nothing to do but bake

It's snowing here. Small, constant flakes that are building up into light, fluffy mounds of snow. This is very unusual for Portland; our typical winter snowstorms consist of wet, sticky snowflakes that melt as soon as they touch the surface and inevitably turn into rain by afternoon. Another casualty of global warming, I suppose - but I can't complain.

Though we tend to ignore Portland's famously unreliable weather predictions, we nevertheless had planned for a full day of indoor activities; we're finishing up our Christmas gifts, and had hoped to attend two holiday cocktail parties this evening, to which we'd promised to bring cookies. One (large) batch of ginger pillows became two, with the leftover egg whites being turned into pink meringues, and with panettone on the menu as well, we had a packed day of baking ahead of us.

We took a brief walk in the morning to feel the snow on our faces and the soft muted thud under our shoes, and chuckled to ourselves as inexperienced winter drivers slowly skated away from the center of the road. At the market a few blocks away, we jostled past other brave souls to grab the much needed sugar for our afternoon pursuits, then trudged back to our home. At the time, the ground cover was going on an inch of snow, which is probably the most I've seen since moving here. Now, as the blizzard continues out our windows and the mounds outside become hefty drifts to our snow-virgin (or just largely abstinent?) eyes, it's becoming less and less likely that we will be able to make it out this evening.

Though I'm a little disappointed to be missing two of the only holiday parties we would have been able to attend this season, there is something undeniably romantic about watching the snow spin past our windows, as the oven warms the kitchen and the smell of baking panettone begins to waft throughout the rest of our apartment. I am looking forward to a lazy afternoon of baking and catching up on movies we've been meaning to see, spiked with a cookie or two and, perhaps, a steamy cup of hot-buttered rum. All of the ingredients necessary for a cozy winter day.