So…how to build this beast?

Look around the world and you’ll find innumerable versions of the Black Forest cake. However in Germany there’s a legal definition (a PDO or something along those lines) for the confection, which goes by the name schwarzwälder kirschtorte in their language. No surprise there, everything from pork pies to pizzas to strawberries carry those sorts of designations these days. And very handy things they are too as they provide rough blueprints for my pirated American recipes.

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Good morning, destroyer of souls!

Speaking of chopping down apple trees, meet Carrie A. Nation. Nation was the most well-known of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s, er…activists. A real-life hatchet man is what she was. And if you think that’s an uncharitable thing to call a woman, what would you call a 6-foot, 180-pound, ax-wielding bull, all dressed in black? Even the Boston Strong Boy, prize fighter John L. Sullivan is said to have dashed for the exits when Nation burst through the doors of his Manhattan bar round about 1905. They say he screamed like a girl all the while…wouldn’t you?

But that was Nation’s style. Never shy when it came to speaking her mind, she nevertheless believed that actions — especially those that involved hatchets, rocks, bricks, clubs and lots of smashing glass — spoke much louder than words. No question she had a point there. You might say she was a pioneer of the if-persuasion-fails-there’s-always-violence school of political activism.

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Return to Operation Mincemeat

Reader Barrett, a self-proclaimed true crime fanatic, asks why the Germans didn’t see right through Operation Mincemeat, since:

There are more than a few “tells” that would have betrayed the fact that Martin wasn’t a drowning victim. Even with the technology of the time it would have been obvious: no water in the lungs, etc.. How could the Germans have been so easily fooled?

Ah yes, a very interesting question. The problem for the Axis was simply the game of intelligence and counter-intelligence. Certainly they could have arranged to steal the body and do their own examination. However such a blatant move would have blown their whole operation. Assuming the intelligence Martin was carrying was reliable (and of course it wasn’t), stealing the body would have made it clear to the British that the Germans were on to them.

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Doh! I mean…Dough!

Those of you who were with me through my hot cross bun project a few weeks ago may remember me talking about an Iranian fellow who runs a high-end gyro shop down the street (you know, the Budweiser Lent Headquarters). Back when he first opened the place about a year and a half ago, he […]

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When Food Meets Reality

To a man with an icing spatula, everything looks like buttercream. Actually the idiom has to do with hammers and nails, but the principle is the same: whatever you carry around with you tends to color the way you look at the world. That’s as true of us “foodie” types as it is anybody else. […]

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How to Make Ganache

This is a standard, easy, workingman’s ganache, great for baking applications. Ganache (pronounced ga-NAHsh) is most commonly a 50-50 combination of chocolate and heavy cream (by weight). Known as “soft” ganache, this is the kind that is typically used for toppings and drizzles, or whipped to make cake fillings. Heavier “firm” ganaches (say, 2-1 chocolate […]

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