More Kitchen Adventures

I'm not sure why it took me so long to get on the unflavored gelatin wagon. Turn any liquid into Jell-o?? I'm in!

Americano Jelly

2 envelopes unflavored gelatin (could use sheets, too, I imagine, but the Knox stuff is available everywhere)

1 c. cool water

1 c. hot espresso

Brew some espresso (or just make some strong coffee).

Meanwhile, soften gelatin over cool water. (I just want to poke it!)

Line a 8-inch square pan with plastic wrap.

Mix hot espresso into gelatin mixture, and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved (4-5 min). Add some sugar, to taste. Or don't. Or substitute a little cool milk for some of the water (a latte jelly!). Or don't. It's your jelly - do what you like!

Pour into pan! Refrigerate until set! Cut into cubes!

Jelly cubes! Look how cute!

Cubes at the bottom of my iced coffee, all boba-style. Word.

Tonight's dinner: Pizza Bianca with olive oil, fresh basil, rosemary, parmesan, mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, and prosciutto. The crust was AMAZING. Beats the socks off the Publix dough we usually use and doesn't take much work - just time.

Earlier tonight: Cocoa and Sea-Salt Shortbreads again, but with darker cocoa (still no cacao nibs). Inky-black and highly addictive - even more so than the first batch.

Later tonight: Fresh yogurt, and some homemade pop-tarts (made from this summer's blackberry jam and empenada dough.

On Having a Usual

Working the Mosaic coffee bar, I pride myself in knowing regulars by their drink choice. I may have virtually no idea what their names are, but I do know their drink. (Mr. Toffee-Nut Latte, I'm talking to you) I love winning the race to get their usual drink started before they even ask for it.

And people - whether they admit it - want to be known, to have their needs anticipated. We cloak it, calling it "great customer service", but I think it goes far deeper to a soul-level need. Why else would I be exhausted after a week at a conference, talking endlessly with people I barely know (and who don't know me)? I just wanted someone to talk to, to whom I didn't have to explain everything first.

As I was saying.

On the other hand, I virtually never order the same drink twice. I have plenty of Favorites, but not a Usual. I'm always trying new flavor combinations. Which you could probably write off as the part of my personality/career that favors experimentation and sensory evaluation. But I'm often looking for a new favorite. Same with restaurants - there's only one restaurant where I always order the exact same thing every time.(1) Otherwise, I jump around menus like the cast of Fame. And it's not just with food and drink - I'm on the search for my next favorite for a lot of things. That could sound like I'm perpetually dissatisfied, but I don't think that's true. Maybe it's an acknowledgment of the variety of experiences waiting to be discovered. Life's pretty short, after all. I don't purport that all of my favorite things are the absolute best (okay, okay, I said all - anyone who knows me longer than twenty seconds knows how I evangelize my favorites...), and I'm generally willing to accept that there is more that is Good out there.

Likewise, a friend once told me that she always wears the same perfume so that whenever someone smells her signature scent, they will be reminded of her. The romantic in me really loves that idea, but I find I can't commit to just one fragrance for that long. I usually work through a bottle of perfume in a year, maybe two.(2) Then I'm happy to switch to something new. As a result, my fragrances are highly associative with specific time periods - ck one invariably evokes memories of sophomore year of college, for example. I don't necessarily get tired of a fragrance by the time I get to the end of the bottle, but I sure do look forward to the adventure of finding the next. The process of discovery, of the hunt, of the selection.(3)

-------

1 Beef Tostadas, everything but sour cream; Mr. Pibb with extra ice.

2 Currently it's Ferragamo Incanto Shine. Previously, it was Aquolina Pink Sugar. And prior to that, it was Trish McEvoy #9 (Blackberry and Vanilla Musk)

3 This may also explain my patience for thrift-store shopping.

Bonus Picture Post

My latte art this morning.

It was actually intended to be a pumpkin. It ended up looking like a sea creature, so I gave it an eye and pronounced it a dolphin.

Even More Miscellany

This is bad. I've been procrastinating and generally undermotivated for the past week or so. I'm talking set-the-alarm-for-nine-AM-and-still-smack-snooze- for-an-hour brand of unmotivation. Well, I can write it off to summer, right? I don't get the luxury of laziness the other nine months of the year. I did get my laboratory balance bench (and all the balances) clean today, so I don't feel too badly about it all.

