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I may pop out again, but the aurora conditions aren’t looking promising here tonight. There’s enough cloud cover to really capture and reflect all the light pollution from the city.

Yes, I totally did impulse-buy a Dolly Parton frozen cheesecake for dessert tonight in honor of her birthday.

I was already on Team The Gambling Apps Are a Scourge, but finding out that people were betting on (read: against) my Mystery Hunt team feels pretty gross, actually!

Even if I really, really want pound cake, 10 pm is probably too late to start baking one when it’s a school night and all the butter is in the freezer, isn’t it?

“Is this a dagger which I see before me?” No, it’s a superscripted letter “t.” I suppose I do have to admire the scrappy, can-do spirit behind it all. #amediting

I always enjoy the portion of the Sheep to Shawl broadcast when they visit all the sheep in their pens and introduce them to the TV audience.

I’ve been idly watching the PA Farm Show animal competitions while waiting for the Sheep to Shawl rebroadcast and marveling at how fluffy they get all the cattle for the show ring. The grooming on the market (meat) lambs (closely shaved, except for the legs) is also fascinating to me.

At 10:11 pm ET Monday, we will be closer to the first pitch of the 2026 MLB season than we are to the last pitch of the 2025 World Series

I’m Alisa, a disabled former academic and librarian turned knitting / crochet notions maker! I make project bags and stitch markers for crafters and mask chains and earrings! I’m doing a rolling shop update: earrings are not fully up yet! DM to speed up your preferred pair! knitspinquilt.etsy.com

Honestly, this Galette des Rois may have just turned my whole day around. I don’t think I have ever gotten this much puff before (I bake pastry to keep me humble) and the whole house smells like butter and sugar and almonds.

About to find out how thoroughly I managed to crimp this pastry!

My confusion over how long you can wait vs should wait to get vaccinated after a Covid infection means that we missed the window to get Novavax. So that’s really great.

I made the rough puff pastry last night and the frangipane filling this evening. Tomorrow, I just have to assemble and bake and we will have Galette des rois for Three Kings’ Day.

It is so inconsequential and stupid in the grand scheme of things but finding out that the white rye flour I use has been discontinued is making me seriously consider giving up baking.

Made my calls and then decided to start gradually making a galette des rois. So far, I’ve cubed the butter and started chilling the dry ingredients for the rough puff and made the almond paste that will go into the frangipane.

The crowder peas from @billhookunion.beanyear.com were a bit of a revelation—they were earthy, but I didn’t taste the savor of sweaty sock that I find so unpleasant in black-eyed peas. I think I’ll have to try to get my hands on some lady peas, too, for comparison.

Excited to get a jump on my New Year’s resolution to try at least one new recipe per month with Bean Box 6 from @billhookunion.beanyear.com and Recipes From the American South by @koshersoul.bsky.social

This whole thread is beautiful but this is what I am going to bring with me into 2026.

My mother loved the glass wreath ornament I got her from @nora.zone and it looks great on the tree! Cardinals are one of her favorite birds, so I knew she had to have it.

My Bean Box 6 arrived yesterday (ahead of the tracking estimate) so I will be ringing in 2026 with beans!

I should never have doubted the healing power of a baked potato.

My babka will never be the equal of the ones made by the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, but I am definitely improving (and improvising—this has blueberries and apricots instead of raisins). This is from King Arthur; I think I may try the recipe from Dobre Dobre next time.

Posting to remind myself (and maybe anyone else who has had a similarly challenging year and needs to see this) to be gentle with myself and not to run myself into the ground chasing holiday perfection. It’ll be just fine even if we are simply having an adequate Christmastime.

The shower curtain raised-bed cover experiment is enough of a success (I picked scallions in the snow!) that I might shell out for a proper cover and frame/hoops. I should probably move the cranberries somewhere they can get their proper cold hours, though.

I realize that I am long out of academia and that I had the privilege of being trained by deeply ethical and brilliant scientists when I was on that track, but the thought of citing a paper without reading it to confirm what it actually says for myself gives me hives.

I’m not going to fret that I just killed my ancho pepper plant by pruning it down to a sad little single stem to try to overwinter it in the garage because the upcoming week of lows in the teens and 20s surely would have done it if I hadn’t.

