New Year's Eve Hike

On the last day of the year, and my last full day in the US, my mom, dad, and I went out for a nature walk at the nearby Mother Neff State Park.

It was a nice cool morning that got warmer as the day went on.

It was quiet out at the little state park. I was hoping to add some new birds to my life list, and was very happy to add one: the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. That brings my life list total up to 148. I didn't quite hit 150, but I'm really pleased with my list! My goal for 2024 is to reach 175 birds on my life list.

After hiking we went for lunch at Coach's Bar-B-Que in McGregor, Texas. It's my last big meal before my New Year's diet begins!

Happy New Year's everyone! See you in 2024!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

I've got one final cookie to share - the best of the year in my opinion!

Ingredients

• 1½cups/192 grams all-purpose flour
• ½cup/51 grams cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-processed
• 1teaspoon baking soda
• 1teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
• ½teaspoon ground cayenne
• 3teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½cup/113 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1½cups/305 grams light brown sugar
• 1large egg, at room temperature
• 2teaspoons vanilla extract
• Mini marshmallows, frozen solid
• ¼cup/50 grams granulated sugar

Instructions

1. Whisk flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, cayenne and 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon.
2. Beat butter and brown sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until creamy, 2 more minutes. Add flour mixture. Beat on low until no dry spots remain, about 1 minute.
3. Scoop dough into mounds on a baking sheet. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to overnight. Freeze marshmallows, if you haven’t already.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Add granulated sugar and remaining teaspoon cinnamon to a small bowl.
5. Remove half of the dough from the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 5 minutes if the dough is very stiff. Take a mound of dough and flatten slightly in the palm of your hand. Pile 5 frozen mini marshmallows on top of the flattened dough, then bring the outer edges over the marshmallows to envelop them. Roll into a ball and then roll in the cinnamon sugar to coat. Place on the baking sheet, 3 inches apart.
6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating halfway through, until cookies puff slightly and bits of molten marshmallow peek through the surface. Cool on the sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough and marshmallows. Cookies will keep for about 3 days in an airtight container at room temperature.

Waco Trolley and Zoo Lights

Happy Christmas Eve!

This year has been warmer than usual, but extremely festive.

A few days ago, my parents and I signed up for a Waco Trolley Christmas light tour! The trolley takes visitors on a 90-minute tour of the best Christmas light displays in town.

We boarded the trolley and sipped on hot chocolate as our guide drove us through some of Waco's most festive neighborhoods.

The most impressive display was the famous Schmidt House, which won ABC's The Great Christmas Light Fight in 2017! 

Featuring millions of lights and hundreds of vintage and handmade decorations and displays, the Schmidt family begins setting up their annual Christmas display as early as October.

The Christmas Light is for fun, of course, but it's also to help raise funds for a good cause. Visiting is free, but the family takes donations for a local no-kill animal shelter.

As we drove from site to site, our guide would ask Christmas trivia questions. After getting a question right, each passenger on the trolley won a Christmas hat, antler headband, or a jingle bell.

A few days before Christmas the whole family went to Zoo Lights, an annual event held at the local Cameron Park Zoo. At night (long after the animals have gone to sleep), visitors come together to explore the zoo and enjoy the beautiful Christmas light displays.

Merry Christmas, everyone! This year, I am feeling extremely Christmassy. I'm looking forward to the amazing feasts that we are planning on making for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Santa's Favorite Cookies

I've been having so much fun experimenting with new cookies this holiday season! Since Christmas Eve is almost hear, today my mom and I worked together to make Santa's Favorite Cookies, a holiday favorite!

Source: Santa's Favorite Monster Cookies - The Skinnyish Dish

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup light brown sugar (packed)
• 1 stick unsalted butter (room temp! not melted and not warmed up in the microwave)
• 3 large eggs
• 1½ cups peanut butter (chunky or smooth – do not use all natural)
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1½ tsp cinnamon
• 4½ cups old fashioned oats
• 1 cup (total) mixture of mini green and red m&ms and peanut butter green and red m&m's. *You can have all of one or the other. It's up to you. The mixture makes them extra yummy.*
• 1 cup (total) semi sweet mini chocolate chips and white chocolate chips *You can have all of one or the other. It's up to you. The mixture makes them extra yummy.*
• extra m&m's and chocolate chips to stick into the cookie for it to "look prettier" after they are done baking. *optional

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl cream together white and brown sugar with the butter until combined well and light and fluffy.
3. Beat eggs in one at a time and then beat in peanut butter, vanilla, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt until combined.
4. Add in the oats and mix together until combined well.
5. Stir in m&m's and chocolate chips.
6. Scoop 3 tablespoon sized cookie mounds onto cookie sheet and space them about two inches apart otherwise they will run into each other.
7. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes then remove them from the oven and allow them to cool for at least 10 minutes on the cookie sheet before moving them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
8. *The key to most cookie baking is having them almost under baked a bit when removing from the oven and slowly finish "baking" just enough while on the cookie sheet. The perfect texture!!

Hot Honey Peanut Butter Cookies

I'm back with another holiday cookie recipe! This was the most successful, popular, and delicious cookie I've made so far this year. It turned out so well that my family even asked me to make a second batch!

These are my hot honey peanut butter cookies. They are sweet, salty, and a little bit spicy.

The cookies use hot honey, which I made myself using jalapenos from my dad's garden cooked for half an hour in fresh local honey. They are also rolled in a mixture of sugar, honey peanuts, and chili flakes to give an extra spicy kick. They aren't too hot though, and the flavors end up melding together really nicely.

Total time: 2 hours 15 minutes (includes cooling time) Active: 25 minutes

Yield: 16 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (see Cook's Note)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup hot honey (see below)
• 1 large egg, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons chili flakes
• 3/4 cup honey roasted peanuts, chopped

Hot Honey

To make your own hot honey, heat 1 cup honey with 1 tablespoon chili flakes (or several fresh chili peppers as per your preference) over low heat for 30 minutes. Let sit for 1 hour at room temperature, then strain.

Instructions

1. Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl. 
2. In a large bowl, beat the butter until smooth with an electric mixer. 
3. Pour in the honey, continuing to beat the entire time. 
4. Beat in the egg until fully combined. 
5. Mix in the peanut butter and vanilla until smooth and creamy, then stir in the dry ingredients until well combined. 
6. Cover and chill until firm, about 1 hour.
7. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
8. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. 
9. Combine the sugar, chili flakes and peanuts in a medium bowl.
10.  Scoop a heaping tablespoon of dough and roll it into a ball. Roll in the sugar mixture to coat. 
11. Place on a prepared cookie sheet and press the top down to flatten with the back of a fork. 
12. Leave 2 inches between each cookie. 
13. Bake until golden and set, about 15 minutes. 
14. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Maple Bacon Pancake Cookies

I tried another new cookie recipe for the holiday season (this year I am sharing Christmas cookies instead of Christmas drinks)!

I found this recipe online and was super excited to give it a try. It's a maple bacon pancake cookie! It used maple extract, which sent me on a bit of a quest to hunt down, but the results were so worth it. The cookies had an amazing flavor, and I was delighted that even my sister who normally doesn't enjoy "weird" flavors came back for seconds after trying one.

The only weird thing about the recipe was that the dough wasn't chilled, which seemed to result in the cookies being way too soft. Next time, I'd definitely chill the dough for an hour or two before baking.

Prep Time: 10 minutes Bake Time: 12-13 minutes

Yield: 16 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

3/4 cup Extra Fine Granulated Sugar

3/4 cup Light Brown Sugar, packed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon maple extract

2 large eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

6 strips bacon, cooked until crispy and crumbled (reserve bacon grease if desired)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
2. Using a stand mixer or electric beaters, beat butter with both sugars. Add vanilla, maple extract and eggs; beat on low speed until just incorporated.
3. Add dry ingredients and beat until well combined. Fold in bacon crumbles and an optional splash of bacon grease.
4. Using a spoon or ice cream scoop, scoop dough into 16 very large dough balls and place on a cookie sheet. Leave space for cookies to expand.
5. Bake cookies for 12-13 minutes until cookies look puffy and just start to turn golden on top. Do not overbake!
6. Take cookies out even if they look like they’re not 100% done yet; they will finish setting as they cool.
7. Let cookies cool on the pan for a minimum of 10 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.

Meyer Observatory Open House

Once a month, the Central Texas Astronomical Society hosts a public open house at the Paul and Jane Meyer Observatory at the Turner Research Station, a dark sky site just outside of Clifton, Texas. 

I honestly had no idea that there was an observatory in this part of the state!

My dad is really into astronomy as a hobby, and we were excited to go and check it out.

It wasn't too far from where my parents live, but it's still a long drive down a narrow, twisty, pitch-black country road to get to the Turner Research Station. We weren't even sure we were at the right place when we turned off the road and up a steep driveway into a densely wooded path. The only hint that we were headed the right direction was a reflective sign asking us to please dim our lights.

However, as we wound our way up a hill and came to a gravel parking lot, we found that we were indeed in the right place, and we could see the observatory silhouetted against the clear night sky up ahead.

Although only about 45 minutes outside of Waco, I was amazed at how dark the sky was and how many bright stars we could see.

We headed upstairs to a dark room in the observatory's dome. The huge telescope was already pointing up towards the sky. A member of the society was explaining to the roughly 25 people gathered together inside the observatory about how the telescope works.

He used a computer program to focus the telescope on various points of interest, and then we were each able to climb up a metal staircase to look through the viewfinder. It was super cool!

We got to look at Saturn, and could clearly see its rings, moons, and even faint clouds!

We also got to look at Jupiter, and I was impressed at how clearly we were able to see the dark stripes across its surface.

Finally, we had a look at the distant Andromeda Galaxy. Astronomically it's our closest neighbor, but it's still a full 2 million lightyears away, which is really hard to even comprehend.

It was chilly up in the observatory. On a crisp, cold winter night like this, the sky is really clear, and we were able to see tons of stars even when we weren't taking our turn to look through the telescope.

This was such a fun, new thing to do, and I was really glad to have discovered another cool thing to visit when I'm back home in Texas.

Waco Wonderland and Christmas on Fifth Street

I'm glad to be back home in Texas for the holidays!

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and now I'm really getting excited for Christmas.

downtown Waco at Christmastime

The first real Christmassy thing we did was head to downtown Waco one afternoon to check out "Waco Wonderland", a new local festival that the city is putting on.

It turned out to be pretty small, but I hope that it can grow into something really amazing in the future.

For now, there was a nice tree, a small stage with holiday performances throughout the day, a few carnival rides, a place where kids can meet Santa, and several local food trucks.

I wasn't overly impressed with Waco Wonderland, but it's nice to see the city trying to do something festive!

We stayed for a while to listen to the local ukulele group's Christmas concert.

We also attended Christmas on Fifth Street, an annual Christmas festival at the Baylor University campus. This was every bit as festive and magical as I had hoped it would be, and it brought back a lot of great memories of my student days at Baylor!

Christmas on Fifth Street has been a Baylor tradition since 1988, and it's a big deal in town. Campus is decorated in trees and lights, there was a live Nativity scene, lots of places to take photos, a Christmas market, tons of food trucks, and several musical performances. We got to listen to the university's brass band play several Christmas classics, and we stayed to watch the Department of Foreign Languages put on their annual concert.

Each department performed "Silent Night" in their language as well as another traditional Christmas carol from that country. Baylor has a huge foreign language department, and we got to hear song from the departments of Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Swahili, French, Italian, German, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The Korean group was the most enthusiastic, and had choreographed their songs! I swear I'm not biased, but I thought that the German group was the most talented (they were also the largest group performing). I got to see a few of my old German professors after the performance, which was great too.

It's really feeling like Christmas here now!

Browned Butter Earl Grey Cookies

A few years back I shared a series of drink recipes for the holiday season.

This year, I thought I'd do something similar by trying my hand at some new cookie recipes throughout the month of December. My goal is to try at least two more new cookie recipes before heading back to Thailand in January.

They cookies are a type of shortbread, so they aren't super sweet. To be honest, I couldn't really taste any of the tea, but the flavors of cardamom, vanilla, and orange zest were incredible together.

In the future, I might add a few more spices, such as cloves or nutmeg.

This isn't exactly a quick and simple recipe, but I was pleased with how the cookies turned out.

Here's the recipe:

Browned Butter Earl Grey Cookies

Ingredients

For the Shortbread Cookies:

• 1 tablespoon loose leaf earl grey tea
• 1 cup unsalted butter softened and divided (227g)
• ½ vanilla bean seeds scraped or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
• ½ cup powdered sugar (60g)
• 1 egg yolk
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1¾ cups all-purpose flour (210g)
• ¼ cup cornstarch (40g)

For the Glaze:

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• zest of 1 orange
• 1 tablespoon warm milk
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter melted
• 1 pinch ground cardamom

Instructions

For the Shortbread Cookies:

1. In a small spice grinder, blitz the tea leaves until finely chopped. Set aside.
2. In a small saucepan, melt ½ cup of butter over medium-high heat. Continue cooking until the butter foams and the milk solids turn deep golden brown in color, 6 to 8 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl. Stir in the vanilla, cardamom, and tea leaves.
3. Place the butter mixture in the fridge, stirring every 15 minutes, until smooth and spreadable, about 45 minutes. (You can also do this ahead of time and leave it covered at room temperature overnight.)
4. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the cooled browned butter mixture, remaining ½ cup softened butter, sugar, egg yolk, and salt. Beat on medium speed just until creamy and combined, about 1 minute. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add in the flour and cornstarch, mixing just until combined. Stop and scrape down the bowl occasionally during mixing. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and shape into a disk. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.
5. Lightly flour the chilled dough and roll between two sheets of parchment paper to ¼-thickness. Chill for another hour or until firm.
6. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
7. Cut into desired 2-inch shape and place on the baking sheet 1-inch apart.
8. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the bottoms start to brown. Let the cookies cool completely on the pan.

For the Glaze:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, orange zest, milk, butter, and cardamom until smooth. 
2. Dip half of each cookie in the glaze place on parchment paper or drizzle the glaze over the cookies and set aside to dry. Let the glaze fully dry before serving. Cookies can be stored in single layers with parchment between them in an airtight container for up to a week.

Walking the Dam

Adventure can come in so many different shapes and forms, but some of my favorite adventures usually come from doing something new in a familiar place.

A few days ago, my dad and I took a walk along the Lake Waco Dam. It took a few hours, but it was flat and a pretty easy walk.

I enjoyed the scenery of Lake Waco. I never spent much time out there, even when I lived in the city for four years during university.

I also got to see some new birds, which I've since added to my life list!

Indy and Belle

I'm back stateside for the holidays. 

It's been a hectic year, and it's nice to have some time to decompress and relax with the family.

I've been really loving the cooler weather as the seasons start changing here in Texas!

I don't have any grand adventures planned for my trip home this time. Instead, I'm just enjoying being back in Waco for a while.

A highlight for me so far was getting to visit the Baylor University campus to meet Indy and Belle, the two new Baylor bear cubs!

Baylor University's mascot is the Texas black bear, and it's been traditional for a pair of bears to live on campus since around the First World War, when the university president was gifted a live black bear by the 107th Engineers stationed at Camp MacArthur in Waco (why the army had a bear in the first place, I have no idea!).

The previous bears were a pair of sisters named Judge Joy and Judge Lady. Joy sadly passed away a few years back, and Lady has been moved to a more private habitat as she is getting older.

In May, Baylor adopted new rescue bears to be the school's new mascots.

Judge Indy (named for Independence, Texas, the home of the original Baylor campus) and Judge Belle (named for the carillon bells that make up the iconic soundtrack to campus life at Baylor) are cousins born just five days apart! They will be raised together in the on-campus bear habitat and will bring school spirit to a new generation of Baylor students.

BaylorProud » Meet Baylor’s new Bears: Judge Indy & Judge Belle!

I was very excited to meet the new bears! They are both still young (a little bigger than a large labrador), and very playful.

Hagia Sofia

It was an early morning, and I had a few hours before leaving Istanbul to fly back home to the US for the holidays. After a nice pudding breakfast, I took a walk down the cobbled streets to see the most famous landmark in all of Istanbul - and perhaps all of Turkey.

Hagia Sofia

Hagia Sofia soars high above the surrounding buildings. The massive stone structure is far bigger than I had imagined before seeing it in person.

Originally, I didn't think I'd have time to visit the Hagia Sofia on this short stopover in Turkey, but after learning that it was about to be closed for possibly decades for renovations and restoration, I decided to try to squeeze a short visit in. Gates open at 9:00, but it was just 7:30 when I arrived. I stood by the entrance, and a queue formed behind me until, by the time the gates were opened, and we were allowed to enter the historic building, the line of people stretched far out behind me. I'm glad I had arrived early, even if it was just by chance.

