It's a Hello Kitty World!

My first full in Taipei did not disappoint. Today, I discovered my favorite Hello Kitty at every turn. Had I gone hog wild, I could be carrying a Hello Kitty bag wearing Hello Kitty unmentionables eating a Hello Kitty donut from Mr. Donut and playing with a little Hello Kitty toy car. I elected NOT to photograph the Hello Kitty unmentionables since I like to keep this blog friendly for all audiences.

Mr. Donut Hello Kitty Donuts: Check out the little pink edible bow on the donuts

Tiny Hello Kitty Toy Car: I totally would have bought one if not for the enormous line

We also checked out the special toy car and train event on the sixth floor of the Mitsukoshi department store. The place was a complete zoo as MGDub's mom GJDubya would say. I'm pretty sure every single child in Taipei was crammed into this place. While I'm partial to Asian babies, not all Asian babies are cute. I wanted a little Hello Kitty car as a souvenir, but I wasn't willing to wade through the sea of kids whining "I want a toy car" in Chinese of course.

Toy train exhibit with all the landmarks of the world including the local fav Taipei 101

Check out his cool Car shoes

Personal space? What a novel concept. Total chaos with everyone is up in everyone else's business.

We escaped down to level B2 to check out the food hall. I was fascinated by these "native" Taiwanese tall watermelons among other finds. 

Tall mini watermelons..."red inside" they tell me

Refreshing Bear Beer not be confused with Beer Bear which would be a bear made of beer

An enviable display of crunchy snacks. Adam's gonna freak out when he arrives next week

Zave Zority, this one is for you. Even though I'm illiterate, I'm pretty sure this snack is super spicy. First off, the pepper looks pretty bad ass. Secondly, there are five peppers on the bottom right and all are filled in so this must be the spiciest snack they make.

Frozen rice burgers. I'm intrigued, but not intrigued enough to actually try it

 Refreshing sweet treat: Tofu pudding with red bean, peanuts and some sort of chewy jelly. It was delicious!

Giant Ice Cream Photo Collection

A friend once told me gathering three items is all it takes to start a "collection." With five photos [that I can remember] so far, I'm well on my way to building a photo collection of me standing next to giant frozen treats. The first photo is from 2007 when Adam and I went to Japan for a few weeks. Adam had to convince me to take this photo between two soft serve ice cream cones, but ever since then, I've been super enthusiastic about having my photo taken next to any and all giant frozen treats I encounter in my travels. It really hits my "sweet spot" of giant food / fake food / ice cream.

2013: Lavender Festival at Farm Tomita in Hokkaido, Japan

2013: Taipei outside the Godiva at the Breeze

2013: Nashville

2013: Nashville

2013: Seattle

2011: Barcelona

2007: Kyoto, Japan

Grits Bar: feeding a big crowd with dribs and drabs

For Adam's birthday last year, I bought him a fuzzy logic rice cooker to replace our old school standard rice cooker that we've had for years. It [unintentionally] turned out to be a classic Homer Simpson gift. Adam never wanted a rice cooker and I was the one who wanted a new one, but I'd transferred my yearning for a new rice cooker onto Adam. At least I didn't get the rice cooker engraved with my name. Fortunately, I'm delighted with the new appliance and I've been using it to make all sorts of things. Most notably, easy grits or polenta with almost no work. It's awesome!

Last night, I was on to cook dinner for our church small group. Cook a meal for a dozen people including vegetarians and gluten intolerant folks, only use food I already had and clean out the fridge/freezer while I was at it...challenge accepted! I only had dribs and drabs of a bunch of different things, but I was inspired by previous dinners my friends had cooked. I always loved it when I could top my own [baked potato, taco, chili] with my own toppings [cheese, sour cream, veggies, meat]. Feeling inspired by my friends' genius ideas, I put my rice cooker to good use on the porridge setting and cooked up two batches of grits. I dug deep into the fridge and freezer and found all the little bits of ingredients that were hanging around for a grits topping bar. One friend even said my dinner was "restaurant quality" which was super sweet and nice to hear although I'm pretty sure it was because I liberally salt and pepper all my food. I'm a one trick pony, but it works.

