I study politics and engage in human rights activism as a sort of dual-track career. As you may imagine these two choices are not wise for those who enjoy getting their way; I expend a great deal of professional energy only to be denied things I wish for. Clearly I have a broken cynicism/optimism regulators are broken, or more likely my stubbornness is the trump card that stacks my deck. I am however susceptible to temporary bouts of negativity. Know what I do about it? I sweepingly pontificate about some inane if ostensible trait of modern society. Try it. It’s good old fashioned fun that if orchestrated well enough can make you sound smarter – and appear a better cook – just watch…

We live in a global society where appearance is tantamount to capability. The veneer that one looks like they know what they’re doing suffices as good enough for most folks. That’s right folks it’s all about the window dressing now. How else are you going to explain the Republican presidential candidates? What other than illusion props up the career of the semi-tasty Sandra Lee? My brother might posit that this is to this, what this is to this. Oh sure, constructing an attractive image does take some measured consideration and thereby suggests some underlying skill. But does that capability make? Well these guys thought so.

This plays in our favor my foodie friends. Without risking sanctimony by becoming Sandra Lee we can bend this cognitive fixation with appearance to our benefit. The garnish on every dish you have ever eaten tells you this is true. Take for instance this piteous cake pop:

More akin to a rough hewn mud crater than anything approaching edible, its wretched, disfigured appearance suggests a life lived in a bell tower pining over the workaday existence of more normal confections. It’s brethren from the same batch strikes a far more regal appearance:

A crisscrossed swipe of a piping bag gave this cake ball the life its destitute compatriot may only dream of. This is what you pay $3.50 for at a tres chic bakery; the other one you claim your hyperactive daughter made in kindergarten while cranky. Let’s review:

Same ingredients (save one), same cook, same batch, same technique, same time. Which one would you rather eat? See, when it comes to decision time we choose on appearance. I unloaded about sixty cake balls using this human loophole so it worked for me. Appearance, more than skill, earned me gobs of praise. It just has to look good enough for us to think it’s the next best thing ever. And who knows, maybe it works on a grander scale. Mitt Romney is banking his entire campaign on it.

If you read food blogs then you have no doubt run across entries which begin, "Been a while..." or "I'm so sorry for my lack of updates..." or even, "I haven't been able to post as much lately..." The format for these sorts of posts are then fairly predictable, as if laid out in some tacit food blogger convention. It is somehow a blogger's duty to 1) apologize for the absence, 2) self-flagellate a bit, 3) enter paltry rationale for absence, 4) promise to not relapse into obscurity again. This format also serves nicely when explaining to one's child why they have been absent from the house on a crack jag for two weeks leaving the youngster to fend for themselves. This all leads me to wonder about the OTHER habits of folks who food blog. Something is making all these people hungry...

Well let me save you the time. I/we are back, and that's good enough. Happy? Good. We are too.

*enter naturally brilliant segway to Goat Cheese Brownies*

When I was a child I was quite literally the world's most predictable eater (predictability = P.C. for "picky"). No really, Hugh Grant's acting range was greater than my choices in food. If it wasn't carbohydrate laden I didn't think of it as edible. The greater the sucrose content, the greater my willingness to consume it. Fried was acceptable, but sautee? How much(little) oil is used in that? Psh...you need another half bottle of EVOO in there. Not hard to believe then that my culinary creativity was limited to mixing kinds of cereal. Quaker Oatmeal Squares and Almond Crisp in the same bowl made me feel like a revolutionary.

So for all my lack of imagination, courage, and stubbornness in pushing the "yum" boundaries I am making a concerted effort to gain back lost time. Today I am more likely to be allured by flavor combinations that I have never thought of before. The more strange the food, the more likely I am to put at least a spoonful in my mouth with an open mind. I may not be as crazy as the guy from The Food In My Beard, but I would kill to be his neighbor. This emergent sense of gastronomic creativity is most likely the result of my expanding range of culinary skills.

So when that chasm of non-productivity Foodgawker showed Goat Cheese Brownies one day my interests were quite piqued. My co-author, whose gastronomic adventurer's credentials are much better vetted than mine, readily assented.

Yes that crescent of whipped cream is my weaksauce attempt to make a brownie "pretty" - shut up.

We chose different brownie base recipes, as my brother feels that his brownies are the likely gateway to nirvana/heaven/the Elysian fields. Being the brownie skeptic that I am I had to go in search of a recipe that was accessible enough for me to pull off, and entreating enough to be excited about it. I mean it's a brownie; least interesting of the bar cookies (folks that's a dangerous claim that deserves it's own post so put down the rocks...). We did however use the same filling and icing recipe.

