Memorize Poetry #10/52; Vegan Cake #11/52; Scones…and the Beach #12/52 & #13/52

The following “adventures” pale in comparison to those of others, but they made me feel that I had tried something new, and for me, that is a large part of my adventure quest.  (I am wondering, though, why so many of my exploits seem to involve food?!?)

Memorize Poetry #10/52

While playing in the stream on my camping trip,  lines from this poem kept running through my mind; I decided that Wordsworth’s “The Word Is Too Much With Us” would be an apt poem to memorize.  And I did!

Vegan Cake  #11/52

My daughter wasn’t very helpful about what kind of cake she wanted for her 17th birthday.  She’s a runner, and all she would say is, “something healthy.”  Well, you can only go so far with healthy when it comes to cakes, but I did find a fantastic vegan chocolate cake recipe.  Dress it up with chocolate glaze and organic raspberries…yum!

Blueberry Scones  #12

I love baking (and eating) scones and have tried all kinds:  oatmeal (with and without raisins), cranberry-orange, cinnamon, and blueberry…aah, the blueberry.  Let’s face it: when I’ve made blueberry scones, the dough has turned blue as soon as I folded in the blueberries.  So I determined to try a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated…a pain-in-the-arse recipe, as it turned out.

The technique worked fairly well:  I did not have blue dough.  The key was to press the blueberries into the dough,  fold the whole conglomeration into a rectangle, and finally, cut triangular scones.  The pain-in-the-arse part had to do with grating frozen butter and then keeping everything cold until just before the dough was kneaded and formed into scones.  The end result was a little too sweet for my taste, but I think that’s more a matter of personal preference; i.e., whether you like a “biscuit” vs a “cake” scone.

At any rate, they looked pretty, and they disappeared quickly enough…

The Beach  #13

Why is it that men seem so much less self-conscious about their bodies than women?  I spent a few days at the beach recently, and there were plenty of men matter-of-factly applying sunscreen to their beer guts (while drinking yet more beer).  At the same time, the women were a little more reluctant to expose themselves – and I felt uber-critical about my own appearance!

Here’s where the adventure comes in – simply a matter of screwing up my courage.  I wore a (string!) bikini in public for the first time in many, many years and found that it wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated.  In fact, I felt okay – no Demi Moore, but no one recoiled in horror or shielded his eyes.   No photos available – I’m brave, not crazy! 🙂

Advertisement