Odd architecture decisions?

Some 'modern sculptures' I understand, others I do not. This is in the do-not category. Sighted right near the Experience Music Project at the Seattle Center. Why are there giant bamboo flat pieces of wood up in the air? I have no idea. But they look amusing enough. Some of them look quite banged up so I wonder if some geniuses have attempted to climb up them. Good luck!



This photo is at the Amazon campus. It is our main 'meeting' building and I really like the subtle logo on it. Amazon never puts crazy in-your-face logos on buildings, but this one is at the center of the campus. I like it, especially for the nice courtyard for sitting outside. Great place to chill once summer starts. 

Baking my way through Breadmakers Apprentice: Bagels

The next item in the alphabet of bread baking is... Bagels! I've been looking forward to this experiment because I LOVE good bagels, and I hate bagels that you get most places that are large and bland. This meant that I immediately knew I'd be making mini-bagels - small and cute.

The baking itself is not too bad. You can read the recipe here as I do not want to re-type it up. It takes two days and a couple of raises but nothing too annoying. The ingredients are the difficult part. The recipe calls for high gluten flour. So I got some at the grocery store and started making the dough with it. Well... the dough was thick. Very thick. And extremely sticky and terrifying. So just to make myself calmer I decided to make a second batch of bagels with regular bread flour (oh I am so thankful for this). So double the fun and double the bagels!

The kneading portion of the process was intense. I did not feel safe putting the dough in my stand mixer because it was SO thick. So on to the table. Ryan was nice enough to help kneading the gluten-dough. I think my arms would have collapsed if I did both. It was SUPER thick even with more water added.

Well.... still not too bad. On the first day I divided the dough into pieces and shaped it into bagels and put them into the fridge.

The second day is when it gets interesting.

The basic process for cooking a bagels is to boil it for two minutes per side and then bake it for about ten minutes. I started with the gluten bagels for boiling.

Well... as soon as you put then into the water they started poofing like CRAZY. Expanding so that three of them were overflowing my pot. Insanity. With some panic and a bit of mess I got through it.

Now on to the oven. I got the bagels in the oven (the gluten ones). They bake and expand even MORE. I was afraid they were not going to fit and might catch the broiler or the other shelves. Happily this was avoided.

So I get them out and they are huge. I set them aside and move on to baking the bread-flour bagels. These ones do NOT expand like crazy and look much more manageable. Yay!



As I am about to put the bread-flour bagels in the oven I look over at the pans of high-gluten flour bagels. Uh-oh. They have de-poofed. They are flat and wide and gross looking. Not bagels. Heart sink.

THANKFULLY I had my bread-flour bagels to save the day. They turned out tasting just like... delicious bagels! I would change some things - maybe boil a bit longer, put on different topics and shape them better? But they turned out great. So gluten free flour? AH NO. You all ended up in the trash after I got some photos (and waited for Ryan to get home so he could be amazed at them too).

So yes. Next bread baking item complete, but not without casualties.

Daring Bakers May 2011: MARQUISE ON MERINGUE

The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrowand Jenny of Purple House Dirt. They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise. The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

The challenge for this month was super exciting for me because I have had the "real version" of the dessert at the mentioned restaurant. And loved it. Many times. It is the 'El Diablo' at Tango. It is a plate of decadence. Chocolate with a hint of spice and meringue, caramel and roasted almonds on the side. You can read about the recipe (and prettier versions than mine...) here.

This dessert is no easy muffin. It involves multiple days of work (well at least for me... you have to wait at least two hours in between making the chocolate blocks and I decided to just leave them in the freezer overnight). The following day I made the caramel and toasted almonds (Ryan did the almonds actually! He bakes!). Then I had everything ready and just had to whip up the meringue and put everything together when serving. Super easy.



