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  Jens Lekman at the Paradise
• Battlestar Galactica Season 4 (argh it starts the night of Jens Lekman! TG for TiVO!)
• Colin Meloy at the Somerville Theater
• Planning a little wine tasting party
• SPRING at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery
• Spring in general!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Ice cream season
• Cleaning up the back porch, potting flowers and getting ready for summer.
• Sitting on that same back porch and writing (although half the trees are gone and there is a massive house just feet away from ours now...maybe I'll have to scope out a park)
• Lavinia, by Ursula K. Leguin
• Going to the Langham Chocolate Bar for my birthday in June. I've been wanting to go since I moved here 11 years ago and this year is not going to pass without me going!
• Receiving this in the mail sometime this week!
• And this.

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Joe took care of me this Valentine's day, with roses, a gorgeous handmade card, a big box of Burdick's chocolates and dinner--filet mignon with a port cherry sauce, cheesy potato napoleon and two kinds of potstickers; BACON/pea and pork! I made a port stout chocolate mousse for dessert. YUM!

There's a picture of the potstickers in my most recent Project365 batch:

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I was lame this weekend and didn't post any Christmas cheer. But I did manage to make lots of goodies over the weekend. I made my famous Mayonnaise Sugar Cookies which sound gross but omg they are wonderful! It was my grandfather's recipe, I believe.

Mayonnaise Sugar Cookies

1 cup mayonnaise (no substitutes...lowfat makes them taste and act like rubber)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda

Mix together mayo, sugar, almond extract and vanilla. Add flour, soda and salt. Roll into balls and roll in sugar (you can use colored sugar if making around the holidays). Flatten slightly with fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until crispy (they shouldn't be brown, just barely golden-barely).

Don't double these...makes the consistency sort of weird.

Also made chocolate rum balls, and two kinds of chocolate truffles--Five Spice is what I began with (anise, cinnamon, clove, fennel, pepper). While I was going to make orange chocolate truffles, Joe convinced me to experiment. I'm glad I did!  He had picked me up a bottle of Chartreuse, which I have taken a bit of a liking to. He suggested that I make Chartreuse truffles, which at first had me skeptical--it's a super herbal, anise, hyssop sort of thing. But wow! They turned out great! I'll probably still make the chocolate orange ones. I wish I were one of my lucky friends to get these little treats!

This week is pure madness. Dinner with friends tonight. Tomorrow I have to run errands--even canceled my acupuncture because I was worried about all the stuff to get done.  Then our company holiday party (not the corporate party but the one with the 9 of us from our division) on Wed. Then I become more beautiful on Thursday. Friday is prep for Saturday and our 7th annual holiday bash! Yay!

So to catch up on our musical countdown to Christmas, I give you some more tunes.

Billy Idol with some great, classic, Christmas cheese:

Yellin' At the Xmas Tree

Enya, with a beautiful version of Silent Night, in Irish:

Enya- Silent Night

The Pretenders - 2000 Miles

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Kitkat

So I was reading Slashfood and how Nestle/Hershey's is releasing a dark mint chocolate KitKat bar for Christmas. And then, I saw that there are over 150 varieties of KitKat bars sold all over the world! OH MY!

I've always loved KitKat...probably my favorite candy bar along with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Butterfingers. Who knew that they had all these other crazy varieties in other countries? Then again, I had no clue that they had other kinds in the US. According to the Hershey site, they have the regular milk chocolate, and the white chocolate, both of which I'm familiar with. But they also have limited edition coffee, orange cream, milkshake and extra crispy. Who knew? I would love to try that orange cream!

The Wikipedia link lists all the crazy varieties from all over the world. The Japanese, of course, have the craziest kinds. Why do they get all the cool freaky food? I mean, really! Azuki Bean, Green Tea, Pineapple, Yubari Melon, and Apple and to name a few!

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