w00t w00t booyah

I wonder how Hamentaschen would taste with Tsubushian filling.

A way of eating sweet potatoes that doesn't suck.

This is not the signature recipe, but damn if I won't make that for me on Saturday and find other people to help eat it. It's a no-go for Jim (coconut is EVIL, just ask him), but this sounds fab to me - your mileage may vary, neh?

I told you about the hutch and tricycle luck - it's holding out. I may have a ten speed via Craigslist tonight that just needs basic maintenance after being in storage a long time. I will post pictures of the hutch, haircut and bike(s) as soon as I can stand to 1) do brain surgery on my laptop to allow connectivity to the internet and 2) wrestle with the photo software.

And now, I lunch.

A way of eating sweet potatoes that doesn't suck.

This is not the signature recipe, but damn if I won't make that for me on Saturday and find other people to help eat it. It's a no-go for Jim (coconut is EVIL, just ask him), but this sounds fab to me - your mileage may vary, neh?

I told you about the hutch and tricycle luck - it's holding out. I may have a ten speed via Craigslist tonight that just needs basic maintenance after being in storage a long time. I will post pictures of the hutch, haircut and bike(s) as soon as I can stand to 1) do brain surgery on my laptop to allow connectivity to the internet and 2) wrestle with the photo software.

And now, I lunch.

Yup. He was as good as he looked.

First episode of Torchwood I've watched in just about forever?

Yeah. *thwap* THAT one.

Remember, I had that kind of luck with Fullmetal Alchemist in Japan. First episode I ever got to see. Guess.

I did what every Sim-playing geek does at a time like this.

Booted up, loaded up and bred two more babies to name them after. Don't resemble them in the least. Don't care, neither.

...

Via aiglet - A candy blog that does with candy what drave117 does with drinks. Seriously. I just cut and pasted a wonderful recipe for using up hot chocolate mix, using cornstarch that will just rock my world. And that's just the start.

....

Did my walkthrough at the UCLA campus for next weekend's Festival of Books (I'm volunteering Saturday) - and I forget, every year, how really gorgeous that campus is. I graduated from Cal Poly Pomona, which is no slouch in the pretty neat department...but UCLA has some of the most incredible brick in Southern California you ever saw. We're not big on sharp, neat corners on our buildings - that implies stone or poured concrete, and you just don't do that in an earthquake zone. Much. Buildings around here are full of not-so-sharp, mostly wood and drywall, bullnosed, stuccoed into softness edges. Not knife-sharp.

Then I go to UCLA and get hit in the face with it again. Kinda like music. I remember it's a pretty place. I have to go back and look again to get the full effect. I took some pictures yesterday - and I got some little tidbits that have my curiousity piqued.

One, Ghiradelli Chocolate is going to back this year, handing out 'samples' near the culinary stage. Last year, they gave you three squares of different flavors and a $1.00 off coupon. That's just one bit of swag. This is a fantastic event - you just have to get there.

Two, as we passed Korn Hall, our guide mentioned it was the site of the 2004 "Korn Hall Riots" - I gotta go search the LA Times archives for that one. Missed that year - and I guess, it being the election year it was - there was something of a political press for address that go out of hand. Korn Hall this year? Not so much. Looks like most of the hot button stuff has moved to the Ackerman Ballroom.

Near Korn Hall is a very narrow overbridge - "Be careful crossing that. In 2005, a volunteer fell off it and broke her hip."

HOOKAY/ (I looked. She only broke her pelvis? Yeesh.)

"Free-speech" area is in the shade, under trees, on grass. Near enough the Ackerman Ballroom to be useful.

They're beginning to set things up now. I may open the essay on Facebook now, if I got good enough shots - and then add to it after the weekend, just to give an idea of scope. It's going to be a loooong day, but I am really looking forward to it.

(I will be released after 6:00 PM Saturday, so if anyone wants me? You can have me. After 6:00 PM.)

....

Riddle me this, Batman. How is it possible for someone who can find coffee and alcohol in anything that contains it, to be completely unable to tell spoiled food from fresh? I don't get this. Unless it's yet another leftover from a less than savory childhood I hear little about, food-wise, except for stories of the river of liver and general "eating everything in sight."

