Sugar Loaf

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Pamela

For a long time I clipped almost every brownie recipe I found. I was always on the lookout for a best recipe. I had the idea in my head that there was a giant range in brownie quality and if I was diligent enough, I would find the magical life-transforming recipe of brownie goodness.

Meanwhile I had a gooiest recipe, a most chocolately recipe, Katherine Heburn’s recipe, Test Kitchen Best Recipe, giant brownie bake-off winning recipes.

At one point I probably had at least a dozen recipes in my clippings, most of which I had never tried.
 
I finally went through and threw a bunch away because, I don’t make brownies that often (So why was I on the lookout for a life-transforming recipe? It’s a mystery.) and when I do I usually use this recipe (Thank you Keetha) which is always a big hit or else Mark Bittman’s.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that we had somehow accumulated 3 jars of Nutella and much as we love Nutella, it would take us awhile to work through 3 jars. So I got this brilliant idea to look for a Nutella brownie recipe.
 
I found this one which looks very simple and I was concerned it might turn out mediocre brownies but what the hell, just some butter and sugar and no shortage of Nutella.

They were amazing. They were so amazing I ate THREE! the night I made them and didn’t feel well when I went to bed.

My conclusion is that it’s pretty tough to bake a crappy brownie unless you make a mistake.

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Ancient Clothes

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Pamela

These are the tomato seedlings. I saved a blob of seeds last year and they’ve been sitting on the windowsill, looking like something we were too lazy to throw away, on a wadded up paper towel. I split them in half and planted the two blobs. A couple dozen sproutlets came up. I thinned them out. I need to get it to one per pot.

I finally flipped my closet over the weekend. I put the winter stuff away and pulled the lighter stuff from the back. I thought I needed more clothes. I was dreading having to buy any.

When the lotto was up to $300M or whatever I was thinking if I had money like that I’d hire people to bring me clothes. I would love to have new stuff I just don’t want to deal with having to out and get it myself.

I ended up finding a bunch of clothes I’d forgotten about that I put away last year. I probably could use a couple of tops and I might get a new pair of sandals because there’s a shoe store I like near the office.

Really what I need is winter clothes. There was a point in March where I was wearing my same warm outfits over and over. I can’t find good warm pants. I found an online store that had some that looked okay but when I looked at the reviews all the people who loved them were ladies 55-65. That didn’t sound promising.

But I don’t have to worry about it until October. Maybe then I’ll be in the mood for shopping.

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Chasing After Some Finer Day

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Pamela

So what’s the etiquette on talking about how people smell?

I’m sensitive to smells meaning that I notice them a lot, good or bad. And I tend to be one to blurt out, “Something smells good,” just about any time. I’m more reserved about bad smells, sometimes.

Recently the UPS man came to the office, and he smelled terrific.

I didn’t say anything because I was afraid it would be weird. But he was like Scatman Crothers and he called me ‘Sweetheart’ so I don’t think he would have minded. We have 2 UPS men at the office. One of them never smiles, even when I make a joke. I would not say anything about smells around him.

News about the self-published eBook is coming shortly. I still need to get a few things checked out and then I want to set it up so you can get it for free for a few days. But it is all done and in the chute and *almost* ready for prime time.

Stay tuned.

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One More Chance to Get It All Wrong

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Pamela

Bob just did something completely ridiculous and then he asked me, “Honey, am I doing it wrong?”

I said, “Dude, you are a public service announcement for doing it wrong.”

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Another Shot of the Apple Tree

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Pamela

I don’t think that other photo really captures how pretty it is so I tried again. This isn’t much better but it’s the best I can do with my cheapass cameras and my skill set.

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Jump The Garden Wall

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Pamela

We had amazing soul-transforming weather three days in a row over the weekend. We also had a soccer game and some visiting fans of the away team wrote about their visit to Portland. One of the things they commented on was how to them it was just a nice day in April but the locals were running around stoned out of their minds on heat and vitamin D.

It’s gray and raining again. Whew! That was enough open-toed shoes and not carrying around a raincoat for me.

I finally figured out what was going on with my iPod. Remember back in February I was on a road trip and it kept repeating the same song over and over? I don’t use my iPod every day and I forgot about it and every time I’d take it with me somewhere and it would be repeating over and over and I’d think, “Oh crap, I need to figure this out.”

I sat down with my iPod and my trusty search engine and immediately found a forum where someone said, “My iPod keeps repeating the same song over and over, what’s going on?”

And then, the amazingly helpful reply: “Sounds like you have it on repeat the same song over and over. Turn that off.”

No duh, Waldo. When I’m queen of the world that person is going to be banned from the Internet. I found several versions of this helpful information and had to dig around until I unearthed the secrets of where the repeat thingy was and even then it took me awhile of tapping on that tiny screen with my chubby man fingers to get the right menu to pop up. I can’t believe I managed to turn it on in the first place.

One problem, solved!

There’s always a new problem to take it’s place. The dishwasher died and the refrigerator is coughing and the bathtub is on slow-drain. At least the apple tree looks amazing. I don’t think it’s ever looked so pretty. I had enough time to prep the garden plot but not enough to actually plant anything. Supposedly the rain will take a rest this weekend and I can go crazy out there.

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SPROUTASTIC

Posted on April 21, 2012 by Pamela

Kimberlee inspired me to get my sprouter out.

