12.30.08
Posted in Cooking tagged pound cake, recipe, sweets at 1:11 am by kyrias
I finally suceeded at pound cake the other day. My mother was talking about how expensive pound cake was now and she wanted me to make her a loaf.
It turns out that after she looked at the ingredients, it was actually cheaper to just buy it in the store, but we had already purchased the pan and the cooking scale so I made it anyways.
Previously, all my attempts at pound cake failed miserably. The dammnable things were always far too dense, so much so that they resembled nothing so much as bricks or doorstops. They also didn’t have the pure taste of vanilla, sugar, and butter. I figured that this was probably because of the inherent problem with measuring by volume rather than weight, therefore the scale. It turns out that I was probably right, although I also put in a lot more work with this cake than with previous cakes. The secret might also be in the amount of beating the batter took.
I didn’t add baking powder even though most modern recipes call for it. However, I don’t like the slight taste difference that is sometimes noticeable and I figured that it people used to be able to make it fluffy without the aid of baking powder, I should be able too.
I tweaked King Arthur Flour’s blog’s recipe for Golden Vanilla Pound Cake because although Spinning Sugar had a much more detailed post on how to make it, she didn’t have the recipe in weights. This post also had very useful tips in the comments section.
Ingredients:
6.8 oz flour
10 oz sugar
3 oz cream cheese
7.3 oz butter
3 yolks
4 eggs
3 tbsp vanilla
First I whipped the butter and cream cheese until it was fluffy and had almost doubled in volume. Then I added the vanilla extract which made it seize up and beat it some more until it was fully incorporated and it was once again fluffy. Then I added the sugar in small increments, making sure to fully beat it in until the sugar crystals were noticeably smaller.
Next time I might just use confectioners sugar. Supposedly the beating was to make it so the
I beat the 4 eggs separately in a bowl until they were homogenized, then added the 3 extra yolks and beat it some more. Supposedly whisking the eggs more makes the batter more airy, but I don’t know if I really believe that because egg whites don’t whip up with the presence of yolks. At this point the butter mixture was almost tripled in volume.
Caesura added the egg mixture in a thin stream while I continued to beat the heck out of the batter. By the time we were done, the mixture had almost quadrupled in volume from the original.
I always am in too much of a hurry to slowly fold small amounts of the flour into the batter because usually at this point I’m just ready to get it over with. However, I did mostly try to sift about 1/4 the amount of flour onto the batter, and folding it in before continuing.
It was then poured into a floured 12*4 loaf pan and put in a 325 degree oven for 70 minutes.
It came out perfectly. A bit on the too sweet side, but it was light, fluffy, and more than worth the amount of time and effort.
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12.28.08
Posted in culture tagged "painted curtain", history, world view at 6:24 am by kyrias
I was reminded this morning of a song that our history teacher played for us when I was in high school.
We didn’t start the fire — a litany of major world events from 1949-1989, spanning both people, wars, literature, sports and whathaveyou.
My question is, if you were to choose definitive events spanning from 1989-2008, what would you pick?
I think this question is particularly relevant for myself and those of my generation. Many of my friends were born around 1986 so essentially we would be looking at what has changed the world since we were born.
My history and knowledge of world affairs is really spotty, but I think it would be interesting to come up with a list of definitive world events, from our view. The personal factor makes it that much more interesting, no? I, for one, would not list Brooklyn having a winning team as particularly important, but who knows?
There’s the givens, 9/11, the war in Iraq, Obama as president elect. Then there’s the ones that haven’t changed: suicide, homeless vets, foreign debts…
What is on your list?
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12.24.08
Posted in culture tagged chinese phrases at 3:46 am by kyrias
识 (shi 4) 相 (xiang 4)
Babelfish translates “识相” as “knowing the limitations”. Not the best translation, but it might do. The opposite would be 不 （bu 2) 识相. (BSX)
That phrase is tossed around a lot in my mother’s house. There’s a lot of mention of whether or not someone is being 识相, and in those cases it’s not just about what you can do, what you can’t do, but also what you should do and what you have the right to expect. When saying someone is BSX，it also carries heavy connotations of not knowing what is usually “done”, and in a way not having a good grasp of commonsensical notions regarding conduct.
