However, Alton Brown made a strong argument for some purity in preparation, so I first tried his recipe. Verdict? NOT the correct pound cake. It turned out with essentially no golden brown crust of baked sugar, and dried out very quickly, with a crumb that didn’t hold up to a fork. Next, I tried my mother’s recipe (below). Screw purity. This cake was very close to the real thing – moist crumb, golden-ish crust, delicious flavor that needed nothing at all, apparently, since most if it is now gone.

As a scientist, however, it bugs me that I still haven’t achieved the truly golden brown crust I remember from childhood. I highly suspect that either my oven conditions or the pan I use are causing the issue. This pan in particular is a heavy pan, with a non-stick coating that makes it quite simple to de-pan cakes, but since the last chocolate cake made in this pan also had no good “crust”, I think it’s preventing heat accumulation at the surface that would create the higher density at the edge. Next experiment is to use my mother’s pan, which while heavy, does not have a non-stick coating. Any other suggestions are welcome for Trial #3 of Perfect Pound Cake, too…

COLD OVEN POUND CAKE

1/2 cup or 1 stick butter

1/2 cup shortening*

3 cups sugar (reduce 3 tablespoons.)

3 1/2 cups flour

5 large eggs (or 6 medium or 7 small)

1/2-teaspoon baking powder

1/4-teaspoon salt

1-cup milk

1-teaspoon vanilla and lemon extract

Cream butter and shortening.

Add sugar gradually.

Add eggs one at a time.

Mix dry ingredients together separately.

Add dry ingredients alternately with milk.

Add vanilla and lemon extract.

Bake in a heavily greased (with shortening), floured Bundt pan at 325° until golden brown, approximately 1 hour.  Let cake cool in pan 15 minutes.  Then turn upside down on plate.

*It is now possible to find shortening that is: trans fat free, vegetarian, and butter flavored. Not such a bad deal to get the correct cake.

“No, I dinged your car the other day.  Are we still cool?”

Um, WHAT? I haven’t (to my knowledge) been in any accidents in a long time, I don’t know who this person is, how they found me, how we know each other, or whether it was truly my car that was dinged (in full disclosure, my car has had a couple of dings on it, primarily before I bought it. I bought the car when two Subarus in a row were totalled, and I wanted a car I wouldn’t care about the third time. Thus, that is the car that has stuck around. It has done me the favor of running without complain through long commutes, at 38 mpg most of the time, so I can’t complain…but it’s not what you’d call pristine.)

So what am I doing now? I discovered that this person runs a pirate radio show 6-8pm on Saturdays, so I am listening in, trying to identify the voices. Ironically, I discovered this station just this week on my own, when the signal was so strong as I came up to my building that it blocked out the other station I was listening to. In general, I’m liking the music on weeknights, but it’s hard not to imagine that perhaps a neighbor in my building a) runs the radio station and b) dinged my car and c) is hoping the anonymous technique will keep me from reacting strongly.

Still can’t recognize the voice – two men, one married, they like Ladytron. Need more clues. Who dings your car and friends you to let you know? Totally perplexing week.

UPDATE: So this person doesn’t know me, just put out a joke and wants to promote their pirate radio show. For what it’s worth, the programming on the weekdays is pretty good.

The problem arose when in the maze that is Ikea in Utah; I was overwhelmed with choices, all of which I didn’t like. I could find a mattress I liked, a slat set I liked, box springs I liked, but all the beds were…well, if you’ve been there you’ve seen the homage to Swedish design that left me with lots of light or black wood designs that were all very low to the ground. I am ready for a grown-up bed, preferably one as high as a fancy hotel bed, with high thread count sheets to match. Luckily, my frustration was met with a suggestion from Sam: “Well, we could make our own bed.” I hadn’t considered this. I assumed it took knowledge only a carpenter with a pencil permanently mounted behind the ear could do. But turns out, beds can be made by people with an eye for measurement and knowledge of where to get high quality fasteners. (check and check).

