Banana-Cardamom Coffee Cake

OK, everyone and their cousin knows that I love the banana bread recipe in the Miette book, but I've been making that one all the time recently. So when I saw we had a bunch of overripe bananas today, I figured I'd try something a little different. I took the cardamom coffee cake recipe from the Moosewood book, added mashed-up banana to the nut mixture and substituted mashed-up banana for the sour cream as well, and--HOLD ON--did you read that right? Can you DO that? Can you substitute banana for sour cream?!? Am I serious???? Friends, I have never been more serious. I substituted mashed-up banana for sour cream. It was a frankly rash and capricious gambit, one that may lead us into disaster, shake this precious little world of ours to its foundations.

We'll know when it comes out of the oven in a half-hour or so. Pray for us.

*** UPDATE ***
Just took it out of the over. Too hot to eat, but I had some anyway. I don't think the substitution had any negative effects. It's very light and moist, not gooey like I was worried it might be.

HOWEVER. I think I put in too much cardamom. The recipe called for 1 tablespoon of ground cardamom, which is what I used, but my cardamom was freshly ground in a mortar and pestle, more flavorful than the store-bought pre-ground stuff, I think. In retrospect, I should have thought of that and put in a bit less. Not a disaster, but a little disappointing.

Doctor Who Cake

This was for Tilo's 8th birthday. He wanted a Doctor Who-themed cake. The concept is that the Tardis  has crashed into a frilly birthday cake that is being attacked by daleks. Like so:

If you aren't familiar with Doctor Who, he travels through time and space in his tardis, which looks like a blue police box, fighting stupid robot-things called daleks:

It's a three-layer chocolate cake, vanilla buttercream between the layers, with a thin covering of dark chocolate ganache, and pale yellow buttercream on top. The tardis is chocolate cake with the thin ganache covering and then rolled fondant. The daleks are fondant as well. I like the way the fondant contrasts with the buttercream, so the tardis and the daleks look as if they're an alien imposition on the cake. In retrospect, I wish I had done the piping in pink, to make it look even girlier.

Nose-Whistling "Jingle Bells"

Huh? Huh?

More Trouble for Jonah Lehrer:

New allegations have emerged that the public apology Jonah Lehrer released yesterday over fabrications in his book Imagine had itself been cobbled together from earlier public apologies issued by Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Lehrer, 2012:

I want to apologize to everyone I have let down, especially the people I worked with. I hurt my editors. I hurt my family. I hurt my friends. I hurt my readers.

Glass, 2009:

What I did hurt the people I worked with. It hurt my editors. It hurt my family. It hurt my friends. It hurt the readers.

Lehrer, 2012:

The quotes in question either did not exist, were unintentional misquotations, or represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes. 

Blair, 2003:

About those quotes: some of them didn't exist, some were unintentional misquotations, and some represented improper combinations of previously existing quotes.

Lehrer, 2012:

I am a journalist. With the exception of being a wife and mother, it is who I am. And there is nothing I take more seriously.

Goodwin, 2002:

I am a historian. with the exception of being a wife and mother, it is who I am. And there is nothing I take more seriously.

Honestly, it's like that guy's not even trying anymore.

Rice vs. Walt on the Future of Van Halen

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, from an op-ed in the Financial Times:

Eddie Van Halen has to be inspired to lead again. He needs to be reminded that Van Halen is not just any other hard rock band: they are exceptional in the clarity of their conviction that free markets and free peoples hold the key to the future, and in their willingness to act on those beliefs. Failure to do so would leave a vacuum, likely filled by bands that will not champion a balance of power chords that favours freedom. That would be a tragedy for Van Halen's interests and values and those who share them.

Harvard's Stephan Walt, writing on his Foreign Policy blog, counters:

To achieve these (and other) goals, she says, "Eddie Van Halen has to be inspired to lead again." What exactly does this phrase mean? What specific "leadership" tasks require a renewed commitment from Eddie Van Halen? Does she mean Eddie Van Halen has to be convinced to forgo investments here at home so he can continue to meddle (oops, I mean "lead") abroad?...

In fact, Rice isn't really talking about convincing Eddie Van Halen to lead; she's really saying he needs to be "inspired" to follow whatever missions foreign policy mandarins like Rice dream up. And the usual way the mandarins do this is by hyping threats, exaggerating their own omniscience, and insisting that other hard rock bands are incapable of taking effective action if Van Halen isn't there in the cockpit telling them what to do.

Dogs Playing Poker

When you think about it, this would be totally impractical. I mean, as long as their tails are visible, there's no way they can bluff, right?

So I was thinking...

If you get a voodoo doll made of somebody, that's generally considered hostile. But then if you take that voodoo doll to an acupuncturist, it'd actually be a pretty nice thing to do.

He'd be, like, walking down the street and then he'd be all "Hey, suddenly my back feels great! What the hell?"

Huh?

Cat's Eyes Match Chair

Ultimate Breakfast

These days I'm totally into the fresh green drinking coconut--it is the original ideal breakfast.

Phase One: Just got up, feeling sick and grouchy, last thing I want to think about is food. No problem! Grab a drinking coconut from the fridge, slice the top off, and pop in a straw.  It's subtle, nourishing, refreshing, like breast milk for grown-ups.

Phase Two: Feeling better, got my strength up, but still upset to be awake: ready to beat someone's head open with a hammer, which is exactly what comes next.  Take that, coconut!

Phase Three: What with all that smashing I've worked up a real appetite, and what could be more satisfying than a delicious fresh coconut?

See?  It's the perfect breakfast experience.

Dirty Dancing

So Christine's watching Dirty Dancing on TV.  Well, if you've always wondered what the deal is with all that "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" stuff but you've never actually watched the movie or bothered looking it up or anything, it turns out her name is Baby.

Not sure why it is nobody puts her in a corner, though.  It's not a very good movie.

*** UPDATE: 2 March 2012 ***
Okay, according to Christine, it's Patrick Swayze who's all like "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."  Apparently Baby and her family are sitting at a table in the corner, and Patrick Swayze comes over and he goes "Nobody puts Baby in a corner," and he pulls her out and they do their dance and that's it.  So actually, it's all a dispute over the seating arrangement.

See, I had always assumed that "putting Baby in a corner" was some kind of really filthy dance move and that it was Baby's father who was objecting to it.  Like, e.g.:

[Patrick Swayze and Baby are dancing together.  It's completely dirty, like, dirtier than you could possibly imagine.  Think of the dirtiest dancing you've ever seen and then multiply it by fifty.  It's that dirty.]

PATRICK SWAYZE: Baby, I totally sweat you, you're so burning up the dance floor right now.

BABY: Oh, Patrick Swayze, this dirty dance we're doing right now illustrates my undying love for you.

PATRICK SWAYZE: I...I think it's time now, Baby.  I've been waiting so long, but it's finally time for me to put you in a corner.

BABY: Yes!  Yes, Patrick Swayze.  Put me in a corner!  Do it now!

BABY'S FATHER: [coming in the door horrified] Hey, NOBODY puts Baby in a corner!

PATRICK SWAYZE: Wait, why are you calling me "Patrick Swayze"? Shouldn't you be using the name of my character?

BABY: Either I can't remember what your character's name is or I never heard it, not sure. Also, I don't know the name of the actress who played me, though I'm pretty sure she also played Ferris' sister in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

PATRICK SWAYZE: Now that was a good movie.

BABY: I don't know. In retrospect it kind of reeks suburban white male privilege. I mean, why should kids like Ferris just cruise through life on charisma and affluence?  Should we really be celebrating that?

BABY'S FATHER:  I concede the force of your objection, Baby, but it was still a pretty sweet movie anyway, not like this piece of shit.

Almost Lucid Dreaming

So I've been hearing a lot about lucid dreaming recently, and I guess I've been thinking about it, though I certainly haven't been training or anything.

Well, last night I thought I was having a lucid dream. I was definitely aware that I was dreaming and I was even like, "Hey, this must be a lucid dream." But in the dream, the actual sleeper wasn't me; it was some guy in Buenos Aires. So I think it was just a regular dream about having a lucid dream.

Grown-Up Cakes

Haven't been making any children's party cakes recently.

This was a pretty sweet orange poppy seed tea-cake:

I used the lemon tea-cake recipe from Miette, then substituted oranges (actually, clementines) for the lemons, added poppy seeds to the batter, then sprinkled poppy seeds over the glaze. It was pretty well received.

Made this gingerbread cake (also from Miette) with dinner this evening:

It looks awful in the photo, but it was really great. I used more molasses and less sugar than the recipe called for, which gave it a darker, more sophisticated flavor.  We had it with vanilla ice-cream.  Yeah!

