Twenty-two: Learning to bake a chiffon cake

Last Saturday I hiked up Multnomah Falls. It’s on my list, but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the reward for making up and back down. By Sunday afternoon I was so sore and stiff that the only thing that was going to make me feel better was cake. 

I put “Learn to bake a chiffon cake” on my list after reading about Harry Baker, who invented this type of cake in 1927. What makes chiffon cake different is that it’s oil-based instead of butter, and since you can’t beat air into oil, the cake is leavened with beaten egg whites. How cool is that? I don’t think I could invent a new kind of cake. I feel confident saying that none of my culinary inventions will still be around in 85 years. 

I read a bunch of recipes online and settled on an orange chiffon cake. I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t a pretty process. There were a lot of dirty bowls. There was cake flour everywhere. There was a lot of swearing. There was especially a lot of cussing while beating the eggs whites: “whip whip whip damn it, whip whip whip DAMN IT, whip whip whip JUST EFFING MAKE PEAKS! whip whip whip.” It was about that point that I realized I didn’t know what stiff peaks are supposed to look like. No problem, back to the internet. Imagine my surprise that they were supposed to look like the fluff in my bowl. I folded them into the batter and stuck the cake in the oven and opened a beer. 

I started cleaning the kitchen. I put away the sugar, flour and baking soda. Baking soda?  Wasn’t I supposed to use baking powder? Didn’t I go to the store just to get baking powder? More swearing. I had no idea if the cake would rise with baking soda instead of baking powder giving it a lift. I peeked at the cake. It looked good. Bigger. Stronger. Maybe it would be okay. About 20 minutes later when my house started smelling orangey and delicious, I realized I’d forgotten to set the timer and didn’t know how much longer to let it cook, there was a little more swearing, and lot of poking it with a bamboo kabob skewer. 

Finally, it looked done. I took it out of the oven and turned it upside down on top of a wine bottle, so it wouldn’t settle back in the pan. I was sure it would fall out of the pan instead, but somehow it stayed put long enough to cool.  My official taste-tester, Jessica, came over and watched as I tried to figure out how to get the damn thing out of the pan.  After a little trial and error I figured it out. It looked good, kind of golden orange-brown. It was missing something though. I though with a little white icing running down the sides it would look perfect. This is when I made my last mistake. It turns out that icing and glaze are not the same thing (go figure). Fortunately, the orange glaze tasted great on the orange cake. It was light and moist and really good. I’m wondering if it would have been better with the baking powder and a proper icing. 

I can’t wait to make another one. This was good, but I can do better. Watch out Betty Crocker.

Death and gravity-defying cake

Taunting me while still attached to the bottom of the tube pan

The finished product

Five: Warning! Not for Summer Reading!

You can’t like everything you read. 

The Beach by Alex Garland: Young guy bumming around southeast Asia falls in with a group of crazies on a hidden beach. His arrival causes problems, he mopes, he goes nuts in the jungle, some people die. Leonardo DiCaprio stars in the insomnia-curing movie version that I forgot to take out of my Netflix queue after finishing the book. The novel version actually started pretty strong before falling apart and suddenly ending. 

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown: I’ve really enjoyed Brown’s other books, especially Angels and Demons. In his latest, his hero Robert Langdon criss-crosses Washington DC, trying to solve a mystery involving the Freemasons. I was excited for this to come out, but disappointed that it felt so unoriginal after his other Langdon stories. 

Gideon’s Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child:  I love this writing duo, and look forward to every Pendergast novel they put out, so was looking forward to the launch of a new series by Preston and Child. This felt like a mashup of discarded ideas from their other series, and I won’t be reading the next Gideon book. Nothing original here, and none of the humor that I like from their other work. 

Five: I'm still reading!

My brother and sister-in-law gave me The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins for Christmas, and I devoured them over the course of a week. They’re supposedly young adult books, but don’t let that stop you — they’re a lot of fun. I don’t want to give much away with these because I want everyone to read them, so this’ll be quick

In “The Hunger Games” we meet heroine Katniss Everdeen, who has been chosen to leave home and represent her community in the Hunger Games. The competition is a to-the-death battle between one boy and one girl from each of 12 remaining communities in a post apocalyptic North America. It’s gruesome. There’s a love triangle.  The end is fairly satisfying, but I’m glad I didn’t have to wait to read the next book...

“Catching Fire” picks up immediately after the first book and suffers from literary middle child syndrome. It’s a good read, but it wraps up the first book and sets the stage for the last more than it tells its own story. 

“Mockingjay” was hard for me to put down. It was a fairly satisfying conclusion, though a bit rushed. I guess you can’t have everything. These books are at the top of my list to re-read someday. 

Way behind on posting. Will try to knock out several more books and a few other things this week!

Twenty-four: In which I reluctantly behave like a responsible adult

I admit it — this is probably one of the two most boring things on the list, but I'm happy to announce I paid off my car yesterday, 9 months early. Of course the only thing I can think about now is buying a new car, but that's the emotional response. The more rational part of my brain is reminding me that now that it's paid off, it's time to drive the Corolla into the ground (please feel free to express your jealousy in the comments).  Let's just hope this goes better than the last time I paid off a vehicle. When I finally paid off the world's most oxidized Honda Civic back at the end of college, it was stolen a month later. Fingers crossed!

