Food Porn and Cheesecake [Safe for work! No, really]

Hubby was in Iraq for his birthday this year, so I finally made him a birthday cake. This is the same recipe I screwed up way back in high school when I accidentally put two layers' worth of batter in each pan. They filled those suckers all the way up to the top and took forever to cook, but they were the most dense and delicious carrot cakes ever.

As for the aforementioned cheesecake...

Dunwanna LaRoux, goblin librarian

The Cataclysm expansion is coming soon and I can't wait to make a goblin. I already have a name picked out and everything. Gary Larson specs and giant hooters, what's not to like?

Recipe: Apple Sour Cream Coffeecake

Even the little birdies on my favorite plates love this cake.

Once upon a time, when I was still a little girl, my mom found a kid's cookbook (almost certainly at Goodwill, she loves that place) and gave it to me and my brothers. There were some really easy recipes in there, like ants on a log (I used to think it was a shame to waste good peanut butter and raisins on a grody old piece of celery, but now that I am Grown Up I love the damn things, which is just further proof of my theory that Adults Love Gross Food) and a morning sunrise drink that taught me at a very early age how to whip up a fancy-looking cocktail using "nothing but" "cranberry juice" and "OJ".

Another recipe I remember from that skinny cookbook was the strata. It seemed bizarre to me at the time to make a bunch of ham & cheese sandwiches, stick them in a pan and cover them with raw egg. Now I realize that it probably would have been like eating an oven-baked, savory stuffed french toast and I am sad that I never tried it.

Anyway, the whole point of this was that one spring after getting this cookbook, we decided to try the coffeecake recipe for a Mother's Day breakfast. I'm pretty sure Mom had SOME hand in this, though she tries to give us kids all the credit; not to mention Dad provided the extra push and kitchen assistance we needed to make it a success. Whatever the catalyst, though, that coffeecake was damn good and became an instant tradition.

Mom got a coffeecake every Mother's Day for twenty years. The boys forgot this year and I was too far away to help, as I have been for more than a decade, but I made her one this summer when I went to visit. I used frozen blueberries because we were out of apples and it turned out so well that I only got one little piece before it was all gone.

I baked another one this morning with apples, but you can probably use most any kind of fruit.

Apple Sour Cream Coffeecake

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup sour cream

1 apple, peeled and chopped

Streusel topping:

2 T. butter

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

1/2 cup brown sugar

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, blend shortening and sugar until fluffy (I use an electric mixer). Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add half the flour mixture and half the sour cream, mix thoroughly. Add the remaining flour and sour cream and repeat. Fold in the apples and pour into a greased 8x8 pan.

For the topping, mix the butter, brown sugar and nuts (you can squish them together with your hands, it's fun) and sprinkle evenly over the cake batter in the pan. Bake the whole mess for 25-30 minutes. It should be done when it's no longer jiggly in the pan, and a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool on a rack (or just on the stovetop if you're lazy like me) for 15-30 minutes before cutting, if you can hold off that long.

[RP] To Speak With Spirits

Ambika met a troll death knight (yay sentient zombies?) who made a fair impression on her, meaning she didn't want to tear off his head and chuck it off the nearest mountaintop by the end of the evening. She learned he wished to speak with the spirits of the departed, and he learned she might be able to teach him to do so. Somehow she agreed to give him some basic priest instruction once a week. This is their first meeting.

Authors: Ambika & Zanazua

_____________________________________________________

Zanazua’s bare footsteps were quiet on the wide sandstone steps of the Legerdemain. He wore his full battle armor and carried a white rose in each hand. The dark material of his Ebon Blade tabard covered his breastplate, and if not for the flowers, he would look as though he were ready for war.

He knocked on Ambika’s door with three loud, even taps, and waited.

There was dead silence for nearly a minute afterward before the door swung inward on its hinges. A grim-faced priestess looked up at him, then stepped aside and waited primly for him to come inside.

The room was clean and filled with austere furnishings. White hangings embroidered with white thread covered the walls and a lone teapot steamed on the table in the center of the room. Ambika locked the door behind him as he entered.

