This is the ancient recipe, as told to me by my secretive and somewhat accident-prone elder, Shirlee. NOTE: There are no cake mixes of any kind in this pastry. Use fresh, high quality almond extract. Butter or nothing! This is a distillation of process, Shirlee may not have done things exactly in this manner, but do not question the method nor madness. This is how I do it. Follow these simple steps and all your dreams will come true, you will feel better about yourself, people will love you, your hair will look better, your house will be clean.
One must attain the proper mindset prior to attempting this delicacy. Prepare thyself by washing and you must have a meal. Touch no animals. Remove your shoes. Set out the butter to warm. Play some music you love; pour yourself a drink. Begin:
Shirlee's Secret Almond Magic
All goodness comes in threes:
Bottom Layer
1 stick butter (4 oz)
1 tbs water
1 cup flour
Middle Layer
1 stick butter (4 oz)
1 cup water
1 tsp almond extract
3 large hen fruit (not XL)
Frosting
1 box powdered sugar
1 stick butter (4 oz)
milk or cream as needed
1 tsp almond extract
Slivered Almonds
Preheat oven device to 350 F (177 Celsius; 450 Kelvin)
Mix components of bottom layer. Divide into two spheres. Pour yourself a drink. Name the spheres (one masculine, the other feminine). Imagine how the perfection of these spirits (not your drink) might be manifested. Pick up the feminine sphere (ladies first), holding her image in your mind. Mash her round ass into a flat pancake 12 inches by 3 inches. Get a cookie sheet and lay her corpse down one side. Smirk. Grab Biff, and with his dashing wit and perfect teeth foremost in your thoughts, pummel him into the same two-dimensional shape as Buffy. Lay him out cold next to the chick. Gloat.
Pour yourself a drink.
When your adrenaline subsides, begin making the middle layer by bringing the water to a boil. This water shall represent really hot water. Pop quiz: Who, at work, makes you the craziest? He or she shall then take the form of the stick of butter. Undress your coworker, noticing how, as the trappings of status and authority are stripped away, nothing remains but pure fat. Pity this unfortunate soul and apologize as you push the body under the boiling water with something blunt. Listen carefully... when it's over add the almond extract and flour to cover your crime. Beat until smooth. Beat a little more just to be sure. Set aside. Pour yourself a drink. Assemble the eggs. Flatter them. Promise them fame and glory. Keep a straight face. Tell them you have an important job for them. Name them if you must, but if you are perceptive they will name themselves. Position two eggs such that they cannot observe. Break the lone egg in a deep and cold bowl. Laugh maniacally. Repeat with next egg. Laugh some more. Show third egg the fate of the other two and politely request some changes in attitude and behavior. Disregard protests and groveling and break egg into bowl with comrades. Remove the evidence of the shells to pre-arranged hiding spot. Beat those eggs with intensity. Add the eggs to the flour mixture. Reflect on the cold irony of life as you mix it all up until smooth. Remind yourself that these were not good eggs.
Pour yourself a drink.
Remember the two corpi delilcti on the cookie sheet? They have metamorphosed into your flaws and mistakes. The egg and flour goo is treacherous backstabbing; with it, hide your flaws and mistakes. Lay it on thick. Cover every last little bit. Make someone work hard to see through it. If they do, eliminate them. Slide your camouflaged defects into the oven. Set a timer for 35 minutes. Enough time for a drink. Or two. When timer goes off, check pastry. If necessary, continue to bake 5 minutes more until golden brown and puffy. Remove from oven and set aside. It may flatten somewhat as it cools.
Take a nap.
