Chocolate truffle tart for Erin

Credit goes to Lucy Waverman for the idea in a Globe & Mail food column.

I brought this evil dessert along to the rowing club pot-luck supper yesterday. It's the single simplest and most impressive uncooked dessert that I know. The basis is ganoche which is heated cream with chocolate whipped in.

For 7 inch pan:

10 oz dark chocolate
1 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp liqueur (optional)
2 tsp grated zest of orange/lemon (optional)
1 cup cookie crumbs or nuts (e.g. ground almonds)
2 oz - half stick - butter
Decoration.

Prep time: about half hour plus time to set in fridge - 2-4 hours.

Use a 7 inch spring form cake pan to allow the dessert to be removed easily (but you can make this in any container as long as you line the pan with silicone paper or something like that). This dessert is very sticky at room temperature, but handles well once frozen. If you are taking it to a party you can cut it up when frozen and either serve frozen or thawed.

Method:
Make a crust with your favorite cookie crumbs mixed with melted butter (1 cups crumbs to half stick of butter). Or use half ground almonds instead of the cookie crumbs. Mix the crumbs and the melted butter and press into the bottom of the pan.

Heat cream to just about boiling. Remove from heat break the chocolate into pieces and addto the cream to melt. Stir well until smooth. Sir in the zest and liqueur. Pour over the crust. Leave to set in the fridge. Remove from pan and decorate as you like.

Stored well wrapped in a freezer, seems to keep well for 6-10 months. I find that if I make several at one time and keep them for special occasions it saves on mess and work.

Decoration suggestions.
I find taking the cake out of the pan painting it with orange marmalade and then sticking on sliced almonds looks nice. Add a few curls of chocolate or dried apricots or frozen raspberries...
At room temperature you can shape the dessert, so even if you have an accident, drop it off the plate onto the kitchen counter like we did on one memorable occasion, it can be repaired. Orange slices, mandarin segments, whipped cream...

Variations:

• You can build up layers of different flavoured ganoche, once the first has set. Adding a can of sweetened or unsweetened chestnut purée to the ganoche makes a nice contrasting colour. Or use different chocolates; better quality chocolate is expensive but worth it; milk or white chocolate can look stunning as layers.
• If you are covering the cake with nuts then just pour on the different layers and allow to set. Gently swirl them if you are not covering the with nuts so that the swirls show a nice effect.
• Different fruit toppings or swirl in something like gently crushed raspberries from Dentz farm. M-mm!
• Different liqueurs: orange is great. There's a really nice inexpensive orange flavoured drink from the LCBO called Monsard Orange & Brandy. This won't break your budget at $24, and it's nice to drink as well. Forget that over-priced French stuff...although remember "Absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.*"

Depending on the depth of the pan you can make this tart as deep as you like. Hmm...a deep tart...sounds like we could craft some kind of joke around that as well.

* - Stolen joke alert!

Sorry but he still sucks

My oppo sent me this: Neal Stephenson lecture on Sf as a literary genre

So my response is:
OK, well he isn't stupid. And most of what he says is sort-of truthy, at least worthy of an argument. Now you started it; since I spent 38:45 listening to his talk, you're gonna get the full 5 minutes.

He's very centred in his time and place, don't you think? I mean we were just talking about Fred Hoyle and John Wyndham (and there are loads of others*, not just Brits) who were very smart, wrote well and published compelling, yes, literature, 45+ years ago. (Not to mention Jules Verne or H.G. Wells).

Just because he didn't know about a bunch of stuff, it doesn't exist? It's like knowing the Rolling Stones and then realizing they were ripping off a bunch of poor black people.

My main beef with Quicksilver is that it is badly written, or badly edited (it's hard to tell the diff), predictable and was obviously written as a potboiler. It led me basically nowhere (except perhaps to set the scene attempting to force me to buy the next door-step of a book). It is appallingly Ameri-centric (the Crypto-thing is more so, according to Don). I would argue that even Heinlein was more honest in his idea porn. The protagonist as the super-hero is exactly what Quicksilver has. At the end of it I didn't care if the character lived or died, which is a good measure of how involved I was.

However, like I said before, he does have a few nice turns of phrase ("idea porn" being one of them, guilty, compelling pleasures of what might be, right?) I just wish he hadn't become so vastly popular before he became a better writer. If you say his earlier books are good, then I might give it a try.

If you haven't read the Da Vinci Code, you should before you slag it. It's crap but it is popular for a reason and it is quite well-written**.

And I have read one Hairy Potter book and seen one movie. No more, but I now know what I'm bleating about.

Now come back when you're ready for the full half-hour.

S.

* All probably contemporary with Heinlein, far better writers and more typical of the best sf writing of the time:

Samuel R. Delaney,
Doris Lessing,
Harry Harrison (well perhaps not exactly contemporary, but I like it)
Philip K. Dick,
J.G. Ballard,
Ursula K. Le Guin,
Issac Asimov,
Brian Aldiss,
Ray Bradbury.


p.s. “This is not the age of reason, this is the age of flummery, and the day of the devious approach. Reason’s gone into the backrooms where it works to devise means by which people can be induced to emote in the desired direction."
John Wyndham

** Update: OK, I lied. But it WAS a dark and stormy night!

This sporting life

From the writing of Tim Davis comes this quote:

Sport is a pantomime of war, and even during peacetime, we beg its stresses back into our lives. Buying mortgages in the padded cell of Western consumer culture has turned us all into what I call horrorists. Terrorists enact violence on the lives of others; horrorists fill their own lives with ritualized violence: slasher films, roller coasters, video games, 24-hour news, sport.

