Leap Day 2012

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Ryo

So today is February 29, a day that only occurs (at most) once every four years. Is this a cause for celebration? Well, maybe, but today wasn’t actually a great day for me. I went to work as usual, and then two things happened:

  • I finished reading No Longer Human, which is possibly the most depressing book I’ve ever read. The narrator attempts suicide at least twice during the course of 177 pages.
  • Someone told me that a middle-aged gay man I briefly talked to last week referred to me as “that gay boy” behind my back, which made me feel all sorts of insecurity. Am I giving off some sort of signal? Do I have strange mannerisms?

And then I was depressed out of my mind. Not enough to actually do anything like drown myself in the ocean with someone I’m in love with (because I’m not in love with anyone), but you know, it’s really hard to see the upside of a book where the narrator wants to die and a gay man who’s judged you in a way that high school bullies did.

So then I started thinking about other things to take my mind off of my misery. Like random stuff about leap year.

One thing that always bugged me was that the extra day kind of throws things off, since most of the time it’s assumed that there are 365 days in a year. Take paychecks, for example. If you get paid semi-monthly (that’s twice a month), you get paid the same amount this year, since you have exactly 24 paychecks that are each 1/24 your annual salary, as you would in a non-leap year. But is that fair? You’re working an extra day, and yet you get the same salary. Shouldn’t you get an extra day’s worth of pay? Or at the very least, get an extra holiday? I don’t think companies give an extra day off in leap years.

On the other hand, if you get paid biweekly (that’s every two weeks), on average you end up getting paid slightly more in leap years, though you do work an extra day. You’ll always get paid 1/26 your annual salary every 14 days, no matter what. So on average, you get 365/364 times your annual salary in non-leap years, while you get 366/364 times your annual salary in leap years. The extra 0.27% is negligible, I know. But you hardly ever get anything for free. I guess in this case you still don’t get it for free, since you’re working an extra day. I just can’t win.

Well, March starts tomorrow. Which means I should pay my rent tonight…

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Dark Chocolate Ganache Tart

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Ryo

I love dark chocolate. Much better than milk chocolate. It just has such an intense chocolate flavor, without dulling it with extra sweetness. That rich flavor of dark chocolate has no equal. It’s so sexy, so seductive.

I spied a dark chocolate ganache tart in the Joy the Baker Cookbook, and I just had to make it. I feel like the intensity of dark chocolate came from some kind of relationship…

“Give it to me harder!” she yelled, as her hair slapped me in the face yet again. Girlfriend Number Six was always so violent with her damn ponytail.

But how was I suppose to give it to her harder? She was on top, like she liked to be. The woman in power, she enjoyed playing that role. I tried thrusting upward even harder, but there was only so much I could do being on the bottom. I was thrusting my penis in and out of her while she sat on top of me; I was the living trampoline underneath a moaning gymnast.

We parted ways after that passionate night, my hips sore from the excessive gyrations I performed even while on the bottom. She had to move away for an internship on the East Coast, leaving me in Los Angeles, alone for the first time in years. Long-distance relationships never work, she told me, as she kissed me one last time at the airport. It was deep and passionate, yet strangely sorrowful, like we were never going to see each other again.

We exchanged letters regularly for the next six months. Her internship was going well, but she wanted to come back west again. Her demanding schedule meant that she couldn’t fly out to see me, nor would she have time to spend with me if I were to fly out to see her. I suspected she wasn’t quite as busy as she said she was, and it was just a way to keep her distance from me. We had broken up, after all. But we still wrote to each other, hanging onto a bond between us that couldn’t be broken.

The day of her return was rapidly approaching. She was arriving that night, and I wanted to be ready for her. I recalled all of our moments together. Before we started dating, we would exchange furtive glances at each other while we worked in the same building. I finally gathered the courage to talk to her, and I couldn’t believe that I had waited that long. Conversation between us flowed like wine from an alcoholic’s decanter. We went on romantic dates in the park, where we would lie on a blanket and look up at the sky, the gentle breeze wafting over us as we snuggled together in bliss. Our candlelit dinners together, where we bared our souls to each other as we looked into each other’s eyes, knowing that we were perfect for each other. The sex we had was amazing. Passionate and intense, hot and intimate, there was nothing like being with someone I loved.

And here I was, six months after we had broken up, not knowing what to do to celebrate her return. I didn’t know how she would feel about seeing me again. Had she found someone else and moved on? Did she want to get back together? Her feelings were a complete mystery to me.

I went into the kitchen, where we prepared many meals together. Such happy moments when we stirred a sauce together, when we chopped some berries together, because food is so sensual, so intimate. I loved the times we had in that kitchen, and walking into the emptiness of it now just reminded me of how warm it used to feel. The comfort I got from being there in the past with Number Six was replaced with the loneliness and desolation I would imagine in an uninhabited tundra; the vibrancy that once existed now just a distant memory, frozen beneath an impenetrable layer.

I had to make something incredible for her. Something infused with the zeal and ardor that once defined our relationship. I scanned over the shelves, hunting for that magic ingredient that would do justice to what we once had. My eyes were immediately drawn to the block of dark chocolate I had purchased last week. The rich, velvety chocolate had that right level of intensity I needed in what I was making.

I spied the tart pan on my counter and whipped up a tart crust with some flour, sugar, butter, and a pinch of salt. I pressed it into the tart pan and put it in the oven, as I turned to the block of dark chocolate on the counter. I chopped it up into fine little pieces, while the cream heated up on the stove. The heavy cream poured over the chocolate shards melted them slowly, forming a beautiful, silky ganache that shined like her eyes in the moonlight.

