Well, here we are at the start of the new year and, man, am I tired. Recovering, but still tired. So, indulge me if you will, this sort of catch-all post. It is a little mental housekeeping exercise for me; sweeping out the cobwebs and dropping in here those few random items I’d intended to include elsewhere but never did.

The holidays are finally over and I’ve begun to slowly re-focus on real life. With the exception of a few last minute things I had to get knocked out, I’ve been basically on vacation for the last two weeks. That may not seem like a big deal to some, but it is the first time since my junior year in high school that I’ve had that long off with neither work nor school. I’m frankly a little concerned about my return to work. I think I may need to be re-trained.

I was talking to a friend of mine a couple of days ago about the holidays and she described their Christmas. They spent it with an elderly couple they know and she told me how serene it had been. There was the old school Christmas music playing and the gentle snowfall outside the window. I didn’t ask her, but I bet they had cocoa. I didn’t ask because I don’t think I could stand it if they did. In my mind’s eye I keep coming back to something straight off Norman Rockwell’s sketch book – the kind of scene destined to adorn a Coca-Cola promotional tray – and part of me yearns to step into that scene.

Understand, I love our Christmas traditions – they generally involve a large group of family and the chaos that follows this particular group anywhere we go – but part of me longs for that simpler scene. Not that I want to or plan on changing anything. I mean, our family Christmas might also have been a Norman Rockwell scene, only one destined for the New York Post with a humorous undertone. We had a total of 14 people (all family) and all of them brought their gifts to each other with them. I am still not done breaking down all the boxes that came out of that. It was chaotic as I mentioned here and here but it was good. Very good, in fact.

Then we had a great New Year, if rather unexpectedly. Christy was on the phone with her bff the morning of New Year’s Eve and they were lamenting how we both planned to just hang around our respective houses again this year. Just the night before, Christy and I had been talking about how we used to be cool in the not-so-distant past; we always did something interesting on New Year’s. At the stroke of midnight of the 1999/2000 New Year, for instance, we were standing in the middle of the intersection that marks the middle of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. We’d rented a house in the garden district with a bunch of old friends we hadn’t seen in a while and took the week to catch up. The actual turn of the millennium the following year we were in Vegas, again with friends. New Year’s in Disney was also amazing. Fast forward to this year and we are home alone. So, in the course of the phone call, they decided that it would be more fun to do nothing together. They also invited two other couple we are friends with (all of us having small children) and they both came as well. So, at 10:00 am we had no plans and at just after 6:00 pm we had a house full of people. There were 8 adults and 10 kids.

We hung out with the kids until 9:00 pm when I hooked my laptop up to the TV and replayed the New Year’s countdown that had happened in London an hour before. The kids all put on their party hats and grabbed their party horns and blew in the new year before we shuffled them upstairs and put them to bed. The adults then got to just hang out and catch up. Each family had brought enough food to feed the whole group practically, so there was no shortage of good eats and almost everyone in our little group is very outgoing so we had a blast. It was really very relaxing and a lot of fun. It was also just what I needed.

Just a little cleanup the next morning and we were on with the new year. And speaking of cleanup, now that I finally have trash service again (new update posted there) I was able to haul the dozen or so bags full of wrapping paper and stray packaging, along with the foot thick stack of flattened boxes out to the curb. I spent Thursday taking down Christmas. I had something close to 7000 lights in total, drawing enough power to deform the plug on the timer it was hooked to (can you say fire hazard? I knew ya’ could) but spread over a pretty large area. So that is now almost completely boxed up as are all the wreaths and garland and ornaments. Once those holiday totes are safely back in the attic all signs of the holidays will be gone. The post holiday funk is lifting and am actually looking forward to getting back to work. I can go back to the daily grind and get some things done that have been on the back burner over Christmas.

One of those things has been the blog. Partly I’ve been too busy and partly I’ve just been uninspired. Hopefully both of those are changing for the better. In the mean time, I warned you this would be a sort of catch-up/clean-up post so I’m tacking on a few items surrounding the holiday I’d meant to post but hadn’t. So, until next time, Happy New Year!

