Anger Burger

I’ve had a long week, I don’t know about you.  And with the best intentions, I started to roast some beets:

and then forgot to take any more photos.  Just my hands.  Look at them, they are beety.

And then I made a batch of sloppy joes, both because they are delicious and because I am 12 years old.  But really: tomatoey slop on bread?  My god, I can’t express my gratitude for Joe and his invention of the Sloppy.  But then I wondered: is this really a blog post?  I mean, I used a can of Manwich, for fuck’s sake.  So no, I guess not.

To no one’s surprise, my hangover last week lasted something like three days.  That’ll teach me to imbibe the organic, sulfite-free wine as though it were no longer poison.  Note to self: the sulfites and pesticides keep the wine from destroying my brain.  In an attempt to settle my tummy ages later, I made an avocado smoothie, a treat I am normally tickled pink over.  Instead, I took a few bites and felt ill.  It wasn’t the smoothie’s fault — Mike said his was delicious — but something about the fatty avocado and sweetened condensed milk sent my body into post-traumatic shock. Blerg.

After that I told my mom¹ I was making my favorite white cake recipe, a Cook’s Illustrated version that tends to be, well, I’ll be polite and call it a fickle bitch, and lo and behold, guess what totally didn’t work out at all?  That’s right, thanks mom!  In a moment of weakness I didn’t let the milk and egg whites come to room temperature and the whole thing was a waste of half-a-dozen eggs and a stick-and-a-half of butter.  I was too angry to take photos of the failure.  ANGER BURGER!

So here’s fingers crossed for a better week ahead.

Oh!  I nearly forgot: my friend Leesa and I were talking about chicken and dumplings when I said “I’ve never had a good dumpling.”  They’re always leaden and gooey and I realize after I’ve made them that I’d just rather float a good biscuit on whatever it was I made and call it a day.  Or a matzo ball.  But here’s the question: have you ever had a decent dumpling?  And if so, will you tell us the recipe immediately?

¹My mom has never had this recipe work for her, thus it has gained a kind of supernatural credence in our household.  The problem is that the temperatures must be exactly what they tell you, a tricky prospect when the butter is described as “soft but still cool” and the milk and egg whites as “room temperature” — whose room?  And what?  Huh?  However: let it be known that when it is good, it is good.