phyllo cones and ghost theme park

Just began the plated desserts section at school. "Plated desserts" refers to the expensive frou-frou stuff you see in fancy (or just pretentious) restaurants for $15 and up, usually stuffed into ring molds and decorated with squiggles of sauce and geometric cookie shapes stuck in at odd angles. Hate 'em, hate 'em. You're supposed to have a combination of textures, tastes, length/height, and temperatures on one plate. This is an enormous pain in the ass. Fortunately, we worked in teams of three all this week. We had to replicate a classical dessert from one of the instructor's books and then make up one on our own. We did a white chocolate mousse domed in speckled white chocolate, set on a coconut sable cookie (sorta like shortbread) with cassis tuile (super thin cookies you form into shapes while warm) ribbon and long sugar straws sticking up out of the dome. Then we did a neoclassic (means we made it up) porter ice cream on a dense chocolate brownie base with chocolate sauce, toasted pecans, pecan tuile rectangles, and black currant sauce with a little raspberry liqueur.

They both came out looking great. In fact, I was pretty surprised at the level of expertise the whole class showed. There was some good-looking stuff. I wish I had a digital cam so I could take pics and post them. Everything tasted good, too. I was in charge of the ice cream and I went through three batches before getting a decent flavor. The original ice cream recipe called for Guinness, but we only had an American porter available to use, and it was much more bitter than it would've been. I had to put in honey and vanilla paste and get some sweetness; I actually liked the bitter but no one else did. Our sauce squiggles got picked apart in presentation but overall I liked it. And the liqueur currant sauce went well with the porter, much to my surprise. Tomorrow I've got to do something with dough and have it presented by 4 PM. I'm thinking about doing either phyllo cones filled with red berry cream or almond and cherry pithiviers with a lemon tea granita or sorbet on the side. It's pretty much going to come down to whatever's easier - probably the phyllo cones, since I already have a red currant couli made. Plating by 4 means I'll be going to lab tomorrow morning. God, I'm ready for vacation. Every morning this week I've had to force myself to go to class.

Today my hunky bear friend muddy_feet posted a page on his livejournal from the latest issue of the Advocate - his picture is spread over nearly the entire page! They interviewed him for an article on body hair. I'm amazed the Advocate even said the words "queer FTM" much less interviewed him, but it's great to see. Go Skyler!

I've been having the best bike rides lately. Since I haven't been able to kick weight-lifting back into gear, every evening after dinner around 9 or so I go for an hour's ride. I've been riding in the beautifully desolate industrial area behind Slabtown (my neighborhood) along the docks and on the downtown park loop that takes you along the tourist boardwalk and to either the NE or the SW (?) areas. Yesterday I rode downtown and checked out the tourist area and stopped by the shore and watched the dragon boat teams practice for a while. Then I followed the path past the OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Something That Begins With "I", I'm guessing) to a weird little bike track called the Seawater Corridor that runs parallel to the train tracks way into the boonies. It was incredible. The water curved off to my right, with periodic little resting spots for cyclists scattered here and there. One of them had these big rocks that had been cut into sections and joined back together with clear glass bands - really cool in the twilight. I was tired and a little crampy by this point but it was so beautiful I couldn't bring myself to stop. I passed entrances to some sort of nature park on my left and the area was overgrown and forested, much like the woods behind my house where I grew up. I rode until I was in a conjunctive state of fatigue and relaxation, and then things got weird, but in a good way.

First, the forest on my left opened up and flattened out to empty marshland ridged by steep hills. I came up on a drained lake that was hosting a score of ducks. Behind it, sitting far up and back on the hill, was this sprawling, decayed, abandoned yellow stucco building with a huge wall mural of a blue heron facing the train tracks and the marsh. It was chipped and faded like the rest of the building and had obviously been there for some time. There was no room for a road to have been there, and no lettering or advertising, just the picture. It was almost scary, being so big and so isolated, like stumbling onto some pagan idol in a clearing in the woods. The only ones who would've seen the mural before the bike path was built - and it's obviously a new path - were the ducks and the passengers on passing freight trains.

If that wasn't enough to put me into a state of unreality, I rode about three more minutes and rode right on top of a theme park. In the middle of nowhere. Only one rural road accessing it. I couldn't believe it - I thought I'd fallen asleep on my bike and was dreaming in a heap by the side of the road. It was small, but up and running. I coasted down off the track and wandered in. It was exactly like all the theme parks and little carnivals I went to as a kid: Libertyland (Memphis's theme park, connected to the annual Midsouth Fair), the Memphis Zoo kiddie rides, Al's Golfhaven (putt-putt golf, go-carts, and videogames, and the site of countless birthdays and summer nights). The rides were the same. They had the same dancing anthropomorphic food painted on the snack stands; the same video arcade under a flimsy tent, smelling of sweat, filled with out of date games with bootleg cabinets; the same blue-painted Tilt-A-Whirl; the same sled ride, blaring Southern butt rock, decorated with amateurish, borderline lewd paintings of rock stars.

I was checking out the small games midway as they were preparing to close and thinking, this has everything I remember but my favorite thing ... and then I turned to the right and there it was. The shooting range. The 50 cent for ten shots fake rifles and the target area filled with animatronic mannequins with little targets attached. There were the skulls that popped up and made the hoot-owl noise when you hit them, and the beer glasses that slid along the saloon bar, and the bird's nest in the tree against the fake painted background, and the honky-tonk piano player dummy that sat up and played a couple of bars when you pegged the target on his butt. The only thing that was different was the addition of a female mannequin in a schoolmarm dress that played the organ when you plinked her.

I didn't pick up a rifle. I was happy enough as it was. I wheeled out of the parking lot and back up onto the bike trail, going the other way, pacing a Crayola-yellow tug working on the river. Forty minutes to downtown and from there back home.


Incidentally, my 34th birthday is in eight days. I better be getting some birthday phone smooshes from my inner circle. You know who you are.