Black cats are her thing. Remember Efanor.
OSG has already struck.
I have several things in mind.
Our favorite pub has ‘free steak dinner on your birthday,’ and she is set on that.
We have been in Seattle the last week, visiting her brothers. Now we are back and settled in, once we diminish the pile of suitcases. I agreed, since we are on a strict diet, to bring the gear and cook for the crew during her stay (she and her brothers were going over and assigning names in 6 hours of family movies, for archive purposes) and I had a suitcase full of pans and knives, and did extensive grocery shopping in a strange store—you know what that’s like. But I got us out without blowing the diet. And the bachelor brothers (who don’t cook, nor even possess a pan, let alone proper pans, ramekins, or even useful knives) were appreciative of homecooked meals.
So we are back now! And that job is mostly done!
Happy Birthday, Jane. Hope it’s a good one.
Happy Birthday to Jane!
Happy Birthday
From two black kitties.
Happy happy birthday to Jane!
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
You know, I had a high school student ask me about that quote, I had used a shorter version of Heinlein’s immortal words on a newsgroup sig. He said he had related my sig line in class, and that a teacher of his had pointed out that insects as a biological group were more successful than vertebrates, and what did I think about that.
I told him that if biomass was the only measure of success, then yes, his teacher was right, but that I preferred to belong to a group which could control its environment! 😀
..and I wished Jane a Happy Birthday on the “Jane’s in the ER…” thread, on “The Captain and Lime”, and on her FB page. You think maybe she got the message?
I think if she didn’t, she will. We debauched appropriately last night with champagne and banana cream pie.
Now back to the diet and the work schedule.
Well, I’m glad all of you had a great time. Do the cats get to taste the banana cream pie? I don’t let mine get into too much dairy stuff, I don’t know if they’re lactose-intolerant, but I don’t want to find out that way.
Ysabel is.
My regret is that we were too harried and hurried by the trip for me to bake from scratch. I do a cream pie that is to die for, and I haven’t done it literally in thirty years. So I’m determined this holiday season, if the stars are right, I’m going to either bake Grandma Van’s cake or do a cream pie.
The trick to really good pie crust is technique, beyond just good ingredients.
1. you hand mix only; you use a pastry knife (one of those wire-loop arcs with the handle) to ‘cut in’ butter until it is all beads. You carefully, with minimal hand pressure, shape it into balls, per each crust or section of crust: do not squeeze hard. You refrigerate it overnight in a bowl with a towel covering it.
2. You get only 3 passes to roll it out, no more. Flour a rolling surface: I use a floured tea-towel for the surface for reasons that follow. Place a chilled ball of dough in the middle, dust it with more flour, dust and rub down your roller, (and if you have a marble roller that can also be refrigerated overnight, so much the better) —then press the roller lightly in the center of the dough ball, then at 45 degrees to it. You have now flattened the ball in a controllable way. You now roll the dough into a circle.
3. You then fold the dough over. Roll it again into a circle, never rolling hard, and rolling from a 45 degree angle to the last rollout. This directionality is very important.
4. End with a pie round of perfect thickness and size, and fold it in half. Using the tea-towel as a sling, move it onto the lightly oiled pie plate and unfold it (obviously removing the towel!)
5. pierce the dough with fork tines in several places about the bottom and sides.
6. Bake until golden brown while preparing the cream filling from scratch. Add the cream filling, use real meringue, standing it in peaks, bake until the meringue browns, and set aside to cool and ‘set’.
This method produces crust that is layered like a samurai sword blade: it flakes, bigtime, and bears no resemblance at all to a cookie or cracker.