Later, look carefully at the pastries on the cookie sheet. No, look closer. Take your time, your eyes may not focus well at this point. That's the best you can do? Pathetic. I thought you were paying attention. I thought you were going to try harder this time. Why do I even waste my time? You don't want anybody to see this; you better put something over it. If you mix up another cube of butter and maybe the powdered sugar, that might hide the bland ugliness you have baked. Put in the almond extract to help mask your ineptitude. For God's sake, put down the food coloring - are you mad? Do you want to go to jail? Good, now spread it on the pastries - do be careful and try to make it look appetizing. A flourish with the spatula might come in handy here. No, use it all. Not enough frosting and people will retch. Still looks horrible. Sprinkle on the almond slivers. Don't eat that, you need all you can get. Geez Louise... Now they look like flat white turds with nuts on them. Do you have a knife? Weeeell, you could kill yourself with it or cut the pastries into strips, bars, whatever. A platter, a plate? Arrange them somehow. Like a flower! Or a pyramid! Something besides flat white turds. That's gonna have to do. Uh, plastic wrap... don't want them to dry out - Duh!
Not bad for a first effort. Don't you feel better? You better have a drink.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Rat Race
My wife is busy, busy, busy. She's in school and studies almost every waking hour - when she's not in class. It's finals week and all weekend she has ladled obstetrics and natal development into her over-full mind like a desperate, sour stew.
This morning, she left for class, only to return to the house immediately. I assumed she forgot something.
"I need to take your car - there's something wrong with mine." Her car is not old, but I have a deep-seated mistrust of Subarus, and I take this as confirmation of my prejudice. "The steering is stiff," she says. "I'm gonna be late!" Why do these things always happen when you're pressed for time?
She shuttles her books to my truck and, barefoot, I retrieve some tools and boat parts from the back seat. As she roars away, I struggle to wedge myself into the front seat of her car, reminded of one of the reasons I will never own another Subaru.
I take it for a quick spin around the block, and she's right - the steering is far too stiff. Normally, the Outback is nimble, but I have to crank the wheel like a bus driver to make a ninety degree turn on the street. Even then, I swing into the opposite lane a little bit. I have a grumpy right shoulder and I feel the same discomfort that visits me after too many push ups.
Somehow I park it back in the driveway and pop the hood. A wide, grooved belt lies in loose coils behind the radiator. Crap. The belt looks brand new, so I doubt that it merely snapped. Perhaps a pulley has broken, or maybe the alternator is loose. If it's just a belt, I could fetch the part on my bike.
A quick search on the Internet reveals little. The few hits I get from "Subaru Fan Belt" lead to members-only forums or Slavic web sites. I'll have to dig into it, trusting my mechanic's intuition.
Back under the hood, there's a piece of trim on top of the engine hiding the upper portion of the belt's serpentine course. The intake manifold arcs through a pair of holes in this trim plate, like the backs of a pod of silver whales. A duct of some sort crosses over the right corner of the engine compartment, affixed to the radiator support by two bolts. It's all in the way, and I'll have to remove it.
I fetch a metric socket set and remove the bolts from the obstructing plastic parts. I lay them in the grass, arranging the fasteners on top. I turn my attention to the belt. A cocktail of relief and revulsion floods my veins. I can fix this, but... gross.
This morning, she left for class, only to return to the house immediately. I assumed she forgot something.
"I need to take your car - there's something wrong with mine." Her car is not old, but I have a deep-seated mistrust of Subarus, and I take this as confirmation of my prejudice. "The steering is stiff," she says. "I'm gonna be late!" Why do these things always happen when you're pressed for time?
She shuttles her books to my truck and, barefoot, I retrieve some tools and boat parts from the back seat. As she roars away, I struggle to wedge myself into the front seat of her car, reminded of one of the reasons I will never own another Subaru.
I take it for a quick spin around the block, and she's right - the steering is far too stiff. Normally, the Outback is nimble, but I have to crank the wheel like a bus driver to make a ninety degree turn on the street. Even then, I swing into the opposite lane a little bit. I have a grumpy right shoulder and I feel the same discomfort that visits me after too many push ups.
Somehow I park it back in the driveway and pop the hood. A wide, grooved belt lies in loose coils behind the radiator. Crap. The belt looks brand new, so I doubt that it merely snapped. Perhaps a pulley has broken, or maybe the alternator is loose. If it's just a belt, I could fetch the part on my bike.
