A number of my friends make damn good food. I’ve begun doing more cooking for myself in 2008 than I ever have before; previously, the extent of my kitchen skills were limited to throwing chicken sausage in a skillet or making a passable omelet.

My current obsession, after trying them out at the apartment of one such friend of mine, are paletas. Three weeks ago, I got my blender down from the top shelf of my kitchen…and promptly realized that one part of it was cracked. Mailordered a new one; also mailordered some popsicle molds. Set out to make the first batch, based on Mark Bittman’s recipe, only to discover upon pouring the milk in that I’d assembled the components of the blender incorrectly.

Once the milk had been cleaned off the countertop, I started again. This time out, success. I have my second batch freezing as I write this, in which I’ve tried out brown sugar in lieu of the cane sugar I used the first time out. We’ll see how that goes…