journal for 2003-08-25

the giant pancake

Gloria and I watch a lot of Food TV, and one of the shows we’ll watch now and then is Tyler’s Ultimate. Tyler Florence goes to different places in Europe and America looking for different takes on some given dish, and then he makes his own version. A while ago, he did a show on pancakes, and one of the people whom he visited made a giant fluffy apple pancake. It was the size of a pie.

We decided that we had to make it.

On Saturday we went over to the west-end Allentown gym (our first time there) and I got in a morning workout. We drove out to Cracker Barrel and had an awesome breakfast, then to Valley Forge to visit Jenn, Keegan, and Dalton. We hung out, watched some Looney Tunes, and played Memory with Thomas the Tank Engine cards. (Memory is a fine game.)

After leaving Jenn’s, we went over to the King of Prussia mall and did some window shopping. I looked at Apples, Gloria looked at girly things, we both had some gelato and a cookie, and then we looked for giant pans in which to make the giant pancake. We found a lot of nice expensive ones, but the one Gloria liked best wasn’t there. Finally, we decided to try the Macy’s on the way home. There, we found a trio of cast iron skillets for ten bucks. Woo!

Sunday, we chilled out. Gloria got up wicked early and did the laundry, which was OK with me, since I slept in. We had some tasty breakfast, went to Mass (at Saint Anne’s; it was pretty darn good), watched Friday the 13th part V and VI, and walked around downtown. Around six, Katie and Jerome came over and Gloria got to making the pancake. Katie and Jerome and I played some Bushido Blade (what an awesome game!) and hung out until the mighty pancake was ready.

In the end, we couldn’t quite figure out how to get it to be totally firm at the bottom. (I wonder if we shouldn’t have gotten something thinner than cast iron, now!) Even a little too wet, it was darn fine. I think we’re going to have to give it another go sometime, because once perfected, it will be awesome. Giant apple pancake!

I took pictures, and will post them later.

We watched Final Destination 2, and it was alright. It was probably about as good as the first one, which is surprising. We also played some Mario Golf, and it was pretty darn good! I’m hoping to get some of the cooler courses unlocked before we take it back. The first one is fine, but it’s not very Mario-tastic.

apple stuff

At OSCON one night, I was hanging out in the Rendezvous lounge. Some party was going on, so the place was pretty dead. One of the other attendees asked me to make sure no one stole his laptop (an HP, I think) while he ran upstairs. When he got back, we started talking about laptops, and I got to ranting about how much I like knave. Pretty soon I was giving him a tour of MacOS X and the Apples that were set up at the lounge. I felt pretty zealous, but I don’t think I came across too insane.

I got an email from him this weekend; he bought a 12” PowerBook! I felt like I won. Now, if only Apple would give me a referral bonus!

I won a cheap cheap copy of Keynote on eBay, which is nice. I felt weird using my “borrowed” copy, so I can now return to normalcy. I should also now get to work putting together some presentations on… um… stuff.

Written on August 25, 2003