My Financial Decade

It’s 2010 and the start of a new decade.  Yes, I know, sticklers say the new decade starts in 2011, but who are we kidding, we started counting this century in 2000, so 10 years have passed.  Quickly!  And what a decade it was.  The world changed in great and terrifying ways, and my life changed far more subtly.  That’s the way I like it.

 2000 was a transitional year for me.  Well, the end of the year was.  What I remember most is the 3 week period where the Mets lost the World Series to the Yankees, the US election happened (over and over again), and I was laid off.  That last bit had never happened to me before, and I was terrified!  I remember leaving that publishing company holding a big box of the junk that I kept in my office.  My boss gave me a twenty so I could take a cab home, but I wanted to save the money, so I stood out on King Street West, in front of newly-opened Susur, sobbing and waiting for a streetcar.

 Unemployment turned out to be less scary that I thought.  I was earning so little in publishing that the slide down to EI from my meagre salary wasn’t all that painful.   I spent months and months looking for a decent job, bumming around the city, and exercising. Then September 11 happened.  I took the next job I was offered, which was at Williams-Sonoma.  I had applied for a part-time job there, but was offered a management position, and since it paid more than my publishing job did, I figured I’d give it a try (oh, and my EI was running out).

 Ultimately, it wasn't the right job, but (most of) the people I met there made the whole experience worth it.  I cherish the friends I made at WS; they have brought so much to my life that I could never regret that job. And I guess I should thank Williams-Sonoma for the 40% discount that enabled me to have a kitchen tricked out like a label-whore chef.

 This decade took me to, among other places, New York multiple times,  Paris, San Francisco, San Diego, Memphis, Washington D.C., Quebec City and all over Italy. I travelled with friends, my Mom, and Peter. I took trips for business and for pleasure. And I spent money like a drunken sailor either way.  (Surprisingly, all the people I travelled with are still speaking to me.)

 As the decade ends, I’m wondering if things have changed much for me financially from when it started. Yes, I earn a lot more, but my expenses are truly ridiculous.  If you had told me 10 years ago that my monthly Rogers bill would be what it is now, I would have laughed.  I lived, I think, perfectly well on my former salary, but in my case, the more I earn, the more I spend.  Ultimately, I think I now have too much stuff.  Too many sweaters, too many frying pans, too many kinds of shampoo.

 I’m going to try (yet again) to make this new year and decade about less.  I’ll still strive for quality, but not quantity.  To that end, I am conducting a purge on behalf of Goodwill.  No longer will I have 4(!) rolling pins, 20 pillow cases, and 100 cookbooks.  I’m keeping the best and the useful, and everything else must go.

 I wish a happy and prosperous New Year to the 4 people who occasionally read this blog. If you want a rolling pin, let me know :)

More Christmas Cookies

Well, my holiday baking idea was sort of a bust.  I was not much of a self-promoter, so I didn't get too many orders.  Here is a box of 3 dozen assorted decorated sugar cookies made for a good friend and customer.  Damn, I forgot how much work it is to pipe a load of these!  I did some fairly easy sprinkles decorating as well.  Much easier, and just as delicious.

Since I need to take a break from desserts to prepare for a trip to the Bahamas, I think I will give up baking until Valentine's Day.  Unless someone really wants some :)

Some snowflakes

Sugary sugar cookies :)

The Cookie, BCC (Before Chocolate Chips!)

I have a small collection of old cookbooks, some about 100 years old, but my favourite is probably Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Tried and True Recipes, published in 1936.  The name may give away what makes it special- it contains the original Toll House Cookie recipe, which is the very first chocolate chip cookie!

The tale of the cookie may be slightly disputed, but it's origin is definitely at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.  The original recipe, called Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies, asks bakers to add to the dough 2 bars of Nestle chocolate "which have been cut in pieces the size of a pea".  

I made them tonight, using Mrs. Wakefield's original recipe.  Unfortunately I didn't have any bars of Nestle Yellow Label chocolate lying around the house, so I used some Callebeaut bittersweet chocolate chips.

They turned out perfectly.  Crispy on the outside and melty on the inside.  Just what a chocolate chip cookie should be.  I'm saving some dough, since as Jacques Torres proved, dough gets better with time, so I'll see if cookies baked in a few days are even better.

