Sweet Dreams

So lately, since I am working on another draft of my thesis, I spend my down brain time dreaming up lists of cooking and baking utensils that I would like. I allot myself a given amount I can spend on equipment and/or ingrediants each month.

This month is the richest month I will have for quite a while, I think. I have already upgraded some key things (like wisks, rubber scrapers, pastry brushes -silicone vs. traditional is being put to the test this month- and chocolate dippers. I am contemplating the merits of a jelly roll pan, a candy thermometer, a chocolate thermometer (or one that would suffice for chocolate), a new cooling rack (higher wire density than my others), or a marble slab (for chocolate and pastry). Oh, and I am planning on getting a couple items at an art store (exacto knife, small bottles and droppers for cake decoration), and to buy a mini cupcake tray when in DC at the end of the month to make some petit fours there for Mr. P, but that's about it.

I am also getting mad at myself because I finally found some great vanilla, but now I am not sure where I saw it, and I had allocated money to buy a bottle of tahitian vanilla just to see what it was like. Grrr. I also want to look at getting a nice small bottle of chocolate liquor for my chocolate work which I so want to engage in next month. I will take this opportunity to add that I almost laugh out loud everytime I look at the old school chocolate tempering thermometers which remind me of the ones in Gr. 5-8 science class - the kind you'd stick in the snow, etc., for stupid temperature of liquids-solids lessons. I mean, look at it!


Sad to say, but because of all these thoughts about future purchases, I have taken to looking at bigger housewear/kitchen websites. I am convinced that if Sur La Table and Williams-Sonoma aren't owned by the same parent company -and apparently they're not- then the two have at least employed the same advertising (or whatever) firm to design their spring websites. They are creepily similar in the colour palette department.

On a totally unrelated note, I have decided that the TV show Men In Trees, what I called Sex and Elmo, has improved greatly over the past year or so. Heche's character is way less annoying (actually, all the characters are way less annoying), and while the writing is still a bit sappy for my liking, it is funnier and much more charming then I remember. For those who missed the other night, Jack survives his crappy adventure at sea and gets back to Elmo where Marin sends her bike to greet him, which strikes him to the ground (and for half a second I thought it would be splendifurously funny if they killed him from blunt force trauma from the fall that ensues)!

Yes, I'm a dork.