Beyond Lemon Tea-Cakes

Supposing that truth is a lemon tea-cake--what then?  Is there not ground for suspecting that all bakers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand lemon tea-cakes--that the terrible seriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid their addresses to truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for winning a lemon tea-cake?

The Cat

The cat used to sleep on top of my chest as I lay in bed at night.  I'd go to bed and within a minute or two she'd pat into the room, like clockwork, jump up onto the bed, climb onto my chest, circle a few times, and go to sleep.  It was our quality time together and I valued it.

But recently, she's stopped doing that.  Now she sleeps way down at the foot of the bed, on the left side.  Sometimes she still comes up to have a look at my chest, as if she's considering it, but then she always decides against it and goes to lie down at the foot of the bed.

If she could talk, she could explain what's going on, she could say, e.g., "It's been warmer recently, and I don't feel the need for your body heat," or "You've changed shampoos and I don't like the smell of the new one," or "I'm still angry about that time you nearly stepped on my tail," or whatever.  But she's just a cat and she can't speak, so the change remains inexplicable and traumatic.

Disaster Strikes!

So Tilo's been playing Monopoly Junior, off and on, for a few years now, and, whatever, it's a children's game, right?  It's not very good; I don't recommend it.

Right, so we decided to get him a copy of regular old grown-up Monopoly for Christmas.  It says "Ages 8+" on the box, but he's a highly intelligent, well-adjusted seven year old--or anyway, he knows to cry when he doesn't get his way, so that all seems fine.

BUT--and this was completely my fault--when I went to the store to pick the game up a few weeks ago, I just assumed that the box with Monopoly written on it would be, you know, Monopoly, and not something else.  So imagine the horror and disgust I felt when, upon opening it up a couple of days ago*, we found this: 

That's right: it's the UK version!  Now I think I'm a pretty cosmopolitan guy, but this rankles for several reasons.

1. This is Australia!  If they're going to play on a non-standard board, why not Sydney or Melbourne or something?  Bowing down before the imperial capital is very 1950s.
2. If they're going to do London, why aren't we using pounds?  The instructions still refer to the currency as "dollars," but they use this weird M symbol instead of $.  What the hell?
3. Come on!  Monopoly has got to be the quintessential American board game.  It's the apotheosis of unrestrained robber-baron style capitalism--and not some kind of namby-pamby-Smithian-hidden-hand-of-the-market-spontaneously-maximizes-the-public-good capitalism either--no no no!  Monopoly is a game of real estate speculation, literal rent seeking.  You're supposed to run your competition out of business, drive up prices as high as possible, and impoverish your fellow citizens.  You win when the other players lose everything!  This is a game inspired by Andrew Carnegie and J. P. Morgan.  It would have made Professor of Moral Philosophy Adam Smith physically ill.  It belongs in Atlantic City, not London.

* We were in Bali for Christmas, just got back a couple of days ago.  Santa filled Tilo's stocking in the hotel, but he had to wait to get home to open his presents.

Highbrow Allusions in Pynchon

Check this out:

        "Quickly, the field-glasses....Now, what in blazes have we here?" The [airship] in the distance was distinguished by an envelope with the onion-like shape--and nearly the dimensions too--of a dome of an Eastern Orthodox church, against whose brilliant red surface was represented, in black, the Romanoff crest, and above it, in gold Cyrillic lettering, the legend BOL'SHAIA IGRA, or "The Great Game." It was readily recognized by all as the flagship of Randolph's mysterious Russian counterpart--and, far too often, nemesis--Captain Igor Padzhitnoff, with whom previous "run-ins" (see particularly The Chums of Chance and the Ice Pirates, The Chums of Chance Nearly Crash into the Kremlin) evoked in the boys lively though anxious memories.
        "What's up with Padzhy, I wonder?"  murmured Randolph.  "They're sure closing awfully rapidly."
        The parallel organization at Saint Petersburg, known as the Tovarishchi Slutchainyi, was notorious for promoting wherever in the world they chose a program of mischief, much of its motivation opaque to the boys. Padzhitnoff's own specialty being to arrange for bricks and masonry, always in the four-block fragments which had become his "signature," to fall on and damage targets designated by his superiors. This lethal debris was generally harvested from the load-bearing walls of previous targets of opportunity.
                --Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, 2006.  Pages 137-38 of Vinatge version.

Okay: Russian dude dropping "bricks and masonry" from airship in signature "four-block fragments."  That's a Tetris reference, right?  Right?

Signs in Bali