This weekend I saw a candy cane tree decoration which I think was real candy, but definitely wasn’t something you’d want to eat, and found more College Inn at a different drugstore (had I been looking in places that were too obvious?), and saw a chocodile appear on a rerun.

We also got my first ever real actual Christmas tree, it smells so nice! and is so pretty!

Erica mentioned a shot glass chess set, which reminded me about the shot glass tic-tac-toe for those of us who don’t remember how to play chess. Also clever are the chocolate shot glass and the very pretty candy cane shot glass. I must find a way to make the candy cane one.

Completely unrelated to drinking but on the same site — I really like the wall pod.

X-Entertainment gets ahold of one of those Jones Soda Holiday Packs and bravely taste tests all of them for those of us who weren’t driven enough to get one of our own.

quick mini useful thing how to:

Command Interlocking Fasteners (like velcro, but not)

plus

Starbucks gum tin (sorry ’bout the branding, only tin I can find with this shape) (Angela wrote to tell me Eclipse mints have a similar tin, and it’s a little larger)

put one not-velcro thing on the back of the tin, and another on the inside of a desk leg*

equals

handy under desk, easily reachable, temporary, removable pen holder thingy

* Or the side of your computer, or printer, or monitor, etc.

Someone wrote to tell me there was actually a demonstration on how to blow a sugar bubble on the Food Network last Monday night. And of course I don’t have cable, just my typical luck. I have more to report on the sugar bubble front later.

Practical Applications of the Philosopher�s stone. For drunks. Some ingenious people decided to see if a cheap vodka was improved by running it through a Brita filter, and yay it was. They offer a complete description of the experiment and tasting notes. One guy mentions using it to make horseradish infused vodka which I definitely want to try.

I was surprised to see that two of the people in the pictures are people I knew in college — Hi Dawn and Adam!

Rockin’ Poncho mentioned the Seattle Public Library, the central library building, which reminded me that I meant to talk about it here – it’s really really cool. It’s also really really big, inspiring this list of ways to die in the new library, in The Stranger. There is more about it and a photo gallery here.

It’s the only vertigo inducing library I know of. If you go all the way to the top and walk around behind the elevators you come to this sort of crows nest, a view to the main floor below (the yellow thing is an escalator):

I am enchanted by blown sugar bubbles and I was positively delighted by this dessert,
made by Blair Fukumura, that I ran across while doing some google searching. It’s a tiny watermelon ice cream bombe encased in a sugar bubble. Swoon. Check out the berries suspended in champagne jelly, they make me want to squeal with glee.

I believe a recipe for blown sugar bubbles was published in a Martha Stewart Weddings magazine a few years ago — see the Bubble Cake at the bottom of this page. The instructions were online briefly but have disappeared. I know the state of the periodicals section of my library and have no hope of finding the issue there. Would anyone happen to have it? I’d love to trade something in exchange for a photocopy of the instructions. notmartha AT gmail DOT com, thanks.

update: It’s the Summer/Fall 1998 Weddings issue. I have the technique, thanks to everybody who wrote! But, I don’t have the actual recipe yet, the technique pages say it’s a mixture of sugar, glucose and tartaric acid. (The other recipes online are mostly just boiled sugar.) Of course, the magazine has left out recipes from the back before and I have that kind of luck. Anybody? Does the recipe exist?

update 2: The issue doesn’t contain an actual recipe, problem solved (sort of). I have leads on where to find the information I’m looking for. I have gotten plenty of links to this version of a blown sugar recipe, which I’d found and hoped to have the MS recipe to compare, so no need to send that one in. Huge thanks to everyone that’s sent in links and information, I’ll be sure to post all about it when I get time to attempt this. First though is the fun part – shopping for the right tools.

The Jones Soda Co. is coming out with a holiday pack of five flavors – turkey and gravy, cranberry, mashed potato and butter, green bean casserole, and fruitcake. Yikes. Except for cranberry.

And there is Pepsi Holiday Spice. Mulled soda? Really?

Earlier today I was thinking about preparing a veggie burger and, being too lazy to pull out a skillet, was wondering if there was anything I could put around the veggie burger so that I could heat it in the toaster. Then, like magic, the Toastabag appears on Core 77. The people at Firebox used it to make an omelette. I must have one of these.

Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation, the second really cool knitting book by Debbie Stoller, is out. The web site, Knit Happens has been updated and has pictures of all of the new projects, as well as book tour dates. I really like the projects that are in this one, and I’m looking forward to the more advanced knitting instruction, it’s time I learned a few new things.

p.s. Fred Flare has got it too.

CHOW magazine looks like it’ll be supergreat. The very first issue is out now, and they have a happy no-commitment free issue sign up thing. yay!

Ages ago I heard a segment on The Splendid Table (a public radio show about cooking and food) about taste testing grocery store chicken broth, and College Inn was the clear winner. The woman who spoke about it was positively gleeful. Ever since I have been keeping my eye out for this stuff, knowing that it is primarily sold in the northeast. Last weekend while Scott and I were perusing the off-season sunglasses in a cramped little drugstore I found an entire shelf of College Inn Chicken Broth innocently sitting there. It was sorta like stumbling across the grail.

Matzo ball soup to follow.

The bad part about living in a state where I can vote by mail in ballot is that I don’t get one of those I Voted stickers.

I don’t like what this country has been doing in the last four years. I dislike Bush very much. Please, go out and vote today and let’s make some big, happy changes.

I made gingerbread waffles, yum, and this time tried to make some apple cider syrup using the easiest directions I could find from The Splendid Table — boil four cups of apple cider down to one cup. I boiled it down to 3/4 of a cup and it still wasn’t quite syrup consistency, but at least it wasn’t the apple gel from my first try (which I forgot about and let go waaay too long). The syrup (in the cup closest to the camera in this picture) was ok, tart and apple-y, but I think it would go better with a different food.

Tip for the gingerbread waffles – I leave them in the waffle iron for a little longer than usual, about 5 minutes. They are quite floppy when they come out so handle them carefully and stick them on the rack of a warm oven for a few mintues to crisp them up and keep them warm while the others are cooking.