It’s pouring down rain today. As it is late fall/early winter in New York City, this isn’t exactly a rare occasion. It rains in New York for three-quarters of the year, and the months of November and December tend to be more water-logged than most. One would think that would mean we’d all be experts at traversing the streets in downpours by now. One would be wrong, clearly, so here are some tips and tricks for not pissing the soaked girl in the purple wool coat off to the homicidal point.

1. A fallen umbrella is not a car accident. It does not require slowing down, it does not require rubber-necking, and it definitely doesn’t require both of those things at 8:40 am when two trains have just emptied out at the World Trade Center site. Move. Walk. Please.
2. Golf umbrellas are great for when you’re sheltering several people in an open air space like, say, a golf course. Golf umbrellas are horrible for when you’re using it solo in an extremely densely populated area. Get a smaller umbrella for the commute, all of you. The head you keep ramming into thanks you.
3. The usage of an umbrella of any size increases your space requirements. Keep this in mind, and other pedestrians’ hair won’t get caught on your umbrella, thus making you both late for work.

This public service announcement is brought to you by the fact that I’ve been at work for two and a half hours, and my feet are still wet.

What the hell-ass, people. Kate Harding says it more eloquently than I could, but let’s take a look at the facts:

1. Roman Polanski drugged and raped a thirteen year old child both vaginally and anally.
2. She testified that despite being drugged, she said no several times.
3. He pled guilty and then fled the country.
4. Roman Polanski drugged and raped a child. Oh, did I say that already?

Frankly, I don’t give a shit that the man is an acclaimed director. I thought The Pianist was good too, people. I think he’s done some good work artistically. I also think his crimes are inexcusable, and I’m disgusted by the tide of public opinion in his favor.

I have to wonder: how many of these artists would feel the same way if this had happened to their teenaged son or daughter? Would it be all good because the rapist was an artiste? Somehow I doubt that.

We began with the goal to bake Smitten Kitchen’s Pound Cake. As you can see, this is a cake with a hell of a lot of steps I’m normally not willing to make. From the outset, I’d already made adjustments – cake flour sifted once instead of AP flour sifted three freaking times, amaretto liqueur instead of cognac – but I fully intended to do everything else by the book.

Ahahaha. Yeah.

The first crisis came when I preheated the oven and discovered that oh, hey, it was smoking. So it went off, I put my sifted dry ingredients aside, took the racks out and scrubbed the bottom. Put the racks back in, went back to the recipe.

Break 8 eggs trying to separate four of them before finally decided to fuck this shit and just put the eggs in whole rather than beating the whites and adding them to the batter at the end.

Despite all this crap, the cake actually turned out really well – moist with a delicate crumb and a rich lemon-amaretto flavor. Definitely a keeper.

Fuck This Shit Cake (Or, Lemon-Amaretto Pound Cake, if you insist)

2 C cake flour, sifted
1/2 t baking powder
Sea salt
1/2 lb butter, softened (2 sticks)
3/4 C + 2 T sugar
4 eggs
1 T amaretto liqueur
zest of 1 lemon

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder and a generous pinch of salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter, then add sugar and beat until blended. Add eggs and beat until smooth.
4. Add amaretto and lemon zest.
5. Beat in dry ingredients in batches. I did two batches, because I’m essentially lazy that way.
6. Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake. The length of time will depend on your pan – the original recipe called for 35-45 minutes, but it took closer to 50-60 minutes in my silicone pan.

Later today I plan to make a raspberry-balsamic sauce to pour over the cake. I’m going to assume I’ll meet with less disaster this time.