MAD at the world

This weekend I saw the coolest exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design. Dare I say even cooler than the Met's Alexander McQueen exhibit that everyone is raving about? Well okay, that's not really fair because it's like comparing apples and oranges (or rather apples...and some fruit no one's ever heard of before). But yes, my one quibble with the Alexander McQueen exhibit was the huge crowd. Not so at the MAD's Otherworldly exhibit, as this museum, perhaps by virtue of being off the museum mile, gets a fraction of the Met's traffic. This is a particular blessing for this exhibit because the entire thing is composed of miniatures, which naturally require the viewer to hog each piece for some time while they marvel at the amazing and minute details of every work.

I've always had a soft spot for miniatures. The ability to capture all the details of the world in diminutive form never ceases to amaze me. There are clearly some very talented people in the world who possess patience and hand dexterity that I could only dream of. I remember one of my favorite things in Prague was the Museum of Miniatures. It may seem kind of ridiculous in a city as gorgeous as Prague to fixate on the place where you can see tiny gold keys welded onto each leg of a flea, but I was also there in January so any heated room was going to catch my fancy. Alternatively, any place that served mulled wine. But I digress.

Otherwordly combines the real with the surreal in a fascinating way. From a cross section of Canal Street in the 197os showing the subway (complete with posters and graffiti) running beneath to a seemingly endless field of flowers that is actually only 4 or 5 inches long, all of the pieces play with our sense of perspective on a tiny scale. I snatched some pictures from the website, which I'm insisting on putting on here, but it's all a little silly because you can't really appreciate the detail or scale in a 2-d image. While it may pale in comparison to the real thing, I'm posting these in the vain hope it will help you understand why I'm going apeshit over miniatures.

This is the Canal Street Cross Section mentioned above. Each one of these layers is maybe 7 inches tall.

Here's a close up of the subway interior detail. All it needs are a few drug dealers and pimps and it would a dead ringer for a 1970s New York City subway!

This one isn't a miniature, but it's still pretty cool, so I'm willing to forgive it that.

This one is good to get a sense of scale since you can see the cord. It's a 4-room doctor's office.


This is only 1 of the 4 rooms (!!) in the above model. It's actually a painting that the artist did of the model, but trust me, every one of those details appears in the real thing.


This one was my personal favorite. It's not from the museum site, but rather something my friend got on her cell phone. It's the artist's tribute to Ionesco's Rinoceros. What I think is so cool about it is that in real life the bevilled glass totally looks like a mirror until you notice that the reflection of the rhino is facing the wrong way. Whoa.

Okay, if you aren't of the opinion that miniatures are one of the coolest things ever, then I probably should have made some sort of disclaimer at the beginning of this post to spare you from my gushing. However, if you are in the New York City area (before September 18) and you DO appreciate the wonder that is amazing things in tiny packages, then you owe yourself a trip to MAD.

A hill of beans (or more precisely: a square)

Those readers familiar with my baking history will know I have something of a sordid past of hiding weird things in chocolate confections. It should come as no surprise then that when I saw a recipe for Black Bean Brownies, I could hardly not make them. Unlike my Velveeta fudge days though, this decision was entirely health motivated. Black beans add fiber to the brownies making them every-so-slightly healthier than regular bean-less brownies.

The result of this recipe is chocolatey deliciousness without a hint of bean aftertaste (my one fear in making them). I wanted them to be tasted by someone who didn't know the secret ingredient, so I kept key information from my boyfriend while making them. (This was more difficult than I thought as he walked into the kitchen while I was working and questioned the use of beans. I told him I was making black bean burgers, and luckily he's seen enough of my experimental cooking to not question why black bean burgers involved being pulsed with walnuts.) The consensus was positive both from test subject A who knew about the addition of beans (myself) and test subject B (the control group) who did not. You would never guess these had no refined sugar or flour in them! They have a very rich and dark chocolate taste which I think is heightened by the coffee and cocoa powder. Now if there was just a way to drop the two sticks of butter out of the equation, I would have a genius health food on my hands.

Black Bean Brownies

(I found this recipe on 101 Cookbooks and only tweaked it slightly.)

Ingredients

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter (This is where black bean brownies stop being healthy...)
1 can black beans (thoroughly drained and rinsed)
1 cup walnuts, chopped (I added more. You can never have too many walnuts)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 T cocoa powder
3 T instant espresso power of instant coffee powder
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 large eggs
1 cup light agave nectar*

*I used half agave syrup and half honey (based on what I had in my cabinet), but you could always use all honey if you don't have agave around. You could also use regular sugar, in which case, I would reduce the amount to about 3/4 of a cup.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease an 11" by 13" pan and set aside.

Chop the chocolate and melt it with the butter in a glass bowl in the microwave for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes on high (stirring periodically). For those of you, like myself as of 2 months ago, who don't have a microwave, feel free to jerry-rig a double boiler of some sort. Stir with a spoon to melt the chocolate completely.

Place the beans, 1/2 cup of the walnuts, the vanilla extract, and a couple of spoonfuls of the melted chocolate mixture into the bowl of a food processor. Blend about 2 minutes, or until smooth. The batter should be thick and the beans smooth. Set aside.

