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Posts tagged ‘Chocolate’

Oct 4

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schemes o’ chocolate an’ coconut Meringue aft a-gley

Sometimes in life you make a mistake and that mistake leaves with some outcome that is not quite—or at times leaps and bounds off—from what you set out to do.  This happens to me quite frequently in the kitchen and typically I don’t share those mistakes.  At least not until I’ve gone back and reworked the problem to a point where I have satisfactorily fixed it.  The rest?  They get swept away and never mentioned to the blog-o-sphere.  Ah the sanctity of privacy.  Someone told me the other day that I should share one of these epic screw-ups with my readers but I feel like that would be such a downer of a post.  See I don’t ever really give up on something unless I’m really, really abjectly upset and convinced it is impossible to do.

This happens more frequently in life outside of the kitchen.  I don’t think I have a dish yet that I haven’t at the least back-burnered as a “to try again” kind of deal.  It’s just not in my nature.  I’d like to think that this can apply to all situations in life too; that it’s never too late to turn a mistake around.  As Anne Shirley would say:

“Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it…yet.”

I truly believe that you only have made an irreparable error in life when it’s one that you learn absolutely nothing from.  Even if it’s something as simple as learning that your GPS isn’t always correct and when it says to make a right turn onto train tracks you probably shouldn’t listen.  I totally did NOT do that by the way but a certain tepsay atherfay of mine has.  Sometimes those mistakes can even turn into something pretty amazing even if it’s not what you wanted in the first place.  Like these meringue cookies of mine.  They started out as coconut macaroons.  Well I didn’t get coconut macaroons because I was being a cheapskate.  Instead I got meringues but they were absolutely DELICIOUS even if somewhat resembling a lumpy pile of something you’d see on a canine frequented sidewalk.  Seriously don’t take my word for it?  Well were she here a certain coworker of mine who ate four of these would validate my claim.

I still intend to go back and tweak my macaroon recipe.  This time I won’t try to cheap out of using condensed milk.  See I’d already used my can for yesterday’s post and didn’t want to run out to the store to buy another.  The problem is you need the density of the stuff to give macaroons (and these are not the French macaroon mind you, those are something else completely different) their unique texture and chew.  Without it I really just wound up with a sweet that is fluffy and puffy from egg whites.  But sweet pac-man did they taste GOOD.

This is probably why I like baking and cooking so much.  In the kitchen you can usually salvage anything.  Crumbled cakes can become trifles and almost any dish, no matter how deflated or misshapen can be covered up with a good sauce.  Even burnt meals can be somewhat saved providing there’s enough left over after the char has been scraped away.

While I really want to believe it’s never too late to turn things around in life, and I do, that doesn’t mean you can always go back and start over.  You’ve got to either salvage what you’ve got in a true Tim Gunn “make it work” kind of moment or let it go, lessons learned, and find a new goal or project to funnel that knowledge into.  So long as you can do that I like to think of it as turning it around.  Sitting around and doing nothing—living in denial?  That’s the failure.  Doing that is essentially ostriching your way through life and hiding in fear of facing and owning up to your fuckup.  When you do that you cheat yourself of other sweet experiences (and meringue cookies!) that might come along your path.

I hope that life doesn’t come and prove me wrong someday.  That I don’t make a mistake so big that I wake up every morning for the rest of my life never fully recovered and never able to let it go and move past it.  At least I know if and when I am handed that lesson I can hide away in my kitchen and make delicious things out of mess-ups until the end times.  Or at least I can so long as I don’t lose my hands in some freak accident that accompanies my harsh lesson in unfixable failure.  Dear Universe: please don’t take my hands away.  I need them to bake and stuff, okay?

See what I mean?  I feel like even with the hopeful naiveté I brought to it this post was kind of depressing.  Bugger it – chocolate makes everything better.  On to the recipe!

Chocolate Coconut Meringue Cookies
an Olivia Original Read more

Sep 16

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Nothing Bundt Chocolate at Ghiradelli Square

This weekend I have had to stay home and get myself mentally steadied for next week.  My last day with the old company will be Tuesday and then I start up at the new place next day!  Everyone keeps asking why I didn’t give myself some break time:

  1. I wouldn’t get paid.
  2. They wanted me to start basically yesterday.

Being the kind of neurotic, control freak I am this weekend was really important to me.  I just needed a chance to be home, to clean, to sort, to impose order and thus steady my nerves.  I initially had planned to go to Comikaze but I had been waiting to buy plane tickets based off this job potentiality.  I didn’t want to be running around all weekend if I was going to start a new job on Monday following the con.  By the time I found out it was too late to get a plane ticket for less than a hundred bucks.  The best things in life are free but you can give them to the birds and the bees I want money.

 Last weekend however I got to have some fun in San Francisco.  It was the Ghiradelli Chocolate Festival – iknorite?  An entire day dedicated to chocolate mmmmmm.  I think the sum result was that this festival was a little better than the last one I went to in the Mission because of the ticket system.  You had to purchase a pass at the door/ahead of time but it was good for 15 samples at the various stations.  Reduced line time significantly because no one had to pay at each spot for things and you really did get a lot of options for your money.

My favorites included some chocolate covered popcorn (popcorn is my favorite food group), a chocolate vodka (3 shots of that and you’ve got your $15 value alone!) and some chocolate covered apples from Danville Chocolates.  Candy apples remind me so much of my childhood and I absolutely get a thrill eating them.  Plus since it’s largely a big hung of fruit you feel far less guilty about all that caramel and chocolate…until I realize that it’s still just a big ball of sugar.  Damn oh well.

