Bake Friday

So it's Black Friday, the greatest shopping day of the American year, and I'm home, laid-out-flat sick in bed. Am I crying about that? A little, because I get kind of weepy and vulnerable when I'm sick, especially when I'm alone with no one to make toast, soup, and chamomile tea for me. And because I am really, really sad that I can barely move right now, when I'd rather be in Orange County with my family today, especially those who have come in from out of state. Poor me. :(

Oh. Writing that paragraph sapped all my energy. I need to sleep for a few hours.

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Okay. I can sit up now.

Anyway, so I might be crying about being sick (if I had the energy to muster up some tears, which would probably just turn to steam on my fever-hot cheeks anyway), but I'm NOT crying about missing Black Friday. I am totally anti-Black Friday. I don't even like the name of it, it sounds negative and depressing to me-- even though I understand the symbolism, that being "in the black" is a good thing -- and I know I should be glad that our retail friends get to gain a little in their books in this recession era, but... I can't stand the over-consumerism of it. And I have a lot of bad associations with it, from eight years of working at Williams-Sonoma, where I had to go to into work first at midnight on Thanksgiving to change over the displays from Thanksgiving to Christmas, and then (as Black Friday REALLY gained steam), at 4am the day after Thanksgiving because the mall now opened at 5am. Ugh. Not that WS had any 'doorbusters', come on, but we had to deal with the frantic early-morning shoppers pounding at the door, anyway.

So. Instead of Black Friday, I think there should be a NEW tradition-- BAKE Friday. Make Thanksgiving a two-day holiday, spreading out the eating AND the prepping. Spreading out the joy. You know how it is-- you eat so much dinner on the Day of Thanks, that once dessert comes around, you don't really want it. And if your family is anything like my friend Sari's family, the dessert-- the PIE-- is the best part! ("One Pie Per Person". It's a great tradition they have!). Pie is better the second day anyway. Grabbing a pie, a can of whipped cream, and a couple of forks, and eating it together--straight out of the pan--as you watch sports or a movie or something, and on a slightly empty stomach after a leftover-turkey sandwich... awesome. Plus, there's so much stress on Thanksgiving Day to get all the food made, why not do the desserts the next day? All together, as a family? The family that bakes together... I don't know, I can't think of a rhyme for that. Probably gets fat together or something. BUT, at least one day a year should be okay. :)

So next year, I think I'm going to start this. Can't really start it this year. For starters, even though I went running yesterday morning in preparation for dinner later (and probably stupidly, because I could tell I was getting sick... it was just such a gorgeous, clear, chilly fall day...), I didn't eat much because I don't like feeling full. And, since I wasn't too full for dessert, I ate the pumpkin part of tiny slice of pumpkin pie. (Not pretending to be small, here-- I did pile it with whoop and I also ate two Trader Joe's chocolate-covered Peppermint Joe-Joe's... OH MY). Also, though I LOVE to bake, I don't bake for me, and I don't have anyone to give any creations to, today. Also, I'm sick and shouldn't be baking anything.

So in honor of the future of Bake Friday, here's a small snapshot of some of the particularly awesome baking I've done this past year. And what I will be happy to provide if you invite me to your own Bake Friday, next year.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting, S'mores Cupcakes, and then Red Velvet Cupcakes again (because I love them so much). These were class competition awards. Good thing, because if I didn't bake them for someone else, I'd want to eat them ALL-- the cinnamon-buttercream ones, that is. Whose recipe comes from this AWESOME cookbook:

As does a recipe for a Peanut-Butter Pie with Chocolate Crust. Oh man that was decadent.

I can't remember what the ganache was for. I think it was a layer between the crust and the whipping-cream/peanut-butter layer. Rich rich rich. It's a great cookbook.

Also for my classes, I make chocolate chip cookies. Which don't sound like much, but when you have to make them for 160 students, it requires quite a lot of dough.

Worth it, though. I hand out cookies with semester grades, to either Celebrate the Joy or Ease the Pain. And, every time, I'm surprised by the general reaction, to learn that so many kids DON'T have anyone baking from scratch, for them. Sad!

Also in the cookie realm--homemade Samoas. Totally a pain-and-a-half to construct. Delish, and you can't ever go back to the Girl Scout kind, but I don't know that I'll personally make them again. At least not in circle form; maybe in bars. Thanks Sam for the recipe!

Then last spring, needing something "citrus" for a recipe club night, I found this recipe for Chilled Lime-Coconut Pie with Macadamia-Coconut Crust. It was my favorite for a while (meaning I made it twice). Just so pretty... yummy too.

