Follow Me To Certain Doom

I have a new personal project. It's been a rough sort of year so far, and I'm looking for ways to make my daily life more fun, more interesting, more ridiculous.So, I started a new blog/game called Follow Me To Certain Doom – workplace challenges to make your day more interesting.Each week, I'll post a new challenge for you to undertake at work. I'll provide rules and scoring criteria. I'll even provide a spreadsheet you can use to calculate your scores.I just posted the second challenge last night and, so far, the response has been awesome. Complete strangers have been sending me images of their challenge results for me to post to the FMTCD Instagram. EXCITEMENT!Please check it out. If you like it, join the FMTCD Challenge Alert mailing list.

Twitch Felt Club

I've been teaching my colleagues—at a large, SF-based tech company in no way associated with crafting—to needle felt. They've been surprisingly enthusiastic and their output so far has been awesome. Pics!

Snack Attack: Roasted Brussels Sprouts

sprouts

Here's a phrase I'd never thought I'd write: "Man, I could sure go for some brussels sprouts right now."I never had brussels sprouts growing up. They were as exotic and mysterious to me as so many other staples of the average American household –casseroles, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, meals eaten without rice... all so baffling and alien. Naturally, I made it my mission to expand my horizons by seeking out these foods. Soon, casseroles were just a potluck away, PB&Js were the perfect dorm-room snack, and, hey, of course burgers and fries are a meal, it's right there in the name: Happy Meal. Yet, brussels sprouts never made it on my menu.So it was for some 35 years until, last winter, Ben and I were walking through Whole Foods and I saw them: brussels sprouts still on their stalks. They looked exactly like the sleigh bells one might have to play were she stuck doing auxiliary percussion during marching season in high school band. [Not that I would know that. How would I know that?] Superfan of Xmas, novelty instruments, and impulse buying that I am, I demanded we buy them immediately, even though I had absolutely no clue whatsoever what they tasted like or how to cook them. And that's how I fell in love with roasted brussels sprouts, my current favorite after-work snack.Anywho, here's how I ended up cooking them and still cook them today:Ingredients

• 1 lb. of brussels sprouts, fresh or frozen. [Protip: You can find packets of frozen organic brussels sprouts in most grocery stores, and Whole Foods will often have fresh ones packaged and pre-sliced in their produce section.]

• 2 tbsp of ghee. You can also use olive oil, if you prefer.

• 5-7 whole, raw garlic cloves

• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste.

Procedure

• Pre-heat oven to 400°

• Prep your brussels sprouts: Thaw, if frozen. Clean and remove outer leaves/stem, if fresh (not pre-packaged).

• Melt ghee.

• Chop brussels sprouts in half and place into large mixing bowl along with whole garlic cloves.

• Pour melted ghee over brussels sprouts and garlic. Toss gently.

• Add salt and pepper and continue to toss until everything is lightly coated in awesome.

• Place sprout halves cut-side down onto a lined baking sheet.

• Put 'em in the oven.

• Wait for 20 minutes.

• Eat.

Boom. Easy and delicious. I tend to make a great big batch each time in the hopes of saving some for the next day, but none have ever survived the first. So, I can't tell you how they keep in the fridge. However, I will say that they reheat very nicely in a pan with a smidge of extra ghee.Enjoy!

No-Cook Vegan Chocolate Pudding

I've recently taken up cooking and, surprisingly, I don't hate it. In fact, it involves many of my existing favorite pastimes: looking at the internet, buying things, measuring things, punching things, setting things on fire. And, at the end of all that, you get to put things in your mouth. Fantastic.As I level up my cooking skill, I find myself testing the limits of what I'm prepared to eat, which, if you know me at all, is generally restricted to foods of  the "animal" and "closely associated with animals" varieties. Needless to say, when I decided I was going to try my hand at some vegan chocolate pudding I suffered a pretty substantial existential crisis. Who am I? What have I become? What is the nature of the universe? Can this be happiness, this terrifying freedom?Thankfully, almost any question can be answered with chocolate.Here's a recipe forvegan chocolate pudding. You'll need:

• 2 avocados

• 1 cup of chocolate almond milk

• 3/4 cup cocoa powder

• 3/4 cup maple syrup

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

• a pinch of sea salt

• a sprinkling of cocoa nibs, if you've got them. (I just happened to have received some for my birthday. Thanks, Melissa!)

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. The mixture will be thick (it's pudding), so you may have to whip out a spatula and stir things up a bit manually. Makes about a dozen 1/4-cup servings, depending upon the size of your avocados. Mine lasted about a week in the fridge with no discernible change in flavor before it was consumed entirely. Your mileage may vary.I've also found that the 1/4-cup serving size fits perfectly into those little mason jars you can buy at the hardware store, as pictured above. So fancy.If you end up making a batch, please let me know how it turns out. I did a taste test at work and the majority of people enjoyed it and didn't notice the avocado flavor at all.

DIY: Holiday Gift Wrap

This is my present for our office's white elephant gift exchange. The content of the present is a story unto itself, but the wrapping is a tasteful affair consisting of post-it notes, scotch tape and a festive gingerbread man for an extra touch of pizazz. You're welcome, internet.

Stretching Some Shoes

Over the weekend I chanced upon some wicked awesome shoes. They had so much going for them: They were bright orange! They were platform wedges! They were 60% off retail! But, as luck would have it, the last available pair was a half size smaller than my usual. Undeterred, I tried them on. The length of the footbed matched my foot just fine, but the shoes were so tight at the vamp that I could barely squeeze my toes in, leaving my heel dangling off the back. I bought them anyway. Hey, I figured this would make for an excellent opportunity to document how exactly I go about stretching some shoes. Also, omg they’re so cute and make me so tall.  First, I misted the underside of the vamp with several pumps of shoe stretch spray. Then, I inserted the shoe stretchers and adjusted them until they were just a few turns beyond taut. This is a bit difficult to explain, but while adjusting the stretchers, you’ll reach a point when you first begin to feel resistance. In my experience, you don’t want to do too much stretching beyond this point. Even an eighth of an inch can make quite a bit of difference in fit and leather shoes will naturally give and stretch with wear. Remember, you can always stretch shoes just a tiny bit more, but once they’re overstretched, there’s no going back. Anyway, I left the stretchers in the shoes overnight. And in the morning… …they fit! They’re still a bit snug here and there, but it’s nothing a little wear and extra shoe stretch spray can’t fix. I am so happy with them. WOOHOO! WOOHOO!