The Story of My Return

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My Life as Donna Reed

So, I realize that I left everybody hanging on to my New York experience.  I apologize.  In case you didn't know, I'm home in Ohio and have been for some time now.  As you can guess, my move back was a bit hectic. But that's another post - which I promise will be appearing soon.  And it'll be a good one.

But this post is on a different subject matter.  I've had a lot of free time this summer and last week(ish) was my brother Clay's 17th birthday.  Now, I'm what you call... broke.  But I wanted to do something for him, because for whatever reason, we get along and I like him. Plus he was pretty clever with my last birthday gift; it consisted of solo cups, ping pong balls, a wine key, beer cozies, aspirin, and a snack.  21st birthday - cute right?  So I decided to bake him a cake... from scratch. Not only did I bake a cake but I did it a la Donna Reed, pearls and everything.


When I asked Clay what he wanted his only request was CHOCOLATE!  So I searched online to find the perfect chocolate cake recipe.  Do you know how many cake recipes are online?  Too many.  After looking at about 50 of them and ruling out anything remotely healthy a.k.a vegan, gluten-free, etc. I settled on this recipe for Chocolate Birthday Cake (meets all requirements.)  And I chose a Fluffy Chocolate Kahlua Frosting to top it off because I wanted a little more flavor.  What follows is my adventure in baking and a step by step guide to baking your own Chocolate Birthday Cake.




CHOCOLATE BIRTHDAY CAKE

4 oz unsweetened chocolate
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 Tbsp baking soda
1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter - room temp
2 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
6 eggs - room temp
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 c buttermilk






Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Grease two 10" cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper.
* I used 9" which is what the original recipe called for but you will see why I changed it to 10".
 


Melt semi sweetened and unsweetened chocolate chunks in a double boiler. OR boil and inch or so of water in a sauce pan and melt the chocolate in a bowl on top of the saucepan (which is what I did).  Set aside and cool slightly.
*I think it stands to say that the better ingredients you use, the better the cake will taste ESPECIALLY the chocolate.  I used Ghirardelli.

Combine dry ingredients. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl.

Cream together the butter and sugar using a standing mixer with a paddle attachment.  Beat butter and sugar on med-high for 3-4 minutes, until light and fluffy. Scrape bottom and sides of bowl with spatula to evenly incorporate the butter.

Add vanilla and eggs.  Pour eggs in one at a time on low, allowing each egg to be fully incorporated before adding the next.

Add the melted chocolate. Mix on low until combined.

Alternate additions of dry ingredients and buttermilk with the mixer on low until fully incorporated.  Finish mixing by hand with a sturdy spatula.



*I wanted to incorporate the Kahlua flavor into the actual cake, so I substituted part of the buttermilk for Kahlua.  I think substituting was a bad plan because the cake came out slightly dry.  You could probably just add 1/2 or 3/4 cup Kahlua or don't try to change the recipe unless you really know what your doing.  I did not know what I was doing.

Pour batter evenly into both pans.
*The original recipe says to run a paring knife through the batter in one smooth motion, one inch from the edge of the pan.  I have NO idea what this accomplishes.  I did it, but you probably don't have to.

Bake for 30 minutes.  Rotate pans and lower the temperature to 325 degrees.  Bake 25-30 more minutes.  And you guessed it, the cakes are done when you stick a wooden toothpick in it and it comes out clean.  And by clean I mean not gooey; it's okay for crumbs to be stuck to it.

Let cool 15 minutes before turning them out of the pans.

*At this point I would like to explain why I told you to use 10" pans and not 9".  When I filled the pans originally I thought they looked awful full but I have no idea what I'm doing so I just kept going.  At about the 30 minute mark I started to smell smoke.  That is not a good sign, especially when the cakes are only half-way through baking.  I opened the oven to discover that the cake had risen and ran over the pans, to drip onto the base of the oven.  Again, I did not put any foil down as a precaution to this.  The cake is nowhere near done cooking and I don't have another oven handy, so what am I supposed to do?  I let it burn.  Smoke was literally billowing out of the oven.  Surprisingly, our normally overzealous smoke detector was on the fritz that day, but we still had to open the windows and door in the kitchen.  I wish I had taken a picture, the entire downstairs was full of smoke.  Good times. Now onto icing.

