My Water Post For Today.
As of 2013, Knott's Berry Farm has a new area with rides. It is called Boardwalk.
There are 3 rides in the new attraction and all are surrounded by water.
It gives the area a different feeling, than the rest of the park.
It is supposed to remind people of Old Time California...but to me, it was more like Coney Island.
What attracted me, was the vibrant blue color of the water.
I hope you enjoy.
The weather has been a little different, this past week.
We had some rain after sunset, which came as a complete shock to us.
The only hint that it was coming, was a rainbow.
I had already taken this photo, when I turned to the east and saw the rainbow. I should have figured it out.
There is only one thing that brings on a rainbow and that is rain. :-)
I thought those clouds were pretty impressive.
I hope you enjoy.
I have a friend, her name is Meredith LaVande.
I was introduced to her, by people who used to work in our Educational area at KCET. She was going around to stations and asking them to air some fillers that she had produced. They are called Monkey Monkey Music fillers.
According to her website, KCET was the first Public Television Station to take a chance on her. I was not aware of that, but I have been airing her fillers for at least 5 years. When we left PBS, we were at a loss in the way of filler material, to air between children's programming. These fit the bill perfectly.
She would occasionally call me, to find out what was going on and if her fillers were still airing. Since I am the person who schedules them, I have become the contact person for Children's programming. We no longer have an Educational area.
One day, I decided to "Like" on Facebook, Monkey Monkey Music. Along with that, I friended Meredith.
Facebook and social media in general, give people the opportunity to interact on a different level.
Sometimes it is knowing when she is performing a show, out in my old area of the world, Long Island. As a matter of fact, she seems to perform right by a friend of mine's house in Levittown, about once a year.
The other day, she mentioned that it was her anniversary and lo and behold, there she was, up on my air. She was wearing a lovely white dress, performing in a filler called "Butterfly". I grabbed my cell phone and these screen captures are the result.
To say the least, my friend was very pleased with my "gift" to her Facebook wall.
She is a nice person, a good friend and I wish her all the luck in the world.
I wrote about Vasquez Canyon Road last week. You can refresh your memory, by clicking HERE.
Since this story appeared on my blog, it has gone viral all over the place.
Not like I had anything to do with that, but due to Thanksgiving week, I think stations had nothing else interesting to report on and so they sent a crew out to report on the landslide.
Also, it has become a photo op in Santa Clarita. As if we don't have enough traffic, people are riding up there to take selfies.
Obviously, my loony "Magic" son decided to join others on Thanksgiving Day and got his photo taken by the landslide.
They say there is movement on that hill every day and they are still not sure what to do, to fix the roadway.
Scary.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Hope you get together with family and friends and eat lots of yummy food.
Our family (plus my magic son) managed to get home in time to go to the movies Thanksgiving eve and we saw the latest James Bond Movie: SPECTRE.
I enjoyed it, though people have said it was too long. I didn't think that and I was not bored (though my magic son slept through some of it).
It is not the best Bond movie, but it is far from the worst. I like Daniel Craig.
Earlier in the day, while waiting for my son to show up, I baked my pumpkin pie and it seems to have come out OK.
Other than the pie, turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and cranberries are definitely on the agenda.
Enjoy the day.
The week of Thanksgiving always involves a birthday in our household.
Some years, my Husband's birthday is a few days before or after. Once every 4 or 5 years, it is exactly on Thanksgiving.
This year, it turned up 2 days earlier. We were very happy to have that happen. It gives my family some breathing room, to celebrate both events.
His birthday was on Tuesday and that is normally a very late night for my son. By some miracle, he managed to get out hours early and catch his normal train home. This allowed us to have dinner at our favorite Chinese Restaurant...Grand Panda.
As usual, when they heard it was my Husband's birthday, they brought out fried bananas and a birthday candle.
We sang and it made the evening special.
Belated Happy Birthday to my guy and since today is the day before Thanksgiving...a wish to those who are traveling, that you may have safe travels.
Part of my weekend routine this month, is planting grass seed.
I did this last year with some sort of water tolerant grass. It grew and then it died.
