I've posted a new(ish) tutorial for how to make Surprise Balls. My original project page for these was from before I owned a digital camera, ages ago, and the picture were from a webcam. The idea is pretty straightforward -- insert small present, wrap strip of crepe paper, insert present, wrap, continue -- but they are super fun to open.

The ones shown here were made to give out when I spoke at The Lab at Velocity, and I was tickled that Jessie from Cakespy was one of the raffle winners.

You've got the rest of the day to get 20% off when you use the code RuMeMiniLove (case sensitive) on anything you buy over at Delight.com. If you live in Seattle it might be the perfect opportunity to stock up on reusable shopping bags, seeing as our green fee is going to happen -- Seattle is requiring stores to charge customers 20 cents for each plastic or paper bag they use. It's all an effort to encourage all shoppers to bring their own reusable bags which, you know, yay, but let's hope that extra tax money gets used for something good.

Anyway, now is the time to get a set of Envirosax or RuMe bags, and another set for the car, and a few to keep on your bicycle, and one at your desk... With this in mind take a look at Delight's Eco-Delightful Shopper Set in Bold and Bright and Urban Shopper styles which include large and small RuMe bags as well as Eco Bags Reusable Produce Bags.

I've been using Envirosax and RuMe Bags for a while now and the best part is getting to feel a little proud of yourself when you see other people lugging a bunch of canvas reusable bags into a store while all your reusable bags are neatly tucked into your purse. Try not to gloat.

I've decided to make the famous NYTimes chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I really want to follow the instructions as closely as possible. The recipe calls for 3.5 ounce mounds of dough, so I've been on the lookout for a scoop, or disher, that would be exactly that and, though I think I might have the size I need, I looked all this up recently so I'm putting this here as a big Dishers 101 for myself when I forget it all again.

Dishers, or scoops or portioners, have number sizes on them, mine can be found on the little metal sweep. This size represents the number of scoops in one quart. The larger the number, the smaller the capacity of the scoop. You can find a whole range of disher sizes, I know Sur La Table seems to have them all hanging in a big, happy, jumbled group. The book of yields lists a table of disher sizes in ounces, cups and mililiters. According to the Kitchen Conservatory list the closest sized scoops in liquid ounces would be a size 10 at 3.75 ounces or a size 12 at 3.25 ounces. They have the size 12 as being for standard muffins. I own a Norpro size 16 disher (56mm, 2 tbsp) which I've used for standard sized muffins. The OXO cookie scoops I was looking at were sizes:

large: size 20, 3 tbsp., 3.25" diameter cookie
medium: size 40, 1.5 tbsp., 2.75" diameter cookie
small: size 60, 2 tsp., 2" diameter cookie

So, the dishers all have fairly precise measurements, but which size will give me 3.5 ounces of that cookie dough? The finished cookies are supposed to be 5 inches in diameter, far larger than the size 20 OXO disher is supposed to give. The 3.5 ounces is described as being "generous golf balls". Will my size 16 scoop be too small? When is the last time I held a golf ball in my hand? Do I have the patience to wait until I can locate a size 10 or 12 scoop? Why don't I own a kitchen scale yet?