There's plenty of evidence that's coming back to haunt him in other ways, too.

You can't tell this stuff to go away, mind. Would if I could.

And so went my weekend. I'd like another one, please.

First episode of Torchwood I've watched in just about forever?

Yeah. *thwap* THAT one.

Remember, I had that kind of luck with Fullmetal Alchemist in Japan. First episode I ever got to see. Guess.

I did what every Sim-playing geek does at a time like this.

Booted up, loaded up and bred two more babies to name them after. Don't resemble them in the least. Don't care, neither.

...

Via aiglet - A candy blog that does with candy what drave117 does with drinks. Seriously. I just cut and pasted a wonderful recipe for using up hot chocolate mix, using cornstarch that will just rock my world. And that's just the start.

....

Did my walkthrough at the UCLA campus for next weekend's Festival of Books (I'm volunteering Saturday) - and I forget, every year, how really gorgeous that campus is. I graduated from Cal Poly Pomona, which is no slouch in the pretty neat department...but UCLA has some of the most incredible brick in Southern California you ever saw. We're not big on sharp, neat corners on our buildings - that implies stone or poured concrete, and you just don't do that in an earthquake zone. Much. Buildings around here are full of not-so-sharp, mostly wood and drywall, bullnosed, stuccoed into softness edges. Not knife-sharp.

Then I go to UCLA and get hit in the face with it again. Kinda like music. I remember it's a pretty place. I have to go back and look again to get the full effect. I took some pictures yesterday - and I got some little tidbits that have my curiousity piqued.

One, Ghiradelli Chocolate is going to back this year, handing out 'samples' near the culinary stage. Last year, they gave you three squares of different flavors and a $1.00 off coupon. That's just one bit of swag. This is a fantastic event - you just have to get there.

Two, as we passed Korn Hall, our guide mentioned it was the site of the 2004 "Korn Hall Riots" - I gotta go search the LA Times archives for that one. Missed that year - and I guess, it being the election year it was - there was something of a political press for address that go out of hand. Korn Hall this year? Not so much. Looks like most of the hot button stuff has moved to the Ackerman Ballroom.

Near Korn Hall is a very narrow overbridge - "Be careful crossing that. In 2005, a volunteer fell off it and broke her hip."

HOOKAY/ (I looked. She only broke her pelvis? Yeesh.)

"Free-speech" area is in the shade, under trees, on grass. Near enough the Ackerman Ballroom to be useful.

They're beginning to set things up now. I may open the essay on Facebook now, if I got good enough shots - and then add to it after the weekend, just to give an idea of scope. It's going to be a loooong day, but I am really looking forward to it.

(I will be released after 6:00 PM Saturday, so if anyone wants me? You can have me. After 6:00 PM.)

....

Riddle me this, Batman. How is it possible for someone who can find coffee and alcohol in anything that contains it, to be completely unable to tell spoiled food from fresh? I don't get this. Unless it's yet another leftover from a less than savory childhood I hear little about, food-wise, except for stories of the river of liver and general "eating everything in sight."

There's plenty of evidence that's coming back to haunt him in other ways, too.

You can't tell this stuff to go away, mind. Would if I could.

And so went my weekend. I'd like another one, please.

Next time you go to Trader Joe's, buy port.

Take advice from friends on their favorites, but buy port. More than one kind.

Because you're getting hit right and left and center with recipes that call for it, and the drool is really getting messy.

Love, me.

What's this?:



Hints:

- The copyright is 1948, Homestead Welfare Club of Homestead, Iowa.

Is it:

- A junket that came with a new Amana Refrigerator/Stove/whatsit?
- A teaching book for a not-very-well-known branch of scouts?

Or is it a cookbook of recipes taken from one of the few successful communal societies with an interesting religious history? (For as long as it lasted.)

Yeah.

I admit, I collect cookbooks, and this one I grabbed in a second-hand store someplace without really looking at it...and thought it was probably the first guess. Then I began reading it when I got home (folks, fifty cents is NOT too much to pay for a mistaken identity), and was more than pleasantly surprised.

Californians tend to think we have the market cornered on religious nutcases, after all. Finding a record like this one that had its roots both in Germany and Midwestern US is intriguing.

