stretch.

cozying up to my pillows, burrowing under my covers, and blowing the steam off my cup of tea.
this is generally how sunday evenings unfold, and it never seems to get boring. it's nice to reflect and make lists for the week and sit alone. after a weekend of friends and drinks and food (oh the food!) i zip my lips up and stop for a bit.
friday was a surprise concert, saturday was a bake off turned picnic, turned just another party.
a just fine weekend. the fall season brings slower movements, longer blinks, and longer silences.
all of which i am welcoming with open arms and a warm scarf.
so this evening i went to the grocery store, picked up some lucky charms, pasta and other things i have forgotten. i came home and made an aromatic batch of Apple Cinnamon muffins. nice and simple.
i apologize for my lack of gumption, i bought the wrong size batteries for my camera so i can't expound on any of that....and in general, there is not much to say.

peace, love, and pancakes.

the day i made Crullers!

(Courtesy of this guy)


was also the day i forgot how to turn the flash on my camera.
after many attempts the little guy got tired and decided he needed new batteries.
i could not provide...rats!
was also the day our kitchen's light broke. DOUBLE RATS!
neither of which stopped me, i brought in my bed side light, plugged it in, and set my memory to photographic.
so, in the dim light provided by my little lamp i proceeded to a territory unknown.
deepfrying.
i purchased a deep frying thermometer, (and a candy thermometer; but more about that later)and prayed for the best.
i used this recipe.
I am always so damn happy when, on the stovetop, the pastry dough comes together...literally. it turns into a light yellow ball of light pastry dough, so quickly; and i'm sure the chemistry is just fascinating, but wikipedia reads like stereo instructions....i'll let you all know in March.
moving on.....so the pastry quickly, over high heat and stirring constantly turns into a ball. once is "solid" i put it in a large mixing bowl and add the eggs one at a time. at this time, it begins to crumble, as do my hopes. I post the printed recipe on the fridge, which is stationed behind me, so with one hand i am mixing, and the other i am scrolling down the paper, making sure i am doing it correctly. sweat is pouring down my face, i'm talking to myself furiously, and my roommates order take out because i am all UP ONS in the kitchen.
so.....i keep mixing, seeing i am doing it correctly, and add each egg one at a time, thoroughly mixing each one in.
then i add the vanilla extract, as the last mixing step. i pour the vanilla, which smells oddly like lemon....weird......SHIT.
p.s. lemon extract and vanilla extract are in identical bottles. and they probably always will be, besides the minor detail that one says "Vanilla" and one, conveniently enough says "Lemon".
after this mishap is veered, i place the dough in my pastry bag.
on greased wax paper, i "drew" circles with the dough. making 3 layers of circle (make sense much?) i found was the perfect size.
so, with my new deep frying thermometer (!!) i placed a whole lot of vegetable oil in a 3 inch frying pan, and waited about 6 minutes until the dial hit 375.
unlike the egg mixing, and the whole "vanilla-lemon" mix up, i encounter my first actual problem.
the circles do not "plop" into the oil as they say they will so gracefully in the recipe.
nope. not graceful at all....they stay fairly intact, and they do not budge from the shape they fall into once they get into the oil. the sides of the circles slide together into one, producing a smushed oval. once they hit the oil they maintain their shape, so sometimes i would win and get a circle, sometimes i would get a deepfried blob. so i do some scrambling, and some cursing and then i figure out the best way to do it in the future. the thicker the better, the more circles i go over with the dough, the better they will hold their shape.
they only take about 2-3 minutes in the oil (turning once) before they are all set.
i whipped a quick Confectioner's Sugar Frosting, (found here)
and spread it over all the Crullers!
the end result:
by now, I have had 3 Crullers. The first one was without frosting, shortly after it came out of the pan. it's just like fried dough! but a bit lighter, and easier to justify eating copious amounts of because, well, French people don't get fat.
the second one i had was hasty....i scarfed one down after i applied the frosting, because i had never made said frosting before and i wanted to test that. it was too sweet....less sugar next time.
the THIRD one!
i placed delicately on a plate, and placed beside a cup of chamomile tea. (i'm never getting to sleep tonight)
so with this adventure i have learned alot about the vast and fickle world of deep frying, but with a bit of success.
i am now sleepy/crashing from my brief sugar rush.
until tomorrow evening,
-the sunny robot.

