Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars, originally uploaded by sockmonkeyrevolt.

Is it possible to go wrong with cheesecake? I think not, though I do make an effort not to jus make cheesecake every week, though I think I totally could and be happy. My love of cheesecake borders that of the driver in the absurdly awesome King Missile song ‘Cheesecake Truck”

Sometimes the hardest thing about the Guinea Pig Monday initiative is deciding what I want to make. Sometimes I’m not even really in the mood to whip something up. I don’t really feel the pressure to make something just because it’s become tradition, I mean I went the better part of a year in between the first Guinea Pig run and the current one, but I have found that forcing myself to get into the kitchen on days I might rather do absolutely nothing is kind of beneficial. As a person with a horrible track record of dropping the ball when it comes to follow through on things, I’m quite guilty of the ‘ooh shiny’ distraction of the next big project. This week all I knew I wanted was a lemon and blueberry combination. I was prepared to have to improvise, but it turns out there’s a ton of items to choose from, so I ended up following a recipe to the letter. The idea of making little cheesecake bars so it wasn’t quite so rich and heavy as an everyday cheesecake. I must say I was a little worried about how the taste would come out when I tried the batter before baking, but in the end, they are really good and would make a nice potluck dessert.

You can find the recipe on Food Network’s site

lolbat, originally uploaded by Stevie-B.

Today I wish there was an emergency exit slide to inflate and slide down. Mainly it’s because I slept like crap and am tired.

I slept like crap and am tired, because some psycho bat got into our room somehow and proceeded to run over my pillow only seconds after my face vacated it because I realised that something was alive under my bed and scratching at the underside of the pillow.

I’ve never been so glad to be a light sleeper. I didn’t know bats couldn’t take off from a flat surface until I found this photo uploaded by Stevie-B on flickr while looking for a suitably terrifying bat photo. This info makes it seem less likely that the bat was rabid, so I feel less paranoid even though my doctor already said not to worry about it if I wasn’t bitten.

I am making Floof check the attic tonight, at the rate I’m going I’d get bum rushed by a pack of bats and fall down the stairs. I’ve already been attacked by a cicada flying into my hair this morning.

1. This Enameled stacked lunch box from VivaTerra

2. An adorable cat to watch over your lunch bag in the office fridge from WeOpenSecret

3. Ninja Apple Cosy at natalya1905

4. Retro Thermos Pair at GallivantingGirls. How do you pluralise Thermos anyway? Thermoses? That looks weird, like it should be a hertofore unknown Egyptian Pharoah of the old kingdom. King Thermoses the 2nd ruled over an era of peace, prosperity and Tomato Bisque.

5. Why just cut the crusts off when you can do so much more? Dog and house bento food cutter from kawaiigoodies

6. I get too creeped out about the idea of the reusable fabric sandwich bags, but for snacks I can get behind this cute stegosaurus bag from HarrietsHaven.

7. cool vintage metal lunch box at vintagecottagegarden

8. Maybe you’re a little more pop-culture nostalgic. I know this Hardy Boys lunchbox (with the thermos even!) over at Anaspaceship would fit the bill.

9. I love the graphics on this bento set from natsuriku2007

10. I’m probably too lazy to make the super cute bento lunches seen on Adventures in Bento Making like the one below, but that doesn’t stop me from admiring those who do.

And just for fun here’s a good link on inspiring yourself to take you lunch to work a little more often from Livehacker

I love Watergate Salad. Always have, always will. To be honest I’m not sure how the cake ended up having any frosting on it, I probably could have eaten the whole batch right there in my kitchen. We’ve been going through everything in my grandmother’s house to clean it out to sell. (We moved her into an assisted living apartment last month.) She was the one I obviously inherited my baking obsession from since my mom used the smoke detector as an oven timer and I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad cook anything besides eggs, so there are lots of I’m-not-even-sure-what-that-is-kitchen-gadgets to discover and cook books to explore (not to mention the desserts recipe card box that is stuffed full.) This weekend I was going through a United Methodist Women’s league community cookbook from the late 70s I now own and I ran across Watergate Cake. I knew I had to give that a go, even though Floof made over-dramatic shocked gasps when I picked up the boxed cake mix it called for in the grocery store.

