New stuff

Hi all. I had a lot of fun yesterday evening making journals out of the boxes that some chocolate came in. The boxes were the perfect size, and I have this thing about chocolate packaging that prevents me from ever throwing the wrappers away. I have an actual box in Potsdam of (you guessed it) chocolate-bar packaging. And several here, as well. I'm a freak! But anyway, it's fun to combine interests (bookmaking and chocolate, in this case), especially when recycling is involved as well! I've made two so far- you can find more details about them at my etsy shop.

Quick story about how I almost killed myself- I was grocery shopping yesterday, and really wanted to get hummus. Because I'm a little more paranoid about food preservatives, additives, and corn-derived products in general than usual, I couldn't allow myelf to buy prepared hummus. So, in addition to a few other things, I bought chickpeas and tahini (which I love anyway). Once at home, I filled a pot with water from the Britta pitcher (the tap water here makes me sick), added all of the beans I bought (a couple cups), and set it on to boil. When the water had reached a boil, I removed the lid to stir it some, and ugh! It reeked! I couldn't quite put my finger on the smell at first, but then it dawned on me. Bleach. I checked the Britta pitcher- there was no filter in it; someone must have been trying to clean it. So I poured out the water, re-bagged the chickpeas, threw them in the trash, and got myself a delicious piece of strawberry pie* to ease the pain of disappointment. Hehe.

*Bart and I made strawberry-blueberry pie on Easter as his belated-birthday treat! Farmer's market strawberries cannot be beat. Even the whole-wheat crust that I insisted on making didn't ruin their awesomeness. By the way, if anyone knows of a good whole-wheat, not-incredibly-buttery crust recipe, I would be grateful to know of it. Encasing delicious fresh fruit in a wrapper of lard just seems dumb to me, but I do admit that it is hard to imitate a white flour and butter/shortening crust without white flour or butter/shortening.

Oh, I stumbled upon this recipe last night somehow...Maybe in one of those links of "related topics" Google puts next to your emails. Anyway, it looks almost amazing! (Minus the butter, yet again. Hmmm...maybe minus most of the butter and the coffee, with peanut butter instead. MMMMMmmm...) Maybe we'll have to subject Care Group to this concoction in two weeks! :)

PS- Thanks for the comments! I really like them; they mean a lot to me :)