Moxie

Pesach-safe and GF Brownie recipe

A few years ago when I had my gluten intolerance, I modified the Katharine Hepburn brownie recipe not to use any wheat flour. I chose that particular recipe because A) it's the best brownie recipe I've ever tried, and B) there's so little flour in it that I figured the modification had a chance at being pretty successful.

I tried rice flour (too gritty) and cornstarch (too off), but settled on potato starch (just right, and very moist). Which makes it a perfect recipe for Passover, too.

These are very dense rich, moist brownies. I wouldn't make them with wheat flour anymore, because the potato starch keeps the moistness much better, IMO.

KFP/GF Brownies You'll Make All Year And For People Who Can Eat Wheat, Too

1 stick butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder (the better the cocoa powder, the better the brownies)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 potato starch
pinch of salt
splash of pure vanilla extract

Preheat the over to 325 degrees F. Grease an 8-inch by 8-inch baking pan (or line the bottom with parchment paper).

In a small saucepan, melt together the butter and cocoa powder. Stir until smooth. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Stir the eggs in quickly, one at a time, so they don't scramble. The mix will look really gloppy at this point. Stir in the sugar, and it should smooth out considerably. Stir in the potato starch and salt, and then the vanilla extract.

Pour into the baking pan, and bake for 30 minutes. This should be just about underbaked (better to underbake than overbake), but check at 25 minutes.

Allow to cool for as long as you can stand it, then eat.

So I'm back

My crazy jaw-clenching headache disappeared by day 2 of being with The Rock, and was back by day 2 of being back home.  Sigh.

I love my kids with an overwhelming passion. I mean, I know it's stupid to say, because every one of you out there with kids feels the exact same way, but it still shocks me how actually in love with them I am. I missed them horribly while I was gone, even though I knew they were having a great time with their dad, and seeing them again made reentering the World Of Stress totally worth it.

If only the people who make me happiest could all live in the same place.

(It just occurred to me that I've left out a super-key fact about The Rock, which is that he doesn't live in NYC, or even close. Yes, I have no idea how I ended up in a long-distance relationship and wish that we lived right next to each other, but that's not the way it is right now.)

So it's back to normal Monday morning. Time with these beautiful kids, but wishing we were someplace else, with a less stressful life.

FL report

Ah, The Rock (aka Granite McQuartz). The man is funny funny funny, completely obsessed with introducing me to Joss Whedon, and just an all-around delightful person. It keeps surprising me how this relationship is so not work. Seriously, just following my normal Three Rules for living (#1: Pay attention; #2: Don't be an asshole; #3: Trust your instincts) seem to be working pretty well so far. I'm not having to walk through minefields and be careful not to disappoint him and choose my words carefully or any of that kind of stuff. It's refreshing and almost perplexing not to have to be on my best behavior all the time with him.

We're having a good time in Florida. His work schedule isn't as heavy as he thought it was going to be, so we're getting to spend more time together than we thought we would. And the weather is gorgeous. I met some really kind and thoughtful and interesting Ask Moxie readers, and am getting some good work done, and am not feeling guilty at all about not doing the morning bus stop run because my kids are happy and excited about being with their dad when I talk to them on the phone.

Here's something slightly perplexing: I keep getting telemarketing voicemails on my mobile phone that allegedly come from actual home phone numbers (I've Googled, and one is in Flint, MI and one's in Omaha, NE) and the message is always the same that may car warranty is about to expire. As I don't have a car, this is not inciting me to action as I assume the machine calling me hopes it will.

But I'm wondering if telemarketers can hijack people's home phone numbers to be the caller ID numbers on your phone? That's upsetting, if it's true. I'm not about to call the numbers to see what happens when I do, so I guess I'll just live in ignorance.

How are you guys? Oh, I didn't get to watch AI last night (we were watching the movie Serenity). And who got eliminated on DWTS?

Korto would not be involved in this

A few days ago, my future sister sent me an email entitled "WHOA" containing a link to the following story from Jezebel:

"Whoa! Kenley Collins, Project Runway 5's resident villain, has reportedly been jailed in Brooklyn for assaulting her sleeping ex with a laptop, apples, water, and...a live cat. Leave the cat out of this!"

So I started thinking about what someone could assault me with that's currently in my bedroom. The list would look like this:

2 live cats, laptop, pile of dirty clothes, matchbox cars, vat of quarters for laundry, way too many cosmetics and assorted beauty products, unread books, several pairs of stilettos, and my halfway done taxes

What could your crazy ex assault you with if s/he showed up in your bedroom right now?

Riddle me this

Why is the pretty brown fine-gauge merino wool sweater my mom gave me for Christmas two years ago getting holes in it, while none of my other wool things are? It can't be super-selective moths, can it?

New goal: dancing on TV

I really really really want to go on Dancing With the Stars. How do you think I can make that happen?

