Random Crap in Life…

I baked these cookies Wednesday night when I should have been in bed.  It was almost 11 o’clock when I started baking them.  They were double chocolate cookies with black currents and pecans.  They were alright.  In my opinion, cookies should be a little crusty around the edge, soft and chewy in the middle.  These were soft and fluffy.  They were more like little cakes than cookies, but they served their purpose well–which was my craving for chocolate.

What I really want to rant about next is the tarte tatin that I made yesterday.  It is basically an upside down caramelized apple tart.  I, for one, really don’t like cooked apples, but this is an exception.  The aroma of cooked apples in butter and sugar will mesmerize you.  It is the easiest dessert to make!  You only have to melt butter and sugar, arrange the apples in the pan, go do something for about half an hour while the apples are cooking.  When you come back, you put the puff pastry dough on top, and pop it in the oven for 20 minutes.  See, it’s easy.  One of these day, I would love to make puff pastry from scratch, but in the meantime, the store-bought ones will do just fine.

The picture of the finished product doesn’t do its justice.  Really, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Tarte Tatin

4 apples (I used Jonagold)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 puff pastry dough, thawed at a room temperature (They usually come in a package of 2)

Core the apples and cut them into quarters.  Melt the butter and sugar in a 10 inch frying pan with a heatproof handle.  Arrange the apples tightly over the melted butter and sugar.  Cook over low heat for 30 minutes or until the apples are soft.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Lay the pastry dough over the apples, and trim off the edge.  Bake for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden and flaky.  Remove from the oven and let rest for about 5 minutes before turning out the tart.

I have just finished the last Harry Potter book today, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I didn’t just acquire it.  I loved the series.  I bought it on the day it came out.  I even waited at Barnes and Noble for 2 hours to buy the book.  I got home and started reading it.  But, something strange happened, I couldn’t get into it.   While I was reading it, I kept thinking, “when is it going to end?”.  It was boring!  It didn’t grab my attention like the previous books did.  It wasn’t fun.  It wasn’t interesting.  It was not enjoyable.  I felt, as though, I was back in school reading a book I had to read for a class.

So, I stopped.

Six months or so went by.  I was traveling to Thailand in February.  It would take twenty four hours, door-to-door.  I needed something to pass the time.  A book to read sounded good enough.  So, I thought I’d give it another try.  I brought it along with me.  I read it.  I read it to chapter eleven.

And I stopped.

While I was in Thailand, I got to talk to one of my best friends from childhood, Dao. (It means a star in Thai).  Somehow we ended up talking about books.  I asked her if she had read Harry Potter.  She said yes, and said that she loved it! And she didn’t think she could die happy without finishing the series.  I told her about how I couldn’t finish the book, about how boring it was, and she said, “How could that be?  You must be crazy!”.

Another six months or so went by.  One day, someone on my vanpool talked about the next Harry Potter movie, the Half-blood Prince.  It was supposed to be released this November, but Warner Bros. had decided to postpone it until July of next year.  It made me think about the Half-blood Prince.  I read it so long ago.  I didn’t remember how went.  I remembered enjoying it very much.  So, I thought I should re-read it, before the movie comes out.  So, I did.

I finished the Half-blood Prince.  Then, I thought I might as well read the Deathly Hallows.  “Just finish the series”, I thought.  “I am going to give my best effort to finish it”, I told myself.  So, I grabbed the last Harry Potter book from the bookshelf, and I started to read it.  I read, and read, and I kept on reading.  And I FINISHED it!

And…

I LOVED IT!  I love the book.  I love the series.  And here I am, on the couch, hours later, still having bits and pieces of it pop into my head.  I’m thinking about the whole series, about how it all went down, about how well everything tie together at the end, admiring J.K. Rowling for her amazing piece of fiction, and feeling sad that there won’t be the next book…

I guess, everything has its moment, where it’s got to happen at the right place, and at the right time.  So, I am still here, on the couch, hours later, trying to figure out what my problem was, about how I just couldn’t finish the book …because it was boring?

My gosh, I must be (temporarily) crazy!