Last week I found the cutest recipe for a Halloween cake. It basically involved making a bunt cake and then frosting it to look like a pumpkin. I decided that I wanted to make it for my upcoming Halloween party. But first, I would need a bunt cake pan. I went to a few stores looking for a good pan. I finally let a sales person convince me to buy a bunt cake pan made from silicon. It seemed weird, but she claimed that it could withstand up to 300 degrees Celsius and was non-stick. Apparently it’s the new big thing in baking. Besides, silicon pans seem to be all anyone is selling right now.
So I bought the silicon pan and wanted to try it out right away (wouldn’t you?!,) so I started looking through my cookbooks for angel food cake recipes. Most of the recipes called for 10-12 egg whites, which I didn’t have, and I wasn’t about to go back to the store. So I kept digging until I found a low-fat recipe that only called for 5 eggs whites, which I did have, so we had a winner.
However, there was still a problem. The recipe (like all other recipes) called for a ½ teaspoon of cream of tartar. I had definitely heard of cream of tartar, but I knew that I didn’t have it in my cupboard. P had no idea what it was, and looking it up in the dictionary didn’t clue me in as to what I could substitute it with. (FYI Cream of tartar is a byproduct of grapes used in wine making.) But it was only a ½ teaspoon, right? Did I really need it? Naaaah. I threw in a little extra cornstarch and called it good.
30 minutes later and I was ready to remove my silicon bunt pan from the oven. I peaked inside the oven door and saw that the pan didn’t melt, so we were off to a good start. I removed the cake from the oven and set it on the counter. Something was definitely wrong; the cake hadn’t risen at all! It was only about 1 inch thick. Shouldn’t it have risen up and essentially filled the cake pan? I tried to ease it out of the pan, but it didn’t come easily, so eventually I used force since it was destroyed anyway. I cut myself a slice thinking, “Just because it didn’t rise doesn’t mean that it won’t taste good.” Well, it didn’t taste bad; actually, it didn’t really taste like anything! I guess that’s what happens when you use a low-fat recipe and essentially no sugar!
However, this story may get a happy ending. I found out that the Old English Shoppe in Gothenburg sells cream of tartar! I’m going to pick some up on my way home from work and try out a different angel food cake recipe when I get home.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
How not to make an angel food cake
Monday, October 22, 2007
Cold and Dark, Clean and Shiny, Battle won
Brrr it’s cold. I took the bus to work this morning. It was still very dark out when I left the house at 7. It was cold too. I guess I might need to take my winter jacket out of hibernation tomorrow. I always put off taking out my winter jacket for as long as possible because I know that once I take it out for the season, there’s no going back. It’s like admitting that “yes, summer is really over, and I won’t actually be outside during the daylight hours again until next March.” I think that we are changing the clocks next weekend too, so I guess we will have a little bit extra light in the mornings, but that won’t last long.
We spent the whole weekend cleaning our apartment. I have never actually leased an apartment 1st hand in the US, but as I understand it, you have to pay a deposit up front, and you don’t usually get much of your deposit back when you move out. It works differently in Sweden. You don’t pay a deposit, however, they inspect your apartment when you move out and they will send you a bill for any damages. They will also bill you if the apartment is not properly cleaned, which means that you have to scrub every little nook and cranny if you want to avoid extra charges. We spent hours cleaning the apartment (not just this past weekend, but several weekends since moving out.) Now the oven looks like it has been never been used (almost,) the tub is shiny, and the windows are so clear that they are a hazard for birds. I also carefully dusted the tops of the doorjambs and hinges, the floor molding, the lights, everywhere. I dare say that the apartment is clinically clean. It’s such a relief to have it finished so that we can focus on other things, like the new house!
We finally won our battle with Telia! You may recall our little phone/internet/TV dilemma? We finally got phone and internet about 1 month after moving in; however, Telia told us that we could not get TV because the “hub is full on our street.” The thing is, we decided to hire Telia because we would get free TV for one year (if we signed up for phone and internet.) We also signed up for everything last July. Needless to say, we were pretty peeved when Telia suddenly told us that they could not provide television as promised! We told them that we wanted 4,000+ SEK in compensation (because that is how much Telia charges for TV for one year.) Well, they actually agreed to give us the money! So on Friday we used the money to sign up for TV with a competitor (Boxer.) Although dealing with Telia has been a real headache, everything worked out for the best. We had originally wanted to hire Boxer as our TV provider because they offer a couple of more channels (channels that we wanted) but we had decided that we could live without those channels in order to save money (since Telia was offering free TV.) Now we still got one year of TV for free, plus we are getting those extra channels that we wanted! So if you’re keeping score, that’s Big Corporation: 1,000,000 points; Consumer: 1 point. Yes!
