Congrats on the sofa, Jesse, and the stoneware, Barb.

I've spent the day baking, as I'm providing the dessert part of a progressive dinner tomorrow. Venison mincemeat pie, Kahlua brownies, and cheesecake with cherry topping. My apartment smells wonderful.

Ooh, that sounds excellent, Calli.

Mmm... yummy, Calli! I saw you mention the venison mincemeat in your LJ and was intrigued. It sounds really interesting.

Venison mincemeat is an old family tradition. Mom thought her great-great-grandma Baker brought the recipe over from England back in the 1800s. We've had it at Christmas and Thanksgiving as long as I can remember. Last year we'd run out of the last batch my late mom had made (you get ~12 quarts per batch, which make 12 pies). So I tried my hand at it. It came out just like Mom's. The recipe's here, if you'd like to try it. It's an all-day process, though, and then some.

Yay love seat.

Barb, I love that dinnerware- I love all the colours. My parents are buying me some very plain white dinnerware for Xmas. But I have some much odds and sods pottery I wanted something neutral to work with.

Mincemeat with actual meat? Huh.

Wow, Four Brothers is a really bad movie. I'm watching it because Mark Wahlberg and also the Mercer thing, but even half tipsy this is bad.tivo gives it two stars. I am skeptical.

(Though there just was a great line. "You don't pay a ho to like you. You pay her to leave." Not that I get what if anything it has to do with the plot, but hey.)

Okay possibly more than half tipsy.

I wish I had beer or wine, but not enough to go out right now. I will make myself a cheesy cocktail.

Speaking of cocktails, I have a question for cocktail people--what should I buy to mix with a) Three Olives triple espresso Vodka, and b) Seagram's sweet tea vodka (individually not together, obviously) that I could buy at Trader Joes or a regular grocery store?

I'm watching Across the Universe and loving it as much as ever. I'd love to spend a few days/weeks just hanging with Julie Taymor and watching her operate. I adore her visual sensibilities.

And Sue, those colors just utterly sold us. For the past seventeen years, our everyday stoneware has been a pale green southwestern design from Noritake that has been fabulous and held up amazingly well, but we were just ready for a change. But yeah, if I had a lot of bits and bobs of pottery, I'd probably do the same thing in terms of getting something neutral to use as a backdrop.

I have to come in here and squee. I'm flying to Orlando tomorrow for a business meeting on Monday and I'm now having dinner tomorrow night at Victoria and Alberts. Yum!