Hear ye, hear ye: be it known from this day forth, that if you Hassel the Hoff? YOU GET YOUR ASS HANDED TO YOU ON A PLATE. And not in a gracious, declining, �who, me?� way, either, but in a crazy, gloating, self-entitled, arm-waving, ballyhooing kind of way. We�re like Richard III, or the three Horsemen of the Apocalypse we named correctly (and I still say War counts � �Conquest� is a pussy name for an apocalyptic horseman), or Yogi Berra! We bear the power of the Hoff, and we are gunning for you, Other Teams!
By all that, I mean to say that last night? Team Trivia? STOMPED ASS, all the way into first motherfucking place. AT LAST.
In unrelated, but no less scintillating news, my iPod has a fascination with Blondie. I mean, I guess I do too � and I�m not judging, really � but it�s just kind of funny coming from a machine. I always put it on shuffle, and I am positively dumbfounded by the sheer amount of Blondie it keeps tossing into the mix! And obscure Blondie, too � like, I hear �Little Girl Lies� from their eponymous debut album every single day. My iPod is also in love with Rufus Wainwright and Mozart, too, and it conjures up very bizarre images of what its little iPod Trapper-Keeper must looked like. All covered with Rufus stickers and �I [heart] Amadeus� scribbled everywhere in purple pen. Just like mine.
In my lingering unemployment � and seriously, I have finally hit that wall where you really and truly start to wonder if you might never be employed again, and also where have become so stir crazy that you have begun to laugh in earnest at jokes made by [gulp] Joan Rivers [somebody hire me, please] � I have turned to baking to fill the void that joblessness has left within me. Last week I made a black cherry and port wine cheesecake, which was amazing, except that I didn�t have a recipe and sort of undercooked it a little bit. It was still tasty, but could have used a little more time in the oven. On Sunday, I whipped up a white chocolate bananas foster cheesecake (I got a springform pan from Ulrich mother, and am determined to put it to good use), which came out beautifully. My only wish is that I�d actually left the white chocolate out of it, because it made the cake denser than I�d have liked. I used my winnings from the trivia coup d�etat from last night to finance a delicious sauce to pour overtop of it, and I must say it was really the soupcon for which I was looking.
The problem with having baked goods and me in the house at the same time is that I CAN�T STOP EATING. I�m not even hungry � I just get bored when I�m not occupied by putting something in my mouth! Oh, crap, talking about it has made me hungry again. I�M UNEMPLOYED! I can�t afford to eat like this!
Oh, but you know what else I got while Ulrich and I were visiting his mother? A copy of The New England Yankee Cookbook, compiled by Imogene Wolcott in 1939. It�s got recipes for such delicacies as �squirrel pie� (p. 98), �liver loaf� (p. 87), and �Original Injun� Puddin�� (and let�s face it�those knock-off Injun� puddin�s just don�t cut it). Let you be put off by the somewhat glaringly derogatory epithet, there�s also something called �Cracker Pudding� for the white folks among us.
The book does offer as well a compendium of old world delights like Suet Johnnycakes or an Apple Pandowdy from 1880. I could make actual Hasty Pudding, you guys! I could also make something called �Scootin�-�Long-The-Shore�, which sounds...just wrong. One of the greatest aspects of the cookbook is that it is peppered here and there with personal anecdotes and helpful hints. One recipe recommends that you kill seabirds by moving your boat over them when they dive, so that when they pop back up, they snap their necks on your hull. It beats trying to club them out of the sky with an oar, like I�d been doing. Thanks, New England Yankee Cookbook!
Also, it has a quiz spaced throughout the book that is engineered to determine whether or not you are a yankee cook (it�s called �R U A Yankee Cook?�). A sample question, you ask? Try this: what is Slip-gut? Give up? It�s �an old time pudding made of boiled milk and flour and usually served with Molasses Sauce�. Mmmm. My boyfriend�s going to love my chosen pastime.
Someone Got Here By Searching For: Okay, I actually let my gold membership lapse, on account of being broke and jobless, so this will remain blank for a little while. I�m Watching: 24. President Logan is such an ass, but at least he�s more interesting than David Palmer. I�m Also Watching: The Hoff singing �Hooked On A Feeling�. And I? AM HOOKED ON THE HOFF.