Monday, March 31, 2008

Easter.

Wait…what?


Yeah, I’ve been all over the place around here. We’ve had guests, Easter, more guests, cupcakes…you name it. OH! And by the way, there is also now photographic evidence that my husband does not know the definition of the word “mini” but…I can’t find my camera cable, so you’ll just have to take my word on it until then.

Let’s see, Easter was nice. Quiet. Just the two of us and way too much food. And probably the straw that broke this camel’s back. I made a nice dinner but somehow I got totally sidetracked and ended up cooking all…day…long. For two people. So…next year, I am thinking is either dinner out, or I am heading south and cooking dinner with Donovan’s Mama (shhhh…she doesn’t know that, I plan on just showing up on her doorstep with a ham). But, before the exhaustion set in there was lamb, potato salad (really good potato salad with eggs and pickles in it), roasted asparagus…did I go over this already? I can’t remember. Either way…too much food. So much that we never even made it to the soufflés. So we’re going to have to have those this week. The success of the meal for me was the potato salad. Just what I wanted to herald spring. I don’t know why, but it was. For the husband it was the pastry wrapped, blue cheese stuffed green olives. I didn’t care for them but I would try them again with an almond stuffed olive. The idea is good, but you really need to get the kind of olives that you like and not just any olive as the flavor really concentrates while baking. Oh and I did use use extra puff pastry to make fig and chocolate…things…turnovers? Hand pies? Is handpie a euphemism for anything? It should be.

Now, the night before Easter we stopped by a friend’s house for a party-ish thing and I took more of the lemon cupcakes. Big hit. Confirmation on their tastiness and their not- mini size. They are a keeper, even if I don’t generally like lemon-flavored things.

Anything else? Yeah, there’s stuff. I wrote a whole post about my teen years Easter baskets and then forgot about it and didn’t post it. Brief summary: granola and soy nuts instead of peeps and chocolate bunnies…BY REQUEST. That right there tells you a lot about me and why I stand in the kitchen eating my all natural, whole grain, 11 grams of fiber per ¾ cup breakfast cereal, doused in fat free soymilk out of the same mug I just used to drink filtered water to wash down my handful of weird supplements and stare at my husband’s box of frosted flakes of corn frosted with sugar and shake my head sadly.

And that, that previous sentence right there tells you I am not very good at constructing sentences.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Answers.

Ooops, I guess I should get back to the movie post, eh?

2. Selena: You were thinking that you'll never hear another piece of original music ever again. You'll never read a book that hasn't already been written or see a film that hasn't already been shot. (28 Days Later)

Number 2 is from 28 Days Later, a movie that I was terrified to see and have since decided is one of my very favorites…ever. I recently had an argument with someone who insisted that people would not become as savage as the soldiers in only 28 days. And it is very sad to me, but I have to disagree.

4. [Regarding men]
Maggie: You can't trust none of 'em no further than I can kick this lemon pie. (The Women)

Number 4 is from The Women, a true classic, although I can see how Janet might have thought it came from Cold Mountain, it certainly does sound like something Ruby would say. The Women is currently being remade, but before it arrives in theatres, I suggest seeing the original, or even the musical remake, The Opposite Sex, just in case the remake is awful. That way, you will know what a good movie it could have been.

6. Ellen Wagstaff Arden: Child?! Nick is not a child.
Grace Arden: No, he's not that smart. He's only a man. (Move Over, Darling)

Number 6 is from Move over, Darling and I am not surprised that no one guessed it. It’s Doris Day and James Garner and I love it beyond all reason. James Garner=hottt. (This is a remake...but I like this version (See: My Favorite Wife and Something's Gotta Give.))

10. Queenie: I sit in the subway sometimes, on buses, or the movies, and I look at the people next to me and I think..."What would you say if I told you I was a witch?" (Bell Book and Candle)

Number 10 is from Bell, Book and Candle another one that I kind of figured would go unguessed but another good one. Kim Novak and Jimmy Stuart, along with Jack Lemmon. It’s cute and sad and romantic and funny and the kind of movie they just don’t make anymore. If you are looking for something old fashioned but surprisingly modern, it’s a good one.

13. Holly Golightly: You musn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky. (Breakfast at Tiffany’s)

Number 13 is from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and I am shocked that no one caught this. I am very fond of this movie but I will always remember showing it to my cousin, who was horrified by it. She didn’t like that all the characters were basically bad people. But in my opinion, that’s the point of the story. It’s all about being human, and the possibilities of the redemptive quality of love. Except for that part with Mickey Rooney, there’s no excuse for that.

