Happy World Nutella Day!

What, you haven't been preparing? Yeah, World Nutella Day always sneaks up on me, too... 

For the "Scion" game tonight, I'm making the Chicken Enchiladas with Nutella Mole Poblano recipe found on Wandering Chopsticks. I roasted and shredded the chicken last night, and also made the mole sauce. Since the hypermuffin was on the computer (and my computer is in the shop), I wasn't able to double-check the recipe, and I seem to have left out the chicken broth. No wonder the sauce seemed thick... Maybe I'll thin it out tonight while assembling the dish for everyone.

The sauce is a bit on the sweet side for my taste, but is still pretty good. The hazelnut taste from the Nutella goes surprisingly well with the toasted candlenuts I used to thicken the sauce (yes! Candlenuts! I blogged about them before; remember?)

Also last night I whipped up some Mini Pumpkin Cupcakes with Nutella Kisses to bring to work today.

(I used a melon baller to scoop kiss-sized blobs of Nutella onto waxed paper, and put them in the fridge to chill while I whipped up a pumpkin-spice cake mix from the Betty Crocker cookbook. I gently eased some pumpkin mixture into my mini muffin cups and baked them at 350^ for 5 minutes, just long enough for the cupcake to have filled the bottom of the pan, but before it was done rising. Then I popped a blob of chilled Nutella into the center of each cupcake and baked for an additional 7 minutes. They look pretty, and the flavors go well together.)

So far, other coworkers have brought in Pound Cake with Nutella Swirl, Nutella Creamcheese Cupcakes, and Black and White Cupcakes.

Hmmm. Seems there's a whole lot of cupcakes going on. Maybe I should have brought enchiladas instead.

Have I really never posted my recipe for Ginger Apple Crisp before? Really? A quick advanced Google search reveals that apparently I have not.

Time to balance the universe.


hypermuffin "helping" me in between playing her JumpStart Kindergarten. It's delicious for a cold winter night, and really excellent if you are fighting off a cold.

DEAR UNIVERSE: Please stop eating my entire post. I have typed up this lovely recipe twice now, each time taking 10 minutes to do so, only to lose it both times, and I am now cranky, and 20 minutes older.

So on Friday I mailed an important thank-you that was already late. I mailed it in an oversized envelope because it was an oversized thank-you.

The automated postage kiosk at the downtown Seattle postal center led me through a series of questions designed to figure out how much to charge me for my oversized envelope. I dutifully answered all the questions with the envelope lying on the scale, and then printed off my custom postage sticker, costing $4.90 .

The thank-you came back in the mail yesterday, Returned to Sender for no identified reason. Pish and tosh. Nothing was wrong with my envelope. It wasn't over 3/4 inch thick, it was flexible, it was in the correct grade of envelope for the postage I'd selected. The darned scale itself even weighed it for me.

Today I took it to the counter at the QFC, where this time I spoke with a real live person. She weighed it and printed me off a label for $5.15.

It occurs to me that the post office may have incurred more than 25 cents in bothering to return my envelope to me. Then again, since they got to charge me $4.90 and then another $5.15 for the same piece, this is probably a moneymaker for them. It also occurred to me that it ought to be possible to get my $4.90 back. Right? Any other business would have given me back my $4.90 before turning around and charging me $5.15 for the same thing.

I think I am getting unreasonably curmudgeonly in my old age. :-)

Here's a press release from my workplace about the money we've raised for Partners in Health's response to the devastation in Haiti.

It makes me proud to work here, and renews my faith in human nature that so many people are willing to donate so much towards relief.


The Hunger Site and GreaterGood.org Give $125,045 To Partners in Health’s Haitian Rescue Work


The Hunger Site and GreaterGood.org sent $125,045 to Partners in Health today to support that group’s current rescue work in Haiti. This amount represents a combination of website donations received since January 13 through GreaterGood.org online Gifts That Give More™ and additional contributions given by The Hunger Site and GreaterGood Network stores.