As great and classic as these cookies are, this is not my go-to recipe.  My standard chocolate chip cookie recipe (for now) is the Hershey's Milk Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe found here.  It produces really chewy cookies, which is my preferred texture.  Enjoy!

Steppin' Out in Manhattan

It has been brought to my attention, by my mother, no less, that my blog entry about the trip to Capri did not read as amusingly as I had thought.  "Why didn't you make it funny?", she asked.  I actually thought it was; I guess the only way I have been able to live with myself for so long was to convince myself that my, uh, quirks , were funny, and not tragic.  Apparently I have been deluding myself.  More props to Ally for not murdering me in my sleep when we were in Italy.

And on to New York...

The week before the trip to Italy, I took my mom to New York for the US Open.  She loves tennis, and loves Roger Federer, so it was a dream of hers to see him play at the Open.  She had that dream fulfilled on opening day; we saw eventual winner Kim Klijsters, then Roger, then Serena Williams that day.  Got a wicked sunburn, but all in all a great day.  Then came Day 2.

With so many great trips happening that summer, I knew I needed some great sandals.  I searched high and low, for months, for a pair that were both good-looking and supremely comfortable, and that wouldn't need to be broken in.  I found the perfect pair in a store called Richey and Co. in Charlottesville, Virginia.  The shoes were made by Gentle Souls, which is a Kenneth Cole division.  They weren't cheap (surprise!). The shoes are notable because the insole is covered in super-soft kid leather, and the inside is partly flax seeds, which conform to the shape of your foot, for maximum comfort.  And they were so comfortable!  I wore the shoes a few times before my trip, to be sure they'd be up for the task of walking from one end of Manhattan to the other.  

On our way to Day 2 of the tennis, Mom and I were wandering down Madison Avenue, and I thought to myself, wow, these shoes are great.  We turned the corner onto 42nd street, and went into Grand Central.  As I turned to head down into the subway, I took a step and, thwack, off came my left shoe!  The back strap, which was elastic, had snapped off and acted like a slingshot, flinging the shoe off my foot and into the door 10 feet in front of me!  As the shoes were little more than awesome soles and a few straps, there was literally nothing left to keep the it on my foot.  I hopped over to my shoe, and stuck my foot into the one skinny strap that was still sort of attached.  And that's when the cursing started.  There was no way I could go to Queens with only one shoe, so we had to go back to the hotel.  Although I had planned to wear these awesome sandals for my whole trip, my pessimistic nature forced me to pack a spare pair.  I limp/shuffled, still cursing like a sailor, while my poor mom commiserated, and we walked back out to the street.  People stared.

The New York Palace, where we were staying, was a full 8 blocks uptown; a nice walk when both of your feet work, but not so easy in my condition.  We took a cab back, and as I watched the meter tick away another 10 bucks out of my pocket, I planned.  I planned the speech I was going to give some poor sap at the Kenneth Cole store in Rockefeller Center later that day.  I planned the excoriating letter I'd send to Richey and Co.  I would demand a full refund.  I would demand to be reimbursed for the cab.  I'd do all of this...tomorrow.  Because right then I had to make my way through the very fancy lobby of the Palace wearing only one shoe, then change footwear and run back to Grand Central.  We had to get out to Queens immediately, to see some more tennis, and so my sunburn could go from pink to fuchsia.  

One thing you should know about me is that I am not a steady coal fire, I'm a firecracker. I burn white hot, then cool off quickly.  All those nasty comments I was going to unload on Kenneth Cole and the shoe store stayed in my head.  I never went to the store.  I never wrote the letter.  I am still out a considerable pile of dough for a pair of shoes I wore maybe 6 times, and the cab that took me back to the Palace, but I couldn't keep the rage intact long enough to yell at anybody about it.  I kept the shoes.  I'll probably end up paying some shoe repair guy to put on a decent strap so I can wear them again next summer.  Seriously, they were that comfortable.  

