schneefink

I met up with a few of my former colleagues to a goodbye dinner (and later drinks) for one of them. I was very happy to be invited, I didn't manage to keep in touch as much as I wanted, and it was a nice time.
I also found out that my fears about how that company might develop were not only well-founded but that apparently things went even worse than I anticipated, so I'm even more glad I left when I did.

I'm currently baking muffins, both as a thank-you to my neighbors for keeping my herbs alive while I was away and as a welcome home gift to my mom who's coming back from vacation but mostly because it's been a long time since I baked anything and I missed it. It's been so long that I forgot I have a new mixer. I don't remember when or how I got it but apparently I have a new mixer, which is good because I've wanted one for a while, so I'm not going to question it.

My flatmate is an excellent cook and baker (I used to think that having cooking classes in high school is unnecessary because people can learn cooking at home but now I think it's a great idea) and this year she again baked nine different kinds of Christmas cookies. Today we ate some and lamented that while you could in theory make the same cookies in other months than December, it just feels weird. Like eating Faschingskrapfen not during Fasching. But then, after realizing that the same ban mysteriously doesn't apply to chocolate chip cookies because they're not associated with Christmas, I got the fantastic idea that in other months instead of calling them "Kekse" we'll just call them "cookies" and I think it might actually work. I really hope so because especially her nougat cookies, and the ones with rolled oats, and the ones with cardamom, and those with egg liqueur were all fantastic.

In general there will be more baking in the new year than in the past few months because she's finally done with her strict nutritionist-prescribed diet (for now...) and clearly that needs to be celebrated. With baking.

I started thinking about which evil mind-controlling brain slugs I'd prefer to fight if I was part of a resistance on Earth, the Goa'uld (Stargate) or the Yeerks (Animorphs.) I'd already started to make lists of all the things to compare, like tech, weapons, numbers, minions, ease of detection etc., when I realized that there was a very easy answer: I'd prefer to fight the Goa'uld, because at least they "only" want to rule as gods, while the Yeerks want to use the entire human race as hosts. If there's even a small chance of losing the battle, the choice seems pretty clear.
Different question: who would win in a Goa'uld vs. Yeerks fight. I'm not sufficiently familiar with either canon to answer that but I'm pretty sure it'd depend on the "battlefield" and circumstances. I think my money's on the Goa'uld, because of the Yeerks' kandrona dependency, but I haven't even read all the books so who knows what kind of weapons they came up with later
Then I thought about various potential crossovers, which left me with a vague desire to maybe read the Animorph books again (I read maybe two dozen of them back in high school), but currently my head is too full of TAZ (and other random stuff.) Maybe one day *vague gesture towards very long "to read/watch/listen" list*

Today there was a storm warning in the city (and half the country) and people were advised not to go outside because of falling branches, construction sites etc. Fortunately it was a Sunday, otherwise it would have been tricky… I was safe at home, catching up on sleep and baking and not studying, oops. The cupcakes were really good, at least, honey-cardamom with a white chocolate topping. We're making good headway on our "try every recipe in my cupcake book" plan.

Friday was the last ice hockey practice this season :( Our coach said that maybe he'll try to organize roller hockey in the spring, that might be interesting, not sure yet. No goal for me this time, and I didn't play that well, but I was knocked down three times, one of them a pretty bad helmet-on-helmet-collision. Ouch. Took a minute or two until my head stopped ringing.

Things I got a bit better at this season: handling the puck and awareness where the other players are. Areas where I wasn't satisfied with my progress: skating (turns, speed, backwards, edgework etc.), and I flinch too much when other players/sticks/pucks come near. I should just try to skate through it (though granted that's probably easier when the other players don't have half my weight on me.) I also lose almost every puck battle, not strong enough on my stick yet.
I started cursing a lot more on the ice, when I'm angry it feels good.
Most importantly, I had fun :)


I cooked a few times this week, after a long time of barely any cooking, that was fun. Making pizza is very easy. Friday I tried out a cupcake recipe from the book I got for Christmas for the first time. Making the topping was a pain, partly because we didn't have enough suitable bowls. The cupcakes turned out very well, vegan hazelnut with chocolate-vanilla topping. I'm going to enjoy going through all the recipes.
( pic )


Friday evening was my second time playing Dungeons&Dragons. Friends have been trying to persuade me to join their group for ages, but I never felt like I had the time. Now I do, and they just started a new campaign, so I joined. It's fun! We're statues come to life, amnesiac anthropomorphic entities associated with a dead god, in a city in a huge tower. The first time we escaped from the burning temple (half of the party gave me grief for staying inside and exploring and almost getting killed when the burning roof fell down, but I'm the one who got info and money and a weapon, so there) and found people who could explain a little bit of the world's background. Yesterday we explored the sewers, met ghost monsters and a friendly waternymph from another plane, added a member to our party, got dropped on top of the tower and are currently hiding on a terrace disguised as, well, statues.

