There's toffee, and then there's BACON toffee.

Toffee is probably my favorite candy ever (but don't tell Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Christmas Trees or Cadbury Mini Eggs). Bacon is probably my favorite breakfast meat ever--no exceptions. So, when I came across THIS recipe on the bacon-clogged interwebs, I had to try it, and Thanksgiving was the perfect excuse. The combination of excessive sweetness and fattiness practically screams Thanksgiving!

15% repellant, 75% heaven:

To add to the spirit of excess, I also contributed chocolate-chip cookie dough truffles to our family dinner. They sound, look, and taste decadent, but are really simple to make--at least once you practice chocolate-dipping a bit. My suggestion? Get an extra tub of chocolate melting wafers so you don't have to toss the truffles around too much as you near the end of the chocolate. Here's my little "taste-testing" plate:

Because of my attention to quality, I make sure to check everything three times...well, assuming I like the first taste.

As if the caloric content of bacon toffee and chocolate-chip cookie dough truffles weren't enough, I also decided to add a fruity element with fresh cranberry fruit jellies. Something of a play on traditional canned cranberry sauce, THIS recipe makes super-sweet, lightly-gelled candies. The color is a gorgeous burgundy, and they taste absolutely fresh and fruity. Unfortunately, these ended up being too sweet for me, and I have a serious sweet tooth. They also didn't set up well, but I believe that's because I doubled the recipe without completely doubling the amount of liquid pectin. I really wish that I hadn't doubled it, as I was looking forward to cutting out individual jellies with my mini leaf cookie cutters! Even so, it was a fun experience to try the recipe out, and the cranberries and pears were absolutely gorgeous as they began to cook down:

Charles Phoenix

I am going to marry him. The man, not the puppet. Why? Because he created/re-invented this, the Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree!

You can watch a video tutorial HERE.

 I think I'm in love.

An astrophysicist's thoughts on Thanksgiving

There are a handful of corners of the internet that focus on something so precisely of interest to me that I can't go a day without wanting to share! NPR's 13.7: Cosmos and Culture blog is one of those nooks. It's a joint venture by a small group of assorted physicists, plus an anthropologist and a philospher. Today's post, The Mystery I'm Thankful For, is astrophysicist Adam Frank's take on finding meaning, thanksgiving, and mystery in a world that even the best of scientists cannot truly fathom. It's a short and sweet ode to a sentimental, atheist way of life.

Planning ahead for negative holiday experiences

This thoughtful article from Psychology Today give some tips about living through the holidays with chronic illness and accompanying loneliness. It is bitter to recognize the experiences the author recalls, but there is sweetness in her discussion of practicing Buddhist philosophies of compassion, mudita, and tonglen. I believe they offer an alternative to the absorbed negativity of living with chronic illness, especially during the stressful and emotionally-loaded holiday season.

Thanksgiving Reincarnations

 Every year around this time I think about how nice it’d be if the U.S. officially evolved Thanksgiving into a national holiday celebrating food & the people we love and who love us. In the context of extreme economic inequality, it would be meaningful to think about where we stand and what we can do to make everyone feel thankful. Maybe it’s as simple as making your grandmother’s favorite food and driving to the nursing home to feed it to her. Maybe it makes sense to sit down with a beloved chosen family for a vegan potluck. Or, maybe it means revolution.

The spread at our ragtag Thanksgiving dinner, Antioch College 2000. My best college friend and I cooked and assembled the whole meal between three different dorms. The first, where we lived, had a kitchen with a microwave and fridge, but no stove or oven. The second, nearby, had an oven where I made the stuffing. The third—all the way across campus—had an oven big enough for the turkey. Somehow, between the two of us, we made it happen. It was my least traditional Thanksgiving celebration, but also the most memorable one by far. There is something lovely about sitting down with a table full of fellow students far, far away from home and actively creating an environment of such bounty and camaraderie.

Click here for my inaugural Thanksgiving piece from 2009, in which I begin to ponder the politics behind the holiday.

90 days until Christmas!

I found this Amy Winehouse gem on Youtube today. It's her rendition of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." I love a musician who isn't too serious for covers, and holiday ones at that.

Busy, Busy times!

The winter holiday planning continues, and is much more pleasurable now that it is not simply a procrastination technique for other parts of my life. I am realizing that I need to sit down and pick a few specific crafts to do for my DIY gifts rather than just bookmark several dozen ideas and pick up various accouterments as I find them. I'm going to end up with too much stuff I'll never use. So--that's the next step. Hammer out the details. I wish I could say more, but I don't want to ruin the surprises for any friends who may read the blog! I also printed out a handy series of holiday planning page templates from Organized Christmas, which I've begun filling out. I'm doing a lot of picking and choosing with it; not every page they think is necessary is appropriate for my situation. For example, no matter how much I dream of it, I am not able to afford a full new outfit for every holiday party I attend. I do like that they have a template specifically for gift brainstorming, and even one that goes into specifics about handmade gifts. Perfect! I wish I were this organized in other aspects of my life.

In between all this planning, I came across a quote about Tori Amos that I wrote down more than a decade ago, and which happens to be very blog-appropriate. From Barbara Ellen at New Musical Express in 1992: "She's a Grade A, Class One, Turbo-driven Fruitcake." You bet your bottom dollar I'm itching to re-post the Superion's Fruitcake music video!