And that's the way it is Wednesday - Maybe Muffins

What a week.

Monday, psychiatrist. Tuesday, therapist. Wednesday, phone conference hearing on employment. Thursday, gastroenterologist. Friday, hearing specialist (I'm going to accompany the spouse).  

Today was the day I was dreading - the employment hearing. It had the virtue of being short.  I was capable of speaking coherently. It was reasonably cordial.  I should be getting a written decision within a week, at which point that part of my life will be over.  

I went out early this morning to pull some weeds from a very small patch of garden I had not gotten to before.  Probably a bad idea.  I also tried evening out some of the top soil, using my new claw-on-a-stick (cultivator) and that was a worse idea; I had to stop in the middle of that project. I have to trim some unruly herbs, but that is definitely going to have to wait. I have to stake the aubergine (eggplant) plants, but there is no way that is going to happen. My back is letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that I acted stupidly. I am going to pay for this little spurt of domesticity, starting now.  Crap, but I hurt.

So I made this soup yesterday, and it closely resembles a minestrone, and the boys each had a nice big cup for lunch today, but it doesn't appeal to me, so for now I am lunchless.  At least they like it.  And it's good, don't get me wrong, but it's full of stuff - vegetables and herbs and some pasta - and I can't imagine swallowing that right now.

What I want to do is try baking those Buttermilk Spice Muffins, like I used to order at Mimi's Cafe, before some genius closed the local Mimi's and left us all muffin-less.  The good news is I will be able to use some more of the buttermilk that is lingering in the refrigerator.  The bad news is I overdid this morning, my lower back is giving me a "what-for", and standing up to prepare the muffins may not be in my best interest.  For now my best interests are served by sitting in this chair with my feet up and a small, lovable dog tucked in right next to me. Cuddled, she has. Snuggled, she is. My little sweetheart.

Of course I had to try to eat a "real" lunch - all-beef corn dog, pretty tasty.  Ha ha, that was almost as bad an idea as the gardening! Won't I ever learn? Apparently not, as I went back outside for a brief time and trimmed back the herbs.  Didn't have enough energy to bag them up, so if anyone is walking by the side of the house and sees the piles of herb branches, help yourself.  There's Thai basil, sweet basil, tarragon, oregano, and parsley.  Oh yeah, there's mint and lemon balm.  I'll be inside, screaming in pain.

I can't leave the muffin thing alone. I got an idea for a bread pudding muffin that comes from a cute little muffin cookbook I picked up over 25 years ago, plus something I saw Robert Irvine do on "Dinner: Impossible" some years ago.  If this works, I will have used up the buttermilk, and most of those Little Debbie cakes that have been taking up room in my refrigerator.

These came out good!  The only downside is that I used 3 separate mixing bowls, a measuring cup, and a glass custard cup in preparing them.  The original recipe, Appalachian Bread Pudding Muffins, is from an adorable little book called The Joy of Muffins by Genevieve Farrow and Diane Dreher.

Bread Pudding Muffins

4 individual Little Debbie Streusel Cakes (I used 2 cinnamon and 2 cream cheese, you could use any combination or just one of them) cut into 12 cubes each
1 cup  buttermilk
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup cherry-infused dried cranberries
1/2 cup sweetened coconut (Baker's Angel Flake)
1/4 cup pecan meal
2 eggs
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
nutmeg (freshly grated, if available)

If you have a little time, let the cake cubes sit out and dry somewhat. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Soak the cake cubes in the buttermilk; set aside while you prepare the other ingredients.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda.  Stir in the cranberries, coconut, and pecan meal. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together, then whisk in the melted, cooled butter. Add this to the buttermilk mixture.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients, folding just enough to combine.  Do not over mix, you will have - gasp! - tough muffins.  Ick and Feh! Grease a muffin tin with butter, or (my preference) spray it, spray it good with Pam Butter Flavor No-Stick Spray. With a scoop, divide the batter evenly (they will be almost filled to the top) and sprinkle the tops with some nutmeg.  Bake for 20 minutes; allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes, then remove to a metal cooling rack.

And now ...

Serve these with orange marmalade butter: let 4 tablespoons of butter soften at room temperature, then mix in 2 tablespoons of orange marmalade.

Nice.  Not tough.  Tender, like me when I'm on my meds.

