I was afraid I didn’t have enough bar molds, particularly because I like to pour the chocolate fairly thin. It seemed a good time to try my Silikomart Plisse’ mold.

Richard munched one of those and I think the verdict is, they’re big enough to feel guilty over but small enough not to feel too guilty over.

Begin as you mean to go on in the year.

We were down to our last half a bar of homemade chocolate and only still have that because we didn’t want to finish off our supply entirely on our drive home from Salinas on Saturday. It was time.

You start off running the cacao nibs through the Cuisinart to make the pieces fine enough for the melanger. There are professional ones made to last that you wouldn’t need to do that for; ours, I think we’re safer babying the thing.

But it has been a good machine for us.

You put a half cup in, just a little, enough that the stones have something to work against but not so much that they seize up (ask us how we know) and then, a little at a time, gradually add more nibs. There’s about six cups in there now.

There’s a change, audible even to me, when the last of the hard bits suddenly begin to stop spitting upwards and bouncing around and free-for-all-ing in Brownian motion but start to join the slowly liquifying rest as the roughest edges are ground away by the friction and motion and weight of the stones against them. The growl from the machine gives way to humming its steady chocolate song as the cacao rides its rollercoaster up and around, over, down, over, up, around, and back the other way and again. The sharp acidity that hits your nose at the start (some varieties definitely more than others) mellows, even before the sugar arrives awhile later.

It’s meant to be like this, it’s how it makes those rocky little pebbles become what we were looking forward to all along and why we put up with the work and the lifting and the noise.

(I wrote this and then did the math and now .6 lb of sugar joined the 2.4 lbs in the melanger. 80%.)

Not that I, for one, need more sweets right now. But I once made a pecan pie with Lyle’s Golden Syrup rather than corn syrup out of sheer curiosity and was surprised to find not only that it worked, it was an improvement on the traditional. Which would be great news to those allergic to corn.

I just stumbled across a recipe for making your own golden syrup. Hey. For a pecan pie, I think you’d want mostly brown sugar in it, and that would merit a close watch but I’ve caramelized sugar enough times to feel I can pull this off. My only question would be, do I buy a couple of traditional lemons or use Meyers from my tree? They have a little orange in their parentage, but then orange and pecans do dance happily.

Stop me now. We’re still only halfway through that Buche de Noel!

Knowing that we are cautious about exposure, and knowing we might say no, our friends Phyl and Lee invited us for Christmas dinner.

We did church by Zoom last week because it just felt like a time not to go; it turned out that an out-of-state visitor contacted the bishop a few days later to say they were so sorry but they had covid. I don’t know how big the outbreak from that is but I do know three people who’ve gotten breakthrough infections so far. But at least their cases are being ameliorated by their vaccinations and hopefully they won’t have to go through what I did when the virus was new.

Our friends had gone to quite a bit of effort to get the tests and they were okay.

We decided to say yes, and what can we bring.

Bring yourselves, they said, the rest is taken care of. And so we did.

Turns out they had bought a pre-prepared dinner from the grocery store so as to be able to just put it out there and enjoy the company.

But when they opened it up, everything but the ham had gone bad, had been delivered already bad, and I guess my instinct to call to offer again to bring something wasn’t far off but having no idea why I should I respected their request.

They put in the unexpected effort with what all else they had on hand and pulled off a lovely dinner, and after all the isolation of these past two years a Christmas evening spent with friends was a feast indeed.

There’s a new Shaun the Sheep Christmas special they played for us afterward that I would have bought it for my grands if I’d known. Those guys are so creative! And funny.

A definitely good time was had by all, with a strong awareness of how fortunate we were to have that time and each other.

Merry Christmas and G_d bless us, every one.

Just before Christmas last year our doorbell rang: someone had put a box containing a beautifully-done buche de Noel down on the mat–but then had made sure we would know so it wouldn’t just sit out there. Not everybody risked touching the bell but he did. Hopefully with his elbow.

