Happy New Year!

The bloom still hasn't opened on my Christmas amaryllis but you can see it is peeking out a little bit. It's cold here, 31 degrees on our deck this morning. We've cranked up the heat so maybe that flower will be enticed to open for tomorrow, New Years Day.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve has always meant Swedish smorgasbord. Growing up it was prepared by my grandmother who was Swedish. These days the dinner is at our house and although we purchase many of the foods on our smorgasbord, there are some homemade highlights such as the gravlax that our neighbor Jorma prepares that is gorgeous to look at and fantastic to eat.

When we were in Stockholm in July we bought the little bottles of acquavit specifically to serve at Christmas Eve smorgasbord. Each bottle was a different flavor but since we don't read Swedish we never were entirely sure what those flavors were. In truth the acquavit wasn't a big hit with our group but I love how the bottles looked in the big glass bowl filled with ice.

what's inside??

It's Swedish cardamom buns, wrapped up for co-workers...I keep increasing the amount of freshly ground cardamom I use in the Vetebrod (Swedish coffee bread) I make. At our house we love this distinctive spice. The uninitiated wonder what is the flavoring in the bread. Today someone asked, after a sampling, if it was Fiori Di Sicilia which is a heavenly citrus-vanilla extract used in panettone. Oh, that's another bread I hope to make this week!

biscotti baking

Biscotti are my favorite cookies and now I don't make any other kinds. I love how they don't get stale unlike most other cookies. I have tinkered with these Almond Anise Biscotti and for my taste they are just right. This year I cut back on the eggs and refrigerated the dough overnight before baking and solved my problem of dough spreading out too much when baking.

The other photo is Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti from the SoNo Baking Company Cookbook. Two concerns here: the recipe doesn't call for vanilla or other flavoring (I added some vanilla); and it's a little tricky figuring out when they are done when you don't have the visual cue of golden brown tops.

do you know about Wallboard Anchors?

They are the plastic gizmos you see here and are what you need to secure a screw in a wall that's made of sheetrock. I took down the spice rack to paint the wall and when I tried to put the screws back in the same holes the screwdriver just went around and around--there was nothing for the screw to attach to. Enter the wallboard anchors. Screw them in the holes and then the screws into the anchors and all is nice and secure, hurray!

Holiday window shopping

Treat yourself and stop to admire the beautiful shop displays-- that's what I did early this morning (even though it was dark and raining), stopping in front of Primo Regali in San Anselmo, all bright lights and glittering wares. The small shops have the best windows: check out Stripe in Santa Cruz, it looked beautiful today too!