Devil Cat

No, this isn't Devil Cat. This is Rocco, who was forced to hide out behind our furnace for several hours, waiting to make sure that Devil Cat was really in custody and no longer stalking her and her litter mate, Jasmine.


This is Devil Cat. Doesn't she look sweet? But don't be fooled, because in real life she's experiencing her second bout with possession. Normally the sweetest of cats, she'll suddenly decide that she must maim or kill anything else living in her domain. You'll think I mean the normal type of fighting that breaks out between house cats, but I'm talking more the type of fight-to-the-death territorial aggression that happens between rival male cougars in the wild.

She came down with a new mess o' demons this last Monday. Since then we've had to keep her garrisoned in the downstairs bathroom by herself, until such a time as a successful exorcism can take place. Last time this happened it took several weeks, and yes, I do periodically let her out to test her just in case she's suddenly decided to let the other cats live. No luck so far, and I feel bad about it, but I feel worse when the cats are made to bleed and suffer. And that includes Spook, because Rocco and Jasmine do put up a fight.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

I made these homemade chocolate ice cream sandwiches with vanilla ice cream filling for my husband's birthday. Normally he asks for chocolate cherry roulade, a rolled chocolate cake filled with cream and cherries, but I was happy to hear he wanted to try something different this year.

They're very easy to make, although time consuming since you have to chill everything between steps, but the results make them well worth the effort. It would be difficult to exaggerate the difference between a store-bought ice cream sandwich and the homemade version. The texture of the homemade cookie is somewhat crisp yet soft inside, and the ice cream just seeps into it to soften it a little more. Store-bought sandwiches by contrast have the consistency of a thin layer of wet cake.

The photos of the cookies did not turn out nearly as well, and I picked out the picture above as the best of the bad (it's a little better if you click on it and enlarge it, so that you can at least get some idea of the cookie's texture from its appearance). Since we ate the sandwiches at night after dinner, I attempted to photograph them at the same time. Since early morning and early evening light glares directly through the windows, I think it might wipe out some of the the contrast in a picture. Of course, using a white plate as the background for vanilla ice cream probably didn't help. It seems easier to get a good picture at about mid-morning, probably because the sun's overhead and helps to diffuse the light. At any rate, I'm trying to get some help so that I can understand how to take food pictures more easily and reliably in the future.

March photos, part II: Dale Chihuly in Tacoma

Dale Chihuly is a native of Tacoma, Washington and the success of his career has helped to make the Northwest famous for glass art. It comes as no surprise then to find his works all over the Museum of Glass and all over downtown Tacoma. In fact, Chihuly and the Museum of Glass were joint partners in building the Chihuly Bridge of Glass, a pedestrian overpass that links the Museum, which sits above an inlet of Pudget Sound, to old downtown Tacoma.

Approaching the bridge, you would first notice the two enormous Chihuly-made towers of blue rock-candy crystal. The two-tone gray snowcone you see rising in the background is the Museum of Glass building.



What looks like a gray metal bookcase, partly hiding the Museum of Glass building, is one of a few structures on the bridge that contain Chihuly sculptures. This photo shows one of the divisions within such a display case, containing a glass cupid perched atop a green base. Notice that the background of the case is translucent, and if you stare hard enough you can just make out the freeway below the bridge.



Walking under parts of structures on the bridge is like being under the ocean floor and looking up to see the creatures on the bottom - that is, if all the living things on the ocean floor were turned to glass.



Just across the bridge is old downtown Tacoma, including the Union Station building, now a courthouse, which contains yet more glass art by Chihuly. Twisted glass snakes squirm around on the chandelier he created for the Rotunda.



These orange glass bats decorate the second floor window of the Station. You can also see the Bridge of Glass through the window.

March photos, part I: Kids Design Glass

These sculptures from Tacoma's Museum of Glass come from their Kids Design Glass program, and are some of my favorite works in the place. Kids designed them, and then the team of glass artists from the museum built them as glass sculptures. Take a look: they're further proof of how creative kids can be before they grow up and become dull adults like you and me.



This first fearsome monster is "Chupacabra Way (the goat succer)", designed by Morgan Thomas. The chupacabra, in case you didn't know, is a type of livestock vampire sited in places like Puerto Rico, Texas, and Maine (why Maine?). And if I ever get any goats (non-metaphorically speaking), I'm sure I'll be keeping a closer eye on them in the future.


At the other end of the spectrum from monsters we have superheros, such as Bacon Boy here. In addition to being a special hero for my husband ("bacon makes everything better!"), Bacon Boy's superpowers include Meat Vision, and "the ability to shoot bacon bits and grease from his arms, and sausage and corn dogs from his eyes". He was designed by Austin Winters, who also designed Bacon Boy's evil arch-nemesis Fry Guy.

Happy Valentine's Day

Because I admire cookbooks and blogs with excellent food photography, I long to use the new camera to create my own. Below is one of my early attempts. They're sugar cookies with a faint taste of almond, and while the photography will need work, I like the cookies just the way they are. They were made for Valentine's Day, and I gave some of them to friends and kept a few for us. But unless those friends can control themselve around cookies lots better than I can, they're gone already.

Truck Stop Cinnamon Rolls

I found the recipe for these great cinnamon rolls in the cookbook Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.

I highly recommend this cookbook, and all cookbooks by Alford and Duguid. Even if each cookbook did not contain outstanding recipes collected from all around the world, I would recommend them for the photography alone. Home Baking, like every Alford & Duguid cookbook, would suffice as a coffee table book even if you never used it to actually bake. However, I wouldn't recommend the book to a first-time baker, because of the complexity of many of the recipes and because I've found some mistakes.

This recipe, for instance, contained a small error. If you use their proportions you will need to roll out your dough in two batches and you will create a couple of cookie sheets full of gigantic cinnamon rolls, not the single tray-full of twelve the authors describe. I halved the recipe to begin with because of the huge proportions, and not only was I lucky to squeeze all my rolls onto one large baking sheet, but, as you can see, each roll is the size of a large grapefruit. Cinnamon rolls don't get much bigger than this, even at truck stops.

I also made a mistake when I rolled the dough out. I always try very hard not to use unnecessary flour, which can toughen bread, but I went too far this time. As a result, the dough stuck to the board when I went to roll them up. If you've ever tried to make such a huge piece of dough covered in damp sugar and cinnamon into a jelly-shape roll you can appreciate that you don't need the extra level of difficulty caused by sticky dough. As a result, the rolls don't have the perfect spirals you see in the commercial version. But that's the great thing about baking. Even imperfect products can be delicious, and these were.

Next time, however, I might quarter the recipe or cut the rolls smaller. I found that a single cinnamon roll made for an almost too-filling breakfast.

Some of our more Elusive Pets

Of course it would be nice to show pictures of each of my animals, but some are more difficult to photograph than others. Above you see our cat, attention-junkie Spook, nosing our gray cat Rocco aside. Spook, whenever possible, would rather not relinquish any human attention or camera time to another cat.

On the other hand, Jasmine, our calico cat, is very affectionate. In the following picture she's glad to have me pet her and photograph her, as long as it's okay for her to embed her claws in my hand:

And finally Mr. Bear, below, would prefer to nap. He's got nothing against photography, he just wishes I would make an appointment with his secretary first.