As part of my goal to read 50 pieces of reputable fiction, I picked up Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, prepared to be scandalized. Lolita did not disappoint me there. Sometimes the cultural air seems filled with the smoke of the expectation that society is degrading. That in the old days, people looked out for each other, took responsibility for their actions, were tougher, were kinder, had a better work ethic; that we raised children as a village. It seems to me that every generation says these same things; that every generation despairs of the pleasure-seeking laziness and carelessness of their children. And if this is so, then was the first generation the most selfless, the most diligent, the most disciplined? And are we then doomed to be slowly eroded away to nothing? Or is it just that young people, generally speaking, cannot see the future and they make their own mistakes, just as their parents did? I don't think that values have a half-life. I think that there are just as many hard-working and kind people today as there ever were, and we - that is to say, as we become the older generation - are awfully prone to believing that our own experiences are unique. In any event, I am heartened to see that there were just as many pedophiles in the 1950's as there are today. Happily for our children, and sadly for Dolores Haze, there are now laws to protect children from sexual predation.
I don't buy it, by the way. That "Lolita" describes a sexually precocious girl. That Lolita is about love, which is what Lionel Trilling is quoted to have said on the inside of my copy. Neither am I especially interested in carving up this novel with a Freudian knife. This is what interests me about Lolita:
The separation between erotic experience and the act of sex. Every:single:page contains erotic language, but there is seldom a syllable said about sex itself. Intercourse is not described, because this is not a romance novel. Perhaps this is what Trilling was talking about, but just as erotic experience is not sex, and sex is not love, erotic experience is not love. They are related and connected, but not the same.
I liked the language very much. It was lyrical, ardent and flowery, almost to the extent that those maple leaf-shaped maple sugar candies are sweet. And just as I cannot eat an entire maple sugar candy, I did not read all of Lolita. I read up until Rita, and then read the dedication at the end. I was expecting language along the lines of Like Water for Chocolate; very elegant, but with some metaphors not quite reaching me. I'm sure they were lovely metaphors in Spanish, but they translated with something missing. But that was not the case. Instead, when Nabokov found that a French idiom was superior to an English one, he used it and left it in French. So there were expressions that I did not understand and did not look up, but understood from their context and lyrical quality.
I wondered why Lolita is considered such a necessary read, not because I think it lacks something, but I just wondered about the thought processes and motivations. It seems to me that Lolita is included in top novel lists because it contextualizes what is often treated as a strange kind of sexual deviation. Sexual deviancy is not new. I am happy that there are laws to protect children, and I do not believe that Lolita "asked for it." To come away from Lolita believing that Lolita was willing and consensual is to miss a material point. Humbert Humbert does not live in this reality. His retelling is not factual but sensual. It is his experience, and the reader can "hear" him "spin" the story to cast himself admirably. I don't think Nabokov wanted us to admire H.H., and I certainly don't think Nabokov admired the man himself. He made this character cringing and creeping and pathetic, abusive of others and temperamental; he crafted this manipulative sexual predator who time and time again rationalized his actions and reassigned blame for his failures. I wonder if Nabokov knew someone who relayed the germinal experiences and character traits, or if he found these impulses in himself first.
That is my experience with Lolita.
As for the rest of my list, I have made good progress with #008, and I have revised #009 at my mother's urging. #012 is also underway; I went to Boston Sunday with my future roommates and we did see a place, and have further revised our criteria. #013 is underway and will require tenacity.
#090 is in evidence on the back porch with some very cheerful tomatoes, peppers and basil.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
A Prayer for Owen Meany
I went to a very, very good school. I don't mean my college, though that was certainly great as well; the public school system in the town where I was raised (and regrettably, still live, boo) is quite good. All the same, I was not in the habit of reading any of the assigned literature, even though I took all the AP English courses. So my self-satisfied little bubble was quite burst when I actually went down the checklist of books on the two 100 Best Novels lists. For my 101 in 1001 list, I set myself the task of reading 50 of the books on the list(s), with ones read before not to count. Because, in my vast reading experience, I had surely read at least a quarter of them already.
Now, I was a big reader as a little one, but I often chose to relive old favorites rather than pick up new stuff. So I know the whole Little House series, My Side of the Mountain and The Giver by heart. When I got to high school and SSR (sustained silent reading) was done away with, I forgot about books. If I wasn't forced to remember what I was reading during the day, I forgot about it and never finished it. I cannot tell you why, as an avid and I dare say good reader, Going After Cacciato sits on my little girls' blue bookshelf, its binding fresh and crackly. If I knew, I'd market it to all the frustrated kids out there and be a bajillionaire. Alas...
Throughout college, leisure reading was precluded by the always-looming need to read one massive text book or another. I read a lot of peer-reviewed journals in college -- devoured them. I believe that, even including 6 week Christmas breaks and 15 week summer vacations, the only things I read for pleasure were: the Harry Potter series, Wicked, and Son of a Witch.
And big-girl literature is quite different from otherwise-girl literature. I'm sure of any list of top children's books would be much more familiar to me. For instance, I read the Newbery Award winners from 1996, 1995, 1994, 1992, 1990, 1987, 1986, 1978, 1976, 1973, 1971, 1963, 1961, 1949, 1945 (areyoueffingkiddingme?), 1944, 1942, 1940, 1938 (my grandmother always bought me a Newbery Medal winner), and 1936. I stopped being a "child" in 1998 and so have read 1/3 of all the Newbery Medal winners of my time. Which is not to say that the Newbery Medal is the be-all and end-all (I'm sure the relative merits of this award and that list are very contentious in some circles), but for pete's sake, I was a well-read child and I expected to find myself a well-read young adult!
And yet, from the lists I set down for myself, my "50" may not be any of the following: Animal Farm (#31, R#20), Lord of the Flies (#41, R#25), The Call of the Wild (#88, R#75), The Lord of the Rings (R#4), To Kill a Mockingbird (R#5), The Handmaid's Tale (R#53). I have excluded six novels out of a combined 120+. SIX.
On the bright side, I may be an ignorant, ill-read troll of a suburbanite, but at least my options are open.