Also last spring came an adventure in Baked Alaska. It was my faaaaavorite dessert (of MANY) of last spring break's cruise (future blog subject), so I thought I'd try my hand at it. A lot of construction involved, and fortunately I actually owned the requisite 'bombe' pan TO construct it. I think it was on sale for three dollars or something at WS about six years ago. Figured I'd need it someday. Glad I could finally use it :)

It wasn't nearly as good as the Princess Cruises "Ice Cream Bombe 'Diplomat'", my meringue definitely needs work to become more silky, and the happy face sure wasn't necessary even if I did have extra meringue in my piping bag, but... kinda cool to bake ice cream in the oven and learn about the magic insulation properties of egg whites. Cool.

For Thanksgiving yesterday I baked my standard tied-knot rolls (no pictures, sadly... and MORE sadly, I thought I wouldn't want any today, so I gave away all the leftovers... ARGH), and these Gruyere-based Gougeres for an appetizer. Both are time-consuming, but worth it.

And... now that Christmas is coming up, I'll probably be making gingerbread boys (and girls, and stars, and trees). A roommate at college gave me the recipe 13 years ago, and I OD'd on them probably six years ago, and they're also totally a pain to make, but... I love them nonetheless :)

Way less effort are these Caramel-Chocolate-Oatmeal bars. These are my go-to cookies these days, as long as I have a bag of caramels on hand in my cupboard. (Which I usually do, so I'm always ready to make a quick treat when needed.) Also very necessary to give away, though, because these babies are NOT low-fat. I rue the day I learned the nutritional info for them. Ergh.

Finally... my new love. 

BREAD. Bread bread bread.

A friend gave me a loaf of this homemade wheat bread one day and, the next day when I cut into it, it was springy and soft and OH SO DELICIOUS that I immediately asked for the recipe, and also immediately renamed it to Oh My Heavenly Bread. I'm not kidding, it's that good.

Easy to make, too, if you have a Bosch or a Kitchen-Aid, and if you pre-bag all the various dry ingredients (including 10-grain cracked cereal mix, oatmeal, stone-ground wheat flour, bread flour and vital wheat gluten) and make the effort to find dough enhancer/conditioner/improver, which is what makes a potentially-heavy-with-grains bread soooo light and springy... do all that, and you can whip up two loaves in about two hours, start to finish. I think I've made over twenty-four loaves in the past six weeks. Bread therapy. Let it rise, go out for a run, come back and bake it, and then give it away.

(Sometimes I have to keep a loaf for myself, though... not my fault, sometimes I have to cut into one just to make sure it's good :).

I wish every day could be Bake Friday.

TV or not TV

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 Lately, I have very little patience for television. It started in India, when I didn't watch it for 2.5 months (except for DVDs of two seasons of Friday Night Lights, of course), -- no, wait -- no, it started with the end of LOST. Which, by the way, was aptly titled The End. But I can't really talk about that, or I'll start to tear up. Just .. so... painful. It's bad enough that I have the final movement from the LOST score (also aptly titled, "Moving On") on my iPod and every time I listen to it, I get a little teary thinking about Jack, and... that he DIED, and...

Anyway. I'm apathetic about TV because 1) there's not much I really care to watch now, and 2) I have little patience for it in general. Not much catches my attention without making me antsy.

But, you'd think that all would have changed with the advent of SKATING WITH THE STARS. I had heard about it in passing, in a radio ad (also little patience for radio, except KUSC and KOST... though I think the KOST only has 85 songs on its Christmas playlist, because I've heard each of them 35 times already in the past week), but thought... a skating reality show--?? Naaah. That's like a dream, come TRUE.

Well.

Late Monday night, after I had gone running and then finished the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy (ADDICTED!), I was a little antsy because the book ended on a cliffhanger so I needed some new action/entertainment to keep me occupied, so--I flipped on the TV. And what came up but... the last fifteen minutes of Skating with the Stars! Just like Santa isn't (sorry kids), this show is REAL!

And, it turns out... just as annoying as every other reality show. I ended up only being able to watch it for about five minutes, because I can't stand false fame and canned judges'-table comments. I was unfortunate enough to watch this woman's training session and performance, because the whole time I didn't get why she was a 'star' (I've since found out, but don't care enough to give it due, here)

 and then be annoyed because every judges' comment was about her amazing, or "sick" (as Johnny Weir put it) body , which is more how I feel about it-- sure it looked great for skating, but on its own appeared grotesquely anorexic to me with her head too big for her lower 7/8ths. I'm not saying this to put her down, but in being disturbed by the sick praise of it.

