An accounting

Things that went wrong today:

1. It took the doctor five hours (FIVE!) to give my husband and I our annual physicals.

2. I was unprepared for a meeting.

3. We had a fender bender in the new car.

Things for which I am grateful:

1. We both got a clean bill of health.

2. My coworkers are forgiving people.

3. The accident happened at such a low speed that the airbags didn't deploy.

4. The day is finally over.

Extracurricular activites

In graduate school, I decided that there was time enough for me to have one, but only one, hobby, and that hobby was cooking. Now that I'm done with graduate school, I can mainly keep a forty-hour work week. As a result of all my newly-found free time, I find myself taking up new hobbies. Last spring I started taking dance classes. (I find it hard to describe what kind of Indian dance it is: click here if you want to see an example.) I need to practice a lot at home to keep up and, if I want, I could take these classes for a decade or so and still be learning new stuff. So it's a challenge.

Dance classes aren't held during the summer, though, because the instructor and lots of the students visit India during summer vacation. With all that free time on my hands, I decided to join a choir. Like the case of the dance class, I've taken on more than I realized. When I heard I needed to audition, I wasn't too worried. But at the audition the woman who went before me sounded like an opera singer. This turned out to be not too far from the truth, as most of the singers majored in music, and some of them are paid opera singers. I was told that my voice is rusty (so true! I haven't sung in ten years) but that I had potential. The very first night we sang Bach in five parts and we sightsang pieces in Hebrew. I've sung in choirs like this before; choirs that hire soloists and sing with orchestras, but the caliber of these singers is astounding. Quite frankly, I can tell that I am one of the worst singers there, but I'm choosing to see this as an opportunity to learn lots, and fast.

In the meantime, something that I'm good at: Bienenstich Kuchen. This translates as bee sting cake, but I don't know the story behind the name. It's plain, eggy cake topped with lots of almonds and filled with vanilla cream. This is officially a kuchen, but I haven't figured out the difference between a Kuchen and a Torte.

Birnentorte

This week's torte is a pear torte, which I chose because our vegetable share came with a dozen pears this week. The recipe for this torte was not so straightforward, because it was one that expected you to use all packaged foods. It was something along the lines of "While baking a fruit cake base, mix up a packet of vanilla pudding, open two jars of pears, and add water to a packet of glaze."

I think this "fruit cake base" will be a common component in the future - the ingredients are similar to that of a pound cake (equal amounts of butter, sugar, and flour) but it called for more leavening than a typical pound cake (three eggs), so it turned out a bit lighter. Here are the mistakes (let's call them learning opportunities) made with this cake:

1. I accidentally used a too-small pan, and my cake was higher than expected. To compensate, I cut the cake in half horizontally and froze half for another cake.

2. I poached fresh pears in simple syrup and orange juice, which was a great improvement over canned pears. I then brushed some of the leftover liquid on the cake layer before I topped it with the pudding. This is commonly done with French cakes (genoise) but it make the cake almost soggy. I've got to quit thinking these techniques will transfer and just follow the instructions.

3. The glaze, something called Tortenguss, is something you normally buy in a packet. (It's that light red sheen you might be able to see in the picture). I followed a suggestion I found on a German baking forum to make a pectin glaze, but it never set up. I'll need to try adding more pectin.

The beauty of making cakes, though, is that even imperfect ones are pretty darn delicious.

Places I've been: St. Petersburg

I went to St. Petersburg last weekend. (Alas, it was the Florida version, not the Russian city.)

Previously, St. Petersburg was a destination for us because my cousin and her family lived there. However, soon after we moved to Florida she joined the Foreign Service and moved away. I'm sure it's just coincidence that as soon as her cousin moved within driving distance she fled to the furthest corners of the world.

However, St. Pete is still pretty terrific. It boasts a brand new Dali museum. (To be specific, the building is new but the art is not.) It helps to have a guide when you're looking at Dali - he was a man that crammed an awful lot into each painting. (Example here.)

We also stopped along the way at a state park, formerly the site of the Koresh Unity religious group. They lived communally and. believed in celibacy and reincarnation. Their most interesting belief was that humans lived on the inside of a hollow sphere, and they did science experiments to prove it. Although we arrived too late to view their scientific apparatuses, we did spend quality time with their gopher tortoises.

