TOO TWO!!

no time!
that's how every single wednesday feels.
i've got about a thousand things i'd like to do,
and only so many hours to do them in-
plus,
when it's time to get expert on some food,
i like to really flex my skills during the hours i'd normally be at work.
that means that some of the time i'd otherwise activate in the yard,
or on the house, or at the drawing table,
is instead spent in a whirlwind brainstorm of recipe creation.
seriously.
i don't know what the heck relaxing is supposed to accomplish.
i've got too much to do,
and too much is the right amount.
i feel it.
for example,
i baked up a quick cake for myself and my friends.
but, it's two cakes, and two frostings,
and two more kinds of chocolate,
all in the same circle of super-elite edible expertism.
mmmhmmmm.
rules is rules.
and who doesn't love to fire up a tasty cake just because cake is so good?
right?
yeah!
check out this super-serious thick and rich coconut creation:

HOLY SMOKES!
it's so rich you could retire after a slice.
seriously.
coconut cake, and chocolate coconut cake,
and coconut frosting and chocolate frosting,
and chocolate drizzle and chocolate sprankles.
oh, heck yes, dudes-
i'm all about taking the combo to the limit.
-
i make a LOT of cakes,
i mean,
that's not so weird-
i really enjoy it, and i have the flour and the early a.m. hours to do it.....
....so i do it.
uh-huh.
this one, though, is a dense destroyer of wimpy cakiness.
it's like a giant two-tone frosted brownie.
and it's also very very very coconutty.
from where i'm sitting, those're all good things.
here's how it happened, in case you;re feeling adventurous later:
-
*
-
preheat the oven to 355℉
-
1 cup sugar;
1/4 cup light brown sugar;
1 stick (8T) vegan butterish;
2 tsp vanilla;
1/2 tsp salt;
whisked in your mixer with:
1/2 cup coarse-ground coconut flake flour;
then, you'll add:
3 cups flour;
3 T cornstarch;
2 tsp baking powder;
1 tsp baking soda;
1 can full-fat coconut milk-
whisk it hard and fast util it's as creamy as it's liable to ever get,
and pour off half the batter into 1 (of 2) greased and floured 7" springform pans.
next,
add 1/4 cup cocoa to the remaining batter, and rewhip,
before adding that to the 2nd pan.
bake the both for 35-40 minutes,
until cracks form in the crust over the crumb on the tops,
and a toothpick comes out clean.
voila.
cake,
for your F*ing face.
no binders, no eggish bits, just oily-A* coconut milk.
...and it worked.
the frosting was something of a debacle.
more liquid than is advisable made it's way into the powdered sugary mixture-
normally,
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, and 1/2 stick of butter,
and a dash of 'milk, is sufficient,
but i also added finely ground coconut,
and it threw my estimations into a tailspin.
the stuff is still crazy delicious, but sort of gummier than i'd prefer.
awwwwwwwwwwwww.
i effed it up.
the chocolate was perfect,
and the ganache was precisely right on.
1/2 cup chocolate chips;
1/2 tsp vanilla;
2 T powdered sugar;
3 T non-dairy milk.
melted on low heat, and drizzled through a small hole in a small bag,
to make it look nicey-nice.
that's the way to go, if you;re going to go to the trouble of making
something that's worth a damn.
yup.
don't do the frosting wrong.
that's my advice to you.
or, mess it up- whatever you want, man-
i'm not your boss.
***********
i know how lucky i am to have the few friends that tolerate me.
it's difficult to imagine that being one's true self could also be the exact reason
for so few folks to want to span time together with the real-time warrior poetry
of woodsly goodsly Folk Life & Liberty.
y'know?
no?
oh.
well, it seems like there's a disconnect between what i do, all day every day,
which is to say:
just be dope, or F* right off;
and that applies to all things all the time-
and then what i do for money,
which is interact with people i otherwise would never ever speak with.
the overlap of our lives is based entirely on supply-and-demand,
and even THAT is relative to the availability of fairer-looking-fouler-feeling
saccharine sirens who do what i do elsewhere....
yikes.
don't get me wrong, it's not that i don't understand that.
getting 'niced-at', no matter how false, is something people seem to enjoy.
ummmmm, that's a thing.
...i just don't respect it.
y'see,
i am propelled into every day by a genuine desire to reach higher,
go farther, reach further, dig deeper, and think and say and do MORE
than i have any day previously.
that's what i'm interested in,
and that's what i'm looking for in people to cooperate and collaborate with.
fewer platitudes, and zero excuses,
just hard styles, hard work, hard-headed hard-hearted head-and-hand-strong
grandstanding and showboating all the value-driven and purposeful processes
i possess.
is that unlikable?
it just might be.
but,
who am i if i'm not myself,
and why would i want that?
trying hard, paying attention, and knowing stuff are the top three qualities
to keeping it turned up to eleven.
that may not be popular among the take-it-easy television-and-video-game crowd,
or worse, the pit fire and four-wheeler rural dirty rednecks of these mountainous vales.
but,
i mean it when i say it,
and i s'pose that until something better shows up,
i can live with that;
never quiet, never soft.....