Chocolate Crackles

I made my favorite cookies today.

I usually refer to them as chocolate crinkle cookies, but I see that the recipe calls them chocolate crackles.  I've also seen them called snowcaps.  Whatever the name, they are delicious.  This time they weren't quite up to par because I couldn't find the cocoa powder I like (the recipe has both cocoa powder and a hefty amount of melted chocolate), but they were still good.  The recipe comes from a Martha Stewart one-off cookie magazine that was published a handful of years ago.  I couldn't find the recipe online to provide a link.  None of the online recipes were exactly the same, and they all had more than a few differences from the one I use.

This cookie dough isn't like normal dough.  It's more like batter.  These cookies are a mess to make.  The dough is divided up and chilled to make it easier to work with, yet it still becomes a sticky goop very quickly.  Oh, but they are soooo tasty.  The recipe makes a ton of cookies, so it's not like you work with a dough that is a massive pain and get hardly any cookies at the end, like when making gingerbread men.  I'm talking 65 to 80 cookies here, depending on the size of the dough balls.  The dough is formed into balls and rolled in granulated sugar and confectioners sugar (granulated first, then confectioners.)  When the cookies flatten in the oven, they take on their cracked appearance.  Yum.

BREW beagle

Kenobi is a BREW beagle.  What does that mean?  It means that I adopted him from a beagle rescue called BREW, which stands for Beagle Rescue, Education, and Welfare.  Is this post just an excuse to share more photos of Kenobi?  Not necessarily.

BREW finds homes for beagles in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and eastern Pennsylvania.  It is a great organization.  They take in beagles from shelters or from owners who don't want or can't take care of their dogs anymore, and they place them in foster homes.  There the beagles stay until they find their forever homes.  BREW posts photos and descriptions of the dogs on its website.  I saw Kenobi's photo and knew immediately that he was my dog.  As a bonus, he was already house-trained and was described as a quiet beagle- good for apartment living.

As with other rescues, the first step was to fill out an application.  Once that was done, a volunteer from BREW came to my apartment for a "home check."  It's an extra layer of security to make sure that the dogs they care so much about go to good homes.  The volunteer brought along a beagle puppy.  CUTE.  Once I was approved, I could meet Kenobi.  I drove from Pennsylvania to Virginia to get him!  He was so worth it.

BREW didn't have any background information on Kenobi because they pulled him from a shelter.  He entered the shelter as a stray.  It was estimated that he was about a year and a half old.  He had ehrlichia, a tick-borne illness similar to Lyme disease.  BREW treated him for the ehrlichia and had him neutered, too.  When I picked him up, he was healed and ready to go.  I should say that his name wasn't Kenobi at the time.  BREW (or maybe the shelter) had named him Leo.  He wasn't called Leo for very long, so he quickly adapted to his new name.  It seems funny now to think that his name was Leo.  He is such a Kenobi.  He demonstrates a power over people that can only be him using the Force.

When I got to his foster family's house, I saw that there were at least five beagles there.  Beagle sanctuary!  I loved Kenobi from the first moment I saw him.  He came home with me that day and has been with me ever since.  That was over ten years ago.  I'm more grateful to BREW than I can ever express for bringing Kenobi into my life.  I've said this before, but it bears repeating- it's important that people consider adopting from shelters and rescues when they are looking for pets.  So many loving, wonderful animals needs homes.  People are often surprised when they find out that Kenobi came from a rescue.  They say, "But he's such a good dog."  Yes, he is.  Great animals are waiting in shelters and rescues to find their homes.  I wish Kenobi could be an ambassador for shelter animals everywhere, changing attitudes about the animals found there.  These animals didn't do anything wrong to end up in shelters.  They just need some love in their lives.

Kenobi is my companion, my friend, and a light in my life when things seem very dark.  I will end with a beagle haiku:

Sleeping beagle dog
curled up in my blue blanket,
my heart fills with love.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

I like pumpkin desserts.  Pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, pumpkin scones, pumpkin pie- I like it all.  I made pumpkin spice cake tonight.  I saw John Barricelli bake this on Everyday Food a few years ago.  It's incredibly easy.  I don't even need my stand mixer to make it.  It tastes more like pumpkin bread than pumpkin cake, but it's good all the same.

