Bolo de queijo -- c. 2007

Cleaning up an old computer to get ready for VM save, I found my 2007 Brazilian Cheese Cake Recipe.  I'm moving it here to free up disk space.

Receita por Bolo de Queijo

Crust:

- 1 ½ xícara biscoito *crumbs*

- 75 g manteiga

- 2 tablespoons açúcar

- um pouco sal

Filling:

- 6 150g cream cheese

- 1 ¼ xícara açúcar

- ¾ xícara requeijo cremoso

- 6 ovos grandes, *lightly beaten*

- 2 tablespoons baunilha (liquido)

- 1 teaspoon laranja *zest*

- 1 teaspoon *lemon zest*

Topping:

- ¼ xícara requeijo cremoso

- ¾ xícara açúcar

- 1 tablespoon baunilha (liquido) ou canela

Fogão: 162° C

Crust: 

Melt manteiga.  Brush some in pan.  Crush biscoitos.  Mix rest of manteiga e açúcar e sal e biscoitos.  Press in pan, bake til golden (~10 min).  Wrap the bottom of the cheesecake pan in aluminum.  Place pan in a roasting pan

Filling:

Beat cream cheese.  Add açúcar.  Beat until fluffy.  Add requeijo cremoso.  Beat.  Add eggs.  Beat.  Add vanilla & zests.  Beat.  Pour into crust.  Boil water, pour an inch or two into outer roasting pan (the aluminum foil you wrapped around the bottom *should* keep the cake from getting wet).  Put in oven.  Bake 1 hora 10 min.

Topping:

Mix all ingredients together.  Spread over cheesecake and cook 5 more minutes.

Remove cheesecake pan from roasting pan.  Release the spring and run a knife around the cake and cool to room temperature.

Cover, refrigerate for 8 horas. 

Ski Tripping

Driving up into the Colorado mountains, it's the first time in a good while that I'm sitting in the backseat of a full car.  It's started to snow,  just white specks flurrying past the Camry's windows.  Lonely weather, would be silence broken by the Shania Twain on the mix tape and the high drive moan of a down-shifting engine.

The acrid aftertaste from the after-lunch espresso lingers at the back of my throat.  Staring at sheer rock face, interspersed between the grit encrusted sides of transport trucks and tankers, I can taste your cigarette kisses with every caffeinated exhale.

The snow outside thickens.  Counter-traffic turns on their brights, lighting the way towards our destination, a guiding light in twos and fours.  I worry about the tires as the road texture changes - the once solid parallel tracks slowly being obscured by white film.

Part of being out of control is the loss of responsibility.  Your options as a backseat driver are, therefore, limited.  I choose to rule over the window, and commandeer the floor for my shoes and bag, my dominion of warmth and observation established at a variable 6,000ft.  We float behind a snow plow, a sanctuary of traction on the increasingly slick road.  He pulls off as we glide into the Eisenhauer tunnel, sliding from one side of the continent to the next.  The blizzard left behind as we ascend farther into mountains, the road ahead obscured by a soft white haze.

You said you were heading up to Colorado this weekend, and I wonder if your ears popped, too.  

We're stopping soon.  First to the ski fitting, then pick up the keys to our condo, our three day home.  

I want to keep driving, reining backseat worry free, mountain queen.

Everyday food harrassment

Everyday Food, the Martha Stewart magazine, is harrassing me. I haven't renewed my subscription for the coming year. Their way of dealing with this unfortunate fact is to send me childish and insulting veiled threats in the form of an "invoice".
Forget friendly reminders to renew, or cute you're "missing out letters". Instead they've resorted to scare tactics, threats and Bullying. If you dont pay we'll be forced to cancel your subscription for the coming year! And ... And take you off our preferred customers list. This is only the second such letter I've received; I'm sure theyre saving the heavy artillery for a third letter: where I'm summarily removed from the best friends forever list and they want their other half of their heart charm back.
Everyday Food - just drop it. Bullying went out of fashion after the braces came off. And really, you were never that cool. I just feel bad for all the people that are actually threatened by their bs. Time to take this to the better business bureau?
But don't just take it from me. Check out their letter for yourself.

Slapdash Mexican casserole

The idea for this came to me when a friend mentioned he had breakfast casserole.
1 can black beans
1 can corn
1/2 can crushed tomatoes
1/2 jar salsa, any flavor or spiciness. Though I'm not sure how well mango salsa would taste.
Small bag of corn tortillas
8 oz bag of shredded yellow cheese - I like Colby
Green onions or cilantro as garnish
4 eggs
Cayenne pepper and chili powder to taste
Preheat oven to 375.
In a bowl, beat eggs and mix in salsa.  In a larger bowl, combine corn, beans, and half the tomato can.  Mix in the egg and salsa mixture. Add chili powder and cayenne pepper, if desired. I put about taespoon cayenne and a half tablespoon chili.
In an 8x8 pan, cover the bottom with a layer of tortillas. Pour 1/3 of the mixture on top. Cover liberally with cheese. Sprinkle on chopped greens. Repeat layering until pan is full ending on a cheese and greens layer.
Bake for forty five minutes covered with foil, or until egg solidifies.
Ole!

TSA

Pronounced ZAH.  Like the zah in Huzzah (huh? - ZAH).  Or the zah in tsar.

Otherwise known as The Sadistic Aircops.

(bah-tsinga)

Oil, on canvas

She had her paint box out again.  She had left the easel in the closet though; I doubt that it had ever been used.  Instead, she often painted her masterpieces on the floor, polished mahogany with a dark stain, a color approaching burnt fuchsia.

Purple was her favourite colour.  She used it on her dolls hair and her mother's toe nails.  Her brother John's sense of appreciation met, chaotically, his just as equal sense of indignation when her creative talents turned themselves onto his bike seat.

Today's color was black.  Canvas abandoned on the table, she instead applied her paintbrush to every living thing within her reach.

The pet terrier, Jake the yardman, Melissa her friend from fourth grade, Dennis who messaged her on Facebook yesterday, Elizabeth her mother, Dad, Robert the boy from school with the corduroy jeans.

From afar, they blended in to the background hues of charcoal gray, but up close you could see the whites of their eyes, their gleaming, sharp, teeth, displayed between tight, glossy black lips.

It would be her masterpiece.

Seguranca de nada

Sempre pensei que algum dia alguém teria que me amar.  Que eu nao teria opcao, que cairia em amor sem dar assento.  Que para cair no amor voce so precisava existir.  E seria bastante.

Mas aprendi que a existencia nao necesita o amor.  Que e possivel existir, respirar, ser -- sem um outro que te ama.  E que nada vai garantizar que o amor vem para voce.

Nessa existencia, temos a seguranca de nada, meu.  Nada vem, meu, nada vem.