1. My odd little pharmacy (which turns out to have the official name "Columbian National Pharmacy" which is the best possible name for a place an American procures drugs) has once again handed out its yearly calendar. I will take photos and post; this year's pandas are perhaps even more awesome than last year's tigers. Both are scroll style, made of something that I'll call immitation bamboo. You might call the same material drinking straws.
2. In an effort to use more of the ingredients I pick up at the neat little markets on Beacon Hill & White Center, I invented tahini fudge. It is splendid. Make some fudge.
Choose a very heavy pot (enameled cast iron is great) that holds several quarts. In this pot, combine two cups of white sugar, 5 ounces of evaporated milk, and 2 tablespoons unsalted butter. Get a candy thermometer, either from the drawer or in an emergency trip to the store (the sugar & dairy will be fine in the cold pot). Attach the candy thermometer to the pot, and set the pot on a big burner set to a medium-high temperature. Use a silicone spatula and stir the mixture gently, to dissolve the sugar and help melt the butter. Don't stir too hard, or too constantly. The goop will first bubble at the edges, then boil. When it starts to boil, lower the heat a bit, so it stays boiling vigorously but so it hopefully won't burn. Continue stirring slowly/gently. Do this for somewhere around 8 minutes, until the goop hits 230-235 degrees.
Turn off the heat. Add 4 tablespoons tahini and stir until blended, then do the same with a teaspoon of vanilla. Stir in 6 marshmallows that have been pulled in half (easier to pull than cut). Blend these in, which will take a bit. You need to keep stirring/folding until all the white streaks of melty marshmallow goo have dissolved.
Pour the goo into a buttered 9" square pan, glass if you have it. Sprinkle white sesame seeds over the top until you feel like it's nicely decorated. Let it cool for about 45 minutes, then cut it into small squares with a very sharp knife. Keep at room temperature in an air-sealed container for a week or so.
3. One of Sweetie's favorite new holiday songs. It's not new, just new to him. It involves Santa being so high that he eats all the snacks in the house.
4. Last year, we saw a few apartment windows with some really remarkable decorations. They were decidedly Christmasy, but struck us both as vaguely Asian. While we know of a few evangelical Christian churches around that are Korean and Chinese, we weren't really sure what we were looking at and googling random word combinations that attempted to describe these decorations didn't get us anywhere. They seemed like they might be old, but more than one home had one. We spotted a few more around this year, sometimes wrapped in plastic and with different styling. I guessed this was like my Aunt Verna using vinyl protectors on her carpets, and Sweetie guessed they were an attempt at waterproofing. In all cases, the windows where we saw them were on fairly poor streets, and we generally saw them at night, and we both figured that some tall white guy knocking on a stranger's door on a rainy night wouldn't go as we wished. But on Sunday--lovely, sunny, Sunday afternoon--we were down in White Center and solved the mystery, by knocking on the door of a house with several cars in the driveway and one of these festive things taped to the window. The guy who answered the door said it was a Philippine lantern, and that they'd bought theirs in the Philippines. We drove to a nearby market that carries all sorts of imported food for Asian, Latino and Filipino customers. They didn't have 'em, but the guy knew what we were talking about when we asked about a Philippine store that might carry Christmas decorations. He pointed us way the hell up to Shoreline, where we found two gigantic pricey models at the Fil-Am store. Unless you are Filipino, or have visited there, I'd be a little surprised if you knew what they were, either. But they are called parols, and they are awesome. Some are musical, a few are plain white but most are very colorful, and all involve flashing lights. Some have little painted images in the very center; I see a nativity scene about twice as often as finding Santa, but most are just solid colors.
A link, to see a lot of currently sold-out models.
And a video, to see what giant versions look like, when a city holds a parol competition.
