Anatomy of a panic
01.01.70
As I watched TV from bed at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, the weather guy was predicting two to six inches of snow in our area. I thought maybe I was still asleep and it was a bad dream. Am I going nuts or does it usually NOT SNOW in October? As I drove to get my morning coffee at Dunkies, I saw some DPW plows and trucks and other vehicles at the ready. I bought into the hype and headed for Home Depot at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning to get some “ice melt”…in October! There was a steady flow of other panic people in Home Depot, too. I picked up two 50 pound plastic buckets of the stuff (I almost got a hernia lifting them!). Some folks were buying snow blowers! Then I went by the gas station and put five dollars worth of regular in my plastic gas can for my snow blower. Five bucks filled it halfway (are you kidding?). To complete my emergency preparedness run (in October), I stopped by Stop ‘n’ Shop for water, soup, milk, cookie dough, and some other food. All the while one thought kept running through my mind. This is October, unless I have finally snapped, or entered the , which is totally possible.
Source: The Somerville News
Chocolate Cake In A Mug
01.01.70
Warm chocolate cake in minutes, using only common baking ingredients, a mug, a spoon, and a microwave?
With my experience as a baker, I was skeptical when I heard about the web video sensation known as Chocolate Cake in a Mug. Could any microwaved cake, especially one assembled and mixed all in the same mug, be as delicious and instantly gratifying as the popular video promised?
From a baking standpoint I had reservations. Cakes typically like a delicate touch, and batter made in the small space of a mug had to be beaten pretty vigorously to blend. Then there was the unreliability of the microwave cooking method itself — what takes 2 minutes in one oven might require more or fewer seconds in another. A cake could turn out over- or undercooked.
But the biggest question of all was, of course: What would a cake made in a matter of minutes in a microwave taste like? I gathered the ingredients from my cupboards, set to work, and soon had my answer.
Source: Gloucester Daily Times