Most CDs purchased – 12 in 2004, everything from Mighty Mighty Bosstones Let’s Face It to Janet Jackson’s Damita Jo.

How many books have I bought? – 146, mostly cookbooks, child rearing and fiction.

First thing I ordered was Susan Susanka’s Not So Big House, still relevant today.

Latest thing I ordered was Green Bay Packer’s 2012 Calendar. Not here yet, fingers crossed.

I ordered two Dreamweaver books in 2002, but for the life of me, I cannot recall why I was learning that tool.

Lots of kids’ toys in 2003. Along with Positive Discipline books. I think I bought the entire series.

Mostly 5-9 orders a year, until I get to 2009 when I place 13 orders, and a whopping 23 orders in 2011. 2011 is also when I signed up for Amazon Prime.

In February 2008, I ordered the Witmer Company Peanut Butter Mixer, which was the start of my whole blogging life on Kitchen Gadget Girl. Wrote about it originally on the GOGUGO blog. Thought how much fun it would be to write about all my favorite kitchen gadgets.

The most interestingly named object I have purchased is the Black and Decker Bullseye Laser Level Stud Sensor (October 2003). Makes me giggle every time.

Biggest blast from the past? This little number:

Wanna run through your own order history? Visit www.amazon.com, and click on Your Account, then Your Orders. Then use the drop down menu on the side to go to the specific time period.

Tell me, what is your most interesting Amazon purchase? 

Our new friends were over this weekend, and we got to talking about bread making. Yvonne was struggling because she is used to cake yeast and was having difficulty finding a good local source. It made me wonder what the difference is between cake and granulated yeast, as I always reach for Bob’s Red Mill Active Dry Yeast, which I buy in a large package and store in a container in the fridge.

Cake Yeast

Also called fresh yeast, or wet yeast, is perishable and needs to be used within 10 days of purchase. Red Star manufactures this yeast and it is mostly available in the midwest and northeastern United States. Looking online at King Arthur Flour and Amazon, I was not able to find any cake yeast, which I found surprising. Sounds like it is a popular item in Europe, and some local bakeries and pizzarias might be willing to part with some if you have difficulty finding cake yeast in your grocery store. And if you really run up against a wall, you can substitute 1/2 of the amount in dry yeast. For example, if your recipe calls for 1 ounce of fresh yeast, you would use 1/2 an ounce of dry yeast. Thanks Chowhounders for this conversion!

Dry Yeast

I use Active Dry Yeast, and you can also find Instant Yeast on the shelves. According to Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, it is best to buy active dry yeast in bulk, as the small packages will end up costing quite a bit if you do a lot of baking. And modern yeast does not need to be proofed to work (you used to have to add sugar and warm water until the bubbles started going), but keep an eye on the temperature of the water, ensuring that the water stays around 115F.

Wild Yeast

This is also called starter, and it is created naturally with the yeasts available in the air. I have a pot of sourdough starter that has been in my fridge for a while (it might not be viable anymore), and many professional bakers keep their starter going for years for daily baking. You can create the initial starter with a package mix, a simple mixture of water and flour, or crushed grape skins. I have never tried the last method, but sounds intriguing. In the Bay Area, there is a rumor going around that our San Francisco Sourdough relies on so many of the airborne yeasts for its tang that it cannot be reproduced out of the area. I guess that is why Boudin’s has a to-go counter at the airport.

What is your go-to yeast for baking? 

Halloween this week! Kids are beyond excited, and we need to have a plan for quick dinner Monday night before trick-o-treating. I am thinking a vegetarian chili from the Frog Commissary cookbook, along with corn bread and fruit.

The best thing about last week’s menu was the pear cake I made midweek. I will write it up soon. The kids also liked the super easy Lemon, Dill, Orzo pasta with Chicken, from Martha Stewart’s site. Next time, I will make it with thighs, I think they hold up better moisture-wise.

