I'm in an Acknowledgments! (and Not Just in a List of Names!)

When dropping off an invoice that she signed off on,

my department head mentioned that I was called out in Short Seller.

At first I wasn't really sure what she meant--

was this a book review site and she meant one of my books was called out?

And then I realized she meant that it was a book I was a copy editor for last July or so.

I remember this book pretty well now

because I had to ask Jon a lot of questions about stocks and math.

He helped me put together those Excel charts--or "impressive mathematical charts!"

I also had to ask Dani questions about mono since the main character has mono,

and the doctor in the book seemed to be convinced that she was cured after she had a blood test.

I have no idea how my queries are resolved,

but I hope to find a copy and reread it.

It was good and interesting!

The two star review is by some mean person who has no interest in the topic.

I hope more people read it and enjoy it.

Maybe the image I'm posting is bad, so:

"A big thanks to everyone at Simon & Schuster who worked on this book, especially Christina Solazzo, whose copyedtiing went above and beyond (and involved a number of impressive mathematical charts!)."

So freakin' cool!

That's me!

S&S Christmas Party 2012! This Is How We Do It

It's that smilebooth time of year!

I think they set the backdrop too close.

See last year's photos to compare.

Our coworker Katrina was cut off on the right!

Can fit up to eight people, my butt.

This year's party was not as fun as last year's

for a variety of reasons,

but after the party I went to hang out with Dani, Monica, and Lucia--

the cutest little girl toddler ever.

Seeing Lucia sit on the stoop (like a little old Italian lady)

with a board book I worked on

was the best thing I've seen in a long time!

What a Pile of Paper-Holding Devices Looks Like in a Year of Children's Book Publishing

During our cleanup day,

I threw out all of my 2012 backup:

spring

summer

fall.

The books have been published.

The total is:

half a medium-size bag from Financier of large binder clips

two fistfuls of rubber bands

a large cup of paperclips (I try to whittle these down when I archive my papers)

two large cups of small binder clips

more than half a medium bag from Bouchon.

It was pretty satisfying to recycle most of it back to Design.

Unfortunately, they thought I was bringing them pastries since I had those bags.

I wish I had pastries too.

Colony. Onward.

There are quite a few places I've always passed by

and never went into in midtown like

the peep shows and XXX video stores,

the men's hat shop where the New York Times building now sits,

and Colony.

Mostly I didn't go to those places because

I didn't think I'd feel comfortable,

so I maybe stared as I passed by

and that's all.

Oftentimes in the last few years,

I passed by Colony.

They sold music scores and bought CD collections. 

(I think it was something like it had to be at least 300 CD or more

that you had to sell to them

or something like that.

Now that's a collection.)

I love the idea of records,

but we have so many books to transport already

whenever we move.

(I've lived eight places in the last eleven years:

4 dorm rooms,

4 apartments.)

We nearly always end up with more boxes of books than any

of our other belongings.

Collecting another set of things

that can easily be transported,

saved, used, and organized,

like records,

seems ridiculous.

Maira Kalman's piece from the New Yorker a few weeks ago

below drives home the point:

"So where are we? . . . No more paper?"

Like Fats on her wall,

we have Murakami, Wallace, Rowling, Pynchon, and Batali and others,

plus tons of children's books, lining our shelves 

to build walls in our small apartment.

A house room of paper.

"No time to mourn the past.

Onward . . ."

Traveling with Baby Chase, His Terrible Parents, and Other Things About Flying That Suck

I'm feeling like a major poop today.

Our flight back (LAX to EWR) yesterday/this morning was suboptimal.

There was a toddler

who would just

NOT

SHUT

UP.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECHing

into my ear

EHH, EHHHH, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHH!

for four of the five and a half hours of the flight.

I've never hated a baby before,

but, Baby Chase,

you are on my shit list.

Your useless parents, too.

