Munich Security Conference

It's time for the Munich Security Conference. Two years ago, my first experience with this event was seeing 300 green-and-white police cars rushing down Leopoldstrasse towards the city center, and Marty calling me on the phone from work to tell me to stay out of downtown because Rumsfeld was down there. I sure didn't need to be told twice.

There were no security conference riots the two years we lived in Munich, but there were plenty of protests. And it really wasn't a great idea for Americans to be down there, no matter what political leanings they might have had.

No such action in Middletown this weekend. We went out for second breakfast at O'Rourke's Diner yesterday. Boy, does Brian O'Rourke know how to do breakfast right. I highly recommend this breakfast spot to anyone visiting Middletown or within driving distance.

Marty's "babka french toast stuffed with raspberries and served with clotted cream" was tucked away on a distant corner of the 6-page (breakfast) menu, but it was amazing. I had a mushroom and spinach omelet that was absolutely perfect. We sat at the counter again, since the only available table when we got there was right by the door (brrr), and this time I could see right into the kitchen. It's amazing to see the volume of delicious food that comes out of that tiny little space. It's about twice the size of my kitchen, but I'd defy anyone to try to cook half so much in my kitchen. Wow!

I didn't have my camera with me yesterday, but here's a picture of O'Rourke's I found online. Just imagine it with piles of snow surrounding it. (And see some pictures of the wonderful food, here.)

Spargelzeit (early)

By request...


Spargelzeit towel, finished this morning.

Spargelzeit is actually still a few months off. But a reader requested an update to get the cheese farther down the page. Does this help at all?

;-)

"What a friend we have in cheeses."

Obligatory Blizzard Pictures

Weekend Weather Update (and recipe)

I haven't seen snow like this since we lived in Central Pennsylvania, where we experienced three of the snowiest winters on record. This is Connecticut! It's not supposed to snow like this!

This weekend, the snow started around 2pm on Saturday, and stopped after we got up Sunday morning. It was dry and powdery, which means it blew around a lot, so it was difficult to tell exactly how much we got. Here in the middle of the state, it was probably somewhere between 12 and 18 inches.

We battened down the hatches and stayed indoors. Except for fifteen minutes of excitement when Marty discovered one of our water pipes had frozen, it was uneventful. (And he successfully thawed the pipe without mishap, too.) We watched "Anne of Green Gables" and "Anne of Avonlea," and I did some cross stitch and cooked hot dinners.

A few pictures:


Click to enlarge.

1. The parking lot on Sunday morning, from the front door. My car is second from the left.
2. Looking down on our front steps from the bedroom window. Those two bumps are the bushes on either side of our walkway. You can see how much it drifted by looking at the upper right hand corner, where you can see the sidewalk peeking out from under the snow.
3. Out the back door.
4. Another view in the back.

For dinner last night I made a pizza. Amanda asked me a long time ago for my pizza dough recipe (which I believe comes from The Joy of Cooking), so here it is:

Basic Pizza Dough

1 pkg (2 1/4 tsp) dry active yeast
1 1/3 cup warm water

3 1/2 - 3 3/4 C flour (I use 2 C white and the rest whole wheat)
2 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 Tbs sugar

Combine yeast and water in large bowl and let stand for 5 minutes until yeast is dissolved.

Add other ingredients and mix.

Knead until dough is smooth and elastic -- 10 minutes by hand or 5 minutes with electric mixer using dough hook (I use a mixer).

Place in lightly oiled bowl, turn, and cover with platic wrap. Let rise in warm place until double, about 1 - 1.5 hours. (I leave it in the same bowl and spray both sides with olive oil, then cover and place in oven that has been warmed for 1 minute and turned off. But make sure you take it out of the oven before preheating for the pizza...)

Dust 2 baking sheets with cornmeal. Punch down dough, divide in half, and let it rest for 10 - 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 475 F degrees.

Flatten dough into 2 crusts, cover with favorite toppings, and bake 12 - 15 minutes.

Note: I usually make one pizza with this, and the crust is very thick.

Missing Munich

How could anyone wonder why we miss Germany?

Right now we're missing Fasching, and all those donuts (Krapfen). It's so funny to see the Germans just cut loose and go crazy for a few days just before Lent begins. Remember last year when Marty got his tie cut off on Weiberfastnacht? (Scroll down a little.)

Plus, this year there's the added bonus of the Schäffler dancing, which only happens once every seven years. I wish they'd been dancing last year! I would have been following them all over town with my camera. People would have thought I was a Schäffler groupie! (In English, Schäffler are coopers, or barrel-makers. For all the beer.)

But things are fun and busy here, too. Last weekend our friend Celeste came from Georgia for a short visit, and we had a great time going around to places in Connecticut and New York City. It was great fun to spend some time together. I really missed Celeste while we were in Germany.

