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Posts tagged ‘apples’

Apr 22

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Muffin Monday: Going All Ameri-vegan

I don’t necessarily believe in veganism as a sustainable whole-lifestyle choice.  At least not for me.  I certainly think it has applications; it’s a good diet model for people with serious obesity health concerns.  With respect to animal welfare it is possible to find animal products from humanely raised animals so I don’t think someone has to cut all cheese out of their diets for this reason.  As for killing animals for food…well I don’t have a problem with that aspect of it but I’m not going to judge anyone who does.  Still that only means that people really need to go vegetarian if they are controlling where all the animal byproducts they consume come from.  But again that would be at home.  I really doubt Denny’s is getting their half & half from free-range, grass grazing cows

Yet still it has happened.  I’m a social vegan.  Oh you’ve never heard that term?  Well basically when I eat out I stay on a vegan diet but at home I’m happy to go about my omnivore ways.  Strange isn’t it?  Typically you’ll hear about people doing the opposite—eating vegan at home but relaxing out in company because eating vegan socially is fucking hard.  But my reasons make sense I swear…  See here’s the thing I don’t have a problem with eating meat or byproducts from livestock.  I do have serious problems with how the majority of livestock in this country is raised.  I object to it on a number of levels and decided that if I’m going to be morally consistent at all then I need to start really watching what I eat when I’m eating out because that is where I have no control over where my food came from.  Thus when I’m at home and I’ve bought the food myself, I’ll grill up a steak and slather it with blue cheese and runny quail egg.  But if I’m out grabbing a bite at some corner diner?  Odds are I’m asking for salad and a fruit cup.  So what prompted this?

Aside from some of the more well-known humane issues with modern animal husbandry, there are political ramifications that break my libertarian heart from the terrifying corn industry we’ve concocted to feed these animals.  The biologist in me abhors the antibiotic abuse and the nutritionist in me objects to the idea of eating such unhealthy meat when better options exist.  The environmentalist in me, who is a very small me all things considered, hates the waste and destruction the factory farms cause.  The agriculturalist and botanist in me hates the way monoculture is destroying our farmlands and finally the foodie in me bemoans the loss of variety of food monoculture causes.

 

Confused?  Don’t worry this week I’m going to take some pulpit time from my blog to break down some of my concerns to explain why these issues matter to me, why they might matter to you and try out some vegan recipes in honor of the Oakland Veg week happening here in Oakland.  http://oaklandveg.com/ It’s a pretty cool initiative sponsored in part by whole foods and a slew of local, organic, vegetarian companies. 

Hold on now Olivia.  If you’re eating vegan out, but omnivore when you stay in, then why bother with the vegan recipes? 

Well it’s a theme remember?  Plus I will admit that eating meat and dairy products that are only sourced from my hippie farms gets expensive.  I’m sure I’ll be eating more meals without them to save money so it’ll be good to have a few tricks up my sleeve for months when I just can’t afford free-range chicken every night of the week.  Plus it’s useful to know a good baking recipe for those days when you wanna make muffins but don’t have any eggs or butter on hand.  Like this classic recipe with a not-so classic vegan twist:

All Ameri-Vegan Apple Pie Muffins

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance Read more

Apr 18

Bread-Pudding it into perspective

I should note I wrote this just before the Waco disaster last night.  Like an hour before.

It’s hard for me to focus on anything but the news when something big and horrifying happens.  That’s why the blog goes dark usually in the day following a major even like what happened in Boston.  I just can’t seem to bring myself to write about anything other than the event that’s taken over news media…assuming I’m able to bring myself to write about it at all.  It really disturbs me too that my last post was literally about just enjoying something for its own beautiful sake to be marred by a mass bombing that is anything but beautiful.  Unfortunately as evident by this post I’m still unable to get to writing about anything until I talk about the giant elephant in the room.  So okay here’s my response to the bombing of the Boston Marathon.

First of all when I found out I was actually climbing onto the treadmill to do my daily run.  I usually get at least 2 miles in a day now—minimum of 1 even on days when I feel like shit—and let me tell you that running while watching the news about people who died while running is surreal.  I found myself wondering “should I be doing this?  Should I stop?  This feels disrespectful somehow.”  It was the most bewildering thing to be feeling when I was supposed to be getting exercise.  I don’t normally watch the televisions in the gym when I work out.  I really like zoning out to my music and daydreaming or feeling the “pavement” i.e. the treadmill track beneath my feet.  Obviously though when the tv is in front of your face and the words EXPLOSION streaming across it tends to grab your attention.