Recognizing the need for swift action, GreaterGood.org and The Hunger Site selected Partners in Health for this donation because the group has a long history of extraordinary service to the Haitian people and is already operating medical facilities there.  PIH is one of the largest non-governmental health care providers in the country, with 4,000 Haitian medical workers, including 100 physicians and 600 nurses. Despite personal losses from the earthquake, PIH staff were among the first emergency responders on the scene and have continued to work around the clock to aid survivors while awaiting the arrival of volunteer medical groups and additional supplies.

“We are extremely grateful to The Hunger Site, GreaterGood.org, and all their contributors for their immediate response to this crisis,” said Christine Hamann, development assistant for PIH. “We have medical teams working at all our sites and also operating in Port-au-Prince.  We are organizing a supply chain through the Dominican Republic, due the problems at the Port-au-Prince airport, and sending a team of orthopedic surgeons to Haiti among other immediate responses to this crisis."

With medical facilities a little over two hours outside of Port-au-Prince, PIH is receiving many injured from the city and surrounding areas.

 “Partners in Health provides the best quality of care that I've witnessed in the third world. We had three staff members visit their Haitian hospital complex last year,” said Tim Kunin, CEO of The Hunger Site. Currently, every purchase at The Hunger Site and other GreaterGood Network stores will create an extra donation for PIH’s efforts.

The Hunger Site’s independent nonprofit partner, GreaterGood.org, already has seen a record number of online donations through the Gifts That Give More™ program in response to this crisis, outstripping previous records of more than $70,000 for the Burmese floods in 2008 raised over 30 days and nearly $80,000 for the Australian wildfires in 2009 during a similar time period.

As with all disaster relief donations, GreaterGood.org is committed to making payments each week to the group working in the country. “What we learned during the Asian tsunamis was that need for cash is always immediate, and we can do the most good by making sure that payments are made swiftly to the agencies providing emergency assistance to the victims,” said Lisa Halstead, board president of GreaterGood.org.


( More background information about us )

And here's the link: 


Help Earthquake Survivors in Haiti

I have a lot to catch up on. Let's take this from the birds'-eye view...
( Work, kids, funky groceries, crochet, compost, garden )

What with one thing and another, we're keeping busy. I'll be helping a friend prep exotic food for a LARP she's throwing in two weekends, and we're plotting whether we can get out of town the Thursday and Friday before Valentine's Day (with the kids) to hit cousin Paul's annual gaming weekend out on the Kitsap peninsula.

Now, if only I could find the time to post on LJ more than once a week... ;-)

Here's a fun idea for a little quiz-your-friends thing... but it will really appeal only to the gamers I know. Luckily I know a lot of gamers. Stolen from ysabetwordsmith .


If I were a summonable monster, how would you summon me? (Include items to lure monster-me and method for said fell ritual.)

What would my Special Attack be?  (Describe the attack and its effects.)

I'm experiencing a renewed interest in the "Wild Fermentation" book I bought last year. I've spent the last few days reading through bits and pieces of it, and I've started two things fermenting. The first was some raw millet, lightly pulverized in the foot processor, mixed with plain water, and then allowed to stand at room temperature (covered with a clean towel). After 24 hours or so, the millet is more digestible when you cook it up into porridge. I made the first batch yesterday morning and then another batch this morning; it's sort of like oatmeal, but there's a tangy undercurrent to it that I suspect will grow stronger as the rest of the mixture ferments.

The second thing I've started is a batch of hot Korean kimchi, only made with what I had on hand (green beans and celery) instead of being mostly cabbage-based. I soaked it in a very strong brine for a day or so, then drained off the brine (made with a lovely red Hawaiian salt) and saved it for the next batch... then submerged the softened, salty vegetables in a weaker brine, mixed with hot chili peppers, garlic, and fresh diced horseradish root. After a week or so it'll be ready to start eating. When it gets tangy enough for my taste I'll refrigerate what's left to slow down the fermentation.

