Category: minutiae

Okay, here’s the news. I am still working on collecting all the pictures of our costumes. I am trying to decide whether any of the other breads are worthy of recipe-posting besides the spice bread. The cheese and mustard bread is definitely out. I should have just made the Cook’s Illustrated “Quick” Cheese Bread. The pesto bread was, in my opinion, on the dry side. It tasted better with cheese. The French herb bread needed toasting and was better with butter. I wasn’t overwhelmed with any of the new breads I made except for the spice bread. That was quite good, although a little overcooked and strangely shaped on top (which is why I specified the smaller loaf pan in the recipe).

We had D&D tonight. New location, over at Cameron’s place. Nice. Big table for gaming. A bottle of Diet Coke in the fridge just for me (which was an “Aw” moment for me). A little sparsely furnished. One neighbor with incredibly sensitive hearing. But hey, we levelled! Now we’re second level feebs. Everyone except Jessa ended up getting beaten unconscious (and in some cases, very, very close to dead) by a big ol’ spider. That sucked. I was just running around healing, trying to keep people on their feet. Didn’t actually get hit at all.

I need to go prop ingredient shopping.

The trains were six minutes late today. That’s inexcusable!

I went to the optometrist today. I have a bunch of color contact samples and a new pink lens case.

Sara, I’m working on the tag thing, it’s just rather embarassing how little I’ve read recently. I mean, comics and cookbooks probably don’t count. And anthologies of fairy tales seem to be not mature enough. And I’ve been inheriting a lot of books, not actually buying any. I think the last time I actually spent money on books was… well, the White Elephant Sale (cookbooks) and Christmas (books about cooking that were going to be a gift to Jon, but then I found better presents for him).

I need to call my mom tomorrow.

When Lydia and I are in our Katamari Damacy costumes, we are rock stars. We got mobbed. I had girls launching themselves at me. Glomping, it’s called. It was weird.

When Lydia is in her Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles costume, she is a teen idol. Seriously. Girls were swooning and squealing. I may or may not have been one of them.

I’m still getting together all the picture links. For now, enjoy the amazing and incredible pictures Lionel took of us on Saturday night. I can’t get over how cool we look. I mean, we look like major dorks, but INCREDIBLY COOL major dorks.

Pain d’Épices
Adapted from Great Breads

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), at room temperature
1/2 cup strong-flavored honey, such as buckwheat honey
3/4 cup whole milk
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp table salt
Nonstick cooking spray

Heat the oven to 375 with a rack in the middle. Spray a loaf pan (8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches recommended, although 9 x 5 x 3 works, too) with nonstick cooking spray.

Cream the butter and honey together in a stand mixer or large bowl with a fork or electric mixer. Beat in the milk and egg.

Sift the flours, baking soda, spices, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir the dry ingredients into the liquid ingredients and mix together until combined. Do not overmix.

Turn the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes. Turn out onto a rack. Let the bread cool completely. Wrap tightly in foil, and let sit at room temperature for several days to develop the flavor before eating. Keeps for two weeks. Excellent with tea.

My house is awash in bread. I am downright stunned at how much I was able to make this week. I have five loaves of bread, the last dough rising in the fridge, a recipe’s worth of pfeffernussen, and the thought,”Well, I still could make chocolate chip cookies.” I’m not sure I’ll get around to it, though. Lydia and I are going to be crazymad busy anyway.

Hookslide concert tonight! Fifth anniversary show! Yay!

I’ll post the recipes soon. Probably when I’m escaping to our hotel room to get away from the masses of NERDS. Which reminds me of the other time I was at Fanime, in 1999. I ended up skipping some stuff so I could go back to my room and watch Red Dwarf. KTEH was showing four episodes of the seventh or eighth series I hadn’t seen (and which, in retrospect, I probably would have been better off not seeing, since they kinda blew). It’s just trading one geekdom for another. Then and now, how far I’ve come.

