use real butter

Wow, what a day. I had a phone meeting at 10 am and then at 11:15 an email goes out from our president telling us that our offices will close at noon so everyone should go home. Those of us who came to work sort of felt like it was a freebie. Jeremy drove down to get me and we set off for a small lunch and running of errands including getting an All Clad 3-quart saucepan (something I’ve been eyeing for over 8 years) and buying a lot of seafood for our bouillabaisse. That seafood would be: grouper filet, two lobster tails, six giant shrimp (I mean giant as in mini-lobster or langoustine size), 1/2 lb. wild manila clams, 1/2 lb. black mussels, 1 lb. giant dry scallops (don’t ever buy water-injected – that is just gross). We brought coolers to keep all of the perishables on ice while we wandered over to L’Absinthe for our restaurant review.

Jeremy told me tonight that the act of “reviewing” our dining experience really makes him appreciate the food and concentrate on details that he might otherwise ignore if we were just “eating out”. The analysis doesn’t seem to get in the way of the pure pleasure of eating well-prepared foods.

Oh the holidays… For some reason I tend to keep myself freakishly busy when I don’t even like Christmas. But today, today all is right with the world for one second because it is the winter solstice. It’s the first day of winter and the longest night of the year, so I was bracing for full on winter. This week however, we are seeing temps above freezing and it feels – AMAZING! I’m telecommuting today since no critical deadlines are looming, and everyone I work with is out of the office. Good thing too, because I finally finished Ben’s quilt this morning at 8 am, just in time for Jeremy to run both quilts to the laundromat for a wash (rag quilts clog your pipes, but industrial pipes at the laundromat can handle it). While he was out, I made the gift bags and packed some goodies for BIL:

I cleaned up in the kitchen and hit the booze early (like at 8 am) because hot wassail sounded so good with zero degree temps outside. Nicole called it hot sangria. I can see the colonials tanking up on hot wassail while running around in the winter night singing carols to the town. Boozy, warm, and loud – that’s the life of a revolutionary…