Andrew enjoyed a lunch which featured his two favorite things: beer and math.

There's also a county park in St. Petersburg with extensive boardwalks. This feature is appreciated because the water is filled with alligators.

Here I am contemplating the swamp, deciding that I could never, ever live in Florida without the two miracle inventions: air conditioning and insect repellent.

Places I've been: Mountain Lake, Minnesota

My mother grew up near the small town of Mountain Lake, Minnesota (population 2,104). My father was more of a big city boy, living near Windom (population 4600). I don't get a chance to visit very often; this June was the first time since Andrew and I met that I've been to visit. Mountain Lake is misnamed slightly: it has a mountain (although you'd only call it one if you lived in the Plains) and it has a lake, but they're not near each other. And the only reason it now has a lake is because the town used a Works Progress Administration project (during the Depression) to dam a river and make a lake.

My mother has six brothers and sisters who live within driving distance of Mountain Lake, and I got to see them all. (It turns out some of them have been secretly reading my blog, too!) When I imagine living in Mountain Lake, I can see how different my life would be. I'd have to have a different job - there are no physicist jobs around. I'd have to have a different religion, or at least stop going to my type of church - most of the churches are Mennonite, as all of my ancestors were. And I'd have to eat different food - there were no veggies burgers in town. But there would be rewards as well. Many of the houses are built in the early and mid 1900's; they are surrounded by large trees and set near the street. It's easy to walk around town, and it's surprising how often I bump into an uncle or two when I'm wandering around.

And as a matter of fact, I'm headed back there this weekend. I have a conference in Omaha, Nebraska next week, which puts me only four hours' drive away from my grandmother and her 90th birthday party. I'm supposed to be a surprise visitor, because I had already said I wouldn't come before I realized how close I would be. But I don't think this post will ruin the surprise - my grandmother does not know how to work a computer.

So, while I'm gone, some other impressions of southwest Minnesota:

Since I've last been there, they went and got all modern: there are wind farms everywhere.
The good ole Green Giant in Blue earth - we used to visit him on our way to our grandparents. (For non-Americans, the Green Giant was/is a icon of a brand of frozen and canned vegetables)

A new cooking challenge: Tortes

Remember how I wanted to learn to cook Indian, so I promised to make it once a week last year? That failed. I managed to cook quite a few Indian dishes, but few of them appeared on the blog because they just weren't that spectacular. Andrew and I would eat them, and they were moderately tasty, but nothing that I wanted to encouraged other people to make. As a result, I've put that project on hold until I can take some proper lessons from someone who knows how to make proper Indian food.

Instead, I introduce my new cooking challenge: tortes. For some reason (perhaps centuries of national animosity?), the French bakery where I trained rarely made tortes. So I can whip up pate a choux, buttercream, and eclairs in my sleep, but I can't make a proper German cake. My trip last year to Muenchen reminded me how terrific these layered cakes, concoctions of cream, fruit, and nuts, really are. The introductory contestant is the Eierlikoertorte, from a recipe shared by a colleague, who has much more experience with German baking, as he is (1) German and (2) bakes more professionally than I do.

Eierlikoer is a cordial made of cream, eggs, and alcohol. Because I live in Miami, I couldn't buy the typical Northern European brands, but it turns out the Venezuelans like it too. The end result was a flourless cake (just almonds, chocolate, and lots of eggs), layered with a lingonberry jam and topped with whipped cream and more egg liquor. It was a smashing success.

P.S. Does anyone know how to include foreign characters, like umlauts, in blogger posts? I think this project will require heavy use of them.

How many of me?

I was taking a break from a day-long cook-a-thon (pictures tomorrow, I promise), when I saw this website: http://ww2.howmanyofme.com/.

It uses census data from 2000 to tell you how many people in the U.S. have your name. There's a grand total of 1 of me, although there are at least 308 people in the U.S. have my husband's combination of first and last name. The fun part of my situation is that there's never any doubt who authored my papers. The not-so-fun part is that every time I'm asked to give my name on the phone, I have to stifle a little groan. It's guaranteed that I'll have to spell every name, usually twice. And then (unless it's legally binding) I'll just go along with whatever the caller thinks I said. Last week someone put an 'f' in my last name.