WastyCakes

Why Barenjager is not dessert

2009-12-15T12:02:00.000-08:00

Stressed is not the word for my life right now. Stressed was August 2008, pre-wedding, dealing with family not RSVP-ing, and friends angry that my family was so large that inviting them-the friends-was not financially feasible. Stressed was Feb 2007 performing Hamlet at the Blackfriars for my MFA thesis. Stressed was Christmas 2006 with a boyfriend who my family hated, and an ex trying to win me back (he did). This level of anxiety has happened only once before (senior year of high school, CBT's Cinderella), and it gave me ulcers on my tonsils.

Yup, you heard me, ULCERS ON MY TONSILS. I knew I was getting nervous when I lost my appetite (again, you heard me, LOST IT, meaning I haven't been planning each meal as if it were my homecoming dance outfit freshman year). Yesterday I felt that decade old feeling. Pain when smiling. Ulcers on the tonsils. The combo of no appetite and pain when I open my mouth have helped me to put off the champagne jello mold, the White Russian cake, even the pre-packaged Chocolate Rum cake sitting next to the nutcrackers on the kitchen counter.....a shot of barenjager however...soothes the stress, tastes like honey on those inflamed and raw tonsils, and tricks me into thinking I have had dessert. done and done.

If you can't trick yourself into the spoon-full-of-sugar-daily-medicine of straight barenjager, here is a hot-toddy-esque version that could be convincingly medicinal....

1 part barenjager
1 part brandy
3 whole cloves
1 Tbsn of sugar
1 slice of lemon
1 Cinn stick

mix and fill glass with hot water

the curl up in a snuggy, get all emo, and wallow in anxiety until your fingers prune. xo

Chartruese was a hot, one night stand.

2009-11-29T18:57:00.000-08:00

3 years ago I was a full time grad student by day and a full time bartender by night-needless to say my free time was limited. My room-mate and I had just finished our MFA project, a full length Hamlet, and were excited to be out of Elsinore. Somehow, I found myself free on Fat Tuesday.....This could only mean one thing, a Night of Too Much (which is pretty appropriate actually).

I woke up to find a scarlet headband/mask hybrid waiting on my pillow and my roommate jumping around in the kitchen singing to herself about bar-hopping that evening (a year of Hamlet had made us a bit loopy). Saving our comfort, less formal bars to end the night in, we started at the swanky, new, and-I thought-pretentious for our small Virginia town, smoke-free, pants-fancy bar. Sparkled up, we sat and ordered small portions for hefty prices, and listened to music that made us feel like we were being hunted in some sort of Myst-like video game. I made the mistake of asking what the absinthe looking green liquor was. "Chartreuse" answered Jeremy, our bartender. I ordered a shot. I was informed you don't shoot it. I ordered a glass. I was informed it was $30. I picked my jaw up off the bar and nodded that I still wanted the drink. We were soul mates that night, Chartreuse and I. We flirted with each other, he made me feel like Christmas. I could easily see why his cousin, the Green Fairy, had enchanted so many in the early 19th century. Chills, thrills, and dancing the night away ensued, and I did not see him again until last Thanksgiving.

The day before Turkey Day last year, newly wed, and about to head down to my parents with my husband, I run into the ABC store. This is always dangerous. So dangerous, that our ABC guy knows us, because he helps us find weird liquors (last time- Apple Jack Brandy) to put in our random recipes (Apple pie). Above the counter, I saw him. On sale. REALLY on sale. I wanted to introduce him to my husband, to my family. A preview of Christmas, he was rung up and wrapped in a classy-face brown bag and headed to Thanksgiving supper.

I am not patient. The bottle was opened and danced around my big sister's kitchen way before the Turkey was done. All of the adults stood around the one poured glass in the center of the kitchen counter. My brother -in- law took a tentative sip...and gagged. So did my sisters, my other brother-in-law, and finally, my husband. What had happened? I hugged the glass to my chest, disappointed in them all for not loving it. Then I took a sip. I almost puked through my nose. I broke up with Chartreuse. We could not be in this relationship.

For the following year, we would try to reconnect (esp. because we had a full bottle). We looked up recipes, new mixers, heating it, sugaring it. Crap every time. We had over friends. They hated it. We even had friends sneak down from the guest room for a nightcap, in the morning their were two full glasses on the sink of the lime green syrup.

For Wasteycakes, I have been searching through all sorts of cookbooks from the 1940's, 50's, and 60's......Chartreuse over vanilla ice cream, what?!?!?! That's the secret treat of housewives mid century? was it my one-night stand Chartreuse, or the bottle I invited to live with us? I headed to the fridge to give him one more try....to find out, my husband had expelled him. In a mass fridge cleaning, along with the expired condiments and cake frosting, the nearly full green bottle was dumped, rinsed, and recycled. Maybe Chartreuse is like prom and Halloween, great in theory, in the imagination and memory, but in actuality, the equivalent of wasting time in clothes that are too tight and shoes that hurt. Next up, champagne and pomegranate gelatin mold!

2009-11-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

Children are warned through cautionary tales about two entities of which too much of is a bad thing. Dessert and Alcohol. Too much will make you fat. Too much will make you a lush. Too much will rot your teeth. Too much will impair your decision making. Too much......

Being the child who always did the opposite of what my mother told me, desserts with alcohol, bananas foster, 50's style punches, trifles and rum soaked puddings seemed tantalizing, retro, glamourous. I could picture Rita Hayworth and Hedy Lemarr sitting around eating baked alaska and doing shots, talking men and anti-Nazi patents, leaving rings of lipstick on martini glasses and around the base of their dessert forks alike.

My mother-in-law makes a Kahlua cake, which is as decadent as it sounds (and slightly ironic being that she herself does not drink). This cake reminds me of the chocolate donut donuts that my father brought home from Tim Horton's in Ft. Lauderdale when I was 7-if you eat it right when she makes it. If you wait 2, nay, 3 days-it is a delightful cocktail fit for the Golfing Club in Bringing Up Baby. So enamored was I with this cake, inspired with Alton Brown's episode, 'The Proof is in the Pudding', and finding it adorable that my husband called a hypothetical food blog, "wasteycakes", that unto a cooking, mostly dessert cooking, with alcohol shall henceforth be chronicled here. So a little bit bartender, a little bit MadMen cookbook, and Too much of that you are warned of not having too much.