Behold the famous Canadian Baker chocolate cake! I originally found this recipe via Slashfood, which I figured would be a good resource for a killer birthday cake recipe. Several hours and five sticks of butter later, we had some cake. So I can definitely vouch for this cake. Unlike the no-knead bread, this is a justifiably famous Internet recipe. That's in my opinion, by the way. I know many people have had wonderful success with the no-knead bread, I'm just not one of them.

Behold the famous Canadian Baker chocolate cake! I originally found this recipe via http://www.slashfood.com/, which I figured would be a good resource for a killer birthday cake recipe. Several hours and five sticks of butter later, we had some cake. So I can definitely vouch for this cake. Unlike the no-knead bread, this is a justifiably famous Internet recipe. That's in my opinion, by the way. I know many people have had wonderful success with the no-knead bread, I'm just not one of them.

OK, OK, I know y'all are tired of seeing that human fat story at the top of Pensive Frog, so here's something new. A week or so ago Megan at Not Martha posted a link to my origami star pattern finds, but of course I never posted pics of what I made. So here are some origami star things! No more gross stories for at least a week, I promise!

And the winner for this year's most nastiest cooking goes to.... Marco Evaristti, for serving up meatballs fried in his own fat! Now, I've wondered aloud about the possibility of making cheese and yogurt from human milk (for babies!) but human fat is OFF LIMITS! Gahhhh...

Before the holidays, I posted about gift tags I made using vintage clip art. I used these tags to label bags of toffee, biscotti, and rum balls, and I think they turned out really swell. Now, I see from my site statistics that some people are landing here after Googling "retro clip art" and I realize they must be disappointed (OK, pissed) to read all about my cool retro clip art gift tags and have no picture or links. So here are some of the sources I used for my tags: Retrographix Retro Ad Art Retro images from Hassle Free Clip Art I didn't use this page - Metal Type - but it could be very interesting. I only used the free clip art resources, such as the free samples available on a mostly pay site. I just copied the images into a big table in MS Word, and added the text descriptions of each food item. Then I printed it all out on photo paper, and voila!

I was a very good girl this year, so Santa sent me a yogurt maker. Yes, that follows. So I made my first batch overnight! It only took 12 hours, plus 30 minutes of precision milk scalding. When finished, it smelled really tangy, a lot like the Mountain High yogurt I used as my starter. It was pretty solid, a little less than I'd like but I did use 1% milk, so I wasn't expecting much. Then it occurred to me how very wrong this is. These little cups of milk were fluid last night, and this morning they're solid. And they smell sour. And I'm eating it. Voluntarily. There may be some things in the world that we just aren't meant to make at home. Things like penicillin and saline solution. But this is some pretty darn good yogurt. I gobbled the whole cup down (only about 6 oz) and I immediately felt more sophisticated. Or nauseous. One of the two. w00t for homemade yogurt!

I just read this on Slashfood and I couldn't believe it - marmalade is on the way out! (Or, as they so aptly put it, "Marmalade looks like Toast") Well, I may not be over 45 like 81% of marmalade consumers, but I love the stuff. When I was an undergraduate, the dining commons served up a pretty okay breakfast. Eleven kinds of cereal in plastic drums, bread and bagels from a local bakery, and a decent array of fruit. However, they usually only served two flavors of jam each morning, displayed in huge plastic salad bowls. Even at the time, the jam strategy seemed nonsensical. Are a few hundred freshmen really going to gobble up two gallons of jam on a given morning? As I remember it, the jam bowls were always full to the brim - especially the one with marmalade. In a world with strawberry, grape, raspberry, and myriad other jams, one of the jam tureens in the DC was always full of much-maligned marmalade! Bitter, bitter sweet marmalade! All the kids from the dorm would complain, asking "who likes marmalade?!?" And I would just smile serenely and add another orange dollop to my toast. Of course, now I'm somewhat disturbed because I was probably one of about four freshmen eating the marmalade (and the only one without asthma), so it was probably the same damn bowl every morning. I mean, they're not going to scrape a full gallon (minus three tablespoons) of marmalade into the trash bin every night, just to open a new gallon can of marmalade in the morning. But as far as I can tell I haven't suffered any ill effects. Other than the occasional bout of marmalade-related hysteria.

Maybe it's because I've been living on the September to June academic calendar for so long, but the New Year doesn't cause much of a stir in my life except for the usual tradition of writing "2006" on checks until March. My resolution every year is to be more generous - perhaps the fact that this is my resolution every year indicates my success rate. But you've got to start somewhere, right? But yesterday, while driving home I saw this on the marquee of a church: "All ye infidels shall burn!" Oh wait, wrong church. Here's the one: "It's not a new year if you live the same old life." Well that's true. Especially if you ascribe to the idea that you are what you do. I certainly hope that people are inspired to become better people, better listeners, better knitters, better welders, better students, or whatever it is they do. Me, I signed up for an 8-week yoga class. And I was feeling apprehensive about it when driving home last night. My stream of consciousness went sort of like this: "Oh God, why did I sign up for yoga? I haven't been in a gym since 1993 and I don't know how to act! Where do I leave my shoes? What should I wear? What if my yoga pants keep sliding down? The bus stop is so far away from the gym! How will I get home? What if I have the wrong kind of yoga mat? What if I do the wind releaser when everyone else is doing downward facing dog? Acccccckkk!" But I'm over it. Buh-bye, same old life. Hello yoga and consequent serenity. Granted, yoga is the only new thing (so far!) but I'll work on that generosity thing. Perhaps there's a nice hobo who has more need for a raspberry red yoga mat than I do.

So what was your reaction when you saw the Antifreeze pattern in the most recent Knitty? Did you smile? Did you frown? If you were wearing a balaclava at the time, no one would be able to tell. Anywho, I pounced on that pattern like ugly on an ape, and set about knitting one for my brother in time for his birthday. It's supposed to fit snugly, but it's not supposed to constrict bloodflow to the brain, either. Well, there it is. And it's machine-washable, in case of any unforeseen nasal extrusions.

UPDATE: Inquiring minds want to know: The yarn is Lion Brand Wool Ease, and yes, I think it fit OK. No word yet on whether or not it keeps icy blasts at bay while bicycling across the I-90 bridge. Frankly, I think the appropriate garment for that is a car.

Just got back from my Christmas tour of the great American southwest. Whenever I tell someone I'm going to Arizona for the holidays, they always say, "oooh, you're so lucky to be going someplace warm!" Exhibit A: snow-covered succulents in northern AZ. OK, it's pretty warm in Phoenix, maybe topping out around 72 degrees in the afternoon. The evenings are chilly but dry, perfect weather for paper bag luminarias. This would never work in Seattle. Indio, CA is pretty sunny in December, but it's famous all year for its fantastic date harvest. We couldn't resist stopping here to pick up a few pounds of medjools. Oh yeah, and a date shake. The trip over the San Bernardino mountains to San Diego offered some pretty views of Palm Desert. And finally, a stop at Hugo's Tacos in Studio City makes a tasty lunch. I don't think I've ever had freshly-fried crisp taco shells at a restaurant before. I make them every so often at home, and they're delectable.