Good God, Charlie Brown, it's EARLY! It's about 6:50 am and I'm trying to slap myself awake to go play tennis with my father. We have been pretty good about it all week. I played on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. On Thursday, after an hour+ of tennis, we came back and repaved a bit of the walkway in the backyard. See these hands? They swung a sledge hammer and broke several hundred pounds of concrete. Then they moved the concrete, broke it into smaller pieces, extracted some dying zucchini plants, tilled the land, filled in the walkway with hardcore, and POURED 400 pounds of concrete. By hand.
My right hand has a beautiful blister. It doesn't have the fluid filled stuff yet. It's just at the stage where it's red and very upset. When I was playing yesterday, the skin squidged together as I held the racket. Then, as I opened my hand, I could hear the skin separating like two pieces of duct tape being ripped apart. Lovely. I've been looking up how to avoid hand trauma. Many people recommend taping it before it becomes a problem. But when it's a blister, super glue is suppose to be god's gift to tender skin.
Baking:
I have been making a lot of sweet breads lately. I made a true brioche loft (pretty good when fresh out of the oven but then got dry and too crusty/flaky), a cinnamon swirl bread and some monkey bread. With regular bread dough I made some dinner rolls of varying sizes in muffin/cupcake tins. There is another bucket of brioche/sweet dough in the fridge ready to be made into cinnamon swirl bread.
My excuse:
There are no pictures of the monkey bread because my parent's friends descended upon it like flying turtles in a pond. My parents had a little gathering on Wednesday. I made monkey bread that day. In the morning, I cut the dough into small pieces, rolled it into a ball shape and then covered it with brown sugar and cinnamon. I made a little too much because a few balls fell out of the loaf pan and onto the baking sheet. It was so delicious. There was none left at the end of the gathering. And I couldn't find the camera in time to take photos.
My mother has requested more monkey bread, which I am happy to oblige. The brown sugar caramelizes and turns the whole thing into a beautiful doughnut-like texture bite with sweetness and tender bread.
Current food obsession: Tres Leches Cake - good or bad?
Tres Leches cake is a traditional Mexican or Spanish cake. There are as many recipes as there are regions in Mexico, or taquerias in San Francisco. Each one is slightly different. In some, the sponge is more firm. In others, the sponge is like a cake. Some recipes use the three milks in a consistency like a syrup. Others have more liquid milk-like milks.
Do I like this kind of cake? Or do I not like the whole category? It seems to consistently give me a stomach ache if I eat too much of it (more than 3 spoonfuls). YET I CANNOT STOP MYSELF. Especially in the morning when my will power is at its lowest. Like now.
I want to make a tres leches cake to try it out. But if I make it, I'm committed to a certain volume of 3 milk mixture (at least 2 full cans of milk). And I think I would get really really sick of it way before I got through that. How to make a smaller, sized down version?
In the meantime, I've been buying it from panaderias. And I bought it once from a hippie dippie trendy deli location in San Francisco. Each time, it was really sweet. And gave me a stomach ache.
On to change into tennis clothing.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
New Years Resolution (in October)
It's Sunday, the 49ers are on a "bye" week, and the weather is lovely in San Francisco.
Last night I had a great evening with an old friend from college whom I have not seen for over a year. Hayden stopped over in SF for about 12 hours as a layover from Singapore. Unfortunately he had not slept a wink on the plane, and promptly passed out in the spare room for an hour before dinner. The conversation was delightful, possibly because it comes only once every year. But maybe because Hayden is such a cheerful, optimistic person (without being annoyingly perky). Yes, Hayden is sans perky.
At the end of the night, I drove Hayden to the airport, and I reflected on my life. Since I speak to Hayden so infrequently, our conversations include topics that have been boiled down to salient points, without fluffy polite/modest hubris. If only more conversations could follow this pattern, a great deal could be accomplished in a short period of time. But maybe that is what confession is for? Insert your religious preference for atonement here.