FLUFFY CHOCOLATE KAHLUA FROSTING

2/3 c unsweetened cocoa powder
6 Tbsp boiling water
2 Tbsp Kahlua
1/2 c (1 stick) butter - room temp
4 c confectioners' sugar - sifted
a dash of ground cinnamon

Combine the cocoa powder in a large mixing bowl and pour in the boiling water and Kahlua.  Stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until the cocoa comes together into a soft mass

Add butter and blend with an electric mixer on low until soft and well combined (about 30 seconds).
*I could not find an electric mixer and had to combine by hand.  It was muy difficult and took forever. But it's doable.

Add confectioners' sugar and cinnamon. Beat with the mixer on low until sugar is incorporated (about 1 minute.)  Increase speed to medium and beat until frosting lightens and is fluffy (about 2 more minutes.)

You may have to play with water/Kahlua amounts.  This is a large cake and the frosting could use thinning out.  I think it could stand another tablespoon of Kahlua.

Finally, let the cake cool COMPLETELY before frosting.  This may involve putting it the fridge and leaving the house.  I am impatient and did not take my own advice.  I am completely aware that my frustration with cutting the excess cake and frosting said cake is a product of my own vice. 

Add candles and voila, a birthday cake!  I suggest making your party guests where paper birthday hats and eating off of matching plates and napkins.  I chose Transformers for Clay.

Everyone enjoys a party hat!

Happy Birthday Clay!

Celebrity Stalking

Kelly Bensimon: Former Model, Current 'Housewife'

This week has been one of many celebrity sightings--some by chance and some sought out.  For starters, Kelly Bensimon from Real Housewives of New York has been coming into get ice cream fairly regularly while I've been working--two times that I'm sure of but I think three total (that's pretty regularly considering she's pseudo-famous).  Anyway, the first time she came in I didn't know who she was at all. (This time may or may not have occured.)  The second time I thought she looked familiar but wasn't quite sure.  I figured she may have come in before and that's why I recognized her.  But as soon as she left, two girls named Rachel (yes both named Rachel), whom I had been talking to earlier informed me of who she was.  Then she came in again this week on her birthday.  She's never hinted at who she was or made a big deal.  She was fairly nice and her boyfriend was equally pleasant.

Daniel Clark: Degrassi's Sean Cameron

The second pseudo-celebrity I saw this week was in passing on the street.  I was waiting for the bus and this guy walks by and I very obviously pointed at him as he walked by with my mouth kind of gaping.  I didn't say anything, but as soon as I did that motion, my friend Marisa says "Degrassi?"  Confirming the previous display of public recognition.  If you don't know, Degrassi is a Canadian teen television drama.  It's kind of a big deal in Canada.  Anyway, it was Daniel Clark (I had to look up his name).  He played Degrassi's resident bad-ass, Sean Cameron.

Caleb Followill of Kings of Leon

Thursday afternoon, I went with Marisa to see "Talahina Sky," a documentary about the band Kings of Leon.  You may know their most popular song "Use Somebody."  The documentary was amazing. The Kings of Leon are an indie rock band formed by two brothers and their two cousins.  Their roots lie in the south, mostly Tennessee and Oklahoma City.  Their father was a preacher in the Presbyterian church who lead revivals across the south.  The documentary was a very interesting story about their journey, dealing with religion, drugs, fighting, family, etc.   After the showing, they announced that there would be a 15 minute Q&A session with the producer and a special guest (because it is a part of the Tribecca Film Festival.)   The special guest was none other than Kings of Leon lead singer Caleb Followill.  He said that he was down the street at a bar and decided to drop by.  He was definitely drunk when he came and he's kind of shy, so it was very cool of him to be there.