And this weekend I'm traveling with my chorus to Massachusetts for our winter regional weekend. Should be lots of fun. Then, in a couple of weeks, some of us will be delivering singing valentines one day, so we're gearing up for that as well.

So that's why Raspberry World hasn't been getting updated much. (However, The Stitchery is going strong!)

Introducing the Stitchery

New on Raspberry World... The Stitchery. This is the weblog for those of you who are looking for MORE talk about cross stitching, rather than LESS.

I'll get a link up on the menu shortly. But first, dinner!

Fog

Marty just called me from downstairs using the "intercom" feature on our phones. After a minute I forgot that we weren't actually talking on the phone to each other! It's a lot better than yelling down the stairs!

We've got strange, beautiful weather here tonight. It warmed up into the 50s today, and all that snow is melting as fast as it can. The water is hanging in the air as misty fog, rolling across the road from both sides. Coming up Route 9 there were places where you could barely see in front of the car. Then when I got off Route 9, it was even worse. Still, it's beautiful. You just have to be careful.

I'd stay in tonight, but Celeste is coming! So I think I'd better get to the airport and pick her up.

Today's a day to celebrate, for many reasons. Not only is Celeste coming to visit, but Jul of the Day is back online. AND, it's Laura W. Petix's birthday! Wow! What an awesome day!

Wooden Nickel Pub closes

News from Home

It's the end of an era.

Man, this is hard to believe. The Wooden Nickel Pub was the site of dates, bitch sessions, and even a few first kisses. It was my little sister's favorite hangout from junior high on, and she still has many friends there. I can't believe it's closing after all these years. This weekend is the end. I'm glad we went to lunch there when we were home in November.

The article says the Wooden Nickel has been open for "over 25 years," and I believe it. In fact, I think it was already there in 1978 when I went to see the original Star Wars at the cinema next door with my uncle and aunt. The cinema's turned into a bank now, and my uncle passed away a few years ago, but I guess I thought the Wooden Nickel Pub would always be there.

Farewell, Camel Rider...

Cross Stitch Entry

Strings and sealing wax, and other fancy stuff...

When you're tired of stitching the same old thing all the time, why not try one of these Subversive Cross Stitch kits? Ha ha!

Yes, it's a stitching entry. I wonder whether I need to create a stitching section for Raspberry World, or even a stitching weblog. Probably. I've started three projects already since the new year, and I plan to start more this week. I'm going to be swimming in UFOs. But some of them are small, and I intend to get them knocked out quickly.

This holiday season was full of stitchery for me. Not just in the actual stitching I did, and the gifts I'd made, but in the gifts I received as well. For my birthday, Marty got me PCStitch, a cross stitch design software package. I've made a few patterns already. I especially love the text features. It's so easy to use! Just like Photoshop -- you just select "text" and then type, and it renders your Truetype font as a cross stitch chart!

Marty's mom got me a really pretty project bag that I can carry in the car or wherever. It is way classier than the many plastic bags I carry all my projects around in (and it's a lot smaller and more convenient than my big project bag that holds ALL my projects).

Also during the holidays I visited Sudberry House in Old Lyme and Thistle Needleworks in Glastonbury. Sudberry House sells wonderful boxes and trays to show off your needlework in, as well as patterns and kits and other things. The Thistle is an incredible needlework shop with the most gorgeous patterns. I bought a few when I was there after Christmas, but their midwinter madness sale starts this week and I intend to go back. They're moving to a new (larger) location next month, but still in Glastonbury, so that will be exciting as well. At the Thistle they also have many needlework classes, and I want to take at least one this year. Probably the Hardanger class.

Finally, check out these free patterns I ran across today. I think the only one I would even consider trying is the Matisse papercut one... some of the others require about 100 floss colors each!

Holidailies 35

Last of the Holidailies

Well, I made it to the end of Holidailies without ending up on the slack list (permanently). Whew! Although you can't tell from the Holidailies page, I posted 35 times since the project began on December 7. I didn't enter all of them in the portal, since some were just short one-liners. That's way better than last year when I only posted 14!

It's been quite a month, full of wonderful news and terrible news, Christmas, birthday, and fun and work and visits and all kinds of different things. The tsunami, which I haven't talked about here, has been taking up a lot of my thoughts lately as I think about the scope of it, and what we can do to help. Other things, closer to home, are also on my mind a lot right now. Work is picking back up now for the new year, and it looks like my new projects will be interesting and fun. And I am another year older (36), and my weblog just entered its eighth calendar year.

Now there are plans to make and things to look forward to. My dear friend Celeste is coming next weekend for a short visit, and I can't wait. The following weekend, my chorus is hosting our Winter Regional Weekend up in Massachusetts. Then we'll be preparing for competition, and at home Marty and I will (I hope) be planning trips and vacations, and things will just keep on coming. Like they do.

