I Baked A Cake And Ate It, Too!

Having been busy with the poopettes, another visitor - this time from Canada and who also happens to be Murphy's mom - and being a bit laid up with more stomach problems, it was my birthday in late February and, as if I didn't already have enough to do,  I had to make my own birthday cake!  Really??

Sheesh!

Well, not really - I mean I really did make a cake but it wasn't just necessarily for my birthday. In late 2010 I won a calendar from the wonderfully cheesy people at  WWFC (that would be Nicky, CheesyMike and Sme Jepeto), with each month in the calendar featuring a different recipe with cheese as an ingredient.

February's recipe was (is):

HOLY CHOCOLATE CAPPUCCINO CHEESECAKE, BATMAN!

Okay, delete the "Holy" and "Batman" from the above and that gives you name of the recipe.  If you are a lover of cheesecake, especially CHOCOLATE cheesecake, this is a great recipe and relatively simple, too! The only problem I had was with the springform pan: I usually cheat and use the store bought crusts but the ingredients were such that they called for a larger vessel. I did, however, use the pre-fab crusts for the cookie crumbs which was way easier than scraping the cream filling off of chocolate cookies (we don’t have just plain chocolate cookies here) and then crushing them. Hey, the easier the better, right?

Since I am not much of a sweets fan, I was going to forgo the topping but the cake developed a crack (and, apparently, some teeth, zits and attitude) while baking:

Eat me.

As you can see, I had no idea what I was doing slightly overdosed on the crumbs for the side crust (I really didn’t know if I was supposed to do that or not - a side crust, that is) which shrank inward, making the cake look kind of like a flattened curling rock (and I mean the sport of curling, not hair curling unless you use rocks to curl your hair - hey, whatever floats your boat).  Regardless of its appearance, the cake was lighter than a regular cheesecake - almost mousse like - and definitely fabulous!

So, here it is in all its glory, the finished product:

Happy Frakken Birthday To ME!!!

In hindsight, I probably could have gone with a meringue topping but that may have been just as sweet as the icing the recipe called for.  Hmm … maybe cherry pie filling for the schmear next time. Yum!

Instead of including the recipe here, I will post it in the next few days with some tips and tweaks (i.e. so your cake won't grow 'teeth' if it develops a crack, etc.).

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Apparently, Toronto Isn't The Centre Of The Universe After All

Just a shorty today - still busy with the poopettes, but I needed a break.

These days, it seems one has to shake one's head in disgust at the education system.

Having a business here, we often need supplies, parts, etc. and we will order most of our needs via the Internet and most of it comes from the States (yeah, I be talkin' about the good ol' U.S. of A.).

Now, living in a foreign country can be tricky in that, when purchasing, many of the online forms require U.S. billing addresses for credit cards, among other information.  No worries:  we generally don't run into this problem and when we do, we phone the seller and place our orders directly without any further snafus.

What happened today totally boggles the mind.

We were trying to purchase an item online but the online order form required a "zip code".  There are no zip codes in the Bahamas.  Sometimes we can work around this problem via Internet but not today so me moms called the supplier and explained the problem she was having with its online ordering form.  All was well and good until the order taker asked for a zip code.  We explained that there are no zip codes in the Bahamas and that entering "00000" (five zeros) will generally be accepted in most computer program forms.

Okay, so the credit car information is given, the shipping address is given and after about ten minutes of trying to explain that our shipping address is different from the billing address - and, yes, we are in the Bahamas but it's going to Ft. Lauderdale - and then plugging in the necessary details, all is going smoothly until the seller's representative asks, "What State are you in?"

WTF???!!!

"We are in the Bahamas", moms says.

"So, what State is that in?", asks the phone rep.

Moms - now completely exasperated - asks for (and gets) the rep's supervisor on the phone.  Pleased with being able to speak with a 'real person' and after going through the whole rigmarole with the supervisor again, he asks my moms ...


... wait for it...


...(honestly, I can't make this shit up) ...



 "So, what State are you in?"
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Will I Ever Post Again?