After the tart crust cooled, I poured the ganache into it, and topped it with some raspberries. Little mounds of red fire in a sea of glossy richness. The tartness as a contrast to the velvety texture beneath, the bright red against the dark brown, the passion between the two of us embodied in a nine-inch circle.

I drove to the airport after making the chocolate ganache tart, eagerly anticipating seeing her face again. I ran into the terminal, looking up at the screens to find her flight. She would be in my arms in mere minutes, and even though I didn’t know we would be back together, I looked forward to the sensation of her embrace.

Red flashed before my eyes, an unwelcome intruder in the dream-like state I was in. The flight she was supposed to be on flashed in red, as I saw television screens nearby turn to a news channel. Her flight had crashed in the mountains. A faulty propeller had gone unnoticed, and the plane had crash-landed in a remote mountain range on the way here. There were no survivors.

I felt numb all over. The love of my life had left me for six months, I thought. But now she was gone forever. I would never kiss her lips again. I would never see her smile again. I would never be intimate with her again. I could never lie in bed with her and feel safe ever again.

The shock was too much. I couldn’t even cry. I went back to my apartment in a daze. I couldn’t even remember the drive back. All I wanted to do was go back into the safety of my apartment, isolated from the real world outside. The world without her.

I cut into the tart I had made for her. I was imagining us enjoying it together, catching up on our lives over the past months we spent apart. But that was just a fantasy now. It would never come true. My teeth sank into the dark chocolate ganache. The subtle sweetness and the creamy texture permeated my mouth, as I bit into a raspberry, its juicy flesh bursting in my mouth, releasing a flood of tartness that tempered the rich chocolate flavor that coated my tongue.

Goodbye, my love. The times we spent together, I’ll never forget. Your name will never again escape my lips. As long as I never mention your name, you’ll always be alive inside of me.

Gosh that sure ended sadly. Well, luckily when I made this, nobody died.

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Dark Chocolate Ganache Tart
from Joy the Baker Cookbook

Crust
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 stick unsalted butter, cold
1 egg yolk, beaten

Ganache
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1/2 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

Topping
3/4 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 cup fresh raspberries
1/2 cup fresh blueberries
chocolate shavings

  1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and spices in a bowl.
  2. Cut in the stick of butter with your fingers until incorporated.
  3. Mix in the egg yolk with a fork.
  4. Press the mixture into the sides and bottom of a 9-inch tart pan.
  5. Place the tart pan with the crust in it in the freezer for an hour.
  6. Make the ganache by first heating up the cream until it’s at a lower simmer.
  7. Pour the hot cream on the chopped dark chocolate, and stir with a whisk until it melts.
  8. Cut the half-stick of butter in half and place the halves in the ganache, stirring until the butter melts and the mixture is smooth and glossy. Set this mixture aside to cool.
  9. Preheat the oven to 350F.
  10. Butter a piece of foil and place the foil with the buttered side down on top of the tart crust.
  11. Bake the crust for 20 minutes.
  12. Remove the foil and bake another 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.
  13. Let the crust cool completely.
  14. Fill the crust with the chocolate ganache.
  15. Beat the 3/4 cup of cream with powdered sugar until soft peaks form.
  16. Sprinkle the raspberries and blueberries on top of the ganache.
  17. Dollop the whipped cream in the middle of the tart.
  18. Sprinkle the chocolate shavings on top of the whipped cream.

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The crust. It’s quite crumbly.

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Then I pressed the dough into the tart pan, in the process getting a bunch of crumbs on my counter.

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Here’s the crust after it sat in the freezer for an hour and then in the oven for 35 minutes. It puffed up a fair bit, though, despite the freezing and the foil.

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The chocolate ganache is nice and shiny.

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I put the ganache into the tart shell and smoothed it out a bit. It’s all gonna get covered up really soon anyway.

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I put some raspberries in a ring around the edge, along with some blueberries and leftover raspberries in the middle. The original recipe actually called for blackberries instead of blueberries, but that’s what my local market had, so I used them.

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The bright red raspberries and the deep blue blueberries look delicious.

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Then some sweetened cream and chocolate shavings on top. Of course, my camera skills are horrible, so the whipped cream has totally thrown the white balance off.

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I thought the dark chocolate ganache was so rich and delicious, but then again I’m biased towards dark chocolate. The berries also added a nice tartness against the rich chocolate. The crust was a little thick and hard to cut through with a fork, unfortunately. I’ll have to work on getting the crust a bit thinner next time. But this recipe is definitely a keeper.

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Lime Macarons

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Ryo

I told myself I would make more ambitious baked goods this year. For me, macarons qualify as “ambitious,” because, well, I am quite lacking in the dexterity and finesse departments. I happened upon this recipe for lime macarons, so I decided to give it a try.

Lime? In a macaron? Usually, I’m used to flavors like chocolate or coffee. Or some bolder fruits, like strawberry or blueberry. But lime, I wonder where that came from.

Somewhere at the end of time, a single lime tree stood, a single patch of verdancy in an otherwise desolate landscape. Its branches still produced fruit, some miracle that no gods could explain.

The last two humanoids gathered around the tree, as it was the only green they had ever known. Day after day, they would pick the fruit and suck out the juice, savoring the tartness and slight sweetness of the lime. That was the only way they knew how to harness the mystery fruit that their parents knew nothing about.

One day, as they continued their exploration of the long-forgotten structure nearby that housed so many tomes of long ago, they happened upon a section devoted to preparation of food. Their entire culinary experience consisted of eating cooked animal meat, vacuum-packed preserved foods of their ancestors, and the limes. They knew nothing about the pleasures that food could bring. The sensual, sexual sensations that well-prepared cuisine was capable of creating.

