Ambrosia (Caramel Sauce)

I made caramel sauce!  And it was unbelievably amazingly wonderfully delicious.  And actually pretty easy.  I've done it twice now with little mishap.  The second time it crystallized a bit, so the sauce had a slightly grainy texture, but was still so tasty that it didn't matter at all. 

I've put the recipe and further details over on the family food blog Y'unz Can Cook.

Hard Tack Candy

I put up some pictures on the family food blog Y'unz Can Cook of our hard tack candy production last winter. It is a fun but very sticky process.

21

11.11.11

It was fun.

But I didn't even get carded.

Relativity Pie

Just put up a short post over at the family food blog Y'unz Can Cook about this amazing pie that I made last month. No recipe, just ramblings.

All Hallow's Read

I freakin' love holidays. Traditions and such. I am thinking popcorn balls this year for Halloween.Of course, I won't be able to give them to trick or treaters; they will be for family, coworkers, etc. If I like making the plain ones, I might branch out. More on that later if I succeed.

Another tradition to consider this year: All Hallow's Read. Introduced last year by Neil Gaiman, All Hallow's Read is the practice of giving scary books on Halloween, or the week leading up to Halloween. This is not meant, in any way, to replace trick-or-treating, costumes, wandering around at night, or intense sugar consumption. Instead, it would supplement the current Halloween activities with a further source of nightmares. Neat.

Pottermore

I have magic! I missed the Pottermore clue yesterday because I had no idea how it was going to work. Today I've been waking up every hour to check if it was up yet. Not sure how long I will have to wait before I can get into the site (apparently it still might be a few weeks).

My Mini NYC Adventure

I had a 4 hour layover at the Port Authority bus station on my way to Pennsylvania.  Since I've never been to New York before, I figured I might as well explore.  So I wandered around the neighborhood for a few hours.  Port Authority is right next to Times Square and Broadway, but I thought I would have more fun exploring.  Here is the Google Map I made of my short-range wanderings.  The day I was there it was ridiculously warm, so my Pinkberry melted the second that I stepped outside.

Original with mochi, blackberries, and kiwi.

Don Giovanni Ristorante-- I didn't get a good picture, but the walls in this place were covered in pictures of opera singers.  It was pretty great.

Wood-fired pizza with sausage, spinach, red peppers and onions.  Delicious!  For some reason I didn't have them box it up to take on the bus.  I must have been scared that the other bus-riders would be super jealous.

I had some sort of cupcake (mocha?) and a cappuccino at the Cupcake Cafe, right across 9th Ave from Port Authority.  They were strangely unfriendly here and the cupcake was only slightly above average.

Statue of Ralph Kramdem (played by Jackie Gleason) from the TV show The Honeymooners outside of Port Authority.

Hopefully I get to visit New York sometime for real, but in the meantime I am happy to live in the most delicious, artistic, and friendly city: Portland, ME.