A Commission, and SYFY # 15

I should have titled this post "You just never know". Because it's true - you just never know when someone will contact you for a special project. Yep! I had a special request, and it was only possible because I hemmed and hawed and finally decided to do a show in Virginia last year.

Short back-story: I was at the farmers market, stationed behind my tables, and a woman came up to me to ask if I'd consider doing a show in Arlington. My immediate response was No, partly because it's FAR (okay, only about 45 minutes), and partly because I didn't want to deal with the sales taxes in another state. She told me to think about it, then "stopped by" several more times over the next few weeks to see if I'd changed my mind. Long story short, I decided to do it last year, and it was a GOOD show for me ... totally worth the trip.

The show is all about Chesapeake Area Alaskan Malamute Protection (CHAAMP), though the craft vendors are free to sell whatever they normally sell. Last year I made some special cards for it, and also donated what I had left for the organization to use for a fund-raiser. And of course, I did the show again this year, too. People come from all over - even other states - to support the rescue. LOTS of dog people!

A few weeks ago, the woman that talked me into doing the show asked me to make a special card for the organizer. Seems she is responsible helping hundreds of dogs through her fund-raising efforts, and they wanted to do something for her. She likes purple (I don't) so I was asked to make it purple with lots of pretty purple papers. She also wanted it BIG, like legal-size big, but I talked her down to 8.5x11, which I actually HAVE. :)

This is my first mock-up:

She sent me a photo of a Malamute wind chime which I printed (explains the weird lines on it). I decided the color-blocked papers (Memory Box Making Memories, sorry) would work with some retired Lavender Lace card stock as long as there was a black layer between them.

Once she blessed the mock-up (first one, too! Woo-hoo!), I realized I had no way to bind it, so I left a 1/2 inch of space on the left edge, then fit everything into the remaining 8-inch space.

Note to self: measure twice, cut once.

I punched holes with my Crop-O-Dile with the intent of using Jumbo Eyelets along the spine, and weaving ribbon between them to pretty it up. But after I'd punched the holes, I realized that the eyelets were too big:

I should have measured them before I assumed 1/2" would be wide enough. :( But that gave me a SYFY moment to share, and we know I'm all about sharing, right? :) So here is my SYFY tip #15.

I had already layered the card front with the back and stuck them together with red sticky tape. Can you say "permanent"? So I decided I needed to cover up that boo-boo and start again. I cut a strip of card stock 1.5" wide and scored it down the middle at 3/4":

Then, again with the red sticky tape, I wrapped it around the left side of the card to make a new spine:

Then I got stuck. Now that the jumbo eyelets would fit, I wasn't sure I liked them any more. :( I took a break from all this futzing and tweeted the above picture to ask my crafty tweeps for assistance. They liked the idea, but one of them suggested I didn't really need the eyelets. GENIUS! So I carefully punched more holes and wove some taffeta ribbon thus(ly):

Then we collectively decided the bow was a bad idea, so I moved it down a little and just did a knot:

Plus, this way there is an equal amount of purple showing above and below the ribbon.

She actually wants TWO of these, and they are both done now. I'll get large white mailers from the office supply store to use as envelopes, and she'll come pick them up from me so I don't need to mail them to the next town. :)

That's my story. You just never know when someone will think about you and your craft and ask you to make something special. I'm pretty happy about it! :)

In other news, I made these today:

These are Cheese Cookies, and the recipe is here. They are a perfect snack, or better yet, a savory addition to a holiday table that is heavily laden with sweets. I suggest you make them according to the recipe the first time, then enhance it the next time. I think I might add some rosemary. You could also add chopped-up jalapeno. :) These are SOOOOOO good.

That's all I have for today. Thanks for stopping by!

Time to Make the Buckeyes

I waited too long this year to make these. I usually start in November, but, well, I lost track of time this year. I thought I'd show you the process I described back here.

**My usual disclaimer: I took these one-handed and in not-so-good light, so I apologize in advance for the condition of the photos.

After you follow the steps in that other post for mixing the butter + PB + Vanilla extract + powdered sugar, you end up with a huge bowl of this stuff:

It doesn't look like much right now, but just wait!