Molly.

i love my dog Molly more than most things in the world. more than crunch bars/coffee/splenda/john steinbeck/not wearing a bra/miller lites.
that might come as a surprise to some of you, considering how much i absofuckinlutely love the aforementioned.
but it's true.
she is a german shepard/lab mix mutt of perfection and this past August she turned 14 year old!!
that's incredible. the night we got molly was a cold and rainy evening. with shmoops, brother bear and i in tow we made the trip to Kerhonksen, to get one of those "free to a good home" pups we had heard oh so much about. we drove up a long and winding driveway, to what looked like a castle. (disclaimer:the story gets a bit more dramatic the more i tell it) there were no people in sight, just the howling of werewolves and the screeching of owls. an old lady, with a hunchback obviously, stumbled out of the castle, and presented us with a challenge. pointing a crooked finger to a dog house in the far corner of the yard she mused "if you dare enter that dog house and pull out a pup, without being eaten alive by the mother, you may keep the pup. many have entered, few have returned."
frightened, i look up to my mother and my older brother. i get the "there's no way in hell i'm going in there! we'll get a gerbil" look from them both. but not tonight. there will be no more damn gerbils in our house. and i can't even stand the sight of cats by this time.
i man up. at 9 years old, i muster up all my courage, and make my way to the dog house.
i crawl in....it is so dark, and the only thing i could hear was the panting of pups and the only thing i could smell was fear. and dog shit. anyway.
i picked molly. i don't even remember seeing her until we got in the car, it really was dark! i sometimes wonder about the other puppies, her brothers and sisters. perhaps they wouldn't run away from the house and only come back after hours of chasing her around the neighborhood with cheese and hot dogs, screaming her name and abandoning all dignity. perhaps one of her brothers or sisters wouldn't have eaten all the arms and legs off of EVERY barbie doll i ever had.
perhaps.
but i don't care, and i wouldn't trade her for any dog in the whole entire world, and i mean that truly.
so! for her birthday party i made her Pupcakes. it's basically blueberries muffins with food processed kibble substituting the flour. i got the recipe (if you can call it that) from one of my favorite dog treat cookbooks, "The Ultimate Dog Recipe Cookbook".

heap o' cakeZZZ!
guts

fancy dog cannoli from a vendor in New Paltz.
this is actually where the whole baking obsession life change came from. i wanted to make dog pastries. and move to germany. so yet another thing i can thank molly for, giving my life meaning through baking.
needless to say, she loved them. she loves eveything, she loves me and my family, kraft singles, long walks, hot dogs and laying in bed. we're so similar it's scary.

molly and kristen at her party.

molly and i on a romantic long walk.
molly eating ice cream i made for her.
the dog, the myth, the legend MOLLY!

scribbles

good morning (afternoon?)
finally, the weekend has arrived. late nights, late mornings, listening to David Bowie to the max and mindlessly perusing the internets. tis a wonderful thing.
but damnit i'm hungry! my pantry shelves are a dismal sight right now. i bought chips last night (obvi) and i have a jar of peanut butter and a lot of canned tomatoes. ugh. grocery shopping should be in the imminent future, and considering how much i love food this should be a good/exciting/fun thing.
but it's not really. the state of my kitchen is awful, at best. there's absolutely no space, no counters, (no food, heh) and is really not very inspiring for an aspiriing chef/baker/cooking goddess.
so i often eat oatmeal, or scoops of said peanut butter for dinner. or i steal a muffin from work and eat it for dinner when i get home, or, even more often i stop at Pita Hot and get some falafel and hummus.....mmmmm.
anyways, there is only one way to get out of this cooking funk of mine and that is to make a menu for the week, with tasty and light leftovers for lunches. cue money anxiety, and the the plaguing thought of....how the hell will i know what i want/crave on Wednesday, on a lazy saturday?!
i won't. because most of the time i crave Crunch bars.
so i'm back to the beginning. i will look at my cookbooks and magazines and have nothing but the best intentions, but when it comes time to go grocery shopping, i will probably buy some pop tarts and chicken soup.
man i'm hungry.

I don't want, no I really don't want To be John Lithgow or Jane Curtain But I'll settle for love.

