Member Posts

Current Mood: giggly
Current Music: marshmallow fluff // and lots of peanut butter!

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oh you need fluff, fluff, fluff // to make a fluffernutter

The algorithm sent me this ATK recipe (paywalled, but linked for posterity, and pretty easy to extrapolate the basic idea) for a peanut butter chocolate quesadilla yesterday, and my instant reaction as a Massachusetts expat: "But where's the Marshmallow Fluff?! How can it be a Fluffernutter quesadilla without the Fluff? This is all Jarrett Barrios' fault, isn't it!"

Though of course, out here on the West Coast, getting ahold of actual Fluff is more difficult; when supermarkets have jarred marshmallow product, it's usually Kraft's Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme, which is more liquidy. ... hold on, I can get a two-pack of Marshmallow Fluff from my local Cost Plus?! As in the same Cost Plus where my mom used to buy us Botan candy to keep us occupied while she looked at household decor? ROFL.

Of course I ended up down the merch wormhole with my search results; I'd rather have it as a long-sleeve tee, but I love the logo on this What the Fluff sweatshirt from the Fluff Festival. 20th annual this year! Pairs well with this Ice Cream Weather hoodie from Gracie's just across the square that I've been meaning to pick up for years now. As well as my What a Cluster! tee. And now I want Goo Goo Clusters and Marshmallow Fluff. At least Moon Pies have made their way to the Bay? I can get those at my local CVS sometimes now.

Cherry on top of all this internet wormholing: while trying to figure out if Fluff was sold in any grocery stores local to me (besides Walmart, ugh), I stumbled across their recipe section, and amusingly enough, one of their most popular recipes is Lynne's Cheesecake. I swear I didn't submit it - the recipe looks like a New York cheesecake recipe, and I strongly prefer my cheesecakes burnt Basque or Japanese cotton style. But now I'm thinking, maybe I should tackle a burnt Basque Fluff cheesecake. Though admittedly, on my cheesecake back burner, I also want to make a cheesecake with Poppy Bagels' truffle schmear, Wikipedia has just informed me of the existence of a smoked salmon cheesecake, and Kat Lieu just posted a SPAM Basque cheesecake. Time to reup our Lactaid stock!

And now, of course, I'm earwormed with the old-timey Fluffernutter jingle.

Watch on YouTube

(Yeah, I know, an original Fluffernutter has no chocolate, but sprinkling some chocolate chips on top of one side and melting before assembly is pretty standard. Though IME hagelslag or vlokken work better, and of course you can also get hagelslag at Cost Plus, 😂.)

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: this is the straw, final straw

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the moon sometimes looks like a C, but you can't eat that!

I did not end up making a dessert for choir this week that magically used any portion of our eleven cups of plum jam in the fridge. I made chocolate chip cookies, and they disappeared like magic (the only empty container on the snack table when I went to clean up after break!) and I got multiple compliments on them *preens*.

It was my usual recipe, doubled because I used the oversized 20 oz Ghirardelli bag of semisweet chips, and then I went through my spice cabinet and pulled out baharat and rosewater. Though I've made a couple of adjustments over the years, and didn't actually write them down online, so here, have my ( go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. )

Ugh, I need a new chocolate icon, FJKR.

That being said, I went by Market Hall this morning since the internet said they were my local carrier for the See's Candy x McConnell's Ice Cream collab - they didn't have all the flavors, but they did have Coffee + Molasses Chips, so that got promptly plopped into my bike basket.

But while I was there, I also perused the other things they had available, and the regular old standard size 12 oz bag of Guittard semisweet chocolate chips was SIXTEEN GODDAMNED DOLLARS I HATE THIS TIMELINE.

Even checking online right now - Berkeley Bowl is claiming $12.39/bag, Guittard direct says $11.99/bag, and I am wondering how many bags of the semisweet I can order via my farmshare at $7.49/bag before they cut me off. Ghirardelli is still available at Berkeley Bowl for $8.79/bag, but I'm wondering for how much longer - before this summer, both of these were pretty close price matches, maybe 50c/bag difference and not always consistently in the same direction depending on what supermarket I was at? This feels like when vanilla prices exponentially spiked a few years ago and my $50 of vanilla backstock was suddenly worth $300.

