Today, I miss the ocean. The tidepools. The salty air and the way it spotted my glasses and made it hard to see. My chest hurts the way it will when I am low on potassium or blood sugar or whatever happens to my body. I ache with the weight of all the things that happened in that spot, the place I went to often when I was tired or hopeful or lonely or looking for something fun to do with tom. Even the wonderful memories weigh me down, because I can not be there now, can not drive there tonight or this weekend or ever.

Today, I miss the ocean with the full weight of my being, the way I used to miss tom. Although I know it is other things that I am anxious about, other things which weigh heavy on my mind, other reasons why I am so tired I am close to tears, today the ocean weighs heavy on my heart and maybe if I can convince myself that this is the real problem, then everything will be alright.

no news - just bored

I am writing today because I am bored. I’ve already prepped for LSAT tonight, I have a general idea of what I’ll discuss with my new LSAT tutoring student, and of course all my “work” is done, and has been for literally hours. Maybe I should go over my notes for class again?

Honestly, more than anything I would like a nap. I am so friggin tired, and I didn’t even have to get up early this morning, although I did startle myself awake around 5:30, worried that I had missed all the alarms.

Tomorrow night is the only night I have off this week, and a lot needs to happen then. I’ll need to go in and make cookies, and also some doggie biscuits. At some point I need to buy a sturdy water bowl.

Having the first day of the farmers market behind us is a huge relief – we learned a lot of things to do differently, but still reached our goal of selling nearly everything. Still, armed with this new knowledge, it seems that now there is so much to do. I had hoped to buy a red canopy, but it’s going to take us weeks – maybe even months –before we can make enough at the market to properly afford one. Hopefully we will be able to borrow someone’s in the meantime.

I also desperately need to whip up a website to link to the deli’s. Like should have done it three weeks ago desperately. Where is the time?

Maybe I’ll go through notes again. I’m about to fall asleep at the keyboard.

mj

largely noncomittal

Alas (and this is for Heather,) on this particular afternoon I am feeling not musey but rather worn out. Yesterday saw a spectacular display of strife that has come to exemplify my day-job life. Had my LSAT class not had a test last night, (meaning that I didn’t have to be there), I’m not sure what I would have done. Cried, probably.

This week has been odd, in that it has both been excruciatingly long, and terrifyingly fast. I am glad for it to be over, and excited for the Farmer’s Market tomorrow morning, but I still feel extremely unprepared. The sporadic rain torrents this afternoon didn’t help ease my anxiety, and I actually called Tom over my lunch break to see if he could/would research canopies for me. The main problem here is justifying this immense expenditure before my business realizes any true profit. Perhaps we will make a fortune tomorrow morning, and use that to buy one.

Sometime between tonight and tomorrow at 7:00, I still need to make and package the following:

Strawberry Marshmallows
Some kind of Scone (Tom’s rooting for the classic cranberry orange, I am noncommittal)
Some kind of Muffin (most likely some variation of an oatmeal/wheat recipe I found while aimlessly reading food blogs at work this week. I wish I could find it again to link here, they looked wonderful)
Cookies (I’d like to make Baked Strawberry Meringues, another find this week, but I wonder if I’ll have the patience at five o’clock tomorrow morning)

I also need to figure out packaging. Because I don’t have my special event license yet (read: I haven’t even downloaded the form) I need to package everything at the deli ahead of time. The trick here is doing it in such a way that still showcases the lovely colors and shapes of whatever I do end up taking. And it cuts down on the don’t-those-smell-too-good-to-pass-up factor, which is the best marketing out there.

I have, however, spent the last several weeks working on amassing display devices, from baskets to a fabulous hurricane candle holder-thingy for a mere fifty cents. And some wonderful vintage card tablecloths, which are just faded enough for me to not be upset if something awful happens to them.

In a final update before I post this, I just got off the phone with one of the coffee shops that I visited last week and it looks like they may be interested in having me custom make some goodies for them. Not a call I should have picked up at work. Man, I’ve got to trust my instincts to let it roll to voice mail.

Marshmallow Success!

As many of you know, I have been trying for what seems like months now to make home-made marshmallows. Recipe after recipe, I was met with naught but disaster. Until now. Thanks to my ample food-blog-searching time at work, I have discovered www.slashfood.com, and with it, this lovely recipe.

Starting 19 May, folks in Greeley will be able to enjoy these lovely bits of heaven at the Farmers Market each Saturday morning. Or, if you’re feeling adventurous, you can try them yourself.

Here it is with my comments and what I changed:

Homemade Marshmallows – Success!

What you need:

| 3 envelopes of unflavored Knox gelatin | in some of my earlier adventures, I thought to myself, flavored marshmallows sound tastey, let’s use flavored jell-o. This would be a big mistake. You have to start with the flavorless kind. I finally found some at SuperTarget for about a buck for four envelopes

| 1/2 cup cold water |

| 2 cups granulated sugar |

| 2/3 cups light corn syrup | I have also tried making it with honey, and so far I haven’t gotten the adjustments quite right to make it work. I do wish I could, because corn is just so evil….

| 1/4 cup water |

| 1/4 teaspoon salt |

| 1 tablespoon vanilla extract or your flavoring |

Line a square pan (my 8x8 worked well) with plastic wrap and lightly oil it. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Soak for about 10 minutes. There should be some sort of reaction where it looks like wrinkly skin. Seriously.

