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Posts tagged ‘coconut’

Mar 6

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Fly Monkey Fly – far away from Oz (It’s Bananas)

And not in a good way.  WARNING WARNING here be spoilers, or at least spoilery reflections on my advanced screening of “Oz the Great and Powerful.”  There also may be an opportunity to win some cookies.

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Last weekend I was treated to an advanced viewing of the new Oz film.  A rather wonderful treat for a sick girl.  I was quite excited to see this movie which had thus far looked quite promising.  A lot of buzz had built up about the visuals in this movie and from what I’d heard, this seemed like the sort of film where 3D had a real purpose.  I settled into my chair with my 3D glasses and waited for the flick to start.

The opening credit scene was breathtaking.  It evokes the older film feeling of the original, back in the days when you used to have open credit sequences, and it was completely immersive.  The artwork, the effects…the opening scene tells an entire story all on its own.  I was hooked and couldn’t wait for the movie to start.  Then it all went downhill from there.  It’s bad when the opening scenes, sepia toned and in boring old Kansas, are the most enjoyable of the film.

Now don’t get me wrong, the visuals hold up through the entire movie.  There are some of the more “gotcha” 3d moments that I stopped enjoying once I turned 10.  You know, the things spears that fly out at you through the screen, the rug flare out in your face…I don’t need those kinds of gimmicks.  To balance these out though are just moments where you really feel like you are exploring this magical land of Oz—and one particular waterfall scene that made me go “oh this is so going to be a ride at Disneyland” and then “I feel like I’m already on the ride.”  Sadly the visual effects are the only part of the film with any depth.doriebananacake (6)

The story itself is very weak and takes too long to tell itself.  It’s not particularly surprising—you’re going to have the whole story figured out pretty much as soon as the witches take the screen.  Still I wasn’t going to judge for that alone.  Since it’s a prequel we already know what the end result is going to be anyway.  The real reason the story just couldn’t hold up was that the character of Oz, and the casting, were both very, very bad.  Fratboy bad.  Oz is not a likeable person—he reminds me of every frat boy I ever warned my sorority sisters about and James Franco just exacerbates this because he really, really reminds me of those same boys.  Mila Kunis who plays Theodora **SPOILER aka the wicked witch of the west** is by contrast that stereotypical “crazy” sorority girl.  She gets her heart set on the first boy who ever looks her way and starts singing her way to the chapel after the first date.  The sort of girl who makes you want to say “oh, honey”  TRIVIA TIME: what show is that a reference from?  Win a prize!

doriebananacake (7)Mila Kunis playing such a desperate, naïve character had another unintended consequence: the entire time I was hearing Meg Griffin.  Way to pull me out of the story.  This hasn’t happened with her in other roles.  It’s because this character is so, so…pathetic.  She reminded me a great deal of a girl I knew in college.  The refrain of “I slept with him, now he won’t call me back so I’m going to act out crazy like to make him see how much he hurt me and maybe then he’ll learn” is not new to my ears.  It is painful to see blown up on screen.  Much to my annoyance I don’t ever get the feeling that the Franco character does acknowledge his role in the transformation that takes place in Kunis.  Instead it seems like the blame gets shifted entirely to Evanora—Rachel Weisz’s character.

Weisz is underutilized in this film.  It’s depressing.  She’s incredibly talented and beautiful, and quite early establish as eeeeevil but unlike Theodora, whose motivation for wickedness we understand, we never get a reason behind Evanora’s hatred of Glinda.  The magic is 3D but the character development is pretty damn shallow.  Michelle Williams was also not used effectively to my mind.  She wasn’t the best on cast, but she did a damn good job at emulating the speech of the original Glinda.  The most interesting scenes in the film after reaching the land of Oz were when these two interacted.

Lastly the film manages to make a number of nice references to elements of the original and yet it ignores the most glaringly obvious piece of Oz lore.  I couldn’t believe it when the end credits ran and there was no mention of **WARNING HERE BE SPOILERS** the ruby slippers.  Not a whisper.  The film manages to introduce Dorothy’s parents, provide a potential backstory for Ms. Gulch’s hatred of the girl, scarecrows, cowardly lions and flying monkeys oh my!  Yet no mention of the damn slippers.  There was even a perfect way to incorporate them that I thought I had figured out while viewing the film.  See the witches have power sources—Glinda has her wand, Evanora an emerald jewel and Theodora a ruby ring.  Destroy the power source and destroy (or at least cripple) the witch.  Evanora manipulates Theodora in the film, it’s true.  I kept thinking aha!  Theodra will figure out how her sister manipulated her into becoming the wicked witch we know and love and turn on her.  In order to protect herself from Theodora, Evanora transforms the ring into the slippers and so long as she wears them Theodora can’t hurt her without destroying her own powersource.  That would explain why she’s so eager to get them back when someone else finally disposes of her sister and why she can’t harm Dorothy either.  But no.  No mention of it at all.  What a wasted opportunity.

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The flying monkeys were kind of cool though.  Though the “cute” flying monkey failed to evoke the awww out of me.  The most endearing character of all was that of “China Doll” and we don’t really get much of her.