They spied a book with colorful, round confections on the cover. The rainbow of shades drew them in. They opened it, flipping through page after page of culinary creations they had never seen before. The words made no sense to them. The book was filled with unfamiliar vocabulary describing these delights that they knew nothing of.

Suddenly, the shelves around them seemed to disintegrate. Still holding the book between them, they materialized in the middle of a white tile floor, where they smelled delicious scents they had never smelled before. People in white coats and hats rushed around, while an angry man with a mustache barked orders at them.

The angry man noticed the intruders huddled on the floor. He saw that they were cradling a book, along with a small bag filled with limes. The book was extremely worn and covered in a thick coating of dust, but he could still recognize it. It was his favorite book on macarons, the one that his mentor gave him when he graduated from pastry school. But what was it doing here? And what were these people doing holding it?

He had been fretting about what to serve for dessert. The fruit harvest had been especially bad this year. All he had were limes and lemons. Not even chocolate. What could he possibly make with such a limited selection of ingredients?

The chef stared at the strangers again. The book and the bag of limes. That’s it! Lime macarons! That is what he would serve for dessert. He piped some macaron shells, dyed green to go with the lime flavor. While they were drying, he prepared some lime curd, using some eggs, lime juice, and lime zest. After popping the macaron shells into the oven, they came out perfectly. The pastry chef piped some of the curd onto the shells, creating perfectly round sandwiches of lime goodness.

The strangers, still huddled on the floor, looked like they needed nourishment. The chef handed them each a lime macaron, and they looked at the confections curiously. They had never seen such sorcery as the chef had just performed, and they were in awe of the perfectly round green sandwiches he had just handed them. The humanoids bit into the lime macarons simultaneously. Their eyes lit up like a slot machine that just paid out a jackpot. The lime flavor was unmistakeable, and yet it was carried in this vehicle of an almond shell that was wonderfully chewy in their mouths. They squealed with delight. It was the only verbal communication they had with the chef.

He was satisfied with their response. He knew he had his dessert, so he rushed over to the work table to prepare more of them. The two humanoids, satisfied from their new culinary experience, suddenly found themselves feeling inexplicably lustful. They stared into each other’s round eyes, finding in them a new warmth and attraction that they had never seen before.

The two of them found a nearby supply closet. Even with nobody to teach them these things, they still had a desire for privacy in their intimate moments. Their lips came together, a spontaneous kiss that came from nothing learned. Juices started flowing from their nether regions, and he instinctively thrust his appendage into her orifice, a key going into a lock he never knew existed. Back and forth they thrust, their bodies experiencing pleasure they had never known before.

Their climaxes approached simultaneously. By some miracle, they had synchronized their crescendos of ecstasy, despite their unfamiliarity in this new, unexplored territory. Seconds later, they let out a primal moan that came purely from instinct, as they released their vital fluids into each other. Panting heavily, they both collapsed on the floor, as the closet around them began to fade away like the light from a candle reaching its end. They soon found themselves back amongst the long-forgotten shelves holding the books that talked about food, like the small morsels of pure joy they had experienced mere minutes earlier.

The female humanoid found her stomach growing bigger as the months went on, and soon the two of them were joined by a third living being. They were alone no longer.

Well, I’m guessing it didn’t involve time travel, since I got it from that blog. Anyway, here’s the recipe. I scaled it up by two from the one on the blog.

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Lime Macarons

2 room temperature egg whites
100 g powdered sugar
60 g ground almond
60 g white sugar
green food coloring

Filling
20 g lime juice
zest from one lime
100 g white chocolate

  1. Sift the powdered sugar and ground almond together, and set aside.
  2. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until frothy.
  3. Add the white sugar, and continue mixing at high speed, until stiff peaks form.
  4. Mix the dry ingredients into the egg white mixture, and fold with a spatula until incorporated.
  5. Scoop out 2 tablespoons of the batter into a separate bowl for drawing white lines on the shells.
  6. Mix in green food coloring until the desired color is obtained.
  7. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and pipe the macaron shells on it.
  8. Dip a chopstick into the white batter and draw some lines on the green shells.
  9. Hit the bottom of the baking sheet so that the white streaks sink into the green.
  10. Preheat oven to 300F.
  11. Let the macaron shells sit for 20-30 minutes at room temperature, until they are dry enough that you can touch them without any batter sticking to your finger.
  12. Bake the shells for 12 minutes in the oven, until they don’t slide on their feet.
  13. Make the filling by first warming up the lime juice, either over the stove or in the microwave.
  14. Add the white chocolate and stir until all the white chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.
  15. Add the lime zest, and let the filling cool.
  16. Spoon or pipe the filling onto the macaron shells, and close them with another shell to form a sandwich.

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The green macaron batter.

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I can’t seem to pipe circles for the life of me.

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Here they are with the streaks of white batter.

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After 12 minutes in the oven, they’re done.

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The filling of lime juice, white chocolate, and lime zest.

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I cannot seem to get uniformly-sized macarons. One day…

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Even though I’m usually not a fan of white chocolate, I liked these macarons because the lime flavor was so pronounced. Enough to overpower any white chocolate flavor.

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Bourbon Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Ryo

I had some leftover bananas on my counter (OK, on my rice cooker, to be accurate), and so I turned once again to the Joy the Baker Cookbook for a recipe. Since I already had my loaf pan out from last time, I figured I’d make some kind of banana bread. Luckily, the book had a recipe for banana bread, with chocolate chips and bourbon.

