the next project from Bake the Bread, Buy the Butter (BtB,BtB?) is making vanilla extract. it seems too easy for words: cut open some vanilla pods [that one’s sister-in-law kindly hand-me-downed last summer], scrape out the seeds, put seeds and pod into jar of medium-quality vodka [that one’s husband bought for a gin-making experiment but hasn’t used yet]. let macerate for 3 months, shaking occasionally. strain out all the yuck, and presto! you have the equivalent of $53-worth of store-bought vanilla extract.

it turns out that vanilla seeds are really really tiny. when you see flecks of vanilla in custard or ice cream, that’s not chopped up vanilla seeds or pods (as i thought it was), that’s the whole seed. scraping the seeds out of the pods is like scooping sticky spoonfuls of the tiniest black caviar you ever saw. it sticks to everything and does NOT want to go in to the jar. it’s tedious. but, remember, 16 oz of vanilla, $0 cash outlay.

so my homemade vanilla extract is in the “tim burton snow globe” phase of development right now. check back on april 14. after saving all this money on vanilla, i just might have to get a blow torch to make proper creme brule with all my new vanilla extract.

it turns out that making bagels is super easy! It took under 2.5 hours (at least 2 hours of which was rising/baking “down” time) and these are real bagels – chewy, thick-skinned, slightly dense.

the recipe is from Bake The Bread, Buy The Butter and, while I probably will try the 64-step, overnight bagel recipe from Beranbaum’s extensively complicated Bread Bible, i’m pretty sure this is all the bagel recipe i need. I even swapped half the bread flour out for white wheat flour with no ill effect.

even the fact that our oven’s thermostat has gone bananas (i sent it for 400 and halfway through the cooking it zoomed up to 550, a fact i was only alerted to when the cormeal began to scorch and set off the smoke alarm*) didn’t harm the bagels, which makes me think they are pretty hearty creatures. which is perfect for my kitchen.

it was my first day off in a couple of weeks, and today we: slept late, went to brunch at City Provisions, i baked bagels and made homemade vanilla extract. only the fact that we had a big brunch this morning and are going to a dinner party this evening is preventing us from simply spending sunday afternoon on the couch, eating bagels. a perfect, indulgent, food-themed sunday. tomorrow i’ll do chores, really.

* baking in an oven without a thermostat has its challenges; the fact that cornmeal smokes (and subsequently sets off the smoke detector) at 500 degrees has made it a handy bellwether.

saw the Hypocrites’ production of the MIKADO this evening. the world needs more fun theatre.

one of the best gifts is an unexpected free day, or free morning, even. my tech rehearsal got pushed back by 4 hours, allowing me to sleep in and go to brunch with B, run a few errands, and just NOT RUSH for just a couple of hours.

the thing B and i most want is more space in our lives. it proves to be elusive, no doubt because of some self-defeating tendency (#firstworldproblems). i’ve often noted that a task always expands to fill the time allotted for it. i think that applies to life, too. life expands to fit the space allowed it.

i find the strangest things in my office sometimes.

sensei socked me in the jaw during training tonight. it didn’t really hurt as much it just scared and surprised me. i’ve seen him rough up fellow aikidoka dozens of times, but i’ve rarely really been in the hotseat myself. i’m too much of a beginner for sensei to really take notice of me; he usually leaves the training of the beginners to other teachers, but this was a small class and there were no more experienced students for me to hide behind. the thing is, sensei is so very good, with reflexes like a cat, that i don’t think that he ever connects with someone unless he means to. which means that sometimes, he means to. teaching via tough love and all that. he tells you to move faster two or three times over, and if you don’t meet his standards, he hits you to drive home his point.

i got through the last 5 minutes of class, out of the dojo, changed clothes, and into my car before i burst into tears. i have this sense that tonight was either 1) the last time he makes me cry, or 2) my last day of training. i’m not sure yet, since i’m teching a show i can’t go to class for the next few weeks which lets me delay the decision. there’s this fine line, with teaching, determining just how far you can push someone before you cross from motivating to intimidating, with diminishing returns. i feel like we crossed that line, for me. so, what next? will i tough up, or wimp out?

2012 was…

a broken arm, a stolen (and recovered) car, the demise of said car, a new car purchase, our engagement (dubbed “the great cookie ban” by ben in protest over the wedding diet), handmade wedding rings, a new job for each of us, a cross-country move, a new apartment, 9 plays produced or designed between the two of us, 3 half marathons, 1 marathon (no. 5), a destination wedding, a brief “mini-moon” to the lost coast.

it was a year of so many good things (stolen car and broken arm notwithstanding) but it was a year of excess. we are both relieved to be looking forward to 2013, dubbed “our year of nothing” — the year in which we will NOT change jobs, move, or put on a destination wedding. a year to enjoy being married, put down roots in chicago, our adopted new/old home, to seek balance instead of upending the balance, to settle into ourselves. and a year to look further outside ourselves as well. more volunteer work, more energy to invest in the relationships around us, more engagement in our community of friends, fellow artists, neighbors.

we drove back from Cleveland today. the past week ranked high on most-relaxing vacation scale, but still it’s so nice to be back in our own home. the drive home was easy; a morning snowstorm gradually gave way to sunshine which, in turn, became a wintery dusk. outside, snow-blanketed fields fields of Ohio and Indiana rolled by and inside the car, we made plans and resolutions for the new year.

congratulations to my wonderful mother-in-law, Kate Hug, who was married to Greg Hand this morning. it snowed all day, huge white flakes that stood out on our dark coats and hats, tangled in hair and eyelashes, and piled on the ground in soft drifts. the church was full of red poinsettias and Katie wore a white suit and red heels, carried a bouquet of red roses, and she looked radiant. i couldn’t be happier for her.

it’s been a food-themed holiday week. family gatherings are naturally that way, of course, plus the only book i’ve managed to read this week was a cookbook, cover-to-cover. Make the Bread, Buy the Butter is half cookbook, half narrative about the writer’s journey in determining exactly which foods one should make from scratch and which should be store bought. of course, all of this depends on how much one likes to cook, and more importantly, how much time one has, but it was a fun read. and i’m actually kind of psyched to try making my own bagels. possibly my own cheese, just once, just to see if i can. definitely not going to touch prosciutto, however. (note: i was so far off from spelling prosciutto correctly that spell checker couldn’t even help me).

in keeping with food-theme, today we wandered Cleveland’s Westside Market. think indoor farmer’s market, but without the yuppie prices, yuppie coffee, or yuppie focus on free-range and organic. or the yuppies. it was refreshing to be in a place where everyone, all the regular folks one normally sees at safeway, were buying their produce and meat, rather than at a farmer’s market where only those who can afford a $3 peach turn up. i do love yuppie coffees and free-range chicken, so there’s a time and place for each of these things. but the market is a 100-year old Cleveland institution; an amazing, bewildering crowded hall of butchers, cheesemongers, fresh produce, spices, grains and loose leaf teas, falaffel, loaves of bread, seafood, fresh pasta, chinese dumplings, baked goods, pierogi, candies, nuts. we had dinner plans immediately following, which cut down on how much grazing we could do, but a $3 tub of blue-cheese stuffed olives for myself and Eva, and a bundle of freshly-made jerky (can jerky BE fresh?) for Ben mostly kept us out of trouble. on the way out i bought some pomegranates. i asked the vendor how to find a good ripe one and he told me to pick the ugliest ones. i’m not clear on whether he just let me in on a little pomegranate secret, or was trying to schlep off his least desirable produce. to be safe we purchased two, and selected the ugliest and the prettiest ones we could find.