2 out of 5 bananas for terrifying winged primates.  Rotten Tomato Meter rating: 67%  Yikes!  Not great for a film that cost a tiny island to produce.  Thankfully in life when real bananas go kinda brown and over-ripe they can be transformed into something tasty.  I can’t do anything to save Oz, but I can at least offer up a melt in your mouth oh my god this is amazing Banana Cake to the dissatisfied aerial apes.  My mom said it was like some sort of heavenly banana twinkie.

Banana Cake

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

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Nov 19

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Muffin Monday: Cherrying a torch

It’s my official first day as a full time employee!!!!  Just had to get that out there.  Will write more about that obviously later on.  Now on to my post from last night!

I think I am in love.  I am in love with a woman who I have never met.  It’s gone past girl crush to full on woman love time.  I’m just…flabbergasted, blown away, speechless.  Well okay.  Clearly I’m not speechless.  Who pray tell is the object of my amorous affections?  My pop-rock guilty pleasure Pink.  I saw her performance from the AMA’s this evening and I just flipped.

The woman is an amazon.  She’s a talent powerhouse.  She’s strong, and ballsy, and has that kind of beauty that makes you just keep turning your head to look back at her because you can’t quite place your finger on it.  I don’t say this because I think her music is the pinnacle of auditory pleasure or expression.  Mostly it’s some good hooks, power ballads and really witty writing.  What I appreciate and have totally just fallen in love with this person for is her ability as a performer.   See when I said she’s “strong” I don’t mean in that metaphorical sense where I’m talking about her spirit in her music.  I mean the lady is CUT and she’s athletic.  Not in a “carrot-top juiced up” kind of way but not in the wimpy anorexic “I lift 2 pound weights” kind of way either.   Pink looks like an Amazon.  She’s exactly the kind of woman I would imagine living on Themyscira discussing how to save the world with Artemis and Wonder Woman.  I admire her so much for just how damn amazing she looks without being a twig.  

Beauty lies in strength.  Strength of body, mind, spirit…yes all of it.  I hold this as my mantra.    

I’m not someone who normally watches award shows.  In fact I don’t think I’ve ever sat through one.  My Sunday night currently consists of Dexter, a bottle of red wine and three books in front of me as I develop a recipe for some cupcakes I’ve been dreaming up.  I wish I had been watching the AMA’s live though, in the audience, to see this performance that is popping up on my social media feeds.  It’s a stunning display of ballet, strength and live singing.   Anyone who lip syncs has no excuses anymore.   I think I’ve watched it 4 or 5 times tonight.  Thank you to whoever ganked it and posted it almost immediately after airing.  I am just in awe.
I had a whole other blog post in mind that I was working on but it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow’s entry because oh my god I had to share with you just how blown away I am right now.  Blown away as in I’m going to go back and watch it again and this is all the post you are getting from me tonight.    You’ll be similarly blown away by these delicious, tender and totally vegan cherry almond muffins.   I like to think of myself as a performer in the kitchen and capable of pushing myself in new ways –though not as stunningly as Pink did last night. Vegan baking is  a way for me to “excercise” my kitchen skills by forcing me to try something new, something hard, something out of my comfort zone.  As I’m reminded often in yoga we can only be sure that we are growing, and strengthening ourselves by taking on new, uncomfortable challenges.  Sure enough I was rewarded with  something beautiful.  Everyone loved them and I’ve been asked repeatedly for the recipe.  Maybe someone will fall in love with me for these muffins just as hard as I’ve fallen for my girl crush.

  

Coconut Cherry Almond Muffins
an Olivia Original Read more

Oct 30

Halloweek Day 4: Think Thin Tuesday – Trick your Treaters

Trick your Treaters with these ghoulishly deliteful treats.  …

**We interrupt this post to bring you this message: I feel so disconnected from Hurricane Sandy right now being safe and secure tucked away on the opposite side of the country.  To any of my readers who are on the other side of the Mississippi, I hope you are staying dry and safe somewhere…hopefully with a stable internet connection, some candles, books and a stockpile of chocolate.  Actually that sounds kind of nice.  I’ll take a vacation please!  **Resume normal broadcasting**

Sometimes at Halloween the last thing you want to do is eat more candy.  Okay that’s a lie, you want to eat it but you know you shouldn’t.  If you are working in an office environment like I do, people have been doling out the candy and sweets for a good week in anticipation of Hallow’s Eve.  By now the Halloween potluck is something to dread.  Everyone is going to be bringing in food and I bet you the majority of it will be fatfaced and carbolicious.  True a little indulgence can be nice but damn eventually you remember that you need to fit into those pants.  I’ve been indulging since the first bowl of twix went out on a corner cubicle 2 weeks ago.  Yikes! 

This is also a great alternative for your kids when they are clamoring for yet ANOTHER goodie.  I don’t have children but I was a nanny extraordinaire in high school and college.  My senior year of high school I actually worked as a part-time live in Nanny for a small family in Benicia.  The mother was a flight attendant the father captained a boat (there’s a joke in there somewhere) so I would often be called upon to stay at their house when trips overlapped.  This ranged sometimes from a single evening to 10 days in a row.  While their jobs may sound exotic it’s not like they paid amazingly well so the arrangement worked out nicely as I was cheap labor but unusually reliable for a 16 year old.  Anyway between that experience, my own siblings and several families I worked with to make a little spending money my freshman year of college, I’m very familiar with the “just one more” cry from sugar-rushing children.  These treats are substantial enough that they would be more than satisfied, adorable enough that they would be fascinated by them and have just enough evidence of chocolate to trick the kids into realizing what they are really just eating is a frozen banana.  Brilliant no?