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Bourbon Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
from Joy the Baker Cookbook

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 or 4 bananas)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons bourbon
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
  3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
  4. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  5. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each egg.
  6. Add the mashed bananas, lemon juice, and bourbon, and beat until mixed.
  7. Add the flour mixture and beat until just incorporated.
  8. Add the optional walnuts (I don’t like walnuts so I didn’t add any) and the chocolate chips, and stir to combine.
  9. Pour the batter into the loaf pan.
  10. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  11. Let the loaf cool in the pan for 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

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Here’s the mixture with the wet ingredients: butter, sugar, eggs, mashed bananas, lemon juice, and bourbon. I don’t know if it’s the lemon juice doing something in there, but it looks curdled and kinda nasty. Thankfully, it gets better from here.

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After adding the flour mixture, it looks more like real batter.

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And then the chocolate chips go in. If I approved of nuts in baked goods, they’d have gone in at this point, too. But I don’t, so I didn’t add any.

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Into the loaf pan goes the batter.

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Mine wasn’t quite done even after 60 minutes, so I left it in for another five minutes after that.

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The top is a bit burnt after 65 minutes, but it’s not too bad.

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I love how the top splits open like that. Even if it is a little bit brown up there.

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This bread was a bit crumbly, for some reason. Perhaps the chocolate chips broke up the bread, or something. But I liked the taste of it. The combination of chocolate and banana was delicious. I couldn’t taste the bourbon at all, but other people said they could. Maybe I’ve been desensitized to the taste of alcohol.

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I’m Not Eating Medium-Rare Steak or Dark Chocolate Truffles Today but Everything’s Gonna Be Fine

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Ryo

[This post is kind of long and rambly, so if that’s not your thing, I’m warning you in advance. If you don’t know me in real life, it will make absolutely no sense. Oh and there’s no sex in this post.]

Back when I started this blog, I sort of had a plan to not post things that were too personal. I had a blog before (which even I can no longer access since I managed to forget the password) where I think I posted some somewhat personal things. Because of that, I felt a bit uncomfortable about just any random person knowing about it. It was mostly just my friends who read it, and I was totally fine with that.

But with this blog, it was a chance for a fresh start. I could just post random things, about baking, drinking, video games, statistics, whatever, as long as they weren’t too personal, and not be afraid of random people knowing about it. Well, there was that one incident where random people descended upon my blog, but besides that, I haven’t had this weird anxiety about people finding my blog. Or at least, people I know in real life finding it.

But every once in a while, I let things build up for a bit too long, and then I need to have a cathartic outpouring of my thoughts and feelings. So here it is, with a fair amount of restraint. Actually, quite a large amount. The random people thing, you know.

I’ve been reading Phil Galfond’s blog, which he started last month, and one post in particular stuck with me. Here’s a professional poker player who’s well-known (at least for people who keep up with poker) and has I’m sure thousands of people reading his blog, and yet he’s able to be so open and honest with his emotions. I really admire people who can do that.

I can’t compare myself to him or anything, me being an engineer who plays poker maybe two or three times a year, and him being a professional poker player who’s won and lost over a million dollars in a single day. But if a guy whose blog is thousands, if not millions of times more in the public eye than mine is can talk about his feelings like that, then shouldn’t I be able to?

Well, not necessarily. I mean, we’re fundamentally different people. Everyone’s different. Some are open, some are not. I’ve always been a fairly private person. And some things I’m going through now, I either can’t put into words, or I can’t really share here, because I’m not ready to and I can only share those things in person. But the truth is, it’s been difficult and probably always will be difficult for me to just lay everything out there like some people can.

But therein lies the dilemma. For a lot of things, I do wish I knew other people in the same situation that I am. Because misery loves company? But that would involve me giving up more privacy than I’m willing to right now. And my friends, as supportive and generous as they are, can’t possibly understand some of the things I’m going through. And yes, I’m purposefully being oblique here, and there are multiple “things” that I’m referring to. (And please, don’t ask me what they are; I’ll tell you these things in person when the time is right.) I’ve taken some steps, which some may consider small, but I consider progress for me because they’re definitely outside of my comfort zone, on some of these fronts, and yet I still feel incredibly alone sometimes. Nobody understands me. At least not fully. And maybe nobody ever will, because nobody’s exactly like me.

It’s one of those things that I’ve had to come to terms with. I’ve spent most of my life feeling like I was different from the people around me. The Asian kid growing up in the South, the loner in high school who spent his Friday nights alone, the college student in CS class who didn’t understand the jokes flying around in lab. For all those years, I wished that I could just fit in. But I was a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. It wasn’t going to happen. And it took me a while to accept that.

But then I came to realize that people actually did accept me for who I am. Like me for it, even. Gone were the stupid social expectations and cliques of high school. Well, not entirely, but still, things were better. I can be the male baker who writes semi-erotic stories and obsesses about who’s a special guest star in the credits without people giving me grief. Or at least, not too much grief. And yes, there are still things I could improve. My relationship with my job, my hoarding habits, my super-introverted hermit tendencies, etc. But I’m getting there.

Then there’s the Valentine’s Day thing. Valentine’s Day always brings up these feelings of loneliness for me. I seem to always be conveniently not dating anyone on February 14, and so the constant reminders of chocolates and flowers and jewelry I could be buying a loved one make me feel especially alone. Is it just me, or has the advertising gotten more aggressive this year? Maybe I shouldn’t have signed up for those deal websites and their daily emails. Maybe I’m just feeling the sting from the ads more acutely because I’m getting older.

I do have this weird yearning for a romantic candlelit dinner at a nice restaurant with a special someone. Not a specific someone, just… someone. And I don’t even think about the sex afterwards. Well, OK, let’s be honest, sometimes I do. But really, what I want is just to be able to have a nice romantic dinner where me and that someone can show each other how much we care about each other, how we want to spend time with each other, and just feel totally natural and at ease with each other. And we’d eat something romantic, like medium-rare steak or dark chocolate truffles. Is that so hard? Yes, it is. It’s hard to find nice people. Especially on the internet.

