gingerbread biscotti, tangerine marmalade and how eBay is making me cuckoo

Happy Holidays!

It's cuckoo over here. So cuckoo lately that I'm multi-tasking right now and literally holding a beer in one hand and typing with the other hunt-and-peck style so I can make my blog-time become me-time. [Does anyone say "me-time" anymore? I've never said it in my entire life until two sentences ago.]

On top of all my everyday stuff, work, auditions, Holiday shopping, shipping and preparations, for some awesome* reason I decided that now would be the perfect time to learn eBay and basically rifle through my entire home for things to auction off. I'm obsessed. And what better time than late December to turn your dining room into an eBay distribution center?** Maybe not the best choice.*** Luckily these pics are close up because what's just out of frame is cuckoo. Cuckoo!

*sarcasm
**more sarcasm
***severe understatement

I did miraculously manage to make some cookie and jam gifts.  Sadly, I made the marmalade on the dreariest, rainiest day and the pictures turned out poopy.  Also sadly, I figured I've already tortured you enough with logs of biscotti that looked actually poopy.  So that's why there are no pictures of this gingerbread biscotti in progress.

I fear the marmalade is super bitter. I think I thought I loved marmalade--in theory I do--but the recipe I used didn't specify slicing the suckers wafer-thin, therefore there are large chunks of peel in there. Do people like that? Is the peel supposed to be wafer-thin? These are not rhetorical questions. Shout out, people. I need to know.

It does look pretty though, right? Here is the recipe if you're so inclined.



So guess what? I just begrudgingly set my beer down to walk into the kitchen to find my notes on this biscotti recipe for you and in the six steps in took me to get to the kitchen, I:

• Totally forgot why I walked in there
• Started folding a load of laundry that was sitting on the kitchen counter
• Looked in the fridge to see what I could forage for dinner
• Ate a piece of cheese
• Stared out the window
• Checked my eBay stats

I then wandered back in here (only because the beer brought me back), sat down to grab the computer and...doh! My mind is mush, people. Mush.

So I'm just gonna give it to you this way and keep drinking my beer. FYI, I made it sans dried apricots only because we didn't have any on hand. I probably eBay-ed them.

Big Holiday Smooches,

Jolie