I think my friend pulled A Prayer for Owen Meany off the shelf in the family room, because she applies herself to leisure reading and is always yanking books off of shelves. There are a few books of each other's we've had so long that we can't remember where they originated. I was putting away her early-morning selections and picked up Owen Meany, and started to read it. Don't worry, I won't spoil it. And take care you don't skip ahead or do something silly like read the Wikipedia article. You need to follow the rules to read Owen Meany, or risk losing the impact of it. So I plodded through it, and an unfortunately-timed cold, which has dovetailed beautifully with my raging pollen allergies, has made me loathe to leave the house. And so today, I finished it. This is my first encounter with John Irving, and I appreciated his affection for New England and old Yankee mannerisms. The way he describes Johnny's grandmother, as if he were doing so to people who had never met a Yankee in their life, made me feel a little less guilty about appreciating it. Perhaps there are indeed people out there who aren't so familiar with New England as to have their preconceived notions. Preppiness, and an appreciation for it that isn't wholly based on the (entirely understandable) love of J. Crew, is comforting to me. I have heard that this theme, his adulation of prep schools (the man grew up in Exeter), Labrador retrievers, and New Hampshire do wear on the reader after six or seven novels with the same throbbing undercurrent, but that is, I think, humanizing. It wasn't until JK Rowling that I understood that a novelist had to make up a universe...make up opinions, tendencies, uhg, all those things about myself that color my world. How is someone able to shed it? Perhaps no one can, or perhaps I just love to proselytize too much.
I liked the main character. He was so refreshingly devoid of self-pity. No, wrong word. Everybody loves an underdog story, right? To reflect this, most characters in novels have something against them. Yes, we want to see them overcome those obstacles, but somehow I doubt that life is about congratulating yourself for overcoming your perceived setbacks. Johnny is an illegitimate child whose mother dies when he's very young. But the novel is not ripe with the poignance of missing her (regret), it's filled with how much he loved her. It's filled with how much he loved his Grandmother, Dan, Hester, and Owen. A Prayer for Owen Meany, as a work of fiction, has a happy ending.
How lovely :)
Now, I was a big reader as a little one, but I often chose to relive old favorites rather than pick up new stuff. So I know the whole Little House series, My Side of the Mountain and The Giver by heart. When I got to high school and SSR (sustained silent reading) was done away with, I forgot about books. If I wasn't forced to remember what I was reading during the day, I forgot about it and never finished it. I cannot tell you why, as an avid and I dare say good reader, Going After Cacciato sits on my little girls' blue bookshelf, its binding fresh and crackly. If I knew, I'd market it to all the frustrated kids out there and be a bajillionaire. Alas...
Throughout college, leisure reading was precluded by the always-looming need to read one massive text book or another. I read a lot of peer-reviewed journals in college -- devoured them. I believe that, even including 6 week Christmas breaks and 15 week summer vacations, the only things I read for pleasure were: the Harry Potter series, Wicked, and Son of a Witch.
And big-girl literature is quite different from otherwise-girl literature. I'm sure of any list of top children's books would be much more familiar to me. For instance, I read the Newbery Award winners from 1996, 1995, 1994, 1992, 1990, 1987, 1986, 1978, 1976, 1973, 1971, 1963, 1961, 1949, 1945 (areyoueffingkiddingme?), 1944, 1942, 1940, 1938 (my grandmother always bought me a Newbery Medal winner), and 1936. I stopped being a "child" in 1998 and so have read 1/3 of all the Newbery Medal winners of my time. Which is not to say that the Newbery Medal is the be-all and end-all (I'm sure the relative merits of this award and that list are very contentious in some circles), but for pete's sake, I was a well-read child and I expected to find myself a well-read young adult!
And yet, from the lists I set down for myself, my "50" may not be any of the following: Animal Farm (#31, R#20), Lord of the Flies (#41, R#25), The Call of the Wild (#88, R#75), The Lord of the Rings (R#4), To Kill a Mockingbird (R#5), The Handmaid's Tale (R#53). I have excluded six novels out of a combined 120+. SIX.
On the bright side, I may be an ignorant, ill-read troll of a suburbanite, but at least my options are open.
I think my friend pulled A Prayer for Owen Meany off the shelf in the family room, because she applies herself to leisure reading and is always yanking books off of shelves. There are a few books of each other's we've had so long that we can't remember where they originated. I was putting away her early-morning selections and picked up Owen Meany, and started to read it. Don't worry, I won't spoil it. And take care you don't skip ahead or do something silly like read the Wikipedia article. You need to follow the rules to read Owen Meany, or risk losing the impact of it. So I plodded through it, and an unfortunately-timed cold, which has dovetailed beautifully with my raging pollen allergies, has made me loathe to leave the house. And so today, I finished it. This is my first encounter with John Irving, and I appreciated his affection for New England and old Yankee mannerisms. The way he describes Johnny's grandmother, as if he were doing so to people who had never met a Yankee in their life, made me feel a little less guilty about appreciating it. Perhaps there are indeed people out there who aren't so familiar with New England as to have their preconceived notions. Preppiness, and an appreciation for it that isn't wholly based on the (entirely understandable) love of J. Crew, is comforting to me. I have heard that this theme, his adulation of prep schools (the man grew up in Exeter), Labrador retrievers, and New Hampshire do wear on the reader after six or seven novels with the same throbbing undercurrent, but that is, I think, humanizing. It wasn't until JK Rowling that I understood that a novelist had to make up a universe...make up opinions, tendencies, uhg, all those things about myself that color my world. How is someone able to shed it? Perhaps no one can, or perhaps I just love to proselytize too much.
I liked the main character. He was so refreshingly devoid of self-pity. No, wrong word. Everybody loves an underdog story, right? To reflect this, most characters in novels have something against them. Yes, we want to see them overcome those obstacles, but somehow I doubt that life is about congratulating yourself for overcoming your perceived setbacks. Johnny is an illegitimate child whose mother dies when he's very young. But the novel is not ripe with the poignance of missing her (regret), it's filled with how much he loved her. It's filled with how much he loved his Grandmother, Dan, Hester, and Owen. A Prayer for Owen Meany, as a work of fiction, has a happy ending.
How lovely :)
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Books from S
Unfortunately, while Marlo Morgan's Mutant Message Down Under has made its way onto my list of most moving novels, it is not "non-western canon" nor part of The Modern Library's 100 Best Novels, so I cannot cross anything off my lists. Regardless, it deserves at least a brief discussion.
I'm not sure whether or not I find it amusing that while We celebrate interest in other cultures and new experiences, I perceive that "novelty-seeking" is a fault or flaw, associated with rash decision-making, emotional volatility and hedonism. In any event, while novelty-seeking may lead one to buyer's remorse or extravagant car insurance rates, it has led me to explore other cultures.
Watching Australia (2008), I was inwardly a little embarrassed by how little I knew about Aborigines and their cultural roles in contemporary Australia. As an American, my world has always been full of structured information and contextual clues about American Indians ("You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time"), so I at least feel some familiarity there. Furthermore, even as a child - back in the days before 847590472044 channels - I mostly watched the Discovery Channel, and we always got National Geographic. How quaint, I know. I can remember plenty of coverage for hunter-gatherer and nomadic societies on the African and South American continent, but none featuring Australians. Dear Media: It's all your fault. Again. Love, C. By far the most startling line in Australia was hearing the brother-in-law referred to as "black." Excuse me?