Meanwhile, combine sugar, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in a medium saucepan. Stir it a little so the sugar mostly dissolves. Then let it sit until it reaches a rapid boil. Boil it hard for 1 minute. This general direction actually worked much better than the other recipes I tried that required you to measure for temperature, hard ball or soft ball stage – really, I saw all three! I’m sure I left mine on for a little bit longer than 1 minute since I was trying to melt butter to grease the pan with at the time, but not to much longer or it will be bad!

Pour the boiling syrup into the soaked gelatin and turn on the mixer. The recipe calls for using the whisk attachment, but since I am forever in love with my crazy almost burnt out sunbeam from way before I was born, I used the only beaters I have (well, I guess I have dough hooks, so that’s not really fair), and they worked just marvelously. Work it up to high speed. Add the salt and beat for 12 minutes.

This is what will happen:

Step one: mostly liquid, hangs around the sides

Step two: pulls from sides and fills the middle

Step three: goes back out to sides, leaving you staring at the sad metal at the bottom of the middle of your bowl. Don’t stop mixing until it reaches step three.

Then add the vanilla extract, and keep mixing so it’s well incorporated. I think it might actually incorporate better if you add it somewhere during step two , I am going to try that next time.

Things to add instead of vanilla – strawberry extract from savory, orange flour water, peppermint or hazelnut extract, chocolate extract (also from savory), etc. I also have seen a version with ground red hots, but I think it would be best to add those at the corn syrup/sugar stage.

Cut an extra square of plastic wrap and set aside. Use some melted butter or something to grease your spatula before you try to dig the marshmallows out of the bowl. Scrape everything into the prepped pan and spread evenly. Take your extra square of plastic wrap and press lightly on the top of the marshmallows to create a seal.

Set it on the counter (anyplace but the fridge) for a few hours or overnight. It should cool completely and be able to be completely lifted out of the pan by pulling up the plastic wrap with no oozing or loss of shape.

When you’re ready, fill a bowl or dinner plate with equal parts corn starch and powdered sugar. I’ve also seen versions that coat with powdered sugar and rice flour, and even though I have some, I’m pretty sure most people don’t. If you’ve made a flavored version, crush up some hard candy with that flavor and add to the sugar/starch mix.

Remove the marshmallows from the pan, keeping them in the plastic wrap. There are several ways to get to the next step. If you’re using a dinner plate, remove the top layer of plastic wrap, invert on the coating mixture, and then remove the rest. At the deli, I combined my coating in a small bowl, and peeled the marshmallows from the plastic wrap, keeping the bottom section to rest them on while I worked.

Then cut them into beautiful squares with kitchen scissors. You can use a buttered knife, but it’s much harder. I’ve also seen people cutting them into beautiful shapes with cookie cutters, but it seems like so much more trouble than it’s worth.

Roll the cut marshmallows around in your coating concoction. Store in something airtight, or consume immediately.

I got just under forty marshmallows from this.

This sounds like a long and arduous process, but it is so much fun! If it sounds like too much work for you, come buy some from me at the farmers market!

even still, there is great hope

Feeling musey again, but not much to say. I have to admit I’m feeling a little overwhelmed at this point. There are so many things to do, so many decisions to make, so much that requires money. Sometimes I think if I could just drop out and live somewhere in South America forever I just might. I can’t believe that the streets in heaven are paved with gold. I just don’t think we’ll care at that point.

I had forgotten how much time teaching and tutoring sucked out of my daily life. No time for TOT or brunchyness or Dr Who? … not even church last night because I was so drained and really just sick. Missing my community so much really reminds me how much I rely on them.

Well, this is finals week for Tom – he had two today, and will have one more on Thursday and another due Friday. The Farmers Market starts 19 May. My tutoring student’s ACT will be 9 June. My LSAT class’ test day is 11 June. I leave for Lima the very next day. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like everything is happening just in time. Only that seems to give it a good connotation, and that’s not what I really feel at all. I feel rushed. I know, I asked for all of this myself.

In my driving time, I am currently contemplating what it means to have not been given a spirit of fear. I am recalling my lessons of peace. I am listing off baked goods that might sell well at the farmers market. I am praying for restoration for us all.

It's friday, I'm in love ... with sleep... and scones... and LSAT... and ....,

I am in a muse-y sort of mood, with hours left at work and precious little left to do. This has been a busy week, from getting started on Beetle Productions stuff again to Ode’s funeral, to taking Matt! to the airport and being late for work today. I missed baking and I’m a little upset about it. I’ve been so tired this week, just dragging, and I need to figure out how to fix that. I think a big problem is going to be baking on mornings after LSAT classes, which have started up again. I made some horrible mistakes last night, but hopefully no one noticed. I’m going to stick with, no one noticed so I can bring myself to go back tomorrow. Then we have the beginnings of ACT tutoring tomorrow afternoon… I still need to call my student’s dad back to let him know I don’t know what I was thinking, but there’s no way I can get from Boulder to Fort Collins in half an hour. I must have been out of my mind when I figured out the times. Que mas? Mostly I’m just tired.

I got my wholesale go-ahead from the state health department this week at some point, so I really need to get started on hitting up various places around town. Maybe I’ll work on that now…

Peace,

mel