Of course, after purchasing the slats and mattress, strapping them to the top of our solar trailer and bringing it back through the winds of Wyoming to home; the proposed September/October project is still in design phase. But here is what has been done so far:

• Picked out a baltic birch plywood that has “a large number of thin, void-free plys”


• Picked out and tested a dark stain


• Drawn up some preliminary designs, inspired by this box:


• Determined a bed height desired of 28-29 inches


• Used Sketch-Up and Illustrator to determine the cut pattern for the different pieces of the bed


• Tested these preliminary designs on the CNC Router “Findy”, to ensure a depth that allows the light wood to show through the stain but doesn’t weaken the wood

Since then, I am helping to plan the warehouse’s blowout NYE bash. Our theme is that of a Speakeasy, leaving lots of creative options for decoration, costumes, activities, and drinks. It roughly parallels our journey from a start-up art cooperative to a more and more organized non-profit entity – an exciting process, of course. However, living out tales of prohibition and gangsters is more exciting, at least on a temporary basis. For the event, it was requested we have some visuals – something reminiscent of the 1920s. A friend who has experience both with lots of films and going non-profit warned me extensively about showing only materials that would not violate copyright with our private party status. Luckily, he also recommended archive.org, a website full of public domain films and music, complete with thumbnails to preview images and user reviews. Within a couple hours, I had tracked down old Betty Boop cartoons where Betty mimics both FDR and Herbert Hoover, and has visions of a mug of beer (not too subtle for the time). I found newsreels proclaiming the end of Prohibition, with footage of raids with men destroying barrels of whiskey with axes in the street. There were films both silent and talking covering scenes in nightclubs and speakeasies, with plenty of gangster and gambling action, and Felix the Cat cartoons where Felix learns about moonshine and quite enjoys it. A few days later, I have close to six hours of public domain and creative commons media (open copyright) ready to go for our gig. It’s pleasing to be able to find films like these and know they can be shown at an event to create atmosphere without running afoul of legal rights, even in creating a party specifically about law breakers 90 years ago.

It’s bizarre to reflect on what life was like for a country banning liquor production. December 31st, 1919 saw lots of private, undisclosed-location parties where people boozed up as much as possible before the January 16th, 1920 start of Prohibition. And yet, when Prohibition was headed for repeal, liquor prices countrywide dropped a full year before becoming legal again, just due to the change in expected market. I can imagine citizens easing off their stockpiles with legal alcohol on the horizon. It’s interesting to think whether this would happen with any other currently illegal drug – though nothing quite compares in terms of widespead legality the world around like alcohol.

Hopefully, tomorrow night will go something like this:

On January 16, 1920, Prohibition began. Only four days after, the 50-50 Club opened in New York City, becoming the first of some 30,000-100,000 speakeasies to operate in that city alone during the “Great Experiment.” The protocol was simple: Knock on a friendly (anonymous) door, give a pre-arranged password, and be permitted to enter. To order, one would “speak easily” (that is, in a quiet tone), and then be served a teacup of gin or whiskey that would either be the “real McCoy” or had just been mixed in someone’s bathtub, depending on the connection and the reliability of the bar owner.”

from “Joe Sent Me” by Dave Sikula

Fresh Tomato Tiny Pasta Soup

• 1 tablespoon olive oil


• 1/2 to 1 cup alliums (onions are fine, we used the last of the garden leeks this time)


• 1-2 cloves garlic, minced


• 3 pounds (yes, pounds – or use 4 14.5 oz. cans of diced tomatoes) fresh tomatoes, coarsely chopped


• 3 cups vegetable broth


• 1 tablespoon minced fresh or frozen basil


• 1 tablespoon minced fresh or frozen marjoram


• 1 tablespoon minced fresh or frozen oregano


• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper


• 3/4 cup uncooked tiny bowtie pasta, rosamarina, tiny stars, or other tiny pasta


• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese

Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Cover; simmer 25 minutes. Remove from heat; cool slightly.

Puree tomato mixture in a food processor or blender in batches. Return to saucepan; bring to a boil. Add pasta; cook 7 to 9 minutes or until tender. Transfer to serving bowls. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. (8 servings-ish).

Yum. The last of the garden now consists of some brave lettuce and a handful of carrots, resting comfortably in the ground (easier than constructing a root cellar in a basement apartment). But we do have many jars of pickled green tomatoes, so even if a blizzard caused us to lose power, I suppose we’d be eating garden goods still. I have a feeling the soup is more satisfying than the pickled green tomatoes, though.

