Old Pastry Chefs Never Die, They Just Make Less Dough

Gluttony approacheth.....

Turkey

Well, for some people maybe. Thanksgiving has never been one of my favorite holidays. Nearly everything on the typical Thanksgiving menu is stuff I'm not particularly fond of. I like mashed potatoes. Maybe a little gravy. But I'll pass on the stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, brussels sprouts, pumpkin pie, and most of all, turkey.

Then to make it worse, the turkey doesn't go away after Thanksgiving. It lurks and stalks me with days of eating turkey leftovers. It's getting revenge on me for killing it in the first place. Damn you turkey!!!!

If the pilgrims had just ordered Domino's Pizza or Chinese Take-Out on the first Thanksgiving I'd be so much happier.

On the bright side, I don't really have to worry about holiday weight gain. I just keep gaining weight at the same rate I do for the rest of the year.

I love carrots.

Really.

They are better than chocolate. Better than.....rice cakes......better than.......sticking a FORK IN MY EYE!

Aw hell. Who am I kidding. Me. That's who. I must convince myself that carrots are a PREFERRED SNACK.
MUST LOVE CARROTS. Never mind those freshly baked cookies in the cookie jar. Never mind the freshly baked bread in the bread drawer....warmed up in the microwave with a crapload of butter.....no NEVER MIND THAT STUFF!! It's carrots for me!!!!!! YUMMMMM! Carrots! (with ranch dressing, some croutons and a lot of bacon bits).
NO! No embellishments! PLAIN CARROTS!!! DEEEE-FREAKING-LICIOUS!!! Perhaps if Dr. Phil validated this statement I might believe it a bit more. Gotta love Dr. Phil. It would be kind of handy to have him follow me around all day, and every time I tried to pop something other than a carrot in my mouth, he would say, "What are YOU THINKING??" That would help. A lot.

In my never-ending quest to conform to society's image of the perfect woman without becoming completely psychotic, I have embarked on a new beauty plan that I have extracted from my new reality, which is.....television. That's right. Now that I am among the ranks of the deadbeat unemployed, I have to watch the dollars very carefully, which means I stay home a lot. My husband is out busy supporting my deadbeat ass, and my stepson is out busy either gainfully becoming educated or screwing around with his friends, or hiding in trees annoying people. Television is my companion....my truth......the window to the world. Not that I'm sitting around just watching it.....mostly it's background noise that is accompanying whatever menial domestic task I'm performing at the moment. Subliminally, though, I'm absorbing all information that emanates from it. Just what "big brother" wants.

Anyway, Carmen Electra (uh, why is she famous again?) told me the other day that she takes a new weight loss beauty pill just for herself. Not for men. Not for women....not for cameras or red carpets. She takes it just for herself.
Because Carmen loves Carmen. And Carmen says it works too. I believe Carmen, because Carmen is beautiful, and she must be beautiful because she takes that pill. Well, hell, I love me, so I'm takin' that pill too. You know, TV has really simplified my life. Here's my new beauty plan:

Beautysecret

I love carrots. I'm takin' "the pill", and that equals "shock and awe" baby! Ask Scarlett....she loves carrots too.

Add two more seconds.....

to my 15 minutes of fame. I believe I've used up maybe 5 minutes so far. I calculate I have 9 minutes and 58 seconds more to go. That's just enough for a segment on "Dateline".  Oh, but wait, to get on  "Dateline" I have to
either form a bizarre plot to kill my husband, or troll for underage boys and girls in chat rooms. Nah, forget "Dateline".
How about a spot on the "Jerry Springer Show"? Then I get to bring whomever I want and beat them up. I could go for 9 minutes and 58 seconds of that.

But I digress.

This recent two seconds of fame is attributed to my latest cake project. As per usual, I didn't get paid to do it. It was a donation to an auction to raise funds for the Jefferson County Historical Society. I donated my services to create a celebration cake for the grand re-opening of Port Townsend, Washington's historic city hall. Originally they wanted me to re-create the building in cake, but I didn't have the space, the refrigeration, or quite that much time to do a replica of the building. So I designed a tiered cake, in the popular crooked whimsical fashion, that represented the best parts of the interior and exterior of city hall. The top and bottom tiers represent the best of the outside of the building, and the middle tier represents the brand new carpeting installed in the interior. The thing that looks like a satellite antenna on the top is a representation of some beautiful railing work done by the late great blacksmith/artist Russell Jacqua.
Not sure how much time I spent on this thing, but it was a lot of time. I started the project at the beginning of September and completed little tasks in between all my other responsibilities that related to domestic engineering and my outside cookie baking job (of which I no longer have-Thanks Heidi!!!). I was asked how many hours it took me.
I didn't count. I honestly don't know. Maybe 100? Maybe more....maybe less. Here's a picture. I added the pigeons and the seagull at the last minute at the suggestion of my husband.....brilliant!

The inside of the cake was an amazing chocolate stout cake with a hazelnut praline buttercream filling. The chocolate stout cake is definitely the best chocolate cake ever. Yes, it's made with stout beer, and no, the cake does not taste like beer. It tastes like wonderful moist dark chocolate. It rocks! Want the recipe? Go here.

PTCityHallCake

Donate to my ego fund! Screw the starving children.

care-o-meter

When I first heard of "blogs" on the web, I automatically assumed they were written by important people with important things to say, wherein everyone would want to read them.

Well.

Turns out ordinary people such as myself can have a blog and make complete asses out of themselves. Never one to miss that kind of opportunity, I decided to hop on board the Blogmobile.

Now truly, I consider a personal blog to be the utmost in egoism, or egotism (take your pick). Who really cares what I think? Who cares what I have to say? Have a look at the Care-O-Meter there. It ain't movin'. No one cares. Well, except my family, because they need to closely monitor my behavior to know when the time is right to commit me to the "Home". By the way, it's not time yet....I still have more people I need to annoy. And what better way to annoy the most people possible than to use the power of the awesome "internets"!!!

Read on. Be annoyed. Be very annoyed. 

whoopdedoo