It used to be that I was surrounded by single people. Single people I wasn’t dating, but still, we could commiserate in our solitude together. But as I got older, people started finding other people, and my dates never led to anything lasting. Was it me? Or had I just not found the right person? It’s a numbers game, people always say. And I’m not going on enough dates. So it’s unlikely I would’ve met the right person. But who wants to keep going on dates, spending all this time and effort on it, when the odds of disappointment are so high? The truth is, it’s not actually that fun for me. But if I want that candlelit dinner with optional sex afterwards, I have to go through all the pain and heartbreak before getting there. And that’s daunting.

But you know what? After writing all that, I’m strangely hopeful. There’s more opportunities on the horizon, opportunities that haven’t materialized yet, but I know they’re there. Not just in love, but in other areas of life. So I’m going to try and find them. Slowly, but I will. So things will be OK. I know it.

Catharsis over. Sometimes I need to fall apart into a thousand words. But I feel better already. And tomorrow is a new day, free of heart-shaped balloons and boxes of chocolate. Or at the very least, they’ll be 50% off.

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Peach Pleasures

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Ryo

I don’t particularly enjoy eating fresh peaches, despite the fact that I think peach is a really nice fragrance. It’s not that I don’t like the flavor of peaches, it’s just that fuzziness I always associate with them. The fuzziness from the outside of the peach, and that graininess from the parts around the pit. I know, if you peel the skin, and if you cut carefully around the pit, you can avoid all that. But who wants to go to all that trouble? Not me, and not anyone who’s cutting up my peaches.

But peach schnapps has the pleasant taste and fragrance of peaches, without the unappealing mouthfeel. Plus it’s alcoholic. What more could you ask for? Well, some cocktails made with peach schnapps, for a start.

I started with the fuzzy navel, a classic drink that’s often considered girly.

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Fuzzy Navel
2 oz peach schnapps
2 oz orange juice
2 oz lemonade
orange slice
maraschino cherry

I actually didn’t find this drink to be overpoweringly sweet like I thought it’d be. Maybe it’s because I made my lemonade myself, by mixing together some lemon juice and sugar, and it was a bit less sweet than you might get from a bottle. There’s a nice peach flavor from the peach schnapps that goes well with the citrus.

I made another classic, Sex on the Beach.

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Sex on the Beach
2 oz vodka
1 oz peach schnapps
2 oz orange juice
2 oz cranberry juice
orange slice
maraschino cherry

This drink is pretty potent with two ounces of vodka, yet pleasantly sweet with the peach schnapps and the juices. The vodka’s definitely noticeable in this drink, but the peach flavor with the juices manage to hide most of it. This one could be dangerous.

Finally, I tried a bourbon drink, thinking maybe this time I might conquer my dislike of bourbon.

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Peach Creek
1 oz peach schnapps
2 oz bourbon
1 oz sour mix
lemon twist

You’re actually supposed to use Knob Creek Bourbon for this (hence the “Creek” in the name), but I just used Maker’s Mark since they all taste the same to me anyway. This definitely has a strong bourbon taste, but the peach flavor goes surprisingly well with it. This was a rare bourbon drink that I actually enjoyed.

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You Could Have Made a Million Dollars Last Month

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Ryo

Well, it would’ve been difficult, but there was still a chance.

On January 22, the cost of sending a letter by first-class mail rose from 44 cents to 45 cents. A small 1 cent increase, but you could’ve exploited it. For a small 2.27% return on investment.

Since the post office sells “forever stamps” at the current first-class postage rate that will forever (well, as long as the U.S. Postal Service exists) be good for the first-class postage rate whenever they’re used, you could have bought forever stamps at 44 cents apiece before January 22, 2012. But after that date, they’re worth 45 cents each.

So that means that, had you bought 100 million forever stamps at 44 cents each (for $44 million), they would suddenly be worth $45 million after January 22. You’ve made a million dollars!

That is, if you could actually find enough people willing to buy all these stamps from you for 45 cents each. Presumably, the buyers would have to be local, or else why would they pay for shipping when they could just go to the post office themselves to buy them at the same price? And how many stamps do people even buy at once? Even if each person bought 100 stamps, that’s still a million people you’d have to sell these stamps to.

So I suppose I should’ve titled this post “You Could Have Made a Million Dollars Last Month if You Had 44 Million Dollars and Can Sell a Hundred Million Stamps.” I guess making a million dollars is never easy…

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Avocado Pound Cake

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Ryo

My friend Joan gave me the Joy the Baker Cookbook recently, so I thought I would try some of the recipes from it, since they did look delicious.

I happened to have some small avocados that I bought last week in my kitchen, and the avocado pound cake recipe caught my eye. I’m not sure why I even had avocados, since it’s not like I had any Super Bowl plans, and I had no intent to make guacamole. I suppose that I just like eating avocados once in a while. But avocados? In pound cake? I had never heard of such a thing. It sounds like a modern invention. Perhaps one that was described in a letter like this.

February 6, 2011

Dearest Joy,

I missed your presence today more than ever. I know that your work is demanding and keeps you away for weeks at a time, but really, darling, I wished you were here with me today especially.

I had the usual gang over: Bob and Karen, Steve and Diane, Kevin and Michael. They were here to watch the Super Bowl, but I just wanted them here because I was so lonely without you. I really couldn’t care less about the football game. All I wanted was you.

