Still Have All My Fingers, For Now

Bundt is fun and all, but meanwhile, back in the sculpture lab, I've been making table legs.

And I learned all about jointing and planing. By making mistakes. Hot tip: If you try to shove an uneven, big piece of wood through a planer without being careful about only taking off a little at a time, it gets stuck and then you get a big groove in your table leg, which you must then patiently plane out.

West Coast Bundt

On Tuesday morning, the day after Bundt Day, I rushed to the post office and sent out care packages. I'd sliced and packed tiny pieces of each cake, and sent them off in Priority Mail boxes to a few select individuals.

Steve B got his Bundt-box on Thursday. He arranged the cakes on a plate, printed out an identification photo, and his family sat down to Bundt-taste.

Steve's favorite was the peanut butter and chocolate cake, followed by Roberta's pecan sour cream pound Bundt. Me? I like them all.

Bundt Gallery

So I made cake.

Lots of cake.



I made chocolate cake.



And peanut butter chocolate cake.



And cherry chocolate cake.



Eve from college sent me a recipe for pumpkin spice Bundt, so I made that too.



Finally, I made a tunnel of fudge.



And Roberta brought over her own cake. So did Otis, for his dogs. Or rather, he mixed it, using pumpkin as a base. I baked it in my oven, because his is broken. I never tasted this year's dog-pumpkin-cake, though last year's dog-yam-cake was a big hit with people AND dogs.



Bundt Day comes but once a year. Damn good thing too. It was exhausting making all these cakes. About a dozen people came over. Michael Kraiger supplied the signage.



Complete set of Bundt Day photos here, including cakes that happened on the West Coast.

Bundt Happens

My pal Erik sent me this photo of National Bundt Cake Day celebrations.

Happy National Bundt Cake Day

Naked Bundt

It's that time of year again! National Bundt(R) Cake Day is tomorrow, Monday the 15th.

Here's my first effort of the morning, though it's cooling and unadorned at the moment. This is going to be a peanut butter and chocolate Bundt cake, once I figure out how to make peanut butter frosting.

Saturday on Snake Hill

Boo-hoo, last week was so gray and dark.

Rainy, overcast, and I couldn't get out of bed in the morning because it was so dark.

Then on Saturday, the last day of Daylight Savings Time, the sun peeked out, illuminating the red and gold leaves on the trees in the park in front of my apartment. My mood changed from gloomy to antsy. What could I do to get out of the house? I had a lot to do...I couldn't go far.

Snake Hill.

Rising over the highway and railroad tracks heading from Secaucus into Penn Station is a giant rock. It's nice granite, and many have tried to destroy it over the years. Not out of spite, but because it's useful for building. There's been a mass cemetery and a sanitorium in its shadow.

Today there are baseball and soccer fields at the base of Snake Hill. I drove over and searched for a way up the rock. I'd missed the annual hike that the local conservancy hosts, which was in September. I'll be back in the future, someday when I get my act together and register in time.

Here are some photos of my morning wandering around the base of Snake Hill.

New Hat

I agonized for a few weeks over this hat. $72! That's a lot for a hat.

Will I wear it? Will I lose it?

In the end, two of my male friends separately pointed out that the hats they have bought have been a lot more than $72. We're talking hundreds for fedoras.

So, fine. I went down to the hat store yesterday and bought the hat.

I hope I don't lose it.

Luang Prabang, 2000

A friend of mine is living in Singapore with her family. The whole family recently took a trip, stopping first in Cambodia, then Luang Prabang, Laos, then moving on to Hanoi and Beijing before returning to Singapore.

Unfortunately, their camera, phone, and laptop were stolen from their hotel room. I'd been looking forward to their photos, but instead contented myself with going back into my archives to scan in some of my photos from a 2000 trip I took to Luang Prabang with Intrepid Travel.

Once is Enough

I've been meaning to get to the White House Sub Shop in Atlantic City for, oh, a decade or two. Ever since I first read about it in the 1992 book "Roadfood."

"The White House is a landmark for sandwich connisseurs; and like the cheese-stead shops of Philadelphia, it boasts a stellar clientele...(snipped)...These sandwiches, let us tell you, are elite eats...(snipped)...The White House Special is a tide of cold cuts—Genoa salami, ham, capicola, and provolone cheese—all rightly packed inside the loaf, lubricated with olive oil, decorated with lettuce and bits of sweet pepper."

And why hadn't I gone to it before? I don't know. I just never got around to it.

So on Friday, after visiting Lucy the Elephant, I caught the #505 bus from Margate back to Mississippi Avenue in Atlantic City, and walked up the block to the White House Sub Shop. I was alone, so I was able to walk in and sit at the counter after only a few minutes wait.

"What's the difference between the Italian and the Special?" I asked the server.

She shrugged. "Double meat and cheese in the Special."

"I'll have the regular, in a small size."

Here is the small size.



Oh. Oh my. Double oh my on a stick.

I wasn't even able to get through half. Which is just as well, as my medical doctor friend Lainie pointed out "That sandwich should come with a side of Lipitor."

I felt a little queasy—I'm not a big fan of nitrates—after I ate, and that might explain the brief mania that took hold of me when I then walked over to the Clark's outlet shop nearby and bought two pairs of shoes. I took a look at my phone (who looks at watches anymore?), noticed the time, and hurried to Caesar's to run through my free slots voucher. I won $9.75, and then used two of those dollars to catch the Atlantic City jitney back to Tropicana, next door to my hotel. I picked up my bag from the bellhop--another dollar, my $9.75 is going fast—then went to the Atlantic City Hilton to catch the skanky Greyhound back to Port Authority.

Which was even skankier than the southbound bus had been. Wifi? No. No wifi. Looking at the bus, I should just be glad it had basic safety equipment and a running engine.

Home again. Aside from one small stop.

I hurried from Port Authority, dropped my overnight bag off in my office, and went to see Al Pacino in The Merchant of Venice. THEN, home again, from a long but entertaining couple of days.