Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Sunday night is Amazing Race night. In the ten years that it has been on the air, I have watched just about every season. In the early years I was obsessed. I watched religiously and planned my Wednesday nights around primetime. Boyfriend and I were still in college and he didn’t even have the title ‘boyfriend’ yet. We would watch the show while chatting on AIM and argue about who was the better team. After watching 17 seasons we’ve gotten pretty good about picking the winners. (I’ve actually picked the winning team for the past five seasons.)

Boyfriend and I have this grand idea that we would kick butt at the Amazing Race, as long as boyfriend doesn’t give directions. As I’ve discussed before, when presented with two options, boyfriend will inevitably choose the wrong direct 100% of the time. He does however have real world experience, or as he says “he knows the harsh realities of the world.” I apparently “have lived in a safety bubble.” (This is true) There are some things that would prevent us from doing well on the race. To give you a complete picture, let me walk you through our adventure of trying out for the Amazing Race.

Way back in 2006, boyfriend came to Madison for a visit. It just so happened that he came to town the same weekend there was an Amazing Race tryout. Tryouts were happening in Indiana at some beachside casino, three hours away from Madison, from 10-4. We figured if we left by nine am that we could be there by noon, perfect. Driving on the I-90, somewhere around Chicago, we hit massive traffic. Who knew that Chicago would be so busy on a beautiful Saturday afternoon?

Phew, made it through traffic, just thirty minutes behind schedule. But wait, is Indiana in the central time zone or the eastern time zone? Ummm, does it make a difference if it’s during daylight savings time? Oh boy, we might have one less hour! Speed boyfriend, speed!

When we finally made it to the casino we were confronted with a massive line of people. There were easily five hundred people waiting to have their turn in front of the camera. We got our number and stood in line, filling out our application as we waited. Hmmm, they need a photocopy of our passports? Uh oh, mine is in Wisconsin and boyfriends is in New York. Talk about being unprepared.

After thirty minutes of waiting in line and slowly inching forward, the head of the tryouts called numbers 450-500. Oh, we were number 498! The four hundred people in front of us had numbers in the thousands. Boyfriend and I considered our options. A. Wait in line for several more hours, abiding by proper line protocol. Or B. Do it Amazing Race style and cut everyone. We went with option B, what? We had the right number, they called us!

Needless to say we didn’t end up getting on the Amazing Race, I don’t know why, we’re pretty awesome. Boyfriend yells at people and I cry. We’d be good television.

French Baguettes

I want to be one of those people who knows everything about something totally useless. Like knowing all the vice presidents of the United States, in order. Or maybe being able to name all the fish living in the Gulf of Mexico. Or I could know how to count to ten in fifty different languages. Wait, I like that last one, maybe I’ll be one of those people. So far I can count to ten in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian & German), I’ve got some learning to do. If you speak other languages leave me your one through ten in the comments! I’d be forever grateful.

I’m sure you know people who are bastions of useless information. I’m sure that you have an immense amount of information in your head about one topic or another. Boyfriend knows lots about string theory, he could go on for hours about it. Why is this strange? He’s a businessman, not a physicist. My brother could go on and on about fruit trees and bushes, he’s an IT professional. I could retell the entire series of Gilmore Girls for you, right down to my favorite quotes.

In working toward the goal of knowing too much about something, I’m about halfway through my Bread Bakers Apprentice challenge. Today I present you with French bread! I put off making this bread for a while because I thought it was tricky. The dough itself is so soft and the instructions are so long I kept flipping past it in the cookbook. Rather than put it off anymore I decided to dive right in and I was not disappointed.

I wouldn’t recommend taking on French bread as your first yeasted bread. It takes a little understanding of yeast and you need to have a feel for dough. So, if you have been putting off French bread, don’t wait any longer. And don’t leave it under the broiler for ten minutes, unless you like smoke.

Maple Mousse

I have been such a procrastinator this month! Well, mostly when it comes to cooking. Although in life I tend to be an inadvertent procrastinator.

I would always begin my projects, assignments and homework with the best of intentions. I loved the first week of classes in college because it held such promise. The professors would hand out their syllabus and I would look it over with the precision of a ketchup bottle. Hmm, that’s not right, but for some reason that is the first thing that popped into my head. So yes, like a precise ketchup bottle I scanned the calendar. I would transfer the dates of exams, papers and other assignments into my assignment notebook. Purple for English papers, green for inorganic chemistry, blue for calculus, it was very colorful and organized.

As the weeks of the semester wore on my assignment notebook would become more and more cluttered. I would start the year with very specific to do lists, I’ve always been a list maker, and I would try to get everything done each night. If something wasn’t accomplished it would get moved to the next day, some things floated along for a few days. Example – “Read chapter two of Inorganic Chemistry textbook – Molecular orbital theory.” Snore… In a worst case scenario it would get pushed back until the note read – “Read chapters two AND three of Inorganic Chemistry textbook.” Uh oh…

I always wanted to be one of those people that would write a paper ahead of time. Finish it early with enough time to look it over and make corrections. That almost never happened. In fact, I usually write my posts as a running thought process (hence the ketchup bottle) and usually don’t proofread (hence the occasional text message from my mom to inform me of a typo, thanks mom!).

My procrastination takes center stage today as I post my Daring Baker’s challenge! I have several excellent reasons for procrastinating this month. First, I only shop twice a month for groceries. It is because of this that I did not even have the ingredients until April 14th. Second, I’ve been spending weekends at boyfriends house. Boyfriend lacks all of the fancy cooking tools that I own, examples? Boyfriend does not own mixing bowls. As I write this, my maple/gelatin mixture is cooling on the stovetop. I am getting ready to whip the heavy cream and my chocolate shells are chilling in the fridge. In twenty minutes I will have completed this challenge, a mere hour before the deadline! I’m such a slacker.

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!