Author: doodledweller
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Embroidery
I’ve owned this black hoodie for more than a decade. It is medium weight, warm, and well made. To have a perfect black hoodie is just as essential as a little black dress, which has been affectionately acronymed to the LBD. While the LBD is usually reserved for formal events, the black hoodie is casual,…
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Gifting Story
It’s tough to give a gift to the one who has everything; and it would seem as if everyone had everything nowadays. Long gone are the days to just drop a bouquet of flowers and some chocolate, because you are regularly expected this minimum level of effort in expressing your love. But with thoughtful strategies…
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Sleepless Cookies
When having a bout of insomnia, baking cookies with a loved one makes for a good remedy. It keeps off sleeplessness anxiety, reduces stress, and perhaps even releases endorphins to boost happiness. Where brownie is all about chocolate, what constitutes cookie is infinite. At its most basic, the cookie is a shortbread, containing flour, fat,…
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Brownie
It happened during my first study abroad trip. Passing by a bakery, I saw alluring sprinkles of powdered sugar atop brown squares, stacked neatly on the other side of the window pane. Having been away for a while, I was very excited to get a taste of home, but my excitement was only quickly replaced…
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Chocolate Cake
Chocolate cake is a staple dessert – rich, dark, and decadent. Some folks prefer milk chocolate, but if one truly loves chocolate, one wants it dark. It’s akin to the idea that if you eat your steak well-done, you don’t enjoy beef. I personally have my chocolate cake as black as midnight; something like Hershey’s…
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Patching
My grandparents had a sewing machine. It was a treadle machine, which was solely foot-powered: through pedaling your feet back and forth to keep it running. It was so vintage that it could probably sit in a museum now. They had a few pattern booklets, not only for making shirts and pants, but also for…
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Concept Evolution
How we view the world reflects who we are, so that two individuals witnessing the same event or reading the same text may have completely different understandings of it. That one is always evolving means what one hears, sees, and reads is always evolving too. At different stages of life, we are moved by different…
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Ode to the Persimmon
The persimmon is a gorgeous tree – of large, glossy foliage, – of tall, hard wood, and bedecked with orange-hued sweet fruits in globular or teardrop figures. Though not only is it ornamental, this fecund tree also nourishes throughout the cold winter. Revered in East Asia, particularly in Japan, it has inspired much poetry, perhaps…
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Coffee Cake
Coffee cake is served with coffee, typically sweet and spiced to complement coffee’s strong flavor. Coffee cake is another kind of cake with layers being baked together simultaneously. Unlike the tarte Tatin, a layer of crumb, similar to Germany’s streusel, is spread and baked atop the cake batter. Streusel means sprinkle or strew in German,…
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Rosemary Apple Cake
To give complexity to a cake, whether to contrast or to compliment its flavors and textures, we build dimensions into it. One method is to add layers after the cake is done baking, such as frosting. Another way is to bake separate layers simultaneously. Because layers require different settings to be correctly cooked, the challenge…
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