I knew if I waited long enough everyone would be just as irked by him (though still admitting that he makes good points most of the time, blah blah) as I’ve been for years for being a meat apologist. Behold!
gentle May 29, 2010
(I deleted this for a few days, but my scrapbooky self can’t stand not to have my innermost feelings on the internet, apparently, so here it is again.)
One Halloween a few weeks after Elliott Smith stabbed himself in the heart, I went to a Bright Eyes show at the Housing Works bookstore in NYC. Conor was sad, we all were. He covered an Elliott Smith song, The Biggest Lie, and it was emotional and lovely. When he introduced the song he said, “Some people are so gentle…they don’t really belong here. Some people just aren’t willing to become the asshole you’re led to believe you have to be in this world.”
I’ve been thinking about that night, that song, that sentiment, a lot lately. I’ve been feeling too gentle for the world. Not in a suicidal way, far from it, but I think I should take a little time to acknowledge and maybe exorcise it.
In short: I put myself out there in the world a little more than I usually do. And I got a little bit slapped down. It happens. And I fear that it’s about to happen again. And I’m trying really hard to not let it make me into an asshole.
I applied to be on the Town of New Paltz Planning Board. I actually ran a little undercover campaign, if you want to know the truth. I had friends of mine emailing and calling the Town Board members, who are the ones who vote on the PB members, and I wrote a great cover letter and fixed up my resume and basically massed the troops. Last night was my interview, and I thought it went reasonably well. Later, my performance was called, in an email to me, “charming.” But, for reasons I basically understand (the need for diversity on the board), I was not appointed. I suspect it was a combo of worrying that I am a bit of a loose cannon who is constantly spilling my guts on the internet ([awesome] blog posts I’ve written on various local projects were mentioned, and we talked about my ability to keep my mouth shut about my opinions on projects, which I so totally could do, though, yeah, just by writing this I’m undermining my credibility, am I not? But can I remind you that I am not on the Planning Board? Things would obvs change if I was!), and worrying that there are already too many lefties on the board. (It seems to me to be made up of all Democrats and one pagan Green Partier, so if they didn’t appoint the Republican who I know also applied, I’m going to be PISSED.)
I get it. I should muzzle myself a bit more on the internet, I know that. Perhaps it’s not wise to be Facebook friends with your Town Supervisor when your posts are so often about things you “motherfucking loathe.”
I dunno.
I don’t really care.
One of the greatest gifts of my adult life is: No Secrets. It’s the code I live by, and it bites me in the ass probably once a week. Want to know how much I make, what I paid for this or that, what my house cost, what the rent is at my kitchen, what I think of that mutual friend of ours, what form of birth control I think you should be on, why my dad went to prison, why I think most vegans are pretty idiotic? Sure, let’s talk. Who the fuck cares?
Well, people care. People, squirrley people, they store up knowledge, and they can use it against you later (not the Town Board, just, you know, people in general). Is pure freedom worth it? Opening your heart again and again and hoping the world will handle it gently?
Also, as I start the second glass of wine of the night: can someone be at once ludicrously jaded and also naïve? I assume, when I’m running my mouth so hardcore, that everyone is with me. Trusting and understanding and on my level. And it’s often not the case.
Anyway, so I’ve still got the big project lurking along the edges of my life, and to be perfectly frank, things are looking a little bleak on that front too. We’ll see. I’m nervous these days. I don’t believe in vibes, or signs, or fate, or religion, or spirituality.* I make fun of all those things, to hilarious effect, when drunk at parties. But man oh man, universe, an auspicious omen or two sure would feel good right about now.
(Parenthetically [and divisively and rather cruelly], is this why people have kids? So that the pain of the world hurting them will hurt less, because they have some puppy-eyed little monster to come home to at night? If so, will someone adopt me a puppy?)
Well, here’s something:
Something pretty exciting will be happening on Tuesday, my sweet-loving sweethearts. Or, maybe Wednesday, depending on how things go. You know why I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it’s going to be good? Because I control every aspect of it.