Ghiradelli of course provided an array of samples of their chocolates and I discovered their newest fall flavor: chocolate pumpkin caramel.  That was orgasm-in-mouth levels of good.  The whole festival inspired an array of recipe ideas in my head that I had to jot down in my notebook on the ferry ride home at the end of the night.  You’ll probably see a lot of chocolate come through the blog this winter.  I hope my jeans still fit by the time January rolls around…

My co-worker (soon to be former!) enjoyed the lava cakes from Rainforest Café.  They were pretty good but oh so rich!  After one (or two) of those I needed something to wash them down with.  There were several stands with wine or spirits to choose from but most were not very good and not exactly the palate cleanse you want after a giant scoop of rich cake.  Then I found it: MILK.  Hands down the smartest vendor to attend this affair was Organic Pastures Dairy Co.  For a stamp on your ticket you could get a bottle of delicious, nutritious raw milk.  Guys I love this stuff and this is the company that sells out of my Davis Co-Op.  When I’m in more of a soap box mood I’ll tell ya’ll why I am such a big fan of this stuff.

I broke down and bought ONE product while I was at the festival.  There was a stand selling an array of flavored balsamic vinaigrettes.  I’m always torn about purchasing flavored vinegars since I know with a little time and effort I could make my own infusions at home.  There’s just only so much I can do though and to really develop the flavors and consistency though…well I can’t help but think that requires a lot of dedication to testing, developing and I just don’t have that.  When I found this Chocolate Balsamic Vinegar from Gourmet Blends and saw how thick it was I just had to buy it.  I have been using it all over the place at home.

In fact the first thing I knew I wanted to do was use up some of the delicious, high quality milk chocolate I was given as a bag of samples.  I flipped open my usual trusty cookbook that I’m slowly working through and found a recipe for a Milk Chocolate Bundt Cake.  Erhmagerd perfect!  It was a snap to throw together so I knew I could bake it late in the evening with ease and then I decided to spike the chocolate glaze with my balsamic vinegar and some sea salt.  It gave the cake some exotic flavor that slowly grows on you, like poison ivy and then you just can’t scratch the itch enough.  I wanted to lick it off the bowl, the spoon, the serving plate….

 Milk Chocolate Bundt Cakes

modified from Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking from my home to yours” Read more

Sep 12

3 Comments

Brownies: Going places, making new friends

I was a girl scout back when I was a wee lass.  The thing I loved most about it was completing activities to collect badges…which I’m now just realizing is a lot like my love of videogames with achievements/quests that you get to complete.  Sometimes I wish real life had a similar way to measure events.  I mean sure we get diplomas and marriage certificates…some people save their first pay stubs and I’m going to frame my letter stating my student loan has been paid off in full.   No really I am and it’s going right next to the diploma.  Not sure which one I’m more proud of to be honest. Still there are a lot of other big moments that merit a badge I think.  Hahaha I get it merit badges because you merit a badge.  Wow.  Lame Olivia, very lame.

What sorts of events am I talking about?  Well for example, the one I had yesterday.  You may have noticed the first pause in my postings for quite some time now.  That’s because yesterday I was just too frazzled/excited/nervous/scared/emotional grab-bagging through my day to put thought to paper.  For the first time in my adult life I have quit my job.  It’s kind of a scary moment.  The idea of walking into that room to tell my functional manager that I’ve been offered a position by another company, that I’m going to take it, was both thrilling and terrifying.  Thrilling because I’ve spent the last year in a position that wasn’t really where my career aspirations lie and so leaving it to move into my desired role is a great thing.  Terrifying because the company I’m working for is so important in my industry, it’s THE name of biotech really, and because I’m comfortable where I am.  Leaving the comfort of a job is hard to do, even when it’s not what you really wanted, because the unknown is just so damn scary.

Merit Badge for yesterday: Submit your first letter of resignation.

But it has to be done.  Just like my last post about fear, which also featured brownies oddly enough, you have to suck it up and face it down.  At least I do.  Some people are happy to find a comfortable groove and tread water until the end of their days.  That’s perfectly fine for them.  It’s not for me.  I need momentum and challenge to feel fulfilled.  I need this career move in order to feel like I’m doing something that matters both for the world and for myself.  Even if it means that I fail.  Failure is probably my greatest fear…yes more so than dying.  That’s why I have to force myself to face failure and face it often.

This whole process has happened pretty fast.  I went from interview to job offer within a span of almost just a day.  I’m going to be getting dumped in the deep end of the pool this time and I know that for a little while it’ll be all I can do to keep my head above water.  This will translate into either a lot of crying or a lot of baking…or both.  Still I am excited and nervous and looking forward instead of looking back.  That’s all I can do.

Starting Wednesday of next week I will embrace the old Brownie motto: Going [new] places, making new friends or at least I hope to.  If nothing else it will be an adventure and I’ll acquire one of two merit badges: 1) clinical trial assistant win OR 2) clinical trial assistant fail.  I just keep reminding myself that if the worst thing I can do is fail, then that’s really not such a big deal.  After all why do we fall Bruce…to pick ourselves back up again.  It’s the act of getting up after failure that defines who we are, makes us stronger and makes us better.  Plus I have to remember that I’m 24 and free from being responsible for the well being of any other human being.  There are no children who need mommy to bring home a paycheck.  If something goes wrong I’m only letting myself down.  That helps a bit, even if it is still something of a cynical way of looking at things.

In the meantime to quell my nerves I needed CHOCOLATE and lots of it.  So I baked up these quintuple chocolate brownies.  Yup you read that right.  A 5-some of chocolatey, brownie goodness that calms the nerves after facing down even the scariest of Dementors.  These brownies are DENSE like a thick, flourless cake and rich with a white chocolate ganache topping.  Yes I know white chocolate isn’t technically chocolate.  Shush.  I’ll give you the “technicality correction” merit badge and then shut you up with one of these decadent delights.  Deal?

Quintuple Chocolate Brownies

from Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking from my home to yours” Read more

Sep 10

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Muffin Monday: Es-pressing On

“You’ll probably have a good many more and worse disappointments than that before you get through life,” said Marilla, who honestly thought she was making a comforting speech. “It seems to me, Anne, that you are never going to outgrow your fashion of setting your heart so on things and then crashing down into despair because you don’t get them.”