Today's On-The-Go Playlist (or What I Sang Along With While I Cleaned My Lab):
Under African Skies, Paul Simon
Into the Night, Benny Mardones
Anything Genuine, Smalltown Poets
The Way, Telecast
Jesse's Girl, Rick Springfield
Creep, Radiohead
Window, Guster
King of New Orleans, Better Than Ezra
Lackluster, Poi Dog Pondering
Uninvited, Alanis Morrissette
Here's Where the Story Ends, The Sundays
Cry on My Shoulder, Overflow
No One is to Blame, Howard Jones
When You're Falling, Afro Celt Sound System
And So It Goes, Billy Joel
Under the Milky Way, The Church
Hang Me Up to Dry, Cold War Kids
Don't Drink the Water, Dave Matthews
Bang Bang, David Sanborn
Allison Road, Gin Blossoms
Sexy Back, Justin Timberlake (1)
Fast Love, George Michael
Maneater, Nelly Furtado (2)
Ruby, Kaiser Chiefs
Too Much, Leeland
Don't Look Back in Anger, Oasis
All This Time, Sting
Old Friends, Simon & Garfunkel
1000 Julys, Third Eye Blind
Stay - Far Away So Close, U2
Time of the Season, The Zombies
Key West Intermezzo, John Mellencamp
Synchronicity II, The Police

(1) I don't respect myself for this; I don't expect you to, either.
(2) I'm a bit disturbed that I own this, mostly because Ms. Furtado belongs to a group of female singers that make my ears bleed (also: Paula Cole and Shakira). But this song is different. It's a fantastic tango. Maybe that's its redeeming factor.


Just so you know, the quality of a soft drink is directly proportional to the quality of the ice floating in it. Tijuana Flats serves some of the best soda in the world simply because they put crushed ice in it, not cubes. And slushy = good. The miniature golf establishment where I worked throughout high school and college had awesome Dr. Pepper, partly because the syrup-to-water ratio was relatively high, but mostly because the ice was killer. It had a peculiar temperature cycle and would occasionally produce very icy ice, but then, about twenty minutes later, it would spit out fresh, soft, wet ice that I don't even know how to describe. They weren't exactly cubes. Not exactly pellets, either. Anyhow, most times, the drink was just a vehicle for the ice. I wasn't above just eating cups of ice straight up, either - maybe it was my burgeoning ice connoisseurship, maybe it was a symptom of the anemia I had for years. (shrug) I never cared for fizzy drinks as a child - they were like an assault on the tongue. I guess when I think about it, I have an unconventional food history - I never ate typical American kid food - I only discovered the joys of mac & cheese within the past five years, I can count on one hand the number of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches I've consumed (okay, I can count on one finger the number I've even tasted. I only like peanut butter in cookies. Friends loved going trick-or-treating with me because they got all my Reese's cups. That's all right - banana taffy was totally a fair trade.). So I never really drank soda pop until I took that job, but it was free for the drinking as long as you were judicious with your cup usage (I brought my own - nerd. I had two I used all the time, they're in the picture over there - bigger nerd. That picture is from the auction I just bid on - biggest nerd ever!). I hear that glorious ice machine has since been replaced. Ah, one can never truly go home.

What a digressive paragraph! At least it started and finished with ice. :)


I'm learning how to do latte art; I'm amazed by this stuff. And this. I'll be excited when I can just do a simple rosetta. It seems pretty easy, watching the training videos, but I practiced some tonight. It's clearly one of those skills that the people who are good at it, well, they just make it look maddeningly effortless. Figure skating is another one of those things. Anyhow, the texture of the milk is crucial - it has to be. Because I think my milk is sadly a bit too foamy. If you watch people do it, it seems like the bright white foam is still fairly fluid. Mine tonight was *fantastic* for cappuccinos - I was constantly slurping foam, one bad attempt after another (wasn't gonna waste it...), but I never got anything remotely close to latte art. So it's gonna take far more practice, but I think figuring out the right milk texture is what makes or breaks it all. I also think I might pour too fast? Or maybe too slow. I don't know. I'm working the coffee bar on Sunday, so I'll have plenty of time to practice, though I wonder how our to-go cups are going to affect it.


We've had two days of awesome lightning - really electrified storms with really close strokes. I was going to write about the Turkey Lake Convergence Zone, but now I'm not feeling it. Remind me - some other time.

The alacrity by which our house is being constructed is almost alarming. We had the framing inspection last Friday, and by the end of work today, they've finished nearly all the drywall and the exterior stucco. If things keep at this pace, we'll be closing well before the projected late-October date.

Even though I give little credence to wine rankings and ratings, I love that Two-Buck Chuck just won this big wine competition. Let it be known that I would probably be willing to compromise my ethics to bring a Trader Joe's to central Florida. Let me know what it'll take, guys.

In a bit of an Iron Chef moment, I decided I should use up some pie crust in my freezer and a can of pumpkin in my pantry. So I made a pumpkin pie last night, which also gave me the excuse to use some of my new Ceylon cinnamon and whole nutmeg. Brian thinks pumpkin pie is akin to barf, which means I have a whole pie to myself! I'll own up to my gluttony when it comes to desserts. Also, I haven't had a grilled cheese sandwich in a long time. I think I'm going to go get some cottony white bread and plastic American cheese slices tomorrow before lunch. Mmmm...

Yes, I do realize that in one paragraph, I managed to extol the virtues of both fancypants spices and Kraft singles. Deal with it. :)