Friday, June 29, 2007

Falling cakes

Last night I had my first real cake failure.

I say "real" because of course there have been some unsatisfactory cakes in my past, cakes that didn't look so pretty, cakes that didn't quite taste like they were supposed to, cakes that were in fact brownies.

But until last night I had yet to make a cake that was totally inedible.
And I blame Emeril for it.

My first mistake was probably in choosing a recipe that called for no flour and 11 eggs, seperated. But FoodNetwork.com gave it an "easy" rating, so I got brave.

I thought everything was going really well. I looked like a pro separating the yolks and whites. I beat the fuck out of those whites, they formed nice pretty peaks.

I think where I really got hung up was when he told me to "beat the yolks until they are pale yellow and ribbon-like." Ribbon-like is not an adequate description. Not to mention when you beat yolks they don't bear any resemblance to ribbons, not even after 10 minutes. They look like eggs.

But still, I was optimistic. After I added the sugar, the yolks bore a strange un-egg like resemblance to floured cake mix. And the chocolate and butter mixed right in. Then came folding in the egg whites.

This is where I blame Emeril. Why is there no video showing me what the mix is supposed to look like? Mine ended up looking like the vomit of a college student who has drunk to0 many irish coffees, with chunks of egg whites floating in a sea of brown eggie goo. Also, I had about twice as much as I was supposed to. As in, I filled up an entire other cake pan.

Its a testament to the good rum my mom brought back from Haiti that I didn't stop right here.

I put those fuckers in the oven. I left them there for two hours like the recipe said. I pull them out and....they're not baked at the bottom. At all. Mud fudge.

Which is when I realized that possibly I shouldn't have put a baking sheet underneath them to catch any leaks.

So now I have two completely ruined cakes, a pan of half melted white chocolate sauce that was supposed to go over them, and half an hour to get to Giant Eagle and buy a birthday cake.

Bobby Flay's recipes never treat me like this.

I feel like Audrey Hepburn at cooking school in Sabrina. Where is my nice duke to show me what's wrong with my souffle?

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Why Salman Rushdie will probably be much more appreciated after he's dead, Part 1


This man has been made a knight.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6756149.stm

He is also married to this lady...




























And he has these guys trying to kill him...
















So really, he's a modern day...

















Which makes him the most glamorous writer since...



Just kidding. He would totally kick her heathen ass.
Are the Slytherins a thinly veiled metaphor for islamic fundamentalists? Discuss.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Paris Hilton

I almost got into an argument last night with a lesbian who was all like "stupid bitch, she's responsible to DO something with her wealth, since its real power, ect"

And I'm all like, wait. How is she anymore responsible to be a do-gooder than anyone else? She didn't MAKE her money. She was born into it. So I think she's even more off the hook, since she didn't have a hand in whatever capitalist skein created that empire. She isn't responsible for shit.

And I don't even know what she's doing that's SO bad. I mean, I drink. I do drugs. I like to wear slutty clothes. I've slept with people. I've said mean things about people. I would cry if I had to go to jail, especially if I've been trying really hard to get out of it, which any rational person would do. So maybe she deserves to go to jail. If I had a friend who did stupid stuff all the time, and they got busted, you'd say "well, it was gonna happen". But I don't go around rejoicing in debasing pictures of them. There's only a few people who I would rejoice in the humiliation of that much, and they all work for this administration. So I have much better reasons to hate them than some cellphone sex tape that you all jerked off to.

All of which goes to show that even if Barack Obama is elected darlings, it doesn't fix what's wrong with us.

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

I leave early this morning to drive to Kent and pick up a transcript from 8 years ago. It seems like so much effort for such a paltry stupid thing. Also I had to pay a 13 dollar library fine to get access to it. Which is better than the 100 dollars I owe Cuyahoga. You would think I would be super awesome library girl, considering that books are my only link to sanity in an otherwise cubicled world. But libraries and I are in fact mortal enemies. They never have anything I want to read, their new release tables are full of James Patterson and romances, and they want me to bring things back on time. I, in turn, find the three books worth having in the branch, read them, and promptly forget I have them. Maybe mortal enemies is the wrong terminology. Its more like an interdependent eco-system. After all, if it weren't for people like me, they might have decent stuff. And if people like me had cars for most of their adult lives, they might have brought stuff back on time. And if the city and state didn't take all my monies in taxes to support James Patterson propaganda machines, then I might have had a car and returned those four dvds. To Lakewood. Which I lived a block away from.

With 28 fast approaching, my body has decided to completely break down on me in the last month. Migraines every day. Horrible new allergies. Heartburn. Bad ankles. All the strength I had in my legs from carrying around this massive body has suddenly and unexplainabley (not a word) left. My eyes goo every morning. My face breaks out.

Two yorkshire terriers moved in next door, and they barked all morning. It doesn't bother me necessarily, but I wonder how the cat feels.

Sean got a certified letter from the IRS and it was a letter telling us they owed him money. How cruel is it to send that out certified? A regular, easily left in our mailbox, letter would have sufficed guys.

You know, I have resisted getting fancy phones and even an ipod for so freaking long, I thought I was getting old. But the iphone makes me pant. God machine indeed. Excess exceeded.

And finally, I will study Judd Apatow's career and copy it. I think the main secret is doing a lot of lines with Adam Sandler. Also having morals of some sort.