Baking Amnesia and other stuff
So, stuff and things are going on, and I decided to scribble some of it down.
I KNOW I had a recipe that called for boiled cider. I know I did. Because I would not have gone onto the KAF website and ordered a bottle of it, had I not had a recipe! And yet, I cannot find any sort of recipe in my KAF Baker's Companion (that I've had a hankering to make) that calls for boiled cider! Granted, I can think of things to DO with boiled cider, but that's not the point. There was a specific recipe (I'm pretty sure it was in the KAF BC) that I wanted to make, that called for boiled cider in the ingredients. And now I can't find it. Argh!
I also got two new loaf pans (YAAAAY), some maple sugar (cannot WAIT to try that out), and a bottle each of fiore de sicilia, orange oil, and lemon oil. And, of course: boiled cider. I can't quite figure out why I didn't spring for some chopped candied ginger, since I have plans for gingerbread this month.
Looks like I'll be flipping through the book obsessively until I remember what I'd wanted to make (and then discover that I'm missing another hard-to-find ingredient from the recipe, and I'll get to go through this ALL over again).
Mom is sufficiently pissed off at her sibs -- not a one of them called Gramps on Thanksgiving. Not. A. One. I'm completely astonished -- this could very well be his last holiday season, and not a single one of his other SEVEN children could find the time to pick up a phone? WTF? I have a lot of family members on my Facebook account, and it's taking everything in me to keep from making a post along the lines of "EPIC FAIL, FAMILY."
Other than that, Thanksgiving was a quiet affair, with lots of good food (I was ridiculously proud of my turkey this year), good wine, and good company. It didn't start out that great -- I discovered I was missing a necessary ingredient to bake the rolls, and I whanged my head on a cabinet door so hard that the spot was still tender three days later. But the rest of the day turned out really well. Good stuff.
Finished playing Dragon Age: Origins for a second time, and it remains one of my favorite games in the history of ever. Honestly, I think it beats Fable 2 at this point -- I finished Fable 2, but only once. Except... I think I discovered something last night that is both hilarious and maddening -- in the game, you're the member of an army called the Grey Wardens, and early on in the game, practically the lot of them are completely wiped out, so it's up to you and your fellow Grey Warden, Alistair, to gather an army to fight the big-bad, the Archdemon (which is basically an emormous and creepily distorted dragon). Eventually you find out that whoever slays the Archdemon will die along with it (it's a whole... thing, but basically whoever kills the Archdemon is sacrificing him or herself).
So, okay. Throughout the game, I managed to get Alistair's approval rating for my character up to 100%.
...
And now the damn chivalrous son of a bitch won't let me kill the dragon. No matter what combination of conversation options I choose (even down to the blunt: "No, I'm going to do it"), it always comes down to him saying something along the lines of, "You act like I'm going to give you a choice about it." AND THEN HE TAKES THE SWORD AND KILLS THE DRAGON. And, you know, this wouldn't be such a big deal, except Alistair's sacrifice unlocks one achievement, and the PC's sacrifice unlocks another (there's a third option, where nobody dies, which I did on the first playthrough). So I played through the final battle once, and let Alistair kill the dragon. Then, I went back to the previous save point, and played through again...
and again...
and again...
and AGAIN.
He takes the damn sword every. Single. Time. No matter what I say to him! I can now complete the final Archdemon battle in, like, TEN MINUTES, which is kind of awesome, but entirely beside the point.
Evidently I am doomed to discover stubborn men in my video games as well as in real life. Who'da thunk it?
I KNOW I had a recipe that called for boiled cider. I know I did. Because I would not have gone onto the KAF website and ordered a bottle of it, had I not had a recipe! And yet, I cannot find any sort of recipe in my KAF Baker's Companion (that I've had a hankering to make) that calls for boiled cider! Granted, I can think of things to DO with boiled cider, but that's not the point. There was a specific recipe (I'm pretty sure it was in the KAF BC) that I wanted to make, that called for boiled cider in the ingredients. And now I can't find it. Argh!
I also got two new loaf pans (YAAAAY), some maple sugar (cannot WAIT to try that out), and a bottle each of fiore de sicilia, orange oil, and lemon oil. And, of course: boiled cider. I can't quite figure out why I didn't spring for some chopped candied ginger, since I have plans for gingerbread this month.
Looks like I'll be flipping through the book obsessively until I remember what I'd wanted to make (and then discover that I'm missing another hard-to-find ingredient from the recipe, and I'll get to go through this ALL over again).
Mom is sufficiently pissed off at her sibs -- not a one of them called Gramps on Thanksgiving. Not. A. One. I'm completely astonished -- this could very well be his last holiday season, and not a single one of his other SEVEN children could find the time to pick up a phone? WTF? I have a lot of family members on my Facebook account, and it's taking everything in me to keep from making a post along the lines of "EPIC FAIL, FAMILY."
Other than that, Thanksgiving was a quiet affair, with lots of good food (I was ridiculously proud of my turkey this year), good wine, and good company. It didn't start out that great -- I discovered I was missing a necessary ingredient to bake the rolls, and I whanged my head on a cabinet door so hard that the spot was still tender three days later. But the rest of the day turned out really well. Good stuff.
Finished playing Dragon Age: Origins for a second time, and it remains one of my favorite games in the history of ever. Honestly, I think it beats Fable 2 at this point -- I finished Fable 2, but only once. Except... I think I discovered something last night that is both hilarious and maddening -- in the game, you're the member of an army called the Grey Wardens, and early on in the game, practically the lot of them are completely wiped out, so it's up to you and your fellow Grey Warden, Alistair, to gather an army to fight the big-bad, the Archdemon (which is basically an emormous and creepily distorted dragon). Eventually you find out that whoever slays the Archdemon will die along with it (it's a whole... thing, but basically whoever kills the Archdemon is sacrificing him or herself).
So, okay. Throughout the game, I managed to get Alistair's approval rating for my character up to 100%.
...
And now the damn chivalrous son of a bitch won't let me kill the dragon. No matter what combination of conversation options I choose (even down to the blunt: "No, I'm going to do it"), it always comes down to him saying something along the lines of, "You act like I'm going to give you a choice about it." AND THEN HE TAKES THE SWORD AND KILLS THE DRAGON. And, you know, this wouldn't be such a big deal, except Alistair's sacrifice unlocks one achievement, and the PC's sacrifice unlocks another (there's a third option, where nobody dies, which I did on the first playthrough). So I played through the final battle once, and let Alistair kill the dragon. Then, I went back to the previous save point, and played through again...
and again...
and again...
and AGAIN.
He takes the damn sword every. Single. Time. No matter what I say to him! I can now complete the final Archdemon battle in, like, TEN MINUTES, which is kind of awesome, but entirely beside the point.
Evidently I am doomed to discover stubborn men in my video games as well as in real life. Who'da thunk it?