Green, not with envy

Ohmygod life right now. Whereas I spent a good chunk of this year envying everyone who didn’t have disaster crashing down on there heads-did I tell you about my collapsing ceiling? I had an entire ceiling collapse of its own accord earlier this year.

I counted myself as lucky that I wasn’t in the room when it happened but it still sucked. And I wasn’t getting enough jobs and a potential book deal didn’t end up happening and there was briefly a boy and just as quickly not one (silly boy) and so on.

Things always do improve though at some point. The last couple of months have been fantastic. Although initially distraught when one of my two improv teams broke up, suddenly we had the time to shoot all the films n such we’d been wanting to make. So we did shoot a bunch of shorts and several weeks ago I got to be a goth vampire. It was really delightful fun:

I realize I don’t look like I’m having fun. I was trying to make fun of that silly model pose. Where they suck in their stomach like they need to or something. As if. Blech.

I also got to play a heroin addict in a web series but I will spare you the pictures of how incredibly disgusting I spent my days on set being. Let’s just say there were track marks, massive bruises, and…greasy, greasy, GREASY stringy hair. Anytime I sit down to get my hair done on set and the stylist starts with “now, the way I rat your hair it’ll be easy to untangle”, it is a bad sign. Because the day will end with me ripping out masses of hair that won’t come un-ratted. But the pain (inner and outer) was worth it. I hadn’t played a dramatic role in a while and it sho nuff filled me up.

On the food front I am starting to get more cookbooks sent to me by publicists to write about in my Hello Giggles column. I’m pleased to report the most popular review yet was about Savory Pies, written by Greg Henry magnificent Sippity Sup….night swimming. I became even more a fan when he invited me to join The Table Set for a little Nightswimming and drinks n nibbles with him and the Set. They are positively as lovely to hang out with in person as they are to insert in my earholes. It’s a podcast people. Get out of your filthy heads.

Earlier this weekend I shot a spec episode this lil’ show I came up with called Girls on Girls. I could explain how it isn’t SO dirty but I’d rather let your filthy minds wander where they need to. Until we get picked up.

So right now, needing a new agent, sans romance, not dipping where I’d like to be on that silly imdb star rating…I’m not so bothered by it.

What am I bothered by? The distress I felt the other day as I combed grocery store after grocery store in search of my beloved rainbow chip frosting. Which apparently is now a rainbow sprinkles frosting. Fucking sprinkles. I do not believe in sprinkles-either the vulgar-tasting frosting maggots or the cupcake store. Cupcakes, along with sprinkles, can go to heck. What I like I a good SLICE of blimey CAKE on a PLATE! With a FORK! Wow. Wanna get me riled up? Just start talking cupcake smack. Blech again. UGh. Sorry. Walking it off.

I now will let you eat cake.

Green Velvet Cake with Bailey’s Buttercream adapted from 75th Anniversary The Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker
For the Cake:
2 1/3 cups sifted cake flour (which means sift a bunch first, then measure it)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. cocoa powder
1/4 cup powdered buttermilk (or whatever your brand says is the equivalent to one cup of buttermilk-if you have real buttermilk you can leave this out)
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
3 large eggs, whisked together
1 tsp. vanilla, whisked with the eggs
1 cup water (or, if you left out the powdered buttermilk, use real buttermilk here and don’t try to use regular milk-it lacks the acidity you need)
about a Tbsp. food coloring
For the Frosting:
1/2 cup butter
2-3 cups powdered sugar
2-3 Tbsp. Bailey’s Irish Cream
Get all your ingredients out of the fridge, you want them around 70 degrees before starting. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray two 9-inch cake pans with nonstick spray, or butter them.
For the cake:
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, buttermilk powder (if using) and cocoa powder.

