As you saw in an earlier post, there isn’t much to eat in my refrigerator. Yes, I went to the store today but I didn’t get anything to eat tonight. I’m enjoying liquid bread. The more I drink this beer, I feel that I like Fat Tire more. I remember it having more flavor.
Tomorrow I’m supposed to host a dinner so I figured I should get the dessert out of the way because it can take some time. I chose a pretty easy dessert so I could have waited until tomorrow but I have to get my place cleaned up.
Groceries
First, had to start off getting some groceries. I was in a hurry this morning to get to the lab so I took some photos of my refrigerator. The recipes are stored online so I just had to figure out what I needed to buy.
The main compartment of the refrigerator essentially shows drinks which is predominated by beer. There isn’t much else in there.
The door holds condiments.
The freezer has some ice and vodka. The vodka is Chopin which is quite nice.
Ingredients
The eggs are in warm water to bring them up to room temperature. I like to start with some of my ingredients at room temperature if possible. The marscapone and heavy whipping cream were left out for several hours.
I measured out 250 grams of sugar and then dropped the egg yolks into the sugar.
I double boiled the sugar/egg mixture for 10 minutes on low heat making sure to stir constantly. Fill the bottom pot to about an inch above the bottom and then boil it. After it boils, turn down the heat to low. Place the top pot in place making sure that it does NOT touch the water.
Then I transferred the yolk mixture to a bowl and mixed it until it was thick and yellow.
I added 280 grams of marscapone cheese to the egg mixture and beat it in.
I set the yolk mixture aside and beat the heavy whipping cream. The bowl and mixing blades were left in the freezer to cool them down. I was shooting for stiff peaks. I don’t like to run the mixer until I get stiff peaks because it’s too easy to go too far. I beat the last bit by hand with a little beater.
I folded the whipped cream into the yolk mixture. I did this gently because I didn’t want to break up the air bubbles that were in the whipped cream.
Lined the springform pan with the ladyfingers. I had some difficulty getting the side ones to stay so I dipped them in the yolk mixture and used it as a glue. I brushed the Khalua onto the ladyfingers. These ladyfingers are hard so they need a good coating of Khalua to soften them up.
I poured half the egg mixture in and then added another layer of ladyfingers and some more Khalua.
I put the remaining yolk mixture on top, dusted with some cocoa and scraped some chocolate onto the top.
That’s it. Hopefully this thing will taste okay. I haven’t made this particular recipe so it’s going to be an experiment. Poor guests. They always wind up being guinea pigs. Suckers!
Breakfast
No turkeys today. I got a photo just as I stepped off the shuttle bus. It shows the Campanile with San Francisco in the distant background just on the other side of the San Francisco Bay. This picture came out better than the second one that I took. I took a second one because the flash fired for this shot. Of course, there was nothing within range of the flash but the shutter speed must have been just right to get the orange tinge. The other one just looks grey.
After I took this photo, I overheard someone say that it might rain on Friday. Sure enough, it looks like it might rain on Friday. The rainy season is upon us already? Damn!
Today is taco salad Tuesday so I got a taco salad and an iced tea for lunch. Hunger pretty much dominated my late morning because I got to work an hour earlier than I normally do.
Had a bit of a breakthrough yesterday playing the guitar. I learned that I was holding the guitar incorrectly when playing the G chord. I had my left thumb on the back side of the neck right in the middle which created a very difficult geometry fdor holding the chord. Specifically, my middle finger would buzz the 2nd string. Now, I rotate my hand more such that I’m gripping the guitar so my thumb reaches all the way around to where it’s nearly buzzing the 1st string. It’s easier on the hands and it doesn’t cause any buzzing. Since the G chord is one of the most popular chords in rock, I’ve got to get it straight.
I’m at BART already. Left the apartment at 6:30AM and didn’t realize that it’s still dark at that hour. I’m not sure why I woke up so early this morning but it’s good because I need to leave early today so I can make my way to Berkeley Bowl after work and get some cooking under my belt.
I’m supposed to host dinner on Wednesday night for Donovan, Lena, Fumika and her friend Keiko. I have done very little to forward that endeavor and I hope it doesn’t mean missing out on a lot of sleep tomorrow night. I want to get the dessert out of the way so I can focus on the other dishes. Fumika said Americans make too much food and she’s right so I’ll work on nice portions for everyone. I know Lena is on a diet in preparation for her wedding but the wildcard is Keiko. With a name like that, you never know.
Plan is that after work, I’ll walk over to Berkeley Bowl and shop for things I need. Then I can work on dessert tomorrow night. I can spend Qedneaday preparing the other dishes and cleaning my apartment. Fumika and Keiko said they’d get here at 5 even though dinner is at 7. They want to help. They don’t trust me. 
I wouldn’t.
I took the Adult CPR training course at the lab today. It was worth taking this class. You never know when you’ll be in a situation where you need to use these skills. One of my colleagues at the lab, Tom, had to use CPR once. His wife who was only 35 or so had a cardiac arrest. He performed CPR and essentially saved her life. That was just a couple years ago.
The class we took was a limited one: just adult CPR which also covered choking. It did not cover the use of defibrillators which I guess now is a common practice. The instructor noted though that defibrillators essentially talk you through the steps so if you have one available, you can administer it effectively even with no training at all. Anyway, I’m glad that I had the opportunity to take the class.
For dinner tonight, I’m having a beer. After playing a couple hours of tennis, I built up some thirst so I drank the Skinny Dip pretty quickly. It tasted good! 
This is the second ProKennex Redondo Type C that I’ve had where the grip failed. The butt cap falls off. None of my other rackets made by Wilson, Head and Dunlop have ever had this problem. Last time I paid $25 to have the racket shipped back. It’s not worth shipping it back again especially if you consider that I’ve lost 2 string sets along with the racket itself. I’ve sent the manufacturer an email indicating my displeasure again.
I played well today though. It was Robert, Daphne, Bala, Scott and me. We played at the MLK courts in Berkeley and had a lot of fun. Everyone was playing well so we had some good rallies. I wish we could all play well all the time and have as much fun as we did!
Having a turkey sandwich, salad and an iced tea for lunch today. Don’t have a photograph to show for it though.
I’m in transition between safety classes. This morning, I took a first aid class and at 1PM will take the CPR class. Because I do some electrical work, I have to take these classes. Marion happened to signup for the same first aid class so we were partners. The only things we had to do as a team were applying a bandage to the arm and applying a splint to immobilize an arm. They were pretty straightforward tasks.
There was a section on burns. This one guy in the class got burned on his chest when he was 9 years old. He filled a kerosene lantern with fuel and when he lit it, it exploded and got him in the chest. He lifted his shirt and showed us his scars. It was a serious burn: 1st-3rd degree burns. He was fortunate that it only got his chest.
