PlazaJen: Passion Knit

So, today, I was all set on staying inside all day and watching Capote, while making some progress on the gift baskets we're giving some of our friends & family. This was not to be, as you will see.

I had gotten chocolate & vanilla almond bark, and two bags of pretzel rods - plus mini M&M's and sprinkles, to make some kick-ass dipped pretzels. All was fine, I set up the double boiler and got the chocolate all melted & underway. But I'm factory-minded, you see - I don't like to draw things out & if there's a way to implement a system, especially a time-saving system, then I'm all for it. So I got out another pan, put some water in it, and then another saucepan, and put the white bark in it. That pan had a small lip on it, and balanced quite nicely over the water bath.

Or so I thought. When it was time to move over to the vanilla bark, I went to stir it, and kerploosh! I knocked the delicately balanced pan of almond bark smack into the boiling water, scalding my hand and dumping water INto the almond bark. I quickly poured out the water, but if you've ever worked with almond bark or chocolate, incorporating water? It's a Very. Bad. Thing.

I tried a little unsalted butter to un-seize it, to no avail. I dug the package back out, and it mentions how you're not supposed to put water into it - along with milk, butter, margarine, blah blah blah, basically the only thing that could possibly rescue this solidifying mass was .... Crisco.

So off to the grocery store I went, getting Crisco, along with more almond bark. It took me a whopping two minutes after I got home to determine, no, actually, I am not going to rescue the first batch, and I just started over.
With a different pan. I do learn.

I made a huge amount of festive, dipped pretzels, and bagged them up. The kitchen and dining room looked like Santa's Workshop & Kitchen simultaneously exploded, but I knew I had the evening to pull everything together, as James was coming home later from hunting. Then the phone rang, and it was James, stranded on the side of the road, two hours south. So I looked up a tow truck, sent it off to tow him to the closest town, and hustled to drive down & get him. He said two hours, but I was pleased to shave a good thirty minutes off that estimate. Poor dude. Not the best weekend for him. His truck is sitting at a service station in El Dorado, MO & this week, will get a new pulley-something along with an alignment and tires. Christmas for the F-150!

Even without the truck costs, I still don't think I could justify having two double-boilers. Nice as that may be. ;) Ya just really don't need to double boil things simultaneously too often. And I may never do these pretzel things again. Collector's items, baby.