The Big One

New Year Party Spread

Twenty people squeezed into our tiny home.

Holiday Granola

I'm making everyone a special holiday edition with pumpkin seeds and cranberries; mostly so friends can ease off the holiday sugar. Truly there is no more cozier aorma than carmelizing maple and coconut . When ever I bake granola these days, I sneak in a few small sweet potatoes to roast slowly.

Kains Ave. Xmas Cookies

Kains Ave. Xmas Cookies

Every year I receive lovely batches of buttery goodness from neighbors all around.

2006 pre party party

2007 pre party table

Just to get eased into throwing parties, Clees and I stretch out our party muscles with a small pre big party party.

Berkeley Baked

Across the street in the bachelor house lives a neighbor who I call "Never Not Stoned Dave". Clees's friend Ben goes to the bachelor house every Sunday to watch football with Dave's roommate Todd. Ben and Todd are so busy playing Fantasy Football simultaneously on their laptops during the games that they make Dave get their lunch from Picante. Dave vented to Clees in reality show style, "There is something so morally wrong with this. Man, I don't even like football. If I wasn't getting a free lunch out of this...."

Todd is trying to apply for graduate school and last week he had trouble finding one of his applications. Apparently Dave had torn out a corner to roll one.

Binch time

Cookies that crack you up. How does it taste? Well, binching...

Blushing

Lemony beer

No self respecting beer drinker would even put lips to this girly brew but it's all good by me - all honey notes and half lemon soda. When you're a beer philistine, you can enjoy lightweights without any shame.

C and I finally made it over to Pyramid Alehouse to try some apricot weizen on tap. We shared a single pint and had good feelings all around. I won't need to go back for another few years as it's the most Houston or mid-west establishment you can experience in Berkeley. Nonetheless the apricot- strong to the nose and palate was a pleasant surprise.

Sandwiches You Will Like

Friday night there's nothing more perfect than a ninety minute PBS documentary about meaty sandwiches dripping au jus. The footage is wonderfully quirky. Only a few minutes in, you hear an alien computer voice praises tripe sandwiches. It's some dude with a tracheotomy. Sandwich makers discourse quite fondly about their creations just like a family member, "beef on weck", "muffalettas". Tomorrow I am going to make my mini-"Elvis", peanut butter,banana, bacon beauty grilled with tablespoons of butter.

Pleasure of Waiting

Even when the nights are chilly and the summer stone fruits long gone, autumn is not without it's bounty of jewels. Chestnuts and persimmons, pomegranates and bright skinned citrus. But truly autumn is not autumn until I spoon my first ripened persimmon, a pulpy pleasure which cannot be rushed.

These orange beauties sit rock hard making you doubt if they're ever going to give it up. I don't like to bring them home already ripened; I want to wait together, the fruit and me. You have long days and hard days when you snap at your dog or your husband. Too many of them pass and voila the persimmons yield to your thumb.

Great grandma Cho who use to eat her apples scraped with a spoon was particularly fond of these as is Hugo who still has most of his teeth.

Proud to be a Californian

Today I finally had cause to jump up and down just like I practiced last month after watching Deal or No Deal commerical. The Californian women(Nancy and Diane and Barbara B) did us proud, voters did me proud. It was one of the few elections where I felt individual voting counted. No amount of Republican fund raising money was going to sucker anybody. Actually tobacco millions did bust Prop 86 .

3 Day Leftover Soup

What's nice about cooking for yourself is you can do things that would cause your husband to protest and take arms. So when Clees left on Thursday morning, I promptly started a pot of garlic, potato, quinoa soup. To cap it off, I threw in my left over chile verde pork burrito. Hehehe. To add fresh flavor, chives and handful of nasturtium leaves go in at the last minute. It was fantastic. Add to that, I didn't have to share with anybody.

For Thursday dinner, I added a tired but still serviceable red cabbage, left over spare ribs and sausage from my Thai grill Wednesday dinner from Jimmy Bean, more shallots. The flavor profile gets deeper by the meal. Serve with handfuls of arugula, nasturtiums and chives, and you have one happy girl.

Since Saturday lunch I sadly finished of my friend the soup, I had to come up with a new zinger. I started making apricot lentil soup trying to follow a recipe. While I was stirring I could not resist my creative self. I threw in chopped walnuts, then green tomatoes and the good part of a worm eaten Sierra Beauty. Served with lemon juice and dollop of yogurt, my head and belly puff up with pride. I guess Clees can deflate me when he returns.

