Lockdown Projects

[Jacob]

I only know one way of cooking padron peppers - like I think that's the only thing you can do with them. I think I'll do some seafood pasta with the fennel - maybe

Blistered padron peppers?

[Sheilbh]

I only know one way of cooking padron peppers - like I think that's the only thing you can do with them. I think I'll do some seafood pasta with the fennel - maybe

Blistered padron peppers?

Yeah with some sea salt. I don't know what else you can do with them really

[Maladict]

Me: Get a subscription to a veg box. Maybe go for a seasonal one so you have to cook out of your comfort zone. It'll be fun!

Me, faced with a box of padron peppers, fennel and an avocado: The fuck?

My approach with vegetables; chop everything up and throw it in a pan, cover with tomato sauce, herbs, etc.... all of the vitamins, none of the horrid taste.

And if all else fails, smother with cheese.

Youve been chatting to my girlfriend.

You have chosen... wisely.

[Maladict]

I've been digitizing hundreds of old old photo negatives. Working from home does have some benefits.

[Pedrito]

My approach with vegetables; chop everything up and throw it in a pan, cover with tomato sauce, herbs, etc.... all of the vitamins, none of the horrid taste.

I only know one way of cooking padron peppers - like I think that's the only thing you can do with them. I think I'll do some seafood pasta with the fennel - maybe

They should be rather similar to italian friggitelli, although the friggitelli are probably sweeter.
May I suggest stuffing the peppers with a mix of ground breadcrumb, anchovies, pine nuts and a little of raisins, some olive oil and salt, then cook them in the oven for about half an hour.

L.

[Sheilbh]

They should be rather similar to italian friggitelli, although the friggitelli are probably sweeter.
May I suggest stuffing the peppers with a mix of ground breadcrumb, anchovies, pine nuts and a little of raisins, some olive oil and salt, then cook them in the oven for about half an hour.

L.

I generally eat a lot of fish, but I go vegan for Lent every year and the thing I miss most is anchovies. I think it is for me what bacon is for most people. I constantly add anchovies to things and am never really unhappy about the decision

[Pedrito]

I've been digitizing hundreds of old old photo negatives. Working from home does have some benefits.

It's something I did several years ago, and I digitized some a couple hundreds of rolls, 36mm and some 120 
Now, I want to digitize all the old rolls my dad shot when we were kids, should be a nice nostalgia trip.
Are you using a dedicated photo scanner? And which software?

Oh, and my half-lockdown project is refitting the laundry room to a temporary darkroom and starting some B&W printing again 

L.

[Pedrito]

They should be rather similar to italian friggitelli, although the friggitelli are probably sweeter.
May I suggest stuffing the peppers with a mix of ground breadcrumb, anchovies, pine nuts and a little of raisins, some olive oil and salt, then cook them in the oven for about half an hour.

L.

I generally eat a lot of fish, but I go vegan for Lent every year and the thing I miss most is anchovies. I think it is for me what bacon is for most people. I constantly add anchovies to things and am never really unhappy about the decision

Oh, anchovies supply just the right (read: largely exaggerated, and delicious) amount of umami to so many different dishes, it's difficult to give up them.
You should try pizza with anchovies and bufala mozzarella   

L.

[Maladict]

I've been digitizing hundreds of old old photo negatives. Working from home does have some benefits.

It's something I did several years ago, and I digitized some a couple hundreds of rolls, 36mm and some 120 
Now, I want to digitize all the old rolls my dad shot when we were kids, should be a nice nostalgia trip.
Are you using a dedicated photo scanner? And which software?

Oh, and my half-lockdown project is refitting the laundry room to a temporary darkroom and starting some B&W printing again 

L.

Yeah same for me, loads of 35mm film, a bunch of slides and a few 120s.
Also some dreadful APS film, biggest scam there ever was. They also prove to be particularly painful to digitize.

I'm using an old Canon 9000F fitted with Digitaliza custom film holders, they keep the film much flatter than the flimsy generic ones.
It gets me pretty decent results, although some films have noticably degraded over the years. Slides hold up best, typically, as well as the 120s surprisingly.