We are down to our last month of Mariquita Farms boxes and then the season will be done for the year. I will go back to the Farmer’s Markets on Saturday and Sunday, and have already started growing a couple things in our own garden to supplement. Our box this week included Butternut Squash, Anaheim Chiles, Cilantro, San Marzano Tomatoes, Strawberries, Spigariello, Red Salad Bowl Lettuce, French Breakfast Radishes and Purple Cauliflower.

Menu plan for the week of October 30:

Cookie of the Week: Scaredy-Cat Brownies

Sunday: Marinated flank steak, roasted cauliflower, steamed spigariello, salad with sliced radishes

(Meatless) Monday: Vegetarian chili, cornbread, fruit

Tuesday: Taco night with fresh salsa, refried beans, taco meat, cheese, etc.

Wednesday: Butternut squash risotto, grilled pork, salad

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: Trashy TV and Takeout

What is on your menu plan this week? And, have you thought about donating your children’s Halloween candy to Operation Gratitude? They send it to troops around the world. Good cause.

Using this creative idea, I came up with one of our own. Every morning, especially with a certain girl-child, is a battle. When to get up, what to do next, what to wear, when to put on shoes, practicing the piano, making lunches, eating breakfast. I felt like a task master, and very often we would dissolve into yelling matches and someone would invariably go to school unhappy and someone else would spend the morning in a guilt induced fog.

Then came our morning task pad. All the tasks they need to do before walking out the door. Then I decided to add in the afternoon and evening tasks, and boy, are we in business.

I have to admit it was not that easy to make, since I am a beginner with Adobe Photoshop Elements. But, I used VistaPrint and they have a template to download, which was a good starting point. After much trial and error, I was able to make the form look the way I wanted (although I could never figure out how to get little checkboxes instead of dashed lines) and then I sent the image off to be printed. A week later, we were in business.

And so far, so good. The kids are using the system, there is much less yelling in the morning, and kids go off to school happy and successful, having already checked a number of items off their to-do list, and I can relax and enjoy my coffee.

What saves your sanity in the mornings?

Sometimes, when I am not writing for Kitchen Gadget Girl about our family fun in the kitchen, I can be found writing for other worthy websites, including:

Foodily Blog: Can-it-Forward: Preserving Tomatoes, Planning a Block Party, and Is it a cabbage? Is it a lettuce? Cooking with CSA.

Credit Sesame Blog: 6 Ways to Save on Your Next Roadtrip

MintLife Blog: Are vacation package deals really a deal and Timeshare pitches and their perks.

and of course, my work with Uptake, including 7 Disneyland secrets, Colorado bike rental and Paris Attractions for Families.

What do you do when you are not thinking about food?

In addition to step-by-step directions, Pim also cleared up quite a bit of confusion about macaron making. The best thing I learned was the technique of macaronage, which is actually a more agressive folding than one might imagine for egg whites. Pim talks about the technique as a massage of the egg whites into the batter, rather than the usual folding in of egg whites, and because the class was hands-on, she was able to really show us the consistency of the final product, flowing like a nice lava mountain in Hawaii.

We also learned how to make an easy buttercream, again with the Italian sugar syrup (cooked meringue) and Amy and I flavored ours with lemon verbena. The purple cookie in the photo above is our creation.

The best part of the class is the template she sent home with each of us, as well as our own pastry tip, so that when we re-create these at home, we have a plan to follow as well as the tools.

Pim has other classes at Love Apple Farms, and other folks teach there as well. I would recommend the program if you are looking for something fun!

At a lunch this week, we got to talking about cooking. The hostess commented that she really could not cook, only knew about 8 things that she could make. I questioned her on this, as we were sitting down to a lovely lunch she had prepared, and she went on to explain that there are 8 things she knows how to make by heart, but that for any other dish, she has to consult a recipe. Therefore, she felt she was not a cook. I beg to differ.