Sof and I giggled through Shortbus on Saturday. I wanted more story and less dangly parts, but it's wholesome fun in the end.

While I was at Sof's place to cook up some ddukboki and try out her new bleeding red velvet couch for girly chat, C was having man friend time with his Berkeley gents. One of his buddies hit a rough patch with his woman who left him with their child for a lesbian lover from L.A. who's moving here to start an artisanal bakery. So Bay Area. So Bay Area.

Down for the Count

Once I was visiting my parents long ago and had to ask my mom for some Tylenol. She looked at me funny and said "We don't have that kind of thing in this house." Indeed the Kim family pharmacy contained only giant vats of vaseline and jumbo 3 packs of Pepto Bismol. She added finally to the effect of "I didn't know you were the kind of person who took that sort of thing."

When did I ever become a pain reliever popping weenie. Bay Area living makes you soft. This weekend I had to ingest more than a handful to keep my head from exploding. The stuff works.

Research Date at Devil's Teeth

Kim's in the News

Recently, the Monday San Francisco Chronicle front page was dominated by Kims. The first Kim who had been there since Friday was freed sex slave YouMi Kim. Her photos took up the bulk of the page squeezing out Kim Jong Il to a narrow margin. I guess a young nubile body sells more than the threat of blowing up Japan.

Today, Harry Kim, mayor of Hawaii, was cited in the news for the Big Island earthquake.

No results were found

Today I was trying hard to think of a phrase to describe polar bear's black tongue and resorted to the Thesaurus on Microsoft Word for "black" which suspiciously came up empty. White and yellow had no shortage of synonyms.

Clees made an official complaint that he was tired of being everybody, nobody and somebody. If you live with one other person and if you make statements like
-Nobody made dinner. Nobody did laundry.
-Somebody left the eggs out.
-Everybody brush teeth.

Well. It usually is Clees.

World's Most Brilliant Poppy Seed Cake

I had one of the rare mind blowing food moments.

Last of the Summer Plums

It always makes me a little sad to taste the last of the summer stone fruit.

Skinned Knee Chronicles

Day before my first class (2 Mondays ago), Clees smiles widely and says he's got the perfect back-to-school present. He brought home a junked razor scooter found in the bushes near the autobody shop. He welded a new steering column restoring it to functional use. Monday night we take turns zipping around our block. It's fun.

On Tuesday, I wake up special early to start the day right. I take my scooter and head for the Bart. What did my feet ever to do to me to deserve such punishment. 2 blocks past my house I enter scooter hell. City of Berkeley, you really gotta pave for the public good. The road is so crazy in some patches forcing me to walk or lift the scooter which in turn causes the base to swing about whacking my ankles- evenly on each side in case there's any question of favoritism. I sweat profusely, pedestrians zip me by. Insult to injury, some boys titter as I scoot by. After work, I opt for walking to my first day of night class.

On Wednesday, I chance my scooter on a down hill ride returning home from the Bart. I worry as I fall asleep that night about getting Parkinson's disease from shaky cheap scooters.

Week after Wednesday, Clees has recast the wheel bearings and gave it a new set of softer green wheels. It's a thousand times better. I zip around as fast as I can on my block until I'm thrown. I eat concrete and rip my knee.

Thursday night, my pajama pant has stuck on to my knee. I defer doing anything hoping the problem will resolve itself while I sleep.

Friday morning, the pant is still stuck to the bloody crust on my knee. C offers to yank it. I refuse. Instead I get up and jog around the house. Problem solved. Thank god I wore polar fleece instead of fibrous cotton.

Friday afternoon I've had enough of working from home all day. I put on short shorts and zip around recklessly around the block. It feels good letting my knees get some fresh air.

Monday, Clees meets me at the Bart station with my scooter. I go too fast down hill and fly off again. I recover and fall again but my left knee is saved.

Next Monday it rains.

Anniversary Grill

Yup. Something feels official once you own a standalone grill. This baby got recalled last year for bursting into flames. Cheap valves from China.

Foggy Mendo Weekend

Gorilla Biscuits Night Out

I have been given an unusual Friday night to myself as Clees has gone to kick it one last time in the mosh pit. I told him not to wear his crocs and get stomped on. He was agonizing over wearing his eBay bought "Rise and Shine" chicken and egg shirt seen mostly on fifty year old moms. At last he decided he would wear his "Be the Reds" soccer fan shirt. There's no point in trying to be hardcore if you are the chicken man of Berkeley.