I think of my SCA friends when I look it over these days. The recipes are staunchly German fare, with all of the names in both German and English. But they are scaled to serve armies. They also start at the bottom of the cuisine, including recipes for stock and "extracts" to be used in other recipes. It's also a record of how desperately simple and frugal the cuisine was as well - there's no goat cheese, sherry (few use any alcohol at all for flavoring), shallots, or any of the other Really Nifty Things people put in their dinners these days.

There are recipes using crumbs and dandelions, though.

A sample:

KIRSCHEN SAFT (Cherry Juice)

2 gallons cherries
Sugar - 2 cups per pint of juice

Wash and stem cherries. Mash in a large bowl and let stand for twelve hours. Then strain through jelly bag. To each pint of strained juice, add two cups of sugar. Put into preserving kettle and simmer for fifteen minutes. Fill into sterilized bottles and seal. To serve, dilute 1/4 cup juice with 1 cup water.

What's this?:



Hints:

- The copyright is 1948, Homestead Welfare Club of Homestead, Iowa.

Is it:

- A junket that came with a new Amana Refrigerator/Stove/whatsit?
- A teaching book for a not-very-well-known branch of scouts?

Or is it a cookbook of recipes taken from one of the few successful communal societies with an interesting religious history? (For as long as it lasted.)

Yeah.

I admit, I collect cookbooks, and this one I grabbed in a second-hand store someplace without really looking at it...and thought it was probably the first guess. Then I began reading it when I got home (folks, fifty cents is NOT too much to pay for a mistaken identity), and was more than pleasantly surprised.

Californians tend to think we have the market cornered on religious nutcases, after all. Finding a record like this one that had its roots both in Germany and Midwestern US is intriguing.

I think of my SCA friends when I look it over these days. The recipes are staunchly German fare, with all of the names in both German and English. But they are scaled to serve armies. They also start at the bottom of the cuisine, including recipes for stock and "extracts" to be used in other recipes. It's also a record of how desperately simple and frugal the cuisine was as well - there's no goat cheese, sherry (few use any alcohol at all for flavoring), shallots, or any of the other Really Nifty Things people put in their dinners these days.

There are recipes using crumbs and dandelions, though.

A sample:

KIRSCHEN SAFT (Cherry Juice)

2 gallons cherries
Sugar - 2 cups per pint of juice

Wash and stem cherries. Mash in a large bowl and let stand for twelve hours. Then strain through jelly bag. To each pint of strained juice, add two cups of sugar. Put into preserving kettle and simmer for fifteen minutes. Fill into sterilized bottles and seal. To serve, dilute 1/4 cup juice with 1 cup water.

EDIT: GHAD, I hate website-generated widgets. I have had ZERO luck with them today.

Loma Linda Chocolate Prune Cake

• 3/4 cup pitted prunes


• 1/4 cup boiling water


• 2/3 cup oil


• 1 cup sugar


• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder


• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon vanilla


• 2 eggs


• 1 cup buttermilk


• 2 1/2 cups flour


• 5 1/2 teaspoons baking soda


• 2 teaspoons baking powder

1. Soak prunes in boiling water 30 minutes. Drain and set aside.


2. Combine oil, sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, salt and vanilla in bowl. Add eggs


3. and beat well 2 minutes. Combine soaked prunes and buttermilk in blender


4. container or food processor bowl and chop finely. Add to oil mixture with


5. flour, baking soda and baking powder. Beat well.


6. Turn into well-greased and floured 13x9-inch baking pan or 2 (8-inch)


7. round layer-cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees 30 minutes, or until wood pick


8. inserted near center comes out clean.


9. --


10. The original recipe called out for a chocolate fudge icing made with:


11. 1/4 cup water


12. 1/4 cup vegetable shortening


13. 1/4 cup white corn syrup


14. 2 cups sifted powdered sugar


15. 1/2 cup cocoa powder


16. 1/4 teaspoon salt


17. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla


18. Bring water to boil. Remove from heat and beat in


19. shortening and corn syrup. Add powdered sugar, cocoa, salt and vanilla. Beat


20. to spreading consistency.


21. I use a recipe for a Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting from a recipe I'll post separately.

Loma Linda Chocolate Prune Cake @ Group Recipes