14. Liz Sherman: In the dark I heard your voice, what did you say?
Hellboy: I said, "Hey, you, on the other side - let her go. Because for her I will cross over, and then you'll be sorry!" (Hellboy)

Number 14 is from Hellboy, a movie that I adore. Mostly because I have a huge crush on Hellboy. Not Ron Perlman…HELLBOY.

I also realized that the list was supposed to be 15 movie quotes, but someone I deleted one. So here:

Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don't hear about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent - I don't care which one - but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that escalator.


If you know me at all, you know this quote. And you’ve probably heard me yell it in the mall more than once.

And finally, there is Easter in my house. There will be a nice Easter dinner that involves many…things. And there will be challah, which is weird, because it’s a traditionally Jewish and Easter is…not traditionally Jewish. And this time of year is close to Passover, which is the time that yeast is not used to leaven bread, so it’s kind of doubly weird. But…I like it. So there. Also, chocolate soufflé, hot cross buns and more lemon cupcakes (for a friend, I swear!).

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Continued.

From my husband:

Ha! Cupcake liner is 3.5 and the cupcakes have a puffy domed top. The
lemon cupcakes are 3.25 without said puffy top... so let's say a
cupcake is 3.75 and a souffle cup cupcake is 3.25 before ripping it
out of the paper and having part of it rip away. So the lemon cupcakes
were 3.0 oz... Mini-cupcakes!!! Ha!

To further this you should make more.

Love, James

From me:

mini cupcakes are 1oz and there is no way that .25 oz. ripped away with the paper. also, not all cupcakes have a domed top. these lemon cakes won't no matter what because they can't support it. the dome is not due to the liner but rather the structure of the cake.

so shut up mr. science unbeliever.

and no more cupcakes for you. you've had enough.

And he just can’t stop himself:

Science says people didn't ride dinosaurs and I've seen proof to the
contrary! Fred Flinstone! Ha!

- hubby

But then last night we had friends over for dinner. I told them the story, with much shouting of SCIENCE! And then we got out the cupcake liners and soufflé cups again. Turns out, the cupcake liners fit into the soufflé cups…with considerable room to spare. So even taking the fact that cupcake liners are more flexible and that their “stretch” is limited by the cupcake pan itself, there is clear evidence that SCIENCE is right…yet again.

I will be making more lemon cupcakes this weekend. None of them will be for my husband. That’s what you get when you fuck with science.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Science!

So this post was originally going to be about some cupcakes I made. But then my husband and I had a raging debate about the cupcakes which ended with me yelling “I AM BLOGGING THIS AND YOU ARE WRONG!”

It started like this. I accidentally bought some lemons. It’s not important how one accidentally buys lemons, just that I did. And I didn’t know what to do with said lemons and I am not a huge fan of lemon except in my tea. So I decided some lemon vegan cupcakes were in order. And I made them. And I decided to use mini soufflé cups instead of cupcake liners because mini soufflé cups can stand on their own and thus there is no cupcake pan to clean and for some reason that just seemed like a good idea. But here’s where the trouble started…well, the trouble after the accidental purchase of lemons…I overfilled the cups. And I kind of knew I had because the recipe claimed to make twelve cupcakes and I only got 11 cups filled and you say, well that happens all the time, inaccurate servings quoted on a recipe, right? But I had made this recipe before and several other from this cook book and they have always worked out. But I foolishly decided to let it go.

Turns out the cake was too delicate to support it’s own weight and instead of making a lovely dome, it just overflowed the cups. Not a problem really. I decided I wouldn’t take any to work and we would just enjoy lemon cupcakes at home for the week. But they were ugly and that made me sad. So I peeled off the soufflé wrappers, whipped up a topping of sour cream (cupcakes=vegan topping=not at all vegan), vanilla and sugar and dotted a few shiny red currants on top and suddenly, they were beautiful! And good. Very good. Dangerously good.

Here’s the point where my husband enters the story. If you come around here from time to time, you may notice that I don’t mention him much. This is because he is banned from reading this blog and thus, I think it would be unfair of me to talk smack about him. But in this one particular case…

I came home last night excited for my St. Patrick’s Day dinner, a baked potato and roasted veggies. And then I remembered it would be even better because it would be followed by a lemony cupcake and mentioned to the husband as much. He pointed to the bag of sad looking little treats and said, “There’s not many left.”

