michellebletown madness part 1

sorry for the delay, the cinderblock wall out my window has been distracting me.
well! much news to cover. last weekend miss kristen fraley and i headed upstate, to my beloved Marbletown, for my mother's end of the summer/Molly's 14th birthday bash!
I had big plans, as I had knows about it all summer, and every recipe that struck my eye i set aside to make that weekend. (first mistake....)
My menu looked like this:
-Farmland Vegetable Pie
-Jumbleberry Pie
-Orange Cremsicles
-Chocolate and Peanut Butter Milk Shakes
-Vegetable Burgers with Eggplant and tomato
-Grilled corn with Hoisin-Orange Butter
-Chocolate chip cookies
-Pupcakes for Molly
Kristen had to convince me to not make scones for Molly in addition to the cakes. Clearly I have a problem with restraint.

The evening before I made molly's cakes and the cookies. Kristen watched Beetlejuice on the couch with my family, as i puttered around the kitchen, covered in flour, crumbs in my hair, and a sleep happy smile on my face. the family went to sleep and i coaxed kristen to stay awake with promises of the first taste of warm chocolate chip cookies. I used this recipe, and i still can't understand how chocolate chip cookies stay soft and chewy?! Tips please. They were pretty god as they were, but i am endlessly curious how to maintain their chewy-ness.

the next morning, Shmoops woke me up, and (delicately) mentioned that perhaps one pie would not suffice for the 30 people expected for Molly's birthday. I wiped the sleep from eyes, and quickly perked up upon remembering my surprise success with the Chiffon Cake.
"I'll make a Chiffon cake." says I.
"great!" says shmoops.
i go back to sleep.

2 hours i awake with the excitement of the first day of school, if i actually ever liked school.
anyway,
first stop: coffee pot.
second stop: clearing my work space and washing all the dishes so i have a fresh kitchen to work with.

I could expound on how the rest of the day went (i got overwhelmed, listened to Metric "Live it Out" 4 times in a row, started crying when my chiffon cake collapsed, made some very heavy handed vodka creamsicles, tried to delegate, hid in my room with Molly to gather my bearings, and danced my way through sugar induced panic) but that's no fun!
but this is....
a zucchini from my mom's garden!! i'm so proud! and then i chopped it up for-

vegetable pie! i was won over when the recipe mentioned a pound of cheese. oh. and by this time shmoops and i were one bottle of champagne in....anyway. I had prepared the crust the night earlier, and was pleased with how it held up, drier is better...you'll see why in a moment.
my first attempt at top crust. once again, i was so happy with the end results! obviously not perfect or necessarily pretty, but nevertheless i was all beamy and such.
yea. i kinda looked like that most of the day.
this is for the Jumbleberry pie. Which is exactly what it sounds like. basically any type of summer fruit is blended with sugar, lemon juice, some cinnamon, half and half, and cornstarch. I made this crust the night before as well, however i used too much water "Kristen! pour until i say when!" i when-ed too late. anyway, the crust was very very thin, i added more flour, and then settled (never again!) for what you see before you. it looks pretty and all, but the thin crust could not hold all the juices and madness that was going on inside. see?!
the bottom of the cookie sheet was filled with juice (which apparently was "delicious: according to Aunt Melinda, but it just made me sad) it was seeping with berry juice and had overflowed into a pretty unattractive pool of juice and sugar. It tasted pretty good (berries are always a treat!) but it was mostly the guts that you tasted...the crust was a bit nonexistant, and certainly not a flaky accent to the pie.

In conclusion:
For the love of christ prepare as much as you can the night before!! that's the point that really drove the whole event home. and kristen is a saint. and Molly is the best friend a girl could ask for.

p.s. dogs can't look up.

xox.

chillz

good morning,
even when i get up early i can't leave on time. two cups of coffee in, at 6:26, i have been filing my nails, listening to sir iggy, filing my nails and preparing for tomorrow. What tomorrow you ask, scratching your head (or more likely, still SLEEPING). My interview at Serious Eats. I will say no more.
Confusion and a clarity have become interchangeable.
to celebrate.....something, here are some delicious pictures of delicious thing. BUT! one of these things is not like the other....dare to spot the difference?








ok. i lost sight of what i was doing. sorry. don't drink and drive kids!
peace, love and cheeseburgers for all.
-MICHELLEWAHLERS

...and did not anticipate the ripping blow that snuffed out the world.

greetings from under the covers in astoria! today is a perfect day to spend in pajamas, light a candle and scour the internet for recipes. so guess what i have been doing....exactly!
I just joined epicurious. Yet another site where i create a profile, tell people i like to bake and hoard recipes like a starving chipmunk. a chipmunk who LOVES chocolate. and pies, and pastry puff....you get the point.
In other news (is there ever any other news?) i saw Iggy Pop on Friday. it was officially the best show i have ever seen (move over ashlee simpson, you've been replaced....finally?!!). I have never felt so loved by a performer. by the third song he invited the entire audience up on the stage with him. The venue was a little too large to accommodate the whole audience, but enough of them got up, and during the mass move up to the platform, kristen and I got shoved up close enough to the barely dressed performer. 60! that man is 60! i was speechless. especially after the show when i had lost my voice.
one show down, one more to go...we headed across town to Metric (!) who were playing at the Highling Ballroom. I had never seen them, so I was super excited. They were f***ing rad. I heard songs that had been stuck in my head for months performed live, and by a much more qualified singer than myself. I may or may not have had one too many gin and tonics, so the end of the concert got fuzzy, but i do remember Monster Hospital meeting every expectation they had set for themselves. a dizzying mix of rave and rock and jumping and ice sloshing. To round up the evening we got some drunk taco bell (is there any other kind?), missed our stop and when we finally hit home watched reno 911.

Now back to food. Here are a few pictures of flour-less double chocolate cookies i made for Missy's birthday.

This is the set up. (i need some fucking counters!!)
sigh. it's cool.



and the results, sprinkled with powdered sugar:

i had never made flour-less anything before. I found that, for this recipe, it basically substitutes flour for confectioner sugar. Which made for a slightly tacky cookie. kinda sticks to your teeth...which isn't exactly what i was going for. But the middle had the consistency of a dark brownie, which was really good. I know brother bear liked them....so i feel as though it was win.

So once the rain subsides, my big boy and I are heading to the grocery store to prepare meals for the week. no more buying fancy egg salad sandwiches for me....pinch those pennies!!
so pictures will follow. eventually (october?)

xo