Before I started reading about fermenting your own food at home, I assumed that it would be easy to give yourself food poisoning this way. In the 6 months or so that I've been experimenting with fermented foods, however, I haven't had any bad experiences; I've had many more bad experiences with restaurant food. The rule of thumb is that if it smells or tastes bad, don't eat it. This is a pretty good rule of thumb, I think. I have no hesitation about throwing out things that look or smell or taste iffy.

Fermentation gives us some of the most sublime food experiences we've created... wine, beer, cheese, bread, to name a few. I'm fascinated by how it all works.

And now I would write more about it, but I have some not-so-invisible, not-so-micro organisms demanding my attention. They can't give me botulism... thank goodness... only a splitting headache. ;-)

Joining the roster of first sentences from 2008 and first sentences from 2007, behold, the first sentence of each month of 2009.

January: Last night we joined forces and resources with tatterdamelion to host an awesome New Year's Eve cocktail party.

February: I'm packing up my warmest clothes, whatever portable lunch I can find, and my work ethic, and schlepping myself down to the company warehouse in Kent tomorrow for a hard day's work picking and packing. 

March: Here's an article that may interest those of you who, like me, spend a lot of time thinking about words.

April: This morning I brought in another big canister of Quaker Oats, since I'd just run through the last of my old canister.

May: Had an awesome night last night hosting our every-other-week game of "Scion."

June: Two years ago tonight I pushed out a wrinkly, squealing little bundle, the wren, to join the mass of humanity already upon the earth.

July: One thing I've really begun to hate is the annoying internet ads telling me that "Obama" is urging moms to return to school. 

August: Yesterday, aawhitewood graciously babysat the wren so that Andrew and I could take the hypermuffin to the wedding of Ian and Karin.

September: From an afternoon trip that contained a trip to McDonald's so that they could go down the slides... to treating them each to a "Cinna-Mini" at a nice bakery... to running around the Third Place Books compound... the girls' favorite activity was splashing in a big puddle next to the car, until they were soaked.

October: Have you ever had a week in which you're so busy, you forget to post on LiveJournal?

November: I hate sounding like a broken record in always complaining about trying to improve the state of the house while the children are underfoot -- but honestly, trying to improve the state of the house while the children are here is an exercise in absolute futility.

December: I've come up with a list of events, tasks, and experiences that I'd like to do/have/create this December.

I've been in Seattle for over 10 years now. In fact, the New Year's Eve party of 1999, ten years ago tonight, was a formative experience for Andrew and me. We spent the evening at Jen's old apartment on Capitol Hill in an atmosphere mixed between festivity and apprehension. I really didn't know whether the "Y2K Bug" was going to cause a cascade of bank, business, and governmental failures. I had pondered taking off the previous week for my grandfather's trailer out in the woods outside Forks, just in case... and I think I remember getting out some extra cash from the ATM, just in case they were all about to break. But I didn't lay in supplies of canned goods, or head for the hills. Instead, we headed to Capitol Hill.

I remember I wore a sparkly gold jacket that had probably been intended for someone at least 20 years older than me. Back then, I also wore huge round glasses, kept my hair short, and dyed it darker brown. When I look back at pictures of that Catherine now, I seem very young to myself, and also very intent on making myself look older. Making myself look more competent than I actually was... more unapproachable and guarded than I actually was... and, of course, making myself look not quite as scared as I actually was. :-)

There's a picture of Andrew from that evening 10 years ago. Our friend tatterdamelion called it his "Mormon mission" look. Young, closely cropped, clean shaven, and wearing a suit and tie. Just the thing for New Year's Eve at a swinging pad filled with hep cats. That's what the kids today are calling it, right? 

We didn't really know any of the people there very well yet. Y2K did not bring the world crashing down around us. In the wee hours of the morning, when people were too tired to resist and someone brought up history, I worked the conversation around to the Crusades just to give Andrew an opening to talk about the Crusades for 20 minutes or so. This gave everyone a shared experience of Andrew, so that later, they could say, "Oh, yeah, you were the guy who knew all about the Templars, what did you think about blah blah blah?" In a way that was one of the seeds of the various friendships that have sustained us for the last 10 years.