This year we went back to Marathon II grass and we are digging out the dirt, before we amend it with soil.
Lots of plastic netting in the packed earth, from when we laid down the sod (30 years ago).
It has been a challenge, dealing with it and I hope that I won't regret it, if El Niño gets bad.
I hope this works out.
My Water Post For Today.
We went to a screening in Sherman Oaks (laughingly called The Shokes, by my ice cream man) a few weeks ago.
It has been at least 1 or 2 decades since I had been to that area of The Valley.
They re-developed the 3 story mall into a multi-use facility, that includes Devry University and The Arclight Theater.
As we walked around the area, we saw this wonderful fountain and I loved how white it was.
It almost looks like a wedding cake to me, at least in this photo.
A very lovely sight, on a warm fall evening.
I saw this recipe on America's Test Kitchen on Friday. When I was shopping in Trader Joe's on Saturday, I saw the Cremini Mushrooms and that made me remember this recipe.
I said Yes! I must make this. Though I don't think my long suffering Husband agreed with me.
In spite of that, I bought the mushrooms and the rice. The rest (minus the cream and shiitake mushrooms) I had in my house.
Serves 6 to 8
If you don't have cremini mushrooms, you can use white mushrooms instead. Use a spice grinder or a blender to process the dried shiitake mushrooms.
1/4 ounce dried shiitake mushrooms, rinsed (I used white mushrooms, chopped very, very tiny).
4 1/4 cups water
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove, peeled, plus 4 cloves, minced
Salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (note, the baking soda changes the pH of the water and keeps the wild rice from splitting...which is a good thing)
1 cup wild rice
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 pound cremini mushrooms, trimmed and sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 onion, chopped fine
1 teaspoon tomato paste
2/3 cup dry sherry
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup heavy cream (I used 1% milk)
1/4 cup minced fresh chives
1/4 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Grind shiitake mushrooms in spice grinder until finely ground (you should have about 3 tablespoons).
Bring 4 cups water, thyme, bay leaf, garlic clove, ¾ teaspoon salt, and baking soda to boil in medium saucepan over high heat. Add rice and return to boil. Cover saucepan, transfer to oven, and bake until rice is tender, 35 to 50 minutes. Strain rice through fine-mesh strainer set in 4-cup liquid measuring cup; discard thyme, bay leaf, and garlic. Add enough water to reserved cooking liquid to measure 3 cups.
Note: you can cook the rice on the stove, in a covered pot, if you don't have a Dutch Oven.
Melt butter in Dutch oven over high heat. Add cremini mushrooms, onion, minced garlic, tomato paste, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are browned and dark fond develops on bottom of pot, 15 minutes. Add sherry, scraping up any browned bits, and cook until reduced and pot is almost dry, about 2 minutes. Add ground shiitake mushrooms, reserved rice cooking liquid, broth, and soy sauce and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until onion and mushrooms are tender, about 20 minutes.
Whisk cornstarch and remaining ¼ cup water in small bowl. Stir cornstarch slurry into soup, return to simmer, and cook until thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove pot from heat and stir in cooked rice, cream, chives, and lemon zest. Cover and let stand for 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.
I personally found that the soup needed a little more spice, so I added some chili sauce to mine.
Chicago Peace is the name of a rose that I have. I planted it for my Husband's Uncle Ray, who hailed from Chicago.
The other day, I had not one, but 2 of my roses growing very high and I could see them as I cooked and cleaned in the kitchen.
I was so excited about this unusual event, that I took this photo.
The next day, we got wind. Not just a little wind, but a big wind. 71 mph gust of wind in my little town of Saugus.
To say the least, my rose is gone. Blown away...
My little bud is still there and will bloom soon.
Ha to the wind!
There was big news yesterday, in our little corner of LA County.
This is a road that is just north of Lombardi Ranch, in Saugus. Here is a Google Map photo of the road from back in 2011.
We use Vasquez Canyon Road as a cut across, to get us over to Canyon Country faster than driving down from my house and across the busy section of our valley and then up again.
