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I knew this guy in college—during my first stint, in the mid-70’s in New Paltz, NY. We had a bunch of friends in common, had one class together (Communes & Alternate Technologies—worst class I ever attended), and used to hang out at P&G’s for their Friday happy hour. At some point he decided to bail [...]

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A controversy raged over oysters and shrimp and beer at the ’shmong on Friday, and continued at yesterday’s beer tasting:
Was the He-Man Woman-Haters Club from The Little Rascals or The Three Stooges?
Answer: The He-Man Woman-Haters Club originated in the 1937 episode of The Little Rascals, “Hearts are Thumps”
However: The Three Stooges made a short [...]

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Barry and I are NOT an interfaith marriage. We’re both atheists. That said, I grew up a church-going, sacrament-receiving, parochial-school education Catholic. He’s Jewish and hasn’t been to temple since his bar mitzvah.
Barry’s tolerant of the tree and the stockings and my manic cookie-baking marathons. I’m always willing to enjoy a plate of latkes.
But I [...]

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…despite coming out with a damn cold. Like I needed an excuse to lie around and be a banana slug all day doing the Jon Carroll xmas quiz.
HINT: banana slug is one of the answers.
Last night’s cioppino was quite lovely. Not having had any christmas eve culinary traditions growing up, I decided to adopt the [...]

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My worries don’t tend to be unusual or dramatic. Will my business make enough money this year? Will my physical turn up anything awful? Is my cell phone fully charged? Will the cookies burn?
I’m generally not one to catastrophize about things. I figure that the most dangerous thing I’ve done in my life is driving [...]

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The springerle are complete. Screw the double chocolate cherry cookies until new year.
A few notes for next year:
Either spritz or cookie-cutter cookies are sufficient, not both, unless we have lots of fidgets to give them too. Grown-ups don’t need that many sprinkles, and the christmas-y looking cookies tend to be the least tasty.
Don’t do the [...]

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OK. I’m really going to do the springerle tonight. Even after having pomegranate martinis with the neighbors.
And perhaps tomorrow I will comment on the day’s events chronicled in Mr. D’s blog. I tried to comment on his post 3 times and gave up–I’m too emotional about the whole thing. Right now I still find it [...]

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Cooking was interrupted by a call from my sister, whose holiday cooking plans including cooking a christmas eve turducken. She apparently also has the family recipe for rum bourbon balls, which somehow had gotten lost down in the southern end of the family. A cousin of mine in Florida called the other night to see [...]

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Done with the spice cookies; on to the spitzbuebe.
Noticed that Barry bought a big wheel of brie at Costco yesterday; I may have to try out the brie baker I bought on our honeymoon (which I bought mostly because it was a really nice piece of pottery, not because I have a particular hankering for [...]

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Next day, Christmas Eve Eve. Never did roll out the springerle last night. I must have been plenty tired, since otherwise I don’t think VH1 Classic’s documentary on “stadium rock” would have been such a draw.
Rock last night, but there’ll be plenty of roll today, starting with rolling out the spice cookie dough.

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