Some of the people there that night have stayed in our circle; some have moved on. People have moved here and moved away, gotten married and gotten divorced, gone through jobs like Tic-Tacs or pretty much stayed at the same one, had kids, lost loved ones. I'm feeling blessed tonight that the last 10 years have been as good to me as they have. I know that there will be a lot of changes in the coming 10 years. It's certain that I'll lose someone, and I know the girls will be growing and changing in ways that are unpredictable, uncomfortable, or downright excruciating. Nothing is certain except change. I can only hope that in another decade I'll still be able to reminisce with fondness over the period of my life that's about to start happening to me... in *counting down* three... two... one...  now.

Today I tried candying some lime slices using this recipe on Recipezaar. The thought was that Rachel G. could use them as part of the "corporate retreat" menu for her LARP that's coming up in January. Candied green food seems futuristic and corporate, right? 

I sliced the limes very thin -- too thin, in fact. Some of them did not have the structural integrity for the rounds to remain whole, and so ended up as long crescent-shaped pieces of rind, from which the pulp had all been boiled off.

The rounds that did get through the process intact seem to have rinds that are too tough, even though we boiled the heck out of them for far longer than the 10 minutes the recipe specified. (I quadrupled the recipe, and ended up simmering the lime slices for almost an hour in the sugar syrup, trying to get the white parts to turn translucent. It doesn't seem to have quite worked.)

Overall, I think the lime peel twists will make fun garnishes for drinks, lime tarts, or pudding, or could be diced up and used in something else. The lime rounds are edible, but a bit too tough in the peel.

If I make these again, I will either need small, tender, thin-skinned limes, like really nice Key limes, instead of the regular old thick-skinned limes... or else I'll need to remove almost all of the rind and pith before candying what remains.

My dad returns to Minnesota early tomorrow morning, leaving me pondering how well this Christmas season has gone.

It's gone really well. In addition to the things I've already noted as having checked off my list-of-Christmasy-things-to-be-done, we also did the following seasonal things: 

• Cut greens from yard -- check. Someday I swear I'm going to make my own wreath out of holly and cedar from the yard... but only after I buy sturdy leather gloves, because holly is really sharp!

• Caroling at home with the girls. The hypermuffin 's favorite is "Hark the Herald Angels Sing..." "Angels We Have Heard On High", specifically, the "Gloria" part.

• First birthday party for baby E.B. Holiday dresses were worn and girls were photographed on the couch together.

• A small and low-key tea party yesterday at shimmerdance 's, to which I brought "rompope," a Mexican eggnog-type drink involving rum and cinnamon. Mmmm! I got to sit next to a real fire and poke it with a poker and play with it some. I've still never built a "real fire" in my very own fireplace; so far it's all been firelogs. I think firelogs may be a gateway drug.

• I picked up two stocking hangers at a Goodwill this morning (75% off all Christmas stuff!), so next year two stockings, at least, can actually hang on the mantelpiece instead of being draped over the back of a couch.

• Did I ever write about having gone to see real live reindeer at Swanson's Nursery? Well, we did, and they were a huge hit! A picture of the girls in front of the reindeer enclosure is the December 2010 calendar shot in the specialty photo calendars I had made up. :-)

Oh, and gifts! I got four jars of specialty olives, a gift card to Starbuck's, a book on detective fiction by P. D. James, a tape of "The Nutcracker" (that may have been more a present to the hypermuffin than one to me, but if she sits still for it, then it really is a present to me!), and a slender volume of short stories by tatterdamelion and collaborators, set in the Cobalt City game setting. My onetime character, Worm Queen, shows up in a couple of them. For Christmas this year, I'm famous! ;-)

The girls cleaned up a bit more: matching sleeping bags from their grandparents are the biggest hit...


followed by a big, sturdy Tonka truck that they can actually ride in and that really dumps, a set of "Dinominos" (dominoes, only with dinosaurs), and washable markers and paints. We have a roll of paper and some stencils waiting to be broken out on a later rainy day, together with some other "bigger-girl" presents waiting for a future time. At our friends' Christmas Eve party, the wren got a baby doll that she absolutely adores and has named after herself, and the 4-year-old got a "Groovy Girl."

