I Hate the 4th of July
When I was a kid my mom would always say “Hate is a strong word…” when we declared we hated something. As though she could catch us on a technicality. Like, I might strongly dislike bedtime, but that leaves a minuscule quantity of liking it.
So, I hate the 4th of July. I don’t hate America or anything (I strongly dislike it in it’s current state) (mom) but the 4th of July is the convergence of everything I can’t stand. Noise. Heat. Drunkenness¹. Noise. An interruption of commerce. BBQs. Noise.
So far today I’ve experienced:
- A trail of blood leading from what looks suspiciously like a pile of human excrement in my apartment building’s walkway. The blood leads to one of my neighbors’ doors.
- The neighbor we refer to as DJ Awesome² start his weekly party up by egging on his yappy dogs into a frenzy of tiny deafening terror. This has riled up our other neighbor’s Rottweiler into berserker rage.
- The children who live in the apartment building behind ours decided to scream bloody murder for several minutes, the volume and conviction of which implied disembowelment or worse. Investigation revealed that the screaming was the result of realizing they were children.
- Firecrackers. Or possibly gunfire. Both are loud and should be illegal.
Anyway, since I’m not as much into eating to comfort myself as baking to comfort myself, I decided to make another of Smitten Kitchen’s braided lemon breads. You guys, this is a really solid recipe. Today is the fourth time I’ve made it, and each time I think, Jesus, this is a keeper. Curiously, each time I make it my dough turns out much easier to handle than Smitten’s — hers even looks significantly wetter than mine, though I follow the recipe to a T. But when she says to make it directly onto the surface you’ll be baking it on, I agree with vehemence.
Mine varies on a few other small fronts. I roll mine out much thinner (and therefore bigger) on a Silpat, but for no other reason than I want a flatter braid and I don’t have any parchment in the house. You’re not supposed to use knives on Silpats, so it takes me a little longer to carefully-carefully cut the side strips without harming the silicone.
It should come as no surprise that I increase the filling. I mean, I don’t want a piece of bread with a whisper of stuff inside. I want a giant danish. So, I not-quite-but-almost double the cream cheese. It ends up being a gooey mess, but that’s not a criticism.
Any filling works. You don’t even need the cream cheese. You could get a can of “almond filling” from the store and make a giant almond croissant braid. Sprinkle the top with sliced almonds and then powder sugar it when its cooled. Chocolate would work — chocolate and nuts and dried sour cherries? Good god. I did apricot last time (Trader Joe’s reduced sugar apricot preserves are literally just reduced sugar, not artificially sweetened, and work brilliantly for all kinds of baking) and my mother said she would have preferred it without any cream cheese, just the apricot filling. This last time I couldn’t decide between another lemon braid or tarted-up³ raspberry version. Which of course came to the end that all gluttonous crossroads do: BOTH.
I’m not even going to put the recipe here, because Smitten Kitchen already did it so well. It’s a delightful dalliance from being a miserable curmudgeon, 4th of July or not.
¹ In others.
² I’ll leave you to figure out why we named him that, but here’s a hint: I’m being sarcastic.
³ By adding lemon juice, not by putting blue eye shadow on it.
But I thought the post-apocalyptic vibe of LA was the whole reason you moved there.
In Houston the holidays are more like the Andromeda Strain version of endtimes: no people.
Woke up at 1pm to a completely silent, empty apartment complex, made yogurt, went to an almost empty BestBuy to look at an empty iPhone display and then ate bad Mexican food at an empty Chipultepec. I think I’ve seen like 5 humans today.
Your blood dung barkfest sounds way more exciting. Can’t wait to visit!
I guess I didn’t realize that “post-apocalyptic vibe” would translate to “unsupervised frathouse.”
