Dream with Our Eyes Open

After blowing off our accustomed gourmet New Year's Eve experience (for very good reason, I might add), the Mr. felt well enough to go to Kat & Andrew's New Year's Day brunch, another two-decades+ fixture in our lives.

I wanted to make something to bring, and the main thing we had in the house besides pantry staples was apples. Several different kinds of apples. I found this recipe on Epicurious, which recommends using at least 4 different types of apples, so I made it. But it was intended for an 8-inch springform pan, and we have only a 10-inch one.

In a moment of rare mathematical thought, I realized that this is a volume problem, and that the shape involved is a (short, squat) cylinder. I found a handy calculator via Google and discovered that the volume ratios were 1 to 1.5. Well! The original recipe calls for 2 eggs, so this was easy-peasy. I did find some additional adjustments needed (our eggs were likely extra large rather than just large, so I needed to add more flour, and I had to extend the baking time, which I did in 10-minute increments, checking the cake for done-ness each cycle), and I also added a bit of cinnamon, because I like cinnamon.

The apples I used were a mixture of Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Gold Rush, and Gala.

The cake had competition at the brunch: this was a big year for homemade cakes. Those I could identify include a chocolate swiss cake roll as a buche de Noel, my late mother's sour cream coffee cake (made by my sister, in this case), what appeared to be a pumpkin bread with currants, and our hosts' daughter's blueberry tea cake. We left about 1/3 of our cake when we departed the party, but there was still a group of 10 college- and grad-school-age party-goers playing Cards Against Humanity in the front parlor, so we may never see the remaining cake again!

On Friday night, sanada came down to visit. The whole family took her out for Japanese food followed by Ben & Jerry's best, and then the Young Lady actually went to bed (she hadn't had much sleep at her theatre camp overnight on Thursday) while us alleged adults stayed up much too late and talked about Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Then we got up early and ate breakfast (the Mr. fried up some bacon, which means I had shredded oats, soymilk, OJ, and bacon for breakfast ... ), and then sanada & I took off for The Beach! Yay! Finally!

We went to Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware (about 2.5 hrs away), and changed and got water and snacks, and went in swimming, and ate our snacks, and swam some more, and waiting a very very long time in a line to buy lunch, and napped in the sun (unwisely ... no umbrella!), and went swimming some more, because if you don't get to the beach very often, you gotta make the most of it. And of course we yak-yakked the entire time about the psychological hangups of our favorite manga characters, which is what we usually do, whether online or in person. The weather was gorgeous, hardly a cloud anywhere at any time, and not too hot (in fact, we even got chilly at one point), and we saw dolphins (or maybe porpoises ... a marine biologist I am not).

Then we packed up and showered and changed and went to Rehoboth, about 15 min. away, where we window shopped and admired craft stuff and jewelry and made rude remarks about the boutiques of overly fashionable clothing and finally had a seafood dinner followed by frozen custard.

And drove back, very sunburned on our shoulders (legs still pasty! why is that?!) but otherwise quite content.