I've got a big rack

“Hi – is this umm…Angel? I saw your ad on Craigslist. I just wanted to know…how big is your rack?”

No - I haven’t come to any sudden realizations about myself, and if I had, would this really be the way to explore those uncharted waters? No, of course not. I’ve marathon’d through enough episodes of Criminal Minds and Law & Order SVU to know that looking for a good time via “Casual Encounters” is just not the way.

However, I needed a portable bakery rack, so I decided to peruse the “For Sale” section of Craigslist. I weighed the pros and cons of buying used (pro – finding one for under $100 when they normally go for $500 new; con – getting murdered) and decided to give fear the finger in the name of necessity. Besides, I’ve taken kickboxing classes… although this really didn’t help the time I got into an altercation with a deranged woman at a Fountain Valley Sizzler. Nothing retracts a leg faster than the threat of a firearm.

The good news was that the rack wasn’t in the dangerous city of Fountain Valley; it was in San Bernardino. Oh, and I wasn’t planning on going alone (Nate wrestled in high school - 135 weight class). Years of research gathered from such award winning shows as CSI and The First 48 have proven that going alone to a stranger’s house is once again - not the way.

Anyway, we survived. Angel from the 909 didn't end up being the west coast's version of the Craigslist Killer and he gave me the deal of the century by only charging $80 for this thing! It can hold like a million cupcakes! I love my new rack. It took 4 people and a few cans of polish to get this thing shiny, but it will serve me well. Also note that it’s big enough to stuff a body in. This is it pre-sanitized:

I’m still finishing up some last minute details for this weekend’s (ad)venture, which is why I haven’t been around much. The past 2 weeks in the real j-o-b have kicked my ass, and at times I’ve come pretty close to tapping out (it’s an MMA kind of day). Still so much to do. I don’t even have a sign for my little stand. What I do have is a foam tri-fold poster board, some green and brown gift wrapping paper, and rubber cement. It’s DIY time, aka WTF time. I guess I should have ordered a real sign earlier…and printed out hundreds of ingredient labels earlier...and gotten black ink for my printer even earlier that that so I could print the hundreds of labels in the first place ….and put together the boxes and cupcake inserts earlier…..and finalized the recipes earlier….and found bulk cocoa powder earlier rather than buying several expensive 8oz containers at Ralph’s….I should have done all of these things and more instead of crying in the shower like a mid-90’s still mad at the world Alanis Morissette.

Thank goodness for family and friends who are willing to drop everything they’re doing just to help me out. Yes, I pretty much forced them and they will most likely hate cupcakes by the time this is all over, so I have to think of another way to repay them.

Cookies maybe?

It's a free country - go nuts if you want to

The year: Summer of 1996
Location: Never Never Land (aka my aunt’s living room in Las Vegas, NV)
The players:    Me, as Wendy
                        Nate, as Captain Hook
                        Karlo (3 yr old cousin), as Peter Pan

Nate: Har har har I’m going to get you with my hook, Wendy! My big hook!
Me: Oh dear, not your big hook! (dude - that doesn’t even sound right). Save me Peter, save me!
Karlo: But I can’t! Wendy’s supposed to be skinny!

AND…CUT. End scene. Quickly, please.

He may have once deemed me an unfit Wendy due to our difference in size, he being about 3 feet tall at the time, me being 19 and outweighing him by a good 100 pounds (OR SO), but as I stood there looking down at this midget of a  Peter Pan with a habit of quoting from the movie Independence Day – “We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!” – I thought to myself, “This kid is going to be something special someday.” And he is. He is a remarkable young man who just started his first year at the United States Military Academy at West Point and the family couldn’t be more proud of him.

