More food

preheat oven to 375
Boil a kettle of water

In a blender, mix:
1 can coconut milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
6 eggs
1 generous tbsp dark rum
dash of vanilla
dash sea salt
at least a cup of toasted coconut flakes (buy some shredded coconut, toast it in the oven for a bit)

Liquefy that shit

In a pan, make your caramel:

Melt a cup of sugar on med-low/medium heat until it's dark brown and syrupy (don't add water).  If the heat is too high it'll burn.  resist the urge to stir.

Pour liquid sugar into your baking dish, coat the bottom, and roll the liquid sugar around the edges to coat it.  Be really careful, and wear oven mitts.

Pour the liquefied flan mixture over the hot sugar into the baking dish.

Place the baking dish on top of a deep tray or other, shallower baking dish.  The shallower dish it sits in be about half the height of the dish with the mixture in it.

Put the two dishes in the oven.

Pour the boiled water into the shallower dish so that the baking dish is sitting in a water bath that reaches about half way up its sides.

Bake for 45 minutes.

Remove, allow to cool in the water bath until the water is room temp.

Refrigerate 8 hours, or overnight.  Or as long as you can possibly wait.

Invert and devour.

Mad science!

A Dinner

How to make a really good summer drink

I'm not going to say that this is the best dark n' stormy you've ever had, because I'd sound like an idiot.  I'll just say that this tastes delicious, and you should try it out.

What you'll need:

Fresh ginger
Lime
Ginger beer
Rum

First of all, everyone has their favorites.  I'm not listing any amounts, because they don't matter.  You can tweak everything to your taste.  I'm using Gosling ginger beer, which is a standby, but I also love Ginger People brand ginger beer.  Just stay away from the light "ginger ale" stuff - that's for other drinks.

Peel and mince your fresh ginger, and quarter the lime.



Throw it in a highball glass, or any other tall glass you have lying around, and muddle the lime and ginger together as vigorously as you can without looking deviant.  You should probably use a muddler for the sake of hygiene, but I use the handle of a whisk.



Add your rum (Pour for a few seconds, or measure it out if you like).  I keep mixing at this point, and let everything soak together for a bit.



(I don't know a thing about rum.  I do know that Myers works fine, and I'm sure anything else that tastes good works fine as well.  Except Bacardi, which is disgusting.)

Add ice.  I fill the glass with it.  If you're awesome, you can use crushed ice, which is always fun, but I am too lazy to do that.

Top off with ginger beer.  Yum, ginger beer.



I chucked some fresh cherries in this one.  I imagine that trying to eat them would infuriate some people, but I think cherries are delicious.  They also go really well with ginger.



Uggghh, so good.

I'm thinking, here, of David Attenborough.

Any time I try to feel something - emotion - I just end up tired, or angry.  It's as if I've been replaced by an empty sink on the inside.  Anything that feels difficult to parse; any emotion beyond the instinctual expression of laughter, anger, or the immediacy of infatuation drains out of me and leaves me feeling exhausted.

It's difficult to express anything except by analogy.  Take this: What use is a a bombed-out building, charred from the insides out but still standing? It takes time to regrow life in a crater. What could be more beautiful, more terrifying, than new life?  How can you take comfort in something that you know is transient?  Beauty is devastation waiting to happen.

I'm making this sound overly depressing, and I don't mean to. I am not depressed.  I'm a cynic.  I am...having difficulty with proactivity.  With forethought.  With interpretation.

Nobody really understands it when you tell them that you "can't deal with things."  They assume you're exaggerating, or making excuses.  Sometimes it feels as though you are.  But it's not as if you can help it.

Saying you have difficulties with feelings is a statement that gets brushed off, ignored at the worst; listened-to - but not really understood (and who could possibly understand?) - at best.  I can act sympathetic, empathetic even, but those words don't necessarily mean anything, don't necessarily link up with recognizable emotions.  When you turn inside, all you see is the sink.  Fighting monsters is dangerous work, even if you didn't pick the fight.

Perhaps, after loss, poetry is the only thing that matters.