Second go at this thick-toppinged coffee cake. Subbed ginger for allspice. Added 1/4tsp fine salt to topping, I’ll try 1/2tsp next time. Baked 55 min but could have pulled out at 50. I’d vote more nuts, maybe 1.5c? This time I crumbled the topping too finely. Might go lighter on the vanilla.

Brunch day! Potato salmon hash with poached eggs and sourdough toast. Now I’m ready to lounge 😄

Baked chocolate chip cookies. I like very little chocolate, so I used 6oz total (2.5oz 70% bar and the rest semisweet chips). Half the brown sugar was dark. Stand mixer struggled with the thick dough. Baked 12 min. This batch was just chocolate, but I’ve added 1c walnuts to the rest of the dough 🍪

Two of these bumbles on my tall Oregon grape this afternoon! Does it seem early for bees? 🤔 Glad to have this winter flowerer for them ❤️🐝 (I’m guessing black tail bumblebee?)

I’ve had a RescueTime subscription for years but I’m not getting much out of it these days. My subscription renews January 1 so I have a couple weeks to decide… I might also switch back to Classic RescueTime – love the ethos of the New version but probably not worth $50 for me 🤷‍♀️

Pumpkin muffins with cream cheese filling and streusel. The topping was hard to apply – mine became a solid. I added 1/4t ginger but pretty sure I forgot the salt 😅 Flavor a bit flat. The cream cheese filling made the muffins separate when baked. The initial hot bake technique worked again here.

I had a lot of ripe pears so I cooked this dessert twice this week 😂 Simmer 3 diced pears in 2T maple syrup and 1T lemon juice with sticks of fresh ginger for 10 min. Let cool, pick out ginger, serve with vanilla ice cream (and pecan cookie 😉). Recipe from Erin Alderman’s The Easy Veg Kitchen.

Baked these buttermilk biscuits again tonight and actually followed the instructions this time 😉 Put in at 450, raised heat to 500, once it reached temp I let it bake 5 minutes, then lowered the heat to 450. Total bake time 19 min. Nice and tall! Added 1T sugar and probably 2-3T extra buttermilk.

Troubleshooting night at my house: CSS for me, Excel for the husband 🦾 I’m not big on puzzles or mind games, but problem solving on my website makes for a fun evening. I’m old school so I made it work on desktop first, mobile can come tomorrow 😉

I finally joined in the fun and posted my default apps too 😄

@robb@social.lol

Tested out the refinished cast iron with cornbread – no sticking! I did use a generous coating of melted butter to make sure 😄

Turned out to be a very golden meal – I did make Brussels sprouts too but they finished 20 minutes early so they became an appetizer 😉

I’ve been jonesing for vanilla cake with chocolate frosting, so I made the buttermilk cake and cocoa buttercream frosting from the cookbook Snacking Cakes 😋 Probably one of the better yellow cakes I’ve made, nice light texture. Usually I just use a box mix but I’d make this again.

It was cold out so I thought it’d be a good day to refinish a flaking cast iron skillet. I got two coats in the oven; it’s improved, but will need more. What I didn’t consider was how it would trash the indoor air quality 😷 So I’m waiting for a day warm enough to open the window for more coats!

Got a lot done at IndieWeb Create Day today but my brain needs some extra fuel to make up for all that thinking 😂 Having post dinner oatmeal with persimmon and pecans.

We have salmon on Thanksgiving to honor Pacific Northwest heritage. I live on the traditional land of the Duwamish people, with whom the US has broken our treaties and who have been denied Federal recognition 😔 With gratitude, I honor the land itself and the Duwamish people, past and present.

I got a whole bag of (Fuyu) persimmons so I’m playing with ways to eat them! First up: French toast 😊 Added a subtle sweetness, would eat again 👍

Later I’m going to try a persimmon and paneer salad. I’m also intrigued by the suggestion to simply freeze one and eat it like sorbet 😃

She cannot resist the ladder.