“I know I’m too much inclined that, way” agreed Anne ruefully. “When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part IS glorious as long as it lasts. . .it’s like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud.”  — Anne of Green Gables

I have a number counting problem that involves eggs, chickens and predictive hatching.  Too often I get swept up in my own excitement and anticipation; my daydreams are legendary or at least they are in my head.  See anytime I think something good is going to happen, or some project/opportunity/dream is percolating, I can quite easily get distracted imagining about the outcome to pay attention to where I’m headed.   Truth is most of the things I get excited about never come to fruition.  I don’t know if that’s because I lack the follow through, bad luck or if it’s just that I always have 10 things I’m working on and the simple law of statistics dooms me.   Is this too abstract a discussion?  Let’s try an example.  When I was job hunting a year ago I would find an amazing job and submit my resume.  I would then start figuring out how I’d commute to that job, look for apartments near the city, try to calculating living wage in that region…and most of the time I never even got so much as a rejection notice from those applications.

It’s a waste of time really and I do so hate time wasting but I can’t seem to stop myself.  I get so animated and it’s like a tidal wave of hopes and dreams that carry me along…or as Anne says, the wings of anticipation that lift me up far higher than any person is meant to go.  There’s no place left but down.

You may say that I’m a dreamer – John Lennon

I have a few things I’m waiting on right now.  Just in case you were wondering where this is coming from.

One thing I’m trying to learn to do at the very least, if I can’t keep myself from feverish dreaming, is to keep these dreams to myself.  The only thing that’s worse than crashing down to reality—crashing down publicly.    I suppose part of that is the embarrassment factor.  Obviously it can be a little humbling to have other people see you fail to achieve something but since I get so excited these things tend to build up as even bigger and more desirable than they ought to.  I swear I could make something as simple as buying scarfs seem like an event for pomp and circumstance.  This kind of passion makes the crash even more splendidly explosive and therefore far more humiliating.  Even so the embarrassment, while very difficult, isn’t the worst part.  It’s reliving my failure over and over and over as I have to report to all parties who are aware of my waiting that it didn’t go through.

I have talked about how I put rather tremendous levels of pressure and expectation upon myself.  Every time I have to tell someone that the job didn’t go through, I couldn’t afford to go to that convention or my cake burned, I am internally reprimanding myself again for my failure.  As such I have been trying harder to keep from babbling to anyone without listening distance about things I’m hoping to see happen until after they do.

Still you can’t avoid that completely.  If I did I would have nothing to talk about…ever.  There’s a balance I need to find.  Thankfully one thing I am good at is pressing on after thudding down to the ground.  I try to wear my cuts and bruises, both literal and figurative, like a warrior.  I am Xena.  I am Daenerys Stormborn.  I am Wonder Woman.  Hear me roar.  Then I move on and find something new to get excited about.  It’s as energizing as a shot of espresso and so long as I can keep relighting that spark, I can get my wings aloft, and there will be day when I don’t thud down.  There will be a day when I fly clear through that sunset into the sunrise.  I’ve always preferred a sunrise.

In the meantime, for those moments when your feathers are drooping a little, these muffins are loaded with espresso and sugar.  They will perk you up with a pleasant bitter shock from the espresso played against the sweetness of chocolate to keep yourself running.  If you want to add a pinch of powdered caffeine to the recipe you could easily transform one of the mini-muffins into the equivalent of a cup of coffee.  In fact next time I might just do that to make these Energized Espresso Muffins.

Mini-Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins

modified from “Little Cakes by Whimsical Bakehouse” Read more

Sep 8

Daleks in the kitchen…Dark-Choc-o-late

Well it’s been a week, have you managed to get caught up on the season premiere of Doctor Who yet?  No?  Then go shoo!  Go get it loaded up or else Bonnie Burton and other Whovians will start to chase you down demanding to know why you haven’t watched.

Or you can just read through my live responses to last week’s episode (7.1 “Asylum of the Daleks”) below as I watch again in anticipation for tonight’s episode (“Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”) that makes super confused as to why motherf*cking Samuel L Jackson isn’t involved.  I’m actually very excited for tonight’s new episode.  It seems to promise both a heavy dose of camp, inspired by Snakes on a Plane and has TWO Harry Potter alumni guest starring.  In the meantime though, while I wait, I will eat this chocolate soufflé and press begin on…

It’s finally explained: why the Dalek’s have a whisk for a hand. Betcha didn’t know they were bakers did you? Neither did I.

Opening on Skaro.  Pretty desolate looking place but I thought it was destroyed completely?  And the story begins in a pretty standard way: damsal needs the Doctor’s help.  Those boots are amazing.  I really, really want those boots.  Damn.Daleks are Cylons now.  Gotcha.  That’s terrifying aaaaaaaaaand the Doctor is captured.

Rory and Amy are on the outs.  Amy is modeling and being pouty.  Gee I wonder if they will somehow get kidnapped by the cylon daleks and forced to reconcile this episode?  Amy Pond and Rory Williams are captured…wait, Rory has a last name of his own?

Potentially the best line of the entire episode just happened.  “How much trouble are we in?”  Doctor: “Out of ten?  Eleven.”  Because he’s the eleventh doctor!  Love it.  That really was quite clever.  Good job Moffat.

That’s a shit ton of Daleks though calling it a parliament is kind of….meh.  They are now pleading for the doctor to save them.  Well that’s also new.

Loud Opera: good.  Soufflé: not so good.  Girl very pretty.  Stunning actually.  I guess that makes up for her lack of baking skills.

The Daleks don’t kill their insane because they consider hatred beautiful.  That must make Rory’s hair beautiful because I’m really not liking how it’s quaffed.   Daleks are disturbed by the blaring signal of Carmen which apparently the Doctor played the triangle in.  Pretty girl has a name: Oswin.  Crash landed for a year on the Dalek Asylum planet hiding out in her ship.

What have you been doing for a year?  Making soufflés.  Bad ones.  The Doctor wonders where she gets the milk.  Good question!  I was wondering more about the eggs.  Reconstituted powdered milk could theoretically work in a soufflé but not powdered eggs.

