Truffle report:
When rolling out truffles, it's best to make peace with the fact that you will get chocolate all over your hands (and possibly face if you're not careful). Also, do not be alarmed at what a freshly rolled ball of ganache covered in nuts looks like.
The truffles came out very dark (deliciously dark) which is not surprising as I used about 5 oz of 72% cacao and 3 oz of 60%. The rum flavor is very distinct. I will probably go with mostly 60% for everyone but my dad, who would probably eat cocoa straight out of the can if he could.
I will also have to make them about half the size they are now. I was barely able to eat one. Next batch will be the recipe that involves eggs.
I had read that Cooks Illustrated and regarded it with ears plugged, chanting "I can't hear you!!" because I refuse to believe that I could be fooled by fake vanilla. And yet - it was CI, they're pretty scientific about it so they must be right. Regardless, the fake stuff is forbidden in the house, for the same reason you cite.
Phase 1 of Truffle Test Batch is complete. The ganache is chilling in the fridge. I went with dark rum as the flavoring agent, as I seem to not have any Baileys, I don't have bourbon, my roommate won't eat kahlua ones, and I couldn't get my triple sec open. I almost used frangelico, but I'm going to be rolling these in crushed toasted pecans, and I didn't want there to be nut confusion. I took a big whiff of the chopped chocolate and then the rum, and it smelled good to me. We'll see how they turn out after dinner.
Debbie @ 623 -
Since I'm going to be shipping these, I think that shaved chocolate might be a bit delicate.
I'm definitely going to be rolling my dad's Black Hole Bitter Chocolate Doom Truffle in cocoa (rather than tempering the 85% cacao - maybe I can find some cacao nibs to stud the truffles with) and I'm thinking of doing something in crushed toasted pecans/almonds/hazelnuts for whatever I make my mom (something with almond), bro (scotch? I have no idea) and SiL (coffee).
I did finally suck it up and get a kitchen scale. Happily, Sur La Table had a blue one to match my kitchen. Since my roommate's not a big chocolate person, I will be bringing the excess to work on Tuesday. Doesn't hurt to keep your employers happy!
Another open thread, another cooking question from the nerdycellist.
Since I am longer on time than money this xmas, I was going to make truffles for my family. First test batch will be made this weekend. I am going with the simplest ganache-type truffles, made with chocolate, heavy cream and flavory-booze. I chose this because I have successfully made ganache.
I know Xopher is the expert truffle-maker here - do you (or anyone else) have any hints? I'm thinking of not dipping them in chocolate this time around, since I'm worried tempering might be beyond my abilities at the moment.
re: cats and oreos...
My otherwise submissive, scaredy cow-cat Spot once knocked an Oreo right out of my hand and then absconded down the hallway to consume it. It was the damndest thing - he had never shown an interest in them. One of his favorite non-tuna fish snacks was green beans though. He'd sit under the dinner table and wait for one of us kids to surreptitiously drop one.
re: cats and oreos...
My otherwise submissive, scaredy cow-cat Spot once knocked an Oreo right out of my hand and then absconded down the hallway to consume it. It was the damndest thing - he had never shown an interest in them. One of his favorite non-tuna fish snacks was green beans though. He'd sit under the dinner table and wait for one of us kids to surreptitiously drop one.
B. Durbin -
Unlike 15 years ago (when I wasn't actually fat) I no longer watch video of myself and fret about being a lardass. I was struck by that last video not so much by my fatness as my Substantial-ness. I look pretty solid, and yet still not as much like a big dude in a dress as I had feared.
Otherwise, it's a bit tough. I had to learn stage presence; it did not come naturally. However, all video of me on stage I am performing for an audience and not a camera. I always freak out about how unconvincing I am. Mostly, I've tried not to watch before a performance, so as not to second-guess myself.
Is it OK if I toot my own horn here?*
On Saturday, my parish choir had our annual fundraiser. This year's theme was Rogers & Hammerstein (ugh. hate). Here's a low-quality video of me singing "No Other Love Have I". I'm pretty proud of how it turned out, especially since I was worried I might have to lower the key one or two steps down just two nights before.
