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The number of cookies and chocolates we made this weekend? The number of times that A played "Cheer Me Up, Thank You" by New Buffalo? I think it might have been both. Needless to say, it was a frantic productive weekend. Amidst a slew of busy weeks and A's trip to New Mexico, we figured out that we had about four and a half hours in fifteen-minute blocks of free time spread between three days last weekend in which to accomplish all of our holiday gift-making. That, and A decided she would squeeze in recording a song for a friend's year-end compilation.



It actually worked. And what do we have to show for it?

50 Shortbread
65 White-Chocolate-Dipped Cocoa Candy Cane Cookies
75 Buckwheat Cocoa Nib Cookies
62 Dark Chocolate Mendiants with Figs, Candied Orange Peel and Marcona Almonds
7 Bottles of Limoncello
1 New Buffalo Cover

I'm not sure whether or not I want to share this recipe - sometimes it is nice to wield the power, to have something for which other people depend on you - but these buckwheat cookies are just so good that I feel like I need to spread their gospel. We came across the recipe on Orangette, who found them in Alice Medrich's Pure Dessert. True, their name sounds deceptively wholesome, but when you bite into them, they are nutty and toasty and rich. Addictively so. Medrich's approach to desserts - simple preparations that have the concentrated flavors of their ingredients - has bumped her cookbook up on the next-to-own list. Try the recipe and you'll be in line for her cookbook, too. The cookies were good, but next year we'll be making hand-crafted ponies for all of our friends and family.

The other great weekend accomplishment was A's first go at recording. Yeah, this may have opened up whole new avenues for inane reels of her giggling to herself as she makes funny sounds, but who am I to deny her of her fun? A's friend at infiniteregress.org started up a year-end project to get folks to record cover versions of their favorite songs from 2007 for a compilation CD. With limited time, no instruments and zero knowledge of the recording equipment, A put together a really beautiful, lilting a capella take on "Cheer Me Up Thank You." While you're there, you should listen to Day 1, when A's brother Brandon (B) posted a great version of a Menomena song and Day 7, when Tim, who runs the site, performed a fantastic cover of "Saltbreakers." Seriously, my wife is good at what she does, isn't she?

Now, on the subject of music, can we all just agree on how great this song is?



Just another stock "band-in-the-recording-studio" video, right? And then come the kittens and unicorns and balloons! And rainbows! Its like a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper exploded out of their amps; Los Campesinos! are literally overpowered by their own twee-ness. They just moved up my list to be the '08 album release I am most looking forward to. Or the only album release that I know of. Either one. But how can you not love a band who puts out songs like this and who all take Campesinos! as their last name? I feel like I missed out on something - everyone seems to be forming these new family-like groups by recasting themselves with a new last name and here, A and I got hitched and kept our names. It seems sort of cult-ish, but I think they are all too hip to be creepy. Adopting collective surnames is the new black.