In Which We Bake

 

For a while, I was baking something pretty much every week.  My motto was "If you you want to eat fresh cake, then you have to bake fresh cake."  And you know what?  I got to be good at it.  But I got distracted by all that Super Agent Fred dying stuff so I've only baked a couple of times this year. 

I decided it was time to get back up on that pastry horse and so tonight I thought I would make the easiest baked good that exists: a Seven Layer Bar.  It's sort of a cross between a candy bar and a cookie.  It is so easy, it's how they teach little baby girl scouts the elements of baking.  You just measure the ingredients, mash them in a pan, and shove it in the oven.  Pretty much the most difficult step is crumbling up graham crackers to make a crust, and if that is beyond your skill set, maybe baking is not for you.  Maybe you should just go back to the sheltered workshop. 

The layers are, in chronological order, graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, condensed milk, and shredded coconut. Here's the deal though, I do not like chopped nuts in cookies and I don't like shredded coconut in anything, period.  So I replaced the chop nuts with peanut butter and Nutella.  I kicked the shredded coconut to the curb.

My baking experience has taught me that trying to incorporate Nutella into any recipe is just asking for heartache.  Unless you decide to bake with super glue, I don't think any other ingredient is as sticky and messy.  Plus, despite my tendency towards OCD, I am not a terribly tidy baker.  I am resigned to making a mess and then cleaning it up.  You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs and mrpeenee slings eggs all over the kitchen. 

Speaking of sticky goo, I also had to deal with condensed milk, which is pretty damn gluey in its own right.  Between the two I am lucky I wasn't permanently stuck to the counter.  As it was, I had to wash my hands a half dozen times during what was supposed to be a simple little project.  But now it's in the oven, it smells fabulous, and the cats have reappeared from wherever they were hiding while I was loosing madness in the kitchen.  

Seven layer boys: 

I think all cars should come with something like this in the trunk.

It's all about that pretty hair for me.

Hit the road.

It's bathing suit season.  Perhaps you've noticed?

Skinny boys with big dicks: it's a thing.

Yep.

In which We Drip

 

There seems to be a sand dune lodged up inside my sinuses.  Although the weather here has been as delightful as usual (we only have two flavors, cool and sunny or cool and foggy, the ideal San Francisco summer,) the wind has been just one small step short of a hurricane. It hasn't rained since March, so that wind has lifted all the dust and dirt airborne and plenty of it has found its way up my nose. 

Runny noses run in my family.  My grandmother, my father, my brothers, at least one of my nieces, and I all go through life clutching a handkerchief. After a lifetime of dealing with snot, I decided to see what was causing it and to try and deal with it, so I slunk off to the thrill of an allergy test.  Because all that coughing and wheezing had to be the result of an allergy, right?  Right?

Wrong. Turns out I am allergic to absolutely nothing except dust mites, and there's nothing particularly unusual about that, everybody is allergic to dust mites.  Instead, I have non-allergic rhinitis, which is medical talk for "runny nose".  They don't know what causes it and there's no cure.  Those of us cursed with it are just stuck with noses that drip like a faucet that never quite turns off.  Just to make things better, it creates a loop: our sinuses get irritated from all the mucus passing through and that makes them create more mucus.  Drip drip drip. 

And that brings us back to the weather report.  One of the things that makes mine worse are breezy days like we've been having this month.  So maybe I should amend my earlier claim that I'm not allergic to anything and admit that I am allergic to the wind.  I could expand on that, but I need to go blow my nose.  Honk. 

Breezy boys: 

Get some sun this weekend.

This post is brought to you by the letter ass.

I'm hoping this isn't AI, although the size of that meat makes me suspicious.

Girl, your room is a mess.

Lotta buttchops this week, cause that is just what I have on hand.

I wish I had that on hand.

I had to go make a special prospecting trip to Tumblr just looking for dick pics.

I hope you appreciate all my hard work.

Who doesn't love a nice summery boy?

In Which We Blog

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