The Daleks want the Doctor to remove Oswin from their planet without releasing the insane Daleks.  Okay so this is kind of a flimsy premise.  They are too scared to go down to eradicate this girl who is a problem because she keeps playing…Carmen?

Blah blah and they are all sent to the planet where R2D2 starts spying from the snow.  Oh, nope, woops wrong universe.  Just Oswin hacking into the security system that is composed of Dalek eye stalks.  Rory has been separated from the group and is surrounded underground by a bunch of sleeping Daleks.  That can’t be good.

“I forgot about dying” oh crap scary black cylon Dalek.  The Doctor realizes that a nanocloud turns all organic matter on the planet (alive or dead) into a cylon.  Amy realizes they are surrounded by dead bodies while the Doctor continues to be impressed with his cleverness.  Now the Doctor and Amy have to fight off zombie cylon Daleks.  So this episode we’ve got solidly terrifying recreations of the Doctor’s greatest enemy and also weird cylon-R2D2-human hybrids.  Awesome.  No really, not sarcasm, this is awesome!

Amy is being sexy and sassy but I’m liking Oswin SO much.  She’s cheeky.  I hope she’s a companion eventually.  Adorable.  Talking blah blah Amy lost her nanobot protecting wristband and now is going to turn into a Cylon Dalek if they don’t beat the clock.  Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn.  Saw that coming.  Yawn.

BWAHAHAHA Rory thinks those ball bearings on the Daleks are their eggs.  Oh my god that was priceless.  “Do you want your eggs?”   No he wants to egg-egg-eggs-eggsterminate!  The Daleks are trying to warm up and get stuck on the first syllable of their infamous cry.  EXTERMINATE!  EXTERMINATE!  Would the zombie cylon daleks yell EXANIMATE?  Cheeky Oswin is flirting with Rory.  I like her too much to be mad that he shouldn’t be flirting with people who aren’t Amy.

Amy is still turning into a Dalek and is hallucinating.

Oswin thinks Amy seems angry.  Amy says Oswin has never been to Scotland.  Bwahahaha.  I love them.  The Doctor is still wondering about the milk for the soufflés.  You should be asking about the EGGS!  Oh wait, Rory explained that.  She gets them from the Daleks :-P

The Doctor is still trying to fix Amy and Rory’s marriage and save them all off the planet.  Time to get Oswin, lower the force field and beam off the planet to the Dalek ship…where the Daleks will then kill them on site.  Sounds like a Doctor Who kind of escape plan.

Rory wants to sacrifice himself for Amy because he has always loved her more.  She gets mad, she loves him just as much.  She only gave him up because she can’t have children.  Reconciled.  Well duh.

Oswin continues to be clever as she hacks into the Daleks between her and the Doctor to make them forget who the Doctor is so he can pass by them.  Too clever.  Oh no.  Poor Oswin.  She’s been a Dalek the whole time but her brain has been fighting the conversion and created an alternate reality where she is still human.  In truth she’s just a chained up Dalek.  Too bad.  This actress had great chemistry with Matt Smith.  Oswin is going to save them even though she’s a Dalek and sacrifice herself in the process.

And now the Doctor must run as he so often does.  If you asked me to pick one motif from this show it would simply be that: Run.  The Doctor gets off the planet before it explodes only to discover that Oswin managed to wipe the memories of all Daleks everywhere.  They don’t remember the Doctor, their greatest enemy and so a chorus erupts from Daleks “Doctor…Who?”

Alright I’m going to give this episode a B+ for being so damn clever, for finally giving the Daleks a refresh that makes them terrifying and new and for having a really awesome female guest star.  The detractor?  Well Amy and Rory were cute, and we got some of their relationship woes covered, but that storyline was a bit predictable and yawnish.  I had a feeling that this season the drama between them would in part be related to childbirth.  I mean after you’ve had your couple give birth to a baby in the last season, who turned out to be part timelord, who was stolen from them as an infant but then grew up with them in secret as their childhood friend and now is older than them, married to the Doctor and moving through her timeline in the opposite direction…well how do you suddenly go “And then they had a second baby and changed its diapers.”

And now we know that the Daleks love to bake!  Sadly it seems having a whisk for an arm doesn’t help in the soufflé department which is kind of shocking since a soufflé does depend largely on whipped egg whites for the lift and structure it is known for.  I’d never made a soufflé before but after watching Oswin fail in this episode I felt a need to try it out and see if I could redeem my new favorite character.

My first attempt was a smashing success.  I actually feel kind of cheated when that happens.  See now I know I can do it AND it felt easy which means next time I’ll be too cavalier and screw something up.  There’s definitely going to be a next time because this was DELICIOUS.  I forgot how much I love this pastry.  Sweet or savory, it’s this amazing crusty, chewy bread on top and a warm, sticky, bread pudding on the inside.  Chocolate soufflé?  It’s like eating warm, semi-cooked brownie dough.  Ermehgerd.

Chocolate Soufflé
From “Baking from my home to yours” Dorie Greenspan Read more

Sep 7

5 Comments

True Brew: National Beer Lover’s Day

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”-Benjamin Franklin

Today’s Recipe: Chocolate Stout Ice Cream

Mmmmmmm beer.  That blessed blend of barley, hops, water and yeast.  4 simple ingredients that when combined in the right combination, with the right timing, yields one of the most revered products in the world.  There was a time in history when beer was consumed more than other liquid, including water, because it was safer to drink.  Beer for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I’m sure a number of frat boys wish that were still the case…or past wishing, have revived that lifestyle.