A word of warning - while the audio's not bad, the video itself is tragically boring; you can't see any of my expressions. Also, skip to the 1:20 point or so, unless you're interested in hearing ST:TNGs Lt. Cmdr Shelby introducing me.
* I was going to say "pimp myself", but that didn't sound right.
Linkmeister @#89 -
We got HBO for the Rome series and were about to cancel it when they announce True Blood. Now that they've started in on George RR Martin's epic, I may have to continue subscribing.
I love both the True Blood TV series and book series, but I've started seeing the TV show as visual fanfic. It's diverged somewhat from the book by adding and subtracting characters. Also, the books are first-person stories told from Sookie's POV. She's a much more fun and sympathetic character in the books.
The show is very dark - which I suppose the books are, too. But then, my imagination somehow elided over creepier stuff and I find myself occasionally somewhat squicked out by the show. Still awesome, but if you're going to Netflix the first season, don't watch while eating!
And as an apology for dragging (double entendre somewhat intended) gender politics in pop culture back into an open thread, here is a video that had me giggling maniacally over essentially nothing.
Please note: You can tell the female pug by the bow on her head.
Male and female voices are different, but I'm not sure why that's not enough.
I guess the question is - how important is it that we know the gender of the cartoon animal to begin with? And if it's that important, why don't we make the females the generic default cartoon animal look, and depict all male cartoon animals with broad shoulders and six-pack abs.
(as an aside, I always assumed the RoadRunner was a girl. And what with all his fully committed drag, thought Bugs Bunny was a boy and a girl.)
To be honest, I'd rather see a cartoon with no female characters than one with lousy, stereotypical ones - such as that new Ice Age, where you can tell an animal is female by how many modern, western standards of "beauty" it upholds. Cartoon animals are by default male - unless they have (2) boobies, eyelashes and "feminine wiles".
If "Up" were playing at the ArcLight, I'd get over the lack of chicks and see it. Or I'd suffer the hordes of tourists and sugar-high kids to see it at the El Cap if there were a lady or girl in an important role.
As a kid, my favorite snack was the pickle sandwich, which is simply whatever bread was at hand, mayonaisse and sliced dill pickles. Kosher or Polish, or the one heavenly year we had home- grown and -canned pickles. Delicious.
For sweet applications, I'd go with the peanut butter and maple syrup (best on mom's dense wheat breads) and occasionally, peanut butter and homemade buttercream frosting. I survived childhood pretty much unscathed.
Michael Roberts @ 791 - they hired dog behaviorist Dr. Ian Dunbar as a consultant, which is why the talking dog thing is less of an anthropomorphized dog-shaped fakey character.
The clips I've seen have been delightful, but I'll probably not see it until DVD. On the one hand, there are awesome dogs with the ability to communicate with humans, old dude and chubby kid protagonists and (I've heard) a lack of poop/fart jokes and cruelty that have come to define "kids" movies these days. On the other hand, the closest theatre showing this film is the one owned by The Rat in a tourist area with predictably inflated prices, and also... yeah, it does irk me a skosh that the only female is in a flashback. I'll add it to the Netflix queue.
I have a question for Linux-y peoples...
I am considering getting a netbook for some light word processing, net surfing and the usual email/blog posting applications. All computers I've used in my lifetime have been Windows based. The home computer is my roommate's and other than installing various Firefox whoozits, I haven't touched much and I am quite reluctant to go so far as to overhaul her OS. I consider myself to be at the far reaches of end-userdom. I'm not afraid of learning new things, but I am very much a beginner. Would purchasing a netbook with a Linux OS be a reasonable thing for me to do?
Unrelatedly, here is my contribution to the growing compendium of tortured English. This sentence was included in an email from Corporate Comm:
"[New Guy] will serve as a high-level communications resource dedicated to strategically and consistently formulating public positioning."
I think I'd rather parse some of Fragano L's alarming submissions that try and figure out what the above even means. I do know that [New Guy] is now an Executive Vice President, so formulating public positioning must be a pretty lucrative skill set.