Regarding this blog, I want to make certain changes that I hope translate into my daily life to produce something more. Some are simple resolutions. Others are akin to behavior modification that will require a lot of energy and mental gymnastics.
Resolutions:
1. I will post more photos on this blog. Since I have not posted any at all, this should be the most straight forward one. Hopefully. Hopefully.
2. I will take more photos of the stuff I bake. Baking has continued to fascinate me, and it satisfies the same part of my brain as eating the baked good. Thus, if I bake it, it will be psychologically as rewarding as eating it, without any of the calories.
3. In dealing with difficult decisions in my life, I will envision that I am helping out a client who has the same events occurring. This allows me to not get so caught up in my self-wallowing, self-denial, fear-of-rejection that I fail to do anything at all.
4. I accept that my health insurance situation is hopeless and I need to do something about it. I still believe there is a flaw in the system, but at this time, I am resigned to not be in the system. It's really just too expensive and I cannot afford this.
5. I will play tennis regularly.
Now, off to tennis. More posts later. Perhaps this time with photos!
Last night I had a great evening with an old friend from college whom I have not seen for over a year. Hayden stopped over in SF for about 12 hours as a layover from Singapore. Unfortunately he had not slept a wink on the plane, and promptly passed out in the spare room for an hour before dinner. The conversation was delightful, possibly because it comes only once every year. But maybe because Hayden is such a cheerful, optimistic person (without being annoyingly perky). Yes, Hayden is sans perky.
At the end of the night, I drove Hayden to the airport, and I reflected on my life. Since I speak to Hayden so infrequently, our conversations include topics that have been boiled down to salient points, without fluffy polite/modest hubris. If only more conversations could follow this pattern, a great deal could be accomplished in a short period of time. But maybe that is what confession is for? Insert your religious preference for atonement here.
Regarding this blog, I want to make certain changes that I hope translate into my daily life to produce something more. Some are simple resolutions. Others are akin to behavior modification that will require a lot of energy and mental gymnastics.
Resolutions:
1. I will post more photos on this blog. Since I have not posted any at all, this should be the most straight forward one. Hopefully. Hopefully.
2. I will take more photos of the stuff I bake. Baking has continued to fascinate me, and it satisfies the same part of my brain as eating the baked good. Thus, if I bake it, it will be psychologically as rewarding as eating it, without any of the calories.
3. In dealing with difficult decisions in my life, I will envision that I am helping out a client who has the same events occurring. This allows me to not get so caught up in my self-wallowing, self-denial, fear-of-rejection that I fail to do anything at all.
4. I accept that my health insurance situation is hopeless and I need to do something about it. I still believe there is a flaw in the system, but at this time, I am resigned to not be in the system. It's really just too expensive and I cannot afford this.
5. I will play tennis regularly.
Now, off to tennis. More posts later. Perhaps this time with photos!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Trifle. Custard. Yum.
I found a wonderful way to use up old cake. When I say "old cake" I mean cake that has not been decorated or gobbled up in a sleep-walking daze. I don't decorate cakes in my sleep except for that one instance and then never again. Chocolate ganache does not wash out. And in my sleep-walking daze, I was not very good at measuring. Nor was I wearing my glasses. You live, you learn.
Since I've been making different vanilla cakes (some with sprinkles, some with vanilla beans, some with both!), it makes the perfect sponge for the bottom of a trifle. What is a trifle? It's layered perfection! It has everything enjoyable about dessert: custard, whipped cream, fruit, jelly, and vanilla sponge cake. In England, everyone knows Marks and Spencer's trifle. It's a staple (stable?) for Sunday Roast. And while I love a bit of designer dessert, it was really really sweet. I'm trying to stop being so horse-shoe-on-its-side shaped, but trifles are truly the siren call of all desserts. I'm a sucker for fragrant vanilla cake, rich eggy custard, and some fruit.
