The Monday Miscellany
First up: Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. I have a gouty left big toe "knuckle." Walking, not my strong suit lately, is even more painful today. If I mash the hell out of my foot by pulling the shoelaces as tight as possible, it actually seems to help. Probably squeezes out some fluid. But Advil has helped and I'm going no further than the house today so I'll get through this 'un.
Maybe I'm channeling Kim du Toit as a Gout Blogger.

Then: Oh my. This is not going to help with the gout. My new wonderful, wonderful friend sent my a box of Stam chocolates. Oh bless you beautiful one! I opened the box and held myself to a mere 2 pieces (hazelnut & maple cream filled). I promise I'm going to make this one last. The cream-filled mouse shaped pieces are MINE! All mine!
Seriously folks, these are world class chockies.

One other thing in the food realm: I tried the new Taco Bell "Chipotle steak" taco salad. Not bad. The steak bits are very good but the rice at the heart of the tostada is disconcerting to say the least. And for all the taco salads I've had at Taco Bell, they don't seem to be able to deliver a fresh-tasting tostada. Maybe it's the oil they fry them in. I've come to the point of just eating the gooped-up bottom and leaving the sides for the trash. Bottom line: not bad. Entirely reasonable for a fast food place. Not as good as a nice, fresh one from a dedicated sit-down restaurant though.

And finally, since I'm talking food: I made a batch of ginger syrup yesterday and I thought I might give the quick and dirty on it. It's just a simple syrup flavored with fresh ginger. I like it a bit thicker than The Ginger People's version. So I use 2:1 sugar to water (3 cups of sugar to one and a half of water), take a fresh ginger root about the size of my palm all told and slice into thin discs. Ginger goes into the sugar water and bring it to a boil. Then kill the heat nd let it sit on the stove overnight. Then strain it into a ginger syrup bottle (repurposed from maple syrup in my case). And I pour tea over the strained out ginger to collect all the sweet out of it and ginger-flavor the tea. Tasty? You bet.