I tried to at least pretend to care about traditions. I went out to buy a bag of avocados so I could make guacamole. We really don’t eat avocados often enough, Joy. That soft, buttery texture, the beautiful green color, there’s just nothing like it. I mashed up the avocado flesh along with some lime juice using a fork. It felt strangely satisfying to mash up the green mushy fruit.

I remember you telling me before how you make your guacamole, so I added some minced garlic, salt, cumin, cayenne pepper, onion, and some seeded tomatoes. Right before my very eyes, the pile of green ovals of avocado had magically transformed themselves into a delicious dip for chips. Perfect for the Super Bowl. But the Super bowl wasn’t perfect without you.

I sat there in the reclining chair, half watching the game, half eyeing the three couples sitting around the living room, holding hands, leaning on each other, just being couples. How I wished you were here by my side in that moment. I was just the seventh wheel on a six-wheeler.

The game ended sooner than I had imagined it would, and the three pairs of two marched out of the apartment to have separate dinners, in private. I was once again alone in the apartment, now having to face the rest of the night without the distractions of the Super Bowl and friends to keep my mind off of how miserable I was without you here. I listlessly cleaned up the empty glasses and bowls of chips, while at the same time I felt how empty I felt with you on the road.

I had everything cleaned up, when I realized I still had some avocados left. There were two of them on the counter, round and somewhat soft. I couldn’t help but think of your breasts, Joy, even though yours are so much more ample and so much prettier than two brown avocados. But I couldn’t help it. I can’t stop thinking about you.

The problem I had at hand, though, was that the avocados were probably going to be overripe soon, and I didn’t want to deal with mushy avocados. I didn’t think I had the strength to face that problem alone. So I had to use them up somehow. I was tired of guacamole. I had stuffed my face with so many chips dipped in guacamole, just to drown my sorrows in luscious monounsaturated fat.

I was sitting there drinking some wine when I thought about how much you loved pound cake. You turned me onto it. I never thought that I could love something so simple, but somehow you did it. That soft, buttery cake that had so few ingredients and yet was so delicious. My mouth was watering.

So it came to me. Couldn’t I mix in some avocado into pound cake batter, since it was basically like butter? I could just replace some of the butter with avocado, and make a pound cake with it. I was determined to make this work. For you.

Flour, butter, sugar, eggs. And avocado. The batter was a pale green, like that pastel color you like when you’re painting Easter Eggs for the local kids. I always loved your generous spirit. I just poured it into a loaf pan and baked it for fifty minutes until it was done. Easier than pie.

I ate the slightly green pound cake, thinking of you with every bite. It was so moist and delicious. Chunks of cake melted in my mouth, and I strangely thought of the last time I ate you out. I loved darting my tongue into your inner depths. I felt like I was reaching your soul with my tongue, while you moaned and screamed my name. Making you happy brings me a satisfaction that I can’t get anywhere else.

You know what I miss most, though, is the nights we spend together in bed. It’s just not the same without you, your half of the bed cold and lifeless while I stare at the pillow on your side that’s missing your head on it. I just want to have your body next to mine, so I can hold you in my arms and make love to you like you deserve. Your vagina envelops my penis like a warm mouth on a lollipop, and we thrust together in harmony, two sea creatures undulating synchronously in the ocean of our love. You moan, I moan, and we exchange fluids like our parents told us not to. You climax before me. Ladies first. As the pH in your vagina goes up from the massive release of fluids from your orgasm, I release my own fluids into your area, streams of life swimming upstream in an acidic chamber of warmth.

We collapse after climaxing and hold each other in our arms. Your arms drape around my shoulders, and I feel totally safe and complete as I drift off to sleep in the arms of the woman I love.

I miss you terribly.

Forever yours,
Gregory

Geez, talk about a sappy love letter. Do people even write letters anymore? I just seem to be exchanging emails with my dates lately. Not that they’ve really gone anywhere, but still, I wish someday I’d have somebody to write a letter to like that.

Oh anyway, enough about that, let’s talk about the recipe. The somewhat odd measurements (like 3/8 cup buttermilk) are because I halved the recipe from the book, which is for two loaves. I did not think I needed two whole loaves of pound cake, when I had no gigantic party to go to.

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Avocado Pound Cake
from Joy the Baker Cookbook

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/8 cup (3/4 of a stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon ripe mashed avocado
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/8 cup (1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons) buttermilk

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
  3. Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, and set aside.
  4. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
  5. Add in the avocado and beat until incorporated.
  6. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each egg.
  7. Add the vanilla extract and beat until mixed.
  8. Add half the flour mixture and beat until just incorporated.
  9. Add the buttermilk and the remaining half of the flour mixture, and beat until just incorporated.
  10. Pour the batter into the loaf pan.
  11. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
  12. Let the pound cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

You’re supposed to use a stand mixer for the beating, but since I don’t have one in my tiny kitchen, I just used a hand mixer.

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The wet ingredients: butter, sugar, mashed avocado, eggs, and vanilla extract. I actually used a hand mixer, unlike my usual method of just mixing with a spoon, since I wanted to get the avocado nice and smooth.

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And then the dry ingredients go in: flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, along with some buttermilk.

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The batter, with a nice green color, goes into the loaf pan.

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My pound cake was done after 50 minutes. The greenness has disappeared, at least on the outside.

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Onto a wire rack to cool. It looks kind of like normal pound cake on the outside.

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Well, except that the top seems flatter than the pound cake I usually make.

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The inside has a green tinge to it from the avocado. The cornmeal adds a bit of grittiness, and the avocado lends a slight avocado flavor to the pound cake. I actually liked this pound cake quite a bit, it’s a departure from the normal pound cake with its own unique taste, yet it has that sweetness and richness that I would want from pound cake.

I did get some comments, though, that it wasn’t quite pound cake-like enough. Maybe I should just present it as “avocado loaf.”

