see, i do things besides baking sometimes

made some excellent 40 cloves of garlic chicken but with beer instead of cognac and wine and thyme, although i do want to try it that way some time.

also, semolina 1-2-3 cake from home baking, a lebanese cake named namoura or mammoura. it was based on semolina (which i had to track down at an expensive grocery with a large italian section) and yougurt, with a sugar-butter sauce moistening it after baking. not bad, although i would have cooked it a little longer, and used all of the sauce on it, since it really does soak it all up, but could have cut down on the butter content too.

went to the indian grocery and found some "masala puri" crackers, which are excellent, although i think their flakiness is at the expense of several pounds of butter/palm oil per cracker. i was hoping they would be like the indian spicy pretzel-shaped crackers my grad student in chicago had, and they were.

finally went back to 'helen's special raisin bread' recipe since i wanted a bread i knew i liked. (i just bought some toasting bread from pepperidge farm, and it tastes very artificial, although toasting it does help.) i made one loaf with a cinnamon swirl (1/4 cup sugar, 5 teaspoons cinnamon after brushing the dough with milk, as suggested by baking illustrated gives a very cinnamon-y filling) which came out well, although the swirl itself is sort of squished into the upper half of the loaf.

also, went for 6 exorbiant sea scallops (about a dollar a scallop), which came out so-so. the first 3 i tried to make a gravy similar to chicken i mentioned earlier. although i forgot that lemon+cream=nasty curdling. the latter 3 i sauted then put in the oven with garlic and breadcrumbs and basil, as suggested by the supermarket's suggestions on the scallop container sticker.