And I’m not at all above admitting that’s why I’m so nervous lately. As I said a few weeks ago: “Projects that require things I can’t make happen with my own stamina are maddening. Depending on other entities is terrifying.” Nothing’s changed in those few weeks, except that I now have more free time, since I won’t have to go to 3-hour long meetings twice a month for the next seven years.**
So…there’s that. And I guess I’ll find another way to serve my community. Maybe I’ll go the time-tested crazy-lady-writing-letters-to-the-paper route. It seems to be working for Brittany!***
*To be fair though, the other day I said to someone: “I don’t believe in vibes, but [insert here long story about how someone has a really bad vibe].” and the person said “Lagusta. You believe in vibes. Don’t pretend.” She’s pretty much right. Sigh.
**Seriously! Seven year terms!
***Totally kidding, my dear! I of course loved it!!
just another false alarm… May 27, 2010
I dreamed that Ruth Reichl called to tell me that she was writing a big story about my chocolates for Gourmet.
I sighed.
“Thanks Ruth. But everything will change. I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared of change. Condé Nast taught me that.”
“I’m not so much scared of change, as scared of and filled with rage for the mainstream world, you know?”
“But you love Gourmet. Have some faith in people.”
“It’s hard.”
And she was gone, and I was awake, turning things over in my head. All I could think was: “Small is all.”
Stubborn, stubborn girl.
three things on a Saturday afternoon when I should be doing prep work May 22, 2010
1) Via our pal Dustin comes this link to a nifty little article all about animal rights + Avatar, the film we so love to hate, as you probably recall. Good stuff!
2) My favorite restaurant in the world (OK, it’s a tie with Kajitsu), Alinea, has risen to 7th on some made up list of the world’s 50 best restaurants!
3) I know I’ve mentioned this beautiful blog before, but look at this! Yuzu miso! Two of my favoritest things in the world, combined! Which reminds me that I have a blog post all ready to go (well, in my head) all about how to make miso. Soon, soon.
Oh world, why are you so pretty on a Saturday afternoon?
this whole thing of having two blogs is very useful May 19, 2010
How much does the artichokes slideshow I just posted remind you of Betty Dodson’s infamous vulva slideshow (obvs, NSFW [unless, you know, you make vulva chocolates for a living...and in fact, I'm in a cafe right now so it's not really even safe for me])??
general store and general prettiness May 18, 2010
Hello my pretties. Just a quick reminder that I’m doing oodles of photo-heavy produce + farm + cooking blogging over at my new professional blog (which makes it sound like I’m a professional blogger, argh), and also that if you’re a Hudson Valley person, take a look at my pretty little online General Store and let me know if you want anything. I’m telling you, these vanilla beans are INSANE. If you want to mailorder any of this stuff along with chocolates, I can work that out too, just shoot me an email at lagusta@lagusta.com.
things that have happened May 18, 2010
Dear internet,
So many things we haven’t talked about.
The world is ending in about a hundred ways more than usual, and I’ve been assiduously ignoring it, at least on this little corner of the internet. I’m sure you’re all appropriately depressed/ragey/panicked about oil spills, homophobic gay politicians, Goldman Sachs, Kate Hudson’s breast implants (which, to be honest, are depressing me out of all proportion), Noam Chomsky being denied entry into Israel (Best quote ever: “In a telephone interview with Channel 10, Chomsky said the interrogators had told him he had written things that the Israeli government did not like. ‘I suggested [the interrogator try to] find any government in the world that likes anything I say,’ he said.”) , Arizona, Arizona, Arizona, Arizona, whether or not Supreme Court justices are allowed to have sex, etc ad nauseum.
In lieu of talking about all that, here’s some less interesting and much less useful crap that’s been happening in my head.
*
I listened to Sarah Silverman’s new book while cooking this week and totally adored it. Out of all proportion to its awesomeness, perhaps. I think I had low expectations because I don’t really share her toiletty humor. I’d forgotten that everything else about her I madly madly adore. It was funny, (obviously), feminist (obviously), and way more witty and radical and full of heart than I expected. Awesome.
*
Then, Audible.com suggested that I listen to David Cross’s newish book next and, adoring Tobias Fünke like any other sane person, I used up a valuable audible book credit on it, which I instantly realized was a major mistake. I like his comedy, his atheism, his hardcore individualism, and his voice, but the book was completely fluff. I should have read the reviews first. I expected autobiography (it’s called “I Drink for a Reason,” after all), but I got rough draft monologues repeating themes of his I’ve heard over and over. Meh. (Parenthetically [though do you really think it's OK to say "parenthetically" if you're in parentheses?? Oh! Now I have to put on "Parentheses"!] I also think David Cross would be sort of a dick to hang out with, don’t you? I wish that didn’t matter to me. Alas. Jacob once got an offer to tour manage some comedy tour he was on, but he couldn’t do it and now I will probably never know the truth about him and am reduced to slandering him on the internet.)
Happily, I have the Virginia Woolf bio written by Nigel Nicolson (son of Virginia’s lover Vita Sackville-West!) ready to go for next week. Phew.
*
Also I wore really awesome outfits this week—three great outfit days in a row, isn’t that the best feeling? One of them was basically this outfit, which caused bootie-hating Brittany to tease me unrepentantly (though she did repent in the end! I win!). Actually, I literally wore a melange of things on that page: jean short shorts, an awesome black XL shirt I sewed into an awesome little long shirt/short dress, and yummy grey heeley ankle booties I got at, of course, Cow Jones! It was awesome awesome.
I didn’t take any outfit pix this week because the app on my phone that used to allow me to set a timer on the camera so I could take outfit photos myself magically disappeared and I feel so idiotic when I ask Jacob to take a picture of my outfits that I almost don’t want to live, so just use your imagination.
Eew, that was sort of creepy. Don’t use your imagination.
Maybe I should just delete this weird paragraph.
*
The New Paltz School Board election is today, and I have a lot of thoughts, all of which are useless after the polls close tonight, so I will skip that whole fiasco, which I truly believe it is because why is it that no matter how teeny tiny the election, every politician, no matter how unprofessional or new to the game, automatically knows how to NEVER SAY ANYTHING ABOUT ANY ISSUE THAT VOTERS TRULY CARE ABOUT? You should have read the corporate doublespeak that these people were spewing out. “Community-building,” “track record of problem solving,” “balancing the needs of the schools and the community” “outreach” “THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX” (screams all mine), OK, fine. But do you think kids should be given condoms so that when they fuck, which they ARE, they don’t get pregnant or STDs, and do you admit that DARE doesn’t work, and will you work to reform the fucked up property tax system that’s killing all of us even though I know you really don’t have power to change it, and do you think school administrators make too much and janitors make too little, and and and. Truly astonishing. I posted a few questions about the DARE program and condoms in schools to the Facebook page of one of the candidates, Bob Rich, and not only was it not answered, it was removed!
But he’ll win anyway. Grr.
My mom did the one of the cats doing a 69 when she was a kid.
*
Holy shit. I thought my tortie cat Cleo was sitting on my lap, then she hopped up on the desk and before I realized that actually it was all-black Sula sitting there all along I got super freaked out like Cleo had replicated or something. Phew. Scary. Now I’m trying to get them both to sit in the chair with me, via the time-tested finger wiggly method. Hard work happening over here!
*
There are also two GIANT HUGE things happening behind the scenes in my life, neither of which I can publicly discuss (one of which I’ve already whined about) and the wait to see how they are both going to go down is absolutely killing me. And no, I’m not pregnant or getting married, you sick fuck.
*
Just sneezed.
No cats on lap.
*
The Mad Men website has all these awesome behind the scenes clips you can watch while you’re so highly anticipating the new season!!!
*
[Insert long rant about WHY THE FUCK AM I WATCHING THIS HULU SHOW CALLED "IF I CAN DREAM"? IT IS THE MOST FUCKED-UP THING I HAVE YET TO LAY MY POOR TIRED JADED EYEBALLS ON AND I THINK IT IS KILLING MY VERY SOUL YET I CANNOT NOT WATCH IT BECAUSE IT GETS DELIVERED TO MY DAMN HULU QUEUE EVERY DAMN WEEK AND WHEN YOU'RE JUST SITTING THERE CHOPPING ONIONS IT APPEARS YOU WILL WATCH ANYTHING OH MY GOD SOMEONE HELP ME THE CORPORATE TIE INS AND ED HARDY CLOTHES AND WRIST CUFFS AND MEN WEARING PINKY RINGS AND HAIR GEL AND BULLSHIT WAY THE POOR KIDS WHO JUST WANT TO LIVE OUT THEIR DUMB LITTLE DREAMS OF BEING SUPERMODELS ARE LIONS THROWN INTO THE GIANT MAW OF LOS ANGELES DOUCHITUDE AND THE WHOLE THING IS BURNING ME ALIVE FROM THE INSIDE OUT AND I'M ON FIRE HELP HELP HELP HELP here]
*
Yeah, I made that one with the black cat. Yep.