But here’s the really sick thing I feel about these events now.  As I was watching and looking for a death toll, seeing that it was at 2 I thought “oh well okay, it’s only a little bombing.”  WTF.  What kind of world do I live in where I even have that kind of reaction?  Were other people having any of the same thoughts as me?  See I actually pay attention to the news.  I’m a media hound.  I have google news tabs open my computer all the time.  Bombings like Boston are happening almost every day in poorer countries around the globe.  It almost strikes me as arrogant when people in the US are so shocked about one like this happening here.  We’re a big fucking target for disgruntled angry terrorists—foreign and homegrown alike.  Frankly I’m really surprised we don’t have more bombings here.  We certainly get enough shootings it seems like the next logical one-up in the mad man’s mind for media attention.  I found myself getting cynical about how this is going to be on everyone’s mind for the next month but no one seems to be aware that today for example, Egypt sent two rockets into Israel.  No one is probably aware that 182 people died in Afghanistan this month in bombings.  These events are so far removed and so common that I guess we just don’t pay attention.  But I do.  Ever since I was woken up by two very large plane crashes over a decade ago I can’t help but keep a beat on the pulse of this world and the pulse is explosive.  Turns out a few of my friends were having the same thoughts/feelings/reactions as me.  I wonder if it was like this before 9/11 for other generations or if this is the new norm for us who exist in a world without the twin towers.

I’m not ranting or raging though.  I get it.  I mean these other events are far removed from us. The world is smaller than it used to be but we’re still made up of a myriad of cultures—many far removed and still barely understand by the others.  The events that hit close to home are the ones that are going to grab our attention because it could be people we know, people we experience life with rather than read about.  As we evolve in our technological achievements we’re also going to evolve at getting better at killing each other so the bigger the BOOM and the closer we are to it, the more we’ll pay attention.  I totally get it.  It makes me happy too that the silver lining to these events is always the revelation of the strength of human spirit and the good things that are possible by people en masse as opposed to the bad things the mob mentality likes to bring out of us as well.  Two sides of the same coin—that’s humanity in a nutshell isn’t it?  We are capable of horrifying evil and astonishing kindness.

I just hope that I don’t get lost in the apathy between the two.  I think I’m okay though.  I still cried at Glee last week.  Yes motherfuckers I was on a treadmill watching the latest episode about the school shooting with tears streaming down my face so I know I’m not a robot yet.

Anyway in times like this one of the best things is comfort food.  Certain things fall quite obviously into the category of comfort food.  Bread Pudding is definitely one of them.  I mean not only is it bread which I find incredibly homey, delicious and often crave just a giant loaf to chew on when I’m down, but it’s bread in pudding form.  You don’t get more rustic, warm and down to earth than that.  When we read about people using bombs, North Korea getting testy with nuclear weaponry, I think there’s a little bit of a longing for a world where these kinds of creative mass murders aren’t possible.  A little technological rewind.  Well we can’t undo any of these things without totally destroying civilization as we know it and frankly if you asked most people my age about living in a world without terrorist bombs at the cost of their smartphones…I’m pretty sure I know what they’d choose.  Hell I don’t think I’d choose any different.  I can at least travel back in time though in my kitchen and find comfort and delicious heaven where I make it.  Warning: this is literally the best bread pudding I have ever had.  I had total strangers at work seeking me out to tell me that they were brought some and tell me it was the best bread pudding that they had ever had.  It’s seriously the antithesis of pain and agony—it’s absolute joy in a bowl, in your mouth and in your stomach.  Hell you might like it so much that you even cherish a little fat deposit from eating the entire batch because it will stir such fond memories of the flavors.  It’s that good and I certainly need something good right now.  Don’t you?

Caramel Apple Bread Pudding

an Olivia Original Read more

Apr 4

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Have I fractured my funny scone?

More and more I feel like the wet blanket.  I seem to find certain jokes far less amusing than others—especially jokes that I feel marginalize any group of people or legitimate problem the world is facing.  Rape jokes, sexist jokes…general teasing that has to do with someone’s sexual orientation?  All of it just puts me in a sour mood and I wind up just wanting to leave wherever I’m currently at.  I don’t think I always used to be this way so what is it?  Is it something in the water trickling down from Berkeley that’s making me far too serious or am I just finally experiencing the social issues that were largely only textbook in their reality during adolescence?  Is it that I’ve just become too self-centered to be able to look at myself with an objective eye and laugh?

On one hand I’ve always been “so serious” about perceived injustice.  Even as a child I wanted to save the world.  I guess mom shoulda named me Ka-ka-ka-Katie.  **TRIVIA TIME: Name that movie and win a cookie!  PS: my last trivia winner still needs to email me his info so I can mail out a treat!  Hey you, yeah I’m talking to you, send me your info and any allergens to my blog’s email addy: rollingsreliableblog at g mai l dot com** I do think part of it is that I’m experiencing more of life rather than reading about it.  There are issues that seem far less important than they did and others that seem to be so ignored by people around me that I want to scream.  Sometimes I just want to get out a drum and hold it in someone’s face and yell “WAKE UP!”  The apathy and willful ignorance that serve as a constant state of existence for some…I don’t understand it.  I never have.  Some stupid little voice inside me just won’t shut up and I can’t sit by the sidelines and watch and do nothing.  I have to do something—even if it’s just letting the people I want to defend know I’m here.  I have to do something.