I said as much to S. S is my riding instructor here at home, and my boss at one job, and she spent her formative years in the Australian outback. She lent me Mutant Message Down Under, which is a strange title: the first two words refer to important parts of the story, and the Down Under is just there, I think, to contextualize the title and keep people from thinking it's about six-legged frogs. The forward of the novel, which is short, explains that the experiences were real, but that the content may be more digestible if treated as fiction.
The prose is simple and clear, and the tone is sometimes frustrated or desperate, though I'd hesitate to say "preachy." I left feeling a little cheated, not by the content itself, but by my inability to fully absorb the message of humanism, since I have not had the experiences of the author, whatever they may have been. Briefly, the author is an American woman who was doing advocacy work with a group of half-caste (that is to say, "neither here nor there") people of Aboriginal descent. For her work, she is honored by a meeting with a nomadic tribe. She is under the impression that she is attending a luncheon, but when she is driven out into the middle of the desert, she realizes she may have overdressed. She has no idea where the roads are, so she cannot drive back. Her choices are limited, and she goes with them. Begging your pardon, but whether or not a man's broken leg was healed in a day is not among my priorities.
The last novel I read was Geek Love (which has nothing, nothing to do with romance or nerdiness), and I found this book to be pleasantly devoid of indelicate subjects. We cannot be shocked all of the time! The message is lovely, and the reading uncomplicated.
I have read that Mutant Message Down Under is controversial because some Australian whites feel it casts them very negatively, and some Aborigines feel it is a sweeping generalization. I'm quite sure that the author did not intend a sweeping generalization, but rather that since westerners have very little exposure to relatable stories about the many, many societies that inhabited Australia before the arrival of whites, assumptions are bound to be made. The solution is not to ban the first taste, but to encourage a wider palate with more information. If I do not understand you, tell me and show me!
I'm not sure whether or not I find it amusing that while We celebrate interest in other cultures and new experiences, I perceive that "novelty-seeking" is a fault or flaw, associated with rash decision-making, emotional volatility and hedonism. In any event, while novelty-seeking may lead one to buyer's remorse or extravagant car insurance rates, it has led me to explore other cultures.
Watching Australia (2008), I was inwardly a little embarrassed by how little I knew about Aborigines and their cultural roles in contemporary Australia. As an American, my world has always been full of structured information and contextual clues about American Indians ("You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time"), so I at least feel some familiarity there. Furthermore, even as a child - back in the days before 847590472044 channels - I mostly watched the Discovery Channel, and we always got National Geographic. How quaint, I know. I can remember plenty of coverage for hunter-gatherer and nomadic societies on the African and South American continent, but none featuring Australians. Dear Media: It's all your fault. Again. Love, C. By far the most startling line in Australia was hearing the brother-in-law referred to as "black." Excuse me?
I said as much to S. S is my riding instructor here at home, and my boss at one job, and she spent her formative years in the Australian outback. She lent me Mutant Message Down Under, which is a strange title: the first two words refer to important parts of the story, and the Down Under is just there, I think, to contextualize the title and keep people from thinking it's about six-legged frogs. The forward of the novel, which is short, explains that the experiences were real, but that the content may be more digestible if treated as fiction.
The prose is simple and clear, and the tone is sometimes frustrated or desperate, though I'd hesitate to say "preachy." I left feeling a little cheated, not by the content itself, but by my inability to fully absorb the message of humanism, since I have not had the experiences of the author, whatever they may have been. Briefly, the author is an American woman who was doing advocacy work with a group of half-caste (that is to say, "neither here nor there") people of Aboriginal descent. For her work, she is honored by a meeting with a nomadic tribe. She is under the impression that she is attending a luncheon, but when she is driven out into the middle of the desert, she realizes she may have overdressed. She has no idea where the roads are, so she cannot drive back. Her choices are limited, and she goes with them. Begging your pardon, but whether or not a man's broken leg was healed in a day is not among my priorities.
The last novel I read was Geek Love (which has nothing, nothing to do with romance or nerdiness), and I found this book to be pleasantly devoid of indelicate subjects. We cannot be shocked all of the time! The message is lovely, and the reading uncomplicated.
I have read that Mutant Message Down Under is controversial because some Australian whites feel it casts them very negatively, and some Aborigines feel it is a sweeping generalization. I'm quite sure that the author did not intend a sweeping generalization, but rather that since westerners have very little exposure to relatable stories about the many, many societies that inhabited Australia before the arrival of whites, assumptions are bound to be made. The solution is not to ban the first taste, but to encourage a wider palate with more information. If I do not understand you, tell me and show me!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Practice makes for improvements
I previously described a practice cake made from the Epicurious chocolate layer cake recipe. Two weeks later I went ahead and made the real thing for Mommy's 45th birthday. It was glorious to taste, and the ganache was the stuff of dreams.
It was still a good learning experience. The hour was late and my patience and impulse-control were running low. I could not bear to let it cool before frosting it, and I did pay the price. Furthermore, that gel in-tube icing is no fun whatsoever, so I made more and added another layer of writing on top, to an acceptably cool effect. Was it a work of art, with its peaky writing and craterous center? Perhaps not, but it was pretty damn cute and tasted perfect.
I have since made this cake once more, for my Great-Grandma's (a.k.a. GG) 95th birthday on April 16th. Following some fantastic cake-baking tips, I halved the recipe to make a single, decadent 10" layer and omitted the raspberry filling (GG likes chocolate). The oven at The Nest is the Quarter Horse of ovens; never quite on top of things, like perhaps it was meant to be something, anything but a hunter...wait, are we talking about horses? Anyways, the oven runs cool so I just set it to the stated temperature rather than a little higher, and baked the cake a bit longer. I also made my own cake strips by neatly wrapping wet paper towels in aluminum foil and pinning them to the edge of the pan. Planning ahead helped, as I had all day Saturday to let the cake cool first in the pan, then on the rack, before wrapping it in plastic wrap and moving it to the freezer. The chilly and remarkably even layer, removed about an hour later, was about a thousand times easier to handle, and less crumby. A bit of ganache softened in the microwave made a workable, waste-less crumb coat, after which the cake was retired to the fridge for a half-hour or so. The main coat came out lovely and smooth.
For the writing, I chose to trace out my letters in the ganache with a toothpick first. I have a lot of icing anxiety, and this experience did little to assuage it. I followed the JoyofBaking.com royal icing recipe, which was simple and did not require any thermometers (I refuse to make any kind of frosting or icing which requires a bloody candy thermometer) and dyed it a faint blue. I piped "Happy 95th Birthday GG!" over my tracing, and decorated the edge with pale blue dots. It was really quite beautiful...
