A post in which my bad kitchen mojo continues *sigh*

Donnie had called me late last night to ask for some help with a problem Kimblee and Laura are having, and ended up inviting me to brunch today at 11. I really wanted to go, but knew that would cut the heart out of my cooking time today.

Jason and I woke up and greeted the day in approved newlywed fashion, but eventually I just had to get out of bed and get something DONE in there. We had gone through the store last night, and I had laid the stuff out for another pound cake, which I threw together in short order and got in the oven. I fed Jason a piece of the fallen one, which did taste good, it just looked like kaka-doodie. I cleaned up the kitchen while he showered and checked stuff on the Internet, and then I got cleaned up while he watched a movie. My cake (thank the Blessed Virgin) stayed up, and I turned it out to cool while we headed for Greer.

We were supposed to meet everyone at Richard's, which is does brunch, and has apparently just been written up in the paper. Inexplicably they were closed today, which left us at sixes and sevens. Eventually, we decided to go all the way back downtown to eat at the Liberty Tap Room. They were all enthusiastic about the food. I was the only one who hadn't eaten there. It was a nice place, although with the now-fashionable carpet-less echoing noise chamber of a dining room. The dining room was all black as well, which I guess is supposed to either feel chic or impart a pub atmosphere, but it just made it look like a hole to me. It was a beautiful day, though, so we elected to eat outside. They have a beautiful al fresco dining area adjacent to the ball park, but in the sun it was actually too hot today, believe it or not. Donnie and Mark sat in the seats that were in the sun, but Jason ended up saying he would trade with Donnie. Which meant he ended up sitting in the hot sun, and directly across from Mark. Poor baby.

Mark was in an unusually loquacious mood today. I asked Kimblee and Laura to tell me about their problem they've been having, and Mark chimed in and expounded at length on the legalities involved and exactly how they should handle everything.

Meanwhile, we were waiting for our food, which came out. I have to say mine was excellent. My poached eggs were a bit under-done, but other than that everything was notably delicious. Our service, however, was awful. We had a straight guy waiting on us who was nice enough, but disappeared as soon as our order was taken. We had to flag him down for everything. Eventually, we were just flagging down any of the other waitstaff we could detain, and we did get what we needed. Eventually. Jason was really put out. He felt like the guy didn't want to wait on us because we were all gay. I didn't get that vibe from him, but he was notably absent. The food was good enough that I would consider going again. If I could take a canteen.

After brunch I invited everyone back to my place for coffee and pie. I hadn't seen any of them since Donnie's mother died, and I just never see enough of Kimblee and Laura. I cut the pie and made coffee, and Donnie and Mark showed up. Mark was still feeling his oats though, and unfortunately he started pontificating. The subject came around to the European school system, which Jason knows about first-hand, having worked within it. As usual Mark knew just enough to be dangerous, and the debate was on. They debated through most of the rest of the visit. I had tried to prep Jason beforehand on Mark protocol, but it apparently hadn't taken. Eventually, the rest of us just started our own conversation. When we began to be drowned out by the continuing Jason/Mark fracas, the visit just broke up.

On top of it all, although everyone was nice about it, my pie crust sucked. The pie was OK, but because I used white sweet potatoes I had cut back on the sugar. I was trying to not cover up the flavor of the white sweet potato, but I just ended up making a lackluster pie. At least my coffee was good.

Jason was embarrassed after everyone left, but nonetheless defiant. The rest of us are used to letting Mark's bullshit roll over us like white noise, but when you're not used to it things can get to you. Jason apologized, I reassured him, and he left to go do all his stuff this afternoon.

Meanwhile, yours truly needed to get in that kitchen and rattle them pots and pans. I had nothing to show for yesterday; not one dessert was in the can. I mixed up the Chocolate Chess pie just to get it on in the oven while I worked on the carrot cake. I had been dreading getting into the carrot cake; apparently with good reason. I bought a handy-dandy little hand-held grater not long ago, thinking it would be perfect for grating carrots onto salad. Oh how wrong I was. After 20 minutes of effort, I had 1/3 of a carrot grated, hand cramps, and bruised knuckles. Since I had to have two cups of shredded carrots I just got the food processor out. When I got done, I had carrots everywhere. Half the kitchen was stained orange. I just cleaned it all up and tried to finish the batter. But I hadn't gotten enough walnuts, so I had to run to the store. Eventually though, I got the batter finished and in the oven. I had the kitchen mostly clean by the time my carrot cake layers came out. They looked pretty good, if darker than I would have liked. I then noted that my chocolate pie hadn't set. I threw it back in the oven to see if I could get it to firm up.

I was really tired, and wanted to sit down, but I decided to go ahead and glaze the pound cake so I would have at least one dessert finished. Bad idea. My chocolate seized up, and I had dump butter in it to make it let loose. I finished the glaze, got down the pound cake, and noticed it was lop-sided. But I wasn't making another one. So I poured the glaze over it, which promptly went globby and granular-looking. I also poured it on unevenly. It tastes OK, but the butter was separating out because there was too much in it, and it doesn't look smooth and pretty like it's supposed to.

My pie came out, but with a cracked top, too done on top, and the crust too brown. I tried to split the layers on my carrot cake (I decided to do 4). Also a bad idea. Because of the walnuts, I couldn't split them with dental floss as I usually do. I had to use a knife. They were fairly cool, but started coming apart when I tried to split them. I got it done though, and stacked the layers up with wax paper to freeze. They'll be easier to frost when they're frozen, I think. On the plus side, I did taste a bit that came off and the cake is delicious.

I was exhausted, and sat down to survey my accomplishments: a burnt-top pie, a lopsided pound cake with globby-looking glaze, and some crumbly cake layers. I finished up cleaning the kitchen and thawed something for supper, after which I just plopped down in front of the tube. I watched telly and did a couple of loads of laundry until it was time for bed. No way was I putting my blighted baker's thumb back in the kitchen tonight. Sigh. I went to bed very discouraged.