It wasn’t until much later, when I had settled down to tuck into the lovely cake that I said…”Wait, are you telling me you’ve have four and a half cupcakes today?”

“No, “ he said, “I am telling you that I had six and a half cupcakes in the last twenty-four hours.”

Then the real debate started. He insisted that they were “mini-cupcakes” and much smaller than the average size that I make. I conceded hat they might be a little smaller than my average and certainly smaller than the kind you would get at someplace like Sprinkles (but don’t buy cupcakes at Sprinkles, they are nasty! OK, fine, I think they are nasty, if you like them, go for it). The debate raged on for quite a while before I decided to put a stop to it with science.

I marched him into the kitchen and got out one soufflé cup and one cupcake liner, a quarter cup measure and some sugar, then we compared how each cup held the sugar. He got sheepish for a minute but then continued to insist that the soufflé cups held less. I countered by yelling “SCIENCE!” and “DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? BECAUSE YOU CLEARLY DON’ T BELIEVE IN SCIENCE!” I then proceeded to randomly yell “SCIENCE!” for the rest of the evening.

He stopped arguing for a while but within 20 minutes or so he had pulled out a pad of paper and pen and proceeded to try to defend himself with diagrams. I continued to shout “SCIENCE!” at him and I demanded his diagrams to illustrate this post. He refused and tore them up.

After an in adequate amount of research I think I can safely say that the volume of the paper soufflé cup is 3.25 oz and the cupcake liner is most likely 3.5 ounces. That would make the soufflé cup slightly smaller but by no stretch of the imagination a “mini-cupcake.”

More importantly…SCIENCE!

Also…we’re out of cupcakes again.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Stated.

Things in which I firmly believe:

Long sleeves
Fluffy bunnies
Flannel pajamas
Thin crust pizza
The right to kick annoying people in the face
The concept that comedic movies should be no more than about 90 minutes long
Keeping the bathroom door closed when in use and putting the toilet seat (the one that actually covers the whole thing) down before flushing.
And finally,
I firmly believe that it is too damn cold in here!

Friday, March 14, 2008

Oops.

I am a little bit slow here, but the Ambitious Hamster posted at the PaperLotus Blog on life as...well...as an ambitious hamster. And then I posted on my Wacom difficulties. We'll both be posting regularly over there and eventually there will be giveaways or coupons or parties or free puppies or something like that. Please do stop by to visit, stay a while, chat, add to the mix. We love company!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Holy...

Holy crap! Have you seen the mascots for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver? The only word to use is adorable! Thanks Jason!

Man, I have a long standing rule about no stuffed animals, but I might have to bend a little for this.

By the way, the mascots were created by Meomi, an artist collective type thingy I have long been fond of. Also check out their book The Octonauts, it's another shade of adorable.

And by the other way, you should totally click on that link to Jason, he's a damn fine artist and he draws me cute little Wolverines.

Play?

Oh dear, it’s been a bit hasn’t it? Well, I am planning on blogging again here. In fact, I was going to blog today about biscuits, but I forgot to bring my recipe with me. Oops. I really should have it memorized by now but…I don’t.

Anyway, I have another houseguest who is here until the weekend. So that’s one thing. I am busy trying to complete some artwork, which I will show you…if I ever complete it, that’s another and then there is this other blog that I am part of. That’s the third thing. So if you’ve got the notion, stop by the PaperLotus blog for your regular dose of bloggity goodness. Over there we will be posting about art, inspiration, and um…stuff…I don’t know exactly what we will be posting about but it should be interesting. And we’d love to see you there.

Now, in the meanwhile, I played along with a movie meme over at Fond of Snape (which I am, by the way, fond of Snape, that is) and I actually got a few correct. So, in the spirit of meme-ing, I am playing along. Here’s how it goes:

* Pick fifteen of your favorite movies.
* Go to IMDB and find a quote from each movie.
* Post them on your blog for everyone to guess.
* Fill in the film title once it’s guessed.

This part is for the reader:
* No Googling or using IMDB search functions.
* Leave your answer(s) in the comments.

Now, I will say that I think some of mine may be obscure to some people and others I KNOW people like SnarkyDork and Jules will catch. In several cases I left character names in because either it won’t make a difference to those who know it, or it won’t make a difference to those who don’t. Give it a try, see how you do…

  1. He's not my Dad, he's my stepdad! (Well Jodi got this one, of course, I'd be upset if she didn't! That's from Shaun of the Dead!)

  2. You were thinking that you'll never hear another piece of original music ever again. You'll never read a book that hasn't already been written or see a film that hasn't already been shot.

