Peppermint Pillow Mints

I hope that you are all enjoying your holiday weekend. Maybe you are spending time with family today, sharing a nice meal around the dinner table. Perhaps you are heading outside to enjoy the warmer spring weather. Or maybe you are like boyfriend and I, you're going to do nothing special at all.

My weekend has been spent getting ready for candy month! Have you been waiting patiently for this month and all of the sweet treats that it promised? According to the poll you all took last month, you wanted more recipes for classic candy bars and gummy candy. I have been boiling away batches of caramel and melting slabs and slabs of chocolate. Today however, I went simple and with a confection that had a sentimental facet to it, pillow mints.

My first, and only, experience with pillow mints are from my many childhood visits to my grams house. No matter the season or time of year, there was always a small crystal bowl of mints sitting on the buffet table. I would inevitably sit in my grandmothers rocking chair and eat mint after mint. Picking my favorite from the other colors, I would leave her little house with a bowl emptied of pink mints.

Making these mints was not only easy and fun (my fingers were stained blue from the food coloring!), but it brought back the memories of my gram and spending weekends at her little house.

Grilled Chicken & Potatoes

I'm back from Chicago and back to work.  For some reason I decided that I didn't need to change the time on my watch while I was away.  People kept suggesting that I could easily change the time (with a simple turn of the knob!) and just change it back when I returned.  I told them not to be silly.  My phone acts as my real clock, my watch acts as the minute hand.

Think about it.  How often do you find yourself not knowing approximately what time it is?  Almost never.  Usually only in the middle of the night, when you are thrown awake from a dream, having no idea where you are and what time it is.  Well, maybe that was just me this week, sleeping in my big hotel room bed.

By keeping my wristwatch on east coast time, I feel like I saved myself at least a whole minute of time.  Now I just have to get back onto east coast time!  I don't think that you can say that you have jet lag when you've only flown from one time zone to the next.  Also, half of my company was at this conference with me.  I don't think it will go over well if I'm dragging and complaining today, when everyone else is in the same boat!  Better go get some caffeine and get some work done.  I've got to put all my new conference knowledge to use!

Wilde in Chicago

Hello from the sunny Midwest!  Today I'm coming to you from my hotel room in downtown Chicago, sending you some tasty cookies rather than dinner.  Why am I in the windy city this fine Tuesday morning?  I'm off on my first official business trip!

The majority of my coworkers and I have packed up and relocated to Chicago for a week long conference.  I've been spending endless hours in dark rooms, watching powerpoint presentations and listening to scientists talk about their research.  There is a lot of biology, a little bit of chemistry and a whole lot of note-taking!  Let me tell you, my brain is fried!

 Luckily we've been able to enjoy the evenings away from the conference and in the great city of Chicago.  I've spent a lot of time here in the past, with going to grad school in Madison, Wisconsin, a mere two hours up the I-90.  It's been great being back in the city.  I've actually gotten to do a few things that I never had the chance to in the past.

I saw the bean...

I had some deep-dish pizza...

I took a walk through Millenium park...

Yay!  Tulips!  You all know how I love tulips

And I saw the new Trump building...



This building wasn't anywhere near finished last time I was in Chicago!

It's been an exhausting few days, and I've got another day before the conference is over.  I think that I'll sleep very well on my way back to New York City tomorrow night!