Edgy

The other day I came across this odd baking pan from Baker's Edge, which allows you to bake brownies with at least two edges per brownie. My gut reaction was, "Why would anybody want two edges per brownie? One edge is disappointment enough; two seems like punishment." Look at all the corner pieces this pan will produce, which can only lead to heartache. I love gittin' me a solid center piece, whether it's cake or a brownie -- I love soft, puffy, cakey baked goods, not hard-around-the-edges also-rans.

I asked my good friend Norman, who's a bit of a brownie fiend, his opinion of the Baker's Edge pan, and his answer surprised me:

Re: edge lovers, I could write an essay about this relatively mundane matter. When it comes to brownies, I do like the vaguest hint of crisp, as it were, maybe only for the sake of variety (a la, on the savory side, mac-&-cheese "skin") or for my subconscious need to establish that the brownies were indeed submitted to a high temperature for an appreciable amount of time. A single narrow edge is sufficient (and hardly critical), and unlike w/ a frosted cake, I would never opt for a corner piece. Of course, any outer brownie runs a greater risk of what plagues far too many of its brethren, wherever their original placement in the pan: dryness. A scoop of vanilla ice cream is an ideal corrective and should be on hand in any event.

Huh. I would have pegged Norman as a soft-and-puffy fellow, but I did know about his fondness for "skin." He went on to compliment the brownies I bake: "The delightful peanut butter chunks in your recipe perform, among other things, a similar function [to ice cream] and have taken me to a new level of brownie appreciation." Awfully sweet of him, especially considering I use a mix from Betty Crocker. On the (very rare) occasions that I do want to bake brownies from scratch, I use this unusual recipe.

Nepotism

I really like the woman who manages the book department at the store where I work. She's been in that position for about 6 or 7 months; before that, she had absolutely no retail experience, as far as I know. Her background is in teaching and librarianship, and half a year after landing her plum position she still can't get over the fact that she has to sell stuff. She got the job because she's the owner's daughter, which sounds like a recipe for disaster, but she's really done a swell job. She's brisk and a bit particular about tidiness, yet she also has an endearingly weird sense of humor and isn't afraid to demand things of the higher-ups -- things like a new computer and printer, the use of which I have greatly enjoyed. She gets cranky and complains about customers and management with the rest of us. As she says, "What are they gonna do, fire me?"

Yesterday she took a poll of book department employees to see what we thought would get her fired. Shouting at customers? Nah, a reprimand. Striking an employee? Probably just a very stern reprimand. I suggested grand theft -- I believe that if she were to, say, walk out of the store with that brand-new computer and printer, she'd get fired. "Yeah, you're probably right," she said, sounding deflated. Apparently she now realizes she's not untouchable.

Today she spilled coffee on her white shirt right before she had to conduct an interview. "Whoo hoo, wet t-shirt contest!" she whooped. She stood there on the sales floor, drying her chest off with the shrink wrap heater.

And one to grow on

How's Annie? is one year old today. It's also Curtis' birthday; he's considerably older than one, but he's also much funnier, smarter, and more politically astute than How's Annie? When this blog grows up, it wants to be like Curtis.

Book-of-the-week

191 pages of vintage car crash photos for the discerning collector.

Let's all go to the lobby...

Over at Metroblogging Los Angeles, the all-important question has been asked: What treats are L.A.'s movie concession counters lacking? Although I appreciated DB's comment ("I'd like to see a wider selection of single malt whiskies"), the discussion devolved into the usual Red Vines vs. Twizzlers debate. People, this is a serious issue, and we need to stay FOCUSED.

Lately I have favored treats of the savory sort whilst at the cinema. There's always your classic popcorn, which I never buy for myself but occasionally help myself to heaping handfuls of if a friend has sprung for it. (And I really only eat it if it's been doused in cheese-flavored powder.) I recently ate a great hot dog at the New Beverly Cinema. Sometimes I enjoy a tray of nachos. Nachos are crunchy, however, and I always feel the need to finish them before the main attraction starts, which lends an unpleasant, rushed feeling to what should be a happy snacking experience. While a variety of gastronomic aromas in a theatre don't faze me, the sounds of crunching and chewing and wrappers being torn open and manhandled do -- I wouldn't want to be accused of being a West Coast Crinkler. Therefore, I think concession stands should offer a few items that are both savory and relatively quiet, such as French fries or onion rings. Deep-fried zucchini with bleu cheese dipping sauce! And bibs, and lots and lots of napkins.