Yes the ’70s when everything came in a box mix. There are too many nuts in the batter if you ask me. I don’t think I even used as much as it called for and now that I’ve tasted it,  it could have used about half that.  You could probably use half in the cake and then the other half in the frosting, since they work better in the frosting.

Watergate Cake

Adapted from the United Methodist Women community cookbook

cake:

1 box white cake mix
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup 7 up
2 boxes pistachio instant pudding mix
4 eggs (well beaten)
1 cup chopped pistachios or pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350º and butter a 10″ bundt pan.

Mix all the cake ingredients together, pour into pan and bake 45-50 minutes. Cool in pan 15 minutes, turn out cool and refrigerate several hours before frosting.

frosting:
1 box pistachio instant pudding
2 envelopes dream whip
1 cup sour cream
1 cup 2% cold milk.
3-4 oz. crushed pineapple
1/4 cup chopped pistachios or pecans (I’m just guessing here, it wasn’t in the original recipe, but I felt like the frosting needed the texture nuts provide so I just sprinkled in until it felt like the right amount)

whip all ingredients in bowl of mixer with whisk attachment until fluffy. frost cake and refrigerate.

image, originally uploaded by sockmonkeyrevolt.

My boyfriend and I are polar weather opposites, this sweltering, humid hell doesn’t bother him that much, but I don’t know how that’s possible? I don’t mind the winter so much and grey rainy days are my cup of tea, so I’m not doing so great on a week where the “feels-like” temperature is between 105 and 125 every day. It’s my week to cook dinner too and it took entirely too long to figure out my menu of things I’m in the mood for that feel light and airy (I’m the queen of soups, stews and mac and cheese.)

I am glad to be back from New York though. The trip and conference were great until Tuesday night, where things went downhill fast. First I got what I’m sure had to have been minor food poisoning from the salad at the hotel. It was the only thing I’d eaten and I was 90% better after I finished being violently ill for a couple of hours. This was not a fun way to end the conference.

It was also not fun to get to the airport for the return flight, only to discover that the administrative assistant who booked our flights booked the return tickets for the wrong day and we were thus stranded at LaGuardia. More fun involved sitting around the Atlanta airport for over 4 hours and stomach churning turbulence, but I suppose that’s all part of the excitement of travel, and makes you appreciate being home even more.

I’m a day behind still, however, so Guinea Pig activities will not commence until tonight, but I can tell you that I’m planning on playing with a recipe I found in a 70s community cookbook I recently got, for Watergate Cake. I love Watergate Salad, so I’m expecting awesomeness out of the cake. It also sounds like the kind of cake that’s just right for a broiling August day.

The photo is from a park in New York, I don’t know if the lens on my phone was smudgy or what but I like how they petals look sort of ghostly. They felt kind of ghostly in the dusk when I walked by too.

The funny thing is while I love coming back to the east coast, and particularly New York, which is probably the only place I know where I feel un-selfconscious (excepting of course interactions with PhDs with decades of experience and camaraderie) I am terrible at being a tourist. I get most excited about going to the hole in the wall restaurants I used to eat at all the time, or a store I used to go to, but I’m just as likely to sit around the hotel watching cable, and just going out for food. I’m like this everywhere really. If it’s somewhere new, I’ll meticulously research the hidden treasure locations that only locals go to. I’m not interested in being a tourist, I’m interested in becoming a temporary local and since I can be a bit boring and stay-in at home, I do it when I’m abroad too, but I feel guilty. Right now I feel that instead of typing this, I should be out burning down the town until 3am and worrying about the morning payback. I am probably going down to the Village for a slice of my favourite pizza on the planet (which is at Viva Herbal on 2nd ave between 10th and 11th incidentally) in not too long, but odds are I’ll be back before primetime is over.