The problem when baking anything with pumpkin is that my dog likes pumpkin.  The beagle never gets people food, except for pumpkin.  He is a pumpkin monster.  That means when I open the can of pumpkin purée, he comes running.  He got to lick the spoon.  

When I made this cake before, I made it with the honey cream cheese frosting in the recipe.  I didn't really like that frosting, so I made a simple confectioners' sugar glaze this time.  That was better.  It doesn't need any icing at all, but I felt compelled to put some on there since it's called a cake.  Here's the cake last time with honey cream cheese frosting:

I like this pumpkin spice cake a lot.  I'll probably make it again in a few days.  

Glazed Chocolate Cake

I made a chocolate cake this weekend.

It's from the cookbook Fresh Flavor Fast, and the recipe can be found here.  I've baked this cake a few times before.  These photos are from the last time I made it.  I'm not a huge fan of this cake, but my family likes it, so I made it for them.  It's a dense cake with a chocolate ganache glaze.  Here's a shot of the warm ganache sliding down the side:

I think the cake smells better than it tastes.  Mmmm, chocolate.  My family goes nuts for this cake.  I don't know why I'm indifferent to it.  It's good but not great.

Kenobi update

For those interested in news of the gentleman beagle, this post is for you.

Kenobi had surgery two months ago to remove two growths from around his left eye.  One had grown very large, and the vet thought it was time to take both of them off.  Kenobi came through this like a champ.  Was he groggy when I picked him up at the vet's office?  Nope.  He came prancing out, doing his beagle bounce and wagging his tail.  He was not very happy about wearing the cone, however.

Why are you doing this to me?

He kept scratching every time I applied the medicine, so he ended up wearing the collar for a week.  I'm very happy he had the growths removed.  I was weary about the anesthesia because he is eleven.  But, he is a healthy dog, and I trust his vet.  For several months before the surgery, I noticed Kenobi was going up and down stairs slowly.  I thought he was slowing down with age and that his arthritis was getting worse.  After the surgery, I see Kenobi run up and down stairs like he used to.  I think the growths must have been impairing his vision, and that was causing him to be slow on the stairs.

Now that it is getting colder, our ongoing battle for my blankets is heating up.  Kenobi especially likes my blue blanket.  He often wraps himself up in it.

Mmmm, blanket.

That is my blanket, Kenobi!

Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!

He is stubborn.  My protests are met with him sticking his tongue out.  It's not like he is a deprived beagle.  He has three blankets, a cushion, and a dog bed.  He still prefers my bed and my blankets to his own.  That's okay.  I don't think I'd be able to sleep if he wasn't snuggled next to me under the covers every night.  Plus, I have pretty bad nightmares sometimes, and he is right there for a hug when they wake me up.  Beagle hugs are the best!  So is Kenobi.

DUCKSTORM at the lake

This lake is around the corner:

I never knew it existed.  One day I drove by and thought, hey, there's a lake- I should go check it out.  So I did.  It was a dark, overcast day.  There was a bench by the lake, so I sat down to relax and take in the scenery.  That's when I heard the quacking.  Ducks are cute!  I am a friend to ducks.  They were hanging out in the lake, and I was minding my own business on the bench.  In the photo above, they are almost all to the left, out of frame, but there is a rogue duck lurking close to the water's edge.  The ducks started to come closer.  Onward they swam, a giant mass of fowl, forming itself into a line and coming right for me.  They arrived on land as DUCKSTORM, the water fowl version of DOGSTORM.  The quacking was thunderous, and the ducks were annoyed because I had no offering with which to appease them.  

a small portion of DUCKSTORM

Bread?  Crackers?  Nothing.  Demanding food, they swarmed the bench, pleading with their sweet, yet murderous, avian eyes.  You will feed DUCKSTORM, they seemed to say.  The ducks pecked at the ground like I had already thrown food and they had simply missed it, so incomprehensible was it that I could have nothing for them.  Eventually, they got sick of this disappointing visitor to their lake and went back in the water to swim and do whatever ducks do to amuse themselves.  DUCKSTORM had passed.  All was well.  

Photography highlights, Paris edition

Here are a few photos from Paris.  Click on the images for larger versions.  

This first one I took from along the Seine as the sun was setting.  You can see the Eiffel Tower behind the buildings to the left.  The quay along the river is a great place.  The last time I was in Paris, I went there every morning with a croissant or a baguette to sit and hang out.  It's peaceful.  