On the sweet end of the scale, I think we need more variety in a certain kind of candy: namely, the kind that is small and can be doled out over the course of a movie. I have consumed innumerable boxes of Raisinets, Goobers, and Junior Mints over the years and enjoyed them all (although, Curtis, Raisinets do have a slight edge over Goobers in my book). But it's time for some new tastes. Would it be so hard to stock Peanut Butter M&Ms? And it's been ages since I saw a bag of Starbursts at the candy counter -- they're always a good choice when you're not in the mood for chocolate. Speaking of chocolate, as well as things that have gone the way of the dodo, would somebody please bring back Flicks? For those of you too young to remember, Flicks were shaped like jumbo chocolate chips and came in a brightly colored foil tube. I haven't seen them in years -- nay, decades! -- and nobody seems to remember them except me and my siblings. Flicks were good. Nice 'n' waxy, like the chocolate coating on Thin Mint cookies.

Then again, maybe I should just sneak in a spoon and a tub of this:

What would you like to see at the movie concession stand? And what's the most egregious food item you ever snuck into a moviehouse? (I'd have to say a hot pastrami sandwich with extra pickles.)

Space race flashback

While tooling around the 'net I came across this site that sells Space Food Sticks. Space Sticks! I used to eat them as after-school snacks at my friend Julie's house, right before we'd tune into the five p.m. rerun of Star Trek.* My brother John was a nut for the space program in the early 70s and my mom may have bought the occasional package of Space Sticks as a treat for him; I seem to recall dimly their rare presence in our house. One thing we always had in the cupboard, however, was Tang. If you've never drunk this stuff... well, it's hard to describe how nasty it tastes. It looks kind of like orange juice when it's mixed with water, and I can't tell you how many times I tipped a glassful of the stuff down my throat thinking it was OJ only to be severely disappointed. John professed to love Tang, but I think he just liked the fact that astronauts drank it.

*I always found ST to be a wee bit dull; we'd watch it because that was what Julie wanted to watch and it was her house and what was I gonna do about it? We'd often sit down in front of the TV a few minutes before ST began, and we'd catch the last few minutes of the Dark Shadows rerun Julie's older sister Amy was watching. Dark Shadows always seemed far more exciting to me than Star Trek. Exciting and sort of forbidden! I developed quite a fondness for the supernatural during my teens, becoming a completely different sort of dork than the Star Trek dorks.

My latest obsession

My name is Shandon and I am an addict.

In the last 72 hours I have become completely and willingly enslaved to BookMooch, a book swap website. Registered users post an inventory of books they'd like to give away, and others can use points (accumulated by posting and "selling" their own inventory) to mooch stuff they'd like. It's up to the "seller" to pay postage. I registered a while back but didn't do anything with my account until Friday evening, when I posted 25 books I want to be rid of. 25 seems like a doable number, right? I figured people would be interested in a title or two, I'd mail the books off and replace them with others in my inventory, and slowly I'd whittle my bloated library down to something approaching manageable.

What I didn't really grasp is the power of BookMooch's "wish list" function. Members can list as many books as they'd like on their wish lists, and any time someone posts one of those titles, every person with that book on a wish list gets an email saying a copy is available. When I listed the new edition of The Joy of Cooking in my "inventory," I knew I'd be rid of it soon: I could see immediately that about a dozen people had it on their wish lists. Indeed, it was the first book mooched from me. That was Friday night. Saturday morning I took the book to work with me and packed it up for shipping, all cheerful about having one less book to crowd my shelves at home. Saturday evening I checked my account again and saw that a fellow in Chicago had mooched four of my gardening books. "Cool," I told myself. "Getting rid of these books is going to be easier than I thought."

Sunday morning I decided to add a few more titles to my inventory, and it was like chumming the water: there was this sudden feeding frenzy on my account. While I was in the middle of adding Water for Elephants to my inventory, everything suddenly slowed way down and I wasn't sure what was going on. Had I lost my internet connection? Was BookMooch down? I checked my inventory page and was irritated to see that the last half-dozen books I'd entered weren't there. What was going on? I checked my pending page and saw that every one of them had been mooched, along with several other titles I'd listed on Friday. Throughout the day I kept adding titles and people kept scooping them up. It was like being caught in the middle of an exciting, last-minute eBay bidding war. Moochers emailed me, asking if I would be their "friend," whatever that means. Last night, exhausted but triumphant, I looked at my library, now 31 volumes lighter, and smiled to myself with quiet glee. It was only then I thought, "Shit. I gotta pay postage on all these books." Thank goodness for Media Mail.

