Enjoy!

PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE BREAD
When it gets cold outside, I want to be cozy inside my house baking up a storm. One of my favorite comfort foods is pumpkin cheesecake bread. The last time I made this I used gluten-free cake & pastry flour from Cooqi and the texture was wonderful.

Enjoy!

PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE BREAD
Cook Time: 70 minutes
Ingredients:

* Filling:
* 1 package (8 ounce) cream cheese, at room temperature
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (or gluten-free flour)
* 1 large egg
* 1 tablespoon finely grated orange peel

Bread:
* 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
* 1/4 teaspoon ginger
* 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
* 1 cup pumpkin puree, canned or homemade
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 2 large eggs
* 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
* 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, optional

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325°. Lightly grease two 8x4x3-inch loaf pans. In a medium mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, 1 egg, and the orange peel; beat until smooth and creamy. Set aside.

Into another bowl, sift 1 2/3 cup flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg; set aside. Put pumpkin puree, vegetable oil, 2 eggs and 1 1/2 cup sugar in a large mixing bowl; beat well. Stir the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture just until combined. Fold in the pecans or walnuts, if using.

Pour half of the pumpkin bread batter evenly into the two prepared loaf pans. Spoon cream cheese mixture on top of pumpkin batter layer and then pour on the remaining pumpkin batter.

Bake in preheated 325° oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool bread in pans for 10 minutes; remove to a rack to cool completely.
Pumpkin bread recipe makes 2 loaves.

“moodle” was a handle I had chosen back in 1996 when [...]]]> Way back when the internet was just text pages and marketing had not yet taken over everything, I bought moodle.net and put up my very first website. It had an animated GIF for the front page and everyTHANG.

“moodle” was a handle I had chosen back in 1996 when I joined one of the first Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) on the young web, Bitstream Underground (BSU), where I had made lovely friends that I still have today. Moodle.net became a place where I tested out my web design skills, and put up stuff that amused me.

I did hard coding for moodle.net, but I eventually discovered blogging platforms and I moved on to blogger and livejournal. I kept moodle as my email all the way up until 2008 until I sold moodle.net domain to the gentleman who authored the moodle programming language. I kept charlene@moodle.net and he provided a forward to my new domains. But nowadays I have become theredheadsaid as my online identity, and sadly the moodle.net email has become a spam magnet, having been on the intertubez for 13 years. So i made the decision today to pull the plug on my moodle.net identity.

Goodbye moodle.net, I have loved ye.

If you’re a creative person you know that sometimes you need a box to design your way out of. Many people find the “make X once a day” idea very fruitful. And there’s a lovely blog that chronicles just that!

http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/

One woman makes an owl a day…

If you’re a creative person you know that sometimes you need a box to design your way out of. Many people find the “make X once a day” idea very fruitful. And there’s a lovely blog that chronicles just that!

http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/

One woman makes an owl a day…

This gentleman makes one imaginary creature a day

Oddments & Curiosities: odd creatures on odd days…

One guy just decided to  Make Something Cool Every Day like this awesome “emoticikhans”

Just watch it!

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by [...]]]> Found this on tumblr today (like I find most amazing visual things). Big Bang Big Boom, what can only be described as an outdoor animation installation. I thought it was just painting but it’s sculpture, animation, evolution, social commentary. it’s just…amazing.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

I’m from a small town in Wisconsin, and the men in the Midwest are not very assertive when it comes to making the move on a woman. In fact, the only way you can know if a Midwestern man is interested in you is if he’s not talking to you. I wish [...]]]>

I’m from a small town in Wisconsin, and the men in the Midwest are not very assertive when it comes to making the move on a woman. In fact, the only way you can know if a Midwestern man is interested in you is if he’s not talking to you. I wish I were kidding.
So since I moved to New York a few years ago, it’s been interesting to see how men of other cultures try to get the attention of ladies.

Urban black men will just yell things. Most of the time it’s garden-variety catcalling, from “MMM MMM!!! I wanna eat you up!” to crass “I WANT YOU TO COME OVAH HEAH AND SIT ON MAH FACE GIRLIE!” (from a homeless guy sitting on a stoop one morning).

Sometimes I don’t think they are even sure what method they are using. Once a subway bench dweller started chatting me up while we both waiting for our train. He looked me up and down and in an admiring voice said, “Well aren’t you pretty. Look at your pretty red hair and pretty skirt. Pretty pretty pretty.” Then after a pause he added, “Are you a gold digger?”

But occasionally you will hear something sweet. One day while walking past one of those “lost men” homes, an elderly black man called out to me, “If you was mah girl, I would treat you so good.”

South African men get right to point, “You are very beautiful, are you married?” without the warm-up of any small talk.

I think I like the style of Dominican men. A friend of mine said that once, when walking in the Dominican part of Brooklyn, a man a block away yelled in her direction, “HEY BEEG BUTTED WOOMAN!”

Latino men often make a kissy kissy sound when I walk by. Then a friend told me that Latino men like a redhead with a big ass, so there’s that.

The Orthodox Jewish religion is something completely new to me. I haven’t been directly hit on by them, but I do notice their eyes over my curves when I’m wandering through Williamsburg, Brooklyn sometimes. One day a younger Hasid with the curly sideburn hair started walking alongside me, and I anxiously waited to hear his pitch.
“You look kind…”
(Well that’s a good intro…)
“Would you consider a donation?”
I said, “No, sorry I don’t have any cash.”
“How about a check?”

Ah, “kind” equals “sucker.”

I haven’t really been hit on by Indian men – I don’t think that’s their modus operandi, but one night when walking in the East Village wearing a form-fitting knit dress, a very tiny Indian man said quietly as we passed on the sidewalk, “Nice bohdee.”

But my favorite attempted pickup story started one day while I was waiting for a friend on the sidewalk in front of a West Village cafe.
I was answering an email on my phone, but was aware of a man looking at me, and walking back and forth in front of me. I looked up, and he was Italian, wearing the Aviator sunglasses, white jeans without socks and with long floppy over-gelled hair.

He was appreciating me at length, ok. But then, the clapping.

The man was APPLAUDING me.
“BELLISIMA! BELLISIMA! Has anyone told you how FABULOUS you look today?”

No, no they hadn’t.
I shot him an “in your dreams” look as I walked away, but secretly I was smiling.
Wisconsin women do like being applauded occasionally.

Pass The Baton – a consignment shop in Tokyo, is giving its customers just such a peek into its items.

This is a novel concept, but even more novel when you [...]]]> When you buy something at a vintage or consignment shop, you know it has a history. Would you like to know what it is?

Pass The Baton – a consignment shop in Tokyo, is giving its customers just such a peek into its items.

This is a novel concept, but even more novel when you consider that traditionally (at least in the last century), the Japanese have been very much a mass-consumption culture. My little brother lived there as an exchange student for several years and he remarked how quick the Japanese were to churn through possessions. Throwing away things if they got scratched or damaged at all (then again, not that Americans are much better)

[vimeo video_id="25576639" width="400550" height="400" title="Yes" byline="Yes" portrait="Yes" autoplay="No" loop="No" color="00adef"]

There’s really not much discussion [...]]]> Oops, I got ADD and totally forgot to post these results on my questionnaire on pegging. If you don’t know what pegging is, it’s when a woman straps on a dildo and has sex with a man, in the only way she really can. Also known as “bend over boyfriend.”

There’s really not much discussion about things like this, so what better than to ask random Facebook and Twitter friends their opinions on it? Here are the results.

There aren’t any naughty pictures, but the subject matter is obviously NSFW.

7. If you aren’t interested in pegging, why not? This is anonymous, so if you could be honest that would be fantastic.