I noticed that there are people in this world just hellbent upon making it a miserable place for the rest of us and I have no desire to be around them.  Thankfully this is a minority of folks and I find that most people are generally decent and well intentioned.  Even so these decent people have a tendency to “kid around” to such an extent that I always feel very distant from them.  The joking, the kidding, the teasing…I don’t know it just gets old after a while.  I’ve always been one to provide a good ribbing and I like to think that I take as well as I give—but I’m more apt to get annoyed when the target is someone other than myself.  I’ll go up in arms twice as quickly when the butt of the joke isn’t my own.  I’d like to think with all the squats I’ve been doing my own ass is pretty springy and most stuff bounces off of it.  Provided I’ve had enough sleep and coffee that day anyway.  No coffee = no sense of humor.  Word to the wise and future significant others.  Take for example this joke which I’ve heard far too many times and which seems particularly relevant after the flurry of rape culture commentary in the past few weeks:

“Hey what do you tell a woman with two black eyes?”

“Nothing.  You’ve already told her twice.”

There may have been a time and a place, with the right people, where I’d have laughed at that.  Not anymore.  I have no circumstance in mind where I can find a joke like that funny.  Or many many others.  I’m too angry about those people who are trying to make this world a nasty exclusive place to find humor in injustice anymore.  I guess there are just some things that are…difficult for me to laugh about Hubbell.

Part of this too I think comes from my continuing goal to eliminate negativity in my life.  I’ve had so much of it and I’ve had enough.  I’ve had twice, maybe three times, my fair share to contend with—and I’m well aware that it still pales in comparison to what some other people in this world deal with.  I’m just so tired of it.  I can’t control or stop the general trend of the universe toward entropy.  Shit happens – act tough and get over it.  That’s a motto I’m pretty well versed in.  While I can’t control what chaotic elements life invites to the dinner party, I can make sure that my table is set.  I think if I were to be my own super hero it would be “Type A-girl” It’s so much who I am it’s even my blood type.  Badumsh!

I don’t really want to be known as the girl with the giant stick…in the mud but at the same time I can’t just forget about the world either.  I can only promise this: I can’t stop trying to change or control things but I can do my best to not take myself too seriously.  Just know that while I will do my best to accept teasing of my own faults and flaws, I won’t respond as kindly if it involves anyone else I care about.

And on the subject of anal personalities and table settings, how about some SCONES?  Those trademark tea-time pastry of oh-so-proper British ladies.  Since I’m trying to find a way to stay true to myself (the British proper side) but still flex my funny scone (what the Brits might consider the “Cowboy American” side) I offer up to you this melding of American/British sensibilities.  It’s a scone with a classic American twist: apple-cheddar.  Kind of like the southern Apple Cheddar Pie that is so damn good and so damn…colonial.

Dorie Greenspan’s Apple Cheddar Scones

From “Baking from my home to yours” Dorie Greenspan  **I do not own** Read more

Mar 14

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Live and let Pie

Happy Pie Day everyone.  Man am I glad I got to baking early because things have gotten…well to say “hectic” would be an understatement.

Actually I’m kind of a mess right now.

I messed up something at work.  I’m freaking out about some family stresses.  I’ve got pressure on me to do things that I shouldn’t even be doing.  I just want to curl up and cry.  So instead of course, I pulled out a rolling pin, got to sweating and baked some pie.  After all as the song says “Baby don’t you cry, gonna bake a pie, gonna bake a pie with a heart in the middle.  Baby don’t be blue, gonna bake for you, gonna bake a pie with a heart in the middle.”  Waitress has become my go-to movie for when I really need a good cry and for pie day so it kind of works on both fronts today.

What I really need is for those close to me to cut me some slack if I need it.  I have a tendency to withdraw when I’m overwhelmed.  It’s an INFJ personality trait and it’s a seriously important defense mechanism for me.  I’ll often do things that make no sense to those who don’t “get it” – like how can you find time to bake if you claim to be so busy?  Well for one thing this replaced my sleeping and for another it’s a sort of active meditation for me.  Plus I can multitask in the kitchen and listen to lectures (oh yeah did I mention I’m back in school on top of the million other things I’m doing) while I keep my hands moving.  It’s also a solitary activity which is what I need when I’m freaking out and all up in my head.  For some people talking things out is what helps.  It doesn’t help me.  I need to be left alone, to develop an action plan and work out my problems on my own.

