Alizarine

Meatloaf

Last night I made the best meatloaf I've ever had.

Perhaps bacon may have had something to do with that?

This is the second of two posts I'm making today about food ideas for the new year. The first, Sawdust Pie, made you feel better about eating pie because you're eating not as much pie as usual. This meatloaf will make you feel good about yourself because per serving you're getting maybe 1/6 of a pound of hamburger (and who asks for a 1/6 pounder? nobody), 1/12th of a cup of parmesan cheese, 1/3 of an egg, 1/2 of a slice of bread, maybe a tablespoon of milk, and not even one piece of bacon.

Look at you being all virtuous in the kitchen, yo!

 

This recipe is from The Pioneer Woman and it's straightforward, fast, and easy. I made the meatloaf last night, ate small portions of it with a similarly blown-away Jeff, and went to sleep dreaming about it. I woke up thinking about it. The texture, especially on the first day, is somehow silky and unlike ordinary hamburger. It becomes this whole other thing. The bacon of course is a major player, and that doctored-up ketchup is not to be missed. As a team they made the best meatloaf of my life, possibly yours.

Pioneer Woman says this makes 8 servings. I say it makes 12. It kicks major ass either way.

INGREDIENTS

for the meatloaf

• 1 cup milk
• 6 bread slices
• 2 lbs ground beef
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt, such as Lawry’s
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup minced flat-leaf parsley
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 8-12 thin bacon slices <--I think I used 9

for the tomato gravy

• 1 1/2 cup ketchup
• 6 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• Dash or two of hot sauce – more if you like heat <--I added a wee squirt of Sriracha

 

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour the milk over the bread and allow it to soak in for several minutes.

Place the ground beef, milk soaked bread, Parmesan cheese, salt, seasoned salt, black pepper and parsley in a large mixing bowl. Pour in the eggs.

With clean hands, mix the ingredients until combined well.

Form the mixture into a loaf shape and place on a broiler pan, which will allow the fat from the meat to drain. Line the bottom of the pan with foil to make clean up easier.

Lay bacon slices over the top, tucking them underneath the meatloaf.

Make the tomato gravy. Pour the ketchup into a small bowl, add brown sugar and dry mustard and splash of hot sauce.

Stir the mixture until well combined. Pour one third of the tomato gravy over the top of the meatloaf.
Bake for 45 minutes, then pour another one third of the remaining tomato gravy over the meatloaf. Bake for an additional 15 minutes. Serve with the remaining tomato gravy on the side as a dipping sauce.

Bonus unrelated recipe from Mr. White!!

 

PS Jeff just said that the meatloaf pictured at the top of this post looks like a trilobite and he's right.

Sawdust Pie

I know what you're thinking: Pie? But it's New Year's Eve and I want to lose some weight! Also I'm sick of baking!

Let me say this: many people need at least some pie, and they need it often. It's a biological fact. The great thing about sawdust pie is that a little goes a long way. Imagine your usual pie serving size. Now cut it into thirds. One of those thirds will satisfy you if you are eating sawdust pie.

LESS PIE = LESS CALORIES.

That pie is using butter as a binder, right?

NO BUTTER BINDS THE PIE.

The binder is egg whites!

Well, it's probably hard to make.

IT'S THE EASIEST, FASTEST PIE I'VE EVER MADE.

I made it while Jeff's mom regaled me with post-holiday chit chat during a surprise pop-in, Jeff's dad was bumbling around in our garage, Jeff was M.I.A., the UPS guy was banging on the door, and Bun and Quixote were engaged in a dining room battle royale. Still easy.

Question: What is sawdust pie, anyway? It's a Southern thing. It originated in Kentucky in the mid 1970s and received national recognition when it appeared in Bon Appetit in 1983. I had never heard of it until it appeared in Baked Explorations (cookbook of the year), and even then it was one of those recipes I passed over time and time again because it did not include a photo and the title was not particularly appetizing.

