A Homing Beacon

Today is the day we wade in frozen rivers,
through heartbreak, sleep
and wake in the night
victorious
With no one to clean the armour
we took to battle then.

When I miss you, it is midnight sweats,
and pre-dawn starts
eyeing winter moutnains from spring towers,
an easy isolation.

It is distraction in sorting out bills,
budgeting tears and counting the calories lost in them.

When I miss you, it is ponderous,
the creeping slow lane
passing the glitter-paved freeway I am demanding from the world.

You are the exit I want to get off at.
I need directions to our house,
 but north was never steady for me
I never understood the draw, so instead of freedom-bound
I am mired in jungles of small eyes
and quick whispers,
of sympathy and in the care of gin.

Over a year later...

Okay, my lovely(ies?), I know it's been a long time.

We're overhauling. SADAST is becoming "Adventures in Unemployment", potentially, and what we are doing is making lovely, lovely, lovely food.

Last night it occurred to me that I have not yet made the meringues I promised for Rainbow Seder. So... meringues.

That is my kitchen. Those are my separated egg whites.

Do you know how to separate an egg? It is very easy.



Separating Egg Whites

Take your egg in your dominant hand, firmly but gently. Tap it against the side of your bowl until it cracks enough that you will be able to force your thumb in to open the egg. Hold your non-dominant hand over the bowl, and insert your thumb into the cracks. Squeeze a little bit, as to help the shell crumble, and drop the egg guts into the top center of your palm, with your fingers slightly separated; this will help the white to slide off the yolk.

If it is having trouble, you can cup your hand and shake it a little bit.

The recipe I followed was from The Joy of Baking. It is as follows:

Vanilla Meringue Cookies*
3 Egg Whites
3/4 C. of Sugar, superfine or caster.*
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar*
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Farenheit.

When making meringues, it is important to have your egg white to sugar ratio exactly correct, as egg whites are very temperamental and do not want to be whipped into submission. Unfortunately for the egg whites, you CAN cook and you WILL show them who is boss. This recipe can not only be used for meringue cookies, but for pie topping as well. It is ALWAYS 1/4 C. of sugar per egg white. Always.

Your egg whites should be room temperature, but eggs are easiest to separate when they are cold. If you are an inexperienced cook, separate your eggs when cold, then cover your whites and let them sit. Cover your yolks to use in another recipe*, if you're using them same day, no need to refrigerate.

With your electric mixer, best with a whisk attachment, (or regular whisk, if you are crazy old-school), beat the whites on high until they are foamy. Not bubbly, not until half the whites are foamy, until ALL of it is foamy. It should not yet be holding a peak of any kind. Add the cream of tartar, and continue beating until the whites are holding a soft peak.

(Did you remember to preheat your oven? No? Do it now.)

To test for peaks, simply take the front of your wooden spoon (yes, you should be using one), and do quick dips around the bowl. The whites should come up like little mountains and settle back down a little bit, but not hold too much shape.

Add the sugar a little at a time. Don't worry when your whites are no longer holding peak, this is normal. The glossiness? Also normal. You're doing fine. You'll be beating for a while. You can use your wooden spoon to fold and tuck the whites into the beater, this will help them to be even. When the whites are holding a stiff peak (do your spoon test again, the mountains will hold their shape), beat in the vanilla.

Your meringue is ready to go in the oven when you can rub it between your fingers and there is no grit. This means the sugar is fully blended.

Oven time!

Grab a metal baking sheet and a roll of parchment paper. Tear off a piece of parchment large enough to cover the whole tray. Place small dollops of meringue at each corner of the baking sheet, press the parchment down so it will not slide.

Grab two spoons (I like using soup spoons), or a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch nozzle. Fill the pastry bag, and lay out your meringues in swirls, as if you are putting whipped cream on a sundae. If you are using spoons, sweep one spoon into the meringue, fill it but don't make it a tower, and use the back of the other spoon to put it on the baking sheet. Make sure your meringues are not touching; they don't grow during baking, but they do stick together!

Place the baking sheet in the oven, and set your timer for 2 hours. In order to avoid cracking the shell, DO NOT open the oven for at least an hour. Use your oven light, you have one. If your meringues look like they are separating, turn your oven down to 175. Do the same if they look as if they are starting to brown.

