Do It: Donut Sandwiches

I hit up a Donut Art Show this weekend.

What's donut art? Well - this:













Art often confuses me. I know Art is supposed to make me "feel" something, but most of the time it just makes me feel insecure because I have no idea what I'm supposed to be feeling. But this Art? DONUT Art? This, I get. I can't draw a circle to save my life, but I "get" this completely.

These fun, whimsiful paintings make me happy. Nostalgic. And yeah, a little hungry, which is why there's a good thing there were Donut Snacks:


What's that plate up front, you ask? That, my friend, is a plate of my favorite invention of 2009 - the DONUT SANDWICH.

Yes.

Donut Sandwich. As in : Cut-Donut-Hole-In-Half-and-Insert-Fixings Sandwich. Above is brie cheese and jam. Below? Turkey and Cheese.


The glazed sweetness of the donut provides an extra dimension of an otherwise savory bite-sized snack. No no, it's okay. Feel feel to toss your laptop aside and head for the grocery store. You're in for a treat.

Win It: $25 Amazon.com Gift Card

I haven't had a contest in a while, so when Alie asked to post the world's most ridiculous picture of me, I agreed and decided to make it a contest.

Check out the pic link here.

Alie and I are at the AMC Van Ness theater in San Francisco, California.

I'm doing something. And yes, it is related to that thing I'm holding in my hand.

The first person to guess what I'm doing by either posting in these comments or to @marthaflynn on Twitter will win a $25 Amazon.com gift card.

Multiple guesses allowed. We'll go until someone figures it out. IF someone figures it out.

Watch it: Fall TV September 2009

I made a couple of Fall TiVo priorities back in April but we're two weeks away from premieres. Networks roll out pilots over a few months and it's hard to integrate new material with existing favorites so I recommend and immediate auditioning of new shows to see if they're worthwhile.

September priorites - bold indicates a seasoned show that's made it to my list, otherwise it's probation time.

Mondays
9/21 - DWTS; How I Met Your Mother; Accidentally on Purpose
9/28 - Trauma - I normally don't watch medical shows but this one is in San Francisco!

Tuesdays
9/8 - I've given up on 90210 but Melrose still deserves a shot
9/22 -The Forgotten; The Good Wife

Wednesdays
9/9 - GLEE!!!! SYTCYD
9/16 - The Beautiful Life
9/23 - Gary Unmarried (really, it's good), Modern Family, Cougar Town, and Eastwick

Thursdays
9/10 - Vampire Diaries
9/17 - Parks & Rec; The Office; Fringe; Community; Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia
9/24 - Flash Forward; The Mentalist; CSI

Fridays
9/25 - Smallville; Medium; Dollhouse

Weekends
SNL; Dexter; Bored to Death;

Make Them: Cake Balls (part une)

You know how cakes never seem to be moist with decent frosting-to-cake distribution? Lemme solve that for you.

1. Bake some cakes. Crumble using a fork.











(White and Lemon cake pictured but Sara and I also did chocolate as you'll see below).

2. Make frosting and combine into crumbled cake with fingers. Yes, fingers. Yes, it's nasty. And icky. And all around disturbing. If you're one of those kids who liked to "play" with mud - like Sara - you may enjoy this part.














(Sara made a 1-1 frosting to cake ratio for her chocolate cake. But I forgot to "do the math" with the butter cream frosting and put something like 3 cakes worth of buttercream frosting into one set of cake mix. This leads to soggy balls. Yeah, I typed that. Soggy balls.)

3. Firm the cake-frosting mix into balls using a soup-or-similar-sized spoon to scoop out the right amount of mix then freeze on a wax paper for 20-30 minutes.











(Note how nice and firm Sara's chocolate cake balls are and how misshapen and gooey mine are. The gooeyness will lead to further complications. Stay tuned.)

4. Melt chocolate in a double boiler to make a chocolate sauce and coat the balls by dipping and rolling them into the melted sauce with a spoon.