I don’t really get the “no genre” rule that Creative Writing programs have enacted to  ostensibly keep the work done artistic instead of commercial. I’ve taken studios at multiple colleges and they all seem to have this policy, and I think it’s counter productive and stupid. Shouldn’t it be no lazy fiction? No half-assed attempts, and not “no dragons and aliens?” The rules didn’t squash me since I’ve never been into sci-fi or fantasy books, which seem to be the number one victim of the genre rule, I suppose it’s hardest to cloak those in the garb of “legitimate non-genre” fiction to get it through the critique, but I fail to see how something like JRR Tolkein or CS Lewis is somehow less complex and critiquable than Melville or Henry Fielding. If serious fiction departments think they cut the tripe by declaring no genre fiction, they are incorrect, what they cut is diversity, which in the end makes for a very boring experience, because everyone is writing the same sort of thing they think the professor will deem serious enough. My favourite studio ever was the one where the professor told us she didn’t give a crap about the department’s genre rule and to write whatever you want as long as it’s worthy of making everyone hear it all semester while we work on it. (This was also my favourite studio because we did work on once piece either the whole semester or until we decided it was as good as it was going to get instead of bringing in something new every time you were up in the rotation, so not only did you get to see everyone’s work evolve, but you got a really good experience at the editing process. I really think less of the program I ended up getting my cw degree from because they did not use this method and in fact banned you from bringing the same work in more than once, except for the final half of senior studio, apparently you’re only supposed to revise if you’re a senior? I guess?) Okay end of rant, sorry, I have a lot of opinions about writing programs apparently. I’m just saying I’d rather read good fantasy stories than bad coming-to-terms-with-sexual-abuse-and-your-first-serious-relationship stories.

The 10 books here, aren’t just books I’d like to see a film of,  they are books I’d personally like to make a film of, if I had stuck with it and bulldozed my way into the industry (I realised at the end of my degree that I didn’t want to direct feature films, but now that I’m older, I’ve come to realise that I think I’d have been a brilliant development exec if I’d just decided to go to Hollywood anyway, finding rough gems that are worth fixing, or polished gems that will succeed, but that’s not something you walk into, but I think I’d have a good eye for what will make money and what would win acclaim.)

These are the books that I spent way too much time trying to cast in my head, or could see entire sequences for while reading. They’re also great reads, and happen to be some of my favourite books.

1. The Brothers Karamazov- Fyodor Dostoevsky.

This is probably one of my favourite books ever. The first time I read it was in 4th grade. I’d probably guess that I didn’t understand half of the complex themes at that time, just being more into the “look I’m reading a giant Russian classic while the rest of you are reading Judy Blume” as 9-year-old me could be a mite pretentious. But unlike Tolstoy, which bored 9-year-old me as much as it bored 19 and 29-year old me, Dostoevsky stuck and I’ve read Karamazov multiple times. I really did want to make a film version of this as I was a little horrified that there was an adaptation out there with William Shatner as Alexei and I obsessively cast it in my head while I was at Emerson.  At the time I believe I wanted Ralph Fiennes to be Dmitri, Liam Neeson as Fyodor (even though way too young at the time and against my other casting choices), David Thewlis as Ivan (he probably would have made a genius Smerdykov and I think sometimes I moved him over there), I forget who I wanted for Alexei, it might have been Edward Norton though at some point because I was just blown away by Primal Fear.   

2. Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole

I can’t believe that there has, to my knowledge, never been a film or in fact a bunch of adaptations of this book. I know at one point Stephen Fry was writing a screenplay (and in his youth he would have been a genius Ignatius) and then there was supposed to be a version starring Will Ferrell in a fat suit a couple years ago. Look, I love Will Ferrell as much as the next person, and I know that he’s got a lot more depth and chops than things like Old School would have one believe, (I really loved Stranger Than Fiction) but it’s not right. He’s not the right Ignatius Reilly, he’s just not. When I think of Ignatius I see someone who looks a little like Ricky from Better Off Dead (And if that character and his mother are not informed specifically by Confederacy I’d be shocked) and I might be able to see something else, but it’s not Will Ferrell, plus I think he’s too old. Castingwise, no it would probably have to be a cattle call to find the perfect Ignatius, imagine a stack of photos of actors in that hunting cap and the hot dog vendor apron.  Hmm you know who might not be a bad fit, Nick Frost. I just think of the socialist organising scene, which I can just see in my head and I know this could be the best film ever.

