i've been home for five days now and i think i've gained a pound, at least, for each of those days. spiced nuts and wine on the airplane back (yeah, i rolled it first class style 'cuz my retired-united-employee-daddy-o was with me), potato chip cookies, stout gingerbread, cabbage pie on christmas, eggnog, french fries and nachos, more wine, christmas cookies from mrs. anderson next door...somebody help me! i love my family and i love being with them, but hell if my diet hasn't been just a little over the top these past few days...

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i baked up a storm this holiday: in oakland, i spent a few late nights mixing and whisking up coconut oatmeal cookies (a family favorite from my grandma joan), peppermint chocolate crinkles, molasses spice cookies, pumpkin oatmeal chewies, white and dark chocolate chip cookies, and pistachio-cherry mexican wedding cookies. i also de-pulped all the hachiya persimmons i got at the farm and made persimmon spice bread...yum. here in chicago, i was lucky to find a smidgen of space on the countertops to set up shop (my parents are remodeling and it's crazzzzzy) and i baked my all-time favorite potato chip cookies as well as a gingerbread stout (guinness) cake with a citrus glaze. the winners of the year, by far, were the pistachio cherry mexican wedding cookies and the persimmon bread (the coconut oatmeal and potato chip cookies are all-time favorites, so they don't enter the yearly competitions :)).

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i'll add the recipe for the persimmon bread...i would even add a little more persimmon than the recipe calls for...the bread would be a bit more dense and moist, and i think that would be just divine :)

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spicy persimmon bread

this is a delightful winter breakfast treat :)

1/2 cup hachiya persimmon pulp (go ahead, add more!)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cloves
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a standard loaf pan. In a small bowl, stir together the persimmon pulp and baking soda. Let stand 5 minutes to thicken the pulp. In a medium bowl, combine sugar, oil, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Blend until smooth. Mix in persimmon pulp and water alternately with flour. Fold in nuts. Divide batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

if i didn't already have a legal name, i'd petition to be called amelia bedelia. i really think there's an uncanny resemblance between us...our fascination with tights, our incurable clumsiness, our naive flightiness, our penchant for taking things too literally...and our unparalleled ability to get ourselves into embarrassing situations. imagine this, if you will.

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last weekend, i started learning how to crochet. unfortunately, my technique was imperfect and i kept ending up with hats that were fit for a barbie's head instead of a human's. my friend max thought they were best as cell phone beanies. you get the idea. i couldn't make my hats any bigger, no matter how many stitches i 'added.' so i decided to bring my yarn to a meeting with my coworkers yesterday to get some advice on how i could advance to making human hats. i got a few guiding words, and i went on to my next stop, which was the district office. per usual, i had a multitude of things to pull out of my bag and put into my bag before leaving my car, and all that packing and unpacking had to be done in haste. i was taking extra special care not to lock my keys in the car which i'd done the day before...i finally slammed all my car doors and started walking with determination (and, okay, maybe a little attitude - i was feeling stressed!) towards the district building. about sixty feet away from my car, a man on his cell phone glanced at me strangely: 'you're dragging something,' he said, flatly. it took me a minute to compute, but when i finally did, i looked behind me and sure enough, trailing clumsily out of my bag across the entire parking lot (which was full of cars and district employees) was my crocheting yarn. my face started to glow with embarrassment, and i quickly quipped, "i didn't wanna lose my way back to my car! ha! i needed a trail!" i laughed, painfully, as i said this and the man said nothing; he just looked away. i retraced my steps, every few feet gathering up an armful of yarn until i reached the endpoint: my green crochet hook which was lying right outside my car door. it seemed to be saying to me 'na, na, na, na, na!' i am pretty sure i also heard it laughing maniacally, very quietly, just like a crochet hook would. sigh.

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so, call me miss bedelia from now on, if you will. i deserve it :)