Your parents should've tried the following:

1) drugged you--there's a lovely thing called Benadryl that makes kids tired 

and miraculously a side effect is that it makes the people around you on a cramped airplane

not want to throw you and your parents off the plane 

or give you something to really be upset about.

::punches fist in palm::

(MAKE NOTE: Sleeping babies are adorable; red, crying ones suck.)

2) apologized profusely to the neighboring passengers, for having terrible luck of having given birth to the Devil's spawn, and bought them DirectTV and headphones and/or alcohol for the flight.

(I saw something like this on TV. I thought it was brilliant.)

3) entertained you more--you were obviously bored, so was I. 

But what did your dumb dad do with his tablet? 

He watched a movie until the battery died instead of playing a dumb game with you.

Which is why your dumb parents should've had some BOOKS.

(I have many recommendations.)

Option three is a bit risky, but if you're averse to drugging your kids,

it's a good option--but only if you're up for the task.

If your entertainment requires sound though, bring headphones for your baby.

I don't want to be listening to some drowsy man sing Twinkle Little Star

every time your kid hits an image of a star or something.

(As a side note: If you're a good person, you don't give kids toys with noise.

You leave it up to their parents to decide 

what obnoxious sound they can tolerate for hours on end.)

I myself am too cheap to do option two though I feel that would be totally baller,

which is why I'd go with option one IF I desperately had to bring a child on a plane.

Which leads to the obvious question of: Why do people bring babies on planes?

My parents always drove to their destination with my siblings and me when

we were too small to reliably behave like humans.

I don't see why more people can't do that.

Anyway . . .

the plane was booked to capacity due to a noon flight

being rescheduled to an hour after our flight took off.

I don't understand why more people didn't just want to wait the extra hour

because what happened was that our flight was an hour late taking off anyway.

The airlines really need to figure out a balance between

not charging for carry-ons and getting everyone's shit on board on time.

Because the Tetris game of fitting everyone's shit into a nearby overhead bin is what delayed us.

(Jon and I checked our bags--squishy backpack-type luggage

that fit BEAUTIFULLY in overhead luggage bins

--because I have free bag-check privileges.)

Also airlines need to figure out how to NOT punish people

who checked their bags and don't have any overhead storage as a result.

(Jon and me.)

Because waiting to leave the back of a plane when you've got all your shit ready to go

for twenty minutes (at least)

with Baby Chase or similar useless people,

who cannot take down their hundred pound carry-on from the overhead bin,

is soul-sucking.

Fact is that sitting at the back of the plane can save your life

(the middle will crack in half and you can fall to your death

and the front of the plane will go up in flames).

But what about the soul-sucking?

What about the

soul-sucking?

Baby Chase,

soul-sucker extraordinaire.

Hammer Time with Thor

Movie time!

:) -- Ooh! -- I wouldn't be too embarrassed about recommending this.

:/ -- Err. -- Maybe if you've got nothing else to watch at all.

:( -- What?! -- As in What is this garbage?!

Thor

:/

I was told that it was funny (true) and that Natalie Portman didn't play a pivotal role (LIAR!). At least there are enough jokes about tasering Thor that made the movie funny.

Overall: Thor loses his hammer and has to get it back, and for some reason Natalie Portman's character shows up and helps him. Here's a South Park clip that demonstrates exactly what's wrong with Natalie Portman and her character in this movie. Additionally, Natalie Portman has an annoying voice, and since it's an action/adventure movie she's shouting a lot. Plus she plays some brainiac, dedicated scientist-type person. (Eye roll and UGH. Can they just make her dumb and boring for once so she doesn't have to over act to demonstrate how smart and dedicated she is in each and every one of her movie roles?) Thor is funny, but the movie is only mildly entertaining. I'd give it a sad face if it wasn't for my love of the multiverse misunderstanding hijinks that ensue. I saw the movie while reading Bossypants, so I guess that says something about both Thor and Bossypants.

Surprise: Well, it didn't suck as much as I thought it would. Also, Luther's in it.

Young Adult

Movie time!