I do not feel that my writing strengths run to succinct, vivid descriptions of the food I cook and consume so let me put this in terms that make universal sense: I lost at least a quarter of the filling and the icing directly from the bowl into my mouth. Further evidence of amazingness: I consumed no less than a 1/3 of the entire pan solo. The juxtaposition of rich dark chocolate and tangy goats cheese?

If this this picture could speak: "GOOOOOOOOEEEEEEYYYYYY"

I do not feel that my writing strengths run to succinct, vivid descriptions of the food I cook and consume so let me put this in terms that make universal sense: I lost at least a quarter of the filling and the icing directly from the bowl into my mouth. Further evidence of amazingness: I consumed no less than a 1/3 of the entire pan solo. The juxtaposition of rich dark chocolate and tangy goats cheese?

It was a great welcome back present for the blog. You're all welcome.

Epiphany moments. They are a peek into another, higher plane of existence. A sudden bursting lucidity that enraptures all of one's cognition. Epiphanies are the proverbial reality check writ large; a righteous back-hand that reforms the very foundations of what you thought you knew.

I'm here to deliver, nay proselytize an epiphany that only seared cow can offer. My co-author and I honed down a new kind of burger: the Cherizodilla. The progeny of weeks of back-and-forth machinations, a veritable Frankenstein of burger concepts. A finer burger ladies and gentleman, has never been consumed by this mouth.

Take one pound of 80/20 chuck, cut in 6 oz.'s fresh chorizo, form patties and chill. When you smell this miasma of beefy-porky umame, time will slow to a painstaking crawl.

Pull the disks 'o glory out 10 minutes later (293.7 years in I'm-hungry-and-want-mah-cheezburger-noaw time) and sear on the hottest piece of griddle, cast-iron, or grill pan you can find. Flip when the burger freely pulls away from the pan and wait until the center has a semi-firm feel when pressed.

SENOR!!! YOU'RE NOT DONE!!!???

But don't stop there. Slap some mexican melty-white cheese (like Chihuahua) on a tortilla, top with Chorizodilla, more cheese, avocado slices, caramelized onions and another tortilla. Treat from here on like a quesadilla. More cheese will ooze out the sides more than a BP oil rig.

I promise that when you put this in your mouth:

You will be tasting an epiphany. Even my griddle approved.

Oh hubris, you pernicious harpy cloaked in a clarion's finery. How often do you court me with promise of good deeds done and favors to be won? To damn often, that's for sure. You see I can rarely tell the line between hubris and self-confidence until it has formed a noose around my neck and smacked the rear of the horse on which I was standing.

I met my father's request this Monday afternoon with putative self-confidence. A few dozen "easy" cupcakes was the charge - for the parents' church crowd who would convene the next morning. "And why ever should I not?" said that prodding bastard in my head. My power of reason, being the lobotomized dog that it is, agreed readily. Without delay I mentally queued the recipe and icing(s) I would use, and went about my day.

Being the noctural-ite I am meant that a late start was precisely what I wanted. An unfettered and uncrowded kitchen would be less frustrating than when one is competing for VERY limited cooking real-estate. So I was hardly worried when dinner ceded to conversation, which bled into a few episodes of Treme and an apertif of the Daily Show. As the parents faded towards slumber, I set to get my Jacques Torres on. As it would turn out all I could "get on" had all the finesse of a post-mortem Tupac.

Oh, the cupcakes went fine. No they went better than fine. They plumped into perfect little domes with so much crumb that Martha Stewart inquired after possible internships. But it was precisely when I pulled those beautiful midget-cakes out of the oven that I realized I had prepared a heaping side of...hubris. Check to ensure that I had icing ingredients? Why that's for my little sous-patissiere Pierre to do...wait...shit. And my Jacques Torres delusions walked out on me like Boehner from a debt ceiling conversation...post-mortem Tupac indeed.

1:30 a.m. and I'm angrily pacing Meijer's for ingredients. A few chocolate bars and icing sugar later and I was out. 2 a.m. and I am ganche-ing and chilling. 2:10 a.m. and I'm creaming butter, cocoa and icing sugar. 2:15 and more icing sugar. 2:25 more icing sugar. 2:40 who the hell installed an icing sugar black hole in the Kitchen-Aid? 2:45 icing sugar and cursing. 3 a.m. icing cupcakes in the vaunted "I gave a damn about style at 2 a.m. but now f*** you cupcakes" style.

3:30 a.m. people; that's when I got into bed. My parents got to eat cupcakes the next morning with the church crowd. I slept in with a belly-ache from all that hubris.

