It's been a rough week for me with everything going on at work and with myself at home which is why I've been absent from my keyboard for so long. Between overtime, bad weather, and community tragedy all I've wanted is to crawl out of bed, go to work, and come home and crawl back in again until the sun comes up the following day. I will write more about those things as the work week coming up unfolds, but all last week I've had to push myself a little extra to keep plugging along and as the week progressed little pockets of brightness popped up until the I finally got two days to myself to reset and recharge for a full weekend of work.
Being back under my parent's roof is not as bad as I would have believed it to be four years ago. In high school I was kept under a tight, watchful eye that lurked in the shadows of my father's office, but now I come and go as I please (mostly to work and to Burlington for errands). I still inform one of my parents where I go as a courtesy so that they know whether to expect me later or not, but there is no more forced family fun and my free time is now my own to do with as I please.
Having two days off in a work week is a rare treat for me that by the second day I hardly knew what to do with myself and had to be creative with the day so that I wasn't sitting around doing nothing for most of it. I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in until 9am and then got up feeling like half my day had already been wasted. Since Lance had finally finished the flourless chocolate cake I baked him for Father's Day I decided it was time for something new. I settled on a maple cheesecake recipe that I found on the internet and spent the afternoon mixing ingredients for my first cheesecake.
Usually I am very successful on my first attempts at new recipes, but this one was a disaster. The crust and cake batter all looked and tasted fine until it actually time to bake in the oven. As the dessert cooked it browned unevenly and wouldn't set properly. Lance came in at the very end with a suggestion about cover the springform pan with a sheet tray while in the oven and another baker friend, Sam recommended a water bath for next time. After abut 35 minutes I pulled the cake out and placed it in the fridge to chill and set up while I went to see Moonrise Kingdom.
By the time I returned home and broke through a window to get inside my house the cake a set up to about the proper consistency so I decorated the top with fresh berries to hide the surface cracks from where it had risen and fallen back in place and glazed the berries in a healthy maple reduction for extra sweetness and flavor.
While the cake was setting up in the refrigerator I set out of see Moonrise Kingdom at the Bijou in Morrisville. I've been waiting a month for the film to finally reach Vermont and now that the day had come I took off for the first showing I could get to. There was about ten others in the small theatre, about ten more people than I would have expected for a Wes Anderson film in Morrisville, VT, but it was nice to have an intimate audience in the dark, intimate theatre where I could binge on restricted food items in privacy while Edward Norton and Bruce Willis searched for wayward children all across an island off the coast of northern New England. I won't say too much about the film because I'm still waiting for my friend in Philadelphia to go see it, but I will mention that while the cinematography is quintessential Anderson, the plot is a more juvenile than his past films, but still has the core values and integrity of all of his film.
Being back under my parent's roof is not as bad as I would have believed it to be four years ago. In high school I was kept under a tight, watchful eye that lurked in the shadows of my father's office, but now I come and go as I please (mostly to work and to Burlington for errands). I still inform one of my parents where I go as a courtesy so that they know whether to expect me later or not, but there is no more forced family fun and my free time is now my own to do with as I please.
Having two days off in a work week is a rare treat for me that by the second day I hardly knew what to do with myself and had to be creative with the day so that I wasn't sitting around doing nothing for most of it. I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in until 9am and then got up feeling like half my day had already been wasted. Since Lance had finally finished the flourless chocolate cake I baked him for Father's Day I decided it was time for something new. I settled on a maple cheesecake recipe that I found on the internet and spent the afternoon mixing ingredients for my first cheesecake.
Usually I am very successful on my first attempts at new recipes, but this one was a disaster. The crust and cake batter all looked and tasted fine until it actually time to bake in the oven. As the dessert cooked it browned unevenly and wouldn't set properly. Lance came in at the very end with a suggestion about cover the springform pan with a sheet tray while in the oven and another baker friend, Sam recommended a water bath for next time. After abut 35 minutes I pulled the cake out and placed it in the fridge to chill and set up while I went to see Moonrise Kingdom.
By the time I returned home and broke through a window to get inside my house the cake a set up to about the proper consistency so I decorated the top with fresh berries to hide the surface cracks from where it had risen and fallen back in place and glazed the berries in a healthy maple reduction for extra sweetness and flavor.
It surprising turned out okay.
While the cake was setting up in the refrigerator I set out of see Moonrise Kingdom at the Bijou in Morrisville. I've been waiting a month for the film to finally reach Vermont and now that the day had come I took off for the first showing I could get to. There was about ten others in the small theatre, about ten more people than I would have expected for a Wes Anderson film in Morrisville, VT, but it was nice to have an intimate audience in the dark, intimate theatre where I could binge on restricted food items in privacy while Edward Norton and Bruce Willis searched for wayward children all across an island off the coast of northern New England. I won't say too much about the film because I'm still waiting for my friend in Philadelphia to go see it, but I will mention that while the cinematography is quintessential Anderson, the plot is a more juvenile than his past films, but still has the core values and integrity of all of his film.
No, what kind of bird are you?