I started the paraffin & chocolate melting in a double boiler:

... then I rolled that vat of "dough" into this tower of balls:

The chocolate is almost melty enough:

Once it's mostly smooth, you take one of the PB concoction balls and put it on the spoon:

... then you roll it around until coated:

Let most of the excess chocolate run out of the spoon, then place the coated ball onto a cookie sheet covered with wax paper:

Here are the first 35:

You take that sheet to a large, flat surface (I left my long table up after this weekend's classes), slide the wax paper onto the table:

... then repeat. This recipe makes about 15 dozen, so that's 5 cookie sheets of 35, plus a few more.

There is no way I have room in my fridge for all of these, so I went ahead and packed up a bunch of them. Here is a box I made up for a co-worker who saved my behind yesterday while I was home being a slug:

I even tied it with a bow:

This is the box each of my boys will be getting in their care packages:

I love that the USPS invented Flat Rate shipping boxes. These things are HEAVY.

I have a small bowl left after packing all that, which is why I usually make multiple batches, but not this year. That small bowl will go to my mechanic and his staff for taking such good care of me this year. I love those guys!

In other news, while making these this morning, my window screens were attacked by a crazy squirrel. If any of those pics came out, I'll share them with you.

Happy Tuesday, and stay warm!

Wherein Crook Eats Okra

I promised you a post about okra, and here it is. I also promised myself I'd try to be nice about it. I'm trying.

But first, to stall just a bit more, I wanted to show you my first batch of completed bookmarks:

Aren't they purdy? I'm sending this batch (and maybe some more, if I get to them) to the organizer of the Falling for Handmade craft show in which I'll be participating on Oct 16th. I'll drop more not-so-subtle hints about that later. Tonight it's ALL about the (gag) okra.

Here is some cultivated okra in its just-picked state:

Some small. Some large. You know they were just picked because they are still fuzzy:

Since not all of these sold before the end of Saturday's market, I bought some. NOT A LOT, just these:

The dime is for perspective (gots to have perspective). That's four baby ones and one Big Bertha for comparison. Here's what I did to prepare them:

1. Wash.
2. For the smaller ones, I just cut off about half the stem and left the rest intact.
3. For the large one, I cut off the top and bottom, then sliced it into about 1/4" slices.
4. Mixed some flour + cornmeal + salt + pepper
5. Heated enough vegetable oil to cover the largest pod
6. Dredged the pieces in the flour and dropped them into the hot oil
7. Waited, turning so as not to burn them
8. Removed them
9. Stared at them
10. Thought no one would be the wiser if I didn't eat the stuff and just TOLD them I did.
11. Remembered I am a terrible liar.
12. Ate one of the whole ones.
13. Meh
14. Ate one of the slices. Crunchier, but still Meh.
15. Ate the rest of them.
16. Meh. Meh. Meh.
17. Cleaned up my mess.

Verdict: I do not like okra. I will agree that when fried it is at least not slimy, but it still tastes like okra, and there is no reason on this earth that I should ever HAVE to eat it ever again, so I choose not to.

There. I've done what I said I'd do. The end.

In other news, tonight I am making the cards from the left-over class kits (I had a few cancellations). It is so nice to have not only a sample card to follow, but all of the card stock pre-cut. I know, I repeat myself, but it's true! I think I need to find another Demo and take her classes just to have that luxury once in a while. :)

I've done 6 of one card so far, which leaves me with 18 to go (3 cards x 6 kits). I hope to get them done by Friday so I have something new to bring to the Market with me on Saturday.

I also got a shipment of 4 (FOUR) new sets of Nestabilities which will need to see some lovin'. I hope to find some time to use at least one of them before Saturday.

That's it! Thanks for stopping by!

Lazy Sunday

Kitty and I enjoyed a totally lazy Sunday. Here she is in her OMG LIFE IS ROUGH I NEED TO NAP pose in her sunbeam. The door was open to let in some of the amazing fresh air, and she was zonked.

Last time she did this total zonk thing was after a day of classes, and she was so stressed from being social, she passed out and I thought she was dead. I had a little Kitty CSI fun then, so I thought I'd do it again:

Nope, she's alive. She moved:

Gosh, but her life is tough.

