Well, not so for me. I like to use my new stuff immediately. I’ll even put my old shoes in the shopping bag so I can wear the new shoes out of the store. Yes, I really do that.

Well, I was able to control myself a little bit better than that on the last trip, and see what it gets me… I get home and unpack my goodies, only to find that my new fancy garment has one of those ink cartridge tags on it. And of course, why do you think I shop in the Bay Area in the first place? Because there isn’t a Nordstrom’s for 100 miles. So what am I going to do? I browsed the inter-web and found the following video. What do you think? Safe? or Not Safe?

Tomorrow is Mardi Gras (a fact of which my friends in NOLA are already quite aware) and SouthernGirl’s dad has sent me a King Cake to celebrate. SweetiePie cut it and got the baby in his first bite!

Tradition says the person who finds the plastic baby in his slice must provide the next cake. Nonetheless, I will be providing the next King Cake, homemade.

I am using Peter Reinhart’s laminated Danish dough which rests overnight. Laizzez les bon temps roulez!

You better believe we shall have chile con queso tonight! By the way, chile con queso is in fact a vegetarian dish. It is translated, “Cheese with CHILES,” as in, chile peppers; not “Cheese with chili,” as in cheese with ground beef stirred in. That is gross.

So therefore, we will be having Chili with Chile con Queso. Go Giants.

HOLY GUACAMOLE, Batman!

About five inches fell last night, breaking the spell of the driest winter on record here. Last season was one of the greatest ever, so I suppose it is a case of mean reversion.

We have been anticipating this storm for about a week, with the entire town in an excited frenzy–weather reports posted on doors, “until it snows” sales, and (I am told) prayers in the churches. The economy around here runs on snow, and the season has been a bust so far. But, another storm blows through in a couple of days (didn’t you hear?) so perhaps we’ll all be strapping on our skis and boards in no time.

Reporting from the fireplace, this is Sweetrickey, signing off.

One that particularly plagues me is the combination of three facts: 1) I like to eat tasty food, 2) there is a dearth of good restaurants in my immediate neighborhood, and 3) I have a really finely equipped kitchen. (See upcoming blog post on my christmas haul.)

These three facts make it extremely tempting for me to spend hours every day experimenting with gourmet recipes when I should be working on the research and character development for my book. So SweetiePie (who is also guilty of being a do-it-yourself-foodie, and has contributed generously to my professionally-appointed kitchen) came home at lunch yesterday with a plan.

This week, I am going to make the Crock-pot my best friend. I received another crock-pot recipe book for christmas, but using a cookbook already takes me into dangerous foodie territory. And SweetiePie maintains that the Crock-pot is really is the real-life Food-a-Rac-a-Cycle from the Jetsons.  You just put raw ingredients in at random, and out comes a delicious meal five hours later, just like the video below (fast forward to 0:20 if you are in a hurry): 
So yesterday, I did it: I threw the following ingredients in at random:

1) Enough water to cover the bottom so stuff wouldn’t stick

2) Two pieces of chicken–I used two thigh-leg sections

3) Salt and pepper–a lot of it

4) Two potatoes–cut in half

5) One onion–cut in quarters

6) Several garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

It looked like this:

And then I put the lid on it and walked away. Seriously. I was very skeptical, especially since there was no liquid to speak of. But I came back five hours later, and it looked and smelled delicious. So good that I added:

7) One can of tomatoes–with all the liquid, because it smelled so good I wanted some soupy broth to go with it.

I started this up at about noon, and we got hungry at six. I had it on the high setting. If I had started it at 7 or 8am, I would have put it on the low setting. I think I could have varied the whole thing by hours without much different results.

At dinner, I served the chicken, potatoes, onions and broth over a bed of rice (which I cooked in Judy Jetson’s rice cooker, oh yeah) Folks, it was so delicious that SweetiePie literally ran back to the kitchen for seconds. Today’s experiment is already simmering away upstairs, with no attention from me whatsoever. Genius.