Archive for October, 2007

Red Velvet

October 30, 2007 | Filed under: "The Pot Licker", The object of my obsession

“Chocolate remedies adversity.” ~Jareb Teague

I hate linguini and spaghetti, but love fettucini and penne. There is something about the size and shape of the noodle, that keeps me from slurping up a bowl of spaghetti and marinara with fervor, but point me in the direction of farfalle with vodka sauce and I’m rolling around a carbohydrate filled bliss. Only recently have I noticed that shape and size dictate what I will and will not eat. I won’t eat sliced up carrot but will eat the stick version. I don’t like mashed potatoes but love mashed cauliflower yet will roll around in a vat of French fries and will vomit at the sight of raw cauliflower.

It didn’t reach real concern until recently when I wouldn’t eat cake and looked at a three layer chocolate cake with complete disgust. I suppose the size of most cakes seems unmanageable so I tend to be turned off by all of the layers and the frosting. Despite this anyone who has been reading this site for seven minutes will notice that I have a thing for cupcakes. Not just a minor little crush on cupcakes but an OMFG I’ll stop everything I’m doing to run out and get one…or four. I love cupcakes, because they’re small and bite sized and never imposing or constantly threatening to turn my butt into a pile of cellulite. I love that I can buy just one and be OK with what I have, which is a stark contrast to everything else in my life. Cupcakes make me happy.

Given how strong my love is for these sweet little treasures, I tend to leave the baking aspect to the pros or at least to someone who doesn’t feel like the need to inquire about adult supervision while baking. Because it was my birthday, I decided to test out baking much to the dubious laughter of my mother who kept repeating ‘from scratch?’ over and over again. I can understand her concern though given that the last time I used an electric mixer she was at the helm while I stood by her side waiting to consume what was left of the batter. My mother never has time to actually bake but when she does she makes chocolate melt in your mouth. I’m pretty sure that I did not inherit that gene and it’s the fear of being forced to consume something that tastes like paint chips and goat cheese is what precludes me from ever baking something I really like. It could either go really well and I could fondle my mixer or it could go really poorly and I could end up abhorring my beloved red velvet cupcakes.

I ended up with 36 – oh my God, no one ever needs 36 cupcakes. I brought them in for work and I don’t even know 36 people and yet they went rather quickly – perfectly made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Given my own misgivings about my baking and that I only had two (one to taste test and one the next day. I’m actually sick right now) I wouldn’t really say they were the best ever or that I didn’t get to work and shove one in my mother’s face and demand that she TASTE IT NOW before I ended up giving my coworkers salmonella. But word on the street is that they were excellent and here I was holding out hope that I didn’t end up with Cajun style cupcakes.

The recipe is from Smitten and was used to make a three-layer cake so I just went with it and like I said, got 36 cupcakes. I’m only one person and my roommate is training for a marathon so her diet has been consisting of fruit and vegetables, not chocolate dyed red.

Red Velvet Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting (anything in bold is my two cents)

Time: 90 minutes, plus cooling
Yield: 3 cake layers (32-36 cupcakes)

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
3½ cups cake flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa (not Dutch process)
1½ teaspoons salt
2 cups canola oil
2¼ cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) red food coloring or 1 teaspoon red gel food coloring dissolved in 6 tablespoons of water
1½ teaspoons vanilla
1¼ cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons baking soda
2½ teaspoons white vinegar.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place teaspoon of butter in each of 3 round 9-inch layer cake pans and place pans in oven for a few minutes until butter melts. Remove pans from oven, brush interior bottom and sides of each with butter and line bottoms with parchment.

2. Whisk cake flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl.

3. Place oil and sugar in bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until well-blended. Beat in eggs one at a time. With machine on low, very slowly add red food coloring. (Take care: it may splash.) (All over your counter and diswasher and cabinets) Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in two batches. Scrape down bowl and beat just long enough to combine.

4. Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar (it’s like a science experiment!) and add to batter with machine running. Beat for 10 seconds.

5. Divide batter among pans, place in oven and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in pans 20 minutes. Then remove from pans, flip layers over and peel off parchment. Cool completely before frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from several sources

Makes 6 cups

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter room temperature
3 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl. With a handheld electric mixer, beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and vanilla. Beat, on low speed to combine. If too soft, chill until slightly stiff, about 10 minutes, before using.

No thank you

October 29, 2007 | Filed under: Humdrum, Just Add Alcohol

 

I currently have no interest in writing or talking or standing upright or opening my eyes. Perhaps too much stimulation and slutty nurses/policewomen/witches/brides/zombies/butterflies to bring about anything coherent. Though I’m thinking of writing a startling exposé for Halloween simply titled Slutty Clown: Yay or Nay? 

24

October 26, 2007 | Filed under: Great moments in narcissism, Mmhmm That's Right

“Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.” ~Larry Lorenzon

When I was eight, before the world was dominated by Bushs and Clintons, I made this timeline of every event in my life from my high school graduation to when I would get married and start having children. 24 was apparently the age that my eight year old mind thought would be a good time to start in on the whole marriage and parenting one-two punch. Normally I’d say that my eight year old self was high, but instead I will say Aww. Because eight year olds are cute and wistful and think that 24 is ‘old’. Eight year olds have yet to become cynical and pessimisstic. They are wonderfully optimistic most of the time and one must admit that it can be adorable.