Other Beer Recipes:
Beer-Braised Chicken Breasts
Fried Calamari – Great recipe to eat with a brew

“He was a wise man who invented beer.”
-Plato

While popular and consumed in all European cultures, the Germans are certainly known most for their beer production and drinking.  This could in part be due to the 16th century law known as “Reinheitsgebot” which in true German fashion, has set rigorous and minimalist guidelines to what goes into beer.  At this time yeast were still unknown to exist so the ingredient list was actually only three ingredients that could be used to craft a true brew: Barley.  Hops.  Water.  That’s it.  The law was introduced primarily as a form of price control over wheat and rye, both of which can also be used for fermentation, as brewers and bakers fought to control the markets.  Brewers caught not abiding by the law were subject to total confiscation of their product without compensation.  I imagine that many government officials were happy to volunteer for this delicious task….

“For a quart of Ale is a dish for a King.”
– William Shakespeare (A Winter’s Tale)

Today’s craft breweries make a living off arguably gimmick-y beers with a variety of additives but many brewmasters, including my college beer mentor and favorite BrewMaster General, prefer to abide by the old German Law.  Speaking of which this law is still in effect in Germany.  Breweries can add additional adjuncts but can not sell their products as “beer”.  The law has been slightly expanded, to include yeast which we now know are responsible for the fermentation, and a few sugars are permitted for specific types of beer.  While I adore my college brewing professor Charlie Bamfort, I’m not entirely convinced that all adjuncts are evil.  I’m a big fan of both classic brews and some of the crazier varieties that use cherries or saffron.  Bacon beer anyone?  Anyone?  Still has yet to be made damn it!  Thankfully pretty much every other country on other couldn’t give a hoot about whether or not you use the german law.  Not that you can’t make delicious beer with just those four ingredients but it’s fun to play around.

“This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption… Beer!”
-”Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves” Friar Tuck

Barley and Hops are the two big magical ingredients we put in beer to make it, well, beer.  A number of grains can be used in place of Barley…unless you are in Germany.  You can’t however remove grains from the process completely.  You need some sort of starch dense carbohydrate for brewing.  These grains are more often referred to as the malt in beer.  That’s because you don’t just toss raw barley in a pot and boil.  First the grain is processed into malt–i.e. they are soaked in water to inspire germination which causes the starches to break down into smaller sugars.  These sugars need to be released for the yeast to act upon during the fermentation process.  Malting also releases those delicious roasty notes we associate with beer, toasted bread and drinks like Ovaltine.  What kind of barley (or other grain) you use and the length/method of malting provides for an array of flavor profiles for your beers.

Hops are added to the beer both for flavor and chemical stability; they provide the bitterness and aroma we know and love.  There are a number of varieties of hops to choose from but unlike Barley, I’m not aware of any plant commonly used as a substitute for this ingredient.  Hops, or the part used in brewing at least, is the female flower of the Humulus plant.  This plant is part of the Cannabacaea family and to the more observant or scientifically minded of my readers, yes that is the family from which Cannibis stems.  No doubt crosses my mind that many a homebrewer has tried to use this as a hop substitute in their brews.  Of course the legality of it makes this hard to ever market as a viable alternative.  A fermented drink utilizing cannabis called Bhang is quite popular in India so I imagine it must be possible but you’ll have to go there to figure this one out.

“Fermentation may have been a greater discovery than fire.”
-David Rains Wallace

Reinheitsgebot had to open up to allow for yeast as an ingredient because without them, beer production would not be possible.  These microorganisms are responsible for the alchemy (aka fermentation) that turns sugars naturally present in the barley into alcohol.  Yeast are alive…ALIVE!  They work primarily in anaerobic environments and their food source is sugar.  The yeast eat the sugars we’ve freed from the barley in malting and then produce carbon dioxide and alcohol.  In case you can’t figure out what that means alcohol is the byproduct of yeast digestion.  Let that sink in for a minute if you will.

“You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.”
-Frank Zappa

There are two types used for beer brewing and those types determine if you have a lager or an ale. Personally I’m an ale girl.  I just don’t have the palate for most lagers.  Yeast used for ale is the same species that we use in bread baking, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, versus that used in lager production: Saccharomyces pastorianus.  Hmmm so ale is made with the “top fermenting” delicious bread yeast whereas lagers are made with a bottom fermenting yeast with the word anus in it.  Wonder why I’m such an ale lover….  **snickering like a 12 year old**  Still for some reason the top producers of beer in the U.S. are Budweiser and Miller-Coors…both of which produce lagers.  Interestingly enough most people who dislike beer have, in my personal experience, only been exposed to these types of beer.  I often find these are the folk who become beer lovers after finding a solid ale to rely upon.  It saddens me that the “American” brews are so limited in scope.

“Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber through the chambers of my brain. Quaintest thoughts–queerest fancies, come to life and fade away. What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale today.”– Edgar Allan Poe

So there’s your very basic introduction to the world of brewing.  Was it interesting?  Would you like to learn more about beer?  I was blessed to get to embrace this field in my undergrad years and so I can ramble on about this more and more if you all like.  Recipes I have in abundance utilizing this precious drink.  Beer is rich and flavorful–it works wonderfully in both cooking (like this Beer Braised Chicken I’d made a year ago) or in baking cakes and breads.

Or in making ice cream.

Yup.  BEER ICE CREAM.  No this isn’t an April Fool’s joke.  I used a chocolate stout which is a particularly thick, bitter variety with a strong cocoa undertone from Bison Brewery.  I’m a big fan of their beers though my favorite is actually a lighter summer variety they put out.  For ice cream though I wanted something with a lot of OOMPH and this definitely delivered.  Top the ice cream with a beer infused chocolate sauce or better yet flood it for a grownup Chocolate Beer Float.

Yup a Beer Float.  I put two scoops in a frosty mug and topped it off with the remaining bottle of Chocolate Stout.  It tastes like a creamy mug of beer with a particularly creamy foam.  If you like bitter and you like beer and you like chocolate you’ll go absolutely gaga over this one.  Guiness Floats are somewhat common but I prefer this homemade version.  Guiness is much more burnt in flavor and usually the ice cream is just plain old vanilla.  Who needs that when you can double dose with a delicious cocoa brew?