All scanning software is dreadful, Silverfast and Vuescan the least so. I'm using Vuescan, I can't remember what made me choose it (I did try both).

[The Larch]

I only know one way of cooking padron peppers - like I think that's the only thing you can do with them. I think I'll do some seafood pasta with the fennel - maybe

Blistered padron peppers?

Yeah with some sea salt. I don't know what else you can do with them really

That's the proper way of doing them, fried in olive oil and topped with sea salt. Padrón peppers (which btw, are NOT in season at the moment, I have no idea where they may have sourced them from) is not really the most versatile veggie.

[Threviel]

Fennel is magic in a simple pasta sauce. Chop it up, fry it gently and for a long time with onion and bacon. When all browned and sweet add garlic and dab some Worcestershire sauce and let that boil in. Add cream, let boil and presto, a ridiculously good pasta sauce. Treat it like a carbonara.

[mongers]

I've been digitizing hundreds of old old photo negatives. Working from home does have some benefits.

It's something I did several years ago, and I digitized some a couple hundreds of rolls, 36mm and some 120 
Now, I want to digitize all the old rolls my dad shot when we were kids, should be a nice nostalgia trip.
Are you using a dedicated photo scanner? And which software?

Oh, and my half-lockdown project is refitting the laundry room to a temporary darkroom and starting some B&W printing again 

L.

OMG, that's both neat and rather cool.

[mongers]

Yeah same for me, loads of 35mm film, a bunch of slides and a few 120s.
Also some dreadful APS film, biggest scam there ever was. They also prove to be particularly painful to digitize.

I'm using an old Canon 9000F fitted with Digitaliza custom film holders, they keep the film much flatter than the flimsy generic ones.
It gets me pretty decent results, although some films have noticably degraded over the years. Slides hold up best, typically, as well as the 120s surprisingly.

All scanning software is dreadful, Silverfast and Vuescan the least so. I'm using Vuescan, I can't remember what made me choose it (I did try both).

That's interesting, maybe I should give that a go.

About ten years ago I found some processed 120 slide film, that appeared largely black, but held up to the light there was some grossly underexposed images. Handheld exposure of 1-2 seconds against the light from a scanner(only usable even light source to hand) I managed to pull out a few images.

[Pedrito]

Yeah same for me, loads of 35mm film, a bunch of slides and a few 120s.
Also some dreadful APS film, biggest scam there ever was. They also prove to be particularly painful to digitize.

I'm using an old Canon 9000F fitted with Digitaliza custom film holders, they keep the film much flatter than the flimsy generic ones.
It gets me pretty decent results, although some films have noticably degraded over the years. Slides hold up best, typically, as well as the 120s surprisingly.

All scanning software is dreadful, Silverfast and Vuescan the least so. I'm using Vuescan, I can't remember what made me choose it (I did try both).

I've been using an old but very reliable Epson flatbed scanner, the 4990 Perfection, and I always had more than acceptable results, for an amateur - some rolls that at the time were digitized with relatively low dps will be rescanned some time in the future.

Which kind of film degraded? Color or B&W? home- or lab-developed?

And I'm with you about the generally user-adverse quality of scanning software; I've used mainly Vuescan too, but the choice was simply the lesser evil. Nice to know about the custom film holders, I'll check them out 

L.

[Maladict]

I've been using an old but very reliable Epson flatbed scanner, the 4990 Perfection, and I always had more than acceptable results, for an amateur - some rolls that at the time were digitized with relatively low dps will be rescanned some time in the future.

Which kind of film degraded? Color or B&W? home- or lab-developed?

Yeah some of those old flatbeds do a pretty good job, even outperforming newer versions.

A couple of rolls are washed-out and faded compared to the prints. Others seem to have shrunk a bit, making it hard to get them into the film holder. One of the labs had the annoying custom of mounting the film onto a cardboard strip, using some kind of glue. It takes a bit of force to get them off, and some of the older film tears very easily