Sawdust? Why? Because the filling totally looks like sawdust before you add the binder. It's a brown sugar, coconut, pecan, chocolate, and oddly enough, graham cracker kind of filling. It's weird, but it works. It tastes like a combination of pecan pie, s'mores, and macaroons. No lie! It's very chewy and takes time to eat. <--Good diet consideration.

Look: you're on your own as far as the pie crust goes. Some of you buy it pre-made. Some of you have your own recipe. Some of you might want to try mine (you'll have leftover dough for emergency mini pies later on if you freeze it). This pie is so easy to make that if you use store-bought pie crust, it barely even qualifies as baking. You can use a raw crust here, as I did, but the bottom wasn't flaky. Next time I make this pie, I will partially bake the shell before filling it.

You're supposed to serve it with whipped cream and sliced bananas. I have yet to try it, but I can't imagine that sucking too much.

Give it a shot, and just try not to sing Woodstock while you're putting it together, substituting "sawdust" for "stardust."

 

We are saaaaaaawwwwdust, We are goooooollllllden.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (9 inch) pie shell, partially baked  <--I made Mom's recipe here (scroll down).  You will have leftover dough that you can use to make tartlets, a mini pie crust (Mom liked to use those foil tins that frozen pot pies come in for this purpose), or just free-form cup shapes that you can fill with whatever.  You'll need to poke holes all over the bottom and sides with a fork and cover the crust with foil and even use weights like this before baking at 425 degrees for 8 minutes. Remove the foil and reduce heat to 350.  I rarely have a crust that stays flat, but I don't have weights (I just use foil).  Anyway, if you're in the same situation, you might want to check on the crust after removing the foil and poke it with a fork if it's puffy.
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1-1/4 cups unsweetened flaked coconut
• 1-1/4 cups pecans, coarsely chopped
• 1-1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, which is around 20 graham crackers (i.e. 20 squares)
• 2 ounces high-quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped (or chips)
• 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional, but do it)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 6 egg whites
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• whipped cream for serving
• sliced bananas for serving (optional)

DIRECTIONS

Do what you need to do to get a pie shell going.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, use a wooden spoon to combine the sugars, coconut, pecans, graham crackers, white chocolate and salt. AND CHOCOLATE CHIPS. Add the egg whites and vanilla and stir until just combined - the egg whites should coat all the ingredients.

Transfer the filling to the prepared pie shell. Bake until filling is set to the touch, 30 to 40 minutes. (Mine took 35.) Cool the pie for at least 1 hour before serving it warm, with whipped cream and sliced bananas, if you like.

Poof and The Wheatman

That chubby feller up there entered my world when I was a preteen giantess with a fondness for Mad magazine and Superman II. I was also one hell of a tap dancer.

Alex (full name: "Dixieland Pride's Alex" according to his papers) belonged to friends of the family who were moving, and they couldn't take their basset hound along. Dad offered Alex some top-notch basement accommodations and plenty of dog food--sometimes even the kind that made its own gravy--and two gleeful kids who would proceed to love him.

[TANGENT ALERT] A few months ago I wrote to Julie Klausner, hostess of How Was Your Week, my favorite podcast. Julie loves Michael Keaton, Bette Midler, and basset hounds, so I sent her links to the following important, rare videos that she awesomely had not seen.

Back when this first aired in 1985, Mom and I laughed our heads off at "Ya shave your legs today, six months later, ya gotta do it again. Why botha?"

 

And this is strictly for Keaton completists.

 

To top off my message, I attached a photo of me cuddling with Alex.

Julie quickly wrote back:

I don't know where to begin. This is all mindblowing stuff. I can't thank you enough for sending this. The Keaton clip got me pregnant, the basset pic gave me diabetus, and Bette Midler is the only person who keeps me from staying in bed all day when I wake up in the morning. 

Then a few minutes later she asked:

Was Alex the best dog?

I dutifully shot back a list of reasons detailing why Alex was the best dog.