Heirloom Tomatos= Tomatos with Orifices

Those crevices are just too big to be considered mere bellybuttons. The beauties on the left are Black Krim a Russian variety. Despite the frankensutures, these fruits burst with that special Black Sea flavor. Plant kingdom is not the only place we relish such crinolous folds although Shar Pei's are not bred for the eating.

Poetry's a bit like beef jerky.

I found a tribute book of poetry to Frost on my last library round. I'm not too keen on his New England woods and rhymes, so I don't know why I bothered reading through a book full of lesser poets inspired by poems I don't even like. However I found this one gem by Susan Firer, "Mrs.Post''s 6th-Hour English Class" where her classmate Debbie confounds the class explaining why taking the road not taken has made all the difference:

"It's clear
if the speaker of the poem had traveled
the more traveled road, he would
have ended up at the milkman's. Since
he did not need milk that day.
he took the road less traveled."

I love mayonnaise

...and what's better than a fresh new jar of mayo for dinner. It was C who put his artistic talent to such good use; who doesn't love a man always trying to making you smile.

As per usual, we were facing bleak prospects for dinner. I generously told C he could have my leftover lunch tilapia and I will make do with what ever crumbs I can find on the floor. While squirting ketchup on a hot dog bun we had gotten for free at Brook and Victor's barbeque last Saturday C bragged, "You are going to be amazed how good my sandwich is going to be".

I had prosciutto, fig, pecorino sandwich on some cheap leftover lunch bread but I think his sandwich tasted lip smacking better.

Day at Limantour

All month I had been thirsty for the sea so C and I finally hopped in the truck for some Point Reyes beach action. Even if the Lebanese are being bombed out, and Indonesians are distraught over another tsunami, Northern Californians are living it up enjoying the globally warmed beaches. Everywhere I go laughter and play.

BFF-TLF

While I was visiting Big J over July 4th, she promised home cooked country style meals. I have gotten such promises before only to be sadly sent home after salty meals at Hugo's favorite joints. Then Big J would call me about the fantastic tender ribs or apricot glazed pork chops she had cooked for someone else other than me. I wish I had me some of them phone recordings. This time she made good on her word cooking up tasty restaurant quality meals day after day sweatin' by her Viking. I never forget that somebody makes me pork sausages for breakfast, this is true love.

Yukking it up on the Tea Boards

It was bound to happen. I've joined a tea tasting party with an on-line pu-erh community. You can go on and on about pu-erh minutiae that none of your friends are willing to put up with and groups of people read and respond with obsessive enthusiasm.

Actually I am so outdone by the other posters that I mostly hang back. People upload the most intimate photos of a tea session, even with the saturated leaves laid out. They called it tea p0rn or pr0n. It's a genteel group, we are all serious tea drinkers after all.

Ms. Sof says there is a cute handsome boy at work that makes her smile all day. Eventhough nothing good can come of dating a man in his early twenties, she's just happy to have someone hot to look at from time to time. I'm a bit jealous. Wouldn't be great to have such an easy drug.

Once I worked at a chip design company with two female engineers on the entire floor. The hardware engineers were the most gossipy bunch I've met. They would ask me who I thought was the most handsome engineer in the company. Being hard pressed, I thought an unlikely joke and responded "Constantin". Constantin was the Russian architect who must have been 2.5x my age at the time. I wasn't really into older men back then. One of the Chinese engineers seriously nodded his head and replied, "Yes that is a different kind of handsome."

Why Zizou? Why?

I feel sad for Zidane and all those who wanted him to win and make good for French racial harmony. Viciously headbutting a taunting Matterazzi in front of a billion people. I hope this doesn't cause a new outbreak of racial riots.

Some of the gloating Italian players took their shorts off after their victory run around the pitch. Who wants to see sweaty tidy whities under that Azzurri uniform. Just yuk.

So the World Cup ends for me in a unsettling way with no joy for the winners. I just have a small taste of their bitterness of defeat as I find myself sighing and shaking my head.

Heros and Goats

While walking up a Tilden path, a unicylist tumbled over a rock and fell off his saddle. Then another, and yet another. I missed all three chances to take an entertaining photo. There is nothing more dorky than mountain unicycling at first glace but I really wanted to hop on one.

C kept insisting how this path was of more State Park quality. I just kept getting that regional park feeling.

Eliot Title Character

Most days I do a cross world puzzle on the BART ride home. Half done, C picks it up and finishes it with relish mumbling something about how I got a corner all wrong. 14 across on his second puzzle was "Eliot Title Character", 8 letters. I confidently shouted "PRUFROCK. That's totally PRUFROCK" to which C wouldn't budge. He finally put it down and then told me I was all wrong. ADAMBEDE I shouted again. He told me I'd better be right this time.