Wish Me Luck, The Same To You

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that this is forever. The pain gets worse; it moves, it morphs. It tortures me. I can buy an hour without discomfort by swallowing two ibuprofen, but that is short-lived and leaves me the other 23 hours in which to cry in pain. Don't be fooled by the fact that I cooked dinner, or picked some okra, or put on some make-up and combed my hair. The pain never dies.

It is frustrating when one's doctors don't fully understand how permanent this debilitation is.  I'm not going to get better.  My mental acuity is shot to spit; my hearing and eyesight are PDC (pretty damn crappy). I will never again be able to stand up in court and argue case law and statutes.  Hell, I have enough problems just standing up.  

It wasn't supposed to be this way.  I was going to work forever - the joke was I would die at my desk, at some advanced age.  The job, the passion, the devotion - it was for the kids.  God knows there was neither glory nor gelt from what I did for so long. (Although once I did get a thank you note from Governor Jeb Bush for my work on a Department task force.)

Don't be fooled by the fact that I can write this blog.  It takes me all day, and I rely heavily on spell check and word processing to go back over and over, correcting each time.

Today is the day of my "hearing". I don't know what to expect. I am grateful it can be done via conference call. (Imagine me having to pull on pantyhose and a skirt, driving to downtown Orlando and trying to find a parking space at the Hurston Building.)  I am befuddled that it has to be done at all.  I want this all to be over and done with. I also want to use up that half container of buttermilk in my fridge before it becomes unusable (does buttermilk ever really go bad?)

Total non sequitur.  Is that me or is it fibromyalgia?

Seven minutes before I call in to the conference line.  Wish me luck.

Fired Up - Stone Soup

All the trees are green, and the sky is blue. I have a magnolia blossom and an okra blossom too! That's the good news. My doctor listened to me (she always does) and changed my medication.  That's also good news. The bad news is that I am getting fired on Wednesday. Terminated.  Separated.  Put out to pasture. Sigh. It was inevitable, in fact it has to happen in order for me to move forward with what is left of my life, but it is sad, nonetheless.  

All I really want is a quart of soup and a good reason not to have to go out to Publix. I've already been out today. I have to go out again tomorrow. Doctors, etcetera etcetera and so forth. Shall we dance?Did Yul Brynner live in vain? Two paragraphs in and you've got two ear worms for the price of one.You're welcome.

I don't have split peas in the pantry (my first choice). But I do have carrots and celery and a neck bone, and maybe a way to use up that can of Progresso Lentil Soup I bought in a moment of weakness.  Or maybe it was madness.

1 or 2 small pieces smoked pork neck bone

1 medium onion, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

1 large celery stalk, chopped

1 hot pepper (I used Scotch bonnet), halved and seeded (totally optional or remove early)

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 Knorr chicken bouillon cubes

1 full sprig fresh thyme

1--14.5 oz. can Hunt's diced tomatoes, including the liquid

1-19 oz. can Progresso lentil soup

kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper, to taste

1 small sprig each fresh rosemary and fresh basil

a dash of sugar

1-32 oz. container Progresso Tuscany Broth

Add the ingredients to a crockpot, in the order given.  Cover, set on Low and cook for 4 hours. Increase heat to High and add a 15.5 oz. can undrained Goya pinto beans and a 15 oz. bag of frozen vegetable soup mix, defrosted in a colander, under warm water,

Hmm, what else can I add to the soup?

Oy vey, this is turning into Stone Soup, and I have no guarantee that I won't pour it down the drain when it is done, assuming it ever gets done.    

Hour Six: I add a piece of Parmesan rind, some Emeril's Essence, dried thyme, granulated garlic, a pinch more of sugar, and a cut-up okra pod I just snagged from my garden.  What else can I add to the soup?

Hour Seven: I threw in a half cup of ditalini pasta.  Another half hour and ta-da, for better or worse.

Would you believe ... delicious?

Family Freakout - Pasta, Pork, and Peppers Manicotti

I got punched in the stomach by a selfie.  I blame my cousin Steven, but not really.  He did warn me.

I can't make these things up. Just work with me here.  Okay, as a lawyer, I have spent the last 24 years in search of the truth. Most of that time I have been a civil prosecutor, held to a higher standard.  I'm not just there to win the case, I am charged with finding out what really happened.  If the truth caused me to lose a case, so be it.  I've always trusted my judges (well, at least until recently) to do the Right Thing with the information I had available to give them.

My personal life has also been spent in search of the truth, which I suppose was inevitable because I had been lied to by my family, my whole life.  So I have spent my whole life trying to figure out who I really am.  Who do I really look like?  Where did I get this or that trait from? How can I begin to answer these sorts of questions when I have no idea what half my family even looks like?  Where did my younger brother get those gorgeous blue eyes, so different from everyone else in our family?