Friends who have requested my baked goods know my paranoia of mailing things across state lines...well, mailing things in general. I do not like broken cookies. I hate the idea of them not tasting fresh by the time they arrive at their destination. This makes me break into a cold sweat. It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it. I have issues. But this weekend I put down the crazy juice for a minute and packaged 2 dozen oatmeal raisin chocolate chip pecan cookies for Karlo's parents to send in a care package this week. It’s the least I can do. I sealed the bags and tied them with the only ribbon I had. Pink (sorry, man). I’m praying that they end up intact and still taste good by the time they get there. Fingers crossed.

The rest of the cookies were taken out of my hands by a barrage of cousins before I even made it through the front door of my mom and dad's house. There were two different types: the first batch I made with raisins and no chocolate chips and the next batch was with chocolate chips and no raisins. You can interchange the two if you want. Hell - you don't even have to add nuts if you don't want to. Why? Because we live in a free country and every day is Independence Day. Thanks to all of those special individuals who make it so, especially to the grandpa I never met but love nonetheless, all my uncles, cousins, friends, in-laws, and Nate, who joined up as a reservist before he even started his senior year of high school. Freedom is so sweet.

Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies (with or without Choco Chips)
Adapted from: 2008, Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, All Rights Reserved

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups pecans
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp of ground ginger (I added this just to see what would happen - I don't think I added enough to make much of a difference, really)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt (I used regular salt)
• 3 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1 ½ cups raisins
• 1 ½ cups chocolate chips (I like chocolate)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Place the pecans on a sheet pan and bake for 5 minutes, until crisp. Set aside to cool. Chop very coarsely. (I didn’t do this since Trader Joe’s did all the work for me. Much easier to go this route.)

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla.

4. Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt together into a medium bowl. With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Add the oats, raisins, and pecans and mix just until combined. (You can add the chips to this too...or not. Whatever you want, my friends!)

5. Using a small ice-cream scoop or a tablespoon, drop 2-inch mounds of dough onto sheet pans lined with parchment paper. Flatten slightly with a damp hand. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until lightly browned (I usually like to stay on the low side, but these took 14 minutes. I kept opening the oven door every minute to check. This is not usually recommended, but I am a nervous baker). Transfer the cookies to a baking rack and cool completely.

Hoarders - Special Bakery Edition

I’m not back in the kitchen yet since I’m still on the road to recovery pedaling away on Father Time’s creepy bicycle, so I decided to do little market research this week instead. No, this was not just a flimsy excuse to stuff my face with overpriced cupcakes and an elusive Hungarian apple strudel – this was an honest to God attempt at …stuffing my face with overpriced cupcakes and an elusive Hungarian apple strudel (so sue me -Victoria’s Secret never called me back). This was a very enlightening exercise, and while the two establishments I visited shared a common bond of flour, butter, and sugar, they couldn’t be more diametrically opposed in terms of a little thing called sanitation.


The first joint – man. The location was great. Corner spot in a place full of old world charm, big sign advertising homemade apple strudel. And it was open! Every other time I’ve been there the damn place has been closed.

Well, remember how I said I’m a germaphobe that can switch off the OCD in the face of hot deliciousness? Not this time. While the lady I met was perfectly lovely and filled with a wealth of knowledge on how to peel apples for Hungarian – not German – apple strudel, I was too distracted by the clutter littered throughout the bakery. How could anyone sit at the tables when there were boxes of crap everywhere? It wasn’t as if they had just moved in. That place has been there for awhile now. Nate picked up an apple that was trying to escape the building and sat it next to a bowl of congealed Cheerios. How does that even happen to Cheerios? I kept an eye out for cat carcasses and cockroaches brave enough to face the light of day, but luckily I didn’t spot any. When she was telling me they also served wonderful, freshly baked croissant sandwiches as if we were standing in the middle of a high end tea salon and not a real time episode of Hoarders, I kept thinking, “Who in their right mind would ever eat here?” Not me, and I’m pretty crazy.

I won’t go into too much detail about the next place I visited since they’re famous, overrated, and overpriced. Nice place with cute girls in matching shirts and ribbons. Cute cupcakes sprinkled with lots and lots of sprinkly goodness. Did I mention overpriced and overrated? I’ve never been impressed with the actual cake part of their business, but I do like their frosting, especially the orange flavor. I asked how often they bake, and the girl said every hour. Every hour??? People really like cupcakes, damn.