Zanazua seemed rooted to the doormat. He held out one of the roses to Ambika, which she ignored, while he scanned the stark apartment. Almost everything was white, except for a huge stained-glass window that spilled swathes of colored light over the rugs and upholstery on one side of the room. The table was relatively untouched by the pastel blues and greens, and it was there she sat, stiff and formal in her chair as she waited for him to come in and have a seat.

He smiled wryly. “Nice apartment.”

She said nothing and simply watched him with an impassive expression on her face. A slender white vase sat in the center of the table, empty. Zanazua stepped cautiously towards the chair opposite her. He held out the rose in his right hand once again and grinned at Ambika.

“Put it in the vase, please.”

Zanazua gently placed both the roses inside the vase and flopped down into a chair. She watched him with something like disapproval. “Did you plan on receiving flowers?”

“You are consistent.” She gestured toward the teapot. “I assume you don’t take tea, but there are cups if you wish.”

Zanazua shook his head. “I don’t need any.” The corners of his mouth turned down briefly, then he smiled at his somber hostess. “Does it help you see spirits?”

“It’s calming. A tranquil mind is necessary for this task. “ She smiled almost imperceptibly, though there was no humor in it. “But we are not training yet. You will know when it begins in earnest.”

“It’s easy to be calm when there’s not much going on upstairs.”

“Modesty is useless to me. A teacher should be properly advised of her student’s strengths and weaknesses.” Ambika sipped her tea and eyed the roses with mild approval.They were pretty on their slender stems, and as white as the rest of the room.

Zanazua chuckled. “I’m not being modest.”

She narrowed her eyes at him over the top of her teacup. “If you are stupid, we may as well cancel your training before it begins. You will need a moderate amount of mental capacity for this to be remotely successful.”

“I didn’t say that I’m stupid.”

Ambika set her jaw and muttered something quietly under her breath. “No, I suppose you didn’t.”

He continued to grin at her. “Are you feeling alright?”

She glowered into her cup, looking rather more petulant than a dignified priestess would prefer to admit. “I’m fine,” she said sourly.

“Then we must be ready to start.”

Rising to her feet, the little troll aimed a haughty scowl at her guest and disappeared into the adjoining bedroom. When she emerged a moment later, her arms were full of loosely-draped brown fabric. She held it out to him, standing as far from him as possible without being out of reach. “It should fit well enough.”

He eyed the brown fabric spilling out of her arms. “What is this?”

“It’s your uniform. I wore one like it when I began my studies. Your current armor,” she grimaced at the heavy plates strapped to his body, “is unsuitable for meditation.”

“Why not?”

“It makes sounds when you move, and it is heavy. The latter may bother you, and the former will certainly bother me. Quiet and comfort facilitate learning.” She continued to hold the robes out to him, unwavering.

The death knight shrugged. “If the noise will bother you, then I will take it off.” He took the robe from her hands, draped it over the back of his chair, and began to unbuckle the heavy spiked gauntlets from his shoulders.

“For the love of-- No. At least wait until I leave the room.” Ambika stomped back into her bedroom and shut the door behind her.

Zanazua laughed. It was a loud, jovial belly laugh, and it filled the room after Ambika’s exit. He shed his armor quickly, setting each piece gently on the floor as he took it off. He tossed the robe over his lean frame and shook his shoulders to get the fabric onto him. He stared at his hands, turning them over in front of him to examine the black and blue spots that dotted the skin of his fingertips and arms before calling out to her. “It’s safe, I’m dressed.”

Her glower turned into something a bit more critical as she paced slowly around him in a circle. She sidestepped his pile of armor with a scowl, then turned her yellow eyes back to his sleeves and collar.

“It’s a bit large in the shoulders. You look bigger in your armor than you really are.”

“I believe that is part of its purpose.” He grabbed some of the slack around his chest, pulling it out in front of him.

Ambika snorted quietly. “Intimidation is a powerful tool.” She completed her circle and stood directly in front of him, hands clasped loosely behind her back as she craned her neck to look him in the eye.

He smiled. “But you’re not intimidated.”

“Should I be?”

“I’m glad that you aren’t.”