Naya Rivera: Glee's Santana signing autographs 

Lastly, this week Glee has been filming in New York for the final episode of the season.  I know this because they are going to Nationals which take place in New York and somehow came across that they were filming this week.  Tuesday, I skipped class and headed to Central Park.  It was a gorgeous day and even if I didn't see them, it would have been worth it.  No Parking signs that read "Fox untitled project" were posted around 71st and Broadway and so we headed there.  We, Marisa and I, had absolutely no idea where they were in Central Park and it's kind of a big park.  But we headed into the park at Strawberry Fields and not five minutes later, we spot a ton of trucks and trailers.  In short, we saw the cast of Glee.  We watched them rehearse a scene, stalked them a little while they waited to shoot, and then watched them actually shoot the scene.  Things were getting a little heated when they began to shoot and so we left.  But we decided to check it out from a different angle which was a very good idea.  You see they can't actually close down a part of the park, but they can strongly urge people to get out of their way.  So we came up and they told us that we wouldn't be able to get through and that we should go around.  But instead we just sat on the fence.  Thing is, we were surrounded by background actors because the cameras were facing in that direction.  I don't think that we actually got in the frame but there is a minuscule chance that we did.  Then they changed the shot and they began to move everyone back as far as they could.  We escaped the attention of the first two crew members and almost became background actors ourselves but the third pusher came straight up to us and all he said was "ladies."  At that point we were too far away to see anything, so we left.  Glee filmed in Washington Square park on Friday, but I intern all day on Friday so I didn't get to see them again.  It was very cool but kind of strange doing that.  Because they are just people trying to do their job and people were literally freaking out.  Also, there aren't actual rules involved in the fandom stalking but people tend to keep their distance on their own.  There was really no stopping me from walking through their set or through their trailers, but no one did.  They had barriers set up and people crowded behind them trying to get a look at the stars, but Marisa and I walked right in front of them.  It was very strange.  And when they got close (and I mean close enough to touch)  I felt very awkward, because I'm not one to shout at them or try to get them to talk to me because I would feel rude but just standing there and staring is kind of stranger.

Marisa took the picture of Naya and this video with her iphone as they walked by on their way to shoot the scene.  The quality isn't very good but you can see how close we were.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Me imitating Carol

I am officially 21 years old, which means good times for everyone.  My mom and aunt Carol came to visit last weekend to celebrate.  I had an amazing and exhausting time with them.  We started off with some sushi in Brooklyn.  I was hungry and didn't feel like looking very hard for a place to stay.  Plus, we figured we all needed to try something new.  We all somewhat mastered the chopsticks by the end of the meal with the help of home-made training chopsticks the waitress gave us.  I think we all agreed that it was okay and we could eat it once in a while but it wasn't really satisfying.

Carol attempting to learn how to use chopsticks

Then we did a little Brooklyn shopping just up and down the street.  And I found a genuine leather biker jacket for $40.  I have been wanting one for a while now and it wasn't exactly what I had in mind but I'm like what the heck and bought myself a little birthday present.

Mom experienced her first New York subway ride and didn't understand why we had to go through turnstiles when leaving the station, even after many attempts to explain it to her.  "But why can't it just be open?"  I think she finally got it though.

We had cupcakes and wine at Sweet Revenge in the West Village and ate dinner at Marinella's just across the street.  To end the night we went to the Pegu club in Soho and had amazing albeit expensive drinks.  Mom and Carol were beat and I was pretty tired myself, so they went back to Brooklyn while I hung out with a few friends a while longer.

Carol, Mom, and me at Top of the Rock

Friday morning started at Top of the Rock observatory deck, where we got a full view of the city.  We saw some sights on Fifth Avenue and almost made it on television as we entered St. Patrick's Cathedral on Good Friday.  Window shopping and Central park rounded out our tour uptown.  The rest of the day was spent shopping/looking in SoHo.  No one really found anything and Carol and I became numb to the sticker shock.  We ended the night at Arturo's, a great find right by SoHo.  It's seems to be a family run restaurant/bar specializing in pizza.  The atmosphere was great; we were serenaded by an Asian jazz trio throughout most of dinner.  And man was the pizza worth 4 dollars a topping - so delicious.

Carol, Mom and I about to see Priscilla

Saturday we were supposed to go site-seeing, places like the Statue of Liberty and such, but it was raining.  So we took our chances at the tckt booth and got tickets to a matinee showing of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert - a broadway musical about three drag queens on a road-trip through the Australian desert.  With songs by Madonna, Donna Summer, and Cyndi Lauper, how could we not love it?  Plus it had drag.

The rain through us off a little bit and we weren't quite sure what to do.  We didn't get to see the MoMA because it closed at 5 and the show didn't get out until 4 something.   And none of us had any real ideas of what we wanted to do.  So I took them down St. Marks Place just to check it out and then we had dinner in the East Village at a place called Candella's.  It had stopped raining and was nice enough to sit outside by this point.  The owner was very accommodating and we enjoyed our Italian and Cuban dishes, desserts, and some Dutch, Chocolate Red Wine (isn't dat vierd?) on the house.

The weekend was pretty exhausting.  I don't think I've walked that much since ever. (Except last week when I walked 130 blocks from 116th to my dorm in 2.5 hours.  Good times.)  And we didn't do anything too terribly crazy or exiting, but it was nice just to be together. 

On a separate note, the weather today was H-O-T gorgeous.  And I got a little bit of a sunburn while I was celebrity stalking in central park.  But that will be my next post.