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12.23.08
Posted in culture tagged culture shock, drama, guests, hosting issues at 2:09 am by kyrias
We had Mr. Procrastinator over for about 4 days this week. It did not go well. If Mr. P ever decides to read this blog, this info might come in handy, but since he doesn’t, oh well. I tried raising these points with him at the time and after and he just laughed them off. *sigh*
- Be unkempt. To be specific, don’t comb your hair so it sticks straight out from your face and dries that way and then proceed to wander around like that.
- Don’t help with anything voluntarily. Don’t offer to do dishes voluntarily, and don’t help build a shelf when asked for help because it’s a finger-numbing job that needs more hands. Also, be sure to wait until you’re asked to help C shovel out the driveway so the car can drive back in to get out of the car and help.
- Leave a trail of crumbs behind when eating biscotti without a plate. For more effect, don’t clean up the crumbs off the table without being asked to.
- Don’t finish all your rice in the bowl, even after my mother points out that it is wasteful and requests that you finish it.
- For further effect, take too much granola when having a midnight snack and leave a good portion of it behind even after being requested to finish it.
- Sleep in late past-noon whilst half-naked on the couch in the living room.
- Start eating without my mom even being at the dinner table. In Chinese culture it’s rude to start eating by yourself before someone of the older generation starts — especially when they’re the cook.
- Don’t bother to do anything either than sleep, eat, and use your computer. In particular, don’t bother to try and make conversation with the hostess.
- Blow your nose loudly and honkingly at the dinner table — multiple times.
- Leave your dishes around for other people to wash, even when it’s as simple as washing out one glass that you’ve used.
- Continue to drink massive quantities of juice, even after Caesura carefully points out that you have already finished off half a half-gallon of juice all by yourself in one meal - multiple times.
- Taking the communal plates and scooping large amounts of food into your bowl at one go and then leaving the plates near your bowl without returning them to the center of the table.
Mom didn’t actually comment on Mr. P drinking too much juice and milk. She did comment on how Mr. P was absolutely oblivious to Caesura’s poking him about his rate of consumption. For reference, Mr. P managed to drink in 4 days the same amount of milk and juice that my mother and brother go through in about a week.
With the Chinese way of eating, each person has a bowl of rice and there are communal plates of food. Depending on how comfortable with the guests, there may or may not be serving spoons and chopsticks. The “correct” way of eating is to take small amounts of meat/fish/vegetables at one time and add more as you go. It is considered rude to just pick up the plate and scoop large amounts of it into your bowl - partially for aesthetic reasons and partially because it’s considered gluttonous.
Mom has serious issues about food wastage. In fact, most Chinese people I know of the older generation have said issues, but Mom has much worse issues because she was actually really poor as a kid. Think 5 kids sharing out a small bunch of grapes poor. So Mr. P not finishing all his rice was a huge thing for her. Also the implicit disrespect of him disregarding her request to finish it all was a major no-no. Then there was the granola. I mentioned twice to him that he needed to finish it — but he didn’t.
Then there was the not-helping. It’s not really Mr. P’s fault that he’s clueless but… My mother and brother were having trouble putting a particular shelf together because it’s designed poorly and they finally asked him to help. He did a little bit and then just stopped. Lost major, major points there. Especially after he did not volunteer to help do dishes this entire time. Or even to vacuum up all the crumbs he left.
And all this on top of everything else. Now I know better — don’t bring clueless friend who is less than OCD home to visit extremely OCD mom.
Jesus.
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12.22.08
Posted in Ethics and morality tagged courtesy, Freecycle manners at 1:11 pm by kyrias
Warning: Rant incoming.
I put up a 4-drawer bureau on Freecycle last week. I was then inundated with requests, and I thought it would be most fair to give it to the person who answered the listing first because I thought there was no other “good” way to decide who to give it to.
I was mistaken.
The person I promised it to is really quite rude and I’m deeply regretting saying I’d give it to her. She has given me nothing but one sentence emails without neither greeting, farewell, nor courtesy words such as “thank you, please, if convenient”. I don’t expect people to grovel over items that I might then deign to give them, but it would really be nice if there weren’t quite this much implicit entitlement. Not so much as a thank you out of this one when I first told her that I was going to give it to her either.
