Eccentric Flower:199812/somber sides and food failures
From Eccentric Flower
«December 1998 «Eccentric Flower
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three twelve twelve somber sides and food failures This has taken a while both because the morning was a mess and because the ISP decided to hiccup for a few minutes. I noticed; you probably didn't. The joys of being compulsive about one's web sites! A new face has been added to the Thinking Aloud ring - Rob, our field agent in Kalamazoo, is hopefully in good company. Stroll on over and say hi ... or, if nothing else, admire the lovely Thinking Aloud graphic he decided to make. I was commenting on that (maybe even to him, I forget). The ring has a logo - you'll see it if you do a site list - but no one uses it except Dianne. I don't even use it anymore; it's hard to fit into my new layout. It's also a little somber - what can I say? I design somber. Look at the top page of Alewife Bayou. My beautiful new logo (which you probably all hate) is rather dark and gloomy, isn't it? It's not because I want you in a bad mood - it's because I'm lousy at sunshine and rainbows. My best art is the morbid stuff, and it should not be taken in any way to imply a dark sensibility. Although, come to think of it ... I've said this before, but you definitely get my grumpy side here. In person ... well, it depends on whether I'm comfortable around you or not. If I don't know you well enough to be silly, you get this tall forboding creature, a little like Frau Blucher [whinny] in Young Frankenstein. If I know you well enough to relax - which is to say, about five people on the planet - you get my real self, which is more akin to Harpo Marx. I've just build a lot of layers of shielding over the years. Don't forget, silliness is socially unacceptable. Last night I had a fit of energy. I made a big pot of a Puerto Rican recipe a lot like jambalaya - a rice casserole, basically, with tomato, garlic, shrimp, and ham. The book I was using as a basis for the improv, though, didn't give quantities. When it said "Use a three quart pot," I didn't realize they meant it would fill it, literally fill it to the brim - and I omitted two of the late-addition ingredients because of that. If I had added the pound of peas the recipe calls for, who knows how much there would have been? As it is, I'll be having leftovers for two days. I also made Congo Bars, which I have now made so often from our beloved recipe that I can do it in about fifteen minutes. The recipe has been copied out and taped to the kitchen cabinet door so we don't have to get out the cookbook every time - that's how often we make these. But the last two times, something has gone wrong - they've been soupy and gooey in the middle. The first time, I suspected bad baking soda or the eggs (old and small). The baking soda tested fine, so I assumed it was the eggs. But it happened again this time, and upon tasting, I realized it wasn't an ingredient problem - the bars simply had not cooked enough in the center. So, given that the oven was preheated and handled exactly the same way I've done it every other time, and given that the oven is coming up to temperature (we have a thermometer hanging from one of the racks), what has caused the last two batches to cook funny? It was a good meal anyway. The rich food was cut nicely by sharp Portuguese vinho verde, which seems to be becoming one of my new favorite things of late. But I had to have some chocolate chip cookies in the middle of the night, since the Congo Bars were clearly unacceptable. © columbine |
