Just let me lie here on the tile

My friendslist is full of posts about baking cookies and cobbler and things, and it's very festive and cheering. I thought I'd join in, because I made brownies today for the First Time Ever and they actually turned out pretty good; they fall apart a wee bit when you cut them, but they taste delicious, rich and squidgy and chocolatey.

Here's the recipe, from BBC cook Delia Smith, the most reassuringly reliable TV cooking person I know ("I'm always getting letters from people who think their brownies are not cooked", she says. Hee.) It uses four different types of nuts, but I just used 100g of walnuts instead, as I have a ton of those, and mmm, walnuts and chocolate just go together.

I don't really celebrate Christmas, but I am so excited about OMGWTFYULETIDE!! There's 920 stories lined up right now, and by tomorrow morning, we'll all be able to read them yay! (Note, time zones differ, but the archive is definitely opening on the 25th for most. You can always check the counter on the front page. *g*)

Everyone who wrote a story for the Yuletide challenge, or any of the other seasonal challenges: thank you, you rock! And those who went above and beyond the call and wrote pinch hits or stocking stuffers: thank you, you are fearless and made of awesome. astolat and elynross, who have cheerfully been putting in tons of work on this: GO YOU, and thank you so much. Wheeeee! Yuletide!

Somewhere in the past year, I discovered sushi. I love it so much that a once-a-month visit to my favourite small Japanese restaurant isn't enough, so in the weekends my SO and me often make maki ourselves.

(Maki are the long rolls that are usually cut into six or eight pieces; nigiri are the separate clumps of rice with nice cuts of fish on top. I like both, but nigiri are less easy to make, and we don't have enough variety of fresh fish to make it worthwhile.)

I thought it would be very difficult, but making maki is pretty easy. All you need are the right ingredients - rice vinegar, sushi rice, nori, really fresh fish and vegetables, and a bamboo mat to roll the maki on. Then, for eating it, you want some Japanese soy sauce, some wasabi and maybe some pickled ginger, just like in a restaurant.

( Sushi pictures! )

My favorite recipe for how to make sushi rice and maki is in Dutch, but this one looks pretty good too.