In the time of swords and peri wigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets--when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta--there lived a tailor in Gloucester.
He sat in the window of a little shop in Westgate Street, cross-legged on a table from morning till dark. All day long while the light lasted he sewed and snippetted, piecing out his satin, and pompadour, and lutestring; stuffs had strange names, and were very expensive in the days of the Tailor of Gloucester.
But although he sewed fine silk for his neighbours, he himself was very, very poor. He cut his coats without waste; according to his embroidered cloth, they were very small ends and snippets that lay about upon the table--"Too narrow breadths for nought--except waistcoats for mice," said the tailor.
One bitter cold day near Christmastime the tailor began to make a coat (a coat of cherry- coloured corded silk embroidered with pansies and roses) and a cream- coloured satin waistcoat for the Mayor of Gloucester.
The tailor worked and worked, and he talked to himself: "No breadth at all, and cut on the cross; it is no breadth at all; tippets for mice and ribbons for mobs! for mice!" said the Tailor of Gloucester.
Many people participate in NaBloPoMo in November. I've thought about it in the past, but I never decided to join in, because blog posting, to me, is a time to just put down in writing what is happening in the moment, when, and IF, I feel like doing so. Having the pressure of creating a new blog entry every day gives me writer's block like nothing else I have ever tried. So in the end, I don't do it.
This year, though, I'm going to create twelve blogs for Christmas. They likely won't have much to do with anything mentioned in the related song, but they will all have something to do with Christmas. I may share some of my favorite Christmas stories, both religious and secular. I may have some fun things for you to do. I may create some posts myself, but most of them will likely be the work of others.
What I am hoping to do is to share with you a bit of Christmas cheer.
Starting tomorrow and continuing every day up to and including Christmas Day, I will post a new Christmas-related entry.
No, I haven't decided to find a new job or a new house or anything like that. I've moved all of my web stuff to a new virtual private server.
There are a whole lot of reasons for the "move," but the good news is that it should be completely transparent to everyone but me. There were a few headaches I had to track down when I changed over from one account to another. Every system is a bit different from every other system. Hopefully there won't be any more glitches.
And now that NaBloPoMo is over, I think I'll come out and play again.
Tonight I made hot cocoa. Not just ANY hot cocoa. This hot cocoa was a little bit of heaven in a mug.
It's a recipe that came on the back of a package of vanilla beans that I bought from Costco. My first use of a vanilla bean wasn't great. I was making vanilla bean ice cream for my wife's Birthday. The recipe I have is a custard-type ice cream. I tempered the egg yolks and added them back in to the pot, but I think I had the burner on just a bit too high. I was supposed to cook the mixture until it coated the back of a spoon. When it hit that point, I was just about to take the mixture off the heat and it started to boil, and the custard separated. It was beyond salvaging. A broken custard never ever recovers. I'll try that recipe again in a few days.
When I got the vanilla bean out for tonight's hot cocoa recipe, I found out that something was missing! It told me to split the vanilla bean and scrape out the insides and put it in a food processor and add sugar. The problem? The recipe on the package didn't say how much sugar to add! A bit of a search on the Internet and I found the recipe in its entirety. So here it is for you:
Ingredients:
1 vanilla bean
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa (Dutch-processed is best)
1/2 cup water
Pinch of salt
3 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups half and half
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup chilled whipping cream
Directions:
Scrape seeds from the vanilla bean into food processor. Set aside vanilla pod. Add sugar to processor and process for 10 seconds. Reserve 3 tablespoons of vanilla sugar. Transfer remaining vanilla sugar to a medium saucepan. Add the unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/2 cup of water, pinch of salt, and whisk until smooth. Whisk over medium heat just until bubbling begins. Whisk in whole milk and half and half. Add reserved vanilla bean pod. Bring mixture to a simmer. Remove heat and whisk in vanilla extract. Discard vanilla bean pod. Beat whipping cream and reserved vanilla sugar in a medium bowl until firm peaks begin to form. Divide hot chocolate among 6 mugs and top with whipped cream.
It's really good. Really REALLY good. The cocoa is dark and chocolaty. The whipped cream adds a creamy richness that cools the cocoa as you sip it. It's the best hot cocoa I've had since I left Apeldoorn where the lady that owned the house we lived in would make hot cocoa for us pretty much every night.
