I spend a lot of time reading about and talking about and blogging about layoffs. A lot of time.

“Lemonade” is a documentary about 16 advertising professionals who were laid off, and discovered new dreams. It’s quite inspiring. Watch the whole thing here:

Things I learned from three days of jury duty:

There’s free wi-fi at the St. Louis Circuit Court jury room and foyers. Which was very good while I was waiting for my number to be called from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday. (There are very few electric outlets.)

At least one of the electric outlets in the jury room was missing a cover plate. That’s a no-no.

Morning news shows are awful. National, local, doesn’t matter. Awful. Mid-morning and early afternoon soap operas are equally awful.

Missouri still pulls juror names from its voter registration logs, as well as state identification (drivers license or other state ID). I think that’s a mistake — pulling names from personal property tax records would be more inclusive and wouldn’t “punish” people who register to vote.

A lot of people are unemployed. This is not new news, of course. The national unemployment rate is 10 percent; Missouri’s unemployment rate is 9.6 percent. I was part of a pool of 54 jurors, and five were unemployed. Three of them had been at their last jobs for at least 10 years.

A lot of people have been sexually abused, or know someone who was. From that same pool of 54 jurors, 22 percent fell into that category.

The pool of 54 was narrowed to 12 jurors and one alternate. There were 10 women and three men. The defendant was charged with seven counts of rape, sodomy and incest; the jury make-up seemed interesting.

In addition to the standard “don’t talk about this case” warning that the judge issues at every break before the case is actually sent to the jury, there was an additional warning: Don’t Twitter or Facebook it either. (That kind of amused me.)

Lawyers and judges do not Foursquare or Gowalla. The second day, I became the Foursquare “mayor” of the St. Louis Circuit Court.

The defendant is currently serving time in federal prison for selling drugs. The nonchalant “it’s a job” opinion of some jurors surprised me. And made me sad.

During deliberation, jurors felt the need to talk over each other and carry on two to four conversations at a time. That was very annoying. Others wanted to instantly bond. One juror shared photos of her recent ultrasound.

The trial ended with a hung jury: Eight jurors believed the plaintiff’s testimony, and four did not believe there was enough evidence to convict.

It is maybe a 10 or 12 minute walk to (and from) the court. Each morning, it was lightly snowing. Wednesday night, huge snowflakes were falling. It was rather mesmerizing. (And now I have a cold.)

I’m cleaning out the kitchen cupboards again, which this time has resulted in cornbread.

I love cornbread, usually with a little fresh honey. I’ve had a box of mix for some time, mostly because I rarely have eggs and milk on hand at the same time. (It’s the milk — I almost never have milk.) But by some miracle (um, a trip to the grocery store yesterday to buy eggs), I have both.

I also have jalapenos. And corn. And half of an onion. So I really wanted to make Mexican cornbread. Not as good with honey, but darn tasty.

The recipes I found all call for cream corn, which I definitely do not keep on hand. (Or even recommend.) So it’s time to experiment and see what happens. (By the way, I am neither a cook nor a baker, so it’s kind of strange that the last three posts have been about cooking.)

It turned out awesome. So here’s my improvised Mexican cornbread recipe.

Mexican cornbread

1 box cornbread mix
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons chopped onion
2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons chopped jalapenos
1 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Beat egg until it’s frothy; add milk and cornbread mix. Add the rest of the ingredients, and stir until well blended. Pour batter into muffin cups or 8×8 pan. Bake until golden brown.

If you don’t like spicy, cut down on the jalapenos. (I kinda added the cheese on a whim — it was in the fridge when I went to grab everything else, and there was only about 1/2 cup.)

My friend Gabe wrote a short review of the meatloaf at SideBar — a restaurant and bar just down the street from where I live.

I love meatloaf. But not restaurant meatloaf. It’s the ketchup.

When I was in the second grade, my mother had to go to the hospital for surgery. She was there more than a day, so her brother drove three hours to our home to look after me, my brother and my sister. Mom planned ahead — the fridge was stocked and meals were ready to go in the oven, including a meatloaf.

Everything was fine until Uncle Terry poured ketchup on top. We wouldn’t eat it.

If only he’d had this, Mom’s meatloaf recipe. Notice the lack of ketchup, and the addition of barbecue sauce.

Mom’s meatloaf

1 lb. hamburger
Chopped onion or onion soup mix
Chopped green pepper (optional)
1 egg
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup barbecue sauce

Mix it all together and put it in a loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and top with barbecue sauce (whatever looks right) and celery seed (optional). Bake for another 40 minutes, or until the internal temperature is 180 degrees.

Goes great with cheesy au gratin potatoes … I think I know now what I’m making for dinner tomorrow.

I decided to clear out part of a kitchen cabinet, and ended up with teal fudge.

I had half a bag of chocolate chips, 5 cubes of almond bark, a little mint extract and a can of just-expired condensed milk. Perfect!

I kind of started with a recipe. It called for two cups of chocolate chips, so I melted together the chocolate chips that I had and three almond bark cubes.	The recipe then called for a cup of condensed milk. I kinda estimated, figuring that was about 2/3 of the 14 oz. can.	It looks much better once the chocolate has melted and everything’s all mixed together.
To make it easier to actually get to the fudge later, I lined an 8×8 pan with wax paper.	I removed the chocolaty goodness from the stove and added 2 teaspoons of vanilla.	And dumped half it in the wax paper-lined pan, leaving it to firm up a bit before the next layer.
Next for the minty center. That’s where the last two almond bark cubes come in. The original recipe called for “white chocolate wafers.” Close enough, right?	So I melted them in the microwave on a low setting. It seemed easier. You can see where I poked the one on the right to see if it was melted; It was.	I added the rest of the condensed milk, which looks kind of goopy until it gets mixed together better.
Back to that recipe, it called for 1 tablespoon of peppermint extract. I almost had 1 tablespoon of mint extract … close enough, once again.	The recipe suggested adding food coloring to make the center layer of the fudge red or green. But I noticed I’d never used the blue food coloring; that didn’t seem right.	So blue it is!
Pretty!	Because the base wasn’t a true white, it looked kind of green. So I added more blue …	… and ended up with teal.
I poured the teal goop on top of the chocolaty layer and put it in the fridge for about 10 minutes to become a little more firm.	Then I added the top chocolaty layer.	After two hours in the fridge, I popped the fudge out of the pan. (Thank goodness for that wax paper.)

Best of all, it’s pretty tasty. The chocolate layer is a little grainy, for lack of a better word, which the Internetz tell me happens when it’s overstirred. Plus, I used up the almond bark that I’ve had for a year, the chocolate chips that I’ve had for almost as long, the just-expired can of condensed milk, the last of the mint extract (which I’ve moved at least three times, and I last moved in 2006.) and I finally got to use the blue food coloring. Yay!