On sinuses and pinecones and biscotti

Following on the last post, I did have a good birthday weekend, though in fact the last 3 weeks haven't been the most pleasant. The boys and I have been doing the rounds with head colds, and I got hit particularly hard with sinus pain and headaches that are continuing to bother me.

Timo was the first to get a cold, and now he's onto round 2 with another cold. He likes to wipe his runny nose on his hand or sleeve, or he gets a tissue (and thus smears snot all over his cheeks) and then stuffs the tissue back in the box. That's our organized little boy for you. 

Mattias likes to wipe his runny nose on my shoulder or chest. I never know what I'll find when I look down at my shirt. Poor guy. It is never nice to have a little baby with a big stuffy nose. Thankfully he has been sleeping fine. 

As for me, I used a tissue of course, though it made my nose so raw that for a while I was rubbing coconut oil on my face throughout the day to counter the soreness. I also discovered the Neti Pot and saline solution, which helped a lot but did NOT feel pleasant to do. It felt like when you are jumping in the waves at the beach and get smashed by a big one, thrown under and dragged by the undertow. Salt water up your nose and making you dizzy.

When Timo's hair embodies how we all feel first thing in the morning (this was pre-haircut)

Still mighty sweet and snuggable

In the midst of all this, we have had some lovely, sunny days of late, so despite the colds we have been able to do walks around the neighborhood. I really like living in this part of town, where there are old trees and wide sidewalks and come around a corner and oh, there's Pike's Peak! 

One day last week we started out on a walk, and Timo reached down and picked up a pinecone, which he proceeded to then carry the rest of the walk. We headed down our favorite alley ("favorite" because it has three basketball hoops in one block), and as we passed each hoop, Timo stopped and threw the pinecone up at the baskets. 

"Pinecone! Hoop! [throws it upwards] ...Ohhh, miss." 

He carried it all the way home, too, and around to the backyard where he then practiced shooting into his little 4 foot hoop. With the pinecone. And later with the frisbee and football.

What about biscotti in your post title, you may ask? Ah, well now. You faithful readers (Hi, Mom) know how much I love to cook and how much Jim loves to bake. In his excellent repertoire: rusks; banana bread; granola; pumpkin bread; chocolate bread; and several kinds of biscotti. I don't even attempt those items since Jim makes them so, so well. 

Of late, however, we have not photographed and posted any food photos. There are several reasons for this:

1. Laziness and lack of interest (who wants to stop in the middle of cutting into fresh scones to quick, take a photo! Doing so also strikes me as "so American". We have such plenty and variety, and we can spend all kinds of time talking about food and good grief taking photos of it. ...But that's a conversation for another time.)
2. Craziness in a house with young kids where mealtime often lasts 15 minutes or less.
3. "Photographability". While we really enjoy cooking tasty (I believe) dishes, oftentimes the food is difficult to capture on camera in a way that is appealing and truly representative of its deliciousness. Unless you are a food stylist and take time to put it on a nice plate and top with fresh herbs for garnish. It's hard to take photos of stews or casseroles or curries that really make it look good. For example I recently made a yummy vegetable curry with a peanut-coconut sauce. It was a dark green/brownish color. Not at all something that recommend itself in a photo. I didn't have time or desire to stand at the kitchen counter topping a bowl of rice and curry with shredded coconut and raisins and sliced green onions, and then take a photo of it.
4. In fact, most of the day, what is sitting on my stovetop is this:

"Pease porridge cold"... Six hours later and still need to put the leftover porridge in the fridge.

Back to the biscotti...and Reason 5. High Altitude Baking Is Tricky.

We are still learning how to adjust recipes - the high altitude (we are a MILE high, after all!) means that the sugar, flour, leavening and liquid may need to be changed, along with oven temperature and baking time. Needless to say, in the last year and a half we have had numerous flops. Numerous underbaked loaves and overbaked loaves. Even Jim, who recently made apricot-gingerbread biscotti (my favorite of his) THREE times. And burned all of them. Argh. 

Perhaps I should do a post soon with photos of some of our flops and our brown dinners. Just so you can see what life is really like. But then again, that would require me to get out the camera...