Brussels sprouts with toasted hazelnuts and maple syrup

This is a simple and delicious recipe for roasted Brussels sprouts. You start with a little bag of sprouts.

Cut off the stem ends and remove the outer leaves. Miraculously, you seem to end up with more stuff to throw out than was in the bag to begin with. By the way, I recently purchased those flexible silicone sheets to use for cutting boards, and highly recommend them. Very easy to pick up and bend the sides to turn the cutting board into a pouring utensil.

Even though you are throwing out so much stuff, you do have some cleaned, halved sprouts to work with. And, if you put them into a deep shiny bowl, you discover that this bowl creates wonderful reflections.

Toss the sprouts with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then spread them out on a piece of foil on a baking sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes, turning every fifteen minutes. During the last 15-minute segment, drizzle some maple syrup over the sprouts and bake that into them.

While the sprouts are roasting, toast hazelnuts in olive oil and salt, and then chop them up.

Take the sprouts out of the oven, add the toasted hazelnuts, and serve. 

Yum.

When things are dark, look down!

Colorful print shoes seem to be fashionable among Penn and Drexel students, and I for one really appreciate this trend. I'm not likely to buy them for myself -- can you see the price tag in the back of the (discount!) shoe in the photo above? But I do like to see them on other people.

And on dark, rainy days I particularly like to see the bright, whimsical boots so many young women are wearing these days.

And then there are the goofy advertising gimmicks that I also appreciate, such as the giant red shoe outside Union Station in Washington DC.

Bright lights, night lights

Now that it is mid-November, and we have entered into the shadowy world of Daylight Savings Time, my walk from the office to 30th Street Station at 5:00 pm has become a thing of beauty. The sights along the Market Street that are normally dull, washed out, or insignificant in daylight have become mysteriously lovely. To wit:

 The climbing wall at the Drexel gym glows against the dark sky.

Neon signs give up their glamour in the dark (love neon):

The Drexel school of law is humming along with legal energy:

The Drexel school of engineering showcases pipes and fittings and assorted structural elements:

And even the lowly subway entrances seem to be pools of welcoming light:

In 20 minutes or so I arrive at 30th Street Station, where the Cira Centre lights twinkle behind those massive pillars.

Union Station

I was in Washington, DC this weekend. I love, love, love Union Station - and while there I walked by a shoe store with a Shakespearian tie-in!.