Tomorrow is another day, but hopefully tomorrow will be a no good, very bad day for the former guy, and a very good day for us.
Breaking on @MSNBC: The Manhattan DA is planning to bring back the grand jury to continue their work tomorrow (Thursday).
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 22, 2023
BREAKING: DA considering whether to bring back Michael Cohen to refute testimony by Trump witness Robert Costello. They may also call another additional witness to buttress their case before voting on whether to indict. (Via John Miller) More on @CNNSitRoom in a moment.
— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCNN) March 22, 2023
New: Hearing that Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran was given a Wednesday deadline by chief US judge Howell to produce notes in the Mar-a-Lago docs investigation — which could explain why DC Circuit Court set tight deadlines: they wanted to consider appeal before deadlines took effect
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) March 22, 2023
I, for one, will be stopping at the grocery store tomorrow morning for the 1/2 cup buttermilk I need in order to bake my favorite chocolate cake. But only if we get some good news! Otherwise, cake-baking will have to wait.
Open thread.
Baud
It’s only a day away.
Danielx
Chocolate cake? Buttermilk ? Tell all.
JPL
CNN said that it’s Michael Cohen.
bbleh
Why on earth should cake-baking wait? First of all, cake is good. Second, it’s not like it deteriorates noticeably in a day, or even a few days, so why wait? And third and perhaps most importantly, TFG is NOT the center of the universe or even really a significant part of it at this point, so bake a cake if you wanna bake a cake!
Here endeth the rant.
Steeplejack
@JPL:
“It’s Michael Cohen” about what?
scav
Oh fink, gotta wait until Easter at least for any movement on the formal Flobalob kickdown. So all waiting must be predominately done stateside. Bother. Stereo is somehow comforting. But I agree that Cakes Should Not wait. A strategic cake and popcorn reserve should be maintained. Champagne? OK, hold off and save up for the good stuff. But break those eggs.
JaySinWA
Good. “It’s beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas” has been running through my head. I hope we don’t have a Fitzmass fizzle. OTOH I’m not sure this NY case is much more than an appetizer. Friday’s child may have more meat, but it still looks like indictment week was a premature call.
WaterGirl
@JPL: It may be Michael Cohen and there may be another witness who is not Michael Cohen.
WaterGirl
@bbleh: I don’t normally eat cake every day, and today I just finished the cake I had made over the weekend.
It’s my special occasion cake. :-)
bbleh
@WaterGirl: I hear the DA has a cat in a box and that’s how we’ll know.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Check the tweets up top. She is saying that Michael Cohen in the witness that may be brought back tomorrow.
The tweet above says maybe Michael and maybe one other witness.
bbleh
@WaterGirl: Fair enough. Follow your own Cake Muse.
WaterGirl
@bbleh: I think we get white smoke if they interview a witness. Or maybe it’s only white if they vote to indict.
sab
@Danielx: Are chocolate sauerkraut cupcakes okay?
Suzanne
I ate all my popcorn. Didn’t last until the indictment.
RaflW
A recent poll showed Ron DeSepsis had lost ground to Orangemandias, to which I quipped (elsewhere) this morning “DeSantis will get even more medieval on the citizens and businesses of Florida to try to gain traction and prove his far right cred. ‘Turn the anti-woke dial to 11!’ I can hear him scream in Tallahassee.”
Not that I’m nostradumbass, but this afternoon, the AP reports that rancid Ron is aiming to expand the “Don’t say Gay” law to all grade levels.
eta: This is also probably a reaction to Disney, who are hosting an LGBTQ conference in September.
WaterGirl
@Danielx: It’s a very rich fudge cake, very decadent.
King Arthur Flour
Not for eating every day!
sanjeevs
Whatever happens a week where Putin is indicted and Boris Johnson embarrasses himself in his House of Commons trial is a good week.
HinTN
@WaterGirl: You’re mixing too many metaphors on this one. 😉
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
Did you edit the post? I don’t remember seeing those when it first went up. Maybe I’m getting befuddled.