When I described the person whom I’d called out Thank you! to just as he was reaching his car, and the delight in his face as he turned and waved back, Michelle affirmed that yes, that sounded like him. One of the owners of the bakery. She knew we’d like it.

We did, it was very good–but I have to say that even so, my favorite part was his getting to see the expression on my face as I opened that box and went WOW at their work of art. It was a privilege to see him getting to see how much I appreciated that gift, both from our daughter and from his shop in their efforts.

So you know what happens next, although I didn’t: the doorbell rang today.

Now, one really ought to take the picture before the first pieces get cut off, but, hey, y’know.

There was a tag stapled to the top of the box this time. Door Dash.

And I thought, the world has changed in this last year, hasn’t it. I’m glad that bakery is still here! And glad the guy was able to have help with the delivering this time and that he had too much to do to do it himself.

But still. There was a twinge at not getting to see that friendly face again so that I could say how good these taste, not just look.

We kind of skimped on lunch a bit so we could justify seconds.

The forecast said a small-scale atmospheric river Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, about 2.5″ worth.

The boss man showed up at the end of the shift yesterday, gathered everybody around out there and clearly polled them.

And then came and asked me a favor. Would it be okay if they worked Saturday rather than Monday? So as not to be painting in the pouring rain?

It made a lot more sense, if they didn’t mind, sure!

And that is how, with curious eyes on the other side of the glass quietly noting the afghan’s growth, I have two layers of dreidels vs Thursday’s one (I’m counting 9512 stitches per pattern repeat) and having started it Tuesday, it’s past 15″. It’s hit that magical point where it’s self-propelling now. It’s past the, I can’t see how this could ever be finished in my lifetime stage to, ooh, this is pretty, this is so cool, I can’t wait to see this all done!

The house is looking pretty good itself–like it’s brand new out there on the parts that are finished.

(A non sequitur p.s. I blew an order. Chocolate Alchemy‘s default setting is whole beans, I ordered two types, and forgot to change the Zorzal to nibs so we get to finally figure out how to do the entire process of bean to bar by hand. Neither of us would have chosen that extra work but both of us are intrigued. Wish us luck. And I will learn from this to always always remember to change that box from here on out.)

Went to the Relief Society Christmas party tonight, the first one at church for me in two years. Real conversations in real life!

And then instead of coming home and blogging I came home and started a batch of pumpkin orange cranberry sourdough bread because I’d just been surrounded by sweets I was avoiding and wanted to make something really good, too (but not fattening). The enthusiasm there over everything just spilled right into my kitchen here.

And so, so you wouldn’t be disappointed about my not writing a blog post tonight (oh wait) I thought I’d share this picture from a few years ago that I stumbled across yesterday of my folks. Because this was so my dad.   

Imagiknit let me know my Pocion Mecha yarn is on its way. I bought a single skein to leave the possibility open of getting to a LYS tomorrow and picking out more hat yarn in person but I wanted to know that that colorway would be here before the workers return, and tomorrow it should be.

On a random note of practicality: I read somewhere that the best way to freeze unused sourdough starter is to spread it out on parchment paper and then as soon as it’s frozen, crumble it into a small freezer container, giving it an easily-accessible form for later. So I just did that, wondering if it would pour out all over the place but it didn’t and finagling the parchment into the freezer space contained the starter, so, cool.

And randomness for its own sake: the Washington Post offers its subscribers a scanned-in shot of what the front page was the day (please fill in this form thank you) one was born.

Okay, I figured that was just trolling for data, but still, I was curious.

Below the fold, there was a story of a judge who’d had twenty young azalea bushes stolen from his yard while he was having a weekend at the beach, carefully spaded out of there.

It lists his home address, notes his tony neighborhood and the prices of the houses, and says the thieves even got the ones behind his ten foot fence.

Who on earth is allowed to have a ten foot fence?

