It's not you, it's me. I've changed.

I think I'm divorcing a chapter from my dissertation. Or, at the bare minimum, initiating a legal separation. You see, I think what I really have is two dissertations. It's not a bad problem to have. It means I have a whole lot of material that I will be able to spin off into articles and the like. It also means that I should have a relatively easy time of culling from the diss in order ot make a more manageable "book-length" narrative. But it's also left me feeling overwhelmed and rather schizophrenic while trying to write the damn thing. (did you notice the sheer number of cooking posts? And there's another one coming after this post...)

I've written plenty. I have a 110 page "image section" that will be divided into 2-3 chapters and expanded, likely to 130 or 140 pages. I have the world's worst and largest background chapter on the history of print in England from THE beginning until THE end, or 1695, which ever comes first. I think it's 50 pages of awful. I have about 15 pages of a background to ballads and the ballad trade, maybe 15 pages of a shitty intro. Now I'm 25,844 words into a "chapter" on women and crime, and I still have a final section to write. None of this counts the footnotes or appendices. 

Originally, I had plans to write a chapter on men and crime in ballads, in addition to a chapter on crime illustrations, and finish up with a chapter on ballads in the 18th century. I've realized that I don't really have anything new to say about men and crime (unlike the chapter on women and crime that I am writing), and it doesn't really add to my argument other than to show that I've done the research slog with the material. I can always add it back in if my diss committee wants it, and I've already done the research prep, but I'm not going to waste time writing 20, 30, 50 pages that don't add anything and no one is going to want to read. 

I guess like any break up, it's sort of sad and liberating. You think about all of the things that might have been, but also all of the really hard work it would have taken to get there. 

Dissertations do weird things to one's mind. I can't stop thinking about prostitutes. A colleague says she regularly has "microcosmical testicles" (so cool, right?) on the brain.  I woke up this morning with an image of being trapped in the Malkovich-world of Being John Malkovich, but the only word people used was "gender", instead of "Malkovich".

And now, the song that's been running in the background while I've been working on a section about prostitutes. Clearly I have something wrong with me:

Fat Camp
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Crème Fraiche

Last week I decided to make a French tarte au chocolat. Yes, I was a bad blogger and didn't take any pictures and haven't posted the recipe - but I'll do so next time because there will be a next time.

Anyhoo, the recipe called for crème fraiche. I hate the pasteurized crème fraiche they sell in the grocery stores here so I decided to make my own.  It's super simple - just watch!

Here's what you do:
Put 1Tbl unpasteurized buttermilk per 8 oz of heavy cream in a container. Use and empty jam jar if you have it.

Put a paper towel over the mixture, put a rubber band around the neck to secure. Put somewhere at room temperature. Because I have an inquisitive cat, aka Inquisitive Food Whore, I put mine in the cupboard.

Leave 8-24 hours or until thickens. Put in fridge. And:

I left mine at room temp and it was a little more on the sour cream side of things. Next time, I'll leave it alone for 36 hours to basically make sour cream, or only age it for 12 hours to make the nuttier, sweeter crème fraiche.

Super easy- try it!

Brownies, Brownies, Brownies

I'm insane. If you know me, you already knew that but dissertating makes it so much worse.

Yesterday I saw this recipe posted over on cookie madness. Oooooo.... Aztec brownie..... Figuring they would go great with the coffee porter Luke made and we're cracking this weekend, I whipped up a batch.

Despite the "cakey" warning ( I'm a fudgy brownie girl), I followed the recipe exactly and used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder . After letting them cool I took a bite. Now, I should have thought about the cakiness and that the recipe only called for 2 Tbl of cocoa powder.... B/c the spices were nice but the cocoa was bland. Like a cheap supermarket oils based chocolate cake. Totally not worth the calories.

Not to be set back, I decided to whip up another batch using the fail-safe Hershey's best brownies recipe, but this time using my beloved special dark . Normally, these are a rich,buttery, fudgy brownie with a flaky crust.  This is what I got:

Again, I got  milder chocolate flavor in these cookies. I'd describe the texture on the cakier side of brownies. Sort of a dense cake, but not really fugdy.  Good, but not what I was looking for.

Not to be set back, I decided to whip up a third batch of brownies, because, damn it, if I'm going to eat butter, chocolate and sugar, I want it to taste like butter, chocolate and sugar.

