Fear and loathing in Pasadena

It’s happening. I’m beginning to hate my thesis. As much as write, as much as I frustrate myself belaboring the nuance of suggestive but insubstantial assertions, as much as I bear down to squeeze out each successive word and marvel at the genuine scholarship that my impacted genius must surely produce… as much [...]

The inexorable anguish of thesis writing

As my deadline looms fast, every moment becomes one of increasing anxiety. In all ways this assignment, as I’m choosing to think about it, represents the most Herculean academic effort of my long and checkered career. I say assignment, because the only way I can wrap my mind around the task of writing [...]

Amaretto Ice-cream

This was a quick throw-together to pair with the pear upside down cake, but it included a new, lower-fat ice cream base, so I’ll mention it here.
Recipe:
1 1/2 cups half and half
2 extra-large egg yolks
1/3 cup of sugar
2 tablespoons Amaretto
Put the half and half in a saucepan and heat it up until it simmers. [...]

Pear Upside-down Cake

As the name implies, this cake is baked with the pears on the bottom and then flipped onto a plate. The pear and caramel mixture is something akin to the apple bottom of a tart Tatin and recipe is, in fact, only a slightly adulterated version of the Barefoot Contessa’s tart Tatin recipe.
I [...]

Fresh Fig Pizza

Clearly, our household is enamored with figs right now. ‘Tis the season, and some generous friends have given us a bounty of figs from their neighbors yard (if it hangs over the fence its fair game). So, we decided to try fig pizza and the results were unbelievably yummy.
The pizza had onions, gorgonzola, [...]

Variations on a theme: Oven-baked Fig Pancake

We were so excited about the peach pancake that we decided to experiment with a slightly different method, and with different fruit. The results were considerably different, though still very tasty. Using a heavy cake pan instead of skillet seemed to have the most impact. With straight sides, the rising batter climbed [...]

On Surgery

Last Thursday, I went under the knife, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I went under the little miniature camera and scissors and pincers, and whatever else they managed to cram into the small holes now healing in my abdominal wall. No, no, they probably did use a knife to [...]

Oven-baked Peach Pancake

The first time I had one of these oven baked pancakes, it was an alternate recipe suggestion on the back of a box of fancy crepe mix. The recipe is similar to a crepe, except with about 4 times as much egg (eggs like to puff when you bake them). I had been [...]

Variation on Emeril’s Hot Milk Sponge Tiramisu

The idea of going out and buying lady fingers to make tiramisu always kind of irks me. Maybe it’s the notion of buying the pre-packaged food, not feeling like I’m really making it from scratch, that gets to me. Maybe it’s that I’m just too lazy to go to the store for one [...]