...until the icing broke. Why did this happen?! Fortunately, GG is quite nearly blind, not that she would ever have said anything even if she could see how the liquidy parts spread away from the stiffer center and dried that way. My only guess is that perhaps I did not beat the eggs thoroughly enough, and the lemon juice ran off with some of the lumen. How annoying! It was practically perfect in every way, but for the icing. Boo.
Regardless, it was a nice 95th birthday party, and having never heard the story before, I begged to hear how GG met Vincent, her long-time boyfriend of truly staggering vitality. Vincent left us at the age of 104, and what a fabulous character he was, aqua Cadillac and all.
It must have been in the early or mid 80's, as my great grandfather died in 1986 quite soon after I was born, I think. A strapping farmer born in French-speaking Maine, my great grandfather was steadily deteriorating under Alzheimer's. His wife, a petite 5'4", cared for him until family and friends insisted that she could no longer manage his needs alone, and so he was sent to a professional care facility. She visited always.
GG was not long after this decision swimming with a friend, enjoying Senior Swim hour, which actually lasted 2 hours. Most of the attendees were women, to whom 2 lanes were devoted, while the other lanes were for the men, of which there was only one. You can hear my great grandma laughing at herself when she describes how sorry she felt for the little old man, swimming by himself. Perhaps she thought she was brightening his day in exchanging pleasantries after being introduced to Mr. Vincent Stella by her friend, Terry.
After their swim, my great grandmother went to Boston Chicken (as it was called in those days) for lunch, while Terry went home, having already eaten. And who should she bump into there but the little old man from the pool! My great grandma must have thought herself quite charitable, offering to pay for the little old man's lunch, but he declined and insisted on paying for hers instead. As she watched him go to his aqua-blue Cadillac, she felt even sorrier for him. Said she, to herself: "That must be his only possession left in the world! Poor thing."
I think that, to use my mother's favorite expression, I come by my love of story-telling honestly. I cannot imagine that my great grandma would keep such a funny tale to herself, and so she told Terry, who laughed and laughed. "Oh, no!" she must have cried, telling her friend not to pity the little old man, who had emigrated from Italy at the age of 14 and had cheerfully retired at forty thanks to a thriving oil business. He had had a wife, and plenty of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
My great grandmother then recalls sitting at home one day, now empty without her husband, and seeing a be-hatted head bob past the window. She looked up, and when she heard a knock at the door, she pressed herself into a corner that gave her a convenient, secretive view of the door through a great picture window. There stood Vincent! Surprised as anything - or perhaps surprised only for the story - she invited him in, and after he crossed the threshold he swept off his hat. My great grandfather was, I know, quite a good man, but he and Vincent must have been like night and day. The former had been hard of hearing since boyhood, and was not naturally inclined to exuberance. He was tall and strong, quiet and shy, never drank or smoked, and wanted above anything to return to his farm after the war. His father sold off everything during the war: the plow horses, the property, the livestock and machinery, and when the tractor was finally sold, my great grandfather wept. Vincent was not a tall man, but was meticulously groomed and fashionable, taking great pride in his appearance. He loved to dance and loved to be photographed, and had a bigness all his own.
And after sitting with my great grandmother for some time, Vincent asked her to dinner.
It was still a good learning experience. The hour was late and my patience and impulse-control were running low. I could not bear to let it cool before frosting it, and I did pay the price. Furthermore, that gel in-tube icing is no fun whatsoever, so I made more and added another layer of writing on top, to an acceptably cool effect. Was it a work of art, with its peaky writing and craterous center? Perhaps not, but it was pretty damn cute and tasted perfect.
I have since made this cake once more, for my Great-Grandma's (a.k.a. GG) 95th birthday on April 16th. Following some fantastic cake-baking tips, I halved the recipe to make a single, decadent 10" layer and omitted the raspberry filling (GG likes chocolate). The oven at The Nest is the Quarter Horse of ovens; never quite on top of things, like perhaps it was meant to be something, anything but a hunter...wait, are we talking about horses? Anyways, the oven runs cool so I just set it to the stated temperature rather than a little higher, and baked the cake a bit longer. I also made my own cake strips by neatly wrapping wet paper towels in aluminum foil and pinning them to the edge of the pan. Planning ahead helped, as I had all day Saturday to let the cake cool first in the pan, then on the rack, before wrapping it in plastic wrap and moving it to the freezer. The chilly and remarkably even layer, removed about an hour later, was about a thousand times easier to handle, and less crumby. A bit of ganache softened in the microwave made a workable, waste-less crumb coat, after which the cake was retired to the fridge for a half-hour or so. The main coat came out lovely and smooth.
For the writing, I chose to trace out my letters in the ganache with a toothpick first. I have a lot of icing anxiety, and this experience did little to assuage it. I followed the JoyofBaking.com royal icing recipe, which was simple and did not require any thermometers (I refuse to make any kind of frosting or icing which requires a bloody candy thermometer) and dyed it a faint blue. I piped "Happy 95th Birthday GG!" over my tracing, and decorated the edge with pale blue dots. It was really quite beautiful...
...until the icing broke. Why did this happen?! Fortunately, GG is quite nearly blind, not that she would ever have said anything even if she could see how the liquidy parts spread away from the stiffer center and dried that way. My only guess is that perhaps I did not beat the eggs thoroughly enough, and the lemon juice ran off with some of the lumen. How annoying! It was practically perfect in every way, but for the icing. Boo.
Regardless, it was a nice 95th birthday party, and having never heard the story before, I begged to hear how GG met Vincent, her long-time boyfriend of truly staggering vitality. Vincent left us at the age of 104, and what a fabulous character he was, aqua Cadillac and all.
It must have been in the early or mid 80's, as my great grandfather died in 1986 quite soon after I was born, I think. A strapping farmer born in French-speaking Maine, my great grandfather was steadily deteriorating under Alzheimer's. His wife, a petite 5'4", cared for him until family and friends insisted that she could no longer manage his needs alone, and so he was sent to a professional care facility. She visited always.
GG was not long after this decision swimming with a friend, enjoying Senior Swim hour, which actually lasted 2 hours. Most of the attendees were women, to whom 2 lanes were devoted, while the other lanes were for the men, of which there was only one. You can hear my great grandma laughing at herself when she describes how sorry she felt for the little old man, swimming by himself. Perhaps she thought she was brightening his day in exchanging pleasantries after being introduced to Mr. Vincent Stella by her friend, Terry.