Part of this is because the time it would take to explain what’s going on would be extensive.  Simply spending 15 minutes having to explain the backstory of why something is the way it is, and then answering the subsequent questions, just adds to my anxiety.  When I’m up against the wall the thing I usually want most is time and I don’t feel like I have any to waste.  Plus the questions are usually extremely frustrating because unless you’ve actually lived through it all, usually there’s just no way to really impart an understanding of why something is upsetting me so much—especially when I’m dealing with messier and complicated problems like family.  (To clarify there aren’t any emergencies with mia familia.  Just some added stress I don’t need which would, under best circumstances, be annoying but at the moment making me flip the fuck out.  I realize I’m over reacting about it and that’s the important thing.)

I’ve never claimed to be an easy person to get along with.  I know that I’ll snap if I try to socialize when I’m like this so instead I just pull back completely.  It’s better for my friendships in the long run.  I just wish people could understand that.  There’s a hard outer shell I provide to the world and then a squishy, soft interior but underneath that is a third shell just like the outer, surface layer.  Like with pie. Tightly wound people like me are never going to stop being crazy—but what makes me the sort of person who can manage it is that I recognize when it’s happening and take steps to minimize the outfall.  So instead of flipping out at people for seemingly no reason, I can temper the storm until it passes.  Much easier to evacuate than clean up damage after the earthquake you see?

I really want the world to stop trying to change me.  I hear “hey you need to learn to relax and take it easy” way too much.  No, not just friends, but from every corner of every media out there.  I swear I think there’s a billboard nearby about smelling the roses.  Well I love rose, and I will stop to appreciate a flower when I have the time, but I’m not going to turn off this hyperdrive I’ve got.  It’s just not in my DNA.  I don’t do the standing still thing very well…unless I’m on a yoga mat.  And even then, the reason I can handle the slowness of meditation in Bikram is because it’s the punctuation to a very active form of yoga.  While I want to learn how to better manage my stress, because hey no one wants to feel like they are on the verge of having an Alice in Wonderland – drown in your own tears – kind of moment, I also don’t feel a need to radically change myself either.  Don’t worry, my blood pressure can handle it. Sometimes I think I’m hardwired this way because I physically need it.  When my bp is regularly 95/50 I have to think that without any stress in my life I’d wind up dead!

I want to be understood and in kind I’ll do my best to adapt to the styles of others.  I want to be trusted to handle my own concerns as I see fit.  I want to get the sense of accomplishment that comes from defeating these troubles when I’m confronted with them.

But mostly right now I just want some pie.  I call this a triple apple pie because in addition to the apples I use apple butter and an apple whisky I love for baking and cocktails.  Both ingredients are optional—though both make the flavor incredible so I wouldn’t recommend leaving it out.  IF you can’t find apple butter just increase your sugar by ¼ a cup.  If you can’t find the apple whisky…well you can instead try 2 tsp of a standard whisky with 1 tsp of apple cider.

Triple Apple Pie

An Olivia Original Read more

Feb 26

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Think Thin Tuesday: Salad for Bone-heads (shoulders, knees and toes!)

Do you ever have those moments of realizing something that shakes your world, makes you sit back and say “well, fuck.”

This summer I’ll be turning 25 which in all honesty is still a very young age.  My ovaries aren’t about to cough up their last egg.  My hair isn’t near turning grey though to be honest I’ll never know when it does thanks to an amazing hair stylist.  I may already have a few wrinkles from frowning too much but they aren’t age related…yet.  Aside from an old ankle injury and a bundle of tight nerves I am in pretty good physical health.

But 25 is ¼ of 100; even if I live to be 100, I will have lived a quarter of my life already.  That’s a bigger chunk of the pie chart than pac-man’s mouth.  PacMan has eaten 25% of my life.  Well, fuck.  Plus 25, well that’s when things really official start to slow down.  The metabolism of your youth is not going to be nearly as reliable when you eat that second donut.  Bones aren’t storing any additional calcium you get into your diet.  Your body in general is going to start losing that springy bounce-back-ability from nights of partying.  In short: it’s time to grow up kid and start thinking about making sure that you are able to enjoy the next 50 years in good health.

As a woman one of the things I need to worry about especially is the calcium issue.  A lot of us get the “Got Milk” message in our youth and there’s a lot of emphasis placed around getting calcium for growing bones.  Did you know that’s not JUST about the initial growth phase though?  True you need to make sure you have this vital nutrient to get big and strong but it’s actually also about making sure you get an influx of calcium to store in those bones—to last you the rest of your life.  Around your mid-twenties your body stops storing calcium in your bones.  Around your 30’s you start to lose bone density—you start losing calcium.  It’s caused by a lack of exercise (which reinforces and strengthens not only muscle but bone) and it is exacerbated by a lack of sufficient calcium absorption in your diet.