/g

note: as usual, you can click on any image to see a larger version

A belated Merry Christmas

I’d intended to put up an electronic version of the Christmas Card we sent out for all those who I might have missed or whose addresses I didn’t have, but I forgot to post it earlier. Well, better late than never. I’ve had a couple of people ask me where the picture was taken. It was on St. George Island, FL this summer where we spent a week. It is an amazing place if you’ve never been there. The nearest grocery store is over a half hour’s drive and the nearest Wal-Mart or similar is almost three times that. It really lets you truly get away from it all. There aren’t any hotels I don’t think. We rented a house for a week. I sat the camera up on a tripod set to take repeating shots as we walked away. This was one of my favorites.

And while on the subject of Christmas, here’s a shot of the little ones’ visit to the guy in red this year. They are always so giddy it is cute.

Oh, and we found these glasses (at a local home improvement store of all places) that look like the paper 3-D glasses but the lenses just look hazy. When you put them on and look at any small bright light source it becomes a snowman! I held them over the lens of my camera and took this shot toward our tree. The further away the light source the bigger the snowmen appear. I put them on in the car and the distant oncoming cars looked like pairs of giant snowmen coming our way. Oh, and I was a passenger at the time. I don’t recommend them while driving!

Falling Georgians

So while we were all home for the Christmas break we thought it would be fun to go ice skating. I’ve not been since I’ve lived here so I was startled at what I found. Let me summarize by saying that few things are sadder or funnier than an ice rink full of Georgians. The most crowded place in the whole building was along any wall with ice next to it. There were adults who wouldn’t let go even to let small children past. I have no proof, but I suspect the local hospitals subsidize the rink to keep it going. It must be a constant source of business for them.

Justin hated it until the very end when he grew to just dislike it intensely. He kept telling us he wanted to “get off this ice cube.” It turns out that Courtney had told him it was going to be a huge ice cube before we went. He was riveted by the Zamboni, however. He watched intently and kept asking me when he was gonna get this spot or that as he made his way around the rink. By the end he was explaining the pattern back to me. What a little engineer he is.

Courtney loved it and wants to go back and took to it pretty well. We had a lot of fun watching people trying to get up, but the funniest moment of the day was when this guy who had the least business on ice skates of anyone there – he was like a cartoon character with his arms out flailing around the whole time – asked grandma if she used to be a figure skater. We are still laughing about that one. All in all it was a lot of fun and something we’ll be sure to do again now that there is a rink nearby. The ice stank when we got there but was OK after the break.

Grandma helping Courtney get the hang of it…

…and Courtney venturing out on her own, paying attention to everything in the place but the ice in front of her. Oh, well.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Courtney had a play date today and was gone with mom for several hours leaving Justin and I to our own devices. We jointly decided it would be fun to play trains and cars. The race car set was his big present this year. The GeoTrax train stuff he has been collecting over the past year and change. I decided to try and see if I could use every single piece of track he had. I missed by two. More importantly, we had a blast!

I went up to the landing and asked him to get in the middle so I could take his picture. This is what he did.

I took this one of him being all boy. He loves it when the train drops over the hill at the top of the clock tower (as it is in the photo above). He thinks that by pushing the handle forward extra hard, leaning forward and making a go fast face it will somehow run down even faster. He may be on to something.

Greg’s Knockoff Lemon coolers

Every since Nabisco bought Sunshine Bakeries and subsequently stopped making Lemon Coolers a couple of years ago I’ve been searching for a replacement. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are a cookie that is almost shortbread, but not quite, coated in powdered sugar with a light lemon flavor. They were (are) my absolute favorite cookie. Recently I decided to figure out how to make them. I found a number of recipes on the Internet claiming to be them but none were quite right so I set out to figure it out. Many, many batches of cookies later I’ve finally nailed it. Everyone who has had them agrees. I’ve had a couple of people ask me for the recipe so here it is:

Here is the batch I made for the group coming over on New Years.
See, they even look like the real thing.