Oh okay and the other reason I decided I didn't like the show is because I am INSANELY jealous of those people who get to train intensely with real skating stars for partners, which partners hold them safely in death-spins and make the impossible, possible... I have GOT to acquire some fake-fame of my own, FAST, so I can be on the next season of this show!! Not that it's going to last beyond a season, I don't think, but just in case...  PLUS they get to wear cool plush robes with their skateguards when saying goodbye for the night. Man I'm jealous.

 

After Reality Heaven was over, came the news. Yeah, I really have no patience for that, either. Monday's Headline News was:  it was cold outside. It was journalistic genius. I listed to a reporter in the field interrogate a woman about her thoughts on the weather, and what she planned to do to stay warm ("Um.. it was cold today? ... I think I'll stay inside where it's warm, and then wear a coat when I go outside...?") for about two minutes. That was enough.

But then... I remembered that I had last week's episode of Community still to watch, recorded-- and then, I remembered why my cable bill is all worth it. Blanket forts and conspiracy theories (and Joel McHale, who is... HHHHHOT!!!), this show did not-- and does not ever-- disappoint.

And THEN... after Community was over and I flipped my TV input source back to cable, what did Destiny have waiting for me but The Colbert Report... WITH Martha Stewart. It was a Pre-Thanksgiving Miracle! Especially because he was showing her his OWN Thanksgiving hors d'oeuvres, one in the form of white bread spread with mayonnaise and sprinkled with powdered Kool-Aid.  He is a GENIUS.

I think I love TV after all. :)

There are friends, and then there are FRIENDS.

This is a FRIEND. Her name is Sam. And she's really, really pretty, but also willing to make faces/poses on command to appease my every photographic whim. Here she is being a T-Rex to a miniature Supreme Court. Awesome.

That's only one of her friend qualities, though. Where to begin, where to begin ... I should begin 16 years ago, because there are some pretty classic photos of the two of us in our EFY days, especially with me wearing a plaid jumper, but... those are joys for another day. Let's talk about what she means to me today.

I meet a lot of people, and I've been lucky to make a lot of friends over the years. Some of them come and go--they are important and close for a time, then distance separates us and the friendship lives on in fond memories only. That's okay, it's just the way it goes. Then there are those who remain close, no matter the distance or circumstance, no matter even how regular or irregular the friend-contact is. Like when you haven't talked or seen each other for a long time, but when you do, it's like no time has passed--the friendship is just as strong.

Sam is that kind of friend, and I'm so grateful to get to call her mine. I usually only see her every couple of years, and eight months ago, I had made reservations to visit her on the opposite side of the country for this past Veteran's Day weekend. Perfect timing. :)   Because...she's true, she's loyal, I'd trust every feeling and confidence with her. She's unselfish. She's an example to me in innumerable ways, in her roles of mother and wife and daughter and sister and community member and in how incredibly creative she is. And she's dang funny.

So together, we laugh, we cry, we eat, we bake, we explore, we commiserate, we confide, we watch the final episode of LOST and cry again, and we take hundreds of pictures while sightseeing because sometimes that's more fun than sightseeing, we window-shop and don't buy things we don't need, we outlet-shop and find fantastic deals on things we DO need... (yay coat! :)

She gives her baby lemons to make me laugh. Then she only slightly makes fun of me for the many, semi-ugly laughs I have.

She share her best recipes AND introduces me to my new favorite cereal.

She lets me be a horrible guest and sleep in, she lets me sleep through New Moon even though she's more tired than me, she lets me ditch her on a Saturday night to rendezvous with someone else, she lets me talk about the same thing over and over, she lets me cry spontaneously, and she lets me be a part of her AMAZING family. She inspires me and shares her spirit with me. I love her dearly.

How blessed and lucky am I. :)  Thank you, Sam!

 (p.s. it's going to be the best Christmas EVER!!! :)

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smart like a man

I've screen-printed many a great shirt in my day. Or, at least, I've screen-printed many a shirt. Thousands for groups on campus, lots for class demos, and some just because I feel like it. I've got a couple Ikea wire basket "drawers" full of shirts I've printed, and some are my faves to wear... but the following are my most-faves EVER.

This "doezieland" (2nd Happiest Place on Earth) shirt was my first attempt at multi-color shirt printing, about five years ago. Wait, that's a lie-- my first attempt didn't turn out that well. Trial and error-- mostly due to the "awkward placement" of the design just a taaaad too low on the front-- so I redid it and this was the result. Pretty proud of it, I must say... AND it got me free parking at the Happiest Place on Earth one year, on my birthday, which (coincidentally? NOT coincidentally?) is the SAME DAY as Disneyland's birthday! Not same birth-year, though. I'm quite a bit younger.

