Lately

• It's cold here in Chicago. There is no real eye socket or eyeball protection available for subzero temperatures; someone needs to get on that market. Here is Oji on Thursday afternoon when it felt like -30 degrees F (-34 degrees C). Can you imagine if the Hudson River crash occurred in the Chicago River on the same day?
  

• Food for winter--I made 'takikomi' rice last week. Kikkoman describes it as a 'rice medley.' I was supposed to make it from scratch, but succumbed to The Box. It has everything you need--you just add and mix it in with your rice and water.

• Food for winter--I made (milk) chocolate chip cookies tonight. My paradigm for cookies is former-best-boss Emily's cookies. It is not possible for my cookies to attain Emily's-cookie-hood, but it's good to have goals.
  
• It turns out I make a lot of weird comments while baking. Mordecai suggested I get a cooking show with special guests, like my mom ("Why do you put ginger and soy sauce in your gravy for turkey?" "I think turkey smells bad so I put ginger in as an odor-reliever"), and Nik and his father for Dutch donut-making, and so on. Maybe one day I will bust out the camcorder and upload a video of how pathetic my arm muscles are, which explains why it takes me an abnormally long time to prepare cookie dough. I could bake this crazy Skittles Barf Cake, as Nik called it, and record the rainbow process!
  
• I've been meaning to have a new header. I've collected all the photos that I want in it; it's just a matter of making it look right. Stay tuned...