Wear'n o the green

So it's not St. Patrick's day - in fact it is 10 days late - But Alister was gone for St. Patrick's Day and though he isn't Irish, he does like St. Patrick (who doesn't) so today we are having green cake.

The cake isn't Irish either - in fact its Japanese, but it is delicious. Even if you do something wrong and it doesn't turn out lovely and fluffy, it will still be delicious - it is just that type of cake.

Sorry - you'll have to use a scale because I haven't converted the measurements from the recipe my Japanese friend gave me.

Green Tea and White Chocolate Cake - or Green Tea Gateau Chocolat

Ingredients

180 - 200 grams white chocolate (about 2 large bars)

100 grams butter (about 1 stick)

2 Tbsp rum (optional - and have never added it)

1/4 cup heavy cream (have substituted skim milk with no ill-effect - but you do lose slightly on richness)

30 grams flour

1 tsp baking powder

30 grams (may add extra) green tea powder (you can grind your own using a coffee grinder - but you want an extra fine grind so that it looks like flour)

3 eggs, separated

30 grams sugar

30 grams sugar

1) Preheat oven to 350 F

2) Grease and flour a single round cake pan

3) Separate eggs and set whites aside

4) In a Medium saucepan add: Cream, white chocolate, butter, and 30 grams of sugar. Add rum if desired.

5) Cook on low heat while stirring with a whisk until everything is melted and well blended.

6) Temper egg yolks and add to chocolate mixture

7) Add flour, green tea powder, and Baking powder to chocolate mixture and mix well (tip - you can ensure the dry ingredients are more thoroughly mixed by mixing them together separately before adding them to the chocolate mixture)

8) Set mixture aside.

9) Beat egg whites to make meringue, gradually adding remaining 30 grams of sugar. Beat till stiff peaks firm. You may add a dash of salt or cream of tartar to aid in the meringue process.

10) Gently fold half of the meringue into the chocolate mixture

11) Fold in the remaining meringue (doing it in parts helps keep the meringue fluffy while ensuring a thorough mix)

12) Bake at 350 for 30 - 40 minutes - if you don't get the meringue right - your cake will be slightly more compact and more brownie than cake like - Alister actually like it better that way. If you have leftovers - you should store them in the fridge.

The cake is served without icing - but to make it fancier - try drizzling white chocolate on top or serve with ice cream:- )

Spring at last

Finally - the snow has melted and some days - the sky is even sunny. Even though for now the scenery is still dull and grey (and now a bit muddy!) the thrill of no snow is exhilerating. I no longer cringe with dread with the thought of going outside. Soon the grass will begin to come in and the trees will begin to bloom. I planted basil and rosemarry on the balcony and we'll see if the mint comes back or not - I bout a package of catnip but am debating about planting it - I wonder if Haggai doesn't have enough energy :-)

Yes, spring is finally here - The only thing missing is a box full of baby chics or ducklings :-)

O'Henry

Alister is in Wales and so I am taking the opportunity to clean, cook and listen to books on tape. Today, I listened to some O'Henry short stories. I loved O'Henry when I was younger -I remember that the stories were engaing and often full of the ironic. Today, listening to them read, I realized for the first time that O'Henry wrote with Rythm and Rhyme. - his stories are definately prose, but his writing has a natural, conversant flavor with enough description and cadence that you can actually hear a rythm and a rhyme as the text is read - I specifically noticed this in the Elsie in Manhattan story - in fact the ending was quite disspointing because the final lines broke the cadence.

It's interesting the things you notice when you hear a text vs. just reading it.

Pet Peeve with a capital B

In my general writing, I have to admit that I am not a grammar, spelling, or punctuation queen. I know the rules - but when I am just typing something off I fall into the pitfalls of the over-computerized, text message and e-mail generation in which we live - no caps, no spell check, no complete sentences. Still - there is a time and a place for properly punctuated and extrapolated thought.

One of those places should be online articles. I write occasionally for Helium, when I have time and either feel strongly about a particular subject, know enough about it to write a decent article in a short amount of time, or think I know enough about the subject to earn money for it.

In this way, I've ended up with quite a few articles in the Religion and Spirituality Channel. Helium is like a writers co-op - you provide feedback on articles rating them good or bad and the more you rate the more profit share you get. It's in their interest to have you rate articles and so they refer you to articles in channels you have written for - so I see a wide breadth of "Religion and Spirituality"

Which brings me to my Pet Peeve with a capital B

A growing number of people are failing to capitalize Bible.

While it is true that the Bible, when used adjectivally (such as biblical or Julia Child's cookbook is the bible of for French cooking in America) whenever it is used as a noun referring to the Word of God - it should under ALL circumstances be capitalized.

Says who?

Any style guide you refer to

http://www.libraryonline.com/default.asp?pID=48

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/592/1/

More disturbingly, I have also been seeing this trend in some online magazines and newspapers.