The best part is that these require 0 cooking time and are a snap to put together.  You just need a few hours to let the bananas freeze and then, depending on how many you are making, anywhere from as few as 5 minutes to 20 to assemble.  When I made 6 pops it took me 5 minutes.  When I made closer to 60 for work it took me longer but I just put on the latest episode of Once Upon and Time and went to town.  By the way I’m very close to giving up on this show.  It is mangling things to such an extent that I find it underwhelming.  The most recent offense being the big Dr. Whale reveal.  If only Robert Carlyle weren’t so damn talented!  I keep tuning in solely to watch him.  

Sadly I can’t take all the credit.  This was one of those info cards they have in the checkout lane at the grocery store.  I think this particular concept was a Nugget Market “fresh idea” but it really is a great one.  I tweaked it slightly by using craisins instead of raisins for the mouth. As a bonus these are completely gluten free and vegan snacks so you can serve them up at a school function for your kidlets and be the hero to that poor kid who can’t eat bread or has parents insane enough to raise a child in the vegan way.  Then again with my luck I’d wind up with a kid in the class who is allergic to bananas.   YOU JUST CAN’T WIN THEM ALL!! 

Trick-your-Treaters Banana Ghost Pops 

 

  • 4 large Bananas, quartered
  • 4 Tbsp Dried, UNSWEETENED coconut
  • 16 Mini-chocolate chips
  •  8 Craisins
  • 1 tall glass orange juice (any juice will do)

Additional tools: Popsicle Sticks

Cut the banana in half widthwise and insert a Popsicle stick into the flat end. Freeze for a few hours, and then dip in orange juice, followed by shredded coconut. Be sure to grab the dried shredded coconut. Moist coconut flakes did not stick to the banana well. Place two chocolate chips for eyes and a plump craisin for the mouth.  What Nugget didn’t tell me: To get the craisin to stick you’ll also want to dip it in the orange juice and attach it to the frozen banana.  Remember that scene from “A Christmas Story” with the frozen pole and the tongue?  Same concept.  Nugget didn’t elaborate to do this but I figured it out on my own.

 Nutrition Info: (approx. estimate per pop) 43 cal | 9g carb | 5 g sugar | 1g fat | 1 g protein

Oct 24

My Devil-May-Carrot Ways

If you’ll remember a week ago I had mentioned how my back was hurting.  Hurting like hell in fact and quite a terrifying experience for me too.  I’ve never been immobilized so completely, not by physical injury, and the last time I was in that much pain from merely breathing was when I had pneumonia.  I don’t have fond memories of pneumonia.  Obviously no one would but for me it was particularly harrowing because I’d been suffering from bronchial infections repeatedly and all my life.  It felt at that point like I was only going to spiral into a worse series of chest illnesses, die of tuberculosis at a young age and never experience life.  Hey I’ve always had a bit of a flair for the melodramatic okay?

Anyway the back pain has largely subsided though I still have no clue what I did to injure myself.  I have some suspicions but it’s kind of disappointing when that level of injury isn’t coupled with an epic tale.  All of my other crippling injuries do.  See I kind of have a family orthopedic surgeon who I’ve been to on numerous occasions.  I’ve been to the hospital far more times than the average person goes in their lifetime–I’m pretty comfy in an emergency room.  I don’t do any extreme sports or take exceptionally large risks but I can be somewhat careless with how I conduct myself.  I think I run into walls more often than a  reasonable person should.  I’ve sprained my ankles at least 3 or 4 times total, injured my neck falling from the top of a fireman’s pole during an intense playground game of freeze tag and even broke my arm in 4th grade during a rousing game of Red Rover.  I was determined to see the the girls beat the boys you see, even to the detriment of my own bone cohesion.

The stupidest and yet most epic injury I ever incurred was probably the worst ankle sprain of the bunch.  The recipe for a Grade 3 sprain that takes well nigh on a year to heal?    Mix two feet in flip flops with a handful of college grads.  Liberally soak in vodka, milk and coffee liqueur.  Flambe in a laser tag arena with a sprinkling of obstinance over ending a game early after injury.  Enjoy!

Yeah not my brightest or shiningest moment.  I honestly didn’t realize how bad it was until after one of my friends fireman carried me out of the arena (all the while my insisting I was fine) and then hoisted me into a chair in the light.  See it was too dark inside for me to see my ankle and the mixture of adrenaline and alcohol had numbed me to the pain of the sprain.  In the harsh light of the fluorescent entrance to the laser tag spot I looked down, saw what was literally and I mean literally a cantaloupe sized mass of swollen tissue and tears began to stream down my cheeks.  It was bizarre because I didn’t actually feel any pain at all, and my mind was somewhat disconnected from my body, so I was just sitting there both in shock at how elephant like my foot was and wondering why I was crying so heavily.  6 months of crutches and braces later and I still had limited mobility.  It was not a good time.  Not at all.