Rice cooker easy grits (From Fifteen Spatulas)
4 cups water
1 cup grits or course cornmeal
1 cup grated cheese (parmesan or cheddar)
Salt + Pepper to season
1/4 cup half and half or milk or cream
2 Tbs butter

1. Put water and grits in rice cooker
2. Cook on porridge setting
3. Stir in other ingredients when it finishes cooking

My dribs and drabs...whatever you have that you're trying to get rid of. Please remember to season with salt and pepper.

• Bacon bits: 5 leftover slices in the freezer
• Sausage: 2 andouille and 4 boar sausages from Laurel, also from the freezer
• Garlic shrimp: small bowl of frozen cooked cocktail shrimp heated with garlic and olive oil
• Chopped scallions
• Mushrooms: 2.5 caps from the fridge that yielded only about 1 cup cooked
• Wilted garlic spinach: half a box of baby spinach cooked down with garlic
• Green beans: also leftover in the fridge
• Peppers and onions: leftover in the fridge from Boston Organics

Travel wardrobe complete...for now

Traveling during transitional seasons through multiple climates poses some packing challenges. Right now I'm on a 10 day trip up the west coast and I'm rather delighted with myself for my packing job. I recently sewed the buttons back on my navy blazer and acquired a new coat and some sneakers on this trip. I don't want to jinx myself, but dare I say that I think I've cobbled together the right mix of clothes to take me from 80 degree sunny LA to rainy 50 degree formal dinner in Seattle to 60 degree city exploring in Vancouver. I think I could even take on colder weather if I had to since I can layer a cardigan, blazer, down sweater and a raincoat if needed.

1 grey sneakers

1 blue patent Birkenstocks

1 pair brown boots

1 skinny jean

2 dresses

3 shirts

1 down sweater

1 raincoat

1 navy blazer

1 cardigan

1 scarf

1 black leggings/tights

1 necklace (nice to have)

1 belt (nice to have)

1 swimsuit (nice to have)

1 purse crossbody

1 foldable tote

1 umbrella

Personal items like underwear, socks, pajamas and sock monkeys are additional. 

Planes, Trains and probably an Automobile

I'm heading out today for a trip with plasticmom and Adam that will take us from LA to Seattle to Vancouver. The highlight of our trip is a 36 hour train trip from LA to Seattle aboard the Amtrak Coast Starlight complete with sleeper cars. I've never traveled overnight on a train so I'm pretty excited for this  train ride since I hear the views are gorgeous. I've got my camera packed and I freed up 8 gigabytes off my iPhone just to take photos. All aboard!!!

Design Find: Eames Hang It All affordable alternative

If you've been to our home during the winter, you may have noticed a big pile of coats suspended off a wall in our front entry. You may or may not have wondered what was under that giant pile of coats. It's our adorable Eames Hang It All wall hook that hibernates all winter under a big pile of coats and comes out to play in the warmer summer months when it's been unburdened from its winter coat responsibilities.

I'm a big fan of our Eames Hang It All. We've had ours for eight years and it's moved with us to three different homes. At the end of a long winters day, this little guy gets the job done when it comes to holding a whole lot of coats. The round spherical wooden knobs are gentler on our clothes than pokey wooden style wall hooks and did I mention that the Eames Hang It All is super cheerful and colorful?

While I love the Eames Hang It All, it's not exactly cheap at $199 bucks. That's why I was super excited to find a great alternative from Land of Nod. Land of Nod is the Crate & Barrel brand for kid's furniture and they offer some really great affordable mid century inspired options including the Multiplayer Wall Hook priced at just $14.95. Similar to the Eames version, The Land of Nod wall hook looks sturdy, features the same spherical knobs and is colorful to boot. While the Land of Nod wall hook as fewer knobs than the Eames, at $14.95 you can buy two wall hangers and still be WAY ahead.

Totally covered in coats and miscellaneous winter gear

Footloose and fancy free in summer

Eames Hang It All from Herman Miller: $199

Multiplayer Wall Hook from Land of Nod: $14.95

The Ultimate Sprinkledoodle Cookie Taste Off

May the tastiest Sprinkledoodle win! 

