Run Run Rudolph

I was almost done with my offline journal entry this morning (I write in my offline journal first thing every morning) when the phone rang. Not surprisingly, it was the Acme. Could I come in at noon? There were call-outs. No. I really, really wanted to get the biscotti done this morning. I told them 1PM, and it ended up being more like 1:15.

Thankfully, I did manage to do the biscotti. This is the other recipe I get out of The Italian Farmhouse Cookbook. It's pretty simple, actually, just flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and butter. (I also add vanilla; the original recipe calls for "vanilla sugar," but vanilla beans aren't cheap.)

Unlike the biscotti that are sold in grocery stores and coffee shops, I roll mine into wreath and candy-cane shapes and sprinkle them with colored sugar, like sugar cookies. One broke, but otherwise, they came out surprisingly well despite the rush.

Work was a pain in the rear. It wasn't too bad when I finally got in, but by the usual 4-6 rush hour, we had long lines and no help. People were cranky, too. One man threw a fit because there was no one to bag his groceries and I had to do it. He was a big, strapping man who looked like he was perfectly capable of not only bagging his groceries, but the next three orders. My last customer threw a fit over the blasted WIC Checks and the baby food. The New Jersey government has to start emphasizing what baby food can and can't be purchased on the shelves themselves, like they've started to put stickers on some of the WIC breads.

And, to top it all off, I got an allergy attack this afternoon and spent half the day sneezing on everybody. I don't know where it came from; the weather's colder but sunny.