The making of Christmas Card 2006

If you want to learn how to write with light in a photo, check out this podcast that Michael found on the Make Magazine website. We took our photos in Beacon Hill Park at night. Robyn wrote the message (ho ho ho) while Michael and I held our pose for 15 seconds. Thanks again buddy! I'll never forgot the sound of your shuffling feet as we smiled at the camera in the silent park. Here are a couple of our favorite outtakes.

Five years of emailing Christmas greetings

2002:


2003:


2004:


2005:


2006:

Christmas is coming

Friends, I haven't felt like writing for a while because I'm a little tired from final essays and exams. I have a few tentative plans for upcoming posts, however, such as documenting the assembly of my emergency kit (no turbid water for me) and reflecting on air bands that I performed as a child (in front of an actual audience). Keep posted! And then there will be the pictures from Mexcio. There are good times ahead. Until then, take a minute to explore the Scared of Santa photo gallery. You won't regret it, even if you saw it last year when I got excited about it for the first time.

Pierogies 101

Pierogies are Ukrainian dumplings also know as perogi, perogy, piroghi, pirogi or pyrohy. My baba gave me her recipe a few years ago, and I've been meaning to make them ever since; I've helped her make them before, but I never made them on my own. Until now. On Friday, Lydia, Robyn, Ananda and Michael joined me in fulfilling one of my original tentative plans.

First we bought groceries and made THREE different fillings (two too many):
1) potato/basil/pinenut/parmesan
2) sweet potato/mushroom/onion/swiss
3) yam/leek/smoked gouda

Then we made TWO different kinds of dough (my baba's dough and another kind from a Rebar recipe). They were both pretty much the same. We also drank some wine because making pierogies takes a long time, and rolling the dough is hard work.

Our pieogies were too doughy (i.e. too thick) at first, but we got better at streching out the dough as we went. Baba says we'll be able to make them with our eyes closed soon enough.

We have a small kitchen, so it was a very cozy affair.

Robyn boiled all of the pierogies. She's committed!

This is the sweet potato filling. The filling was good on its own, but didn't make for a tasty pierogi - the potato/basil pierogi was the most popular.

We all ate too many pierogies and felt sick by the time the night was over. Even so, it was a success. Thanks for the inspiration Baba! We froze some of the best pierogies for your approval at Christmas.