The cat has since disappeared, the futon has been completely repaired, and the apartment fix-it dude scratched his head about the backed up drains and blamed the city’s street construction project a block away.

A non-skeptic would blame a poltergeist, but really, what would a poltergeist achieve by harassing in this manner? I’m not afraid of the cat, I knew the futon would need fixing soon, and living in a low-level apartment means plumbing issues on occasion, even if it regulates temperature nicely. Perhaps the coincidences merely push me away from musing about going for the first-time homeowner tax credit…it’s nice to call a dude when your bathroom floods and you have to go to a meeting ASAP. So if a poltergeist exists, it’d have to be a liberatarian conservative, annoyed by swedish furniture, energy efficient sublevel apartments and governments handing out tax credits for simply buying a home. Hmm. I think I’ve strayed further from the believable with this plan. Maybe “stuff breaks” is a more accurate theory.

We had an early frost here – meaning a busy twilight in the garden as everyone hurried to wrap sturdy plants in fabric, cut down weaker plants for the compost pile, and harvest everything possible for a bounty that seemed premature. I felt like I was preparing for a war to hustle among the other quiet and somber gardeners, passing plots that would not survive the night with what I could carry. We did take in ~100 tomatoes, still on big chunks of vine to drape all over the house – a trick I learned from my dad to keep the tomatoes ripening into the autumn. All the basil has been processed with olive oil and put in the freezer, we’ve pickled green tomatoes and brussel sprouts, have a crisper full of bell peppers that never quite reached the promised orange or purple colors, and paper bags full of onions and potatoes. These are all good things, of course.

But an early frost is so frustrating – it feels like a statistical aberration, like losing $500 at the slot machines in your first 20 minutes. Given all the averages, shouldn’t we get a couple more weeks to ripen the crops, enjoy fresh herbs, and maybe coax a few more marigolds and nasturtiums in the shorter days? Apparently not. Nature isn’t into observing averages on a regular basis.

Statistics is a huge (and not displeasing) part of my life right now, given that my new position involves drawing up experiments and checking them for accuracy by comparing their values to previous tests. It is a bizarre thing to realize that when I took engineering statistics in college, apparently it wasn’t the statistics I hated. It was our professor, and the 8am start time of the class (which I think I would still hate now). I’m glad to draw up fancy spreadsheets showing my colleagues with less experience that yep, my chemical concoctions are accurate and precise. Take that, Kompala!

Statistics is something that Sam struggles a little more with. A weekend in Blackhawk where admittedly I expected the odds to be against all visitors, cost Sam $120. The majority of that was for a practice run at poker, something he’s been working on – but like the friends who came with us there are many good poker players who show up at casinos on weekends to take money from those still learning. I respect statistics over skill at corporations that are very good at both, so I played slot machines for 20 minutes, and stopped once I had a $5 profit. Statistics would show a curve of winnings in any casino game that takes relatively little skill, and most of the curve would have me at a loss – so I walked away happy.

While fighting off the flies became exhausting the first day, it was more than a week before he fully realized the boy was never coming back.

• It is always one of two guys, who work at a nearby warehouse that sells framed art to doctor’s and other professional offices.


• The doll is, shall we say, abused. The hair is matted and looks like it might have been burned, and there are marks all over it from shoes and some sort of violence.


• The guy isn’t running, but isn’t moving slowly – like it’s something he has to do but wants to get it over with.


• The doll wears a similarly abused lace thong (no, I didn’t previously know thongs were made in doll size either).


• The doll is always carried by a foot, like a kid holding a safety blanket.


• The doll lives on a  shelf in the warehouse the guys work at when not performing this lap.


•  While the employees at the framed art warehouse regularly have pep talks in the parking lot, we never see an interaction prior to the trip around both of our buildings.


• The shipping manager and myself are the only ones to have seen this, as far as I know – since we get there earliest in the morning.

So WHAT IS GOING ON?

OK, I’ve already admitted, along with the shipping manager, that we don’t actually want to know. We suspect it is a punishment doled out on the employee with the lowest sales – some kind of punishment/motivation for working harder for your commission. But seriously, why did the doll have to be abused to create this situation?

I suspect I will never know.