From the experimental kitchen

* Chocolate-Coffee Volcano cake. This is a light but cocoa-y cake in a Bundt pan, which when it's done and cooled you fill the hole with chopped walnuts, and then put espresso-flavored cafe creme (i.e., custard) on top and let it gloop down the sides. You are then supposed to sprinkle rum & sugar on the top and caramelize it, but I don't have a kitchen blowtorch so I elided that bit.

Most problems were cosmetic. The Bundt pan I borrowed from Warren, though ostensibly non-stick AND I oiled it, has all these decorative cutouts which the cake stuck to. The custard was a bit gloopier than I expected, so as it went down the sides it looked, as Brian the king of tact phrased it, like a nuclear accident. I didn't have instant espresso powder to flavor the custard with, so I brewed a shot of espresso and dropped the amount of cream accordingly. In spite of all the above, it turned out quite yummy. The new problem is, how to get it into the office so audiovile and I don't have to eat it all.

* Mint Dominoes. Which I'm not making as dominoes, because that's too fussy, but rather just round mints. This makes them more or less a homemade York Peppermint Patty. It was much easier than I anticipated to make the mint bit, but I haven't coated them in the chocolate yet because they took longer to dry than I expected. The minty bits taste like they ought, at least. I'm not sure this recipe is a keeper, it's missing a certain je ne sais quoi, but it's making me feel more confident about further candy experiments.

* Spatchcocked roast chicken. Not exactly new, but I still don't have the timing down--spatchcocking reduces the cooking time nicely, but the numbers I have are for much smaller chickens than I get, and I haven't worked out the correct equation for adjusting them yet. So, a little overcooked.

Tonight, I roast a duck (haven't decided if I want to fuss with a l'orange or no), and there will be wild rice and a veg and more choco-coffee cake and cappucino and a romantic movie; either Chocolat or Wild at Heart, depending on our mood.

On the gestational period of music enjoyment

per previous post.

When sweh switched his allegiance to MP3, he gave me what minidiscs he had. These included Art of Noise's greatest hits. I knew their cover of the Peter Gunn theme, and liked it (especially the video, which is a hoot), but was just sort of "meh whatever" on listening to the disc and left it in the stack.

Months later, now, I picked it up on a whim (I don't have all that many discs, so sometimes I'll listen to just about anything just because it's different) and *wham* all of a sudden, I'm really enjoying it. This has happened before with a number of other albums, too: I'll give it one listen, shrug, leave it alone for months, then suddenly NEED TO HEAR IT RIGHT NOW ARG. Insta-love like I had for Songs for the Deaf is much rarer for me.

(This is not to be confused with the "getting into it because your spouse listens to it constantly" phenomenon, which is how I came to Kerbdog fandom, for instance.)

*squee!*

Lavender roses!

Dear Positron: Eat a dick. Love and kisses, Task Force Ion.

Last night's lesson: You can get a Task Force if you're level 10. But you shouldn't.

We gathered 2 level 12s and a mix of 10s and 11s, and we went to Steel Canyon (with minor shenanigans en route, as it's a dangerous place), and presented ourselves before Positron, all shiny-eyed and eager. And lo, he did dub us Task Force Ion, and he did grant us a mission to beat the crap out of an Eidolon called "Epidural" (!?!) way out in Boomtown. To Boomtown we went, navigating our way through the mounds of burned buildings and around the mobs of irritable high-level villains, and jumped we into the sewer where the zombie hordes were found.

And behold, terror did spread across the land, even as puddles did spread across the floor, for the first group of enemies inside was a pack of eight or so level 16 Abominations, which were purple in the sight of even Task Force Ion's leader. The group took counsel, each with another, wondering aloud if Positron truly intended to send us to our doom; and in the midst of the discussion did Badgerperson pounce forward into the mob, and died gloriously in under two seconds. And the wrath of the Abominations fell upon the heads of Task Force Ion, and quickly thereafter did Crimson Rage fall, and so too Doctor Reality, who was also then in the middle of a dead-fleshly gangrape or at least that's what the screenshot looked like; and the rest of the task force fled, and stood not upon the order of their going.

Other events of the evening:

* Aberrant Rectors are now familiarly known as "rectums", and therefore cause lots of butt jokes.

* New term, "dog-fart levelup". As coined by 8782, on a mission about four levels below most of us, when he leveled in the middle of it. Upon expressions of surprise from all sides, considering what a cakewalk it was and how little XP was being generated, quotha: "I was so close, I could've farted on a passing dog and leveled up."

* New term, "salad fork", as in "fuck this with a". For missions that are just too annoying to live. Coined in response to spending half an hour running around Perez Park trying to find a particular door, while trying to avoid getting into fights every 50 feet. And failing at both of those.