If not for my morality which precludes me giving it to someone else, I really want to bow out of this deal. This has taught me something pretty important — which is that it doesn’t matter what is “fair” when it comes to giving away things — next time I’m going to decide who I’m going to give the item to based on how polite they are in requesting it.
I listed this on Freecycle thinking that I would get the warm fuzzies from passing on something of value to someone who needed it. Now I’m just fairly irritated.
I told her she could come pick it up on Wednesday. I might still renege on the deal. Perhaps my conscience, over all, will give me less trouble than the extreme irritation of knowing I gave someone I’m really starting to dislike even a shred of my time much less a bureau.
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12.15.08
Posted in Writing tagged bad journalism, shock at 12:44 am by kyrias
Am I reading this correctly?
Mira Veda claiming that part of why Obama is so sexy is because of he’s proving that nuclear family structures still work?
And this incomprehensibly poorly constructed paragraph?
“Looking at their beautiful family, one can’t help it. It’s a great picture. A nice dream. It is so great even homosexuals want the dream captured in their home. They want the privilege of building a family. Something that looks perfectly like the dream we’ve built a whole society on. It’s not a new idea. In fact evidence of the nuclear family dates to Neolithic culture, some 4,600 years ago.”
What?
First of all, I really want to see evidence that a purely nuclear familial structure was alive and well in the Neolithic culture. Please. I do mean purely, such as a daddy, mommy, 2.5 kids and a dog. With no living with extended relatives, if you please.
Secondly, where is the emphasis in “It is so great even homosexuals want the dream captured in their home.”? Is she trying to say that it’s so great that even homosexuals, those terrifying defiers of all that is right and good with the traditional nuclear family structure of a female mommy and a male daddy want to have a nuclear family? Or is she trying to say that it is so great that even homosexuals, who are defying all other strictures of society, want it for themselves? I honestly don’t even know how to begin to parse this sentence, and why even drag the homosexuals into this?
And YES, by the way, the homosexuals have been wanting the PRIVILEGE of building a family for quite some time now. Thank you for your amazing sentence pointing that out. All of us who have been waiting for same-sex marriage to be legalized are really happy you’ve finally figured that out. Too bad it took you until now.
Thirdly, I’m all about Obama, but honestly, aren’t you really verging a little too close to being a sycophantic puddle of goop?
“He shows us that not only can you fight odds and make it, despite heritage, race, affiliations and rumors but you can do it all with such panache that others don’t know how to compete.”
O-kay. I mean, sure, the man became president-elect as a Black man with the middle name Hussein after 9/11 America. Yes. He is amazing, and is all that. But is it really necessary to wipe out all the men and women who came before him and paved the way towards his success with “others don’t know how to compete”?
Get a grip on yourself, woman. Jeez. And please DO explain that little bit about the homosexuals. I’d also like a paper with proper citations proving that little sentence about the nuclear family culture in Neolithic times.
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12.12.08
Posted in Uncategorized tagged onion soup, recipe at 9:34 pm by kyrias
Why, in the Devil’s seven blazes, can I not find decent French onion soup?
The last time I got good French onion soup was — wait for it — in China.
How hard is it, really?
All the soups I’ve had were either too salty or too sweet or both. The onions were, without fail, almost uncooked and cut so they were as wide as my finger. There would be too little soup, with too thick a slice of bad bread and greasy cheese baked on top.
It’s not like I don’t try either. I’ve tried it at every establishment I go to that has it, from hole-in-the-wall operations to white tablecloth spaces.
No luck.
You slice the onions thin enough so you can read size 14 font through them, and then caramelize them in butter so they turn a deep brown. Add salt to aid the process if you like, but sugar usually makes it more sweet than I like. Then you add beef broth that you’ve made from real beef bones, perhaps some form of alcohol, then season to taste.
I prefer to sprinkle grated Parmesan or Gruyere on top and leave the garlic toast to dip because I hate how most soup bowls are mostly soggy bread and not enough flavorful broth.
Time-consuming, yes. Hard, no.
Then why can I not find decent onion soup anywhere?
Aside, caramelizing onions has to be one of the most thankless, time consuming, and least rewarding jobs in cooking I’ve come across. Two pounds of slices onions caramelized down into less than 2 cups — both of which will be gone in a pot of soup.