It is a 2 lane road and as a matter of fact, I used it to teach my son how to drive on a 2 lane mountain road.
We always started our lesson this way.
We don't use it all the time, but it definitely comes in handy.
Here is what it looked like yesterday.
The road has buckled and so they had to close it down.
They have no idea why it did that, but out of an abundance of caution, they are going to choose to keep us safe.
I know earthquake faults are around our area, but I am not totally sure about this spot.
The one thing I did notice it that the mountain on the left has changed. Look at how it was in 2011 and how it is now. It looks like they may have worked on the grading of the hill.
Also note that the 2 power poles are at an angle now.
If they ever figure out what is going on with the road, I will update, as appropriate.
Here is the update. The mountain is sliding under the roadway. Thus, there is more damage as of this morning.
They have geologists on site, trying to figure out why the mountain is doing this.
Pretty scary.
This photo was taken on the 7th of November. I had actually heard that the Citidel had been decorated a few days earlier.
Seriously, aren't they just a bit early?
The Citidel used to be a Uniroyal (formally Sampson) Tire Factory. It had been abandoned before I came to LA.
It became a shopping center and hotel complex in the 90's and I am glad they kept it. You might like to read the history of the building, HERE.
On Saturday we returned Makenna to the vet. I didn't mention it on my blog, but last month we had a scare with her eye.
It has been a month since that last visit and after putting in eye drops and giving her more L-lysine, I sort of expected her to not have a bionic (looking) left eye.
That has not been the case.
So off we went to have a recheck on the situation.
The vet put eye drops in to check out if her eye had any ulcers on it and she looked her over and told us that basically the eye will never totally be the same as it was. It has a bit of scar tissue on it. It almost looks like a cataract, to me. At night, it sort of glows yellow in the low lighting. That, the vet says, is not a concern. That is part of their night vision.
So with a clean bill of health, we brought Makenna home.
Chances are, you have seen this cup recently.
I went to get my free cup of coffee on Wednesday. I was warned that I was about to lose it, so I stopped in on Veteran's Day and had success. Free coffee!
The line was huge and I think it was particularly long because of a recent controversy, over whether this red cup was "Christmassy" enough.
Are people voting on what side they take, by their purchase? I have no idea, but it took a good 15 minutes to go through the drive through line.
In regard to this years red cup, I personally feel that it is just fine, as it stands.
Since when does your coffee cup HAVE to have Santa, a Tree, a Reindeer, a Star, or Wreath on it?
Folks, enjoy your coffee.
If you somehow missed this critically important (sic) story, HERE is one of them.
My Water Post For Today.
While we walked around the Knott's Marketplace, we passed this fountain.
I would bet I have photographed it before, but so far I found two others and neither one is this one. You can see them, HERE.
It is one that anyone can visit. It is in the public area, before the front gate of the park. Win for the people who are there to shop or go have a Chicken Dinner.
It makes lovely splashing sounds and brings some serenity to an area that feels like old California Mission era buildings. Think Santa Barbara Mission, in particular.
I hope you enjoy.
It is that time, once again. You can feel the change of the season, via the produce coming in my box.
I am definitely having a salad problem. I just don't reach for it, often. I guess that will continue this week, since lettuce is on the list.
I am actually looking forward to some winter greens, soon.
Well, let's see what came in the box this week.
2 Granny Smith Apples
2 Red Apples (not sure what)
4 heads of Broccoli
Bunch of Chives
6 Baby White Eggplants
Bunch of French Tarragon
A bag of Green Beans
4 Hot Jalapeno Peppers
Red and Green Lettuce
5 Pears
1 bunch of Red Radishes
4 large Shallots
1 large and 1 tiny Sweet Potato
I have found that I am enjoying cooked vegetables and the broccoli (all three heads) went right into my tummy, especially at work. I bought a huge stalk of brussel sprouts and did the same thing. I also bought a huge head of cauliflower and plan to do the same thing with it. I seem to like cold cooked vegetables, rather than salad. At least recently. I will probably deal with the green beans, the same way.
Fruit never goes to waste and so the apples and pears are welcome.
