Despite being officially on vacation (celebrating American Thanksgiving with my friends) I baked a few things for my colleagues and brought the goodies to work. On offer are white chocolate macadamia cookies, M&M cookies, Raffaello-candy-stuffed cupcakes with vanilla bean and coconut Swiss meringue frosting, peanut-butter stuffed chocolate cake, shortbread and brownie bites stuffed with Snickers candy bar pieces. Some of this was experimental (like the brownie bites). I almost threw the brownie bites away because they became so sticky in the pan I thought I would not get them out intact. I have no idea how they taste but I salvaged them by putting the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes and digging around the edges with a knife. (Recipes/pics to follow.)

I am a very bad girl – I still have not switched over to winter tires, which is not only dangerous this time of year but illegal in Norway. Granted, I don’t drive to Norway that much any more, but here I am today… so first order of business is to take the car to get the tires changed this morning. I came to the office first, though, because I enjoy driving in the middle of the night when there are no other cars. Unfortunately there were a lot of cars (a lot for 3:30 a.m. anyway), but I had a nice, relaxing drive in any case.

The cookies are out and ready to take in reception, second and third floors of my office – so now I am free to run away to the tire change place… and then off to the airport to pick up one of the Thanksgiving guests coming to my questionable Thanksgiving soirée (questionable in that I am a decent baker but would not place bets on my cooking, despite the fact that I cook Thanksgiving every year, and the players continue to live and come back for more…).