Honey Fudge

I made honey fudge on Thursday night. We have this big bottle of runny honey (so much more fun to say than liquid honey) that has gotten all crystallized and is just a pain to use now. I had to find a way to use it up. I also wanted to challenge myself with sugar work. (I've tried making molasses taffy for the past few years and have yet to succeed, but that's another story.) On a camping trip a few weeks back, we stopped at a place that had all kinds of fudge but I couldn't get any (peanut allergy) and my sweet tooth has been twitching ever since. Honey and fudge... could they be combined? Have I mentioned how much I love the internet?

I found this honey fudge recipe and it seemed simple enough. I followed the instructions to the letter - mostly - and made the plain variety. First off, I let it boil for the full 9 minutes. I checked it as I went with a thermometer and with the cold water method, since I want to get the hang of that for future candy fun. It seemed to reach the temperature I'd seen at other sites around the 7 minute mark. I figured I'd trust the recipe over my thermometer since my last attempts were underdone.

Then I started mixing it right away like it said, even though some other recipes I'd looked at said to let it cool to a certain temperature before mixing. Those other recipes, though, were for sucre a la creme which is what I grew up with and which I understand has a different texture - grainier and crumblier. So I'm stirring and stirring and realize I've forgotten the vanilla. In it goes. That's my only deviation from the recipe: the vanilla went it late. It didn't seem to ruin anything.

Still stirring, stirring, stirring, it didn't say how long to go, so I had set the timer for 9 minutes (I know... now) and started noticing the texture change around the three minute mark but kept going just in case. Around 5 or 6 minutes it almost started to firm up in the pot so I plopped it onto the pan and pressed it out. It was kind of crumbly, but oh well. I scored it into squares and left it to cool by the window. (I felt so Holly Homemaker for that. It was great.)

When DH got home a couple hours later, it was cool enough to try. A friend of ours was with him and they each tried it and liked it. We all agreed it was a little harder and crumblier than the typical texture of fudge, but she seemed to prefer it that way. Go figure. I tried it too, and was surprised at how well I liked it. See, I don't particularly like honey. A bit of it in tea is alright, but the flavour on its own doesn't much appeal to me. This fudge definitely tasted of honey but not too much. It was just right.

Later that night I set aside a few squares for us and packed up the rest for him to bring to work. There was maybe three quarters of a pound and a bit. It came back without a crumb left. I think they liked it.

I definitely plan to try this recipe again, though I'll probably stop stirring it after 3 or 4 minutes. Despite my french roots, I like that softer texture.

Mystery Solved?

After a month of sneezes and coughs that gradually got worse and eventually led to a week of being driven out of the kitchen and onto the couch feeling generally miserable we have a suspected culprit. A new seasonal allergy! Yay! ... *grumble* Seems I've been living in this town long enough to have gotten sensitized to this lovely common allergen, though how I wasn't allergic before is what really surprises me. So it's antihistamines and daily neti pots to keep me functioning right now and I've started to inch my way back into the kitchen for more adventures. After all, summer is almost over and I haven't played nearly enough in the kitchen.

I'm typing this on my nice new laptop that my DH ran to a neighbouring town to get me because they were on a great sale and our local store was all out. Have I mentioned that I really love my husband? The same husband who is canning a bushel of tomatoes in the kitchen as I type this? He's awesome. Very awesome. And mine. He's mine. I'll stop now.

On the upside, while feeling generally crummy I didn't have to completely waste my time playing games and rotting my brain on daytime TV. See, I got some family tree software last Christmas and now that I have a nice laptop home for it, I got it all installed and started plugging in what info I had already collected. Obviously I can't discuss that much here, though I can say I found a picture of my great grandparents' grave marker and I unofficially (read: undocumented for now) have a couple lines traced to the 1600s.

I realize I've kind of been all over the board on this post. I'll make some posts over the next few days going into individual stuff that I've been up to. Thanks for reading this far and I'll be back soon!

Personal Victories

Alright, so I'm going to talk about what I made for dinner last night. It is a complete bastardization of a recipe out of a cookbook but I think it's gone off track enough to give it here.

Cook as much spaghetti as you think you'll need for how many people you're serving. Once it's done, drain it and return the spaghetti to its pot.
Meanwhile, brown up as much ground beef as you think you'll be needing. You could probably use chopped up or ground chicken if you like, but I used ground beef.
Season the beef as you like, I used chili powder and ground coriander.
Drain the beef and add to the pasta.
Then add some drained canned corn or some frozen corn that has been thawed.
Now add the sauce. What is the sauce? It's salsa. Add salsa to make it as saucy as you like and stir in the pot over low to medium-ish heat until heated through.
Serve and sprinkle with shredded or crumbled cheese. (I used cheddar.)

