I spent a lot of time on this blog trying to embrace a niche, or rather, finding a niche that would embrace me. I didn’t succeed. I felt like if I could find some focus, I would develop more of a direction in my life. I thought by now that I’d be blogging about graduate school, an engagement or maybe a move overseas - but none of those things happened and there’s a good reason, I didn’t want any of those things. At least, not right now.

But, I feel like I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I’m OK with not knowing what I want to do with my life. I felt that icy fear of uncertainty: what is life like after college? Will he marry me? How much money will I make? Should I go back to school? And then I got really lazy, relying on the decisions of my then-boyfriend and constantly worried about how it would affect my life. I worried a lot about what would happen to me, but I never really did anything about it. I blogged half-heartedly, intermittently wanting to do more but unmotivated to start. So, after years of freaking out and being deeply dissatisfied, I’m now happy with where I am. It’s an intermission in my life where I am free to do as little or as much as I want, and I don’t want to waste a moment of it.

So, allow me to re-introduce myself:

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Florida’s humidity makes it impossible for buttercream frosting to exist outside of the refrigerator without the components separating and melting. I had mild success with a different recipe that calls for boiling flour with milk which is later added to butter and sugar. Still, only mild success.

A new blog redesign is forthcoming.

P.S. Harry Potter “dies” but he lives in the end. Voldemort kills himself accidentally and some other stuff happens. And I didn’t even read the book or actively seek out spoilers. I sympathize with true Potter fans that are trying to maintain the ending as a surprise.

I am not, what you may call, a “good cook” by any standard but I am in the slow process of learning and improving the little I know. I tend to make a lot of huge mistakes and I tend to burn myself. Badly. I have, on occasion, stuck my bare hands in the oven to retrieve a hot pan and only after setting the pan on the stove do I realize that is not the thing to do. I think I inherent this trait from my grandmother, a short, plump Puerto Rican woman who has spent the majority of her married years in front of the stove cooking rice and beans and is practically immune to fire.

Every Tuesday, my sister and I meet to cook a meal: an entree, sides and dessert. We take turns each week on choosing the recipes and making the meals. This week, it was my turn and I decided to adapt two recipes: Avocado Spicey Burgers from 1000 Recipes (a book which has disappeared from all internet queries) and Dulce de Leche Brownies via David Lebovitz.

My sister and I decided to omit the cumin and peppers to make the spicy burger more tolerable to our tastes and instead used onion, coriander and garlic for seasoning the patties. The avocado mix (the recipe of which can be found through flickr) can be a delicious and easy addition to sandwiches, burgers and salads.

The Dulce de Leche brownies turned out fabulously and surprisingly well. I made a couple of substitutions in the recipe since I was primarily using ingredients I had on hand–I used Nesquik cocoa powder in place of unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (because that’s how we do in Harlem), almond extract instead of vanilla and omitted the walnuts. I would consider adding walnuts or pecans the next time to offset the richness and sweetness. The brownies were very moist and stayed that way the next day (which is more than I can say for the brownie mix in a box). I received a lot of praise from the family, the boyfriend and the coworkers which has really inspired me.

There’s hope for me yet.

I’ve upgraded Wordpress to 2.2, a process that was full of panic attacks and confusion. I installed Widgets (a feature that really sounds like the name of a long-lost Teletubby) and while everything appears to work smoothly on the site, I’ve already encountered numerous problems with losing half or all of my draft entries. It’s this aspect of blog upkeep which I loathe, the “home improvements” if you will. While I think Wordpress is fairly easy to install and maintain for a variety of computer users, I don’t think the plugins or the upgrading process is simple to understand. I just want to upload and have it work.