Food & Fascism: The California Roll

Posted on August 23, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

Well, Trump the human sack of pus, has taken over D.C. with his Gestapo of dickless bullies and he’s got his eyes on Chicago next. He rolled out the red carpet for War Criminal Putin, of all people. Standing among world leaders for a photo op he turned to draw their attention to an enormous picture of himself after he supposedly got his ear shot. They all looked as uncomfortable and depressed as everybody else. Then he’s in the Oval Office with the wormy suck up World Cup leader, talking about what an amazing athlete he is and how great he looks in shorts.

The insanity just keeps piling on. Everything feels pretty hopeless.

And then, along comes Gavin Newsom!

Now, this guy isn’t the greatest. I mean, remember how he sat down with the abhorrent Charlie Kirk and was all chummy? But, unlike the rest of the Democrats, he’s got Trump’s number.

Seriously, aren’t we all sick of the whole “When they go low, we go high” crap? That’s what it looks like from my point of view. The country is burning down around them and Democrats in Congress are writing strongly worded letters to no one and nowhere.

We need leaders who are going to fight! Fight like hell! If they don’t like the way Newsom is doing it, which is hilarious and probably the only thing keeping a lot of us sane right now, then do something else. Just. Do. Something!

I honestly believe that Trump has no intention of allowing Congress to be taken by Democrats in the midterms. He will claim the election was rigged and not allow new Democratic Congressmen to be seated. I wouldn’t be surprised if his Gestapo starts arresting Democratic leaders.

It’s going to get really bad, before it gets better.

But, anyway, in honor of Gavin Newsom and his awesome Trump Trolling Team, I give you…the California Roll.

This was the funniest thing we’ve made so far. We had a great time making terrible sushi rolls. But in the end, not too bad. First came the debate. All the pictures of sushi rolls we found have the seaweed wrap on the outside. But according to our recipe, the rice was supposed to be on the outside. We couldn’t tell what was going on at the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival, because it appears they rolled them up in little balls of batter before frying. Here’s a picture:

Sea World calls it Tempura-battered sushi. And the description says that it’s a “Fried California Roll with Wasabi Cream and Thai Chili Sauce.” Sure it is.

Okay so, I couldn’t find a recipe for a tempura fried California roll. So I went with this recipe for plain old fried California roll and just used tempura batter mix instead of the bread crumb method. We followed the instructions a little bit. We left out the spicy mayo and sauce in the roll. Honestly, I can’t remember why. Did we just miss that part? No matter. It probably would have ruined it. And we used already prepared sticky rice found at Publix. Big mistake. It wasn’t very sticky at all.

So, we began to roll. The nori seaweed sheets were much bigger than we expected, so Hubs had this idea that we’d cut them in half. Another mistake. When I got my fillings in there and tried to roll it up, I realized the seaweed sheet was not big enough. So, I slapped the other half on there and rolled again. Here’s mine.

I was laughing so hard. There was no way this could be dipped in tempura batter and fried. The rice would fall right off and you can see the avocado is already spilling out.

Here are Hubs’ rolls.

So, clearly this wasn’t going to work. Time for a great idea! Make it work! We decided to just wrap another nori sheet over our rolls. So, we got double seaweed.

Ta-da! Sushi roll! Then we fried them up. It didn’t go quite as planned. But there was some tempura batter on them.

We topped them with that fake wasabi stuff you get at Publix. But it came out in globs instead of a nice drizzle. And for the Thai chili sauce, we added a bit of honey to our already purchased sriracha. Here’s what we ended up with.

That’s artistry right there.

Anyway, then we sliced them and what do you know? We actually made sushi!

Those globs at the bottom are a sliced of avocado and a hunk of fake crab, battered in tempura and fried. They were pretty good too. This sushi was very rich. I ate most of my roll, but not all of it.

It was a fun experience and I got to use my sushi rolling mat, so there’s that. But I don’t think I’d make sushi again. You never know, though. So, I’ll keep the mat around just in case.

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Food & Fascism: Celebrating Brazil

Posted on August 13, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

And a trip to Greece.

I didn’t blog last week. I was a tad depressed. This authoritarian takeover of the United States is just so sad. A lot of people feel hopeless and helpless. I know I do.

Sometimes, I feel like the worst of it is that this regime is filled with such loathsome, stupid, moronic imbeciles. I mean, if they were smart, well-mannered people, I could understand why so many people voted for them. But they’re not. They’re ridiculous.

They look ridiculous. They talk ridiculous. They act ridiculous. It’s stunning how ridiculous these people are.

I’m sorry to say that they mirror a large portion of American society: idiots. American Idiots.

So, I didn’t blog. But we did cook. First, we turned toward Brazil, a country that arrested and jailed their shitler. Something the fuckweasels over here couldn’t be bothered to do. Hey Brazil! You go girl!

