3 posts tagged “baking”
I am posting so I don't give in to temptation. I am posting so I don't prematurely cut into my crostatas and waste all my hard work. Boredom makes me cook, friends...such is the way with boring little me. I have no imagination, but I have great ambitions. Tonight I was meant to go to the gym, then come home to attack the bunch of garlic scapes I bought at the market, make myself stir-fry for dinner, then bake the hell out of some leftover fruit. Not so.
Plan got kiboshed but quick not two miles from work to home. An annoying motor vehicle accident that jams up traffic on a godawful bridge that is normally already jammed did not make the road home easy. Yeah, yesterday was the cluster near Seven Corners, today was the stupidity on the Roosevelt Bridge. Curses to you city traffic! Anyhow: serious digression!
I was too annoyed by the time I got home to even consider going to the gym and I wasn't hungry yet, so I reasoned that I'd make the crostatas first. And I conveniently forgot to thaw out my leftover pate brisse this morning, so I had to make some from scratch. No matter! Look at the pretty results! (First from my effort earlier this week -- peach-cherry pie -- and then tonight's effort, still bubbling and everything!)0
This was my first attempt at a lattice-top. Who knew dough could be so damn ornery?
The first is a cherry, the second, peach. See similar themes through this week? I don't know why I buy so much fruit. I've also got a ton of lychees...but you don't exactly bake lychees, even if they are amazing.
So tired. Won't be able to eat any of the crostatas tonight, and now too tired to make stir-fry. But!...I did get a chance to clean up the garlic scapes, and will hopefully be making the stir-fry and perhaps a pesto tomorrow. I have such big plans for a Friday night, no?
Bonus pic from a rare day playing tourist -- which seems timely -- that I found on my camera:
If I never have to go to the American History Museum again, it will be too soon. Dudes, it's a place that validates my disdain for teenagers...may I never have one of my own.
Because WishBear asked me to show her pictures of today's ill-conceived baking, I give you:
That's right, gingerbread cookies. Cookies and snowflakes. And royal icing. I'm not sure my hand blender will ever recover. I'm doing it in the spirit of the holidays, and the fact that the only day I'm working this week is tomorrow. I don't know why I didn't manage to take tomorrow off as well, but whatever. I made lunch plans, I made cookies. Blergh. Everything was made from scratch, and now it all hurts. You would too after an afternoon/evening of baking. Miss my whinging, don't you?
More pictures before I go comatose:
Do you know what the chicken bowtie soup special is? It's Campbell's...or some other canned soup. It's not bowtie! It barely resembled pasta. I adored it because it reminded me of fourth grade and processed lunches your mom would send you to school with, but it wasn't quite right. We enjoyed it at a table, where the centerpiece was Velcro-ed to the glasstop. On account of the wind. Take a moment.
In the twenty minutes it took to eat, the sky opened up and went manic all over us. I assume it beat the crap out of the rest of the tri-state area as well, so boy was it a sight. I opened up my puny, and I mean puny...see!...
15.00 Herbal steam and wrap. So good. So so so good. First of all, I love this place. We thought it was a clapboard house, but we realized it was aluminum siding. There is a sarong hanging in the window. And this could have been an artful curtain, but dude, I know ghetto Asians (as I kinda was one, and my relatives are), and that's just a good old lazy cover for something shady! Like an illegal gambling ring....But! I got my locker. I got my super big and soft robe. I got my little thongs to wear. So I was ushered into my steam room. For the next half hour I laid in this tiled room that spit herbal steam out of what amounted to a mini pagoda. It was like inhaling a Ricola in a sweet, hot cloud! I love Ricola! I remember the television commercials from my childhood! Lederhosen, horns, mountains and all! I closed my eyes for the first ten minutes, and I swear, when I opened them, everything was neon green...or at the very least, a spring green. I had hoped it was the actual color of the steam, but I suppose that's not right. Anyhow, good times. It was followed by another half hour in a thermal cocoon and a scalp massage. Nothing better for being soaked to the bone.