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World Cup Blues

We are pitifully ejected jointly by the Swiss who rightly kicked our ass and French who broke down the Togolese and scored two. The Taeguk Warriors played badly, running madly about the field with no purpose. Those Swiss had a tight barrior even the French had not breached.

I was so frustrated all day so I finished two cross world puzzles and baked a cherry rhubarb crumble.

Instead of sensibly getting more sleep or working on my magnum opus, I shuffle to bed very late catching up on all things World Cup. There's been no shortage of drama. Not just Ronaldo flakiness, the Togo team threatening boycott, the French underperforming, and the Italians fouling and elbowing McBride's pretty nose(only 3 stitches), but a truly atrocious Peter Crouch hair pulling incident last week. Trinidad and Tobago really truly were done wrong by the British when the two meter asparagus yanked Sancho's dreadlocks to score a desperate dubious goal 82nd minutes in to the game. As the referee didn't see it so the goal is allowed to stand. Sancho continues to have the worst time ever as he scored against his own team for Paraguay even though he totally tied his dreads neatly with a rubber band for the next game. Poor guy.

Taeguk Warriors still do the Red Devils proud. Clees and I wore our "Be the Reds" shirts for the France vs South Korea game. I don't think C is true Red Devil as he put on his shirt only at the 80th minute and was tut tutting the lost French goal.

Douglas Sued Again

C's dealer is again in the news. Sued over money he didn't pay up to an artist. I'd better get in line. Doug is laughing his way to the courts as the claimant is suing for breach of oral contract. I should be mad but I'm just relieved he isn't being investigated for tax fraud or some other illegal doings.

Educational Day at the Joo.

For strictly investigative research purposes, I ask Sof to join me at the San Francisco Zoo. I am eating beans and rice to save up for visiting polar bears in their native northern lands. In the meanwhile, I want to study the local area population first. You will see in the photo album the polar bears were only a sad footnote to an otherwise fun visit.

Opossum R.I.P.

Our front porch had a bit of Amityville gross fly action which prompted me to demand C conduct an investigation. Sadly another dead opossum crawled into our side yard to die. It must be my evil neighbor using rat bait again.

C complained mightily and put on latex gloves and his respirator mumbling "Always Clees, always Clees". It's true he had to remove the last dead opossum. With his 3 trashbags and shovel, he solved this problem just as handily. I reminded him of the "No dead animal inside the house" policy told him not to bring the offending bag through the house just in case he was too lazy to unlock the side yard and come through the house. One never knows. Anyway when I went back into the house, I saw him with a trashbag trying to look suspicious. Of course he just grabbed the trash from the kitchen to get a rise out of me.

I could have paid these other guys in Florida who do wild life removal. Dead animal duty I feel is husbandly duty.

I read giant squid have been observed to attack baby grey whales and sperm whales. Instead of working these tidbits into my magnum opus, I am again back to surfing the web for pu-erh knowledge(mostly unsubstantiated gossip) until my eyes bug out everynight. I am a functional addict so noone can say nuthing about this.

Why do I choose to give up my free time to such an obscure object of desire.

May blooms have come late but easy this year due to the surfeit of rain. One of C's friend's just returned from Afghanistan as he has a book contract to write about extraordinary rendition and contract prisons in Afghanistan. He was busy interviewing mullahs and warlords while suffering the world's worst diarreah. He also like me has to go back to work on Tuesday.

D, another high school friend of ours is in Dharamsala teaching video editing to Tibetan monks. I was gulping down his thoughtful blog instead of working on my polar bear story. I'm in a plotline pickle for the orcas attacking the polar bear riding the grey whales. Should someone lose an eye for a flipper or a paw.

Yucatan- my one serious snorkel vacation for the year. Even though many of the reefs were bombed out by hurricane activity, the Yucatan held strange and wonderous cenote cave snorkeling, Mayan ruins, and no shortage of misbehaving Europeans. Click on.

Boar Bacon

Sigh, to think I lived so long on this earth without trying Wild Boar Bacon. But then it's always good to have new things to discover at every age. These strips of boar are marvelously nutty. While C had the sad duty of attending Grandpa Kopczewski's funeral in Cleveland, he went to a meat shop and thought only of me when he ran in to this slab of boar fat. That is true love.

*You can go to iheartbacon.com more a more technical analysis on the official BRS- Bacon Rating System.

