Yesterday morning I visited the dentist for a cleaning and told them how much trouble I’d had with pain in the tooth with the new crown. They were encouraged that it seemed to improve with Sensodyne but there’s a little chip where the crown meets tooth and that’s apparently the problem. The bottom line is I’ll have to have the crown replaced yet again. So much for saving as much of the tooth as possible by going with composite. Unfortunately, my dentist is about to ship out to Iraq for a few months so the crown replacement will have to wait until after my next cleaning in six months.

While I was out I picked up groceries to make cannolis for dessert for Jason’s birthday.

Cannoli
1 box premade shells (I’d love to try making some but I haven’t got any cannoli tubes. The nearest cooking store, Williams Sonoma, doesn’t have them either. They are Jason’s favorite though so it’d be a fun tradition to start making them yearly for his birthday.)

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese, drained in a sieve overnight
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
zest of an orange
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Blend ricotta and sugar in the bowl of a mixer for 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Fold in remaining ingredients. Pipe into shells and serve.

I bought him an inexpensive espresso machine as a gift. Any recommendations on what sort of espresso to buy?

We also went to dinner at Minado, a rather nice sushi buffet down in Natick. We had some pretty decent king crab legs, Jason had sushi rolls and I had sashimi. I don’t recommend eating any of the fried foods there. Those were greasy and not very good. The sashimi was excellent and the crab was good. We didn’t try any of the dessert since I was making cannoli when we got home.