A Baking Digression: Brown Butter is Like Poker

B

BB Snickerdoodles

One of the great revelations for me the past few years is brown butter.  I have stopped looking for snickerdoodle recipes as the brown butter one I use, thanks to Sally, is terrific.*  The cookies are aleays great (underbaking a bit is key) and demanded by my favorite baking role model in Ottawa.  The fun of baking and cooking is that some dishes feel like alchemy--that the various ingredients mix and become something far greater than its parts.  One non-brown butter example is a gnocchi, mozzarella, basil, cherry tomato recipe that is just magical and super easy and quick. BB is a magical elixer that makes any baked good pop in a big way.  Yet it can be tricky: it is like Texas Hold Em.

How so, long layover Steve?  The classic phrase for this particular form of poker is that you can learn it quickly, but it takes a lifetime to master.  The thing about browning butter is that it goes through several stages from melted butter to yellow foam to the foam covering browning beneath it to .... burned butter.  So, the hard part is figuring when to take the butter off of the stove and pour into a heat-safe container so that it stops heating.  

BB Chocolate Chip w
caramel bits via
Betterbaker

One reason it is hard is that the fizzing foam makes it hard to see how much browning is going on, and it is one of those things where things are going great and almost done to way too done.  So far, I have only overbrowned one batch of butter, but I think most of the time, I only partially get to the joy that is a full bowl of richly brown butter.  So, an amazing baker who often helps out with Guns and Butter is now taking an entire block of costco butter and browning it so that she has a supply of it.  She has become a BB evangelist.  And I guess I am as well.

Next time you want to make a baked good, see if you can find a BB version of it.  Join the quest for the perfect brown butter.  Even though I feel as if I haven't mastered it, the BB cookies I have made are terrific. 

 

BB Cinnamon Rols

  * Her bb snickerdoodle recipe is not available online--it is in the front of her Cookie addiction book.  But in her newer book and online, there's this, which is easy and terrific https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/marshmallow-crispy-cookies/ 

More Guns and More Butter But Less Threat Inflation

 Today's Guns and Butter Reel features Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies and my discussing threat inflation.  First, yes, I did invest in a phone mount that I can put on my wall so I can have a better angle on my baking.  Second, no, I am not hiring an editor or using any CDSN/CSIDS/NPSIA/SSHRC/MINDS/whatever resources for this.  This is too silly for any government-funded help, even if this does count as "knowledge mobilization" even if the knowledge is often a bit thin.  I am trying to make these shorter since instagram videos and baking videos and their ilk are not long.  So, I realized today that when I am recording a video, there is a small timer on the screen.  And the key is to focus on one topic, one quote, one thing, rather than trying to attack or address something from multiple angles (such as in yesterday's discussion of Jessica Green's book where I invoked both Machiavelli and the classic concentrated pain, diffuse benefits tale).  

I am trying to tie the IR discussion to the thing I am baking.  So, as I stuffed mostly chocolate dough with frozen mini-marshmallows and not overstuffing them while talking about threat inflation.  Why threat inflation?  Because I guest lectured about Arctic security this week.  I am not an Arctic Security expert, but I do call myself an Arctic Security Skeptic™.  So, I discussed how the government of Canada pretty deliberately raised concerns about the Chinese and Russian threats to the Arctic to get the public to support defence spending.  

My take:

•  Russia's Arctic investments are almost entirely due to their feelings of insecurity over their vast Arctic--that there will be far more traffic on their side, that this used to be the one direction that a frequently invaded country didn't have to worry about.  And, as Napoleon said, don't interrupt your adversary when they are making a mistake.  Putting a lot of weapons/bases/etc in the north is mostly a waste of money.
• China's Arctic threat is not military but economic and political--offering to provide internet for Inuit peoples, buying up mining firms, etc.  Not a random balloon or surveillance ship. What the hell is up there to surveil?  
• The US?  Actually, the US is on the right side of the Law of the Sea and Canada is on the wrong side.  The big thing with the US right now is NORAD modernization so I talked a bit about that.
• That threat inflation scares the folks up there, which ain't good.
• What is needed is more infrastructure/support for the peoples of the north so that our sovereignty claims are, ironically, maintained through them, not despite them or around them. 
• Climate change, disinformation, and cyber stuff are the key threats to Canadians in the north and everywhere else, and that stuff is mostly not military (and the military really wants not to do.emergency ops).   