WaterGirl
@HinTN: I grew up catholic, I thought white smoke was for all the important votes. :-)
Suzanne
I have a recipe for a lemon pistachio cake with mascarpone that I have been meaning to try.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Some were there, others added a couple minutes after posting.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Be sure to make enough for the whole class.
scav
This could be a whole recipe thread sometime. We’ve already got the wacky/crazy cake for unexpected developments, but what about these others? Also, a place to aggregate all the cocktail recipes scattered last night?
sab
@sanjeevs: Boris Johnson embarassed himself a bit on international BBC today, but I was preparing tax returns and missed the details. Defiantly defending the Covid parties or pretending still that they had not happened. Couldn’t tell which.
kalakal
As you may have heard Boris ” the convict ” Johnson spent today trying to persuade a parliamentary committee that he is as pure as the driven snow. Fascinating to watch a liar lying about whether he’s a liar.
A performance best summed up by Andrew Marr
sab
@Suzanne: OMG if it works please post it.
Suzanne
I feel like I need a sabbatical. I need to do nothing for a year. Sleep, do yoga, make pottery, go to antique shops, take road trips, ride my bike, read. Sleep more.
NotMax
Got milk? Got vinegar? Adequately cromulent substitute for buttermilk in baking.
WaterGirl
@scav: Are you thinking cake & cocktails?
Suzanne
@sab: Here’s the link. Maybe I’ll get to it this weekend.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I know that works in a pinch, but it’s not the same. For my favorite cake, it’s buttermilk or bust.
sab
@sab: Chocolate sauerkraut cake was amazing but huge. Thought I would scale it back to cupcakes.
Cannot work tomorrow because no car, and internet connection is so iffy that pointless to bring tax work home. So own tax retirns or baking. Which do you think I will choose?
sab
@Suzanne: Thank you. I LOVE pistachios.
Husband says he doesn’t like lemon or pistachio. WHEE a whole cake for me. I often make stuff I don’t much like that he loves. Turning tables on him and make what I like.
Might take some to work. Nostalgic time, last two weeks of tax time. They won’t see me for almost a year.
Suzanne
@sab: Since you are a pistachio fan, might I recommend the Pistache body care line? I’ve been using this body butter for years. It is epic. Also sold on Amazon.
scav
@WaterGirl: Well, I always have popcorn, so those two additions there would make it more of a party for oncoming events — and I don’t have a default cake destination myself. Haven’t seen any calls for celebratory soups yet, but we’re a perverse crowd.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Ever tried sour cream instead of buttermilk? Find it results in a cake so rich that frosting is redundant.
sab
@Suzanne: But is it edible?
Suzanne
@sab: No, but I bought pistachio extract, and mixed it with coconut oil and sugar to make body scrub. And it is the most incredible smell, and it is edible.
mrmoshpotato
Some admirable self-discipline there!
mrmoshpotato
@bbleh: I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Which reminds me there’s some leftover pistachios from last time hanging about and a hunk of bleu cheese sitting in the fridge.
Need to make another port wine and applesauce and bleu cheese nut loaf in the super duper bread machine.
Dan B
@kalakal: Thanks! Belly laugh!!
WaterGirl
@NotMax: I don’t put frosting on this cake because it’s so rich.
There’s like a 55-gallon drum of butter in this cake, no need for frosting!
I don’t frost most cakes.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: Thank you!
Wyatt Salamanca
@WaterGirl:
Do you have any champagne on hand for the possibility of a guilty verdict?
Suzanne
@NotMax: Ummmmm that sounds great.
I like food. It’s why I’m not skinny.
WaterGirl
@kalakal: hahaha
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Do you ever take a vacation away from your family?
mrmoshpotato
@sab:
Baje your tax returns. 🧁😋
Ceci n est pas mon nym
You guys with your fancy-schmancy cake recipes.