You’ve all read The Sexual Politics of Meat, right? Remember the image on the cover? Prepare to die when you see this. My pal Marla pointed it out to me, and I half want to paste it to Carol Adams’ Facebook wall, but can’t bring myself to break it to such a hero of mine that the world she works for all day every day has come to this.
OK, I’m off to vote and then eat Indian food.
Love and other indoor sports,
Lagusta Pauline
The Post Punk Kitchen and me May 14, 2010
I was never a punk. The closest I came was Riot Grrrl, and everything but the music of that movement pretty much passed me by too. Growing up in The Hot State, I didn’t know any punks. Maybe some street kids hung out outside the co-op in the college town an hour away , but that was about it. I was a vegan dork who got straight As who has yet to learn how to smoke. My only links to alt-culture cred are my black bangs and two conversations with Kathleen Hanna, both of which involved me gushing embarassingly.
But I had my radical politics, and when I got this email, on June 15, 2003, I smiled:
Hi, I check out your site sometimes, and thought you might be interested in mine. Below is my generic email, hope you’d like to participate cuz your recipes are awesome!
Take care, IsaThe Post Punk Kitchen is a vegetarian cooking show, soon to appear on NY public access (Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn).
We are looking for recipe submissions to be included in our database. That’s it. In return you will receive fame and notoriety and all the trappings that come along with it. I mean come on, who doesn’t want to see there name in bright lights on the (gasp) internet!
So send ‘em in, help us make this a kickass vegan recipe database and keep those vegetarian bellies full. For more info, check out our website in progress at www.theppk.com, and join our mailing list.
To preview a recipe template look here: http://www.theppk.com/recipetest1.html
Submit the recipe, your user name and a little story about the dish.
If you’d like to participate in the show in any capacity (cooking, tasting, promoting, filming, editing, web development, standing around lookin’ pretty) then get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!
So, I submitted a recipe and said I lived too far away (really then I lived just 20 minutes from Manhattan, but I was a good hour or so from Bklyn) to participate in the show. But it seemed so rad and I wished them well, and everything.
Then for the next four years or so I tried to not admit to myself that I was annoyed I didn’t jump on it, because, as we all know now, that whole “fame and notoriety and all the trappings that come with it” thing was no joke. When Isa and Terry were on the cover of the New York Times food section one day and 10 people in my life called me up to ask if I knew them, I outwardly talked about how I was happy that veganism was getting such a kick-ass public face, and privately, quietly, decided I hated them.
I’ve always thought that the great thing about veganism was that because we were in it for animals, other people, and the environment, we were freed from those annoying things like jealousy about who became a vegan celebrity and who didn’t. As it turns out, I wasn’t as strong and perfect and noble as I pretended to be, and spent a few years assiduously ignoring anything PPK-related.
Then one day I picked up one of their cookbooks at The Strand and leafed through it. My heart began to soften: the recipes were good! OK, they are fans of Earth Balance, but let’s admit it: EB makes it a hell of a lot easier to go vegan. You can make such pretty, lovely things with it. The PPK recipes were witty, snappy, interesting—good.
It’s so hard to hate something that you can’t put down in any substantive way. Sigh.
I knew I had work to do. After that I worked to let my annoyance at them (which was, of course annoyance at myself), dissolve. The truth is, Isa does really amazing things. Every time I turn around she’s cooking at a benefit dinner for Farm Sanctuary or giving away copies of her books as donations, or organizing massive bake sales to raise huge amounts of money for Haiti, etc. She’s not a Food Network airhead, she’s stayed true to her politics, her aesthetic, and her roots.
She’s the face of our movement today, and for that I am very very proud. Pretty much single-handedly, she and Terry changed the public perception of vegan food from lentil loaves to adorable cupcakes, and even my EB-hatin’ self has to admit that that was a big, huge, awesome awesome step.
And what did I do, in those years when Isa was busy talking to newspapers and testing recipes? I worked on my own pretty business, keeping my head fairly down, listening to my own instincts about what makes good vegan food. The other week, when I was ranting to Maresa about cupcakes, I realized something, something which finally dissolved the very last bits of my Isa-jealousy:
I don’t want to be doing what she’s doing, and I’m damn thankful that she’s doing it.