Oh and do you know what else studies are revealing causes a breakdown of bone density?  Soft drinks.  Soda.  The December 2008 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that long term soft drink consumption had a strong correlation with bone loss.  Mom thank you so much for keeping us from drinking coca-cola growing up.  I owe you.

The reason your body starts to lose calcium is because your heart needs calcium to work.  Calcium plays a pivotal role in some cellular functions and I will try not to bore you to tears with the details.  Basically in order to move certain chemicals in/out of your cells your body needs calcium to open a drawbridge of sorts.  If your body isn’t absorbing enough from your diet, which it gets worse and worse at doing as you age, it starts to seek elsewhere for this resource.  Guess where?  That’s right.  Your bones.  t, that big scary word that we always see old ladies talking about on TV is essentially the result of your body mining your bones for precious calcium and leaving them porous and weakened.  Women have it especially bad because the hormonal hell that is menopause also contributes to bone loss.

Thankfully there are a few things that really can help fight this off.  Regular exercise will keep your bones strong and encourage calcium uptake from your diet.  Running, hiking, weight lifting and anything that involves surface impact will help.  Unfortunately from what I’ve read activities that are better for the joints (i.e. swimming) are less helpful in this regard.  So try to vary your physical activity but ultimately any workout is better than none.  There are also foods you can eat to help you retain bone density.  Fermented foods and Fennel are especially good for you.  Of course getting calcium into your body isn’t about just eating calcium.  Our bodies usually require a delicate balance of various macro and micronutrients to successfully integrate the benefits from each.  Calcium is much better utilized for example, when your meal is also high in potassium, magnesium and vitamins D&K.  This is why it is still so, so much better to get nutrition from your food rather than a pill.  Nature has designed her vegetables and fruits with our bodies partly in mind.

So here is one of my favorite slaws to eat with a meal.  It’s got a ton of fiber and heart helping vegetables, in addition to being low calorie and full of healthy fats, and it tastes amazing.

Celery Root, Fennel Apple Salad

Adapted from a recipe published in Bon Apetit Feb2010 Read more

Nov 7

Bacon high with Washington Apples

What a night for the munchies.  If you are celebrating in Washington or Colorado you might want to just scroll ahead to a rather token recipe. 

Boy what an election huh?”

My response: “Uh-huh”

My Thoughts: **mentally – don’t talk about politics at work, don’t talk about politics at work**

If only I could be vocal and say what I’m thinking.  Oh, wait, I have a blog!  Guess what folks, since I broke the seal on poli”ticks” as posts, here are my thoughts on two big pieces of news from the election you’ve heard about and one piece of news you probably won’t hear about:

  • Maine and Maryland are now my favorite places for seafood and civil rights.  Not only was it a big deal that gay marriage has been legalized in two more states, slow and steady folks, but that it was done via the ballot box is a huge moment.  It wasn’t a legislative commandment or an issue from the judicial bench.  People, en masse, stood up and declared a vote for equal rights.  It’s pretty powerful to finally see this happen.  I couldn’t be happier about that unless we came in with the small-l libertarian answer on a Federal level: remove marriage from it completely and declare blanket rights to all consenting adults for civil unions in the eyes of the law.  Leave the term “marriage” and all that it means (or doesn’t mean, let’s face it) to the churches, mosques and tentacle-loving cults to define for their own parishioners.   That would be ideal since it would eliminate the squabbling from our political arena altogether and provide a fair ground of equal civil rights to everyone.  I can live with it though if instead we just eventually evolve enough to declare marriage rights to gays in all states.  I personally don’t have any hang ups about the word and its applications.
  • Washington and Colorado are lighting up on the news feed today.  Like totally dude this is gonna be one to watch.  How is the Federal Government going to respond? 
  • Here’s something you probably won’t hear about: I am part of the 1% – as in the 1% of the popular vote that went to Gary Johnson who managed to pull in an excess of 1 million votes.  Why is this big deal?  This is the biggest voter pull for the libertarian party to date and yes that is a very big deal.  Consider that all other third party candidates came in at less than half that number and he raised only $1 million for his campaign.  It’s a drop in the ocean obviously, but to quote a popular film right now, what is the ocean but a collection of drops?  Johnson pulled in over 3.5% of the vote in his home state of New Mexico and surprisingly to me, managed to make his biggest gains in Montana, Alaska and Maine.  I would have expected higher numbers in Colorado and Washington since Johnson is strongly in favor of ending the war on drugs.  A subject I feel quite strongly about as well.  I’m not a pot user, I think the stuff is disgusting, but I think it’s criminal that the stuff is criminal.

So there you have it.  Am I disappointed with the results?  Well of course.  I mean I still think that the voter mentality this election was “vote for the lesser of two evils” for a lot of folk – a mentality that is motivated entirely by fear.  Was I surprised? Not the presidential election outcome.  That one was more or less solid in my mind, even if the race did come much closer on the popular vote than I anticipated.  No I had every confidence Obama was going to win.  I am however delighted and surprised to see a positive move forward in civil rights and common sense.