3. The Secret History- Donna Tartt

I’m actually a little surprised this was never filmed either, especially since it seems to me like it would have been a fit in the mid-late ’90s when ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’ and other such literary dark mysteries were cleaning up on the screen. Everyone I thought about casting is of course insanely too old now, but there is a lot of talent that’s the right age now or about to be the right age (say Dakota Fanning. I could see that.)

4. Survivor- Chuck Palahniuk

Another book that was so close to getting made, and then 9/11 made films about people crashing jets like cinematic leprosy. Nevermind that he crashed the jet into the middle of nowhere and that he was the only person on board because he hijacked it, and dropped all the passengers off, but whatever. Survivor is, after Fight Club, what I think is Palahniuk’s best book. I guess 9/11 at least ensured that Madonna wouldn’t ruin the movie, she was apparently cast somehow.  According to Chuck’s website it sounds like this might actually leave development hell and get made. If not, maybe I’ll have to magically become a studio head and make it myself.

6. I, Lucifer- Glen Duncan

Rumours seem to abound that this is being made, and rumours of Ewan McGregor and Daniel Craig being attached, but it looks like it’s in development hell too. This book is a gem. It just reads like it was meant to be a film from the beginning. The Devil decides to have a go at being a human in the body of a sad-sack writer who is in the midst of committing suicide as part of a deal that could get him back into heaven  and while he’s at it he’s going to write his side of the bible so clear up some things that everyone had wrong, not to mention do lots of drugs.  I could see Simon Pegg or Peter Serafinowicz playing Declan/Lucifer too.

7. Church of Dead Girls- Stephen Dobyns

Of all the books here, this is probably the most difficult to film, because rather than being a conventional mystery, thriller, it’s really a quiet psychological portrait of how paranoia and fear and a grisly tragedy can implode a town. Done right, with the right cast, it would be a home run, otherwise it would likely end up a bad Lifetime movie.

8.  Fast One- Paul Cain

I passionately, unabashedly love film noir and classic hard-boiled fiction and Fast One is the perfect complement to Hammett and Chandler. I wrote a screenplay adaptation of this book as an exercise for myself back in the day. At the time I was still in the thrall of Denis Leary is a genius so I think I wanted him to play the lead, I still think he could, but nowadays I could see  whoever the guy playing the lead on The Glades or maybe Jason Lee though he seems more snarky than hardboiled when delivering any witty repartee in general.

9. The Cheese Monkeys- Chip Kidd

From its whacked out characters to it’s larger than life art school satire, this book reminded me entirely too much of my own experience, and cracked me up. It has the potential to be the film lampooning art school that Art School Confidential failed to be. It’s been optioned, but doesn’t look like it’s rolling. It’s a shame that Jeff Bridges is getting a little old, he’d have made a good professor.

10.  The Alienist- Caleb Carr 

Another great highly commercial mystery that landed in development hell. I always thought this book was better than the Bone Collector which I read around the same time, though that one did make it to the screen. Apparently there was also an issue in which the author feels that the producers that bought the rights wanted to basically gut and rewrite the story, which didn’t make him happy. I don’t blame him it wouldn’t make me happy either. In the studio I own in my mind, this movie would be made as faithful to the original as is feasible in the 2 hour time frame.

Honorable Mention:

M*A*S*H- Richard Hooker

I always hated that they cut the scene where Trapper John grew a beard and looked so much like Jesus that they got headshots autographed them as Jesus and flew him around hanging from a cross from a helicopter and sold them to raise the money for Ho Jon to go to Pierces alma mater in the States. Best scene in the novel.

