birthday cake

For Jake's birthday, I made a chocolate soufflé from Le Bernardin cookbook a la epicurious.com. This was actually my first time baking a cake from scratch, so I was quite nervous and careful about not fucking up Jake's birthday cake. After a large brick of Scharffen Berger chocolate, two sticks of butter, five eggs, sugar, and flour, out popped this Petit Kuchen and five others like it.
I served this with Vanilla I.C. and blueberries, with a dusting of Ghirardelli Hazelnut hot chocolate mix. Name dropping aside, this cake was fucking sabroso. I forgot to photograph the best part - but yes, the center was molten chocolate.



Here's the recipe:
6 1/2 ounces extra-bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup plus 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 large eggs, separated
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
Unsweetened cocoa power, for garnish

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: Eight 6-ounce aluminum tins
Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bring a pan of water barely to a simmer. Place the chocolate and butter in a double boiler or metal mixing bowl and place over the pan of hot but not simmering water. Heat, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has melted but is not too hot. Stir until smooth.

2. In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks and 1/4 cup of sugar together until thickened slightly and lighter in color. Whisk in the flour and then the chocolate mixture.

3. Place the egg whites in a metal bowl and place over hot water until warmed slightly. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar and whip with an electric mixer on medium-low speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add 1 1/2 tablespoons more sugar. Turn the speed to high and add the last 1/2 tablespoon of sugar, whipping the whites to firm peaks.

4. Stir a third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Fold in the remaining whites. Divide the batter among the tins. (The recipe can be made to this point up to 1 1/2 hours before serving; refrigerate).

5. Place the tins on a baking sheet and bake until the tops are puffed and feel firm to the touch but are very liquidy in the center, about 8 minutes (or a few minutes longer if they were cold).

6. Meanwhile, sift a little cocoa lightly over 8 dessert plates. Three minutes after the cakes are done, run the tip of a knife around the sides to loosen, and unmold the cakes onto the plates, rinsing the knife with hot water between each one. Serve immediately with vanilla ice cream or chocolate sorbet.

That sebaceous blemish was upon his nostral demeanor pre-cocoa-kuchen bliss.

Nostalgia

Remember when flights were on time?
Like last year?

wow. That opening ceremony was amazing.

I take back everything (bad) I ever said about china.

An article in the Sun

So, yesterday I came upon this story in The New York Sun (on Curbed.com, of all places), which describes the ambivalence in Chinatown over the Olympics. I was actually glad to see the article because media coverage of Chinatown is normally so one dimensional; and we get the impression that Chinatown is homogeneous and that its primary purpose is to supply tourists with fake handbags; contrary to what I experienced growing up. In fact, the Chinatown I remember is pretty diverse. And Yes: It's a real community — unlike Colonial Williamsburg Virginia.

Anyways, I posted a comment because one of the jerks the writer quotes irritated me. After a few hours, my comment was posted (The Sun reviews and/or edits all comments submitted, I guess so that the forum doesn't turn into an online troll convention). Finally published! Don't be jealous. I went through a grueling editorial review!

Being the narcissist that I am, I visited the site today and noticed that my comment, along with the one other comment was no longer there. Kinda upsetting — especially because of the lack of media exposure Chinatown gets.

Anyways, this is The Sun's article
Olympics Expose a Rift in Manhattan's Chinatown

And here are the comments that disappeared. I don't know how factually accurate my comments are, but it comes from knowledge that I've somehow accumulated in my head.

Interesting article. One should note that many Taiwanese have families that are actually from Fujian province from generations that had moved to Taiwan after the war and eventually settled in America. That makes the divide a little more interesting. Also making it complicated is that many of the Chinatown old timers flying the Taiwanese flags were actually Hong Kong Cantonese whose solidarity with the Taiwanese was rooted in their anti-Communist sentiments. What I find disheartening is Jimmy Cheng's comment about how they were able to do for the Fujianese immigrants "in 10 years what CCBA did in 120.... They don't do nothing for us." How can Mr. Cheng completely ignore the fact that his people emigrated during different times, and that we've only recently made huge strides in civil rights as a nation? The recent Fujianese immigrants are reaping the benefits of what took 120 years of work against systematic discrimination — work that was done not just by the Chinese in America, but by other minorities including Blacks and Hispanics. Let's give credit where it's due Mr. Cheng!


And check out the skills. Naw bro, that's not Photoshop. It's MSPaint!