Speak for yourself rufus. I saw John Lithgow today! (then i saw katie holmes, which was just weird and i wanted to give her a lollipop) i was meeting jeremy at his theatre, and next door rehearsals for All My Sons were just wrapping up. So, in my goon clothes, i was sitting on the steps of 13 when our favorite extra-terrestrial, john lithgow walks past me. he was wearing a long dark blue trench coat, looking very thin and terribly smart(!), clutching the latest issue of the New Yorker.
so my star studded evening only got better when brother bear took me to Yum Yum for thai food.
so now i am home, surrounded by the latest articles in Bon Appetit, ready to tell you all about my latest adventure in gastronomic delicacies. (perhaps Steingarten has inflated my ego to impractical levels......perhaps.)
and so, after much ado about nothing.....Strawberry Rhubarb Pie!!
I had never eaten strawberry rhubarb pie, let alone made it. but i was on a roll with pies, and felt pretty good about continuing with them. (plus, shmoops called to say she had bought strawberries and rhubarb....cough cough hint hint)
I used the basic recipe from the classic cookbook, The New Doubleday Cookbook.
asides from the pie crust itself (which i think i am getting the hang of) the process was fantastically easy! chop rhubarb, add sliced strawberries, about a cup and 1/3 of sugar, some flour to hold the mixture together, mix and place in the bottom crust.
the bottom of the recipe included an optional step "For a special occasion, cover with a lattice crust"
Well, the special occasion was that it was the first time I did a Lattice Crust!
baby steps for me though....i didn't do the weave lattice, rather the basic horizontal layer with the vertical placed over it. i'll get there eventually though.
and now, ahem....the gallery.
Rhubarb.it's ridiculous. and VERY bitter. i nibbled a bit, contemplated making a strawberry rhubarb pie sans rhubarb.....but i bit the bullet (and the rhubarb) and hoped for the best.
uneven pastry strips!
in the oven for 42 minutes.
up and close and personal with my pie.
guts. heh...

i was given rave reviews, by the very tough critics....my parents. so phew! passed that test. it was sweeter than expected (considering the bitterness of the rhubarb) and the lattice crust came out the best of my previous top pie crusts. so.....i was thrilled! paired with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and Joey clawing at ankles, it was a lovely ending to a sunday evening.

Now i am going buy very expensive chocolate on the internet.

xoxo-
Manic Michelle and the mini fools.

(courtesy of someone on flickr.)
morning. sunday.
trying out MGMT.
Yesterday Sam and Jamie and I ventured to the west village for the acclaimed "A Salt & Battery" for fish and chips! some of you might recognize the name from the Bobby Flay Throwdown episode where Bobby's ego was diminished, ever so slightly when the charming British team, who have been making fish and chips for a thousand billion years, handed him his ass on a plate! with a side of chips!
obviously it was delicious. i made sure to not eat the crumbs of my remaining chips, because post lunch tea was to happen at the undeniably charming Tea & Sympathy. i had the "iced tea of the day" which was Apple Peach Tea, and a strawberry cupcake! mmmmmmyea!
the tea shop was very cozy and overflowing with kitchsy tea pots and photographs of the Rosevelts, Princess Diana, dog portraits.....weird. good. we sat at a small table for 3, sipped tea and ate scones with clotted cream, while the remnants of Hanna poured down on us. we all grew sleepy and relaxed.
then i fell up the stairs!! i hurt my knee....rats!
This afternoon i willbe heading upstate, for a baby shower yes, but more anticipated is the Strawberry Rhubarb pie i have been asked to make! yay for requests....
a nice country meal of pasta with fresh vegetables, a loaf of bread I am going to buy from the Greek bakery down the street, and homemade pie.
i had a dream I made molly a margarita with dog kibble. doesn't sound too far fetched.
xox.

what i learned from coney island

(photo courtesy of kristen fraley)

this evening my friends are going to coney island. and i am listening to david bowie, in my pajamas, sprawled on my bed. with my marvel gummi vitamins to my right and a cinderblock wall to my left ( no i can't let it go).....i write to you. there are a few reasons i am not with them, on perhaps the last visit to coney island, not only of the season, but forever. next year they will be turning the historic, charming, magically trashy place into one big dave and f***ing busters. good luck you goddamn sell outs.
anyway.
reasons include but are not limited to:
lack of funds due to Labor day Madness with friends, beers and eclairs
lack of sleep....(see the above mentioned)
the 4 hour round trip on the subway....on a work night! for heaven's sake! heh.
so i send my best representatives, kristen, anthony, sam, and new friends from out of town and the like. they are told to report back to me with every detail of how my beloved beach is holding up. and to give my regards to this guy:

oh, how i love you, my cuddly cloverfield monster.
and now, may i present you with the top 5 things i learned from Coney Island and the people there.
1) don't go in the water.
(self explanatory, yes?)

2) where sleeves, or better yet, chain link.
the first time i went to coney island was a mass migration that started at the brooklyn bridge, and ended on the sandy and infected shores of Coney Island. It was for the giant party, One Night of Fire, an event put on by the Danger. This was to get all those in the NYC area who love/are fascinated by/miss Burning Man, too damn much to wait for the festival to begin a few months later. the theme was "White" so i wore a thin white nightgown, and Jamie wore a dentist shirt and scrubs. it was weird. obviously.
anyway, we started on the brooklyn bridge, drums banging, children walking on stilts, flasks being passed around and spirits very VERY high. by the end of the evening we were sitting in the sand at Coney Island, fire dancers, breathers, and lovers lighting the night sky. i was on a bench sitting next to a girl....making conversation, when all of a sudden CHOMP!
she bit my arm. jamie says "let's go eh?" or something to that effect....and that was the evening i learned the term "E-tard". that bitch bit my arm. it was cool though.....