 

Why Alex Was the Best Dog

1. He was my first artistic muse! He would lay around the house all day, motionless, thus making him an excellent model. I created a comic strip based on him.
2. Highly tolerant of costumes.
3. An innocent: we tried to breed him with Maggie, a lady basset hound from up the road, but he didn't know what to do. I was in junior high at the time, and I remember dying of laughter and embarrassment for Alex as I watched Dad lift him onto Maggie's back. Alex just kind of stood there.
4. A gentleman: during the weekend that Maggie stayed with us, Alex gave her his bed.
5. A gourmand: on his first night in our house, Alex opened a bucket of lard we had in our basement and ate about a pound of it before getting sick.
6. A friend to creatures great and small: he had a pet toad.
7. Special: when my friends would visit me, we'd keep him in his room in the basement. He'd start barking, and his bark sounded like a teen boy impersonating a dog: WOOF. And so this made it seem like we were keeping a secret Eddington brother hidden away in our basement.

Julie responded:

Thank YOU so much for the single most wonderful and evocative list of traits I've ever read about such a great dog! And that photo? Too much. I wish I could have heard his bark!!!!! WOOF. Hahhaa Oh, you've made my day with this. Possibly my life. Much love and Lard-filled hugs. xo

See? Julie gets it. Alex was a very good boy!

Much like John the Baptist, Alex's presence in our house seemed to herald the arrival of something incredible: one Emily "Poof" Eddington.

My sister was born a few years later. She loved Alex, too, and gave him his greatest nickname. Highly verbal, baby Poof (seen above with me and our cousins Josie and Jason) learned how to speak before she could walk, and sometimes she had trouble pronouncing words. Adorably, she chirped a cheery "fuck!" every time she saw an American flag, she requested "kepshit on my ham-de-bur, " and she called Alex "Ag-owitz." Dad latched onto Ag-owitz and morphed it into "Go-Wheats" and later "Bobby Go-Wheats," finally settling on "The Wheatman," which I always thought was more distinguished, especially during his later years when I was in college.

Oh, sweet Wheatman. I miss you.

And now, some odds-and-ends photos of Poof and me.

Poof and I continued to bond even when my hair threatened to take over the western hemisphere. She never tired of hearing me read books like The Sneeches and Other Stories. We took to calling ourselves Team Eddington, and when strangers asked her if she was my daughter, we just played along.

I believe the birthday cake here was Poof's brainchild. I was home from grad school for winter break, but I had to return to the U of I a couple of weeks before my birthday, where I would probably not have a cake. Not on Poof's watch! She meticulously lined up marshmallows and sprinkles to read PUP 22. Along with Ryan and Dad, we appear to be a 20th Century version of Van Gogh's strife-ridden Potato Eaters, although I'm pretty sure we were having a bit more fun than that.

Spending time with Poof sustained me throughout grad school, which was a lonely and challenging time for me, and my first teaching job, which was a lonely and challenging time for me. She has brought me so much joy and laughter.

Above is the perfect example of little Poof at her greatest. She is sort of photobombing Mom, who has just finished sewing and stuffing twenty-plus stockings for a Christmas party for Poof's kindergarten class. Poof's obviously got something to say. Her eyes: slightly crazed. Her bangs: pulled off her forehead with a tight headband, a look that reminds me of one of Poof's top recurring comedy bits. Before a bath, Poof liked to pull her shirt, often a turtleneck, over her head without taking it competely off, creating a sort of wimple. Then she'd run around the living room like this yelling, hilariously,

"I'M A NUN, I'M A NUN, I'M A NUN-NUN-NUN!"

I'm a nun-nun-nun. Can you beat that?

Thus concludes my little tribute to Poof and The Wheatman.

Random Assortment of Old Photos

Mom gave me some old photos when Jeff and I visited at Christmas--boy was that a gift and food bonanza!--and I thought I'd share them here. My folks didn't take lots of photos of my brother and me. We were at our cutest in the 70s and are among the last generation of kids whose every waking moment was not covered with photojournalistic zeal by our parents. Mom's camera was kind of a fossil. Developing photos involved sending rolls of film in special envelopes to some faraway lab and then waiting weeks for the prints to arrive in the mail. It had to have been a pain in the ass for Mom and expensive to boot. The existing photos that do document our childhood have, by virture of their scarcity, become iconic visual aids in our family's folklore.

