something beautiful

Played Candy Land with my teenage daughter tonight. It was a fierce competition, with much quoting of Veggie Tales (”I’ve been stuck in the Molasses Swap for 38 turns!”… “Still stuck.”), but in the end, and she totally kicked my butt. Mr. Mint betrayed me.

I once ran across a description of my generation that called us “grunge-listening, Starbucks-drinking, flannel-donning slackers.” Finding it highly amusing, given my great affection for both grunge music and a good flannel shirt, I teased my oldest that he only wished he was one. (His response: “We flannel-donning slackers drink Mountain Dew nowadays.”) Whatever. I am committed to doing my part to raising the next generation right: in flannel. So far, so good – even the small boy has embraced his destiny.

Given my track record with these kinds of projects, I might well call it “a photo occasionally, for a little while” but there you go – I’m making no promises. However, as needing as I am of inspiration, I think it might be beneficial to my creative spirit if I force myself to pick up my camera and find something to make an image of with some measure of regularity.

Funny, effective method to help you remember the Greek alphabet. (It takes a few for him to get to it, but it’s worth it.)

Hi, my name is Steph, and I have a problem… it’s been one week since my last mailing list add. My problem is that I always sign up to get your emails. Ministry updates? Sign me up. Daily devotionals delivered to my inbox? Of course. Coupons and exclusive offers by email? Send ‘em my way.

Then, I go to check my email….

I’m horrified by the way my personal correspondence is lost amid the sea of advertising. Advertising that I signed up to get.

To make matters worse, I never even read them. Oh, I may occasionally open the Hobby Lobby ad, knowing their tendency to give 40% off any one item, but I don’t even bother with the rest of you. Not even the devotionals – not after the first time. Sometimes, in a moment of guilt, I archive you, promising myself that I will look at you later. Usually, however, I just delete. I know I should tell you I’ve lost interest rather than just resenting your constant presence. Once in a while, I do find the time to open particularly prolific advertisers and use your SafeUnsubscribe link. But what about ministry updates and daily devotionals? Unsubscribing from you makes me feel like a heathen.

Still, I never read you – I don’t have the time. So what choice do I have? Unsubscribe.

Just so you know, I’m not being arrogant when I call them the perfect chocolate chip cookies – that’s actually the name of the recipe. I came across it in an issue of Cooks Illustrated magazine I got a while ago (if someone wanted to get me a subscription to that magazine for Christmas, my birthday, or just because, I totally wouldn’t mind), and I have to admit, when I first read it, even with the great explanation of why all the extra steps were necessary, I was skeptical. It seemed like a lot of work for chocolate chip cookies. I mean, do I really have to brown the butter before I even get started? And what’s with the mix thirty seconds, let it rest three minutes, mix it thirty seconds more, let it rest three more minutes, etc. – is it really that much better than just mixing it all at once?

Truthfully, the answer is yes, yes it is that much better. I never knew chocolate chip cookies could be this good.

Of course, mine were only almost perfect, as I do have a tendency to not follow recipes exactly. Perfection would be out of character for me, anyway.

Recipe is here: Cook’s Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

It seems I was remiss in my previous post – I neglected to mention what my dad brought to our Thanksgiving dinner this year. First and foremost, he hosted it. Without my mom. That’s a major contribution right there.

That was not all he brought to the table, however – oh no, it was not. He also made some fabulous barbecue baked beans and a delicious macaroni salad. You may wonder why I didn’t mention this before. Well… I didn’t want to give anyone the impression that he doesn’t normally contribute to the feast (whether he does or doesn’t is irrelevant – I didn’t want to imply it), that he’s a newbie to the provision of Thanksgiving dinner, that he had any apprehension about the edibility of the spread this year. Although, in all fairness, he may well have had a great deal of apprehension about his daughters’ ability to cook something up to the standard of fare he was used to – particularly his youngest daughter’s, but he certainly never said so. Besides, he deserves his own post, don’t you think?

Photos courtesy of my niece, Felicia.

So, despite any concerns we may have had about making Thanksgiving dinner without Mom, everything turned out great. I did not end up making homemade bread, but I did make the pumpkin cheesecake, the acorn squash, and the stuffing. Carol and I even made gravy, just like our Grandpa taught us to. Carol rocked the turkey and “smashed” potatoes, and Felicia made the Best Smashed Sweet Potatoes Ever. Of course, Sara Lee’s apple and pumpkin pies were pretty tasty, too. And just like when Mom cooks, we had enough leftovers to keep three households fed for a week. Photo credits belong to my niece, Felicia, who was the only one who brought a camera, and who kept using it all day.

This year, for the first time ever, my mom will not be around for Thanksgiving. That means my sister and I will be responsible for cooking dinner for our family gathering. My sister, having spent the first four years of her married life in a foreign country on another continent, has some experience with this. I, on the other hand, have never prepared a Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, I usually get asked to make the frozen corn, and I’ve been known to burn it. I’ve never even considered making a turkey and in fact, have often joked to my family that if I ever had to be responsible for cooking Thanksgiving dinner, we’d been eating turkey hot dogs. (At this point, you will all be happy to know that my lovely sister is taking care of the turkey – I just have to help hunt down the recipe.) I am, however, responsible for more than corn this year, so I am researching and planning, and I am determined to make something not only edible, but incredible. Right now, I’m eyeing an “easy” pumpkin cheesecake recipe on Tasty Kitchen, acorn squash (which I actually know how to make because I love it and make it on days that don’t start with “Thanksgiving”), and the Pioneer Woman’s stuffing. And fresh-not-from-a-bread-machine bread because I already know how to make that, too, and find it somewhat fun. Stay tuned for an update this weekend…. we shall see if it gets filed under Kitchen Nightmares or not.

… that Mercury is NOT the hottest planet? You’d think it is, because it is the closest to the sun, but no. It actually gets down to -300˚F at night. That’s because Mercury has almost no atmosphere to trap the heat on the side that is facing away from the sun. Add to that the fact that each day on Mercury is the equivalent of 59 earth days, and I think Mercury is making Alaska look like a sunny paradise of mild temperatures. (I only mention this because living in Alaska has been on my mind lately – I have no idea why.)  Daytime temps on the now-smallest* planet reach a scorching 750˚F, making Arizona summers also appear mild in comparison. Not that you’d want to live on Mercury anyway – meteors killed all the dinosaurs there. (OK, I made that last part up – there is no evidence that dinosaurs ever lived on Mercury.) Mercury really does get hit by a lot of meteors, though.

* Since the IAU declassified Pluto as a planet on August 24, 2006, Mercury is now the smallest planet, but we refuse to mention it without an asterisk. We are a little sore about Pluto’s demotion around here….