I believe this directly reflects society's opinion that the Bible is not the Word of God - in fact, in some feminist theological writing I was recently reviewing to help Alister with his paper - the Author deliberately began using the term Bible as a lowercase word in her later writings, reflecting her own progression in view the Bible as a non-sacred text.

But guess what - no matter what your opinion of the Bible is - to not capitalize it is wrong because it refers to the name of a book, thus making it a proper noun. It would be just as wrong to talk about reading the catcher in the rye, war and peace, or horton hears a who (which, by the way is doubly wrong because not only is it the title of a book, but also contains a 1st name which must be capitalized as well).

So it's Bible - with a capital B

Our winter

The snow is slowly starting to melt and this is bringing new hazards - falling icicles:
Excerpt from the Kyiv Post :

It’s the season of falling ice, a perilous time in Kyiv - Yuliya Popova

. . . The snowfalls have been more than brief flurries this winter. And the layers of packed snow and ice have brought their own hardship: One person has been killed and thousands have been injured on Kyiv’s slippery streets.

Until the spring thaw, Kyivans are warned to walk as far from buildings as they can and to look up so as to get out of the way of falling icicles and ice blocks.

Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, long thought to be on vacation somewhere warm, even snapped into action. He asked citizens to alert him about dangerous ice-block formations on the city’s roofs and promised to remove them – pronto. . . ." I appeal to all Kyivans not to be indifferent and to call me personally 1551 and report icicles,” he said on Feb 19. . . . ..

For some people, however, this wake-up call came too late. Pensioner Galyna Zinyuk, 78, was one of them. She went out for a walk with her husband on Feb 21 to the Park of Glory in the Pechersk district and was hit by a brick of ice. It dropped from the roof of the National State Transport University and landed right on Zinyuk’s head. According to witness reports, she died on the spot. . . . .City authorities called a few emergency meetings to respond to the icy crisis. “All the dangerous places near buildings should be sealed off with warning tapes, and I particularly request that Kyiv residents walk around such zones,” Chernovetsky said.

Municipal workers followed the orders, cordoning off many pavements with red-and-white tape. Cars parked along curbs took a good share of the remaining walking space, leaving people the choice of venturing under roofs or dodging speeding traffic.

“We receive 30 to 35 people daily,” said Yevhen Kasyan, a doctor in the Shevchenko accident clinic. It’s twice more than last year, he said, and "there are more fractures than before.”

There are still many icicles in the city and, with the weather getting warmer, they would be showering down in the blink of an eye. “If a five-kilo ice block falls from the fourth floor, it hits the ground with the power of more than 75 kilos,” said Nikolayev.

Anxious citizens say it is time for business owners and city officials to do their math and remove the dangerous ice clusters before it is too late.

Proactivity

Just thought that you should know that the Department of State has reviewed their fees for many of the services – passports, visas, services while abroad – etc. You can review the fees by looking at the PDF here http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#documentDetail?R=0900006480a8ffe8

In a nutshell, some fees – such as getting a passport are increasing slightly (27% + $20 increase for the security surcharge) while other fees are increasing whole lot (adding pages to your passport because you filled it up with stamps during the 10 years validity period – going from free to $80 – just $30 short of applying for a whole new passport!!)

You can comment on the fees up until March 8^th, 2010!!!!

If you think these fees might affect you, you might review the document above and read their reasoning for changing the fees and comment on areas where you approve or disapprove.

And – if you’re not interested in doing any of that – then you might at least want to consider renewing, refilling, or applying for a passport before the fees increase to save yourself a few bucks.

If you do decide to send comments – they can be submitted by e-mail to fees@state.gov RIN (1400–AC58) should be included in the subject line of the e-mail.

Wishing

I'm wishing very very hard on the first star to make it through the foggy night that i'll wake up tomorrow and there will be no snow.

I'm wishing vainly, but I'm wishing all the same.

Sunday was beautiful. It was the first day I hadn't worn 2 layers of long-johns. In fact, i was a real rebel and didn't wear any long-johns though i still had two cardigans on over my sweater. We walked out to the metro to church and the sun was shining, the birds were singing and despite the muck and lakes of melting snow - I felt that spring was definitely in the air.
By 6 o'clock the sky was gray and great big snow flakes were falling. The big fluffy kind that don't fall individually, but fall in colonies. Fluffy colonies of snowflakes falling gently to the ground. It could have been pretty - if it had come in December or November and if it hadn't turned into a full fledged exodus of snowflake colonies storming from the sky in uncountable numbers. But just that morning it had smelled like spring - and so the snow, no matter how fluffy just didn't seem pretty.

Our cat enjoyed it tremendously. Big snowflake colonies must look like small birds or bugs to him because he meowed his hunting meow and swished his tail. We even opened the window for him and he managed to catch a few of them - probably wondered how the disappeared so fast and thinking they tasted extra delicious and water flavored.

Today again the sky was bright and sunny - but the temperature had dropped and air didn't quite have the essence of spring - but all the same I am wishing.