Saturday, February 21, 2009
I forgot to post something VERY important on Wednesday! Dean was installing our new Slingbox and needed something to support the back of the UPS where we plug in all our media center devices, so I suggested building little stands with American Building Bricks. At first he didn't take my brilliant idea seriously at all (he thought I was joking or something, and in fact claimed he didn't even know what American Building Bricks are or that I have a box of them in the basement!), but then I insisted it was a great idea and demonstrated just how ideal it is, and he was highly convinced, so I built two very solid little matching stands out of red American Building Bricks (with a layer of clear "glass" bricks on top). They are perfect and Dean was mightily impressed. It was hard scrounging enough good bricks, but it was so fun and satisfying building them! It is the coolest using American Building Bricks for a real, useful item! Too bad they're hidden behind all the electronic gadgets. But I know they're there.
Posted at 4:11:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Oh, Tigh. Only four more episodes left! (!!)
Posted at 11:55:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
At Kashmir tonight, I brainstormed this list (I thought of the first five initially, but then decided it needed to be expanded since I'd forgotten some important ones):
Posted at 8:37:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Ten Best Desserts, According To Me
(not listed in order of preference)
1. Indian custard (Firni) from Kashmir restaurant in Hartford (it's creamy, thick, with a pudding-like [but more textured] consistency, and a subtle taste of cardamom)
2. creme brulée (Café Routier's is the best, but most creme brulée are pretty great, as long as they're the classic vanilla bean kind, not some weird flavor) (weird flavored creme brulées are an abomination)
3. MY CAKE (a.k.a. my mom's homemade rhubarb cake... see here for recipe)
4. mango sticky rice from Thai Angel in South Glastonbury
5. Hawaiian Cream Cake (small warm coconut cake with bits of macadamia nuts inside for texture, and cream cheese frosting) from O's in Kona
6. ricotta cannoli with no nuts from Mozzicato Caffé on Franklin Avenue (I like it when they put on dark chocolate chips in place of the nuts)
7. tiramisu (my favorite is at Tango restaurant in Glastonbury, but I like a lot of different tiramisus, as long as they don't taste like amaretto) (I loathe and despise tiramisu with any hint of amaretto and immediately stop eating it after one bite... unfortunately, you never know ahead of time if the evil amaretto will be present, so it's always a risk to order tiramisu at a new restaurant)
8. Savage Cookies
9. a humble freshly-made homemade style donut (like Stew Leonard's, or my dad's), but it has to be still warm
10. a really good cheesecake (I don't have a specific place that I know makes the kind I have in mind... but it would have a tactile creamy/sticky/fluffy texture [not at all dry or crumbly, but not totally smooth] and be slightly sour... I'm not enough of a cheesecake aficionado to know what this kind is called) (also, it should have some whipped cream and strawberries on the side... no sweet goopy sauce on top... no cherry, and definitely no blueberry... but a good element would be a thin layer of dark chocolate ganache... like the cheesecake they used to have at Min Ghung... not sure if they do anymore, though) (Also, NO EDGE. I hate edge.)
Analyzing this list, I have a few observations:
a) I clearly like creamy desserts.
b) I like desserts that have a tart, sour, or bitter element (rhubarb, cheese, dark chocolate).
c) I don't like overly sweet desserts.
d) I am not a pie fan.
d2) I don't like desserts with crusts.
e) I'm not really a cookie fan either, other than Savage Cookies, which are soft molasses cookies with raisins in them... unlike typical cookies, they are not crunchy, crumbly, or especially sweet.
f) I am also not really that into ice cream, although I do like peppermint stick ice cream from Kimball Farm and mint chocolate chip ice cream in a warm homemade waffle cone from that place in Nantucket. I also like Tropical Dreams brand macadamia nut ice cream (on the Big Island) with a cup of Kona coffee, and Lappert's caramel coconut macadamia ice cream, from Kauai. Coffee ice cream is good, as long as it's not weak-flavored. Olive oil gelato with sea salt on top from Otto is amazing.