:) -- Ooh! -- I wouldn't be too embarrassed about recommending this.

:/ -- Err. -- Maybe if you've got nothing else to watch at all.

:( -- What?! -- As in What is this garbage?!

Young Adult

:/

I love young adult books. Reading about those experiences helps me replace some of my own more traumatizing experiences, and it keeps me knowledgeable about what middle schoolers and high schoolers are doing (or at least reading) nowadays. Here's a quick list of what I think that is:

• drugs
• dealing with bullies, crushes, stalkers, abusive family members, teachers, parents, and stepfamilies, etc.
• detention
• boarding school
• sex
• growing apart from childhood friends
• suicides
• school dances and other events
• killings
• brawls
• growing up
• discovering who they really are (royalty, aliens, superhumans, werewolves, witches, etc.)

Overall: One of the movie posters (see above) is really cool--like a parody of the old The Baby-Sitters Club covers. From the trailer this movie seemed to promise a narrative about a thirty-something woman who was popular in high school, and she's trying to reclaim that feeling. I thought the setting was going to be a high school reunion or something like that, but Mavis (Charlize Theron), a miserable young-adult book ghostwriter, heads home from "the city" (which is Minneapolis--not really a city, is it?) to save her ex-boyfriend from his happy marriage and brand-new baby. (Ho, ho, irony.) Mavis was a mean girl in high school and is still a mean girl. I'm not sure how believable it is, since she just seems a little more psycho than misunderstood. It's sometimes funny and mostly awkward, but a bit disappointing considering that it wasn't as clever as Juno (the writer is the same). It carried much more of the tone of depressing movie reality as Up in the Air (the director is the same). Like, WHAM-oooooohhhh! Oh. (That's the tone of the movie.) !!!REALITY!!! (That's the denouement.)

Surprise: You don't think they will--and you kind of hope they don't--but they do. All. The. Way.

Scarlet Ibis, Renoir, Family Love, TGIF!

Bronx Zoo Scarlet Ibis
Hammy Couple
(I told them not to pose, but they did.)

I'm thinking about heading to the Frick for Renoir Night. Don't you love when museums are free?!

This weekend we're headed to NJ for the Mitsuwa Premium Sweets from Different Prefectures of Japan Fair.

I'm also getting a facial.

And we're going to celebrate Jon's brother's birthday.

Speaking of brothers, my brother got the notice that he's been accepted to run in this year's NYC Marathon! Yay, Dom! (Though that there's a whole application process for this is beyond me.)

"I can't smile without you. . . ." My mom and dad are taking me to see Barry Manilow on Wednesday!

Fun fact: Barry and I share a birthday and my mom, who loves both of us.

Since I mentioned everyone but my sister, I think I should. The wonderful book that she's in is being published in a couple of weeks: My First Gymnastics Class! Go buy a copy now!

TGIF!

Kanoyama Omakase

Persimmon in sesame seed/chestnut butter--sweet and juicy

After seeing Nathan Myhrvold speak at Astor Center, we threw the White Truffle Festival at Buon Italia under the bus to go to Kanoyama mainly because it was closer. It was a good idea. 

Natto paste with uni;
the natto had aspic in it to help hold the shape.
I've never willingly had natto before because it looked gross.
Also, I'm not a huge fan of uni unless it's Santa Barbara uni.
But the dish was good!
Maybe it's not natto paste?

We were sat immediately at a table, but when Jon asked the waiter about the omakase, the waiter immediately recommended it and that we do it that evening since the chef wasn't busy. Like, the bar that the omakase was supposed to occur at was empty. (We thought it was the drink bar area for guests waiting for tables since that was where some of those people were being stored.) We felt a little bad about how the waiter basically screwed himself out of a tip, but hopefully the tips are pooled, so maybe he got a share for referring us. 

Last year I would've given this dish to Jon.
I really don't like uni.
But I took a bite, and it was good!
It was sweet!
There was almost too much of it for me though.
But I ate it all up.
I also found two small uni spines in my teeth.
Be careful eating these.
The uni was from Maine, surprisingly.

