12/21/05

BWT 288#

Calories yesterday were 1,800 since I had about 300 Cal. worth of roast chestnuts in the evening. This morning I was able to hit a new clothing size PR by wearing 40"x32" Regular fit Levi's to work. Also down another notch on the new belt, so I am losing belly fat, although I must be carrying more water than when I weighed in at 288# last week.

I am still making some Christmas confections; last night was devoted to manufacturing meringue mushrooms to decorate my "Buche de Noel". They came out pretty well, and were very easy to make. I just need to glue the stems on with some tempered chocolate and dust them with cocoa and they will be ready to go. As I understand it the traditional Yule log was a piece of fallen, rotting wood because peasants were only allowed to collect fallen branches in the forest. The mushrooms are thus a good traditional decoration. I am going with an Almond genoise for the cake, rolled up with a chestnut cream filling and frosted with semi-sweet chocolate ganache (Callebaut semi-sweet). I tried using bittersweet ganache one year, but most people thought it wasn't sweet enough. The food is generally poor at my sister's, but at least the cake should be good.

We will be driving into mid-town tonight so I should get a good workout in in spite of the strike. Parking shouldn't be too bad after 7PM.