Chocolate Stout Ice Cream Float
ice cream recipe from The Boozy Baker Read more

Aug 23

3 Comments

Not a wedding cake….

There’s a cliche thought that every girl imagines her wedding someday. There must be at least one girl out there who hasn’t. I’ll admit that’s not me. I’ve definitely thought about it. Depending on what age we’re talking about or who I’m dating, I’ve thought about it a lot. That doesn’t always mean planning it. Sometimes I think “I don’t want to be a bride” and instead focus on wanting to do anything BUT getting married. With how many marriages end in divorce…well I think oftentimes the practical thing to do is save up your money and have a big marriage type party once you’ve made it to the 5 year mark. Why blow 10k on a statistically unwise union? 50% of marriages end in divorce, with the highest number of those divorces happening in women in my age group – 34% of them are women in their low to mid 20’s! Hell there are games in Vegas with better odds.

Right now any serious consideration of marriage is the furthest thing from my mind. My last relationship was no where close to that kind of commitment and I have far too much to worry about right now, too many places to be, to even be worrying about that level of romantic complication.

Even so I’m a romantic at heart. A geeky soft heart. My friend Kenny wrote a really short but deeply moving post on his blog recently about how much he misses the feeling of being in love. It hit me deep in my gut because even when though I’ve been in a relationship much more recently than he has, I still didn’t feel like I was getting those things. I miss them too. I didn’t realize it until I read his post and now that I’ve processed it, I know that as much as I may miss those things, I’m not ready or looking for them just yet. Not because I’m hurting or wounded. I’m too busy and too in need of time to be selfish, but someday I’ll be ready to embrace that part of my life again.

Another friend of mine posted a link to facebook, “When Geeks Wed”, which is essentially a pinterest driven hope chest for the prettiest and geekiest weddings you could ever hope for. Looking through all the proposals, the affirmations, the photos of marriages that I’m hoping beat out the statistics made me weepy. Not in a self-pitying way mind you. Just a sort of little melancholic sadness and also awe of the reminder that something so sweet can exist between two totally separate individuals. The geeky wedding invitations especially got to me. Then again the Russians are Invading right now so maybe I’m just a little more emotional than even I’m meant to be.

A little romantic silliness at the notion of these weddings is a far cry from my seeking out the perfect mate or planning my own. For one thing I’ve come to the conclusion a long while back that if I’m planning out the wedding now I’m doing it wrong. Wedding themes, from which all the planning stems, should be based off the relationship itself. You can’t plan a wedding around a relationship that doesn’t exist and you can’t plan how that relationship will go unless you are a total narcissist. Nope the furthest I go is allowing myself to be touched by the deep meaning in the weddings of others…and yes looking at pretty dresses sometimes imagining how pretty I would feel wearing them. But that’s not a “plan my wedding” thing. That’s a cosplay thing.

I can’t help but think that my penchant for wanting to wear big frilly dresses, the sort that would be prom or wedding worthy, is the gateway drug to my cosplay fixation. The other day I was hanging out at a mall waiting for friends to show up to see a film and found a huge Prom dress shop. My days of awkward high school dances are long over but I was perusing some of the pretties and thought how fun it would be to have a geek-prom with some of my friends. Maybe if I can find a job and move closer to them I will plan such an event. Now THAT would be a lot of fun. I could even cannibalize some of the ideas from that wedding site since most of them really are just about planning a giant, extravagant party which really is what I think most girls focus on when they are “planning their weddings” from the age of 6.

Really we just want an excuse to SUIT UP and have a silly time. What’s wrong with that?

Okay I lied. There is one thing I like to think about that’s “wedding” related other than pretty dresses. The CAKE! Again though, does this have to be a wedding thing? Can’t I just make delicious, beautiful and elaborate cakes for their own sake? That’s what this cake recipe is. It’s the one that sent me reeling into a Bundt Day when I first tried making it. The white chocolate whipped cream was only two ingredients and yet it took THREE tries to get it right. Some googling of the recipe has lead me to believe that my frustrations have been echoed by many a food blogger attempting to craft this masterpiece. I guess that makes it a little better since I did manage to conquer the beast in the end.

My first batch went in the trash. The second went inside the cake but since it was still kind of…curdled, I didn’t use it for the top. Finally a day later I made the third batch and it came out smooth, silky and white as snow. My cake had her dress! I smoothed that delicious cream all over the outside and then sat down to enjoy a hard earned gigantic slice.

It was so. fucking. good.

This is probably my favorite cake of all time and I’m not even a big frosting fan. My mom is but I usually prefer the cake inside to the frosting outside. That’s because most frostings are cloying and too sweet. Not so in this case. This cake has got a thick, dark bittersweet ganache playing against a light, white chocolate. White chocolate isn’t really chocolate at all mind you. It’s cocoa butter and sugar…no cocoa to speak of. As such many people find it far too sweet. Melting it down and blending it with whipped cream helps mute the sweetness and makes it a milder, lighter treat that will coat your tongue. The cake is sweet and seductive. It’s decadent and time consuming to make.

It’s also perfectly suited as the base for a wedding cake…if that’s your sort of thing. Pin it for a wedding or in my case, for the Geek Prom Yule Ball I’m really loving the idea of throwing. Hey you guys….

Black and White Cake Read more

Aug 20

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It’s a Southern Thing: National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day

Gulf breeze on the porch

Me and my honey rocking back and forth

Light it up again with my kin and friends

Underneath a yellow moon

Sweet dream New Orleans

Mississippi River running over me

Pretty Momma come and take me by the hand

Don’t mock what you don’t understand

It’s a Southern Thing

No muffins this monday.  I’ve put away the tin for the pie dish to celebration a very important food holiday….

I’ve lived in California a decade now. It’s kind of a strange thing to think of and when folks ask where I’m from, I’m never sure how to answer. “Oh all over.” I’ll say. I can’t really place a finger on where “home” is. New England? Virginia? California? If I say California is it Benicia for high school, Davis for college or Fairfield for this awkward post-grad, working as a contractor phase of my life? I haven’t really been in any one spot for long enough to feel like it’s the right answer.