Ironically I never fall or hurt myself when I’m in high heels versus sneakers or flip flops.  No one ever believes me but it’s true!  I think I am just more aware of my foot placement when I’m teetering on 4 or 5 inches of stiletto and so as a result I make wiser decisions.  Had I been wearing a wedge on the evening of my fateful sprained ankle, I may not have been running so hard on quite so many white russians….  I only wish I had a story quite so entertaining  to recount for my back but I am quite glad that I’m not going to be laid up for 6 months like I was with the ankle so I suppose that’s the trade off.

Maybe, just maybe, I’m growing out of my cavalier and devil-may-care ways with respect to personal safety.  I only really injure myself when I’m being overly competitive and in fact it was probably some too aggressive weight lifting and then pushing too hard in yoga that caused my back to lock up like it did.  I’m even getting a little bit better about being aware of myself in the kitchen and not grabbing nearly so many hot pots with bare hands.  I haven’t burned myself in months!  Though I did come dangerously close to doing so with these cookies but that was my mouth I almost burned trying to scarf them down when they were still too hot to eat.

Oh my gosh these are delightful little devilish morsels.   So much so that they are what I’m calling “Devil-May-Carrot” cookies though sadly the recipe is not mine and they are more commonly known simply as Carrot Cake Cookies.  I made them in half-dollar sized morsels rather than a large fist sized cookie like I normally would.  Why?  So I could sandwich them with homemade dulce de leche obviously.  Pimped out carrot cake cookies like these are essentially crack.  Eat one and suddenly you’ve devoured a plateful.  Can I just claim that I sprained my stomach and that’s why my belly is bulging?  Omnomnomnomnomnomnom.  I’m not kidding I’m warning you now.  You make these and add in my homemade caramel to make a cookie sandwich?  You’ll release your inner cookie monster in no time.  The devil is in carrots!  I warned you!

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

Oct 19

SciFriday: Mouthgasmingly Magical Cloud Atlas Bars

Yup I’m on that trend train at the moment.  I know the book came out years ago and now people are only paying attention to it because of the movie…wah wah wah.  Okay well I admit that it was probably the movie that brought the book to my attention but it was indirectly since it was the movie that inspired the scifi/fantasy book club I follow to read it and thus I picked it up.  Truth be told I’d probably not have read it in anticipation of the film otherwise but I’m glad I did.  Overall I’ve found this to be a really interesting read though it has some major and minor flaws.  My biggest complaint is that at times it seems like Mitchell paints his characters to stand naked in front of you holding up a sign saying “DO YOU GET IT YET?  IT’S SYMBOLISM/A THEME/A SIGN!”  Oh my god! Okay! Yes I get it; please stop beating me over the head with this and let the beautiful subtle moments that weave together stand on their own but I digress.

For the five people in the world who haven’t heard about “Cloud Atlas” yet this is fiction novel, with fantastical/science-fiction elements to it, that is slated for a film adaptation release a week from today.  That means there’s hope for you non-reading types though as many a bookworm will tell you: the book was better.  The story is actually a spiraling sextet of shorter stories that span across centuries and interconnect through the reincarnation of key characters.  Each story is embedded within the previous—for example in story 2 the main character discovers and reads the diary of the main character (also himself) from story 1.  Each story is also broken into 2 pieces so you read through the book in this pattern: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 5 – 4 – 3 – 2 – 1.  This means you don’t get resolution for any individual storyline until halfway through the book.  It’s an interesting story telling device and no more frustrating than say novels that skip around various character POVs and often leave us unresolved for 7 years of frustrated whining only to get no payoff in the next installment….  Off topic again, whoops!  I’m going to try to avoid spoilers too much here but the breakdown of the stories is as such:

1 – Adam Ewing’s story: an American notary in the 19th century who has traveled to Polynesia and is witnessing the enslavement of the pacifist Moriori tribe to the Maori (with help from meddling Western culture)

2 – Robert Frobisher: 1930’s penniless composer who cons his way into living with and studying under a famous composer in Belgium.

3 – Luisa Rey: a journalist living in the 70’s working to write an expose on a dangerous nuclear power plant.

4 – Timothy Cavendish: an elderly 21st century publisher, also penniless most of the time, who is fleeing from various debts and gangsters.   He winds up confined in the most amusing and depressing of places: an old folk’s home.

5 – Somni-451: reference to Bradbury maybe?  The story of a Korean worker “clone” who discovers individuality.  Yeah it’s totally a reference to Bradbury.  Gotta be.

6 – Zachry (no last name): a post-apocalyptic tribal-like character who lives in a violent island world that much resembles the Polynesian tonal landscape (though set in Hawaii)  from the first story.

You might assume that my favorite story would be the more futuristic one with clones and the usual scifi mumbo jumbo.  You might be wrong.  It was actually “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish” I enjoyed most.   The style used for his POV was brilliant, sentences reading like candy to my tongue and definitely the most amusing of all the stories.  Apparently I’m an old codger at heart because I found myself chuckling at Cavendish’s whines about the world not because he was ridiculous but out of a camaraderie I shared with spirit of his observations:

“…a memory from a university Halloween Ball cracked on the hard rim of my heart and the yolk dribbled out…”

“Back at the station my woes began afresh when I tried to get a refund in yesterday’s disrupted journey.  The ticket-wallah, whose pimples bubbled as I watched, was as intractably dense as his counterpart in King’s Cross.  The corporation breeds them from the same stem cell.”

“Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms round the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage.”