Case in point: the photo above. This is one of my earliest memories, and I probably remember it because Mom thought it was important enough to photograph. I was given the fun job of putting the cheese on the pizza, and I distinctly remember the pleasure of placing the cheese in the nooks and crannies created by the hamburger. (We were having Poverty Pizza, as I fondly refer to it now, which was made with a Chef Boyardee pizza kit consisting of dough mix, packet of Parm, and a tall skinny can of sauce. Hamburger sold separately.) As you can see, I'm using my left hand even though I'm right-handed. Mom was a lefty, and it looks like she set the bowl on the left because that's just the way a lefty would do it.

More culinary prep work: it's corn shuckin' time. I'm sitting on a stool that remains part of my parents' living room furniture. Note also the corrective shoes I'm wearing. Those were supposed to keep me from pointing my toes in when I walked. While they are not exactly doing anything helpful in this photo, they must have worked because I don't toe-in (as I called it) when I walk now. At least not as much. Also, wagons seemed to be key toys for children to have back then. We always had so many things to pull around!

Here's a sweaty three year-old me and my baby brother Ryan. I had just run into the house after playing outside with my cousins Scott and Jamie, and Ryan was standing up in his playpen. Baby Ryan was stupefyingly cute and happy. How could you not hug him, standing there with his little face? Mom said that people would sometimes say things like, "It's a shame to waste all that beauty on a boy" when they saw him.

My grandparents had Shetland ponies that grazed in the pasture behind our house--how's that for enchanting?--and when I was three, a palomino named Duchess had a colt. You can see the ponies in the background, and I'm about to give them some carrots. I've got to hand it to Mom--that is the perfect outfit for a little girl to be wearing out by the pony barn.

Soon enough, it was time for me to go to school. Can you find me in this class of squinting kindergarteners? I'm on the far right in the back row, wearing a blue and red gingham dress sewn by Mom. I was one of the tallest kids in the class, along with Jimmy, the blonde boy in the orange shirt. I am thoroughly convinced that my life would have been completely different had Jimmy not moved away when we were in second grade. Standing beside me is Michele--we would become co-valedictorians in 13 years. And check out our teacher Mrs. Engle on the left, a.k.a. the most beautiful woman any of us had ever seen.

At Christmas a few months later, my brother and I scored a giant cardboard box that contained some big kitchen appliance. That night Ryan and I hid in the box and popped out at random times, jack in the box-style, screaming with glee, while our toys languished beneath the Christmas tree.

I have some more photos that were taken once Poof arrived on the scene, but I think I'll save them for a future blog. I hope those of you who celebrated Christmas had plenty of time to play in big cardboard boxes with your loved ones.

DIY Vanilla Extract

"I need a bottle of cheap vodka," I announced to the owner of St. Joseph Liquor and Wine, one of several local booze outlets. He smiled in a yeah right kind of way when I clarified: "It's for a recipe."

But it was!

Spoiler alert if you are Poof, Mom, or Ryan: this year I made you guys homemade vanilla. And it was so easy!

A couple of months ago I saw a recipe on the internet, and in typical me fashion, I wasn't satisfied until I had made some, too. And while it's too late for you, dear reader, to be a hero tomorrow, you can get going on this during the lag time between Christmas and New Year's and keep it all to yourself! Because--show of hands--who hates buying vanilla?

ALL OF US.

It's so expensive, and it comes in those tiny bottles that last maybe two weeks if you do any baking at all. Then it's back to the store for more vanilla. And you're tempted to buy those big containers of the discount fake vanilla, but you know that in the back of your head you will hear Martha Stewart wondering why you're not using "pure vanilla extract" or Ina Garten urging you to use "really good vanilla" as you dump suspicious brown chemicals into your precious, precious baked goods.

The tyrrany of the red and white McCormick box is officially over, my friends!

