Running late

White chocolate brownies, recipe for heavy winter

brownies © mic dejun de bucuresti

I care so much about people that it often hurts. Yet again, this is what makes me be me so trusting people less would mean changing who I am into someone I wouldn't really like that much. Baking for others calms me down, makes me a better person. Sharing is caring, isn't it? Even though I learned that sharing too much is never a good idea.

There's a milion things one cannot control. There's unpredictable snow, there's unpredictable mistakes, changes of a plan and so forth and so on. Yet when you bake something, even when you make that recipe for the first time, it's you again, doing something you love, knowing that the dough will rise and the crust will turn golden.

I don't like these small certainties because they offer the impression of mere control, but because this means living. Drinking tea while doing nothing else but drinking tea. When thinking about other people, when trying to figure out what you already know cannot be figured out, baking is that one break you need from your thoughts. And then something good comes up from all this and it's you again, sharing brownies with people, smiling, knowing that in 10 years from now you'd enjoy doing the same thing. Sharing.

Not dreaming. Planning a white Christmas

I'm crazy about chocolate, friends and Christmas. Put them together and you'll have a perfect white Christmas. Because this is my plan for this year's Christmas. I'd say it would be my first holiday dinner since we had many parties there already in just one year since I moved in. But now my house is white with dust. Who knew renovating your bathroom (read: out with old, in with the new) would get so messy, so loud, so... flooding your neighbour for the second time this autumn? Well, I knew it alright. But one's has to be patient because the only way to make room for the new and the better is throwing away the old, the ugly and the someone else's memories. The more you bring out your personality in that house, the more you invest, the more you'll love it and the more it'll pay you back in comfort, peace of mind and dear new memories.

So I've been digging through the snow (read: Pinterest) to find some of the nicest white Christmas ideas. Since now there's almost nothing I can do but planning, I know these ideas will be useful once my house is clean again and ready for Christmas. I haven't decided what gifts to offer to all of my guests, but I'll figure out something. Until then, this is what I think might help me have the perfect white Christmas dinner and table: