“Oliver, what’s that tin on top of the brick in the corner hutch?”

“It’s a tin… Passionate Peach… tea…”

“Does it actually have tea in it?”

Oliver retrieved the tin.

It did not contain tea.

It did contain 34 British two pence coins, with dates ranging from 1971 to 1999, one “non redeemable” brass game token, one 2004 U.S. dime, and two Mexican pesos, one from 1992 and one from 1999.

We have no idea where the tin came from. It’s labeled Zhena’s Gypsy Tea, from Ojai, California, and is from 2007.

As last year, I suspect time travellers.

My year-end gift to myself was a Baronfig Bolt ballpoint pen. It writes like a dream, and feels like it’s from the future.

I found the crank for our vestigial pasta maker last week (I’d given it up for lost), and with an unusual surplus of Iris eggs in the house, I seized the opportunity to make fresh pasta for the first time.

It was not a perfect plan, as I only had Speerville “whole white flour” in the pantry, but as a beta test it worked out surprisingly well. And about as simple a recipe as can be: 2½ cups of flour, five eggs, salt and olive oil.

On our way over the Hillsborough Bridge on Boxing Day, I took this photo of the side of a semi-trailer parked on the trail construction site.

Following up later in the day, I fell down a fascinating rabbit hole, learning about the “king pin to rear axle distance,” and why this is important.

The “king pin” is the place where the trailer attaches to the truck pulling it. The 40 foot distance is important (and thus labelled) because in California there’s a regulation, known colloquially as the “Bridge Law,” that on a typical 53 foot trailer, the maximum distance from the king pin to the rear axle is 40 feet, and the weight over the axles cannot be more than 34,000 pounds.

The 40 foot distance varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction; California’s in the shortest limit, and thus a kind of effective baseline.

In June of 2013, Catherine, Oliver and I attended a site-specific theatre production, Manna-Hata, in the James Farley Post Office in New York City. In the intervening years, this post office, which was largely decommissioned when we were there, has been transformed into the Moynihan Train Hall, an extension of Penn Station across the street. It’s set to open on Friday.

I’ve been on a Would I lie to you? tear for the last month; if you need to laugh out loud, it’s a good catalyst. This episode has it all.

Tonight I feel like a master of the culinary universe: butterhorns were a gateway drug to the yeasty arts. Pizza dough, it turns out, is within the grasp of mortals.

Killer toppings: pickled romanesco from Terra Rossa and cherry tomatoes from Trudy White. 

Following Nature Conservancy advice that local birds will appreciate a novel winter hangout, I placed our retired Christmas tree in the back yard.

My friend Dave has launched a project to, over the next 52 weeks, film a shot-for-shot remake of Love Actually, but with his kids in the starring roles. At least that’s what I think he’s doing; I may have misinterpreted.