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Kahlua Cocktails

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Ryo

As the cold weather continued, I was in the mood for some coffee-like flavors, but without the caffeine of coffee. After all, I am drinking at night. I’m not enough of an alcoholic to be drinking in the morning, when caffeine would be welcome.

So I made some cocktails with Kahlua, the coffee-flavored liqueur. I usually don’t use it very much, since I prefer fruity flavors. But sometimes, the mood strikes.

The first one is kind of odd, it’s citrus with Kahlua.

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Kahlua Sour
2 oz Kahlua
1 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz simple syrup
lemon slice

I was surprised by how much I actually liked this drink. When I first saw it, I thought there was no way a syrupy coffee liqueur could go well with the acidity of lemon juice. But it was actually surprisingly good, the combination of the acidity with the earthiness of the coffee. It was just a bit too sweet, though. Maybe it’s because I used 2:1 sugar syrup instead of 1:1 like a lot of people. I’d probably halve the sugar next time.

I’ll admit that I tried this next drink because of its name.

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Screaming Orgasm
1 oz vodka
1.5 oz Baileys Irish Cream
0.5 oz Kahlua

This didn’t taste like any orgasm I’ve ever had. The vodka was pretty noticeable in this drink, but with the sweetness and creaminess from the Baileys and Kahlua, it wasn’t nearly that bad. It’s definitely a very alcoholic-tasting drink, and also quite rich with the Baileys.

Finally, a shot that’s mostly for looks.

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Baby Guinness
0.75 oz Kahlua
0.25 oz Baileys Irish Cream

By layering the Baileys on top of the Kahlua, it looks like a tiny little shot of Guinness. But this drink is more for the looks than the taste. It basically just tastes like the sum of its parts: sweet coffee liqueur with some creamy Baileys on top. I would definitely not want to drink a whole glass of this, it needs something else to balance the sweetness.

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Chinese Almond Cookies

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Ryo

Today is Chinese New Year. Even though my country doesn’t celebrate Lunar New Year, I made some Chinese almond cookies to celebrate anyway, since I like making them and then subsequently eating them.

It is odd, though, that someone decided to put ground-up nuts into coin-shaped cookies, isn’t it? I can just imagine how that came about…

China, in the late 17th century

The new year was approaching. Zhang Hua, once again, was facing the prospect of spending New Year’s alone. What would his parents say this year? He could only take the “why aren’t you married yet?” barrage of questions so many times.

He had just finished his survey of the fields in the family farm. It was a good year, and the harvest was plentiful. Everything from rice to nuts to fruits and vegetables. His family would definitely make a good profit. But would it attract a woman? And would she be with him for the right reasons?

Zhang walked down the dirt path toward town. He wanted to get a drink at the local tavern, as he often liked to do to relax after work. Dressed in his outdoor clothes he farmed in, he always looked like an impecunious hobo, and yet today, there was a strange glow about him. Maybe it was because he was hopeful today. Hopeful that he might find the girl of his dreams, here in the tavern.

A young woman entered and took a seat next to Zhang. As she gently sat on the seat, he couldn’t help but notice that her breasts were larger than average. Certainly a lot larger than a lot of the small-chested Chinese women he had seen in these parts. His gaze traveled up her chest to her face, ever so delicate and fair-skinned. Seeing how thirsty she looked, he immediately offered to buy her a drink, which she readily accepted. She introduced herself as Mi Zhu. They told each other where they lived, and, as luck would have it, her house was not even two kilometers from his.

The conversation between them flowed like the Yangtze River after heavy rain. Drink after drink was poured, filling their bladders with water and ethanol. Zhang and Mi were hungry, so they got up to get a snack. They stumbled as if they had just learned to walk. The small café next door was open, so they hobbled in, attracting some stares in the process.

They ordered some scallion pancakes. In the small café, the kitchen was open, and they could both watch as the chef started mixing together flour and water to form the dough. This café was famous for making their scallion pancakes on demand. He kneaded the dough over and over, and then sprinkled on some chopped scallions. As he worked the dough some more, he rolled it around in sesame oil, and then started folding it over. He kept folding and folding, creating more and more layers in the dough. Zhang and Mi’s eyes were transfixed on this man handling his dough. This oily, doughy mass was about to turn into delicious pancakes. The chef cut up the dough into smaller pieces and flattened them into disks. As they hit the hot oil in the frying pan, the sizzle that only comes from delicious fried food hit their ears right before the delicious smell of pancakes frying hit their noses. Their mouths were watering.

Zhang and Mi shared an almost sexual connection with food. Unbeknownst to each other, they were both slightly aroused by this display of pancake-frying. If they had reached down to touch each other down there, they would have both noticed some moisture. But there was no time for that now. Now was the time to eat.

The pancakes were presented to them on a large white plate, with a small dish of soy sauce for dipping. Zhang gestured for Mi to take the first pancake, as he was always chivalrous in his encounters with the opposite sex. Despite the fact that his chivalry had failed to get him laid, he continued this attitude, to Mi’s delight. She dipped a corner of a slice of pancake into the soy sauce and put it into her mouth. Her mouth exploded with flavors of scallion and sesame oil, their fragrance permeating her entire body, warming her to her soul. The mist between her legs became a sprinkle, as she involuntarily moaned with pleasure.

Her moan was audible enough for Zhang, whose own droplet became a small dribble. He had to have some of that pancake in his mouth, immediately. The soy sauce dish almost tipped over from the force with which he dunked his pancake slice. He then shoved it into his mouth like a dhole devouring the last hare in sight. The sight of Zhang demolishing that pancake like an animal sparked a primal urge within her. She had to bed him tonight. There was no other way to satisfy her intense desires.

