Baking Brownies

I made these brownies from scratch on Friday. I decided to try this new thing where instead of buying candy to add to the gigantic stash in my night table drawer, I would just bake something once a week in order to save on the grocery bill.

This recipe comes from Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, which has got to be the greatest cookbook in existence. Her recipes are easy to follow and so delicious. I did a previous entry on her Yogurt Spa-Ghetti which is so yummy!

Here is the brownie recipe verbatim:

Aunt Joyce's Brownies

4 eggs, beaten until fluffy

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 12-oz. package chocolate chips

2/3 cup unsalted butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Melt together chips and butter. Beat eggs and add in everything else.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Optional: Press pecans on top, down into dough.

Delicious goop! This is after I melted the butter and chocolate chips in the microwave. If I had a double boiler, you bet your sweet bippy I'd be using that! The chocolate I used was Guittard, which is the only chocolate I use in baking (I'm not a snob, it's the only cheap chocolate at the grocery store).
I ended up sifting all the dry ingredients because after beating those eggs, I just wanted to be finished with these brownies. When you beat the eggs, it's comparable to making merengue, be sure to spend plenty of time (this would have been great to use a KitchenAid mixer if I actually owned one). Notice how my sifter is KitchenAid? A girl can dream.
When I poured everything into this 8-inch pan, it had the consistency of pulled taffy. Like my floral apron?
When this fab thing comes out of the oven it is super fluffy but after it cools, the middle falls. Kind of like a souffle.
After this has cooled for an hour or two, I drape a thin kitchen towel over the top to help keep it extra soft and fluffy. I ended up refrigerating this after I ate my first piece (it ends up yielding 9 pieces) because the middle is so fudgy and oozy, I wanted it to stay in place. I'm sure it would taste good heated and served with a scoop of ice cream. Yum!

Sushi Dinner

Finally, finally! I've been waiting to ingest this eel roll for a little over a month and a half now. It was so worth it too, I savored every delicious, sweet bite.

Eel is actually quite mild and I advise you sushi-eaters to try it if you haven't already. And this is coming from someone who ate sushi once or twice in her entire life and is now converted.
Left to right: tempura shrimp roll, California roll, eel roll (sorry, we ate most of this before I could get a decent picture). My favorite tip I've heard for California roll is to mix wasabi and soy sauce together (I go heavy on the soy sauce because wasabi is too hot for me) and dip the roll in it.

To be honest, I wasn't too fond of the tempura shrimp roll. I just don't want tempura on my sushi is all. Ah well, now I've only got to try the inari roll, which is fried tofu, and the California masago, which is basically a California roll but with masago (fish) added.

Kitchen Junk

I'm obsessed with kitchen stuff so .. just thought I would share the things that I feel is my right to own (yet don't. Le sigh).
These are corncob-shaped cornbread molds. I just need them. Not sure why because I don't even like cornbread. The kitsch factor increases my lusty-ness over them. I feel it necessary to display them prominently in my future kitchen even though they will probably never be used.
Baking is one of my favorite hobbies and I tend to stare these KitchenAid mixers down whenever I pass them in a department store. Notice the blue color and take note. Turquoise or aqua cookware is kind of my thing. And by kind of my thing, I mean constantly going over in my head on how to decorate my future kitchen and stock it with so many turquoise items that it's just, I don't know, ridiculous? It's a sickness. But a delightful, delirious sickness that sends me into a cheery fit.
This is turquoise cookware by Le Creuset. It's expensive-ish. It's turquoise. Therefore, I need it.
This is a turquoise colander by Paula Deen. It is most likely not very expensive yet it's more upscale than your average grocery store emergency aisle fixture. It is turquoise. So it's floating somewhere in my imaginary kitchen near the imaginary white porcelain sink.
And of course, a cake stand. I felt the pink would be a nice contrast. And it's so dainty! I've always had this idea of a perfect dining room, fabulous dark wood sideboard/table/chairs, beautiful hand polished silverware and serving accoutrements, and a cake stand.

It's always bothered me that dining rooms are now combined with the living/sitting room into one big room .. that opens into the kitchen. STOP IT! A separate dining room should be brought back to regular use, along with a separate room for a kitchen and a butler's pantry, and those darned disappearing mantelpieces! Seriously, I'm just going to have to buy a house that is a 1930s original to get what I want. But I feel that me making such a statement is, well, a given.

Creepy Meat

Seriously. Gross. It's disgusting enough that they used the word "wiener". BUT, wieners in a tin can .. surrounding a packet of barbecue sauce? Ugh.
What are meat crosses?
Perv. Don't steal my bacon or I'll stab you with my meat prong.
??
*Heave* Most disturbing image of all. Are those corn dogs .. stuck in a head of lettuce? It looks slightly phallic to me.

How To Cook A Wolf

Because of my rather silly love of cookbooks from the 1930s-1950s, I just had to check this book out from the library. How to Cook a Wolf is M. F. K. Fisher's work on eating, cooking, and surviving with gusto during the food rationing of WWII.

Some of her recipes were just downright unappetizing and bizarre, such as this one for head cheese copied verbatim from pages 102-103:

Aunt Gwen's Cold Shape (!)