It feels good seeing a few spaces on my bookshelves. It feels even better knowing I've hooked people up with books they want -- even though it's costing me a little money. I've been a bookseller for my entire adult life and I still feel that satisfaction when reader meets book. Trust me: you wanna feel a little joy, take a look at some BookMooch wish lists, see if you have any of the desired titles (and are willing to part with them), register them, and watch the fun begin.

The chicks in the mail

On Monday during our weekly marketing meeting, my friend Sherri leaned over and whispered to me, "My checks arrived at the post office this morning! I have to go pick them up at lunch."

I looked at her like, "So?" I mean, new checks? Who cares? She looked back at me like, "Why aren't you more excited?" It took a few seconds to realize Sherri had said her chicks had arrived -- twenty-five chicks she'd mail ordered from a hatchery in Iowa. I immediately booked an appointment to see them after work on Wednesday.

You have to understand, barnyard animals are still something of a novelty for me. I grew up in suburban L.A. where dogs and cats were the norm; anyone in possession of an exotic pet like a caged parrot was living on the edge. When I moved to Indiana back in the early 90s, I lived in a small town surrounded by farmland, and I grew accustomed to seeing the occasional cow or horse. I also befriended a co-worker who had turkeys, sheep, and a mule on her small farm and I got to hear many stories about how stupid her livestock was. Sweet, perhaps, and tasty on Thanksgiving, but stupid. I've been back in L.A. for eleven years now, though, and most of my barnyard animal viewing experiences occur at the annual county fair.

Sherri lives about 10 minutes away from me in an unincorporated town north of Los Angeles proper. I don't really know what "unincorporated" means beyond "it's okay to keep livestock on your suburban property." She and her fiance rent a house at a place that boards horses, and for the last 4 years or so Sherri and a couple of her neighbors have shared a chicken coop that is currently home to 14 hens. Every now and then -- Wednesday evening, for example -- I am the beneficiary of Sherri's generosity and get to take home some fresh eggs.

Her new chicks had been born the previous Thursday and so weren't yet even a week old when I first saw them. They are living in a big newspaper-lined cardboard box in her front hallway. The doors at either end of the hallway are closed and the heater is cranked up to reach an optimum temperature of 90 to 95 degrees F. Sherri will be able to lower the temperature gradually as the chicks grow and as it gets warmer outside.

Here are four of the little guys in one corner.

And here are some others gathered around their feeder. (Sorry these pictures are so hard to see. I didn't want to use the flash for fear of scaring the chicks. Sherri scoffed, "Oh, that doesn't matter. Everything scares them.")

I was impressed by how different all of the chicks look. Sherri and her neighbors chose seven different varieties from Murray McMurray Hatchery: Black Australorp, Partridge Rock, Buff Rock, Black Giant, Araucana (a.k.a. the "Easter Egg Chicken" because it lays green and pink eggs), Salmon Faverolle, and Lakenvelder. I asked her what made her pick out these varieties, thinking she'd say something like disease resistance or laying longevity, something boring and practical like that. Her answers were more interesting: she wanted chickens that look pretty, she wanted different breeds than she already had, and she wanted ones that would lay eggs that aren't too small. She showed me a dozen eggs she had gathered earlier from the henhouse and one was noticeably littler than the others; it's from a smaller breed of chicken.

Sherri thinks of her chickens as a hobby, not as pets. Only one time has she ever named one of them, a "horrible Rhode Island Red" that she and her fiance christened Evil-Lynn. She likes her hens and thinks they're fun, but she has no illusions about them. "They're really dumb," she says. "They're not a bright animal at all."

I know she's interested only in hens -- she wants eggs, not to be a chicken breeder. At what point, I asked her, do you realize you've got a rooster mixed in with the new chicks? She wrinkled her nose and said, "When they're a few months old and you suddenly wake up at six in the morning because one of them is crowing." I knew she ended up with a couple of roosters the last time she ordered chicks. What happened to them? "I left them out for the coyotes," she sighed, "but someone put them back in the cage." I think she ended up giving them to her landlord, who lives elsewhere and doesn't mind roosters.

She hopes someday to get some ducklings, although that will involve building a pond and she isn't ready for that yet.