Walla Walla Wines are not only delicious and growing in reputation, but they also make an excellent icebreaker. The topic came up three times today, and several times earlier this week. It may have to do with the unusually high proportion of people from the Pacific Northwest that I’ve been talking with lately, but I doubt it.

Unrelatedly, why is it that Whole Foods is too good for Coke? I am galled that I must walk to CVS to get superfluous caffeine and sugar.

And finally, in keeping with the ice theme of this post, I learned today why my salad dressing says “never freeze” on the side. My fridge has been on the fritz lately, and when I pulled the dressing out tonight, I was alarmed to see that part of the dressing had separated and congealed into a gelatinous mass. Hot.

I discovered the most amazing air traffic control stream this afternoon. The feed (alternate feed) for San Francisco tower puts arrivals on one stereo channel and departures on the other stereo channel. So when it’s busy, you have two people saying different things involving flying at the same time in surround sound, sort of. It’s simply amazing. No, I did not keep it running for more than three hours this evening.

I got my first DC parking ticket last week. A whole $20 for allegedly parking in the “entrance to designated building” zone near (but not actually in front of) the entrance to my building. Nevermind my guilt or innocence. Also nevermind that fact that the signs denoting the zone do not correspond to the painted curb. No, more disturbing is that they recorded my California plate as being from DC. Methinks they will have a hard time tracking me down.

On the plus side, I got a job offer of sorts yesterday. Three years ago, I got on Musson Theatrical’s overhire list. Yesterday, for the first time, they emailed me to inform me of potential jobs, amounting to at least 32 hours of gainful employment for the taking in the next week. Too bad it’s all in California and I’m over here.

When last we left, the bunny took a trip to the fridge, and faced an uncertain future as ganache smudging, marginally burnt ears and a body-wide crack threatened its very existence.

Remember that episode of Grey’s with Dylan, the bomb squad dude? Namely, part 2 of that episode, much like how this is part two of this post. That’s kind of how Peter felt, using a ridiculously sharp German knife to painstakingly separate one half of the bunny–the half that was itself threatening to become two halves–from the cookie sheet. With only the hardened ganache and the gravitational pull of the moon to keep it together, the outcome was anything but certain. Then again, the deck was stacked in my favor, since neither chocolate nor buttercream cake is likely to spontaneously detonate. It took some gentle squeezing, but heck if that bunny didn’t put itself together just like it was supposed to. And miracle of miracles, the bunny did not detonate, or fracture for that matter.

Something still was’t quite right, though. Upon closer inspection, we determined that from a head-on perspective, the bunny cake just didn’t look like a bunny.

If anything, it looked like a bunny with a cholesterol level dangerously close to 400. We forgot to add the Lipitor to the batter, so that might have been the problem. Or it might just be that the mold is not anatomically correct, which is a crying shame. Then again, some preliminary research on JStor, Lexis-Nexis and some random blog suggests that there are in fact bunnies with cholesterol levels perilously close to 400.

Remember kids, always use protection. As Danica so clearly demonstrates, the effects of unprotected ganaching can be hilarious…but this is no laughing matter. The finished product looks like something made by a couple of college students. Granted, college students equipped with fine German knifes, granite counters and an exceptional culinary aesthetic, but still college students.

Eager to sample our work, but already filled with seared salmon again and some beer, we opted to share the tail. Tasty, but a bit dry. And nevermind the appearance of our bunny now, with tail amputated. We hypothesize that the mid-section will be more moist and delightful cuz heck, that part didn’t really get past the dough stage anyway. In the future, we may stop the recipe after the eggs, butter, sugar and vanilla extract get combined and just plunge our faces into the bowl.

D.C. reporting starts tomorrow for Peter, so expect a return of actual issues and real problems on this here blog.

Spurred by the most ridiculous recipe ever, Danica and I decided to attempt the impossible: making a giant bunny-shaped cake covered in chocolate ganache. Even the people at Williams-Sonoma, where the deluxe non-stick pan came from, hadn’t tried the recipe. It was uncharted terrority. Were our cooking skills up to par? Would the kitchen be big enough to handle it all? Would my miniature gas oven be able to fit the baking bunny?


We quickly discovered that the cake batter was among the most satisfying batter on the face of the earth. In other words, butter + eggs + sugar + vanilla = CRAZY DELICIOUS. The batter turned out to be easy enough to make. And as time would reveal, that was in fact the easy part of this undertaking. We even got adventurous and modified the recipe a bit. Rather than using a Kitchenaid mixer with paddle attachment, we opted for the $15 hand mixer from Kmart with, uh, normal mixing attachment. For the cost-conscious, that works just fine.