A quick search on the Internet reveals little. The few hits I get from "Subaru Fan Belt" lead to members-only forums or Slavic web sites. I'll have to dig into it, trusting my mechanic's intuition.
Back under the hood, there's a piece of trim on top of the engine hiding the upper portion of the belt's serpentine course. The intake manifold arcs through a pair of holes in this trim plate, like the backs of a pod of silver whales. A duct of some sort crosses over the right corner of the engine compartment, affixed to the radiator support by two bolts. It's all in the way, and I'll have to remove it.
I fetch a metric socket set and remove the bolts from the obstructing plastic parts. I lay them in the grass, arranging the fasteners on top. I turn my attention to the belt. A cocktail of relief and revulsion floods my veins. I can fix this, but... gross.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Rinky Dink
As I type this, my fingertips feel a little strange. Perhaps it's the paint crusted in my whorls, or the "defatting" of my skin from solvent used to spot at dabs and drips on my hands. Certainly, if I were inclined to use lotion, it would be recommended.
To be honest, I have been using an epoxy primer that requires a thinner so foul that you can hear the brain cells dying - with an audible snap - in your head with every breath. I took the work outside, and I noticed two things: my olfactory receptors quickly became saturated and immune to the sharp sting of vapor, and I became ravenously hungry. I've used this particular product before, years ago, when I restored a San Francisco Pelican sailboat. A weatherly little sloop, it was built like a proper tub and carried a junk-like lug sail. I had the bottom repaired with copious epoxy and this particular primer was the only product appropriate as a go-between for the resin and the paint I chose. Every time I smell that solvent, I am transported to an inverted hull under a tarp, behind the fence.
I have been building a boat, a ridiculous little boat. Lacking the shop space for my stored power tools, I have been using Lisa's grandmother's basement, twenty minutes away. Lisa's late grandfather built thirty-three fiberglass sailing dinghys in that basement, and the power tools he used have made my project easier. Even so, the space is cramped, and I mutter to his spirit when I repeatedly wrestle the table and band saws out of my way.
This is not the first boat I've built. My first boat was a "stitch and glue" affair that I had worked out myself in high school. Designed to be cut from a single sheet of plywood, wired together, the seams fiberglassed. I dubbed it the Banana Boat, for its squarish approximation of a certain tropical fruit. I had a working knowledge of how S&G boats went together. Dad brought home the plywood and fiberglass materials from work.
My friend, Eric, and I risked amputation cutting out the three pieces with a circular saw on the garage floor, and we dutifully assembled the hull with galvanized wire and a cross brace carved from a two by four. After mixing up the resin and hardener in a coffee can, we lay the fiberglass tape along the inside and outside of the joints and painted the polyester resin on the tape. After waiting a glacially slow day for the resin to "kick", we toted the Banana Boat down Willow road to the Bay.
The boat was a jaunty craft, about seven feet long, like a miniature cod-fishing dory. In the interest of expediency there was no trim, no paint. Ragged edges formed the gunwales, the only concession to comfort, the graceful arc carved into the cross-piece / backrest. I figured it would be best propelled by a kayak paddle like the Rushton canoes, but all we had was a cheap plastic two-piece oar that Eric carried in his hand. I hoisted the tiny craft onto a shoulder and we marched up the street.
The saltwater closest to my house was over and down a hill, a full mile away. On the walk to the Bay, I imagined my naval architecture career beginning with the record-breaking sales of plans and kits for the soon-to-be-famous Banana Boat. Every cruiser would want one. Birdwatchers, fishermen would appreciate the economy and safety of my brainchild. It might be written up in Popular Mechanics or Cruising World. After I had made enough money from my clever, elegant design, I would bequeath the boat into the public domain and Boy Scouts and inner-city children would build fleets. Of course, my trademark color would be yellow.
Once down by the Bay, we minced our way along the train tracks, looking for a suitable launch site. The rock and rubble of the railroad grade cut across a broad inlet, trapping a small backbay, washed by tides which ebbed and flowed under a short trestle where we occasionally netted crab . At the north end of the backbay, an aromatic black beach beckoned, but the occasion called for a mud-free launching. Balancing on a large rock out from the shore, I lowered one end - the stern- of the Banana Boat into the water, and slid the craft into the glassy swell.