After their swim, my great grandmother went to Boston Chicken (as it was called in those days) for lunch, while Terry went home, having already eaten. And who should she bump into there but the little old man from the pool! My great grandma must have thought herself quite charitable, offering to pay for the little old man's lunch, but he declined and insisted on paying for hers instead. As she watched him go to his aqua-blue Cadillac, she felt even sorrier for him. Said she, to herself: "That must be his only possession left in the world! Poor thing."
I think that, to use my mother's favorite expression, I come by my love of story-telling honestly. I cannot imagine that my great grandma would keep such a funny tale to herself, and so she told Terry, who laughed and laughed. "Oh, no!" she must have cried, telling her friend not to pity the little old man, who had emigrated from Italy at the age of 14 and had cheerfully retired at forty thanks to a thriving oil business. He had had a wife, and plenty of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
My great grandmother then recalls sitting at home one day, now empty without her husband, and seeing a be-hatted head bob past the window. She looked up, and when she heard a knock at the door, she pressed herself into a corner that gave her a convenient, secretive view of the door through a great picture window. There stood Vincent! Surprised as anything - or perhaps surprised only for the story - she invited him in, and after he crossed the threshold he swept off his hat. My great grandfather was, I know, quite a good man, but he and Vincent must have been like night and day. The former had been hard of hearing since boyhood, and was not naturally inclined to exuberance. He was tall and strong, quiet and shy, never drank or smoked, and wanted above anything to return to his farm after the war. His father sold off everything during the war: the plow horses, the property, the livestock and machinery, and when the tractor was finally sold, my great grandfather wept. Vincent was not a tall man, but was meticulously groomed and fashionable, taking great pride in his appearance. He loved to dance and loved to be photographed, and had a bigness all his own.
And after sitting with my great grandmother for some time, Vincent asked her to dinner.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
101 in 1001 days
I've decided to join in on the fun and make my own list of 101 tasks to complete in 1001 days. If Thursday, April 23rd represents "Day Zero" then I must complete these tasks by Thursday, January 19th, 2012. For more information, visit Day Zero.
Four things greater than all things are, -
Women and Horses and Power and War.
Rudyard Kipling
001. Jump three feet.
002. Drive a pony.
003. Ride an Arabian again.
004. Clicker-train Beep Beep to "whoa", "walk", "trot", and "canter". (0/4)
005. Make Beep Beep into a beginner horse.
006. Attend a sporthorse inspection.
007. Break out a greenie.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin
008. Save $6,000 by August 2009.
009. Get a nanny job for summer 2009.
010. Get a volunteer lab job for summer 2009.
011. Get a volunteer or paid lab job for fall 2009.
012. Move to Boston.
013. Get a full-time job with benefits for fall 2009 in Boston.
014. Get a credit card that I pay for, or transfer the one I share with Mommy to me.
015. Find a dentist, physician, GYN and ophthalmologist in Boston.
016. Acquire copies of all my medical and dental records.
017. Organize all personal documents.
018. Throw at least one of each: apartment-warming party, Christmas party, Halloween party, New Years party, birthday party.
019. Get and decorate my own Christmas tree.
020. Send out self-made Christmas cards to family and friends.
I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.
Marie Curie
021. Learn my times-tables up to 12.
022. Learn the first 20 squares of natural numbers.
023. Learn the first 10 cubes of natural numbers.
024. Write intelligent (not "getting to know you") letters to 3 researchers whose work I admire. (0/3)
025. Seriously read 2 college textbooks. (0/2)
026. Take a Biochemistry course.
027. Take a Cell Biology course.
028. Take Genetics again, or a specific Genetics-type class if I'm not allowed to take it again.
029. Take a Molecular Biology course.
030. Finish my Biology GRE study book.
031. Take the Biology GRE.
032. Take Biochem/Cell/Molecular Biology GRE.
033. Retake the basic GREs. Shoot for a 700/600/6.0.
034. Get into the graduate program at the University of Kentucky.
"Oh! certainly,'' cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.''
"All this she must possess,'' added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.''
Jane Austen
035. Read On the Origin of the Species.
036. Read the Bible.
037. Read the Koran.
038. Read Auto Repair for Dummies (or something like it).
039. Read 50 previously unread books from the Random House/Modern Library's list of the 100 Best Novels.
040. Memorize my favorite speech from Shakespeare.
041. Read a novel in Spanish or German.
042. Read 10 books of non-western canon, such as these.
Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.
José MartÃ
043. Give up chocolate for a month on three separate occasions. (0/3)
044. Give up peanut butter for a month.
045. Give up cheese for a month.
046. Give up candy, cookies, alcohol and starchy foods for a full month on two occasions. (0/2)
047. Keep a journal of everything I eat and drink for a week on 10 occasions. (0/10)
048. Create my own ab/core routine and do it every day for a month.
049. Eat nothing after 8PM every night for a fortnight on four occasions. (0/4)
050. Make a list of the 10 Best Reasons to Do That Physical Activity Right Now!
051. Make a list of the 10 Best Reasons to Put That Down Right Now!
052. Write a goodbye letter to Chubbyself.
053. Weigh 160 lbs.
054. Weigh 150 lbs.
055. Develop a training schedule for the marathon on August 25th, 2009.
056. Run the Self-Transcendence Marathon with Julie.
057. Run a 5K.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
058. Go a whole day without complaining on 20 separate occasions. (0/20)
059. Go a whole day without saying the words "no", "not", etc. on 5 separate occasions. (0/5)
060. Go a whole day without saying "like" on 6 separate occasions. (0/6)
061. Make a list of 25 things that make me happy.
062. Make a list of 25 things that I love about myself.
063. Make a list of 25 things that I love about friends and family.
064. Take a week off from medication.
There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.
John Bradford
Often written: There but for the grace of God, go I.
065. Give blood.
066. Write and send letters to 3 people who made a difference to me growing up. (0/3)
067. Complete Emma's horse book.
068. Make dinner for my parents once a week.
069. Visit my grandma and great-grandma 20 times. (0/20)
070. Send my little brother a card for his birthday. (0/3)
071. Attend a charity ball.
072. Develop and use a nondenominational "grace" before meals.
073. Adopt a Standard Poodle.
Miscellaneous, enrichment.
074. Get an allergy test.
075. Floss at least twice a week.
076. Get into bed by 10 every night for a fortnight on 5 occasions. (0/5)
077. Eat fish once every 2 weeks, canned tuna not to count.
078. Watch 10 sunrises. (0/10)
079. Ask out a boy. Pick him up and pay for dinner.
080. Go camping.
081. Go to Germany.
082. Learn CPR.
083. Learn needlepoint.
084. Take a dance class.
085. Attend 5 plays. (0/5)
086. Attend 1 concert.
087. Make 15 museum trips. (0/15)
088. Play a game of soccer or football.
089. Make a recipe book.
090. Plant an herb or vegetable garden.
091. Plan and make 15 local meals. (0/15)
092. Make a scrapbook of some stuff from my "memory box."
093. Meditate for 5 minutes 5 times per month. (0/415)
094. Go a month without that.
095. Bring a Wikipedia article to "Featured Article" status.
096. Get back in the boat.
097. Re-learn a serviceable front crawl.
098. Write an article, letter, or blog post about ADHD.
099. Post/discuss and photograph these tasks.
100. Donate $1 to charity for each task not completed at the end of 1001 days.
101. Make a new 101 in 1001 list.
Four things greater than all things are, -
Women and Horses and Power and War.