Things I'd Rather Do Than Pay $3 to Ride the TTC

1.  Find out I'm related to Stephen Harper.

2.  Have explosive diarrhea for a week.

3.  Buy shoes at Payless.

4.  Fly coach to Hong Kong seated next to a fat Jehovah's Witness.

5.  Vacation in Pittsburgh.

6.  Get a job scrubbing the kill floor at a slaughterhouse.

7.  Read Sarah Palin's book.

8.  Find myself trapped at an Ashton Kutcher film festival.

9.  Sit through an auditing session at the Scientology Centre.

10.  Fucking WALK!!

Two Tuesdays in November

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3, is the first anniversary of a very important event.  My Election party.  (Oh, and the election was sort of important too...).  Those of you who attended may remember what a Ball of Crazy I had been leading up to the first Tuesday of November, 2008.  I was desperate for Barack Obama to win.  For John McCain to lose.  For Sarah Palin to just go away.  It was all I talked about for months.  As you may have heard, Mr. Obama did indeed win the election.  He's got a hell of a lot to do, and I'll talk about that in future posts.

Two more Tuesdays from now is another important date in politics.  Going Rogue, "by" Sarah Palin, hits bookstores.  

For a while now I have been sort of apolitical on this blog and on Facebook.  I have reconnected with some old friends who seem to be quite conservative, and I didn't want to offend them with my lefty political views.  But enough is enough.  I can't stand it anymore.  If Sarah Palin won't go away, neither will I.

About Going Rogue:  First off, Sarah Palin didn't write the book.  Lynn Vincent did.  She's a crackpot in her own right, but we'll address that on another day.  Why am I supposed to care what Sarah Palin thinks about anything??  I gather she's gearing up for a 2012 presidential campaign and she figured hawking a book she "wrote" would be better prep than governing Alaska.  This woman is the most narcissistic politician I have ever seen, and since all politicians are a bit narcissistic, that's really saying something! She responds to all criticism with moral outrage, but will happily sling mud at her opponents.  Her politics are divisive.  She's both anti- and un-intellectual.  And she still wears too much makeup.

Wow, that felt good.  So there you have it- a quick reminder that I am indeed an Elitist Liberal Feminist.  All those terms are positive, by the way, and I'll address that in a future post.  To my Conservative friends and acquaintances:  look at it this way- if you are offended by my politics, I am probably offended by yours.  Doesn't mean we can't be friends.  We Liberals are a tolerant bunch, but we're also profane, so if you don't like it, #@^%&*##!!!

 

"-free " is Just Another Word...

Well, Hallowe'en's been over for hours, so that makes it Christmas Season, or, more accurately for me, Baking Season.  Yesterday I was wondering if there was a way for me to consume mass quantities this year without compromising my health or eating my way out of my clothes.  When I think about impractical health and nutrition, naturally I think of Gwyneth Paltrow, so I checked out a recent GOOP newsletter and found some recipes from Babycakes Bakery in NYC.  Everything's sugar-free!  Gluten-free!  Dairy-free!  Jackpot!  I was on my way to Whole Foods to drop a wad on expensive, Gwyneth-approved ingredients, when I thought, am I crazy?

I visited the Interwebs and made a useful discovery. One of the ingredients I was looking to buy was agave nectar, since I want to reduce my sugar consumption.  Turns out this stuff is mostly fructose, you know, like in the work-of-the-devil High Fructose Corn Syrup.  It has the same caloric count as sugar, and is simply lower in glucose.  Too bad fructose'll kill ya too.  I was almost taken in by clever marketing and buzzwords like Organic, Natural, blah blah.  

It seems the only way to reduce sugar intake is not to eat sugar.  Any kind of sugar.  That is such a massive bummer that I am not even going to think about it again until next year.

I will say, some of the other ingredients that Babycakes uses are interesting- coconut oil, garbanzo flour- I may try these some day, but for now, I'm just going to enjoy the holidays and take yet another stab at moderation.

That being said, I present to you below a  wicked chocolate cake recipe, and it's vegan!  No eggs, no butter (just a bit of canola oil), but yes, there's sugar and flour.  It doesn't need icing, but if you add some buttercream, remember the cake will no longer make Stella McCartney happy :)

Vegan Chocolate Cake

In a glass 8 or 9 " square pan, mix together 

1 1/4 cup flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup good cocoa

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking soda

Make 4 dents in the mixture- 2 big, and 2 small.

Pour into the dents

 1 cup water 

1/3 cup canola oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp white vinegar

Mix until it's all smooth and combined.

Lick batter off of spatula shaped like a finger (optional).

Bake 30 minutes, cool in pan, and sprinkle with icing sugar.  Mmmmm.