g) I didn't list any purely chocolate desserts, but I did list a few with a dark chocolate element that offsets a creamy base (tiramisu, cheesecake, cannoli); I like chocolate (I sprinkle chocolate on my cappuccino foam), but not in too large a concentration. If I want a pure chocolate experience I'd rather have a square of a Scharffen Berger 60% dark, or a Vosges matcha chocolate bar than a rich chocolate cake/brownie/pudding/mousse/soufflée kind of thing. Not that I wouldn't enjoy most of those items, but they wouldn't make my top tier of most coveted desserts. (Note: I hate hot fudge sauce. Too sweet!)
h) One thing that I do really like which is missing from my list: caramel/butterscotch. Butterscotch is my favorite kind of pudding (I also love tapioca pudding...), I like it when restaurant desserts have caramel (esp. salty caramel) sauce drizzled on them, and I adore chocolate-covered caramels with sea salt on top. In this, the list is flawed.
i) I'm not sure if pretzels would be considered a dessert (the soft, warm, slightly buttery, salted kind...), but, if so, a good one would compete with the rest of this list.
j) Also, RHUBARB UBLEY!!!!!!
k) Desserts I hate, that other people in my family like: lemon meringue and key lime pies (meringue = horrid), pecan pie (awful! way too sweet, nutty, hard...), and German chocolate cake (those horrible sweet chompy cherries are abysmal!).
l) I should add this to my list collection.
P.S. !!! Kashmir's website has the endless Indian song playing in the background, and it repeats endlessly in a loop!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The snow wasn't accumulating at all most of the day (too warm), but then on the way back from Langan (I had to bring my car in for a checkup, and Dean met me there to pick me up) it suddenly started to, dramatically, and by the time we got home everything was coated, a couple of inches thick already. I was glad I wasn't driving, because it was really hard to see with the all the shiny black dark, and wet snow falling, and watery windows, and my extra-wonky eyes. Not sure why, but my eyesight was really bad today. I couldn't read the subtitles at NEAC, and usually I can! [Edit: I meant the closed-captioning. Ak.]
Posted at 7:41:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I replenished my Vosges matcha bar supply at Whole Foods today, and the shape is different now! The package is an inch taller. The bar is still 3oz, so it must be narrower, even though the package isn't. Or thinner, I suppose. It looks weird!
I had a headache this morning, so I ate an Excedrin (one Excedrin!), and I've felt really caffeinated all day. My arm keeps trembling, even. And no, I didn't drink any coffee (well, I did, but it was decaf, and it was after the arm was already like that). I am way too sensitive to drugs. (Hm, maybe the wonkiness is connected.) Bleah, I feel messed up. Hummingbird.
It's 39° but it's snowing! I didn't even wear a coat today, and then I walked out of NEAC to white and exclaimed "Weird!" It's pretty. :-) No, I'm not tired of snow even though it's snowed almost every week this winter. (It didn't snow last week!)
Posted at 3:08:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
I tried the Rachel's pear-mangosteen cottage cheese. It was okay (I did finish the whole container), but I wouldn't buy it again. As expected, not a good concept. It was like eating watery, too-sweet cottage cheese, basically. I'd much rather have plain cottage cheese, or yogurt. And, no, I couldn't discern any semblance of mangosteen.
Posted at 11:53:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
It's Monday, so I'm sleepy. I was going to post some things about this weekend, but I don't remember what. Oh yes, we went to Nancy's for Valentine's Day, to see "the D's knees" (as pimped out by Nancy in her newsletter)! It was a special V's Day menu, which was delicious from beginning to end (I had very succulent duck, but was jealous of Dean's stroganoff!). Don looked great in his kilt! Oh yeah, and our new TiVo is awesome. It does everything. It's shocking how much more cool stuff you can do with the 3rd generation one vs. our old 1st gen. You can even save TV shows to your computer, or watch computer shows/movies on the Tiv, all wirelessly. The fancy new menus made my eyes go wonky, though. (But there was lots of menu-ing going on during the setup.) We also started working on our boxes (scuba gear/contraband items) and almost 100%ed them already.
Posted at 12:37:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Today at Shaw's I got this. It sounds like a bad idea, but obviously I had to. (I haven't tried it yet.) I mean, it's certainly a creative concept, but pear-mangosteen cottage cheese??? It cracks me up how mangosteen is in everything now.
