maybe I should stop reading the "Shopaholic" series

I'm on the hunt for a used car. Specifically, a Honda or Toyota under $5k that's still got some life left in it and hasn't been flooded, neglected, or so poorly maintained that the battery has corroded. I've been zealously watching craigslist in hopes of finding my dream car, but nothing has come up yet. (There was a beautiful blue 1970 Mustang listed...yeah...I don't even have a driveway.)

Moving is over - thank god - but the unpacking continues. The living room floor was unearthed yesterday, we may be able to hook up the tv soon. Colette and I rented a mini-van last weekend and went to Ikea - it's probably a good thing that there isn't one in Madison. We had a good time pronouncing the Swedish-esque names of the goods (Lack, Grundatl, Flarke, Bekvam, Aneboda, etc.), eating meatballs with lingonberry sauce, sitting on Nick, Jeff and Herman, and lounging in beds of model apartments. Herman came home with us.

In other shopping news (oddly, it actually was news), Madison finally got an H&M! There are 4 H&M's in Utrecht, which I went to at least once a week when I lived there. Since then, every time I go to a big city (Boston, Chicago, or New York) I've "stocked up" at H&M, that is to say, bought way more than I needed to. I don't know if this means I'll buy fewer things at H&M because it's just a short bus ride away, or that I'll go more often and buy more than I would have on semi-annual trips to Chicago. Whatever the case, I'm glad we finally have one in Madison.

Oh yeah. And the gerbils had babies last night. Seven of 'em.

The landlord is upstairs, ripping out the carpet in Nicole and Marisa's new apartment. I hope he doesn't decide to come and visit me/my apartment, as I'm harboring an illegal kitty.

Went to the Farmer's Market this morning and got melon, tomatoes, zucchini, and 4 basil plants for a quarter. The basil that I have now is being eaten by Peter Rabbit and his friends and looks kinda grody. (Not at all like last summer...remember the jungle-eqsue fire escape porch?)

I just read Before the Mortgage, a book about life, well, before the mortgage. It's a collection of essays by 20- and 30-something writers on roommates, apartment hunting (I loved the piece on the craigslist addiction), Boston marriages, etc. There's even a piece by Anna Chlumsky of My Girl. The best line in the book is when one of the editors' 11-year-old nieces says "God, it sucks you only have one bed...it really sucks" when she's visiting the editor and her partner. The book was reviewed in the new issue of Bitch which came out yesterday.

I'm off to the terrace to grade/escape from the landlord. Happy moving weekend!!

falure to launch

oh. my. god. that movie was horrible.

i'm going to bed.

Packing. Grading. Moving.

Packing.

I have 6+ Rubbermaid bins that Colette and Sara brought me last week. Half of them are full, the rest are saved for conquering the bedroom, which I'm scared to pack. I haven't done laundry in a good long while and there are random clothes, towels, sheets, socks, etc. strewn about. I don't even want to think about the closet.

Grading.

I have 7 projects and an exam to grade. I feel as if I should break out of my normal grading routine for these papers, that I should be sitting in my office grading them rather than grading them at home on the couch, or on the Terrace, or at a coffeeshop, or wherever. At least I only have 7 and not 32 this time.

Moving.

We have an apartment. It's getting painted right now. The owner asked me today what color I wanted and I said "I dunno...white is ok I guess." Then when I hung up I realized that I finally had the chance to live in a place with colored walls, and I told him to paint them white. Oh well. We're moving in on Tuesday. My movers (Mom, Bobby, and Dan) are all lined up, the truck is reserved. I got a cargo van from enterprise (if anyone needs help moving - or just wants to drive around Madison in a "murder van" - let me know, I have it until Wednesday morning.

Colette is in Seattle/Portland and called me from Mt. St. Helens today. Sleater-Kinney shows tonight and tomorrow - I'm jealous!

Milo is being very very cute - he played with a glitter ball for about 2 hours straight today.

So now, instead of packing or grading, I'm wathing Failure to Launch. I have all the time in the world, I don't move until Tuesday...

I'm at Ancora escaping the heat. According to weather.com, it's 93 degrees, with a heat index of 100; it's about 100 degrees in the apartment. HOT. Yesterday I escaped to West Towne Mall where I shopped the clearance sale at Pottery Barn (!!), hung out at Barnes & Noble (where I read the illustrated version of Eats, Shoots and Leaves) and got a rain check for a fan.

