Tag Archives: domesticity

happy first day of winter!

21 Monday Dec 2009

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Santas on the London underground.

I’m planning on posting with a light touch over the next few weeks, during Christmas break. Hanna and I are celebrating Christmas here in Boston and I have the work for my Wintersession class, which I’m hoping will impede as little as possible on the break-ness of the break. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season (whatever holidays you and yours celebrate) and see you back with the “sunday smut” list and all the rest in the early days of 2010.

*image credit: Photo of the Day #31 credited to deepstoat @ Londonist.

pre-christmas cheer

19 Saturday Dec 2009

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Tonight, we’re off to the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir’s “Christmas in Medieval England” concert at First Church in Cambridge.


Also in the Christmas spirit, I bring you this photograph of gingerbread daleks, courtesy of Jason Henninger @ Tor.com. Hanna and I have plans to try making them on Christmas Eve. If they turn out at all recognizable I’ll provide photographs!

from the neighborhood: donna the christmas angel

09 Wednesday Dec 2009

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She first appeared as the titular Runaway Bride in the 2006 Dr. Who Christmas special, so who better to top our tree this Christmas than Donna Noble (played by the aforementioned awesome Catherine Tate)?

And just in case you’re up for a little Donna nostalgia I bring you (via Hanna, who posted it first at …fly over me evil angel…) an awesome fan video.

from the neighborhood: lava cakes!

07 Monday Dec 2009

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Saturday night, Hanna and I tried this recipe for lava cakes:

Ingredients (4 people):

6 oz. Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate (or use your favorite 70% dark chocolate bar)
6 oz. Butter (diced, room temperature)
3 Eggs
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
1/3 cup Flour
Butter for Ramekins

How to Make It:

Preheat oven to 350°F
1. Melt chocolate on low flame in a bain-marie (double boiler). When melted, take of flame, and…
2. Stir in diced butter, until it melts.
3. In another bowl, beat eggs and sugar, until it starts to whiten.
4. Stir in melted chocolate and then the flour.
5. Butter 4 individual ramekins, and pour in chocolate batter.
6. Cook for about 10 minutes.
7. Tip ramekins upside down onto dessert plates and serve.
Voilà!

They were definitely, as Hanna says, “tasty goodness”!

gelukkig sinterklaas nacht*

05 Saturday Dec 2009

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Tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day, what in my family growing up was the true beginning of the Christmas season. Every year on the night of December 5th we’d put out our shoes for St. Nicholas, and on the morning of December 6th we’d wake up to shoes full of chocolates, marzipan, and and other small holiday treats.

In fond remembrance of the holiday, I bring you Six to Eight Black Men, by David Sedaris, is perhaps my all-time-favorite commentary on the holiday; you can also listen to Sedaris read this piece in an episode of This American Life as part of one of my all-time favorite episodes, “Them.” (Bonus: “Them” also features Jon Ronson of men-who-stare-at-goats fame reading an excerpt from his book Them: Adventures With Extremists). For anyone who has tried to fathom the holiday celebrations of an unfamiliar culture: this essay is for you.

*dutch for “happy st. nicholas eve”
**Image credit: Susan Seals @ The St. Nicholas Center.

nanowrimo: week two update

16 Monday Nov 2009

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I don’t have so much to report this week, except that I’ve decided my own personal goal this year is 30,000 words (1,000 words / day) rather than the competition goal of 50,000. By that measure, I am slightly ahead of the game and having fun to boot! I have two short stories in the works and have been having fun fiddling away at them when I have the odd moment. I’m rediscovering the pleasures of writing for fun and discovering that I am better at incorporating dialog than I was when I last wrote fiction (when I was about fifteen).

More next weekend!