Since the arrival of the Poopettes one week ago, I've been busy looking after them, trying to do daily chores without stepping on them at every turn and ensuring they don't become puppy chow for our larger dogs.

My daily routine hasn't been very routine in the past week and I barely have time to read and/or comment on many blogs, let alone trying to write a post myself, so I apologize for lack of appearances.

Back in November, I won a calendar in a  'name that cheese' contest from Nicky and friends at We Work For Cheese.  The calendar contains recipes for cheese dishes, one for each month of the year, and I promised Nicky that I would try each and every recipe.  January called for cheese rolls.  Great.  My bread making skills are severely lacking, particularly in the moist and rising departments (not a euphemism).  I followed the recipe to the letter but the rolls didn't come out as cheesy as I was expecting although that could have been my fault in determining if it was supposed to be a 1/4 cup of cheese, grated or a 1/4 cup of grated cheese:  in baking, this apparently makes a difference.  Also, bread does not like me - if I merely pick up a glazing brush, my bread falls even before I get near it with the egg wash.  The rolls were good, bigger than they should have been, but they dried out after a couple of days.  I blame it on the climate and our sea level or, maybe, I just suck at it.  No worries, I'm looking forward to this month's recipe:  Chocolate Cappuccino Cheesecake!

In other news, I recently won an award for a caption contest hosted by vicki (aka vickilikesfrogs), a very funny and snarkastic blogger, at Glitter Frog.  Her contest is presently on sabbatical but will return soon. Check her out when you can.

Thank-you vicki!!

We are experiencing a mini heatwave right now - I am sooo not looking forward to summer - but I feel sorry for all of you who are stuck in the cold weather, particularly those in the northeast, for having to endure all of that snow.  So, in the hope of bringing a bit of levity to your situation, my cousin (who is a 'custodian' himself) sent me this link:  Janitor's Revenge.  I hope it makes you smile.

Now, I have to get back to chores.
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Poopettes

We are proud to announce that we have been (temporarily?) adopted by "Chewy" and "Prancer".

On Friday morning, a young couple came by inquiring whether or not these two young pups belonged to us, seeing that we had four dogs in the yard. Of course they weren't, but the couple couldn't take them with them - they already had ten dogs of their own! – so I decided to hold onto them in case they were escapees belonging to someone in the area. After further inspection - and a bit of de-ticking - it appears that they might be "drop-offs": pups that are unwanted by their owners. This happens way too much down here, but it is a fact of a dog's life in these islands.

This morning, however, our trusted and beloved gardener Josie tells us that the pups belonged to the new owner of the house at the end of our road. Considering the condition of these dogs, they no longer answer to that house and we still suspect the owner of the house let them out on purpose (they also have a vicious pit-bull which does not like puppies, so we are told).

Two days later, I discover that all of our dogs are ‘drama queens’: two are on hunger strikes, not having eaten their dinners in two days; Ben – our bigger Shepherd – thinks he has been banished from another family unit once again (he really is a sad-sack otherwise) and is now very timid about entering the house; and, “Garbage Guts” Elvis – the reigning “Queen”, as it were, who normally and oh, so woefully howls at feeding time for food (and will happily clean out any scraps left by the others whether they’ve finished their dinners or not), lay possum-like at the side of the pool, rolling his eyes pitifully to say, “You’ve already replaced me. I am dead to you. Just shove me into the canal, why don’t you? I’ll eventually drift out to sea.”

It's times like this I don't regret not having kids.

Whether we keep the pups remains to be seen – this depends on our original brood. I must keep them separate because of their size (our dogs will render them like they might a cat that strayed into our yard). Hopefully they will soon get their noses of out joint and accept them (Elvis is not long for this world, I’m afraid). I really didn’t think they would be so jealous of these young ones – but aren’t they soooooo CUTE???!!!

Heh heh.

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It Rained On My Parade.

Well, it did. Literally.


