Weird Foods and Other Strangeness

You will love the Gestalt Gardener. Here is its url: It is a hoot.

http://www.mpbonline.org/radio/programs/GestaltGardener/index.htm

Be sure to listen to the archives as well.

I've run right over to his site. Sounds very cool. I think I'll have my honey set those up to come in for me.

"Plants I Have Luved and Killed" -- what a scream.
Here's one:
Plants That Have Taken Advantage of Me:
Whitetop

Happy Birthday Dr. Doolittle. I hope it's a delightful day!

Thanks Katlian! It's been a great day!!

Was there cake???????

;-)

Happiest birthday ever to you, Iowa mountaineer.

Yes, Happy Birthday, Dr. Doolittle.

No there was purpley blue sheeps, goats and llamas fur being 'carded' which is a very very interesting B-Day present that Dr. Doolittle got which I will let her tell you all about!

Can't wait to hear about it.

No cake. :-(

But Kelly made pancakes for me so that was nice of him. We put a 1/4 teaspoon of tangerine oil in our pancakes. Is that on the Iowa Units chart anywhere? It tastes really good!

LOL Dahlianut, you are a hoot.

My parents gift to me was to send me $ for a drum carder for my fleecy flock. Here is the picture of my drum carder and the first batt that I made with it. A drum carder takes the place of hand cards, so it does a lot more work in less time, and the whole purpose is to make all the fibers line up so that the fiber is ready for hand spinning.

An excellent and delightful birthday gift! I love tools.

And tangerine oil in pancakes sounds actually quite good and not weird at all, sorry. ;-)

I will send you some cyber birthday cake, though. It won't taste very good I am afraid, but the thought is there.

******
{[cake]}

Thank you! Great frosting!!

LOL! Those were the *candles*, silly! tee hee.

you're most welcome.

Oh, looking up there I see my formatting did not survive the posting process and the ***** candles slid off center. Think of it like the cake was in the back seat of the car and the swervy road was just too much for the heirloom recipe frosting and, well, it slid a little bit.

;-)

I thought the ***** were the sprinkles on the top of a layer of really thick frosting....and it's perfectly OK that it was sliding to the side. That happened when I cut it. :-)

This is a natural occurrence in mountainous terrain. A 'balanced' cake would be an unusual phenomenom and would probably make the RM World Book of Records. Flopping cakes and cakes with dips are also altitudinally proportionate. There is a very complicated formula about that which I developed once involving yeast and and yolks and waterfalls and other stuff that I will have to look up in my notes. This is why it is much better to bake rocks for B-Days in the Rockies.

Beautiful wool! I assume you dyed it first. Otherwise, I next want to see a picture of your sheep/llama that contributed it. Are you going to knit it or sell it?
When I ask for cooking gadgets for Christmas, my DH will get them for me, but my mother-in-law refuses. She thinks it is terrible to give some one a pan for Christmas, even if they want it. That's the way with these southern belles. I can have all the cashmere sweaters I want but no cooking gadgets.

Isn't that the truth, Dahlia? My first German Chocolate Cake in Santa Fe looked like a roller coaster. Then I made some plain old chocolate cakes that looked like hocky pucks. Then I located a bakery that knew how to bake at this altitude. Besides, my DH prefers Baskin-Robbins ice cream cakes anyhow.

I have bread, squares and cheesecake perfected but am still altitudinally challenged with alot of other things. My DH makes perfect chocolate chip cookies. Mine always turn into a giant pizza cookie.

But, is it worthwhile baking rocks? Do they even hold the frosting? Aren't they just as tasty raw anyway?

(note to self: ask someone to perform taste test on rocks comparing baked and raw.
note to self: who can I recruit for this task?
note to self: make friends with more gullible people so as to have the necessary troops and subjects when situations such as this arise, as they are bound to do, again.)

They don't need frosting dear Kyla cuz of their natural stripeyness and cool colours and shapes. Just bake and serve. It's a little tricky getting the candles to stay on so drip a little wax on the rock and then affix the candles before the wax hardens. TADA! (They really don't need to be baked but it makes it more official to do so).

That wool was actually wool roving that I purchased from Etsy.com, and not from my own flock. I am relatively confident that the sheep from which it originated were not turquoise, but it would be really cool if they were! I don't know yet if I'll knit/crochet it or sell it. I have a bit of an excess of wool, you see....

This discussion of altitudanally challenged cooking is fascinating. Mount Iowa does not have the altitude to result in these problems, but I think I shall use it as an excuse next time something comes out wrong.

Kylaluaz - excellent planning. Keep us all updated.

Also, have on hand the phone number for a reliable dentist for post-taste-testing issues...