I do feel that living in the hippie bay of California has made my years in Virginia seem far more southron than they were. I never realized I used words that gave my voice the tiniest southern lilt, like my occasional reliance upon “y’all” or my occasional h-slur when I say “Vih-rginia”. But are these true accents of my youth or merely affectations I use when I want to play the a part? I mean I lived outside DC, it’s not exactly the Creole porch swing kind of town. My friends listened to rap and rock not country. While I long for a humid summer night, the sounds of cicadas and most of all the fireflies of my years near the nation’s capitol — I would hardly call myself a southern girl. Instead I think it’s just another role I slip into rather casually. After all just as often as I use “ya’ll” I say knackered, arse and wanker yet no one is likely to suggest I’m British.


I just realized I mostly love to use British slang for vulgarities. Go figure.

Nope my childhood may be hard to pin down, I may be a bit of a tumbleweed or a gypsy in my nature, but hold me up against Scarlett O’Hara and you’ll find I’m hardly a southern girl. I seem to have a knack for just picking up pieces of different cultures and regions from film, books and television. There’s so much world to see, so many things to experience…I think it’s part of why I find the idea of acting so intriguing. I want to experience everything. To be all these different versions of myself and play at them for a while, but choose one? Never. My tongue seems to share this feeling.   Travelling the world through food is what my inner omnomnomnomnomgirl would kill my disciplined skinny girl to acheive. I have yet to meet a dish I wouldn’t eat and it’s very rare to find one I hate. Actually the foodstuff I can think of that I will actually say I don’t like is oatmeal. I really dislike oatmeal. I do love oats in about a million other forms just not bloody (there’s the british again) oatmeal.

You know what makes people think I’m southern most often? My absolute obsession with Pecan Pie. If you ask me to pick my favorite pie, it’s gonna be Pecan and nothing screams “SOUTH” like this nutty, corn syrupy treat. Anytime I make it someone invariably asks if I’m from the south. Again back to that conundrum. Sometimes it’s easier to just shrug and say “well I lived in Virigina for a while” and let it lay. Nevermind I lived in an area far more like the Bay Area than Charleston.

Today is National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day. While my favorite incarnation combines my New England birth with my not-so-Southern roots (Maple Pecan mmmm) I have to say that Chocolate Pecan Pie is still pretty frakking high on my list of favorite variations. Especially this recipe which spikes the mix with espresso powder and cinnamon. Oh god I’m getting almost inappropriately excited thinking about it right now which would be awkward since I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop among far too many San Franciscans for that to be ok. Then again, this city is full of crazy people….

Pecan pie didn’t really show up in cookbooks until the 1940’s which was around the time corn syrup was developed. The nuts themselves are native to Louisiana and Mississippi, eaten heavily by the Native Americans and quite popular once introduced to Europeans. If you are a history buff you might be interested to know that we can trace the successful propagation of pecans as a large scale to a single slave named Antoine who grafted strong root stock with a flavorful plant that made it easier to grow robust and delicious pecan crops. Things like that always give me a little quiet pause. It’s kind of sad to look at my favorite pie and know that were it not for both peoples that were displaced and oppressed, I would not get to appreciate such a treat.

There’s so much to experience in this world. I want to try it all. You should too. And start with this recipe if you’ve never had pecan pie. It’s amazing and pretty hard to screw up. Even if your pie crust winds up kind of dry like mine did, the filling will blow you away. Eat it with a spoon. Or a ladle. Or just shove your face up in the whole thing…. Then bake a few more. Maple, Bourbon, Pumpkin, Vanilla, Cream Cheese, Cherry…they all pair well.

Chocolate Pecan Pie Read more

Aug 16

6 Comments

Fog is interfering Captain, the transmission is marbled….

The weather is just so GLOOMY in South San Francisco. It makes me feel tired and groggy all the time and I know I’m just a garbled mess when I speak on mornings like these. I feel like the haze from atmosphere seeps into my head and curls around my brain in a misty fog. Then I garble my words as I attempt to transverse the mind-moorland I’ve developed. My commute might be hellish and exhausting but a part of me is glad I don’t actually live in this region. While I more than romanticize the sadness of it, and there are days when sunshine can seem vulgar and offensive, I still find myself more like a flower than a mushroom. I crave light; especially when I have a desire for productivity.

How does one navigate these kinds of days if there are things to do at work? I found myself lacking any motivation this morning. The weather induced (okay and sleep deprived as well) exhaustion is so strong that I can feel it in my bones like a strong chill. Doesn’t help that my company keeps our buildings at an “optimal efficiency temperature” that requires I wear two or three layers to work even in the middle of the hottest summer in years. What’s a girl to do?

AHA!

To Do? To Do List! I find some sort of really lame, possibly even perversely kinky pleasure out of to do lists. White erase boards as well give me the strangest, this girl gets off at officemax, kind of thrill. I’ve got a nifty copyholder at my desk that I use and on days like this, I find that taking a few moments to write out a to do list gets me going in spite of my brain inactivity. It’s like attaching a neural stimulator to my neck. Yeah… I watched “The Magnificent Ferengi” this morning during my workout and now that I’m in the land of gloom, I find the episode featuring a reanimated corpse oddly relevant to my day. Nerdalert. I’ve managed to tick off over half the items by lunchtime and for the first glorious time in weeks my inbox contains NO NEW MESSAGES. Can I get a snoopy dance?

This is the first real lunch time I’ve had to enjoy and so I’m taking the time to write now rather than late at night or in the wee hours of the morning like I usually do. It’s nice. It’s relaxing. Fuck. I need caffeine.

I’ve noticed that in the last few weeks exercises in discipline, like these, have been successful for me. I’m exercising on a pretty regular schedule, getting things done at work without a surplus of overtime, meeting goals on personal projects and hell, I’ve even managed to find time to start reading again. READING! Don’t think I’ve let my Hugo Award project fall by the wayside. Chicon7 will be at the end of the month and I’ve actually read all of the nominees for Best Novel. Blogs are soon to be posted for the titles remaining with some original recipes even. I’m so excited for tomorrow’s post.