My ambitions for the rest of the week involve cleaning and organizing, bringing our menu back to normal from the excesses of Christmas cookies and cream-based foodstuffs, and recovering from all the holiday madness.

I am missing singing the Messiah at UUC right now. I have kicked myself all week for missing out on getting tickets, but it's no use kicking myself -- all i can do is resolve to buy early next year. In any case, I console myself by saying that since tonight is the 40th anniversary, it's bound to be an absolute zoo there -- crazy parking, crazy jam-packed church. That doesn't actually console me, though. I know I'm missing a wonderful time.

Here are the parts of Messiah I'm thinking about tonight...

Part I
"And the Glory of the Lord" -- the first choral movement, after a quiet orchestral introduction and a solo. It's so much fun to settle into the four-part groove and feel the power of all your fellow singers. Everyone is raring to go, and perhaps too enthusiastic. Don't oversing! Pace yourself!

( Read more... )

More seasonal things done:

• Spritz cookies with my dad and the girls -- currently in oven
• Handel's Messiah on DVD -- and we sang along for at least a little bit, with the score, since I can't get to the "real" singalong on Saturday
• Seasonal candlelight service last night at UUC with Dad and the girls
• Overnight Yule party at 3countylaugh and brighids_own 's place. I got to sit right next to a real, hot fire using cedar and madrona woods, sip hot apple cider, and chat with people I knew and some people I didn't.

Tonight we're most probably headed to another holiday gathering. Tomorrow will hold presents, and then Latin Mass for my father and me, after which we will stew a rabbit.

This poem moves me. Actually, I can't read it out loud or hear it read aloud without tearing up. This is how I recorded it in the beginning of my "Singing the Living Tradition" hymnal a few Christmases ago, before I had to leave the Loft Choir due to extreme gravidity. :-) 

I'm not sure if I got the line breaks right, and oddly, I can't find the poem anywhere on the internet (!). So perhaps I got them wrong. If anyone knows where the line breaks ought to be, let me know and I'll correct it.

I'll be attending a Yule gathering later tonight (much later tonight!), and I know I'll think of this when I'm sitting by the fire, surrounded by friends.

This afternoon I got a package from the St. Olaf Bookstore. Some kind soul -- and I think I know who you are, H**** W***** -- has sent me a package with two CDs and a DVD of Christmas music from St. Olaf College.

I popped the DVD in tonight and watched it with the girls. While I can't truthfully say that they were spellbound the entire time, we did all stay on the couch for almost an hour, snuggling, giggling, hiding in blankets, playing peek-a-boo, and watching the program. I answered many questions pertaining to woodwinds, percussion, and brass instruments. I found myself defining a "descant" and giving an overview of the various choirs of St. Olaf, with notes such as "That's the one Mommy was in for three years" and "That's the one that your uncle John was in his senior year."

It struck me that all these years later, my memories from singing at St. Olaf are incredibly strong -- much stronger, I'm sure, than any memories my erstwhile conductors might still have of me.

Accomplished:

• Order Christmas calendars ... they won't be here in time for me to turn around and reship them to relatives in time for Christmas... but they'll be there in time for New Year's. ^_^
• Christmas cookie swap (at work) -- two large Tupperwares of assorted cookies are in the freezer, waiting to be pulled out when my dad is here
• Andrew's birthday... presents and special dinner out accomplished.
• Gifts for gamers tonight ^_^
• Pajama-and-pancake party at the hypermuffin 's school on Wednesday
• Ballet school production of an abridged version of The Nutcracker
• Birthday party for a boy in the 4-year-old's class
• Trip to Bellevue Botanical Gardens to see the Christmas lights
• Three crocheted hyperbolic plane ornaments have been given away and were very well-received. I need to crochet faster! Faster!

