failed attempts and I just stitched it up by hand. This way, there is not a ridge of fabric on top of her head.
Another gratuitous cute kid picture:
Rainbow Skirt – Pattern
My mom sent me a picture of a fantastic pieced skirt:
It is similar to a pieced chevron skirt that we had seen on Project Run & Play (http://alittlegray.blogspot.com/2012/04/pr-week-1-piece-by-piece-chevron-skirt.html) — but the sections are parallel to the seam instead of creating the chevron pattern. I saved the original chevron too — it is another skirt I would like to make for Anya.
I’m trying to figure out if it is feasible to make something like this for Anya. How much fabric would be needed?
I want to use a 3.5″ radius for the waist (~22″ waist so there’s some gather at the waist and it can grow with her) and five color spectrum divisions. Which means each section is made at 72 degrees.
Then I need to figure out how large of a rectangle of fabric is going to be needed to cut these arcs.
So the largest arc requires fabric 8″ high (well, a little more for the seam allowance) and 16″ wide (again plus a little for the seam allowance). So an 40″x18″ half yard is plenty of fabric – even enough for two skirts so I can send fabric along to my mom. We can both have a 20″x18″ rectangle. Now I just need to find a fabric with fifteen shades that I like — a reasonably priced fabric.
You know, when I learnt to use AutoCAD, I never expected that it would be my tool of choice when creating patterns for my kid’s clothes … but the polar array made it so easy to section the circles!
Anatomy of an LDAP Filter
LDAP filters are searches. Equality tests are supported for any attribute — attribute=value. Most attributes are case insensitive (but check your schema definition to verify!), and you can perform both exact matches (attribute=value) and sub-string matches (attribute=value*). While you will see * used in substring searches, LDAP filters do not support regex pattern matching. Some attributes support greater than and less than comparisons as well. A filter like (modifyTimestamp>=20140811000000Z) finds any object modified since 11 August 2014. This is useful when you are processing directory records and don’t want to look at any that haven’t changed since the last time your batch ran.
Tests are combined using Boolean operators. The three operators — AND (&), OR (|), and NOT (|) can be grouped and nested within parenthesis to from complex queries.
Your directory may support extensible matching — Active Directory does not. You may be able to find objects in the OUName OU using “ou:dn:=OUName”.
Your directory may support approximate matching — find close matches using “givenName=~Tim” where Tim and Timmy are returned.
To better understand an LDAP filter, decompose it into its sub-components. An example filter is:
(&(|(uid=e0*)(uid=n9*))(!(homeDirectory=*))(|(memberOf=cn=group1,ou=groups,o=example)(memberOf=cn=group2,ou=groups,o=example)))
This filter becomes
(&
(|(uid=e0*)(uid=n9*))
(!(homeDirectory=*))
(|(memberOf=cn=group1,ou=groups,o=example)(memberOf=cn=group2,ou=groups,o=example))
)
The three sub-groups are AND’d — for an object to match the filter, it must meet all three sets of criterion.
Then decompose the first of the three sub-groups.
(|
(uid=e0*)
(uid=n9*)
)
This group uses an OR operator — the value of the uid attribute needs starts with e0 OR the value of the uid attribute starts with n9. You don’t need to use the same attribute in with the OR operator. I could use (|(st=OH)(title=Engineer)) to find all records where st is OH or title is Engineer.
The second sub-group has a single sub-component. The filter (homeDirectory=*) means “the value of homeDirectory is not NULL”. There is a NOT operator around the comparison — so we have the value of homeDirectory is NULL.
Decomposing the third sub-group:
(|
(memberOf=cn=group1,ou=groups,o=example)
(memberOf=cn=group2,ou=groups,o=example)
)
This group uses an OR operator — the value of memberOf is cn=group1,ou=groups,o=example OR the value of memberOf is cn=group2,ou=groups,o=example
The complete filter, then, finds records where
the value of the uid attribute needs starts with e0 OR the value of the uid attribute starts with n9
AND
the value of homeDirectory is NULL
AND
the value of memberOf is cn=group1,ou=groups,o=example OR the value of memberOf is cn=group2,ou=groups,o=example