Rudyard Kipling
001. Jump three feet.
002. Drive a pony.
003. Ride an Arabian again.
004. Clicker-train Beep Beep to "whoa", "walk", "trot", and "canter". (0/4)
005. Make Beep Beep into a beginner horse.
006. Attend a sporthorse inspection.
007. Break out a greenie.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin
008. Save $6,000 by August 2009.
009. Get a nanny job for summer 2009.
010. Get a volunteer lab job for summer 2009.
011. Get a volunteer or paid lab job for fall 2009.
012. Move to Boston.
013. Get a full-time job with benefits for fall 2009 in Boston.
014. Get a credit card that I pay for, or transfer the one I share with Mommy to me.
015. Find a dentist, physician, GYN and ophthalmologist in Boston.
016. Acquire copies of all my medical and dental records.
017. Organize all personal documents.
018. Throw at least one of each: apartment-warming party, Christmas party, Halloween party, New Years party, birthday party.
019. Get and decorate my own Christmas tree.
020. Send out self-made Christmas cards to family and friends.
I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale.
Marie Curie
021. Learn my times-tables up to 12.
022. Learn the first 20 squares of natural numbers.
023. Learn the first 10 cubes of natural numbers.
024. Write intelligent (not "getting to know you") letters to 3 researchers whose work I admire. (0/3)
025. Seriously read 2 college textbooks. (0/2)
026. Take a Biochemistry course.
027. Take a Cell Biology course.
028. Take Genetics again, or a specific Genetics-type class if I'm not allowed to take it again.
029. Take a Molecular Biology course.
030. Finish my Biology GRE study book.
031. Take the Biology GRE.
032. Take Biochem/Cell/Molecular Biology GRE.
033. Retake the basic GREs. Shoot for a 700/600/6.0.
034. Get into the graduate program at the University of Kentucky.
"Oh! certainly,'' cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.''
"All this she must possess,'' added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.''
Jane Austen
035. Read On the Origin of the Species.
036. Read the Bible.
037. Read the Koran.
038. Read Auto Repair for Dummies (or something like it).
039. Read 50 previously unread books from the Random House/Modern Library's list of the 100 Best Novels.
040. Memorize my favorite speech from Shakespeare.
041. Read a novel in Spanish or German.
042. Read 10 books of non-western canon, such as these.
Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.
José MartÃ
043. Give up chocolate for a month on three separate occasions. (0/3)
044. Give up peanut butter for a month.
045. Give up cheese for a month.
046. Give up candy, cookies, alcohol and starchy foods for a full month on two occasions. (0/2)
047. Keep a journal of everything I eat and drink for a week on 10 occasions. (0/10)
048. Create my own ab/core routine and do it every day for a month.
049. Eat nothing after 8PM every night for a fortnight on four occasions. (0/4)
050. Make a list of the 10 Best Reasons to Do That Physical Activity Right Now!
051. Make a list of the 10 Best Reasons to Put That Down Right Now!
052. Write a goodbye letter to Chubbyself.
053. Weigh 160 lbs.
054. Weigh 150 lbs.
055. Develop a training schedule for the marathon on August 25th, 2009.
056. Run the Self-Transcendence Marathon with Julie.
057. Run a 5K.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
058. Go a whole day without complaining on 20 separate occasions. (0/20)
059. Go a whole day without saying the words "no", "not", etc. on 5 separate occasions. (0/5)
060. Go a whole day without saying "like" on 6 separate occasions. (0/6)
061. Make a list of 25 things that make me happy.
062. Make a list of 25 things that I love about myself.
063. Make a list of 25 things that I love about friends and family.
064. Take a week off from medication.
There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.
John Bradford
Often written: There but for the grace of God, go I.
065. Give blood.
066. Write and send letters to 3 people who made a difference to me growing up. (0/3)
067. Complete Emma's horse book.
068. Make dinner for my parents once a week.
069. Visit my grandma and great-grandma 20 times. (0/20)
070. Send my little brother a card for his birthday. (0/3)
071. Attend a charity ball.
072. Develop and use a nondenominational "grace" before meals.
073. Adopt a Standard Poodle.
Miscellaneous, enrichment.
074. Get an allergy test.
075. Floss at least twice a week.
076. Get into bed by 10 every night for a fortnight on 5 occasions. (0/5)
077. Eat fish once every 2 weeks, canned tuna not to count.
078. Watch 10 sunrises. (0/10)
079. Ask out a boy. Pick him up and pay for dinner.
080. Go camping.
081. Go to Germany.
082. Learn CPR.
083. Learn needlepoint.
084. Take a dance class.
085. Attend 5 plays. (0/5)
086. Attend 1 concert.
087. Make 15 museum trips. (0/15)
088. Play a game of soccer or football.
089. Make a recipe book.
090. Plant an herb or vegetable garden.
091. Plan and make 15 local meals. (0/15)
092. Make a scrapbook of some stuff from my "memory box."
093. Meditate for 5 minutes 5 times per month. (0/415)
094. Go a month without that.
095. Bring a Wikipedia article to "Featured Article" status.
096. Get back in the boat.
097. Re-learn a serviceable front crawl.
098. Write an article, letter, or blog post about ADHD.
099. Post/discuss and photograph these tasks.
100. Donate $1 to charity for each task not completed at the end of 1001 days.
101. Make a new 101 in 1001 list.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thoughts, post ideas...
Climate change: our human societies are constructed around certain climate patterns; changes will affect populations. Don't be an asshole.
Little John saying he thought it would be great if a certain percentage of people in Africa died of AIDS. I grew up with my fair share of disenchanted kids with too much leisure time and expendable income; don't go all fucking JD Salinger on me.
Best sporthorse registries, creating the best sporthorse registry; Continental SH? Photo inspections and cheating, color requirements WHAAT?
Greengate lady's comments (Good ol' boy system), Interstallion efforts
Just because it's well-reasoned doesn't make it true; horse books and conformation
Pretty and marketability, that TTouch lady and face shape and prejudice
Comparative conformation and movements (hunters, Arabians, QHs etc)
Non-selective registries; diseases in WBs vs diseases in QHs, Arabians, Tbs, etc.