I accomplished two things today. Okay, five things, but I'm only going to mention two of them here. First, one of my Tweeps and Bloggie pals, Stampin' Libby, is even MORE famous now than she was already! Why? WHY?! Because she entered AND WON the Whole Foods Food Fight at the Mother Ship of Whole Foods in Austin, TX. Her recipe sounded so yummy, I tried it. This is what mine looked like right out of the oven:

... and here's a peek at the inside yumminess:

M-m-m-m-m. I made a few modifications and substitutions, as follows:
1. Spelt spaghetti instead of corn spaghetti. Spelt is brown, in case you didn't know that.
2. Poblano peppers instead of Hatch chilis. I am a wimp, plus I'm not going to New Mexico to get a Hatch chili (chile?).
3. I tried to roast the pepper on my ceramic-top stove. Not happening, so it wasn't roasted.
4. Leeks instead of onion because I had leeks from the farmers market and I didn't feel like putting them away, so I used them instead.
5. I used most of a bunch of cilantro, because I love it so, plus I didn't want it left over. I could call this a cilantro pie. Yes, a lot of cilantro.
6. I used a different smokey cheese because my Whole Foods didn't have the one she used. Mine was a hard-ish cheese, where something like a smoked cheddar would have been a lot softer. I liked the contrast, though.

See? You can totally make this recipe your own, and it is STILL yummy! Next time, and yes, there will be a next time, I'm thinking about adding grilled chicken to the mix. Mmmmm.

The other big thing I did today was watch a video about how to make tassels. You see, I have about forty bazillion skeins of DMC floss, and they need to get gone. Plus, I had an idea for making book marks to give away with my holiday craft show sales, so I could put the tassels on the bookmarks.

This is the first pass at the bookmark + tassel:

That tassel weighs about 5 pounds, and is probably a bit too hefty for the paper bookmark. I think the next batch of tassels I make will be smaller. Batch? She said batch? I told you I was busy. Look:

These are rough and unfinished, but you get the idea. I have a LOT of DMC floss.

Here's a few up close and personal:

They are really easy to make. Once they're trimmed up, they'll be fine.

Did you notice I posted NO CARDS? That's right. Not one piece of card stock gave its life for a card today. Not in my craft room, anyway. But I did empty the dishwasher and fill it up again, and cook, and make more mess, and cleaned some more. Tomorrow. I promise. Tomorrow I shall make some cards. Because if I don't, it's going to be a very, very long week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tomatillo Salsa

Several years ago, one of Farmer Mike's customers - the ones that were buying tomatillos by the bushel - shared their salsa recipe with those of us who were bugging them about what the heck they did with all those tomatillos. Salsa. They made vats of salsa. Apparently they either filled their freezer with frozen goodness, or got sick of the stuff, or both, because the past few years there have been tomatillos for the rest of us, and I've been buying them.

Here is the recipe. Except for the first time, I've never make it exactly like this, and since it's not a formula like baking, feel free to tweak to your taste.

Tomatillo Salsa

1/4 C water
10-12 tomatillos, husks removed, cut in half
1/2 medium onion, quartered
2 cloves garlic
2 jalapeno peppers
2 Tbs cilantro, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1 lime

Put water, tomatillos and onion into a sauce pan. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, uncovered, for about 10 minutes, or until the tomatillos are tender.

In a blender, place cooked onion, tomatillos and any remaining water. Add garlic, jalapeno peppers, cilantro, salt and juice of one lime. Blend until all ingredients are smooth. Place sauce in a bowl and refrigerate.

The end.

Notes:
1 - I change things around ... I am a rebel.
2 - You can use more or less in the tomatillo-to-onion ratio and it will be fine.
3 - I used a poblano pepper today instead of a jalapeno.
4 - I used a fist-full of cilantro instead of a few Tbs because I love the stuff.
5 - I have, in a desperate moment, eaten this warm.
6 - This salsa is part of a grilled Chicken recipe, so think of options of using it as a sauce instead of munchies.
7 - There is also a no-cooking variety of this recipe with the same ingredients, but the details escape me at the moment. It was shared verbally, and well, we all know how well I remember things. You can food-process all of the ingredients (not sure about the liquid part, though) and it comes out more like a relish.

Now go forth and make some of this!!! Please report back on how you liked it, and what you changed, if anything.

I'll be back later with some cards. REALLY!

