(e:drew) and I decided it was time to be healthy. For him to lose weight, he goes almost all vegetables with a little bit of beans and whole grains thrown in on occasion. I'm a nice wife and I have a few lbs I'd like to shed so I'm happy to do the diet that works for him. The main difference is that he can eat plain veggies day in and day out, but I need a little something to flavor the veggies up without resorting to butter. So thus...I made these spice mixtures...

Going clockwise from the top left hand corner: Trinidadian spice mixture of coriander seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, peppercorns and mustard seeeds; Roasted sichuan pepper and salt; Sesame Salt; and Sesame seed seasoning which is sesame seeds, salt peppercorns and a whole dried red chile.



I spent maybe an hour roasting the spices in a pan (see below) and then grinding them in our coffee grinder. The coffee grinder is the best thing I've ever sneaked out of my parent's house!



I also made clarified butter flavored with shallots, garlic, cardamom pods, cumin seeds and oregano. I use in small quantities on vegetables. I would have taken a picture of that but (e:Drew) left and took the camera with him. See (e:tinyplinyID)#41670 for a description of clarified butter in the coments section.

Halloween was a great deal of fun this year. It's the first year in probably 10 year that I got to hand out candy to little kids ... and we had a lot of kids. So many that we had to run down to the Lexington General Store to buy handfuls of their penny candy.

Halloween is even more fun when you get to share it with a person from Malaysia who has never seen or heard of Halloween before. We went all out and carved pumpkins, toasted seeds, and coached him in handing out candy to the little ones. It's fun to see Halloween through the eyes of someone who has never participated in it before.

Here's our pumpkins!

I fell in love with Philadelphia. It was heartbreaking when I left. It's cheesy, but I sometimes miss Philly and I feel a sad achy pain. It hits me at the oddest moments and it hit me today on my way to work. I think partly because (e:tinypliny) is going there for a conference. But she doesn't get to see all the things I love about Philly....so here's a tour of Philly for (e:tinypliny).
Kelly Dr. is beautiful year round and everyone jogs on the path along the river, and I did too. It's an upscale meat market.

I love the row houses in Philly. These row houses were the homes of famous individuals in the late 1700s, but by the 1950s urban blight almost caused them to be destroyed. Now they go for easily $1million.

Best art museum I've ever been to. Drew and I had membership passes and went there every Friday night to listen to Jazz when we were dating.

When I first moved to Philly, I'd never been to such a big city and I wandered around the Benjamin Franklin Parkway gawking at the buildings like a big ole dumb tourist. To this day, I am amazed I didn't get mugged.

I miss Chinatown... a lot. No Chinatown in Pittsburgh, no Chinatown in Buffalo. Where do I go for my fresh baked moon cakes and buns with red bean paste? And where do I buy my lucky cats now? No, really. I need to know. Toronto?

The best for the last...the mummers parade. The best description I've heard of the mummers parade is Broadway meets Mardi Gras. Its Broadway in terms of the performance and costumes. Its mardi gras thanks to the drunkenness of the participants. I think every year I've fended off a drunk mummer trying to hit on me! You get up early in the morning. Get to Broad St. with your chair and thermos of coffee (because it's January 1st) and you sit for for hours and watch the show and then you leave because it's freezing cold and you watch the rest of it on television. If you're hard core, you stay all eight hours and party with the mummers at the mummers houses after the parade. I'm not hardcore. Here's a link as I'm guessing few of you know much about the Mummers parade.



It also rained gumdrops and snowed skittles in Philly...I'm crossing my fingers that it snows skittles in Buffalo and that I'll love Buffalo as much as Philly.

What are the "official" times for trick or treating in the city? When should I expect the little ghouls to start showing up at my door?!

And is there really a thing called "Beggars Night" where kids trick or treat on the night before Halloween?

Some people I know went out to the Indian reservation in Cattaraugus County. They were part of a social service fair to market what services their agency has to offer.

I was intriqued with the comments I heard when they got back. The words were heavily loaded to indicate negative opinion of the reservation and the people who live there. Here are just a few of the comments:

"I couldn't get off the res' fast enough"
"Well, you know, no one who lives there wants to work"
"Sure, we want to expand our services out to that area, but we don't want an actual agency site on the reservation"
"You don't want to leave your car parked on the reservation"

It was a little curious to me because social service workers are used to working with "undesirable" people in "undesirable" environments. I've seen lots of shit (literally and figuratively) working in this field.

But I'm also curious as to the nature of any prejudices some people might have in this area towards Indians or prejudices/negative attitudes going the other way? What are they rooted in? What are the tensions? (I know about the casinos obviously and the I90 conflict over the tolls).