I haven't said anything about The Rock in awhile. The man continues to delight me. Every new thing I discover about him makes me feel more connected to him, even the stuff that is pretty serious. And he's raucously funny, especially when he's tired and his Southern accent comes out.

He's also a huge Joss Whedon fan, so he got me to start watching "Dollhouse" with him. I've never watched Buffy or Angel or any of the Joss Whedon series, so I didn't know what to expect, but I'm enjoying it now (after being a little put off by the first two eps). And apparently the parts I'm picking out that catch my attention are typical Whedon tricks/flourishes. Is anyone else watching Dollhouse? My only previous Eliza Dushku experience is from "Bring It On."

Still obsessed with getting on DWTS. I bet if everyone who reads Ask Moxie got three friends to start reading I'd be at least as famous as Chuck Wick the country singer...

Why is there no emoticon for nail biting?

You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for all the support, and prayers, and good thoughts. I wish I could tell you what it is now. But it's completely in the hands and decision-making process of someone else. It exhausts and angers and terrifies me that my life is in another person's hands like this.

Something else just fell into place that would make the good outcome work out really, really well. But, again, I have no control. I've offered what I can offer, and it's going to be another month or two before I get an answer.

Good news: Work is really, really busy. Mildly tiring news: I have a bunch of product and book reviews to write and post for Ask Moxie. Exhausting news: the enormous pile of dirty laundry in the kids' room.

So

Apparently when there's something big and scary and life-changing going on in my life that I can't talk about on the internet, I just clam up here.

Yeah. Something really awesome and amazing could happen, or something could break my heart into a million pieces. I've played my hand, and now there's nothing I can do about it. if you're a praying person, could you pray for me? Hard? For the next month or so?

And now that I've addressed the elephant in the room without saying anything that tells you anything, and just making you all speculate and wonder, I guess I can write here again.

I watched the premiere of Dancing With The Stars, and spent Tuesday just feeling like a better person than I had in many Tuesdays, until it hit me that The bachelor stresses me out. I think it's funny, but it's not. So I'm not watching anymore. Celebrities in sequined dresses and heels, though, I'm all over.

R was really sick yesterday, so he stayed home from school. I let him stay home today, too, althouugh I think he kind of tricked me about his level of sickness. He's been working on a screenplay all day entitled "Cats vs. Ferrets." A little while ago he asked if I could look up on the internet where ferrets are from. I'm not sure if it's a comedy, action-adventure, nature documentary, or what.

A vent

I live in a shitty, crappy, New York City apartment that's falling down around me, and for which I pay way too much. The building was built in the late 1800s, and has barely been modified since 1950. They redid the elevator over the summer, and the elevator guys said the last time was in the 1940s.

So. There was mold in my bathroom (ceiling and walls) and cracks in my bedroom walls and crackling ceiling form a leak, and in my kids' room. And the landlord is so cheap that he won't pay for anyone else to do any work except for the super (who has another full-time job) and the super's nephew and a poorly-paid recent immigrant laborer. (I am not disparaging the laborer at all--he's a lovely person and does faaaar better work than the previous guy they had in this position, but it's telling that the landlord hires the cheapest labor he can find.) For the entire building. And all of the apartments need serious repair.

But two days ago, they showed up to replaster my bathroom and bedroom. And they spent two days here doing that, and then painting. And they completley dismantled everything. And left it dismantled. And dirty. And dusty. And it's going to take me four hours to put everything back together. After I finish all the other stuff I have to do today.

Grrrrr. Just when I'd gotten over the horror of having my child be in the middle of a junkie fistfight in the doctor's waiting room, it's this.

I have to get out of New York City. It's not good for any of us.

Birthday parties

I love planning parties. Specifically, I like themes and planning menus. when I'm hosting a party, though, I usually lose steam about halfway through the party itself.

Yesterday was R's 7th birthday, and, ,his party. He invited a few friends over to play Wii Sports, and it was drop-off, so I only had one parent to entertain (and she's a friend from way back who wasn't looking at how clean my apartment was, and who helped scoop ice cream, so she didn't really count). And we ordered pizza ad had chips and seltzer and ice cream (not cake! R hates cake!), so no food prep of any kind.

But holy crap, were those four boys loud! The screaming and cheering and posturing and trash-talking and boo-ya-ing and attempting to kick each other. Why are males like that??? It completely enervated me.

And R had done something, probably a few weeks ago, that B (friend/babysitter) and I discovered while he was at school, and it's the worst thing he's ever done, in that it was duplicitous and conniving. (I don't know which one of us was more livid, B or me!) So I knew that this morning, after he had fun at his party, and had a good birthday, I was going to have to bring the hammer down on him. And I did, and he was sad, but also knew exactly why it had happened. And I hope he thinks about it the next time he considers acting in a weaselly way to circumvent a rule I'd specifically expressed to him.

And then I learned nothing new on the After The Final Rose Part 2 show. Waste of 44 minutes, Chris Harrison! Also, Jillian = DUMB for being the next Bachelorette.