I do think Canada needs to spend more $ on defence because of the threats elsewhere and because of the use of the military as an instrument of, yes, policy.  But not because of little green men invading the high north.

 

Anyhow, more cookie making and more of these reels over the next month as I prepare for the big cookie delivery of winterfest.  As always, baking is joy, cookies are joy, giving cookies is joy, and making videos about IR and baking is also joy, at least for me. 

Yet More Social Media? I Am Reeling at the Thought

 Friends have been suggesting that I combine by two obsessions of baking and international relations by recording short videos, where I talk about international security/defence/etc while baking.  The challenge is that baking takes a fair amount of time, so I will have to be succinct and only narrate a part of the baking process.  And, I also will have to get my ideas together ahead of time as I don't want to do much/any video-editing.

 So, here's my second attempt and the first one that I put out into the world: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQAOI1wju1-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D.

The next question is what to call it.  One person on threads suggested Guns And Butter, and I really like that is no tradeoff in this Reel--we get both baking and international relations stuff.  Half-Baked was also suggested and that goes nicely with the Semi-Spew and the reality that I will not be crafting perfect videos.  Any suggestions for names?

 Right now, I think the topics will be, well, topical--whatever is on my mind as I bake.  

The timing is both good and bad.  Good in that this is prime baking season as I plan to bake pretty much every weekend to create the many, many cookies I will be delivering at the start of Winterfest.  On the other hand, not great timing as I will not be baking next weekend as I will be in the DC area for a civ-mil conference.

And, yes, I am now eyeing the ads I have been fed that feature phone holders so that I can better tape myself mid-bake.  

Anyhow, let me know if you have a suggestion for a name for this thing.  And, yes, I need to go to Social Media Anonymous as I am aware I have a problem.  Since that is next door to Bakers Anonymous, I should be able to squeeze it in. 

Look for more reels of me baking and pontificating at my instragram account or on bluesky account or maybe here as well.  Ciao. 

 

 

Winterfest 2024 Cookie Madness: Infinity War

 

Oh man, I went wildly overboard this year.  In previous years, I realized:

• a kitchen aid stand mixer makes things so much easier
• gifts of cookie scoops makes things so much easier
• one of my fave gifts of graduated cylinders/beakers from King Arthur makes it easy to measure the liquid ingredients.
  
• using a kitchen scale (good idea, Steph) makes it far easier and more accurate to measure the dry stuff that goes into the cookies
  
• cookies can be frozen so you can bake way ahead of time (3 months or so)
• 
• that my new kitchen is really optimized for max cookie production
• that a chest freezer acquired for the purpose of storing the winterfest hoard of cookies is super helpful (and I did fill it this year, see the pic)
  
• that I have a severe case of FOMO--I want to make all the recipes because I don't want to miss out on any
• that Costco butter is about half the price of what I can get in supermarkets
  
• that most importantly, while stress-baking is a very important part of getting through pandemics and other stressful times, and that eating cookies is joy, giving cookies away is heaps of joy.  

So, yeah, I made something like 25 batches of cookies.... so many recipes and so many cookies that I am not really sure how many I made from October through to December.  I do know that by the end of today I will have given cookie boxes of varying sizes to 28 people/households/gatherings including multiple Stef/Stephs, my family at Thanksgiving, the last sessions of my two classes this fall, both CDSN and NPSIA staffs, and a heap of friends around Ottawa. I spent yesterday driving around Ottawa delivering most of ten boxes, and I got to chat with most folks.  Today, I venture out for three more deliveries.  I will have enough leftover cookies for my in-laws and my daughter to snarf over the holidays as well as some in reserve for those who left town too early or were too sick or busy to receive them.  And, yes, I keep a bunch handy for whenever a former defence minister has time to receive the cookies I owe her.  

I get to meet an occasional dog,
which is a big bonus, when delivering

My key sources for recipes--the NYT recipes I downloaded before I dropped my subscription, King Arthur, Sally's Baking Addiction (great website and I received all of her books during previous winterfests), and a few others (I have received multiple cookie cookbooks as gifts and some of them are better than others).  What is my decision rule for which recipes to make?  Primarily: do I want to eat it?  I don't bake stuff that I don't want to eat as a key ingredient (sorry) for this entire thing is I want to make cookies I want to eat.  So, no peanut butter cookies.  I also don't like nuts, which is helpful for making cookie boxes that don't produce allergic reactions.  I generally try to make things that don't require a heap of difficult to get ingredients, and, yes, I prefer to make recipes that produce many cookies, which means I don't make many sandwich recipes.  I got heaps of boxes to fill!  