If God smiled down upon me and gave me a million bucks and the choice of which bakery I’d like to own, I’d pick the first place hands down. For real. I would demolish it and start from scratch. It would be elegant yet cozy, like Barefoot Contessa but with bigger portions and better theme music. It would smell wonderful and more importantly, be clean, with nary a rodent hair in sight. It would be mine and I’d be so thankful. It’s amazing to me how much potential is sitting right there in that owner’s apple peeling hands. So much potential. Oh well, maybe someday.

Felled by gluttony and sloth - capital vices make not a capital day

There are quite a few things in life that scare me, but here are just a few: sharks, using public restrooms, eating where a public restroom is in my line of vision, standing too close to a trashcan, eating where a trashcan has me in its line of vision, carbon monoxide poisoning, spiders hiding in shoes, people who talk on their cell phones in restaurants, people who laugh really loud in public, people who talk during movies - wait, wait, wait - I’m starting to pull from the wrong list now. The last few are from my “Things That Really Suck” list, which is rather long.

So public restrooms…trashcans. Yeah. Germaphobe here. In my home library, I have a shelf dedicated to books on bacteria (the bad kind) and other infectious diseases. “Going viral” has an entirely different meaning for me than it does for Rebecca Black. Hand washing? I take it to another level. However, there are two things that cannot be shaken despite the incessant 5-alarm panic bells in my brain that caution me to be ever vigilant against the nefarious Germ Nation: my love of buffets and my obsession with 1-hour $15 reflexology massages.

These things render me stupid. Some kid sticks his fingers in the mashed potatoes? Didn’t Jesus say to turn the other cheek? My “masseuse” (I use this term loosely) takes a quick break in the mysterious room in back to finish her lunch and forgets to wash her hands before coming back? Okay, as long as she gives me extra time.

You know, now that I think about it - as much as I love getting massages, I find myself unable to completely relax for fear of falling asleep and snoring so loud I am shaken awake (because THAT hasn’t happened before). I also have a compulsive tendency to stare at the clock every few minutes and tell myself, “It’s almost over. Why?!? Why is it almost over? Damn you, Father Time..............and your really creepy scythe."

found on: http://mt.wiglaf.org/aaronm/2009/09/father-time---uk-circa-1900.html

Wow. I think I'll go ahead and add this picture to the list of things that scare me.


Anyway, I went to a buffet AND got a massage this past weekend and now I have a cold. See what happens when you are more Rhythm Nation than Germ Nation? When you chuckle in the face of an iceberg, Titanic style? Okay, I think it's time for some meds.

I need to get better soon. I have some orders to fill this weekend and I also need to get cracking on the little cupcake project I mentioned yesterday – the 1000 cupcakes project (damn, that’s a lot of cupcakes). 


Immune system, please don’t fail me now! I don’t bake when I’m sick because I don’t want to put others at risk of catching my germs - no matter how many times I wash my hands. That’s just how I do... especially now that I have a certificate saying I passed the ServSafe California Food Handler assessment test. Look out, world!

And naked cupcakes win the gold! 2012 Olympic dreams with coach Paula Deen

I wasn’t brave enough to attempt these chocolate cupcakes without a recipe this weekend. Cupcakes have never been my strong suit. While I often imagine myself going for the gold in the 2012 Olympics on balance beam (been watching too much Make It Or Break It) and competing on such Food Network shows like Chopped and Iron Chef, Cupcake Wars has never been in my fantasy lineup. My brother will tell you that I’m crazy because I can’t even cook real food anyway, but that’s beside the point. In a universe of my mind’s own creation, me and Paula Deen are homies who spend the night at each other’s houses trading butter fried butter recipes over three different types of freshly made sweet tea. Yes, I know this is weird.  And yes, my brother is right about me not being able to cook real food.