Cookies:
1/2 c – Powdered sugar
1/3 c – White sugar
1/3 c – Shortening
1 – Egg
3/4 tsp – Lemon extract
1/8 tsp – Salt
1 1/2 c – Cake flour
2 tsp – Baking powder
1/2 Tbsp – Water

Sugar coating:
1 c – Powdered sugar
3/4 tsp – Unsweetened lemonade kool-aid powder

1. Lightly grease two 10×15 cookie sheets and preheat oven to 375
2. Creme together the sugars, shortening, egg, lemon extract and salt
3. Add the flour, baking powder and water and mix until it forms a dough ball. It should be dry enough you can handle it without flouring your hands. It should be very light and pliable
4. Pinch the dough off and roll into approximately 3/4″ balls. Place them on the cookie sheets with about 1 1/2″ between them
5. Partially flatten each ball. They should spread out to around 1 1/4″. They don’t spread very much at all when cooked so if you want flatter cookies, squish them a little more
6. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until they are a light golden brown
7. While they are baking mix the powdered sugar and kool-aid mix in a gallon ZipLoc bag
8. As soon as they are out of the oven throw them into the powdered sugar mix and shake them around to completely coat them. Time is important here, you want them in there while they are hot. Be careful puling them out, though, as the sugar is a good insulator and they will still be very hot.
9. Put them on a wire rack to cool if possible. If you put them directly on a plate it causes condensation on the plate that makes the coating stick more to the plate than the cookie.
10. Let them completely cool. These cookies are really only done when they’ve dried out a little bit. I pop mine into the freezer for a couple of hours as soon as I’m done making them to accelerate the process.

A few notes:
- The recipe makes 50 cookies
- I list 3/4 tsp of lemonade Kool-Aid powder in the recipe. That actually makes them slightly more lemony than the originals. Given that I always wished they were just a hint more lemony I’m good with that. If you prefer the lighter lemon flavor of the original reduce that to 1/2 tsp and it is pretty much spot on.
- If you have a convection oven bake at 325 for 14 to 15 minutes. They are slightly crisper out of the oven that way (which is why I do it) but it after they’ve cooled and sat for a couple of hours there really isn’t any difference.
- The recipe calls for cake flour but it isn’t strictly required. I prefer the texture of the cookies with cake flour, but I’ve made them with all purpose and even bread flour and they were only slightly different, but still perfectly good. Use what you’ve got and you’ll be fine. Only thing is, if you use all purpose or bread flour add another 1/2 tbsp of water when mixing it.
- Don’t worry about overworking the dough. It isn’t like we are making biscuits here. In fact, I mix mine beginning to end in a mixer and I’m not exactly gentle with it either.
- The dough is less sticky and more workable if you use less water and it lessens the need to cool the cookies as long before they crisp up. The down side is that the cookies are a little harder. I suspect the moisture content may just be too low to get the baking powder doing its thing. They are good either way, though.
- Because time is important in getting them in the sugar I’ve found that the best way to make them is to pop the first sheet of them in the oven as soon as you have them rolled out. The other sheet goes in 4 or 5 minutes later when you’ve completed it. This gives you time to finish tossing the first batch in sugar before the second batch is ready.
- ZipLoc bags do NOT like powdered sugar. If some gets in the zipper (and it will) it will not stay shut. Hold the top tightly closed as you shake unless you like that snowfall look in your kitchen
- ZipLoc bags also don’t like hot cookie sheets. They have a way of burning large holes in them rather quickly. Make sure you don’t get the bag against the pan or you’ll also get snowfall in the kitchen

Here are some photos of the various stages as a reference for size. Note that when I was making this particular batch I rolled the dough then went to get my camera only to discover the battery was dead. While getting the new battery I remembered something else I had to do. Twenty minutes later I got back to the dough which had been sitting right in the steady warm air flow my oven emits when it is in convection mode. This had dried them out pretty good so the cracked badly when I squished them. They normally don’t do that quite so bad. The four photos are of the cookies rolled up, squished, baked and powdered. In the last one it is hard to tell but there is a cooling rack in the cake pan so the cookies aren’t directly on the bottom. The pan just makes it easier to move them around without leaving a trail. Hope you enjoy these as much as I do!