So, what did I make?  Because I have a few more deliveries, I will first post the list and then put up a bunch of pics (I don't have pics of all as I kept forgetting--cookie madness is not good for the memory), no ranking this year as last year's holds up pretty well.   

King Arthur:

• Candied Ginger Shortbread
  

• 

  One of my sister's gave me a long set of
  forceps (tweezers) for fancy cooking
  a la The Bear, but it really came in handy
  for the placing of googly eyes.  Which,
  yes, always make things better.
  

  Peppermint sandwhich
• Blondie (I had two blondie recipes and, so, yeah, I made both). I think I preferred KA.

Dorie (a new cookbook, and one that, alas, didn't really do it for me):

• Fudge mocha
• Double ginger molasses
• Mocha-ricotta
• Melody cookies 

Sarah Kieffer (another new and much better cookbook)

• Oatmeal Raisin
• Chocolate chip cookie
• Blondies

• 

  I have always sucked at arts and crafts, but
  I am learning to frost better and more quickly
  thanks to Steph's encouragement and gifts of
  some frosting tools. 
  

  Palmiers (tasty but I messed up the puffed pastry)

NYT

• Marshmallow Surprise
• Gochuchang Carmel (spicy)
• Peppermint brownie--Mrs. Spew's fave
• Maple Brown Sugar
• Grammy's Spice--the best
• Gingerbread Brownies
• Black and White
  

Smitten

• Thick Molasses
• Brownie rollout
  
  

Sally's

• Sparkling sugar
• Brown butter snickerdoodles--the very best-est
• Butter spritz--made with a cookie gun, which I got in a previous winterfest (I have many enablers)
• Cookies and cream--involves oreos.
• Chocolate crinkle
• Snowballs 

I may have missed one or two.  It has been a very sweet fall--lots of sugar and butter.

And here are the pics of many of the cookies I made:

 

Black & white

Marshmallow Surprise

Chocolate Brownie Rollout

Butter spritz

Candied ginger sb

Gingerbread latte

frosted sugar

Chocolate crinkle

Peppermint meltaway (meh)

Sparkling sugar

Brown butter snickerdoodle

Cookies and cream

Gochuchang caramel

Peppermint

Maple brown sugar

Peppermint sandwich

frosted gingerbread

Palmier

Blondie (I forget which one)

The other blondie

Peppermint Brownie

CCC's

My first ever attempt at
Oatmeal Raisin--worked very well.

Cookiefest 2023: I Think I Have A Problem

 I have spent the past several weeks making something like 20 batches of cookies which I have shared with some friends and will share with more friends around Ottawa and have some left over to bring to the winterfest celebration down south.

This is madness! I even bought a chest freezer so that I could make heaps of cookies in advance.  One lesson I may have overlearned from last year--one can freeze cookies without hurting them.  Before I go through all of the different cookies/recipes, why have I done this?

Mostly two reasons: I am indecisive and I like giving out cookies.  First, this all started in December of 2020 when I saw a NYT article about cookie boxes that had something like 7-10 recipes.  I liked the look of most of them, and rather than picking one or two, I decided to make most of them.  But wait, there is just Mrs. Spew and I at home (and we were not traveling that year due to the pandemic), so what to do with the extras?  I asked folks if they wanted some, which has now led to a yearly ritual--driving around Ottawa a few days before we leave town, giving boxes of cookies to friends.  This is real joy--as I chit chat with each receiver for a bit.  Remember in December 2020, this was my first interaction in real life with many people after quarantining for the most part since March.  So, yes, I get to exercise my sweet tooth, and I get to embrace my extroversion at the same time.  Win-win as they say.  That and the pandemic cause me to embrace a holy trinity--stress-baking--> stress-eating --> stress exercising.  

 

Kitchen Renovation Odyessy

 It is funny how these things go: I thought ordering a specific oven would mean that the last piece of the renovation would be that.  Nope, the counters were delayed and delayed again. So, tomorrow, I can declare a completed renovation after our contractor, Ron, does the last bit of paint, caulk, and outlet covers.  We started in late April, the cabinets arrived in a timely fashion as our contractor was finishing the prep work (new ceiling was a surprise as we needed more space for the potlights), and so all but the counters were done in late May.  Ron did a great job of cutting one of the extra cabinet pieces into a temporary counter, installing the sink and faucet, so the kitchen has been operational all summer, even though the island had no top, some counters had cardboard covers, and the rest had handy cabinet pieces as counters.  I wish we did this four years ago, so I would have had a better pandemic baking environment, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  Mrs. Spew was out of town for most of the planning/ordering since she was taking care of her mother who was moving.  Some of the color scheme (blue/gray) and the idea of a farmhouse sink was hers, but I was able to design the structure with the handy person at HD, and make most of the decisions without too much bargaining ;).