Now, it's really quite simple to throw together if you've already made all the components. Vanilla cake requires mostly egg whites. The egg yolks are used to make custard. The custard is secretly low fat or non fat due to milk. The jelly is made with the juice from no-sugar-added canned mandarin oranges and pineapples. The whole thing tastes like dreamy vanilla pudding with bits of sponge cake and fruit. Nom nom nom.
Just remember that gelatine is NOT VEGETARIAN. When I brought 2 trifles to my friend's birthday party, one vegetarian, people were wondering what sort of meat-and-fruit was in the other trifle. Um. Ha. Gross.
Since I've been making different vanilla cakes (some with sprinkles, some with vanilla beans, some with both!), it makes the perfect sponge for the bottom of a trifle. What is a trifle? It's layered perfection! It has everything enjoyable about dessert: custard, whipped cream, fruit, jelly, and vanilla sponge cake. In England, everyone knows Marks and Spencer's trifle. It's a staple (stable?) for Sunday Roast. And while I love a bit of designer dessert, it was really really sweet. I'm trying to stop being so horse-shoe-on-its-side shaped, but trifles are truly the siren call of all desserts. I'm a sucker for fragrant vanilla cake, rich eggy custard, and some fruit.
Now, it's really quite simple to throw together if you've already made all the components. Vanilla cake requires mostly egg whites. The egg yolks are used to make custard. The custard is secretly low fat or non fat due to milk. The jelly is made with the juice from no-sugar-added canned mandarin oranges and pineapples. The whole thing tastes like dreamy vanilla pudding with bits of sponge cake and fruit. Nom nom nom.
Just remember that gelatine is NOT VEGETARIAN. When I brought 2 trifles to my friend's birthday party, one vegetarian, people were wondering what sort of meat-and-fruit was in the other trifle. Um. Ha. Gross.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Still There? I am
For those of you that unsubscribed the moment the Bar was over: excellent choice. No point in dwelling over spoiled milk. No use crying and clawing at the sun.
For those of you that are still there: life does go on after the Bar. For a few weeks, I was convinced that after the last day of the Bar, the earth would open up and swallow me whole. Existence would end because the earth would explode in a Rapture-like incident. Well. It didn't. I'm still here. And life does keep ticking along in a mundane fashion. Very mundane and very financially crippled fashion.
Outline:
1. New baking project: cupcakes - but how to ship???
2. Health Insurance is the new highway robbery.
3. Job search - like a square-wheeled cart rolling down a hill.
_____
1. New Baking Project: Cupcakes.
I would like to start a new kickstarter project. I would like to bake cupcakes. Well, I would like to bake regular cakes, it's just that cupcakes are so much more portable, easier to keep fresh, and portion controlled. Thus, it has been decided that cakes, baked in small circular paper, portion controlled, would be the obvious answer. Call it what you like: cupcake. Mini-cakes. Small tea cakes. It's not really a cupcake because I really don't like frosting. Especially not the hi-hat frosting that has 3 inches of buttercream sitting atop a 1 inch cake.
Frosting is also not easy to ship. That is a good reason to forgo the frosting. There has been a movement towards something called cupcake-in-a-jar. Thoughts? Initially, I thought: bbbbrrrrrppppth. Ridiculous. The concept requires shipping cupcakes in glass mason jars. Or glass canning jars. Or glass jars in general. Doesn't this concept seem very...heavy? Glass Jars. Being shipped. Yes, I have an unreasonable fear of broken glass. But this might be the best way to ship cupcakes.
I got some vanilla bean paste and have been making these delicious vanilla bean cupcakes. They are very nice with a dollop of dark chocolate ganache or some custard, or both. Also, I've been revisiting my make-believe childhood with confetti cake. White cake, colored sprinkles. Happiness flows from the sight of such festive treats.