And while we're talking about the car, I'll be taking it on a roadtrip in a few days to check another thing off by getting myself to the bay area for some fun times with some of my favorite people! Can't wait for that.

Five: Book Report

One of the first books I read after turning 30 was The Magicians, by Lev Grossman. This book was fantastic, and I could hardly set it down. It’s a darker, more realistic Harry Potter — as realistic as a normal guy getting accepted to a school of magic can be.  This was a very dark story about magic, power and corruption. I can’t wait for the sequel, and am hoping it comes out before I hit my next birthday.

Another book from last fall was the sci-fi classic Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. I’ve heard the sequels aren’t worth reading, which is hard to believe because I really enjoyed this book.  I am surprised I never read it in high school when it would have been right up my alley. Ender is a young boy who is sent to a military training school in space. He is training to defend Earth against alien invaders. The book ended with a twist I’m embarrassed I didn’t see coming. I read online that a movie version is in the works and for a change I’m excited to see the film adaptation of a book. 

The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman was the first non-fiction book I read this year. Weisman details what would happen to the planet if people suddenly and permanently disappeared. It was fascinating to think about how nature would reclaim roads, building and cities, and horrifying to think of the pollution and waste that will be here for thousands of years. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for something other than a novel to read. 

COMPLETED BOOKS

1. The Fixer Upper - Mary Kay Andrews

2. Deep Dish - Mary Kay Andrews

3. The Magicians - Lev Grossman

4. Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card

5. The World Without Us - Alan Weisman

Twenty-three: Sensory Deprivation

The idea to try a sensory deprivation tank came to me when Groupon offered a deal on it. I wish I’d snapped it up then, but at the time I just kind of laughed about it. But later I really thought about it, and did some research. There are all kinds of benefits to sensory deprivation, or floating. You can read about them at www.floathq.com, the site of the flotation center I visited. It was an interesting place, with just a whiff of hippie in the air. 

The owner introduced himself as soon as I walked in. He showed me how to work the tank. I’d chosen one of their larger ones for my first experience. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but didn’t want to take any chances. The tank was about six and a half feet tall, eight feet long and four feet wide.

I sat down in the tank, hit the button for the light and laid back to start floating. Instead of drifting into peaceful meditation, I started giggling uncontrollably. Being in the tank seemed hilarious — what was I thinking? 

It took a few minutes to calm down. I started doing some yoga breathing and eventually realized how quiet it was. I could hear the water sloshing around me, but when I laid still I could hear my heartbeat. I focused on that and tried to get comfortable. The water and air in the tank were both heated to 94 degrees, which is supposed to make it hard to tell where the water ends and air begins. 

As I floated, all the sore muscles in my back and neck started to relax. The water had 800 pounds of magnesium salt dissolved in it, to help increase buoyancy. The owner had warned me not to get any in my eyes, and I managed not to. I wish he’d mentioned it would be a bad idea to get any on my lips (which I figured out for myself when they felt like they were burning off my face.Next time, chapstick). 

I got more relaxed, and my mind started to drift. I realized I had my eyes closed and tried to keep them open, even though it didn’t make a bit of difference (just like being at work). Eventually, I lost track of whether or not I was actually awake (which was also just like being at work). 

I had read that a lot of people see things in the tank. I was hoping to see some lights or colors or that I’d have some deep revelation while I was in there, but the closest I came was having an interesting sense of movement in the darkness. Looking up, I felt like the blackness was swirling around me and that I was perfectly still. Every time I would drift up against the side of the tank was like a jolt reminding me where my body ended and the water began. 

Toward the end I started to get disoriented and had no idea how much time had passed. I started stretching and felt my joints pop from head to toe. I was pressing my hands to the sides of the tank to orient myself and was just starting to feel like I was ready to get out when classical music started playing in the tank, signaling the end of my time.  I found the light switch and turned it on. Even the single blue bulb seems incredibly bright. I was moving pretty slowly on my way back to reality. 

I will definitely be giving this another try. Now that I know what to expect, I should be able to relax into it a little more and maybe have a more intense experience. For the rest of the day, I felt completely relaxed and at peace. It was a great feeling. 

Five: Read 30 books

I used to be a voracious reader, but somehow got out of the habit over the last few years. Since I miss the feel of a good book in my hands, I decided that I’d read 30 books this year.  I’m well on my way through this part of the project, but since nobody wants to read 30 book reports at once and I definitely don’t want to write them, I’ll be posting a few blurbs at a time. 

The first book I read as a 30-year old was “The Fixer Upper” by Mary Kay Andrews. It was recommended by a friends, and I burned through it in a few days. It wasn’t great, but it would be a good book to read on a plane or at the beach. It’s the story of a woman who moves to the South to fix up an old family house when her life in Washington, DC falls apart.  If HGTV was publishing chick lit, this would be exactly what they’d come up with. 

I also read Andrews’ “Deep Dish,” which was basically the same characters with different names, having an adventure while trying to win their own cooking show. I actually liked this one a little less than the first one. It’s definitely the Food Network version of the HGTV publishing company. 

COMPLETED BOOKS:

1. The Fixer Upper - Mary Kay Andrews

2. Deep Dish - Mary Kay Andrews

Half Birthday

Talk about dropping the ball. I've been chipping away at my list, but not blogging about it. I'll do better on the back half of the year. Stay tuned!