“I mocked their hollow stares, ‘Soylent Green is made of people!’ They looked puzzled—I am, alas, the Last of my Tribe.”

Thematically the novel works really well at its more subtle moments and gets annoying at times when, like say in story 5 (the “future” cloning storyline) characters just start to come right out and say blatantly “oh here’s the theme.”  Why go to all that effort of laying clues and weaving beautiful imagery, and there is a lot of beautiful language play in these books hoo baby, if you’re just going to spray paint “THEME” all over the weave when it’s done?

One of the motifs repeated throughout the novel is the emphasis on the number 6.  I find this interesting since it’s not one of the more commonly used “power numbers” of literature.  Those would be 2 (duality), 3 (mystical/biblical/mathematically poignant), 4 – 7 – 10 and – 12.  I guess the number 6 does have some biblical meaning to it.  Man was created on the 6th day and the story certainly is all about exploring dual nature of man: noble creature and merciless predator.  Mitchell seems to fall to the conclusion that humanity is a bit doomed to falling prey to itself as the latter.   It’s also supposedly tied to the theme of reincarnation and interestingly enough in mathematics it is the first “perfect” number.  I could go totally off the deep end of literary analysis and make a big stink about how 6 is the product of 3 (the mystical number) and 2 (dualism) and the novel explores the duality and mysticism of how every person is connected.  I wouldn’t be far off since Mitchell (according to his own words) uses a shared birthmark on his protagonist across the storylines to do precisely that.   **Random aside: my favorite number is 27 which happens to be 3 to the 3rd power.**

I could write loads more but I’ve already reached the end of my second page and that’s my cutoff point.  Maybe I can get away with writing up more (like about the “yellow face” controversy) as a movie review tied to this post later on.  People have complained I write too damn much.  I know I chatter on far too much… but if you only knew how many things I want to say and don’t. Give me some credit. – Quick who said that?  Anyway I figure I’ll wrap up on the note of the 6 motif since it is what inspired my recipe for the book.

6 layer bars or “Magic Bars” which sometimes are 5 or 7 layers instead, are these amazingly sweet delicious confections and when I was thinking of how this book is layered three things came to mind: cake, bean dip and bars.  I already served up some layer cake to you this week and bean dip?  Really?  No I decided to re-invent the 6 layer magic bar with some inspiration from the novel.  I’m so glad I did.  I came up with the most amazing flavor combination…I just, there are no words.  Since Asian influences are heavily present (Yoko Ono is a huge inspiration for Mitchell as it turns out) and there are a lot of Pacific Islander settings/characters/story arcs I wanted to tie those flavor profiles in.  What I churned out was a gluten free rice pudding bar topped with dried blueberries, pistachios, coconut, dark chocolate and a little sweetened condensed milk to tie it all together.  6 major ingredients.

Enjoy!

Olivia’s Magic Cloud-6 Bars
An Olivia Original inspired by “Cloud Atlas” Read more

Oct 12

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Stargate SciFriday: Grandma Mitchell’s Macaroons

Want to win some cookies?  Answer the TRIVIA QUESTION at the end of my post.  A while back I posted one that my friend Chris was the first to answer and while it took me a little while (sorry sith lord!) I did in fact mail out this batch of macaroons to him.  Chris if you read this you are the only one excluded from winning this round.  You’ll be eligible again for the next one though :-)  The winner will be contacted privately for shipping info.  Please someone try to answer it so I don’t look like a commentless loser after offering up my cookies to the universe ;-)

These days I tend to bemoan the lack of quality programming on the SciFi channel.  I still refuse to refer to it as SyFy even though that’s probably a better acronym for it since I don’t think it deserves to call itself the science fiction channel anymore.  The programming lineup is pretty depressing for big lovers of the genre like me.  Pro-wrestling?  Sure I’ll joke that about how that show is all fiction but what the frell does it have to do with speculative and science fantasies?  Absolutely nothing.  The closest any original programming that isn’t a re-run gets these days are shows largely supernatural in scope like Warehouse 13 and Being Human.  I certainly enjoy the horror/supernatural aspect of science fiction, after all Frankenstein is lauded as being the very first book of speculative fiction and is also a gothic horror story.  Still I miss the good old days but I’ve ranted on this before.

Days of yore, like back when Stargate hadn’t even generated a spin-off yet.  Ah sweet delicious serial stories each week of alien worlds, exploration and evil aliens that invade host bodies.  Those were the days.  I admit I came into the Stargate love a little late to the game.  I was first and foremost a Trekkie and I started watching Stargate many years after it first aired.  In fact, actually, I am pretty sure I didn’t start watching it until the Atlantis spin-off happened and until after Ben Browder and Claudia Black moved over from the cancelled genius that was Farscape.  I’d caught a few episodes here and there because my Mom was a big fan of the show but I was probably too busy being an overachiever with my high school career at that point to catch much television.

Then came the amazing time suck known as Netflix.  Thanks to the streaming service I have watched and re-watched every single episode of Stargate…along with several other shows.  Notably Atlantis, Farscape (several times through) and I’ve been working my way through every single episode ever of Star Trek.  I’ve also watched Buffy a few times all the way through with various boyfriends but since I own them all on DVD as well, I can’t really blame Netflix for stealing those hours away.

