That's MISS Snottybottom to you, buddy

My friend Sandy (AKA Crabbygloom Rottenshorts, but only (let's hope) seasonally) sent me this link so I could find my Grinch Name. You may address me as Woefulwhiner Snottybottom,* thank you very much.

(I think the last name is funny but I worry that the first is a little too close to home.)

In other news, here's a picture of a relatively new installation at the Getty Center in LA. It's a reproduction of one of my favorite pieces of theirs -- a watercolor of a stag beetle by Albrecht Dürer.



The original work is maybe as big as your hand, but if you use the top of Mr Elinoire's Mr Snottybottom's wee little head at the bottom of the picture for scale purposes,** you will note the reproduction is much, much larger. Plus there's the addition of the mounting pin. That's a recent addition is what that is.

(I am not a huge fan of insects when they're up close and personal, but I am all about seeing them in art.)

In holiday baking news, I baked several batches of gingerbread cookies last weekend in my parents' kitchen, and the plan for this weekend is to join Tyee at her house and ice cookies like a madwoman while she starts her holiday baking. Wish us luck! Hopefully by Sunday I'll have pictures. Or a wicked sugar hangover. Or both!

* But only via this blog. And please stop after the end of December.
** Sorry, the small brown cat did not volunteer to join us at the museum in order to be on hand for scale purposes or any other reason.

Things that are Halloweeny

Since this is my blog, I'm going to brag about something I did, okay? Okay. Here it is: I made an AMAZING pomegranate sorbet that pretty much blew everyone away. No, seriously, it was THAT good. So do I have pictures of it to show you?

Sadly, I do not.

In lieu of pictures, please accept the following background information.

A few weeks ago, I became sad when I looked around the farmers market and realized that Summer Fruit Season had ended (it trails on a while in San Diego but the peaches of October are hard to eat after being spoiled by the peaches of August). On Sunday, I took another look around and quickly got over my melancholy as I realized that Autumn Fruit Season is here. Woohoo!

I zoomed from stall to stall, grabbing bosc pears and the first of the tangerines and pink lady apples... and pomegranates. Heavy, cracked, delicious pomegranates.

I've been a pomegranate fiend since I was a kid, but I am not crazy about Pom Wonderful juice (or any of its competitors). The taste of these juices is too concentrated for me, but beyond that, they only sort of taste like pomegranates. I suspect this has to do with pasteurization.

As it happens, however, I live in a pomegranate-friendly climate and frequent a good farmers market so I have more options than some. What I'm getting to here is that another thing I greedily snapped up on Sunday was a quart of freshly squeezed, NOT pasteurized pomegranate juice. Wow. Drinking that juice was like being punched in the mouth with a pomegranate, only in a good way. It was not cheap but it was totally worth the price because now I could make sorbet and I would not have to pull apart all those pomegranates to do it.

I used this recipe* and the results were amazing, as previously stated. Very intense, and perfect with the rich chocolate malt ice cream I had made the day before. Mmmm.

So how, you ask, is any of this Halloweeny in the least? Because the desert was made to eat after making these guys:



This weekend, Valerie and I went to Tyee's house to carve pumpkins. I am very grateful to Tyee for suggesting this activity because I am pretty sure I wouldn't have done it on my own this year. Plus Tyee's lovely husband made us pizza AND her daughter was charming and burbly as always.

(Mine are the two little ones in front: a friendly troll or hobgoblin or goat or something, and another one that's menacing because, you know, fangs.)

Happy Halloween!

* Except I skipped the fancy touches (champagne and garnish) because that lily just did not need gilding.

I'm one of the horde

Guess what we did tonight?



Yup, it's true. I have my very own copy of the new Harry Potter book right here in front of me. I figured hey, it's my last chance to join in the midnight madness, so Mr. Elinoire and I went to a favorite local bookstore and did just that.

My friend Tyee came this close to winning the trivia contest (she was stumped by JK Rowling's middle name (Kathleen) and one of the two significant ways Bartemis Crouch Jr. was similar to Lord Voldemort (she got that they both killed their fathers but missed that they were both named for their fathers), neither of which I could come up with) and I got to tell her the story of the first time my sister Sarache and I tried Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.*



Plus? Now I have the book! Don't expect me to answer the phone or anything in the next couple days.

(There's no fun story about the Harry Potter box. I just brought it home to put jam in, but like all of its ilk, it had to be throroughly inspected once it was in the house.)

* She bought some the first time we saw them and then we went to her car and drove somewhere while we ate them. The candy came with a cheat sheet but we thought it would be more fun to try the flavors one by one.

First, we each bit down on a blue one.
Elinoire: "I think this is just blueberry..."
Sarache: "Yeah, I think so too. Check the sheet."
Elinoire, after checking: "Blueberry. Okay let's try gray."
We each bite down on our gray jelly beans.
Sarache: "Ew, is that pepper?"
Elinoire: "Ugh, I think it must be. It doesn't taste awful but it doesn't taste like anything I want in a jelly bean."
Elinoire checks and confirms that gray = pepper, and then gives Sarache a white jelly bean to match her own. They bite down.
Elinoire: "Huh, that's just coco-"
Sarache: "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, WHAT IS THAT?! That is the most VILE THING EVER."
Elinoire: "Uh, it's coconut."
Sarache, spitting her jelly bean out into a kleenex and taking a swig of water: "That is NOT coconut. That is EVIL, is what that is."
Elinoire, consulting chart: "Ohhh... I think I got coconut, but the other flavor for white can be sardine.