It's All About the Food

I am my father's daughter. When we were kids, we joked that my parents planned our vacations by first selecting the restaurants at which we'd dine, then they'd see if there was anything else to see in that particular town. Now that I think back, I'm pretty sure that's what they did. So it should come as no surprise to any of you that my latest mini road trip was planned around what I'd eat and when.

I promise I won't tire you with a run-down of everything I ate, not that you'd even have time for that, but it would also be booooooring. I'll just show you the highlights. Plus, I didn't take pics of everything, so there.

Let's start with the star of our show: the Kentucky Hot Brown. This sandwich was made famous by The Brown Hotel in Louisville, but you can get it just about anywhere in KY, though some purists will tell you they are cheap imitations. Ya know what? If it's slathered in cheese, who really cares?!

Being a blogger, I always have my camera at the ready. Here is an intact Hot Brown:

It looks tame, right? Please note that is not a dinner plate, but rather a bowl that is as big as a dinner plate. And it is deep. All you can see is the vat of cheese on the top, along with some tomatoes, grated Parmesan and BACON.

Knowing I would not survive eating a whole one of these, I opted for a small side salad and I split a Hot Brown with someone. This is what half of one looks like:

Uh-huh, yeah. See how deep the bowl is? Mmm-hmmm. From the bottom up we have: toast, turkey, ham, cheese, cheese, cheese, tomatoes and BACON. OMG, it must be about 1800 calories for just half of one. Seriously.

The next day, after I awoke from my cheese coma, I hit a local farmers market. In my world I call it "industry research"... you know, being a market veteran I must compare other markets to my own, even if they are in a different state. The stand-out at this one was this cheese (I sense a recurring theme, here):

Oh.My.God. I had samples, and I couldn't stop eating this one and the Asiago variety. I wanted to buy some, but being on the road, refrigeration was not gonna happen. Then he presented me with this:

For $2, he would sell me an insulated bag. It would hold a lot of cheese and then, even if you were in a hotel room, you could fill it with ice and the cheese would stay cold. SOLD! I bought a bag and two cheeses. Isn't that clever of them?!?!?!?

Moving on ... one of the things I treat myself to on the road is sweets. Candy. Rare candy. I crave very few things of the sweet variety, but these things will stop me in my tracks:

Necco wafers. One sleeve is one serving, and you can't tell me otherwise.

Also, these:

Circus Peanuts. Between these and the Necco wafers, the sugar is enough to keep a body going for days.

On another leg of my journey I met a friend for lunch outside of Cincinnati, and it just wouldn't be right to be in Cincy and not eat their famous Five-Way Chili. This is what it looks like:

The 5 layers are: spaghetti, beans, chili, raw onions and CHEESE (there it is again). No, this was not mine. I got a booooring chili + cheese, a wimpy 2-way. I could not have lived with myself with the beans and the onions, and I can live without pasta. So my 2-way chili was just a light lunch in a 5-way world. In Cincy you can buy the chili in cans. They also have a drive-up window. Seriously. My pal told me they use it often. Mmmm.

Next I found myself in Pittsburgh. (Did you know that if you address an envelope with PghPA, it will get there? What? You don't address envelopes any more? For shame!) Anyway, several years ago, I was visiting PghPA with a friend and we went to the original Primanti Brothers restaurant. The one I go to now is just down the street from Pitt and Carnegie-Mellon. I took this picture of the sign because I seem to be incapable of remembering the name of the place. I always say "that P restaurant with the fries inside the sandwiches". Yes, I embarrass my son. A lot.

So here we were:

No matter what kind of sandwich you order from the menu, it has the fries on the inside. Here is a side view of half my sandwich:

That is corned beef topped with a handful of fries, then about a pint of cole slaw. SO good. One of my Tweeps said it looks fairly high in carbs. Um, what's her point, do you think? And yes, I ate the whole thing.

For the last leg of my journey, I stopped at a rest stop on the PA Turnpike. On purpose. Not only did I need a potty stop, I needed one of these:

A hot soft pretzel. I rub off most of the salt, but oh, is this good. You can't get them at the new-fangled modern OH Turnpike rest stops, just the older PA Turnpike ones. If you love hot soft pretzels as I do, you will remember to stop at a PA rest stop to get one. If you are lucky enough to be the passenger, you can also get mustard or cheese, but as the driver, not a good idea. I pass.

