Truffle Contest
Why chocolate is makes life better, and why I am so fucking deserving of it.
The first prize is one dozen truffles, shipped overnight, on my dime. Second place is a dozen, you pay the shipping. (retail value is $45.oo per doz)
There are those of you who are already on the list. You either know who you are or I've been a git and not told anybody. Sarah In Chicago, already rates, just because. If she were explain why, she would still win, but along with the dozen that's going to her, she could designate a beneficiary (including claiming two dozen all for herself).
Somebody in, say, the metropolitan Chicago area, could name deserving friends in their circle and volunteer to be the delivery elf. Same goes for New York. or. . .
To riff on a comment offering from litbrit, if you live in a scandalous region that is not Florida, and are tired of them getting all the press, testify on the corruption and venality that you live right in the middle of and you might be a winner.
I promise that the selection process will be arbitrary, flighty, and most likely unfair. I have been known to take and offer bribes.
One of my favorite things to do is to give someone a truffle for the first time and watch the look on their face when they take that initial bite. Promise of pictures would be a bribe that I might succumb to easily. (that and permission to post the pictures).
Anyway, such as it is. That's the contest. Have at it troops!
UPDATE:
Jeff (no, the other one) posted a great entry over at 3B's. He has a young son who was born a preemie and just got home. The comments so far are all very compelling (St. Augustine remains a very dear place in my heart, Gamble Rodgers lived there and he was a true guitar picking demon) I love animals (way more than people most of the time). It's time for ya'll to start thinking seriously along the lines of bribery.
3B's
posted by The Minstrel Boy at 9:00 AM
21 Comments:
Okay, here goes---
Why chocolate makes life better: Because chocolate makes people happy when they eat it, and happy people are nicer to be around than unhappy people, and are less likely to start wars and kill people.
Why I am so fucking deserving of it: First let me say I'm not sure I'm any more deserving than anyone else (do I get any points for sincere humility?), however here are some of the things I think make me a reasonably good person: I serve Sunday dinner to the homeless every week at St. Francis House here in St. Augustine, and also make hats and scarves for them; I protest against the war every month at the Plaza de la Constitution; I am the incredibly proud guardian of 3 of the best dogs in the world, all rescues: Bliss, Willie, and Paco, and 2 of the best kitties in the world, also rescues: Stella and Birdie; all of my pets have theme songs; I volunteer at a humane society (hence the 5 pets) every week-I actually think it's a minor miracle I don't have MORE than 5 pets; I have been married to the same wonderful man for 25 years; I am a dedicated reader, according to the quiz on your blog.
#1: Because the most beautiful women I know claim to be addicted to it, and I fucking deserve it because I appeciate every move they make.
#2: The good stuff gives the brain as good a kick as any drug I've ever tried, but they can't arrest me just because I have it. And while I don't do any of that great stuff vervet does, I fucking deserve it because I've got a 10 year old who I sit and practice Twinkle Twinkle, Take me Out to the Ball Game and The Star Spangled Banner with and dutifully take to guitar lessons every week, even if he hasn't practiced for shit.
Why chocolate makes life better, and why I am so fucking deserving of it.
Chocolate makes me feel sexy. The shadowy brunette bitter taste of good quality high cocoa chocolate unadorned with unnecessary candy, nuts or fruit is driving a Jaguar, streamlined, classic, luxurious. Chocolate makes me feel five. Unwrapping every tiny bite sized Snickers bar in a bag and eating them as quickly as possible like someone is going to snatch the bag away and tell me I’m going to get a belly ache. Chocolate makes me feel playful. Hersey’s syrup on noses and lips need kissing and licked. But most of all chocolate makes me feel like sharing. But if these are really that good then maybe just one for the husband. Hee hee…
And I hope this does not disqualify me but when I first came here for the truffle contest I thought it was the kind that I would shave over twice baked potatoes for my New Year Eve's Dinner. I would have loved to have spoiled my baby brother like that this year. Not that I was disappointed but have you priced them lately? I'd have to sell my first born. Sucks to have high brow taste and be stuck with an income that makes you wonder how you're paying to heat your house all winter. Well, if I win the chocolates I can spoil him with them instead (he's a Doctorate now dontcha know!)
See what I said in #1?
yup, i see.
and pogo, sitting with a young one, playing is a great thing to do. i never have understood how to instill the practice ethic in someone else. only one of my children has shown any inclination for prefecting an instrument. and she's obsessive/compulsive on the practicing like i am.
nice comment about Gamble Rodgers. I have not thought about Gamble in many years.
yo soy Horsedooty!