In to the oven it went, and off we went to watch West Wing. Thirty-five minutes later, we checked the oven, expecting to find a fully-completed chocolate-covered bunny with jelly bean eyes staring out at us. But no, we found a partially overdone yet simultaneously partially underdone cake. Turns out the oven not only can’t hold temperature, but it can’t maintain constant temperature across the interior, either. The middles were still gooshy, and the ears were on the verge of being burnt. But that, too, was about to be the least of our worries. After a few more minutes and some staring vacantly into the oven, we called it good and pulled out the bunny.

After cooling, we flipped the bunnies onto our newly-acquired cooling racks for more, uh, cooling. But through a freak transit through a parallel universe, one of the eggs ended up underneath one half of the bunny. The result: a life-threatening fracture! It extended from the bunny’s abdomen up nearly to its spine, threatening paralysis and SEPARATION.

We were unsettled, shaken, and a bit discouraged. Things were going wrong left and right, despite our heroic efforts to comply with the recipe. We hadn’t even gotten to the ganache part yet, and our bunny was clinging on for dear life. To comfort ourselves, we made seared salmon with tarragon, wilted spinach, shallots and a white wine-cream reduction.

Fast-forward 24 hours. After spending the night in the ICU, the bunny was no better, but no worse either. We proceeded with the procedure. Massive quantities of chocolate, cream and butter converged over a rudimentary double-boiler to form a most delicious sauce, or ganache, in the parlance of our kitchen. Meanwhile, the bunnies took a trip back to the pan for a bit of shaving. What with all that baking powder in the recipe, they quite exuberantly overflowed the mold. But they were no match for our serrated knife, which pared them back down to size. Unfortunately for us, the knife struck a fatal blow to half the bunny. Its rupture severed it in half completely. We tried not to dwell on that, and instead covered it in chocolate. After much futzing, including the last-minute creation of white chocolate “ganache” to make the tail white and give the bunny eyeballs, along with the removal of an unknown tumor on the bunny’s ear, we threw it all in the fridge for cooling. Would the bunny ever see the light of day? We lost track of which half was broken in two in the chocolate-covering process, so we have no easy way to tell which is which. The bunny appeared to be pushing against that line between ambition and insanity, and we weren’t even done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With all the talk of our three years in Iraq, I thought some perspective on spending would be in order. Two pragmatic Democrats and a pragmatic Republican went out for drinks last night. Consider our findings.

Total cost of war: $249 billion
Total population of U.S.: about 299 million
Taxpaying population (those 18 and older): 222.8 million
Cost of war per taxpayer: $1,117.59

Of course, as the pragmatic Republican observed, this simplistic analysis neglects the taxes paid by corporations. Thus the total cost of the war isn’t shouldered solely by individual taxpayers. But corporate taxes are money that is not paid to employees, so there is an additional intangible cost of the war per person in lost salaries and wages. Thus the above number is valid for my discussion. The actual cost per person could be higher or lower, but this at least gives us a legitimate starting point.

Now, what could a person do with an extra $1,117.59 saved over the course of three years?

• For a low-income couple spending $30 per week on groceries, that’s more than nine months of food.

• Your Internet bill is probably around $40 per month. That money would pay for more than two years of high-speed Internet access.
• I’ve been known to spend $4 per basket on raspberries this time of year. What would I do with 280 baskets of raspberries?
• If all that money were left in a savings account with a 3.8 percent annual percentage yield, it would grow to $1,249.90 in three years.
• My tall-nonfat-no-water-extra-hot-five-pump-chai costs about $3.20 depending on which Starbucks I go to. Gosh, how I would love to have another 349 of those. One a day for a year? Two a week for three years?

Bonus
In his press conference earlier this morning, President Bush essentially said that the $800-billion debt authorization approved by Congress, raising the national debt to $9 trillion, is due to reckless spending on Social Security and Medicare. Wow, all that in one year? You’d think the nation’s poor would be better off with all that money spent on them.

Turns out the $1,500-per-month rent I’m shelling out for my luxurious furnished studio near Dupont Circle is a downright bargain. There’s another studio in my building that is going for $2,050/month. Rent controls? Who needs rent controls?

In other news, I am the latest to discover the wonders of Pizzeria Paradiso, at 21st and P. Having Oregon beer on tap gives it an insane number of bonus points, too. Incidentally, the pizza was a good deal, unlike my rent.

Just as I have long suspected, the West Coast is so exemplary, so outstanding and upstanding, so singularly unique and distinct, that it is not actually part of America. Nor is is even a nearby country, like the much-rumored Canada, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii. I am left to conclude that it exists only in a parallel universe. Friends, the reason I keep drinking microbrews I bring back from the Northwest is because I actually keep travelling through a wormhole from my parallel universe every time I saunter to the newsroom. The wormhole is somewhere between “Italian” and “A Wreck” at the Potbelly on West Adams Street.

There are some events in our lives too ludicrous and absurd to even try to describe. So here goes. Seeing as we all were moving out, someone had to return the cable modem to Comcast, and that joyous task fell to me on Tuesday evening. After driving in circles in Bucktown, it was clear that I was lost. A call to Comcast and a few minutes later, I got a lady somewhere who was intimately familiar with the location of the office, making me think more likely than not, she was in Chicago and not, say, Tuscon.

The Comcast office rises from the shores of the Chicago River like some blue-trimmed monster emerging from the mists of Avalon. Before I make it three steps from the car, a woman dressed strikingly like a flight attendant, and for the sake of convenience named Rhonda, emerges from the building and starts walking toward me.

Rhonda: We’re closed.
Me: Sorry? What?
Rhonda: We close at 5 on Tuesdays. It’s almost 6 now.
Me, taken aback: Um, ok, well I just need to drop this [cable modem and ball of wires in my hand] off. Is there somewhere I can leave it?
Rhonda: No, you’ll just have to come back tomorrow. There’s no one here to take it.
Me: Well, ok, except my roommates and I are all moving out and we won’t be able to make it here again.
Rhonda: Well, that’s not my problem, and it sounds like you should have planned your move better.
Me, a trifle offended: Yeah, well, I still need to get rid of this thing. How ’bout if I just leave it sitting here behind this trash can and then they can bring it in tomorrow?
Rhonda: If you do that, it will be $600.
Me: I really don’t know what to say. What else should I do with this thing?
Rhonda: You can mail it to us. Theaddressis1225WestNorthAvenueChicagoIllinois60622.
Me: I … don’t have anything to write that down with. Are you sure there isn’t any way you can’t just leave it inside?
Rhonda: No
Me: What if you just open the door a little and I put it on the floor?
Rhonda: No
Me: Ok. Well, tomorrow, would you tell your superviser how ludicrous this whole situation is?
Rhonda: No, and my superviser doesn’t work for Comcast either.
Me, getting desperate: I really need to drop this off somewhere. Is there any way I can leave it?
Rhonda: No
Me, walking to slot in wall for bills: Will it fit in the bill slot? What if I just stick it in there?
Rhonda: It won’t fit.

It appeared that we were reaching an impasse. Rhonda was not about to act outside of the bounds of her narrow role as private security guard/flight attendant. I was not about to leave with cable modem still in hand and nothing to show for wasting half an hour driving around Bucktown. Then, out of the doors, a distraction. A Comcast employee who Rhonda knew emerged, and they exchanged pleasantries. When they were done…

Rhonda: I can try to see if I can find someone inside if you just wait by your car.
Me: OK, that would be great.

Exit Rhonda. Peter crosses to car. He is cold. He notes, through the windows, that Rhonda is standing in the lobby, not talking to anyone. He stares at her. She stares at him. After several more employees leave the building, Rhonda reemerges.

Rhonda: The computers are down.
Me: Sorry what?
Rhonda: The computers are down. They’re down for the day. Everyone went home.
Me: So…?
Rhonda: There’s no one can take that from you.
Me: …
Rhonda: If you want I can take it and put it inside, but if it gets lost, that’s $600.
Me: That’s great, here, thanks. (aside, walking away) If you lose it in your own damn building, you don’t deserve $600.

Exeunt.

To be clear, I’m not really sure who the moron is. Maybe it is a universal label for anyone and anything related to moving. On Saturday my roommates had an apartment sale. They advertised on Craigslist, touting the incredible range of items for the cheap taking–sofas, tables, desks, chairs, cups, plates, a rug… And after all that, they sold one item. A man came down from Edgewater, just for our apartment sale, just so he could have the Best Item Of All: Trivial Pursuit DVD SNL Edition.

Then, of course, there was the extrication of our 300-pound couch with hide-a-bed. Amazingly, we didn’t lose any fingers in what was the most cumbersome furniture relocation undertaking I’ve ever done. Enough with the big words already.