Not every foodstuff that passes through Annie's Test Kitchen comes out a tasty success. Some things never live up to their promise, and some things really should have been obvious that they were doomed to fail. I found a recipe for gluten free cinnamon baked donuts that were made primarily with coconut flour. I should have known better even to attempt them. Coconut flour is so dry and gritty, and really terrible in large quantities. At least I had the forethought to halve the recipe before I started, so I didn't end up with a giant pile of cinnamon dog biscuits, only a modest plateful. After they turned out horrible, underbaked and tasting of wet sawdust, I was glad I was more interested in getting good pictures than chasing Athena away from the eggs, to protect the integrity of my worksite. When she tried to roll the whole eggs off of my notebook where the recipe was written, I grabbed them and carried them with me as I went for the camera. I put them back exactly where they were, but she wasn't as interested in batting them to the ground as she was before the camera came out. Once they were cracked, the little weasel definitely wanted a taste of raw egg. (It's what weasels like best.) After the recommended 8-12 minutes of baking, I ate almost one and a quarter of the original product, and fed the rest of the second one to the dogs. I left the other seven "donuts" (more like cookies in cupcake wrappers) in the oven while it cooled, and reheated some leftovers for my dinner. They came out more hard-baked than before, but I haven't had the nerve to try another. I'm not going to bother posting the recipe. I will fiddle with alternate flours, maybe use tapioca starch and a dash of almond meal, to see whether I can make a softer product. Then, and only then, I will share a set of instructions.
Since we were barely twenty-somethings, my man has been taking me on "roads" that terrify me. He will take any vehicle off-road, whether it was intended for such driving or not. Back when we first started dating, I was driving a 1979 Datsun 210 coupe that was a hand-me-down from my stepmother. I let my then-boyfriend drive it up in the mountains above Boulder, trying to find Jamestown or Boulder Heights or someplace on an alternate route that didn't actually reach the correct destination. In fact, it didn't really reach any destination. At some point, the bumpy, unpaved, four-wheel drive jeep track just fell off the side of the mountain. The road simply disappeared in a tumble of rocks and tan dirt, as gravity took over. There wasn't a whole lot of room to turn around, and driving in reverse wasn't an option. The man had to make a twenty point turn to get headed back the right direction to get out of there, and I was absolutely unable to remain in the car while this happened. I made him let me out, and I walked about forty feet away and leaned on a big rock while I hyperventilated and shook in terror. I was sure that I was about to lose both my boyfriend and my car to the edge of the mountain, and I wasn't sure which was going to be harder to explain, his possible death to the mountain rescue crew, or the damage to the car to my father. We managed to get out of there without injury to ourselves or my vehicle, but that was just the opening salvo in a lifetime of scaring the living crap out of Anne in the passenger seat of a whole series of cars. I hate four-wheeling. I hate it, I hate it. But I keep getting taken for a ride.
I've been back on the really bad schedule lately, staying up until three every morning. So this morning, when my man called me at nine, demanding that I check my email, I was very groggy and susceptible to suggestion. He sent me a link to a mining claim he has wanted to buy for about three years: five acres in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, that doesn't actually have a road leading to it. I have recognized his legitimate need for a GFO property (he likes three-letter acronyms, so it's going to be his "G F's Off" property), and we have just been looking for the right place at the right price. The last time he mentioned it, I told him he could have it only if we could have a purple helicopter to get to it. But today, he called me to say that it had a 50% price reduction, and he's ready for it right now! This is what happens to me when I'm sleep deprived. I said yes. Once I had a chance to wake up with a little coffee, I studied the "road" that runs near the property (but doesn't come closer than about three-quarters of a mile from the edge of the claim) on line. When I zoom in super-close with the satellite view, I think I'm seeing another rough dirt track. I can never escape these damned things. He sent me a topographic view to make the case that the road leading in is sort of level, but that isn't comforting me like he hoped it would. But I made a promise that he could have any land he could afford up there, in the hopes that it would let me win the argument that we should actually live in town when the time comes. I'm going to try to stay calm when we drive out to view it. And then I'm going to demand to be taken to the nearest watering hole, where I can drink copious amounts of alcohol to calm myself down after letting my man drive me on yet another "road." I can't believe I'm volunteering for this.
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