guarded

we wear mouthguards to bed.

naptime

missed Monty this morning, then remembered his starring role in this mocku-how-to video shot months ago, back when I thought I might earn a living making short clips that tell people how to do things. now it's a cornerstone in the sugary memorial I seem to be building out of macaron bricks bound together with ganache for mortar.

las palmas senior center.

full service

according to the attendant at the 76 station, a surprising number of Santa Monica residents are perfectly willing to pay $5.23 a gallon to sit in the car.

bryn mawr macaron.

self-portrait

chocolate burgers

whipped espresso ganache.



valhrona ganache & caramel fleur de sel.

Chocolate macaron recipe is thanks to Mercotte, as well as the whipped ganache recipe (see "synthesis of the recipes in English"). I added 1 tbsp instant espresso to the hot cream. The caramel fleur de sel was modified from Chubby Hubby's recipe. Thanks, everybody!

who, me?

provisional costume sketch for a solo show entitled "Who, Me?" in four parts, one for each band member. pete's would be first ("part one: we're all forgiven"), a live performance version of a shot-for-shot remake, complete with meher baba pin.

first chocolate tray

ecstasy: after so many horror stories about chocolate macarons,  I expected trays and trays of failure, but these are the best batch yet. Three stainless baking sheets stacked on the second-from-the-bottom rung of the oven, door propped ajar with a wooden spoon, temp ranging between 275 & 300. choco-success! once again, all praise goes to Mercotte!

22 march 1938

Mythic value of the cinema for people of my generation and my type: in these days ruled by anxiety, it's into cinema, more than books, that I withdraw. Serious films, it's true, and no longer frivolous films à la Fred Astaire.

christina's amulets.

matcha macarons

a full-on, unadulterated green tea experience: matcha macarons with a whipped matcha ganache.  italian meringue made with the help of Mercotte's recipes and guidance. I think I added slightly less than 2 tsp matcha powder to the macaron batter and the hot cream for a whipped ganache (Mercotte has instructions for both simple and whipped ganaches). lightest macarons yet.

brigid berlin liked to buy hundreds of eye shadows in every shade, leave them untouched in their boxes, and line them up in perfect rows in her closet. she would only occasionally take them out in order to dust, enjoying her palette.  I have a drawerful of gouaches, even though I don't paint.

9 march 1937

Dreamt that the war was forecast as inevitable for the month of November. Broke a bottle of iodine upon waking.

fruity experiments

blackberry.



mango.

seeking a flat top, last night I went back to the french meringue
method, & experimented with making a chai macaron.



I was pleased with the cookie results, but wonder
what the best possible filling would be?

pictured here are chocolate ganache & caramel fleur de sel:
the chocolate was delicious, but overpowered the chai; t. liked
the caramel best, proclaiming it tasted just like a pumpkin
pie. miam! but pumpkin pie, ce n'est pas le chai.

I always want to shoot the sheet.

sunday

check out the spread krasinski put together for our writer's group
(really more of a writer's duet, since it's just the two of us)
on sunday night!



not pictured are our manuscripts, willa the caramel chihuahua, and the 27 cups of kukicha tea I drank (iced, with lemon!).

July-september 1936

Two crucial events: (1) Because of the Spanish revolution, the world, for the first time, truly fails me; (2) I learn to swim.

a lone, nude macaron from saturday's batch, awaiting filling:



sunday's batch: lopsided violets.



the worst offender, also my favorite:

first macarons

Filled with lemon curd and chocolate ganache (Valhrona splurge).
These were made according to Mercotte's French meringue method: today
I tackle Italian meringue, once I get a decent thermometer.

Tres grand merci à Mercotte!!!

guest bath

christina is two

I asked, "What kind of cupcakes would you like?"
The answer: "Vanilla or chocolate."



recipe: JOC white cake.

In honor of e. jarvis and our Nutella reveries earlier this week, I decided to fill them straight from the jar.



Iced w/coconut buttercream. I wish it had been more piping-friendly,
but no one seemed to mind.

RLB's almond fig bread, from the bread bible.

from the journal
of Michel Leiris:

May 15 1942

For a while, I've been the plaything of a itch that compels me - mostly while I'm out walking alone - to rush headlong into patisseries to eat cakes. A little like how, in the past, I used to be attracted to bordellos. A hunger owing to restriction? Or is it rather a psychological hunger attesting to a kind of regression, a return to childhood drives? Bad conscience comes of it: losing time, spending foolishly, gaining weight, not knowing how to restrain myself, being nothing but a digestive tract. More often than not, I feel like I'm on the road to ruin. All my little manias (relating, not only like this one, to food, but to clothes, books, the arrangement of the furniture) are beginning to obscure my intellectual life almost entirely. Some time ago, going to the theatre was my greatest pleasure. Since then, I've gone down a notch.

Monty, memorialized

Bob built Ninja a two-story doghouse, and named it Montgomery Towers, in remembrance.

mittens' cutups

my poetry student's handiwork.