In the meantime to any readers I have in Washington State (known for being number 1 in apple crops) or Colorado, which I’m sure has apples as well, I present to you something to commemorate your big voter win.  Bacon Caramel Apples.  I’ve had a hankering to make these for quite some time and now they seem so oddly appropriate….

Bacon Caramel Apples

An Olivia Original  Read more

Sep 17

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Hey Muffin Monday: Op Op Op Rosh Hashanah Style

L’Shana Tova! Rosh Hashanah New Year’s Resolution: focus on what you need to get done now.

It’s yet another new year for the Jewish folk out there. I certainly feel like this theme of renewal ties in to my current state of affairs. Things are well, pretty crazy, to say the least. I’ve got so much to do and such little time to do it in in order to get ready for my new job on Wednesday!

I have a serious problem. Apparently when I’m already swamped with things to worry about, when I have new change happening that I should be preparing for, I can’t seem to help myself from thinking about the next new challenge I want to take on. This weekend on top of preparing for my new role (getting mentally situated and studying materials) I decided I should start planning a million other projects. Sewing projects, cosplay projects, blogging/writing projects, my Thanksgiving menu…. It’s sick. I need help. Why can’t I seem to stop trying to overload myself with things to do? I really wonder if it’s just that I work best when I’m stretched or if I use these things to escape from something. Maybe it’s that I procrastinate by planning. Don’t focus on the task at hand…think about the next one!

Living in tomorrow is unwise if you can’t control where you are today. Something I’ve learned is that even when you have a handle on current affairs, if you spend too much time mentally living in the future, you miss out on everything worth seeing along the way there. Then suddenly it’s the future and you’re not appreciating all that planning because you’re already another span ahead. It isn’t fulfilling. So I’m going to try to stay focused on the here and now for the next few days. I’ve got to or I’ll go crazy taking on too many things.

Still…one list I wanted to start formulating was a new set of 1001 things to do in 101 days. I really like that challenge and it makes you sit down and plot out where you want to be and what you want to have accomplished over a three year span. It’s not something to be taken lightly and odds are you won’t get all those things done if you plan your list as loftily as I did last time. Still I managed to get through 30% of my items which wasn’t too shabby. Let me procrastinate just a little bit at you and give you my top 10 items for my 101 list….

  1. See Bernini’s David in person – my top item on any bucket list
  2. Buy a car
  3. Full time employment *that makes me happy*
  4. Move into my own place
  5. Go to Dragon*Con
  6. Travel to Prince Edward Island
  7. Host a fabulous dinner party
  8. Organize a group cosplay
  9. Take an acting class
  10. Fall in love again

So nothing too ambitious right? I notice that most of this is about traveling and doing things with friends. A few practical items…buying a car for one thing. That’s going to be unavoidable the next few years but since it has seemed like such an unattainable thing for a while I think it should make the list. Moving is also going to be something I can’t avoid doing…but again it makes the list. I’m not going to specify where I plan on moving to yet. That will always be tied to item #3 on the list. It’s incredibly frustrating actually. I’d love to move to another part of the country but I keep finding that no one wants to relocate you so they avoid hiring non-locals. Thus if I want to work somewhere else I might have to move first and look into jobs after. It takes a special kind of courage to just pack up, move and see what happens.

But see here I go thinking about that when I haven’t even started my new contract yet! I have so much to do to get ready for this new job. Something about new year celebrations just infects me with an even greater than usual desire to plan and plot and prepare. There’s so much energy there! Wonder if there’s a way to get a job being a project starter. I think I’d be good at that….

Anyway here’s to wishing you all a Sweet New Year! It is tradition on Rosh Hashanah to eat apples dipped in honey. Typically I make a sweet cinnamon apple honey challah loaf but this year I’ve been so busy that bread baking just takes up too much time. I am skirting that by baking up these muffins instead…ah muffins, how I love thee. They come together so quickly and bake up so perky.

Honey Apple Nut Muffins
Modified from Dorie Greenspans “Baking from my home to yours”
in the book this is listed as a muffin recipe that was hastily poured into a cake pan to make a rustic cake instead. I opted for the original intention and MMMMMMM not complaining Read more

Aug 31

1 Comment

Fantasy Friday: Apple Tart, hold the poison

Today I review “Assassin’s Apprentice” and share a recipe, utilizing 5 or fewer ingredients, for a simple (posion-free) Apple Tart.

I’ve managed to pick up such a good pace with my reading again that I endeavored to find additional ways to maintain it. Since I’m a big fan of Geek and Sundry on youtube (least I’m a fan of some shows) I thought what better way to support Felicia Day and my rediscovered bibliovore appetite than by reading along with the Sword and Laser book club. Do you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about? Let me explain; no there is too much, let me sum up.