I loved the result. So good and easy to put together in the end. I served it when I had a lot of people over so it was great to see everything (except one) of the 22 or so desserts get eaten. I live to fatten up my friends. :) The only problem was that I could not use paper plates and had 22 dirty dishes... There was no way I was using the blow torch on paper plates. :P

Will I be making this thing again? Most likely not. So much work! And I know where I can get one without working at all. Maybe for some super-special occasion. But there are so many things to cook!!

So since I got a blowtorch for this recipe (and have since been exploring it with crème brûlée, I need more recipes that use a blowtorch. Mmmmm. 

Kitchen Failures Series: Cream of Fail

I made crème brûlée for the first time a week or so ago as soon as I got my blowtorch in the mail. So excited to burn things. It was delicious and super easy. I used this recipe and it turned out amazing. The only comment probably would be that I didn't put enough sugar on the top when broiling them so the crust did not get to break with the pop that I love so much. Oh well. 


Just to clarify... this is not a picture of that cooking excursion. This is when I made it again this week and thought it would be so easy again. Well... not so much. I was making bagels along with making this so I turned out and mixed the egg yolks too long in the mixer. And then since the eggs took up more room since they had so much air in them they over-fillled my ramekins. So I got greedy and filled them up high... bad mistake. So I put them in a water bath into the oven. All fine until I check on them about twenty minutes later and they're overflowing like crazy. 


Panic. Turn off oven. Take everything out. Laugh. Deal with the fact that even though there is not room to torch, they are still delicious. Just a ramekin of creamy goodiness. Thankfully it cooked enough that it was not just beat eggs and sugar. So this was not a bad failure?


So I love crème brûlée, but next time I make it I will be paying a LOT more attention.


For a real failure stay tuned for the full analysis of my bagel failure. It was epic. 

Playing in the sun

I should clarify that I was not actually playing, but watching. There was a bit of time to spare before seeing Into the Woods and so we wandered around the nearby park. It was HUGE and so many soccer fields with everyone playing. I love summer in Seattle. If I had a more regimented schedule I would think about joining one of those teams... but for now I'll just watch. :)

Seattle Opera House for The Magic Flute

Well, the Seattle Opera House is not dedicated to opera - it also houses ballet and all sorts of other things, but I always think of it as the opera house.

This excursion was to see The Magic Flute. I'd seen that opera once before in London but that was at the English Opera... meaning it is in english. I do not like seeing opera in a language I understand because I pay attention to what they are saying too much (which is often dumb) and well... think about how dumb what they are saying is. This time the opera was in German so it makes life a lot easier - read the subtitles and then continue.

The performance was great. The voices are not as strong as in the Met or other huge opera houses, but they are beautiful. The set was simple but fun and I loved the acting. Overall it was a great performance, an awesome girls date and I'll be returning.

I actually bought a 3-show pass for the next season to see Carmen, Porgy and Bess and Madame Butterfly. I have no interest in seeing Madame Butterfly, but it was cheaper to buy a three-pass than two individual tickets. I'll figure out who will come with me and how to get rid of the last pass when it comes closet to date. :) For now I look forward to some more beautiful performances.

Girl Geeks invade Facebook

I went to another Girl Geek event last week. These are events for technical women around Seattle to gather and network. They are usually hosted by some large company in the area. The first one I went to was at the Microsoft Store and was very crowded and it was had to socialize. But they had an interesting speaker and I felt like it was worthwhile, except for my lack of personal space.

The event last week was a lot roomier and was at the new Facebook offices downtown. They opened up a very small development office in Seattle not long ago and are hiring like crazy. Hence the event was sort of like a giant plug to come work for Facebook. Showing how awesome they are and often putting in comparisons to other companies. But then everyone in the industry is hiring like crazy - grab while you can. Not so tasteful... but at least they served tasty food. I may not have loved their approach to the event so much, but I loved the office - looking right over the Olympics and the ferries. Lovely.

Overall I enjoyed the event again. Great to talk to people afterwards and even if I am not interested in joining Facebook I got to learn about a different perspective of running a business.