The Seine can be seen in this next one, too.  The object of the photo is the Conciergerie.  This was first a palace, then a prison, and now a museum.  Marie Antoinette was kept here during her last days before she was guillotined.  The Pont Napoléon is the bridge crossing the river.  

This is the Tuileries, a garden next to the Louvre.  This photo was taken in April, when the tulips were in bloom.  

Here are a few photos of Notre Dame, starting with the interior of the cathedral.  

This next one is the Louvre Museum.  Usually photos of the Louvre show the glass pyramid in the middle of the courtyard.  The Louvre is a U-shaped building, and this is one of the ends of the U.  The Louvre is big.  Really, really big.  During my most recent trip, I went there three times and still didn't see everything.  It is said that if you spent sixty seconds looking at each object on display in the Louvre, it would take you months of looking for 24 hours each day to see it all.  Louis XIV used to ride horses through the corridors.  

I'll end with two iconic monuments of Paris, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.  

The Arc de Triomphe is located in the middle of an enormous traffic circle at the end of the Champs-Élysées.  Twelve roads meet here.  You have to cross underground to get to the monument itself, which has an unknown soldier memorial underneath the arch.  

More photos can be found at jennifer-lyon.artistwebsites.com.  

A weekend away

I had a great weekend last weekend- the best in a very long time.  I went to visit some friends who live about two hours away.  Josh and Jen are both awesome people, and their daughter Lily is a brilliant and sweet little girl.  The weekend was packed full of goodness.  I don't know where to begin.  On Friday night, we had Indian food for dinner.  I had been craving Indian food for some time, and this was delicious.  Plus, Jen scored free dessert for all of us.  Go Jen! This is just one example of how Josh hit the jackpot in the spouse lottery with Jen.  There was also a My Little Pony quiz at dinner.  I failed miserably.  Lily kicked butt, but Josh did come in a close second.  I think he might disagree with my assessment of the quiz results.  I got to see Gravity Falls for the first time that night.  This is a Disney Channel cartoon I had been told repeatedly that I would like.  Was it over-hyped?  NO.  It's fantastic.  It's about twins who go to stay with their great uncle in a town where weird things happen.  There was a lot of Gravity Falls viewing over the weekend.

On Saturday, we went to Oktoberfest at SteelStacks in Bethlehem.  SteelStacks is a neat place. Its website describes it as an arts and cultural campus.  It used to be a steel plant.  The highlight of Oktoberfest was the wiener dog races.  The dogs weren't restricted to the little area set up for the races.  There were dachshunds everywhere!  They were cute.  Adorable.  Some were dressed up.  Jen made us falafel for dinner on Saturday night.  Yum.  Lily asked for me to read her a story, which was nice.  After Lily was asleep, Josh and Jen and I played the game Taboo, which had such timely references as Linda Tripp and Mike Tyson.  I also saw Freaks & Geeks, which I had never seen before.  I tend to steer away from tv shows about kids in high school, but this one is good.

On Sunday, we went back to Bethlehem.  We checked out a cemetery and walked around the town a bit before it was time for a service at Jen's church.  Yes, yes, I know- I'm an atheist. That doesn't mean I can't attend a religious service.  When I told someone about going to church on Sunday, she was stunned.  It's not like I burst into flames if I cross the threshold or anything.  Plus, if you're going to go to church, Unitarian Universalist is the way to go.  The choir sang the Pink Panther theme.  Josh says they worship Cthulhu, but I wouldn't mind if they did.  Unitarian Universalists are cool.  AND, afterward, they feed you snacks and coffee. My church never fed me snacks and coffee.  Anyway, this was a special day for blessing animals, so people brought their pets.  Lily's fish and caterpillar made an appearance, along with several dogs, cats, and one bird.  Also, the guy sitting next to me looked like Red Sox owner John Henry.

I always have a good time when I see Josh, Jen, and Lily.  I've been going through some stuff lately that has caused me a lot of stress and anxiety, and being able to spend time with my friends over the weekend was like lifting a huge weight off of my shoulders, at least for those three days.  I hope I get to see them again soon.

Opera!

