use real butter

Yesterday was such a teaser. Today the temps were down (a little) and the winds were up and snow is in the forecast. Not that I’m complaining, because I am a ski whore… just that the muddy melting of spring felt nice. Trust me – I am definitely torn up about leaving during the month of March because March is when you get those amazing springtime dumps. Then again, I’d be off my rocker to turn down a chance to see amazing rock formations in The Middle of Bloody Australia, cook and dine with Kell and Chef Jerad in Sydney, and to tramp, paddle, and play in New Zealand. There are far worse choices to make in life (elections come to mind), so I’ll shut up now.

The US postal service gets a big fat Effingham F. My dad sent me a priority package last Wednesday which only just arrived today – 9 days later. We go through this with the post office every damn year. My mom thinks to make this special vegetable dish: 10 ingredient lucky vegetables, which you eat for good luck at the start of the Chinese New Year. And every year it arrives too late and the food poisoning potential is very high, but my superstitious Chinese upbringing makes me nervous for fear that if I don’t eat it, I’m screwed. The dish translates into “as you wish”. I tasted some and it was slightly sour. But it’s made with some pickled vegetables – so I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be that way or not. My mom would never overnight anything. She stresses about the vegetables calling me every day to see if it has arrived. And so, it stresses me out. Then when it arrives, I’m stressed some more. I’m just going to make it myself from now on since I have achieved Chinese Cooking Competency. She called this afternoon and said to just stir-fry it on high heat for several minutes.

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We had horizontal snow today. Horizontal snow = snow + winds.

We had carrot cake today too. I sent Jeremy over to Kellie and Tom’s house with one. I’ll send another to Marcus’ house tomorrow.

organic carrots are really sweet

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It’s cold. I mean, it’s the kind of cold that will make our roof pop and make loud cracking sounds in the night because of shrinkage. But it’s beautiful outside.

yes, that thermometer reading was zero as of this afternoon

experimental recipe
I had fresh cranberries to use up and I wanted to bake something to warm the house a little. I wasn’t interested in the ubiquitous orange cranberry bread that’s all over the web. So I found a recipe that was more bready than quick bready – if that makes any sense. I didn’t have lemon rind on hand, so I used lime.

cranberries are beautiful in cross section

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