Kira Disapproves

This will be my last post of the day, and a quick one. I’m trying to post more, because final paper writing time is EXACTLY the time to start posting more. I will also be posting about one of my final projects, the Peter Pan Project, for those who are already involved.

These are cookies my Mom used to make with me for Easter. She made them with adorable licorice whip handles, but I was too lazy for that. I did make my own icing…

Step One: Bake circles of Pillsbury sugar cookie dough pressed in to a mini muffin pan. They’ll come out something like this…

Step Two: Fill the “baskets” with icing Easter grass using a pastry bag with a star tip.

Step Three: Press Cadbury Robin’s Eggs in to the icing. If you want, you can also add the licorice handles at this point by anchoring them in the frosting. I did not, so at Sunday dinner everyone thought they were bird nests until I informed them of my concept.

I had a bit of what I’m going to call an out of body experience tonight. I was driving over to the Clarimont Campus to go to the gym, and it was only as I pulled in to the parking garage that I really realized that I had lost the fight I had been having with myself about how I didn’t want to go to the gym, maybe I didn’t need to go to the gym, after all I danced for about 30 pretty energetic seconds on monday, and my feet hurt . . . *poof* GYM.

Writing is often like that, too.

Anyways, there is a reason it’s a good thing I ended up at the gym. Last saturday, I gave a paper in my philosophy class (a seminar on William James), and it was about James and Fechner. Fechner was a psychologist, as was James, so I feel all warm and fuzzy about him, and I opened the paper by saying that I have always associated Fechner with cupcakes. Because a lot of psychologists consider Fechner to be the founder of the modern discipline, and he pinpoints his epiphany to a specific day (October 22nd, 1850 to be exact.) Voila! Psychology birthday! (There are an awful lot of onomatopeia type magic words in this post, I realize.)

I’ve been doing a lot of food and kid-themed school projects lately.

Nikki is becoming concerned that I am regressing.

Eden says, “When are you not regressing?”

[At this point my computer froze because Wordpress is apparently having issues including links in blog posts. You have thus been saved about three paragraphs of witty cupcake repartee and I now commence with the cupcake pictures with little comment. Lucky you.]

Cookie Dough Cupcakes by The Cake Mix Doctor

(http://www.cakemixdoctor.com/recipes/what_kind/cupcakes/cookie_dough_cupcakes_as_seen.php)

Here is the bright yellow batter. That I did not spill…

Here they are ready to go in the oven…

Here they are just out of the oven. Some of them collapsed and had to be doctored with chocolate icing…

Here’s the gooey cookie dough center…

And the final product!!

They were such a hit that I made a double batch for Lizzy’s birthday party. It turned out they were fairly unnecessary because Lizzy, awesomest party hoster ever, had candy or derbs (I don’t feel like looking up how to spell that word corrrectly. You of course know what I mean.)

Lizzy was surprised there was cookie dough in the cupcakes!

No one in this picture is named Sarah.

Everyone loves cupcakes.

Look at JP smirking behind his drink.

He’s not immune.

He would later enjoy a cupcake.

Elizabeth is rarely this cheerful.

My audition song will be “Happily Ever After.” Check out the YouTube video of Carol Burnett singing it in the original. People always tell my Mom she looks like Carol Burnett, and everyone tells me I look like my Mom. I don’t really see a resemblance between me and Carol, though, except for maybe the big facial expressions.

So, I’m near being done with this “project.” I have a LOT of homework to do, and the audition is Monday night. I’m going to be rushing there from school, so I won’t have time to be nervous. The last logistical thing is, I need a headshot. The only non-retouched (because why would you not let them airbrush you if it’s an option?) professional photos I have are the ones a photographer friend from college took as a gift after he crashed on my couch for a month. They’re two years old, but they still are close enough to what I look like that it’s what I’m going to use.

So, dear readers, which one of these should I use? Leave your vote in the comments. Thanks!

Headshot 1

Headshot 2

Headshot 3

Headshot 4

Headshot 5

Headshot 6

Headshot 7

Headshot 8

Headshot 9

Headshot 10

*And a random afterthought: I might be able to use this article in my class on sight in the fall. Thanks again to everyone who sent me great suggestions for the syllabus. I post the article here because I’m procrastinating on finishing the syllabus while I think through what I want to include, and I don’t want to forget about it.

^ All photos © Ryan Burke 2007

I was going to write a long post about this. But then I figured, eh, I could do it later.

Like, for example, Krispy Kreme elitism. Yes, Krispy Kreme makes a darn good donut. They definitely have the market cornered when it comes to the original glazed, doubly so, because a hot now original glazed is a whole different experience than a regular (cool?) original glazed.

However, Krispy Kreme is just not the be-all, end-all of donuts. Dunkin’ Donuts is not inferior. It’s just a whole other thing. It’s comparing apples to oranges (assuming that both fruits are battered and deep fried, which probably wouldn’t taste as bad as it first sounds, actually.)

Case in point would be the blueberry donut. At KK, they have blueberry cake, which is one of those twice-fried donuts that is so saturated with yummy oil and sugar that it melts away at the edges. The blueberry cake donut is good, but it is extrememly rich, and not really a great choice for breakfast.

Dunkin’ Donuts, on the other hand, has a blueberry donut that is so unsweet as to be almost bagel-y. It has a thin, hard layer of glaze that is a perfect compliment to the little blue things that make it “blueberry”-y, but the actual donut part is less sweet and dry. Also perfect in munchkin form. And the Dunkin’ Donuts blueberry muffins (not the low fat) are a whole other amazing thing, too.

Of course, that still doesn’t cover everything. There’s Top Pot donuts (now available at Starbucks, but not in Cinnamon Sugar, which is my favorite), Caribou Coffee’s apple fritters, supermarket entities like Entenmann’s, whose chocolate donut with yellow cake is nothing like any chocolate donut from anywhere else…

Yes, this is just a silly post about donuts. But still, it’s important to establish what we’re talking about. Operational definitions, if you will. And with that “Jamesian” link, I have managed to connect this particular navel-gazing, food-oriented, procrastination-themed post to my homework.

Oh, and one more thing!  Did you know that when Krispy Kreme stores with the orange “hot now” sign don’t have their light on, it means they’re making OTHER donuts than original glazed hot now, and that you can request some if you ask very nicely? I know. Awesome.

Joel at Krispy Kreme