So, before:

After:

How do I love my new kitchen?  Let me count the ways:

1. An island!  We never made good use of the big dance floor. The island gives us a heap of counter space so that I can work without blocking the entire kitchen.  It also has drawers for most of our appliances (hand mixer, rice cooker, food processor, etc) and for bowls and other stuff.
2. The bookcase in the island!  I forget whose kitchen inspired this, but now I have all of my Nigella Lawson, Sally's Baking Addiction, Smitten Kitchen, Air Fryer cook books handy plus binders containing the NYT and other recipes I have amassed.
3. 
   A pantry!  So much handier to have roll out shelves, easy to organize, easy to get stuff.
4. A double-oven.  Yep, for cooking pitas and the stuff that goes in them at the same time.  Also handy for cookie baking outbursts.
5. The lighting!  Our previous kitchen was pretty dark.  Now, we have a better system of undercabinet lights plus a heap of potlights.
6. Lots of storage space especially in the corners.  We have a lazy susan in one corner and really cool pullout shelves in the other.
7. 
   A huge sink. This was my wife's idea, but the color choice was mine (added a few bucks to the cost).  Now, if we had triplets, we could bathe them in there.  Instead, pretty much all of my cooking gear fits into their to be cleaned.  The faucet is pretty cool as well--can turn on/off with a wave of a hand, which is great for when my hands are covered in chicken juice.
   
8. Microwave no longer sits on the counter, so we have a place to put our air fryer.  
9. New fridge with filtered water/ice on the outside.  So much more convenient than having to make our own ice and have a water pitcher.  We opted for a bigger freezer/smaller frig, which we are getting used to.  It will come in super handy when I make a lot of cookies that need to be frozen before delivery day.

There is more to it, but those are highlights.  Last house, we also renovated the kitchen but only enjoyed it for a few years before moving here.  And it didn't have as much special stuff.  This time, we splurged as we plan to be here a while.

 

I Have A Problem: Too Many Cookies!

One of the ways I have responded to the pandemic has been to bake.  In the first winter of the pandemic, I saw an article that discussed cookie boxes and had a number of recipes.  I couldn't decide on just a couple to try, so I made a lot of cookies.  And then I had to get a bunch of them out of the house so that my wife and I would not eat them all.  I drove around Ottawa after grades were submitted, delivering cookies to friends and acquaintances who volunteered to try them.  That was really the first time I broke quarantine--I had so much fun chatting with these folks even if I didn't go into anyone's house with one exception. And thus a new winterfest tradition was born.

This year, I discovered that one could not just freeze cookie dough but also baked cookies.  So, that stretched out how long I could make cookies, rather than rushing to complete a bunch of recipes in a few days.  So, yeah, I went a bit crazy, and Mrs. Spew thinks I have a problem.  I made 13 different recipes which produced over 350 cookies so she may have a point. I delivered the cookies to 13 households, held onto one batch for my sister-in-law, and kept a set for ourselves.  

I realized the first year but learned anew that giving out joy (sweet cookies) leads to receiving joy (mostly just chatting with people, but also got some sweets and some beer along the way).  Oh and more joy--I met three wonderful dogs and an amazingly friendly cat along the way, plus a few kids of friends who muttered thanks through cookie-filled mouths.

Sparkle cookies--soft inside

What did I make?  I present the top five below, but in addition to those, I made:

• orange crumble shortbread
• two different versions of the standard butter cookie (my decorations were limited by both a few cutters [mostly Star Wars-related] and poor art skilz)
• shortbread
• snickerdoodle (really worked nicely this year--always under-bake!)
• chocolate crinkle (Sally's Baking Addiction)
• sparkle cookies (more SBA)

 

The top 5 are: 

1.   Grammy's Spice cookies (NYT) which makes all other gingerbread cookies superfluous.  Tis reliable, sweet, and very tasty with or without frosting.