Good news: my husband’s finally home from India 🥰 Bad news: he has cold-like symptoms 😞 Good news: the COVID test was negative 👍

I’m hanging out downstairs for now… I’m current on both flu shot and COVID booster so 🤞

Apparently I was so excited about this book about dust I preordered it twice 🤦‍♀️😂

(I read the email series it grew out of years ago and did find it seriously fascinating 🤷‍♀️)

Borrowed Greenfeast: autumn, winter from the library and looks like I’ll be buying a copy – I flagged nearly every recipe in the first half so I’m preserving my post-its 😂 Lots of slow cooked, roasted, hearty vegetarian comfort foods. Some look a bit simple for dinner but I’ll put an egg on it 😉

Watched this bud jump from the fence onto our fig tree, pluck a fig with its mouth, and scamper down the fence to gorge 😄 It didn’t look ripe to me but squirrel friend enjoyed it. Nearly ripe figs keep disappearing overnight – we’ve been wondering who’s eating them all! 😂

Got my COVID booster and flu shot! 🙌 💉 Our car is in the shop so we walked over in the rain 😐🌧️ A reminder I bought the stuff to rewaterproof my jacket but haven’t applied it yet lol

Dang it, I just noticed my couple All-Clad pans are losing finish at the lips – apparently there was a class action lawsuit I got one email about 11 months ago and missed the deadline for replacement 🤦‍♀️ Hoping they’ll help me out more than “sorry here’s a 15% off coupon”

My folks and I met up in Bremerton today, out on the Puget Sound. Between a big naval shipyard and the ferry was this rad fountain park where five or so of these chunky metal sculptures blasted bloops of water out their tops in synchrony. It made me laugh with delight every time they went off 😄

Today is my 20th anniversary of blogging! 😀 Here’s my first blog as it looked in 2007 – I don’t have a screenshot of what it looked like in 2003.

Today’s library haul has more “intense” books than I prefer to get at once – I had the holds paused but didn’t notice they all became active again till they were already en route 😂

We got out of town to the forest yesterday! A new-to-me trail with lots of cool old growth stumps probably logged in the 1920s or 30s. I love Pacific Northwest forests 💚

Brunch with a couple Middle Eastern inspired recipes from the cookbook New Feast, and leftover French fries 😉

Meanwhile, my cat is fishing in the recycle bin 🤦‍♀️

Finally got around to setting up the Instant Pot I bought early in the pandemic 😅 Cooked lentils for spicy lentil sloppy joes 🦾 Going to need to read some more instructions to feel like I know what I’m doing though.

Baked lemon blueberry “bread” (cake) for the second time. Recipe is vegan but I made it with butter and buttermilk. Didn’t have enough powdered sugar so the glaze is a bit thin (not shown) but still tastes good 😉 Baked 80 minutes.

I have a handful of Bluesky invites if anyone happens to be looking for one, apropos of recent events 😉

Made blueberry pancake cobbler from the latest Smitten Kitchen cookbook. I doubled it and added 50% extra blueberries. Good for dessert and breakfast! 😋

This morning we went to a u-pick blueberry farm with heirloom varietals, despite a bit of rain – I am pleased with the fruits of our labor 😉

We’ve been running the new heat pump basically 24/7 for the past month and crossing our fingers on the bill. Just got it: minimum charge. Our solar panels are still generating more than we’re using 🙌

Our 18 panel system produced 779kWh and we used 738kWh, adding 41kWh to our annual bank. ☀️

Dent May’s album Late Checkout is perfect weekend morning listening 😄🎶

Oh the irony – someone fed my article about deindexing my website from Google over AI training into Chat-GPT to generate a summary, and sent me a pingback 😂🤦‍♀️

I realize I am a no fun grouch but can we maybe celebrate without blowing shit up? Neighbors set off fireworks till 1am last night. AirNow said my AQI was 165 this morning. WA Smoke Blog says the pollution was largely from fireworks 😑

Tidepooling today! We headed to West Seattle, which I think of as far away (but without traffic took 30 minutes lol). I read this spot has uplifted bedrock so we wanted to scope it out. Barnacles galore, making a cool crackling noise, and tons of these rad tube worms (?).

