A toast to small indulgences! You know, those mini-treats (edible and otherwise) that may not look like much, but bring much pleasure. Just a few of my current personal small indulgences:

- A freshly sharpened HB pencil. I tend to use mechanical pencils because I'm too lazy, but I still get a real pleasure in just LOOKING at a cup of sharp pencils. Must be some weirdo writer thing, I'm sure.

- A single, perfect strawberry. If it's dipped in good quality dark chocolate, all the better.

- Fragrance of fresh herbs. I would far rather have a small vase of freshly picked basil sitting on the kitchen windowsill than daisies. Right now, my rosemary plant (brought in from the garden over winter) is my sole "fresh herb" indulgence, other than the times I occasionally splurge on store-bought fresh herbs for a special dish.

- Real maple syrup on a very small dish vanilla bean ice cream.

- MightyLeaf Tea: Tea that looks as good as it tastes. Sounds like a corny ad, but it's absolutely true. The tea bags cost more than regular tea, but they're SO GORGEOUS to look at. I save them for guests and for when I feel like a Small Indulgence.

- Eszet from Eva Wiest! She sent some for each of Jodi, Allison and me. She told us about this fascinating treat in Atlanta while we stayed at the Suttons: very thin slices of chocolate that you put on bread. I had some with breakfast this morning:

Oh my, I would be SO in trouble if Eszet was easily available in Toronto.

- Dufflet Little All Canadian Maple Walnut Butter Cookies! I recently discovered these while shopping for dinner ingredients on Valentine's Day:

Holy cow, these are sooo good. Rich enough, too, that I can limit myself to one (okay, maybe two) of these mouth-watering mini-cookies with a cup of tea for an afternoon treat. I'm not so good with chocolate bars -- Crystal and Eva gave me some wonderful chocolate at GAfilk that included a couple of chocolate bars (very thin layer of biscuit, jam, and chocolate) that I liked WAY too much and had utterly no willpower whatsoever when it came to eating one or two small pieces at a time. And none of the mini Ritter Sport bars that Franklin gave me lasted very long (especially the one with Pop Rocks! how cool is THAT?).

Speaking of Eva and Crystal, a while back I talked about writing The Chocolate Song specifically for Urban Tapestry and Summer and Fall to perform at GAfilk. Eva and Crystal were kind enough to not only learn vocal parts but also (with Eva's husband, Rafael) come up with beautiful instrumentals for the song. Here is Crystal's clarinet part, for example:

And for those who missed it, here is the sheet music for Eva's and Crystal's vocal parts plus the transcription of Eva's metallophone part.

Links O' The Day

The Book: funny video. (thanks to Ruth for the link)

ONE: A Space Odyssey: 2001 The Space Odyssey in 1 minute and 22 seconds, with Lego! (thanks to Jeff for the link)

MOO MiniCards: these cute MiniCards look very cool, and I am SOOOO tempted; I just wish they were cheaper...these would be a medium indulgence rather than a small indulgence. :-) 100 cards for $19.99 (shipped from the UK). You can upload the images you want printed from Flickr. The MiniCards are 28mm x 70mm, and printed with full colour on both sides on heavy paper with a satin finish. *drool* (Thanks to Ray for the link)

My friend Ray.

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