Trust me, they are blue

                    

When I "found" my paternal relatives in 2013, I also found those gorgeous blue eyes, most notably on a cousin whose grandfather was my father's brother, and on my first cousin Steve; my father and his mother were brother and sister. And others.  Freaky in a very nice way. But since my youngest brother (formerly known as my only brother) remains estranged from me, and surely does not follow my blog, he will remain clueless.

I've looked at my face and I can discern certain genetic markers - the Nathan chin; the left eyelid droop from the Alberts. But overall, when I look at me, I don't see a real maternal family resemblance.  As my beloved cousin Marcia once told me -  and she had grown up with my mother, and had never, ever lied to me - I look like the "other side."  And that my grandmother-who-raised-me did not like that. 

Without pictures of the "other side", I just didn't see it.  Heck, even with pictures of the other side, lovingly provided by Cousin Steve, I just didn't see it. I knew I did not look like my mother Joyce but I kind of looked like her brother, my Uncle Marty and yes, you are right, I was in denial.

But when you've been lied to by the adults closest to you, and asked to lie by them as well, to perpetrate a family fraud, lines blur and so do faces. But just recently, a Facebook photo of one of my Osher nephews struck me, and there was no doubt but I could see the resemblance, and with his father, my brother Fred, and with my sister Nora.  If you were to take a picture of us together (and sadly, Fred is gone) you would say we were obviously family.

But wait!  Along came the selfie, and I finally finally FINALLY saw what my Cousin Steve had been trying to tell me two years ago.

Total family freakout.  Yes, I do look like my aunties, my father Mike's sisters, especially my Aunt Helen on the right. I was so shocked by the selfie-in-the-garden that I ran around like a lunatic to find the pictures Steve and Cookie had brought me two years ago (I told you I was in denial).  I had put them in a safe place; so safe, in fact, it took me two hours to find them.

The moral of the story is that it is almost always a bad idea to lie to your children.  I once told Cousin Steve that Cindy Osher had disappeared the end of May, 1962, but I was wrong; she merely went involuntarily underground for the next fifty years.  Bad idea, definitely added to the pathological tendencies I inherited from both sides, but I can't change it.  I am who I am, except now I am whole. Mostly.  I still don't know what Mike looked like.  

More serious stuff: A DCF worker was shot and killed by a parent in Vermont after that parent lost custody of her child. This is so upsetting, I cannot put it into words.  My social service colleagues, the child protective investigators, and the case managers, put their lives at risk every day, yet they are underpaid, overworked, and under-appreciated.  

As an attorney for the Department, I'm not out in the field, like they are, and yet I have had my office windows shot out twice, my identity stolen and used to buy televisions and such, and verbally threatened so that deputies had to escort me out of the courthouse.  I've been followed, screamed at, and pushed (I pushed back).  As bad as that is, the investigators and case managers are at much higher risk, as they are out there, in the field, in people's homes, all alone with nothing but a cell phone. No wonder the turnover rate is so high.  No wonder.

Less serious stuff:  Oh Donald, what have you done? Actually, thank you for putting Megyn Kelly in her place. Hey, I really like Bret Baier and Chris Wallace.  Lately. though Megyn has been coming across like a brittle shrew.  They should have had Greta on that panel. Fox out-foxed themselves.  Pathetic.

I ate the tomato and it was good

I shouldn't have cooked today, but it is hard for me to sit still despite the price I pay.  Because I was active yesterday, spending too much time on my feet, I had a dreadful night, mostly sleepless.  When I did get up, my back was on fire.  Yesterday I was able to eat; today is a whole different story.

While I was checking the Lower Forty today, and harvesting Italian parsley and Thai basil, I noticed that I already had 3 gorgeous okra pods ripening on the plant.  A few more of those and I can start giving serious though to preparing my gumbo. Stay tuned.

So I had a bag of uncooked manicotti tubes staring me in the face from one of my pantries. I always have grating cheese and prepared sauce in the house - basil and parsley in the garden - all I had to do was pick up ricotta - and while I was doing that those cute little pork sausage meatballs jumped into my shopping cart.  It's not a huge amount, but enough for a small family, with dividends.