Met my husband 17 years ago today 🥰 Very glad for the coincidence that we both happened to be visiting the same mutual friend from out of state at the same time!

Baked nectarine-peach-blueberry cobbler. Only had 6 peaches and nectarines, so I halved the filling and added a pint of blueberries. Subbed brown sugar in the filling and didn’t precook. Took ~20 minutes extra for the dough to bake through. Added 1/4t cardamom to the dough, very faint. Tasted good.

This month I’ve been digging the album Foolishman by The Correspondents. When it came out in 2017 I didn’t like it as much as their first album, and didn’t listen to it much, but it’s grown on me. 🎶

My nutritionist suggested I explore the concept of “adult lunchables” to make lunch more appealing so I’m having fun trying out all sorts of fancy snacks 😃

I’m digging this purple and green mix in the garden 💜💚

Eastward bound ☁️

I hit 200,000 scrobbles on last.fm today! 😃🙌 I love music 🎶

My top listened track since 2007 is Miike Snow’s Genghis Khan, which also has the best music video ever IMO 😍

Truly terrible brownies from The Kitchn: sugar didn’t properly dissolve and pieces without copious chocolate chips tasted like oil 😠 Yuck! Reading more, sounds as though the recipe technique is poor and it may not have enough water. Also, mixing in the pan was ridiculous. A disappointment.

Baked Smitten Kitchen’s dreamy cream scones for dessert. Added an extra 1/4c of cream. Made 11 scones. Could go shy on the cranberries and not chop so small. Topped with cream and turbinado sugar. Baked 14 minutes at 430. Would make again.

We’ve gotten used to hearing the nearby coyote den howling every time a siren goes past, but finally saw one of the coyotes in the backyard today! It hung out for a couple minutes scratching itself then wandered off. Guess our restoration efforts have worked!

I use DuckDuckGo’s beta app tracking blocker on my phone – looking through the past week, one of the worst offenders is… my meditation app? 🤔😒

Stopped by our favorite taco truck to discover it gone 😱 We ordered burritos from the replacement truck and discovered that California burrito =/= Mission burrito, so I basically had a french fry wrap 😂 (Ordered it meatless, assuming it came with beans, my bad – I’m a norcal gal 🤷‍♀️)

Just went grocery shopping for the first time since the pandemic 😷🛒 Not an errand I have missed 😂

I have a weekly milkman delivery and had a biweekly produce box that carried pantry staples, so I got by with quarterly pickup orders from the grocery store. We cut the produce box to save $$$ for now.

Me this morning: There’s so much to do around the house, how did I ever work full-time?

Husband: We hired a house cleaner and ordered a lot of takeout.

Did it do anything in the oven? 🤔😂

Well, this recipe was a dud 🤷‍♀️ Happens sometimes. Muesli Snacking Cookies from The Kitchn – not linking because I wouldn’t recommend 😉 Too sweet (partly on me for adding butterscotch chips probably) and dough was very hard to work.

My camas is blooming! Thanks November Tracy 💪 I’m hoping it naturalizes and spreads.

Another from the Snacking Cakes cookbook: spiced pineapple upside down cake. The pineapple topping is good but the cake itself is a tad bland – I’d add some spices into the batter.