(totally meant to look faded/distressed like that. Y'know, retro.)

prepping for a big night with plenty o' caffeine, in Santa Cruz

This next one (modeled by Stacy) was a class demo, showing how to use different kinds of textures and inks (a puffy ink, a foil transfer, and a blacklight ink)... the design isn't super-fab, but it's the symbolism behind the design that counts. (My friends are super-lucky because every time I have to do a shirt-printing demo, I make it something I can give away btw.)  For this one, the HB stands for Huntington Beach, done in a spoof design of those ridiculous city stickers that are a spoof/copy themselves of the more legit country stickers in the EU... To the upper right of the "B" is a little 3 (done in red foil), to signify HB to the Third. In other words, to "celebrate" (argh) our third annual Huntington Beach Mid-Singles Conference. Argh. Under the oval, in blacklight ink (so it's not readily visible, except in a par-tay!) (said sarcastically, come on) it says, THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM. Oh and then, on the back, in strong white letters, it shouts RESIGNED IN '09. Yep. Those conferences have lovely themes like "hope", and "trust", and "never give up, there's still 50 years to go", and my brother once said to me, "Why don't they have real themes, like "Denial", "Apparently Alone Forever",  or "Aw, crap. Again?". So, we made our own theme that year. (It was a close race between IT IS WHAT IT IS and RESIGNED IN '09.)

Oh yeah, and my students were totally baffled by the text on the shirt. I said, "Don't worry about it." I'm a great teacher.

Last March, I made this shirt just for fun, and more specifically for the line-dancing portion of KJ's Wild West (birthday) Weekend... cheaper than buying myself a snap-down plaid shirt, but still able to be tied up under my boobs in appropriate fashion for the line-dancing crowd. IF I happened to have awesome cowboy boots to wear with denim cut-off short-shorts, that is. SO sad that I had neither. Because my line-dancing skills sure weren't impressing the local Temecula cowboy crowd on their own.

I'll be honest, this picture doesn't really do it justice... because the horseshoe is done in a copper metallic foil, and the "cowboys" is printed as a blend of khaki, gold and bronze metallic ink. YeeHAW.

Shortly after my cowboy genius, it was time for spring's Tri-Textured-Tee demo, and fortunately that coincided with spring's Spring Break And Caribbean Cruise With Friends. Insta-gift!

I'm not going to lie, this shirt was GENIUS. Not only was it lovely and wave-y, and stated the obvious of "Crown Princess" on the front, (the name of the ship we were on, a mighty ship she was), BUT-- it utilized photochromic ink. Which is clear/barely visible when inside/out of the sunlight...

...BUT, when outside during the day, the ink turned to purple and shouted,

 Because of course, if we were outside during the day, we were most likely wanting a fresh plate of delicious french fries from the poolside Grill. Pretty standard for us four. (And something we reeeeally look forward to, each cruise...)

Then on the back/bottom of the shirt, it gave a little more info about just what the shirt was commemorating...

Pretty standard. UNTIL you went inside, and started to turn off the lights to go to sleep, and suddenly realized you were hungry, and the shirt conveniently reminded you that you probably wanted a

Glow-in-the dark ink! Pretty awesome. And appropos. And hard to see unless it was dark. Hence the appropos-ness of it all.

A mere month later, my little bro Derek left for Missouri to serve a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and though he'd be dressing appropriately in suits, shirts-and-ties until May of 2012, I thought he'd need one more printed tee from me before he left anyway. Then I printed one for myself (and in a girlier fabric color) after he left, so we'd have that bond.  If you're a Hot Rod fan, you'll totally get this... if not, you just won't. But if you are.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SO GREAT!

(Derek is a big Hot Rod fan. He had me send him a fake mustache to wear, even. I don't know if he's had chance to wear it in Missouri, yet...)

BUT AFTER ALL THESE GREAT SHIRTS...

My most recently-printed shirt has got to be my most FAVORITE one of ALL time. (So far. :)

Here's a close-up in case you can't quite tell what it says:

Yes. That's what it says. And it's SO TRUE.

That's black shimmer ink, by the way. Which I'm sure is exactly what you're thinking about as you look at this design. As far as the text... I can't even begin to explain, or do this quote justice. But it makes me happy, that's for sure :) And isn't that what a good screen-printed shirt is all about?

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(p.s. if you have a really great shirt idea, I need one... I've got this fall's shirt-printing demo coming up in two weeks!)

gunpoint

And then there were 3 policemen at my door, four cop cars barricading my driveway, one SWAT vehicle and one chopper on their way, and a plumber being held at gunpoint.

