it's the Winter of Baking!

summer was the Summer of Meat, and now, i'm in the midst of the Winter of Baking!

it started a couple weeks ago when i decided i was going to bake cookies for my penpal to send for his birthday.

first i made oatmeal apple cinnamon cookies, but i didn't send them (next time i'll substitute apple juice concentrate for the honey. they came out just this side of "too chewy").

then i made good ol' chocolate chip cookies with ghirardelli dark chocolate and hazelnuts. too many hazelnuts, vika dumped the whole bag in.

but they came out heavenly, if not a little nutty, and i sent them to the pp and to niki, who said she loved them, but probably would say that no matter what because she's a sweet girl.

then last night we made biscuits and mushroom-miso gravy. people! get up on this shit, yo! it's so good. it's good for dinner (i like it with sauteed greens like chard or something) or for breakfast (warm up that winter morning!) or in the middle of the night when the grumblies have taken ahold of your stomach and won't let you sleep.

and it's good for you!

and vegans! you can eat them too! even the biscuits!

and tonight i made cookies again (ghirardelli semi-sweet chips and HALF a bag of hazelnuts this time, for balance), i have a whole plate of them and have only eaten one-half of one. i like sweets, but i'm not crazy over them. i mostly wanted to send vika home with some, and maybe i'll mail some to jon and niki if i don't sleep too late to want to go to the post.

but mostly mostly i wanted my apt to be warm and smell like fresh-baked cookies.

next, i want to make a cake. preferably a yellow-with-chocolate-frosting-cake. which is my favorite.

and maybe i'll learn a pie too. vika knows how to make a crust, i am just worried that my weak arms won't be able to pull it off.

but hopefully it won't take long to build up my baking-muscles.

after that i'd like to bake strawberry something.

because i love pink.

speaking of which, have you heard the new incredible moses leroy cd? hello perfect indie-pop album of the year!

i want to find ron fountenberry on the streets of san francisco and bring him a nice warm plate of cookies!

and then make it happen with him.

*******update********

and now, onto the links!

thanks to the luau girl, and the fact that i have little in the way of friends up here ('cept for vika, and she's all workin' now and has to wake up early and shit), i have been spending the last few hrs DISCOVERING NEW CORNERS OF THIS OL' INTERNATIONAL NETWORK TO PLAY AROUND IN! holy craps, doods, i know it's like, i don't know what, but i fucking LOVE the internet. i love it i love it i love it i love it i love it.

i love it

so let me share the last few things i have found:

*pics -

exit wound

this is a man with a camera and a HELL OF A LOT of time to watch movies.

and i have a hell of a lot of time to look and read. his pics make me feel shitty and outraged at my own lack of photo skill, but that's good.

and his simple movie reviews are good and right on most of the time.

but dood, 2.5 for revenge of the nerds? TAKE THAT SHIT BACK.

highlight: the stills at the top of the movie review pages.


*good reads, excellent usage of slang -


catchdubsdotcom

check the hot pic, dirty mirrors never looked so tantalizing.

this guy is link-o-riffic and i owe many of the last hr's finds to him. i don't know him, i doubt i would be able to speak a word in his presence, but thanks nick! nice kicks!

highlight(s): kicks collection.

obviously loves home movies almost as much as i do.

links-o-plenty, and not crappy ones either. AND has the common decency to make the links open in a new browser, for easy alt-tabbing.

is my new internet-crush from afar.