ratti pillo loves you always.

I've discovered my new weakness: almond macaroons. Now, these are true macaroons, not the coconutty, round ones which are more common. These macaroons have a sugar, egg white, almond paste base, and are extremely chewy. And addictive.

Today was a nice, easy Friday, especially needed after a busy week of work. My boss said that this past week would be the week of all the disgruntled shoppers; those who don't want to be shopping, who think their time is running out. Not to say that this week won't be devoid of that; but people tend to get more pleasant as xmas nears. Also, Hannukah has begun, so a good chunk of present buyers will have been done with and will hopefully be enjoying that holiday with their families. But there is 8 days, right? A big Happy Hannukah to all those who celebrate!

Enough with work/retail banter. As I was saying, today was nice and easy. I woke up way too late and had to do some errends...ventured into the Nassau Park shoping center to see if Michael's had a heat gun. I was planning to emboss these moleskin paper wrapper notebooks for my friend Katie, but the stamps wouln't emboss with just my hair dryer. Alas, I could not find a heat gun for my life, so I went to Ulta to buy her a smashbox lipgloss instead. Aaaand a cup of hazelnut coffee at Wegman's. I was kind of bummed that I didn't get to make a lot of gifts for people this year; with my sewing machine on the fritz and not getting one before xmas, plus the lack of real time to handmade goodies. There's always next year. I have, however made a good share of edible goodies; peppermint bark, marshmellows, and these macaroons. Tomorrow is a big cooking day, as me and the gang are having our xmas party @ Mike's in Hoboken. A wine tasting and secret santa exchange- !!!!!

After the errands (which included a stop to the post office to send out xmas packages to nisha and tricia), Katie met me at my house. We planned to bake, go get sushi, make creme brulee, and of course gab. We exchanged our presents- I had gotten her the smashbox lipgloss in this pretty peachy color, which luckily flatters her well (I tested every shade there, on my skin , which is much darker then my dear pale Katie, so it was a bit tricky), a tashen calendar of pictures of shell and coral taken from the Alberto Sebus' Natural Cabinet of Curiousity (which I picked up myself, hehe), some Mirebelle aztec hot chocolate from W-S, and handmade marshmellows (which, I must say, beat those expensive ones at W-S...thx martha) and some homemade peppermint bark. She loved it. I was glad, even though I had to wrap her present right as she was at my door.

As for my first xmas present of the season, she got me this cool lamp from Ikea. It's slightly frosted white glass, in the shape of an orb- an orb of light. I'm going to put it on one of my higher bookcases that'll create a nice glow when all the other lights are off. I was thinking I needed more lamps anyway, because I don't have a normal light in the middle of the room.

Katie brought the almond paste, and we made said macaroons. The recipe only yield a dozen, and now only 2 remain...oops!
Afterwards we went to get sushi at Kanoko, by my house, and then decided on a whim to go to kmart to check out the Martha Stewart stuff she had for the holidays. Ahhh, so many pretty things! I love Martha soooooo much. I'm thinking about subscribing to her magazine...but anyway, Katie and I both have this 'nesting' instinct or whatever; she is truly my domestic equal, as most of our conversation always end up about cooking, baking, home design, etc, and we have no problem (nor think it's weird) to buy home goods that we'll probably keep in storage until we move out. If we ever moved in together, we would have, with no question the cutest place, haha. But we'd probably get fat, cos we'd make those goddamned macaroons every night after eating halibut pot pie....ahhh. She bought these M.Stewart giant mixing bowls in the sea green and sky blue (I have the green one), a new set of measuring cups, a set of snowflake tumblers among other things. I picked up a plastic snowflake charger and bowl (for the crab quesadillas and guacamole for tommorrow), a set of goody bags with a pretty blue snoflake print for my marshmellow party favors, and goody boxes with this red print that can be used year round (but are probably going to hold some more peppermint bark/cookies/truffles that I'm giving to my family as gifts). We were going to end out the night by making creme brulees, but silly me! I didn't know that my new kitchen torch didn't come with butane, so we planned on doing that next time we saw each other.

Tomorrow I am making the crab quesadillas w/ guac (from Nirmala's Kitchen cookbook), cheese straws (from Barefoot Contessa in Paris), and chocolate oatmeal walnut cookies (from the cookbook Tartine). the cookies are for the work pot-luck on sunday and the other two are my dishes that I have to bring for our party tomorrow. Yay! Pictures to come. I've gotten into the habit of taking pictures of food I make or especially pretty food I buy. I don't really know why, but they look pretty (and yummy). I'm also trying to keep notes on stuff I make, in case I make a variation, or find that a certain ingrediate works better, as well as what I think/others think of it. AHH. I should go to bed.