Never-Ever Fail Fudge

I found some great recipes to try on epicurious.com. One of them was titled "My Never-Ever Fail Fudge". Jill tried her hand at making a lovely batch of fudge but as we observed the very soft oozing nature of the batch we discovered that a step had been completely skipped. It was the apparently important step of "boil for EXACTLY 6 minutes". Oops! We made milkshakes that night, topped with fudge goop! Unfortunately it is still grainy since the sugar was never melted. The fudge glop was lovingly bottled up for future use as a sugary topping. A night or two later, the fudge hankering was still unsatisfied. This time the cooking step was not forgotten. Jill enlisted me to try to salvage the melted mass that would not boil. As we waited for the goop to heat up slowly it turned into a nice toasted marshmallow color. There is a delicately thin line between 'enough medium heat to boil the goop' and 'too much heat, your scorching the sugar!'. This batch ended up very hard and still grainy completely unappetizing. So yes, we failed TWICE on the Never-Ever Fail Fudge recipe. Emily wrote down her favorite fudge recipe (from memory) but we were not brave enough to try a third batch. Instead we just enjoyed the pieces she gave to us.

Temple Square Photo Walk

I attended a mini clinic put on by the Photowalking Utah group. They gave some great tips and tricks on how to improve your low-light, night, and Christmas light photos. The group of about 130 photographers crammed onto a Trax train and proceeded to Temple Square to try out those tips on the holiday lights. I actually waited another 15 minutes for the next train and missed out on being included in the group shot. We were turning the corner just as the speedlights were lighting up the group in front of the big red Christmas tree made of lights. I had fun trying to get some good shots and recreating my favorite shot of the Salt Lake Temple with Christmas lights. It was interesting to hear random comments from other people about all of the tripods and big cameras. I fought with my crappy, very low quality, tripod for awhile then just used my monopod. It is not easy trying to hold a monopod perfectly still for long exposure shots. You can find more of my pictures here and pictures from the group on the Photowalking Flikr Group site.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. My brother-in-law Christopher shot another great video that sums up everything wonderfully. May your Christmas be filled with love and happiness.