A few years ago I went to Savannah, GA under the guise of “Civil War enthusiast”. Okay, it wasn’t a complete guise. I will admit to being somewhat interested in that particular period of American history. That sounds better than the real truth anyway, which is that I wanted to eat my way across the South. I just HAD to try Paula’s restaurant, The Lady and Sons. I got a little too excited and teared up in the buffet line, but that’s what happens when heaven is no more than a heartbeat away staring you in the face. To be perfectly honest, the fried chicken looked better than it actually tasted, but I've still got nothing but love for Paula. Anthony Bourdain needs to stop with the hate.  And yes, I am a real Civil War geek with a burgeoning stash of Confederate money and a minie ball.

Back to cupcakes.  They scare me. A few weeks ago I hosted a baby shower for one of my best friends. I put together a dessert buffet that included strawberry rice krispy treats, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, and other assorted sweets.  Everything turned out so pretty – pink and cream parasols, floating candles as centerpieces (never mind that the sun was still up), picture frames housing cute little baby poems I created myself – it all looked so nice - even the cupcakes with their pink and white frosting. See?

Well, the cupcakes sucked. I overbaked them by about 3 minutes. When your taste tester (my dad) utters, “Wow, what happened here?” that can only mean one thing. Bad. After assuring me that they weren’t THAT dry, I decided against lobbing them at the president of the HOA’s head and put them out for the party instead. I didn’t hear any complaints and even got a few compliments on them, but the guests may have just been mesmerized by these wonderful and inexpensive paper lanterns:

This recipe is much better than the one I used for the baby shower. It's super easy and makes for an almost preternaturally moist cupcake. I still think it could be more chocolatey, so next time I’m going to add coffee to the boiling water, which is supposed to enhance the flavor of the cocoa powder. Other than that and a lack of frosting, they were a success!

I need to step up my game on these because in a few weeks I’d like to participate in the Santa Ana Community Youth Block Party event. My friend Betty Lam is part of a wonderful organization that's helping to make a difference in the lives of these kids.  Please check it out!  http://www.bccoforangecounty.org/Events.html

1000 people are expected to be coming through. 1000! That’s a damn lot of people and cupcakes.  Other than mistakes, I’ve never made 1000 of anything, but I’m going to try. This is my own personal Cupcake Wars - my Olympic gold balance beam routine - and it’s about to get a little crazy up in here. 

Speaking of crazy,  Nate was messing around with my iPad and wanted to draw a picture of me to add to my profile. This is not me. This is a brokedown picture of Abraham Lincoln that started off as me and went in a totally different direction because Nate is a Civil War geek too.

Recipe for moist chocolate cupcakes (that have yet to be frosted)
 Adapted from: http://thefarmchicks.typepad.com/farmchicks/2009/01/moist-chocolate-cupcakes-with-vanilla-buttercream.html

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Fill muffin pans with 24 cupcake liners.  Sift dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.    Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla.  Beat with a mixer for approximately two minutes, occasionally scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula (or whatever you have on hand - I used a rice scooper).  Add the boiling water (next time I'm adding coffee), and beat, just until blended.  The batter is pretty watery, but that's how it's supposed to be.  Evenly ladle (or pour) the batter into the liners.  Bake for 20-25 minutes (25 minutes? No way, man! I took mine out at 19 and they were just fine), until the center of the cupcakes springs back when lightly touched.  Cool before frosting. (I'll do that part later).

Making it, not breaking it - oatmeal raisin chocolate chip success

I’m tired. In my advanced age, pulling an all-nighter is just not a good idea anymore. I couldn’t help it. I was too excited about having  a 4 day weekend  and didn’t want to waste any time in getting the party started. I had everything I needed to ensure a most excellent evening:  a Nate who wasn’t worried about work,  some cherries,  an orange soda, the last few remnants of the monster  granola bar,  and Netflix.

