Things

Thing the first:  Mark & I spent a wonderful weekend in Las Vegas last weekend, celebrating our 24th anniversary.  We had a great dinner, saw a rib tickling comedian, and played some pretty awesome cards.  There's more, but it's a bit TMI, so I'm not sharing... ;-)

Thing the second:  Just before we left, Mark had read that a 1980's icon was going to be playing at the Oracle Arena in Oakland  last week.  Tickets were going on sale on Friday at noon. So, we got up "early" (early for Vegas that is!) and thanks to the marvel that is an i-phone, we got tickets to the show on Wednesday.  Oh my.  Prince.  I don't think I've had that much fun at a concert in a long time.  The show started at 7:30 and we were not out of there until 11:30.  There were two encores and even a tribute to Morris Day by Prince.  The crowd sang themselves hoarse - I can't imagine what it does to the actual stars of the show.  And Shelia E.  Just freakin' beautiful.  The girl can still pound on a drum like nobodies business and look mighty fine doing it.

Thing the third:  On checking the mail when we returned home, we found a Valentine letter from the IRS.   According to them, there were some discrepancies between the income reported by third parties and the income reported by us on our return, resulting in additional taxes, penalties and interest of $213,766.  No, that is not a typo.  Two hundred and thirteen THOUSAND dollars.  A couple of phone calls to some very knowledgeable and helpful IRS agents later, and I believe that we have cleared things up.  No, I did not mess up our return that badly.  Codename Mr. Grey (I know, right?) apologized and said that the letter should never have been sent in the first place.  We should have a "cleared" letter from the IRS in just a few short weeks.  I'm not holding my breath, but my fingers are crossed.

Thing the last:  All this excitement has landed both Mark & I with a cold.  I don't know if it was the petrie dish of Las Vegas, the contact high we got in Oakland, or the stress of dealing with the IRS.  But for now at least, we're snuggled under some blankets, beverage of choice at hand, feeling all miserable and stuff. 

Later gators...

Cupcake Test 4, "Key West"

StO (sadly blogless) picked the Key West cupcakes to try this weekend.  I believe we are all especially fond of Key Lime pie.  The combination of sweet and tart, smooth filling and sandy graham cracker crust, is just heaven on your tongue.   But I must say personally, an overly sweet key lime pie is not very good.

One of my favorite trips was a 4 day excursion to the Florida Keys in which I tried the Key Lime Pie at every restaurant we ate at.  The best was, coincidentally, at Lorelei's, on Key Largo.  I don't know if they are still in existence, but the large plywood mermaid is still a landmark in my mind.

Process Notes:  Wahoo!  I got 24 cupcakes this time.  I was overfilling the cups just a smidge, but now, I've got it down pat.  I added additional lime juice to the "filling" - when I tasted it, it was just too sweet, with not much lime flavor to it.  And OMG, was that not the nastiest looking stuff when you put the lime juice and food coloring in the pudding?  I wanted to do half the cupcakes with the filling on top, as per the directions, and the other half as we did the Just Because.  However, the filling was so runny, I wasn't able to just top the cupcakes.  I also added about a T of lime zest to the cake batter pre-baking and on top of the frosting topper.  Like I said, if it's supposed to be lime, I want it to be LIME!  The pics on line show a small slice of lime, but I think the zest will be just fine.

Tasting Notes:

Me:  Sweet, tart, what's not to like?  Even though I tried to push the filling into the cupcake, I think the filling was too runny, and I probably needed a cupcake corer to make it work.  Instead, it just kind of ran over the top, which was fine.  These definitely needed to be refrigerated - a consideration to keep in mind.

Mark:  He only tried the filling, which he really liked.

The Office:  Specific comments - one guy thought they were the best so far.  His second favorite were the chocolate-peanut butter JB's.  Since these were in the fridge, they took a couple of days to disappear.  Out of sight, out of mind, doncha know?

Bernardus, 1997 Marinus Reserve

Bernardus Winery
1997 Marinus Reserve
Carmel Valley

This weekend we celebrated our 24th anniversary at Morton's in San Jose.  Since we can usually handle a bottle of wlne with a big meal like that, we raided our cellar for something special to take with us.  This is the last bottle of three we purchased some time ago. 