Light dinner so we needed dessert! Powdered donut cake from the cookbook Snacking Cakes 🍩 This was a winner IMO. It suggested cinnamon sugar as an alternate topping so I did one stripe to test – tasty but I preferred the powdered sugar 😋

Shoutout to this vintage sifter! I, er, don’t recall washing it till today, and joked how many years of accumulated powdered sugar I was cleaning – a quick image search has lookalikes from the 1930s. So this little pal may be 80-90 years old?! 🧁 (Surely previous owners washed it 😂🤞)

Second go at these cream scones. Made half batch with vanilla bean paste, subtle but tasty. Went wild for the rest and also added 1/2t nutmeg, 1/4c cranberries, and 1/2t fresh rosemary 😳 Unusual but not bad. Topped with vanilla glaze. Freezing didn’t make a huge difference imo.

Tried a new buttermilk cornbread recipe along with chili. I’d make it again. I only had 1-1/4c of cornmeal so I threw it all in with extra buttermilk. Took 25 minutes to bake.

I added a quarter cup of TVP to the chili, and realized I almost never see recipes call for it. Is it out of style? 🤔

Baked Smitten Kitchen’s zucchini bread for dessert. Deb says wait overnight before eating – I waited an hour before we inhaled half the loaf 😂 Quick breads are best still warm from the oven, IMO. Recipe called for 9x5” pan but worked in my 8.5x4.5” pan.

Tried a new recipe for tangy chickpeas from Smitten Kitchen. I loosely 1.5’d it and looks like we’ll get 3 meals for two people. Served with egg noodles per a suggestion in the comments, but think another’s idea of roasted potatoes would add nice texture.

I used to hang dry my clothes all the time but fell out of the habit. Trying it again to save energy. It’s a chore I don’t really mind – hardest part is stopping the cats from jumping on the drying rack and collapsing a shelf 😹

📖 Panel from “What It Is” by Lynda Barry:

There is another part of my mind which seems to not know what year it is at all. I find myself arguing in my head with people I haven’t seen in 15 years… it’s like there is a place in me where it is all alive.

I avoided reading Barry for years because I didn’t like how her character Marlee looked, then I learned that was the point 😅 The collage pages are a little overwhelming but I’m digging the comic parts.

📖 Panel from “What It Is” by Lynda Barry: > There is another part of my mind which seems to not know what year it is at all. I find myself arguing in my head with people I haven’t seen in 15 years… it’s like there is a place in me where it is all alive.

I avoided reading Barry for years because I didn’t like how her character Marlee looked, then I learned that was the point 😅 The collage pages are a little overwhelming but I’m digging the comic parts.

I realized my Kindle Unlimited subscription was ending tonight and decided to gamble on reading the final book of a trilogy before Amazon took it away. Raced the clock and finished the book exactly at midnight 🦾

Yesterday we headed up to Deception Pass for a walk along the bluffs 😍 So good to get out of the house. More pictures.

This is a pretty bullshit way to talk about protests, Feedly 😒 We like free speech, remember? This framing centers the small minority of protesters who damage property.

So I was looking at self employment taxes today and followed a daisy chain of at least 3 forms to try to fill in the one for how much I owe and have come to the conclusion these are basically impossible to complete without an accountant 😂

Bummer, my husband got laid off from Microsoft today 🙁 We’ve got savings so we’ll be fine, but I may ramp up my consulting hours 🤷‍♀️

Silver lining, for quick cost cutting I checked Comcast’s website and saved us $30 a month on the same internet 😂🤦‍♀️

Brunch day! Been too long 😍 I ate too much, so time to lounge on the couch 😂

Woke at 6 this morning to howling and yipping coyotes in the greenbelt behind our house. They hushed when my husband held his phone by the window so they may be close 😳 I’d found scat in my yard, but didn’t expect a whole pack 😅 I’m pro-wildlife but that many so near is mildly disconcerting.

I was craving an evening snack but wanted to eat it before 10pm and thought: scones! 🤓 Whipped up a batch that doubles as breakfast tomorrow 🦾

Tried a new recipe, thought it turned out well. Subbed orange zest and 1/4c cranberries for vanilla. Had to add prob an extra 1/4c of cream. Baked 16min.

Tried a new buttermilk biscuit recipe today, pretty tasty and puffed up nicely. I skipped the pepper and added a smidge more buttermilk. Made 9 biscuits.

