AKA Abraham Bacoln

I rather don’t know what to do now.

I wrote and wrote and wrote every day or thereabouts while in Spain because you were all listening, and some of you – HI ANGIE! – actively encouraged more writing.

Now that I’m home I haven’t anything fascinating to write about yet I still feel in the habit of wanting to write. I’ve got a car with no destination and an empty tank of gas.

Too many of my analogies involve cars. Maybe I shouldn’t use so many analogies. I’ll try … um … metaphor.

Q: What’s a metaphor?
A: For sheep to graze in.

If any of you didn’t pass out from shock after receiving such a horrible joke I’m glad you’re still with us. For those of you just now tuning in you narrowly avoided a horrible fate.

I’m rather content right now because I just made a huge mess of my kitchen and then cleaned it all up. That means I had the triple satisfaction of cooking, eating, and (after cleaning which is not in itself a satisfaction-giving task) enjoying my kitchen being clean again.

You know, since my return a lot of people have specifically mentioned the food I talked about. I thought maybe I was overdoing it, but since it seems to be the first thing that anyone brings up I guess I wasn’t wrong to write so much about it. Since it’s not wrong, and baby does it ever feel so right, I’ll make a few more words right now. I’m done with the real writing, those of you who don’t read the food stuff. You can close your browser now.

Last night when I went grocery shopping I wasn’t in the mood for meat, so I hung out in the produce section for a while trying to figure out just what was good to eat. That’s why tonight I ended up thin-slicing some nice yellow potatoes (just say no to big white starchy flavorless potatoes! go find something tastier!) and frying them up in olive oil with a bit of dried basil and cumin. While those were cooking I cut some strips of poblano pepper and diced up a clove of garlic and lightly sauteed them in a separate skillet. Once cooked and drained the potatoes were salted – an action I typically avoid but what the hell if it’s fried it’s not good for you anyway right? – and peppered. I threw those three things ((what is) taters, garlic, pepper) all together and they were fantastic.

Salad was a roma tomato and half of a cucumber both cut into little fork chunks and splashed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and one grind from the pepper mill.

I missed fresh-ground black pepper a lot while in Spain. It goes on almost all of my food.

Oh but that wasn’t enough to kill the kitchen, no, that just got everything greasy. The rest of the kitchen wreck was from the preparation of a chocolate cherry cake. You remember the recipe, right? You have it memorized?

No?

Oh, well here it is again. Go make this. Right now. You will love me (and therefore my mom, who gave me the recipe) forever. I have posted this before in another place but I don’t feel like linking, I feel like cutting and pasting. Mom’s words:

Chocolate Cherry Cake:

1 cake mix, choc. or fudge generic is okay
1 can cherry pie filling (usually found in baking section somewhere)
1 tsp. almond extract (KEY INGRED.)
2 beaten eggs.

Break eggs into bowl, beat with fork, then add the cake mix and the pie
filling. It will look too dry, but don’t worry about it. Stir in almond
flavoring just before you pour it into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake @ 350 for 35 – 40 min. You will know it’s done when the edges just barely start to pull away from the pan. Don’t overbake–will seem a little soft in the middle.

WHILE CAKE IS BAKING:
Put these things in a saucepan turned on very low so they will start to melt together.
1 cup sugar
5 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup milk
(and later you will add 6 oz choc. chips and
1/2 tsp almond flavoring)

When you take the cake out of the oven, turn the saucepan up to “high” and stir the stuff constantly until it boils. Boil and stir for one minute, then turn off the burner. Put in the choc. chips and stir FAST until they are all melted and it looks smooth. Then put in the almond flavor, give a last stir and pour over the hot cake. Rubber spatula will get all the choc. out of the saucepan.

IMPORTANT: unlike most cakes where you mess with the icing until it looks right, you just pour this one on covering all the bare spots and leave it alone. Because it is a liquid that is going to get a hard shell as soon as it is exposed to air, it will get a shiny crust that will crinkle if you start to use a spatula on it. Just experiment with it–you can’t make a mistake ’cause it’s chocolate and people will eat it even if you have to scrape it out and put it into pudding bowls!

And that’s that. Now … now to go cry about the fact that the cake is a gift and I can’t eat any.

GOODNIGHT!
alternate ending:
GO CLEAN YOUR ROOM!

1st

Comment by henry August 1, 2007 @ 8:46 pm

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Sounds like a good option for a potluck dinner at church! Thanks, Kevin. And I enjoyed all your posts from Spain. I’m pretty sure I read them all. You are a very good writer, as well as a very good photographer.

Comment by Kelly Piepmeier August 1, 2007 @ 10:38 pm

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hi kevin! of course I read first thing this morning!

Comment by Angie August 2, 2007 @ 9:12 am

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Ok all who read Kevin’s post, I have to make you extremely jealous and tell you that the cake was a gift for me, it was so wonderful! along with a fabulous sausage casserole that disappeared before our eyes. thank you so much Kevin, I wish I could’ve saved you a piece of cake!

Comment by Angie August 3, 2007 @ 8:32 am

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