It's simple, quick, relatively cheap, and really really tasty. It's good cold the next day, too. You can add other bits to it to taste. The original recipe calls for olives (which I don't like) and maybe cilantro (which I didn't have on hand) but I like it just fine as I made it. DH added some hot sauce to his.

So what is it about this simple dinner that's a personal victory? Well here's an embarrassing tidbit: Food lover that I am, it scares me senseless to handle raw meat. I had one of those mothers who after prepping meat for cooking, washed and bleached not only the cutting board but the whole counter, too, and God help her if it wasn't extra well done (read: to the texture of something akin to saw dust) because then she would be obliged to remind us of how we were stupidly risking food poisoning and horrible illness. I might be exaggerating, but that's definitely the impression we got when we were younger. It left me with a very deep seated (side note: is the expression "deep seeded" or "deep seated?" Really, they both make sense.) fear of raw meat. I was sure if I handled it I wouldn't cook it or clean up properly and I'd make everyone around me ill.

A few years ago I took a cooking class to learn basic kitchen technique and this included clean up, so I knew what was actually necessary and what was overkill. Still uncomfortable. I deboned a chicken at home once and cleaned up under DH's watchful eye. Felt sick for days and not from the chicken.
Handling raw meat is something I can do now, but it isn't easy and I usually avoid it. Even what I do have to, I keep DH around to give a second opinion as a safety.

So if you haven't figured out the victory yet, look at the recipe. Ground beef. Raw meat.

I prepped this meal all on my own and it was ready when hubby got home from work. I did it alone and I'm definitely proud.

Personal victories rock.

Introduction to Crown Braiding

I promised to talk about how I learned to do more with my hair. It's simple: a google search and, after finding out I learn better by video than by word and text, a youtube search. This was about four months ago and I think I was looking up Elizabethan hair taping. There I found Torrin Paige.

Let's face it, there are different personality types out there and some tutorials just... sort of... irritate me. Hers didn't. Hers made me chuckle. If she went on a tangent, at least it was amusing and sort of semi-relevant. When she talked about hair, she made sense and didn't go too fast or skip steps as if they were implied. I started raiding the rest of her videos.

I started with the simpler things, like her rope braid. Then moved up (for me) to things like the simple lace braid headband. Maybe a month ago, with some extra hands for help, I tackled the french rope braid on my aunt's head. Sometimes I'll just play with my hair to see if I can take a technique and do something else with it.

Then last week, it got hot! I couldn't stand the thought of my hair on my neck or in my face or anything, but wanted something more comfortable and more stable than a bun. So I combed my hair, fanning it out all around my head from the crown, the way I'd seen it in one of the 1950s videos from glamourdaze (around 0:15) and started french braiding in a circle around my head. It held well but the transition from french braid to pinned up regular braid looked a little funny. It was comfy though, so I didn't care.

The next day was my shower day and having liked the french braid so much and still being unable to dutch braid my own head, I thought if I did the exact same thing, but with a lace braid technique instead, maybe the braid would show more and it would look more uniform than the french braid did. I tried it while my hair was still damp/wet and ta-da! Success! Then it dawned on me... I'd just done, in essence, the dreaded, evil crown braid! And it wasn't even that torturous! Since when can I do something like this when I still can't get a decent cinnabun to hold in my hair!? Admittedly, she did hers with a lace dutch braid where I used a lace french braid, but the result was good enough for me. I also wrapped it differently since my hair's a good deal shorter and finer than hers. Maybe I'll move up to lace dutch braid eventually.

Nevertheless, I was pretty darn proud of myself and had high hopes for the next day.

I wore the braid all day and slept with it in. The next morning (we're at Saturday, now) it had all dried and I took my hair down then parted and finger combed it. Oh. My! I've done braids for waves before, but I've never had anything so full, so smoothly transitioning, and so evenly distributed in my life. It was so pretty and my hair looked so full, which made it seem longer somehow. I went to a big family barbecue that day and got more hair compliments from them than I've ever had before. It even seemed to distract their focus, reducing the surreptitious glances at my belly to see if I'm pregnant yet - but that's another story.

This crown braid done my way (maybe I should make a tutorial of my own sometime) is probably going into my mental list of top 5 favourite hair 'dos. Yay! It's always so nice to find a new fave.


By the way, I never did do her method of Elizabethan hair taping. My hair's not long enough, but maybe another year or two will change that.

