All for marshmallows, and marshmallows for all!

I am hardly the first person to make homemade marshmallows and post about it on the internet. My earliest recollection of the possibility of homemade marshmallows came from a Martha Stewart Living magazine cover of impossibly intricate snowflake-shaped marshmallows floating in cups of hot chocolate against a wintry-blue background back in the early 2000's. However, the inspiration for actually tackling the project came from Janine, in the early stages of our relationship when I was just starting to learn about her sometimes quirky, always very specific food preferences.

Shopping with Janine is an interesting experience. Her mind contains a dizzying, meticulously categorized and cross-referenced database of available products, what brands manufacture and distribute them, where to buy them, and how much they cost across several brick and mortar stores and the internet. I have been in a pet store with her, walking across the entire length and around the perimeter multiple times while she evaluated prices, looked for bargains and calculated what the best deal was using which discount cards or coupons or specials or rebates. I have finally learned to hang out in one place until she was finished and we could leave.

One day we were in Stop and Shop, shopping for some essentials when she suddenly veered off into the candy aisle, muttering that she wanted to check for something. She quickly returned, bemoaning the fact that it was not the right time of year to find what she was looking for. Upon further inquiry, she told me  her tale of woe about how she could never find this one particular brand of toasted coconut marshmallows unless it was around Halloween and only at a particular Stop and Shop. We were not at that Stop and Shop and it was June, but she thought she'd check it anyway. When it finally was closer to Halloween, she was still not able to find that particular brand of toasted coconut marshmallows.

A couple of months later, when shopping at Whole Foods, we spied a tiny (oh so tiny!) container of vegan toasted coconut marshmallows in the cooler next to the mini-pies. The price on this tiny, tiny Whole Foods vegan coconut marshmallow container? $7.99. Ouch. Believe me, we wrestled long and hard over the thought of buying $8.00 marshmallows. It went against all of Janine's bargain-hunting sensibilities, not to mention my own skinflint tendencies. But she had been deprived for so long of this wondrous sugary sensation, and I  had to admit that my curiosity about them was heavily piqued.

We somewhat reluctantly parted ways with our $8.00 and were rewarded with an amazing taste sensation that we heartily agreed was worth every penny. But, after all 12 pieces were gone (yes, 12, and yes, that is roughly 67 cents per marshmallow), and after the sugar high had faded I began to have my doubts about our extravagance. $8.00 for a bit of sugar, air and coconut? What had we done?

My dear friend Tim will attest to my firm belief in finding cheaper alternatives to just about everything (gourmet popcorn, recycled-paper notebooks, haircuts), even if I have to make or do them myself. For me it's all about the process. I conjured up the memory of that Martha Stewart Living cover, and turned to the internet for help and made my very own toasted coconut marshmallows. Janine's verdict? As good as, no... better, than the store-bought brand. Win!

Since then I've made homemade marshmallows for several holiday occasions where I felt the need to bring something for the table. And they are always a hit. I've made variations--instead of the coconut I've made them plain, dipped in chocolate, drizzled with chocolate, and flavored with peppermint and dusted with pulverized candy canes. And the best of the variations, the toasted coconut marshmallows, can now be enjoyed by Janine at any time of the year.

Here is my recipe, which is my hybrid of the Martha Stewart and Cooking for Engineers recipes, along with tips and tricks gathered from other internet marshmallow makers and my own experience. The photos are from last Saturday, as we made some to bring to Easter Sunday dinner.

Feed test

Tumblr has a feature where I can embed the feed in as a post with a short description. This blog entry is to test that feature.

Thank you for your patience. We shall now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Recipe for Disaster, A President's Day Weekend Hash

Ingredients:

• One mom of two elementary-age boys
  
• One long-distance girlfriend of mom, self described as "a non-motherly type", "cool auntie" and "crazy animal lover"
  
• Two sons, ages 6 and 9
• Two nephews, ages 7 and nearly 10
• Two wienerdogs
  

Condiments, to taste:

• One adult gay man to provide sustenance, booze and moral support
• Two turtles and one fish of indeterminate ages
  

Procedure:

1. In the dead of winter, drive two hours and place all ingredients into 4-room, one bedroom, one bathroom apartment.
   
2. Sprinkle children liberally with Wii games, Pokemon cards and snacks. Set aside to marinate.
   
3. Meanwhile in separate room, engage all adults in that quintessential pastime , Chatting in the Kitchen Eating Grownup Food and Drinking Grownup Drinks.
   
