A cold weekend
I suppose at this time of year, it's almost always a cold weekend, but my heavens. It just seemed like I couldn't get warm this weekend!
On Friday night I was all set to experiment with making something else in the stand mixer other than cookies. I had Alton Brown's soft pretzel recipe and I made a list of the few things I didn't have already (yeast, kosher salt) and went to Food Lion to pick them up on my way home. Alas, I forgot that butter, which I usually have plenty of, I'd just used up on...baking cookies. Oops! Pretzels would have to wait until Saturday. I went to bed pretty early Friday night, with help from the Target equivalent of NyQuil caplets, because I had not gotten enough sleep Thursday night and my sinuses were draining.
I slept about 12 hours, and it was awesome. I got up around 10 a.m. on Saturday and got ready for the day in a leisurely manner. I had checked the movie schedule and knew that the 7th Harry Potter movie was still playing locally, when I thought I'd missed my chance. The matinee showing was at 12:25, so I went to that. It was still mostly full, I'll note, although it was a fairly small theater. It was a really excellent adaptation of the first half of the book, meaning it was pretty bleak and fairly depressing. But hey, I knew that going in! I was very glad to get to see it in the theater. After the movie I headed out to run errands. While out, snidegrrl texted me that she hadn't gotten a cake for the book club party that night! Why, baking a cake on top of pretzels was nuthin'! (As long as I used a mix. =) So I volunteered, and I got all the stuff I needed, and I went home to bake up a storm.
And bake up a storm I did! The cake was tasty, and simple to make. Making the pretzels is time consuming, but man was it worth it. Next I have to figure out how to make crab topping for them! I let the dough rise a little too much but it just meant puffy pretzels. They were still tasty. I hit a snag when I realized I didn't know how to transport the cake (I just did it in a single pan, not a layer cake) without smearing the icing up. I'd laboriously written "Peril Book Club 10th Anniversary" on it, and I didn't want to mess it up! So I put it in a stiff paper bag and carried it VERY gently to my car, nearly falling down the steps in the process. At last I got myself and all my baked goods to the party, and it was awesome.
When Kim had the idea for the book club over 10 years ago, none of us could have expected that it would have lasted as long as it has. The members have changed over the years, and we've relaxed a lot of the "rules" we started with, but we carry on still, reading fiction one month and non-fiction the next. It is one of my favorite things to do with a great group of people. Here's to ten more years! (Next time someone else decorate the cake, I'm getting arthritic!)
I stayed up way too late playing Rock Band with Jack and Kim, meaning I was just worn out when I got home. I took generic NyQuil again and...had trouble sleeping. Because my feet were so cold. I had to wear socks and pajama pants and it still took like an hour to get to sleep. Nuts. I had to get up far too early on Sunday for all this.
Still, I got up and got to Mom's church just a few minutes late, where I met up with her and my brother. After Mass we went back to her house, the rest of the family joined us for lunch, and we took down all the Christmas decorations and got them back up into the attic. It was nice seeing everyone, and the party broke up around 2:30. I said goodbye and headed home, with a stop for groceries. Then I cleaned the apartment and wrote a bit, then I zoned out in front of the TV for an hour or so before going to bed. This morning my body decided it needed sleep more than exercise, so I didn't get up until 6:45. My disappearing cold is glad for the rest, my cramping uterus wishes I'd had the exercise. Alas.
And now it's lunchtime. Happy day!
On Friday night I was all set to experiment with making something else in the stand mixer other than cookies. I had Alton Brown's soft pretzel recipe and I made a list of the few things I didn't have already (yeast, kosher salt) and went to Food Lion to pick them up on my way home. Alas, I forgot that butter, which I usually have plenty of, I'd just used up on...baking cookies. Oops! Pretzels would have to wait until Saturday. I went to bed pretty early Friday night, with help from the Target equivalent of NyQuil caplets, because I had not gotten enough sleep Thursday night and my sinuses were draining.
I slept about 12 hours, and it was awesome. I got up around 10 a.m. on Saturday and got ready for the day in a leisurely manner. I had checked the movie schedule and knew that the 7th Harry Potter movie was still playing locally, when I thought I'd missed my chance. The matinee showing was at 12:25, so I went to that. It was still mostly full, I'll note, although it was a fairly small theater. It was a really excellent adaptation of the first half of the book, meaning it was pretty bleak and fairly depressing. But hey, I knew that going in! I was very glad to get to see it in the theater. After the movie I headed out to run errands. While out, snidegrrl texted me that she hadn't gotten a cake for the book club party that night! Why, baking a cake on top of pretzels was nuthin'! (As long as I used a mix. =) So I volunteered, and I got all the stuff I needed, and I went home to bake up a storm.
And bake up a storm I did! The cake was tasty, and simple to make. Making the pretzels is time consuming, but man was it worth it. Next I have to figure out how to make crab topping for them! I let the dough rise a little too much but it just meant puffy pretzels. They were still tasty. I hit a snag when I realized I didn't know how to transport the cake (I just did it in a single pan, not a layer cake) without smearing the icing up. I'd laboriously written "Peril Book Club 10th Anniversary" on it, and I didn't want to mess it up! So I put it in a stiff paper bag and carried it VERY gently to my car, nearly falling down the steps in the process. At last I got myself and all my baked goods to the party, and it was awesome.
When Kim had the idea for the book club over 10 years ago, none of us could have expected that it would have lasted as long as it has. The members have changed over the years, and we've relaxed a lot of the "rules" we started with, but we carry on still, reading fiction one month and non-fiction the next. It is one of my favorite things to do with a great group of people. Here's to ten more years! (Next time someone else decorate the cake, I'm getting arthritic!)
I stayed up way too late playing Rock Band with Jack and Kim, meaning I was just worn out when I got home. I took generic NyQuil again and...had trouble sleeping. Because my feet were so cold. I had to wear socks and pajama pants and it still took like an hour to get to sleep. Nuts. I had to get up far too early on Sunday for all this.
Still, I got up and got to Mom's church just a few minutes late, where I met up with her and my brother. After Mass we went back to her house, the rest of the family joined us for lunch, and we took down all the Christmas decorations and got them back up into the attic. It was nice seeing everyone, and the party broke up around 2:30. I said goodbye and headed home, with a stop for groceries. Then I cleaned the apartment and wrote a bit, then I zoned out in front of the TV for an hour or so before going to bed. This morning my body decided it needed sleep more than exercise, so I didn't get up until 6:45. My disappearing cold is glad for the rest, my cramping uterus wishes I'd had the exercise. Alas.
And now it's lunchtime. Happy day!