When I was growing up, my Mom did all the cooking, and to me, it seemed like she did it all from memory. Now I realize she was cooking the same stuff over and over, and when you do that, you can no longer need to consult a written recipe. However, she had a big box of recipes from her mother (my grandmother) and her own collection of cookbooks. Even though she cooked from memory, she still pulled out recipes for special occasions. And I still identify her as my earliest cooking mentor. A cook in my mind is someone who cares enough about who they are preparing a meal for to make the occasion special. So, if that involves a roasted chicken from CostCo, thrown together with a simple tomato salad, as long as it is made with positive intention for the consumer of the dinner (even if the cook is dining alone), I would call that a meal prepared by a cook.

Anyone can cook – anyone who can read a recipe, that is. Granted, depending on the author of the recipe, that can be a challenge in and of itself, but for most people, accompanied by a copy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, reading a recipe and cooking is no more complex than reading a travel guide book to Hawaii.

Fellow photographers at Food and Light 2011 Workshop

I still have much to process (both instructions learned and photographs taken) and wanted to record some initial impressions. Here are my 5 take-aways from the 2011 Food and Light organized by Jen Yu of use real butter, along with Matt Wright of WrightFood and Diane Cu and Todd Porter of White on Rice Couple:

Radishes and turnips on very rustic board

1. Get some twine. Foods look fun with a little string wrapped around a bunch. Plus it adds movement and texture, which can help many dishes which are not that photogenic, like stew. But don’t put the string in the stew, that would be gross.

Freshly cut grapefruit

2. Aperture priority is the setting for me. I still have experimentation to do to fine tune to my camera, but I have a much better grasp on how to take my camera off auto.

Snickerdoodles and cinnamon sticks

3. Be authentic when telling a story through a food photography. In this cookie photo, I thought the cinnamon sticks were fun with the string around them (see #1) but they don’t necessarily fit in with the casual, chunky snicker doodle. A better story might have been a lunch bag, fresh red apple and milk box, and a bite out of the cookie, like I had just packed it for a school lunch. But I would not have taken a bite out of the cookie before packing the lunch. What kind of Mom do you think I am?

Chocolate tart with lavender

4. Build a prop box to make photo taking interesting. Check out local second-hand stores and troll garage sales. If your town has a lot of food bloggers (think Seattle or San Francisco) you may have to go far afield for props, or check out eBay. Don’t spend more than $10. And consider raiding your relatives’ unused family heirlooms. Just not when they are looking.

Radish with salt

5. When composing your photo, think about the rule of thirds and triangle arrangements. Don’t put the star of your photo right in the middle. And shoot flat foods straight down and foods with height from the side or straight on. Place items closer together than you may imagine; the camera compresses and pushes things together.

Water glasses

We also spent a lot of time talking about light, natural and artificial, and I have new ideas to explore about the best ways to use light in my photos. Fortunately, California offers a great deal of natural light and I have another few months of long daylight hours to take advantage and learn more.

I also need to organize my photos and look into photo-editing software. Lightroom and Elements, both Adobe products, are on their way now and I plan to spend the rest of the month configuring and beginning to learn more about these products. Diane suggests taking at least 5 photos a day, which I plan to do with Instagram and my iPhone. Practice, practice, practice!

Just some of the folks I met this week (list to be updated with roundup of F&L posts)

Chris of Nestle Kitchens
Karen of Off The (Meat) Hook
Karen from Buried Carrots
Tanya of Mummybites
Michele of Cooking With Michele
Manisha of Indian Food Rocks
Nicole of Arctic Garden Studio
Tina of Scaling Back.

Venice, Italy, where strange things happen all the time

Usually you get this kind of message when a blog is first being built. But, on this (almost) 3rd anniversary of Kitchen Gadget Girl, we are finally bringing a new look and feel. There are still some deets to iron out, be patient while Dena and I work through them.

In the meantime, you can find me on Facebook and Twitter. Would love to hear from you!

- Give up television

I tried to get the family on board with this one, but I don’t think they (my husband) is going for it. It does seem difficult to remove this from my life for 6 weeks, but can you imagine the benefits? I can read more (yeah!), I can cook more (yeah!), I can actually talk with my husband and kids at night instead of staring at the screen (double yeah). We could have a weekly family game night, instead of our weekly movie night. I would probably get to bed on time. And maybe I would have time to investigate a new hobby. I am going to do it, to heck with the rest of the folks in the family.