4. Arrange wienerdogs to remain annoyingly underfoot of all adults in the kitchen until they tire of begging and burrow into their beds in a thankfully little used corner of the kitchen.
5. Combine all ingredients and simmer over low heat for 2-4 hours.
   
6. As the night winds down, warn kids of their impending bed time and send the dogs out for their final voiding ritual of the day

Surprise ingredient:

• add: One cranky skunk awakened from hibernation by a false spring

Procedure, continued

7. Rush very surprised and nearly blinded skunk-sprayed wienerdog into the house for an emergency sink bath
8. Remove one adult from mixture to purchase liberal amounts of tomato juice and cheap toothpaste
9. Manage major freak out of kids who find it somehow entertaining to run into the room, gag from the smell and run back out, thereby spreading foul odors throughout the apartment.
10. Return adult from errand and proceed with bathing skunked dog in tomato juice.
    
11. Light candles, incense and send the kids to bed
12. Gradually become immune to the smell, think it is nearly gone, until...
13. the next day, venture out and endure stares and wrinkly noses from passers-by.
    
14. Repeat tomato juice baths, launder clothes, air out jackets and engage in other ritualistic de-skunkifying activities.
15. Discover on the internet that such rituals are a bunch of folkloric malarkey.
    
16. Wallow in skunk smell until time to separate ingredients
    
17. Drive two hours home, then wash everything that went on the trip
18. Fall into bed, review recipe and decide that it was still a resounding success.

Clear!

My good friend Tim has inspired me to break out the defibrillator paddles to revive this blogspace, which has been on hiatus since 2007. At the risk of sounding flippant about the significant life events that have happened during that time I feel the need to fast-forward us into the present by summarizing the past few years (years!) into a few bullet points.

Things that changed:

• My relationship ended
• I moved out of my house and into my apartment
• I learned how to "be single"
• I started socializing and making new friends
• I started a new relationship
• I started a new job
• I own some new appliances: a washer and dryer, and a sewing machine
  

Things that stayed the same:

• My kids. Oh, sure they grew up some. But they're still the same sweet little guys and they just get better with age.
• I still like to take pictures
• I still like to grow things
• I still like to buy things, particularly art, craft and office supplies.
• I still like to cut my own hair
• I still like to cut others' hair
  

Now that we are up to speed, let's proceed... Charging unit to 200...

notes on painting

1) Vinegar and hot water (about 1:4) takes wallpaper off but if you run out of vinegar you can just use the hottest water you can stand. Soak, scrape, wash.

2) Oil primed dining room today. Feeling kind of woozy.

3) Selected color for dining room: Sherwin Williams' Luxurious Red; needs the gray primer to go under it since it's such a dark color. Drat.

4) Selected color for living room: SW's Ryegrass

5) Selected color for transition areas: SW's Ivoire

6) Sarah M. suggests the Cashmere (already in office, doesn't come in quarts) or the Superpaint (forgiving, good coverage).

hey, I was on TV!

Okay, so it was only the local Fox affiliate news. Watch it anyway.

CF card Failure and recovery

Today my CF card crapped out on me. I've been getting a "CHA" error message on my camera and kind of ignoring it by pushing the CF card in a little on my D70s. Worked up until today. I shot a bunch of photos with no error message, but when I got home and tried to pull them off the card in my usual way it didn't even mount to the desktop. Disk Utility could sort of see it, but it refused to mount it or repair it.

Found out the following by googling, asking metafilter, and searching the D70s groups on Flickr. I'm blogging about it because I want to remember it next time it happens.

- Seems that the CHA error occurs because of overuse of the "trash can" icon on the camera itself. Somehow that method of deleting the photos seems to f-ck up the card. It's better to delete the photos from the card by using the camera's "Format" option.

- I bit the bullet and reformatted the card. Lo and behold, it mounted to the desktop, seemingly repaired. But empty.

- searched for some Mac CF card recovery program and found CardRaider by ECamm Network. Ran the demo and it found my missing photos. Purchased the software (only $20--a bargain!).