Pasta, Pork, and Peppers Manicotti

1 pound Italian pork sausage, any casing removed, formed into 12 meatballs

Canola oil, for frying

6 to 10 uncooked manicotti tubes

1-24 oz. jar of your favorite prepared pasta sauce

1-15 oz. container whole milk ricotta (Galbani, if you can find it)

1 extra large egg

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

pinch white pepper

pinch cayenne pepper

pinch granulated garlic

1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper

1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese

1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano

1/2 cup (from a 12 oz. jar) Mancini brand fried peppers, rough chop

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 tablespoon chopped Thai basil

1 cup shredded Parmigiano Reggiano (or other good Parmesan)

Fry the meatballs in canola oil; remove to a pan and place in the refrigerator to cool down.

Place the manicotti in boiling water that has had a tablespoon of salt and some oil added to it. Reduce the heat setting to Low, cover the pot and time for 9 minutes.  Remove each cooked manicotti with a slotted spoon and place in a large bowl half filled with ice and cold water.  When the manicotti are cooled down, carefully move them to paper towels to drain. Save some of the cooking water. If you are lucky, you will have 6 relatively intact cooked manicotti.  If you have more, go ahead and use them.  I had 8 out of the 9 - good catch.

Prepare the filling: in a large mixing bowl combine the ricotta, egg, salt, peppers and granulated garlic. Mix well to incorporate the egg. Take 6 of the cooked meatballs and chop into smaller pieces. Add the chopped meatballs, along with the pepper jack, Romano, and fried peppers, and stir gently to fully combine. Finally fold in the parsley and basil.

Cover the bottom of an aluminum baking pan with some of the sauce thinned with some of the pasta water.  Fill the manicotti tubes with the ricotta mixture.  Place each filled manicotti on top of the sauce. Eight manicotti will fit comfortably in the pan.  Spread any leftover filling across the manicotti.

Thin the remaining sauce with more of the pasta water, and pour over the manicotti, covering all of the exposed pasta.  Optional:  slice the remaining meatballs and place them on top of the manicotti.  Do the same with some of the fried pepper pieces. Cover the top of the casserole with the Parmesan cheese. Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes.

Garnish with chiffonade of fresh basil, if you're that kind of person.

From Superstitious to Sentimental - Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

I freely admit that I am sentimental to the point of occasional stupidity.  Which is why I have So Much Stuff that I can't bear to get rid of, like the pink pan in this photo.  It was my grandmother's and always sat on her stovetop for boiling water. (I hope that someday Cory feels the same about the white and blue Corning Ware kettle sitting there.)   I'm sure I could get a guest shot on "Hoarders", but I would end up having to call my friend Donna to represent me on charges of assault, battery, and maybe worse, if anybody from the show tried to discard My Stuff.

That's how The Rabbi ended up on the wall, even though this painting was never part of My Stuff, and I don't particularly care for it.  Sentimentality is a slippery slope, my friends.  All it took was a piece of paper with Robert's name written on it in a slightly shaky, unfamiliar hand, taped to the back of the painting, and the sentimentality gene kicked in. So there he is, and there he'll stay.

Grandma Morris

With James' irreplaceable help, we got a whole lot more of our pictures hung up.  First, we hung The Grandmas.  The fact that I'm still shlepping them around and hanging them with reverence is just more of that sentimentality jazz.

Grandma Albert

I come by the sentimentality thing (and the superstitious thing) honestly. I was raised by my grandparents, both of whom were, in their own ways, deeply spiritual people, and this belief in Something Else Out There was the source of a lot of their funny ways.  Both were firmly convinced that red was a lucky color, and a red ribbon would ward off evil spirits. A bittersweet story - Pop had been fighting colon and abdominal cancer for 16 months when he had to be admitted to the hospital yet again.  He was there for a week, and then he passed away in his blessedly drug-induced sleep. When I went to pack up his belongings, I found the outfit he had worn to go to the hospital.  Everything, with the exception of his underclothes, was some shade of red. Now it was certainly true that the red clothes did not ward off the evil spirit, so that he could survive the cancer, but it did keep the kinehora at arm's length long enough for me to get down to Florida to see him and say goodbye.

Mom was the same way; she loved mystic stuff, tarot card readings, and was convinced she had some sort of paranormal abilities.  She believed in the power of the color red, was nuts about keeping hats off of beds, and was sentimental to a fault.  Between the two of them they were a mess, to tell you the truth, but they did manage to pull themselves together, sentimentally speaking, and commissioned the two portraits of their mothers, to be done from very old, very precious photos.  Their sentimentality brought them together when so many other things pulled them apart, and those portraits hung side by side in their home until Pop was gone, Mom had to be moved to assisted living, and their condo had to be dismantled for good.  Since then, I am the Keeper of the Grandmas, and have hung them faithfully in each of my homes.  Sentimental slob that I am, I always feel better when they are both glaring down at me.  I'm not sure anyone else shares my attachment, and I am pretty sure that when I'm gone, the portraits are going with me ... wherever.