When your timer dings, open the oven door just a crack. If you have a sneaky oven like me, and your door won't stay cracked, place your wooden spoon (cleaned) into the crack and this will hold it open. Let them dry in there for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

Mmmmmeringues!!!!

*You can put your sugar into a food processor and leave it on for two minutes to turn regular sugar into superfine.
*You can substitute lemon juice for cream of tartar, if you don't have any. I do it all the time, though the ratio does tend to be a little different, so I don't recommend doing so until you are at least an intermediate cook.

*Recipes for egg yolks include egg breads, and custards! They are the easiest and most delicious. Stay tuned to me for a great creme brulee recipe... potentially. It's in the oven as I'm writing this.

*Want to make different meringues? Fold unsweetened cocoa powder into your meringue, to taste. Add almond extract. Add lemon juice. The trick is always to remember to not add too much, and you will be juuuuust fine. Believe in yourself!

It's about to get heavy.

Sorry, audience of zero, that I have been gone for so long, and still have little substance to show for it. I have been successfully avoiding my Peace Corp essays.

I have also been talking to Jessie, who is the love of my life and seems to break my heart a little bit each day. She is going to Paris without me, which is one of the cities we agreed that she wouldn't go to without me. Well, I can't do anything about it, nor fault her for her spontaneity, nor her taste in places to visit. I wish I had the money for a ticket, I would go in an instant. She said she doesn't like who she's been lately, and she gets the feeling that she'll find herself again in Paris.

What she will actually find is a whole different Her. Paris is most often the climax of everything going strangely wrong and right at the same time. Paris tells you things that you aren't ready to hear and leaves you to fend for yourself at just the right moment -- when the plunge is too great, but not taking it is a risk you can't afford. Paris is older, wiser, and far more cunning than any of us have ever given her credit for. Paris is a broken heart and homemade pastries at the end of the day. The latter is somehow sufficient to cure the former. I miss Paris with all of me.

Europe taught me what it was to grow up, but Paris taught me what it was to be a woman, and a lady.

I'm in Olympia!

I traveled to Olympia on Sunday, and have decided I will stay until I feel like leaving (which will probably be tomorrow or perhaps the day after.)

Not much to report or say, really. I saw Eli last night last night, we walked to the Blockbuster and got some movies, then walked back to The Box and watched The Breakfast Club and The Kid. Eli had never watched The Breakfast Club while I was in the room before and kept looking back and forth between Ally Sheedy and myself, going "That is SO creepy!". Because it is. Because I look just like her. I think the next haircut I get will be hers from that movie again, or a similar one I used to call the Captain's Cut. Cos all my Captains in the tabletops I played had them (that'd be Elia and Moira Pike.)

Matt and I have basically been sitting around watching cartoons (mostly Chowder, which is the best show ever!), when he hasn't been doing all the homework he has, which is a lot. He's in upper-division classes, which are hard, like the science department except with literature and philosophy. (Surprisingly, our school has one of the best science departments in the country.)

...on Chowder right now, there's a mold monster and it is disgusting.

Matt is attempting to be cute and distracting and trying to make typing more difficult. But he stopped. Wait there he went again.

That's all. This is exactly what I expect the next two days to be like. Thank God.

oh, PS

My mother left me a phone message last night, and this is how the scene played out in my head, starting from before she called me.

Mom: (comes home from long day of teaching and other such things, sees my brother Ben and his girlfriend Lauren in the kitchen, they are cooking) Hi guys!
Ben: Hi mom.
Lauren: (says nothing, because she is like a scared mouse, but probably smiles and waves)
Mom: What are you doing?
Ben: Cooking.
Mom: How come?
Ben: ...because we're hungry?
Mom: Of course! (goes into the living room to set up her after-school work)
B&L: (come into the dining room, where the table is set, Ben proceeds to serve her some delicious food, and then himself and they have some kind of romantic dinner thing that MY LITTLE BROTHER COOKED JUST FOR THEM)
Mom: (grabs phone, dials me) (in a conspiratorial whisper) Erin... hi! Its mom, I just called to say hi and (lowers voice further) your brother is doing something really cute, he cooked dinner for Lauren, they're eating it right now ooooohmyyygosh it is SO cute! (raises voice a little bit) Anyway, that's all, call me later! Love you!

...but I did make bread.