  3. I tried to kill myself with a Lady Bic. A pink plastic razor with daisies on it and a moisturizing strip. (Here comes Jodi again! Really, if she didn't chime in here then I'd have to find a new friend! This is from Empire Records).

  4. [Regarding men] You can't trust none of 'em no further than I can kick this lemon pie.

  5. Him: I won't allow it to be any more man's nature than women's to be inconstant or to forget those they love or have loved. I believe the reverse. I believe... Let me just observe that all histories are against you, all stories, prose, and verse. I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which did not have something to say on women's fickleness.
    Her: But they were all written by men. (Jules responds thru IM and correctly identifies this from Persuasion)

  6. Daughter-in-Law: Child?! Nick is not a child.
    Mother-in-Law: No, he's not that smart. He's only a man.

  7. His name is Blane? Oh! That's a major appliance, that's not a name! (Chris tries and fails! But Jodi saves him! Pretty in Pink!)

  8. Ehm, look. Sorry, sorry. I just, ehm, well, this is a very stupid question and... , particularly in view of our recent shopping excursion, but I just wondered, by any chance, ehm, eh, I mean obviously not because I guess I've only slept with 9 people, but-but I-I just wondered...ehh. I really feel, ehh, in short, to recap it slightly in a clearer version, eh, the words of David Cassidy in fact, eh, while he was still with the Partridge family, eh, "I think I love you," and eh, I-I just wondered by any chance you wouldn't like to... Eh... Eh... No, no, no of course not...I'm an idiot, he's not...Excellent, excellent, fantastic, eh, I was gonna say lovely to see you, sorry to disturb...Better get on… (WOOHOOO! Kari got this...even though she's never seen it and she wasn't POSITIVE, she still figured it out.)

  9. I hate Illinois Nazis. (Chris gets here first. It's The Blues Brothers, of course.)

  10. I sit in the subway sometimes, on buses, or the movies, and I look at the people next to me and I think..."What would you say if I told you I was a witch?"

  11. They don't look like Presbyterians to me. (Jodi (and my mother's) favorite movie quote is from The Muppet Movie. I dunno, I know some pretty funky lookin' Presbyterians...)

  12. Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! (Chris gets it right. It's Animal House, if I have to say I have one favorite movie, I will say this is it.)

  13. You musn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky.

  14. Her: In the dark I heard your voice, what did you say?
    Him: I said, "Hey, you, on the other side - let her go. Because for her I will cross over, and then you'll be sorry!"

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Late night.

Whiskey is good. So is Whisky.

Houseguests. Busy. Tired. Getting to it.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Recently.

Watch reruns, they replay your memories.

Chocolate is a valentine you give yourself.

Oh Dove. Fine, it may not be the greatest chocolate in the world but I have decided that I like it. I think because it tastes like brownie batter to me. But brownie batter with a snap when you bite into it. And I can buy it in little pieces and one piece is good. So there. But they really need to not print things inside the wrappers because that might be enough to make me hate them. Chocolate IS a Valentine you give yourself…when you are pathetic. And while I do, on occasion watch reruns…nevermind. I just don’t like what they write on the wrappers. Nuff said.

While there has not been much blogging around here, there has been a fair amount of cooking going on over the weekends. For the Oscars there were chocolate cupcakes with vanilla bean frosting and vanilla cupcakes with caramel buttercream. And if you cook but you haven’t make a cooked buttercream before, give it a try. It’s not that hard and the difference between a cooked buttercream (a Swiss meringue buttercream) and a “quick” buttercream is pretty significant in terms of texture and, for me, taste. Silky is the only way to describe it. The closest vegan counterpart I have tried is the “Velvet” frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the world and that one darn good too, so you know, you aren’t missing out on much if you don’t do the eggs/butter thing. Either way, a cooked buttercream (style) icing is, as Martha would say, a good thing. A very good thing. A really very good thing. Seriously.

And last night, well, there was cooking but no cupcakes. I just really wanted a veggie burger with mashed avacado, tomoatoes, green onions and lettuce and oven fries. I never crave any thing that specific. In fact, I rarely have much opionion on what’s for dinner other than “not that” or “this is what I defrosted”. But last night, nothing else would do. And man was it good and satisfying and…good.

Oh and there were some breakfast muffins made too..cocoa-banana-almond (vegan). Last night I thought they were just ok but this morning it made an excellent breakfast. I guess sometimes a day (well, half a day) makes all the difference.