Sweet Potatoes (especially since it is Thanksgiving) are also very welcome.
Three different herbs are coming (chives, tarragon, shallots)and again, since it is Thanksgiving, I will probably use some of them in the dishes I make for the holiday.
Eggplant. No problem.
See you next time.
One of our web writers, Nathan Masters, wrote a post the other day, on the LA As Subject section of our site.
It is called: Why Californian's love saying "THE" before Freeway numbers.
Almost instantly, it began to take off, with web hits. I had read it on Facebook and without prompting, I had shared the post on my own Facebook page.
About an hour later, the people who work with the website, were asking the staff to share the post, because it was getting so much traffic, it was almost crashing our website. We had never seen anything like it.
Normally the articles have no comments, or just a few. This one has (as of early Saturday morning) 312 comments on the KCET webpage.
Facebook likes. 249 thousand. Seriously high numbers and still rising.
I became part of the drive, because I understand social media. I had a another employee/friend, mention an old ID, in the comments on my Facebook wall. It was an ID we did back in 2003 and I helped track it down for the team.
I mentioned The Californians, too. All pieces of the pie that we have put together, to keep those hits and likes coming.
It has been pretty interesting to me...social media maven, with her shiny degree.
Maybe I will get into my car and take The 5 down to The 170 and over to The 134 and check in at work to see what it is doing, over the weekend. ;-)
If you missed it on my Facebook page, I do urge you to click the link above. It is an interesting article.
Night time was coming on fast, when we left our last exhibit. We had a bus to catch and so we could not stay for too long in the park itself, if we wanted to shop in the Market Place.
I saw this windmill hovering over Ghost town (which will be turning 75 years old next year) and I thought of my own windmill at home and how many times I catch the sunset through it.
It is not as good as those photos are, but I liked the fact that it was in shadow, due to the loss of light.
It is so much bigger than mine, too.
Enjoy.
We got our photo taken at the entrance to Knott's on Saturday. We normally don't buy anything from these vendors, but they had a special Veteran's deal and so we splurged this year.
I made it black and white (I have it in color, too) to make it seem a bit retro.
A fun day for the two of us.
Happy Veteran's Day to all the Vets, no matter what time you served, or what war you were a part of.
As was brought to my attention just a week ago Monday, Vets from different wars can definitely help each other, because they understand what we (the general population) don't understand.
KCET and Link TV will be airing a Documentary called Searching for Home. It is about Veteran's (especially the ones suffering from PTSD). It will be airing at 9PM on KCET (locally here in LA) and Link TV (nationally on Direct TV and Dish) If you can't get any of these channels, it will streaming online, tomorrow.
You can see it and other web only clips, HERE.
My Husband and I attended a screening of the film and it was riveting. Very well produced and worth the time to see it.
My Veteran's Day photo for today is a display of American Flags, put up on my local neighborhood street, Bouquet Canyon Road.
We have several locations where flags are flown (by City Hall and on the Memorial Bridge are two of them), but this is the first time they included our Saugus neighborhood.
I am very proud of that fact.
It is 40 years ago today, that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank. As I mentioned in THIS post, I was in school on the shores of Lake Ontario, when it sank. Being I was not getting much news, I did not know anything...until the song came out a year later. We at the school, totally identified with it...especially from these lyrics.
"Lake Huron rolls, Superior sing
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below, Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered" *
*Lyrics from Gordon Lightfoot's Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
I found a documentary that The Discovery Channel did on the wreck and I am linking to it HERE.
If you have time to watch, I hope it is interesting. I have not watched it as of this writing...but I intend to.
On a personal level, what this means to me, is that I started college at Oswego 40 years ago August. Yikes!
This photo, as I have mentioned before, is on the shores of Lake Ontario and it is called The gales of November remembered.
My Water Post For Today.
On our trip to Knott's Berry Farm, we went on a ride I always try to avoid...the river raft ride. Many decades ago, my Husband, Sister and Brother-in-Law learned about "You will get wet and possibly soaked", first hand. After that fateful ride in Tampa, Florida, I have basically avoided these things.
