Robert X. Cringely: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot: Grandiose Schemes for Electronic Eavesdropping May Hurt More Than They Help.

9:26:40 PM    trackback []  

I'm spending this week working from home, so I get to raid the herb garden for dinner. Last night we had Chicken Pesto Pizza with fresh picked basil, and tonight a had the Minimalist's mint and parmesan pasta, made with fresh spearmint and Trader Joe's whole wheat penne.

Tonight it was just my wife and I (and the little-one-to-be), but last night we had a friend over who we hadn't seen in ages—actually it's the friend who introduced us. We had delayed our weekly pizza night from Sunday to Monday due to an unfortunate hangover, but since we were having company I dress it up by making fresh pesto. After dinner, we moved on to Chocolate Souffle and homemade cordials. Once again my oven refused to cooperate, so the souffle's didn't rise quite so much and needed twice as long to cook.

I know it's time for a new oven. Baking has been a disaster over the last few months. My last attempt at baking—Grand Marnier souffles from Joy—ended up coming out of the oven with a fair amount of rise but very eggy centers, while last night I checked in at the prescribed time and found them 100% molten. Last week, my wife made Chocolate Orgasms from the Rosie's Bakery All Butter Fresh Cream Sugar Packed No Holds Barred Baking Book and they cooked for nearly twice the time in the recipe with no luck. In our condo, we made all of these recipes with a few minutes adjustments, not double and triple the time in the oven.

The trouble with getting a new oven is that I'd like to redo the kitchen in the next five years, and it seems like quite a waste to buy an oven for a that short a time. Of course, it seems like even more of a waste to not be able to bake for five years either. We'd also lose out on the big plus of our oven—because of it's out of wack thermostat, I can get it up to about 650° for making pizza.

7:31:53 PM    trackback []