Add to the original chocolate mixture, the instant coffee, the cocoa, powder, the remaining 1/2 cup walnuts, and salt. Mix well and set aside.

In a separate bowl, with an electric mixer beat the eggs until light and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the agave nectar and beat well. Set aside.

Mix the egg mixture, the bean mixture, and the chocolate mixture together. Pour into the prepared pan and put in the oven for 30 minutes or until the brownies are set.

I should probably learn my boyfriend's phone number

Last night, I was supposed to meet my boyfriend after work because we had a couple of appointments with brokers to look at apartments. We hadn't planned an exact meeting point because I was supposed to call when I got off work to say that I was on my way. Simple enough, except that when I got off work my phone wouldn't turn on. Or rather it would turn on, taunt me by letting me scroll to his name, and then shut off when I tried to look at his number or follow through with a call. Very frustrating. Especially considering I plugged it in the night before.

There are several pay phones of varying working order and questionable cleanliness in the subway, but it was at this point that I realized I couldn't even name the area code of his phone number. I consider this a problem with our modern dependence on cell phones, because it takes so long (or at least some effort) to memorize a number when you don't have the repetitive memory formed by punching the numbers quite a few times. I can still remember the phone numbers for my friends in middle school, but not the number of someone I call on a regular basis. Sadly calling the girl I used to make up Britney Spears videos on a trampoline with when I was 12 didn't seem to help my present situation. Finally, I realized I did have his number in my email, but at this point I was already on the train, and going back to work to check it would only make me later.

The plan I devised on the train was to sprint to his apartment and hopefully catch him before he left or gave up on me entirely for not returning his no doubt many confused calls. I made the 10-minute walk to his apartment in about 5 minutes (p90x has improved my fitness level, but still running in a dress, boots, and a heavy coat is something even Tony Horton might find difficult).
Astoria is lovely, but lengthy to traverse. I'm really just adding this picture to break up an otherwise boringly large block of text.

I knocked and he wasn't there. I let myself into his apartment and, not surprisingly, he still wasn't there. He'd downloaded skype on his computer, so I thought I could use that to call him, but alas, I couldn't find it (and he later told me he'd deleted it the day before). I looked up in my email to find his number and pulled a random receipt off his desk to write it down. Coincidentally, this random piece of paper turned out to be his phone bill and contained the very digits I needed.

Grabbing that, I took off again, heading in the direction of the general area he'd told me the real estate office was. I was beginning to feel a little like Franka Potente in Run, Lola, Run, you know, except for all the blood money and armed robbery. I found a real estate office and went in and started babbling incoherently while gesturing at my phone. I mentioned my boyfriend's name and one of the real estate agents seemed to have heard of him. That was my ticket in! Another one of the brokers offered me the use of a phone so I could contact him. Unfortunately, when I was able to get a hold of him, he told me I was still in the wrong place. Apparently, the reason they'd heard of him was because we had an appointment with them on Friday. I thanked them for the use of their phone and slowly backed out, saying I would meet him on the corner. I'm not sure I fully explained that I wouldn't be coming back.

Luckily, I was only a few blocks from where I was supposed to meet him, although another 20 minute walk to where the next appointment was. Good thing I'd done my p90x legs and back that morning! Otherwise, I might not have even been sore.

Another unfortunate result of my phone black out was that I didn't get to call and wish my father a happy birthday. So happy (belated) birthday, Dad! Hopefully, the card I sent proves I didn't forget.

What's better than a chocolate chip cookie? This is not a rhetorical question.

This will be a kind of short one, ironically about some very tall cookies. I took on more freelance writing projects this week (figuring if I'm going to be taxed this much on my freelance stuff, I may as well make enough to compensate for not getting a return. I miss the days when TurboTax seemed to really be in my corner.) So while I'm off working on writing a new book (this one on the scintillating subject of economic indicators), I'm leaving you with a recipe. I made these for a game night (specifically a party centered around playing board games, not to be confused in any way with a party centered around watching the football game--and especially not the Superbowl). These, I think, successfully encapsulate all the gluttony and excess of American culture in a single (if it can be described as such) delicious cookie.

Behold! The Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie!


My friend, who co-hosted the party with me, came across these on a baking blog and we had to try them. I just love that someone eating a chocolate chip cookie somewhere paused for a moment to think: "This isn't sweet enough. What would make this more excessive? Aha! I could put a second cookie inside it! Specifically, the second greatest commercially produced cookie of all time--the Oreo." It's Eureka moments like this one that make this country great. Naturally, we had no choice but to try them.

If you wind up with cookies slightly smaller than tennis balls, then you're doing it right.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks (1 cup) softened butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
10 oz bag chocolate chips
1 pkg. Oreo cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugars together with a mixer until well combined. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined. Take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie. Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo cookie. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo cookie is enclosed with dough. Place onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

You should end up with about 2 dozen cookies the size of an average human fist.

Cookies filled with both love and transfat.

I hope you will all consider these for your next gathering. They were well-received by our slightly overwhelmed guests. My only advice would be to not attempt to make them when you're not having a party or get-together. Eating one of them is enough to last you quite some time, I found.