In your honor, we made galinhada. It’s a chicken and rice dish. The one at the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival looked like just a chicken thigh on top of yellow rice.

We chose to make classic galinhada. And it was fabulous!

Probably the best thing we’ve had so far. We used this recipe. We went with the optional turmeric, peas, and corn, but used regular long-grain rice instead of parboiled. We used 3 c of broth instead of 2. If I make it again, which I probably will, I’d go ahead and use 3 1/2 c of broth and cook it a bit longer to make sure the rice is tender.

This past weekend, we made baklava, something I always like to sample at food festivals. We didn’t make our own phyllo dough. That would have been hilarious, but we just weren’t up to it. And it was easy to find at Publix, in the frozen desserts section.

Sea World’s Baklava isn’t really that blurry

I thought it was going to be really complicated, but it’s not. You simply lay a sheet of phyllo down in a buttered pan, brush melted butter on it, and repeat for a total of about 10 sheets. Then you spread a mixture of nuts and cinnamon, and then five sheets with butter, more nuts, etc. And you end with about ten sheets of phyllo.

The recipe we used was not a very good one, however. For one thing, it called for a 16 oz bag of walnuts, but 4 cups of walnuts chopped finely. One bag only gave us 2 cups. So, instead of running to the store, we used a bag of pecans we had to make up the other 2 cups. I don’t think that was the problem with the result, which was very dry.

Our package of phyllo wasn’t forty sheets, like the recipe suggests, but 36. So we had top and bottom layers of 8 sheets each, instead of 10. No big deal.

The amount of nuts in ours seemed too much. And it was, like I said, dry.

It even looks dry, doesn’t it? If I ever made it again, I’d get the right amount of walnuts, for one thing and chop them a bit finer. And I’d make much more of the honey syrup. I’d pour that on until I had proper sticky baklava!

It tasted good, despite its dryness, and it was a lot of fun to make…probably because there were two of us. But we both think it would be better to just buy some baklava rather than make it again. Still…maybe…

That was it for the last couple of weeks. I hope everything is going okay with you and yours. Let’s try to get through this as best we can. I mean, seriously, it’s like the country’s being run by the Three Stooges and their friends. It has to end badly for them, right? It just has to!

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Food & Fascism: Chocolate Temptation

Posted on July 30, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

We’re at a laugh more than cry moment in the Trump Regime. South Park. Diaper Diplomacy. “There’s a minute missing on all the tapes.” But, no, there’s no minute missing in the actual tape, just the edited one the Attorney Effing General put out.

The files were created by Biden or Clinton, but Clinton’s definitely on the list. Donald Fartsalot is not on the list, but if he is, Biden put him there. But Biden didn’t release the list because…Hell nobody knows. The whole thing is a hoax anyway. Somehow they managed to imprison Ghislaine Maxwell though. (And can’t we all please just agree on a pronunciation of that child sexual predator’s first name?)

And the windmills! The windmills are the worst kind of energy. The whales! My god think of the whales. Anyway, “Don’t talk about that, talk about these other people over there.” I mean, can you get any more “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” than that?

So, in truth, we should have made popcorn. And I’m sure popcorn is available somewhere in Sea World. But popcorn isn’t one of the options during the Seven Seas Food Festival. At least, if it is, we didn’t pick it because…it’s just popcorn.

This week, we made Chocolate Temptation Cupcakes.

According to the festival, “This decadent cupcake features a chocolate base, topped with chocolate fudge icing, chocolate whipped cream, and a chocolate hard shell.”

Well, we can’t see any chocolate icing on this cupcake. And we remembered having a chocolate cupcake last time that was filled with chocolate. So that’s what we did. We used this recipe for the cupcakes, this recipe for the icing, and this recipe for the chocolate whipped topping.

We decided not to try to make the hard shell and went with Hershey’s Shell Topping from the grocery. I bought three bottles (they’re not very big) thinking I’d need a lot.

But here’s the thing. To get the hard shell to get hard, what you put it on has to be frozen. We tried putting it on right after the cupcakes were ready. No go. We refrigerated them for 30 minutes. Nope. Then we put a couple in the freezer for 30 minutes. Still no.

Here’s our final product.

And I cut it open, so you could see the filling!

These cupcakes were super delicious! We left the others without the shell topping and they didn’t need it. The only problem for me was the cupcake-to-filling ratio. Too much icing. If I made them again, I guess I’d put the icing on top and then add the whipped topping. Just like the description says.

Chocolate always makes things better. And we had icing left over so I made brownies a few days later and iced them. OMG. Best brownies ever!

I highly recommend these recipes.

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Food & Fascism: Republican Balls!

Posted on July 23, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

All that screaming about family values! And that so-called pervert Bill Clinton! Those Democrats are eating children, my god! And running a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor! They were so determined to get to the bottom of the whole Jeffrey Epstein debacle because they knew–the just knew!–that Clinton and other rich Democrats were on his list!