I have no idea how much it cost, but it was a really good omakase. As you'll see in a few moments, there was a lot of sashimi. I feel like most omakase have more sushi pieces than sashimi. Then I feel that I have to roll off the bar stool at the end of the meal because of being so full of rice.

The wasabi came in a cute vessel shaped like a shell.
It was also good fresh wasabi, though is there a bad fresh wasabi?

The chef was nice enough. He was relatively young, and he was attentive, but not like those older sushi chefs that for one reason or another try to engage you in conversation. He answered our few questions, and he probably would be your buddy if that's the kind of experience you look for in an omakase. He spoke with friends who had come in, and at the end he had a small glass of sake with the waiter who was helping him with our meal.

Baby blue fin tuna. The veal of the sea.
So delicious!
Itadakimasu, baby blue fin tuna!
(I'm working on a children's book about baby zoo animals.
Maybe I'll put together one about eating baby animals.
That can be the repetitive line.)

We got in at around 9 p.m. and left around 11:30 p.m. It was perfect timing for eating late, and it really didn't seem that long at all. And I didn't feel gross afterward. Score!

Mackerel. I think.
This definitely got more flavorful as I chewed.
I remember thinking that, normally, I'd never eat something that still had
what looked like its skin on it.
Then I was like, well, good thing I don't suck anymore.

The sashimi was so good. So, so, so good. The more you chewed, the sweeter the fish got in your mouth. What magic is that?! The appetizers were so good too. For whatever reason the teapot soup dish with mushrooms (dobin mushi) didn't take. It was the best. I wish I could eat that everyday for lunch.

Grilled tuna. It might be more baby tuna.
He grilled it on one of those smokeless charcoal grills.
It tasted so good.
We had just been told at Nathan's lecture that what gives grilled food
its flavor is the fat that gets released and thrown back on it.
(I butchered what he said. Buy the book. Read the chapter.)
Mmm . . .

The chef basically hand fed us the sushi pieces he made, so we didn't take any photos of those. There was one uni piece from Hokkaido that tasted like the reason I'm not a huge fan of uni. Huge difference from the Maine uni appetizer above or any Santa Barbara uni. Like the juices were making me gag. Oh, uni.

Needlefish! These guys look funny. See link to website below.
Their chins are what make the needle part!
What an underbite!

The restaurant's website is pretty informative about the fish we ate. What's also kind of interesting was that the fish wasn't kept in a kind of refrigerated case. They were in Japanese-style fish boxes behind the bar. The bar where the sushi in the refrigerated cases was was more for prep and making rolls for those at the tables.

Clam piece. I think. It was actually one of the first pieces,
and it got fancier from there. But since it's kind of
difficult to reorder stuff on blogger, it's here.
"Eat with Japanese salt and wasabi.
Don't dip your wasabi into the soy sauce," he told us.
(That's the clientele they usually get it seems.)

The restaurant's bathroom on the main level is tiny--like airplane tiny, but it was clean, which is all it really needs to be.

::ray of light; angel's saying, "Ooh!" sound effects::

This dessert was one of the best in my life. It had apples that were like whipped up. Like apple-flavored whipped cream. With some cinnamon on top. Ingenious and satisfying. The acidity of the apples removed all the oily fish taste in my mouth. It was so refreshing. After this dish, they also gave us a small scoop of ice cream. We both got green tea. It was good, but another bowl of the apple dessert would've been better!

Overall it was a great experience, and I'd recommend going. And I look forward to going back during another season to see what yummy fish are on the menu then. It's different from Yasuda and Yohei and the other great sushi places, but it's definitely not lesser.

Day 55

We picked up six boxes of stuff today. Our concierge guy (the one that I don't particularly like) said that we had a lot of boxes. (He is SO the type that would say that and make you feel bad about not picking them up sooner. Jon thinks I'm giving him shit and that he was nice today. Maybe.)