2.  Chocolate mint with candy cane shards (NYT, will revise to add link when I get back home).  Nice mix of chocolate and peppermint in the cookie and then a smattering of battered candy cane on top--and yes, it is fun to bash candy canes.  No pics available.

 

 

3. Candied ginger shortbread (NYT).  Super sweet and fun new ingredient for me--candied ginger.  Packs a punch. 

 

 

 

 

4. Brownie Rollout cookies (Smitten).  Super easy, very tasty, very stable for cutting into different designs.  Tastes great with or without frosting.

 

 

 

5. Black and white cookies (NYT).  Very cake like--the only downsides are that the recipe does not make many and the cookies do not last as long.

 

Quarantine, Week 45: End of the Beginning

 It is going to be an horrific winter, but we now have hope: a fully armed and operational Dr. Fauci!  Ok, let's not overrate the man, the myth, the legend, but the fact that he can speak his mind now is a great portent of things to come.  Biden rolled out his COVID plan shortly after taking office, and it is full of sensible stuff that could have and should have been done last February: masks required on inter-state transportation (planes, trains, buses), masks on federal property, relying on FEMA and the Defense Production Act to provide labor and production, mobile vaccination teams, and so on.  So, the response will get better, but, alas, the bug is mutating and it is always exponential.  Government response is unlikely to accelerate in an exponential fashion. But again, the US is moving in the right direction domestically and internationally.

Inauguration day was terrific!  From the colorful coats to the most excellent poem by Amanda Gorman to the short but on target speech by Biden to the schadenfreude shots of Mitch and Pence sitting uncomfortably to Joe's herd of grandkids to the Tom Hanks show, it was a day to be enjoyed and savored.  This time, we really are not taking for granted that the meaning of democracy is the transfer of power from one administration to another, even if the outgoing one is so reluctant as to foster sedition and insurrection.  We made it.  No autogolpe.  Phew.  And no, impeachment is not going come to completion, as the GOP will remain cowards and refuse to convict a man who tried to throw away the very heart of democracy.  So, that's unfortunate.  The good news is that Cruz and Hawley may pay a price even if Trump does not.  

I am loving Biden's start.  While his appointments of the cabinet were a bit of a mess, the first steps this week have been great.  Tossing out awful people from various positions was a nice start.  Defenestration is really a handy word.  The executive orders to get back into the WHO and the Paris agreement, to extend protections to LGBTQ+, and so on were a healthy tonic.  The COVID relief package is far more progressive than I think the left expected--$15/hr minimum wage, greater tax credits and subsidies to poor families, the ability to get unemployment insurance if the alternative is being forced to do an unsafe job, and so on.  Thus far, one could complain they are not moving further than one would one, but they certainly are moving fast and in the correct direction.  

The filibuster news actually makes me happy.  Mitch thinks that it is dead, so he'd rather fight that fight on procedural issues than to fight it when COVID relief is attached.  So, sure, he gets to pick the timing, maybe.  But a dead filibuster is a necessary thing for Biden to do everything else he wants to do, pretty much.  Yes, the risk is there that if the Republicans get the Senate back, they would then be able to do what they want.  Well, Mitch and his kind would also get rid of the filibuster if it were convenient, so that threat does not move me anymore.

I had my second week of classes, and we are falling into a good rhythm.  Sure, the zoom link didn't work for everyone at first.  But once I cleaned that up, we had a good discussion.  The students were engaged, pushed me to think on some stuff, and mostly got it that Sam Huntington's ideas about civ-mil relations are almost as destructive as his ideas on ethnicity. 

The CDSN submitted the latest big grant application.  We should know the outcome by late March.  I will post about it in more detail if we get it.  But it is a big monkey off my back. Which allows me to focus on forthcoming CDSN stuff--the Capstone Seminar, the Post-Doc competition, the Diversity Council--and, oh yes, how to fix the paper that got rejected this week.  The reviewers gave us excellent feedback, giving us some guidance on how to fix some of the problems we knew we had and, alas, identifying other problems.  But once we fix these problems, not only will the article find a good home, but it will produce a stronger book.  And, yes, rejection is inherent in the enterprise.

The big news at home is that I finally bought a Kitchen Aid stand mixer.  Too late for winterfest cookie making, but the pandemic is not going to disappear soon, so the baking will continue.  Today's challenge--cinnamon bread.  I have not made many breads--the baking has focused on lots of other stuff instead.  But with great stand mixers, comes great responsibility to make breads.  Pics to follow.  Be well and be distant!

