Skip navigation

Monthly Archives: May 2013

I bake! Chocolate cinnamon coffee cake

I like watching cooking shows when I have the chance.  I’m not entirely sure why.  I’m rarely ever inspired to actually cook afterward.  I guess it’s just to build up my stockpile of cooking information.

Anyway, I somewhat recently discovered the show My Grandmother’s Ravioli on the Cooking Channel.  My siblings and I sometimes poke fun at the Cooking Channel, saying that only the people who aren’t good enough for the Food Network make it onto the Cooking Channel.  When the Cooking Channel launched, it was full of awkward hosts and poor editing.  Well, I think they’ve gotten better and they’ve gotten some more interesting shows.  Good Eats reruns, for one.  And My Grandmother’s Ravioli.

I really like the concept behind My Grandmother’s Ravioli.  Host, Mo Rocca, whom I find moderately annoying and sometimes funny, goes around the US learning how cook from different grandparents while getting a little bit of their story and background.  My favorite episode involves grandmother and Holocaust survivor, Ruth Teig.  The episode that features her is just…so nice.  She’s just an all around nice person.  I would think anyone would love to have her as a grandmother.

Anyway, in that episode, she shares some traditional Jewish recipes and also her recipe for coffee cake.  A coffee cake so good that it allows her to skip to the front of the line at the DMV.  Obviously I have to try this.  So I did.

Please to ignore the tomato.

Please to ignore the tomato.

It is quite good.  Of course, I’m a fan of chocolate and walnuts and cinnamon, so I’d be hard pressed not to like this coffee cake.  Also, I’m a big fan of coffee cake, since it goes so well with coffee.

Anyway, the recipe is linked above.  Here are some notes from when I tried this recipe:

  • I subbed plain Greek yogurt in for the sour cream because that’s what I had on hand.  It works and the cake is still quite delicious, but I think it’s missing a slight tang from the sour cream.  If possible, keep the sour cream.
  • I subbed semi-sweet chocolate chips in for the chocolate chunks.  You don’t get the same texture, but it’s fine.
  • I cut down a bit on the sugar because a lot of dessert recipes are too sweet for my taste.  I used probably about 1 cup of sugar instead of the 1.25 cups.
  • The batter is thick.  THICK.  It will be hard to spread out.  I found the easiest way to form a layer is plop down a few dollops around the pan and then to spin the pan around while holding a silicone spatula in a fixed position (I used a tube pan).
  • The cake is moist and fluffy and it has cinnamony nuts and chocolate.  Really, what’s not to like?

Apple deadfall

SavedPicture-201351321832.jpg

A creation in ballpoint and post it.

Ok, as promised, here is a post on the apple deadfall trap that we’ve been using for spiders.

So, as mentioned in previous posts, we are working at Clib and in the trailers.  Actually, I may not have mentioned that we’re stationed in the trailers before.  If I haven’t, I am informing you now.  We do not sit in a normal building but something akin to those portables that one might see in a stuffed high school.  It’s a decent sized trailer and it has it’s own air conditioning and such.  They also just recently added A BUNCH more cubicle sections too.  We have our own section with four desks, one in each corner of the cube.

Anyway, I’ve also mentioned in previous posts (links back to images of spiders), spiders and other arachnids REALLY like Mr. Arachnid.  Which is why I call him Mr. Arachnid.  I suppose I could also call him Wilson, because I am convinced that he is Wilson.  But for the intents and purposes of this post, Wilson will be called Mr. Arachnid.

Now, Mr. Arachnid doesn’t seem to be all that fond of arachnids.  There was that stiffening in surprise and fear that first time I told him something with eight legs was crawling across his back.  There was also the time when he frantically smacked at his lunch with a napkin because a spider was attacking his lunch.  There have been a few other times when he had to somehow rid himself of a spider in his work area.

This wouldn’t really seem out of place, since we are in a trailer, but the spiders seem overwhelmingly attracted to Mr. Arachnid.  No one else seems to have a problem with spiders.  And so, out of consideration for his sanity (spiders have an -25/min sanity aura) I helped Mr. Arachnid create an apple deadfall trap so he wouldn’t have to be so tense and alert all the time.

Deadfall traps are generally made with some kind of heavy object propped precariously on top of some kind of trigger.  When the trapee walks under the deadfall and triggers the…trigger, the heavy object that was so precariously balanced comes crashing down upon the unfortunate trapee.

Now, for large animals, you’d want to use a large rock or log or something to come crashing down.  You’d want something bigger than the trapee.  For spiders, since we’re not hunting Gooty sapphires (links back to images of spiders) or anything, apples are plenty big.  Also, these are the apples that come from the hotel to-go breakfast bags.  Sometimes, they are a bit disgusting and no one wants to eat them, so we have a large supply of them.

We set up the apples somewhat (not really) precariously on the stupid short section of the cubicle wall that separates my desk from Mr. Arachnid’s.  It seemed to work pretty well.  Well, not the deadfall part.  Just the fact that we set one up.  There were literally no more problems with spiders on our side of the cube after the deadfall went up.  There might have been one or two arachnid related issues on the other side of the cube where my boss and my sometimes PM sits, but nothing on our side.  We were quite content to leave our apple deadfall up forever.  Or at least until the apples rotted completely away as to be useless.

Well, my boss didn’t like that.  He had told us to get rid of the apples several times.  And then he really meant it when the managing partner for the western region decided to come and visit us.  I actually wasn’t there that day (yes, I had planned it like that).  But it seems in their rush to tidy up their work areas, my boss delivered the ultimatum to berid ourselves of the apple deadfall.  And so it went.  And then, the VERY. NEXT. DAY. I had to kill a spider.  I told Mr. Arachnid and he said that he would be on high alert from now on.