boy howdy (drunk at 7:25 PM)
Whoo! I tell you what ....
I thought I had a doctor's appointment downtown today, and did my usual I-have-a-downtown-appointment-after-school ritual of Caribbean wrap at the Mexican restaurant across the street from WCI followed by coffee and laptop slack time, only to remember just as I was standing at the building's door that my appointment is Friday night. Crap. I was all hepped up and prepared to spend a few hours away from my apartment, and at a loss for something to do. I'd already had a Corona with my dinner, and a shot of espresso at Coffee People, so I decided to continue the trend and stop in at Stumptown Coffee on 3rd. Stumptown has the enormous good taste to serve a huge line of high-end imported and domestic beers and ales beside what's arguably the best coffee in town. Their ale selection reminds me of the much-missed Stumbling Monk on Capitol Hill in Seattle, which is halfway between my old place and the apartment building where a huge chunk of my posse lived during my Seattle Golden Age of 2002-04 (and a few of my tribe still live there). Many a night I spent scrounging around for the cool ashtray that looked like a urinal, bumming cigs, making fun of Hill hipsters, grousing about the queer community, and then stumbling up the hill to Dick's for 1 AM gutbomber burgers. (Mr. Corpsegrinder knows whereof I speak.)
Anyroad, so I followed up that Corona with a ... lessee ... "Young's Old Nick Barley Wine Style Ale, 7.2%". And let me tell you, cousin, it's getting the job done. Anyone who's hung out with me realtime knows that I have virtually no resistance to any kind of chemical stimulant, and it takes three, maybe four pints with a full stomach to put me completely under the table. OId Nick, bless his heart, has placed me in that muted, soft stage of vague unreality that I needed after a day of petty bureaucrats crawling up my ass (dealing with the insurance company for U-Haul and the collision I had in my rental truck the day I moved to Portland) and Southernly geographic anguish over the deluge of N.O. I think I can just about manage the stumble home.
Speaking of which, get this quote from Barbara Bush today:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/05/barbara_bush_things_.html
This on the heels of her son's comment that hey, Trent Lott lost his mansion just like everybody else ... but boy, his new place is gonna be somethin' else! (Earlier post on boingboing.net - check back a couple days.) Good Gawd. Why must these elitist numbnut motherfuckers hail from my part of the country? (Not that the rest of the South really claims Texas.) So goddamn embarassing. In other news, I swear a lot when I've been drinking.
I promise, no more Katrina stuff during this post, other than the fact that over the weekend I made a profound connection between the Delta's expansive history of catastrophic floods, the religious ritual of baptism, and Jeff Buckley's death by drowning in the Mississippi River off the Memphis shoreline that I probably couldn't articulate to someone who wasn't brought up Southern, rural, and Baptist. The whole tragedy's really gotten to me ... it's hard to explain the deep biological attachment even the most cynical and urbane Southern expatriate has for his homeland ... rather like having left a lover who was bad for you and having no intention of going back but loving her just the same ... sorry. I just got my latest copy of THE OXFORD AMERICAN (www.oxfordamericanmag.com) and I'm feeling all Faulkner and shit.
We began the three-week unit on candy and chocolates today. No one was more surprised than me when my chocolate tempered on the first try both times I made chocolate shells. I also made orange ganache for hand-rolled truffles tomorrow and got my shells filled with lemon white chocolate ganche, and made muscadines (milk chocolate, Grand Marnier, and hazelnut paste). Tempering chocolate has been a huge bugaboo for me, since I never seem to get it to work, and my current instructor broke it down in such a simple way that I'm amazed that I've been so apprehensive about it all this time. Good thing, too; thanks to the extra day off we've got all of two days to get it all down. The Le Cordon Bleu curriculuum is so mishandled that it's ridiculous.
To wind up, go to www.morganbrayton.com and see what mspinkypegnoir does for a living, and does damn well. Click on the "Comedy Demo" link and get ready to laugh your ass off. I've been trying to convince her to come perform in the Seattle/Portland area for forever, but she's a very busy lady. Cheers anyway, my little pink lesbian cookie!
I thought I had a doctor's appointment downtown today, and did my usual I-have-a-downtown-appointment-after-school ritual of Caribbean wrap at the Mexican restaurant across the street from WCI followed by coffee and laptop slack time, only to remember just as I was standing at the building's door that my appointment is Friday night. Crap. I was all hepped up and prepared to spend a few hours away from my apartment, and at a loss for something to do. I'd already had a Corona with my dinner, and a shot of espresso at Coffee People, so I decided to continue the trend and stop in at Stumptown Coffee on 3rd. Stumptown has the enormous good taste to serve a huge line of high-end imported and domestic beers and ales beside what's arguably the best coffee in town. Their ale selection reminds me of the much-missed Stumbling Monk on Capitol Hill in Seattle, which is halfway between my old place and the apartment building where a huge chunk of my posse lived during my Seattle Golden Age of 2002-04 (and a few of my tribe still live there). Many a night I spent scrounging around for the cool ashtray that looked like a urinal, bumming cigs, making fun of Hill hipsters, grousing about the queer community, and then stumbling up the hill to Dick's for 1 AM gutbomber burgers. (Mr. Corpsegrinder knows whereof I speak.)
Anyroad, so I followed up that Corona with a ... lessee ... "Young's Old Nick Barley Wine Style Ale, 7.2%". And let me tell you, cousin, it's getting the job done. Anyone who's hung out with me realtime knows that I have virtually no resistance to any kind of chemical stimulant, and it takes three, maybe four pints with a full stomach to put me completely under the table. OId Nick, bless his heart, has placed me in that muted, soft stage of vague unreality that I needed after a day of petty bureaucrats crawling up my ass (dealing with the insurance company for U-Haul and the collision I had in my rental truck the day I moved to Portland) and Southernly geographic anguish over the deluge of N.O. I think I can just about manage the stumble home.
Speaking of which, get this quote from Barbara Bush today:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/05/barbara_bush_things_.html
This on the heels of her son's comment that hey, Trent Lott lost his mansion just like everybody else ... but boy, his new place is gonna be somethin' else! (Earlier post on boingboing.net - check back a couple days.) Good Gawd. Why must these elitist numbnut motherfuckers hail from my part of the country? (Not that the rest of the South really claims Texas.) So goddamn embarassing. In other news, I swear a lot when I've been drinking.
I promise, no more Katrina stuff during this post, other than the fact that over the weekend I made a profound connection between the Delta's expansive history of catastrophic floods, the religious ritual of baptism, and Jeff Buckley's death by drowning in the Mississippi River off the Memphis shoreline that I probably couldn't articulate to someone who wasn't brought up Southern, rural, and Baptist. The whole tragedy's really gotten to me ... it's hard to explain the deep biological attachment even the most cynical and urbane Southern expatriate has for his homeland ... rather like having left a lover who was bad for you and having no intention of going back but loving her just the same ... sorry. I just got my latest copy of THE OXFORD AMERICAN (www.oxfordamericanmag.com) and I'm feeling all Faulkner and shit.
We began the three-week unit on candy and chocolates today. No one was more surprised than me when my chocolate tempered on the first try both times I made chocolate shells. I also made orange ganache for hand-rolled truffles tomorrow and got my shells filled with lemon white chocolate ganche, and made muscadines (milk chocolate, Grand Marnier, and hazelnut paste). Tempering chocolate has been a huge bugaboo for me, since I never seem to get it to work, and my current instructor broke it down in such a simple way that I'm amazed that I've been so apprehensive about it all this time. Good thing, too; thanks to the extra day off we've got all of two days to get it all down. The Le Cordon Bleu curriculuum is so mishandled that it's ridiculous.
To wind up, go to www.morganbrayton.com and see what mspinkypegnoir does for a living, and does damn well. Click on the "Comedy Demo" link and get ready to laugh your ass off. I've been trying to convince her to come perform in the Seattle/Portland area for forever, but she's a very busy lady. Cheers anyway, my little pink lesbian cookie!