Miserable Weather

I didn't realize it had been that long since my last post.  For some reason, Fuerza Bruta does not seem that long ago.  Anyway...

Things are going.  I've been in a work rut the past two weeks, completely unmotivated to do anything productive, but I think I'm finally beginning to see the light again.  It would help if the weather would get nice.  We've had a few 'okay' kind of days, but mostly it's cold and rainy and miserable.

I just hope it gets nice the last few weeks I'm here.  I've a little over a month left, which at times seems longer than it should be but it's going to fly by.  I'm so ready for classes to be over (more than ever before I think.)  But I don't want the fun things, the opportunities, to end.

Nothing terribly exciting has happened since my last post, as far as my memory serves.  This is more of a "I'm still alive" post to let you know that... I'm still alive.

That's all.

Fuerza Bruta

Last night, I saw Fuerza Bruta.  It is very hard to describe, but it's like a theatrical take on a rave. Kind of.  It's an ultra-sensory experience. The audience stands during the show and are given stage directions to move to different parts of the room.  There really is just too much to explain.  There is a man running on a treadmill; there is dancing; there is confetti; there is a horizontal chase scene along the walls; there is mist and wind and loud gunshots.   But the coolest part about the whole show was when a makeshift, see-through pool came down from the ceiling and the actors would slide through the water like they were getting washed back and forth.  BUT THEN the pool came even lower!  So low you could actually touch it and were encouraged to (gently).  BUT THEN the actors started to throw their entire bodies onto the plexiglass (I'm guessing), running and diving inches above your head! 

Lastly, at the very end of the show, they pretty much encourage you to have a dance party.  And then they make it rain.  They clear you out of the area first but once it starts you can dance in the rain.  And despite it being freezing outside I, of course, participated.  I didn't start regretting that decision until about 10 blocks later with 10 more to go.  But it was worth it.

Me, Mark, and Brennyn after dancing in the rain.

I added a video of my favorite part of the show, but you can search Fuerza Bruta on youtube and get more videos of the show in its entirety.

Picture Update

This is obviously from St. Patrick's Day.  From Left to Right:  Eryn, Me, Bethany, and Patricia.  Eryn and Tricia are twins, if you thought they looked alike.

And this is me outside of the Met Opera House.

It's been a while

One: it has been two weeks since my last post. 
Two: it is not a good idea to talk to your mom before writing a new post because then you don't want to type what you just talked about.

So I will tell you things I didn't tell her.  And maybe some that I did.

Let's start with spring break, shall we?
St. Patrick's day was amazing, as it always is at the University of Dayton.  I had so much fun--maybe too much fun.  The highlight of the night was finding someone passed out in the parking lot and bringing him back to my friend's apartment.  His name is Brian; he is a sophomore at the University of Kentucky (doesn't even go to school at UD), and he went to high school with Jonathon Strickland, a friend of mine who moved to Kentucky about 6 years ago? HOLY CRAP six years?  Amazing how time passes.  Anyway small world right?   Oh and Brian's friend was arrested, which is extremely hard to do on St. P's at UD. Good times.  And he passed out again in Bethany's bed and drooled on her pillow. Awesome.  I don't know what ever became of Brian, because I went home and was in bed by oh 9 o'clock.  And by home I mean my old roommates bed.

Besides that I got to catch up with a lot of people.  And I got one more friend obsessively addicted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Which if you don't know, I've seen every episode of.  So that's exciting.  The week ended too fast though.  I had so many people to see in such a short time.  And I was just getting back into my midwest routine and then was thrown back into city living.  I may have already told you this, but I've decided that I have the ability to live in New York and would if I had to, but I don't know if I want to.  I really miss the midwest, and open spaces, and driving, and nature.  So I'm going to have to reevaluate this whole future thing.

But for now I'm back in New York.  Back to the daily grind.  Back to class, and work, and interning.  This week has been the most uneventful of them all, so it's hard to give you something exciting to read about.  The only thing really worth noting is that I got my boss (the mean one) to tell me she loved me!  Joanna was speechless to say the least.  And I, of course, was beaming.  It's amazing how just a little recognition can make you feel so much better--especially coming from someone like her. I think this was mostly a fluke in her personality.  But I'll take what I can get.

Oh and I pretty much ate bagels and Nutella all week, because every time I wanted to go to the grocery, it started to rain or something.  Delicious, but not exactly a well-balanced diet.

