The Grumpy Gourmet

Saturday morning, 7:04 a.m.

I have a lot to do today.

And when I say I have a lot to do today? I mean HOLY-BEJEEBUS-BATMAN-I-HAVE-SO-MUCH-CRAP-TO-DO!!! And it all has to be done before 4 p.m.

So what am I doing now? I'm drinking coffee and playing web sudoku. Cuz, you know, that's just how I roll.

I've been up since 5 when Vinny, who didn't feel as though sitting on my face was nearly enough to get my attention, decided instead to whip me in the face repeatedly with his tail. Seriously. He sat with his back to me and swish swish swished until I got up. This was after he'd jumped on me, stared at me, sat on my face. So yeah...I guess it wasn't enough.

Anyway! Today is Owen's 42nd birthday. And it's also RPG geekery night. Which means birthday cake and pirates.

Speaking of cake...so O requested some kind of chocolate-y/raspberry something to be left to my discretion. So last night I set out to make him a dark chocolate cake with raspberry sauce and a chocolate ganache.

Now, the recipe I wanted to try was from an old Gourmet magazine and I was excited to try it. You know, because I don't want to just stick to the tried and true. Except...you know what sucks about Gourmet? They take a recipe that should be about 6 steps and uses 2 bowls and they turn it into a 30-step process using every cotton pickin' kitchen implement known to man...and some not even known to man.

It called for 2 10-inch cake rounds. Uh huh. I don't have 10-inch cake rounds¹. Who the hell uses 10-inch cake rounds? I've been baking for the last 10 years. Do you know I've never ever ever needed a 10-inch cake round like ever? To hell with that.

So I decided I would just use my 9-inchers and discard leftover batter.

Uh huh.

After 45 minutes of prep...chopping quality chocolate, brewing espresso, sifting, mixing, beating, pouring...I get the batter in the pans and the pans into the oven.

And do you want to know what happened?

No you don't.

15 minutes later I can smell something burning. And I peek into the oven to find that I had mis-gauged how much batter was in the pans and they'd both started rising and spilling over the edges and onto the bottom of the oven.

Nice.

The sad part is that I tasted the raw batter and it didn't even taste as good as some of my other recipes. So screw you, Gourmet. I'm going back to my favorite dark chocolate cake recipe that doesn't call for some hoity-toity 10-inch pan that, as far as I can tell, doesn't even exist in America.

OK!

So yeah I've got the cake still to make, and grocery shopping to do which requires that I make a list which I've not done yet. Also? There's a bathroom to be cleaned and a kitchen floor to be mopped and some vacuuming and dusting that should be done too. Plus, laundry and a special little project that needs to also be finished as a special birthday surprise for Owen because, you know, I can't seem to stop with the last minute awesome ideas for which I don't actually have time.

You see, I'm of the awesome when it comes to fabulous gift and party ideas. Seriously I am. I was the official Cruise Director² of my family for several years before I finally resigned in disgust at the unwillingness to participate by a certain *cough dad cough* individual. I have a major Cruise Direction problem though. I'm not struck by genius until the last possible moment and so most of my brilliant ideas don't come to fruition because I run out of time.

It doesn't stop me from trying though.

At least...trying in my head because, as you can plainly see, I have a shit ton to do and, as you can also plainly see, I'm not doing any of it and am instead talking to you.

Boo.



1: I actually did go to the kitchen store to find some and they didn't have any. Do you know what they had? A ton of 9-inch rounds.
2: Jenni still tries to get me to resume the duties, lamenting often about the lack of direction we have at family get togethers...or the lack of get togethers altogether since there isn't anyone to coordinate. To that I say pfffpppt.