Stargate was a fantastic show because it was just so jovial.  It didn’t have quite as many “oh my god” moments as other shows and since Joss didn’t write it, there were no evening stabs to my heart cavity.  It’s a good middle sort of show that manages to invest you in characters, develop quality story arcs that were interesting and surprising but there wasn’t the heart breaking melodrama of say Battlestar Galactica.  I rambled the other day about a lack of interesting, strong women in scifi and I can’t believe I didn’t include Samantha Carter!  I think she probably qualifies as another unsung/lesser sung hero along the lines of Jadzia and Zoe.  Her character was strong, independent but not unduly burdened with angst.  I like that she was unwaveringly tough handled her shit and yet when I sum up a mental picture of her it’s always with a smile on her face.   Buffy is my soulmate but when I think of her I more often than not conjure up memories of a scene where she’s got tears in her eyes.

Stargate won me over with some of my favorite television devices—most notably continuity.  I love shows that have running gags for long time fans.  It provides a sense of realism that really makes it easier to immerse yourself in the universe.  Psych does it with pineapples; Buffy did it with…everything.  Stargate even poked fun at itself and its actors by having a set of episodes over a few seasons that mentioned a television show within the characters’ world called “Wormhole Exxtreme!” that was supposed to be about the Stargate program.  When they brought in Browder and Black from Farscape they made nods to that show as well on the program; proof that the writers knew their audience well.  There is just something about geek culture and loving inside jokes coupled with self-referential, often deprecating, humor.

Browder’s character, Lt. Mitchell, is always mentioning his grandmother’s macaroons.  At one point when Samantha lands in the hospital he mixes up a batch which she eats but apparently does not enjoy.  Later on in the series, Mitchell winds up in the hospital and Samantha brings him some in return.  Like I said, it’s the little things that add continuity and realism to a series and make it feel special.  I’ve been wanting to whip up a recipe for ages but always came back to the dilemma that Mitchell’s Macaroons were…bad.  Should I stay true to the show and make macaroons that taste awful?  Inspiration!  What if I figured out a way to craft a recipe that would be good, but Mitchell clearly misinterpreted, hence my choice to include allspice.  Here’s what I imagine could easily happen.  Mitchell, not knowing what allspice is, reads his grandmother’s recipe as “all spices” and just dumps in whatever he’s got in the cabinet.  That thought made me giggle and so Grandma Mitchell’s macaroons were born.  If you follow this recipe and use real allspice (which is a specific spice made from dried ground berries btw) you should have something quite tasty, chewy and chocolatey to enjoy.

TRIVIA QUESTION: Ben Browder played a character on another scifi show I mentioned and on that series his character’s grandma also has a signature classic baked good which Browder’s character tries to recreate…badly.  Sometimes I wonder if this was deliberately being referenced on Stargate.  Anyway tell me what that dish was “Grandma ____’s ____ _____” and you’ll win a prize.

 Grandma Mitchell’s Macaroons
an Olivia Original inspired by Stargate Read more

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

May 14

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Muffin Monday: Women carrot-oo much about bikinis

This past weekend I was with some friends in Davis again where the temperatures were climbing to the 80s for the weekend. The Sacramento Area doesn’t really get a spring—the weather jumps straight to summer sunshine. I hadn’t packed a bathing suit since I’m not yet in the mindset for summer but a friend suggested we go spend time by the pool. I explained I didn’t have a suit and this friend suggested we just drop by target and buy me one.

I feel the need to point out this friend was a guy.

I then tried to explain, without success, the sheer horror of bathing suit shopping with women. While a man may experience the luxury of simple picking out a pattern he likes in one of three sizing options (board shorts, traditional boxer or speedo) the process is far more complicated for a female. For me it usually takes hours and devolves into a tantrum of self-loathing and tears before I find something, if anything, that works for me.  I was told to put on big girl panties and held back a diatribe about the agony of underwear shopping as well.

Admittedly the worst experiences in my mind are from when I was 16; the age when women are at the crux of hormonal body dysmorphia.    I don’t think I’ve had quite the equivalent meltdown since, but why take the risk on a perfectly lovely afternoon? For a time I wore board shorts and surfing tops since I was boarding and swimming in the ocean more often than a pool and that helped deal with the OMGIHATEMYBREASTS syndrome. Plus I’m so damn nearsighted at this point that swimming means removing contacts and rendering me legally blind so I really just don’t bother.

This process probably isn’t as painful for all women as it is for me and presumably quite more painful for others than I will ever know. Still one thing has been made clear from actual studies on the psychological impact of swimsuit shopping (no really they exist) and that is: IT SUCKS.  Really, they’ve done studies. Body image with women is such a troubling thing. Some girls bypass this pain completely by wearing t-shirts and shorts into the pool. Others avoid the water completely. The whole ordeal is a combination of bathing suits sold at ridiculous markup for women, flawed designs and the obligatory reference here to societal pressures of how women should look blah blah blah. The reality is that bathing suits do nothing to hide, flatter or fit for a price tag that’s at all reasonable. I’ve tried on some super high end suits and found that I’m able to at least tolerate them on my body. From my 23 years doing this I’ve learned a few things about swimsuit shopping with women:

1.            Buying a suit that fits anyone but a size 0 WILL cost you $$$. The problem is that most of the cheaper ones aren’t cut well despite ridiculous markup compared to what you’d find in the boys section of the store. Plus anything in a two piece (because one piece suits are remarkably annoying at times) is usually sold as a pair. I defy you to find statistical proof that most women can fit into these bundled sizes. So few of us are the same generic “large” for the top and bottom which means buying TWO suits or separates—and often for a triple digit price tag.