His neighbors were hit that same weekend, and they, too, were at the beach. Their roses too were left untouched.

A truck was pulled over near that street with a hundred azaleas in back, and the authorities were requiring the driver to offer proof of having purchased them.

Okay, today, that would mean the newspaper doxxed a prominent judge–on the front page, no less.

The kicker is that the date on that newspaper? I was a crawling baby aspiring to walk. So per them, I was, in fact, born yesterday. And more than.

—

Edited to add: since I wrote that they have corrected the link.

I hope everybody had/is having a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We were to go to a friend’s, whose kids we know from when they were growing up, and I had just pulled the promised cranberry pie bars out of the oven a few minutes before when I heard Richard calling me.

He wanted a barf bowl for the migraine that had suddenly walloped him upside the head and he needed to go lie down with an ice pack in as dark a room as he could get.

I sent Karen a note with my thanks and apologies. I offered to drop the cookies by.

He got up a few hours later and seemed to be doing better.

I sent Karen a note. I said we were hoping that that would last, but just please know that we were tentative and I’m so sorry. (While glad she had a big enough crew coming that two people would not make a difference on the food one way or another.)

But it looked for awhile there like we were good after all. I got the little things done like covering the mango tree for the night (we hit 36F last night) to be ready and then noted that it was about time to go.

And that was his moment of truth. He wanted to go, he really did–but his head just couldn’t manage it. He was only barely upright.

I sent Karen a note, and then I drove to her house and dropped off three strong paper plates’ worth of cookies, hoping they would be enough with all her kids and grandkids snarfing them down.

But the house was dark. There was a string of white Christmas lights on in front of the door, which had me hopeful for a moment and knocking again only louder this time, and the side yard seemed set up so as to be pretty ready–but there was not a soul around. Huh. So I left the cookies on the doorstep a little off to the side so they would have a chance to see them before they stepped in the corn-syruped stickiness and headed home, glad that it wasn’t quite dark yet.

I have somehow reached the official Old Lady status of not liking to drive at night. Richard’s cataracts have been operated on. But he wasn’t there.

Got home, searched through the piles of emails back and forth from this past week, and there it was: it was going to be at her son’s house on X street. She’d never told me the actual address because, as she told me later, Who looks at the numbers? You just go to the one you always go to. (While noting that yeah, that wouldn’t work for me would it.)

And that is how one friend who is deaf and texts or emails missed signals with one who apparently doesn’t own a cellphone and how do you reach someone when their only phone is their landline and they’re not home? She got not one of those messages today. I thought they were going to her phone. Nope. Her desktop.

She finally called me, wondering where we were. I apologized and explained and told her I hoped she wouldn’t find herself in the middle of a raccoon/skunk fight over those cranberry bars when she gets home. She hoped I at least would still come, and I explained about the night driving, and since she’s older than me she totally got that.

Coming home from dropping off those cookies at dusk, a woman I’d never seen before, dressed in dark clothes, had stepped out in the middle of the street in front of my silent Prius a few minutes before. I saw her in time–but what if someday I might not, and so no, I don’t take that chance.

Turns out that the person I’d stopped and waited for to either cross or notice me and that I’d waved hi to when she finally did was my new next-door neighbor’s mom, out for a walk after dinner.

Anyway. So that is how we had our first-ever (Costco) stuffed chicken breast Thanksgiving dinner.

Tradition-heretic that I am, I’d always wanted to ditch the turkey.

Yesterday, it seemed like one of the crew by the end of the day was tired and grumpy, and I expressed concern; was everyone okay.

Maybe he’d just needed someone to notice and have it matter to them, because today they clearly were. I heard laughing between them again and again, enjoying this fine day and each other’s company as they worked.

There’s a skylight in the hallway that they decided to do first, before any more rain might happen to it.

