use real butter

Recipe: chocolate caramels

First off: that puppy is not mine. She belongs to my friend’s new beau. Her name is Sonora (I like dogs named after geological provinces or features) and she is 100% mutt.

Second: My shoulder and neck issues are more or less under control now, thanks! I gave up on the marathon coding sessions and now take breaks every couple of hours - which is great because I have resumed my 1-2 hours of cardio and that makes me uber happy. In addition, it is a great excuse to get back to some baking and cooking. Oh, and I ice my shoulder a couple of times a day and that reduces the inflammation. Heat always seems to aggravate the pain.

To the topic at hand: Fellow food bloggers have often wondered aloud (or on their posts) why they bother spending hours writing up entries if people don’t bother reading them? How do they know that some folks don’t read the entry? It’s pretty obvious from the content of certain comments. I am not all that concerned with whether or not people read my posts in their entirety or at all for that matter. It’s cool. I understand that some folks just like to browse the pictures (and if you’re a Daring Baker, who the hell has the time to read over 1000 entries describing the SAME recipe?) If someone wants to comment without having read the post, then that’s fine, although I might get a tad snarky in my reply if I’m running low on patience.

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: pistachio macarons

I seem to be taking a bit of a risk blogging tonight. We have crazy wind storms raging around us, shaking our house and flickering our lights. Actually, our power went out last night right after my post, so I was lucky to hit the Submit button when I did. We’ve had several power dips throughout the day already. That and my right shoulder is jacked up for whatever reason, so hanging out on the computer isn’t such a good idea (at least not for long).

The power dips didn’t matter too much today because I was making Chinese dumplings. It’s something we eat every New Year (both western and Chinese new years). I made both the pork and shrimp fillings and cooked them into potstickers and steamed dumplings.

Recipe: chocolate pistachio biscotti

There is much to catch up on, but now I can finally catch up!

I saw my honey off yesterday at noon (conference), and then had a lovely and relaxing lunch with my friend in Boulder at Sushi Zanmai while it was freezing ass cold outside (1°F - you could call it a little cold snap) before sending her on her way to the airport. Despite the 51 hour visit, we packed a lot in and had a grand time of it! It snowed Saturday night, so we had fresh powder on the hill Sunday morning. It was also 0°F in the parking lot.

**Jump for more butter**