My big accomplishment is that I caramelized onions for the second time in my life today. It isn’t often that things work out just the way the internet says they will, but they came out GOOD. And I started with white onions, not at all sweet, and refuse to add any sugar.
cain
Have you had pistachio paste? so good!
NotMax
Oy vey.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Well, not really. But next week, Mr. Suzanne is taking the Spawns to his parents’ farm for a week. So I will be working but have some free time.
mrmoshpotato
@kalakal: Wow. LOL! How’d he keep a straight face?
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Maybe you could think about doing that to recharge?
JPL
@NotMax: omg Does he know Clarence Thomas. Someone needs to tell him he’s not acting Christ like, just sayin.
WaterGirl
I tried to post extra today because Anne Laurie is under the weather. (With Covid, in case you didn’t read the Covid post this morning.)
But I’m closing the laptop for the night, so if Anne Laurie doesn’t show up for her usual nighttime posting, I’m sure you’ll all make the best of it.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Uh oh.
JPL
@Suzanne: Enjoy your quiet time.
Ken
It’s only Wednesday. And we knew already it couldn’t be Tuesday, because TFG said that was the date. So really we’re only halfway through the week.
NotMax
FYI. A footnote from history.
Trump says his arrest is imminent. Only one other president has been arrested — in 1872.
Ken
Thank you for fighting the good fight. Too many cakes nowadays are just delivery systems for a whipped and dyed crisco-sugar mix.
Sister Golden Bear
@JPL:
Life is short, eat
dessertcake first.WaterGirl
@Baud: You’ll just need to be extra witty.
WaterGirl
@Ken: Oh my god,
mostall fancy cupcakes disgust me – piled high with mountains of grainy frosting.Frosting either needs to be whipped cream based, or ganache, or something like that.
RaflW
@WaterGirl: I have always enjoyed cake far more than frosting. I always loved my mom’s bundt cakes, because the rich batter would make a nice sweet-tender crust in the cast aluminum pan. Mmmm.
M31
you’re not the boss of me
oooo I have buttermilk, this could happen
Roger Moore
@Sister Golden Bear:
Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test.
scav
@Ken: Ah, while I do not myself have a default cake, I do have a baking mother and I found her this book Gateau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes which has an entire chapter with “frosting” alternatives (To soak To sauce To coat To fill To ice To drizzle To spoon To glaze and perchance To dollop.) If you’re into that sort of thing.
dmsilev
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: French Onion Soup is one of life’s great delights, and that was what introduced me to caramelizing onions. Slow and steady, and no sugar needed.
Amir Khalid
It’s Thursday morning on my side of the planet, and as it happens today is the 1st of Ramadhan. I will be skipping lunch for these 30 days.
kalakal
I knew from the get go Johnson was in trouble and he knew it. His hair wasn’t ruffled, it’s his tell.
The privileges committee tore him apart.
The chair Harriet Harman ( Lab ) played it very well and let the Tory members really enjoy themselves. This was very smart of her because the public spectacle of the convict being monstered by his own party was far more powerful than had it been the Labour members*. Committees like this mostly attract the political nerds amongst mps, the ones who actually care about governance and parliament rather than the clowns and showboats.
It was like the Jan 6th committee with Cheney replaced by the most Trump hating never Trumpers from the Lincoln project.
The stomped him flat and kept stomping.
*Not that the Labour members held back, it’s just they didn’t have the white hot hatred that is only found between members of a political party for each other if they’re from different factions
WaterGirl
@M31: If you make it, be sure to cover it with a glass bowl or platter or something. That keeps it really moist – it’s not great when it dries out.
I made the whole recipe in 2 different pans – sent one home with the birthday girl, kept the other here
edit: You can also make a half recipe. :-)
JPL
@Sister Golden Bear: Love to claim the comment but that was bbleh right below me.
Have you read
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
there is always cake.
bbleh
@Ken: @WaterGirl: a whipped and dyed crisco-sugar mix.