It was a mess. The guy who put it in (we found out later) had only nailed things in on three sides. After a tree fell on our house, a roofing crew sent out to repair that damage happened to notice that right behind them was this spot where it was funny when you step–and one of them started playing see-saw with our skylight while the others laughed, not seeing me standing below shouting upwards, STOP IT!!! at them. I was so mad.

That contractor refused to pay the $600 it cost to repair that, blaming the guy who’d done it wrong in the first place. The guy who tried to fix it repainted below with whatever shade he thought would match. It didn’t.

So of course that’s the skylight that leaked after that. The boards it was resting on rotted out.

We knew it was bad, but…

It took the men quite awhile to get all that out of there today, complicated by being sealed to the foam roof and the fact that there was a fluorescent tube light on top of the beam that ran down the center below the skylight that had to be rewired and reinstalled.

And so for several hours today there was no skylight down the hall, just a face or two nodding hello against the open sky if you came past.

Karo, check. Butter, check. Cranberries? Toss the first bag, the second thankfully was fine.

I started baking cranberry pie bars.

As the oven started smelling wonderful as the cookie crust stage baked, I suddenly noticed the change.

Someone was a little hungry and probably a little tired and all this wonderfulness that certainly wasn’t going to be for him–all he was going to get to do was wish and be tormented. He started sounding grumpy again.

He didn’t know me very well, did he?

He caught himself and cheered up a bit while I was silently telling that pan to hurry up.

You’re supposed to let them cool all the way and even chill if possible before cutting them. I had the kitchen slider open to the 61F out there and after half an hour put the pan on a metal cookie sheet to help with the hurry; their day was winding down and I didn’t want to miss them after all that. Finally at about the hour mark I pronounced it good enough, sliced, mushed the topping a little–eh–and set half a dozen very crisp-bottomed cookies on each of two sturdy paper plates till there was no room for more, covered them with a little plastic wrap so the men could take them home, and went outside to make sure both their vehicles were still there.

The first guy’s face lit up.

He walked halfway down the outside of the house and called up towards the roof and the second guy, the one who’d sounded grumpy at smelling those wonderful smells, suddenly hoisted himself over the edge and down the ladder with his face all but shouting YESSSS!!!!! after seeing the outstretched plate in the other guy’s hands. He was almost giddy.

“These are so good. SO good!”

They are, and that’s why I so seldom make them. I need to have someone around to protect us from them.

I don’t think any of theirs made it past our driveway.

(On a side note: pouring liquid into an oven-hot glass pan is how you shatter such pans. I realized a moment late that I’d chosen the wrong type, so I pushed the crust high up the sides so that no egg mixture would directly touch the glass when I poured it onto the hot crust. It was still probably a near thing. Just mentioning.)

Our local forecast now says 2.73″ of rain tomorrow as the atmospheric river tries to play a game of Noah with us. That’s a huge amount for California and the biggest storm in two years. It’s badly needed.

And so it came to me as I knitted above the top of the redwood that I ought to memorialize that.

Which is why the section above where I’m working now, where I will repeat the lace pattern that frames the beginning and sides of this thing, will be done in Malabrigo’s London Sky, a lavender-ish blue. My skein is a nice deep shade of pouring rain.

The afghan is so close to being done.

Meantime, the last chocolate bars to be poured from the melanger are the most fun because you can swirl them and it shows better than the ones that were hotter coming out–but you can’t see the effects till they set. You have no idea what they’ll look like.

A whale mid-dive, a parrot looking askance back over its shoulder: Hey! No splashing!

This is long and meandering but it’s late and I don’t have time to edit it.

My cousin Virginia cut her beautiful shoulder-length hair very short and posted pictures on Facebook and got lots of compliments over her new look.

And then she quietly sent out a note to her cousins that she’d had cancer nine years ago, had long since beaten it… and the haircut was to make it seem less abrupt when it starts falling out again.

All those hats knitted as carry-around projects, a moment here, a row there, they were ready.

She said she had a blue one from me from years ago but yes, she’d like a soft white one, very much, thank you.

