Sunday, January 30, 2005

Breakfast in Couch

I never really understood the eating breakfast in bed thing. I'm up and showered, but not feeling energetic. I would love to have breakfast served to me on the couch. Unfortunately, I will just have to sit and look at the kitchen until I feel like making something.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Side View of a Tulip


Side View of a Tulip, originally uploaded by baglady.

I got a bunch of tulips a few weeks ago. I had a boyfriend who used to get me tulips often and I don't think I'd bought any in - OMG - 13 years? Well, they don't remind me of him anymore... except when I wonder why I don't buy tulips more often. I love them. They don't last all that long. I would really like to see a field of them in Holland some day.

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Key Lime Pie

I didn't spend any time researching this pie. I just made the recipe off the sweetend condensced milk can. It turned out great. I had never made a meringue pie. You first mix the lime part, bake 30 minutes, and then add the meringue top and bake a little longer. I just used a pre-made crust from the refrigerator section.

Next time I think a graham cracker crust would taste better. Cook's Illustrated says just adding whipped cream after the pie cools tastes better than the meringue, but I have some unfans of whipped cream in my house. They also point out that key limes are a PIA to work with and most people are making Persian Lime pies, which taste just as good.

Just for fun I looked up Mark Bittman's recipe. He such a spaz! He is kind of elitist and tells cooks if they ever tastes caro syrup, they wouldn't cook with it, let alone use it in pecan pie. Well excooze me, it tastes good to the rest of us in pecan pie. I am relieved to find that he doesn't feel the same about sweetened condensced milk. His recipe looks a lot like the one on the can, but he calls for more eggs and confectioner's sugar in the meringue.

I'm going to make this again soon, but using the Cook's Illustrated recipe next time. Then I'm onto Coconut Cream Pie. It was the last food my grandpa asked for on his deathbed. I think this is a pretty massive vote for this flavor pie!

Sunday, January 09, 2005

Model A Hood Ornament


Model A Hood Ornament, originally uploaded by baglady.

From my grandpa's Model A truck.

Side Window on Model A


Side Window on Model A, originally uploaded by baglady.

This is my grandpa's Model A truck that my dad now owns. He belonged to the Quail Model A Club and added these side panes of glass. The day I took the picture it was raining and my Dad and his friend jump started the truck. No one was electrocuted.

Some Enchanted Evening

One of my coworkers asked me what my favorite type of music was. It pretty much comes down to love songs and I prefer male singers. I promised to come up with the best three love songs of all time. On the trail of one of them, I looked for versions of "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific. I am not big on musicals, but I love that french guy singing to Shirley Jones (right?) with the ocean in the background. I guess after all the tsunami coverage of once idyllic places in rubble, that kind of seascape is not so peaceful. What a metaphor for love too. I am such an upper.

The iTunes music store had some disturbing renditions. #1 Bernadette Peters. I don't have as much talent in my whole body as she does in her one little pinky finger and all that, but gag me. Gag me like James Lipton gags me. #2 Frank. Not bad, but not what I'm looking for. #3 Perry Como. No. Too smooth and not in the right way. Cool background music for Goodfellas II maybe - a hit scene or something. #4 The Temptations. This reminds me of one of those extended PBS ads for one of their video sets where they bring out people you thought were dead to sing their old hits and there are all these people getting googly eyes in the audience. They have two versions, one labled Fiji Island Mix. No! #5 WIllie Nelson. OMG. This must be from the infamous album he did to pay off his tax debt. "Some enchanted evenin'" with harmonica. Nein!

And then I found it. Ezio Pinza. So the sexy french man was italian. He still sounds just as good.

I realize I have the soundtrack to South Pacific on 8 track tape.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle

For all of you fans of socialism, here's more proof that it in practice can get pretty stupid: Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle.

I really like the "high hair style" and the allowance for combovers.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Pecan Pie

I was assigned pecan pie as my contribution to Christmas dinner. A few years ago I had made a black-bottomed whiskey pie out of a magazine. Of course I couldn't find the recipe anywhere. I looked online and only saw pies that asked for bourbon. I already have a bottle of Jack Daniel's and two bottles of rum from previous pie recipe needs, but no bourbon. I have two bottles of rum because one cheesecake recipe I have calls for it. By the time I made it again, I'd forgotten the full bottle of rum minus one tablespoon. (I asked our New Year's Party hostest, "Do you need me to bring rum?"). I became frustrated and ordered a pie from Coco's. Right after I picked up the pie, someone clued me in that whiskey is a type of bourbon. Dur.

The Coco's pie turned out to be great. But the desire to bake a pecan pie didn't leave me. My cousin remarked that the best pecan pie she'd ever had was off the back of the Caro's syrup bottle. I set out to make a pecan pie last week and consulted all of my most trusted cookbooks. I settled on Shirley Corriher's famous "CookWise" recipe. It called for arrowroot, another ingredient I rarely if ever use. I looked through my spices and found two unmarked baby food jars filled with white powder. One was Cream of Tartar, but I suspected the other to be Arrowroot. I phoned my mom to see if she could taste her arrowroot and describe it to me, so I could make a positive ID. She first wanted to know why I was putting arrowroot in pecan pie. "Don't do that!" I realized while talking to her that I had arrowroot, but no brown sugar. OMG! I'm slipping. I'm usually so good about having baking needs on hand for when the mood strikes. I ended up making a pie off with the Caro's syrup recipe. I used a refrigerator crust because I was feeling lazy. OCD enough to bake an unnecessary pecan pie, but too tired to do it right. It turned out well. I definitely like the light syrup. You can see the texture of the pie better. I ended up modifying the recipe slightly. I toasted the pecans first at 350 for 7 minutes. I then added butter and salt, let the pecans soak it in and then used them in the pie. I can tell it made a difference. One of my friends offered to smoke some pecans for a future pie and I just might take him up on it - if I can plan that far ahead.

Persimmon Bread

On Christmas Eve I made a few loaves of persimmon bread using persimmons off my grandmother's tree. Persimmons taste awful until they are completely ripe - which almost looks like the verge of rotting. They are sweet like jelly if you wait long enough. I found a recipe that used butter. It was really great bread.

The other cool thing was that the people I gave the bread to, were so appreciative of the unique and homey fruit used. My friend said he remembered having persimmons at his grandparents also. My grandparents were quite pleased and said I can have the pick of persimmons next year :).

Slacker

It's been a while since I posted. I hope my baking blog isn't turning into the bitch blog.