Let's make this interesting, since bribery is at play.
When you post the recipe (or I will search your blog anyway to try and find the raspberry truffles), I'll make up a batch and send them to you on my dime, if you'll send me YOUR favorites on your dime, and I'll even include a two-disc KGSR Volume 14 CD of various artists performing songs live in the studio. It's a limited edition, and will be sold out around the end of the year.
It's only available in Austin. Some of the performers are Kris Kristofferson, Billy Bragg, KT Tunstall, Tony Joe White, Shawn Colvin, Eliza Gilkyson, and many more.
Truth be known, if I lose this contest, I'm going to do my own contest to give one away, but why gamble?
:lol:
And this will be handled in classic duel fashion; I will overnight my truffles on the same day you overnight yours. No unfair advantage.
Did I mention Patty Griffin is on this CD set as well?
I'll even include bonus material: photos of handpainted pots by natives which I collect.
kona had better have already mastered the art of tempering chocolate if he's going to do this. If he hasn't he'd better buy some and start practicing now. Tempering is the difference between the sublime perfection of the Aztec gods who gave us chocolate and a stale Hershey bar that's been sitting on the window over the heating grate for the last six weeks. Master it and you maybe have a chance of being successful (and even then, if MB is as good as he appears to be you have quite a task in front of you). ;-)
- oddjob
(Oh, MB: albasemi-plena@comcast.net)
Chocolate. Ho hum.
Creme Brulee! Here I come!
(oops. I guess I lost huh?)
my truffle recipe is posted, do a search up at the top of the blog. and oddjob's correct about the tempering. it's tricky. you need the stars aligned and the gods all appeased before it can be successful. to make a raspberry truffle you only add 1/3 cup of raspberries to a 2 1/2 lb chocolate batch of ganache. ahhhh but then the tempering. i even give up my brand of chocolate in the post (it was one of the very first ones i wrote). . .somewhere buried in my music files i have patty griffin doing "sweet lorraine" (her version) with me on the guitar. the session was the first time i had heard the lyrics. you can hear me getting mad and hitting the poor guitar so hard that it starts to sound like a 12 sring. i loves me some patty.
shady = do a search at the top of the blog, for my classic recipe for creme brulee (it's in one of my april, the woman not the month, posts)
there will be raspberry truffles made during the photo session this week. you'll be able to see the process, step, by step. . .then there's also the white chocolate recipe, which because it contains zero chocolate doesn't require all the the tricky voodoo of tempering.
One of, if not my earliest, memory was an event at the first home I ever lived in. There was no running water and no electric. My parents were indeed, dirt poor. One day someone came to the house, probably my grandmother, I don't remember who it was. But whomever that visitor was brought me a bag of Hershey's kisses. This was a grand discovery for me as being dirt poor doesn't allow for treats like candy. I remember standing on that old wooden porch, unwrapping kisses and dropping the shiny wrappers over the porch rail and down to the ground. I just kept doing it until the ground was silver and I was about sick. I knew I would get in trouble for what I had done. I had eaten way too much and gobbled it all down, but I just couldn't help it. I had discovered chocolate and I was two years old.
LOL POP! :-)
- oddjob (who had to be careful about making too many trips into the living room during Christmas time, the only time of the year when the Kisses were out for consumption in my parents' house)
lovely memory PoP. i too grew up pretty damned poor (not dirt poor but rez poor although it was more dusty than dirty) and i remember so well those first little treats. they represented a whole other world. it's also interesting to note that something like growing up at the bottom of any social scale has such a lasting effect. no matter what success i might achieve in life, i remain, at my core, this little half-breed barefoot kid, out in the middle of nowhere on the rez dreaming about things. one of my kids once asked me if i remembered when my family got T.V. i told her i remembered when my family got plumbing. TV was cool and all but plumbing changed our lives.
POP & Minstrel Boy, you share that childhood with the Dark Wraith, and you can see it in his writing now & again, too.
- oddjob (who wasn't poor, but will never automatically assume he fits in or will be accepted when around strangers)
Senor Horsedooty is withdrawing himself from the Truffles contest because he wants to give others a chance to win. Sr Horsedooty won a nice book from the Musical Boy earlier this year and civility and good manners makes him not enter this contest so that some other lucky person be judged the winner.
yo soy Horsedooty!
As I was also a recipient of our Minstrel Boy's generosity already, I leave the prize to other people, but I'll at least answer the first question. Chocolate, especially hot chocolate, is enough to make someone look back on the day they've had, and no matter how terrible, awful or just plan tedious it has been, it would have been worth it but for this one pleasure, a simple pleasure.
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