Thursday, January 08, 2004
Dear friends,
Tonight will be Photography Night at PTMYB, partly because I came home late due to an after-work doctor’s appointment, partly because my laptop seems to be feeling logy tonight. Must be all the steak and eggs I’ve been feeding it. 
Last night I mentioned in passing the Heather Garden at Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan. (If you didn’t click on the link, I urge you to do so—really, it’s pretty.) In keeping with the theme of Beautiful Spaces in Urban Places, Lloyd has graciously offered to let me share this picture of Point Defiance in Tacoma, Washington, toward the Puget Sound end of Tacoma. Lloyd grew up in Tacoma. He went back for two weeks in October to visit his parents and sister, and returned with some nifty pictures, including some beautiful pics of the sound. Maybe he’ll let me share some more of them.
He also, after almost 12 years of waxing rhapsodic, finally got to taste a maple bar once again. For as long as I’ve known him, he has lamented that he cannot find maple bars anywhere on the East Coast. I’ve been grilling him about the dough and the maple coating, trying to figure out of this is something I can make at home. I think I can, I think I can. (Any maple bar fans out there who have any input on what makes the ur-maple bar, please feel free to share.)
Snowball, you should know by now that I am a champion at taking something simple and convoluting it to within an inch of its life.
The conversation went something like this: It’s a basic doughnut with maple frosting. Cake doughnut, yeast doughnut or eclair? (Yeast doughnut.) What is the crumb structure like? (More like a soft bread, not a “sheety” crumb like that found in croissants or danish, the result of butter being layered into the dough.) Baked or fried? (Baking is possible, but frying is probable.) Thin maple glaze, like the sugar glaze on a glazed doughnut, or thick glaze, the fondant-style glaze that is used to top eclairs? (Thick glaze.) Does it *have* to be imitation maple flavoring, or can I use a reduction of grade B (stronger-flavored) maple syrup? (I don’t know, Jen, aren’t you the baker in this relationship?)
I thought these were perfectly reasonable questions, but at the end of all this, Lloyd had to go lie down. Now I know what people mean when they tell me I am exhausting to be around.
limine, I never thought of that, probably because Lloyd is so adept at driving me over the edge in other ways. Wait till I tell him he has a syndrome. He’s so cute when he’s poorly.
Of course I could just turn it on him, and create a maple bar all my own, one that is made only of good things, no fake maple here, so wonderful that he falls in thrall with it. But then, the other part of the maple bar experience, so he tells me, is lack of quality control, so that one day the maple bars are fresh and good, the next day they’re utterly nasty. Ahhh, the hell with it. I’ll just make him some butterscotch pudding. It’s easy, he loves it, and if I throw enough bourbon into it, he sleeps like a baby! :D
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Snowball, you should know by now that I am a champion at taking something simple and convoluting it to within an inch of its life.
The conversation went something like this: It’s a basic doughnut with maple frosting. Cake doughnut, yeast doughnut or eclair? (Yeast doughnut.) What is the crumb structure like? (More like a soft bread, not a “sheety” crumb like that found in croissants or danish, the result of butter being layered into the dough.) Baked or fried? (Baking is possible, but frying is probable.) Thin maple glaze, like the sugar glaze on a glazed doughnut, or thick glaze, the fondant-style glaze that is used to top eclairs? (Thick glaze.) Does it *have* to be imitation maple flavoring, or can I use a reduction of grade B (stronger-flavored) maple syrup? (I don’t know, Jen, aren’t you the baker in this relationship?)
I thought these were perfectly reasonable questions, but at the end of all this, Lloyd had to go lie down. Now I know what people mean when they tell me I am exhausting to be around.