Day 3, addendum
Jul. 30th, 2007 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daidoji_giseiI totally botched my Oven Technology roll this afternoon--I preheated the oven fine, put the cake in, and in the process of trying to set the timer I turned the oven off. I discovered this a half hour later, and after the traditional wailing and tearing of clothes I turned the oven back on. Either the cake was going to turn out ok or it wasn't, and I had little to lose by trying.
In a stunning display of how fool-proof this recipe is, it turned out fine. OK, the crust is a little chewier than is ideal but considering how it had been abused I'm not complaining. After our test-taste it was determined that I needed to up the amount of mint extract, but otherwise things look very promising for the picnic.
When I wasn't attempting to bake a cake I was painting my nails (burgundy frost, btw) and reading a very interesting book I had found in Ami's military history collection: Japanese Destroyer Captain, which was written in the '50s by the man who was the Japanese Navy's most successful destroyer captain in WWII, Captain Tameichi Hara. I've always had a special fondness for naval history, and reading about the Pacific destroyer battles from the Japanese perspective should be great fun. I haven't gotten very far in it, but one page has already given me pause:
I can't begin to imagine what he would think of me, and my relationship with Go Rin Sho!
Dinner was Caesar salad (authentic, right down to the coddled eggs) and grilled shrimp and scallops. I'd never had a real Caesar salad, so I found it very interesting to watch the whole production. Afterwards we decided to go swimming (pool in backyard!) and then we had the cake.
In a stunning display of how fool-proof this recipe is, it turned out fine. OK, the crust is a little chewier than is ideal but considering how it had been abused I'm not complaining. After our test-taste it was determined that I needed to up the amount of mint extract, but otherwise things look very promising for the picnic.
When I wasn't attempting to bake a cake I was painting my nails (burgundy frost, btw) and reading a very interesting book I had found in Ami's military history collection: Japanese Destroyer Captain, which was written in the '50s by the man who was the Japanese Navy's most successful destroyer captain in WWII, Captain Tameichi Hara. I've always had a special fondness for naval history, and reading about the Pacific destroyer battles from the Japanese perspective should be great fun. I haven't gotten very far in it, but one page has already given me pause:
It is strange that in 1941 I should finally find answers to my problems in a book written 300 years earlier, Go Rin Sho (The Five Wheels), by Mushashi Miyamoto. [....]Compared with Sun Tzu, Miyamoto's memoir is quite obscure. A literal translation of his prose would make little impression on Western readers.
I can't begin to imagine what he would think of me, and my relationship with Go Rin Sho!
Dinner was Caesar salad (authentic, right down to the coddled eggs) and grilled shrimp and scallops. I'd never had a real Caesar salad, so I found it very interesting to watch the whole production. Afterwards we decided to go swimming (pool in backyard!) and then we had the cake.
