Ginny's Got a Blog

My sister-in-law Ginny (who's been mentioned and/or featured a whopping 9 times on this blog; the most recent time was here) has just started a baking/knitting/crafting in general blog. She's got a great post today about a scarf she knitted. Check it out!

Wigilia

Every year we celebrate a Polish tradition on Christmas Eve, called Wigilia. For the last couple of years, I've hosted the Wigilia at our house. On Saturday I attended a cooking class at the Broadway Market that reviewed some of the traditional dishes prepared for the holiday. One tip I learned from the presenter is that tub butter can be softened, molded into decorative silicone baking containers such as the dinosaur ones pictured below, refrigerated to set, and then easily removed from the mold and used to decorate the holiday table. An easy way to get crafty with your butter at Wigilia or any other celebration!

Cannoli Article

Check out my article about cannoli published on Buffalo Rising today!

Instructable for Dishcloth/Potholder

Here's a link to a very cool website I haven't yet mentioned on this blog... Instructables.com. I like the tutorials here because they're so visual.

I found instructions for one project that reminds me of my ReadyMade MacGyver challenge entry- how to make a dishcloth from a recycled t-shirt. With the right material, you could also use these for potholders. Check it out!

Cutting Edge Brownies

I've started contributing (on a very occasional basis) to the YUM! section of a local website called Buffalo Rising. Check out my article on the Edge Brownie Pan, a very cool item that my brother Adam got me for my birthday!

Crafty, Lucky, and Delicious...

No, those aren't the names of Snow White's three lost dwarves. Come to think of it, though, wouldn't it be cool if one her dwarves was named Crafty? Anyway, these are the adjectives that best describe the delicious pound cake (made with one whole stick o' butter) that my friend and colleague Susan brought to me today. In addition to the joy that the consumption of this loaf of tastiness will bring me, Susan also included a lucky rock on the beautifully and simply wrapped package. So I fully expect that any writer's block I'm experiencing on the slow journey that is my dissertation proposal will melt away. The pound cake alone already makes me feel I've come into some good fortune.

Note at 8:30 PM: Susan just informed me that the cake actually has one POUND (or four sticks) of butter, not one STICK. I best go easy... ;)

Texas Donut: Almost as Big as a Bread Box

It's a stretch to say that this post is about crafting, unless you consider oversized donut-baking a craft. But I just had to write about the Texas donuts made by Buffalo small business Paula's Donuts. I'm not much of a donut eater (though I pity those who have to survive without Tim Hortons coffee-- one of the many benefits of living in a city that borders Canada!) The Texas Donut has, however, captured my heart. Paula will make them in any flavor combination (the one shown above is a huge strawberry donut). And just to put it in scale, check out how puny an orange looks next to it:



For a while I was so infatuated with these donuts that I thought about having one on each table at our wedding as a dessert/centerpiece. Ultimately we went another route (which I'll blog about another day), probably much to the relief of many guests!