So there you have it - my culinary tour of the Midwest. In future posts, I'll update you on some of the scenery and historic things I saw. I just had to show you the food first.

My farmers markets start this Saturday (yay!), so I'll also have weekly market updates for you. I need the road trip stuff for my blog because I have made nothing card-wise - NOTHING - and I am soooo far behind with the inventory. I put my boxes in the car tonight and I only have three boxes, where I usually have five. ACK! Panic sets in ...

Thanks for stopping by!

Spinach-Artichoke Dip

Because I have nothing crafty to share this evening, I thought I'd share my Spinach-Artichoke dip instead. Well, truth be told, it is Artichoke dip to which I add spinach. The spinach is totally optional, but it does make it look real purty. Like this, straight out of the oven last night:



This is stinkin' easy. You will need:

2 cans artichoke hearts (NOT the marinated stuff)
1 C Mayo
1 C Parmesan cheese
Frozen or canned spinach (1 or 2 boxes frozen OR half a bag of frozen OR two small cans OR ...whatever)
garlic powder to taste
paprika

Drain the artichoke hearts and either (1) dump them into a food processor and, um, process them, or (2) chop them up by hand. I have taken to doing (2) because I am tired of retrieving the food processor from the bowels of its storage cave, assembling it, whirling it for less than 10 seconds, then having to wash it and put it away. A rough chop is fine.

Dump the chopped artichoke parts into a large bowl

Now that you can see how much artichoke you have volume-wise, decide how much spinach you really want. This can be spinach dip with artichoke instead of the other way around, if you want. No problem!

If using frozen spinach, nuke it or cook until it is no longer frozen (you do not need to really cook it thru), and DRAIN THOROUGHLY. You need to get all that water out of there, or you will have soup instead of dip.

If using canned spinach, you still need to drain out all the liquid.

Dump the spinach into the bowl with the artichoke pieces.

Add mayo and Parmesan. Season with garlic powder to your liking. I never measure this stuff, but I have left it out because I forgot it. Don't do that.

Mix it all up until thoroughly blended, and dump it into a pretty, sprayed-to-keep-stuff-from-sticking baking dish. Level out the top, and sprinkle it with paprika. It's aaaaallll about presentation, people.

Bake at 350 F - the universal baking temp - until bubbly ... I think about 30-40 minutes. I always get lulled into a coma smelling it bake, and then I forget about it and overdo it a little. This is a VERY forgiving concoction.

Let it cool a little bit before you dig in. I just take a cracker and scoop up the goodness.


M-m-m-m-m!

If you have any left over, it refrigerates well. I just cover mine with plastic wrap so I can pop it into the microwave the next day and call it 'lunch'.

Once you make it the first time, you will make your own adjustments on subsequent preparations, and there WILL be subsequent preparations! The original original version had something else along with the mayo, but I forget, and this is just fine, so I don't care.

Go forth and make this some time, then let me know what you think of it, and if you change it up, please share with us what you did so WE can try it, too!

Happy 2010, and thanks for stopping by!

The Twitter Bacon Blog Hop

It's all about the bacon. Somehow, a Twitter discussion spun out of control (actually, most of them do, but that's another post for another time), and now we have a Bacon Blog Hop... I kid you not.

With apologies to any vegetarians or vegans, is there anything better than the smell of frying bacon in the morning? C'mon, you know you like it!

What *I* like right now is I remembered I had this SU set called A Light Heart, and the love stamp from the set was the perfect image for this card. :-)

There is a Twitter account called allbacon. Then there's jesusbacon, where I found this link: bacon cheeseburger donuts. Go look ... I'll wait ... ... ... ... Then there's Kevin Bacon, and his Six Degrees, but we'll skip that one today and just focus on the food.

Okay, moving right along. I love bacon, but I rarely buy it because, living alone, I always seem to cook the whole package, and then I gnaw on it until it is all gone. Then I am sick.

So I stopped buying and consuming bacon. Then I met this: Marlboro Man's Second Favorite Sandwich. Oh, my goodness. Such goodness. It requires you to cook not just any bacon, but pepper bacon. I've tried it with the plain, and it is just not the same. (Hey that rhymes!) Get the pepper bacon. Trust me on this one.

