{"id":88,"date":"2011-01-12T12:19:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T17:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/wordpress\/?p=88"},"modified":"2011-01-12T12:19:01","modified_gmt":"2011-01-12T17:19:01","slug":"ploppers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/?p=88","title":{"rendered":"Ploppers!"},"content":{"rendered":"

More snow.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
View from my office window<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But hey, the city did get the whole cleanup thing together in much shorter order this time around. \u00a0So much so that all the Twitter and Facebook comments of my fellow denizens regarding Snowpocalypse 2011 skew in the “well, the sequel isn’t as great as the first one” direction.<\/p>\n

Whatever. \u00a0Snow pretty! \u00a0Until it’s run over by lots and lots of trucks and toileted upon by lots and lots of dogs. \u00a0That’s my take.<\/p>\n

The January socks are progressing well. \u00a0After a few initial moments of “counting is hard!” whining, I’ve gotten to the point where the next row of the chart makes logical sense, and I can kind of stop looking at it all the time. \u00a0Which is nice. \u00a0I may mod a bit in the leg portion, because knitting as many repeats as the pattern calls for looks like it will make a long mutant sock, and I don’t really cotton to the idea of it. \u00a0But I’m concerned that the pattern will then lose its nifty flow into the heel. \u00a0Sigh. \u00a0I guess I’ll just have to try it my way and see if I hate it.<\/p>\n

Our little dinner party Monday night was a great success. \u00a0Mr. Boyfriend made a ricotta and acorn squash lasagna that was amazing<\/em>, as well as a spinach salad with gorgonzola, figs, bacon, pecans, and onion dressed with a pomegranate vinaigrette. \u00a0I will preempt all snarky comments and requests by saying he is mine. \u00a0Not for sale. \u00a0Mine. \u00a0NO TOUCHIE!<\/p>\n

And I made cake. \u00a0It turned out better than last time, and I think that had a lot to do with the butter. \u00a0Jam cake has a tendency to be dry, so I tried to combat that by mixing it up in the same fashion that I would mix up a pudding-based cake (like my favorite chocolate cake recipe from America’s Test Kitchen). \u00a0Instead of creaming the butter and sugar together to start, you whip up the eggs and the sugar to make a nice, puffy base into which you can fold the jam (or pudding, in the case of the chocolate cake). \u00a0After that, you mix in the butter one softened tablespoon at a time. \u00a0This keeps it from getting entirely liquefied, and makes for a much more tender crumb than a creamed-butter cake, which I think is vital when there’s a lot of liquid in the cake to start with. \u00a0After that’s done, you mix in the flour and remaining liquid (in this case, milk) in alternate even thirds. \u00a0I also added just a pinch of baking powder, which made for some pretty lofty cake. \u00a0My only real disappointment is that I rushed the frosting, so it didn’t get all ribbony and wonderful as I’d hoped it would but seized and was more like a glaze. \u00a0Oh well. \u00a0It was still damn tasty, and the cake wasn’t the consistency of sawdust, which was the big pratfall I was avoiding. \u00a0And PS, I love my mixer. \u00a0If you are a serious baker and you don’t have one, you are missing out.<\/p>\n

NYC Winter Restaurant Week starts in just twelve short days, and I am looking forward to it with the sort of anticipation experienced by a six-year-old at Christmastime. \u00a0Some restaurants I have been curious about for ages are on the list this year, and for a $35 price tag, a fine three-course sampling of their best can be mine! \u00a0So far on the list of must-trys are Palm Too and TriBeCa Grill. \u00a0Perhaps if I come upon an unexpected windfall in the next week, I can add a few more. \u00a0Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n

So that’s the story for today. \u00a0Hopefully I will have more interesting things to report once my neighborhood ceases to resemble Hoth. \u00a0Without the tauntauns, of course.<\/p>\n

The post title comes from Series 4 of The IT Crowd. \u00a0If you haven’t yet, watch it. \u00a0Netflix Instant Watch. \u00a0DO IT.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More snow. But hey, the city did get the whole cleanup thing together in much shorter order this time around. \u00a0So much so that all the Twitter and Facebook comments of my fellow denizens regarding Snowpocalypse 2011 skew in the “well, the sequel isn’t as great as the first one” direction. Whatever. \u00a0Snow pretty! \u00a0Until it’s run over by lots and lots of trucks and toileted upon by lots and.. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91,"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/91"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/missaudrey.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}