Oddities

Sometimes you set out to take your guests to Melrose and you end up finding a fascinating oddities shop on the way. Here are some pictures of this bizarre place we stumbled upon (in no particular order because I fought with them for quite some time and eventually gave up).

Oddly enough, I don't have much to write about; despite the fact that the past couple weeks have been fairly eventful. I guess I just have too much stuff going on in my head to focus. 

So instead, here is a really geeky webcomic I love...

Scenes From A Multiverse - A daily comic about life by Jon Rosenberg

and the latest song I am obsessed with:

Adventures in Ice Cream

You know you're jealous of my whale measuring cup and diver spoon.

SEA SALT ICE CREAM (test run)

I decided to go with the simplified version of the recipe, which I found here.

The ingredients are fairly simple.

What you need for this project:

SUGAR

MILK

HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM

VANILLA

EGGS

Oh, and of course...

Once you have all your ingredients in place, MAKE SURE nothing is expired. 

Ok, next separate the eggs into two bowls. Whip the egg whites until it looks like whipped cream and mix the yolks with your sugar. 

IF you were smart and checked the milk before this step, you can now move onto boiling the milk over a medium heat. I was not, so at this point I had to put everything back into the fridge and go back to the store.  Luckily, the store is just down the street. 

Boil the milk. SLOWLY. Careful not to burn it, otherwise you will get chunks of it floating around that you have to strain out later (which is difficult if you don't own a strainer). 

Pour the hot milk (which kinda smells weird) into the yolk/sugar and mix. Then pour your milk/yolk/sugar mix back into the pot and let it thicken over a medium heat. Mine didn't really thicken (I think my heat was too high), but it didn't seem to matter. 

Pour your custard (or liquid, depending on how it turns out) into the whipped egg whites. I had to re-whip the egg whites due to being left in the fridge while I went to the store. Now mix and place in the fridge to cool.

Now you have at least an hour to kill. I spent this hour lost in Tumblr and practicing my eye makeup. 

Once your concoction is cool, add the vanilla, heavy whipping cream and sea salt. The recipe doesn't call for a specific amount of salt, since it is to your personal taste. I put in about 3/4 teaspoons. Since this whole project is to recreate the ice cream from Kingdom Hearts II, I added blue and green food coloring. 

Now at this point, you can just throw it in your ice cream machine, but not everyone has one (including me). So instead, I put it in a cake pan to freeze.

Like so.

This way requires a little arm power. It needs to be taken out and stirred about every thirty minutes, until it is evenly frozen and resembles ice cream. 

Close enough. 

It was quite a bit of work and took over three hours to finish, but the result was sooo good. Next time I make it, I need to put it in a ice cream mold to really make it authentic. 

Success!!

It tasted like sunny days and friendship.

I am rather pleased that my first attempt at ice cream turned out so well. It must have been my lucky cupcake shirt...

Things That Keep Me Going

There are just some days when I need a little Modest Mouse to keep me going. Lately it has been Cowboy Dan with my morning coffee.

It is a new year again. I haven't started it with a slew of new goals or aspirations, the usual ones will suffice. You know, finding stable employment and maybe going back to school. Nothing new or exciting. Wait, scratch that. I DO have a food project that I am dying to try out. 

SEA SALT ice cream! 

Sounds a little odd, right? Well in case you have not noticed, I am a bit of a video game enthusiast and one of my all time favorite series (next to Final Fantasy) is Kingdom Hearts. Which makes perfect sense, since it is Final Fantasy and Disney morphed into one amazing series where you can explore HalloweenTown and fight Sephiroth with a sword that looks like a key (but not at the same time). 

Damn. Now I really want to play Kingdom Hearts II again...

Anyway, in Kingdom Hearts II the main character always eats blue sea salt ice cream with his friends, usually on the roof of a clock-tower. This salty-sweet treat has intrigued me since I was a teenager and two days ago I realized that you can actually make it! I found the recipe on this adorable Tumblr I follow called Gourmet Gaming, where food from various video games is recreated in real life. So awesome. 

Now I have never made ice cream before and I am fairly certain I do not own an ice cream machine, so this should be an interesting venture. It can't be that difficult, right?