3) The "freaks" are the least of your worries.
ahhh the freak show. i have never attended, formally, but rumor has it is exactly what it sounds like, and just how we all picture it. bearded ladies? most likely. that dude who can stretch his bottom lip over his knees? absofuckinlutely. i always figured the sight of the aforementioned "attraction" would upset me, or more so the reactions of the crown to them. so i walked by.....but you know where you're NOT safe? the beach. for my birthday, my best friends all came together to sit on coney island with me, listen to my endless Cloverfield stories, and drink Sprite-itos. (Sprite and mojito mix, obviously) so we were all sitting in a circle on the shore, taking in sun, doing all of the above activities when I am told (by who? i'm not sure i try to block this out when not blogging) "Do not look up. eyes on the ground Michelle" well OBVIOUSLY i look up and see....a....HUGE ALBINO PYTHON!! tears welled up in my eyes, and i whisper, "please make sure it doesn't come near me". whether it be because it was my 23rd birthday, or because these kids really do like me and didn't want to see a severe panic attack, they made sure the bald man and the white/yellow creature didn't come near me. i would take that dude with the crazy bottom lip ANY day.

4)Do NOT buy a beer from Nathan's Hot Dog Stand. EVER.
We made the trek to Siren Fest. something i had been told and sucessfully convinced i would never do. phrases like "hipster-fest", "heat exhaustion" and "the worst weekend of my life" spring to mind. However, the Islands were playing....need i say more. standing in the relentless heat, it was "my turn" to get beers. and i kept seeing these massive cups from Nathan's Hot Dog Stand, that i could only imaine were filled with frosty Miller Lites.
So, i take the hit for the team. "BRB!" i yell into the crowd at my sweltering and increasingly sober friends.
right. i was so not RB i can't even express it in words.
oh wait, yea i can. it took one hour and 3 minutes for me to stand on line, watch the huge paper cups being filled with 92% foam (i wish to god i was kidding), and eventually get yelled at, because i didn't have the guts to tell everyone behind me that i was the only honest goddamn person in that whole line and i wasn't cutting!!!!!!!!
phew. anyway. i left. i was next in line. and i kept telling myself don't give up, but the foam wasn't appealing, i was bored/lonely and had missed an entire set. so there i was. at the register. and i leave. i plum walk out. and make my way to a bodega, buy 6 24oz cans, get little paper bags for each, some straws( yea i said straws! i was pissed) and started drinking. i didn't even meet my friends at the show. i found an empty table and had THEM come to ME. i was fed up. so, yea, go to the bodega, is all i'm saying.
and the Islands rocked my brains out.

5)Yes. the Cyclone is worth it. The whole place is.
I still have my ticket. you can walk around, and feel comfortable, because there is no way on earth people are looking at you because of how you look, how much you have had to drink, or how ridiculous you look with a inflatable dolphin named Spiderman. Because there are no freaks on Coney Island.

(Spiderman and I)

hide your whites, wave your blacks.

a new beginning. without fresh notebooks, new gym shoes, or astronomically high bookstore fees, but all the same, a new season. i am glad the cold air is coming, it's easier to hide under the covers.

I helped move brother bear and Missy into their new house in Jersey this weekend. it is a beautiful house, and although i am sad to see them leave astoria, sad to lose them as my neighbors, i sat on their couch, tucked behind boxes filled with their old apartment, and looked at them; and it felt just right. they looked perfect in their new house, and so i am truly happy for them.
so to celebrate their departure from the harsh city air, I made Cappuchino Eclairs. It was a weekend process; friday night i made the shells and the filling. the filling had to set overnight, and the shells kept nicely in a air tight tupperware guy. (bought from the depths of hell that is known as the Container Store.

my itty bitty working space.
i finally got to use my pastry bag again! i think they came out quite nicely.
this was done saturday morning. they smelled like they should, so i had a good amount of faith in how they would taste. i cut them with a serrated knife, and there were air pockets and crevices for the cappuchino filling to explore.
this was the final product. i got up in the wee hours of the morning (after a wee amount of sleeping) melted the chocolate shown above, and covered each one.
4 stars!
here is the recipe i used

coney island tomorrow. it's always summer on Coney Island.