In addition to chocolate we also melted white chocolate. This turned into a hardened disaster. According to my pastry chef bro, who we only bothered to call post-disaster, you're supposed to "cut" white chocolate with cream (not water and/or shortening) and keep the temp high Oopsie.




(If your balls are gooey, then chunks of cake will crumble off into the chocolate sauce, making it difficult to coat the balls.

5. Sprinkle while sauce is wet, then let set in the fridge for several hours before enjoying.


Sara and I are committed to improving the cake ball process by:

- fixing the frosting to cake distribution ratio
- finding better melting chocolate
- speeding up our dipping process which currently takes forEVer
- attempting more exotic types of cake

Part Deux coming soon!

Do It: Recommit to Blogging

I'm lazy.

I'd rather order in than go out. Rather hire cleaners than scrub my own bathroom. Rather take a cab one block up the hill to my old apartment than walk it. (Yes, I've done that twice but if you saw the hill you'd understand.)

Which probably explains why I've been twittering instead of blogging. Why write an entire blog post which requires sentences and capitalization and punctuation and goshdarnit even pictures when I can condense the message to 140 characters and call it a day?

But as long as I have this pretty blog, I should use it. So coming up next week - how to make cake balls, a celebration of Alexander Skarsgard and, fate willing, another Connie stalking!

Watch It: The Time Traveler's Wife

Coming at ya - my line by line spoilertastic The Time Traveler's Wife review as conceived during the movie:

ERIC BANA NAKED!!!

Hmm....I think I liked how they did this in the book better.

ERIC BANA NAKED!!! This casting director is genius.

Okay seriously is this movie about the Time Traveler or the actual WIFE here?

ERIC BANA NAKED!!!

(Yeah, that's about it folks.)

SCBWI Conference Check-In

I spent this past weekend at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators National Fall Conference in Los Angeles and believe I have the perfect recipe (pardon the cheesy metaphor) for a well-rounded and energizing conference experience:

1. An awesome roommate and other cool attendees

Jessica posted for a roomie on the Blueboards and yay, she picked me! She serendipitously turned out to be my soul sister and enhanced my weekend with her generosity, sweetness and humor. Listening to her talk about her upcoming book, Border Crossing, and what inspired her to write reminded me to write for the best of reasons and not just to live in my PJs all day (although that remains in my top ten motivations.)

The other writers, illustrators, agents and editors in attendance were just as inspirational. I think I already used up my name dropping quota for the year but let's just say they were many and they were awesome.

2. Educational Content

You know what I like about this conference? We don't have "speakers." We have "faculty." The lineup was ridonculous. Standouts for me include (and be warned these are not quotes):

Balzer & Bray Editor Jordan Brown - take your scene to its natural conclusion, then take it one step further into the unexpected

Author Holly Black - fantasy actualizes metaphor

Delacorte Editor Wendy Loggia - your online content matters - don't whine/criticize

Egmont USA Editor Elizabeth Law - don't be a pansy about your career and speak up when you have questions for editors and agents

3. Cupcakes


Can I thank Sonia Gensler for the most awesome off-the-cuff photo ever taken of me?

4. Social Breaks with Non-Writing Types -per Sherman Alexie: have friends that have nothing to do with your writing life. I escaped conference several times lest I become some obsessive artiste-type.

Eat It: Cake Balls

I have to thank the talented Nova Ren Suma for introducing me to this confectionery genius.

Cake Balls are yummy bite-sized nuggets of cake and frosting with truffle coating. A natural cousin to the bite-sized cupcake which I recently discovered in New York.

Maybe you are lucky enough to live close to such a vendor, but I had to scour online.

My favorite finds were The Cake Ball Company and Vintage Confections on Etsy - who had much more to offer besides Cake Balls, for the record.

Take a looksie at this red velvet cake ball photo from Vintage.

That's joy in a bite, my friend.