Today I wanted to meet up with DD to watch The 100 and maybe hockey, but I'm falling sick -.- I noticed yesterday that I was tired and had a headache, but I thought that was from the hit during the hockey game. Today my throat hurts, and I barely have the energy to get up and make myself tea. Bad combination.
At least LB will be happy that I have more cupcakes left over to bring for lunch with my parents tomorrow.

I changed the lightbulb in my room. This is more impressive if you know that my ceiling is 3.50m high, the ladder I had is and looks old, and I'm afraid of heights. But I managed! Then I found out that I should have got the brighter one after all and I'll have to change it.

Instead of pictures of my flat, which I'm still too lazy to take & upload (I also haven't posted the ad for a third roommate yet, which I really should do soon), have pics of muffins. I tried out my oven this week and the muffin recipe book I got from my aunt. Usually I make chocolate muffins, but this time I made blueberry and nectarine muffins. They were good :) ( Pictures )

Yesterday wasn't a good day, but at least I finally ate a proper meal around 10pm, and I convinced DD to watch Killjoys. I also finally watched "Big Hero 6." I liked it, especially the first half. ( Spoilers )

I made a cake today for my parents's anniversay. A 20x16x13 cm cake, with 14 eggs, 900g butter, 1 kg sugar, and other stuff. Rich Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Buttercream, and you could underline the "rich" twice. I couldn't even finish half a slice, maybe because I tasted so much during baking, and half a slice was enough for dinner for the rest of my family. But it looked very pretty! The chocolate cake wasn't as dark as in the photographs there, but it tasted delicious. I hadn't thought that a cake could taste that decadent. Mum already gave some to the neighbours and I'm still not sure how we'll eat it all...

In other news, I finally signed up for a driving license course, but I still haven't even started preparing for this university semester. (Other than sending the application for the additional course program I want to do, which was harder than I thought - I forgot how difficult motivation letters are!) Stop being so lazy, self. At least I made cake?

...even if I´m not that good at it yet. So.
About a week ago ribbon_purple posted photographs of cakes she had invented herself which is ridiculously awesome. The second one looked especially good and I asked for the recipe. Which I got, because she is great. Then, after I figured out the measurements, I tried baking today. And it was... an adventure.
First of all, we didn´t have any baking soda. We ALWAYS have baking soda. Just not when I need it. So I went to my neighbours and promised them a large piece of cake for their last baking soda. (That was the... third? fourth? time I gave them cake for ingredients. Why can´t the kitchen be more organized? On the other hand, I like the feedback.)
Then it turned out my father needed the oven for lunch = chicken. Fortunately it turned out that the chicken fit into the microwave.
By the way, the only brown sugar we had was rock candy/candy sugar (not even dictionaries are sure what the correct translation for big sugar lumps is). Naive as I am, I thought that it would make no difference. Well, the cake is a bit crunchier, what with all the tiny crystals.
The two round baking pans we have aren´t exactly the same size. I just put more icing and coconut on top, you can hardly see it.
And I guess that Americans are used to much, much sweeter cakes than I am because I didn´t even use half the amount of sugar recommended and it was still very sweet for me.
Enough talk, I present: the cake.



ribbon_purple called it a "Banana Cake with Sour Cream Coconut Icing", I´ll just call it "Banana Cake (Sweet Coconut Icing)" in my mind since I couldn´t taste the Sour Cream. What we´ll actually call it is "the other banana cake". The other and always first one is the one with apricot jam, chocolate pudding and chocolat icing on top. Mmmm.



As you can see, it´s not as nice to look at as the original, but I found that enough coconut on top can disguise a lot.
Mmmm, cake.
(My parents liked it, too. I´m still waiting what the neighbours will say.)

LET´S HAVE CAKE!
(That´s supposed to be my brother´s birthday cake, or a proxy, since he is in New Zealand. He got a chocolate cake instead. And yes, of course I made this one myself!

Today I went to my first lectures and started to read the (many many and very thick) books and found my lecture hall in the (extremely large) university and I didnt get bored (except of a tiny little bit while waiting) and I got the book I needed from the library (it was the next to last copy) and then I got home and had CAKE and life is great!
Tomorrow I have a lecture at 8:30 which is admittedly not ideal but not too bad, either.
AND I wrote drabbles about university!, about real stuff, I didn´t even have to invent anything. (In German, though.) I think I´ll do a small series.

YAY! MORE CAKE!

It´s Linzerschnitte! Best translated as... Linzer slice? You can preserve it one week, easily. And it was great. Is great - we still have some.