She responded only with another long moment of resolute eye contact, then turned on her heel and went to the window. “Sit. The floor will suffice, or the couch if it is more comfortable.”

Zanazua lowered himself slowly to sit cross-legged on the floor. Meanwhile, Bika pulled her legs up into a similar sitting position and hovered on three feet of still air.

“Now, tilt your pelvis forward and pull your shoulders back.”

He watched her carefully, attempting to copy her motions as he pulled his shoulders upright.

“I can help correct your posture, if you allow it.” She sat motionless, eyes closed, face relaxed. He wasn’t entirely sure her lips were moving when she spoke.

“Help how?”

“With a minor mental intrusion which will allow me some basic control over your motor skills.”

He shook his head. “It won’t work.”

She sank three inches and lifted one eyelid to look at him, not bothering to turn her head. “...Fine. Please try harder. Your spine should align and it will feel as though your torso requires almost no effort to remain upright.”

He tucked in his lower back, sitting up a little straighter.

“Now relax your muscles, slowly. Begin with your toes, and work your way up to your shoulders, neck and face.” The levitating priestess demonstrated, curling her toes in toward the soles of her bare feet, exaggerating each motion as she contracted, then relaxed each muscle group.

The death knight closed his eyes. His toes twitched, then his body appeared to almost go slack. He frowned, then curled his feet again. His toes and soles of his feet were dotted with the same black and blue spots that wound their way up his arms.

This time her eyes flew open and she turned to look directly at him. It was eerie how effortlessly her body swiveled in the air. “What’s the problem.”

“I am trying to remember how to relax.”

“Carry on, then.” The hovering trolless abruptly turned back to her position at the window, eyes closed and body relaxed, leaving Zanazua to his task.

He grunted and squirmed, shifted in his seat, and frowned. His toes curled and uncurled repetitively, his forehead furrowing in concentration. After ten minutes of this, Ambika’s calm and oddly disembodied voice interrupted him.

“Try lying flat on your back, instead.” Her eyes never opened. “Continue the limbering exercises as normal.”

Zanazua opened one eye to peer at the priestess, then lowered himself slowly to lie down on the floor. His joints cracked audibly. He closed his eyes again, and let out a contented grunt. Flexing his ankles with another resounding crack, his body relaxed.

Almost immediately he felt a pair of warm toes wedge themselves under his side. Bika pulled her foot back then nudged him again, making no attempt to be gentle. “Wake up. Today’s lesson is complete, take your armor and go home.”

He smiled up at her. “Did I do well?”

She snorted. “Well enough. You should be ready to speak with the spirits in about a hundred years.”

He scooted himself upright with his hands. “I might actually have that long until I fall apart.”

“Same.” The priestess waited (and with exceptional patience, she thought) for him to rise without offering her assistance.

He brought himself to a slow stand, his knees creaking. “You might last one hundred years?”

“I intend to try.” She found herself in his shadow once more. Her expression was serene, but her eyes were defiant as she looked up at the worn troll.

“Good luck. I hope it brings you what you’re looking for.”

“I don’t believe in luck.” She opened the door and stood just as she had when he’d first entered her home. “See you next week.”

[Click here for the next segment]

A Wild Comic Appears!

It really helps to have a plan when you're making a comic. In fact, if you don't have a mock-up, it's downright painful and you can flush a lot of valuable time right down the toilet.

I spent most of yesterday working on this strip, making up the dialogue as I went. Turns out there's a lot of timing involved in writing for comics, and while I think of myself as somewhat funny, I can't just pull snappy one-liners out of my ass (and who would want them then, anyway?).

The bottom (hehe, bottom) line here is that next time, I'm going to 1) prepare my scene and dialogue in advance and 2) do a rough sketchy bit to put everything in its place before I start.

PS. After all that, Libby ruins everything by ending her sentence with a preposition. Screw you, grammar!

A Special Guest

(Unrelated picture: Steampunk Ethan, per his special request.)

It's the end of August. That means it's been a whole year since my husband left home to work overseas, and his contract is now officially complete. He's stateside again, finishing his outprocessing/debriefing crapola and will be home soon, soon as in maybe in a few hours, maybe tonight, maybe first thing in the morning, maybe maybe maybe. It sucks not knowing any more than that!