2.            Flat chested girls do have it easier. Maybe not in all walks of life or with all cuts of cloth, but I can promise you that while the top and bottom might still not align well for a fit, flat girls don’t have to worry about support. Support in a bra is hard enough to find for women with large tracts of land. Support in a swimsuit is even more challenging. You are limited to underwire that looks like your breasts are bending it in half or halter tops that dig into your neck over the course of several hours. You need to be sure that you are contained, covered and circumventing at potential prison break or horrifying nipple slip. The last bit probably applies to flat girls too struggling to keep their tops on so unity through nipples ladies! Also can someone explain to me why designers perpetually put PADDING in tops for large chested women? WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD?

3.            Cute suits only exist in tiny sizes. More or less explains itself. The bigger you get the blander and more generic your extremely expensive options are. Red, Black or White and only in one shape that may, or may not, make you want to seek and destroy all nautical themed goods for the rest of your life.

4.            Magazine Covers are unfair. There is no photoshop in real life and we rarely walk around the pool on tip toes or in heels like these ladies do. That kind of tilt really changes how the ass and legs look and even the most athletically fit woman can’t replicate that in flat feet. Those images are EVERYWHERE, even on the magazines selling us swimsuits that inspire such self-loathing. We then shell out money to buy those suits because we want so badly to look as easy going and effortless as these ridiculously involved constructs appear to be.

5.            It makes sense that women hate this. Of course we are going to overly self-objectify when this is the only socially acceptable time to display body parts we are taught to hide. These are clothes that borderline on what is considered shameful or inappropriate nudity, parts we rarely expose and that are hyper-sexualized making them intensely personal. OF course it’s going to drive us nuts. It doesn’t help that shitty designs and glossy photos of chimeras make us feel even worse.

I’m not going to end this with some rant about how we need to learn to love ourselves more. It’s not like our society is going to change overnight and regardless of magazine photos, I’m always going to be hypercritical of myself in every way–not just my appearance. In short most women are: lumpy, oddly shaped and going to hyperventilate at the very thought of entering a fitting room to try on bathing suits but there is a bright side.  According to this study it turns out we feel FAR more self-conscious about these blasted suits when we’re trying them on than when we’re actually running around wearing them. Do yourself a favor and stop focusing so much on how they look and rather if they feel like they fit and then get the hell out of that 3by3 foot room of horrors without a second glance in the fun-house mirror. Kind of like how these muffins taste and contain tons of delicious goodness once you get past the lumpy orange appearance, so too will your summer once you get past the bathing suit “rite of passage”.  At least that’s the theory.

Carrot Spice Muffins
from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan Read more

May 9

National Butterscotch Brownie Day

Well okay, I sort of cheated as these are Blondies and not Brownies. Honestly I’m not sure what butterscotch brownies are supposed to be. The idea of a thick brownie with butterscotch in it makes me feel kind of sick—way too much sugar. It’s possible that the holiday could call for brownies made with a homemade butterscotch mixture in place of the melted chocolate but then again, you’d wind up with something I think is technically qualified as a “Blondie” so I’m just going to run with this.

This recipe throws butterscotch (obviously), dark chocolate, coconut and walnuts together to make a delicious treat as chewy as a brownie but with the chocolate taking the role of a team player rather than the dominate force. Damn it, I was trying not to write about this but you know what all this just makes me think of? The Avengers. You know because of how there are 4 big flavors that unite in this bar to make something that explodes in your mouth? No? Too tenuous a segue? Tough beans buddy ‘cause that’s the way it’s gonna be! (Seriously does anyone catch on to how many lines I’ve cannibalized from film in my daily speech?)

To be fair almost anything is making me think of Marvel’s newest, record breaking film because it is just that damn good. It’s “Olivia is going to shell out money to see it multiple times in theatres” good and that almost never happens. I think the last film I saw more than once was Inglorious Basterds and that wasn’t the cause of nearly as much jubilation to my inner geek as Avengers is. Basterds was an amazing film with respect to film geekery but this movie hits me in a much more childish, nostalgic place by paying the utmost care to faithful translation of the comics to screen. If you are a marvel universe kid this movie is going to make you insanely happy.

Hulk is probably the biggest crowd pleaser in the film. That line alone thrills me to my finger tips because saying it means the movie either had to SUCK worse than Daredevil or be on par with DC’s best effort to date. Okay obviously that’s Dark Knight, do I even need to say it? Anyway the reason Hulk being a crowd pleaser could spell out badness is that he is impossible to do well in film. The character is a monster, he should terrify even the good guys and his entire premise of turning into a not so jolly green giant requires far more suspension of reality than any of the other Avengers team members. Despite my intense love and faith in Joss I wasn’t exactly sanguine about Hulk working in this movie. Oh but he does. The character was written and played out with just the right blend of humor and fear. As it was later put to me, the reason he could work well in this movie is that the Hulk finally had characters he could physically interact with that were strong enough to take the hit (i.e. Thor and giant aliens) without needing to create a second Hulk. These were also contrasted against characters like Black Widow that would be killed by a single blow and who, in an expertly crafted early scene, displayed exactly the right amount of terror at the mere thought of the monster.