Today is my 24th birthday and I am a tad more pragmatic and would like to set my goals a little lower. All I really want is to have a good year. There are also more personal things like the ability to eat a burrito without analyzing every bite and calming the fuck down because some things won’t ever change. But other than that it’s all very simple and the rest written down and tucked away for a rainy day. I think that if I told my eight year old self that having a baby at 24 really wouldn’t bode well for her career (never mind what she would do if I told her that she would have enough money to fill her closet with shoes, because she HATED shopping with a passion) or for her relationship with her roommate, but at 24 there could be as many cupcakes as she wanted because her mother won’t be around to say No; then she would totally be down with that. So I think I’ll shuffle things around and save those major life events for another year.

The Pot Licker

October 23, 2007 | Filed under: "The Pot Licker"

“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” ~Harriet van Horne

My love for Trader Joe’s runs deep and withstands distance and time. Every moment that I’m able to be in a Trader Joe’s is one more minute of nirvana and hope that I can successfully transport a jar of organic blueberry preserves back to NY without TSA thinking that it’s implanted with some sort of honing device or liquid nitrogen. It is also ridiculously convenient because at any point in time that you’re craving gnnochi with gorgonzola, they have it there. Frozen and ready to pop into a microwave and make genuine deliciousness. Also all of their rice comes in packages and takes no longer than three minutes to cook. Which means more time to sit around watching Pageant Place and teasing the cat with bits of tofurky.

I have this strange addiction to frozen meals. If it comes in a package and can be heated in five minutes or less then I want to marry it and have its babies. You should see me around a Healthy Choice tomato and basil panini, we might have cute little delicious smelling babies sporting mini afros, because that’s how strong my love is. I think it’s normal for busy people to crave convenience. I have the job and the incessant travel and the having of a life and the aforementioned watching of poor reality television and there is just busyness.

The above explains why my mother’s jaw had to be surgically removed from the floor when I mentioned something about cooking. When I mentioned actually putting food in an oven or turning on a stove with a pilot light and I think she just envisioned me losing my eyebrows or my kitchen spontaneously combusting. So I promised that I would start easy with the cooking. Nothing too strenuous and ‘quick’ and hopefully edible.

It’s hard to go wrong with penne pasta. I mean you boil water, put the pasta in and add sauce or cheese or perhaps roasted tomatoes with garlic and olive oil that smells like heaven while roasting. Along with some cannellini beans and my rather wide vegetarian ass is suddenly pumped with protein and happiness.

And as an added bonus, I enjoy taking photos - albeit completely shitty and amateur, photos - of food. Food doesn’t talk back or move or try to lick you when you’re trying to take a shot. Food doesn’t holler out “Make sure you get my good side!” or “Photoshop my hips!” when you have about 7 seconds to capture a moment.

Recipe from the Food Network:

3 large tomatoes, cut into wedges
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1(15 ounce) can cannellini beans
1/2 pound penne pasta
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, torn
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Slice each tomato into 8 wedges and discard the seeds. Put the tomato wedges and garlic into a 9 by 13-inch roasting pan. Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and a few turns of pepper. Roast in the oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes.

Drain the beans into a large colander in the sink. Cook the pasta according to the directions on the package. Drain the pasta into the colander containing the beans, so the hot pasta water will warm the beans. Return drained pasta and beans to the pasta pot.

When the tomatoes are done, pick out the garlic cloves, squeeze the garlic out of the skin into a small bowl and mash with a fork. Pour the roasted tomatoes into the pasta pot, add the garlic, the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil, the basil and additional salt and pepper, to taste. Toss to combine. Serve topped with the Parmesan.

Test shots

October 22, 2007 | Filed under: Fotografias, The object of my obsession

“I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it.” ~Author Unknown

I bought a new camera on Friday. A Sony Alpha A100 to be exact, a choice that I did not come to lightly. In fact it took about seven months of decision making and reading reviews and I swear to God that due to my decision making by committee, if anyone ever does actually propose to me, I won’t be the girl that jumps up and down screaming yes. I’ll be the girl that says “Can I get back to you on that one?” and then makes a list only returning with an answer four months later.

Part of the decision making process was figuring out why image stabilization and having a camera body larger than the size of softball, are necessities. Something happened to me prior to birth, some genetic defect in a chromosome that caused my feet and hands to be roughly the size of those of an orangutan. My father and I did an experiment today when I he gave my camera an incredulous look because it’s not a Nikon. My hands are larger than his and he is unable to palm a NBA regulation size basketball; therefore a D40 and Canon Rebel were out of the question unless you want my middle finger to be in each shot. So a Sony it was.

The test shots were to see whether or not the camera actually worked and to see if I could use the lens without breaking it or pulling it off the body. The shots weren’t to test the validity of a bit of noise at high ISO or white-balance. Especially since I didn’t find out what ISO means until 27 seconds ago when I started taking pictures of my new Converse in low light. I pretty much just wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t have to go anywhere near Best Buy’s half ass excuse for customer service anytime in the immediate future.

There will be a string of shots of The Great Thomas the Tank Engine Track Redesign of 2007 (redux); which has no rhyme or reason but after a few glasses of six-dollar cabernet sauvignon and a two year old without pants, a lot of things are really entertaining. More than half of the shots are out of focus except for one of Amy lying on the floor, in the fetal position after Jason ruined all of her hard work. It is a lovely way to remember her by since I won’t see her again until January. The only other shot I enjoy is a photo of trees in the deep woods behind my father’s house in East Bumblefuck, NY. This shot is the only thing that kept me from pulling over on a highway to take a picture of the river and the surrounding mountains. It looks like someone threw the brightest reds and oranges all across a cerulean blue painted sky and sadly it will be over far too soon.