Having fun thinking about albums lately, so I put together a webpage with some favorite albums 💽🎶

I’ve been remiss in pruning my Japanese maple so I watched a bunch of YouTube videos to remind myself and spent an hour just clearing dead wood. Probably another couple hours of cleanup at this pace. Then I can brave shaping cuts 😳🍁

My Instagram account got suspended – I’m guessing they didn’t like me pulling posts into my RSS reader, because I haven’t posted in ages. Unlocking it requires sending a selfie, which I’m not inclined to do. Is that silly? Meta knows what I look like from my naive FB days. But meh 🤷‍♀️

I LOVED Odell’s How to Do Nothing so I am super excited for Saving Time! 📕 I’ve been reading and thinking a fair bit about human time vs mechanical time in recent months and intrigued to get her take.

1. Post a great album with no explanation.
2. Tag others to do the same.

Sure, I’ll play 😄 Wild Bill Davis and Johnny Hodges in Atlantic City 🎶

@gregmoore @undamnedone @starrwulfe

//cc: @hutaffe

Tried a new buttermilk biscuit recipe today. Made 10 biscuits. Baked at 450 for 16-17ish minutes for darker batch, 14-15ish for lighter batch. Nice and crunchy outside. Flavor was good fresh, curious if the baking powder will be too strong tomorrow.

I need to snack more, and just remembered this all-snack cookbook Raw Energy that’s been sitting on my shelf for 11 years 😂 My note on this recipe is from 2012. 2023 verdict: too sweet.

Brunch day! Been too long 😋

Operation Get A New Cat Tree was a success! It only took three stores to find a good one 😂 Our cat Mina has claimed it and poor Rhaedar is sulking.

Super psyched to cancel my gas service today! We replaced our old gas furnace and water heater with electric. (Finally, we booked in August 😂)

I’m digging the extra heat in our bedroom from the heat pump – it’s always been 3-4 degrees cooler than other parts of the house.

Sigh, friend sent me a neat-looking anti-corporate literary magazine and I’m 96% sure the cover art is AI generated 🤦‍♀️ It bothers me when artists of one medium don’t value those in other media.

Banana bread kind of day! I don’t expect this loaf to last past lunch tomorrow 😂

✍️ I scribbled myself a two sentence note on Friday, then when I went to put it online it grew into 2000 words 😂 I feel a bit silly because it’s about what makes a blog a blog. But, if you’re interested: Understanding blogs

🍪 Cranberry chocolate chip blondies – I subbed semi-sweet for white chocolate and cut the chocolate in half. Sprinkled flaky salt on top. Tasty but a little samey – more cranberries, more salt, add walnuts too?

📖 Reading What Works by Tara McMullin, about rethinking a goal-oriented life and escaping the need for validation, and I feel seen 😅 She asks, “When you were a kid what did you think a successful life looked like?” Remembering I said I was going to be a lawyer and a writer 😂🙄

EDIT: they found her! Yay!!! 🐶 Dunno if I know anyone here in SF – my parents’ dog ran away last night near Golden Gate Park and they’re looking for her 🥺 Hoping she’s ok and they find her today!

Dinner fiasco: made the worst quiche crust I’ve ever made, and it wasn’t done till 8:30 😂 I tried to make an all butter crust with some cultured butter, but I didn’t chill it enough and the butter all melted out so it’s super tough 🤷‍♀️ At least the filling tastes good…

Mmm, pumpkin muffins! I think I’ve made these before. Very moist. Made 17 muffins. Baked several minutes extra. It calls for a glaze but I don’t have any cream cheese and it’s also good without 😋

Started off the new year with brunch 😍 Prepped all the veg last night so I’d have no excuse 😂 Made breakfast potatoes and cream eggs – tasty! Didn’t get the pumpkin muffins in the oven before the potatoes were done so we’re having two courses 😉