But since we were just the two of us and it was a very nice day...I broke down and let him lead me onto the ride.
Guess who got wet and who got soaked?
Here is one of the better water features of the ride.
I hope you enjoy.
I don't have the final, final word...but I believe a Steely Dan friend of mine, Paul (known as Fezzie) has passed on.
I met him only once, when I ran to Boston during my semester in Oswego. You can read about that whirlwind trip, HERE.
Fezzie and I spent about a half hour talking outside the Wang Theater, that evening. One of the things he told me about was what he did for a living. He was (I believe) a caregiver for ill people and that took a toll on him, watching people die. You need to be a special person to do something like that and he had that in spades.
A while ago he had some sort of surgery and I guess things went downhill after that. I was getting messages to offer prayers for him most of Saturday and I found myself doing that, as we drove home from Knott's.
A really nice man and a real loss to our community.
The Update did come this morning.
From Michelle:
Paul Mahoney has passed away this AM. Thanks for your prayers. I will be posting when arrangements are made, for friends and family that can come. I am sure my fezman is at peace with the Angels. Fly high to the rhythm of your band Steely Dan.
This is the second year in a row that my Husband and I are going to Knott's Berry Farm for their Military Tribute Day. Veteran's and a family member, get into the park for free.
Our City also has transportation to and from the park for the incredible deal of $1.50 round trip. Hopefully, there will be space on the bus for us.
We are looking forward to enjoying the holiday crafts fair and such old time exhibits as the Bottle House...though I can tell you that I will definitely not be one of the people who go on Supreme Scream. :-)
Many thanks to Knott's and to my City, for caring about our Veteran's.
We were working outside 2 weeks ago and after we finished our work, I went looking at my side yard.
This is what I found. Lots of roses growing, just after the summer heat.
They are about all that has made it through this drought, or so it feels to me.
I had trimmed off the dead roses a few weeks earlier and I guess this is my reward.
I love beauty.
I have been making slow cooker country style ribs for the past year or so, which you can see HERE. They come out OK, but I end up with lots of juice that I have nothing I can use it with.
This recipe looked like it was a better fit for the meat. Enough liquid for the rice, noodles, etc...but not a lot left over.
That turned out to be the case.
I did add some extra pork I had in my freezer, so my crock pot was almost filled up with meat and the juices, by the end of 8 hours.
It was excellent and not too salty (always a concern with me).
I will definitely make it again.
Ingredients
1 large onion, sliced
2 1/2 pounds boneless pork loin roast
1 cup hot water
1/4 cup white sugar
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon ketchup
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 dash hot pepper sauce, or to taste
Directions
Arrange onion slices evenly over the bottom of the slow cooker, and then place the roast on top of the onion.
In a bowl, mix together water, sugar, vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup, black pepper, salt, garlic powder, and hot sauce; pour over roast.
Cover, and cook on Low for 6 to 8 hours, or on High for 3 to 4 hours. Serve with potatoes, rice, noodles, or whatever suits you.
This was our project for last Sunday. We were going to grade the dirt where our palm tree used to be and then place bark in the bed.
The first problem was that we had a dead bush, adjacent to the bed, so we started cutting it down and trying to get the roots out of the ground. Always a hard thing to do, but we were ultimately successful.
Now we had a hole that we had to fill with dirt, so we dragged planing mix to the bed and put it all over and leveled the bed, to make it ready for the bark.
We also reconnected the low voltage light and fixed the border, at the same time.
It took several hours, rather than a few moments...but it is done and it does look much better and it is ready for El Niño.
The idea for this post started with an article that you can read HERE. It mentions that the producer of the first Christopher Cross album, was Michael Omartian.
Steely Dan Fans know Michael on Steely Dan albums, Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied and Aja. He was working at ABC Dunhill (the place where Steely Dan recorded for the better part of the 70's). He moved over to Warner Brothers as an A and R man and one of the first things he heard in a meeting about what project to do next, was Christopher Cross and the tunes Sailing and Ride Like The Wind. He immediately told the meeting he liked the sound of those songs and they approved him moving forward with the project. They flew Christopher out to meet Michael and Christopher Cross was less than impressed with him. That was, until he heard who Michael had worked with. It turned out that Christopher's absolute favorite records were, you guessed it, Steely Dan's.
