Oh, rest in peace, Paul Newman. If he has even passed on in his legacy a smidgen of the talent, class, philanthropy and individuality that he embodied in his life, then he left the world much improved for his having been here.
I am in the process of putting together, free-form, a chocolate applesauce cake with prune-wine sauce. The cake part is done. It rests on a wire rack atop the cursed glass-top stove (which I just cleaned — nothing more pleasurable than cleaning a kitchen down to its rarely-seen crevices and then messing it all up again baking a cake), rather flattened a result of its gluten-free constitution, but still having the appearance of being wholesomely cocoa and dark-chocolate bearing.
What does it want for frosting, I wondered, eyeing its smooth exterior and then surveying my ingredients. Hmm, I haven’t got much, but I do have prunes (which, incidentally, come in packaging claiming, impossibly, that its contents are “better than fresh fruit!” How, I wonder? Doesn’t that seem rather arbitrary?). I searched for “chocolate prune sauce” on Google and came up with nothing (apparently it hasn’t been invented yet and I do not desire to be the pioneer in these regards), but did find this. I plan to soak the cake in the prune-wine sauce instead of serving it over mascarpone (which I imagine would be lovely, but being very familiar with the danger of such, am not in the habit of keeping mascarpone on hand).
This will either result in a heady, fruity, dark chocolately, mysterious masterpiece, or it will be gross. This is generally the way it goes, given my penchant for freeform baking. But, as JC would say, “you must have the courage of your conviction!”
Today, I have the day off and am an absolute bum. I have been single for nearly a year now (which, mind you, is a conscious decision on my part) (sort of) and, I fear, have completely embraced it, perhaps in a bad way. I am currently wearing flip-flops, cargo pants (and I hate, hate, hate cargo pants. I honestly don’t even know why I own cargo pants, but somehow I do, and am wearing them) a black and white striped boatneck top that I also wore yesterday, and the most beaten-up and sad-looking old-lady cashmere cardigan I have. Which is also my favorite. It’s like a robe that I can wear outside the house. Except, maybe I shouldn’t. Oh, I also have on purple glasses. Yes, purple. I mean, the lenses are clear but the frames are purple. I don’t know what possessed me. I apologize for going on about these things, but I’m almost proud in a way of the absolute degeneration of my general upkeep. I never thought it possible that I could elapse into spinsterhood in such a way, but it appears that it has actually occurred.
Some day I suppose I’ll wake up and feel like I’m ready to join the “Sex & the City” brigade, strap on the high heels and embrace the cocktail culture (though I never could drink anything ending in “-tini” that doesn’t start with “mart-”, I’m afraid) . But for now, this is it.