Quarantine, Week 42: A New Year, Old Problems

Happy New Year!

 I'd love to start the new year with optimism and happiness, so I made a Dutch Baby breakfast.  But then I decided to blog about the new year and was reminded of politicians in Canada violating travel bans ("personal responsibility" apparently only applies to the peons), stories of failed vax rollouts, and hearing from friends who have families who have gotten sick and even some who have lost relatives.  With the spikes, the disease is getting much closer to everyone I know and exacting quite a price.  

And then there is the continued effort to de-legitimize a very decisive Biden win. After all, Joe got way more votes than Trump and got pretty much the exact same electoral college win that Trump did four years ago.   Of course, it really is about the bad faith parade.  I guess I can take some glee about the Congress overriding Trump's veto, but it had to be on the defense bill and not on something that overturned the worst Trump policies.  The good news is that they put into that bill some anti-corruption stuff so the US reduces its allure as a money laundering destination.  Woot!  

We finally got some real snow last night (ok, only a few inches), so I might finally be able to try out my new cross country skis today.  I haven't x-country skied in about ... forty years, so we shall see how it goes.  But the sun is super bright, the snow is so very white, that I must finally exit my house and enjoy the outdoors.  I'd go to the Gatineu park, the best place for outdoor exercise near Ottawa, but I am sure it will be swarmed.  Today, I will just see if I can handle the equipment in a local park.  

 The drinking and the baking continues.  We rang in the New Year with butterbeer and chocolate chip cookie dough pots.  The latter was one of the discoveries of 2020--super easy to make and very delightful--imagine a gushy warm chocolate chip cookie in a small dish.  And this morning, I baked a Dutch baby, which came out nicely: 

 I have already kept one set of NY resolutions: not working and not feeling guilt on NYE and New Year's Day.  I will try to get some stuff done this weekend--grading and letter of rec writing as those have strict deadlines.  I did manage to tape a few lectures for the winter course, so I am not far behind.  I still need to tweak the course website.  The big tasks ahead are cleaning up the grant application that is due in two weeks and writing a chapter for an edited volume.  And, yes, that means that I am still behind on finishing my case studies for the Dave, Phil, and Steve book.  But since they are not nagging me, I am guessing they are not done with their pieces.  We will finish the book this summer, but the distraction sauce of pandemic + elections has definitely pushed things down the road a bit.  Good thing civilian oversight of the armed forces is still a thing.

Indeed, the best news of the week were the Defense appointments.  Biden has placed some sharp civilians around the new SecDef (if Congress waives the requirement for the SecDef not to be a recently retired officer): Kath Hicks, Colin Kahl, and Kelly Magsamen.  I have interacted in twitter with Kath over the years.  My friends know Kelly and respect her quite a lot.  Colin is a political scientist with whom I have crossed paths (he had the IAF after me, so I think that is when we first met) over the years.  I couldn't get the civilian for the top spot, but we did get a very smart and experienced crew surrounded the retired general.  So, woot for that.  

I did have one New Year's resolution that I tweeted about--that I will give our cat more attention this year.  Bob is old, and I remembered how I regretted not spending more time with my dogs before they passed.  The first one died unexpectedly from pancreatitis while I was at a college.  Being away most summers and then that year or two at college meant I really did not spend much time with her.  My second dog died while I was at a conference--it just wasn't worth prolonging his pain a few more days so that I could return.  He was the coolest of dogs, the most strategic of dogs.  He did live to 18 or 19 (he was a rescue so we have no idea what age he was when we got him), and he did provide him with a playmate.  So, I am sure we did right by him, but he was terrific, crossing the country with us about three or four times (SD->VT, VT->TX, TX->VA and then VA-QC).  Our third and last dog also lived a long time--about seventeen years.  And I was with her at the end and spent the last few months of her life carrying her up and downstairs, and she was not small.  So, we had plenty of time together.  Anyhow, I have watched Bob age this past year, so I am mostly hoping that he outlives the pandemic, so that we can be with him at the end.  He has stopped doing the things that made our relationship difficult--waking us up early (banging on the bedroom door), scratching or biting me moments after he seemed so happy to be petted, etc.  I never hated him, but I certainly feared him.  Oh and he always knocked over glasses of water we had lying around.  All that is now in the past as he is too old for these shenanigans.