Here are some sure-fire mixes with which no one of sane mind can be displeased; marshmallows & graham crackers, cereal & milk, beer & wings, little girls in summer dresses, Hugh Grant & romantic comedies, or my co-author and I. Things that often do not mix: oil & water, Spock & Picard fans, Greece & fiscal responsibility, Lindsey Lohan & rehab, or the culinary hubris that results from days of me reading food blogs and my kitchen...or at least so I thought.

Before you get wrapped up in false pretenses Lindsey is still celeb-wino du jour, Greece still has more chest hair and ruins than money, and middle-aged Spock & Picard fans are waging intractable e-debates from their mothers basements. The aberration of late was that my culinary ambition yielded quite scrumptious results.

Let me explain. In one weekend my desire to take on three hallmark recipes of experienced bakers: chocolate cake, cooked meringue and Italian buttercream. I had never attempted any of these before, nor anything like them, but I'm a man and can quite easily convince myself that I can do anything perfectly the first time around. For anyone rolling their eyes at this; be thankful I wasn't trying to fix your plumbing unannounced because I'm sure I could pull it off.

The baked meringues were more frightening in theory than they were in practice. I actually got these on the first pass.

The humility with which I approached the chocolate cake was likely what lead to final success. The cake gods clearly smile upon those who check the recipe every 5 seconds like an OCD epileptic. Success number two? Dare I enter a moist (hehehe innuendo), rich, deep (hehehe...nevermind) yes? Okay yes I do because it was damned tasty.

The buttercream took two attempts but when it worked it was golden. After I cooled the mixture of whipped egg whites and soft-ball stage cooked sugar I divided the batch and added ganache to one half and my leftover butterscotch sauce to the other.

What resulted were the most eccentric sandwich cake cookies ever constructed.

Moral of the story? Sometimes hubris works, just not when you're Greek.

Recipe adapted from "Chocolatesuze"

The Maginot Line or Republicans' immigration policy proposal?

A well designed plan can be the razor-edge separating success and failure. The keen readers will have noted that I didn't say which side planning ultimately leads to; often it's success, but memory serves notable instances where planning was less than…well…efficacious. Take for instance the ill-fated Maginot line; France's ostensible answer to a potential repeat of Germany's 1914 invasion. The rationale was sound enough: an enormous, well-fortified, securitized wall between France and its longtime military rival would dissuade further German aggression. German forces surely appreciated the grandeur of such valiant rationality as they swept north through Belgium and then drove southwards into France, but this time circumventing the Maginot Line altogether, a barrier that only ran the length of the German-French border. France earned double irony points as this was precisely how the Germans had invaded in 1914. Yes planning had served France well indeed.

What has this all to do with baking? Well I like France had presumably learned from prior culinary debacles and had made appropriate, logical adjustments to my plans. THIS time, unlike so many others, I was fully prepared from the onset. All my ingredients pre-measured and prepped, oven preheated, all utensils easily accessible on the countertop. I had gotten the jump on forgetfulness and would laugh heartily as my efforts yielded the most succulent blondies ever to emerge from a brownie pan. Then Germany came calling *cue Deutschland, Deutschland über alles*

The first batch was offered me solidarity to those Frenchman standing on the Maginot Line, watching at the Germans flew overhead or swept around the flank, utterly helpless. I had done everything correctly. The recipe followed to the letter, even going so far as to employ the foodscale to measure dry ingredients. Alas, my unraveling came from my own stupidity (my most ardent nemesis) and that brown saucy devil that is caramelizing sugar.

The latter devil cackled first. Lying to me in the sweet aromatic overtures of bubbling caramel I attempted butterscotch for the first time. Slow and low I crafted, intently and inexpertly, my neophyte's masterpiece. My first hint of failure was how the butterfat had seemed to separate from the caramel when I transferred it from pan to bowl. Fifteen minutes later it had become a mass with only slightly less density than my own obtuse brain.

Looks like a continent...crapistan perhaps?

Fail-sauce. No seriously...failsauce.

As the caramel reified into a crystalline catastrophe I happily sailed oceans of ignorance while preparing the blondie batter. Once again suspicion left me wondering why the batter was so wet, and so much butterfat was accumulating on the surface, despite my faithful recreation of the recipe. Assuaging my fears by reliance on the wisdom of the recipe author I placed 1/2 the batter in the pan and flash baked. What came out was golden brown and smelled quite good. So good in fact that a scant 120 seconds after having removed it from the oven I saw fit to grab it with naked paw and subsequently scatter it in explosive crumb form all across my kitchen floor. Blondies after all can be served on the floor as well as a plate. It was only after sweeping up the mess did I discover my amber colored butterscotch bowling ball stuck to my bowl. I could hear France laughing at me.