But we persevere, wielding our large cleaning brush and a vacuum-cleaner hose, washing the linens and sweeping the floors so it will look like we've been living in a clean, tidy house the entire time he's been gone. "Yes dear, that's right. I am supermom."

He won't believe it for a second.

What has he missed? Oktoberfest. Home-cooked meals (including lots of tofu and more pizza nights than I can remember). PMS (lucky him). An entire year of school, minus those two weeks in November when he was able to sneak away for just a little vacation and see us. Christmas in Oregon. Ethan's first DS. Mommy's malware incident. THE WORST SPIDER SEASON EVER. Those soba noodles that introduced tiny noodle-eating pests to the pantry and launched a spring-cleaning war.

He's missed poorly-sung karaoke, Super Dance-Moves Mondays, a dozen new CDs and the addition of a stereo to the living room. He's missed Ethan's Jet-Li obsession, his anime obsession, and most of all his obsession with subtitles on every show or movie EVER.

My hair has grown 10 inches longer in his absence. I hope he doesn't mind that I threw out let Ethan use up all the shampoo and bought bar soap instead.

He missed my affairs with LOTRO, doodling, hair care, D&D, Le Creuset, finding a houseplant I can't kill (go go kalanchoe) and real, honest-to-god snow that lasted a whole day.

I know he's missed us a lot. But I'm also pretty sure he wouldn't care if the house looked it'd hosted its own personal hurricane, so long as we're here.

But no. I am going to clean ALL the things!

Catch y'all on the flip side. I'll be sure to tell hubby that my invisible internet people are glad he's home.

Dysfunction, Dinner & Doodles [Lots of images!]

Today's been a very rainy, very slow and somewhat productive day. Usually Sundays just kinda tear by but this one was rather comfortable without feeling lazy.

I decide first of all to put on some music, then clean the living room. En route to the couch, I notice all the couch pillows are on the floor. It seems the Ethan-monster chucked them off so he could use the couch as a weekend bed. When I pick up his blanket I notice it smells rather funky and decide it should be washed.

On my way to the laundry (it's just a closet in the dining room space between the kitchen and living room), I find an exceptionally large spider has chosen to die in front of my washing machine.

By this time, the CD I picked is barely through the intro and I've already careened off-course into the completely wrong room. I'm supposed to clean the living room, not vacuum the laundry closet, but here I am with the Dirt Devil anyway, extra-long tube extended as far as it will go so that I can remain a safe 4 feet from the carcass (it makes audible rattling sounds and I can feel it clatter through my hand as it vanishes up the pipe, which is revolting).

Since I've already got the vacuum out, may as well tidy up the rest of the room. I go around every crack and crevice in the dining room, then the kitchen, using my vacuum rather than suffer the indignity of sweeping. Let's face it, sweeping sucks, and brooms are gross.

Holstering the tube, I see the toaster and a couple boxes of tea are taking up valuable real estate on my counter. I don't even eat that much toast, let alone drink tea. What am I, some kinda highfalutin' whatchamajig? Holy crap there is a lot of dead toast crumbs in this thing. Soon there's crumbs all over the counter, the sink, and the freshly-vacuumed floor, but the toaster looks pretty good huh? Aw yeah!

So I put the toaster in the cabinet and vacuum again. I want to relocate the tea, but where... oh, I'll put it up on the baker's rack! ...which is dirty, but whatever. I clean it off and decide that the tea doesn't look nice enough to go there, so instead I cram it all in a ziploc bag and open the corner cupboard to find...

Old medicine! Well THAT isn't worth a damn, is it? Expires March 2005? Oh no no no. All of that goes right into the trashcan, and I can finally put the bag of tea on my new clean shelf. Yay! But now I'm hungry. I should make dinner now, let's chop up some onions and some celery and some carrots and put them in a pot and play video games and draw a picture and wash my hands 16 times because I keep forgetting to do messy stuff all at once so I don't have to wash up after every single one.