Tonight after the girls are in bed it will be time to wrap and crochet and crochet and wrap. It's all working... thank goodness for lists and systems. I read posts from people who are making 12 kinds of cookies and I just wonder how they are doing it. Do they lock the children in the garage for the duration??

If life is ever getting you down, just think how much worse it could be... For instance, you could be convicted of petty theft and shipped off to Australia as punishment for stealing a slab of bacon, a sack, a bucket, and a couple of ducks worth sixpence each.

Sixpence? They sent thieves to Australia for such small-scale crimes as this? I kind of thought that transportation to Australia had been reserved for career criminals and murderers, not for people who were convicted of stealing a shirt.

No doubt the key piece of evidence in the trial was this statement:
Dramatic!

I can see the new television series now... "CSI - Lincolnshire, 1836! Coming this spring to a network near you."

PS: I was looking up whether anyone else on the internet had already blogged about the word "chine." I don't see anything, so clearly it behooves me to be that person.... but not right at this exact moment. :-)

The shard of glass turned out to still be in the hypermuffin 's foot. I took her to the ER at Northwest Hospital this morning, and after several hours of trying this, that, and then the other, they managed to extract a teensy tiny piece of glass from that little foot.

They had to go in under fluoroscopy because they couldn't get it under regular light. After it was finally out, the surgeon told me he hadn't been sure he could get it, even with the fluoroscopy guiding his hand. But he did.

The shard is on a piece of Scotch tape in a plastic bag high up on the side of the fridge. It's maybe 1.5 millimeters long, and wickedly pointed, like a tiny dagger.

Many, many thanks to Dr. William Korbonits for his skillful hands, and to everyone at Northwest who was involved in her care, especially the triage nurse in the ER, Jen the tech, Sean the nurse, and the lovely Scottish- or Irish-accented woman who handled the discharging.

I would be worried about her recovering from the Ketamine (?), except that she's currently shrieking in glee and chasing her sister all over the house, including jumping off things and landing solidly on both feet. :-)

In fact, given the crazy preponderance of shrieking and running in here right now, I think I'm going to move to fabric-only ornaments. :-P

I had a very elaborate dream just before waking up.

It began with my company, a small two-person Photoshop / graphics arts concern, entering into a "dark bargain" with a larger company and agreeing to Photoshop a Very Very Important Image for them. The original of something -- the very very very important original of something -- was gone for some reason, and they needed a replacement, stat, and it had to be perfect.

When I expressed my doubts about doing things under the table this way, their CEO assured me that the full faith and credit and reputation of their company would shelter us. But I knew in the dream that he would hang us out to dry if the wind changed.

( The dream gets worse, but not in the usual way )

Last night I had gotten both girls to bed by 8:15 -- a huge success -- and was in the bedroom changing into my pajamas, about to fall into bed. I was achy, shaky, chilly, and a bit feverish, and needed sleep in an extremely dire way.

The phone rang. I dashed into the living room to get it, wondering who it could be, but by the time I got there and answered on the third ring, there was no one at the other end.

I checked the time -- 8:24 -- and the caller ID. It was a 1-866 number.

I was enraged in a special way: in the way that only someone coming down with a flu who has been parted from her bed for precious minutes -- minutes! -- can really be. I called them back.

I got a voice mail system that mentioned something about HP or HB -- and then it cut off. The system had hung up on me.

I called back again, and the phone rang 10 times with no voice mail pickup.

MY QUESTION: When did it become OK for telemarketers to call after 8:00 at night? THE ANSWER: It is not ok, and it has never been ok, and it never will be ok. I know that most people don't go to bed at 8:24, but last night, I really really really needed to go to bed at 8:24. If they had actually answered my callback I would have let them have it.

As it is, all I can do is post a pissy blog post about it. The number was 1-866-441-6228. If they call you, please consider asking for a callback number and then calling them back when they have the flu and are tottering towards bed in extreme need of sleep. :-þ