White horses, cream horses, colors, reviewing reviews
Ideal horse for me
ADHD horses
Defining ADHD
Science science science
Dinosaurs
Child-rearing, public school, anti-Wikipedia, recess
Politics
Books; Harry Potter
Future life, mortality/immortality
Great teachers: Mrs. something 7th grade science, Mr. Carlyon 9th grade physics, Mr. Waldinger AP Bio, Mr. Johnston band (God bless you!), Dr. B
manners, values, weddings/marriage, metabolism of sugar/thyroid health, "sensitivity", evolution, human evo., Raffi tapes & Mr. Rogers
The unfortunate Jon and Kate + 8 GSD puppies
Quiet = nice?
Embracing fluttery silliness, a la Smitten Kitchen. "My affections are fleeting, alright?"
Stupid vs. % stupid activities. The human mind is beautiful.
"You believe that people are inherently stupid and bad, and are pleasantly surprised by individuals. I believe that the human race is a beautiful thing, and tend to be disappointed by individuals."
Beauty vs. art. Beauty = expensive. Loving beauty.
Seeing the world through pony-colored glasses.
Emotional Mad-libs, emotional inertia
Little John saying he thought it would be great if a certain percentage of people in Africa died of AIDS. I grew up with my fair share of disenchanted kids with too much leisure time and expendable income; don't go all fucking JD Salinger on me.
Best sporthorse registries, creating the best sporthorse registry; Continental SH? Photo inspections and cheating, color requirements WHAAT?
Greengate lady's comments (Good ol' boy system), Interstallion efforts
Just because it's well-reasoned doesn't make it true; horse books and conformation
Pretty and marketability, that TTouch lady and face shape and prejudice
Comparative conformation and movements (hunters, Arabians, QHs etc)
Non-selective registries; diseases in WBs vs diseases in QHs, Arabians, Tbs, etc.
White horses, cream horses, colors, reviewing reviews
Ideal horse for me
ADHD horses
Defining ADHD
Science science science
Dinosaurs
Child-rearing, public school, anti-Wikipedia, recess
Politics
Books; Harry Potter
Future life, mortality/immortality
Great teachers: Mrs. something 7th grade science, Mr. Carlyon 9th grade physics, Mr. Waldinger AP Bio, Mr. Johnston band (God bless you!), Dr. B
manners, values, weddings/marriage, metabolism of sugar/thyroid health, "sensitivity", evolution, human evo., Raffi tapes & Mr. Rogers
The unfortunate Jon and Kate + 8 GSD puppies
Quiet = nice?
Embracing fluttery silliness, a la Smitten Kitchen. "My affections are fleeting, alright?"
Stupid vs. % stupid activities. The human mind is beautiful.
"You believe that people are inherently stupid and bad, and are pleasantly surprised by individuals. I believe that the human race is a beautiful thing, and tend to be disappointed by individuals."
Beauty vs. art. Beauty = expensive. Loving beauty.
Seeing the world through pony-colored glasses.
Emotional Mad-libs, emotional inertia
Practice cake
I have a silly friend. Not prankster-silly, or foolish-silly...but the kind of silly that can forget to eat if she's busy. That is something that I can experience about as purely as red-green colorblindness (as a matter of interest, I have two of those sorts). The silliest part about her relationship with food is not even that she can forget to eat, but that she can forget to eat because she's too busy baking. On the weekends, this single young lady bakes cookies and cakes and everything in between. Fabulously, too!
Invariably, someone in your life, trying to encourage you to like chemistry, will tell you that it's just like cooking. However when chemistry precedes the first buddings of impulses to cook, as it does for me, one might have to say that cooking is like chemistry. And - are you ready, old school SAT fans? - cooking : chemistry :: baking : __?__.
(a) biochem
(b) torture
(c) recess
(d) organic
(e) physics
If you chose (d) organic, congratulations, you agree with me! The parts of organic chemistry that I enjoyed entailed imagining the interactions of molecules and their conformation, which are too eenie-weenie to actually watch or see. However organic chemistry lab was 3 hours per week for 30 total weeks (two semesters) of scheduled anxiety. Chemistry and cooking are similar because one follows a recipe. Organic chemistry and baking represent the same variation on that theme; if you do not follow the instructions to the letter, things go horribly, horribly awry. I am however, a realist on this point: a doughy cookie or an icing that falls apart into a gooey mess is not tragedy on the same scale as a deep lungful of fuming sulfuric acid or a botched sodium fusion test. Some days more than others I might not feel this way, but on the whole I am more leery of a chemically-ravaged esophagus than ravaged sweets.
While the fear of imminent injury made organic chemistry lab into a weekly cortisol-fest, baking gives me just that little thrill of "Oo gosh I hope this comes out yummy!" My friend got me hooked on baking. For two weeks it was Valentine's day cookies: chocolate-dipped marzipan conversation hearts and orange butter cookies dressed alternately in white chocolate, dark chocolate, or white icing were the favorites. With oodles of sprinkles, liberal use of red food coloring, and spiffy food coloring-markers, I ended up with plates and plates of pink chocolatey sugary be-sprinkled atrocities. Oh, they were hedonism itself, drizzled in chocolate.
This past weekend I made peanut butter cookies, but I halved the recipe (yes I used half an egg!) and didn't have any peanut butter chips so I used extra extra chocolate chips. They were superb. And in other news, the notoriously badly-calibrated oven in my kitchen was beautifully-behaved. I also tried the famous Epicurious chocolate cake recipe.
There are some things that you shouldn't do for the first time when it really counts. Jumping on horseback comes to mind, and so do birthday cakes. I have never made a cake of any kind, and Mommy's 45th birthday is in the first week of March, so I needed to practice. My goal is to bake a chocolate cake with a preppy feel: pink and green will be making a cameo appearance. For my practice cake I needed 2, 10x2" round cake pans, which not only did we not have at home, but could not be found at the grocery store. Boo. The grocery store did, however, have boulder-sized hunks of Callebaut. Memorably, my college dining service had used tremendous quantities of Callebaut for Valentine's day displays, and a thieving friend provided me about 1.5 pounds of her bittersweet spoils. In any event, my practice cake is square. I started after dinner and would have finished before the end of the Oscars had the dish washer not taken several eons to give me some clean measuring implements. I had to guesstimate on the amount of chocolate: I bought 0.75 pounds and needed 3 ounces. My mommy helped me with that math. The cakes came out beautifully and slipped cheerfully out of the square pans. I used canola non-stick spray and parchment paper on the inside of (2) 9x9x2" pans.
