The best of 805.

I say this often, but I don't think that I say it often enough. I am so incredibly blessed to live in Goleta/Santa Barbara and call this city home.

I have done nothing to deserve this beautiful place, but this is where God has chosen to place me and I am so lucky. Francis Chan reminded me in his book Crazy Love that I need to remember, on a daily basis, how great God is...and I need to praise Him for his greatness. I know that He is great, holy, perfect, Creator, but days go by when I get caught up in life and forget to meditate on this greatness. He is so good. His love is so good. His grace and mercy are so good. His creation is so good.

Kip

Kip (kip) n.
The untanned hide of a small or young animal, such as a calf.

Kip (kip) chiefly British slang - n.
A rooming house.
A bed or a room in a rooming house.
A bed.
Sleep.

Kip (kip) n.
A 1,000 pound unit of weight.

Kipper (kip'er) n.
A male salmon or sea trout in the spawning season.
A split, salted, and smoked herring.

-pered, -pering, -pers
To cure (fish) by splitting, salting, and smoking.

My nickname defined.
My favorite? The 1,000 pound unit of weight. Yep, that's me.

PERSIMMONS...

I could attempt to eat persimmons by the dozen (I really like them), but I would rather NOT turn my skin orange so I turn to baking. These cookies are pretty fabulous.

Persimmon Cookies
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup persimmon puree
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp. cinnamon (generous, as always)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Cream sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs. Add persimmon puree and stir until combined.
Sift dry ingredients together in a small bowl. Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture, slowly, about one third at a time. Mix until flour is just incorporated.
Lay out plastic wrap on a smooth surface. Place dough on the plastic wrap, creating a long cylindrical log. Wrap the dough completely with the plastic wrap and freeze for a few hours until frozen or almost frozen.
Remove dough from the freezer and, using a serrated knife, cut 1/4" thick rounds. Place cookie dough rounds on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 10-14 minutes (depending on thickness of cookie dough) until cookies spring back when lightly touched.

When cookies have cooled, frost with the following powdered sugar/persimmon glaze:
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. milk
1 Tbsp. persimmon puree

Cookies and ice cream for lunch? Yes, please!

I am not a big lunch person. Don't get me wrong, I definitely could never skip this midday meal, but it isn't my favorite of the daily meals.
If I had to rank them it would be: breakfast, dinner, lunch. If I could, I would even throw dessert in there...and it would be #1. :)
But today I was stoked for lunch because, to be honest, it was dessert.
My best friend went to CO for a bit and I picked her up from LAX this morning. I was happy to pick her up because I love spending time (especially road tripping time) with her...and her bribe of cookie-wiches for lunch didn't hurt either. Cookies for lunch? Yep, I have to confess that today, for the first time in my life, I ate dessert for lunch. I felt like a kid.
On more than one occasion she has raved about Diddy Riese. Cheap and fabulous cookie sandwiches. Naturally, we had to venture to this place because I was tired of hearing about it without TASTING it!

After leaving LAX we confidently headed to find this "DD Reese". Or was it "Dee Dee Reese"? Or "Di Di Reece"? Our poor Garmin navigation could not find anything of the sort BUT we were determined to find the place so I called my dad, got the exact address, and SUCCESS. Diddy Riese.

Is it all it was talked up to be?
ABSOLUTELY.
No question.
For $5, we got two chocolate chip cookie/espresso ice cream sandwiches and 6 cookies to take home. Eating cookie-wiches in our parking space right in front of Diddy Riese, exhausted from L.A. crazed driving, content to be in each others' company once again...priceless.

Wishing you a sweet Christmas!

10 things I love about Christmas:
-the time off work (aka: winter break)
-candlelight service
-gift-giving
-the celebration of joy/peace/love/the birth of Jesus
-big family meals
-Christmas lights
-Christmas music!!
-drinking tea while opening presents from "Santa"
-omelettes and cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning (every year, no matter what)
-did I mention the time off work?

This year, I claimed Christmas dinner's dessert as mine, and the hunt began for the perfect dessert...I think the hunt took me all of 5 minutes because I already knew what I wanted to make: Ollalieberry Roulade.

Okay, it is technically supposed to be Blackberry Roulade, but if you know my family, you know we loooove our ollalieberries, so naturally I ditched the blackberries and went to our trusty freezer for some home-grown ollalieberries! And it was divine.

Plates were licked, "mmm"s were heard for miles around (slight exaggeration), and the recipe was filed in the "definitely make again" file. It was time consuming...three hours...but SO worth it. The cake was light, the filling smooth, and the extra ollalieberry puree drizzled on top was the perfect "cherry on top". Fantastico!

December EXCITEMENT!

The past 48 hours have been intense, exciting, and memorable:

Great friends got engaged, we finally got a good rain storm, the Christmas season was rung in with a Christmas lights trolley ride...and I had a few spare hours to quickly bake a new cake!

The "Happy Engagement/Merry Christmas" Caramelized Banana Cake!

The cake takes time and a little patience (I have never been one to want to let my cakes cool...I get so antsy to see the finished product!) but it isn't too complicated and it is definitely worth the
hours in the kitchen!
Banana cake with a layer of caramelized bananas in the middle, covered in marscapone whipped cream frosting and drizzled with real dulce de leche...yum.

Congrats Tim and Kjersti!
Merry Christmas to all!

Fun Fact: I am ____ years old.

I never before realized how naive children are when it comes to the concept of age...and let me tell you, it is quite entertaining to hear them attempt age guesses!

As a substitute teacher, I am a small mystery. I am the "cool" person, the "new" teacher to get to know, and one of the first questions (other than "are you married" and "do you have kids") is "how old are you?"
When asked, I simply smile, shrug my shoulders, say "guess," and let the games begin.

Kindergarteners and 1st graders are the most entertaining because, with complete seriousness, they begin with "14" or "76". I try not to laugh out loud, but sometimes I can't control myself. They have no real concept of age...it's not their fault. When I tell them that isn't my age, some proceed to go even higher or lower! In their eyes, I have been seen as young as 11 and as old as 92. Awesome.

Third and fourth graders are a little more forgiving...but not completely on target, either. They peg me as in my 30s and occasionally in my 40s. I asked one class why they guessed so old (I mean, do I look that old??) and they said that they guessed those ages because that is the age of their parents. When they realized they guessed too old, they immediately dropped to 18. Gee, thanks.

Today, I actually had a sixth grade class that, despite the one guess of 18, got my age correct pretty quickly.
Lesson learned? If you need some "age therapy", talk to kids under the age of 10...chances are, they will make you feel young if you are old and old if you are young, which will probably make you feel pretty good about yourself.