It's Sunday. You know the drill: sleeping late, dog walking, breakfast.

And then we trotted eastward for a trip to Penzey's Spices to pick up a gift. If going downtown to see the antique shop Christmas decorations is a visual sensation, Penzey's is a scent-sation (sorry; couldn't resist). It's a simple store: jars of spices stacked on crates, and a sensory overload for the nasal passages. Open jars for each spice let you experience them aromatically, from acrid garlic to sweet salad powder to biting cinnamon. The Vietnamese cinnamon will really clear your sinuses! There are also extracts in the back: three kinds of vanilla, orange and lemon peel, and others. Plus there are meat rubs and no-salt options, and different kits.

When we finished at Penzey's, we trotted up to Trader Joe's. Alas, we have come too late: we got the last two boxes of cranberry fruit bars, and the peppermint bark and the peppermint JoJos were completely gone. We'll have to hoard the ones we have carefully so we'll have some respite during the summer from...summer. Despite the paucity of favorites, we filled a bag (edameme crackers and all that).

Then we just came home. I took the boneless pork ribs I bought yesterday, browned them, and put them and the fond into the crock pot with two and a half jars of tomato and basil sauce. It cooked fragrantly the rest of the afternoon and the early evening while we read the paper, listened to Christmas music, watched A Christmas Story after a minor bobble with the player, then tuned into The Librarians, who were in a small town named Cicely...with a totem pole...but it wasn't in Alaska. This was followed by the Christmas episode of Alaska: the Last Frontier, and then we put the completed gravy up. Now we can have spaghetti for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner again.

Labels: Christmas, food, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:56:00 PM

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