2. Health Insurance is the new highway robbery.
While in school, we had a janky health insurance through K****r. It was expensive but I was too naive to realize that other health care was out there. I am really ignorant to the whole situation but perhaps there have been more options in the last 2 years because more people have lost their jobs? Just speculating. Well. While I was in school, I had this janky health insurance. It did the trick. But now that I'm grad-u-ma-cated, it's gone. And the continuation health coverage is nearly $500 per month!!! That is almost as much as rent! That's like a very low mortgage! That is way more than I have available as an unemployed, recent grad, waiting for my Bar results.
As I sat here this morning an looked for alternative means of health insurance, I came across one that required payment of the first month along with the application. Um. Sure? Luckily it's $83 per month so much much less than the janky one. But what kind of clause is that? My application may still be rejected. But is the monthly fee going to be refunded if it gets rejected? Or do they keep it? Where is the fine print on this? It is nothing like shopping around for car insurance where you get a quote and then you get to think about it. Here, you get a quote, then you fill in your medical record information and they tell you to pay this fee, then let you know if you made the cut.
Additionally, the janky medical insurance has a terrible website. Everything goes in circles. The website is a terrible mess. I could not navigate my way around to figure out when my coverage was suppose to end. When I finally sent in my paperwork for continuation, it turns out they retroactively charged me for the 2 months in between. I wasn't even in the country for part of the time! This means I currently have about 3 months to pay. If I had known it was retroactive, I would have used it. But I was so afraid of incurring hidden fees that I just stopped. Highway robbery. I am so confused.
I feel like that Geico commercial where the older gentleman trains guinea pigs to row a boat to generate electricity so he can surf the web.
"Row."
"Row."
3. Job Search: Bandersnatch.
This limbo period is terrible for the soul. It eats at the mind, sucks up confidence, shreds good night sleep and spits it out like a wood chipper. Colorado got bar results back. Go VAL! Congrats. But it does remind me of another thing to take care of: School Loans.
School loans. Wish it took years off the end of one's life. But instead it starts right away. Again, graduation seems so far away when a young, bright-eyed student signs the loan papers. There should be a surgeon general warning that states what the final loan amount will be. WAY MORE THAN YOU THINK! $500,000? $450,000? $20,000? Especially compared with the average salary for attorneys now, the amount was a shocker. How do educated people ever make enough money if you factor in rent, living expenses, car payment, school loan, health insurance, car insurance. I guess you could try to minimize living expenses by eating only free food (Costco on Sunday, Whole Foods cheese samples, networking meetings). Again. I'm back to being a starving actor.
I am going to be a starving actor. I am a starving actor. Sigh.
This week, I have to make 1 birthday cake for a friend and her husband, about a dozen cupcakes for the party, a small cake for a dinner and some cupcakes into which I can drown my sorrows. Maybe there's room for a trifle somewhere in there. Some frozen berries, custard, jelly, vanilla sponge cake, and it turns out delicious.
See, writing about food and food prep makes me optimistic! Writing and thinking about my life makes it go the other way. Maybe I will start a bakery after all.
For those of you that are still there: life does go on after the Bar. For a few weeks, I was convinced that after the last day of the Bar, the earth would open up and swallow me whole. Existence would end because the earth would explode in a Rapture-like incident. Well. It didn't. I'm still here. And life does keep ticking along in a mundane fashion. Very mundane and very financially crippled fashion.
Outline:
1. New baking project: cupcakes - but how to ship???
2. Health Insurance is the new highway robbery.
3. Job search - like a square-wheeled cart rolling down a hill.
_____
1. New Baking Project: Cupcakes.
I would like to start a new kickstarter project. I would like to bake cupcakes. Well, I would like to bake regular cakes, it's just that cupcakes are so much more portable, easier to keep fresh, and portion controlled. Thus, it has been decided that cakes, baked in small circular paper, portion controlled, would be the obvious answer. Call it what you like: cupcake. Mini-cakes. Small tea cakes. It's not really a cupcake because I really don't like frosting. Especially not the hi-hat frosting that has 3 inches of buttercream sitting atop a 1 inch cake.
