Excited!

I'd heard about a new bakery near where I lived that was planning to create and sell proper french macarons. As you can see, they do make them, and more than a few accompanied me on the way home today. Macarons are by far the fussiest cookies I've ever come across - for the shells, you need to stir dry ingredients into a meringue, pipe out little circles, let the whole thing set up, give the cookie sheet a good bang on the counter and then bake the cookies. Hopefully, if you've done everything right, and there's not too much humidity, you get glossy little cookies with a little ridge at the bottom. After creating the filling and sandwiching the cookies together, you have macarons. I've created quite a few batches of macarons, and only one really worked out the way it was supposed to. They are my favourite cookie, however, and so I'm glad that that I found them.

Gardening

Apparently I'm a much better gardener when I go on holidays and ignore the houseplants. My Christmas cactus is flowering for the second time this year. More pictures from vacation shortly....

Wow - long time!

I didn't mean for a month to go by with no posts - it's been a long time. At any rate, I'm currently working on the March edition of the BJP. I also got some torch time in recently, and came up with these fibula - style pins with the lampwork beads. They're made out of copper wire and lampwork beads, and I'll donate them to assist African grandmothers who are supporting themselves and their grandchildren. Fibula pins do best on loosely woven or knitted material, so they'll be perfect for adding to the knitted scarves and shawls that the other ladies are making.