The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment, then where is it to be found?
– J.B. Priestly
Don’t look at your feet to see if you’re doing it right. Just dance.
– from Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
1. Zumba!
2. planning parties
3. holiday parties during work hours
What have you got to be happy about or grateful for this week?
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.
– Samuel Johnson
1. when internet people become real people (I had lunch with Dawn yesterday, who was in town doing some very important work)
2. trying new recipes
3. the anticipation of Christmas
P.S. I swear I’m really trying to do more than two posts a week. I don’t mean to be lazy, I just am.
I figured if I was going to make the world a better place, I’d do it with cookies.
– Ana Pascal
I’ve got a post in the works about the story behind last Monday’s picture, but I wanted to share with you the madness that was the Great Cookie Weekend of Aught-Nine.
I arrived at Karen’s Friday night, and we set all of the ingredients out on her kitchen table. Here’s the before picture:
Then we went dancing. And got home at three. And then there was a mouse, which gets its own post. And then we got up at 9 Saturday morning and tore through 9 cookie recipes and 2 kinds of fudge. Here’s the after picture:
We ended up making two batches of three of the cookies because we loved them so much. Here’s closer look:
Clockwise from the top, we have:
1. Caramel Pecan cookies, without the pecans (these are made with Rolos and are very chewy)
2. Cinnamon Spiced Hot Chocolate cookies, drizzled with dulce de leche (which I discovered is super simple to make, so now I can get on with #38 on my 101 in 1001 list) (these are very crispy; the texture is more like a gingersnap than anything else, but I really loved the flavor of these)
3. Rosenmunnar, or thumbprint cookies (we used half strawberry jam – Cheesie’s homemade, actually – and half orange marmalade; next year, we’re thinking of using strawberry and mint, to make it more Christmasy)
4. Kissy cookies!
5. Polvorones de Canele (Polovorones are traditional Spanish Christmas cookies, but these did not turn out the way they were supposed to, though they aren’t bad. I think we didn’t use enough flour, because they are supposed to stay in balls, not spread out. I might try these again before Christmas to see if I can get them right)
6. Cream Cheese Sugar cookies
7. Scottish Shortbread (we added peppermint extract to the dough, then dipped them in candy chocolate coating when they were cooled and sprinkled them with crushed peppermint candy – hands down, these are the best cookies we made)
8. Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies (made with white chocolate chips; nice and chewy – yum)
9. Candy Cane cookies (the recipe called for almond extract, which we thought was dumb, so we added peppermint instead; these are fairly labor-intensive, but they look great)
In the middle we have chocolate fudge and peppermint fudge.
If you’re interested, I can provide you recipes for any or all of these delicious treats! Just leave a comment or email me. The three we made extras of were the Kissy cookies, the thumbprints, and the shortbread. SO good.
ETA: I almost forgot – we had a special helper:
That’s baby Ben, Aimee’s little boy, who is almost 2, if you can believe that! Aimee had to work Sunday, so we agreed to watch him for the day. He’s the best!
Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant landmines hidden under the weedy mass of years.
– Diane Ackerman
1. the smell of the pine-scented candle that only comes out at Christmas greeting me when I walk in the door
2. preparations for the Great Cookie Weekend of Aught-Nine
3. a good idea
What are you happy about or grateful for this week?
I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.
– William James
Thanksgiving day is a jewel to set in the hearts of honest men;
but be careful that you do not take the day and leave out the gratitude.
– E.P. Powell
1. Thanksgiving with family
2. road trips
3. “history of food” shows – I love learning all about where nachos and donuts and Tootsie Rolls come from!
I hope you’re all celebrating with loved ones today, and I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving!
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
– G.K. Chesterton
So, I took a little hiatus from this feature, though I’m not really sure why. In any event, it’s back, so let’s get to it.
1. Macaroni and cheese
2. Getting some Christmas shopping done early.
3. An honest day’s work
That’s what I’m happy about this week – what about you?
True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body: nourishment and refreshment.
– William Penn
In any world menu, Canada must be considered the vichyssoise of nations. It is cold, half- French, and difficult to stir.
— Stuart Keate
So when I said last time that I hoped it wouldn’t take me two weeks to blog the next leg of our vacation, what I really meant was, “See you in 6 weeks!” Sorry.
Anyway, we left Buffalo Thursday morning – another beautiful day – and headed north. We crossed the border with no problem and checked into our hotel, which was connected to the Rogers Centre where the Blue Jays would play that night. We immediately set out on foot for the Hockey Hall of Fame; David’s been wanting to go there for a long time. Of course, I made him pose for pictures:
But I got in on it too!
There was so much to see, but the crown jewel is the Stanley Cup, which we got our picture taken with:
Then we wandered our way around town a bit before heading back toward our hotel and the CN Tower. This is what it looks like from the ground:
Wow, right? Well, we decided to go to the top. David, who is afraid of heights, was a good sport on the way up, even though the elevator has glass peephole in the floor:
But that was nothing compared to the glass floor at the top, which freaked even me out:
There were a ton of kids up there, and none of them were scared; they were lying all over the glass floor, face down, or running back and forth all over it. I could barely look down, but I forced myself to walk across the glass part once.
Then we took in the view, which was amazing.
I took a panoramic “stitch” shot with my camera, but I don’t actually know how to stitch them together to show you (that’s part of #78 on my list – learn three features of my digital camera; haven’t gotten around to it yet!) so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
We headed back to the hotel for a few minutes to rest before heading downstairs, out the door, and around the corner to the baseball stadium to see the hometown Toronto Blue Jays take on the Evil Empire, aka the New York Yankees.
With apologies to Karen, who is a Red Sox fan, here are some photos of some famous Yankees:
Jeter
Rodriguez
Damon
Posada
Our seats were about 4 rows up from the field. At one point, A-Rod chased a pop up into foul territory and ran smack into a Canadian police woman. What’s awesome about that? Well, in one of those pictures, you can sort of see me and David! Here, I’ll show you:
Great, right? We’re famous! Anyway, the game was just ok, really, and the Yankees trounced the Jays, but I was psyched to complete my goal of seeing three games in three different stadiums.
All in all, I really enjoyed our trip. We definitely did not have enough time to do everything we wanted to do, so we are planning a return trip at some point. You can check out the rest of my Toronto pictures on Flickr, if you like!
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