Frosting is also not easy to ship. That is a good reason to forgo the frosting. There has been a movement towards something called cupcake-in-a-jar. Thoughts? Initially, I thought: bbbbrrrrrppppth. Ridiculous. The concept requires shipping cupcakes in glass mason jars. Or glass canning jars. Or glass jars in general. Doesn't this concept seem very...heavy? Glass Jars. Being shipped. Yes, I have an unreasonable fear of broken glass. But this might be the best way to ship cupcakes.
I got some vanilla bean paste and have been making these delicious vanilla bean cupcakes. They are very nice with a dollop of dark chocolate ganache or some custard, or both. Also, I've been revisiting my make-believe childhood with confetti cake. White cake, colored sprinkles. Happiness flows from the sight of such festive treats.
2. Health Insurance is the new highway robbery.
While in school, we had a janky health insurance through K****r. It was expensive but I was too naive to realize that other health care was out there. I am really ignorant to the whole situation but perhaps there have been more options in the last 2 years because more people have lost their jobs? Just speculating. Well. While I was in school, I had this janky health insurance. It did the trick. But now that I'm grad-u-ma-cated, it's gone. And the continuation health coverage is nearly $500 per month!!! That is almost as much as rent! That's like a very low mortgage! That is way more than I have available as an unemployed, recent grad, waiting for my Bar results.
As I sat here this morning an looked for alternative means of health insurance, I came across one that required payment of the first month along with the application. Um. Sure? Luckily it's $83 per month so much much less than the janky one. But what kind of clause is that? My application may still be rejected. But is the monthly fee going to be refunded if it gets rejected? Or do they keep it? Where is the fine print on this? It is nothing like shopping around for car insurance where you get a quote and then you get to think about it. Here, you get a quote, then you fill in your medical record information and they tell you to pay this fee, then let you know if you made the cut.
Additionally, the janky medical insurance has a terrible website. Everything goes in circles. The website is a terrible mess. I could not navigate my way around to figure out when my coverage was suppose to end. When I finally sent in my paperwork for continuation, it turns out they retroactively charged me for the 2 months in between. I wasn't even in the country for part of the time! This means I currently have about 3 months to pay. If I had known it was retroactive, I would have used it. But I was so afraid of incurring hidden fees that I just stopped. Highway robbery. I am so confused.
I feel like that Geico commercial where the older gentleman trains guinea pigs to row a boat to generate electricity so he can surf the web.
"Row."
"Row."
3. Job Search: Bandersnatch.
This limbo period is terrible for the soul. It eats at the mind, sucks up confidence, shreds good night sleep and spits it out like a wood chipper. Colorado got bar results back. Go VAL! Congrats. But it does remind me of another thing to take care of: School Loans.
School loans. Wish it took years off the end of one's life. But instead it starts right away. Again, graduation seems so far away when a young, bright-eyed student signs the loan papers. There should be a surgeon general warning that states what the final loan amount will be. WAY MORE THAN YOU THINK! $500,000? $450,000? $20,000? Especially compared with the average salary for attorneys now, the amount was a shocker. How do educated people ever make enough money if you factor in rent, living expenses, car payment, school loan, health insurance, car insurance. I guess you could try to minimize living expenses by eating only free food (Costco on Sunday, Whole Foods cheese samples, networking meetings). Again. I'm back to being a starving actor.
I am going to be a starving actor. I am a starving actor. Sigh.
This week, I have to make 1 birthday cake for a friend and her husband, about a dozen cupcakes for the party, a small cake for a dinner and some cupcakes into which I can drown my sorrows. Maybe there's room for a trifle somewhere in there. Some frozen berries, custard, jelly, vanilla sponge cake, and it turns out delicious.
See, writing about food and food prep makes me optimistic! Writing and thinking about my life makes it go the other way. Maybe I will start a bakery after all.
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