'40s Victory Roll

It's so funny, learning to blog. I haven't posted because I couldn't think of anything to post about. Then I realized I'd done three hairstyles last week that would have had me running for the hills last month. Can you guess what my next few entries will be about?

First off, I'd like to say God Bless Youtube! Seriously, before I started looking up hair tutorials online, I could do a ponytail or I could do a braid from the nape of my neck. On other people, I could make a french braid or two somewhat even french braids on a good day. That's it, that's all, folks! How that changed will be discussed in the next entry.

So here's how this victory roll experiment came about:
A cousin of mine posted a picture of herself online with smooth skin and a sheer-ish cherry tint on her lips. I saw this and could instantly picture taking it further into a 1940's makeup. She was game, so on Wednesday of last week (after stumbling on some absolutely amazing authentic makeup guide videos from the 1940s courtesy of glamourdaze at youtube) I went over to play.

The makeup worked out quite nicely but it seemed a shame to leave her hair (long and lovely as it is) just hanging there when the hair to go with that makeup would typically have been so nicely groomed. I had a moment of potential masochism and asked if I could try doing a victory roll in her hair. She agreed.

Her hair is quite a bit longer than the hair videos for victory rolls, so I sectioned off the front half of her hair, which consisted of shorter layers, and did the victory rolls with only that hair. Wonder of wonders, it actually worked! I would love to try doing this technique again sometime, but plan ahead and put in pin curls first.
Then it seemed a shame to leave her long hair hanging down her back, so I mixed my eras and put it into a Gibson Tuck. (Sadly, I've forgotten where I learned it, but if you search for it there are plenty of resources online.)

I haven't any pictures of my own, but I'll ask her if I can borrow one of hers to post here.

Oh, hair. It's so much fun once you start getting the hang of it.

Skydiving: The Jump

Right, so I'm getting in the plane...

I'm not sure how long the flight up took, but we took a pretty good tour of the area on the way up, with jump-master R pointing out local features. He asks if I want to tumble forwards or backwards. I say the fewer tumbles the better as I can be prone to motion sickness. (My exact words, I think, were "I don't want to puke on you.") It's very loud in the plane so the quicker something is to say, the better.
Roughly two thirds of the way up (so, around 6000ft) it starts getting cold. By the time we've reached out altitude, my teeth are chattering. (I found out later it was around 4C at altitude.) He reminds me of what to do, lifts the hatch, I flip my legs out over the side of the plane, dangling my feet and glad my sneakers are securely tied. I look down - 9200 ft down - and instead of thinking "Holy ----! Holy ----! Holy ----!! What am I doing?!?" my thoughts are more along the lines of "I'm really going to jump out of a plane. I'm not freaking out. Ha ha, cool!" and then we're off.
He did this cool side twist thing on the way out in the hopes that I could watch the plane to have an idea of how fast we were falling away and I wanted to see it, but reflex took over and I had to close my eyes to keep my stomach steady. I did remember to "Kick [him] in the butt!" as told, though, and now know why skydivers have that peculiar pose when they first leave the plane. There's a lot of air resistance so what you're seeing is the jumper halfway to where he wants his legs to be. If you've ever walked the wrong way in a whirlpool or tried to canoe through a strong current, you get the idea.
Back to the jump, as soon as the flipping stopped I opened my eyes, tried to do the "play with your arms! Fly! Swim! Do the monkey!" stuff they told me about but the wind rushing past my ears was just so loud that it was painful, so I had my arms out for a couple seconds, but they were covering my ears for the rest of the freefall.
After a little while (I think we were in freefall for about 30 seconds) the chute deploys without problem and I'm jerked, but not as hard as I expected I would be. It feels like we're going up instead of down for a few seconds and then it just settles into a feeling of sitting on something except there's nothing there. In fact the feeling wasn't unlike sitting on a plane except with a breeze and a waaaay better view. The noise has quieted, too, so I can take my hands off my ears and chat with R. He loosens some of my bindings for comfort and points out other features of the landscape and I just take it all in. I notice soon after that it's balmy now instead of freezing cold. It's nice. The rest of the ride is mellow until he takes a sharp turn and I squeak a little in surprise as my stomach turns. (Sidenote: the desk is kind of swaying side to side as I remember this part) I ask him to take it easy and he goes wider on his turns.
Now, were coming in for the landing sequence. This is the part that worries me. It isn't the falling that hurts you, it's the landing that does. I make sure I'm clear on how I'm supposed to land and do it as told, but we hit a touch of turbulence off the hangar and land a touch harder than planned. My ankles sort of bite/jar/sting on impact but I regain my footing and the pain clears within a minute. No damage done - a successful jump.
As he starts taking off my harness, my legs go a bit jello as blood flow returns to normal (those leg bindings are designed safety first, comfort second) and he lets me in on a secret: right after we jumped, his altimeter crapped out and he had to make an educated guess on when to pull the chute. Ha! I thank him for waiting until we landed to tell me and am amused. Now it dawns on me that I've just jumped out of a plane. Holy bleep, I just stepped out of a plane and fell 9200 ft with only a (admittedly, specially designed for the purpose) sheet to stop me from going splat! Holy bleep, I just did something that I'd spent the past ten years hoping to maybe do someday! I did it! I really did it! Boo ya!!!
I start talking a little bit more and tell him that I tend to babble, and even more when nervous/in high emotion. I tell him I'm very relieved that I didn't relive my lunch and he agrees. He tells me that he holds this place's record for being puked on the most (18 times) and it's not a record he's proud of. I have him counter it with a record he is proud of. His answer: Most malfunctions. Seventeen of them. That's a skydiver for you. But I think I get it. He's had that many malfunctions and he's made them all work out because he's still alive and jumping, so he's proud he's MacGyvered his way out of seventeen bad situations.
If you want to see someone who loves their job, just look at this guy.
We walk back to the hangar. I give hubby a hug and kiss and he's very happy that I'm alright. We sit for a bit letting the whole thing sink in, then go into the office to get my certificate and to make sure we've crossed every T and can leave at our leisure.
I want to sit for a bit because I've started a solid headache - similar to what I get when I sleep wrong. I'm asked if I would jump again someday and I tell them to ask me again when I'm feeling better. They ask me a few questions to make sure it doesn't sound like anything serious and conclude that it's probably a mix of sensitivity to noise and maybe my head jerking a touch harder than I thought. Advil is suggested but I think it's just a noise headache and some quiet will do the trick. I thank them, reassured, and we head out.
On the drive home, I cover my eyes and turn off the radio and the vibe in the car is much more relieved than it was on the way over. We get home and I rest a little while more. As I suspected, the headache clears up with a good dose of silence. DH makes dinner and I do the dishes, proud of myself for the day.