- Turn off computer and iPhone by 7pm each night

Without the TV, this could be harder. I can certainly get sucked into Angry Birds, or stay up late answering emails and doing searches for shoes on Zappos. But again, if I turn these devices off, I can be more present for my family and do other activities that possibly give me more meaning. Yoga springs to mind.

There are a few items I would like to consider as Lenten Challenges, but it won’t be an all or nothing activity. These are things I would like to keep watch on:

• Make exercise an important part of my weekly schedule
• Eat out less (cook more at home)
• Find something new to challenge myself every week

Are you taking on any personal challenges for Lent? If so, what have you decided to do? I know Valerie is going to stop eating out (and begin pocketing all those savings for home improvement). Share your ideas!

* I feel it necessary to point out I am not Catholic, nor will I pretend to be during Lent. I just like that it is a specific period of time and the personal challenge and time to reflect is useful.

I subscribe to a great daily recipe email called No Take Out. Each day, a menu is sent, one that can be prepared after you get home from work, using real food as ingredients and providing your family a nice dinner. One of the reasons I like it is because it includes funny comments in the timeline, things like “Open the wine”. Oh, and wine is always included. Very Julia Child-esque.

Last night, as I was getting our dinner on the table, I thought the timeline I was following was hysterical. It did not involve getting a bowl out of here, or a bunch of herbs out of there. It involved racing around town getting my kids hither and yon. So, I present you with my Family Dinner Menu  for Wednesday, March 2:

Grilled Pork Chops with Roasted Pomegranate Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans and Peach Pie

11:00 am – Take pork chops out of freezer

12noon – Realize husband is out tonight, so decide to make peach pie for dessert. Take sliced peaches and pie crust out of the freezer (husband does not like fruit pies)

1:00 pm – Stick pork chops in the fridge; prepare pie crust for pie; preheat oven to 425F

2:00 pm – Walk over to school to pick up Child #2

2:15 pm – Prepare snack for Child #2

2:45 pm – Put pie in oven; Find out husband is coming home for dinner. Oh well, he doesn’t eat pie anyway.

3:00 pm – Turn down oven to 350F. Load Child #2 in car to drive to sewing class.

3:15 pm – Drop Child #2 at sewing class.

3:30 pm – Return home, get Child #1 ready for soccer; Check on pie (still not brown enough);  Peel sweet potatoes and cut into cubes, set aside.

3:50 pm – Depart to soccer meeting and practice.

4:35 pm – Return home to remove pie from oven. Turn off heat. Set oven for delayed start at 5:15 of 400F. Toss sweet potatoes with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Put in oven (even though oven is not on yet).

4:55 pm – Depart to pick up Child #2. Continue on to pick up Child #1 (did I tell you that they are on opposite sides of town this afternoon?)

6:10 pm – Walk in the door; Open bottle of wine; Pour glass for self; Have Child #2 set table; Throw out plate of crudites and ranch dressing for Child #1 who is STARVING; Turn on BBQ; Check on sweet potatoes and turn; Throw green beans in the microwave for 3 minutes; Put pork chops on the grill; Prepare salad using leftover sliced fennel, endive and fresh arugula; Supreme three oranges to add to salad; Peel and chop avocado for salad; Realize salad dressing options are slim; Prepare to make fresh; Realize there is a jar of homemade dressing stuck in the back of the fridge; Put milk on the table; Turn pork chops; Hustle Child #1 to the shower; Check-off homework for both kids; Check email; Take pork chops off the grill, put on platter for table; Pull green beans out of microwave, put in serving bowl; Take sweet potatoes out of the oven, toss with Pomegranate Syrup, scoop into serving bowl and put on table; Put salad on table; Make sure wine gets to the table too.

6:35 pm – Call children and spouse to table; Sit down and eat.

7.5 hours from start to finish. And they ask what stay-at-home-moms do all day. Silly people. We are clearly using all our free time to make 4-course, gourmet dinners.