Beat the butter until it is good and creamy. Keep the speed high and slowly add in the sugar. Make sure it is nice and fluffy before proceeding. Slowly beat in the eggs and vanilla. Now turn your mixer to low. Beat in a third of the flour mixture, then half of the water or buttermilk and all the food coloring-I just dripped in the color until I was satisfied with how it looked. Then beat in another third of the flour mixture and the second half of the water. You may need to scrape down the bowl some. Beat in the last third of the flour. Beat it good. Divide it between the pans and bake 25-35 minutes. You may want to rotate the pans in the oven midway to so they cook evenly. You know your cake is done when a toothpick stuck in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Well there may be a crumb or two, you just don’t want it coated in batter. Start testing early because you really don’t want to over bake this.
For the frosting:
Beat the butter until fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar carefully. No sugar blizzards please. Beat in the irish cream until you have a nice consistency.
Once the cake is cooled, ya frost. Yeah cake.

Today’s post as a meal in courses: reel, party, pie, brains and a Clifford original

Whoa. Like, whoa.

So much to share. I shall serve it up like a long tasty dinner. I swear it is worth it. There is a drink recipe at the end your reward. The dessert for this post.

Before I even get to what’s first, I redid my dramatic reel, y’all:

Now the real first course. The reel was the amuse bouche.

Next up we have an appetizer of comedy (very funny), a soup course of party (quite fine). Then a beverage and a main coarse of pie and brains. Yes, brains!
And dessert.

Appetizer: Last weekend I did a wee bit if stand-up. Me likey. People laughed a lot. Tis interesting that I hated being laughed at as a kid. Yet being laughed at is now my chosen form of crack. That was 7pm Saturday.

I rushed home for the soup coarse of this post, a party.
Let me explain the soup, a fine melange of friends, food, drinks, and celebration. Garnished with hugs.
Yes, I had another party with pie. The party was to celebrate 3 years of still being alive after I had that accident from which I incurred some smashing (literally) good injuries. That last link will also hold the recipe for delightful vegetarian Scotch eggs, incidentally. Delightful.

I digress. I am alive and more or less well and grateful for life. I wanted to get down, get down, and party.

For the occasion, and this post’s main course beverage, I cracked a red bubbly recommended to me by Whitney at DomaineLA that was more robust than sweet.

Yes please may I have another? Twas a manly red sparkler.

My amazing neighbor brought this post’s main course side dish, a very smart centerpiece:

Oh, jello molds!
And the entree! Just in time for pi day tomorrow! Get a little 3-14 in your maw!
I made an English Cheddar Farmhouse Pie from the cookbook by Greg of Sippity Sup. His book from which I got this recipe is called Savory Pies and I’m not giving you the recipe because I think you should get the book. Greg, if you are reading I was tempted to invite you to the party but I sort of had performance anxiety over serving you your recipe…
I barely got to taste the pie. I swear it it demolished so rapidly. I got a sliver while slicing it then ran off to make cocktails for my friends and turned around and it was gone. I gotta make this one again so I actually get a full on slice.

My friends were totally forgiven for Bogarting the pie, as thy brought me offerings of books, music, crack (aka cookie butter, not pictured) and pseudo health crap (the “powerberries in the pic).
And have I mentioned how I LOVE getting girly flowers?

LOVE. Take note.

And now the dessert, my gift to you, a beverage I invented playing on the many Negroni themes. I’ll call it the Clifford Negroni. Maybe someone invented this already but I googled and haven’t found it. It’s great if you crave a slightly less alcoholic Negroni with more flavor than an Americano.
Ginger ale. The happy gin.
The Clifford Negroni
1/2-1 oz. Campari (aka my lifeblood)
1/2-1 oz. sweet vermouth
Ginger ale (I wish I could say I was loyal to my childhood Vernor’s but I’ve recently been taken by Hansen’s)
Orange twist
The amounts depend on the size of your glass and how much you already drank. I’d had champagne at my party so I had smaller amounts of the Campari and sweet vermouth. Pour these into a champagne flute, top with ginger ale. Run twist around rim then twist the twist to express some oil and drop it in.
Toast to your exquisite life. If you are lucky enough to have life, it is exquisite and worthy of many toasts.