Pretty normal Saturday morning for me. I think I need to tell this story in full, some time.

loss

(this photo has no real significance with this post, except that I took it a week ago on a four-mile run and it looks like "loss', to me...)

So, as I've mentioned in previous posts (but never gone into full detail about), every year on my birthday I make a list of things to do on that day, as many things as I am old. Because I am so old now, sometimes it's hard to think of enough awesome things, but I'm realistic and write down even the obvious like "eat Lucky Charms for breakfast" (just because it's obvious doesn't mean it's not special), so I can be sure and accomplish all of them, because a side-'thing' is to be able to finish the list. It's going to get really tricky when I start aging into triple-digits-- that's a LOT of things to do in one day, huhm. Especially as time goes faster, the older you get-- by the time I'm 100, what is a 24-hour-day to me right now will probably have shortened into about 16.3 hours. And 12 of those will be taken up by night-sleeping and day-dozing.

Someday I'll have to post one of those lists. They're pretty epic.

The other thing I do on my birthday, if I remember (read: if I put it on my to-do list), is write a list of GOALS for the coming year. Not necessarily as many as I am old, come on that's just ridiculous. But I do like to buck the system and write such on my birthday, instead of being a New Year's cliche... though, much like NYR's, I don't always reach the stars and achieve those dreams. In fact, every year, it seems, I have some recurring goals-- 1) learn the cello, 2) get married, d*#@ it--, 3) lose twenty pounds, and 4) avoid acquiring a litter of cats.

Worthy aspirations, all, but let's specifically look at number three of those four.

Doesn't every girl want to lose twenty pounds? At all times? Shouldn't writing it down as a birthday goal automatically make it happen, or at minimum as a Granted Birthday Wish in reward for blowing out all the candles? (and that's a LOT of candles-- I am very old, after all).

Well, here was the problem-- one day, a few years back, I turned 30. Here I am halfway through Thirty:

I know I look hunchbacked. I also know the date-stamp says " '89".
Both of these appearances are false. 

Hot, yes? Yes. At least according to some random film photos I scanned for something else last week. Ahh, so young, so fresh-faced... so free from earthly worries... (it helped, of course, that I was working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean at the time, and had both a lot of sun and and an endless amount of Shirley Temples at my disposal.)

That (the apparent continuation of youth) was a trick, though. I hadn't yet realized that, not only had my skin suddenly started to lose elasticity around the eyes at the stroke of midnight on my first day of Thirty, but my metabolism was also secretly staging a coup which would turn to outright rebellion.  In the form of a big yawn as it went to sleep, because, after all, it had been working moderately hard for 30 years already.

So, in return, every ensuing year a few pounds crept up and took residence. I fought and fought, but the old metabolism and I were no longer on the same page. Rebellion, remember. I tried a lot of different tactics, but to no lasting avail.

Then, about twenty months ago, after the loss of my grandfather and encouraged/inspired by a recently-newly-svelte friend, I put my foot down and went to work in earnest. And lost 12 pounds.

Then I went to India for three weeks in the summer and lost an additional 6 pounds. Hurrah!

Then, I became RSP and was stressed and busy all last year and maybe fluctuated 4 pounds or so in the course of nine months. Booo.  But I knew I was going back to India for the summer, this time for 10 weeks, so I would automatically lose a ton of weight and come back really really skinny. Hurray!!

Then I went to India, and we had plenty of fruit to eat this summer, and as I kept getting sick from the campus food, I ate a lot of ramen, so-- I didn't lose the 20 more pounds I was hoping to. Boooo.

BUT-- I came home and it turned out I'd lost a few (the fun-house mirror in my room, plus the flowy tunics, had convinced me otherwise while there) and was at the exact same weight from a year earlier. Yay! And Boo. Not skeletal-skinny. But still good!

STILL, though-- the magic number 20 was eluding me. Since my return from India, I have been intent on eating little and exercising a lot, because I know myself and my idiot metabolism, but I wasn't going any lower. Couldn't get past 19.

*tangent*

So, I haven't blogged since I got back from India. I didn't blog very much during the summer, either, and that's because I just stopped caring-- all the stories I wanted to tell, I only really cared about a select few people (or one person) knowing. Same since I got back.

*return from tangent*

But now... I am at a loss. I no longer have that audience to listen to me, so back to the blog I go. And hand-in-hand with the sad loss of that audience has come the loss of appetite, plus an increase in the desire to run, which together happen to foster another (more desirable) kind of loss, so... there is a flip-side-bonus to all this, which is...

Goodbye, magic number 20. I've moved on to 21!! (and counting). Take that, Metab.

Gotta go run. :)