Of granite, feathers, and chocolate

I took a photo of my slab o’granite today:

I think the best way to describe the color is that it looks like a wildcat would look if you made the spots smaller and arranged them randomly across the cat.  As a traveling tiger, this naturally appeals to me.  Too bad they didn’t have tiger-striped granite!

The feathers arrived yesterday, and are beautiful!  The only problem is that the colored end is smaller than I expected, especially on the green “scale” feathers that were to make up the bulk of the design.  They’re only about 1/3″ x 1/2″, so it will take a LOT of feathers (and a LOT of sewing) to cover any large areas.  I did order quite a few feathers, and I have plenty of time before The Ride, but I am wondering whether I’ll have enough.  I suppose I could order more if I have to, but they aren’t cheap.  Well, I’ll burn that bridge once I get there.  I plan to try a few more color layouts.

Finally, Made in France (the French food importer where I buy my chocolate) is having one of their periodic warehouse sales today, so I’m going to it.  I need some more chocolate if I’m going to make another batch of caramels, and they also have marvelous macadamia nuts for dipping into chocolate – extra-large, whole, fresh nuts.  Nicer than the ones I can get at Trader Joe’s.  B. wants some Torani cherry syrup, so I’ll likely pick up some of that as well.

B. has requested some more of the tequila-coconut-lime fudge (which I found really yummy as well), so I will be showing him how to make it, and maybe writing down the recipe, over the weekend.  Saturday I will go for a medium-length ride (1.5-2.5 hours depending on how the ankle feels) and run various errands down ont he Peninsula, Sunday I intend to go for a short ride, then spend the rest of the day in the kitchen making candies.  A day of mini-chocolatiering!