abigail renée

I just realized I talked about my friend Hannah's new baby, but I never posted a picture. This is Abigail Renée, born March 17, 2007. What luck!! :)

torte

The first time I made this torte, it was for a house blessing, so I made a powdered sugar house on it. This time, I made the torte for a bachelorette party/shower, so I tried to make hearts, but I made too many. I have learned that one must keep the design simple with powdered sugar. Anyway, I promised to post this recipe from Green and Black's organic chocolate, so here it is.

Ingredients:

3 Green and Blacks bars: I usually use the "Maya Gold" for all three, but you could do two dark and one Maya Gold or one Dark and two Maya Gold. It just depends upon how strongly you want to taste the orange and spice.

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/4 sticks butter

5 large eggs, beaten lightly

1 T ground almonds or 1/4 t. almond extract

Pinch of sea salt

Confectioners sugar or gold dust (if you are a rich cook. LOL)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 to 9 inch spring form pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess. Melt the chocolate in a bowl in the microwave for one minute. Stir until fully dissolved. Melt the butter and sugar in a saucepan, whisking until smooth. Whisk the eggs, almond, and salt until well combined, and then quickly pour in the melted chocolate and the butter and sugar mixture. Fold in the chocolate, butter, and sugar until they are completely incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared spring form pan, and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 35 to 45 minutes (depending on your oven). Let cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar or gold dust, and then remove rim.

For the perfect dessert, serve this with homemade whipped cream. Chill the beaters to your hand mixer and a big mixing bowl in the refrigerator. Then pour half a carton of whipping cream into a bowl, and beat the cream into stiff peaks. Do this right before eating, or the whipping cream will "melt." Serve a dollup of whipped cream with each slice of torte.

Bachelorette Party!

These are some pictures from a bachelorette party that we gave our friend Beth P. this past weekend (Don't worry, Beth; I didn't put up any of the pictures of the stripper giving you a lap dance. ;) ). Beth is a long-time friend who is getting married in June. Congratulations, Beth!!!

This is Beth and Sally, whom I had a great time getting to know.

I did end up making the Green and Black's torte AND the chocolate cookies with Craisins. I think that they both turned out really well. However, I also think that I left the beaters to my hand mixer at Allison's apartment. Crap.

Well, while I'm here, I might as well say something. Things are going pretty well in our household. I'm working all the time, so the house is always an absolute wreck. But at least we're happy! :) I think we might hire a cleaning lady/man. I'm just nervous about it because G's last cleaning lady stole his SSN, and that was a big mess. And the only time that I can be at home to monitor the cleaning person is on Saturday. However, it just dawned on me that I might ask Elizabeth, who cleans at the school on my hall. Perhaps she does house cleaning, too.

In a couple of weeks, G and I are going to Ottawa. I'm going to be so happy to get away from my students for a few days!! It will actually be the end of the term, so the only thing that I will have left to do (for work) when I get back is give the TOEFL exam. The TOEFL is a bitch, but at least it only takes a day.

But anyway: Ottawa. G is giving a paper on Northrop Frye's theory of primary and secondary concerns. This is an area of Frye studies that really interests me, and I hope to do more reading on it. I must say, Frye intrigues me. Even though some of his writing takes an effort to plow through, reading it is like drinking great wine: shitty wine just never tastes the same afterwards.

I'm also looking forward to meeting the other "Frye guys" and seeing some [not very old but dear] friends. G's friend Jeffery will be there, and he is such a wonderful person. I think I will also get to see Alvin, who was on G's dissertation committee and whom I have only met once.

Lastly, I have never visited the great capital of Canada before, so I am very excited about exploring Ottawa a bit. We are definitely going to visit the capitol buildings, and I hope we'll discover some fun shops and pubs. I love visiting cities for the first time!

Otherwise, things here are just dandy. The cats are well and growing quickly. Ghanima is twice as adventurous as Gus ever was, and she is into everything. She especially likes to eat food off the kitchen counter and drink water out of the toilet. She and Gus like playing hide and seek in the bathtub when there's no water in it. There is cat hair everywhere.

Cheers, everyone!