Cake or Death?

[kiya]

We shall see how this came out. I have made Secret Family Recipe Fudge Cake for keshwyn's birthday. (I say we shall see how this came out, because half my equipment for doing this was unfamiliar and the other half was inadequate, and as a result of this there was also a large puddle of fluid chocolate all over everywhere.)

It will not be cool enough to frost before games, but I am granted permission to use the kitchen there to make frosting and frost cakes, so that's okay. I don't have enough spoons to clean the mixer (coated as it is with the aforementioned large puddle of chocolate) and make frosting, anyway, not after making three separate 'I need these ingredients' trips and cleaning up the batter explosion. But it smells like cake, so I don't think the proportions are too far off (despite the distressing largeness of the puddle, especially from the perspective of the cook who was also needing to clean it up).

In other news -- this started before this weekend's class, but it's enhanced since -- sitting meditation seems to improve my posture. We shall see if this corrects my backaches some. I should do the other two devotional dances more often, too, as they're energetic enough to be aerobically thingy.

Comments

[shaddragon.livejournal.com]

*guilts* I need to, y'know, do the sitting meditations. And the devotional stuff. I'm still reading.

The cooking sounds interesting, though. In every sense (including the curse). I need to learn to cook. (That is, I need to learn to cook something other than The Chicken Soup, even though I could comfortably survive on that alone. The various people living in the apartment building with whom I intend to swap meal-making duties might become a little tired of it. Maybe.)

[kiya]

Reading good. Not getting around to putting it into practice . . . common pitfall. ;)

I've had posture problems since I was a child -- in fourth grad I had a rolled-up towel bound to my chair at my desk at school to try to help it, because of the scoliosis. Anything that seems to help strikes me as a good place to start.


What I find interesting about cooking is that I was never taught, really; it's something that I grew up with, and I just sort of assimilated with. Which means that I'm just awful with trying to figure out how to explain things to others who don't have the sort of background of 'cooking is something that people just do' that I do -- I have the basic knowledge-background to convert cookbooks into food, y'know?

I could probably teach you stir-fry, though. Which is widely adaptable.

[shaddragon.livejournal.com]

I've had posture problems since I started slumping to try to hide my frontal imbalance. That's no longer an issue-- but the posture problems don't go away automatically. So yeah, it's a good thing for me, too. ;)

Heeey, I can manage stir-fry. And I can cook a hamburger. I can even manage omelettes, although they tend to turn out more like stir-fry-with-egg because I can't resist adding heaps and heaps of vegetables (out of proportion with the egg-addition). I actually can cook, for all my protests otherwise-- it's just that I have to have a recipe, and I have to follow it exactly. Experimenting turns out things I'll eat but nobody else will. (Unfortunately I have extremely undiscriminating taste in food -- which means I don't tend to understand it when other people think things are nasty, and can't judge well when they'll think they're good. And I have no sense for spices.)

[ardaniel]

My mother used to look at me very oddly when I'd run by eating a mustard-and-black-pepper sandwich on white bread.

Didn't bother me any, although I doubt I'd do it now. ;)

[shaddragon.livejournal.com]

If I liked mustard that might sound better. ;) I used to make wild concoctions by stirring up eggs, flour, food coloring, and whatever vegetables were at hand -- inspired, I fear, by Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander. There's a part where Taran runs into this family who cook that way, and... well, it stuck.

Nevermind Redwall feast descriptions. I actually cooked deeper'n'ever pie once. (Didn't work well. Must cook the turnips before putting them in-- because they take forever to soften.)

[leafshimmer.livejournal.com]

::tries to keep that prurient look out of eyes::

I tried 3 different chocolate cake recipes last Summer. The one that won the highest marks comes off a site administered by the evil Hershey company, yet bakes a surprisingly light and moist cake. Coffee is one of the ingredients.

I would love to have a look at the Secret Family Fudge recipe but do understand the difficulties, given that it is a secret and I'm not technically family (emphasis on *technically* do you see those jackal eyes staring at you???)

Good luck!!!! Shimmer