I love opera.  The opera bug is an affliction that has been with me since high school.  I've always enjoyed classical music, but I had never given opera a chance until I went to one in person.  A friend's parents had an extra ticket, so the four of us went to the opera in Philadelphia.  It was Tosca.  It was brilliant.  I was amazed.  THIS was opera?  I thought it might be boring.  I thought I might not enjoy the music.  Instead, I developed a life-long passion for opera.  It didn't matter that Tosca was sung in Italian.  The Philadelphia opera company projected a translation on the wall above the stage.  It wouldn't have mattered, anyway.  It was that good.  The music, the singing, the acting- it was all fantastic.  It doesn't bother me in the least that opera is usually sung in a language other then English.  I listen on the radio and to cds, and the music stands on its own.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the opera twice at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The first was La Traviata, with Renée Fleming and Matthew Polenzani in the leading roles.  The second was Roméo et Juliette, with Anna Netrebko and Roberto Alagna.  La Traviata is about a courtesan who gives up her lifestyle for the man she loves, and Roméo et Juliette is the familiar tale of star-crossed lovers.  Fleming and Netrebko are two of the biggest names in the opera world, and they did not disappoint.  (Anna Netrebko happens to be my favorite soprano.)  I was completely absorbed by each opera.  I will admit, I was tearing up at the end of La Traviata, I was so moved.  That has never happened to me at a live performance before.  The Met also translates, but they do it much better than the opera in Philadelphia did.  Each seat has access to a small screen, located on the back of the seat in front of it.  It provides translation in several languages, or the translation can be turned off altogether. The words on your screen are only visible from your seat- you can't see other people's screen's lit up- so that if you look across the audience, you aren't distracted by seeing a bunch of illuminated screens.

Anna Netrebko as Juliette

I thought about blogging about this because the Met's opening night was a few weeks ago, and Anna Netrebko and Matthew Polenzani happened to be starring together in L'Elisir d'Amore.  I listened to it on the Met's live stream.  The live stream is great.  It is a live, online stream of the opera on a given night.  During intermissions, they have hosts who give synopses, conduct interviews, and chat about opera.  The schedule is here.  There is one per week during the season, which runs from September to May.

Not every opera ends tragically.  My rule of thumb is this- if it's Verdi or Puccini, people are probably going to die; Bellini or Donizetti, they have a chance for a happy ending.  I say that, but thinking about it, Lucia di Lammermoor is pretty bleak, and that was written by Donizetti. I may have to revisit this thought.

Opera is filled with passion, tragedy, drama, and joy.  It's beautiful.  It captivates me.

Let's play rank the Doctors

There is a question every fan of Doctor Who has to answer.  Who's your favorite Doctor?  It's also something of a pastime among Whovians to rank all of the different Doctors in favorite order.  My two favorites are always the same, but the others fluctuate depending on when you ask me.  The idea to blog about this came about because I had this ranking conversation with a friend of mine last week.  There have been eleven actors to play the role.  Here we go:

1. & 2. (tie)  Tom Baker (4th Doctor) and Patrick Troughton (2nd Doctor)

Tom Baker

Patrick Troughton

It's hard for me to decide which one of these Doctors I like better.  Many American Whovians say Tom Baker is their favorite, and I think a part of that is because he's the one we grew up with.  Tom Baker's episodes were most often on PBS when Doctor Who was airing over here when we were younger.  He is also the longest tenured Doctor.  Tom Baker is a brilliant Doctor, though.  He is funny.  He had excellent companions to play off of, like Romana II.  When I think of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who, many of them are from the Tom Baker era: "Genesis of the Daleks," "City of Death," "Destiny of the Daleks," "Pyramids of Mars," "The Deadly Assassin."

Sometimes I think it's not a tie and that I like Patrick Troughton better.  Troughton plays a zany Doctor.  At times it seems like the 2nd Doctor really doesn't know what he's doing.  I love his portrayal of the Doctor.  There is something endearing about him.  He also has great companions, such as Jamie and Zoe.  The tragedy of Patrick Troughton's Doctor is that so few episodes survive.  The BBC used to wipe their tapes and reuse them, so most of the 2nd Doctor's stories and many of the 1st Doctor's are lost.  This kills me.  I need more 2nd Doctor episodes!

