Dates, before you knew them

In case you were wondering, fresh dates left on the counter don't turn into the tasty dried dates you know and love. . . they turn into moldy fresh dates.

Stay tuned for. . .

Photos from ZURICH!!! We were all totally smitten with this giant challah. I'm not even sure if it's a good bakery. . .

When the cat does not approve of my reading selection

The kitty doesn't approve of the Twilight series. She thinks I'm wasting my time, and that I'd be better off with some Kierkegaard or John Maynard Keynes.



She's serious. . . (Fortunately I had another book on the table next to me - otherwise my choices would have been to nap or to disturb the cat sleeping on my chest.)

Lunchtime Walk: Cambridgeport

I really like Cambridgeport because it's so architecturally and socioeconomically diverse. Because it's around the corner from where I work, it's the destination of many of my lunchtime walks. Last Thursday, I finally brought my camera.

I like this old fashioned firebox:



I walked by this perplexing assemblage and wondered whether it has anything to do with the handmade war memorial a couple feet away:



WHAT IS THIS??? It's embedded in the sidewalk, about the same size as the metal water caps. I take a lot of walks and I've never seen another like this. I've seen little embedded clovers diamonds advertising sidewalk makers, but nothing as mysterious as this scuba diver plaque. Maybe it's related to the "no dumping" square plaques with the fish? Though, I've walked over this particular thing at least 100 times and didn't notice it until last week. Maybe I'll ask at City Hall.



I like the moss growing on the bottom of these flower boxes:



Condemned house, unconventional color:


Car horsies:

:

I bet their pizza deliveries never get lost - this stained glass house number is taller than I am:



Rusty metal table out for the next day's trash pickup:


I'm really not sure what this place is. I don't think I've ever seen it open:



But there's interesting stuff in the windows:

The end! I need to remember to bring my camera more often. I'm always seeing things that I find peculiar.

Chemistry Lesson (Muffin Failure!)

After numerous attempts, I've finally created the perfect breakfast muffin. They can be made with numerous combinations of fruit and nuts, and they contain a good balance of monounsaturated fats (olive oil & nuts), protein (yogurt & eggs or eggbeaters) and fiber (wheat or oat bran and whole wheat flour. Despite all of this healthy stuff, they have a lovely cakey crumb and aren't at all dry or heavy. Usually.

Tonight I mixed up my current favorite, cranberry orange. They taste just like the box mix of cranberry quick bread that we made when I was little. (Was that the first marketed use of dried cranberries?) I didn't realize that I forgot the olive oil until the batter was already in my reusable silicon muffin cups. I scraped it out back into the bowl and added the olive oil. As I suspected, it negatively affected the texture of my finished muffins. Instead of being fluffy, they're leaden and kind of oddly smooth. To make things even worse, the orange I collected the zest from was a little too squishy for zesting and doesn't taste all that great. I just realized too, that I used baking powder instead of baking soda. They didn't rise very much, but I'm assuming that's mostly because they were overworked with the late addition of the oil. Over all they taste ok, they're just not the incredible success that was the previous batch.

These are the good ones. I can't wait for cranberry season!!