Weird even among the geeks

Wednesday is the department office holiday party. My last one. I always used to wear a red sweater and green velvet slacks but the slacks became too small and were hauled off to the used clothing sale and the sweater got moth holes. So it goes. There are five years of pictures of me in that outfit.

Our department (IT) has a feast, no, it's actually a pig out, and I always manage to bring something that no one likes. One year it was asparagus vinaigrette, another year it was sophisticated date cookies that weren't too sweet. Actually, a Russian colleague raved about them, but he was the only one. A few years ago I brought a meat loaf, served cold and that was actually a big hit, at least people ate it. We do not have culinary sophisticates in our department, but mostly meat and potatoes types.

Another year I brought a sandwich loaf, one of those complicated things where you slice an unsliced load cross-wise and put in fillings of tuna, ham salad, whatever, and then frost the whole business with cream cheese. It was immense and hard to slice. Don't know what I was thinking about. People stayed away in droves.

This year I am going to make meatloaf again, this time from Cook's Illustrated. Recipe calls for ground sirloin and ground chuck, and the supermarket meat was labeled only by fat content, so the nice butcher man came out and said the sirloin was the low fat and the chuck the medium fat. The best ground beef I ever had was made from the scraps of a prime rib roast and the fat percentage would have been "deadly," but was it ever fantastic.

We always have a "Yankee Swap" with a limit of $10.00, although some people bring booze that I'm sure costs more. Maybe they are "re-gifting." The biggest gift hits are always the booze with lottery tickets a close second. To me the tickets, which may render you nada, are kind of a tacky gift. Again, I usually strike out with gifts as well as food. This year I brought small books with lots of photographs at the MFA gift shop, and a guide to Boston for the new guy. I think they're kind of cool, but what do I know? They sure ain't lottery tickets.

Today, still in baking mode, I made some chocolate pecan bars with a shortbread bottom that are incredibly decadent and likewise delicious, even better if possible than the cranberry bars from yesterday. Easy to believe that people gain 5 pounds over the holidays. I probably gained five pounds this weekend just on the cookies.

Worked out today on the treadmill and lifting weights, but I don't think anything would make up for those chocolate bars. Also made Mexican Wedding cakes, my mother's recipe, and something called "little cherry cookies," which are butter cookies rolled in pecans with a tiny piece of marachino cherry on top. They look very festive and have a hint of citrus. Oh yeah, the chocolate pecan bars have some grated orange rind that add a ferocious amount of complexity.

Tonight's dinner was spicy Mexican shrimp (in adobo sauce) from the Wall Street Journal. Zowie, it was so hot we had to keep the Kleenex box on the table. A keeper. Served with plain rice. Put some of the adobo sauce on last nights yucko chicken to schlep to work for lunch tomorrow.

There will be a farewell party for me at work on Tuesday. The traditional supermarket cake with napkins and forks swiped from the cafeteria. I am going to indulge in BSP (blatant self-promotion) and take some of my books (The Shadow Warriors) to sell. What the hell? It's the thought that counts.

Now I have got to go do more research on FBI raids. I don't think I'll email the FBI and ask how they conduct their raids. I emailed the ATF asking about moonshine stills in North Georgia and they didn't answer.

We bought the tree (deeply discounted) yesterday and Significant Other decorated it very nicely with the cats looking on with interest. We use the real lead tinsel and the kitties mustn't eat it. The tree looks magnificent with ornaments dating from last year and going back all the way to the turn of the previous century. I love my old Victorian Santa, so skinny and weird.

Grapeshot
Weird but not skinny, esp. after the cookie eating frenzy.