Punished at Williamsburg...

In a nostalgic impulse, C and I go down to Williamsburg to get a whiff of the old college time memories. In truth, I love spoon bread and there is no where better to be served this soft warm cloud of corn meal than colonial Williamsburg.

Crab's Claw

Out of my third big shipment from Yunnan Sourcing hid an unsuspecting gem. I've been enjoying some high quality teas here and there but nothing yet a revelation. This Crab's Claw attractively labeled the "Parasitic tea living on the thousands year old tea-tree in Menghai" brewed a cup so surprisingly refreshing, I was utterly frustrated to find almost no web gleanings on this tea. I brewed the tea lightly for fear of being overwhelmed by the reputed medicinal sour taste. I had chosen this tea for C's old man cough and thought I would tuck away this beeng until next winter's first cold. This puppy tastes little of a young sheng puerh. I can only liken the sensation to drinking from the most refreshing cool mountain stream one finds when hiking up to the remote monastaries in Korea. Koreans call such water "YakSu" and I am certain when Sof tries her first cup, she will undoubtedly bubble out "Wauooo. Yaksu, yaksu da."

To think a few leaves can transform ordinary Berkeley tap water into memory and longing. This tea has a dimension which cannot be pinned down to any flavor but of being soothed. I was afraid to drink this a second time, but now I brew myself a late night cup from leaves which should have been tired from being brewed all day long by C and I am happy. Sipping and closing my eyes.

Too much tea imbibed. Too few words recorded.

I called Suse on Sunday. Hadn't talked to the girl in ages as although we had talked about going to the Ozarks in May after she defends. I was going to make both of us some pioneer dresses to go to Laura Ingalls Wilder's farm. But time and plans are slipping away. We are both sharing the same behavioral mishap. Despite the pressure to button up her Ph.D., she finds herself surfing ebay for the most perfect and cheap oriental rug. This is not why she's postponed her defense she maintains. It's for lack of youthful energy. Despite pressure for all sorts of things, taxes, work, and against extreme fatigue, I find myself spending all my free night hours surfing for pu-erh knowledge which is vexingly difficult to come by. Such behavior must be pushing some sort of reward center otherwise our rat brains wouldn't lap it up.

2006 White Silver Needles Arrived.

China is a purveyor of a billion things but nothing is as desirable and worthwhile as Yunnan teas. I had a boatload shipped to me express so I can surprise Big J who would love these fuzzy white silver needles smelling of chestnuts and sweet potatoes once brewed.

Many pleasures tea brings and what more could one want than inhaling a subtle scent of mellow sweetness. Why do people love things which faintly remind them of other things? I use to scoff at wine drinkers with their "hints of this and that". Now I brewed tiny cups for my self and C and I happily went on and on about chestnuts and sweet potatoes. Is it not amazing how tea leaves share the scent of a tuber and a nut no?

Welcome Dinner

C is to be back next hour. For his first dinner I had planned do a golden beet fennel blood orange salad, steamed arugula and artichoke ravioli. But then I thought of the cooking involved after a long drive from the airport so I more sensibly settled on dyenjangkuk which I've already made.

Dyenjangkuk is the Korean style miso soup which is nothing like the weak ass stuff you get at sushi restaurants. Mine today is full of potato, garlic, onion, obligatory shitaake, tiny little anchovies and few fennel sprigs. It's different every time. June says a squeeze of lemon (something my grandmother would wonder about as she never touched a lemon) gives it a fresh kick in the pants. Korean dyenjang- the fermented bean paste is gnarly thick potent stuffs.

Must run now to brush my teeth and drive to Oakland airport.

'Ninja'-style intruder identified as former casino executive

(3-3) 18:10 PST HEALDSBURG -- A black-clad intruder wearing a "Ninja"-style mask who was shot to death in a retired casino executive's Healdsburg home this week has been identified as a former chief financial officer of an Indian tribe's gaming operations.

I guess stuff like this really happens.

While C is away to New York, I have been brewing delicate and fragrant cups of tea in the late evenings. I brew leaves of his favorite cakes of wild arbor pu-erh. Thus I have been enjoying quiet and intimate moments through these cups while C is soundly asleep so far away.

The green bitterness and mellowing sweetness. It must be the theme of my life. As I have to work the night shift and the days are long and hard, I could not do without such tea.

