I've got a new theme idea I'm working on based off of this Orangina Art Nouveau poster that I have hanging on my wall.
I might tone it down when my vision returns after staring at my screen for the last few hours trying to figure out the css declarations.
About a week ago I made a list of things I can do on lazy mornings. Bake muffins! was on the top of the list. This morning I found I had a bunch of strawberries that needed to realize their potential.
I read some food blogs recently and I noticed they all have extreme close-up pictures of their food. So here I am, carrying my coffee and muffins into the backyard with my camera. Then waiting for JT Dancer to walk past the barn so I can get him in the background. But instead of a gray horse, I only saw this mud monster.
The trick is to get the food in focus, but have a portion of it out of focus, preferably in the corner of the frame.
By the way, the muffins were delicious.
Strawberry Muffins Forever
First you put on some Beatles. Despite the name of these muffins, pre-psychedelic Beatles are best for baking. I'm thinking Rubber Soul or Revolver.
Adapted from Pillsbury Best Muffins and Quick Breads.
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup sugar (note: I've been using 1/2 sugar 1/2 Splenda with no problems)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup soymilk
- 1/3 cup oil
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 cup chopped strawberries (chop them small; I reckon I'm getting 16-24 pieces per strawberry)
- 2 tablespoons sugar (this is to sprinkle on top. I used regular sugar rather than my 1/2 1/2 mix mentioned above. It seems like it would crust and caramelize better)
Heat the oven to 400 Spray muffin tins with cooking spray. Get two bowls. Sift the dry ingredients together in one bowl. Mix the wet ingredients together in the other bowl and add to the dry ingredients. Mix together lightly until the ingredients are just moistened. Do not overmix. Add the chopped strawberries and stir them in gently. Using an ice cream scooper fill up the muffin cups with the batter. Sprinkle the sugar over the tops.
Bake at 400 for 20-24 minutes until a knife poked in the middle comes out clean. Let them cool for a minute. I usually pull out the bottoms so that each muffin rests on their side while they cool. Otherwise they might get soggy in spots.
Check out the mini-reviews on the right sidebar. I'm pretty excited about them. I upgraded to Movable Type 4.1 (from 4.01) for one reason: to be able to use the MTAssetDescription tag. This tag allows me to make comments about each Amazon media item that I plug into the sidebar.
I was pleasantly surprised when I finished the installation because
- The whole works didn't crash like last time.
- The Media Manager plugin I had painstakingly installed and tinkered with just two months ago is now fully functional and seems to be automatically included with the MT4.1 package.
- Spell checking is enabled, even in my asset descriptions.
If you are interested in Movable Type and template code for using Amazon assets, read on. If not, then just enjoy my witty and insightful mini-reviews.
I added some short reviews of a couple restaurants to flesh out VeggieWaugh. I can't resist recycling the content, no matter how brief:
Monjunis is a funky Italian place that has plenty to offer the vegetarian. They have a wonderfully sweet marinara that they set out with crispy buttered toasts as the free appetizier. Two locations in Baton Rouge. The location near Kenilworth on Highland is less busy, but just as good, so keep that in mind if you have a large group. My wife loves the garlic bread (which to me is not so interesting) but they often run out, so we find that we need to call ahead to make sure they have some.
What to order:
Veggie lasagna: it's made with that tangy sauce. It will fill you up. Fill up on the complimentary bread and you'll have enough lasagna to bring home.
Veggie muffaletta: eggplant and roasted red pepper. I like it with either the pasta salad or the house lettuce and olive salad mix. Great for lunch. I get the quarter muff, the half is still too big for me.
Eggplant parmesan poboy: good for something different if you've burned out on the above two.
Another Broken Egg is the newest in a long line of brunch places that Baton Rougeans flock to like impatient geese. You would think there would be a saturation point for the brunch market. How can it be that every eggery in the city has 30 minute waits on Sunday morning?
Well unlike most places that depend on their bloody marys and mimosas to keep the masses satiated, Another Broken Egg does it with good food. Here's a concept: they actually can cook eggs--none of them over-cooked smells-like-a-wet-dog omelets here. The menu is huge, so you are sure to find something to your liking, even if it is all a variation on the same theme. Bach did it with Goldberg! Why not with eggs?
What to order:
huevos rancheros: eggs, tortillas, and refried beans with salsa and guacalole. filling and well executed.
hey ricky! omelet: a veggie spanish omelet
veggie benedict: a hollandaise themed variation for us vegetarians. There's also a veggie benedict involving hollandaise, spinach and fried artichoke hearts that was good, but I can't find it on the online menu, which is probably outdated.
blackberry grits: grits that come with a side of blackberries. spoon them on top for a sweet and savory treat
What not to order:
grits and grillades: yeuck!
I remember the first time I heard the beginning of The Pixies' Doolittle. My roomate had just borrowed the tape from someone down the hall and I stopped what I was doing as he pressed play on the stereo. With the first notes, his eyes widened and his jaw slacked. I might as well have been looking in a mirror. We both knew that we had discovered treasure.
Through the years, other albums provoked similar astoundment. But as I grew older, it seemed these treasures were fewer and fewer between. Perhaps the problem is I don't have buddies pointing me toward new music like I used to...nobody's storming into my room with a new album he heard about from someone down the hall.
It's easy to think that as we age, we will never find any good new music. So we fill our mp3 players with the same music that we remember we liked. But all it takes is sense of curiosity and a willingness to explore. Eventually the joy of discovery will return.
Thank goodness for the internet: custom playlists, internet radio, recommendations and what-not. The tools are there for us.
Here are some recent gems I brought back from the wilds:
- Gogol Bordello: Gypsy punk. Eastern European cousin of The Pogues.
- Ted Leo + the Pharmacists: Great jogging music.
- The National (Alligator): A little moody but not too dark. The lyrics keep it interesting.
- Levon Helm (Dirt Farmer): Levon might be setting up a Johnny Cash style comeback.
- The Decemberists: That "baroque" indie pop I've been reading about.
I hope I'm not leaving anyone out. Oh wait. I guess you're wondering about that album cover.
I made a playlist with some music I thought sounded like Vampire Weekend: selections from Paul Simon's Graceland; some Talking Heads; David Byrne; the "riddim" experiments of The Clash, King Sunny Ade. I guess that explains the world music part. But there's also a bit of that baroque pop thing I keep reading about (see above).
This band seems to cause extreme reaction one way or the other. Even though they hardly have their first album out, there's already some Vampire Weekend backlash. My boss saw them on Saturday night Live last week and told me they were terrible. "They don't have any testosterone! They don't even have any estrogen!" I admit that they are not winning over any fans playing live with their weekend-at-the-Hamptons threads. But being that I've listened to the album nearly everyday this month, I've got to give them some credit.
These photos of science fair projects remind me of the paper-mache diorama of a Gettysburg battlefield I once made. But even crazier was that I swear I also made a project with the title "What's My Dog's Favorite Color?" It involved a crazy scheme to get my dog to drink out of different colored water bowls, some filled with salt water, some with sugar water. Being that I never trained my dog to do anything constructive, I had to give up the project on the second day. Then, when the project came due, I fudged a month's worth of data to conclude that my hypothesis was faulty--at least that's how I remember it.
