Plus Three Tickets to HAIR the Night Before

photo: http://www.orlok.com/hair/holding/poster2.jpg

Recipe for Turning Twelve

D.J.'s '60s Costume Party

• 1 birthday girl, Daughter Judy.
  
• 11 12-year-olds, approximately, of the female variety.
• 1 clean house.
• 1 clean back patio.
• Beatles CDs.
• D.J.'s BFF's designer dad, styling my pad with '60s fabrics.
• D.J.'s cool tween sitter Amandina, the painter, leading the ensemble mural creation.
• Tie-dye kit, which I hope works, looks too hard, must sit for 24 hours afterward.
  
• Daisies, for daisy chains, if I can find them, which I don't think I can.
  
• Party favor bags, which include mod necklaces from a good sale at Claire's, chocolate eggs from Li-Lac across the street, and cool glider planes.
• 1 take-out pizza menu from Two Boots.
• A few bowls of grapes, pretzels, and carrots.
• 1 secret recipe (not my secret, or I'd share it) Austrian Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing, of which Chef suggested I make four layers, not two. Think I'll make three layers, just 'cause.
• 1 or 2 bottles of champagne, to share with any adult who stays. After all, I was there that 30-hour day, almost 12 years ago.
  

A Watched Pot

If this were a novel, and I was the main character, which I am, more than halfway through my 14th Street & 7th Avenue baking/pastry journey, something should have happened to me by now. Like a collision with love, or career, or some kind of relationship or something, major or minor, to keep the drama going. I can extract details of my life to make them interesting or quirky or funny even, but if I step back and look at the bigger picture, at least right now, it's pretty slow going over here.

Left to Right Again

Baked Creme Brulee (good, super smooth, but reiterated my low level preference of that dessert), Bread Pudding, with homemade bread (A+, particularly when heated and then turned out of its tin, but probably at least 500 calories), Apricot and Blueberry Clafouti (very nice, but forgot to take it out of its little tin), and Chocolate Pots de Creme (still have not tried; saving one for D.J., and gave the other to her tiny friend Ina who stopped by today with her dog Ani). The rice pudding, not pictured, had good flavor, but it was true what they said: the rice wasn't cooked enough.

What I Brought Home Today

or, Who Wants to Come Over?

• Chocolate Pots de Creme (nice, very dark)
  
• Bread pudding (mine, and looks delicious even though I didn't make the accompanying Bourbon sauce)
• Rice pudding (I hear the rice wasn't cooked enough)
  
• Cherry Clafouti, made with blueberries and apricots (Dee's, lovely)
• Baked Creme Brulee (not my favorite in general, but looked good)
  
• Eclairs, with vanilla pastry cream and melted chocolate ganashe (mine!)
  
• Profiteroles, fixed same as above (mine!)
  

(Sorry I can't put the corresponding accents on words such as pate, a, choux, or creme brulee for that matter.)

And let's just call the Pate a Choux what it is: boiled dough. Amazing. Contains no sugar.

I definitely need practice with the pastry bag, though, as I overstuffed my pieces a bit, and my profiterole and eclair shapes could have been prettier. Nevertheless:

Week 7 Already

Today's historical romance features a spitfire heroine with a dagger in her boot and a streak of white running down her raven hair; twin brothers dueling for dukedom; gravediggers and mad scientists; an English countryside; and of course, love as deep as the infinite ocean.

Back on 14th Street and 7th Avenue, however, I'll be making eclairs during class tomorrow. I hope. I know vanilla pastry cream is on the agenda, for the third time recently, and I must say I've gotten pretty good at it by now. (My Tracy Anderson Method Mat Workout DVD has come in handy for the intense egg beating required for the making of pastry cream.) Chef Nola may or may not be there to inspire.

This Is The Boy*, or I Was Once Smashed In The Trunk With Him