I threw away my television 15 years ago...too much of everything except thinking: sport pretending to be significant; advertising copy purporting to be news; lies; mind control; insanity; compelling, crappy dramas; bad acting; worse acting; and horror.

One major horror is the feeling after watching a movie/show that your anchor has come adrift - you have taken in a different way of thinking about something, and it's wrong or corrupt. A siren call, a temptation. It's like getting a worm in the ear. It's too much for the immune system to take. I don't watch TV and I am selective about films because I don't trust myself.

I stopped taking part in competitive sports about the same time. I was sailing a dinghy across a lake when a slightly larger sailing boat was approaching on a collision course. Technically he was the give-way boat, however a woman's enraged voice shouted: "Fuck off we're racing!" Although they didn't recognize me, these were people I worked with. I thought about the times that I had been in a sporting event and played really hard to win. "Not pretty," was my conclusion.

There are plenty of other things to do with my time. Some of them give me hope I can be a better person.

Does it matter whether you hate your . . . self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music...

Robinson Jeffers

Hanami

Get the picnic hamper out!Ottawa has the most beautiful plantation of ornamental cherry blossoms in an almost neglected corner: adjacent to the Lincoln Fields bus transit station. It is a repeated surprise that, every year, we are the only people to have a hanami picnic in that location. Occasional Japanese stop by, smile and take a picture, but no other parties under the blossoms. We are surprised that the trees are not officially celebrated as they are in other places.


This year we took our picnic lunch there when the weather was perfect; warm and sunny but with a strong wind from an approaching cold front (a storm came later in the day). Petals were falling like a pink blizzard. Cardinals and red-wing blackbirds singing amongst the branches. Incredible.


This was taken at Bonnie's funeral home at the end of my street, not on the picnic!

Update: 2009-04-24 Bonnie has just had this tree pollarded. It will die. Damn her.

The Post-Modern 7 Dwarfs*

I wrote this about 15 years ago to cheer up an acquaintance. When I asked him how he was he would always respond "Crappy!" When he was obviously worse I sent him this...

How are you Steve?

I'm not well right now. I feel like the post-modern* 7 dwarfs:

• Crappy,
• Lousy,
• Smelly,
• Dirty,
• Nasty,
• Horny and
• Richard Branson

(Also rans: Filthy, Scummy, Itchy, Rummy, Scratchy, Huggy, and HRH Prince Charles.)

* or perhaps that should be pre- post-modern neo-colonial brutalist, I'm not much aware of architectural movements.

Silly Songs

Parodies of song lyrics are a weakness of mine...pathetic really.

My Generation 
 A tribute to the late '60's hit of the same name by The Who.

People want to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we can't get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they say are awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Like I didn't die before I got old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)


That was my generation. That was my generation, baby


It's how we all f-f-fade away (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
'Cos we can't hear what you all s-s-say (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation (Talkin' 'bout my generation)


That was my generation. That was my generation, baby


Old stupid and fat
To the tune of Nina Simone's late '60's hit "Young, gifted and black":
_{(I considered using the line "Old, stupid and white" but 'fat' scans even better than the original).}

To be old, stupid and fat,
Oh what a sad and lonely dream.
To be old, stupid and fat!
I think you know what I mean.

In the wide world we all share,
There are billions of us out here,
Who are old, stupid and fat!
And that's a fact!

Old, stupid and fat,
We must begin to tell our young.
There's a world waiting for you,
This is a quest that's just begun.

When you feel really low,
There's a snack food calling you know.
When you get old, stupid and fat,
There's no way back!

Old, stupid and fat,
How I longed to know the truth.
There are times when I look back,
And I am haunted by my youth

Oh but my joy is of today,
We can all be proud to say:
To be old, stupid and fat,
Is where it's at!


Help me shovel through the shiteKris Kristofferson had a big one with "Help me make it through the night", but really he just wanted to get in yer pants...


Take the cat fur from your hair, sweep it up and out the door.
It's another lovely sight, like the puke stains on the floor.


Come lay down by my side, while they prowl through the night.
They're just taking our tomorrows; help me shovel through the shite.


Rolling down to old Meow-ee
Our cats:

• Do not have telephones
• Do not like plain crisps
• Love cat food

They sing:
_{(to the tune of Rolling down to old Maui)}

It's a damned hard life full of toil and strife,
We pussycats must endure.
And we don't give a damn when we're eating our spam,
What it costs you at the store.


For we're always going out that door,
And we're always coming in.
And we always say, when we're on our way:
Let me out, right now, meow-ee!


Let me out, right now, meow-ee, me boys!
Let me out, right now, meow-ee!
And we always say, when we're on our way:
Let us out, right now, meow-ee!