When I decided to review the Invisible Library series for the blog, I had about two weeks to get everything done, and since there were eight books (even for me, that’s a lot of books to read in two weeks), I put myself on a daily reading schedule, based on the number of pages in each book.  This allowed me to plow through all eight books in my (arbitrary) time limit, take notes, and write the post.

When I was a child, my mother often made the ultimate in easy comfort food, creamed chipped beef.  (I know, I’ve also claimed that macaroni and cheese is the ultimate comfort food.  I don’t see why I have to have just ONE ultimate comfort food…) Also when I was a child, you could get this dish at most any restaurant that served “American food.”  These days, I don’t think you can get this old favorite anywhere…at least, I haven’t seen it on a menu in many years.

I have a confession.  Every so often, when I am very anxious about the outcome of a book (or more often, the fate of one of the characters), I have to read the ending in order to reduce my anxiety enough to go back and read the book in the proper order.  If you think that’s crazy and weird…well, I can’t really disagree with you.

Right up near the top of the “America’s Comfort Foods” list has to be chicken pot pie.  Hard to say whether it beats out macaroni and cheese but the precise hierarchy can be a debate for someone else.  For today, we’re going to talk about chicken pot pie.

Summer is here…the season of sunburn.

Five random things…

Why is there no ham in hamburgers?  Is shepherd’s pie made of actual shepherd?  These are the questions that plague me in the sleepless dark hours of the night.  So, I did some research.

Do you like quirky yet witty (ie: British) humor? Puns? Classic English literature? Doctor Who and Douglas Adams? I think Jasper Fforde might be for you, specifically his Thursday Next series of books.

I might have mentioned previously (a few times) on this blog that I watch a lot of YouTube.  And I come across lots of things I end up trying for myself.  On the list recently have been altered paper clips.  Why alter paper clips?  Because.  No seriously, that’s the reason.  Because.

I don’t dislike muffins, exactly…I just don’t love them.  They fall in between all the bread-y things I like.

My mother is fond of sending me emails with links to articles she thinks I might enjoy.  One recent such email included a link to the Connecting Threads website, about a project one could make to use up left-over strips from a jelly roll.

I believe I’ve mentioned this in previous posts, but among the holiday baking traditions for my family are: Christmas Cherry Coffee Cake, Almond Butter Cookies, Ragamuffin Cookies, and Peanut Butter Balls.  In fact, as with the Ragamuffin cookies, my family did our best to persuade my mother to make her peanut butter balls on every “occasion.” (Happy Tuesday!  Have a peanut butter ball…)

I don’t exactly dislike murder mysteries, or mystery stories in general…I’d just usually prefer to read something else.

In recent years, I’ve cut down on the amount of meat I eat and really ramped up on the number of eggs I eat.  This means that if I don’t want to get bored of eggs, I need multiple egg dishes in my recipe repertoire.  Poached eggs on toast: deee-lish.  Dutch baby (it has three eggs in it, so it totally counts as an egg dish): divine.  Scrambled eggs with omelette additions (such as the Denver scramble, with peppers, ham, and cheddar cheese): yum.  And quiche.

This post will not make much sense if you haven’t read part one.

When I put together my mixed media altered clock, I’d originally planned to use two family heirloom timepieces.  But I only had room for one, leaving my fancy watch needing a home.

My mother decided fairly early on in motherhood that she wasn’t going to allow her children to grow into picky eaters.  This resolution might have been driven in part by dealing with other parents’ finicky children when my mom did some daycare for awhile.

When I am in my studio messing around with mixed media ingredients, it’s messy.  Glues and pastes and paints and sprays and…very messy.  So I’ve been thinking that I need some sort of smock or apron to help keep my clothes clean.  And having seen several YouTube videos on the virtues of the Japanese crossback apron, I decided I’d make one of those.

Sausage rolls? Two ways? Yes, please!

I really do think that knitwear designers must be secret geniuses. Take the sock, for example: a hand knit sock is a tube that makes a 90° turn at the heel and then continues on being a tube until you get to the toe, where you close it up. Or, if you were a Philistine and started from the toe, you would end at the top of the sock.