Forget new years resolutions and have some cake

Aaron took some pictures of cakes I've made, so I'll share a few. I love it when birthdays come around and I have an excuse to make one of these. They're a labor of love for those I love.
I'm a bit of a one-trick-pony when it comes to cakes because I find it difficult to stray away from my love for chocolate ganache frosting. I'm not sure if I can even call it frosting, it's just dark chocolate melted with cream. Here are a few photos of when I constructed a peanut butter chocolate ganache cake for my friend Jason. It had 3 layers of chocolate cake and a crispy peanut butter cookie layer. To glue it all together I used homemade peanut butter cup filling combined with whipped cream (so it would be spreadable), then ganache on the outside. I obviously don't shy away from making it RICH. This is Aaron's favorite cake I've made so far.
I think my favorite may be the hazelnut cake I did for my cousin Jenn. Aaron took about 2 bites and was done, it was so rich: chocolate cake painted with hazelnut syrup, vanilla custard, hazelnut cookie layer, and of course ganache. I've probably done around 8 variations on the ganache cake this year using white or chocolate cake, almonds, pistachios, macadamias, dulce de leche, raspberry coulis, coconut custard, dacquois, fresh raspberries, and caramelized bananas.
I'm not going to post a bunch of recipes (but anyone's welcome to ask for ones they're interested in), but here's the link to the chocolate ganache cake recipe I love and use for the basis of most of these. And by the way, Aaron recently discovered how delicious this type of cake is when you heat up your slice before eating it, and the chocolate gets all melty. I highly recommend it.

Palace of Fine Arts

Nikkor 12-24 @22mm, f/22, 30sec

Nikkor 12-24 @24mm, f/22, 10sec

Fort Point

Nikkor 12-24 @12mm f/4, 2.5 sec

Nikkor 12-24 @17mm f/22, 1 sec

Nikkor 12-24 @14mm f/4, 2.5 sec

Oh muh goodness, it's Christmas.

The only thing more fun than Christmas as a kid is Christmas with your kids. Seth had some priceless one-liners this year. Maybe he's just funny to his parents, but the kid cracks me up. Everytime he opened a gift he exclaimed "Oh muh goodness!" Here is a video montage of our Christmas.


Classic Ada at the park on Christmas Eve:

Ho ho ho

Seth: "I wanna ga-bage man, an a ga-bage twuck, and an etsdavayda...ya." (said at light speed in about 1.5 seconds)
Santa: "?"
Lindsay: "A garbage man with his truck, and an excavator."
Santa: "anything else?"
Seth: "and a boowdoza"

Winter tree (night)

Nikkor 12-24 @12mm, f/14, 30 seconds

Wind N Sea

Nikkor 12-24 @12mm, f/22, 1 second

My wife says this is a Rutman look on her face...

A Goodbye

A couple weekends ago we attended the funeral for my last surviving grandparent, "Grammy" as she liked to be called. Alhough she just recently passed, Alzheimer's disease took the woman I knew away several years ago. Her funeral was like a subdued family reunion where we were glad we could get together and talk about our memories. A few of mine:

• She had a terrific belly laugh and loved the Reader's Digest jokes.
  
• She seemed to think most ailments were related to GI regularity. I don't think my brothers nor I could ever show any signs of suffering in her presence whithout being asked if we had had our daily BM. I clearly remember hiding a stiff neck from her because I feared she would try to treat it with an enema.
  
• She was very outgoing and talked to EVERYONE in public (or at least it seemed like it to a shy, embarrassed kid).
  
• I loved the red, white, and blue pioneer bonnet she'd wear to 4th of July parades. I thought it was SO cool, but looking back on that, what was she thinking? When you're as pretty as she was, you can get away with a lot.

Goodbye Grammy, and thanks for the good times.

Black Friday in La Jolla

It's beginning to look like autumn/winter around here...

random dude surfing today: