but on balance, things are good.

Curling was good tonight.  RS, self, KS, and backup lead insptr_penguin's kid brother defeated LB, BY, abka, and OD in seven ends, taking five in the seventh for a score of 10-3.  They had some good ends set up, but LB kept not quite making her shots, and getting one instead of three or four.  And we played well; we gave away two steals, I think, but not big ones.

And now I have amaretti in the oven.  The recipe is essentially as follows:

1.  Find the three stickiest things in your kitchen.
2.  Combine.
3.  Bake in an awfully hot oven for not very long.  Makes 784382716 dozen.

(Three and a half cups of almond paste, almost as much sugar, and a cup of egg whites.  I also add some sliced almonds.  Get this glop somehow into a pastry bag.  Drop onto parchment paper and bake at 425° for ten to twelve minutes, although it's been six and I can already smell them so I'm going to go check on them in a sec.)

amaretto update

It's been long enough since I made them that I'd forgotten 425° is really too hot; they start to burn, as I said, after about six minutes, but the insides -- and, crucially, the bottoms -- are still gooey enough that even the heat of the cookie sheet doesn't finish them off when you take them out of the oven at that point (but the edges have started to think about scorching, so you couldn't leave them in any longer). For the last couple of trays last night, and for the second batch I'll make tonight, more like 400°, or maybe 410-ish (somewhere between 400 and 425, anyway), and that way they can stay in for more like ten minutes. The idea is for the parchment paper to look not unlike a kid's historical-document school project without actually catching fire.

This really does make frillions of cookies, because the lack of flour unsurprisingly means they spread like nobody's business, so you can only drop maybe a drop the size of a scallop (seriously; about the circumference of a quarter, and possibly 3/4" high -- the first part of a dollop, without the lift and repeat) or they'll all run together. A drop that size makes a cookie about two inches across, and puffy enough not to be thin and crispy, which is a fine size for something as sweet as you can imagine these suckers are.

I need more parchment paper before I can make any more tonight. Also, my pastry bag is a cake decorating bag, which is much too small, so last night I used a giant ziploc bag with a corner cut off. This worked fine, so I may do the same tonight rather than buy a whole new thing.