Holidailies 34

Lunch Break

Lack of french fries leads to heated confrontation.

Only in Central PA, man.

This ranks right up there with the story from a few years ago about the guy who stole a truck full of thousands of pounds of cheese and drove it off, also in Central PA.

Holidailies 33

Today it's snowing, and later it's supposed to start raining ice. Yay for winter!

I think I'll work at home.

But first, a couple of pictures of cross-stitch projects I did last year. These were made for Christmas presents and now that they've gone to their intended recipients, I'm happy to share the pictures.


Click to enlarge.

First, a cute snowman project designed by Debbie Mumm. These three little snowmen were great fun to stitch. The only hard part was that the french knots drove me bonkers, and made the snowmen's grins appear somewhat snaggletoothed. I loved the little matching mat and glass frame. I made this for my friend Maria, to go with all the other snowmen I've sent over the years. Well, she does live in Detroit.

And then two Holly Hobbie coasters I made for my sister Dixie. Dixie and Holly Hobbie go waaay back (in fact, I sometimes refer to Dixie as the real Holly Hobbie) and so when I saw these little patterns on eBay I knew I had to have them. They came from a Christmas ornament kit from 1980 or so, a kit that had already been used. But the pattern was what I was after, and I certainly did enjoy working it. I cheated by changing all the (many, many) french knots to regular crosses. Otherwise it would have looked awful!

I teased Dixie that she's probably the only person in the WORLD who received cross-stitched Holly Hobbie coasters for Christmas in 2004. Ha!

There were also some cat trivets, which I forgot to take pictures of before I wrapped up, but I plan to make another one sometime, so maybe I'll remember to share a picture when I get it done.

Holidailies 32

I am DETERMINED to update often enough to stay off the Holidailies slack list!

Today was my first day back at work. It was good to be back, although I sure enjoyed my week of holidays. It's funny how all the things I like to do in my spare time are more than enough to take up all my time. But of course, without working it's much harder to afford the things I like to do. A vicious circle, you might say.

Now dinner is on the stove (pesto tortellini, for those following along at home, supplemented by leftover pork tenderloin from Saturday) and I am about to change into my "gemütliche Hose" for the evening. Or, as my friend Carol in Munich called them, "Gemüse Hose." I think tonight we'll start watching the Lord of the Rings extended editions that Marty gave me for Christmas. I've been looking forward to this for a long, long time.

And I can start working on a new cross stitch project, maybe. I've got some ideas that will be fun to do for spring.

Holidailies 31

My birthday was a lot of fun! This morning, I drove down to Sudberry House in Old Lyme to check out their boxes and needlework patterns. I should have gotten up earlier so I could have spent more time there! But I'll go back again sometime, I'm sure.

Then I went to visit Laura and see her Christmas tree. I missed it while I was in Germany, and she has so many more ornaments now! The new ones from this year are extra-special. And even though I'm very familiar with a lot of Laura's ornaments (from her December posts), it's different to see them in person. I didn't realize how tiny the cat was, for instance. And next year she can start a new "garden pest" section!

After the tree visitation we headed to Middletown (stopping at the Rocky SBUX on the way). Once there, I got a library card for the Russell Library. Happy birthday to me! Then we had a late lunch/early dinner at It's Only Natural and did a little shopping in the Main Street Market. Finally, we came to my house so Laura could see MY tree, and had birthday cake with Marty (who had just come in from work). We were laughing that Marty and Laura last saw each other six years ago today, at my 30th birthday party, which is where we first tried Laura's Macaroni and Cheese Deluxe. It's still as yummy as ever!

So it was a super birthday. Thank you to my readers and friends for the nice e-mail messages and comments, too!

And if you're wondering, that's Michel Foucault mugging among my birthday cards. Thank you, Mary! Who says grad school didn't warp our senses of humor? "The judges of normality are present everywhere!"

Holidailies 30

Feet this fancy...



...should be illegal!

Here I am wearing some of my favorite Christmas and birthday presents: fabulous pink slippers from Marty's grandmother and outrageous pink fuzzy socks from my friend Laura G! My feet are warm and toasty. And very, very pink!

The birthday festivities started a little early this year. We've been eating my cake for two days already, since Anna and I shared one (her birthday was yesterday) and we celebrated together on January 1. Today my company is closed, so I have the day off, and I have an afternoon of fun planned with Laura W. Petix. Then Marty and I will go out for a special dinner this weekend, so it seems like my birthday is turning into a week-long celebration this year!


Birthday cake from Julia's in Orange!

Yesterday we went to Boston and did a little sightseeing, then got our guests to the airport in time for their trip home. I'll try to post a few pictures from Boston later today.

Happy new year, everyone! Hope 2005 is a great one for all of my Raspberry World readers! And... thank you for reading!