The first indication of a poorly conceived and executed plan was the water seeping through pinholes in the fiberglass tape. I had watched, incredulous, as green water pooled in my boat, and it slowly rolled over. Dismissing the technical shortcomings of my boatbuilding, flush with faith that the design was sound (yet loathe to get wet), I performed an experiment. With the Banana Boat perched on a convenient flat rock, we hefted a large stone - maybe a hundred and fifty pounds - precisely positioning it in the middle of the boat.
Like a cheese on a grater, delicate curls of fir veneer testified to the destructive power of our methodology, as I levered the boat back into the brine. Holding the bow for a long moment, seeking the elusive balance that I hoped existed, the Banana Boat struggled in my hand like a frightened pony, fighting first to the left, then the right. It's just the waves I told myself, no waves in evidence. I released my steadying grip.
The Titanic had undoubtedly reached a point in its sinking where stability and bouyancy vanished and the forces of fate converged in a sucking slosh and the sea claimed the vessel. I understand this took some time, as depicted in Hollywood dramas. Perhaps scaling a Titanic to seven feet also scales time downward: Without hestation, bob, or wallow, my boat tipped on its side, the rock sliding to the chine. Water spilled into the hull, the boat continued its rotation, the stone settling to the bottom in an explosion of mud. Failure. Q.E.D.
A nascent social responsiblity prohibited me from abandoning a plywood hulk on the beach, but it had briefly occurred to me to sacrifice it upon the train tracks. During the long walk back up the hill, my mind was occupied by a new-found understanding of primary stability, rocker, and beam. I dragged the dangerous, useless Banana Boat behind me, the fiberglass scritching, shredding on the hot asphalt. Eric's house was closer than mine, and I tipped the hull onto a burn pile in his back yard. Eric handed me an ax, and I purged the disappointment from my soul.
I nearly gave up boatbuilding.
I was fortunate to attend a high school that offered, among other things, a sailing class. I took the class five times, learning to coax beautifully varnished El Toros to windward. I found the courage and funds to buy a home-built Jr. Moth from my Dad's coworker, Loy. The hard-chined scow needed some restoration, a confidence-building exercise in boat painting.
The next boat that I built was an Aleutian kayak, a baidarka, built to my body. Inspired by George Dyson's seminal book on building aluminum baidarkas, I carefully scaled the dimensions to fit my six-foot-two frame. I lashed dozens of alder saplings to spruce longitudinals, faithfully replicating methodology and materials. Nineteen feet long, twenty-two inches wide, crazy fast, and tight as a rubber glove, paddling it terrified me. I stripped the skin from it and sold it to a man building a hotel in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. I hear it hangs above the bar still, twenty years later.
I used the money from my baidarka to buy the Pelican behind the fence, which I named Reinheitsgebot. That boat required some varnishing, in addition to the paint. A pleasure to sail, with the tiller lashed down, it could be steered by shifting one's weight fore and aft.
The purchase of a San Juan 24 necessitated the construction of a Phil Bolger design called the Elegant Punt. We needed a dinghy, and the punt performed admirably, gracefully towing behind Solen, shuttling three safely to shore. Sadly, it was left behind when we moved to Vashon Island. I hope somebody saved it from crumbling away in the weather, tilted against the house.
Once again, I am happily surrounded by boats. Cacafuego, a San Juan 21, waits on its trailer, risking parking tickets on the street. One of Lisa's grandfather's thirty-three rests on saw horses in the back yard, sail and spars snug in the garage. She rescued it from a yard sale in Queen Anne, a hilltop neighborhood in Seattle.
The newest boat, Fósforo, is truly an absurdity. Six feet long, it is designed for a single adult occupant, yet I lavished the yachtiest attention to its construction. It has a sailing rig, and I hope my kids learn to enjoy small sailboats as I have.
I put the finishing touch of a name on the transom last night, and brought it home from the distant basement. The sun was low, playing on the Olympic horizon, and, yet, I had to put it into the water.
A dredged ship canal divides Seattle north and south, with a tiny, overlooked boat launch in Fremont. Geese loitered on the docks, hunkering in the breeze blasting off the water. I slid Fósforo into the chop, stepped in, grabbed the oars. I pushed away from the dock, drifting toward the concrete ramp. The oarlocks slipped into place, and I rowed away from shore, into the twilight.
To be honest, I have been using an epoxy primer that requires a thinner so foul that you can hear the brain cells dying - with an audible snap - in your head with every breath. I took the work outside, and I noticed two things: my olfactory receptors quickly became saturated and immune to the sharp sting of vapor, and I became ravenously hungry. I've used this particular product before, years ago, when I restored a San Francisco Pelican sailboat. A weatherly little sloop, it was built like a proper tub and carried a junk-like lug sail. I had the bottom repaired with copious epoxy and this particular primer was the only product appropriate as a go-between for the resin and the paint I chose. Every time I smell that solvent, I am transported to an inverted hull under a tarp, behind the fence.
I have been building a boat, a ridiculous little boat. Lacking the shop space for my stored power tools, I have been using Lisa's grandmother's basement, twenty minutes away. Lisa's late grandfather built thirty-three fiberglass sailing dinghys in that basement, and the power tools he used have made my project easier. Even so, the space is cramped, and I mutter to his spirit when I repeatedly wrestle the table and band saws out of my way.
This is not the first boat I've built. My first boat was a "stitch and glue" affair that I had worked out myself in high school. Designed to be cut from a single sheet of plywood, wired together, the seams fiberglassed. I dubbed it the Banana Boat, for its squarish approximation of a certain tropical fruit. I had a working knowledge of how S&G boats went together. Dad brought home the plywood and fiberglass materials from work.
My friend, Eric, and I risked amputation cutting out the three pieces with a circular saw on the garage floor, and we dutifully assembled the hull with galvanized wire and a cross brace carved from a two by four. After mixing up the resin and hardener in a coffee can, we lay the fiberglass tape along the inside and outside of the joints and painted the polyester resin on the tape. After waiting a glacially slow day for the resin to "kick", we toted the Banana Boat down Willow road to the Bay.
The boat was a jaunty craft, about seven feet long, like a miniature cod-fishing dory. In the interest of expediency there was no trim, no paint. Ragged edges formed the gunwales, the only concession to comfort, the graceful arc carved into the cross-piece / backrest. I figured it would be best propelled by a kayak paddle like the Rushton canoes, but all we had was a cheap plastic two-piece oar that Eric carried in his hand. I hoisted the tiny craft onto a shoulder and we marched up the street.
The saltwater closest to my house was over and down a hill, a full mile away. On the walk to the Bay, I imagined my naval architecture career beginning with the record-breaking sales of plans and kits for the soon-to-be-famous Banana Boat. Every cruiser would want one. Birdwatchers, fishermen would appreciate the economy and safety of my brainchild. It might be written up in Popular Mechanics or Cruising World. After I had made enough money from my clever, elegant design, I would bequeath the boat into the public domain and Boy Scouts and inner-city children would build fleets. Of course, my trademark color would be yellow.
Once down by the Bay, we minced our way along the train tracks, looking for a suitable launch site. The rock and rubble of the railroad grade cut across a broad inlet, trapping a small backbay, washed by tides which ebbed and flowed under a short trestle where we occasionally netted crab . At the north end of the backbay, an aromatic black beach beckoned, but the occasion called for a mud-free launching. Balancing on a large rock out from the shore, I lowered one end - the stern- of the Banana Boat into the water, and slid the craft into the glassy swell.
The first indication of a poorly conceived and executed plan was the water seeping through pinholes in the fiberglass tape. I had watched, incredulous, as green water pooled in my boat, and it slowly rolled over. Dismissing the technical shortcomings of my boatbuilding, flush with faith that the design was sound (yet loathe to get wet), I performed an experiment. With the Banana Boat perched on a convenient flat rock, we hefted a large stone - maybe a hundred and fifty pounds - precisely positioning it in the middle of the boat.
Like a cheese on a grater, delicate curls of fir veneer testified to the destructive power of our methodology, as I levered the boat back into the brine. Holding the bow for a long moment, seeking the elusive balance that I hoped existed, the Banana Boat struggled in my hand like a frightened pony, fighting first to the left, then the right. It's just the waves I told myself, no waves in evidence. I released my steadying grip.
The Titanic had undoubtedly reached a point in its sinking where stability and bouyancy vanished and the forces of fate converged in a sucking slosh and the sea claimed the vessel. I understand this took some time, as depicted in Hollywood dramas. Perhaps scaling a Titanic to seven feet also scales time downward: Without hestation, bob, or wallow, my boat tipped on its side, the rock sliding to the chine. Water spilled into the hull, the boat continued its rotation, the stone settling to the bottom in an explosion of mud. Failure. Q.E.D.
A nascent social responsiblity prohibited me from abandoning a plywood hulk on the beach, but it had briefly occurred to me to sacrifice it upon the train tracks. During the long walk back up the hill, my mind was occupied by a new-found understanding of primary stability, rocker, and beam. I dragged the dangerous, useless Banana Boat behind me, the fiberglass scritching, shredding on the hot asphalt. Eric's house was closer than mine, and I tipped the hull onto a burn pile in his back yard. Eric handed me an ax, and I purged the disappointment from my soul.
I nearly gave up boatbuilding.
I was fortunate to attend a high school that offered, among other things, a sailing class. I took the class five times, learning to coax beautifully varnished El Toros to windward. I found the courage and funds to buy a home-built Jr. Moth from my Dad's coworker, Loy. The hard-chined scow needed some restoration, a confidence-building exercise in boat painting.
The next boat that I built was an Aleutian kayak, a baidarka, built to my body. Inspired by George Dyson's seminal book on building aluminum baidarkas, I carefully scaled the dimensions to fit my six-foot-two frame. I lashed dozens of alder saplings to spruce longitudinals, faithfully replicating methodology and materials. Nineteen feet long, twenty-two inches wide, crazy fast, and tight as a rubber glove, paddling it terrified me. I stripped the skin from it and sold it to a man building a hotel in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. I hear it hangs above the bar still, twenty years later.
I used the money from my baidarka to buy the Pelican behind the fence, which I named Reinheitsgebot. That boat required some varnishing, in addition to the paint. A pleasure to sail, with the tiller lashed down, it could be steered by shifting one's weight fore and aft.
The purchase of a San Juan 24 necessitated the construction of a Phil Bolger design called the Elegant Punt. We needed a dinghy, and the punt performed admirably, gracefully towing behind Solen, shuttling three safely to shore. Sadly, it was left behind when we moved to Vashon Island. I hope somebody saved it from crumbling away in the weather, tilted against the house.
Once again, I am happily surrounded by boats. Cacafuego, a San Juan 21, waits on its trailer, risking parking tickets on the street. One of Lisa's grandfather's thirty-three rests on saw horses in the back yard, sail and spars snug in the garage. She rescued it from a yard sale in Queen Anne, a hilltop neighborhood in Seattle.
The newest boat, Fósforo, is truly an absurdity. Six feet long, it is designed for a single adult occupant, yet I lavished the yachtiest attention to its construction. It has a sailing rig, and I hope my kids learn to enjoy small sailboats as I have.
I put the finishing touch of a name on the transom last night, and brought it home from the distant basement. The sun was low, playing on the Olympic horizon, and, yet, I had to put it into the water.
A dredged ship canal divides Seattle north and south, with a tiny, overlooked boat launch in Fremont. Geese loitered on the docks, hunkering in the breeze blasting off the water. I slid Fósforo into the chop, stepped in, grabbed the oars. I pushed away from the dock, drifting toward the concrete ramp. The oarlocks slipped into place, and I rowed away from shore, into the twilight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