So here's what you need:

1. Glass containers with lids or hermetic stoppers that you can seal tightly, as many as you like. Dark containers (such as brown or green) are preferable to clear ones, but if you promise to keep your vanilla away from light, it doesn't matter. I ordered six flask-shaped bottles from The Container Store. It looks like they're sold out as of right now, probably because people are finally starting to learn how to make their own vanilla. But I'm sure you can find containers. You could probably even use, like, a barbeque sauce bottle as long as you sterilize the heck out of it.

2.Vodka, enough to fill the containers. Miraculously, Jeff had a 95% full bottle of premium vanilla vodka lurking in the back of our liquor cabinet for some reason. He donated it to my vanilla cause. It almost filled my bottles but not quite, so I drove uptown for cheap vodka to top them off. Coincidentally, the brand name for the cheap stuff was McCormick.

3. Vanilla beans. How many? One bean per 1/3 cup of vodka. I'm sorry, but it looks like you're going to have to do some math. I bought mine online from Beanilla, and so should you--getting beans in the mail is fun. I decided to go with Tahitian vanilla beans because remember when Paul Gauguin went to Tahiti?

I really had no idea what the difference was between Beanilla's ten varieties and was too excited about the prospect of making vanilla to do any real research. But when the Tahitian beans arrived a few days later, they were long, glossy, flexible, and positively reeking of vanilla, all of which I took to be good signs.

That is all you need: bottles, vodka, and vanilla beans.

Then once you've figured out how many beans should go in your bottles (again, one bean per 1/3 cup vodka), simply split the beans lengthwise, leaving one end intact. Or, if you are dealing with small bottles/large beans and you have to snip them in half to fit, leave both ends intact. (Actually, I kind of can't see how leaving the ends intact would matter one way or the other.)

Put the split beans in the bottles, fill to the top with vodka, seal the bottles, and store them in a cool, dark place for at least six weeks before using, peeking at them occasionally and feeling awesome about yourself.

SIX LONG WEEKS.

The longer you let them sit, the darker the vanilla will become. My photos show the vanilla at five weeks, and as you can see, it's brown but not super dark yet. I'm going to tell my vanilla recipients to start using theirs around Martin Luther King Day, but I already began using mine today (you'd better believe I'm keeping one). It smelled fantastic and tasted and worked exactly like ordinary vanilla.

Also you can replenish your vanilla with more vodka/beans as needed, says the recipe, but I'm not exactly sure how you'll know when to replace the beans. Perhaps something funky will happen to them over time. We just don't know.

Decorate your cute bottle with a snazzy ornament (or not), and let the savings begin!

You might be thinking, "You know, after you factor in the amount of money she spent on bottles, beans, vodka, and snazzy ornaments, this probably costs about as much as reg--"

SHUT UP! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Glass Gems 2

Fun format, eh? Our local arts organization (40 North 88 West) is putting on a contest where selected artists will have their work displayed on billboards around town during 2012. Information is here. Since I like to work with chubbier rectangles and couldn't bear to cut down existing work to fit the 10x30 billboard format, I came up with a new watercolor for the contest. It's pretty small at 5x15 inches, so the painting only took a few days to finish.

This is another take on the glass gems painting I made back in July (below), and I think it's better.

I bought a new bag of bigger gems at the dollar store and stacked them next to my studio window. You can see blue semi-rectangular shapes at 9 o'clock on several of the gems--that's the window's reflection, and it contains an overcast sky and some apple trees. The large white ovals are from one of my lamps.

This is another long-shot--who knows what people are looking for, right?--but I think this would be fun to see somewhere along I-74. Wish me luck!

Early Christmas

Jeff's parents and Melissa came over today to celebrate Christmas a week early--my family's Christmas is on the 25th. It's just easier for everyone if we spread the two out. I found it hard to plan a cookie and dessert spectacular for only five people. You know? But it's Christmas. You can't just offer one kind of cookie, can you? People expect a variety, and by making partial batches of everything, I managed to provide four kinds of cookies and a Yule log. Lloyd, Norma, and Mel were more than happy to take home goodie bags of the leftovers.