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12.11.08
Posted in life tagged gaming, relationship issues at 11:29 am by kyrias
*edited for clarity, edits in bold and italics.
GF aggro is the term commonly used by male gamers when their significant others start to get all het up about their having spent or spending too much time on the game. Particularly relevant in MMORPGS when either the tank or healer suddenly “gtg, gf aggro” and suddenly DCs. I suppose there could be bf aggro, but I’ve never seen that term applied.
All I can say is, if you’re getting gf/bf aggro, you’re doing something wrong.
Either you’re a tard who is blowing off something pre-planned for a game and have no sense of responsibility towards the people you’re playing with, as evidenced by not informing them that this might be a factor and for them to find another healer/tank/dps and no sense of responsiblity towards a prior engagement…
Or your girlfriend is an obnoxious whore and you need to ditch her, pronto. If you can’t spend a few hours each day doing something you enjoy because your significant other gets her panties in a twist — you really need to either re-examine your priorities or your relationship. I have no idea which, but get it clear. If your girlfriend cannot tolerate you playing a reasonable amount of WoW a night, and this does vary from person to person, then either you need to dump the girlfriend or dump WoW. Stop disrespecting both by not giving either the attention they deserve.
A friend once said, to great hilarity, that he decided he’d rather play his video games than hang out with his girlfriend. That’s fine, so long as it’s all noted in triplicate that’s the case.
People — get with the program. Stop being stupid and just either deal with your significant other, male or female, or stop playing the game. Just L2P IRL, yo, and if you can’t, just DIAF.
An important thing to remember is that your “friends” on WoW or your RL friends who play WoW with you will respect you and your gf a lot less if you say “GF aggro” a lot. You come across as a wimp who can’t even commit to something in game without being pussy-whipped or your gf comes across as an unreasonable bitch. Neither is a good impression.
Sheesh!
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12.09.08
Posted in Random-osity tagged bad economy, stupid companies at 5:18 pm by kyrias
I lost $1741 in my ROTH IRA since last year. The terrifying part is that because it’s a ROTH, I also lost money putting it in the account in the first place. Kell, I know you lost more, but I’m so much poorer than you that it’s not really funny. That amount is fully a quarter of what I had in the first place.
I’m unemployed. Will be looking to apply to Caesura’s temp agency tomorrow. OfficeTeam does not seem to like me anymore, as evidenced by showing a marked coolness towards me when I called them for employment yesterday. See post on being fired for more information.
Burt’s bees is stupid. I’m not even going to go into how I suspect their products are not as good as they used to be since they got acquired by Clorox — not now at any rate. I’ll be writing reviews on things as I use them, though. What really irked me is their “shimmer clutch”, which is a small black wallet-like clutch, except it holds three shimmer lipstick things, and nothing else. You can’t even appropriate it for anything else. I’m going to try and make the two I got for free into something that might be able to hold credit cards and a metro pass — but I doubt it’s going to be easy going. This particular piece of atrocity from the company who sent me a card with my package saying that they try to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Possible my ass. What DO you call something that’s non-recyclable (it has plasticy fabric and clear plactic as components), not really resuable for anything other than holding their shimmer-sticks, and made in China?
Meh!
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12.06.08
Posted in Random-osity tagged knowing at 12:59 am by kyrias
I just found out today my mother doesn’t particularly like the scent of roses. Not so far as to dislike it, but she’s aggressively neutral towards it to a very interesting degree. How very odd that I never knew this about my mother, who theoretically I should know so well.
I adore the scent of roses. Not the horrifying cloying fake scent but the complex layers of rose scent with layers of green. It’s almost a pity that she doesn’t like the balm I bought her for that reason — but then, more for me, right?
Which reminds me, Caesura startled me a few days ago when he said he didn’t really like the taste of peanut butter, in reference to peanut butter sandwiches. I looked at him with utter shock, mostly because in my world view, he usually goes for anything with peanuts. He said that the crunchiness of crunchy peanut butter made it acceptable but apparently he doesn’t really like peanut butter sandwiches.
We later on, after much debate, figured that he did like the taste of peanuts, as evidenced by his liking peanut butter smoothies, but he doesn’t like the texture of smooth peanut butter on bread.
I wonder, what other things don’t I know about the people I love?
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