We had taken a nice trip to the Monterey/Carmel Valley area for some time out and wine tasting.  Bernardus was probably the nicest wine we had that trip.  The Marinus Reserve was already tasting quite good, and we ended up purchasing the last three bottles in stock.  I can recall the previous bottle, fruity and ripe, also served with a steak.  This one was, again, clearly past it's prime, but still presenting well.  A bit light when tasted by itself.  Still fruity, but soft, with nearly no tannins left.  A bit of caramel on the side.  Mark's nose said oak still, but aged and vanilla.  When drunk with the steak however, the fats and carmelized fond smoothed it even further, and made the wine taste just fabulous. 

I'm sad to see it gone, as it no longer will be around to bring back memories of a great trip to Carmel, however, it was time to go.

Cupcake Test 3 "Double Coconut"

My pick this week - Double-Coconut Cupcakes. Can I just say, mmmmmm?   These are actually triple coconut, but if you used the pre-mixed frosting, then they would be just double.  There is a dollop of coconut and sweetened condensed milk as a surprise filling in the cupcake.  There is coconut flavor in the homemade frosting, and then you top it all off with some toasted coconut.

Process Notes:  Again, even with the ice cream scoop, I only got 21 cupcakes.  This is obviously user error.  I'll try to do better next time.  I used a small cookie scoop (like an ice cream scoop but just a smidge larger than a melon baller) to put the filling in the cupcake batter - and I had more than enough of the coconut goo to do 24 and more cupcakes.  Tool wise though, I'll bet this was the way to go.  I got a new pan as well - this one has the little wave things on the bottom of the cups so I think it's an air bake pan.  I also used my heavy duty pan.  Regardless, none of the cupcakes burned.  I was nervous that they hadn't baked enough, even though my toothpick test came clean, because as I was pulling them from the pan, they seemed soft on the bottom.  After letting them rest however, they firmed up.  The frosting was quick and easy to make.  I added an extra 1/2 t (making it 1 & 1/2 t) of coconut extract to enhance the flavor.  Watch the toasting process carefully.  It takes just moments to go from yum to burned.  Speaking of the coconut, the bag says that there is 5 1/2 c in it.  I'm assuming that's fluffed, because I didn't have that much extra. 

Tasting Notes:

Me:  Yum and Yum and Yum.  I like the surprise filling that's not really a filling, because once the sweetened condensed milk is cooked, it's absorbed into the batter of the cupcake making it really moist and delicious.  The frosting is addictive.  And the toasted coconut on top gives it a bit of color and crunch.

Mark:  Delicious.  Loved the frosting so much, he upped his shot so that he could eat more of it.  He usually doesn't do that. 

Work:  All but one was gone by the time Mark headed home.  I'm sure that's a function of the now regular appearance of cupcakes at his office.  And, coconut is one of those flavors that folks either really like, or really don't like.  The last one was gone before he got to the office this morning.  All comments were positive.  (He's not really good about direct quotes!)

David Bruce, 2000 Carneros, Pinot Noir, Truchard Vineyard

David Bruce
2000 Carneros
Pinot Noir
Truchard Vineyard

I recently cleaned out under the stairs, our otherwise known as wine cellar.  Wine Club boxes were racked, a few (or more) from the last trip into Napa/Sonoma were slid into place, and all of a sudden, I have no room left.  A quick count revealed that if I open a bottle a week, I've got enough to drink for three years, assuming it's not all turned to vinegar.  And that's not counting the champagne, odd lots, and other adult beverages in my bar.  In order to give some purpose to my "buying problem", I need to make some headway into this backlog of vino.  I'm planning on doing an inventory list this week, so I can find the ones that need to get drunk sooner than later.  And, know where those special anniversary bottles are located.

Tonight I opened up the David Bruce wine linked above.  The wine is spicy and warm, but a bit light on the body.  The tannins have all but disappeared.  Although clearly past it's prime, it will go well with our dinner tonight, and even tomorrow too.