And so today, I–

Waited till 3 pm. On the nose at the two week mark, off with the heart monitor and into its box to ship back to its manufacturer so they can report to my cardiologist. My skin had a fierce enough reaction to the adhesive that I’m amazed it stayed on. I hope I don’t have to do that again for awhile.

So that got mailed and the white hat, and also one in purples and another in greens. She hadn’t wanted to ask for too much. I had wanted to give her all.the.hats. I compromised.

Andy’s dried slab Blenheim apricots in another box for my mom, the ones picked so ripe they go smush when cut. The best.

And a warm winter outfit to my niece’s baby girl.

But before I headed out for the post office, one last note on the diary notebook to return with the monitor: yes I pushed the button at 3 a.m. this morning but, um, ignore that. I was asleep. Pushing it woke me up that wait, I did what? No. Nothing to see there. I was dreaming.

If only we could solve all health problems that easily.

And then at the end of the day, finally, I knit and got past the tree.

And then said, But what I really want is to go make a batch of chocolate, darn it. We’re out, and the pre-pandemic Trader Joe’s bar doesn’t count.

Wild Bolivian Mix, in the melanger now.

I said to Richard, I calculated wrong so I didn’t put in all the sugar I measured and now I don’t know how much I did and is this sweet enough?

He took a taste and considered thoughtfully: it was good, and yet, “Seems a little too sweet to me.”

And it’s not enough to me, even though I like mine quite dark. Good. Right in between. That means we hit the sweet spot.

When little ones who’ve been sick (negative for covid, thank heavens) need some cheering up and their parents discover that Trader Joe’s sells kits for Halloween gingerbread houses. Then they add in grandparent and auntie time via the phone to have them watch you break off whatever you want to eat and to cheer you on and it doesn’t get better than that.

Snack! proclaimed Lillian, holding a piece of candy out to the camera for us to see.

Snack! agreed Mathias, with who knows what part of it in his hand (was it the door?) and then he told us a little bit more about it all that I didn’t hear but that’s okay. The smiles and giggles came through loud and clear.

They haven’t posted the individual talk as a video yet or I’d link to it rather than a quick summary.

It’s General Conference weekend in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ie the Mormons, with the leaders directly addressing members worldwide. Pacific time, Sunday’s two hour sessions will start at 9:00 and 1:00.

I picked cashmere yarn for it, because it seemed fitting, and got at least half a cowl done while we watched, quietly wondering whose it would turn out to be. It was telling me it needed to be knitted and ready.

Sharon Eubank, head of LDS Charities, talked today about some of the humanitarian aid projects. In the scramble of the Afghanistan airlift, there were religious women who found themselves in public without their head coverings and were very uncomfortable with that. The Church got right to work sewing some for those who wanted them.

She (edited to add link) talked a little about Syria. Where a family that had owned a bakery found themselves unable to procure any food, much less provide it to others, and were on the verge of starvation.

LDS Charities was able to reach them. Food was the immediate need. They were vetted and able to leave for another (unnamed) country.

Needing to somehow convey the depth of their gratitude, Sister Eubanks said, a box of cookies showed up at Church headquarters. From those gifted bakers.

A box of cookies.

So much emotion and experience and gratitude was poured into that surprise package. It was everything.

Every time I look at one of my pomegranates I think gratefully of Jean, whose sharing is why I had to grow some, too. She’d planted hers as a gift to the future when she was 85. She didn’t remember what variety hers was, but if I had to guess it would be the one that was the favorite of the highly-knowledgeable owners of Yamagami’s Nursery. Mine is.

I’d forgotten the paper lunch bags for people to take the splitting chunks of seeds home in while wearing their Sunday best that day. Thoughtful, and so very much something she would do. No pomegranate juice on the carpeting at church.

I keep thinking, now I just need to find me a shimmery silk/merino yarn in dk or worsted weight in exactly those shades of red because I just really like it.