I jumped out of a freaking plane, man!

Skydiving: Part Deux

Alright, the skydiving thing comes back.

If I was going to do this it was going to have to happen soon so as to make available other plans. Now, technically the website says two days notice are needed, but on Saturday afternoon, just for the heck of it, I phoned the skydiving place to see if there was room for one more the next day. This time, the person I spoke to on the phone was much, much friendlier and left me with a much better feeling. In fact I wasn't even asked for a deposit - though maybe this had to do with the short notice.

Next day, Sunday, I show up about half an hour before I'm scheduled to jump in order to fill out the paperwork. I see maybe 10 people scattered around the edge of this old, decommissioned hangar. Some in jean shorts and tank tops (the customers) and some in their own jumpsuits (the staff.)
I find the office and who should greet me but a very nice lady with a lovely blue cast on her left arm. One of the comments left was "Pull sooner!" This made me chuckle. Another guy, not injured that I can see, comes in and starts me on the paperwork. (In a nutshell: Yes, I'm legal. Yes, I want to do this. Yes, I know I can get hurt or die jumping out of a plane with little more than a sheet to slow me down. No, I'm not going to sue you for any boo boos I get.) Not a minute later, another guy comes in in a neck brace. Two visible injuries in under three minutes. This doesn't exactly provide reassurance and I tell them as much. I find out that at this location, they've never had a tandem jump death, but they have had broken bones when people didn't follow the instructions and ended up landing wrong.
I make a mental note to listen extra carefully to the landing sequence.
There are three batches of jumpers ahead of me since jumps happen on a sort of first come first serve basis. I sit back and try to get a feel for the place. The dynamic was not unlike when I got my nose pierced - very "let's do this" with minimal sugarcoating and a lot of dry humour.
After maybe 20 minutes, even though I'm keeping distracted and I'm not feeling too nervous, I decide to take a gravol (the ginger kind) just to steady my stomach for the initial top over teakettle tumble out of the plane. It has ample time to work since I don't actually get into the plane until roughly an hour and a half after I was booked to jump. I'm given a jumpsuit and goggles (I wear glasses) and the guy I'm jumping with, jump-master R (same guy I spoke with on the phone, actually,) fits me into my harness. I'm feeling remarkably calm - very focused. DH gives me what is apparently one kiss too many as people start hooting and Awwww-ing at us as I head out of the hangar. He's staying on the ground and taking pictures while I'm getting settled into this itty bitty plane (no seats, we're all just sat together on the floor) and following instructions...

Tomorrow: Takeoff and the jump. Spoiler: I don't die.