Sunday, October 5, 2008

Crispy Around the Edges

I haven't posted for 3 days. For some people, that's par for the course. For me, it's quite a long absence. It's not that I have nothing to say nor that I have no time necessarily to say it, it's just that I'm just a little burnt out from various tasks and find it hard to collect my thoughts and get them to flow into post form. I think that's okay though. I really believe that posting less often may be better than posting too much anyway.

Before the weather changed, I had a lot of tasks in mind that I wanted to do once it snapped off from oppressively warm and muggy to crisp and cool. Now that that has actually happened, I'm getting to those tasks. Mainly, they include repairs and little home improvement projects that I'd get too sweaty doing in the summer, but also there is a lot of cooking I avoid in the summer. In particular, there are dishes that require use of the oven. Being in the kitchen at all in summer is hard enough without super heating the kitchen to levels that would melt butter to a liquid state just by leaving it on the counter.


Pale bits of dough full of lively and happy yeast about to fry to death in the oven. Oh, the humanity!

Yesterday, I squeezed in some cinnamon roll making between lessons. This is a recipe that I wrote about in my former blog which I make as a very rare treat for my husband. I'm happy to say the freezer is now full of pumpkin cake, brownies, and cinnamon rolls so I won't be baking again for awhile.

Iced rolls... the glaze looks vaguely pornographic in nature. Prudish types and diabetics may want to avert their eyes.

Besides the cooking and household odds and ends, I've been doing 3 or 4 lessons a week with the same student on top of the regular students. She's taking a sociology course and the lessons with her are essentially tutoring sessions. When she writes a paper, I'm essentially writing a paper. When she takes a class, I'm taking the same class with her. It's a bit of a brain drain really as I have to skim the book quickly, organize the contents at light speed in my mind, then spit it all back out for her to record the lecture and use it to go home and write up essays from. It's like mental calisthenics. I enjoy it, mind you, because it's much more stimulating and challenging than practicing verb tenses or prepositions, but it is a bit intense.

Anyway, this is just a brief verbal nod and a wave, and a reminder to myself about why I skipped several days at this point in my personal history.

7 comments:

Lulu said...

*Wave*

Hi, those cinnamon rolls look AWESOME! I don`t know your old blog but if you could post the recipe again on this blog (or email me it?!) that would be great. They look so delicious! Can you do it with other seasonings?

Your husband is a lucky guy!

I am not a baker- I can cook but can`t bake. I don`t really know why I think I just enjoy cooking more however I want to get into some more baking.

Hope you are having a nice weekend.

Anonymous said...

Hee hee hee, vaguely pornographic.

It's so funny, when I saw your photos (yum, yum, YUM!!!), it made me remember how cinnamon rolls were the first thing I wanted to bake once we got our oven! What is it about that??? For some reason, those things are the best thing I am able to bake here, as our oven is so weird, I can never get bread to bake properly (other than pizza crust, but that's kind of cheating since it doesn't have to be puffed up, isn't it? ;) ). The only problem I have is with the glaze, though I tend to go full on with the cream cheese topping, Cinnabon style....mmmmm.......Ohhh the endless, delicious, irresistable faaaaaaat! ^_^

Orchid64 said...

I'm actually not a fan of cinnamon rolls. Maybe once a year, I'll be tempted by one, but generally, I'm not interested in them. I make these only for my husband. They stay in the freezer for quite some time after I make a batch.

Since these are for the CH, they are pretty much designed for him and he hate cream cheese frosting, so I go with straight sugar. ;-)

Anonymous said...

You are not only intellectual but a find baker as well Orchid- I'm so happy I found your blog, what part of Japan do you live? I'm in Nagoya = )

The pictures look awesome... Hey Lulu!!! wow we know the same folks...

Anonymous said...

opps I meant fine.. goodness..

Orchid64 said...

GirlJapan: I live in Tokyo, about 12 minutes by subway from Shinjuku. It's a great location and I'd hate to live anywhere else. :-)

Thanks for your kind words and for reading! I appreciate it!

Anonymous said...

ooooo, you are so lucky... I love city life!!! I would give anything to live in the middle of Tokyo!!!

I can't wait to see what you bake next!!! Cinnamon, oh what a nice smell to kick start fall, although the leaves are changing the weather here is still warm! Nagoya claims to be more and more international.. huh.. where is the job market.