A small data point:
When un/dressing in front of an unavoidable female roommate (also in a jr. hi or high school lockerroom) most women will, say, put on pants underneath their dress, and then turn with back towards roommate before removing top, often quickly throwing a shirt on in front of the bosoms before removing the dress. Also, there's the famous bra-through-the-sleeve maneuver. These are skills honed from relatively early ages, probably passed down from older sister to younger sister, or friend to friend at slumber parties. There is a certain pride taken in being able to disrobe in the most modest way possible; I was delighted to discover that even at my advanced age (and magnanimous size) I can still completely change a shirt in the front seat of a Honda Civic without anyone getting a glimpse of anything. Score!
What doesn't happen (unless there is possibly a bit of flirtation going on, I suppose) is any back-arching, or hair shaking, or buttock wiggling.
If the writers (or director) were interested in finding out how a couple of gals might act in a certain situation, I am certain they could have asked a female cast member - or girlfriend, or spouse. But they weren't, because they wanted to throw a little soft-core in there. Lame!
But then, this seems to be my particular hobby horse. It could have been so much worse. I appreciated that while Kirk displayed a certain amount of appreciation of the female form (always a bit too innocent to be called leering) he wasn't a masher - didn't grab any ladies, or stalk them in the time-honored "rom-com" fashion, knew when to take "no" for an answer, and generally didn't make himself a skeevy nuisance. The lack of outwardly offensive weirdo dude behavior was definitely appreciated.
Like Debra @21 - purple mimeo worksheets. mmmmmm...
Also Lilacs. Everywhere we lived mom made sure she planted a lilac bush.
Burnt cheese and chocolate chip cookies, sometimes (but not always) simultaneously depending on when the cheese-covered food was cooked.
The smell of water on hot concrete - this smells different in the west, where there's less humidity. I spent roughly half of my childhood in Utah and the other half in Illinois. When I moved to California a few years ago the scent from the pavement when the sprinklers were turned off was overwhelming. It was a smell I never remembered missing.
New picture book smell - whatever glossy inks and papers are used in kids picture books and the odd fancy adult (not porn) book with pictures makes a wonderful smell that hasn't changed much in over 30 years.
Yeah, Like several other "prestige" projects, Pan was released in a handful of theatres at the end of December to qualify for awards season. Like "Children of Men", which has been getting all kinds of oscar buzz from the critics but has been roundly ignored by it's own studio, in a fair world it would seriously be considered for awards - but hey, they gave LOTR awards a few years ago. No other SF is worthy of awards, you know. (not enough victimized women and Whitey Saving the Day I guess).
I get cranky that anything popcorn-worthy is crammed into the summer, and anything "serious" is released at the very end of the year. Even in LA the release may only be one theatre and we have to wait a few weeks to see the Arty stuff. It's why even though I'm not the world's biggest Harry Potter buff, I enjoy the years the movies come out: it means I can spend a christmas in a theatre watching magic, pretty british scenery and Alan Rickman.
The toilet thing is not a flap-seal issue (have had that before) and I can't figure out how to get the drain stopper out of the bathtub drain to snake, so I guess I'm going to have to call the LL, take time off work, and possible prepare myself for lectures from strangers about toilet paper usage. Ugh.
I saw Pan's Labyrinth a couple of weeks ago and I loved it. My roommate had the same comment as Serge about the skittering bugs though (she's not a fan of skittering bugs). I'm going to see it again, although maybe after I see a "fun" movie in the theatres; don't get me started on the idiotic release schedule, oscar-baiting, etc. etc. I work in The Industry and I think it's a load of nonsense.
And since this is an open thread, does anyone here know anything about basic plumbing? I live in an apartment and on thursday my tub started draining incredibly slow. Then on Friday the toilet started acting up; more slow draining after the flush. I tried drano-ing the tub and plunge-ing the toilet, but to no avail. I'm wondering if a $30 investment into a snake/plunger do-hickey will keep strangers from having to get intimate with my bathroom (and me from having to take another unpaid half day off work.)
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