fail
Bitter Disappointment
It was an odd weekend around here – a lot to do and two slightly-unwell-feeling people doing it. Lloyd had a bit of a stomach bug and I was convinced I had pink eye, minus the actual pink. Anyway, we ran our errands on Saturday and after a giant nap I had the urge to try a cookie recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It’s for chocolate wafers, which sounded deliciously crunchy, and requires one of my favorite skills – thinly slicing things.
So, I dug out the food processor (this makes the fourth time it’s ever been used) and went through the steps. I like to halve recipes since it’s just two of us around and we wind up throwing food away if I make the whole batch. (The recipe is here if you’d like to see it.) I had even purchased ultra-fancy cocoa powder for this project! Samith, if you’re wondering why I was distracted on the phone when we talked, it was because I was measuring ingredients into the processor. (In literature, they call this ‘foreshadowing’.)
I was so proud of me – I rolled it, waited the whole hour for it to chill in the fridge, sliced it ever-so-thin, turned the pan around halfway through baking and everything! When they came out, I was impressed that they were already kind of crumbly-textured like Oreos! I broke off a little piece, blew on it so it would be cool enough to eat and popped in in my mouth.
In my head: “Mmm…. still warm. Crumbly. Too crumbly? Not very sweet. Is that the fancy chocolate? Not sweet. Not sweet at all. What’s wrong? Good night – what is this grossness??” Spit.
Sugar. I forgot the sugar. I blame Samith.
So, I wound up throwing it away anyway and starting over. Drat. The real thing was totally worth the sacrifice of 7 tablespoons of butter and 3/8 cup of cocoa.
A small fail
I didn’t want to post about this yet because I’d like to wait until I have the problem solved, but I’m out of ideas for tonight, so here goes:
I bought a pretty cool drying rack to use outside when the weather’s nice. I’d like to keep line-drying my laundry during the summer but it gets pretty damp down in our basement, so we don’t need any extra moisture. Plus, anything dried outside smells so dang awesome. You might remember that I tried a homemade contraption last fall with disastrous results. I saw this thing on the internet and had to wait a whole month before the guy was ready to sell them on his website. Finally I ordered it and it arrived on Monday. Hooray! Made of wood, built like a tank, holds at least 12 items, and sets up like a dream. I was so excited that I quickly washed a load of whites so I could hang something up before Parent-Teacher Conferences.
Yay! Clothes hanging outside! I used hair clips because it was kind of windy and the dowels are too wide for clothespins. (I don’t really want the marks from any kind of clothespin, so that’s going to have to be a prototype project.) Anyway, I made Lloyd come out and look. “Great. Wet clothes,” he said. He has no appreciation for coolness. I made him admire the ingenious design that let the gentle breeze spin the top around, like a laundry pinwheel of sorts.
Um, while I was at conferences, the wind picked up a bit.
Apparently it needs a little modifying for withstanding Nebraska wind. It’s construction should be exceedingly simple…..