I just love these sprinkle cookies, they're delicious and happy looking. The sprinkles are not just decoration. Encrusting the cookie with sprinkles actually adds texture and flavor. Adam's a fan of the Sprinkledoodle in general, but will sometimes wonder out loud, "if you make them a little bigger it might be chewier," or "the sprinkle to cookie ratio might be higher if the cookie was smaller." To find the optimal Sprinkledoodle cookie size, I decided to make them in four different sizes for "The Ultimate Sprinkledoodle Cookie Taste Off." It was also a good excuse to use my collection of cookie scoops.

The Large cookie is equal to 9 small cookies. As for the slightly confusing "Medium Large" and "Medium Small" nomenclature, you can thank Adam. Somehow, it makes sense to him so I'm accommodating his quirks. 

Cookie Dough (not baked)
Left to right: Large, Medium Large, Medium Small and Small

Baked Cookies
Left to right: Large, Medium Large, Medium Small and Small

The challenge: 
Taste all four sizes of Sprinkledoodles and determine the winningest size. You have to eat all four cookies (95ml cookie dough or 19 units of Small cookies) so it's quite the caloric commitment. Zlexa (Taster 5) is on the Paleo diet so I'm honored that she broke her diet to partake in this taste off. On the other hand, maybe the cavemen would still be around if they'd just enjoyed some Sprinkledoodles in their diet. :)

Taster 1: Adam likes the Medium Large for texture, but likes the Medium Small for size. Ultimately, he cast his vote for Medium Small.

Taster 2: Zrennen, our occasional houseguest who's a pastry chef, likes the Medium Large

Taster 3: Zristina generally likes soft cookies so she went with Medium Large because the Large cookie was just too large.

Zristina

Taster 4: Zana liked the size of Medium Small for portion control, but liked the taste and texture of Large. Zana refused to pick a favorite and wants a Medium Small sized cookie baked at a higher 375 temperature for a little less time to create his ideal cookie.

Zana

Taster 5: Zlexa awards Medium Large with "Best in Show" but likes the Medium Small for the "Coffee Dunkability" award.

Tally:
The winner is Medium Large - 3 votes (Zrennen, Zristina and Zlexa)
Medium Small - 1 vote (Adam)
Abstention - 1 vote (Zana refused to pick a cookie size)

Only Zana preferred the Large for texture. Most others found the Large too big, to "hard to eat," etc. I personally thought the Small size was super adorable, but I'd have to agree with the others that the Small size was all crisp with no chewy center. Zrennen called the Small "a waste of dough."

While the Medium Large did win for texture, everyone agreed that the Medium Small was the bestest size for a cookie so the next challenge is to bake a Medium Small sized cookie with the soft texture of the Medium Large or even Large sized cookie.

If there's a natural relationship between cookie size and cookie softness so the biggest cookies are the softest, one might say there's a natural "Cookie Softness Frontier." See chart below. Basically, the goal is the break past the "Cookie Softness Frontier" and achieve a small soft cookie (orange cookie on the chart). Challenge accepted...for the next Sprinkledoodle Cookie Taste Off, I'll be baking the Medium Small cookie size at three different temperatures (350, 375 and 400) to break through the frontier. Wish me luck on my next Sprinkledoodle adventure in the name of baking science.

Sprinkledoodle Recipe - modified from Lottie + Doof's Sugar Saucer recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1.5 cups unsalted butter at room temperature (3 sticks)
• 1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• rainbow sprinkles...a big vat of them

Instructions:

• Mix flour, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl. Ideally a silicone bowl since you'll need to add the dry flour mixture to the batter. Click here for post about why silicone mixing bowls rock.
• Cream butter on medium with an electric mixer for about a minute
• Mixer on low, add the oil into the butter and mix well
• One by one, add sugar, powdered sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and almond extract. Mix well with each additional ingredient
• Slowly add the flour mixture in four parts. (This is when you'll thank me if you us a silicone mixing bowl)
• Chill dough for at least one hour or up to 3 days
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper
• Scoop cookie dough (see above table for volume and desired size) and roll in rainbow sprinkles
• Place on baking sheet and press dough ball down slightly to flatten a tiny bit
• Bake until cookies are light brown. Obviously Medium Large cookies take longer than Medium Small. 
• Cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes before moving to a plate or rack. If you touch the cookies right out of the oven, the sprinkles will disintegrate so wait a few minutes for the sprinkles to cool and regain their structural integrity

Bonus fun Chiral* view. Medium Small is the third one down.