I made two bread recipes last night, but I’m not posting them yet because I haven’t tried them. I’ve got a slice of one in my backpack, and the other loaf is supposed to get better after a few days of resting. I may try it tonight, though. The two I made were French Herb Bread and Pain d’Épices (Spice Bread). I meant to make only a half recipe of the herb bread. I put half of all the ingredients in the mixing bowl, and then… I added enough water for an entire recipe. And you can’t undo that. So it may very well suck. I yelled at myself and then ran around my kitchen (kind of a feat, considering how tiny my kitchen is) adding the other half of the ingredients. It was so dumb. Seriously. And now I have two huge loaves of this bread. I hope it’s edible.

The Pain d’Épices called for some anise, which I like, but Lydia hates, and since I’m bringing this to Fanime for us to snack on, I left it out. I added some cardamom instead. It’s a quick bread. I should have used the smaller of the loaf pans that Ryan so generously let me borrow.

I’ll be trying the herb bread soon. I’ll let you know how it is.

Ha! My dear friend Ysabel has started a blog. Keep up with it, yo. It’s… well, it’s a place to bitch about stuff, if nothing else. And we’ve all got plenty of that to do.

(Zack, you should feel very lucky that this has happened, for it is likely that I will now turn my constant nagging to her.)

I wonder if her blog will bring me more traffic from people I with whom I went to college. I didn’t (and don’t) pimp this blog terribly aggressively (although I should, given that I complain about my numbers all the time). Ys’s email announcing her blog went out to a lot of people I knew, and her first post links to me. Huzzah!

Man, onions look terrible right now. I’m looking forward to when they come into season… soon, soon.

Went out for sushi last night with the Mountain View crowd. That ended up being a pricey little evening. We were celebrating Rosy and Quetzal’s birthdays. I thought I had calculated my portion out to about $22, but everyone ended up paying $35ish. Oh, well. I had enough money. It’s just that… now my wallet’s empty. Sorry, I’ll stop complaining and/or being a skinflint.

I started bread (of the very basic variety) on Sunday night. I woke up a half an hour early (ew, 6:30am) and made the dough before I went to work, then let it rise in the fridge all day/evening. (Adding to this after I’ve eaten some toast- damn, I love that bread!)

I have so much baking to do. So little time!

So, Lydia and I are planning on baking a lot this coming week. We want to have some decent breads and cookies and things to bring to Fanime so that we can avoid the exorbitant prices on breakfasts and snackage. I’ve been reading through my copy of Great Breads and getting inspiredish. This is just a list of breads that I wouldn’t mind trying, with ingredients I need to buy in the parentheses.

Challah
French Herb Bread (onion, parsley, and wheat germ)
Herbed Cottage Cheese Bread (onion and parsley)
Rosemary and Thyme Bread
Pesto Bread
Cheese and Mustard Bread
Bara Brith (currants, candied citrus peel, and various whole spices that I only have in ground form)
Pain d’Épices

Oh, I keep forgetting. Writing it here hopefully will remind me to ask her later. Ryan, can I have the recipe for your orange-cranberry bread?

I was supposed to make the basil-lime syrup and pate last night, as well as starting some basic bread so the starter could ferment overnight in the fridge, but I fell asleep on the couch watching Full Metal Alchemist.

I figure if I have enough extra limes, I could make lime curd. I don’t know if that would be a good idea. Like, if it would be bitter or something. I should look up a recipe instead of just substituting in my lemon curd recipe.

God, every time I feel like I have to write a “blah blah, I am lame, I don’t have anything to say, but I feel I need to write something” post, I should just go over to the eGullet Food Media & News message board and read. Then I’ll have something to talk about.

Like the Observer thing, and now this.

Check out the prettypretty cast for the new FOX series based on Anthony Bourdain’s best-selling book, Kitchen Confidential. That guy from Alias is playing Tony… er, “Jack” Bourdain (because there aren’t enough main characters named “Jack” on TV nowadays [24, Lost, Alias, Will & Grace, what’s one more?]). And there’s that guy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, that guy from Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and one of the kids from Freaks and Geeks. And some blonde chicks with prominent boobs. Hm, I may just be blind, but do you see anyone from South America in that cast? Where are the multiple burn scars? Come on!

Here’s a little more on the show itself.