“I’m a hot knife, he’s a pat of butter”

Song: Hot Knife
Artist: Fiona Apple
Album: The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do

Why is this song so awesome? Well, there’s:

- the sweet, goofy conceit of the lyrics; e.g. “I’m a hot knife, he’s a pat of butter”,
- the straightforward minimalism that makes its point but allows the song to move and flow,
- the addictive rhythm, especially of the vocals (danceable, no doubt),
- the rounds and vocal interplay between Fiona and her sister Maude,
- her excited, feisty yelps,
- the weird fact that, for once,  she’s singing about the joys of love, and not its trappings and complications,
- the gift of four vocal parts to choose from when singing along,
- the way all four vocal parts merge at the end into a wonderful, semi-chaotic chorus,
- the unabashed, unmistakable joy, brightness, and confidence, not just of the tone and tempo, but of Fiona’s state of being. There’s her girlish admissions– “he makes my heart a CinemaScope screen showing a dancing bird of paradise”; her inhibition– “he excites me!…. I get feisty!”; her calm, smooth assurance– “you can relax around me”; and her playful and subtle sauciness– “maybe he could teach me something, maybe I could teach him too”, and
- the way the song (and album) ends succinctly on a single, unadorned syllable.

Surely one of the most favorite things I’ve heard in some time. So good.

Olive bread + cat on the counter

Not too many photos are being taken this quarter. Bread and rolls aren’t the most photogenic things. There’s some olive bread though, doesn’t look too bad. I commandeered production for personal reasons.

Not too bad, but not too sexy either.

Now that that’s done, time for some photos of kitty wandering about on the counter:

Pineapple cheesecake + almond meringue sandwiches

With ladyfinger border, obviously. Oops, didn’t get any photos of it sliced. Would’ve been messy anyhow. Sponge on the bottom, then pineapple, then cheese filling, then the rest of the pineapple. It was a fluffy cheesecake, not a smooth one with clean slices. I’d think that’s because of the soft peak meringue that was folded in to the mixture. (Edit: after speaking with a classmate this morning, it’s also quite likely I creamed too much air into the cheese mixture, which is why it wasn’t so smooth; it wasn’t so loose, it supported everything, but it sounds like you mix just until blended, and I remember definitely paddling it longer than that.) A little sweet, it could probably have done with only about 60% of the sugar. The ladyfingers had to be re-done, because I left them in maybe a minute too long. They were done when I checked on them the first time. Darn. But I wasn’t about to have a dark, shriveled, ugly border on the cake.

That would be an interesting appendage to have. You can snack on it, or you smash it into people, à la pie-in-the-face, at any moment, and then regenerate it.

Everything looks so different at night, like a different identity. It looks more serious.

I had extra whites from making buttercream, and extra buttercream from the cake, so for utilization’s sake, I made some almond meringue discs to hold the chocolate french buttercream. That, and I wanted to use my new mixer again, and to make one last thing before spring break ends and I have little time to tool around in the kitchen.
What’s with the dang shadows?

A bit better.

And with that, I believe I feel a yawn coming.

Yes, it’s time to go.