Am I required to keep him alive?

[sovay]

I just watched my first episode of Fringe (2008–2013). It is amazing how disorienting it is to be told a city is Boston when it is very plainly either Toronto or New York. Also, I think the show's Harvard University might be Yale. Can you do that without starting a small war?

(John Noble is awesome. All mad scientist buttons checked. Including the one where he looks good in a lab coat.)

I saw these cat portraits on Tumblr a few days ago, but I had no idea they were actual guard cats of the Hermitage Museum. I approve.

The baked Alaska this afternoon was an amazing sucess. I am very proud of my skills with folding egg whites. rushthatspeaks and tilivenn can be proud of their ice cream wrangling and attention to baking times. The weevils in the confectioner's sugar were a surprise no one was looking for, and so was the time out where we had to get more eggs because the kitchen was too hot and humid for the first attempt at meringue to peak at all, but the results in Earl Grey and cardamom ice cream were wholly worth it. The sponge cake base was fluffy, the ice cream was sliceable and cold, the meringue on top was crisp-brown with the delicious marshmallow taffiness of burnt sugar at the tips. Egg whites are exactly as effective an insulator as I was always told. We really have no excuse for not reverse-engineering a butter-pie now.

I wish my head did not hurt this much.

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

It is disorienting when one is told a city is a city that it's not. There was a popular sitcom (Family Ties, I think.) when I was a kid which was allegedly set in Columbus, OH, my place of abode at the time. It almost never showed any real views of Columbus, but as best I recall they accomplished this by having hardly any exterior scenes at all. Being shown some other city would have been unbearably strange.

Thanks for sharing the cat portraits! I googled and turned up a few more examples than were shown in the NYT piece. Do you happen to recollect which Tumblr you saw them on?

I'm delighted to hear of the amazing success of baked Alaska. Cardamom ice cream sounds delicious, and I wish I could talk the local ice cream operation into making some, even if I'd probably never have the patience to make baked Alaska with it.

I'm sorry for your continued headache.

[sovay]

I googled and turned up a few more examples than were shown in the NYT piece. Do you happen to recollect which Tumblr you saw them on?

That looks like the same half-dozen linked from the New York Times. I do not unfortunately remember where I saw them originally; the Tumblrs I usually read are handful of dust's and strange selkie's, but Tumblr by its nature reblogs so much, I could have gone one or two links over and found myself somewhere completely strange.

even if I'd probably never have the patience to make baked Alaska with it.

Actually, it didn't take that long. Discounting the failed first meringue, the most time-consuming part was waiting for the angelfood cake to cool.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

That looks like the same half-dozen linked from the New York Times.

So it does. I missed the link on the NYT piece, but only saw the one or two that they used for illustrations on the page itself. I may've been too caught up, after reading the piece, in trying to find it on the Nook edition so I could commend it to my mother's attention on said device. (As it turns out, this was another article left out of the Nook edition.)

I do not unfortunately remember where I saw them originally; the Tumblrs I usually read are handful of dust's and strange selkie's, but Tumblr by its nature reblogs so much, I could have gone one or two links over and found myself somewhere completely strange.

Indeed. I've had similar experiences on Tumblr.

Actually, it didn't take that long. Discounting the failed first meringue, the most time-consuming part was waiting for the angelfood cake to cool.

Interesting. I reckon I am still not likely to ever make a baked Alaska, but it's good to know that it's perhaps not quite on the turducken level of difficulty that I've always envisioned it being.

PS: Those six may be all the Hermitage cat-portraits he's done, or at least that he's released to the public. Here is his deviantART gallery.