Do you know what I hate? Talking to boring mainstream people about how to sauté a goddamn motherfucking piece of tempeh. Convincing them that tofu is not scary. Telling them that wheat is not going to kill them. Not using swear words. Smiling in public. Talking in public. The public! Tailoring my words for a wider audience. I hate all of it, but it all has to be done. And Isa’s doing it!
And I’m not. And you know what? That’s fucking amazing.
Veganism, like all social movements, is a continuum. Isa is where she is, and we’re damn lucky to have her. I’m where I am, off in the ether somewhere, talking about molecular gastronomy and Kajitsu, and I’ve got my little crew of people who get me. My crew will always be smaller than Isa’s, that’s how it should be. Shes going wider, I’m doing deeper. Both of us are absolutely necessary. I’ll be the first to admit that Isa’s making more vegans, and keeping more people vegan, than I am. That used to annoy me, too. But today I’m just thankful to be here, firmly anchored on my spot on the continuum.
Onward!
(A little more grown-up this time.)
the frosting files May 14, 2010
As I was making the cupcakes last week, I was chatting with Bonbonista Maresa about how I can’t stand the trashy crap so many vegans are obsessed with making. Who cares that you can make shitty desserts that taste just like the shitty sheet cakes you got as a kid?
Argh, I get so annoyed about it.
I get it: vegans don’t like to be deprived. But why did the pendulum have to swing so far to the other side? Must we keep bowing down to the temples of fast food, white trash (excuse the racist phrase this time, please) desserts, and other lowest common denominator crap?
I want to make only very high and very “low” vegan food. I want to make people’s food, I want to make the food of every poor person all around the world, who never ate meat because they never could afford meat, vegan. Feijoada and koshari and tagines and wat and llapingachos. And I want to make fancy stuff vegan: profiteroles and croissants and Bûche de Noël. Fuck supermarket cupcakes, I want spun sugar cages over crêpe cakes drizzled with the best ganache icing imaginable.
So, as I was sort of going insane ranting about this, I was
making
cupcakes.
We laughed about that, and both knew that I spend every day making feijoada and wat and tagines, and I never make cupcakes. And my problem is not with cupcakes per se but with their ubiquity, their inanity, their usefulness as a metaphor of the whole problem.
I like Isa and Terry’s cupcake book. I’m glad it’s out there. They are 100% great people, doing some real great work making vegan food accessible to the masses.
But we’re not the masses. We’re awesome, and we know cupcakes aren’t the highest peak of vegan civilization (I’m not saying Isa & Co, aren’t awesome, just that the masses don’t want nuanced food, you know?). And we also know they are great fun to make once in a while.
You know, what Whitman said. I contain multitudes, etc.
So, on this day when Maresa was making peanut butter cups and I needed to distract my brain from everything, I decided to think a little about buttercream.
Two years ago for my birthday, truffleista Veronica [who, TRAGICALLY! is now in art school and is too busy to come down and truffle-ize with Maresa and I. We miss her every day!] made me an adorable cake with a coconut oil buttercream frosting, and my brain has been whirring about it ever since.
So: vegan buttercream. Heretofore to be called: buttercream. I’m not going to put it in quotes. Fuck that. It’s buttercream, even when it’s made with coconut oil.
I did a bunch of tests, which I will try to spare you endless useless Cook’s Illustrated-style rambling on about.
I came up with two options. Both are fast and easy. Both have a few tips and tricks.
METHOD ONE: the absolute easiest and pretty much perfect coconut oil buttercream method
Don’t hate me because I weigh everything in grams! I bet the internet could convert it for you?
57 grams coconut oil, cold. It must be cold and solid.
200 grams vegan organic powdered sugar
a splash of vanilla extract
your desired flavoring. I used 30 grams of local organic strawberries (frozen). See below for flavoring ideas!
- Put the first two ingredients into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a whip attachment. If you don’t have a standing mixer, you can try your luck with a hand mixer, but it will be tough. Lacking either, I honestly would not attempt this recipe.
- Turn the mixer on to high. Pretty much as high as it will go. Whip it good until the coconut oil is fluffy and no longer has any chunks and it looks like frosting. When it looks about 75% there, add your flavoring and vanilla.
- Done. Pipe, spread, whatevs.
Some notes.
This frosting is very sweet. You can make it less sweet by adding unsweet flavorings. If you add less sugar, it will never come together into frosting and will be thin and oily and way too soft.