Geek & Sundry is a channel on youtube started by Felicia Day that hosts an assortment of shows delivering original content for free to the internet. My favorite show thus far has been Tabletop, a show hosted by Will Wheaton where a gaggle of geeky guests play table top games like Munchkin or Settlers of Catan, is probably my favorite. Sword and Laser is a scifi & fantasy focused book club show that features both author interviews and discussions about their book club choice for the month. I found this show difficult to watch initially because I hadn’t read the books…it just made it hard to keep my interest. Serendipity struck though when in July, the book choice was “Leviathan Wakes” which as you may recall, lined up rather well with my Hugo Award challenge. This was the perfect jump start to “joining” the book club.

August’s selection is a fantasy novel. I find that I’m pickier about them since they require a little more imagination from the reader and a little less effort from the author. Magic as a driving force for plot requires a little less thought to establish because hey, why does it work? Magic! See pretty easy. Thus I think I’m probably a bit pickier. I think I prefer my fantasy worlds these days to be either really fantastical (Harry Potter) or gritty (Game of Thrones). Some will object to my elevation of Harry Potter but the thing I always appreciated about those books was the level of research into pre-existing magical lore that Rowling incorporated. Yet I digress, that’s a topic for another day. I’m already almost a page in and I haven’t even reviewed Assassin’s Apprentice yet.

This is supposed to be the coming of age story of a bastard boy who comes to court after his disgraced father has abandoned his claim to the throne. I know I’m supposed to care about the kid, known as Fitz, but the initial 100 pages or so don’t leave me establishing much of a connection to him. Aside from an innate ability to enter the minds of animals, an ability he is then forbidden to use, there’s little that draws me to his character. Fitz just doesn’t seem to have much of an interest in anything. Even when he accepts an offer to train as the King’s (his grandfather) assassin it kind of just feels like something he decides to do because…well because what else is he going to do with his life?

The first glimmer of compelling plot starts when the story tells of raiders attacking villages and holding townsfolk ransom. Here’s the twist: the ransom doesn’t buy their return but rather their deaths. If the ransom isn’t paid, the raiders return the hostages but they return them changed. The people have been “forged” and made into basically a band of wild, animal like sociopaths with no hope of cure. Reavers? Maybe because this is a young adult novel the concept isn’t full explored. The depictions of the forged folk seem extremely muted and so I don’t ever get a sense of horror from it nor do we really get a reason to be invested in these townspeople. Maybe if a character we had grown to love wound up forged it would make the threat seem greater. I kept hoping for a chance to jump off the precipice into an exciting story at this point but it never happened.

The problem with the forging storyline also stems from the fact that it’s only mentioned sporadically. We get reports of towns being forged in between accounts of Fitz’s training at the Castle and some political intrigue that’s too vague to be compelling to read. The forgings are eventually completely forgotten for a time while Fitz attempts to learn how to use “The Skill” which is some other totally unrelated talent to his assassin apprenticeship–the assassin trainings are “suspended” during the Skilling chapters.

Finally we get to the last few chapters where Fitz actually is engaging in assassin duties in a story arc that’s sort of related back to the forging but still pretty detached from it. My time reading felt like I was skimming the surface of what could be a better story if something was just allowed to develop a little. I don’t know, maybe the problem is that I’m simultaneously working my way through A Song of Ice and Fire which as adult fantasy has a lot more to chew on. Assassin’s Apprentice is the first book in a trilogy but I’m just not sure I’ll be picking up the next one. I want to know more about the Forgings but not enough to read through another two books if they continue on like this one. I felt like I had to force myself to get through the bulk of this book and a few minutes on Wikipedia for the story resolution seems like a much more appealing way of getting the basic plot points.

There was a minor scene in Apprentice where an apple tart is divided into thirds and eaten randomly by those dining to demonstrate that the treat was baked without a deadly ingredient. Apples and poison seem to go together really well, or not well as the case may be, in fantasy stories. This recipe is so simple, lacking complexity like the book, but simple can still be tasty. It’s a great looking dessert that even the most kitchen-handicapped can put out and impress friends with at a dinner party. Just don’t bake it with apples from anyone named Regina…I’ve heard there’s something insidious about her baked goods. If you keep a box of puff pastry in the freezer and have apples, or really any fruit, lying around the house then you will always have a quick dessert when unexpected company arrives.

Parisian Apple Tartlet
Modified From “Baking From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan Read more

Jan 4

Bad Apple(sauce)

For a few years time I hated applesauce and butterscotch pudding. Basically from the age of 17-20 or so I couldn’t stand the stuff. It reminded me of my tonsillectomy when I was 17 because all I subsisted on for the days following that surgery was pudding, applesauce, lukewarm chicken broth and large amounts of ground up Oxycontin. Most kids get a laptop or money when they graduate highschool. Me? I got to have incredibly painful surgery. In fact the timing lined up with my 17th birthday so it wasn’t just a graduation gift, but a birthday present as well.