Oh gawd! Any such thing should be whipped and should have dyed! Eeeuuucchhhh.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Yes, yes, and yes. The right bread and cheese is important too!
WaterGirl
@Ken: @bbleh: Grainy sugar that tastes like chemicals. Ugh. I would sooner eat a spoonful of sugar by itself.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: Sorry for all the talk of food! How’s your girl?
NotMax
Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder…
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: May your holy month bring you blessings.
WaterGirl
@Wyatt Salamanca: Not a champagne girl, there will be some other adult beverage for me.
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Whatever the appropriate greeting is for Ramadan, I give it to you.
I could not fast. Although I probably need to.
WaterGirl
Later, gators!
kalakal
@dmsilev:
What kind of monster puts Sugar in French Onion Soup?
Baud
@NotMax:
That’s wonderful on many levels.
dmsilev
I get (non-electronic) mail, a continuing series:
Unassailable logic, to be sure.
(was sent to the general university mailing address, with a note at the bottom of the envelope reading “Quantum Magnetic RF Waves”. Routing notes say it bounced around a couple of buildings before someone stuck on a PostIt saying “why not send it to dmsilev?”, and thence to my mailbox. Sigh)
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: I have, once or twice, followed Julia Child’s entire recipe for onion soup. Starting with “roast some beef bones to brown them, and then make the stock” and on from there, though I did draw the line at “bake one fresh baguette” and instead outsourced that to a decent bakery. It’s a project, but the results are great.
Origuy
Bill Arnold
@dmsilev:
Do you have a Nutboard for displaying these?
dmsilev
@Bill Arnold: No, but maybe I should set one up.
It could be worse. I know a guy who wrote a reasonably popular textbook on general relativity. He gets lots and lots and lots of crank mail. He does keep the best of it on display in his office.
Suzanne
@dmsilev: French onion soup is one of my favorite things ever. I don’t often have it in me to make it.
Geminid
@NotMax: Ulysses Grant was a skilled teamster by age 14. An excellent rider, he performed equestrian jumping exhibitions while a student at West Point.
Grant found the job of President constricting, and it’s no wonder he liked to fly down Washington streets when he had the chance. Grant was also a fundamentally decent man and his concern for the arresting officer’s career was very much in character.
Obviously, I am a big fan so I’ll conclude this comment with a passage from a letter Grant wrote to his father and younger sister. The letter is from April, 1861, but the words ring true today:
Amir Khalid
@WaterGirl:
Agent Scully’s exempt from fasting. She’ll have plenty of energy for feline mischief.
And on the subject of her namesake Dana Scully, I have an X-Files fan’s question. Would a Catholic church let her marry an agnostic/atheist like Mulder? I’ve always wondered why they never tied the knot despite living together for so long and her being so religious.
kalakal
@dmsilev: Oh dear.
It is indeed a mystery why that Nobel Prize will forever elude your correspondent.
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
You should do a guest FP post, or three, on your crank mail. I would love to read it.
kalakal
@Amir Khalid: If I recall correctly* you can get dispensation to marry a non Catholic but the
hereticnon Catholic has to promise that the kids will be raised in the Catholic Faith.*This was the situation for some friends of mine years ago
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Wow. Just watched the trailer.
sab
@Suzanne: One of the few things I hate about winter ending is that winter is french onion soup season. Seems wrong somehow to make it now. But the animals would prefer that I wait until I can open the windows to make it.
Frankensteinbeck
@dmsilev:
The wonderful Museum of Jurassic Technology in LA had, the last time I was there, a room whose walls were covered in letters sent to the observatory where Einstein worked. It was a very prestigious scientific center at the time, even without him. The letters are all crackpot dissertations like that, asking the scientists to prove the writer’s theory that, oh, there are layers of increasingly perfect beings living in the sun.