*Zorinna taught me all about Chirality in college

Recipe: Watermelon Rind Chutney

I usually throw out the watermelon rind like any other normal person, but I decided to save it last week and see what I could make out of it. I decided to try this watermelon rind chutney recipe from Epicurious with a some slight modifications using what I had in the house. The chutney turned out great and we've been enjoying it all week. It's got a little bit of warm heat to it, but it's not too hot. A little cream cheese with the chutney will temper the heat a tiny bit to take the edge off.

Ingredients:

• Diced watermelon rind from 1 small watermelon. Should yield about 6 cups of diced white watermolon rind.
• 1.5 cups cider vinegar
• 1.5 cups water
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cups grated fresh ginger (I keep a frozen nob in the freezer and use a microplane)
• 1 tablespoon Siracha
• 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flake (the kind you put on pizza)
• 1/2 tablespoon chili powder
• 1.5 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, crushed

Feel free to mess around with the proportions on the peppers / hot chili paste /fresh pepper ratio. I didn't want to go out on a rainy day to buy fresh peppers so I just raided my fridge.The ratio I used was pleasantly hot so be cautious when adding any more heat. 

Instructions:

1. Dice up white watermelon flesh only. Remove any green peel or pink watermelon fruit
2. Boil rind an all the other ingredients in a heavy pot over moderate heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved
3. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 60-80 minutes until rind is tenter and translucent and you can create a little valley when you scrape the the bottom of the pot. It should be kinda jammy rather than liquidy. Keep simmering and reducing until it's jammy enough
4. Cool, store in a jar and let flavors mellow and meld for a day
5. Enjoy! Delicious with cream cheese on crackers.

PocketMonkey - a cool nerdy geeky handy gift idea

As soon as Adam watched this video online, he immediately asked me to get him a PocketMonkey thin credit card sized multi purpose tool doodad. They're available online and locally at DavisSquared in [take a guess] Davis Square where I bought one for Adam and one for my friend Zave. They're $12 each, thin like a credit card and TSA complaint so you can fly with it. We gave it to Zave yesterday and had a fun time checking out all the various features which include:

1. Phone Kickstand
2. Bottle Opener
3. Orange Peeler / Banana Peeler
4. 3 screwdriver: flathead, micro flathead, 2D Philips head
5. Hex wrench
6. Ruler / Scraper
7. Letter Opener
8. Locked interior door opener

It's a pretty great little gift or stocking stuffer or dads, handy people, people who eat oranges, people who lock themselves out of their interior doors at home, etc.

Pilgrimage to Kane's Donuts in Saugus

Maple Frosted [my favorite] and Creme Brulee Donut [my other favorite]

Back in the day [as of two weeks ago] when I was working at Zipcar, the engineering team would often buy donuts from Kane's to celebrate an engineering release. I would always finagle my way into their donuts by looking longingly and expressing extreme enthusiasm whenever I saw the boxes. Some engineer, who'd benefited from my baking, would inevitably offer me a Kane's donut and it would make my day. 

While I'd enjoyed Kane's donuts at work and I've been wanting to go for years, I'd never been to Kane's in person so my friend Jen and I made plans to go on a donut adventure last Friday, but were were thwarted by the "shelter in place." It was wise to stay put in the interest of public safety, but as Corinna put it, "terrorists suck."Therefore, we rescheduled and went to Kane's Donuts in Saugus yesterday. 

Kane's Donuts is often named for best donut this and that and most recently made it on Bon Appetit's Top 10 Donut Shop list. These donuts are very good and they come in a huge number of flavors. Jen and I got four different donuts to try: creme brûlée, maple frosted, apple fritter and jelly. All were awesome, but the maple frosted is my new favorite.

