Three Cheers for Tiramisu!!!

Today I made tiramisu (Task 27). Confession: I was a little concerned about eating it because it has raw eggs in it that go uncooked. I found some "kid-friendly" recipes that called for cooked or tempered eggs, but I wanted to make the real deal. And I am soooo glad I did! I ended up combining three recipes. The first was given to me by a friend from the Czech Republic (Thanks, K!). It's a true Italian recipe and was in grams and other such metric units, which is why I looked at a few other recipes as well. The second recipe was from Giada DeLaurentis from Food Network. The third is a recipe (Ristorante Piatti Tiramisu) from a website, "Tiramisu: Heaven in Your Mouth."

The recipe ended up being something like this:
6 organic egg yolks
3 egg whites (2 of which were organic... don't ask)
1/2 cup sugar
approximately 2 cups strong coffee
2-ish tbsp rum
8 oz. marscapone cheese
2 packages of lady fingers
Some unsweetened cocoa
Bittersweet chocolate, finely grated


1. Beat egg yolks, sugar, 1 tbsp and some rum until thick and pale yellow (about 3 minutes).


2. Beat in marscapone until smooth.

3. In another bowl, beat egg whites with a pinch of sugar until stiff peaks form (basically like merengue). Gently fold egg whites into marscapone mixture.

4. Put remaining rum (or more rum if you ran out earlier) into remaining coffee, pour into shallow dish. Dip one side of each ladyfinger in coffee mixture for 1-3 seconds (depending on consistency/thickness). I actually ran out of ladyfingers, so had to halt the process and fly to the store to buy some more. The first pack was very sponge-like, while the second pack was more solid until dipped in the coffee. But just make sure you don't soak them too long or they will fall apart. Line ladyfingers in a dish (I think I used an 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish.)


5. Spoon half of marscapone mixture on top of ladyfingers. (One recipe suggested sprinkling cocoa onto marscapone layer before repeating the layering process, but I did not do this.)


6. Add one more layer of ladyfingers and marscapone mixture, then sprinkle cocoa and/or shredded chocolate on top.


7. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

8. Enjoy!


I must admit, this tiramisu was GOOD! I totally recommend that you try it! Have you ever made it before? Or eaten it before? Does the fact that is has raw eggs in it bother/scare you?

Task 6: 100 Things I Want to Learn About- Part Two (26-50)

26. Wallace's Flying Frog
27. Strange ice cream flavors around the world... horseflesh ice cream? No thank you.
28. Firewalking
29. Whirling Dervishes
30. The Pig War
31. Greek priestesses
32. Oyster Shucking
33. Oligodendrocytes versus Schwann cells for neural recovery (Recommended by my biopsych professor)
34. Bird masks worn by plague doctors in the 14th century
35. Members of the Nazi SS had their blood type tattooed on their armpits. Another article here
36. The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
37. The new fish species found at bottom of ocean near Antartica
38. Amok (or mata galap) in Malaysia
39. The legend of the Yeti
40. Myanmar
41. Vatican Secret Archives
42. Irish Elk (And here too...)
43. Leonor (Eleanor) of Castille
44. William James Sidis, possibly the smartest man in the world, and a child prodigy
45. Cranberry harvesting
46. Bikelophone
47. Bowafridgeaphone
48. Pearl diving
49. What to do if I ever meet the Queen
50. Liechtenstein

Creativity is my anti-drug.

It amazes me how much I psychoanalyze myself. Basically every person I meet who finds out I'm being trained as a therapist asks me if I'm psychoanalyzing them. I usually put on my best Freud impression and ask them, "So... how does that make you feel?" just to make them nervous. But in reality, I rarely psychoanalyze someone beyond what anybody would do naturally without their permission. I mean, I hate it when my professors start psychoanalyzing me and trying to give me therapy during a meeting or casual chat. I assume most other people would prefer I not do the same to them. Instead, I focus on myself and why I act/think/feel the way I do. I overanalyze, hypothesize, and soliloquize usually to the point of driving myself crazy. While there are hundreds and thousands of things I have not, and probably will not, figure out, I have come to some pretty solid conclusions about some dimensions of who I am and why I am that way.

For instance:
I thrive on creativity. If my opportunity to be creative is stifled in any way, I wither away into something resembling a zombie with a bad cold. Seriously. I lose motivation, energy, and immunity from infectious diseases. The year I stopped dancing was also the year I ended up with about 4 varieties of sinus infections and colds. It took 4 attempts at heavy antibiotics before I was back to normal. I blame this on the loss of a creative outlet.

So, all this to say that I have found I MUST always have a creative outlet to keep me happy and healthy. Within the past few years, my creative outlet of choice has been a mixture of dance, theatre, and music. But recently, all of my outlets have been smushed, so to speak. This summer proved my body is too old and crippled to endure much dancing; grad school has taken away anytime I might have been able to devote to theatre; and piano has taken a backseat to all of my other responsibilities. So, sadly, I have recently found myself outletless. And fighting off the early (yet still noncontagious, nonthreatening) symptoms of a cold.

However, these past few days have proved to be a silver lining on the dark cloud of my creativity-starved existence. Tonight, a friend and I will be checking out the local choral guild. I haven't been in a choir in probably 5 years. I haven't sung formally since summer. Actually, I haven't sung classically in probably 2 years... Wow.

Anyway, I have also begun attending more classical music recitals and concerts, like I used to. I hadn't realized how much I missed not only performing, but also being in the audience. There's something so rejuvenating and, well, therapeutic about a well-played sonata.

And... a few days ago, I learned how to play the trumpet (Task 44). As a French horn player, I had the basic skills already in my back pocket, but was surprised at how different the two instruments really are. A musician/grad student friend of mine offered to teach me how to play and, starved of creative outlets, I of course agreed. I'm no Maynard Ferguson, but now I can fairly confidently play elementary etudes and duets. I also was reminded that there is a trumpet back home, so maybe I'll keep it up. Maybe this will be a new outlet to add to my inventory.