February 18th is Chinese New Year and marks the beginning of the year of the pig.  Specifically, it is the year of the Golden Pig -- which for whatever reasons translates in great prosper for little ones born this year.  But what about the rest of us?  Here's a list of do's and don't's to guide you superstitious types during the holiday period... 

Currently Reading The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World By A. J. Jacobs see related

Drool-Worthy!

I've been very curious about red velvet cakes ever since I saw a picture in a cooking magazine.  Bright red color (recipes call for 2 oz. of red food coloring), cream cheese frosting.  As I understood it, the Southern cake is supposed to taste like a cocoa cake.  The reddish hue naturally occurred due to a reaction between cocoa powder and other ingredients.  Dutch-processed cocoa became more prevalent in modern times and would a subtler hue -- to recreate the color from the olden days, red food coloring was added.

It seems that the cupcake bakeries that are popping up all over LA and many have red velvet in their lineup.  And so, I've gotten to taste a few.  Some are better than others, but never mind-blowing.  So what was the big deal?  I'd rather have a chocolate stout cupcake or a slice of chocolate cake from Rockwell's in Villa Park.  Well, Mixer and I went to Doughboy's on Third Street near the Beverly Center to have lunch yesterday.  On the table was a flyer inviting us to try their red velvet cake which Oprah named the best she's ever had.  I figure, Oprah is Southern and knows how to eat, so who am I to question her rec.  Mixer and I had an awesome lunch -- the menu is so enticing it's hard to choose (maybe the deep fried peanut butter, chocolate and banana sandwiches next time) -- and the potions were HUGE almost to a fault.  Mixer got "The Fat Boy," a burrito filled with BBQ pulled-pork and egg.  I got "Scrapple with Dirty Eggs", which looked like a huge crabcake but made of grits and pork with eggs and potatoes on the side.  Yum!  Even though we were stuffed we asked for the $5 mini-red velvet cake to go.  It was so cute -- a one-layer version of the one in the pic above and about 4" in diameter.  I had to fend off Mixer and his fork all afternoon to make sure we would have it for dessert.  First bite and I was in heaven -- so dense, so moist, and a totally indescribable flavor.  Can't wait to go back for more.  Oprah's rave is well deserved!

Finished reads:
A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke -- A hilarious look at the peculariaties of the French from the poit of view of a twenty-something Brit hired to create a chain of English tea rooms.  The main character is a bit too much of a stud for my tastes -- bring me the nerds!  But a lot of his sentiments are dead-on and definitely not PC.
Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley -- I've been meaning to read this for the last 10 years and ended up seeing the theatrical version a few months ago.  Great movie and great book!  You can't help but find yourself rooting for tobacco's number 1 lobbyist.

  Chocolate Cupcakes with Stout - A Great Combo!

Well, the stout -- one bottle of Guinness -- goes into the batter.  These might be the best cupcakes I have ever made.  They turned out incredibly moist and with an intense chocolate flavor that is not too sweet, and I think that's a result of adding the beer.  It's topped with a cream cheese frosting that really compliments well.  Next time I'll halve the recipe -- 24 cupcakes is quite a lot! 

I had a slight snafu when I made the recipe.  A total rookie baker mistake, as I was reading the recipe literally.  I added a cold bottle of Guinness to a bowl of melted butter and it turned into a curdled mess -- like cottage cheese made of butter floating in a brown, foamy soup.  Too bad I didn't take a picture of it.  Tossed it out and started over, making sure to add only a little bit of stout at a time to temper it. 

Here is a link to the recipe, courtesy of Dave Lieberman from the Food Network.  I've only tried a couple of his recipes and they turned out nicely -- I dig his show.  He's a young, smiley-faced likeable guy. The show is geared towards the younger crowd who wants to cook some interesting stuff but without forking out a lot of dough.  And his dishes don't require a gazillion ingredients like, say, Emeril. 

Check out Cheese_Panda and Torosushi for the lowdown on the stuff I've been up to lately.  I've finished off a couple more books...
Superstud: Or How I Became a 24 Year-Old Virgin -- by Paul Feig, the guy who created the show "Freaks and Geeks."  So hilarious.  I loved the part where he shares his journal entries and inserts footnotes about how mortified he is by what he wrote.  In one part he wanted to punch himself.  I made several failed attempts at my own journal but nothing makes you cringe like reading those old entries.
Lost In A Good Book -- by Jasper Fforde.  The third and my favorite so far of four books following the adventures of Thursday Next, a sort of literary police/investigator.  Fforde creatively describes a world in which all books (published, unpublished, unfinished) and the characters within are real.  Thursday enters that world under the tutelage of Miss Havisham from Great Expectations.

Currently Reading King Dork By Frank Portman see related

I was on-call for jury duty this past week and finally got called in on Friday.  It started at 7:45 am -- where's the decency?  To make things worse, you are told to park on the rooftop of a parking structure next to the Disney Concert Hall and then walk about 1/2 a mile to the criminal courthouse.  There were probably 80 of us in the assembly room.  Jury orientation started about 1 hour later and then we were sent off on a half hour break so we could keep the building cafeteria in business.  At about 10:30 the first group of jurors were called.  A second group was called at 11:30.  I was in the remaining third or so left in the assembly room.  I read my book and watched the clock...a lot.  At noon we were excused for lunch, so I made the trip to Little Tokyo for some sushi rolls.  Everyone returned from lunch at 1:30 and we waited and waited and waited.  I think I tried just about every position to sit in my chair, which was not so kind to the arse.  Legs crossed, legs uncrossed, legs on front chair, legs on next chair, legs crossed on next chair, legs tucked under....No more groups were called and we were finally dismissed at 4:00.  Made the long trek back to my car.  Cursed the parking structure for having no elevator and for having to climb stair up to the roof, passing entirely empty parking levels along the way.  Maybe all of this was payback for having not served even once since having turned 18.

By the way, I highly recommend a book, lent to me by Toro -- it's called "King Dork" and it's written by Frank Portman.  Portman is better known as Dr. Frank, front man of one of my favorite punk bands, the Mr. T Experience.  If you are familiar with his penchant for clever lyric-writing, it's not so hard to envision him as a clever novel-writer.  It's about a teen who is such a loser, that  as he puts it, if he were a playing card, even 2's would beat him.  Life at school, of course, sucks hard.  Life at home sucks too, despite his family's good intentions.  He finds his late father's copy of "Catcher In The Rye" and finds some puzzling writing that becomes somewhat of a mystery for him to investigate and figure out.  He also gets a second quest, when he incredibly makes it to second base at a party and wants to reunite with his mystery girl.  The book has been getting blurbs in a lot of big press so kudos to Dr. Frank.