I also bought a dozen donuts for Adam's coworkers...he asked me to draw a "map" on the lid.

Row 1: Buttercrunch, Coconut Lemon, Jelly

Row 2: Boston Creme, Apricot, Honey Dip

Row 3: PB&J, Reeses PB Cup, Apple Fritter

Row 4: Creme Brûlée, Maple Frosted, Caramel Frosted

I needed an excuse to buy one of their legendary ginormous bigger than my head coffee rolls so I bought one for Wheezy since she was having a little b-day get together last night at Noir. We sliced it up and enjoyed the coffee roll with our fancy cocktails right then and there. I think we only conquered 50% of the coffee roll with eight of us. 

Happy Birthday Wheezy!!!

Close up of Kane's legendary coffee roll...the orange gives you a sense of perspective

Knife Sharpening Hang Out

Patti is all business in her mobile knife sharpening truck

Last time we had any of our knives sharpened was 2007 before we went on a three week vacation. The experience of dropping off my knives and waiting weeks to pick them up was so annoying and inconvenient that I never actually got around to sharpening them again for six years. Our knives had gotten so dull the grape tomatoes I halved were still attached together so knife sharpening was at the top of my to do list. 

I started doing some research online on knife sharpening services when I found Patti from On The Edge Knife Sharpening. She hand sharpens knives a various farmer's markets and she goes to Formaggio's Kitchen, Pemberton Farms and Savenor's locally. Then I thought there has to be an even better way so I decided host a "Knife Sharpening Hang Out." I scheduled Patti for on-site knife sharpening at my house and invited friends to come over with their dull knives. I figured...

FUN = mundane errand + snacks + drinks + friends + sunshine

Patti parked her mobile knife sharpening truck in our driveway and sharpened 40 knives over the course of 3.5 hours. Patti was super nice and happy to answer all our questions about knife sharpening. She's clearly passionate about knife sharpening. As for the rest of us, we hung out while we waited for our knives to get sharpened and enjoyed a sunny day with friends. 

Clockwise: Cream Cheese & Stonewall Kitchen Pepper Jelly on Water Crackers

Swiss Cheese and Stone Wheat Crackers

Snickerdoodles, Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Raisin Cookies from the Flour Bakery Cookbook

Orange Infused Simple Syrup, Seltzer Water, Iced Green Tea and Iced Black Tea

P.S. The orange infused simple syrup is leftover from when I made candied orange peel

Kitchen Sink Pesto

Top Row: Grape Tomatoes, Avocados, Oranges

Bottom Row: Kitchen Sink Pesto, Black Olives, Homemade Wheat Bread, Eggplant Parmesan

For Sunday dinner, I cobbled together a smorgasbord of deliciousness around a spinach pesto I made and a rustic wheat bread I baked using a no knead recipe. This was my first time making pesto because I never have large quantities of basil, but I often have lots of spinach so I decided to make Kitchen Sink Pesto with whatever I had in the house. Doesn't taste like basil pesto, but it is delicious.

Kitchen Sink Pesto:

3 giant handfuls of spinach
1 cup of toasted nuts (I used an assortment from Adam's "Bag O' Nuts" which included hazelnuts, cashews, almonds, etc)
6 cloves of garlic
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
2-4 Tablespoon olive oil
Zest and juice from 1 lemon
Salt and Pepper to taste

Food process all of it together until it's a fine green paste. Taste and adjust ingredients until it's delicious. Enjoy on bread, pasta, etc.

