It Started with a Journal

It's been two weeks since I made any kind of 'real' post, so here we go!

First, I've been making a lot of food. I haven't even posted it all yet. My food blog has the skinny. One thing I did want to share here, though, which is that this cake:



... was tossed in the garbage. :( It was my Daring Bakers challenge for November, and too incredibly sweet for, well, anyone. It's a shame too, because it came out well otherwise. The browned butter in the frosting really made for an amazing flavor. I knew when I first read the recipe that it had way too much sugar in it and I probably wouldn't like it (and this from someone who definitely has a sweet tooth!). I hesitated to lessen the amount of sugar, however, because that affects the liquid content and other factors of the cake, and I'm not yet comfortable enough with making cakes that I thought I could change amounts and still have it come out well. I suppose I might as well have, since it's going uneaten either way.

I had a very quiet Thanksgiving. It's just not the same when you live hundreds of miles from family and close friends. My cousin and I went to have hot pot, which was nice and comforting in its own way.

It's a little over two weeks until my winter vacation starts, thank God. I'm going to be in LA for 3 weeks. I'm so burned out, I can't wait to get out of here. All I need to do is get Talis to the vet after the 6th for a health certificate, and I'm set for everything else. I think. Speaking of Talis ... a few weeks ago I had a scare because I felt a little bump on his back by his tail. I took him to the vet and she said that she wasn't concerned because a) he's eating and behaving normally; b) the bump was really small; and c) it's common for dogs to start growing warts and skin imperfections as they get older. However, I needed to keep an eye on it. I think it's grown bigger. :( Not by much, but still, bigger is not good. Here's hoping it's just some kind of cyst or something.

I just got The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, but I wasn't allowed to read it until a few days ago (for reasons I will disclose later -- mysterious, ain't I?), so last night I settled into bed with it and it made me so happy, even though my stomach was growling after reading a few recipes. I just love the way it's written. It makes me want to take a trip to San Francisco just to eat there. I hope I get to, at least once in my life!

Also I wanted to thank jade_okelani for her birthday gift. See, Jade believes in the "birthday month," in which the month of your birthday is your whole birthday month. I said that no, one's birthday should only really be celebrated for the actual day of birth, not the whole month. However, she's converted me. Her gift was a month's worth of little notes and/or homemade jewelry, which I opened one per day, and they always brought a smile to my face. At the end of the 30 days (why couldn't I have been born in a month with 31 days? Oh well, at least I'm not a poor February baby), the 'real' present was revealed, which was this awesome scrapbooked picture frame, which not only has many pictures of us on various escapades, but also has little mementos of things that we collected while on those escapades. It is awesome. Yesterday was the last day of my "birth month" so now it's over and I'm sad. Still, I got to enjoy my entire "birthday month" so thank you Jade!

I've started to watch True Blood at the behest of a friend. All I have to say is, people who like the show but diss Twilight are total hypocrites. (If that's you, sorry, but it's true.) They are practically the same thing other than the locations and the ages of the protagonists. I don't hate either, but am not enamored of either. TB's been fairly entertaining so far, but far below the bar HBO has set for their many excellent TV shows. And the vampire lore so far doesn't hold a candle to the Buffy/Angel verses.