One of my fave desserts!
I'm kind of surprised it's a national holiday here, but it definitely deserves a day to celebrate it. There are many different versions around the world, but they say it may have originated with the Turkic people in Central Asian nations. The word baklava first appeared in English in 1650. In general, it's a sweet pastry made with layers of filo dough, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with syrup or honey. It's also Homemade Bread Day. That's the best kind!
I've been curious about making my own bread in the past. Maybe I'll get to it sometime in the near future. My mom used to make homemade challah every Friday until she got really sick. The whole house smelled awesome. And, sometimes I could smell it as I was just outside the door coming home from school. It made for a nice and cozy atmosphere.
It's been really cold lately.
So cold that there was a pretty thick layer of frost out when I went for my morning walk today. For a couple of nights I've been able to get the fireplace going with some interesting firewood from Safeway, so it's been somewhat toasty inside at least.
I've been sick for the past week.
I'm still at the very tail-end of it. Had a very low grade fever, but it was quite a bit higher than my norm. Apparently, I'm cooler than most people are with body temperature.
(Might be one factor as to why weather has affected me a little differently...I used to be numb to cold and hot weather, only noticing that the colder or hotter it gets the more headaches and/or sweaty I get. I'm still a little odd with it.
) I've felt lightheaded, cold/hot sweats (funny to be absolutely freezing and absolutely burning up at the same time
), felt nauseous, nose going, a weird scratchy throat, etc. At least I seem to be coming out of it. I really had an urge to go for a walk this morning, and went out for the first time in a while. Bumped into a neighborhood friend, and she said I should still take it easy. My body might not be up to walking a lot. Turned out the air was so cold, it started to hurt my sides and throat. I had to cut it a little short because of it. Probably was close to 1 1/2 miles compared to the 2 miles I usually do. Not too bad. Took me a while to recover from the cold, though.
I'm glad I got out there, too. I needed it. On Saturday, we went to Barnes and Noble at the mall. I got an iced gingerbread latte at their cafe. It was surprisingly good. I don't usually like coffee, I'm more of a tea person.
Also, while we were there I found a regular calendar for next year. It's called A Walk in Paris, and it comes with a 'matchbook map guide' which has a tagline saying Walk, Shop, Eat in Paris. It looks cool from what they show you on the outside. I took French in high school (all of the levels that were available...
) so I have a certain affection or draw to the country, too. Although, it's not as strong as it used to be. (Japan has outdone it now.
) It'll still be cool to see places in the city of Paris. This one doesn't seem as busy as my current Italy calendar. A pic a 'day' (some stretched for a couple of days) makes it a little cluttered looking.
I hope to get the next Jewish calendar from the same people as last time, the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. It's fascinating to see the really old stuff, and they always have interesting things each year.
They sell them on Amazon, so it's easy to get. I usually have to get 2 calendars, because the regular one doesn't have the Jewish holidays/calendar dates/parshas (weekly Torah portion). A lot of the time the Jewish one doesn't have all the American holidays or things like Daylight Saving Time. So, it's like you have to get both in order to stay on top of everything...
The Jewish calendar is lunar, so things 'jump around' when you compare them to the regular calendar. (They're always on the same date on the Jewish calendar itself, by the way.) Managed to have my birthday cake Friday night! Yay!
A week late, but awesome nonetheless. It is/was a cream version of a Black Forest cake. I love Black Forest cake! So it's like an over-the-top version. It's huge!
No matter how thin I slice it, it makes huge slices. Started the 2nd season of Hamatora. Apparently, they tried to troll the audience for a while making it look like Nice really did die. (Even held a memorial service at the cafe.) Then, towards the end, he shows up and reveals that he was in a tiger mascot costume that was there in the background for a good part of the episode.
He apparently was sent to the hospital, but they haven't revealed what really happened when Art aimed his gun and fired at Nice. (Or so we assume. Art held the gun to the back of Nice's head, it faded to black, then a gunshot was heard.) Nice was also badly beat up by Moral, so that might be another reason why he was at the hospital if Art didn't really shoot him. They seemed to paint the current Art in a bad light, like he's the next 'villain'.
Maybe it's for show, too. Although, he's looking a lot like Moral...I kind of feel more confused after watching this episode than I was before.
Although, I'm glad to see Nice's alive. Oh, and last season the owner of Cafe Nowhere was always grinding coffee. Now he's apparently wiping dishes with a dishtowel. It'd be interesting to see some more background stuff on him. Finished watching ST. It was ok and had its moments. Wasn't the best mystery/cop drama, though. Had a lot of actors that I'm familiar with too. All the members of ST are slightly flawed and socially inept. (All except for the Captain.) They also have names that are related to colors. Akagi (his name has 'red' in it, and is a part of the tagline for the series 'Red and...') is a forensic expert, has severe agoraphobia, is obsessed with solving mysteries but gets upset when he figures it all out, if there isn't any mysteries he prefers to stay home (in fact before joining the team, he refused to leave his house for anything), and he can be incredibly rude to other detectives. Midori (which means 'green') has super sensitive hearing, a physicist, and tends to say 'how disgusting' to anything she doesn't like. Aoyama (has 'blue' in hers) can't function if things are organized, a profiler who has a PhD in criminal psychology, and she prefers to be tomboyish (her rich parents forbid her to, so she changes her clothes on the way to work and acts like her natural self while there). Kurosaki (has 'black' in his name) is a chemical expert, tends to only speak to one other member of the team, and 'speaks' through his cell phone to the others. He has an unusually strong sense of smell, and is really strong physically. Knives and anything pointy scares him to death. Another member (who is the only one Kuro speaks to regularly), Yamabuki (there isn't really a color in his name, but I've seen him be represented as 'yellow' and he wears yellow clothing) has chronic insomnia, also is a chemical expert, and is a Buddhist monk. Their Captain, Yurine (there isn't a color in his name, but he's represented as 'white'), seems to be the most normal. But, he's always trying to calm them down, teach them manners, knows how to deal with them, etc. They tend to cause him a lot of stress.
At the end, he was promoted to a higher position outside of the ST. If they come back for another season, it just won't be the same. There are hints about a movie in January, from the last scenes too. Apparently, Akagi gets arrested just after Yurine leaves.
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