We started off with the heavy,  Academy Award  quality film "The Reef", starring 4 people and a shark.  If you are not afraid of sharks, watch this movie.  You will be afraid of this one. He is the ultimate hater shark, the shark that will not give up. He hates people - these 4 in particular  - why? I don’t know. Maybe it was their accent.

I’m not one for sharks, by the way. When I was a kid, I wanted to pet one. This is not my dream anymore. You cannot engage in dialogue or playful splendor with a shark. And I don’t believe that sharks do not like human flesh, that they take one bite out of you and decide that you don’t taste good enough to finish. Who made that up?  Who knows with 100% certainty what a shark's gastronomical preferences are?  This is baloney to me.

Nate left halfway through the next BAFTA caliber film, “The Resident”, starring Hilary Swank and Denny from “Grey’s Anatomy”.  Two words: nail gun. This is a weapon of mass destruction,  but only when aimed at someone’s head.

At the conclusion of this work of art,  I settled in for something a little less brainy, something I could just lose myself in. Ah yes, the world of competitive gymnastics – “Make It Or Break It”, which is ridiculous.  Ridiculously good, that is. The intrigue, the drama, the mean girls, the abstinence theme DJ Tanner keeps ramming down our throats (Candace Cameron will always be DJ Tanner to me)…entertainment at its finest. Who needed sleep when I was only 10 episodes away from finishing season 2?

Alas, sleep came. 

Interestingly enough,  this brain fog did not affect my baking this morning. What I turned out look like actual cookies – oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies.  I have no idea what I did, but I’m totally ok with these. And now...back to "Make It Or Break It"!

The oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookie that never was...or, the monster granola bar that could feed a very small village

This is what happens when one erroneously considers themselves to be a baking savant, a sort of cookie Rainman, if you will. Spitting in the face of early onset Alzheimer’s (see previous post), I set out to make oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookies without a recipe.

People – baking is a science. There’s not a lot of room for mistakes in terms of how many cups of flour and eggs a recipe calls for, or a teaspoon versus a tablespoon of baking soda or baking powder. That kind of stuff matters. A lot. In all honesty, they're not too bad. They’re just a little flat and stuck together. So let’s just say these aren’t cookies. Let’s call it a big oatmeal raisin chocolate chip granola bar! A monster granola bar that can feed approximately 15 people.

This crazy exercise reminded me of the time I developed an unhealthy obsession with baking cheesecake. The summer before my grandma had her stroke - I think I was about 8 at the time – she became my partner in cheesecake crime. And man, did we commit a lot of crimes against the baking world. We didn’t have a cookbook – geez, we didn’t even have the right tools like a mixer or measuring spoons. What we did have was the recipe off the back of a cream cheese package and some blind ass faith. To be fair, desserts weren’t a common thing in my Asian household. Fruits were/are our dessert, because nothing motivates one more to finish their food than a nice big banana and some orange slices.

But this was America and I wanted cheesecake. Grandma and I turned out disaster after disaster. Graham cracker crumbs as a crust? Never grounded fine enough. Cream cheese? Never beaten until smooth. I don’t know how exactly, but one version came out gelatinous. And what the hell was a springform pan? I didn’t even know what that was until college. These things did not jive with my 8-year old brain and my grandma’s old world cooking sense.

One weekend we got it right. It was a little thin (we used a 9x13 pan) and tinted a strange violet color (canned blueberries), but it was the right consistency and tasted like real cheesecake! Victory was ours. It's one of my most favorite memories ever. We didn’t have another baking summer like that again after she got sick.

As an adult in today's modern society that includes such things as the Internet and an iPad to take into the kitchen with me - and as someone in possession of the right baking equipment, I realize I don’t have to subject myself to this kind of experimentation anymore. I can do other things to keep my brain healthy and active…like play more chess or learn to read and write Chinese. But this was fun, and it reminded me not only of grandma, but of a time in my life when I didn’t give up until I got the results I wanted. Where did that me go? Time to find her.

So let’s see where this takes me…more blind ass faith baking to come!