Chocolate Biscotti

I needed something sweet, but not too, something crunchy, something chocolatey and something easy....so I made Dorie's Chocolate Biscotti. Brings back some delightful memories....

In the early 80's my husband and I were living on the top floor of a Brooklyn brownstone and I loved to bake and would share my creations with a very old Italian woman who lived on the floor beneath me. She was wonderful and made some fabulous food. One day she brought me her homemade biscotti and I was hooked...it was the traditional type with almond extract and chopped almonds. I loved the texture and taste and asked her how to make it. In her elderly scrawl she printed the recipe with some accompanying illustrations so I would know how to form a log for the first baking and then how to cut them for the second baking. I had always thought there was some secret formula for making these, not something as simple as cutting the partially baked dough and then baking again. Like learning how to do a magic trick!

So Dorie's biscotti has cocoa and espresso powder (2 Tablespoons) and chopped almonds and mini chips. Sounds like a winning combination to me, and it was. And the fact that these cookies are so hardy means that they will taste as good days later. Makes me very happy.

Tuesdays with Dorie

Well I am back into blogging. After purchasing Dorie Greenspan's new baking book six months ago I have been trying out some of the recipes. My last one were linzer tarts...they were fabulous.

I just learned about a new blog called "Tuesdays with Dorie" where the participants all try a recipe a week from the book. Sounds good to me, so here goes.

LATI Project

I am working on my LATI project and excited about the fact that it will fuse two very important parts of my life....my involvement with Hospice and my work at the library.

23, my lucky number!!!

Most days I have thoroughly enjoyed this technological roller coaster ride. I especially appreciated the help I received both on-line and in person from FCPL staff. Banging one's head on a keyboard can be productive when a sympathetic soul comes to your rescue.

My suggestion....please consider some real people interactions every few weeks. Setting up a few opportunities to come together and ask questions, play on-line, and practice would be so helpful. I think many of us experienced lost cyberspace hours when we saw no progress and felt great frustration. And then there are those "Eureka" moments (usually followed by a "now how did I do that again?" question.)

What's next for me? Bloggers Anonymous? No I am not that hooked, but I will continue to use many of these tools. Who knows I may even take on 43 things.....it might even become my new lucky number.

Technorati

As you can see from this cut and paste below I did successfully configure and claim my blog but I couldn't seem to copy the info I needed from the site....so here is something....

Your blog claim has been successfully configured.
My Claimed Blogs

Susan's Space
http://susansub.blogspot.com
Authority: 1
Rank: 2469418

I learned that technorati will help me tag blogs, but at the moment I am feeling a little overblogged.......

Pod Search Tools

Podcast.net's categories were so broad that I had trouble finding what I wanted to listen to. I listened to "Rabbit Bites" which was accompanied by video and there were voices superimposed on twitching rabbits. (Yawn!) The range is certainly broad....from a discussion of how one defines god to how to plan a wedding.

Podcastalley.com was much more user-friendly. I was able to listen to a restaurant review by Frank Bruni of the NY Times. It was nice to hear a voice since I normally only read his column. I did find that many of the items could not be opened and heard.

Yahoo podcast was my favorite. It provided me with a list of most popular and most listened to and I liked that. There is so much out there that it was nice to have a place where the choice was limited for me.

Podcasting

I have been listening to podcasts for a while....NPR is my favorite, especially "This American Life". I rarely have the radio on when it is initially aired so it is great to be able to catch up on my time schedule. In the past I have listened to them while sitting at the computer, but I did download one on my MP3 player. Just have to do more.

With all the ways we can create our own playlists of music and talk why listen to someone else's selections?