Happy Birthday Jimmy!

Happy Birthday, Jimmy (my child of the 70s)! It was so good to see you this week -- we had a wonderful time. As always, the entire world celebrates your birthday in a big way.

On a less serious note, the final vote is in and cut-out cookies have won the poll, even without Christy voting more than once. I guess I should believe that since we (along with our friends and families) managed to eat over 300 of them this Christmas. The final cookie count was just shy of 1100 cookies baked (not counting chocolate pretzels, which everyone knows are NOT cookies).

The diets start now.

This is for you, Crit!

Sorry, but you may only vote ONCE for the cookie of your choice. You can't stuff the ballot box like I know you always do for the All Star Game! You can always try logging in under an assumed name or from a different IP address...

In the meantime, think on these (308 cutouts -- so many it took 2 pictures to get them all in!):

In search of...

Anyone from my family can vouch for the fact that I'm fanatical about baking at Christmas!

For years I have searched for the perfect springerle recipe, which would produce fluffy, puffy masterpieces with crunchy tops (like the ones the German bakery used to make in Cincinnati). Each year I try a new recipe and each year I'm disappointed with the results.

Don't know what a springerle is? Here's a picture:
The goal is to have the design sharply cut on the top (like these) and the bottoms puffed out and soft & chewy (like the photo below).

I have high hopes for this year's candidate -- a recipe from a website called springerlebaker.com. How much better could it get? I'll let you know how they turn out by the end of the week.

Roseanne Rosannandana

We're getting pretty handy lately!! Last week we replaced a pendant light AND an under-cabinet xenon light, both of which were (surprisingly) not hard to do. Then our dishwasher broke and we got a new one. Our friend Mark helped us take out the old one and showed us what to do to install the new one -- which we did ALL BY OURSELVES!! That's the good news.

We finished the install and turned the water back on. The new hose we'd just connected was great, but the hot water (which had just been working fine) started gushing water as soon as we opened it up! So now we have to call a plumber to fix the leak that developed for no reason at all!!

As the thought went through my head "Well, it just goes to show you -- it's always something! If it's not one thing, it's another", I thought of Roseanne Rosannadanna. . . Enjoy!