I created a sort of woodland tableau with the the log and rocky road (recipe here) in our kitchen nook, which really isn't a nook, but I don't know what else to call it. Few things are more satisfying than arranging glitter pine cones on a cake and positioning toy animals on chunky fudge-stuff...and then dusting the whole shebang with powdered sugar. I found our tiny pine tree--still studded with tiny sparklies--and topped it with a favorite earring. Every once in a while I'll come across an item in the house that was undoubtedly part of Nicole's bellydancing paraphrenalia, and I think the diamond-looking garland that criss-crosses the tree was part of one of her costumes.

The dining room table held my usual three-tiered pie stand--I can't help it! I love it!--and two silly candy trees I put together one afternoon last week during a burst of madcap craftiness. You can find the easy instructions here. I used those green foam cones you can find in most floral departments and bought a big bag of cheap candy. A few hot glue sticks later, I had a couple of candy trees in less time than it took to listen to the She & Him Christmas album.

(Sorry so blurry! It looked good on my camera's screen!)

Treats included my usual iced sugar cookies, marbled ice box cookies (I'll blog about them soon), and peanut butter blossoms from Joy of Baking. This marked the first time that I've followed along with a video recipe as I made it, pausing as needed. The cookies are nothing out of the ordinary--so many people bake them this time of year--but the recipe is perfection. Give it a try right now!

 

Let's take another look at that Yule log (recipe here).

Chocolatey good times. Gluten-free, too! I think. (Does cocoa powder contain gluten?)

I took all of these photos before the party started. I wish we would have had Christmas during the evening instead of in broad daylight. The noonday sun, such as it is this time of year, poured in through our big windows, diminished the beauty of our pretty lights, and served only to show off dust and the occasional cat tumbleweed, as I like to call them. But that's showbiz, right Bun?

Bun made sure that she was in the kitchen at all times, ready to take advantage of any opportunity to scavenge carnitas, macaroni and cheese, and the rest of our lunch buffet. Last night a bored Jeff and I made a short film where we gave Bun an early Christmas present--a tiny parcel of the aforementioned carnitas--and taped it to the floor. Here it is for your enjoyment (contains a couple of Breaking Bad references).

 

Merry early Christmas!

Also this:

 

"That's very Bunlike."

In case you're new to my blog, Bunny is our beloved little cat who don't got no tail. After a brief period of really cute stalking, a stray Bun (still kittenish) decided that she wanted me to be her mama ten years ago, and we have been cat and crazy cat lady ever since. When Jeff entered our world, Bun took to him right away. She's friendly with all humans, but something about Jeff's gentle nature and the way he would hold her like a baby...

...created an intense bond between the two of them. Since her summer health megacrisis, Bun's been on special oral medication that Jeff gives her twice a day via syringes, and while it is kind of yucky, she takes it like a champ and is given treats afterward. You'd think Bun would fear Jeff or hold a grudge, but their bond has only become stronger. She (using me as her mouthpiece) calls him Jeffray and is often quite sassy with him. He gives her deli roast beef from the refrigerator sometimes, and now whenever either of us is in the kitchen, Bun trots out and begs for some with her new "BUN WANT BEEFIES" cry: "MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And then there's couch time with Jeff:

I'm glad that Jeff loves my cat as much as I do. She's not like other cats, and when we notice some object or creature that reminds us of her, we'll announce, "That's very Bunlike." Here is a list of the top ten things that are very Bunlike.

1. The Burl Ives snowman character. Because of shape and our wish to see her in a vest with pocket watch.

2. A buffalo. I love the little galloping noise she makes when she runs.

3. BUNNIES OBVIOUSLY.

4. The AMC Pacer.

5. Chubby bears. Bun is like a living teddy bear, and this is especially apparent when she sits up and grooms her stomach, looking a lot like so:

 

6. Owls, such as the ones above and below. Owl was her runner-up name.

 

7. A bottom-heavy pineapple (when she's sitting up straight).

8. This lion fountain in Rome--we cracked up when we saw it. If too much time has elapsed between feedings, Bun tends to gobble her food and promptly throws it all up.

9. Uter from the Simpsons. One of our top goals is to find cat-sized lederhosen and other German Oktoberfest accessories and make Bun wear them. She would look so cuuuuuuuute.

