TRIPLES!

red pears!!!
pecans!!!
blackberry jammie-jam!!!
that's a trio that'll turn heads,
and empower tastebuds with flavorful energy,
and activate your senses with sexxiness.
dudes,
the pastry crust game at the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress has long been a
bastion of big action and flaky freshness.
as usual, i lived up to my own expectations, which were high,
and delivered a crust so crisssp i was forced to eat it all.
that's right.
mandatory mass-consumption.
shark-gluttonous feeding frenzy fury from the first bite.
why?
just look at it:

c'mon.
that's why!
two layers of red skin-on ripe pears, (like, two pears, sliced into discs)
with blackberry jam on the bottom, middle and top.
and pecans ready to roast...
and a soft dusting of cinnamon to turn it up!
after twenty minutes at 400℉, i hit it with a snowy show of powdered sugar,
and pout it back in for a few MORE minutes, to really catch that crispiness.
mmmmmm.
neighbors, the crust was incredible-
the pears all softened and stuck together with the candied jam,
and it all became one soft smooth filling, with that pecan activation
pumping up the volume and the glory to eleven.
heck yes.
and the crust?
man, it was exxxactly what i needed.
-
*
PASTRY CRUST!
-
in your food processor, pulse together:
8 T (1 stick vegan butter);
3 T vegan creamchee';
1 2/3 cups flour;
1/4 tsp salt;
3 T sugar;
1 tsp vanilla;
2-4 T non-dairy milk, added between pulses,
until the whole mixture combines to a crumbly sticks-together-when-pressed dough.
uh-huh.
y'gotta wrap and rest it, too.
that's a thing.
at least one hour in the fridge, overnight is better.
really, if you think you might want pastry tomorrow, today's the day to make the dough.
planing ahead is hard when you never know what's to eat,
but if you've got the dough, you know it's gonna be baked and buttery and flaky,
and that's a start, for sure.
word.
-
i like braids, and i like little decorations, and i looooooove fruit and jam together,
so really, this was gonna be a hit with me no matter what.
the fact that it looked so pretty was a bonus.
(i'd still have eaten it if it was only mostly beautiful)
that's real.
making a morning somethin' is always the best way to get my day flowing.
i don't always bake a treat, but when i do,
i know that my day is already awesome,
so whatever else happens is just exxxtra-dope.
some people need more,
most people do less,
but i've got a sweet spot centered around my oven.
and my oven needs replacing!!!!!
no joke.
i think that ten years of heavy abuse has taken it's toll.
i said that last year, and it hasn't fixed itself.
i need a stove.
the whole point of what's really happening here at the house is that it's gonna be delicious.
otherwise, what the F* am i even doing?
stove shopping is in my future, it seems.
***********
i've got dude tats all day.
that's cool.
it's friday,
there's a big snowstorm coming at us,
and i could use some straight-ahead dude-zappers to pad my pockets
in the face of weather-related cancellations.
guys,
only pickuptrucktards come out to get patriotic tattoos in the snow.
what says freedom more than rear-wheel drivin' down a cliffsided ice mountain
to get a pack of smokes and a sick tat of a deer outline with a flag inside it?
ummm, yeah.
i don't know what it is about the north country,
and the high-hills people who populate it-
but the ones who love america the most?
mainly by virtue of having seen the least of it,
and none of anywhere else?
they LOVE driving trucks in the snow.
i'll be at work, ready to drop 13 stars on whoever needs 'em, don't get me wrong.
but here's the thing-
why is it so uniformly all the samesies who need that stuff?
military tattoos aside, because most of those are cooler, anyway,
the unincorporated beer-fire 2A workboot militias of the mountains are NOT
the embodiment of america spirit i personally would choose to represent us at the job fair,
y'know?
man, i'm not sayin'....i'm just sayin'.
we've got your america tattoos on every snow day from now until canada invades,
so don't think we aren't gonna be open,
because rules is rules, and tattoos don't stop for weather;
never quiet, never soft.....