I chose a whipped cream filling and followed The Joy of Cooking's directions for "Stabilized Whipped Cream" and then added in 0.25 cups of smooshed raspberries (seeds and all, babies). The result was pretty and a faint but lusty purplish-pink. I spread this between the two layers, and then discovered that my square cakes did not have flush edges.
I also made a very simple buttercream frosting: beat the snot out of 0.5 cups room-temperature butter and 0.5 teaspoons vanilla, then beat in - cup by cup - 4.5 cups of confectioner's sugar. Add milk a tablespoon or so at a time until it's the consistency you want. Ohmygod delicious! I think other recipes probably give you a more reliable, pliable frosting, but anything that requires a candy thermometer is too much work. Plus, I don't have a candy thermometer. I made this pretty thin to avoid a crumby massacre.
Initially, I just frosted the cakes in the hopes that the frosting would cover up the unevenness. No go. I made the frosting pretty runny, remember? So I lined up one corner and trimmed two sides. It looks marginally better now, or at least less lumpy. Bits of pink filling and brown cake do show through.
This cake is tasty. The buttermilk (horribly misleading name, blech!) and coffee give it a bitterness that keeps it from tasting cheap, and the texture is lovely. The original recipe recommends a chocolate ganache frosting and filling, but my initial reaction was that such a dark, rich, somber thing would clash a bit with my preppy goals. However, I do not think that the white frosting and fluffy pink filling are a good match for this cake. A delicious raspberry filling, more gelatinous and shiny and dense, would be delicious. Combined with a shiny ganache shell, this cake would be gorgeous...
...and sadly, exactly like the one available at Highland Park Market. Perhaps a chocolate+liquor filling would be better, or an orange or clementine filling. I haven't given up on decorating the top of the cake with darling dots of pink and green icing, but I definitely have some thinking and research to do on the subject. More later.
Invariably, someone in your life, trying to encourage you to like chemistry, will tell you that it's just like cooking. However when chemistry precedes the first buddings of impulses to cook, as it does for me, one might have to say that cooking is like chemistry. And - are you ready, old school SAT fans? - cooking : chemistry :: baking : __?__.
(a) biochem
(b) torture
(c) recess
(d) organic
(e) physics
If you chose (d) organic, congratulations, you agree with me! The parts of organic chemistry that I enjoyed entailed imagining the interactions of molecules and their conformation, which are too eenie-weenie to actually watch or see. However organic chemistry lab was 3 hours per week for 30 total weeks (two semesters) of scheduled anxiety. Chemistry and cooking are similar because one follows a recipe. Organic chemistry and baking represent the same variation on that theme; if you do not follow the instructions to the letter, things go horribly, horribly awry. I am however, a realist on this point: a doughy cookie or an icing that falls apart into a gooey mess is not tragedy on the same scale as a deep lungful of fuming sulfuric acid or a botched sodium fusion test. Some days more than others I might not feel this way, but on the whole I am more leery of a chemically-ravaged esophagus than ravaged sweets.
While the fear of imminent injury made organic chemistry lab into a weekly cortisol-fest, baking gives me just that little thrill of "Oo gosh I hope this comes out yummy!" My friend got me hooked on baking. For two weeks it was Valentine's day cookies: chocolate-dipped marzipan conversation hearts and orange butter cookies dressed alternately in white chocolate, dark chocolate, or white icing were the favorites. With oodles of sprinkles, liberal use of red food coloring, and spiffy food coloring-markers, I ended up with plates and plates of pink chocolatey sugary be-sprinkled atrocities. Oh, they were hedonism itself, drizzled in chocolate.
This past weekend I made peanut butter cookies, but I halved the recipe (yes I used half an egg!) and didn't have any peanut butter chips so I used extra extra chocolate chips. They were superb. And in other news, the notoriously badly-calibrated oven in my kitchen was beautifully-behaved. I also tried the famous Epicurious chocolate cake recipe.
There are some things that you shouldn't do for the first time when it really counts. Jumping on horseback comes to mind, and so do birthday cakes. I have never made a cake of any kind, and Mommy's 45th birthday is in the first week of March, so I needed to practice. My goal is to bake a chocolate cake with a preppy feel: pink and green will be making a cameo appearance. For my practice cake I needed 2, 10x2" round cake pans, which not only did we not have at home, but could not be found at the grocery store. Boo. The grocery store did, however, have boulder-sized hunks of Callebaut. Memorably, my college dining service had used tremendous quantities of Callebaut for Valentine's day displays, and a thieving friend provided me about 1.5 pounds of her bittersweet spoils. In any event, my practice cake is square. I started after dinner and would have finished before the end of the Oscars had the dish washer not taken several eons to give me some clean measuring implements. I had to guesstimate on the amount of chocolate: I bought 0.75 pounds and needed 3 ounces. My mommy helped me with that math. The cakes came out beautifully and slipped cheerfully out of the square pans. I used canola non-stick spray and parchment paper on the inside of (2) 9x9x2" pans.
I chose a whipped cream filling and followed The Joy of Cooking's directions for "Stabilized Whipped Cream" and then added in 0.25 cups of smooshed raspberries (seeds and all, babies). The result was pretty and a faint but lusty purplish-pink. I spread this between the two layers, and then discovered that my square cakes did not have flush edges.
I also made a very simple buttercream frosting: beat the snot out of 0.5 cups room-temperature butter and 0.5 teaspoons vanilla, then beat in - cup by cup - 4.5 cups of confectioner's sugar. Add milk a tablespoon or so at a time until it's the consistency you want. Ohmygod delicious! I think other recipes probably give you a more reliable, pliable frosting, but anything that requires a candy thermometer is too much work. Plus, I don't have a candy thermometer. I made this pretty thin to avoid a crumby massacre.
Initially, I just frosted the cakes in the hopes that the frosting would cover up the unevenness. No go. I made the frosting pretty runny, remember? So I lined up one corner and trimmed two sides. It looks marginally better now, or at least less lumpy. Bits of pink filling and brown cake do show through.
This cake is tasty. The buttermilk (horribly misleading name, blech!) and coffee give it a bitterness that keeps it from tasting cheap, and the texture is lovely. The original recipe recommends a chocolate ganache frosting and filling, but my initial reaction was that such a dark, rich, somber thing would clash a bit with my preppy goals. However, I do not think that the white frosting and fluffy pink filling are a good match for this cake. A delicious raspberry filling, more gelatinous and shiny and dense, would be delicious. Combined with a shiny ganache shell, this cake would be gorgeous...
...and sadly, exactly like the one available at Highland Park Market. Perhaps a chocolate+liquor filling would be better, or an orange or clementine filling. I haven't given up on decorating the top of the cake with darling dots of pink and green icing, but I definitely have some thinking and research to do on the subject. More later.
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