3.  Jon Pertwee (3rd Doctor)

Pertwee, with a Sea Devil lurking behind

Jon Pertwee's episodes also aired a lot when I was watching Doctor Who on PBS as a kid.  The 3rd Doctor was confined to Earth by the Time Lords for most of his episodes, so Pertwee's Doctor has a strong association with UNIT.  This is the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, headed by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.  (UNIT stands for something else in new Who, but it's still around.)  Simply put, UNIT is awesome, and so is the Brigadier.  The Brigadier is a stuffy military type.  The Doctor is a pacifist, and he's grumpy because he's stuck on Earth.  This makes for an interesting friendship.  The Pertwee era has one of my absolute favorite episodes, "The Three Doctors."  The Doctors are all arrogant know-it-alls, so when they get together, it's fantastic.

4.  Peter Davison (5th Doctor)

I like the 5th Doctor.  A lot of fans don't.  The Davison era suffers from two things- he was bogged down by some of the worst companions the series has ever seen, and he followed a wildly popular Doctor.  There is a gentleness to his Doctor, and he lacks the overt condescension of the other Doctors.  I think he's friendly in a way the others aren't, too.  My favorite Doctor Who episode of all time, "The Five Doctors," takes place during the 5th Doctor's run.  I like multiple-Doctor episodes, and this one has FIVE of them, plus Gallifrey, which is always fun.

5.  Matt Smith (11th Doctor)

The first Doctor of new Who to make the list is Matt Smith.  I think he's a great Doctor.  He reminds me very much of Patrick Troughton's 2nd Doctor.  He's funny and crazy and sometimes out of control.  His relationship with Amy and Rory, their friendship, is similar to that of Tom Baker's 4th Doctor and Romana II.  There's an equality there.  There's genuine feeling.  Matt Smith is the current Doctor, so only Steven Moffat, the showrunner, knows what's in store for him in the future.

6.  David Tennant (10th Doctor)

David Tennant was an outstanding Doctor.  Six seems too low on the list.  Yet here he is.  He started off with the dreaded Rose as a companion, but after the show got rid of her, he really grew into his own.  Tennant is the reason new Who is as popular as it is.  The 10th Doctor is friendly and enthusiastic.  He is also the only Doctor I've ever thought was attractive, which is just weird.  The Doctor isn't supposed to be cute.  Oh, but David Tennant is so cute.  And those glasses...Enough of that.  He had some great companions in Martha and Donna.  Some of my favorite episodes of new Who are 10th Doctor episodes: "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead," "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords," "The Waters of Mars."

7.  Sylvester McCoy (7th Doctor)

McCoy has the stigma of being the actor who presided over the end of the regular airing of Doctor Who on television.  I like the 7th Doctor enough.  He is manic and nutty.  I didn't like any of his companions, really.  Sylvester McCoy is an entertaining guy.  He has joked in interviews that the BBC brought him in because at that point in his career he was three-season McCoy.  The BBC wanted to kill off Doctor Who, and no show he had been on had ever lasted more than three seasons.  And so Doctor Who ended.

8.  William Hartnell (1st Doctor)

Here's the Doctor who started it all, almost fifty years ago.  I like the 1st Doctor.  He's your bad-tempered grandfather.  He's crabby and annoyed.  He's good fun.

9.  Paul McGann (8th Doctor)

It's hard to know where to put McGann.  His only appearance on television was that awful Fox tv movie.  The 8th Doctor has had new life in audio dramas, and he is very popular now.  I've only heard one of those, and McGann was good.  I'd like to see a multiple-Doctor 50th anniversary story next year with McGann in it.

10.  Christopher Eccleston (9th Doctor)

Eccleston is okay.  I don't find him particularly likeable, and he was stuck with Rose, who I can't stand.  I did like the episode "Dalek" a lot.

11.  Colin Baker (6th Doctor)

I don't really like the 6th Doctor.  It has been years since I've seen a Colin Baker episode.  One day I will give him another chance.

That's it for the list!  The rundown all in one place:
1. & 2. (tie)  Tom Baker (4th) and Patrick Troughton (2nd)
3.  Jon Pertwee (3rd)
4.  Peter Davison (5th)
5.  Matt Smith (11th)
6.  David Tennant (10th)
7.  Sylvester McCoy (7th)
8.  William Hartnell (1st)
9.  Paul McGann (8th)
10.  Christopher Eccleston (9th)
11.  Colin Baker (6th)

A trip to the NJ Aquarium

I went to the NJ Aquarium.  I know it's called the Adventure Aquarium now, but if you say that, people will just ask if that is the NJ Aquarium in Camden.  Also, I think Adventure Aquarium sounds silly.  It's right on the waterfront, so you have a nice view of Philadelphia from the place.