I bought it years ago and used it for awhile and then it was put into the corner of storage and I ignored it.

My seed stash was ancient. The mung beans worked great. The alfalfa-kitchen mix whatever it is hasn’t been too impressive. I’m going to need to refresh my supply.

My week was unexpectedly killer busy. I’ve hardly had time to pull up my socks. But good things happened.

I had a longer post started somewhere but I can’t find it so something to look forward to later.

It’s sunny and I’ve got a soccer match. I’m wearing short sleeves and sandals. Great day.

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Carefree Mind Of Her Own

Posted on April 14, 2012 by Pamela

Elvis Costello

Photo courtesy of wrestlingentropy. This isn’t even from the tour we saw. There were a bazillion people taking photos last night and nothing CC on flickr. Boo.

That Elvis Costello show was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen in my life. And this from a person who is a great Elvis admirer but not a hardcore fan.

All day I’ve been thinking about what I want to say about the Elvis show and all I can think of is: It was awesome.

Here’s the review from the local paper. And even though the website is a near-abomination, it’s worth a click to see Elvis in his plaid suit. Not many men can carry off that look and he looked amazing.

Regular readers are going to laugh when I say that one of the things that made the show so great was the audience.

You know how I’m always complaining about the people by us who talk during the whole show? Those people did not come last night and if they did, they did not talk. This was one of the most reverent crowds I’ve ever been in.

The show involves this giant wheel-of-fortune with and people from the audience some up and spin to pick what he will play. The people would spin the wheel and then they hung out onstage. And the people were all totally into it without being obnoxious. They danced in the go-go booth or danced with Elvis. They took photos. It was one girl’s birthday and Elvis led the audience singing “Happy Birthday” and she had the exact look on her face that you would have if Elvis Freaking Costello led a packed concert hall in “Happy Birthday” in your honor.

He sang every great song. At the end he did a bit where he stepped away from the microphone and sang.

No one made a peep.

It was an amazing show from start to finish and once again I had to thank my sweetheart for dragging me to something I thought I didn’t want to do.

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Pump It Up

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Pamela

This guy called. Strong accent. He had Bob’s name and tacked a Mrs. on it for me and then told me he was calling because of our Windows computer system. He sounded like he was phoning from a cafeteria in Outer Mongolia using a tin can and a long piece of string. I could barely understand him.

He said since we were authorized users and he could see that we’d being going online he knew we had a virus.

Normally I would have shut this call down before we even got this far except I was curious where he was going with this. I knew he wanted to rip me off but how was he going to do it?

But he just kept reading off his card with long pauses and this terrible connection. I finally asked him what exactly he was going to do and said he was going to walk me through a check for viruses.

I’m not filled with patience today and that was enough for me so I told him we don’t have even have a Windows machine in this house and buh-bye.

So I guess he wanted to get usernames and passwords? It’s hard to imagine this would be successful.

* * *

Last weekend I made a Sweet Potato Pie for Easter dessert. I haven’t made one in a long time and I thought I’d used this recipe before but maybe not. It’s from Cook’s Illustrated. As per always I was trying to do 1000 things at once and I started my pie late and then I had to hurry so rather than mashing my potatoes by hand, I tossed it all in the food processor so that filling was smooth.

When we ate it after dinner it was still warm and it was very good. But the next day after it was completely chilled it was AMAZING.

Ten stars for this recipe.

We’re going to see Elvis Costello. The last time we saw him was in 1996 in Seattle during our honeymoon. You can find the setlist here. (The Internet is so awesome when it isn’t awful.) I remember that. 4 encores. I was like, OMG, another encore?

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Warm My Bones

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Pamela

I had this post open in draft all day yesterday and I couldn’t find 3 minutes to finish and hit the button.

Sunday was the first time in six months that the house warmed up inside to more than the thermostat was set. The forecast was for 60 or above all week except now I see at the end of the week we’re going back to the 50s.

I was dying to turn over my closet and put away all my winter stuff and bring the lighter clothes out except I was afraid of jinxing it. Even last week I was still wearing my wool and long underwear.

This morning I took something out that I haven’t worn in forever. I tried a new dry cleaners and these are the sharpest pleats ever seen in my closet.

Which reminds me of a story from a long time ago. I was probably in middle school and my Grandma must have been staying with us. She ironed a gnarly pleat into my pants – I can’t remember what pants they were but not the kind where you want a pleat. I remember standing in front of the ironing board in my underwear frantically trying to iron the crease out and weeping. “I can’t look like a DORK!”

I’ve always brought my dry cleaning downtown with me since the only dry cleaners I knew about in Vancouver wasn’t very convenient. There’s a cleaners near the office. It’s kind of a pain to carry home on the bus but I don’t have huge amounts of dry cleaning.

One night we were coming home from the market and Bob said we had to pick up his dry cleaning and directed me to this place about 3 minutes from our house.

“There’s a dry cleaners here?”

It’s totally convenient and the people are super nice. And they do a mean pleat. But I don’t look like a DORK and if I do, call the pleat police.

Last not thematically linked item that I thought of because I was just downstairs getting my Bi Bim Bap. What is the deal with wraps? Has there ever been a good wrap? A burrito is a good wrap but random sandwich stuff wrapped in a cold tortilla is a sorry excuse for a meal. The kind of thing you pick only because the only other choice is tuna melt.

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