Thursday, December 31, 2009

Recipes: Rich Chocolate Cake

Most Disastrous Cakes EverThis isn't the easiest cake recipe in the world (see picture), but as long as you make the icing nice and thick it will cover any imperfections in the cake itself. The hardest bit is folding in the egg whites at the end as by that point the mixture has usually solidified into a solid ball, for this reason I melt the butter, not that it helps much. It's also a good idea to let the cake cool (and thereby solidify) completely before slicing it in half, so remember to leave enough time for that.

The cake:
  1. Beat 8oz butter with 8oz brown sugar.
  2. Beat in 4 egg yolks one at a time adding a portion of 4 oz self raising flour after each one.
  3. Fold in the rest of the flour, 4oz ground/chopped hazelnuts and 8oz melted chocolate.
  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites.
  5. cook the cake for 1 hr 15 mins at 170C, 325F, 4G. If it starts to get too brown cover with foil.
Once cooled slice into two and fill with 1/2 pint whipped cream.

The icing:

Melt and mix 6oz plain chocolate with 4oz sifted icing sugar and 4 tablespoons water.

Decorate with chopped hazelnuts.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Short Reviews: Cinnamon Kitchen, Liverpool Street, London

Red DeerThe Cinnamon Kitchen is excellent, in fact I think on my last visit it over took Konstam as my favourite restaurant in London.

All of the mains that I have tasted have been very good, the roast goose breast and rack of lamb especially stood out, although I can only describe the safron sauce that the lamb came with as "weird", I'm afraid I can't remember what the goose came with. And the pork chop I had the time before with vindaloo spices (just pleasantly warm) and marsala mash was perfect. The menu seems to change quite regularly, so don't sue me if these aren't available when you go.

While I wouldn't recommend one particular main the desserts are not so consistent, they're all interesting, but I would especially recommend the banana tart tatan, and if you don't like banana the chocolate fondant and mousse. The ice creams are good too.

Price wise the Cinnamon Kitchen is fairly varied, starting at a veggie main for about £12 to the red deer at about £30. My one caveat about this restaurant is that, in the tradition of Indian restaurants everywhere, they try to sell you more than you want or need, on our first visit we ended up with six starters between four people.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Short Reviews: Sandi Toksvig's Christmas Cracker, South Bank

Like watching your child's school play: slightly amusing, but only because you know some of the people in it. Five Guys Named Moe and the three opera singers were all very good and professional, something notable by its absence in the rest of the cast. The frequent jokes about needing to rehearse were more true than funny. To cap it all the sound was so bad in our section that we frequently missed parts of the jokes, those that there were. They might get better by the end of the run, but that's not much of a consolation to those of us that paid to see a dress rehearsal for your show.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Wonderful Spam Subjects

I love the way that spam filters are forcing spammers to be more and more creative with their subject lines, here are some of my recent favourites.

First we have the euphemism category:

Make your hose's radius great
Classic male 'uppers' Packed and dosed desire
Have a concrete thing in your pants
Settle the warrior in your fly.
ideal for bed-marathons.
Drive her wet and crazy
Getting woody in seconds!
Give your wang bulldozer power!
?"!BE NAUGHTY AND ENDURABLE!"?
Greater male volume and power enhancing.
Be her eromaniac
Enjoy night potency
She'll like your eagerness
Set desire to maximum
Exaltation of having your rod ready-for-action again!

Next we have the bonus "hoister" category, I've no idea why this word is so popular, maybe it's an Americanism:

Hoisters for your pork-lever
Male strength hoisters!
Your favorite ardor hoister!

Then we have the slightly bizarre category:

He was free to write on the snow
Your wife in bath on tape - Looking for sales?
Which she was holding up for it
Erase the memories of the defeat
-..YOUR BLOOD WILL BOIL AGAIN!..- - /!!TABLET OF HAPPINESS!!!/
Give her 3 hour rodeo
Unusual Places to Get It On!
What the doctor ordered - How please knocking-out hottie

On to the Ugh! category:

Energy to tear her ham wallet
Be her tight hole's attacker!
Rub her from inside

And finally the Uh? category:

{?} {?} {?}. {?} {?}
Who knows I collect Blaine dolls, Brian wondered, looking at the one seated on his router.

UPDATE: Looks like I'll have to continually update this post, just had these classics through:

Screw her rabbit hole - If your spaceship needs power
Getting tired after one act? You can easily get energy for ten more this night! - Have surprisingly good lovemaking
Lasting success in bedroom - We can't give you charm of Cazanova: But we can give you wood-on of Ron Jeremy!
Flame of your emotions - Superheat for amorous adventures

UPDATE2:

Your drawbolt will go deeper in - Stimulate necessary growth
What your score? - You'll peck her like crazy

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

The Lowest Common Denominator

I don't often catch BBC TV news, but when I do I am often struck by pointless on-scene reporting and presenters who almost reconstruct events for you, just in case you can't imagine it from their overly emotional language. I prefer the BBC website as it seems less sensationalist, more impartial and removed, but recently there seems to have been a slow slide to more emotive language and articles. For instance, a recent article on the royal harpist convicted of handling stolen goods described her as "hooked on heroin" and "in the grip of drugs", what's wrong with "addicted"? And today I read a story entitled Who was Arthur McElhill? I didn't know who Arthur McElhill was, so I read the story. Having read the article I have no idea as to why it was written and published on the BBC news site. It's a sensationalist horror story that is reminiscent of those cheap glossy mags that have exclamation marks in their titles and that has no useful conclusion.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

From The Staff Newsletter

The many aims for developing a community of partners include:
  • Unlocking values, strength and capacity
  • Developing a channel for sharing customer challenges in a controlled environment and so delivering innovation and good ideas
  • Working jointly with clients to meet their present and future challenges and needs
I hope that's cleared that up.