"…Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on—two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't have to take out their garbage for a long time…"

Perhaps I should classify this as Official Cooking Week on domesticat.net. It certainly seems to be what's occupying my waking time. Today, especially; I think I've finally conquered gingerbread. I tasted one of the gingerbread-humans I baked, and they're yummy. Dark, spicy, but soft.

Phone call: "We'd like to come over and stay. We'll get up at three and go outside to watch the meteors. Since you live so far out of town, yours is really the best place to be to watch these go by."

I wasn't hopeful. In my entire life I'd seen two meteors—at least, I thought they were meteors—but they were brief, inconsequential moments. Nothing to write home about.

But I told everyone to come over anyway. I stayed up late, talking to a friend, and then got up at the 3:30 ring of the alarm to get up, dress once again, and go outside. Heather, Jess, and Gareth joined Jeff and I a moment or two later. Tim and Kat drove over and were here shortly thereafter.My lack of excitement about the meteor shower went away from the moment I opened the back door. I saw my first meteor before I even got the door entirely open. Suddenly I felt excited, exhilarated—I realized this was going to be a bit more memorable than I'd been giving it credit for.

This fudge is dangerous—and useful.

Back before Jeff and I got married, I had a lot of friends who were from northeast Arkansas. I wanted to see all of them, but I also didn't want to wear out my welcome. Thus, I would pack about two changes of clothes and move from house to house, staying only a night or so at each place and washing my clothes upon each arrival.

I'm now about to do something that I've never done before—radically change an entry after it's been posted.

This entry originally appeared on 11/17/2001; today is 11/21/2001. Originally, I ranted about how the Moving Fairy seemed to have discovered my January 2000 issue of Fine Cooking and taken it for her own. The problem: that magazine contained the Boston cream candy recipe I loved dearly.

I tore my house apart looking for that magazine. I believe I must have loaned it to someone and forgotten to ask for it back.

Since I've been torturing you guys with long entries lately, I thought I'd throw in something a little more whimsical. Some of these answers won't surprise you at all; some will.

4 things you would eat on the last day of your life:

1. Nigiri sushi (guess I'd better die in Vancouver)
2. Real vanilla ice cream with dulce de leche on top
3. A few squares of super-dark, bittersweet chocolate (Valrhona rocks my world)
4. Linguine with asparagus and cream sauce

4 CDs from your collection that you will never get tired of:

1. Jonatha Brooke, Plumb
2. Steely Dan, The Royal Scam
3. Underworld, Beaucoup Fish
4. Anything by Tom Lehrer

4 movies that you watch over and over:

1. Say Anything
2. Anything by Steven Soderbergh
3. BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice
4. Casablanca