In addition to the Rabbi and the Grandmas, James hung up a whole bunch of stuff for us, and I have to admit it's beginning to look a lot like home. And office. More office than home, at least this trip.

There was more, but you get the idea.  That's still my front door, and I like walking in through it.  Thank you James, as always, great job.

Serious stuff: Yesterday, a jury in Colorado sentenced the Aurora Theatre killer to life without possibility of parole.  I know that a number of people, including victims' family members, are disappointed, but, for what it is worth, in my opinion, it is the correct sentence.  Somewhere along the line, while I was revising my personal opinion on abortion, my opinion regarding capital punishment changed as well. Not because I don't have a big streak of bloodthirsty in my make-up, but because I truly believe that we (we, the People, we, the innocent, we, the victims) are better than that.  (I also have a huge concern regarding improper convictions of innocent parties, but that doesn't apply here). We do not have to kill to punish. We (should) value Life above all else.  Besides, taking a killer's sorry ass life can NEVER be sufficient repayment for what that killer has taken from the victims and their families.  Life in prison without parole is a pretty stiff sentence.  Perhaps it is not enough, but it is the strongest we can impose. And that's my opinion.

The past two days, I've given you recipes for cookies, including The Very Best Butter Cookie.  Let me say, for the record, that if I could bake - and eat - only one cookie for the rest of my life, it would be this butter cookie. But if I was granted the boon of baking the same two cookie recipes for the next 30 or so years, until God calls me home to Brooklyn - you didn't think I was going to Heaven, did you? - my second choice would be this Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Sidebar - Rob is watching "Sharknado III" and all hell has broken out at Universal Studios Orlando. Since I pass Universal every time I drive to my therapist's office, this is bound to give me nightmares once a week, every week.  This movie is so bad it's good in a really sick way.  In the meantime, I'm dancing around in my kitchen while listening to Jefferson Starship.  Should be giving my neighbor an eyeful.  Enjoy it, honey, usually you're watching me throw up.

Back to the cookies - they are so good, your tongue will slap your brains out (I've been living down south much too long).  I ate two right out of the oven - anorexia, my ass.  These came out so good, I surprised myself.  For some reason I made them by hand.  Oh hell, I was just too lazy to dig out the stand mixer or wash the beaters from the hand mixer.  So I did the whole thing by hand, wooden spoon, and rubber spatula.  Three batches, fast and easy thanks to the aluminum foil trick I learned from Maida Heatter 40 years ago.  You know how I am about aluminum.

I can't take credit for the recipe, and don't scream when you see the list of ingredients which is mercifully short.  All you need to know is that it works like a dream.

Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 stick butter, softened to room temperature

1-8 oz. bar Philadelphia cream cheese, softened to room temperature 

1 extra large egg

1/2 teaspoon real vanilla extract

1-18 oz. package yellow cake mix

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup milk chocolate chips

Cream together the butter and cream cheese until smooth and lump-free.  Blend in the egg and vanilla. Add the dry cake mix, one-third at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Mix in the chocolate chips. Cover the dough and chill for at least 30 minutes.

You will need 3 pieces of aluminum foil large enough to cover your cookie sheet.  With a medium sized scoop, portion out 12 to 14 cookies for the first sheet of foil and slide the cookie sheet underneath it. Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 11 to 12 minutes.  While the first cookies are baking, portion out the remaining dough on the other 2 pieces of aluminum foil.

Remove the baked cookies from the oven and cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, no more.  Check the bottom of one cookie; it should be light/medium brown.  Remove the finished cookies to a cooling rack, and allow the cookie sheet for a few minutes before sliding it under the second piece of foil. Repeat the procedure until all 3 sheets have been baked.  With the medium scoop, I got 41 cookies.

Utter cookie perfection.  Thank you Betty Crocker.

Peace, Love, and TPR - Maple Oatmeal Macaroons

Happy day, and for you folks still doing the old 9 to 5, thank goodness it's Friday.  I've got cookies and cats and Pandora knock-offs and as always, a back story.