1 calf head, quartered

salt, pepper, bay, herbs as desired

1/2 cup lemon juice

or

1 cup dry white wine

Remove most of fat, and the brains (save for another dish), ears, eyes, and snout (a kindly butcher will do this for the finicky). Soak for 1/2 hour in cold water, wash off, cover with cold water, and simmer until the meat starts to fall from the bones. Drain in large colander over another kettle, saving all the cooking liquor. Dice the meat ("in pretty pieces," Aunt Gwen directed), add the stock amply to cover, and mix gently with seasoning to taste. Simmer for 3/4 hour, add the lemon juice or wine, and pour into a mold. Cover with a cloth, weight well, and chill. Serve in slices. (Aunt Gwen used bread-pans for the molds, clean bricks for the weights ... and there were always cucumber-chips on the platter.)

Yes, you read correctly: head cheese. Soaking a calves head to get all the meat and fat off the bones and turning it into some kind of morbid delicacy.

My mother told me stories about her grandpa, who came from Austria-Hungary in 1921, and absolutely loved the homemade head cheese that my grandma made for him. There was even mention of my grandma shaving the head to get all the hairs off the skin so there would be none in the vat of gelatinous goo that was to become the aforementioned ... "treat." If it was served with cold cucumber slices, I may never know.
I think this is actually an ad for pork sausage. But regardless, I feel that the same strange .. mood, perhaps (?) is there.
Unfortunately, I do not know what year this fabulous illustration of two multi-course meals comes from. But on the left hand side, at the very top, that strange cylindrical tallow-colored cake is really head cheese. A polite term for it in society would be brawn, or possibly, braun. Supposedly there is no end to the mold-shapes you can form your loaves or cakes of head cheese into.

Dracula Quotes

Unfortunately, I can't really think of anything witty or cute to write about finishing Dracula. Therefore, I will just post some quotes that stuck with me throughout the novel.

" 'I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young. And my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may.' " [Note on Dracula speaking in Johnathan Harker's Journal, p. 24]

"The fair girl, with laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:-

" 'You yourself never loved; you never love!' On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends." [Johnathan Harker's Journal, p. 39]

'We thought her dying whilst she slept

And sleeping when she died.' [Dr. Seward's Diary, p. 162]

And my personal favorite:

"The tomb in the daytime, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life - animal life - was not the only thing which could pass away." [Dr. Seward's Diary, p. 196-7]

I also noticed that the death toll was exceedingly high when pertaining to the main characters;

Johnathan Harker's benefactor: old age

Lucy Westenra: vampyrism

Lucy Westenra's mother: old age

Quincey Morris: fighting a vampyre

Arthur Holmwood/Lord Godalming's father: old age

Not to mention Mina being an orphan and all the other minor character's deaths. Still surprised Dracula was defeated so easily in the end by such incompetent nincompoops as those mere mortals.

And, as a side note, Dracula was first published on 26 May 1897. Suck on that bloody froth, ya filthy Undead!

Here There Be Vampyres

At the moment, I am currently reading Dracula by Bram Stoker. I read it once before back in high school (it seems like forever ago) but it seems as I get older, I increasingly appreciate this particular novel. Of course I plan on rereading it over and over again. Each time that I do, I suspect that I will find something new that makes me enjoy it all the more.

As far as reading goes, I'm about halfway through: Lucy Westenra has been laid to rest in the family crypt along with her mother, leaving Arthur Holmwood devastated at both the loss of his fiancee and his father only a few days before; Mina and Johnathan Harker have eloped but Johnathan is still suffering from the aftereffects of his "brain fever" from visiting Transylvania; Dracula is working on his collection of nubile virgins; Van Helsing mysteriously hints that Lucy's death is only the beginning; Dr. Seward is continually stumped by Renfield's outbursts, attempted escapes, and insect collection.

From the beginning to the middle of the novel, I was delighted to run across some items that made me giggle. Namely, the whole "New Woman" phenomena. Apparently, us ladies have been mucking up the works for a long time, trying to act independent and pursuing our own interests. I mean this in a tongue-in-cheek manner, of course. I'll just merely be mentioning a couple of attitudes and social mores of the late 1890s which sound downright amusing these days.

This picture perfectly illustrates a fear of respectable persons concerning their delicate womenfolk: wearing breeches, smoking, and riding bicycles. All normal behaviors attributed to men of that period but when it involves a woman .. scandalous! What an outrage! Ladies must not show their legs and not lounge about in public unattended by an escort. And certainly they must never, ever, under any circumstances ride a bicycle. Heavens above! What wretches! Researching further into the bicycle riding thing, in those times, riding may .. compromise .. a young woman's chastity. I know, I'm rolling my eyes too.
Another topic brought up in Dracula, is this new-fangled electronic gadget called the typewriter. No one seems to use it much, especially not the ladies. By learning to type, a woman might get ideas. And we don't want that. Apparently, by using a typewriter, ladies might branch out and have their own independent opinions outside of agreeing with their husbands.

Like I said, I would only bring up a couple items that struck me as so antiquated and misogynistic, it's amusing. I can't be mad over this because it's utterly ridiculous.

And keep an eye out, another entry specifically dealing with vampyres may be in the works. I promise you this: it will deal with the themes I enjoy .. which does not include vampire romance. Interpret that as you wish. My interests lie in existential undead creatures that stalk the earth.