... the farmshare website dropdown goes to 20 items. I'm not sure I want to be talked out of this. (I will probably buy at least 4, I am literally down to my last bag of chocolate chips and I usually have half a dozen bags on hand at any given time.)

Current Mood: silly
Current Location: far away
Current Music: The Talking Heads

Michigan, again

Visiting the out-laws with Belovedest. Last night we had dinner out at the Dirty Bird (chicken bar & grill) so this morning's breakfast is leftovers. Which I had in bed, due to the scarcity of tables in the hotel room, and my general unwillingness to get out of bed before nine.

Unfortunately, breakfast was crispy chicken Caesar salad, with buffalo sauce on the side. And after I finished that, I was dipping baby carrots in the sauce. And there was a spill.

I can't seem to face up to the facts
I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax
I can't sleep, 'cause my bed's on fire
Don't touch me, I'm a real live wire
Spicy pillow, qu'est-ce que c'est?
Fa-fa-fa-fa, fa-fa-fa-fa, far better
Run-run, run-run-run away
Oh-oh-oh

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: The Redeau River House
Current Music: Black Moon Lilith videos on YouTube

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Three Things Make A Post: Job Interview, Quiet Evening, and Archery Options

Okay. So.

Thing One: I have - finally - a job interview.
It's just the interview, so who knows.
But I didn't actually expect to get this far, given their initial "we're hoping for an early August start-date" and I didn't here from them until a few days ago.
So, I need to relocate the job description and double check all the ways I'm an excellent fit for the job. Consider any questions I've got about the org (which I'm currently on the Board for, though obviously I'd be stepping down if the Hiring Committee decides I'm the candidate to go with). Stuff like that.
I am, I suspect, not the only Board member who's applied for this job.
I also know that it's a job that's going to come with a big chunk of stress - which I don't love - and which is paying $24/hr for an "average" of 8 hours/ week, wherein "average" means "4 hours/week three quarters of the year, and 20 hours/week from January through March. (If I land this, Job One is going to be applying for grants to give ME and the Artistic Director substantial raises and ongoing employment for another 2-3 years).

Thing Two: I have the house to myself for the evening.
Woohoo!
I made myself little crab cakes and am eating coffee ice cream and looking at how to do easy embroidery stitches like "lazy daisy" because I just mended a tear in the shoulder of one of my flimsy cotton dresses, and I used a much lighter shade of grey yarn to do the mend. I thought: "Maybe I can embroider something interesting on this tiny darn!" and maybe I can.

Thing Three: My lovely wife has suggested that we take an archery course together over the winter.
I'm into it! The RA Centre isn't currently running Archery stuff - they're reviewing their archery programming and making some decisions, I guess? - so I don't know if it'll be an option come ~November. The alternative is XQuest which is out on Industrial Avenue (quite a ways from home) but is at least running classes.
Do I love the thought of scraping together $565 to cover five 1.5-hour classes for the two of us? Not really. But I know archery's expensive, so It's A Thing. And I like this.

Extreme amounts of "fun"

Thursday's appointment was one that I knew was going to stir up trauma. The doctor ended up listing that aspect of it as PTSD, which I guess is fair. I always have thought of it as "trauma" rather than PTSD, which is kind of odd in retrospect.

I wound up taking a small dose of my "street cred" when I realized I was starting to have a trauma response. That turned out to be a good idea. There's a follow up in a few months, and I should pre-medicate for it.

Afterwards I got the 32 oz reverse mocha from a local coffee shack. (Not one of the bikini coffee shacks.) With chocolate whipped cream, thank you very much. My first time encountering white coffee espresso in a drink. Interesting and almost floral. I had Belovedest (a bitter supertaster) try it. Still coffee tasting, but not as strongly.

Although that's also possibly due to me only having 3 shots of espresso in the drink instead of the usual 6.

I would much rather discuss the coffee than the source of the trauma and the appointment, in any event.