Now a matter of principle I made slight modifications to the blondie recipe to make it drier, and located a more moron-proof butterscotch recipe. The denouement of this story is something more than France today: actual, unmitigated success. My blondies were perfect, the butterscotch lost half the batch as repeated spoon dips were transferred directly to my mouth. This all flying by the virtual seat of my pants.

Yes, shortly beforehand I poured some directly into my mouth.

What's the moral? Despite being the du jour global intellectual mantra, planning can lead you astray. Be willing to infuse some instinct into your plans. If not your personal mascot will become:

Franceman, a leading French military strategist.

Caramel Slice

Recipe Courtesy: Project Foodie

Crust

• 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 1 tablespoon ice water
• 1 large egg yolk

Caramel Topping

• 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, diced
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup (such as Lyle's Golden Syrup) or
• dark corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze

• 6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (do not exceed 61% cacao), chopped
• 3 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
• Flaked sea salt (such as Maldon)

Crust: Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 12 x 8 1/4 x 1-inch fluted tart pan with removable bottom. Blend flour, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in processor. Add butter. Using on/off turns, blend until coarse meal forms. Add 1 tablespoon ice water and egg yolk. Blend until moist clumps form. Press dough onto bottom (not sides) of pan; pierce all over with fork [1]. Bake until golden, piercing if crust is bubbling, about 22 minutes. Cool completely.

Caramel Topping: Whisk milk, sugar, butter, syrup, and vanilla in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves, butter melts, and mixture comes to boil. Attach clip-on candy thermometer to side of pan. Boil gently until caramel is pale golden and thick and thermometer registers 225°F, whisking constantly, about 8 minutes. Pour caramel evenly over crust [2], then spread almost to edge of crust [3]; cool 15 minutes to set.

Chocolate Glaze: Meanwhile, melt chocolate with cream in microwave in 15-second intervals, stirring occasionally until smooth (do not overheat or chocolate will separate). Spread chocolate over warm caramel; sprinkle with sea salt. Refrigerate until chocolate is set, at least 1 hour.

Do Ahead: Can be made 3 days ahead. Cover and keep refrigerated.

Cut dessert lengthwise into 4 strips. Cut each strip crosswise into 5 or 6 slices. Transfer to platter and serve.

I love bar cookies. LOVE THEM. Anything that starts with a shortbread base is a wholehearted leap in the right direction, anything gooey, sweet, chocolatey, whipped or otherwise placed atop takes good and makes it ecstasy in edible form. Sam stumbled into these last weekend while we both frantically searched over-bloated recipe bookmarks to find something to cook. I was pretty sold from the moment I clicked the link.

What I would find is that these bars were analogous to charting an unknown course to a known destination; I got to where I wanted to go in ways I had never tried, but I know the missed turns I would take next time.

When I say unfamiliar I mean REALLY unfamiliar. I had never attempted shortbread before, much less layering on top of it. My first try, valiant though it was, was processed too much and balled on me. I blame the food processor.

The culinary gods were aberrantly forgiving though; my tart pan was nowhere near filled by one batch of shortbread and required a second. A retry brought MUCH better results.

I used my extensive array of professional grade cooking utensils to even out the dough. Okay, yes that is the inverted lid of an old sour cream container. My friends and colleagues will tell you the surest way to tell if the food in the work fridge is mine is that it will be encased an a Daisy sour cream container. Go ahead and judge my MacGuyver ingenuity. Somewhere Alton Brown is nodding with approval.

My fears over shortbread inexperience abated when I pulled my golden brown round of happiness from the oven. Aaaaaaaaaand then I got cocky....

My intended alterations to the recipe were twofold: I would substitute the caramel sauce for a more brittle-esque caramel layer, and the chocolate layer would be tempered first. I wanted this to be a growth experience in pastry technique, and I have always wanted to try both caramelizing sugar and tempering chocolate. The first of these alterations led to calamity: even though David Lebowitz's very astute article cautioned me, I turned away from my heating sugar momentarily (what can happen in 3 seconds really?) and returned to an erupting mess boiling right through the center of pristine white. Like Sarah Palin's credibility, it couldn't be saved. So try, try again: lower heat, greater vigilance...there! caramelizing around the corners...be patient...wiggle the pan...CRAAAAAP!!! It's melted from the bottom leaving the top untouched!!! *expletives fly**vigorous stirring*

...fastforward to the successful part...

Caramel - golden brown devil

Tempering the chocolate was more slowly tedious, but a lot more successful. Also, more tempting. Watching a pot of chocolate slowly cool makes you wonder if just tipping it back into your gaping maw would be better.

Gratuitous chocolate money shot

A few hours in the fridge and things were set pretty nicely. In retrospect the caramel layer was much too thick, leaving a substantial dental-testing barrier of burnt sugar to gnaw through. All things aside it was pretty damn tasty.