If you don’t understand why they should be afraid of the Hulk, go read Ultimates Avengers which is loosely the version these movies are based on. Hulk EATS a person. Cannibalizes him. Hulk is fucking scary okay?
The other big challenge is having so many characters, big important players, and not having it feel crowded. Who can forget the clusterfuck that was Spiderman 3? There were too many villains and no one got the screen time or development they deserved. Spiderman was my greatest comic love as a child so this movie was particularly frustrating for me. How in the world were we going to have a film work with 4 huge comic heroes and 3 supporting heroes? You know how? You get Joss “I’m a genius at ensemble cast writing” Whedon. Buffy, Angel, Dollhouse, Firefly…Joss manages to create shows where there’s an entire cast that serves as a star, rather than just one central figure. He did it again. Everyone gets an amazing line, everyone delivers it perfectly and everyone is a puzzle piece that fits together to create a bigger picture.

The one flaw, the one somewhat big flaw, is that ScarJo plays the MOST American “Russian” spy I’ve ever seen. In spite of that, and because she manages to pull out a better performance than I thought possible for her…gravitational talents, the movie works marvel-ously. See what I did there?

So I’m going back for second and third helpings, first of these addictive butterscotch blondies and then a less fattening cinematic feast.

Chewy, Chunky Blondies Read more

Apr 18

Curry it Along

Hello, my name is Olivia and I’m a neurotic perfectionist. They say admitting the problem is the first step. I’m not going to sit there and spend 30 minutes straightening a painting mind you, and I’ve certainly “decorated” cakes that looked like a 2 year old did it. No I don’t always take it quite that far but I do have what are considered “unreasonably high standards” that I set for myself. As such I tend to catalog and replay, for no reason at all, every time I’ve failed to meet that standard or live up to what I know my full potential is. I practically have a full NFL commentary running on each incident.

It sucks.

Of course this need to be my absolute best is what drives me, at my best, and can completely freeze me up at my worst. There were several years of depression where I literally could not function because I was stuck in this zone of spiraling failure that my brain had predetermined every event outcome to be. While the down side is debilitating, ultimately this attitude is the engine for my bottom line: “I Make It Happen.” Now this bottom line gets me into trouble sometimes because I will forgo convention, and occasionally unintentionally hurt feelings in my quest to get something finished. I’m a fairly considerate person and so it’s usually a round-about stepping on toes. Mostly because I just have no patience for things I perceive to be “time wasters” and would rather see something get done correctly myself than leave it up to someone else if it results in a lot of wasted time explaining things.

Let me try to explain from a recent example. If standard protocol dictates I follow a set order that makes it impossible to complete my end goal on time I will improvise, manage or generally do whatever it takes to find an alternate route. If this means I pick up the slack where other people are failing, I do it, usually without complaint because my only concern is making sure I get the job done. I really don’t get upset if it means I put something together that normally a vendor or teammate would do. In the process the person being displaced can feel made useless, ignored or worse if a superior, undermined. That’s never my intention and I have discovered I need to be more aware of this in the future. I’m just used to a “no excuses, make it happen” mindset.

I once tried to use an excuse to get out of something deliberately as a child. It is always stuck in my mind as the 4th grade ruler incident. I had some math homework I didn’t feel like finishing and I was cutting corners so I could go play outside. One question called for a ruler and since I couldn’t find one in the house, I didn’t bother with the problem. In class the next day I was called on to answer that question. I shot my teacher a shit eating grin and replied that since I didn’t own a ruler at home I couldn’t have done the problem. I loved this teacher. Basically every child in my school worshipped her.

She turned an icy gaze on me and told me that was no excuse and walked on. I felt disgusted with myself. I was mad at myself for letting her down and even angrier still at myself because I knew she was right. I could have figured something out, or at least put some sort of work into the problem. I tried my hand at the idea that it was the world’s fault and found it just wasn’t for me. I remember this incident of course, because I remember every time I have ever felt that deep twinge of disappointment in myself for failure to live up to what I know I could do. I just wish this same positive force didn’t have the power to freeze me, shut me down and make me feel fatalistic when I fail.

This is a fantastic recipe that comes together pretty quickly on a weeknight for those with a need to overdo it.  The recipe is made with coconut milk and coconut cream (think of it as a reduced coconut milk) but keep in mind that coconut milk isn’t actually dairy but be sure to check the label in case your company mixes in milk.  Making this the most vegan, lactose-intolerant delicious parve meal ever.  Can’t find coconut cream?  It’s easy to make from coconut milk–simple pour a second batch into a glass, refrigerate and allow the fats to separate.  What rises to the top is your coconut cream.  Keep in mind this is also really more of a fall recipe when there are bountiful sweet pumpkins for sale at the market.  Unfortunately I haven’t applied my work ethic to this blog as of yet and I’m sitting on a backlog of recipes I never put together or blog posts I never wrote.  I’m attempting to change this in the coming weeks.

Do or Do Not.   Damn okay I should say attempting, I should say AM changing this week.  Yoda is no friend to half-assed blogging attempts.

 Creamy Pumpkin and Cashew Curry Read more

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