The Food Network

If I could have said it better myself, I would have. Anthony Bourdain's take on the Food Network.

Daily Bay Bridge Saga

I have a major issue with California drivers. I don't know if it's the high ratio of luxury vehicles (on a good day it's only a ton of BMW's... I'm usually one of the few POS cars on the road...), or the high ratio of selfish a$%hole drivers. Hard to say. But when you want to merge into a lane, say the one I'm in, there are a few rules that should be followed:

1. if I am where you want to go, speed up or slow down. DO NOT try to merge anyway. I am cranky when faced with congested freeways and low blood sugar. This applies to the morning commute (haven't had b-fast yet) or the afternoon (hungry for din-din)
2. if I will be where you want to be by the time you are going to get there, DO NOT try to merge anyway. See #1.
3. If you don't signal, I don't know you're going to try to usurp my place in my lane.
   
4. do not try to compensate for the lack of signaling by a) drifting slowly into my lane, or b) darting quickly into my lane. You;re still an ass, and I can not be held responsible for the angry look on my face, nor for the profanities issuing forth from my otherwise innocent face at 7:20 in the morning.
   
5. no matter what the current issue of whatever magazine's currently in vogue, road rage is NOT attractive. You will not get a wealthy and good looking mate this way. I am in the right lane because half of the Bay Bridge is an uphill incline, and my POS car gets tired. If you want to pass me, feel free, just do it the way the rest of the world would - IN THE PASSING LANE. The asshole that tried to pass me on the non-existent shoulder this morning in their black BMW SUV! You will get your comeuppance! And you didn't succeed anyway - did you miss the fact that there IS NO SHOULDER?!?!

Follow these simple rules and we may or may not get along just fine. Leave me alone to my bad 70's and 80's rock station and my tea on the way to work in the morning - and no jostling, please, I have no cup holders, and have o clutch my tea all the way to work. Do all of this, and I will forgive the fact that you bought a $50,000 car that emits the same amount of pollutants and eats up almost the same amount of gas as my 1990 Jeep Cherokee with no muffler, instead of a sensible car that could at least make it look like you're trying to make an effort. Ass.

Time Suckage

I have been busy. Mostly with recovering from getting my wisdom teeth pulled. Wow. That sucked. Still swishing gaping holes in my jaw, but now able to keep food down. Just to sum up.

Post wisdom teeth pullage - I had a BF birthday to deal with. So I baked a cake. A chocolate cake with pear filling glazed with chocolate ganache, and with milk and white chocolate decorations. I ground up pecans and substituted some of the flour. The filling was so volumous the two layers wouldn't meet, and I couldn't glaze over the gap. In a nutshell, if decadence wanted to indulge, this would be its cake.

I made the decoration on top by scanning a tile that Craig has of his family's crest. I cropped out the lion, enlarged it, printed it out, put a piece of parchment paper on top of it and traced it out. I hate white chocolate, and so I'm extremely happy to be using some of the 3lbs I had in my cabinet (even if I did only use 4 oz...).
OK - so the letters are freehand. I couldn't trace through chocolate.

And somehow as I couldn't find my round cake pans, and octagon seemed yummier than a square...