- Recovered all RAW files perfectly.

- Yay.

Seriously, though I'm ecstatic! I know these were just snaps of my kids, but what if it had been something really important. No doubt I would have cried about it.

Notes for further gardening

- I think the beds closest to the house should be for annuals and bulbs.

- I have many packets of seeds that I'm going to plant and feed with worm poop.

- Rather than chop down the junipers in front, I think they should go in the back to form part of our screen. I've read that they do well in shady, dry soil.

- I forgot that I need to get more Vaccinium (aka blueberry and related) bushes for the backyard. One more trip to the farmers market should do it for this year.

- We decided to wait on moving the cherry tree in back to the front. I read that early spring is the best time to move a tree so hopefully I'll remember by next spring.

- A good place to study up on native species for CT: is American Beauties Native Plants, located in Lebanon, CT. They even have landscape plans for creating a bird garden, a butterly garden, etc.

coming together

After some trying years, the front yard garden design has really come together. It was truly a collaborative effort: J and I, with the help of informed sources (her mom and Sara Stein), were able to create something that makes us both happy. The kids are involved, too. They see how happy we are to plant together and they want to be involved. They have their own tools and are all too eager to carry around pots of perennials and set them down on their designated places.




I've recently learned of one more Sara Stein book that she wrote, before her death in 2005, called Noah's Children: Restoring the Ecology of Childhood. I must read. I'll see if the library has it, or if they don't I have to see if they'll order it for me.

So far, so good

The new worms are very happy! Yay! They’re eating like crazy and I hope they’re breeding too! I even set up a new tray for them. I’m so relieved. I was starting to think our worm colony was going to be a worm graveyard but that’s not the case. I’ve got the expandable worm tower and I’m starting to see some really nice black, rich-looking castings in the bottom. If things go well, I’ll harvest the tray in another 2-3 weeks. I read I can make compost tea with it and spray it on the lawn! WOW. I’m so excited.

I’ve also set up our outdoor compost tumbler. Yeah, I’m a little compost crazy. But something’s gotta be done with all these !@#$$ leaves! And we have no shortage of food scraps.

See more progress on: start a worm compost

New crop

Okay, so I’m still mystified over the disappearance over the first generation of worms. It was like a little lost worm city of Atlantis. I suspect that they all died off and turned into… compost.

So, I decided to get new worms. Local worms. Raised 25 minutes away from here. The farmer didn’t do pickups, or I would have driven out there, collected them and transported them home myself. I had to settle for a priority mail shipment. They came very quickly, and I dumped them right in. I also “plumped their pillows” a little bit: adding some new newspaper; spritzing some water in it to raise the moisture level (our house is very dry in the winter); and preparing their food by chopping it up and microwaving the heck out of it (5 mins on high). That last bit was a tip from the worksheet I got with the original worms. The preparation breaks down the food so it is more suitable for the microorganisms to prepare it for the worms. The idea was to acclimate the worms as fast as possible.

And acclimate they have. These “new” worms seem more vigorous, eagerly crawling out sight when I lift the lid and expose them to light. They’re crawling in and around the food, a good sign that they’re eating. And they’re crawling into the bottom-most bin, and leaving dark, rich-looking castings behind! Woo hoo!

I’m very optimistic about these new worms. Soon it’ll be warm enough to move them into the mud room, right off our kitchen so I can keep a closer eye on them. I hope they start to procreate soon, and I can prepare another tray for them to crawl up into.

See more progress on: start a worm compost

Um, where have all the wormies gone?

So, remember when we got those worms? Well, now they don’t seem to be there anymore. I mean, you buy a pound of worms… that should be like, 300-500 worms or something right? And we did lose a few due to stress in the shipping. But I looked in the worm bin just the other day, after leaving them alone for a few days and now they seem to be… gone. What happened? Did they die and their worm corpses are have already decomposed? Well, they’re not TOTALLY gone. I saw a few baby worms here and there. But no adult worms. I even looked around the bin, on the table, on the floor. No worms.

There are, however, these teeny white mites, which I’m told are some of the organisms typically seen in worm bins. They aid with the decomp. So did they go to town on the adult worms? I’m confused. I checked the moisture level and gave them some food scraps and decided to leave them alone for a couple of days. Hopefully those baby worms will grow and breed and we can get the population up again.