It is the perfect excuse. Try using it if a salad dressing turns out wonky. "O bother, the altitude has turned the grapeseed oil". "Who would have thought that the sesame seeds would have issues. Should have used the trusty poppy seeds". These are all good when serving guests as long as you visably fling things around alot before serving. Paj is very right on about the need for mysterious tools and gadgets. It wouldn't work if you flung around a cashmere sweater.

I have to confess I had not thought of baking rocks in the Rocky Mountains, but what could be more appropriate? And I am sure they would taste a lot better than some of my chocolate cakes. And yes, Dr. Doolittle, use the altitude excuse -- few understand high altitude baking problems and would question you.
I also made the huge pizza cookies. They tasted okay but some how they lacked something. I gave up on cookies as well.

I have never baked rocks. However, I have baked a water balloon birthday cake. I baked two normal round layers of cake and cut the center out of one, making a ring of cake only about 1.5 inches thick. I did the same thing with the top layer, except I scraped away the cake from the crust on top of the center I had cut out. That gave me a lid.

I put purple food coloring in the balloon and then filled the balloon with water. The balloon was too big for a two layer cake and it was too late for me to bake a third layer. I foolishly decided to fabricate a third layer from all the leftover cake from the center holes.

Bad plan, because the crumbs from all those pieces escaped into the frosting. It looked a little like I had mixed the cake and frosting together with a beater. The other issue is all structural integrity was gone. No nice square corners, the poor thing looked a bit like a bowling ball dipped in mashed potatoes. It also quivered like jello when disturbed.

What could I do to make it look intentional??? I decorated it like a spaceship so it simply looked like a really bad idea instead of a complete disaster. Fortunately by the next day the frosting had hardened so it no longer quivered, but it did sound hollow if you thumped it. Luckily most people do not thump cakes.

I served it outdoors on the patio and gave my brother my biggest butcher knife to cut it. He obligingly plunged it point down in the exact center of the cake. He was so stunned at the resulting purple flood that collapsed the cake and washed chunks of it off the table he simply stood there with the knife still in the cake, in shock.

He has never cut another cake at my house either. Not even the edible one I had hidden in the cupboard to replace the water balloon one.

That is simply OUTSTANDING Mulch and has convinced me that we need to create a RM Cake Cook Book! So far we have Traditional RM Rock Birthday Cakes, Ennis Balloon Cakes, Calgary Cheese Cakes that defy Altitudinal Challenges.... Anyone else?

OMG, I am laughing so hard I am crying! MM, that is a hysterical story! I have been doing lots of research on baking in altitude, and I'm getting pretty good at it (though I don't bake cakes often, but I made carrot cake cupccakes last week that were amazing, if I do say so myself). If you all remind me tomorrow, I'll post the tips I've learned, too tired tonight...

How fabby is that: Dolores Carrot Cake.

We will look forward to the tips, if not the recipe for the carrot cake cupcakes. You are talking to a baking challenged individual here -- at least at high altitude. I love to cook in Mississippi. It is so much easier . Just soak your beans, put them in a pot and cook for 2 hrs. Brown rice same. Sigh.
Mulch, that was the perfect birthday cake for a brother! I have a brother and I completely understand. He won't come to your house to mooch cake ever again!

That is an excellent idea, Mulch! And a good cake story. My youngest brother deserves such a cake.

That was a hilarious story Mulchmania! I love it! Somebody should have been ready with the camera to record his facial expression! That would have been classic!

Iowa has many rocks, so I will have to practice the cake baking. I could decorate with llama beans.

Here is a link to the tips I have used that seem to work well. We are at 7000 ft. here.

http://www.ochef.com/327.htm

Okay, I think I am going to be forever suspicious of cakes. Mulch, too bad there is not a video of t he purple flood moment, what a hoot! LOL!

There is a great cookbook for baking at high altitudes, with very well tested recipes. It is called Pie in the Sky. I bought it just in case I was called upon to bake, but so far haven't used it. But do know that all the recipes are tested at stated altitudes. Actually, DH, doesn't much care about homemade bread or sandwiches so no bread making for me. I actually know how to do that here. And I don't make deserts because I am not a person who loves sugar. DH just buys two-bite brownies to satisfy his sweet tooth.

LMAO. What a hoot. I though Dnut was on a roll, then I got to your story, Mulch!

Claire, does your roving tend to wander off? I used to do hand weaving. On a 50" Norwood. I was always in yarn debt.

Oh, I should remind you -- for the cake list, Dahlia -- that Mulch already told us about a certain exploding birthday cake with two firecrackers in it. My DH really liked that idea. Fortunately, he doesn't bake.

I remember that story, Picante. Mulch bakes some interesting cakes.

I used to bake interesting cakes. No one seems to want me to make a cake for them anymore...

I remember the firecracker cake now too. That must be in the cookbook for sure!

I sort of understand why no one wants you to bake cakes anymore, mulch.