After some procrastinating-from-writing-my-dissertation-googling... I (re)discovered that Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa is Dutch processed. You see, natural cocoa is slightly acidic. It's what gives it the slightly bitter, rich chocolate flavor. Dutch processed cocoa is processed with an alkali in order to rend it neutral. As a result, they both cook differently. Joy of Baking has a really good description here. I've used dutch processed cocoa in cakes and cookies with no problem, but in brownies it significantly changed the texture and flavor. Seeing as I was already 2 batches of brownies deep, what was the harm in making a third? This time, same Best Brownies recipe but with natural (non-alkalinized) Hershey's cocoa powder.

Voila:

That's what I'm talking about. Just so you know, these two batched were baked in the same, pan, same oven, same amount of time. The only difference was the cocoa powder. I have no idea why the right side did that weird thing, but you can see the thick, fudgy layer of brownie with the crispy, glossy top.  This batch wasn't going to win any beauty contests (my other batches of this recipe have been prettier), but they tasted the chocolaty-ist of the group. Plus, they were eventually frosted and frosting covers a lot of ills. It's like the photoshop of the baking world. These were about 1/2 the height of the dutch processed batch. 

For a side-by-side comparison:

Finally, the taste test.

We both felt the Spice Islands Brownies tasted like a spice cake that had a bit of chocolate added to it. Good, but not really chocolaty, and these are really like a chocolate cake, not a brownie. The Hershey's best with dutch processed cocoa were very good. More like a dense cake or a light brownie. The chocolate flavor was more intense than the Spice Islands (2 Tbl in SI, 1/3 c. cocoa in the Hershey's recipe). They aren't what I look for in a brownie on the whole, but if I need a cakey version I'll make this recipe. The Best Brownies with natural cocoa powder were the best. Sort of like a flourless chocolate cake.

The spice combo - cayenne, nutmeg, cinnamon, and almond - was well-blended and tasty in each brownie. Not something I'd make regularly, but definitely something I'd bring to a party or make when I wanted something different. I'd also consider adding a bit of orange zest (sort of like Green and Black's Maya Gold Chocolate).

What I found most interesting was the big difference between cocoa powders in the 2 versions of the Hershey's recipe. In retrospect, the natural cocoa powder brownies could have used an extra 4 min or so (bringing the cooking time to 28-30 min, maybe even 35 depending on the oven) rather than 24. But the texture and taste difference between the two was significant. In the future, I'm going to stick to natural cocoa powder in brownie recipes - but if you like 'em cakey, use Dutch processed.

Politics

This video is an oldie but a goodie from the early days of flash animation. Way back in the days of yesteryear when Bush II had just stolen the election and wormed his way into the White House. It's about 10 years old, but whenever I think about the current "debate" on the debt ceiling and the future shape of our country, I can't help but think of Bush's explanation of how his tax cuts are going to work (w/in the first 15 seconds).

To say I find the current election-minded politicking in the House to be repugnant would be putting it a bit too lightly. But I'll save the political rant and just leave you with some laughs about the "good old days".

A little help from my friend

Clearly Oona is helping me write- now if I could only teach her how to make coffee....

Well, I know you can't work in fast food all your life...

Alternative title:" ... I'd even cut my penis off for you!"

90s flashbacks anyone? On Monday, L and I got our ska on down at the Rialto Theater. If you haven't seen them, RBF is a fantastic band to see live. All mohawks, bow ties, suspenders and Chucks. As with most bands who have been playing together for years, their performance and choreography was spot on. They bring an enormous amount of energy and just make playing music look like so much fun. Streetlight Manifesto (website sucks, music doesn't) is sort of a aughts answer to ska (or according to Wikipedia, post punk NJ ska): power punk with a heavy brass section. They have a more jazzy influences than RBF, but also a more aggressively driving lead guitar. All in all, they were fantastic and I hope we'll catch them again. I particularly liked their cover of Bad Religion's "Skyscraper" (better live):

Not heavy on the brass, but an enjoyable cover nonetheless. 

The opening band was a new-to-us group, Rodeo Ruby Love. Also in the ska-ish vein, they' have 3 albums out (according to their myspace page) and they have a nice sound. I always appreciate a female vocalist with a ska band (Save Ferris anyone), and I though their song "A small house in the city" was particularly good. 

