Takoyaki Journals

Dear Sensei's Lost Castle,

You suck.

No Love,
Me

You wouldn't think nearly a week could go so quickly...but it did!! I had a lovely time visiting with Twig, Luny, Flidget and Aphe. I wish I could have spent longer and had more one on one time with everyone.

After all my fuss and worry, eveyrone seemed to like their macarons just fine. Aphe made an amazing chocolate cake with apricot filling (she made her own jam!!). I even got to take a jar of jam home with me. And now the jam jar in my fridge is officially too full. Srsly. Watson has nothing on me.

Thursday evening after checking in to the con Twig said, 'let's go check out this new restaruant that I noticed. It has chocolate.' Good golly miss Molly does it ever. Max Brenner's Chocolate By The Bald Guy is amazing. After dinner we were like 'Let's come again, how soon does it open tomorrow?' They even put cocoa powder on their fries. But that's nothing on their drinks. Luny got a 'hot chocolate ceremony' sort of thing where there is a little tea light warming a bowl of milk, and another bowl of chocolate shavings. You add chocoalte to taste, stir with a little flat spoon...which is also a straw. (They have a website. Personally I think I need both a Hug Mug and a Kangaroo Cup)

Friday night was our big 'dinner out' to Eastern Standard. They were definitely having an off night. Even though we had reservations, we still waiting about 45 min because other big parties had paid and were just sititng around talking. The manager even went to gently prod them by asking if they needed the restaruant to order them a cab, or wanted their coats. We also suspected that there was some kind of major problem in the kitchens, because service was very very slow.

BUT. You couldn't beat the company. In addition to the rest of the gang, we also had SolitaryJane. So a lot of good conversation and laughter was had. The food and liquor were also amazing. I got to try real applejack, which was lovely and I need more of it pronto. I also felt very Anthony Bourdain by trying Escargot en Croute. (a.k.a. Snail Pot Pie) The land clams, as I have taken to calling them, were incredibly tender and tasty. Would eat again.

In the weekend news that you actually care about... Saw lots of cute anime. I highly suggest Durarara and Antique Bakery. Our fic panel was not quite as organized as last year, but I think it still held up very well to other panels I saw. We were packed, no one left, and people still wanted reassurance that THEIR character was not a Mary Sue to talk to us afterwards. Someone even chatted with me the next day! I count it as a win.

All good things must come to an end though. So I am back in Ohio. My manager has killed my birthday flowers (or at least put them through some serious trauma) but my cat is still alive and kicking and all is well.

So the orange macarons I made for Boston were a bust. I'm not sure whether it was the fact that not all my egg whites were properly aged, or the orange essence screwed up the balance, but they ended up being all lopsided and hollow in the middle.

But they still taste pretty good. So I put a plate of my oopses together and brought them in to work.

My boss tried one and said. "Wow, these taste like circus peanuts."

*sigh*

I hate when you're on the phone with someone and despite everyone's best intentions, the conversation doesn't gel. It just undermines the whole evening.

So today at lunch I was working on my sock. I had it on 3 needles, and decided I wanted to switch to 4. I grabbed the spare needle from my bag...but it felt different.

So I used the digital calipers in the lab and checked.

Sure enough it was a size 1 needle, not a 0.

I am queen of the nerds!

(But everyone knows that Harley belongs with Ivy)

For once I can (mostly) understand a Movits! song. I can't wait for the new album to come out. (Also, that is totally what I would look like if I tried to play drums)

So my cooking adventures have continued. And now I'm starting to branch out into baking as well. First I've been trying to make a cherry clafoutis, which is kind of like a cherry studded yellow cake. I tried it and it failed miserably...big liquid butter puddle in the cente, still rather unbaked. I thought I had the butter too hot, so I tried it again. Still no dice. And then my computer broke again. (I know it sounds like a non sequitur, but go with me on this one)

So I went to the Apple Store to get it fixed, and across the street was a L'Occitane En Provence store, and to kill time before my appointment I went inside. Inside this store was a Frenchwoman. (In Ohio! I'm shocked too) And not just any Frenchwoman. She was like, the platonic ideal of a Frenchwoman. The prototype, if you will. She was charming and funny and sweet and I soon had $75 of hand cream and plum blossom perfume. I thought of my failed clafoutis, and thought I might as well get the right pronunciation out of it. So I wrote it down on a slip of paper and asked her how to say it.

Her eyes narrowed at me. " 'Ow did you learn ziz word?"

Oh shit. I was suddenly afraid that 'Clafoutis' was like 'Puttanesca.' So I explained that I had tried to make one.

"Come come! I must show you ziz!"

She went back behind the register and pulled out a note from a coworker, asking her to bring a slice of clafoutis tomorrow. Apparently this saleswoman makes clafoutis all the time. She raved about how wonderful it was to me and her other coworker, and told me that I've been using the wrong kind of pan.

So I bought a pan. Then I pulled out my recipe. It still didn't work. Meh. At this point I blame the recipe. I WILL conquer this now, because it's a challenge.

Anyway, like I am wont to do, I decided that since I'd failed at something relatively easy, I was going to try something ridiculously hard. flidgetjerome, you see, has been on me to make Macarons. Not Macaroons with all that icky coconut, mind you. But Macarons...dreamy, airy, heavenly meringue confections with a sweet filling. I'd never had one, so after getting a new power adapter from Apple, I bought one. Then I took it home and ate it. Then I cried, because I was no longer somewhere I could get macarons. So after the clafoutis failed, I went out and bought all the tools I needed to make macarons.

Then I aged the egg whites on the counter overnight. And I weighed and sifted ingredients. I whipped the meringue. I folded in the sugar and almond flour. I put it in a piping bag (Now we're talking class) and freakin' made macarons. It was awesome.

I took them in to work this morning, feeling a bit nervous. I work with rednecks you see. They only food they trust is meat they've killed themselves or meals that come from fast food joints. When I brought in irish sodabread they ignored it. When I brought in lemon poppyseed scones they acted like monkeys with a monolith. And here I was bringing them delicate, girly French pastries.

I got to work at 7:00. The macarons were gone by 8:10. Not everyone in my department got to try them, because they hadn't even gotten to work yet. It was insane and awesome. And I felt like I won.

Later I spilled coffee all over my desk, and when one of the guys was teasing me about it, I told him that he wouldn't get any more cookies from me. His eyes slipped half closed, and he said, "Them were gooood."

So, yeah. Will bake again.

Well my Macbook died this morning. I was surfing. It locked up. So I restarted it and...nothing happened. White Screen of Death and a little bit of a clickling noise. I checked with Apple and they agree that it's probably the harddrive, which is under warranty (not that they don't want to sell me the extended warranty). I can either get it sent back for repair, or take it 2 hrs away to the Mac Store. Either way I won't get my data back.

I'm not going to lose very much. No programs, a few pictures. I have most things backed up. The only thing that burns is that I had been ripping my old CDs to get rid of the physical and free up some space. So those I don't have at all now. But for the most part they were from 1999 or earlier and I haven't listened to them in forever. So it wasn't a huge deal.

*sigh*

So for now I'm on the HP. It overheats easily, so that it makes a nice lap warmer in this cold weather. And I made coffee with a lot of brandy in it.


A lot.


*sigh*

I was talking to [personal profile] soranokumo last night about Japanese music and decided that since I've DONE Japanese Hip Hop and Rock, I really ought to get around to posting some Japanese Punk. (disclaimer, my knowledge of punk in general is embarrassingly tiny.)
( Here We Go! )