Unfastidiously Organized

Post It Note by my bed

This note is real. I actually consistently "forget" or willfully don't do the following:

• Teacups: move my teacups or dishes from the living room to the kitchen and ideally into the dishwasher
• Hair in shower: this is pretty self explanatory, but I'm supposed to clean out my hair in the shower and let's say I don't always do it. Adam quietly does it most of the time and only mentions it sometimes. He's a little long suffering sometimes.
• Toilet paper: I guess it's good manners to install a fresh roll when we run out and also make sure there's a back up roll in the bathroom. I've also learned that placing a fresh roll on the counter does not count. I would argue that in my family of origin had much lower standards and a fresh roll on the counter absolutely gets credit. I also remember frequently hollering from the bathroom for more toilet paper so Adam's way is probably better.
• Roll up mat: It would be polite to roll up my yoga mat so Adam doesn't have to walk around it

The following is a reconstructed conversation about the note:

Adam: Now that you have time and you're not working, could you please roll up your yoga mat at night so I don't have to walk around it? I might start stepping on it.

plasticann: You got it, I'm going to add it to my list

Adam: Is this an actual list or a mental list?

plasticann: Oh it's real. It's posted next to my bed and it says, "teacups," "hair in shower," and something else....

Adam: Toilet paper?

plasticann: That's it! Toilet paper is on the list and now I'm going to add roll up mat.

Adam: Do you look at this list everyday?

plasticann: No, but I needed to write it down to remember. I probably would have never admitted it before when I was working, but seems like this is a list of things that normal human beings would do and I probably should have been doing them all along.

Adam: Yeah, but it's OK sweetie.

Many people are surprised when they learn that I'm actually not that fastidious [understatement] because I seem so organized, but the thing is I'm actually very organized and on top of some things and utterly not on top of other things. I'd like to think that I'm just "prioritizing," but the truth is I'm constantly trying to reconcile a whole slew of contradictions that are simultaneously true about me.

1. I'm both hyper organized and utterly unfastidious

2. I'm both driven and undisciplined

3. I'm both on top of some things and not on top of a whole lot of other stuff
4. I'm both someone who owns personalized Post It notes and someone who has to be reminded to put a new roll of toilet paper on

Maybe I'm just like, I dunno, a normal human being with frailties and limitations. I'm getting a little better as I get older, maybe I'm mellowing out or maybe just maybe those pink personalized Post It lists are keeping my slovenly nature in check. 

Flour Bakery Cookie Quartet

Top Row: Oatmeal Raisin

2nd Row: Chocolate Chip

3rd Row: Ginger Molasses

Bottom Row: Snickerdoodles

Last week was school vacation week so Vineyard Community Offerings associated with our church was hosting kid events all week. I volunteered to bake six dozen cookies for their movie night and bake sale. I cracked open my Flour Bakery Cookbook to try some new recipes. Flour Bakery is an awesome local bakery with four locations. Everything there is super delicious and it's always a treat. I love that it's not fancy food, it's just normal food made with extreme care so you leave thinking, "that was the best pesto mozzarella tomato sandwich I've EVER had...how do they do that?"

I've made a couple of things from their cookbook including an impressive pineapple upside down cake, but I've never baked their cookie recipes because they recommend letting the dough rest at least 3-4 hours. I've never had the foresight to plan ahead nor the patience to deal with 3-4 hours on a school night. Since I had time last week, I made four different cookie doughs and actually let it rest for 4 hours before baking. It wasn't a controlled experiment so I can't tell you if it made a difference, but all the cookies were delicious. I shared them with a friend's kid who's "four and three quarters" and she gave me the thumbs up on both the Ginger Molasses and the Chocolate Chip. 

Their Chocolate Chip recipe is publicly available on their website so you can check it out there if you want to try it yourself. I highly recommend the original cookbook and Joanne Chang is publishing a "Flour, too" second cookbook this summer. Can't wait!!!

As a bonus, here's another baking equipment tip. Lots of recipes call for mixing the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt, etc) in a mixing bowl before you add it to the wet ingredients (butter, eggs, etc). I used to mix it in a traditional normal mixing bowl and then I'd carefully spoon the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Or, sometimes, I'd try to carefully dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredient mixing bowl. As hard as I tried to be careful and neat, it was always a little awkward and I'd create a flour-y mess. 

Now I use my flexible silicone mixing bowl to mix my dry ingredients. I can just squeeze the bowl to create a funnel or spout that neatly adds dry ingredients to the wet ingredient bowl. I only have to wash one bowl, I don't create a mess and it's super easy. I also use this bowl to pour hot liquids like hot caramel sauce into smaller jars so I don't burn myself or make a giant sticky mess trying to "spoon" hot sauce from a saucepan into a small jar. 

