Stiff Peaks

It was American day at my laundramat this afternoon and it was a blast. By the time I hauled all of my dirty sheets, towels, and clothing to the crowded locale, I was pretty hot and sweaty. I was hoping the place would be empty, since it was 11:00 a.m. on a Monday morning, but to my dismay all of the machines were taken. An elderly gentelman from Delray Beach Florida was occupying two machines, while an American woman in a skin tight tanktop and shorts (with her lovely breast tattoo on display) occupied the other two. Another gentelman, who kept more to himself with his cigarettes had the lone machine on the right while the middle machine was full, done, and no owner in sight. Of course, all I needed was one machine but I was in a predicament since there are no carts for me to put the wet clothing into. So, I had no choice but to wait, and shmooze with the folks doing laundry.

Finally, in strolled in a barefoot, tall, tan Lithuanian complete with peeling nose and a bright aqua towel slung over his shoulders. Beads of water dotted his back and I kept waiting for them to just roll right off but, in the Tel Aviv sun, they just magically absorbed into his skin. I told him that we were waiting for almost 30 minutes for him to claim his clothing, and he told me that I should have just dumped his wet clothing anywhere. Then he said that life was too short for anything but sex and swimming. The Floridian asked me if he heard the Lithuanian correctly and I said yes, he did, and went back to reading my book. The Lithuanian apologized and I told him it was okay, and that I appreciated the apology. Then I loaded in all my stuff and waited with the rest.

The good thing about putting in the laundry into the machine last is that I get pre-wearmed dryers, which means less money to dry my clothes. When the Lithuanian was finally finished with his dryer, he asked me if I was from New York. I said yes, I was, and then he walked out of the laundromat. Before he left, he turned around and said, he could tell a New Yorker from miles away because "I looked cool".

Don't know what that means but ok.

Anyway, I got my laundry all done and made it back to my apartment with plenty of time to do the rest of the things on today's to-do list. After I put everything away and remade my bed, I sat down with my recipe book and planned out my shopping and cooking. I decided to make Buggy a special cheesecake for Shavuot, especially since he can't eat any cheese that's above 5%. I was also going to make an apple pie for Buggy's Aunt, since we are going to be eating Shavuot dinner with them. As I was walking towards the Supersol, I called Buggy to check in and he warned me that all cheese products would now be 75% more expensive because of Shavuot. I was outraged - that's extortion! Had I know, I would have gone cheese shopping a few days ago! Anyway, I wasn't unhappy to find that prices for cheeses were really reasonable and I stocked up.

I'm still having issues with the whole grams, pounds, ounces conversion and so I walked out of SuperSol with 6 tubs of light cream cheese and 5 tubs of 5% sour cream. I got home and started working on the apple pie, which took me no time at all to get into the over. Then, I sat down with my cheesecake recipe and the internet and tried to figure everything out. Turns out, I overestimated ingredients by 4 tubs of cream cheese and 2 1/2 tubs of sour cream. But, since the expiration date isn't for another few weeks, I'm hoping to use it in other recipes for Buggy.

Now, I have to admit, I'm a bit distracted these days. and so by the time I finished separating out the whites from the yolks I forget that I was supposed to whip the whites up first. Of course, I started with the yolks and before cleaning the beaters, went to work on whipping up the whites. I kept whipping and whipping and whipping and no stiff peaks! So, I did what I always do when I mess up with cooking, I called Mom. She told me to throw out the whites and start again because there was no way they would form stiff peaks! Oy, what a waste of 5 yolks and 5 egg whites!

Well, I finally finished the new batter and then had to figure out the oven conversion. See, this recipe calls for 12 minutes at 500 degrees F and then 50 minutes at 250 degrees F. But, my oven works on Celsius only and so I had to do that conversion first. I enlisted Buggy's help for that because my Internet went down and I couldn't access my favorite conversion site. Sadly, it took more than 6 hours to bake 2 cheesecakes! I really hope Buggy likes them so that I'll feel like the time was all worth it.

Tomorrow is going to be a quiet day and I'm hoping to be able to get to the Ministry of Students before I have to pack and get to Jerusalem for Shavuot. I'm thinking about staying up Shavuot night, Buggy is defnitely going to stay up the whole time but he knows what he's going to do. I don't think 7 hours of Hebrew lecturers is going to work for me. We'll see - I can at least start by going to one of the lectures.