SNOWED IN!

dudes!
winter is a foreseeable interruption of ease and comfort.
every year,
in february,
the woodsly goodness gets a giant arctic sh!t taken all over it.
but, there are preventative measures we've all adapted to instituting
to lessen the troubles that weather loves to cause...
that said,
the special parking spot i've carved out for myself,
to allow my piss-poor-caliber every-day-worsening plow guy
to actually get access to the driveway and do his damned job,
let me down harder than the aforementioned plow guy....
my car got trapped in the snow yesterday.
seriously.
i parked my hot vehicle on cold snow
and it sunk into some soft-serve drifty business,
where the warm tires melted four perfect ruts into the path,
which froze, of course,
and turned into four training-roller-style in-place traps
for all four all-wheel drive wheels.
imagine my surprise and delight,
after removing the town plowed three-foot driveway blockade,
to discover that my car was immobilized,
and therefore essentially just a giant warm radio i could sit inside.
what's that?
did i shovel and ice-melt and sand and chip and push and pull and punch things
and spin in place, drenched in sweat and berserker fury for over an hour and a half?
heck yes i did.
and while i was rendered impotent by the wintry ramifications of poor plowing,
the culprit blew through,
and cut a swath of the WORST snow removal i've ever seen.
no.
i mean it.
he only plowed a path as wide as the plow blade,
so there's nowhere to open the car door into-
you're just stuck in a walled-in ditch, with five foot banks on either side-
hmmm?
oh, don't worry.
there's also so much snow still IN the path
that it's almost impossible to get enough traction
to even get up far enough to even BE trapped.
i'm weirdly impressed,
i'm just sayin'-
it's an i-give-not-even-any-sh!ts-level of execution.
performed directly before my very eyes.
you have to majestically not care at all
to go ahead and suck balls that hard in front of an audience.
wow.
it was so bad, as a matter of fact,
that i won't be using these guys again next year, or any other, ever again.
yuck.
hmmm?
well, yeah,
the post-storm sunshine dropped another metric tonne of snow
off of the roof, down the mountains in front of my door,
and i came home to another 'nother frozen barrier to my home sweet home.
awesome, right?
i mean,
nature wins,
and she realllly likes to drive that point home
especially whenever i think i'm already at the nadir of inconvenience and aggravation.
(too much is the right amount)
i believe it's called adding insult to injury.
i kind of like it.
no, really.
i do.
without the bitter, the sweet's not as sweet,
and without these extremes, i'd be a very boring storyteller.
***********
speaking of the sweetest sweets....
despite the extra hour on either side of the workday where i got more
shoveling practice and sweaty spans of exercise,
i also had just about the cutest treats i've made in a little minute.
yup.
that's the truth.
guys!
just because winter intrudes on our calm,
and snow interferes with my schedule,
and the forest realm is beset and besieged on all sides by winter's wrath,
that doesn't mean i can't have something F*ing delicious for breakfast-
check the tiny-tart-type teleport:

LINZERTORTES!!!!!
you know it, you like it, you want it-
jeez louise, you can't stand to be without it!
DASSIT!
raspberries and lemon and almond, in fluted cutie-patootie pans,
with hearts and hearts and also hearts all over the place!
yeah!!!!!
the crust is DOPE.
the berries are sweet and tart.
the whole thing is just about as expert as i've ever made.
real talk.
when the hottness comes through,
it cancels out all the sh!t-salad my driveway can throw at me.
mmhmmm.
neighbors.
one bag of frozen raspberries (that's like, 12 oz. i think)
in a sauce pot, on medium-low heat,
with 1/4 cup powdered sugar;
3 T lemon juice;
1 tsp vanilla;
1 tsp lemon extract;
1/2 lemon zest;
and once that's past neing defrosted, and has warmed up a bit,
and the berries are mooshing down, and it smells fantastic....
that's when you take 3 T of arrowroot, and drain off that raspberry juice,
make a slurry, recombine them, and let it thicken quickly.
allow that to cool, because if it's hot, it'll ruin the crust.
-
AND THOSE CRUSTS ARE SERIOUS!!!
10 T vegan butter;
3 T vegan creamchee';
1 cup sugar;
1 1/4 cup flour;
1 1/4 cup almond meal;
1/2 tsp salt;
1 tsp vanilla;
1/2 tsp each lemon and almond extracts.
lemon zest;
cut, creamed, smashed together, and chilled at least an hour.
rolled out, pressed flat,
filled with that room-temperature berry magic,
and then sexxxed up with that lovely lattice,
and those cookie-cutaways.
word up.
and with lust a little lemon juice to moisten the tops,
so that those big glittery sugar sparkle sprankles could stick and shine?
...we've got ourselves something worth talking about.
baked at 375 for twenty-two minutes-
you ca see the golden greatness that resulted.
it's sultry, man.
for real.
no level of effing up my travel times-
no degree of burly roadside assistant scorn-
no sort of suckery and sh!t-saladism could derail the enjoyment
these linzertorte tiny tartlet treats brought to my face.
if i had to pay for it with some sort of secret universal balance sheet,
where the roads and the pavement are hidden under ice and awfulness?
so be it.
you need these unbelievably buttery,
righteously rich,
deservedly decadent wonders in your mouth.
i only warn you of one thing:
once you've had one, there can be no going back.
level eleven hottness is what's on the menu.
try it out, you'll be forced to concede the point.
truth tellers can never stop.
and these jauns are 100% honest expertism in real life;
never quiet, never soft.....