After paying for the food, Mi practically dragged Zhang out of the café by the arm. She flagged down a rickshaw to take them back to her house, as they were in no shape to walk even one kilometer in their inebriated state. They quietly kissed each other in the back of the rickshaw, both of them anticipating the epic sexual encounter that was to come.

The rickshaw couldn’t get to her house fast enough. Mi thought about yelling at the runner to go faster, but she wanted to remain calm and peaceful for her upcoming experience. Sex under stress is just no fun at all.

They flew into the house and up the stairs into Mi’s bedroom. Their lips were locked together like stones of the Great Wall, their bodies writhing together on top of her bed. His dirty farm clothes soon came off, as did her flowy blouse and cotton pants. As they embraced each other’s nakedness, the rest of the world melted away like the wax of a candle that burned too long. Their fluids were flowing out more rapidly now, trickles turned into streams. The tip of his penis found its way into her vagina, slipping in effortlessly as if their genitals knew no such thing as friction. Her cavern enveloped his member entire, as they both gasped in carnal delight.

Thrusting gently into her, Zhang could feel his heart beating faster with every pump. Mi could feel his pulse in his body part that was inside of her, and her heart seemed to speed up to match his. She closed her eyes and imagined herself floating across the land, a gentle breeze carrying her past friendly seagulls and toward the ocean. Just as she reached the South China Sea, she could feel herself being lifted higher and higher into the sky. She could almost touch the full moon illuminating the ocean. Her hand reached out as she screamed in pleasure, and she snapped back into reality like she was being thrown off a rickshaw, her orgasm subsiding and the color returning to her vision.

Zhang was nearing his own orgasm, as his moans increased in intensity. His vision narrowed to a small area around Mi’s face, the tunneling becoming more severe as his physical pleasure was nearing the point of no return. At the point where all he could see was Mi’s almond-shaped eyes, he could not hold it any longer. His deep, guttural moan coincided with the explosion of semen from his penis, gobs of it shooting into crevasses Mi had never reached herself. They collapsed in a heap, both so satisfied and exhausted.

In the post-coital haze, Zhang remembered that he had promised to help his mother with the menu for the New Year feast at his home. He could not be entrusted with any cooking, but ideas for dishes, they came to him easily. He slipped out of Mi’s house during the night while she slept, her hair falling gently across her beautiful face.

It was morning when he got home. His mother just assumed that he had gone out for drinks with his friends, and asked him if he had come up with any ideas for the New Year feast. She had already thought of the soup and the meat dishes; all she was missing was a festive dessert. What would be an easy but delicious dessert that would celebrate the dawn of a new year? Zhang looked outside and saw a string of coins hanging from the edge of the roof. Feng shui coins they were called, and they were supposed to bring good luck. The round shape of the coins immediately reminded him of cookies, one of his favorite snacks. But they couldn’t just be any old cookies. What would go into them? Some kind of fruit?

Memories of the previous night came rushing back to him. Mi’s sweet lips on his, her warm vagina such a hospitable environment for his penis, and the way his vision blacked out when he was so close to climax. All he could think of was her almond-shaped eyes. The last thing he saw before he reached the highest peak he had ever reached. And it was then that he thought of almonds. Almonds could be ground up into a powder and used as flour in a cookie dough.

His mother was delighted at the idea of almond cookies to celebrate the new year. She had even momentarily forgotten the failure of her twenty-something son to get married at a decent age. But soon, the incessant questions of when Zhang would finally get married began again. His eyes glazed over. The only thing on his mind was Mi and their hot encounter.

Well, I didn’t have some kind of divine sexual inspiration for these, I just got the recipe from here.

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Chinese Almond Cookies

1 1/3 cups almond flour, lightly packed
1 cup butter
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
thinly sliced almonds

  1. Cream the almond flour, butter, and pinch of salt together, creating a chunky mixture.
  2. Add one of the eggs into the batter, along with the almond extract, and stir until combined.
  3. Sift together the flour, white sugar, and baking soda, and add to the batter. Stir until just combined.
  4. Gather the dough into a ball and flatten it into a disk. Wrap the disk in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least two hours.
  5. Preheat oven to 325F.
  6. Make balls from the chilled dough about half an inch wide, and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, about one inch apart, pressing them down slightly to flatten them into disk shapes.
  7. Place a thinly sliced almond on top of each disk.
  8. Beat the other egg in a bowl, and brush the tops of each disk with the egg.
  9. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the edges are slightly brown, and cool.

You’re supposed to use a mixer with a paddle attachment for this, but since I don’t have one in my tiny kitchen, I just used softened butter and mixed by hand, and it seemed to work just fine. I ended up with just over six dozen (that’s 72) cookies. For the half-inch balls, I found that using a half-teaspoon measuring spoon and creating balls with that worked quite well.

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Here’s the cookie dough. It’s quite crumbly.

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The dough gets flattened into a disk, wrapped in plastic wrap, and then refrigerated to harden a bit.

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After the dough chilled, I made some balls from it, placed sliced almonds on top, and then put some egg wash on top of each cookie. These are kind of small; I ended up making the cookies in subsequent batches a bit bigger, by filling my half-teaspoon measuring spoon a bit more fully.

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After 15 minutes in the oven, they’ve gotten nice and brown.

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This recipe makes quite a few cookies, because they’re so small.

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The lacquered tops are from the egg wash.

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The almond flour and extract give these cookies a distinctive almond taste, and they have this nice sandy texture from the almond flour as well. They’re delightfully buttery and rich. I really enjoy these cookies, I should make some even when it’s not Chinese New Year.

Gong xi fa cai!

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