Friday, September 21, 2007
Special pie filling and strange sleeping habits
We still don’t have phone, TV, or internet; however, Telia was supposed to send a technician over this morning so hopefully the phone will be working when I get home today. Maybe we’ll even get the TV and Internet working by next week? That would be great…
Sometimes I do weird things in my sleep. My mom told me that once when I was little I got out of bed, went downstairs to where my parents were watching TV, turned the TV off and sat on the couch (all in my sleep!) Then one time in college I woke up to find my bed quilt balled up and placed in my laundry basket and then put in the closet. I vaguely remembered putting it there when I woke up in the morning. Well, last night I achieved new levels of sleep-weirdness. I woke-up in the middle of the night and rolled over to look at my clock. Only the clock wasn’t there! I sleepily looked around and realized that my head was at the wrong end of the bed! My head, and pillow mind you, were at the foot of my bed and my feet were down by the alarm clock! I certainly wasn’t lying that way when I went to bed! I have no idea how I ended up like that! Weird, weird, weird!
Monday, September 10, 2007
Settling In
Well I feel like we’ve had a pretty productive weekend. We did a ton of work on the house (although there is still much to do!) I think our biggest accomplishment was fixing the old leaky faucet for only 10kr! We brought the leaky cold-water tap with us to a few hardware stores, but no one knew how to fix it. We finally ended up buying new hot and cold water taps for 350kr, but in the end we managed to fix it with a new o-ring for only 10kr! We took the taps back to the store and celebrated by finally sitting in the jacuzzi and opening a bottle of champagne (to celebrate our new house!) (We were previously unable to fill the jacuzzi because of the leaky faucet problem, and were too tired to open the champagne last weekend when we moved in!)
We also sent the contract back to the phone company on Friday, so maybe; hopefully, they will connect our phone this week. I’d say that internet would soon follow, but that’s really just wishful thinking now, isn’t it? As for TV? Let’s just say I’m happy we stalked up on DVDs in China; who knows when the stupid phone/internet/TV (Telia) company will send us a cable box. We should seriously bill Telia for all of the hours (MANY) that we have spend calling their customer service over the past few weeks. Seriously, why should we be punished just because we want to keep our old phone number!
Not much else to report unless you want to see a list of all the things we did around the house this weekend. The list would be long, but perhaps boring. ;)
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Moved In
I think that we will be very happy there. The street is very quiet and the yard is very green. There are many things that we want/need to change around the house, but we will take it one step at a time…
Worth mentioning: Yesterday I was so pleased! I received an enormous bouquet of flowers at work, sent from a company in England that I have been working with lately. I had just finished helping them with a big project (I spent a month on it,) and they wanted to thank me for my hard work. It feels really nice to be appreciated!
Friday, August 31, 2007
7/8 French, 1/8 Irish, but 100% American
Did you spend your summer vacation in Canada?
What a lovely scarf, did you buy that back in the UK?
Haven’t these people figured out where I come from yet? It seems that there are still random, made-up rumors floating around about my background. I estimate that I would find the following results if I were to poll my co-workers on my background:
30% Would tell you that I am from France
30% Would tell you that I am from Canada (29% would say Quebec)
30% Would tell you that I am from England
10% Would tell you that I am from the USA
(Well perhaps I’m exaggerating slightly.)
And in other news…We closed the sale on our house today. We are now homeowners!!! In about 30 minutes I plan to be standing on my very own little part of Sweden.
“It's proud I am that I'm Irish, and don't you be forgetting, Missy, that you're half-Irish, too. And, to anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them - why, the land they live on is like their mother. Oh, but there, there. Now, you're just a child. It will come to you, this love of the land. There's no gettin' away from it if you're Irish. “
Thursday, August 16, 2007
It’s Raining, it’s pouring
The weather is really grim today. It has been raining pretty hard since I woke up this morning and is still going strong…. Things got a bit scary on the way to work. I was in the left lane on a busy road and saw that the there was a huge (deep) puddle that went across both lanes. I braked a little, anticipating the huge amount of water that would shoot up from my car if I plowed through it. Unfortunately the guy in the right lane didn’t think so far ahead. He drove through the puddle hard and fast. The result was that he sprayed so much water onto my windshield that I couldn’t see anything at all, and it took several seconds for the wipers to clean it away. I had to brake hard and try to stay in my lane, but the road was curving and it was hard to know just where my lane was! It was like driving with my eyes closed! Plus, there were cars behind me and I was worried that I would get rear ended, or worse, that I would misjudge where I was going and end up sideways in the wrong lane. Luckily nothing bad happened, but geez was it scary! I was nearly shaking all the way to work. The guy that sprayed me drove off without acknowledging what he’d done. I gave him a few honks and memorized his license plate when we were stopped at the light, although I’m not really sure what good that will do me….
Office Rules 101
It would seem that some of my colleagues are not familiar with certain office rules that usually go unsaid, but should still be followed. The rules aren’t so strange really; I mean I would gander that they fall into the category of social norms and decency. In any case, it would appear that a few points need to be reiterated:
Today’s rules reminder: It is not OK to fart in the elevator! Seriously people. When I walk into the elevator as you walk out, and when the doors close behind me, and my senses are overwhelmed by your horrendous stench, I will know that it was you! I will understand why you had such a goofy, guilty look on you face! You can’t get away with it, and I will forever think of you as the guy who stank out the elevator!