OH yeah...to easily peel the tomatoes:

Boil a pot of plain water. Add whole tomato and let cook for no more than 20 seconds. Quickly transfer tomato from boiling water to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Once the tomato is cool (probably no more than 5 seconds or so), the skin will slide right off.

I still can't believe where I got that little tidbit ~ I was channel surfing one day and saw Levar Burton in a kitchen with some guy. The guy was giving all sorts of neat tips and tricks...and it turns out to be an episode of Reading Rainbow. Now if I could just catch that episode of Bill Nye, Science Guy where he gives the recipe for 'instant hardening' ice cream topping.

I'm also a bit taken by surprise by this sudden urge to cook. This is my second pot of soup in about a week. I'm also dying to make a no flour chocolate cake ~ I found the recipe in a book about French cooking.

Oh yeah ~ I also bought two more fairly large sheets of paper yesterday. I think I really like this cream colored paper, especially for graphite drawing. I found some wonderful dark charcoal colored paper on clearance for .75...but it was the kind with a really deep tooth ~ it would take a lot of color pencil to work when I can get the same results from a paper with less.

Speaking of cooking ~ I suppose I'm starting to cook artwise, as well. All kinds of ideas are bubbling up ~ including one of fan art of Chelsea from Clan of the Cats. I figure I'll send it to Jamie if it continues as well as it has been. It's Chelsea, standing in front of a pentagram with a huge ball of energy in her hands. Within the ball is her jaguar self. I also finally found a good reference photo for the mural I've been mulling over for so long ~ hopefully, this time it will get off the ground!