It also requires you to use some of the bacon 'juice' (Emeril - Mr. Pork Fat Rules - calls it that, as it is much more appetizing than bacon 'fat' or 'grease' or even 'drippings') to cook the chicken. This recipe is a bacon-lover's dream-come-true. As a single person, I cook it all and eat off it for days. It is really good cold, too. I have nothing bad to say about this recipe. BTW, I skip the bread in both this recipe and Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich. I just cannot be bothered. And if you skip all the bread and the butter to cook it, then you can eat more of the good stuff. Right? RIGHT?!

But I have to tell you, my absolute favorite bacon is not American bacon - what the Two Fat Ladies used to call 'stripe-y' bacon. Nope. My all-time favorite bacon is back bacon, which is what you get in Ireland or Scotland, which is part of the reason I went there on vacation one year. Our equivalent here would be Canadian Style bacon. I have been told American (USA) butchers do not butcher the hog in the same way, so we are stuck with stripe-y bacon. So sad.

I am supposed to end my post with my favorite bacon recipe, and right now that is Bacon-Wrapped Jalepeno Thingies, without a doubt. Can you tell I like The Pioneer Woman's recipes? I have also accused her of being single-handedly responsible for the fattening of America, but I digress.

So, at long last, here is the very complex (not) recipe, dutifully copied from PW's site. If you need pictures - you can go there LATER.

Bacon-Wrapped Jalepeno Thingies

Fresh Jalepenos, 2-3 inches in size
Cream Cheese, softened
Bacon (the regular thin kind), cut into thirds

Halve each of the peppers and discard the seeds and membrane.
Stuff each pepper half with cream cheese.
Wrap a piece of bacon around the stuffed pepper half and secure it with a tooth pick.

Bake in a pan with a rack @ 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. If the bacon is not cooked to your liking, turn on the broiler for a few minutes.

Serve hot or at room temperature. I've even eaten them cold the next day!

Alternative uses: pop a few on top of your burger for a little extra kick. :-)

Next up on this bacon adventure is Angelique Cain over at http://sweetsandtarts.blogspot.com/2009/08/welcome-to-first-annual-twitter-bacon.html. BTW, she makes the cutest little paper bats. :-) So hop on over to see what she has to say about bacon!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Cooking, Now!

Literally, yes, I am cooking. Considering I no longer buy food OR cook, this is slightly strange. I have spent more time at the grocery store this week than I have in the past three months. Why, you might ask? And so you might!

One of my co-workers decided we need to have a Passover Pot Luck. We have a lot of Jewish people on our Team, and the rest of the group loves to cook. And being in the computer field, we ALL love to eat. Man, we can sniff out a cake at 50 feet! Oh, and the second part of the logic is to practice our recipes on each other instead of our families. How thoughtful, don't you agree? Kill your co-workers, not your relatives. Some people may argue this was thought out backwards, but I won't go there. Oh, wait, I just did. Sorry.

Actually, we just look for excuses to bring in food, and Passover seemed as good as any. And we are being observant, too. We sent out a list of rules, including what foods to avoid (basically grains and anything with leavening). Kinda like a reverse Iron Chef: Go forth and cook but use NONE of the following ... Pretty funny, really. Most of us have spent a little time this week plotting and planning. One of the guys in my aisle was still making it up this evening as I was leaving, "Maybe I'll try ....". Lordy, who knows what we'll get!

I had planned all along to make a sweet dessert-y kugel (like a noodle casserole, but without the noodles), but one of my co-workers announced she was going to bring in a brisket, so she wanted me to make a savory dish, not a sweet one. Bah.

So last night I bought too much stuff since I had no idea what I'd actually be making and I bought stuff for about four different recipes, you know, just in case someone created a 30-hour day and I'd have the time to COOK it all. Not. I also picked up a brisket since all that talk about brisket made me want one LAST night. So I cooked it and made a list of everything I still did not have so I could go to the store again tonight, which I did.

Today my brisket-making co-worker announced her recipe calls for a beer for the liquid. NOT! No beer for Passover! (No soup for you!) So off she ran to look up Passover Beer and she plans to buy some and make it right. Good! We have RULES, people!