I'll try to be better about posting the rest of the semester, but I can't promise anything. 
I feel like I say this every time.  

Short Poems

Teh Beiggr Pitucre

Wehn thgins dno’t seme to mkae ssene,

Tyr loonikg at it form a driffenet petrespicve.

Tehre is maennig in teh choas.

The Real Rule of Three

Death comes in threes.

But it's not a limit,

it's a minimum.

Heading Home

So I haven't posted in a couple of weeks.  I apologize for that.  This post is the result of a certain follower (ahem... my mother)'s persistence in reminding me exactly how long it has been since my last post.  I was thinking of why I wouldn't have posted recently and what I came up with is that nothing really exciting has been happening.  Which is both good and unfortunate.  Good because it means that I'm keeping busy with other things like work and school.  Unfortunate because it means that I'm busy with work and school.

So what can I tell you?  Well, I did go to this Jazz Club/Bar  called Fat Cat.  It is kind of amazing.  It is very casual and relaxed.  It feels like your partying in someone's parents basement in high school.  Around the stage area is an eclectic collection of couches and coffee tables.  The bar itself is fairly small and always crowded.  There are tables and booths with checker boards painted on them and for a dollar a person you can get chess and checker pieces at the bar.  There are also scrabble boards scattered around for your entertainment.  The rest of the basement consists of ping-pong tables, pool tables, shuffleboard tables, and foosball tables.  And games cost about 10 cents/person/minute.  It's all very confusing if it's your first time, but the staff is pretty friendly once you get their attention.  And the music the night that I went was unbelievably.  The second act of three was Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens. Naomi is probably in her 70s?  That's a complete guess but she's not what you would expect in a joint like this.  And she and her three younger chorus members rocked the place, all while praising the lord!  And everyone loved it.  At Fat Cat you can find a myriad of people: business men still in their suits, underage partiers who just want to have a good time, frat boys taking shots at the bar, etc.  I think I'm going to take my mom and aunt when they visit, with a bunch of friends, for my birthday?  Oh yes, and the drinks are cheap for Manhattan prices, but they only have beer, wine, and a special house cocktail.  PBR is probably their best-seller.  Which I'm totally fine with.

Besides that, I've pretty much been working, interning, and schooling.  (That's not exactly how the word schooling should be used but it works for my purposes.)  Work has been tolerable.  I've only gone in once a week to train but when I get back from break she plans on having me close by myself, which is actually rare.  Joanna says that she's surprised she's fast-tracking me like she is because she doesn't even trust some of the employees to have keys (well Nick, who's a male), and she let me count the money box which Joanna wasn't allowed to touch for a couple of months.  I think she's desperate though, but still I'm digging the trust.  She still completely irks the hell out of me when I have to talk to her, and every time I have to work with her I practice my "I can't work for you because you are a miserable person who treats people like they're incompetent neanderthals."  But so far, things have been going alright.  Mostly because the past two times, I've worked with Joanna, and we pretty much party in the store and give people free cups instead of charging 50 cents for them.  We like to plug in our ipods and have dance parties with K, the bouncer from the club next door.  So I've got that going for me.

My internship is still going well.  I don't mind doing the sometimes painstakingly tedious tasks they give me, but I think I'm going to start investigating the inner workings of the business more.  And by that I mean I'm going to start asking probably too many questions.  But after being there for a month, I'm still not exactly sure how it all works and that is something I really want to leave knowing.

And school is, well, let's just say I'm ready for break.  The urge to skip class has been welling up inside of me more often than not and it's overtaken me a couple of times.  And I'm so excited to go home and catch up with everybody.  And hopefully by the time I'm back in New York, the weather will have turned for the better.  I just have to figure out how to get to the airport.

Another Poem!

I'm just hitting you with all kinds of stuff this week.

Inexperienced 

The vastness of oblivion,

bedazzled,

hovers.

Inhaling and exhaling the sky.

The water’s lapping.

The crickets chirping.

The cicadas buzzing.

I squirm.

Electric tension mounts.

The inch between us a canyon.

I want to.

Well… I want you to.

The galaxies blur and fade.

I glance,

your face.

You’re looking.

I look.

Giggles.

Our gazes return to heaven.

Palm up.

So obvious.

Just grab it.

A twitch.

I watch as you squeeze… and then stretch… and then drop your hand.

Sigh. Palm down.

But then, I itsy-bitsy-spider crawl it towards you,

rest it dangerously near,

and then hook it in a pinky promise.

All while outlining Ursa Minor.

Your move.