It's That Time of Year

I am not a huge fan of holidays. I love spending time with my family, but the commercial monstrosity that is Christmas puts me off. Sometime during my teenage years I sort of turned into a scrooge, claiming that when I had a family of my own, we would not celebrate. I was tired of the terrible music, the generic (and horrid) decorations and the mad-grab for elaborate presents.

Since then, I have revised my stance a little. I still hate Christmas music (who doesn't?), but I have taken back my scrooge-like attitude. Instead of refusing to be part of the holiday, I have just made it my own version. Isn't that ultimately what being an adult is all about?

Every year, for as long as I can remember, my Mom has made ludicrous amounts of cookies to give out on Christmas Eve. My sister and I joined in on this tradition a few years back, adding even more cookie madness. Some years we would stay up into the wee hours of the morning, baking in a near state of delirium.

This year was the first year baking away from my mentors, which means I really get to shine. So I have been blasting Punk/Rockabilly music and making adorable gingerdead men:

Oh! Let's not forget my sugar cookies!

Sugar cookies are messy.

Other things I have been up to in the last week:

Star Wars snowflakes! 

(I think I like the Storm Trooper the best)

Legos and gummy worms!

(As you can see, I never want to grow up)

I hope everyone enjoys the last part of the year! See you in 2012~

News Flash!

After some deliberation, I decided to shorten the URL.

I am now at misabot.blogspot.com!

Hopefully all my followers will get this...otherwise I will go kind of sad.

As an offering for the inconvenience, here is a picture of my awesome Christmas tree.

And a up close shot of our tree topper!

Yes, that is a Beagle in a suit and monocle.

So Many Dinosaurs!

I think I am being stalked. By dinosaurs. 

Dinosaurs spitting water!

Dinosaurs eating Smurfs! 

Metal Dinosaurs!

It is also possible that I search them out...because I am borderline obsessed...BUT I like the other explanation. I found them all in the same weekend! 

Of course, I also found this:

I have no idea what a decapitated chicken was doing downtown. 

It is less than two weeks until Christmas and I just put up my tree. Now, I can be somewhat of a Grinch sometimes during this year. I do not enjoy Christmas music nor the commercial monstrosity that this holiday (or any holiday really) has become.  I do, however, love baking cookies and spending time with my loved ones. 

Since this is my first year doing holiday cookie baking on my own, I decided to add a little touch of flair.

Courtesy of ThinkGeek.

 I was stoked when I found these! I just ordered them, so hopefully they come in time before Christmas. I think I will blast punk music while I bake. Punk counts as Christmas music, right?

Gamer ADD

I love video games. My love spans from old school Mario to the new fancy graphic, incredibly interactive world of Little Big Planet to the gory battles of Mortal Kombat to Pokemon on the DS. Last year I gave up gaming for the month of November to focus on writing. It was a dark time.

As much as my world revolves around this intricate world of xbox, playstaion, DS and computer games, I have Gamer ADD. This means I get easily distracted by other games, life, etc and stop playing before I complete story-lines.

Here are some games that I loved intensely, but never finished.

I was about half-way through this when my game got saved over. 

I just couldn't bring myself to start over after 30+ hours into the story. 

It had the prettiest graphics and the most badass main character 

(even though the rest of the cast was reeally annoying)

To be honest, I am not sure why this one didn't capture my attention. Maybe because it ruined the fun of interacting with the village folk. I don't want to have to dance with everyone to get them to like me. 

This game had the BEST posters. I never got tired of the loading screens. 

Oh Arkham Asylum. 

I could go on for days about how amazing this game is...

I hear Arkham City is even better. I recently stood in GameStop for twenty minutes deciding between that and Dead Island, but I figured I needed to finish Arkham Asylum first. It seems silly starting the sequel before completing the original.  

So now the list of unfinished grows with every new game I start. To this day I have not battled Sephiroth in my beloved Final Fantasy 7. I have stood outside of the final showdown for years. Maybe part of the problem is that once I beat the final boss, or complete the last level, the game is over. Or maybe I just have too many games to play. I am overstimulated; overwhelmed by technology. 

I think I just need to complete the games I have before I move on to the next. Okay! No more new games until I finish the ones on my list. 

Which I will start right after I am done with Dead Island....