There is a very big lie associated with getting your tonsils removed. TV and people always make a big deal out of how you get to live off ice cream afterwards. They are all frelling lying to you. Ice Cream HURTS after that surgery. It’s just too damn cold on your throat and makes you want to die. Biggest let down of my life. I had to eat foods that were at room temperature to even be able to handle it.

Upside: I lost weight. Downside:I spent the week following conscious only long enough to eat my tablespoon of soft food which really only served as a delivery vehicle for crushed drugs.

But no more do I abhor applesauce. Butterscotch pudding and I still have a shaky relationship, but my bad memories of applesauce have since faded enough for me to appreciate its rustic charm and thank goodness I have because I had it on hand to make a batch of Dorie’s Applesauce Spice Bars.

If I didn’t know better I’d think I baked some Oxycontin in with these things. They are habit forming more than any other bar/brownie recipe I’ve ever tried. So I am giving you fair warning: if you are trying to diet for a new year’s resolution, stay away from this recipe. If on the other hand you want to go the “Eat Pray Love” track and stuff yourself with all delicious carbs until you need new pants, this is a great place to start.

I’ve made these three times now and I definitely prefer applejack to dark rum, golden raisins and I liked them better with the pecans.  I also found that I need double the recipe for the glaze to actually get a thick coating like in Dorie’s pictures.  This is my third batch and I made more of a caramel for it which I felt was too sweet but everyone else loved it.   Also I’d suggest waiting until the bars are completely cool before glazing…otherwise they will just absorb the mixture.

Dorie Greenspan’s Applesauce Spice Bars  Baking: From my home to yours

For the Bars

  • 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  •  1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon applejack, brandy or dark rum (optional)
  • 1 baking apple, such as Rome or Cortland, peeled, cored and finely diced or chopped
  • 1/2 cup plump, moist raisins (dark or golden)
  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans

For the Glaze

  • 2-1/2 tablespoons heavy cream
  • 1/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
  • 2-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
  •  1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

GETTING READY: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-x-13 inch baking pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, butter the paper and dust the inside of the pan with flour. Tap out the excess flour and put the pan on a baking sheet.

THE BARS: Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt.In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the brown sugar and stir with a whisk until it is melted and the mixture is smooth, about 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat.

Still working in the saucepan, whisk in the eggs one at a time, mixing until they are well blended. Add the applesauce, vanilla and applejack, if you’re using it, and whisk until the ingredients are incorporated and the mixture is once again smooth. Switch to a rubber spatula and gently stir in the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear, then mix in the apple, raisins and nuts. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake for 23 to 25 minutes, or until the cake just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the baking pan to a rack and let the cake cool while you make the glaze.

THE GLAZE: In a small saucepan, whisk together the cream, sugar, butter and corn syrup. Put the pan over medium heat and bring the mixture to the boil, whisking frequently. Adjust the heat so that the glaze simmers, and cook, whisking frequently, for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Turn the bars out onto a rack, remove the paper and invert the bars onto another rack, so they are right side up. Slide the parchment paper under the rack to serve as a drip catcher, grab a long metal icing spatula and pour the hot glaze over the bars, using the spatula to spread it evenly over the cake. Let cool to room temperature before cutting. Cut into 32 rectangles, each about 2-1/4 x 1-1/2 inches.

Sep 30

2 Comments

A Good and Sweet New Year – שנה טובה ומתוקה

I’m off being a busy worker bee these days with an assortment of things I need to get done but I am still trying this whole “write 365″ days thing.  I have missed a few already, which I chalk up to my obsession with writing cover letters, but if I count those then I’ve DEFINITELY been writing daily.  I’ve also been able to keep up with my kitchen antics AND I managed to get a hold of a copy of the new Wonder Woman that came out.  Verdict: okay, not great.  I think the new 52 can’t really be evaluated on content until three or four editions come out and a storyline develops (or doesn’t) that can be critiqued.  Thankfully though Diana’s costume has not been complicated or skanked up.  YAY.  Also got a hold of the Dark Knight reboot and okay, please tell me I didn’t miss something in the past where two face gets hulkified because I am CONFUSED.

Anyway Rosh Hashanah just passed, is passing, as I write this and as always I try to make a post relevant to the holidays when they come by.  If you like Matzo Ball Soup you can revisit my recipe from last year.  THIS year I’m going to share my sweet version of the best ever Challah for the holidays.  Consuming sweet foods is a common practice since traditionally you would wish for a sweet new year.  It’s also a common practice to form the Challah into rounds, rather than straight braids, to symbolize creation and the the idea of infinity.  A circle has no start and no end.   Read more

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