It's definitely worth the effort to make it. Enjoy!
I went back to the Nephrologist today. I was really hoping that the tiny pill I take every morning would cause less calcium to be excreted and therefore be a "cure" for my kidney stones.
Nope.
So they're going to double the dose. The doctor also said that my sodium level is high, and that can also contribute to high calcium levels. That means I'm supposed to watch my salt intake too.
Great.
So I get to do it all again in two months. I get to do a pair of 24-hour urine studies and go back and see Mr. Nephrologist again.
I went back to see my Orthopaedic Surgeon on Monday. He said that things are looking very good and he's pleased with the amount of flexibility I have. The residual soreness is normal and should fade over the next two months. I'm now lifting light weights a few times a day. Physical therapy fortunately won't be necessary, at least, not as long as I continue to work on things myself and make progress. I still have to take it easy until the pain is completely gone and strength is being restored. But in a couple of months, I could be completely back to normal!
As I left UVU on Thursday evening, I watched a young man sitting in a commons area with his adorable baby daughter. He had a blanket spread out on the floor and was sitting directly behind his daughter and he was attempting to get her to sit up--a feat that she was just barely too young to accomplish. As I walked towards them, I watched him sit her up, and she'd balance for a second and start to fall over. He'd catch her and repeat the process.
And then I had a "Jenny In the Glass" moment. It's an old LDS "Homefront" commercial that they used to show on television, where a young father is viewing his newborn daughter through the glass in the nursery at the hospital and he sees her growing up before his eyes.
It doesn't seem that long ago that I was balancing my oldest son, trying to help him reach that next milestone, and now I feel like I'm digging in my heels, trying to hold back the inevitable. He's fifteen years old and driving and before I know it, he'll be out on his own and I'll be wishing he were still around because I'll miss him.
His younger brother isn't far behind him.
I wanted to tell this young father to just let her lie there or roll over and do what she was already doing. I wanted to tell him that he needs to enjoy every stage for what it is and not to rush things.
But he probably wouldn't have listened anyway. He wouldn't understand any better than I would have at that stage in my life.
There's a distinction to be made there. I'm a good cook, but I'm not a chef.
I can follow a recipe. I have even learned quite a few techniques from The Food Network, and I can employ these techniques correctly. I even understand the "why" behind a lot of these techniques. When I follow a recipe, it turns out well way more often than not.
This makes me a good cook. It does NOT make me a chef.
I watch competitions on The Food Network like The Next Food Network Star, or the Next Iron Chef. Even watching competitions like Iron Chef or Iron Chef America make me realize that I'm not a chef.
The people in these competitions take ingredients and from them, synthesize new culinary creations. They take the ordinary and make the extraordinary. They don't need directions to follow. They don't need a specific set of measurements and directions to create something delicious. They have the education and experience required to be able to create something new.
They have learned through education and through trial and error what can be combined to please the palettes of most people. They know how to add herbs and spices in the right combinations to make something that tastes "right" to most people. They understand which seasonings complement which foods.
So no, I'm not a chef. But I'm content to be a good cook. I like being able to replicate what culinary minds greater than mine have invented. I like being able to RE-create delicious things that others have invented.
My younger son hasn't been to school since he came home after half a day on September 2. We were reasonably sure that he had the flu. He was feeling better for a couple of days, but today, he took a turn for the worse again. We took him to see our family doctor. He doesn't have the flu, swine or otherwise. He doesn't have mononucleosis. He has some sort of virus that is just beating him down, and with his poor, tired immune system, he just isn't getting better.
My older son has had a dry cough for several days. On Tuesday, we went to an activity up American Fork Canyon. On the way back, he complained that his ear wouldn't pop, and when it finally did the next day, it was painful. Today, we took HIM to the doctor too. He has a cold with a pretty bad ear infection. Ugh. At least that's treatable with antibiotics.
Add to that my wife's still-unknown kidney issue and my continuing medical saga, and you can probably imagine how fed up I am with doctors. But I'm more fed up with people not feeling well. I want my son to be able to go back to his life again, even if that means lots of make-up work at school. I want to know what is causing my wife's kidney pain. I just want us all to be healthy again.