So many seed companies are having sales this weekend. Unrelatedly, would 5 different varieties of string beans be too many?

Save 20% (no coupon code needed) from small business Saturday through cyber Monday at knitspinquilt.etsy.com Shop updated tonight, and I’ll be photographing a few things new each day, so check back on Sunday and Monday! #KSQShop

This whole series is a lot of fun (and to borrow from yesterday’s discussion, is on my “movies I would force a studio to make if I were a despot” list, right after I had them expand my college buddy’s short film into a feature-length musical).

My mother is getting out of the hospital today, so I feel safe starting Thanksgiving prep of whatever can be chucked in the freezer for a later date (like pie crust) if it turns out they gave her COVID again like they did in August. I hate that I’m even having to think about these contingencies.

Growing potatoes in bags may not be the most efficient method (5 bags yielded ~14.5 pounds of potatoes and several acorns), but harvesting them sure is a lot of fun.

It’s time for the annual Bull City Foodraiser, to provide a bag of groceries to each of over 5000 schoolchildren to help keep them fed over winter break. There are really generous per-donor matches pledged this year, so a $5 donation made by 11/14 at 11:59 pm PST will turn into over $100 of food!

I’m going to be so sad to pull my butterbeans on Monday. A 6-foot row yielded about a pound of dried beans over the season, and they are still flowering like gangbusters. I just don’t think I can keep them going through a multi-night freeze. 🌱

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have lost my temper and ripped out all the carrots in one of the garden beds, but I was working by flashlight ahead of a freeze and had run out of tarps.

I am so grateful to Past Me for putting those frozen chicken thighs in a secondary container when I put them in the fridge to thaw. That would have been a lengthy and unpleasant cleanup.

I will be sad when tomato season truly ends because I don’t think the Parisian gnocchi will be the same with frozen tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes and a few other plants are still hanging in there, but I think we are going to get a freeze soon.

I get so many compliments when I wear one of my shinies!

@juliethecranky.bsky.social So, he is DONE with them done with them.

So much of the daylight saving time/standard time discourse seems like it depends on how far east you are in your time zone. For me, year-round standard time would mean 4:30 am sunrises in the summer. I am admittedly a night person, but I think that only the larkiest of larks would not hate that.

I took a day off specifically to catch up on rest, yet I am still up watching the game. Why yes, I am totally a responsible adult who is making reasonable choices.

I thought it might be nice to have some more crocuses in front of the house and then somehow there were 95 bulbs in my shopping cart. If I go through with this, I’m going to be reenacting the sowing/reaping meme, aren’t I?

That feeling when you know a migraine is barreling up the coast at you and you’re trying to time the meds just right.

So, the bottom of cabinet above the microwave probably shouldn’t be 140 degrees F, huh? I really hope I can still find an over-the-range model that isn’t smart and doesn’t want to constantly phone home.

The “Dancing in the Dark” sequence from The Band Wagon may be one of the most gorgeous things ever committed to film.

I really need to start listening to my instincts in the kitchen. The gayalet bandora recipe from Serious Eats is mostly delicious, but I really regret not peeling the tomatoes (the recipe doesn’t call for it and the texture with my homegrown tomatoes is very…pointy).

Probably time to log off; I blocked the Katyn denier and moved on like a grownup, but I was dangerously tempted to reply with a picture of the Katyn Memorial in Jersey City instead (know that it is a very upsetting statue if you are thinking of looking it up).

Day 2 of this migraine (we really need the rain, but being able to predict storms with my central nervous system is a lousy superpower). Time to try to apply the healing power of a baked potato to the situation.

I’m making the fresh tomato sauce with onion from Marcella’s Italian Kitchen to try out my first Polish Linguisa tomatoes because the thought of peeling enough San Marzanos for a recipe with a vegetable peeler did not spark joy. I hope I like them because they are way less work than San Marzano.

I recently learned that dried butterbean (Lima bean) pods will ka-sproing themselves open, probably to fling the seeds farther from the plant. This discovery would have been much less alarming had I not been harvesting into my pockets because I didn’t bring a container out to the garden with me.