EDIT – It takes its name from its origin. Some rich creationist left a ton of money to build and support a museum containing all the evidence that humanity lived side by side with dinosaurs. The scientists the foundation hired looked at their empty rooms and said, “Okay, what else can we fill this space with?”
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
You’re a braver man than I, Gunga Spud.
;)
JPL
@dmsilev: Same! It’s the perfect recipe for French Onion Soup.
mrmoshpotato
@sab: There is no wrong time to make food. If your stomach screams, “Slap me with a stew!” in summer, well then, slap it.
Also, yummo to making a big batch of something freezable anytime. Oh convenience…
Off to look up a French onion soup recipe now. Food Wishes or Sam The Cooking Guy, hmmmm
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne: Here’s an easy recipe…except for the time it takes, though basically unsupervised. Food processor helps a lot with slicing the onions.
Supposedly, the recipe is from a now defunct department store’s (Famous Barr) lunchroom. One of my grandmas would take me there as a kiddo so I get to think of her when I make it. She was British with wit as dry as the Mohave.
ONION SOUP
3 lbs peeled onions (5 lbs unpeeled)
4 oz butter
3 qts beef stock/broth
1 cup white wine
1 bay leaf
¾ cup flour
2 tbsp paprika
1-1/2 tsp pepper
2 tsp salt
Slice onions 1/8” thick. Melt butter, place onions in it, sauté slowly for 1-1/2 hours in large soup pot.
Add all other ingredients except beef broth and wine. Saute over low heat 10 minutes more.
Add broth and wine, simmer for 2 hours.
cmorenc
@bbleh:
Hopefully it’s not Schrodinger’s cat (ref to quantum phenomenon).
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
Here in the seasonless tropics, that’s how we enjoy Western “seasonal” fare.
sab
@Sure Lurkalot: Good recipe, but triple the onions. You really can’t put too many onions in, since it is onion soup. I t can be ruined by too few onions floating in broth. Not that yours does, but always more onions
ETA Correction. I read 3 lbs and thought 3 onions. Excellent recipe without my correction. 9 pounds would be a lot too much. Ecellent recipe.
sab
@Amir Khalid: Are your climes realy seasonless? Not even wet v dry?
NotMax
@Frankensteinbeck
Hearkens back to William Herschel.
;)
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: Seasonless? Isn’t it hot and rainy, or hot but just humid?
Sure Lurkalot
@sab: Hmm, this recipe creates quite a thick soup brimming with onions. I’ve been making it for some 40 years. Hard to change your favorites!
ETA, yes, 5 lb bag of onions! Without a food processor, I’d be toast slicing them all.
Geminid
@Sure Lurkalot: The last time I made French onion soup, I sautéed onions in butter, then added beef broth and brought it to a simmer. Then I added broken up pizza crusts and grated mozzarella cheese from a bag..
I like to think of this soup as “artisanal.”
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
@sab:
Well, we do have rainy/not rainy seasons, but other than that it’s more or less the same warm humid weather all year.
Suzanne
Does anyone else love ricotta cheese with honey on crackers or baguette?
NotMax
Always a bottle of dry sherry on hand too add in for when the urge to make onion soup arises.
NotMax
@NotMax
too = to
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@WaterGirl:
It does help the medicine go down in the most delightful way.
dmsilev
@Sure Lurkalot: How in God’s name do you lose 40% of your onion weight during the peeling process? Onionskin is a term for really really thin stuff for a reason…
MomSense
Ticks already. God dammit.
bbleh
@cmorenc: oh yeah that was it. just joking.
sab
@NotMax: Yes, but don’t tell my husband. Thinks he hates sherry unless I sneak it into the food.
I don’t sneak other stuff. Ground nuts, a staple in Mexican food as a thickener, he detected and was not happy.
sab
@Suzanne: Never even tried that. I will this week.
bbleh
@MomSense: We’ve had ticks all winter, and this is west-slope Appalachia, where we have multiday hard freezes.
