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Have you seen these shoes for sale in the Bay Area? Please let me know if you have. I am looking for them in a size nine or ten. They used to sell them at the Park ‘N Save in Redwood City, but they’re out of stock and are entirely unhelpful in letting me know if they’re ever getting any more. Gr! They’re cheap as all get out- probably found in an “around a dollar” type store. I have a pair in red for my Kuro costume. Yes, I need another pair. In yellow. Yes, I’m the lamest being alive.

In other, less lame news, I had a wonderful dinner tonight with my parents. Dad made lamb chops, and Mom made these adorable wee potatoes and brussel sprouts. I had forgotten just how excellent brussel sprouts are. I am looking forward to when they come back into season.

Oh yes, and my non-functioning and dangerous wall heater was replaced on Thursday. Now I won’t have to choose between freezing this winter and being exploded by a natural gas leak! I can be warm and safe. Huzzah. Now I just need to get my super back in here to paint the wall. It looks ugly.

Japan #3, the amazing 40-minute bread from Yakitate!! Zack blogged about it recently, posting the recipe, which was incredibly helpful to me, because a) Kuroyanagi speeds through the directions in the anime, and b) leaves out the yeast ingredient.

I made two wee loaves. The first one sucked because I didn’t really know how my new microwave works with power settings. I thought I had been entering Power Level 1 5 or whatever, but I had been blasting the poor dough on full power. So yeah, I sure did kill the yeast on the first loaf (instant yeast, by the way). The second one was more successful. I’m still going to have to futz with the microwave settings a bit (Power Level 1 instead of 2 for the fermenting bits, I think). I used active dry yeast in the second loaf. I also had to stretch the milk with a little bit of water (I only borrowed half a cup from my parents). The baking time should be extended, I think, by five to ten minutes.

This recipe makes tiny little loaves of bread. They’re like rolls, really. Dense rolls. I think more fermentation time is needed, to tell the truth. I will mess with the recipe and if I make any progress, I’ll let you know.

Blueberry Crumble
Adapted from Good Eats

1/2 cup AP flour
1/3 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar, separated
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 cup crushed animal crackers
2 Tbsp butter, chilled and chopped
12 oz. frozen blueberries
2 Tbsp cornstarch

Heat oven to 350.

Place the flour, 1/3 cup of sugar, nuts, oats, and crackers into a large mixing bowl and combine. Work the butter into the dry ingredients with your hands until it is crumbly.

In another bowl, mix the frozen berries, 2 tablespoons of sugar, cornstarch and a 1/2 cup of the crisp topping. Place the berry mixture into a baking dish and top with the rest of the crisp topping. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes. Let rest for 15 minutes, and serve with vanilla ice cream.

I disagree with Cook’s Illustrated.

Shocking, isn’t it? I just finished reading the latest issue (I want to try their butternut squash risotto), and I have to say, I was pretty disappointed with their findings in the canned whole tomatoes taste-test. Why? My beloved Muir Glen Fire-Roasted Tomatoes ended up at the bottom of the list, in second to last place. Oh, the Jonsauce is SO GOOD with them! You strain the tomatoes and boil the reserved liquid down into tomato sauce. It’s tangy and wonderful. Of course, my Jonsauce is kind of to the point where it’s better as a stew than a spaghetti sauce, which I guess defeats the purpose.

Also, I guess they don’t sell S&W products on the East Coast. They’re my favorite plain canned diced tomatoes. And the best garbanzo beans, bar none. Trader Joe’s canned whole tomatoes with basil are pretty good and quite inexpensive, and I love the Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies for salsa and tortilla soup.

I made a berry crumble on Friday, inspired by the latest Good Eats episode. My recipe is similar but differs slightly from the official Food Network version- I’ll post it soon.

I’ve been perusing Mediterranean Street Food a lot. I want to make r’ghäyef and baraziq.

We Love Katamari, the sequel to Katamari Damacy, comes out on the sixth of September (according to the guy I talked to at EB Games, although everywhere I look, the date seems to be different). I’m very excited.

I rolled up a new character at D&D last night. I’m not sure I want to continue playing with Jessa. She’s useful for the healing- my god, is she useful- but playing her isn’t all that fun. She’s pretty much useless apart from the healing and the two firebursts she can cast a day. The new character is a litorian hawk totem warrior. Litorians are lion-people. They get a +2 to dexterity but a -2 to wisdom. Hawk totem warriors are archers.

I’ll see if this new character is worth keeping around.

It’s 5:20am and I’m at work. I was supposed to come in at seven and work for four hours, but I woke up at 4:34am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I figured, “Well, I could just take two hours off today.” I’m meeting my friend Ysabel in San Francisco at noon. Yay! I haven’t seen her in ages. It’s either been since Christmas or last summer. Ridiculous.

I had a lovely dinner with my parents last night. I sliced my thumb open on the foil seal of a container of olive oil. That was less lovely.

I should actually get to work, since I’m here.

(Okay, it’s weird watching the sun rise at work.)

The picture at the top of Salon today- the morphing John Edwards into Albert Einstein- is terrible. I mean, there’s worse examples of “what not to do with Photoshop,” but this one’s pretty bad.

Annoying weekend. I made soup that was too spicy and bread that was too salty. Curses!

Oh, sad. If I remember correctly, this was the bread that Dad used to bring back from California when we lived in North Carolina. A company had been courting him, and whenever he returned from a trip, he brought back Parisian sourdough bread. We called (and call it, actually) DSB – Delicious Sourdough Bread. However, I don’t think I’ve bought a loaf since we moved out here twelve years ago. I remember it being good… it’s just that as I got older, sourdough wasn’t really my thing. I guess it’s my fault they’re closing.

Oh, Tivo. It’s so cute when you think you can offer me suggestions.

It’s been about a year since the last time my Tivo recorded something as a suggestion that I hadn’t previously given a thumbs-up to. I had a problem with it suggesting wacky things, like quilting programs and fishing. I took a few hours one day and went through everything in the program guide, thumbs upping and downing every program I saw. Apparently, enough time has passed since then so my Tivo thinks it can start suggesting things again that I haven’t okayed. I guess it got confused since I just promoted a bunch of shows from suggestion status to Season Passville.

Still: “No, Tivo! I do not want to watch a show about plastic surgery gone wrong! Bad Tivo! Bad!”

I’m going to have to train it again. Gr.