The agar option #1: to make a slightly less sweet frosting.
So we move to agar. Remember agar? I’ve made delicious chocolate fudge frostings thickened with agar, but I’ve never loved the consistency of agar-thickened non-chocolate frostings. Agar makes a wonderful whipped cream, an amazing lemon curd (mine is in this cookbook), and great cake fillings.
But generally frostings made with agar are too light for me, because they always contain some sort of liquid (usually coconut oil or water). I want something more substantial. Could I make a hybrid frosting, one where the coconut oil was held in suspension by heating it with agar and where the other ingredients bulked it up a bit so that powdered sugar wasn’t 90% of the whole recipe, but that was still as stiff as the quick buttercream recipe above?
Well, I haven’t totally perfected that option yet, but here are my working notes:
Heat some coconut milk with some agar powder until they come to a boil, then let this mixture harden in the fridge. Whip along with about half the coconut oil called for in the recipe above with less powdered sugar than what’s called for in the recipe. This should make a slightly less sweet frosting that’s still strong and stiff and pipeable. Obviously, I need to make this again to get my proportions down better (or, at all). My notes from this version are utterly incomprehensible because it was 1 AM and I’d been making frosting for hours by this point.
(There is a lot of frosting in the walk-in right now. I’m having a party this weekend [distraction mode continues!] and am thinking of just slathering it on crackers for people or something.)
The agar option #2: to make a more stable frosting.
But here’s an easier agar option to make a more stable frosting. If you’ve worked with coconut oil before, you know one problem with it is that it melts. Melted frosting is no fun. It also becomes rock-hard in the refrigerator. By adding agar to the oil used in the recipe, it seems to me (I’m basing this off of two tests, and will update this info in subsequent frosting forays–be sure to let me know your experiences too), you can sort of level out its temperature variations. Thus:
METHOD TWO: the agar-stabalized coconut oil buttercream method
57 grams coconut oil, cold. It must be cold and solid.
3/4 teaspoons agar powder
200 grams vegan organic powdered sugar
a splash of vanilla extract
your desired flavoring. I used 30 grams of local organic strawberries
- Heat the coconut oil and agar powder for 3 minutes or so at high heat. It will not boil, but will shimmer. Whisk a lot. Don’t let the oil smoke. Let it cool in the refrigerator an hour, or until firm.
- Scoop out the coconut oil mixture into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a whip attachment. Turn the mixer on to high. Whip until the oil is starting to become fluffy, then add the sugar. Continue whipping until the coconut oil is fluffy and no longer has any chunks.
- When it looks about 75% there, add your flavoring and vanilla.
- Done. Pipe, spread, whatevs.
Be patient, get all those oil chunks out!
Some flavoring ideas:
-Fresh fruits, chopped into very small pieces or pureed
-Extracts like peppermint, almond, orange, etc etc. Obviously, flavor to taste, don’t use 30 grams of peppermint extract!
-Spices like cinnamon, cardamom, curry powder (!), etc etc.
-Espresso powder, pomegranate molasses, jams and preserves, cookie crumbles, etc!
-Of course, you can use those nice all-natural food colorings you see in health food stores to color the frosting.
The care and use of your beautiful buttercream:
In an ideal world, you’d make and consume your frosting the same day. Cakes don’t like hanging around, and neither does frosting.
Using your buttercream as soon as it’s made will make your life easier. If you must refrigerate it before using, give yourself a long time to let it get to room temperature again. You can also re-whip it in the mixer, but it can take a while. If you overwhip it at any point and it starts to become too soft and liquidy, put it in the fridge for just 2 or 5 minutes or so until it just begins to get hard again. Sometimes this frosting can get grainy if there are too many different temperatures happening. Be persistent, keep whipping until it’s great.
For the best flavor and texture of your buttercream, let the finished frosted creation (cake or cupcake or cookie sandwich or lover’s nipple or whatever) come to room temperature before eating. Rock-hard buttercream isn’t ideal.
Have fun!
Oh, PS: want icing, not frosting? Got it!
interlude: cupcakes May 11, 2010
If, let’s just say, you’re in a phase of your life where you’re just sort of holding your breath and waiting for things to happen around you and this is threatening to make you insane, you need some good distractions. A good hard job is always nice, but I already have two of those, so I need more.
Cupcakes work nicely.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about frosting.
that’s what she said