#spooniegotthestory

Oh, for CRYING OUT LOUD!  Anakin Skywalker, what's your boggle??? This cat, the Only Cat, actually backed  into the narrow space between the baking sheet and the cookies.  He never bothers the cookies, or touches them, or even sniffs at them.  He just poses for pictures with them.  Any ideas on how to keep him off the stove top?                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Incidentally, did anyone not watch the Republican debates last night? What did you all think about Carly Fiorina?

I am a superstitious lady, which flies in the face of my many years of scientific and legal training.  I am supposed to be logical, but I freely admit to belief in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster, and the theory of Atlantis. I believe in ghosts - hell, I live with some of them - and I also believe in the power of Jewish kinehora and Italian malocchio and Greek matiasma.  I always have a red ribbon attached somewhere inside my car. (The one time I did not get a red ribbon attached to one of our cars, we got hit by a deer.)  I never put a hat on my bed. I always hang mezuzot on the outside door frames of my house and office.  (Yes, I know that it is a Jewish commandment, but it's one I choose to follow because of my superstitious nature.  There are 613 commandments, and I've broken or ignored most of them, but not that one).  Like other superstitious people of any culture, I attach a good deal of significance to certain symbols which are said to keep away the evil eye, or ward off evil spirits.

The reason I bring this up is I suddenly and unexpectedly decided to pick one of my Highly Symbolic Bracelets to wear.  The last few years of daily working I was rigidly ritualistic about wearing one or more of my bracelets to the office and court. I was falling apart, slowly and gracefully at first, quick and dirty at the end, and I needed all the help I could get.

On the right wrist I always wore the Serenity Prayer bracelet that I found in Hobby Lobby of all places, and a two-tone three-heart bracelet which always represented my family to me. The left wrist has been for a rotating selection depending on my mood and circumstance.  And today I wanted to wear one, and that indicated to me that I might actually live through this.

For the first time in a very long time, I felt like I was worthy of protection.  I was practically giddy for about a minute. Felt good. #spooniehasntgottimeforthepain  (The little cylinder is worn around my neck and is especially precious to me, but that's another blog post, and there's another bracelet to the story).

Today I chose the all-red bracelet, my own personal kinehora bendel, designed to ward off evil spirits.  I designed it to have every lucky amulet I could get my hands on, and of course every bead is red (the little purple dog at the end symbolizes fibromyalgia, hiss boo.) So I had a pretty good day.  Pain, yes indeed, my back and legs are on fire, but I had ibuprofen and a comfortable chair to make it bearable. Maybe there really is hope, for days that are less painful, days when the dementors leave me alone.

The bracelet immediately above the red one is my favorite, and I wear it the most often.  It symbolizes my support for victims of HIV/AIDS, heart disease, child abuse, fibromyalgia, breast cancer, and lymphoma. I have my reasons.  And the one above that is ...well, can't you see it? It's my Orlando Magic bracelet!  I wear it whenever my team plays.  Do they win?  Nah, but I feel good for supporting them.

I haven't had to do any heavy cooking the past few days, which gave me time to bake a few batches of cookies. Yesterday was for the butter cookies, today was all about these cute little macaroons, and ... oh.  That black bracelet on top of the post?  That is a dual-purpose bracelet; I wore it whenever I was in a bad mood - and for every TPR (termination of parental rights) trial I prosecuted.  And I had a lot of them.  I was also in a bad mood a good deal of the time.  When those two coincided, I dressed in all black AND wore the bracelet, because I was in serious mourning for my sanity.

Back to the cookies - this is another ridiculously easy recipe.  No flour, no leavening agent, no beaters. You mix this up in a saucepan.

Maple Oatmeal Macaroons

1/2 stick butter
1/4 cup maple syrup
a dash of salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup dried currants
1 extra large egg, beaten with a fork

In a small saucepan, melt the butter.  Stir in the maple syrup, salt, and cinnamon.  Add the oats, coconut, and currants.  Take the saucepan off the heat and allow it to cool down.  Stir the beaten egg in to the oatmeal mixture.

Place a silpat on a cookie sheet and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Drop small scoops of the dough onto the cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes.  Cool the macaroons for about 5 minutes and then remove them to a rack to finish cooling.

This is one of those recipes when it is important to use real maple syrup.  Also, the currants really make the cookie.   If you can't find zante currants - difficult even during the Christmas cookie-baking season - you can use raisins, but the cookie is just not the same.  If you have access to a Whole Foods, you can find the currants in the bulk foods section.