Sometime ago I mentioned having plumbing problems and - just to further piss me off - my dishwasher went on strike. The dishwasher was, at times, somewhat co-operative and I could actually do a few loads once in awhile. For the last two months, however, it finally gave up the ghost. We needed to order a part. Part of the problem was trying to discover exactly which part was needed. Dissasembly required. Been there, done that, the part arrived today. Hooray!! We were actually expecting it yesterday but it was delayed. So, my counter top and sink is full of dirty dishes which I didn't do in anticipation of the arrival of said part.

I have four dogs: two German Shepherds; two 'potcakes' (mixed breeds). If anyone know anything about dogs, 'shepherds' are bred for, well, herding. Now, keeping flocks of sheep, goats, cows, etc. will undoubtedly involve inclement weather. Shepherd dogs are bred for this purpose, right? They should be used to rain, sleet, snow, etc., right? Years ago, I had an Old English Sheepdog - not the brightest bulb of the herding group - but he was okey dokey with bad weather. It didn't phase him in the least. We've also had German Shepherds over the years with the same attitude. Snow, "oooh - it's nice and cool!"; rain, "I prefer the snow"; thunder storms, "oooh ...ahhh... fireworks!".

We have a defective Shepherd. Her name is Chase. For the purpose of this post, I will use one of her (many) nicknames, "Velcro".

Two out of the four dogs that adopted us are afraid of thunder storms. One would guess it would be the "potcakes". You would guess wrong.

A cold front started moving in earlier in the day and, along with it, thunder. As her name would imply, Velcro was stuck to my butt wherever I moved. I finally did escape to get the dishwasher part and by the time I returned the rain and thunder had subsided.

Re-assembly now required. I get started on installing the new part. After cursing and swearing a few hundred times - and one crantini break - I finally got the new panel to sit properly in the door. (Did I mention I have a short temper??) I get the major control part partially re-installed. Here comes the rain again and the thunder along with it. Velcro now decides that she wants to crawl into the dishwasher to hide because it's the closest place to me. This goes on for the next hour or so.  The dishwasher is still incomplete.

I give up.

So, as I am writing this, the zoo has been fed, the rain and thunder have subsided and come Hell or my temper, I'm going back to the problem (hey, where did these extra screws come from?)  to get my dishes washed tonight!

I hope.

Decompressing

After screwing around part of the day trying to get the DVR to project louder audio (my moms is getting hard of hearing, whereas I can hear a spider fart in the next room), I was almost tempted to fire both components out into our still empty pool and be done with them. Of course I could not - I'm addicted to television.

So, I instead ran out to grab the newspapers and a few groceries but in my head I was still trying to figure out the problem with the A/V units. It was like a insane ear worm: one input only to the wireless speakers; two outputs from the components; split the cable input signal for recording separately from watching the television; combine and re-split the audio to the wireless speakers. (Do I really need to do this? Damn instruction manual - written in Japanese, translated into English by Italians (I'm guessing here) - which friggin' hole do I put the cable into? Where is the friggin' hole anyway? They really should put some hair around it.)

Well, you get the gist.

I return from shopping, etc. Feed the "zoo" it's dinner. Make me moms a drink. Have a smoke and another crantini. Get dinner started. Check my e-mail. Then I thought that I should do a post to get my mind off today's tribulations. I was going to compose something different altogether but wound up venting about my day's frustrations.

But, you know what? It worked! I'm calmer and more relaxed now and probably - or most definitely - about three sheets to the wind.

The Russians May Be Coming ...

... but the Germans have arrived.

I've been busy lately with visitors from Germany, hence my lack of posts and sporadic commenting.   That, and I've been busy trying to emulate the "White Tornado" tidy up the house (you know Germans - completely spotless people) just in case we invite them over before they leave in February.  They (Germans) even scrub the road in front of their own houses, or so I've heard here in the comments.

At any rate, just letting you know I haven't died, but I am old enough to remember Carol Burnett.  So, in lieu of a regular post, I offer you some great old comedy with this outtake from her variety show.

Oh, and Happy New Year everyone!  (Yeah, I'm late as usual.)