When the security guards opened the gate, I hurried ahead of the crowd. Since I was the first in line, I wanted to see inside of the beautiful old holy site before the crowds filtered in behind me.

the fountain for ritual ablutions

When you enter, you first step inside a narthex where you have to remove your shoes. The first glimpse inside the Hagia Sofia already feels ancient. The heavy stone and golden mosaic tiles lining the roof give a strong sense of time long past. Due to the way it's constructed and the reverence that people show inside, it's also very, very quiet.

Hagia Sofia, which means "Holy Wisdom" in Greek, began its life as a Christian church. Not just any church, though. Consecreated in 360 during the reign of the emperor Constantius II and finished in 537, Hagia Sofia was the Cathedral of Constantinople, the central Orthodox church in the Eastern Roman Empire, and would stand as the largest cathedral in the world for over 1,000 years.

In 1204 during the Forth Crusade, Constantinople became part of the "Latin Empire", a crusader state seeking to restore a Catholic emperor to the Roman throne. Hagia Sofia became a Catholic cathedral.

In 1261, the Byzantine Empire was restored, and the church was once again consecrated as an Orthodox cathedral.

Finally, in 1453 Constantinople fell to the invading Ottoman Empire. The invading Sultan Mehmed II entered the city and performed the Friday prayer inside Hagia Sophia and declared it a mosque. The church was stripped of its altar and baptistry, and Christian art and icons were plastered over. The construction of several minarets on the outside of the building gave Hagia Sofia the look it is known for today.

During the Occupation of Constantinople in the First World War, Archimandrite Eleftherios Noufrakis, a Greek military chaplain, held the first and only Divine Liturgy in the Hagia Sofia since the fall of Byzantium.

When the Ottoman Empire collapsed, Turkey became a secular republic. In 1935, Hagia Sofia was converted into a museum and opened for all people to visit. A massive restoration effort was undertaken to uncover the ancient art and icons that had been hidden for centuries. Hagia Sofia became a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracted visitors from all around the world.

In 2020, the nationalist government of Turkey declared Hagia Sofia a mosque once again to great controversy. Today, it's still open to visitors, but it's closed multiple times a day for prayers.

Stepping inside the building is breathtaking. Because I had hurried ahead of the crowd, I was able to take a photo of the Hagia Sofia totally empty before anyone else entered. It was a really surreal experience.

As I was taking photos, a very friendly cat came up to see me and started rubbing against my legs. I bent down to pet her and was soon joined by her baby. The mother cat and kitten were obviously not afraid of people at all and were used to lots of attention from tourists and visitors.

Suddenly, two guards appeared. They looked really serious and at first, I thought they were going to shoo the cats away, but they just bent down and began petting and playing with the cats too.

In 1498, Bernardo Bonsignori was the last Western visitor to Hagia Sophia to report seeing the ancient Justinianic floor; shortly afterwards the floor was covered over with carpet and not seen again until the 19th century.

Today, most of the floor is covered in the thick green carpet typical of a mosque, save for one square are where the original 6th century marble is left uncovered.

This is the Omphalion, the spot where Byzantine emperors were crowned for centuries.

There is no longer an altar, but you can definitely tell where it used to be. Now, the apse houses the mihrab which points towards Mecca. It is flanked by two massive candlesticks brought to Constantinople by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent after his conquest of Ottoman Hungary.

In Islam, it is forbidden to make art depicting God, prophets, angels, and other holy figures. The ancient mosaic icons were covered up (though they were restored when the Hagia Sofia became a museum). 

The central dome has four beautiful fresco paintings depicting four six-winged seraphim, the angels who protect the Throne of God. During the Ottoman era, the faces of these angels were covered up with golden shields depicting stars.

Today, the face of one of these angels has been uncovered to show what the art originally looked like. Hagia Sofia is unique in its history. Even though it is a mosque, art depicting many holy figures are still on display in the form of Orthodox icons and art - something that is taboo in Islam.

I am so glad that I decided to pay a visit to the Hagia Sofia after all. I almost didn't have time! My visit was very short, and I would have loved to have stayed longer and maybe even taken a tour.

The building is about to undergo a long period of restoration, and I figured that if I didn't visit now, it could be years or even decades before I could see it again. It was a very special experience!