Flexible silicone mixing bowl filled with dry ingredients

Pinch the bowl and add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Look Mom...No Mess!

Black Humor May Help Me Survive

Part two of Monday's Marathon Bombing is more fear, more carnage and more surreal insanity. Boston and surrounding towns are in what the news calls a "virtual lockdown." It's a minor point, but I'd argue that we're in an actual lockdown. Buses/Subway are suspended, we're all supposed to stay inside, work has been cancelled for lots of folks and I'm still in my pajamas.

I woke up, on my own, around 5:30am and I couldn't fall asleep so I figured I'd mosey on over to Facebook to see what's up when I saw friends post about gunshot and explosions. What the #*$&? I've been watching the news since 6am and I really don't know what to think. I do know that after 5 hours of monitoring the news/Facebook and being locked down in my house for public safety, black humor is starting to creep in. Don't get me wrong, this situation is dead serious. But, aspects of this manhunt are so surreal and unbelievable, I can't help but morbidly laugh a tiny bit before going back to feeling low level freaked out.

On one hand, black humor could be perceived as flippant and disrespectful during a situation like this, but I would argue that black humor helps us process and ultimately survive. I was listening to Kathryn Schulz's Ted Talk about Regret a few months ago and she said something about black humor and experiencing real pain and grief that stuck with me. 

"Black humor plays a crucial role in helping us survive. It connects the poles of our lives back together, the positive and the negative and it sends a little current of life back into us."

Here are some inane examples of humor in the Zakun household from this morning. Somehow, we just can't help ourselves even in an awful situation.

Example 1:

[Adam comes downstairs showered, dressed and carrying socks]

plasticann: Adam, you're not going out are you?

Adam: NO! We're in lockdown, I'm not going out.

plasticann: Oh OK good, it looked like you were going for a walk.

[Adam starts putting on his socks]

plasticann: [a little on edge] Are you putting on your socks and shoes just in case we have to start running?

Adam: No, I'm putting on socks because my feet are cold.

plasticann: Do you think I need to change out of my pajamas and put on my shoes in case we need to run? 

Adam: I think you can run in your pajamas and socks. Besides, he's probably not here.

plasticann: [unconvinced] OK!

Example 2:

Fox News Commentator says, "Just when you think you have a handle on what's going on, you don't know. It's helter skelter, it's an unusual caper that this city has never seen before."

Adam: You know what kind of caper I like?

plasticann: The kind you eat with smoked salmon and bagels?

Adam: No, The Great Muppet Caper.

Note: I really wouldn't call this massive manhunt a "caper."

Example 3:

I was supposed to visit my friend Corinna for lunch and I'd made her a bag of cookies. Since we're locked down, I figured I might as well eat her cookies since I won't see her today. If I'm still locked down this evening, I'm planning to eat Wheezy's bag of cookies if I don't get to see her for dinner. After I'm done with Wheezy's cookies, I'll have to go to my backup backup backup cookies aka the bag in my freezer.

Sorry Corinna! Sorry Wheezy! Sorry Freezer!

Corinna's Cookies @ 11am: 2 Choc Chunk, 2 Oatmeal Raisin, 2 Ginger Molasses, 2 Snickerdoodles

Corinna's Cookies @ noon: 1 Choc Chunk, 1 Oatmeal Raisin, 1.5 Ginger Molasses, 1 Snickerdoodle

 Wheezy's Cookies: 2 Choc Chunk, 2 Oatmeal Raisin, 2 Snickerdoodles

Freezer Cookies: Just a whole mess of cookies

A loving tribute to Adam with a small dose of ribbing

Since we got married, Adam has been responsible for about 75% of our house stuff. In the eight years we've been married, I've either been in business school (kinda intense) or working a kinda intense job with very little flexibility. Adam has always been really joyful about doing dishes, grocery shopping, cooking dinner, doing laundry, etc and he's never complained. Hands down, Adam wins best husband ever award in my book.

