Carlo Tresca Dessert Outing

Carlo Tresca was an Italian-American anarchist. A newspaper editor, orator, labor organizer, and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the 1910s, he was gunned down in NYC by a Fascist, a Stalinist, or a mafioso (all groups Tresca had vocally criticized and opposed). The most miraculous part of the story:

A eulogy at his memorial service was delivered by Angelica Balabanoff, the socialist activist and former Bolshevik. According to Lewis Coser's account of the funeral, "I was sitting near a burly Irish policeman who clearly didn't understand a word of Balabanoff's fierce Italian oratory. But at her climax he burst into tears."

Today my grandmother (visiting for a good while!), my friend C., and I went to Cocoa Bar in Park Slope. I helped eat Peanut Butter Explosion and Oreo Cookie, two of their three vegan cakes. It was good, but I'm not used to so much sugar. Short rise, steep crash. Feeling better now, though.

Tiny Mix Tapes published my fevered review of Zwischenwelt's album Paranormale Aktivität today. I have to be possessed to write a music review. Hope it happens again. Still need a home for my review of Young Adult. Any takers?

Vegan Dinner for Two! #1

My friend came over last night to cook bean burgers. She baked some brownies which narrowly missed the vegan mark. Luckily for our sweet teeth, I'd made a chocolate cheezecake using a recipe from a book my parents gave me for Christmas, My Sweet Vegan. I'd put up the recipe, but I'm not feeling motivated right now. I couldn't find vegan graham crackers, so I made my own using this recipe.

I used a little bit of Tofutti, but most of the cream cheeze I made from scratch using this recipe. So much work! It's obscenely rich and chocolate-y.

The burgers were my standard recipe which I'm too lazy to link to. To go with those I baked some rolls using this recipe. Also blended up some cashews, avocado, vegetable broth, and cilantro for a spread. Yum!

The "#1" in the title of this post is a bit of magical thinking. If there's a first, there's gotta be a second. Who else wants to make dinner with me?

Oh yeah, Tiny Mix Tapes is gonna be publishing my comic, A Thousand K.s. Here's "Loneliness."

CORRECTION: Not pictured (because consumed before photo shoot), sweet potato fries.

Ignorance Cake Challenge

Last night I decided to bake a cake instead of read for class. This is the second cake I've ever baked, and I did it without a recipe. I had a vague notion that tofu could be used for the "cream cheeze" frosting. Needless to say, this cake is not as good as something you could make from a tested recipe, so I'm not going to bother posting a recipe. Not that I could remember it anyway. There's flour, oil, a batch of chocolate soup, cocoa, sugar, tofu, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, baking powder, cornstarch, almond milk, confectioner's sugar. It's a goddamn mess. It's super dense but not super chocolate-y or super sweet. That's probably a bad thing. But I had a lot of fun! I advocate messing around in the kitchen if you're procrastinating and have a little bit of disposable income.

First layer: