No more cake. I beg you.
So my journey through Cowboy Bebop continues. Last night I watched two episodes which catapulted me from "This is pretty good" into "OMG THIS IS SO AWESOME."
"Mushroom Samba" was hilarious and awesome and full of blaxploitation injokes. OMG the guy who sat in the cafe eating a slushie, spotted Edward whizzing by and tried to chug his slushie only to get brain freeze. OMG Jet talking to his bonsai. OMG Edward on her motor scooter. OMG hardboiled assassin Spike crying out "I can't deal with it!" when faced with another mushroom-based meal.
And then..."Speak Like a Child" which totally laid me low in helpless weepiness. At first it seemed kind of quirky and funny, what with Faye losing at the dog track and Jet and Spike going on an endless perilous odyssey through a derelict building in search of a VCR only to find they brought VHS when they needed Beta. But then...oh, then. Oh, the tape itself. And 90% of the impact was how it was presented. They just watched it. One shot each of each of their faces, shocked into silence, nobody saying a word, and just the tape of young Faye talking to her future self, so innocent and full of confidence and life. I AM RUIN.
Report on the modified versions of the Too Much Chocolate Cake:
I used the same basic ingredients for each cake. One devil's food cake mix, one box of instant chocolate pudding, 4 eggs, 1 cup oil, 1/2 cup water, 1 cup sour cream. Mostly I varied what kinds of chips I used.
1. Peanut Butter - I added about 1/4 cup peanut butter to the batter, cutting back on the oil, and used a bag of peanut-butter-and-chocolate chips. It wasn't super peanut buttery. Tasted mostly like the chocolate cake.
2. Butterscotch - used butterscotch chips. This was really tasty.
3. Mint - used crushed-up Andes Candies, and dripped a tiny bit of peppermint oil into the batter (which I had sitting around the house from a few years back when I made homemade peppermint patties). YUM. I should have used two boxes of Andes Candies, not one, but one box still made it subtly minty. Tastes just like a thin mint in cake form.
I sliced up the cakes and put them in a large aluminum roasting pan thing with a lid so I could have a disposable container to tote them in. Note: four cakes is a lot of cake. I had 1/4 of each cake left over after filling the large pan to capacity.
So...anybody want cake? :-)
One of my coworkers came to my office and said "This is the best cake ever served here! Totally! Seriously!" He was very emphatic. I was also pleased that the mint cake earned high praise from my one coworker who's a foodie and amateur chef. As for me, I am now thoroughly sick of cake. Granted it doesn't take much these days. I can eat half of a normal-size piece. But then I'm like NO MOAR PLZ. Right now I can't even think about cake. Nobody say "cake!"
Last night's beef stew was quite delicious as well. I added my own personal secret ingredient - cumin. A little cumin snazzes up a great many recipes, in my experience.
Got pressies from Dayna last night. She got me some colorful bead earrings, a bottle of my favorite salad dressing from Grandpa's Cheese Barn (which is a trip for me but is on her way back home from her parents' house), a little packet of tissues she found that have "Keep Calm and Carry On" printed on them (which is significant because I have a wall decal of that graphic in my front hallway) and a coffee table book of folk art that's totally amaze. Yay!
"Mushroom Samba" was hilarious and awesome and full of blaxploitation injokes. OMG the guy who sat in the cafe eating a slushie, spotted Edward whizzing by and tried to chug his slushie only to get brain freeze. OMG Jet talking to his bonsai. OMG Edward on her motor scooter. OMG hardboiled assassin Spike crying out "I can't deal with it!" when faced with another mushroom-based meal.
And then..."Speak Like a Child" which totally laid me low in helpless weepiness. At first it seemed kind of quirky and funny, what with Faye losing at the dog track and Jet and Spike going on an endless perilous odyssey through a derelict building in search of a VCR only to find they brought VHS when they needed Beta. But then...oh, then. Oh, the tape itself. And 90% of the impact was how it was presented. They just watched it. One shot each of each of their faces, shocked into silence, nobody saying a word, and just the tape of young Faye talking to her future self, so innocent and full of confidence and life. I AM RUIN.
Report on the modified versions of the Too Much Chocolate Cake:
I used the same basic ingredients for each cake. One devil's food cake mix, one box of instant chocolate pudding, 4 eggs, 1 cup oil, 1/2 cup water, 1 cup sour cream. Mostly I varied what kinds of chips I used.
1. Peanut Butter - I added about 1/4 cup peanut butter to the batter, cutting back on the oil, and used a bag of peanut-butter-and-chocolate chips. It wasn't super peanut buttery. Tasted mostly like the chocolate cake.
2. Butterscotch - used butterscotch chips. This was really tasty.
3. Mint - used crushed-up Andes Candies, and dripped a tiny bit of peppermint oil into the batter (which I had sitting around the house from a few years back when I made homemade peppermint patties). YUM. I should have used two boxes of Andes Candies, not one, but one box still made it subtly minty. Tastes just like a thin mint in cake form.
I sliced up the cakes and put them in a large aluminum roasting pan thing with a lid so I could have a disposable container to tote them in. Note: four cakes is a lot of cake. I had 1/4 of each cake left over after filling the large pan to capacity.
So...anybody want cake? :-)
One of my coworkers came to my office and said "This is the best cake ever served here! Totally! Seriously!" He was very emphatic. I was also pleased that the mint cake earned high praise from my one coworker who's a foodie and amateur chef. As for me, I am now thoroughly sick of cake. Granted it doesn't take much these days. I can eat half of a normal-size piece. But then I'm like NO MOAR PLZ. Right now I can't even think about cake. Nobody say "cake!"
Last night's beef stew was quite delicious as well. I added my own personal secret ingredient - cumin. A little cumin snazzes up a great many recipes, in my experience.
Got pressies from Dayna last night. She got me some colorful bead earrings, a bottle of my favorite salad dressing from Grandpa's Cheese Barn (which is a trip for me but is on her way back home from her parents' house), a little packet of tissues she found that have "Keep Calm and Carry On" printed on them (which is significant because I have a wall decal of that graphic in my front hallway) and a coffee table book of folk art that's totally amaze. Yay!