I’m mystified.

See more progress on: start a worm compost

More foods you can eat

"Mushrooms can ward off colds They contain more of an immune-boosting antioxidant called ergothioneine than any other food, say researchers at Pennsylvania State University."

This was #4 in the 50 Mind-Blowing Food Facts I read about today.

Shame :-(

I just took the ecological footprint test at myfootprint.org. My footprint is 15 acres! By comparison to the average for my area (24 acres) it is low. But the site also said if everyone lived like me we'd need 3 1/2 planets. Better send out more space probes to look for some M-class planets out there.

They're here.

Okay, so the worms finally arrived last Friday. We set up the worm tower with bedding and fresh food scraps and then just dumped them in. The instructions said to check on them in three days. So we did. I think some of them were too stressed and didn’t make it. But most of them look pretty good and healthy. They were crawling in and out of the food, which was a good sign. It smelled a little funky; not rotten or anything. But it was definitely an earthy, humid smell. Dead worms maybe? Checked on them again yesterday and it seemed a little wet, so I added a bit of paper. And then today I added some coffee grounds and eggshells.

I read in the instructions that we should avoid citrus peels in the worm bin. Oops. There were a few citrus peels in that original handful of food. Must remember to put those only in the outside compost.

I think I’m going to leave them alone for the next few days. It’s hard to not futz around with them because I’m down in the basement doing laundry and I get curious about them so I turn on the light and open it up. And they apparently HATE light, which is why they will stay in the bin. Other worms, I’ve read, may CRAWL OUT of the bin. Boy wouldn’t that surprise the dog. She probably would try to eat a worm that was crawling around on her floor.

See more progress on: start a worm compost

My bro, Burrito Joe

My brother leads a charmed life. Besides having a cushy job with benefits, a swank apartment in the Bay Area, a side job doing music reviews, another side job as a freelance web designer, his own record label, and regular dj gigs, he built and runs a site called burritobot.com. Because of this site, he was interviewed by the local wacky morning dj show on a Bay Area mainstream radio station.

Sick of hearing about what you can't eat? Here's stuff you CAN eat:

The 29 Healthiest Foods on the Planet

Hm. Time to make a smoothie.

At $100 a pop...

It may be worth it to learn how to tune a piano myself. I found some simple directions here:

http://piano.detwiler.us/

Then again, do I really have the time to sit around tuning pianos? If my kids weren’t so loud all the time maybe I’d actually hear the strings… :-)

See more progress on: learn to tune the piano

Casual interest

I don’t really want to be a connosieur; lord knows I’ve got too many interests already. I’d just like to have a passable knowlege for when I’m standing in the wine store not knowing what the hell to buy.

Also, I would like to know if the benefits of a daily glass of wine outweigh the negative effects of alcohol…

See more progress on: learn about wine

Small Space decor

The thing about making-over our downstairs bathroom is that it seems like a one-person-at-a-time job, since it’s so small (you have to close the door before you sit on the toilet, otherwise it will hit your knees). Since our upstairs bathroom which was so lovingly renovated by J is the “sanctuary” bathroom, I feel like this bathroom can be the “fun” bathroom. Here’s what I’m thinking:

Method 1: strip the wallpaper, paint the walls, “Bin” the cabinets and the monstrous mirrored vanity and the side shelving. Paint over it in fun color. Replace toilet seal and toilet seat. Put in new dirt-hiding flooring: probably 12×12 vinyl self adhesive tiles in a color or pattern.

Method 2: strip the wallpaper, paint the walls, “Bin” the cabinets and REMOVE the monstrous mirrored vanity and the side shelving. Cut in built-in shelving on the side wall; hang curtain or bamboo blinds to cover. Install large flat (round?) mirror over sink. Paint walls in fun color. Replace toilet seal and toilet seat. Put in new dirt-hiding flooring: probably 12×12 vinyl self adhesive tiles in a color or pattern.

I really like method 2 but it will obviously take more time. The shower stall, too could use to be replaced but I don’t really want to get into any demolition or, horror of horrors, TILING.

See more progress on: paint the bathroom