You know I really think this is one of those bright sides to breakups and/or being single. Relationships take a great deal of time and effort. Minutes that add up can become hours and those hours can translate into a real, physical product of time and effort. As a highly driven, results oriented person, I find that immensely satisfying. Enough even to fight off the weather of a city once described by Mark Twain as “the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

For further proof that swirled, marbled messes can be truly enjoyable, here’s a recipe for a Black and Banana Marble Bread. Add this one to your to do list if you enjoy moist, delicious banana cake and dark chocolatey goodness. The sugar rush might even give you a boost and it certainly pairs well with a cup of strong coffee. Caffeine and sugar…there’s a relationship that I’m certain will never end.

Black and White Marbled Banana Cake Read more

Jul 22

1 Comment

Black Bread, Birds and Comic Con!

Holy Web Traffic Batman.  So apparently my recent post which was loaded with emotional baggage and what I considered whinery was “Freshly Pressed” and received an insane amount of love.  Thanks to all who read and commented.  I guess I’ll try to write more like that in the future but first I really do want to finish up my Comic Con recap…I hope I don’t lose most of you with something less emotionally revealing.  There are skimpy outfits though so…?  If nothing else there’s a kickass recipe for a Chocolate Banana Bread that you’ll want to make again and again when company comes over so scroll through to the end for that.

SDCC Day 3.5 – Black Canary Rises

The morning began in Indigo Ballroom—panels here usually command a smaller line, maybe 3000 people or so, but it still requires some coordination to ensure that you get in for your desired lineup.  Saturday was Geek and Sundry which featured not only news about the Guild (season 6 is a go!) but a preview of the new show “Written by a Kid.”  Warning: adorableness follows that link along with a delightful Joss Whedon cameo.  Basically the premise is that a child gets to tell a story that is later animated and brought to life.  It’s really, really cute.

We were also treated to a Garfunkel and Oates performance.  In case you don’t know there are some amazing geeky duo musical groups out there.  These ladies (whom you might recognize) are particularly crass and hilarious.   Easily my favorite song is 29/31 which highlights the same woman’s thoughts on the dating scene at both the age 29 “time’s on my side, I’ve got my pick” and the age 31 “THERE’S NOBODY LEFT!  I’m ALL ALONE.”  In short, it’s brilliant and any woman is going get this and probably feel both amused and mildly depressed by it.

I stayed for the TV Guide panel and regretted it.  While the lineup was fantastic and I finally got to see Matt Smith in a panel, the woman who managed it was a complete and utter idiot.  Look if you put the frakking DOCTOR on your panel, he’s going to get all the questions.  If they weren’t going to go to Matt, then they were going to go to Nathan Fillion who apparently can only be eclipsed by a mad British man with a box.  Instead of cutting off fan questions when this happens and seriously pissing off your audience, just plan your panel lineup better or make sure you instruct the line handlers to stagger the questions.  I was not amused.  Not cool TV guide, not cool.  My friend from the other day, the Screwdriver of the Sonic Duo, and I ran from the room without a second glance when the panel ended in order to get to a signing at the IDW booth for the new Doctor Who/ Star Trek crossover comics.  Yes, you read that right.  A Star Trek/Doctor Who CROSSOVER.  I purchased several of the harder to get variant covers, got them signed and because we showed up first, Screwdriver and Scream (me) managed to snag the only two t-shirts given away for the event.  This was a fairly big deal because they were women’s tees.  See, at SDCC, almost 99% of giveaway shirts are Men’s Large.  Apparently only tubby men are in attendance at con.  It’s really annoying.  There are skinny geeks and girl geeks and geeks of all ages and sizes.  I know that a men’s large is safe because it’ll fit on almost anyone, but there are only so many “sleeping shirts” I need.  I really should learn how to repurpose them into something awesome like a blanket so I can make use of these things.  Anyway I was pumped to get a “Red Shirt” in a women’s medium from Her Universe.  It was still too big, but much nicer looking and fitting than any other so I was happy.

Oh and I went by the Fox booth another ten times or so.   Still no Fringe hat for me.  I saw tons of people wearing them, and quite a few had no idea what Fringe even was.  That made me so cranky because I have been in love with the show since day 1 and I wanted that hat so badly.  I finally got sick of it and vowed not to waste my time trying to get one from the Fox booth anymore.  That mostly lasted…I did try one more time the following day.

After the signing I walked the floor some more, met up with someone I know who works on The Guild and went to some of the offsite locations for panels that were open to anyone…not just sdcc badge holders.  The YouTube lounge was especially great and I went to Adrienne Curry’s panel for “SuperFan” on Stan Lee’s youtube channel and “Save the Supers!” which I was lucky enough to extra for a few months ago….  My episode isn’t up yet and I’ll probably barely be noticeable but it was a great experience and the entire cast remembered who we extras were and took time to sign things and take photos.  I was so happy they were in costume so I could blend in as a costumed member of the team in our group photo.

Before I knew it, it was time to head home to change for another night partying with the nerds.  It was fantastic.  SlamCon, NerdHQ and some pretty down and dirty dancing…most people don’t realize it but as I’ve said before geeks know how to party and all that entails.  Drinking, Dancing and Dangerous behavior.  The only downside was some creep who accosted me on the street but channeling my inner Canary, I screamed a loud string of obscenities that scared the guy off.  It was no head explosion but it sufficed.

I didn’t cosplay Black Canary again on Sunday so in honor of my new costume I present to you a Chocolate Banana Bread which like Canary, is a blackened version of something you would traditionally expect to be yellow.  Once again I find a way to jam a weak connection between my blog post and recipe.  I swear I wasn’t one of those kids who jammed puzzle pieces in when they only sort of fit…no really.  I never did that.

Cocoa-Nana Bread Read more

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