Since I'm taking some time off from work, I now (for the first time ever) have more time for our family life. Adam has his way of doing things and he's started "training" me this week. To his credit, he's not just being "bossy," he's just sharing the knowledge and years of experience gained from having done all this housework himself. But, as you all know, Adam is endearingly particular about optimizing things.

Adam's tried and true tips and preferences include:

• When drying the bathmat, hang the bathmat up with the rubber side out. The rubber side takes longer to dry so it needs more exposure to air. 
• Open up all the curtains to let the sun in before the cleaners come. That way they can "see" the dust better. 

When I offered to make Adam breakfast today, he demonstrated how he likes to make his breakfast:

• Regular sized shallow bowl filled with:
• Kashi Go Lean
• 1 banana sliced perpendicular to the edge, not slant-y
• Milk
• 1 teaspoon of dutch cocoa powder
• 1 spoonful of flax seed + wheat germ mix (if we have it)
• Large glass filled with:
• OJ halfway
• Water up to the curve of the glass
• 1 scooop of powdered green food
• Coffee... surprise me

Adam wants me to point out that he made most of his breakfast this morning. In fact, the little I did to help was actually unhelpful. I sliced the banana slant-y so the slices were too big. I also added a whole heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder or 3x more than normal so it wouldn't dissolve in his cereal. Lastly, I offered to make him coffee and totally forgot to push "brew."

It's only week one and now that I've publicly documented Adam's breakfast habits in detail on the inter webs, I think I'm going to nail it next time. There's only room for improvement at this point. Overall, I find my training regimen very amusing and even helpful. I'm can be pretty inept sometimes so it's all good. 

Next week, I'm undergoing an intense training around optimal dishwasher loading. I always do it wrong and Adam has to rearrange the dishwasher. Sometimes I load it incorrectly because I'm lazy or clueless and sometimes/rarely I do it wrong a little on purpose just to get Adam's goat. Sorry sweetie!!!

Chocolate Espresso Cake

One of my favorite chocolate cake recipes is from Cake Mix Doctor. Since I had some leftover sour cream, I decided to make this newly invented variation of an old favorite for Adam's work. The standard chocolate cake is very good, but I added the three starred * ingredients to create a salted espresso chocolate cake. 

Ingredients:

1 box devil's food cake mix with pudding (any brand)

4 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup warm water

2 Tablespoons espresso powder *

2 teaspoon vanilla extract *

1/2 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt *

1.5 cups chocolate chips

Note: You can also add other flavorings like mint extract or almond extract. I've also made an Mounds version by adding coconut to the cake. 

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Combine all ingredients (except chocolate chips) in a mixing bowl
• Mix on low for 1 minute, mix on medium speed for another 3 minutes
• Generously spray a bundt pan with flour/oil spray
• Transfer batter to the bundt pan
• Bake at 350 degrees fro 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

A lot of words on bundt pans:

• Nordic Ware makes really awesome heavy cast iron bundt pans. They last a long time so you only need one. I admittedly own three and I only ever use one at a time.
• Williams-Sonoma and Amazon typically carry a ridiculous selection of these bundt pans for every freakin' occasion. It's a little excessive in my opinion. On the upside, some of the specialty holiday themed bundt pans go on sale pretty frequently so if you don't wan to pay full price, you can probably buy a quality seasonal bundt pan when they go on sale. Today, I used my Buche De Noel log inspired bundt pan called a "Stump De Noel" that I bought on sale for about $10 after X-mas.
• They may say "non stick," but they stick. The key is to liberally spray the pan with a flour/oil spray like Pam. The spray comes out weird looking and foamy, but that's a good thing. Nothing sticks, I mean nothing sticks to the intricate designs of your fab bundt pan with this spray.
• What happens if you don't use this flour/oil spray? Your bundt cake will stick, it may or may not come out and if it does come out, a chuck might rip out. It'll be delicious, but it it'll be ugly. 
• What else happens if you don't use this flour/oil spray? You bundt pan will have lots of cake stuck to all it's little nooks and crannies and it's super annoying to clean those little nooks and crannies. You'll need to use a toothbrush. Trust me, I've been there. You want it to come out clean like this so use the flour/oil spray. 
• Use the flour/oil spray...you'll thank me.