10. Nebraska. I kind of don't feel like I should have to explain why, but if you don't see it, this is Bun in profile. Her head is the small part of Nebraska, and the rest of her is the big part.

And finally, I leave you with a family favorite--a little game of grab-ass with Bun and her brother Q.

 

How Poof and I Got Our Nicknames

When my sister Emily posted her Thanksgiving video a couple of weeks ago, more than a few of her viewers wanted to know why we call each other Poof and Pup. I am pretty sure I've told this story on my blog before, but I can't remember exactly when that was, so here it is again.

Unfortunately it's not all that interesting!

Back when she was an adorable tot, my sister started calling herself Pooch around me. I'm not sure how that came to be--maybe she had seen a cartoon or storybook character with that name, or maybe she just enjoyed the sound of it. Little kids are a mystery sometimes--why do they like the majority of the things they do?

Since Pooch and I were as close as two sisters could be--nevermind the 15-year age difference--she decided that I needed a nickname to coordinate with hers, and she liked the sound of Pup.

We were Pooch and Pup until she was at least 8 years old, at which point she decided that she needed to make her name zippier and less dog-like, I'm guessing. And in the fine tradition of Eddington inexplicable nickname evolution, she became Poof, and she has stayed Poof for nearly 20 years. I had no problem remaining Pup. It sounds so cute when I hear her say it.

Even though I've lived hours away from my sister since she was eight, I've managed to be there for every major, sorta major, and even kinda minor event in her life. Since the day she was born, this has been my policy towards Poof:

 

And this is basically us when we see each other after a long time apart.

 

I love that girl as much as I would love any daughter, and when I see all she's accomplished in her young life, I like to think I had a bit of a hand in that.

 

Edible Christmas Tree Ornaments

As I mentioned a couple of years ago, I came into our marriage with zero Christmas swag, and Jeff had several jumbo Tupperware containers full of it. In order to make the Christmas tree more of a 50-50 thing, I created homemade gingerbread cookie ornaments, and I have been doing so ever since. It's an inexpensive way to produce dozens of ornaments, and they smell great, too.

This year we decided to use colored lights instead of our usual white ones, and I am loving it. I was tired of elegance and longed for some whimsy, damn it. Plus the colored lights can add a note of intrigue to an ordinary snowman, see above. When I showed that photo to Jeff, he laughed and proclaimed the snowman "psychotic" and clearly in cahoots with that owl.

Other factors influencing this decision include:

• If David Lynch and John Waters put up Christmas trees, I bet they have colored lights.
• Jeff and I are children of the 70s.
• "The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most." -- quote by art critic John Ruskin. I included this quote on a color wheel handout that I gave to students every year of my teaching career.
• Incredibly random things inspire me. Example: sometimes during episodes of Friday Night Lights, you'll see a character with unfocused colored lights behind him or her, and it's beautiful. I'm thinking Riggins in the season 4 opening credits below.

See? I wanted backgrounds like that in my life.

Have I made my case for colored lights?

This year I strayed from Nigella's tried-and-true recipe in favor of a new one by the usually totally reliable team at Cook's Illustrated. Mistake. The dough was fussy to work with, I ruined two pans because the holes had closed as the cookies cooled (boring story, my fault), and the icing (powdered sugar and milk instead of water) gave the cookies a slight but lasting dampness that caused some of the heavier ones to break when I hung them. Honestly, I think that recipe was more about creating a good-tasting cookie than a durable ornament. I'm not going to write it down because I don't plan to make them again. Nigella's much better recipe is here.

As you can see, I stuck faux jewels and sequins in the icing to produce about fifty delightfully gaudy Christmas geegaws. Since nobody's going to eat them, why not? They're so much more sparkly than standard cookie decorations. This year I hung them with those ornament hooks you can buy for about a penny each, and this was much easier than hand-tying a bunch of loops with fishing line or string.

And that is the story of our Christmas tree (please excuse inclusion of my laptop in the photo). If you can spare an afternoon and want to add a handmade touch to your tree, this is a fun way to go.