AFTER dinner and all of that stuff is done, I finally remember that I was going to do laundry but it's getting kinda late so I should probably wash some clothes for Ethan to wear to school tomorrow instead before I wash his icky old blanket and he should really take a shower pretty soon before it's bedtime and he has to stay up late just so he can hose off the skunkiness of a weekend before I send him back to his teacher and that's what it's like to have ADD the end.

Here's some pictures!

This is my brother's girlfriend. She is pretty awesome. She also looks exactly like this IRL.

A friend requested a doodle for his real self, so I made this. I like how it looks in black & white. :)

Been working on some Libby and Fenniel cartoons so I can try my hand at making a comic. I think they look pretty adorable, if I do say so myself. Fenn is channeling his inner Peanut in this one, I think.

My mom FINALLY decided to start a recipe blog (I made her this doodle to put on it), and I'm very proud of how many posts she's made. She ain't no slacker!

I finally figured out how to use layers in Gimp, so I was able to color something without it being like torture. Yay!

Keltyr is evil. I don't know what else to say. Viva la turtleneck of doom!

A watersprite.

Here is a sketch I made for Ghaar. He ended up with Mel Gibson hair, eww! I don't know if I like how the coloring came out, but I do love the guild symbol on his tabard. You can see it whole here.

One Breakfast, Hold the Brains [PG-Profanity & Contemplated Violence]

"One McMuffin, with egg and cheese, and no meat."

That's what I order for breakfast. No hash browns, no frippity-frack coffee-flavored sugar milk product.

Just an Egg McMuffin.

With egg and cheese.

No meat.

On repeating this six times at the drive-through, she still doesn't have it right. Every time I say the magic words "no meat" it filters through her own questionable brainmeats as unidentifiable gibberish.

Am I speaking english?

What do you mean, no meat? I don't understand. Why would anyone ask that. Can you use those words together in a sentence like that?

"So you want a egg McMuffin, with no cheese?"

"I want cheese. I don't want meat."

"So a McMuffin with no cheese, drive around."

At this point I give up and continue to the window.

"You had the McMuffin with no cheese right?"

"No."

"Oh, you got the McGriddle with a McCafe?" [**Author's Note. Every time I see or hear the word 'McCafe' I have a miniature aneurysm complete with mouth-foam. Hate the name, hate the ads, hate the pronunciation, hate the drink. It is nasty.**]

"No. I had a McMuffin, and I wanted it with egg. And cheese. With no meat on it."

The blank stare and silence that meet my slow, carefully enunciated words last longer than I would like, but believe me when I say it does not surprise me. Not in the least. I repeat myself.

"I. DON'T. WANT. MEAT. ON. IT."

"Ohhhh, I got that wrong! Hold on."

She tears up to the front, shouting "that's wrong, don't put meat on it!" and returns after a few seconds to stick her head out the window, speaking to me as though I were a small child with a lobotomy.

"Now, we gonna do it this way this time, without the meat? But we don't do that. We gonna do it this way this once, but we ain't gonna do that next time okay? We can't do that. That ain't a thing we do."

By all outward appearances, I am a calm and reasonable person. In my mind, however, I am yanking her out of the window by her hair and screaming "IT IS AN EGG A SLICE OF CHEESE AND AN ENGLISH MUFFIN. THIS IS NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE. GIVE ME A SANDWICH WITHOUT THE PORK OR I WILL SHANK YOU."

Rather than risk prison time, I pull forward again. Deep breath.

It's fine. Just get the sandwich and go. It's not like I'll be coming back anyway. Hell, I was just told, more or less, never to come back, which is fine by me. I go to McDonald's all of twice a year. No need to rock the boat! No big deal. It's fine.

At the second window, a dead-eyed blonde shoves a paper bag into my hand and I exit the parking lot talking to myself, my voice growing progressively louder and more shrill as I pull out onto the road and dig for my food.

"You're doing me a favor? By omitting a slice of ham? Egg. Cheese. Bread. What the hell is wrong with asking for no meat? Why you gotta look at me like I got three heads? I am not an alien! I just want a meatless sandwich! What the hell is wrong with people?!"

There is no cheese on my McMuffin.

I swerve into oncoming traffic.

[Yes, that's my illustration up there. The meat looks weird, doesn't it?]