It continued to rain like a mofo, but we forged valiantly into the storm. My puny (see above) umbrella collapsed. It inverted itself. So we ran into a store. Stationary. Um, hello, Achilles heel. I buy stationary like a fiend. I love the idea of snail mail. I buy piles of cards and stationary every year in the hopes of sending out maybe five correspondences in that time. Like, I hate Kate Spade on principle. I won't mention the unfortunate Boxey incident of 2002 -- everyone should get to take back one moment of retail shame -- but that was wool, and I hate her microfiber. Anyhow, so, purses, hate. Stationary, LUUUURRVVVE. I make a killing when Crane Paper has sales. Anthropologie goes half off on their cards? I'm there. So it was no surprise that I bought three items in the fifteen minutes we were there. And then the clerk lured me to the soap. Fucking almond scented soap. Like heaven. I'm an olifactory junkie to begin with. So I'm sniffing these bars of soap like a nut job. Of course I have to buy them! Well played, Written Word.
19.30 Starvation sets in. Dinner at the same cafe is the choice, because they have a jam session, apparently. Um, I'm glad we didn't sit too close, because that music was a wreck. Luckily we sat on the side with mellow chick music reminiscent of my music playlist circa 1998-9. Eva Cassidy. Sheryl Crow. Joni Mitchell. Madonna. Sarah Vaughan. Jann Arden. Ella Fitzgerald. Odd mix, not so odd mix. Comforting background music for me to gorge myself on crab bisque, crab fondue, sunflower bread, oyster napoleon, grit cakes and kale. I also had a nice glass of Shiraz. Yeah, okay, you drink whites with seafood, but I wanted a red. I was out in the rain! Then we thought to share a dessert later since we'd probably spew if we tried to eat now.
21.30 Dessert. What's a girl to do with a chocolate cake without a fork if she has to share? She whips out the letter opener she keeps in her tote bag of course, and splits the cake down the middle, of course....without disrupting the ganache, besides. Decadent, delightful.
22.00 (I assume) Dead to the world in bed. Have decided during this time that vacation has been a success. In spite of freaky dead town, am pleased with overall relaxation.
Day Three
7.00 Wake up half way. Am having dream about being denied access into Djibouti. Am secretly thinking, who the hell is Djibouti to deny me entry into their country?! I think my friend is trying to talk to me from her bed, but can't tell. Maybe she's just a part of my dream? I have issues distinguishing reality. This is not new.
7.30 Wake up for real. Dream continued to me being denied access out of a country this time. I think it was Greece. While the prospect of spending a lifetime in a Mediterranean country is usually a good one, I was thinking no. I wanted out, and they weren't going to deny me! Such a weird dream.
My friend informs me that I wimper in my sleep. Well, that, and snore. Which adds to the talking, the muttering, and the other random noises. I hope I don't divulge anything important. As if there's anything important, but still.
We had breakfast, left quickly, tried to beat traffic so we could go apple picking!
The season has started. I love apple picking. See my picture with the sunglasses and the apple picking basket hoisted proudly in the air? That was last year. I go a couple times a season. I live for MacIntoshes, I adore Grimes and Jonathan, Stayman, Braeburn and Crispin. I stomp happily through the dew-soaked grass, climb madly up into the branches. I like the orderly lines of trees in the orchard, and last year even drove down them like a pro. Although, there was also the fateful of incident of my car getting stuck in the mud, and the yellow cable-knit sweater wearing young man trying to impress his fiancee (?) and future in-laws (?), and ended up getting covered in said mud. It was awesome, hilarious and endearing. Thanking him was simply not enough, but I did earn him bonus points with his girl, I think.
Anyhow. Apples. I'm a baker. I bake pies. I rock the pie. My crust, is magnificent. So I bake like a dozen pies a season. I wanted to start early this year. I also embrace apples as decoration in centerpieces. I was kind of saddened. The apples looked picked over, were kind of rough (even though I knew beneath the mottled skin they were crisp and lovely), and we smallish. My friend, the superficial fruit eater decided against them because they weren't pretty enough. I pushed on. I bought a heavy bag full. I will bake, so help me!
One note to add on the apple picking experience. Who picks apples on a Friday?! We weren't alone! There were others! There were even school buses FULL of children. A field trip. I shudder. And what school was it? Mind you, I'm about an hour away from home. And the school, is a school that is a mile away from home (my old home anyway) for me. Inescapable NOVA. They even do bucolic in packs. They train 'em early.
Anyhow. Thus ends my mini-holiday narrative. I'm ending this post just so I can wax angrily about grocery stores in my next post. :) I'm full of petty ire.