I would like to be able to go here and take some night shots of Philly from across the water.  Too bad Camden is not a place you want to hang out after dark.  Apparently someone took my photo while I was taking photos...

I was not aware that was happening.  The only problem with this photo is that you can't see my awesome killer bunny/Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch shirt.

After I wasted time taking photos of Philly, it was time to actually go in the aquarium.  It was smaller than I thought it would be, but it had some neat things.  I liked the hammerhead sharks.  There was also a walkway in a tube running through one of the tanks which held the majority of the sharks at the aquarium.  When you were in the tube, if felt like you could reach out and touch the sharks.  They could swim over your head or come right up to you.  It was a little creepy at times.  I kept imagining what it would be like to run into one of these sharks in the ocean.

There were plenty of exhibits with colorful fish and seahorses and all the stuff you'd expect in an aquarium.  There was also an area with two hippos in it.  I felt kind of bad for them because they didn't have much room.  The sea lions didn't have much room, either.

The main attraction for me in going to the NJ Aquarium was the penguins.  What I mean to say is, PENGUINS!!

I love penguins!  I'm a little peeved that March of the Penguins made them so popular because I have always loved penguins.  Here is a random penguin cam.  The aquarium's penguin exhibit left a lot to be desired.  It was tiny, and all the penguins were hiding except for this one.

I want to give this little guy a hug

I've been told that they are expanding their penguin habitat soon.  I hope so.  They can come stay with me in the meantime.  Overall, the aquarium was worth visiting, but I wouldn't go there often.  The aquarium in Baltimore isn't that far, so it would be worth it to drive there instead.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is great.  Let's just get that out there.  I've loved Sherlock Holmes for as long as I can remember.  What elementary school kid reads Arthur Conan Doyle?  This one.  I think it was in fifth grade that I was Sherlock Holmes for Halloween.  It could have been when I was younger than that.  It didn't matter to me that I was a girl and Sherlock Holmes was a boy, or that when people asked what my hat was and I said a deerstalker, they still didn't know who I was supposed to be.  I had a pipe, too!  And a magnifying glass.  Come on!  I also wore a trench coat.  I'm sure that made sense to my fifth grade mind.  I reread The Hound of the Baskervilles a few months ago, and recently I've been working my way through the Granada tv series with Jeremy Brett.

Jeremy Brett is, to me, the definitive Sherlock Holmes.  It's hard for me to put my finger on exactly why.  He just does everything right.  He is arrogant, condescending, occasionally manic, and brilliant. The way he speaks, his mannerisms- all are how I imagine Holmes when I read him.  I enjoy Basil Rathbone and Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes, but they don't beat Jeremy Brett.  

Deerstalker!

I first saw the Granada Sherlock Holmes series as a kid, when it aired on PBS.  It was shown as part of the Mystery! series, but it was produced by a British channel called ITV.  Mystery! was memorable to me because it had the Edward Gorey opening.  Even now I can picture the macabre illustrations on the screen and the woman tilting her head back, putting the back of her hand to her forehead saying "Oooh!"  The funny thing is, I don't know if I watched anything else on Mystery!  Aside from Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, I never read mysteries, and I hardly ever watch them on tv.  

Along with Holmes, there must be an excellent Watson.  The Granada series had two different actors fill the role- David Burke and Edward Hardwicke.  Burke only played Watson for the first two years, and then Hardwicke took over for the other eight.  I like them both as Watson, but I prefer Hardwicke.  Poor Watson.  He has to put up with a lot.  Holmes can be pretty rough on his friend sometimes.  

Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke

Of course there are the major recurring characters of the Doyle stories in the Granada series, too.  Sherlock's brother Mycroft Holmes, Inspector Lestrade, and arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty all appear.  I personally love when Mycroft shows up.  Mycroft may be even smarter than Holmes, and they have an interesting relationship.  

Jeremy Brett died at the age of 61 from heart failure, ending the series after ten years with adaptions of almost three quarters of the Sherlock Holmes canon.  

Brett brought to life the resident of 221B Baker Street in a way that no one else has.