In our boxes were:

1 blanket (it may even be a FREE! blanket because someone didn't register that I already received the blanket I had paid for)

1 huge thing of huge paper towels
5 pine hand soaps
1 spicy pear hand soap

1 Gore-Tex waterproof sneakers

1 1Q84 (properly shipped so the jacket isn't all crunched up like our original preordered copy that I had to pick up from our old apartment in Edgewater, NJ)

1 Lego alien attack set (for Jon's cousin's birthday party this Saturday)

1 set of 3 boxes of super-duper earpugs
1 set of 2 big bottles of shampoo

Duck. Quack!

Day 48

I had some enrichment time at work today, so I read one of the classic reference for copy editors: Words Into Type (WIT).

I started with abbreviations.

e.g. = for example 

i.e. = that is

I've not used the above abbreviations since I've had to take notes to study as dictated by a professor of some sort. I remembered "e.g." was used for examples because "examples" sounds like "eggsamples" and there you have the "e.g." If that was "e.g." then other one is "i.e." and was used for something specific/definite.

when using "such as" do not also use "etc." or "and so forth"

I feel like most rambling characters use "etc." and "and so forth," so it's interesting that they're not allowed to use "such as" as well. (e.g. I love meat, such as salami, prosciutto, etc. and so forth. i.e. all cured meats especially.)

US

"US" when this book was written was designated to include periods, but even then, they admitted that the trend has been moving toward no periods. Per Chicago Manual of Style 16 (CMS 16), there aren't any periods. What's interesting is that they use the "Soviet Union" and the "U.S.S.R." as examples too. I really think they should come out with a new edition. It's been more than thirty years!

p.m.

(small caps) A.D.

I forget if this concurs with WIT, but it's the house style I'm supposed to use.

cf. = compare

et al. = and others

i.q. = the same as

Q.E.D. = which was to be demonstrated

sup. = above

These are abbreviations that I think I've seen in Infinite Jest. 

q.l. = as much as you please

q.pl. = as much as seems good

q.v. = as much as you will

WIT said that these are abbreviations that might be seen on a prescription. I think their ambivalence is kind of fun.

Fun fact: WIT recommends not using a period for any abbreviations of measurement except for inches since it can be confused as the preposition "in." Though I guess I just demonstrated that it could still be confused for the preposition "in," and now this sentence ends over there (see period at end) to avoid that.

I thought I'd get to commas, but numbers was up next. Numbers. They make me so sleepy. Zzz . . .

I Worked On This!

THE FOLLOWING BOOK RECEIVED A STARRED REVIEW IN THE NOVEMBER 1ST, 2011 ISSUE OF KIRKUS REVIEWS. PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR THE REVIEW:

Aesop’s Fables

By Kees Moerbeek and illustrated by Chris Beatrice and Bruce Whatley

(Little Simon; ISBN: 9781416971467; October 2011; Fall catalog p. 226)

Huge, extravagantly designed and detailed pop-up illustrations for 10 classic cautionary tales showcase a trio of uncommon talents. Beatrice and Whatley collaborate seamlessly on the visuals, producing in traditional outdoor or rural settings a cast of realistic but broadly expressive animal figures. Many of these, particularly the wonderfully snarky-looking goose laying gold-foil eggs and the frantic, massive lion that lunges up at viewers through an entangling net as his spread opens, will elicit involuntary “Whoa”s of startled admiration. The fables, one per opening except for a miraculously un-crowded quintet gathered on the central spread, are paired to large central tableaux and smaller but only slightly less complex pop-ups in corner booklets. All are pithy versions of the usual Aesopian suspects written in a fluid, contemporary style (“You do indeed have a beautiful voice,” the fox assures the cheeseless crow, “but you don’t seem to have a brain!”) with some morals embedded and others laid out explicitly. Veteran paper engineer that he is, Moerbeek concocts ingeniously multilayered, interwoven constructions that are vulnerable to grabby little hands but, with careful supervision, sturdy enough to survive multiple shared readings. Timeless wisdom, splendidly decked out.