Michael, having worked with many session men, called upon several Steely Dan alumni, to work on the album. Most famously, the choice of Michael McDonald on the background vocals.
On that subject, HERE is a little humor. Click the link, before you continue.
Do you think he was running to add vocals to Peg, next? :-)
What made me stand up and take notice, as I read the article at the top, is that back at my old lot at KCET I worked a lot of Saturday afternoons. As I worked I had my computer set to the Internet radio station, Jack FM that comes out of Vancouver, Canada. One day they played Ride Like The Wind and as a Steely Dan fan, it amazed me how much it reminded me of the musicality of Steely Dan. Well, Michael doing those background vocals definitely connected it in my mind. I remember even mentioning it to my work Steely Dan fan and he just brushed me off.
So Michael worked on it, Christopher loves Steely Dan and many other session players, including Michael McDonald (all of Steely Dan Fame) were utilized in the production of Ride Like The Wind.
For me, case closed. The sound was definitely influenced, in some way, by Steely Dan.
A final coda. Here is a nice version of the song, with Michael McDonald as guest vocalist. You can view itHERE.
My Water Post For Today.
Lake Ontario, I just can't get enough of it.
This was the evening before I graduated from college. If you remember, it was early in the sunset and so the sun was still high in the sky that evening. We had a torchlight ceremony to attend and so this was one of the ones I took with the light that was available at that moment.
I love how the lowering sun bathes the leaves in gold and makes you think it's the fall.
I miss that lake...well, minus the wind coming off it in winter. :-)
It is All Saints Day in the Catholic religion. Tomorrow, November 2nd, is All Souls Day. Which is the day when you remember everyone else.
Mexico, being a Catholic country, does quite a big event for these days. It is called Día De Los Muertos. They will visit cemeteries and make special food for their family, including the ones who are no longer with them. It is a big deal.
While researching Día De Los Muertos, I came upon a recipe that I had seen on Ciao Italia many, many years ago. It is called Bones of the Dead.
Since it is Halloween right now (I am writing this on Saturday), I decided to make them, right then and there.
I got 10 bones, not 18 as the recipe states. I am not sure if I made them bigger than I should have, or the recipe is wrong. I was good with the amount.
Bones of the Dead/Ossi dei Morti
MAKES 1½ DOZEN
These cookies are brittle and dry like old bones. They are made all over Italy around November 1 and 2 to celebrate All Souls' Day, in remembrance of deceased relatives. Don't let their name turn you off. They are unusual to look at, delicious to eat, and a real conversation piece.
COOKIE BATTER
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
2/3 cup confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons fine semolina flour (or all purpose flour)
2/3 cup coarsely chopped semisweet or milk chocolate
3/4 cup coarsely chopped blanched almonds
FROSTING
2/3 cup coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 300ºF. Generously grease and flour your cookie sheets, or line with parchment paper.
In a glass or copper bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff peaks begin to form. Slowly add half the sugar a little at a time, beating until well incorporated and the whites are stiff and shiny. With a spatula, sprinkle the remaining sugar, semolina flour, chocolate, and almonds over the egg whites and fold in with a rubber spatula.
Using 2 teaspoons, use a small portion of batter to form bone-shaped cookies about 3 inches long and 1½ inches wide. (I use a cardboard template of a bone and trace it with a pencil onto the underside of the parchment paper, then fill in the space with the batter.) Space the cookies about 1 inch apart.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until the cookies are fairly dry but still pale looking. Cool on sheets, then transfer carefully to a cooling rack.
Fill the bottom of a double boiler with water and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, add the chocolate and butter to the top of the double boiler, cover, and let stand for 10 to 15 minutes or until the chocolate and butter are melted.
Stir the frosting well. Dip the underside of each cookie into the frosting and, while still wet, make wavy lines through the chocolate with a fork or a frosting comb. Let the cookies dry completely.
