Monthly Archives: September 2018

project

Fix a worn out Toronto Public Library card

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I’m on a roll this week – a record number of posts (3 in 7 days…).

The bar code on my library card has been worn out for a while.  My last few trips, its probably taken about a minute for me to play around with the positioning of the card on the library’s scanner to get it to read correctly.

Years ago, I’d read how my friend Chris created a custom library card with all of his family’s card numbers on it.  Although I’m sure the instructions he provided would work (I suspect the library’s barcode readers handle many formats), the bar codes his method created didn’t match the one on the card.

Here’s how to get one that matches:

  • The format is Codabar
  • The Start and Stop character is ‘A’
  • The Toronto Public Library’s account number already has a check digit, you don’t have to add one
  • Many online generators exist.  I used abarcode.net

I printed mine and stuck it to my old card with packing tape.

food, project

Reverse engineering a recipe

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The Hispanic Fiesta Latin-American festival descends on Mel Lastman square in North York every labour day weekend.  The festival has lots of live music, a beer tent, and food vendors.  And every year, I buy a coconut ice pops (“Paletas”/popsicles) from Polar Real Tropical Fruit.  They’re awesome, and I never see them sold anywhere else.  Perhaps its the ambience of the festival, but I prefer them to other coconut ice pops I’ve tried.

So, I decided to try to make my own.  I took a picture of the ingredients and the nutritional information.

Coconut Paleta Ingredients and Nutritional Information

Then, looking at the protein, carbohydrate, and fat content of each key ingredients against the nutritional facts of the ice pop, I estimated the proportions of a 150 g serving as follows:

  • 15 g of shredded, sweetened coconut
  • 70 g of 2% milk
  • 2 g of tapioca starch
  • 13 g of sugar
  • 50 g of water

Here’s how mine turned out:

Homemade Coconut Paleta

It looks very much like the ones from Polar Real Tropical, but the texture was a little more ice-crystal-y, and it was less sweet.  For my next batch, I’ll cook the mixture before freezing it.  This should help the sugar dissolve evenly, and allow the tapioca starch to thicken the mixture a bit and improve texture.