I am out of here, I’ll be back next week, have a great New Year!

I finally get to put up what I made for my parents for Christmas – the organic cotton man scarf for my dad, and a slightly tweaked vegan fox for my mom. The pattern for the vegan fox came, of course, from the fabulous Knitty.

p.s. I made shrinky dink tags, I had forgotten how much fun that stuff is.

The Mad Gab’s website has been redesigned, and the story of how the company came to be updated, it’s so good to hear that a company devoted to being good in all ways is doing well. And I really want to try the Peppermint or Gingerbread seasonal elephant lube. Yum.

I bought some of the Method cleaners the other day, and I have to say I really don’t like the way they smell. The cucumber particularily is one I find I cannot stand. Although, this may be because it is the same fake cucumber scent as a melt and pour soap experiment from a while back. I couldn’t get the smell of that horrible frangrance oil out of anything it came near. I don’t have the lavender though, how does that one smell?

I love the shape of this sofa/chaise. If only it weren’t so expensive. And if only the similar ones sold by Lazyboy weren’t quite so unappealing.

Merry Christmas!

Holiday Sugar Cookies and icing recipe tried and approved for us by Digs Magazine.

Last night I successfully made an Osgood pie from my family’s recipe! I tried this last year, but I didn’t have an oven thermometer and I didn’t know my oven was heating about 70 degrees hot, which made for a rather burnt pie (and everything else). My family had Osgood pie at the holidays along with pumpkin and apple, and I thought it was a regular holiday food until I was in my teens. According to Scott it may be one of those aquired tastes, but if you want to try the recipe follows.

The top is crunchy, as the pie bakes it separates into layers. The recipe is really easy, you just mix it together and pour it in a premade crust and it does the rest.

ozgood pie

Mix together:

4 egg yolks

2 cups sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. allspice

1/4 cup butter

3 Tbsp. vinegar

1 cup raisins

1 cup pecans (chopped or broken)

Fold in:

whites of 4 eggs, beaten stiff

Makes 2 pies. — Put in unbaked pie shell (just the bottom)

This recipe’s cooking instructions were originally written for a wood-burning stove (in the Ozarks) and went: “Stoke the stove up for a hot temperature, put the pie in, and let the fire die down to medium.”

Now we just say — preheat oven to 475 degrees, put the pie in and turn the temperature down to 375 degrees immediately. Bake 30-40 minutes until top is an even brown.

Cool Gift Guide at Grrl

Anna’s sock dog Pickleberry is adorable! via a.lifeuncommon and loobylu.

I agree with Carolyn, this week’s Knitter’s Review – Year In Review is good.

Today’s Daily Candy is about Wooloop. It’s a bit of wool you tie around your wrist or ankle, and then take a shower and let it felt itself into an accessory.

Oh boy, RedLipstick has something to say about it. (Dec. 20th entry)

Gin wrote to tell me Lush is open! She was the third customer! Just in case: it is at 240 Powell Street in San Francisco’s Union Square, just down the street from The Body Shop :)

In the plans for holiday food: chex mix, itty bitty gingerbread houses surrounded by huge chocooate trees, and another attempt at not disgracing my family recipe for osgood pie.

I love this decorating for christmas in 1950’s style via going bridal. “An ad for Miller High Life beer shows this Styro-foam Christmas tree form used to hold toothpicked hors d’oeuvres, such as olives, small weiners, and cheese balls rolled in herbs.” I must make one of those.