Mango Cheesecake, what?

Okay so, this was a super success at the branch potluck today, I've had many requests for the recipe. I got it off the web somewhere, I don't remember where, and I altered it to suit me. This is a bit of a domestic twist to this site isn't it? Weird, anyway, have fun.

Mango Cheesecake

Crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
(variation: 1 cup crumbs, 1 cup crushed walnuts)
1/4 cup melted butter

Filling:
3 medium-sized mangoes, chopped
1 250 g package of cream cheese
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup warm water
1 Tblsp gelatine powder

Press the crust into 20 cm spring-form pan. Process mangoes, cheese, and sugar (in food processor, or blender will work as well) until smooth. Add cream and process till combined. Pour water into small bowl and dissolve gelatine into it. Do not allow to set. Stir water and gelatine into filling mixture. Pour filling over crust. Chill for several hours or until set.

Note: I used the amount of gelatine the recipe called for, but it didn't set well enough. Next time I may double it.

Takes about 45 minutes to an hour to prepare.

The age old adendum -- Put it back where you found it... dammit!

My poor dear, constantly-berated sibling always wonders why I feel so hesitant to let him use my stuff. Why my lends are always accompanied by "Be really, REALLY careful with it", "remember not to leave it outside" "please lock it up, just don't let it get stolen... okay?"
He wonders, and there is a decent explanation. It's because, while he is my brother, and I love him, and I want to lend him my stuff in good faith, I also want to try and cover all the possibilities of things he might do to my stuff that might compromise it in some way. Because I know, from years and years of experience, that if you don't cover all the bases, he will find something else, the one thing you forgot, to mess up. And certainly, it doesn't mess things up for him, but you end up, say, arriving at work on your bike and discovering that you hadn't noticed he'd removed the pouch with the bike lock in it when you let him borrow the bike the night before. So you sit at your desk wondering if you've got enough time to skip out of work and run to Canadian Tire for another lock... and planning the pleading way you'll ask a fellow employee if he'll kindly lock his bike to yours... and finally, you just phone your brother, and let the phone ring and ring until he finally picks it up... and tell him that he needs to come to your work and return the bike lock to the correct place (around your heretofore unprotected vehicle). You feel bad, you've gotten him out of bed, and he has to make the trek to your work, and he says mournfully "but I left it on the ground beside your bike!" and you think, oh, it was my fault after all... and then you catch yourself thinking that and think instead "Why the hell would you leave it on the ground next to my bike instead of just velcro-ing it back the hell on?"
Argh. He better get here soon.

Remember me as a time of day

Of all the places I'm going, the ones I think about most are Kyiv and Canberra. The second because it's the place where I'm spending the most time and the first because it's the place I'm most worried about.
I'm building up a pretty exemplary vocabulary of Ukrainian words, which I can say and while pointing at things to make myself understood: "Beer please! Thankyou!"
But soon, I'm going to buy a Ukrainian-English dictionary, because my text, and my cd-rom just aren't going to satisfy the expression that I'm most eager to understand, which is:
"Stupid Americans."
Why you ask? Because, in all our fumblings and inanities of foreign behaviour, I want to make sure I know when people are calling me that, so that I can correct them, and say the second thing I'm most eager to be able to communicate:
"No, no. Stupid Canadian."

Call me stupid, sure, I'm okay with that. But never, ever, ever call me American, because as a Canadian that is the penultimate negative to my identity. What makes me Canadian more than any other cliched symbol? The fact that I'm NOT AMERICAN.

It interests me that the Canadian identity, unlike any other country in the world, is less defined by what we are (unless you buy into beer commercials, *yawn*), and more by what we are not, or more specifically, in how we differ from Americans. We have a bit of an identity crisis if you ask me. And if anyone feels like funding it, I'm really eager to make an international documentary on the subject... but I uh, need a camera first.

It's called Style Sisssies... that's right, the sissies of style 

The new clothing line... if you can read it. 

Dyre consequences

Okay so I just left lunch laughing like a maniac... mostly because it's 30 degrees out in the shade and I was getting a little loopy, but also because there was nothing left to say, and also because there was a group of women sitting behind me practicing their French and the things they were saying and how they were saying it were just so cute, and anglicized and... oh, I sound so snobby, look at the French-speaking snob... but seriously, not laughing at them, which is probably what everyone thought. I'm not THAT mean. So anyway, then my lunch was over, and I was too hot, and I walked into the building alone and met in the entry way, or rather was caught in the entry way, between the two sets of doors, by a guy I knew in high school (ahem, so hot) who the last time I saw him was completely hammered, hugged me, and told me that anything I ever wrote he would buy... in fact, he would give me "SEVEN DOLLARS!" for it, no questions. Apparently when inebriated men's capacities for assigning appropriate values to commodities is diminished by a factor of about 10... I think I can safely say this goes for a lot of things -- beer goggles anyone? Anyway, even so, I know he meant it as a compliment, and so far in my literary career, its just about the best comment I've ever gotten.
It wasn't so surprising though, coming from a guy who was able to calm my nerves on the first day of grade 7, when no one else could... but that's a different story... and one probably only I remember...
Too bad you guys had to miss all the excitement. heh heh

Oh, and I should probably explain the title, in case you're all wondering at the spelling... Dyre is his last name. ha ha, I'm so freakin' clever...

The Magic Maintenance Man

This morning as I sidled into work shortly after 9am (I simply couldn't bring myself to catch an earlier bus... something about it being Friday, I dunno), I overheard the maintenance man responding to an enquiry. You all know the man I mean: the little old guy, who must be past retirement age, who blocks the doors from all use when he is cleaning them, and rolls his carts around the floors at a speed which would rival the tortoise in everyone's favourite fable. Anyway, I guess, like the tortoise, he gets the job done, and now I may have an explanation for that phenomenon. As I walked by, a woman on a mission walked quickly up to the little maintenance man, who was standing idly by a garbage cart at the time in question, and said, "Excuse me, how do you change the bulbs in those lights up there?" She indicated the hanging lights, far above, hanging from the very ceiling of the atrium. You would obviously need a cherry picker to reach the things. The man considered her for a moment, as though he couldn't fathom why she would ask such a question... apparently the answer was obvious... and then he said, "Well. . . we're the maintenance staff." -- as though that was all the explanation her question required...
How blessed I feel to work in a building where the maintenance staff have super powers...

Good Bye Squirrel Bait

So my friend the round leather squirrel disc is no longer in the parking lot... He has been scooped up, levered off, or dragged away, by persons unknown. All that remains of him is a grease spot and the imprint of a little foot bone in a muddy spot.
My new object of fascination this morning... well, not so much fascination as disgust that you just can't turn away from... was two greasy old security guards on the sidewalk outside my building, ostensibly chatting with eachother, and looking all serious, but I ask you, is it really a coincidence that two skinny female university students with shirts not meeting their pants were out doing the gardening? I think most probably not. The girls knew what was going on and went about their business with scowls on their faces, the guards knew, and pretended indifference towards them, and I knew what was going on and scurried quickly in to the building to a) curb my urge to beat the men about the face and neck, b) avoid being included in their morning's leering entertainment, and c) vomit.

Couldn't we just castrate them after a certain age? When they're done being really useful and just start being gross and annoying? I suppose people will protest this and condemn me.... *sigh* such is life.