Day 26

Finished keyboarding a really great book called In Honor. It's about a girl whose brother, who was a marine, was killed, and she goes on a road trip with his best friend to grieve. I also keyboarded the author's first book awhile back. Her stories and characters and settings are just so good.

Stupid taco. Stupid. It's like dealing with a pigeon or seagull sometimes here.

We listened to about half an hour of covers of "Sunny" today. It was pretty awesome. Sunny!

Day 23

Around 6 pm, 9/14/11

About an hour later

My phone has been too fickle to send photos directly from it anymore. And I had a lot of proofreading to do, so I couldn't fight the phone without furthering my nerves towards a breakdown. (I've asked Jon to help me rig up a real camera on a tripod, so I can hopefully take better photos of the same location daily and make a flip-book out of the photos or something cool.)

It was windy and raining when I left work, and I was a bit underdressed for the weather since my sunburn precluded me from wearing pants. And due to the massive amount of ads I've seen for the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) and the fact that I had to try to stay up to work on the proofreading, I got a venti PSL. And I drank most of the five hundred some odd calories of it. Let's just say that the sunset was much more interesting than the nearly three hundred pages I proofread. PSL!

Oceans

I came across this credit when I was googling myself because I wanted to see what kind of electronic imprint me and my name were leaving. (That other Christina Solazzo has got to get married and change her name soon so I can be the only one again! Note: There are 10,300,000 results for "Christina Chin" if I were to adopt my married name. There are only 118,000 results for "Christina Solazzo.")

It's pretty neat that I was credited for this book as an editorial assistant. I was paid to keyboard it as a freelancer, but I found that I had to make a lot of editorial decisions because the editor didn't have time to really review them before I got into DC to start keyboarding. (Note: This was right after working for 8 some hours at The Teaching Company already. And driving into DC during rush hour. And driving back to Reston around midnight. And doing it again for a few days over a few weeks.)

I remember keyboarding this book on a Saturday too--when NG didn't have their air conditioner on and it was 100 degrees in DC and someone kept turning off the lights in the area I worked in. (They called the area "shantytown" because it was so makeshift.)

It was a really cool book to work on.

Scarry

Yesterday morning I saw the cartoon on in the lobby of an apartment building. I wondered what episode it was, and if I worked on the book adaptation of it yet.

What's cool about Busytown is that everyone drives. Even the characters that call themselves kids. It also has art that's very busy.

The first Busytown book I worked on was The Missing Apple Mystery. It's a really cute book, but I learned that it can be kind of a nightmare picking up stills from the television show. Some things are just wrong or not detailed enough or too lo-res to be blown up on the page. This book in particular has lo-res art that was blown up. But it was approved by EVERYONE before it went to press. Still we got some complaints. I think it was fixed for reprints, but I'm not really involved in reprints.

Anyway, it's kind of a mystery about how these books are approved by the licensor. (I just know that I'm always asked for more time that I allow because, well, there's a schedule to follow people.) It's unclear whether the licensor has to give the Scarry estate approval. For Mr. Fix-it's Lucky Day, someone asked Huck Scarry (Richard Scarry's son) for approval. I've been told that Huck Scarry has font-like penmanship. (We assume it's his European upbringing--since most American's handwriting is atrocious.) He is also quite meticulous with his text and art notes. The thing is, I think someone needs to tell him that while we appreciate his notes, the story and art are based on the television's script and animation stills. In short, it's not the book and the people who are pulling it together that suck.

For Mr. Fix-it's Lucky Day, we learned how to spell Mr. Fix-it's name correctly--oops for the first few books; maybe they got fixed in reprints. We also had an illustrator for the interior who was able to add a lot of detail that Huck wanted, which was nice, but not something we can do for all the Scarry books.