No progress whatsoever has been made in the Peace Corp essays, as my roommate absconded to the Southlands (aka Olympia) for the evening. I took advantage of his absence by having the internet all to myself, catching up on Lost, and Grey's Anatomy... then I started watching this new show called "True Beauty", which is the brainchild of Ashton Kutcher and Tyra Banks (the creators of two of my favorite guilty pleasures, Beauty & The Geek and America's Next Top Model, respectively), so you would think that I would just be head over heels for this show.

And you know what, it's kind of ehhhh, not so much. The show is all about judging inner beauty in secret, while making a big show of judging outer beauty. Man, the women are catty and the men are, well, just as catty. Honestly, I don't know why I bother watching "Reality" television in which people are not showcasing actual skills and/or participating in sweet social experiments (a la Project Runway and B&TG)

This is making me sound like a terrible person. I really do have terrible taste in television, when I actually indulge myself... the only shows I am a weekly junkie for are Gossip Girl and The Office. And Gossip Girl is just for Leighton Meester, she is cute and I want to put her in my pocket. And Ed Westwick's really fabulous hair.

Anyway, I had a brief conversation with Star about our collective laziness on FB when I finally managed to get OFF my butt and into the kitchen. The time had come. I would not be defeated by a "easy" bread recipe. I bake complicated cakes and pies that could win contests, I will never concede to bread.

...or use a bread machine, that's cheating. My dough is hand-kneaded and tastes the better for it.

Anyway, long story short, after reading the recipe wrong, and subsequently being angry at the recipe, I took matters into my own hands, added an extra cup of warm water (which actually just brought it up to the CORRECT amount because apparently I cannot tell the difference between 1s and 2s anymore...), baked in a beautiful spring-form round pan and it is DELICIOUS. I figure I will make it one or two more times and then move on to three more difficult recipes, and then I will start experimenting. If I make good recipes, maybe Star and Hannah will put it on Hanzipan and I'll get internet famous or something.

I took some really nice sunset pictures, they're up on dA, and that is all the news I have right now. Stay tuned for fighting with my mother (which probably won't happen since we haven't fought in about four years...)

Peace Corp blahs

Okay, well, I at least started my Peace Corp essays. But, they want me to talk about my ability to adapt, with an example of a situation in which I needed to adapt quickly (obviously), and I am completely stuck. Why am I completely stuck?

Because I don't critically analyze myself. People ask me what I should do for a living, or what I am good at, and I just completely blank. If I think about it, there's a lot of stuff I'm good at, but I couldn't give you a reason behind why I am good at them. Adapting happens to be one of the things I am good at; it may be because I am open-minded, directly interested in the way other people live, or it may be simple curiosity. After all, I am constantly considering ridiculous life changes just to see what would happen. Becoming a nun, for instance... I have always been supremely interested in the idea, though my religious beliefs took me pretty far away from that path. Still, the idea behind a holy life, devoted to God, has been burning harder in my heart for about a year now. Which is funny, since I'm not a Christian. Maybe it's the habit? Anyway, I still keep up with Sister Julie and her Nun's Life blog.

That is to say, my curiosity has never been idle, and when I find myself in a new culture, with new rules, I tend to devote myself to it, utterly. I find out which parts of my personality will shine the brightest in the situation, and I put those forward. It is rare that people dislike me.

So the Peace Corp wants me to somehow explain this and give specific examples of situations, but I have to come up with the most extreme situation I can think of. That would probably be in Germany on an au pair interview, where I was expecting far more adult interaction, so I had prepared my best 'adult' personality and the parents ended up throwing me to the proverbial wolves (aka: the children). So that was a switch -- I'm great with kids, I adore them, but I don't know anything about the way German kids are raised or what their culture dictates they act like. So I had to think fast and on my feet, and somehow get the five year old to stop crying about how I couldn't understand her. I have a terrible feeling that would turn into an essay singing the praises of non-verbal communication -- not my own personal adaptation.

Oh lord... they are never going to send me to Ecuador. The other essay is about my life goals and how the Peace Corp fits into that -- are you kidding? I went to college to find a husband! Upon not finding one, I am flying by the seat of my pants and my interests change too quickly for me to have any real life goals. I'm only 21, how am I supposed to know what I want to do for the rest of my life? Sheesh.