A Prayer for Owen Meany- John Irving

I still refuse to watch Simon Birch they so gutted that they couldn’t even call it “based on the novel” they had to say “suggested by the novel.” Look I understand more than a lot of people that concessions must be made when you swap mediums, but first of all this novel is structured in a way you could make a true adaptation, you might have to lose some scenes, but you could feasibly do a pretty faithful adaptation and secondly the Vietnam part wasn’t just a scene or two you didn’t need, it was the fucking crux of the novel.  Also the only good casting in it was Ashley Judd, and I don’t even like her.  I get mad just thinking about it and I haven’t even subjected myself to the full brunt.  

1984- George Orwell

Who doesn’t want to make their own version of this novel? Secretly I don’t want to make it, I want to make the sequel. Or I want to make an updated version that’s about post-9/11 America, but that would be extremely deconstructed because if you went literal with the plot and update it would be tedious and expected.

Northanger Abbey- Jane Austen 

One day I’m writing an update, I have the whole idea in mind and it will be pretty perfect. Until then, I will keep it mum lest someone beat me to it.

Chocolate Peanutbutter Cupcakes, originally uploaded by sockmonkeyrevolt.

Due to what I like to call niceness gone wrong my cake-taker is indisposed (I brought the leftovers of my birthday cake over to my parents’ house, but a few days later, my dad called offering to pay me to make another one because apparently controversy erupted over whether he had hogged all the frosting, so he thought it was just easier to get them another cake. I didn’t charge him obviously, but I did make a new cake yesterday for him, so the taker is over at their house again.) so the ultimate chocolate peanut butter torte turned into me deciding to make cupcakes. I didn’t turn the torte recipe into cupcakes, just the spirit of it (because the reviews of the recipe on the site were pretty mixed so I figured I’d go it alone. I am all about the ganache, I think I could eat that all just out of the bowl. The batter is adapted from my goto chocolate cake recipe from ‘Baked’. The ganache I just made up.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes (makes 3 dozen)

for the cake:
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups hot water
2/3 cup sour cream
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar, tightly packed
3 large eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1 cup chopped Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups (I bought a bag of them from the horrifically early Halloween candy section at the store. I used about 8 for cupcakes and then sliced the rest into thin strips for garnish)

For the Ganache:

12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips (high cocoa content)
1 cup heavy cream
4 spoonfuls of creamy peanut butter (I used a soup spoon and heaped it)

make the cupcakes:
In one bowl combine the cocoa, hot water and sour cream, set aside.
In a medium bowl sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment beat the butter and shortening for about 5 minutes on medium until light and fluffy. Add both of the sugars and beat about 5 minutes until light an fluffy. Add the eggs 1 by one, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, beat until incorporated. Scrape down bowl and beat 30 seconds.

Add half of the flour mixture, once incorporated add the cocoa-sour cream mixture, incorporate and then add the rest of the flour mixture scraping down the bowl each time. Add the chopped peanut butter cups and mix on stir to just combine.

Divide among 3 trays of lined cupcake pans. Bake at 325º for 30-35 minutes rotating halfway through baking. Cool on wire racks.

Make the ganache:

Put chocolate into heat safe bowl. Heat the cream until just starting to boil. Remove from heat and pour over chocolate. Let sit a couple minutes to soften chocolate, add peanut butter and stir until everything is combined and creamy. Let cool about 15 minutes to set up a little. It should be soft enough to spoon or pipe, but if it’s too warm or runny it will soak into the cake and you’ll use more of it than you need.

Assemble:
Using a paring knife, cut circles into the top of the cupcakes and remove the cake to make a small cavity. Fill the cavity with ganache and spread a thin layer of ganache over the top of the cupcake. Slice your remaining peanut butter cups into thin strips and garnish the cupcakes.

Conan Portrait, originally uploaded by sockmonkeyrevolt.

I’m excited that I can share the photo of my secret project, it was a birthday present for my friend Layne who loves Conan. The photo to pattern conversion program I used did not do a very good job, firstly it had Conan’s face as green, and as much as I love Zombies, zombie-O’brien was not the direction I wanted, and then it didn’t even have an eye on the right side so I had to do a lot of improvisation in mid-stream, but all in all I’m super happy with how it turned out, and Layne loved it which is what matters most.