Another co-worker had already made 2 casseroles (kugels) for the event (she planned ahead; imagine that) and was contemplating a third, when she realized she was taking the Metro (train) to work and could not figure out how to lug three casseroles with her, so I offered to pick her up so she could cook us more food. Hey, I have my priorities, people! Now all I need to do is remember to pick her up in the morning instead of going on auto-pilot.

And the MOST interesting part of this whole thing? Half of the people in my group are from India. Hmmm ... I wonder what they think of all this.

I have no cards to show you - I'm too busy cooking and washing the fall-out. I ended up making an Onion-Mushroom-Matzoh kugel and also a sweet kugel with farfel, cottage cheese, sour cream, apricot preserves and dried cranberries (cannot find my raisins). It is cheesy and gooooood. Think cheese cake. M-m-m.

Field Trip update: I plan to pack up the remaining Scrap Heap tomorrow or Friday in preparation for the big day on Saturday. #2 is giddy with excitement that she's getting a day to play with her stamps and maybe some other artsy stuff. I still have no idea what we'll be doing, but I hope it involves a reduction of The Heap! And she remembered her blog password and is ready to rebut any statement I may make on my blog. Oh, this could be fun!

Well, I think my casseroles have cooled off enough for me to cover and refrigerate them. Tomorrow - we eat!!! I'll take my camera in case there are any photo ops.

Cook-Off Results {*burp*}

You guys are in trouble now! I brought my camera to work today. :-) Mostly, we were all distracted by the aromas wafting throughout Cubeville. I mean, there were people wandering around aimlessly just smelling the air and following their noses. By 9:00 am we were out-of-control crazy with hunger pangs, and watching the clocks for 11:30. I will admit the chili in our aisle was taste-tested early. :-)

But before I get to the cook-off, I have a few other things to show you. This was yesterday's calendar page, and it was so clever I thought I'd share it with you. Those cows just crack me up!

This one is for Lydia, who posted this wonderful ditty about phones yesterday. This is my honest-to-gosh desk phone at work. I does have a wall jack, and buttons instead of a dial, but it is still heavy enough to kill a feral hog. See? Some of us still live in the past.

This is an accident waiting to happen, also known as a rat's nest. Good thing the Fire Marshall wasn't around. And yes, the power strip is airborn, because the crock pot cord was too short, but when there's chili to be heated, you've gotta do what you've gotta do.

Here are 4 of the 7 chili offerings, partially obliterated by a hungry person's arm.

Here is the Corn Bread table. Mine is the round stone one with the black knife in it. No, I did not win.

This is a shot of what I call the Presentation Suck-Up. We were NOT told that presentation was part of our score, although having watched so much Food Network lo these many years, you'd think some of us would have thought about it. Obviously, at least one person did. They even colored their number! Hmph. Well, this is one high bar that has been set for future contests ... I'm just sayin'.

This signage won the Numbers Suck-Up Attempt Award (I just made that up). Our boss's boss, who was one of the judges, has a line that we have all taken to heart and say on a daily basis, "It's all about the numbers." (Internet Sales ... how are we doing ... numbers ...) So this guy decided to suck up to the boss by presenting the numbers for his chili entry. He was shot down and not allowed to put it out until after the judging, but I think it was still very clever. And he said they are real calculated nutritional information numbers. Not sure I believe him, but it was still a nice try!

This guy also had no crock pot, so he served his chili in a microwave, and he brought the microwave (actually 'borrowed' it from the break room). I should have taken a photo of the whole table - 2 crock pots, a microwave, the suck-up presentation, and 4 more crock pots - but it was like moths to the flame, and I was crowded out of the way by hungry people.

This is what the winners received. They were instructed to proudly display them outside their cubes until the next contest, at which time they will hand them off to the next set of winners. One of the coordinators picked up the spatulas ...

... and guess who made the signs. ;-) Now people who thought I was kidding when I said I have 'stuff' understand the gravity of my situation.

The winners were asked to share their recipes with the rest of the group, and one of them had already added "Current IBU Sales (Plaza) Cook-Off Champion" to her signature. She also failed to divulge her secret ingredient. Bah! (By the way, IBU = Internet Business Unit)

So that was my day today. The guy with the rat's nest of wires in his cube had some chili left, and since he could not convince me to take it home, he stowed it in the fridge for tomorrow's lunch. I'm bringing the Tums, but no corn bread.