I'm really impressed with the music scene here in Tucson. We've gone to a number of shows and they've all been good performances and reasonably priced. This Sunday: the Rev. Horton Heat. We plan on hitting up the Hotel Congress for pre-concert drinks because, baby, it's martini time!

Heat

It's getting hot out here. After 2 weeks in the 110 range, the monsoons have started and we've dropped to a paltry 100. Funny how after 110, 101 seems downright comfortable. Unfortunately, our a/c has been struggling to keep up. Getting the temp down too 82 at night is about the best we can do.

Part of the problem is that we are losing air through the swamp cooler ( will be fixed soon). The other problem is that the east and south sides of our house are covered in windows. 120" x 72" of windows. It's a veritable greenhouse. At 7:30 am we measured a temp of 95 through double paned tinted glass.

Problem: block the heat without spending hundreds of $$ on a house we are renting.

Solution: cardboard + duct tape + tinfoil.




Yee haw! That's us: klassy with a k. Despite the ghetto fabulous look, it did drop the temp in that part of he house by 8 degrees. We've ordered bamboo shades to purddy it up a bit.



Plus the tinfoil blocks both alien mind probes AND government brain scanners!

6th Wedding Anniversary

Yup, 6 years ago this weekend L and I were married in a lovely ceremony in NJ. Since then we've moved to two different cities, survived grad school, L finished his PhD and I'm close(ish), started post-grad school life, and adopted one fuzzy, crazy, talkative, and lovely cat.

We planned to go camping and so had our  fancy Syrah with bacon-wrapped steak, asparagus and homemade hollandaise at home.

For our anniversary we went to the Sonoita and Elgin wine regions of AZ. Wine? Az? No freakin' way. Surely you jest. Well jest I do not (and don't call me Shirely!).

Vines at Callagan Vineyards. You can see the
3 storm systems in the background

In all seriousness, south of Tuscon at about a 5,000 ft elevation are quite good grape growing conditions. The region is arid, but quite fertile in the summer due to the monsoon season. We were expecting something better than our wine-tasting adventure in Cannon Falls, MN, and were really surprised by how good the wines were. Most of the wines are in a CA-style, using Spanish (Tempranillo), Rhone (Granache and Mouvedre), and Italian grapes. We started at Callagan Vineyards (the Los Padres and Buena Suerte were two of our favorites), and then on to Dos Cabezas (all good, none were great), Lighting Ridge (our fav by far - every wine was really excellent), and Kief-Joshua (The Chenin and Sav Blanc were really unique, the zin was a bit boring but the Tempranillo and Syrah were excellent). Overall, many of the wines had a bit of a tang in the finish, but compare solidly with the mid-level, (so good to very good) wines of the CA wine regions. Of all of the, Lightening Ridge was far and away the best. So if you are even in Tucson, it's worth the hour long drive to check out the wines.

From there we headed further south to Patagonia Lake. After some initial concern that it might be closed due to the fires, it fortunately was not. We trucked down some chicken wings and planned on doing some grillin'.. .only to be met with a "no wood, no charcoal" sign. Shit. Raw chicken, no stove = no dinner. We high tailed it back to the nearest town market (10 min away, tiny, tiny little town) and picked up some ice berg lettuce, an apple, pepperoni and some cheese. Not our planned bbq, but not bad nonetheless.

6 good years, nearly 11 "time served", a few more wrinkles,
but not too bad all together

The lake was beautiful and we headed down to the beach with our picnic and our beer. As with campsites in CA, we can't seem to go camping w/o being next to a RV blasting Mexican-techno-dance-music, but fortunately the party next to use turned the tunes down pretty soon after sunset.





The next day we drained the tent (recall those three storm systems? yeah, they dumped right on us), and spent the morning kayaking around the lake. We'll definitely go back, and next time we're going to see if we can 1) make friends to bring with us, 2) get one of the island boat-in campsites, and 3) bring said friends.

It was a great way to spend our anniversary and we got to see some really neat parts of the state. It's strange to drive south and hit "comfortable" temps of the mid-90s (compared to 110 at home), but a great discovery for beating the heat of the summer.