I really have to feel sorry — all my instincts notwithstanding — for the MAGAts in coastal areas and flood-prone inland areas and near-desert areas vulnerable to drought and and and. There is going to be a very unpleasant wakeup call for them — and even more so for their descendants — even sooner than expected.
“Oh my gosh, you mean this whole sciencey-global-warming thing might actually affect ME? I thought it was just for guys in white coats and brown people in poor countries!”
And of course, as always, we’ll have it easy, compared to, say, coastal areas of south and southeast Asia, or subtropical agricultural areas vulnerable to pests, or or or
I just reeeely hope Pakistan and India don’t have a nuclear war. That would make a
bad situation worsedisastrous situation catastrophic.RaflW
@Geminid: My great grandmother (gone before I was born) was a Grant, and some sort of cousin of Ulysses. I had that quote up for quite a while at the top of my social media. Time for it to return.
sab
@Sure Lurkalot: Yes. Three hours prep, why wouldn’t you. Repeat: your recipe looks ( beyond) fine. I just really misread it.
persistentillusion
@kalakal: I was raised Presbyterian, engaged to a non-devout Catholic. We had to go through pre-Cana counseling (which was excruciating hung-over on a Saturday morning) so that the priest could co-efficiate, vow to raise the kids Catholic. And then the priest no-showed on the day of the wedding, so we happily raised them heretic.
JAFD
@NotMax: “Need to make another port wine and applesauce and bleu cheese nut loaf in the super duper bread machine.”
Wouldst thou care to share the recipe with us peons ?
sab
Connectivity issues with my home computer to work, and spouse has the car tomorrow, so instead of tax returns I have nothing to do tomorrow but bake. And laundry.
I think I’ll take cupcakes to work Friday.
prostratedragon
An old Fannie Farmer cookbook has a recipe for chocolate cake using sour cream and melted chocolate. I’ve made it a few times and it is the best. Good with cherries. The cookbook should be in some library.
ETA that’s to [email protected] For some reason the reply links are *sometimes* not showing for me since yesterday, on both android phone and linux desktop.
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato: Do tax returns whlie baked?
(So now here’s the reply link!)
Craig
@WaterGirl: when I was a kid I taped an old recording of Led Zeppelin live on the King Biscuit Flour Hour off the local FM station. When the announcer would ID the show I’d always hear The King Biscuit Flower Hour. For years I thought it was some cool rock hippie name, like The Old Grey Whistle Test. Finally I found out it was just the sponsor’s name and that they made flour.
randal sexton
@Frankensteinbeck: that museum is an amazing crazy place. It’s a bit like a tardis. A lot bigger on the inside
prostratedragon
@Amir Khalid:
@kalakal: It might be up to the diocese. A Hindu/Catholic couple I know were denied a dispensation back in the 90s, so they had a service at a UU church.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: Could make for some interesting deductions!
Kayla Rudbek
@Amir Khalid: as long as they both agreed to raise the kids Catholic, most priests would not have a problem with it. My sibling is married to an Episcopalian and I’m godmother to my nephew. Although I am a bad/irreverent godmother, giving him picture books on Galileo already…
NotMax
@JAFD
1½ tsp. salt
1 cup water
1 tbl. butter, softened to room temp
1/3 cup bleu cheese, crumbled*
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup red Port wine
2 tbl. sugar
3 cups white bread flour
1/3 cup nuts, chopped**
2 tsp. yeast
*experimentation has shown waiting to add the cheese until the “put in any additional ingredients” beep yields best results – as dough is loose and gluey until then, may need to scrape stray splotches down the sides of the pan once or twice before the beep.
** coarse or fine chop will work; I prefer using mini food processor to chop them nearly to a powder. Original recipe calls for walnuts but whatever is on hand will do
Set bread machine on medium crust.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Sherlock Holmes managed some astute deductions while half-baked.
:)
WaterGirl
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: This is the first thing I read this morning. Thanks for the laugh.
WaterGirl
@Craig: Fun story!