Mount Everest, Czechslovakia and Fudge

Some people see a mountain and, like Sir Edmund Hillary gazing upon Mount Everest, think, "I must climb that mountain." Other people see Czechslovakia and, gambling that Chamberlain will prove to be the limp reed that he must obviously be, think, "I must conquer that country." And other people see a jelly doughnut and think, "I must eat that jelly doughnut."

The other day, I saw a recipe for fudge and thought, "I must make this fudge."

I must say, making fudge is not as easy as eating fudge. One doesn't just toss together some chocolate and whatnot and - voila! - whip out the fudge. It isn't a process for the faint-hearted. The first moment that caused me trepidation was when I realized that chocolate can be stubborn about melting. It sits there in the pan, teetering just on this side of smooth, velvety goodness and mocking the onlooker with its stolidity. I daresay that many a cook at that point would toss in the wooden spoon and go out for a conciliatory cheeseburger.

Another bit of trouble is dealing with the marshmallow cream. Now, I don't know if you've encountered marshmallow cream before in the wild, but it essentially is nothing more than nuclear waste from which all color has been bleached, thus giving it a pure, innocent as the driven snow appearance. However, there's nothing further from the truth. The marshmallow cream possesses sentience. It crouches there in the container, holding its breath in absolute stillness and waiting until one looks away so that it can leap out and work its evil will. The best thing to do is to whip it out of the container as soon as its opened so that the actual work of subduing it is done by the deadly temperature of the melted chocolate.

The last, truly disturbing step in the fudge-making process is cooling the whole mess down. One pours it into a pan, smooths it down and then, theoretically, leaves it be to cool and harden. However, as it drops below the molten temperatures, the mass exudes a dreadful oil from its fissures and cracks, not unlike the oil that oozes from the fissures and cracks in the face of the average teenager caught out in the California summer sunlight. It's at this moment that doubt assails the fudge-chef: "Did I forget an ingredient? Is this toxic? Perhaps I put in Valvoline grease instead of marshmallow cream? Heck - I might as well chuck the whole thing; after all, the rest of my life has been a failure."

I would counsel you to press on at this time, like Sir Edmund Hillary, like Adolf...er - forget that. At any rate, I pressed on and now I have 6.5 pounds of fudge (packed with dried cranberries, pecans, walnuts and cashews) in my refrigerator.

6.5 pounds? What was I thinking?

World Domination

We all dream of world domination at one time or another. Some are more effective at it than others (eg., Hitler, Genghis Khan, Tom Cruise, etc.). Some people bring it about via military might. Others do it via economic infiltration, such as Starbucks, McDonalds, Google (does Google know how achingly jerky they have made themselves look by knuckling under to China and facilitating their totalitarian censorship state? note to self: stop using Google and use something like Froogle instead).

Others are less effective at it than others, such as George Clooney and whoever invented the collapsible plunger. Have you ever used a collapsible plunger? The collapsible plunger has a fatal flaw, let me tell you.

Anyway, my dream of world domination is about to come alive in a few days. A t-shirt site that will be the Mother of All T-Shirt Sites (that is, if Saddam Hussein's PR flack was writing my copy). Just a few days more and the awesome raging joy that is the Mother of All T-Shirt Sites will be unveiled to great weeping and gnashing of teeth, as well as much dancing about by short, stout people in lederhosen.

All will become lucid. Soon.

Let's All Get Stressed And Check Out

My wife and I were recently over at some friends' house for dinner (baked chicken and potatoes). The husband related a story of a co-worker who had recently gone on disability due to stress. It wasn't that the fellow had a nervous breakdown or started seeing flying monkeys and black helicopters chasing him about. It was merely that work stressed him out to the point that...he felt stressed. His kindly doctor then recommended that he go on disability due to stress. Which he did. And now is buying a house up in the northwest with his stress-induced disability payments. He'll have enough money after the mortgage payments to live on.

Disability due to stress? What has our country come to?

Heck. I get stressed due to the little Finn waking up at 4:30 in the morning and being inconsolable for hours on end. I get stressed due to the local environmentalists spending all their time on trying to destroy the farming industry in this valley. I get stressed due to our politicians (of both donkey and elephant persuasions) spending all our money like there's no tomorrow. But do I go on disability?

No.

In other news, the almond trees are blossoming. So, if you're feeling stressed, sniff the flowers, have a scone, think of something to thank God for, and try to rule out as an option going on disability due to stress.

Rain, Wind and Woodstoves

The woodstove is a wonderful fixture of American history. Doubtlessly, Lincoln huddled up next to the family woodstove during those icy Illinois winters as he read the Bible and Shakespeare and all those splendid primers that have long vanished from our schools (along with any semblance of learning - what did the California superintendent of public schools just say? He's determined that students graduate from high school knowing how to read and write. High school... but, I digress). Settlers, trappers, ranchers - they all had their stoves, for January and February get pretty brisk out here in the west.

It's raining again here in northern California. The sky is lowering, determined to blot out all memory of the sun with its cold, grey clouds and equally determined to raise the river, perhaps out of jealousy of the sea which always meets the sky at horizon. Well, the river certainly is rising and it's still raining.

Thank God for woodstoves and a eucalyptus grove that keeps on giving. Well-cured eucalyptus burns hot and long in a damped down stove. We cut and split our own. I recommend the process if you have a decent chainsaw and either a strong back for manual splitting or a ram-driven splitter. My dad felled three over the weekend, put down successfully as opposed to a previous day last week when he put one right on the roof. Nothing damaged.

A Poem Inspired By A Bowl Of Granola

Oh granola in my bowl
how crunchy and oaty you look
still resisting the depredations of milk.
I will eat you quick
before your imminent mortality
seeps into my conscience
and imbues me with tasty guilt.

Just call me Robert Frost. Robbie, to my friends.