Saturday

My plan today had been to hike (walk) the trails in the Shoreline State Park, but I've spent the last two hours collecting webcam links located in Scotland.

Oban, one of the places we'll visit while we're staying in Dunoon.

Glasgow, Buchannan Street. I don't think Glasgow is one of our stops this trip. It'll be the next trip.

Edinburgh, Princes Street shopping district. I'm sure we'll hang around here a little before we fly back to the US of A.

More Glasgow just because it's Glasgow, eh?

Dunoon webcam

Fort William, north of Oban. No, not as in Braveheart, which I'm told is down near Stirling.

Kyle of Lochalsh, on the road to Isle of Skye for which I can't get a webcam view. Argh!

Loch Ness. This is one wild little website. From this link you can do Tai Chi with Nessie (or so it says).

I'm learning about the Scottish terrain by pouring over my big map and visiting the web cams. I'll know even more once we get over there!!!

Boring

I'm changing my blogging name. I shall now be known as: ∂
Actually, I'm changing it to DancingWithDogs, but ∂ was kinda fun wasn't it? Of course, it's just a mathematical symbol. My photo too. The headshot thing is so prosaic.

This is the new me! Like the hair?

Tulip

I'm ready for Spring. Since it isn't here I'm reduced to taking pictures, indoors, of tulips imported from South America where at the moment the weather is more Spring-like than Southeastern Virginia. We can't even get decent fog here. I'd like a morning with fog so dense that it's unsafe to drive.

I don't have anything to say today; I'm just trying to keep up the momentum!

Maggie, aka Calendar Girl

Wide-angle lenses are cool. I'm experimenting with exaggerated perspective. Maggie and Tasha were my first two models.

For Jonathan: Shot with Canon 20D, 18mm, 1/15 @ f/3.5 ISO1600, WB Tungsten, color corrected in Photoshop CS2.

Update 10/6/2006: Okay, in this shot she doesn't look like much of a Calendar Girl.

Tasha, aka Goofy

Cardamom Palmiers Part II

Rolled, sugared to within an inch of their life, cut and ready to go in the oven. They look like Michael's pinwheel cookies without the alternating colors. And elongated. And heavily sugared. I should have made those instead. They are time consuming too but probably more guaranteed to come out right. Because they are "Michael Cookies"!! I still can't replicate his version of toll house cookies. His is the best interpretation of that old standard. I did recently make an toll house cookie variation that the guys really loved. I sent them to Nick and his bunk mates loved 'em.

After fifteen minutes I took them out and damaged half of them turning them over. A non-stick pan would be best for this recipe. These are "carmelized cardamom palmiers"
and they carmelized right to the pan. I tried using a straight metal spatula, a straight plastic spatula, and a small off-set spatula. I heated it (the little spatula) with the kitchen torch (not just for creme brulee anymore) but it didn't make much difference. Lessons Learned: use an off-set spatula for flipping cookies. Always. Don't compromise.

Watching and waiting.

Watching and waiting to make sure they didn't burn. No, this was not a posed shot. The oven was hot and I stood in front of it with my little 3mp digital point and shoot and clicked away until I got the right image. (the little voice in my head says, sheesh, they're just cookies! it's not like this is grand art or anything)

(Everyone has a voice in their head; it's not like this is weird or anything)

They didn't burn, but they didn't brown up the way I thought they would, either. However, they were incredibly tasty
and we ate them all but I won't be making them again. By the way, the dough, as rolled, sugared and folded for the cookies, is NOT a good pie dough. It carmelizes to the pie pan the way the cookies carmelize to the cookie sheet. The only way to separate crust (and pie) from plate is to flip it over and pry it out. I know this because I tried. The result was that we didn't have pumpkin pie for The Thanksgiving Feast. We had Pumpkin Mousse Thing instead.

Gosh, I could sit here all morning doing this but sadly must shower - and then show up at work.

Coming Soon: "Who moved my cheese for the 112th time this year?!?" A frightening tale of home-office-swapping with Kent, and Erin's trip to Ikea.

Cardamom Palmiers

For the record, I don't usually subject myself to difficult baking tasks but tonight I'm making palmiers. a.k.a. Elephant Ears. With cardamom-sugar instead of plain sugar. Thank for fine folks at Fine Cooking for that idea. I love this magazine. The food photography is to die for! The Winter issue has three basic cookie doughs from which you can make three different cookies each. This cookie base is cream cheese dough. Big lure. Geneen Roth would call it a beckoning food. One of the three recipes using this dough is the aforementioned palmiers.

I read the recipe. I read most of the recipe. Alright, I read the first column. Big deal. Make the dough. Chill the dough. Shape the dough. Fold the dough. Wait a minute. Chill it again? Ok, it's chilling now. I assumed the next paragraph, although long, was essentially "slice, bake, cool." What it really says: "slice, sprinkle, bake, SWAP top and bottom cookie sheets, TURN the cookies, sprinkle, bake, cool."

At least The Timpano was all prep. Once it made it into the oven we just had to tap it every once in a while to see if it made that great hollow sound. I like fussy prep. I don't like fussy cooking. First we hunted for the recipe and found it in a cookbook by Stanley Tucci's mother. Then we hunted for months looking for the perfect timpano pan which was more of a large enameled basin. You have to know that the search was part of the fun.


The Timpano requires a gross of ziti, a bunch of boiled eggs, lots and lots of homemade teaspoon-diameter meatballs, three-meat sauce, and a pasta-like pastry. The meatballs and the sauce have their own recipes, so you end up working from three recipes. We made this thing a few years ago and haven't made it since. It was great fun. And as in the movie, it took two of us to load it into and unload it out of the oven. We still use the sauce recipe, though, because it is really outstanding. So are the meatballs.

Palmiers are fussy prep and fussy cooking. I'm already into the second chill so I may as well go for the last eight steps too. I think cardamom is one of the nicest spices so I'm sure these will taste great but it might be the last time I make them. We'll see.

Taking a "Personal Day" today

For absolutey no reason whatsoever except that I can. Nya nya nya.