Assuming everything goes well, I'll sign the lease on the new (air-conditioned!) apartment tomorrow. The landlord sounds fabulous, the apartment is beautiful and about 750 sq. ft., which is a huge step up from the 450 sq. ft. that we're living in now. There are hardwood floors, a huge living room, and space for a table! It's also right on the bus line, which is great - maybe I will hold off on buying a car for a little while more. (umm...I need to hold off anyway...) The apartment search was horrible - I'm so glad it's over. I saw way too many dumpy places, including what looked like a crack house on Willy St. (room full of mattresses? broken windows?? disconnect notices from MG&E??? riiiight.) There was a beautiful 2-bedroom on E. Mifflin, but it was rented before we decided to take it. Then there was the house on Vilas, beautiful apartment with a HUGE kitchen and tons of closets (closets that could have easily been mini-offices), but the owners wanted a $1200 seciruty deposit. riiiight. Seriously, if we're gonna put down $1200 for a one-bedroom, we might as well be getting a condo!

I'm across the street from where they're building a new Trader Joe's. They are trying to fit a vegetable refrigerator shelf thingy in there. It's kind of fun to watch. It just barely fit!

Off to grade! See ya later!!

I love chick lit.

Finnish Finnish Finnish. Hallo!!! Finnish Finnish Finnish

hagelslag isn't just sprinkles...

Sprinkles or jimmies? Either way they're tops
By Richard Hartel
Special to The Capital Times

You might ask for sprinkles. You might ask for jimmies. Either way, you're asking for those little chocolate candy pieces that transform plain ice cream into a fun treat.

What you call these little chocolate bits seems to depend on where you live. In many places on the East Coast, Philadelphia and Boston, for example, chocolate sprinkles are called jimmies. But it's not the entire East Coast, since New Yorkers call them sprinkles. And some people as far west as Michigan and even Wisconsin call them jimmies.

The term sprinkles applies to a wide range of candy-type pieces that are scattered onto ice cream and other treats. From chocolate or rainbow-colored pieces to multi-colored sugar crystals, sprinkles come in numerous sizes, shapes and colors. Even those little silver or white candy balls, known as nonpareils, qualify as sprinkles.

The term "jimmies" is thought to have originated in the 1930s in Bethlehem, Pa., at the Just Born candy company. Although most well-known for marshmallow Peeps, Just Born also made the small chocolate sprinkles at that time. As the story goes, the man who ran the company's sprinkle-making machine was named Jimmy, and apparently the name stuck.
Sprinkles or jimmies? Either way they're tops
sugarcraft.com
Sugarcraft Inc. makes sprinkles in Hamilton, Ohio.

The Dutch have a similar chocolate sprinkle product, called Hagelslag. They sprinkle chocolate Hagelslag onto buttered bread for breakfast or lunch. No, it's not named after the person who first developed them. In Dutch, Hagel means hail, and Hagelslag means pellet.

A hail of small pellets. Exactly what happens when you pour sprinkles onto ice cream or cupcakes!

Chocolate sprinkles are made largely of sugar and corn starch, with a little fat to soften the texture and some cocoa powder to give it flavor and color. They taste a little like chocolate, but really don't have much flavor of their own. The rainbow-colored sprinkles have no flavor added whatsoever.

The Dutch chocolate Hagelslag, on the other hand, is actually chocolate that's been made into a paste by adding powdered sugar. They actually taste good, whereas chocolate sprinkles need ice cream or cupcakes to be palatable. Do any of you eat sprinkles by themselves?

Other candy products made from sugar and corn starch are candy cigarettes and those little candy dots (Candy Buttons) attached to a strip of paper. Remember them? Although they're much harder than sprinkles (they have lower water content and don't have the fat to soften the texture), they're made in much the same way.

To make chocolate sprinkles, the sugar, corn starch, fat and cocoa are mixed to form a paste, sort of like a candy Play-Doh. The paste is then extruded in a machine that looks like a pasta press to form thin strands of candy. Multiple ribbons of chocolate candy vermicelli exit the bottom of the extruder.

The candy strands are collected on a vibrating bed and broken into small pieces by shaking. The pieces that are too short or too long are returned to the mixing head to take another trip through the extruder. Those with the right size and shape move on to the polishing stage.

To improve their appearance, sprinkles are coated with confectioner's glaze and wax until they're nice and shiny.

Confectioner's glaze is the candy maker's term for edible shellac. A thin layer of shellac puts a shine on the sprinkles just like it does on a nice wooden desk. Confectioner's glaze and wax give the shine to everything from malted milk balls to jelly beans.

Chocolate sprinkles or jimmies, whichever you call them, go well on ice cream, cupcakes and cookies. But why stop there? How about a peanut butter and sprinkle sandwich? Or cream cheese and rainbow sprinkles on a bagel? What interesting combinations with sprinkles have you tried?

To share your own sprinkle story or to get more information about the field of food science, contact Rich Hartel at rwhartel@wisc.edu. Hartel is a professor of food engineering in the Department of Food Science at UW-Madison.
Published: August 1, 2006