I've been endeavouring to start a decent collection of pu-erh by ordering teas directly from China. Ebay you know. You can see for your self here: http://geguri.net/v-web/gallery/puerh. No outrageous aged pu-erhs for me as I do not like too much taste of ripe shu earthy cave licking pond pu-erh. I appreciate most the fragrant green shengs of ancient trees as I enjoy just sniffing the tea cakes before offing to be bed.

Butt Block and Super Bowl Sunday

Every Sunday we rotate bakeries and today was a trip to La Farine. I was about to grab a chair and enjoy my Swiss Twinkie with C when some guy with a sizable ass prevented me from a straight entry to my seat. He was blocking sideways, not even a block maximizing frontal.

As it was Super Bowl Sunday I went round to Mi Tierra for some six packs of Malta Goya. They started carrying Malta India as well. I polished off a few on my porch and let me tell you I forgot all about my present woes as I saw the sun go down. C and I were waiting for the screech owl to fly out of the neighbor's palm trees for it's nightly hunt but instead we got doves roosting in the michelia tree hopping branch to branch until they found one to their liking.

Muscles From Brussels

One benefit from surgery recovery is that you have absolute license to watch bad movies. As C could not get about much for the first few days after surgery, I was his proxy at Elephant Pharmacy. I spent twenty minutes riffling through for any vintage Jean-Claude van Damme movies but came up zeros. Elephant probably has deemed Muscles From Brussels too mainstream tacky and not sufficiently of alternative campiness for it's shelves. If they rent the Spice Girls movie, they shouldn't snub Hard Target- it's got pre-hurricane footage of New Orleans in it. I didn't want to humiliate myself on C's behalf so I just got your usual WWII movie with Donald Sutherland and Michael Caine as a German captain in a plot to kidnap Winston Churchill. No submarines though.

Then I had to go through Andronicos and procure a hefty sack of prunes and a bottle of prune juice just as the doctor ordered for C.

Surgery husband

After days of excruciating pain, C went to see our family physician Dr.B who confirmed a hernia diagnosis and referred him to Dr. Wright for surgery. At the first pre-op exam, while Dr. Wright had a few fingers up C's scrotum, someone busts in with a few knocks on the door. It's no other than the lady receptionist who says "Naan and Curry". Dr. Wright still probing, says "Yeah. Naan and curry. That eggplant curry was real good." After she leaves, Dr. Wright says, "Have some respect for yourself. Put your pants back on." Let's mention Dr. Wright wore a beige crocheted beret, silver snake skin boots in an office over decorated with Guatemalan textiles. If this wasn't Berkely you might get a bit worried.

As there is a long line for surgery, the first available spot would be in February. But as C is in a bad way, he's squeezed for Thursday surgery, the last surgery for the day.

The Best Donut in East Bay

Yesterday at the checkout line at Monterrey Market I tried to break up my Ben Franklin. The cashier asked me, "Did you make this at home. That's pretty good."

The lightest non greasiest donuts are from Donut Time in El Cerrito next to Marshalls on San Pablo. The shop is a time warp back into 80's just like Genki Sushi. I always try to limit myself to one treat and today I went for it. Bavarian creme donut with chocolate glaze. I normally get the old fashioned no glaze cake kind but the yellow dot squirting out the end hooked me somehow. Donut creme, I doubt it has milk products in it, is like a sweet mayonnaise. It was fantastic. And now I'm dying for another donut fix.

C and I made giant batches of organic granola. You have to do it at least once if you live in Berkeley. I made mine quite fancy with dried cherries, cranberries, apricots and Brazil nuts. C stuck to the oat and almond formula. I guess I'd better have just a bowl or granola. No donut is better than a stale greasy donut found at past 11 on a Sunday night.

Porkalicious

Waffle party with sausage and fried ham on Sunday. Almost bought the bacon but most party goers are on a diet so I judiciously held back. After everyone ate, I kicked everyone out like I always wanted to. No point chit chatting once the food's gone. I myself would love to be kicked out of a party once my belly's had it's fill.

I had put Belgian waffle maker on my X-mas wishlist, but Brook gave me hers so we would invite her over. She said she used it only thrice since 1999 as whipping the egg whites were too much of a production. My neglected KitchenAid has been getting more action these days ever since the waffle handover. It's true. Friends love you when you make waffles for them.

I think my new year's resolution is also same as Satchel's. I vow to eat more pie. I bought myself two pie stands to get a head start.

Archie Bunker

Big J says little A's been looking like a cranky old man these days. Wifebeater shirt, man boobs and a pot belly, and of course bad bed hair. Cutie pie's gone awol I guess when you've got no one new to impress.