In any case, what's also interesting is that before digital art, illustrators used to have to send in their art to be scanned or set up by the printer to be made into plates. (I'm still kind of foggy about this process since even with digital art, production and my boss talk about switching out plates for reprints. So I guess it's not a giant ink printer? It's still plates?) Apparently Richard Scarry's books used to come in smelling like a million cigarettes or cigars. I believe that since even just a few years ago I received some sketches and a manuscript from a cookbook writer in Paris that smell liked rancid cigarettes or cigars. (European/Asian cigarettes smell so strong sometimes it's hard to tell what they're smoking.)

And so great handwriting and stink cigarettes plus great stories about a cat in lederhosen is what I want to emphasize here. Vive la Busytown!

April Fool's! But Really Not

So I just came back from watching Buffy with my coworkers cause that's what we do on Fridays during lunch. (We're still on season one, which isn't my favorite, but that's besides the point.)

I'm about to sit down when the designer for the Cupcake Diaries comes in, and is like, Christina, did you see this? I'm like, oh, ha-ha, April Fools--you can't trick me! But then she's like, um, actually, I really wish this was a joke.

The page after the cover was chapter two and a few pages of that chapter. What should have been there was the half title and other front matter! The signature was completely off!!

I quickly grabbed my sample copies and checked. They were correct. Also, the release copy (the copy the team all looks at and signs off) was correct.

I was laughing nervously because that's what I do, and then she started to accuse me of pulling this prank on her. That would have been an amazing joke! Alas, neither of us was playing a joke on the other.

So we went to the production editor, and I prefaced it and the designer corroborated that it wasn't a joke. And we explained what happened. We hope that this book was just the bad apple of the bunch and that we don't have to go through all the copies in the warehouse now. Oh boy!

Anyway, here's a joke I heard today before we watch Buffy:

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
To.
To who?
It should be "to whom."

Yuk, yuk, yuk.

What Do You Get for Someone Turning 30?

A lot of my friends are turning thirty this year. It's terrifying, I think.

I need ideas for gifts. In particular the birthday girl this weekend is a middle school English teacher, has the greatest laugh ever, loves Pride and Prejudice and Colin Firth and all that kind of good stuff. She also likes board games, yummy food, and books besides Pride and Prejudice too.

Have you seen anything cute on the Internet that you wish someone would gift you? I am at a loss. I went through a few of my feeds and have not stumbled across anything awesome.

The best presents I received from her was for my high school graduation. She gave me an assortment of caffeine (sodas and teas and coffee) and a letter full of advice. For college she gave me a copy of Yay, You!

They were perfect gifts. I need a good one. I think a good gift is the only way to not feel so depressed about getting so old.

What We Did This Weekend

Image from here.

Cookies for Christmas

Dorie Greenspan's chocolate chip cookies are one of my family's favorites so I made them in addition to the mini-cake and cupcakes for Christmas.



I remember the first time I made the cookies I thought they came out perfect--they looked like the Bon Appetit magazine article that included her recipe anyway. The subsequent times though came out kind of superthin and crispy. Jon liked them and my family preferred them, so I stopped trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.



Jon liked how small the first batch came out small. Like silver dollar-size. He said that cookies aren't really meant to be more than a couple bites. Some of these are one bite. Some are two.



I then accidentally overcooked a batch. I initially was taking them out at 9 minutes, but I set the timer to 9 hours instead, and it was 8 hours 45 minutes before I took out a browner (though not burnt batch). Jon said they looked better and tasted more complex. Jon likes burnt things though. But they did taste better.



So in addition to making the tiniest cookies possible, I had to bake them a tiny bit longer. And since I was doing the whole process by myself in our tiny kitchen, it took awhile. I had three trays with Silpats rotating--one in the oven, one cooling, one being prepped. I was a tired machine. (I must say though, the paddle that scraps the sides of the bowl is an amazing invention. Thanks to Charleen for that awesome shower gift!)

Start time was 11:43 p.m. and about 100 cookies later I was done at 1:55 a.m. Christmas day.

Cookies were crispy and delicious!