Other resolutions?  Hmmm.  I hope to bake a bit less while keeping up the exercising.  I haven't gained weight, but I could have lost more weight.  But I do find myself tempted by recipes I see these days, so we shall see if I keep that up.  I resolve to travel less ... oh my.  I plan to ignore Trump after Jan 20th.  Ok, those were easy ones.  The other thing I have resolved to do in 2021 is to return to the habit of zooming frequently with friends.  Being connected has been key to getting through this.  I slowed down my zooming this fall as I had a bunch of conferences and meetings.  But I realized that friend hangout zoom is not exhausting like work zoom is.  So, I will return to hanging out with whoever is willing to put up with me.

As always, stay at home, be safe, and be well!

 

 

Quarantine, Week 40: Deadlines, Extensions, New Classes, Oh My

 

 This is the week papers were due, extensions were given, extensions were extended, extensions were, um, overcome by events, and I got shook by the realization that I spent most of my summer prepping for the fall's big class, and I have little prepared for the winter class.  So, I am going to be productive today by making a ton of cookies to deliver to friends around Ottawa.  Oh my.

And, yes, I am still working hard on the CDSN grant application.  It is going quite well as I met with leaders of the new research themes on Tuesday, and they have great ideas for both the what and the how of the research projects.  I met with some partners about joining in on this fun.  Several others gave me the letters I need to show that we have their support.  The CDSN staff has been working really hard to give me the pieces I need.  I have now declared that they are off until January.  

I will be doing grading tomorrow and Monday, and then I hope to turn to focus on one of my winter classes--civil-military relations.  I have taught it many times before but not online (well, the last four weeks last winter hardly count).  So, I need to record lectures for the first 30 minutes of each class more or less and then we will have live discussions about the stuff.  I have to figure out the writing assignments and come up with weekly discussion questions.  Online discussions tend to work better if the students are primed with questions ahead of time.  Probably in-person ones as well, but that hadn't been my practice.  Plus I have to beat the course management page into submission.  But since I am not traveling to my in-laws this winterfest, I have more time than usual.  Just more stuff to do than usual.  It should all work out. 🤞

The big news of the week, of course, was the vax rollouts in the US and Canada. Well, that and the spikes in both countries. We definitely should not become inured to the toll that is accelerating.  People keep seem to forget how exponential growth works.  I am fully expecting the daily death toll in the US to exceed not just 9/11 or Pearl Harbor but the two days combined.   Clearly, the top ten days of death in America will be entirely the pandemic before Christmas day.  And, of course, this is an undercount.  The unexpected deaths figures have been far above the official COVID death tally all along.  I have seen stories referring to the unexpected death toll for younger folks and, yes, it is appalling.  The rage is still there for me as so much of this is unnecessary.  The US will probably exceed half a million dead by spring.  Canada?  Not doing as badly but worse than it should be.  Bad leadership especially at the provincial level is killing people.  The false prioritization of the economy over the disease, bars/restaurants over schools, the delays in locking down, are all coming home to roost.  All of this was not just predictable but predicted.  We keep seeing spikes after major holidays as people think that their gathering is immune.

So, besides planning a massive baking festival (plus I made some really good dishes this week--Doro Wat as well as a chili dish, both thanks to the NYT food section), it has been a great week for TV.  The Mandalorian ended its second season in spectacular fashion.  Flight Attendant was delightful as the protagonist made bad decision after bad decision after waking up in Bangkok next to a dead guy.  The two big delights in the show--that her best friend would yell at her for the bad decisions after we yelled at her for the bad decisions AND the dead guy was the best recurring dead guy figment of an imagination since American Werewolf in London.  The show was daffy, silly, thrilling, and just a heap of fun.  

Speaking of fictional dead guys, I am reading the real story of Operation Mincemeat--the effort by British intelligence to convince the Germans that the next invasion after North Africa was not going to be Sicily but someplace else.  The book tells the tale of the idea and planning (including Ian Flemming who went on to write the Bond books), the finding of the body that would carry the false messages, the delivery of said body. And then the point where I am now--the effort by both the British and the Germans to have the Germans get the documents out of the hands of the Spanish navy (the body was aimed to wash ashore in Spain but was found by the least pro-German agency in Spain at the time).  Great stuff!

 I guess dead body fiction and non-fiction are appropriate 40 weeks into a pandemic....  I will try not to think of dead bodies and the pandemic while spending the afternoon in a manic cookie baking session.  And, yes, pictures will be forthcoming to show that it happened.