You know, the weird thing is that I went to Trader Joe’s earlier and was dreading it because I thought it was going to be packed, but when I went in there was like maybe 7 people inside. And I thought, well! So I walked over to get the baby a new stuffed hedgehog and PetCo was TOTALLY PACKED. Like, it’s the only time I’ve ever seen all cash registers staffed and there was still a queue like 10 people deep.
Kind of off-post, but when I lived in L.A. it always presented instead, a PRE-apocalyptic vibe to me. I felt an overwhelming sense that it was, arguably, the nexus of excess (Shanghai, New York?). Much like Sodom and Gomorrah of that best-selling, epic fairy-tale collection, the Bible.
To wit: I paint this beautiful/horrific picture for your mind’s eye: a golden-tanned, fair-haired young Quagmire standing in the warm, shimmery-white sands of Hermosa Beach, ravenously demolishing a local legend, the infamous 22nd Street ‘Double Deuce Surf-burger’ [two huge patties, six bacon strips, two sliced grilled hot dogs, double-cheese and home-made chili oozing out it's ass, washed down with a giant chocolate shake ... oh, and a metric ass-ton of fries, cuz the 'burger' usually wasn't enough to fill both of my 20-year-old hollow legs!].
Yep, munchin’ and bullshitin’ about hanging eleven (?) and still buzzed on endorphins after a ‘California Dreamin’, wave-perfect summer’s morning of shredding glassy, right-breaking 5 foot South-swells … when the burger shack’s transistor radio interrupted a perfectly good hit tune with some breaking news in the Hollywood Hills about some hair salon dude named Jay Sebring and a B-movie hottie, Sharon Tate …
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To be more on-post, with less drammer and more flava-flaves;
I need some of that braided excess in my pastry nexus-hole before Tipper Gore turns me into a pillar of salt!
I know you foot-note, but I misread your neighbors nick as DJ Awesome Squared. AND you should stop hating on BBQ. It is really quite unbecoming of a meateater. *Scold*
Definitely pre-Apocalyptic. I’m pretty sure post looks more like certain parts of Detroit.
The shitblood situation is freaking me the hell out.
And! “Its”. Not “it’s”. I’ll see your curmudgeon and raise you one grammar snob.
Same thing goes for you, Quag. Also your burger and Charles Manson make me want to ralph. More late 60s/early 70s shenanigans stories, please.
Well now, that is the shITs ain’t it k-k-k-Katey?
It’s a family trait don’cha know!
Good eye there tho’ … just the one, not the other one ;)
No, I’m just a total butthole. The most noticeable family trait is awesomeness. And a facility with baked goods. And tattoos.
And let’s (with an apostrophe) not forget the most ubiquitous Williams trait; the unHoly Grail of our recessive gene makeup … our gut/bowel/stomach/colon/arse FAIL! (You’re welcome Sunday. luv, poppops)
I need to try this recipe. I grew up eating these things called Racine Danish Kringles in Wisconsin. They were flat little pastries with stuff inside. They came on a big flat pan of styrofoam and wrapped in plastic wrap. I’ve never seen them here. It must just be a Wisconsin thing?
Yours look better with the cream cheese and fruit filling and none of the extra preservatives.
Kate: Grammar! Ah yes, grammar. Such a vast gulf between knowing what is correct and being able to actually see mistakes when you’re proofing. Also: shitblood: also freaking me out. Still. The poop is still there, though now it is dessicated and unidentifiable.
Catastro: But I don’t like it! I like meat! I like steak tartar, for fuck’s sake. Why do I have to LOVE BBQ too?
Theresa: I have in fact never seen a Racine Danish Kringle, but to be fair I have never in my life purchased a pastry wrapped in plastic. Also take note that when Mike read this post he got very upset and said, “I didn’t know almond was an option!” So I guess if you make it, consult the significant other first on filling options.
I have a jar of lemon curd that has been sitting in my pantry for maybe a year ( I should look at the expireation date ) that I want to use. I want to make it now but Peter is up in Washington this week, maybe I could still make it, eat it all and pretend it never happened. hmmm