Release the Epstein files! Release the files so we can jail Clinton! And probably Biden and Hunter and Hillary too! Family Values! Protect the Children!

What a bunch of bullshit. Just like they were never really about fiscal responsibility, or free trade, or letting businesses run themselves, or state’s rights, or draining swamps, they were never, ever really about family values, the rule of law, or jailing child predators.

They don’t give a tiny mushroom dick about child sex trafficking. And they don’t care if we know it. That Mike Johnson has got some balls on him, putting the house on vacation early so they don’t have to vote on releasing the files. Big balls. Like…maybe, boudin balls! Crispy fried boudin balls!

These are Sea World’s Seven Seas Food Festival Boudin Balls

Supposedly, you pronounce it boo-dahn balls. Where the n is barely there. But I like to say Boh-deen balls. Like Jethro Bodine. Because the current authoritarian regime trying to authori-tate reminds me of Jethro Bodine, but without the sweetness and empathy.

We used this recipe from the kitchn for our balls. But we halved it and made thirteen. It was so complicated. We mixed up all the stuff and left it in the fridge overnight. I was surprised that it all held together in ball form for the fryer, but it did. We decided not to make our own remoulade sauce and just bought a bottle of it at the grocery.

Our boudin balls

We both thought they were really good. If we’d actually been at the food festival, we think these would have been the best thing we’d have. There are chicken livers in these balls and that’s what I tasted most. My family is from North Carolina, so I’m pretty Southern and I love fried chicken livers.

We had a bunch left over so the next day, I decided to fry those up. Instead of using the deep fryer, as we did for the balls, I just used a pot. As I was flipping them, there was a loud pop and a burst of oil! I’m lucky it didn’t hit my neck and face, but it did get on my right hand. I was really worried for a while as I treated the burn and munched on fried chicken livers. But, while I do have some blistering on my thumb, it’s looking like I survived unscathed.

As much as this recipe is a lot of work, if you’re up for it, I’d recommend it. But be very careful if you’re going to fry up some leftover livers.

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Food & Fascism: This Country is Bananas!

Posted on July 14, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

“Wait a minute. Are you people still talking about Epstein? Epstein?! That creep? With all the stuff going on right now? I made America GREAT again! And the floods, have you seen those floods? Nobody’s seen anything like it! How dare you bring up something so vile as Jeffrey Epstein?! Why, it’s disrespectful not to concentrate on IMPORTANT things right now! By the way, have you seen these moldings? Those had to be gold-leafed because you can’t find paint that looks like real gold. And you know how much I like gold. I’d slather my body in it if I could. Melania says she’d divorce me if I did that, but I don’t know. What do you think? You tell me.”

MAGA is so butt-hurt right now because Dear Leader won’t release the files. Or there are no files. Or there are files, but Obama wrote them.

If it weren’t so horrifying that this putrid sack of pus is running our country, it’d be hilarious.

What can you do? I mean, really. What can you do? You could eat. And that’s what we’re doing over here. While waiting for football season to start, we’re baking our way through what would have been our list of samples had we gone to Sea World’s Seven Seas Food Festival.

First up, we made Bananas Foster Beignets. From what I can find on the Tubes, we made the wrong ones. We used this recipe for the beignets. They don’t require yeast and are dropped into oil coming out looking like weird sea creatures. Typical beignets are rectangular. But I was lazy. I shouldn’t have been lazy.

I should note that this picture doesn’t adequately reflect our beignets. The ones here were raw in the middle. So the rest of the beignets were fried until they were really dark brown. Seriously. Really, really dark.

Maybe that’s why they were dense and rubbery. But that’s better than raw. And they were tasty! The Bananas Foster (I’m thinking that’s named after someone so I capitalized it) sauce from this recipe was lovely. I would have eaten more, but the texture was a bit off-putting. And both the recipes I looked at pointed out that this stuff should be eaten right away, so we didn’t bother saving any for later.

Then we made a cherry pound cake so that we could use up the leftover cherries from the pineapple upside down cake.

We used this recipe from All Recipes. I don’t know why I’m linking to it. You don’t want to make it. It was not good. Very dry. Really, really dry. But the icing was great. We left out the cherries and coconut (in the icing) though.

I have a great recipe from my great grandfather that is delicious. The only two differences I can find are that 1. Pa’s cake uses only 1/2 c Crisco and 1 stick of butter where All Recipes uses no butter and 1 1/2 c Crisco. And 2. Pa’s cooks at 325 instead of 350. The temperature could be the problem.

Anyway, hubs and I each managed to pick at two pieces, one after it was made and the second on the day after, and then threw it away.

Now, back to the Seven Seas Festival list, we made fish and chips! What a mess! What a gloriously fun mess!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is IMG_0296-1024x768.jpeg

We went with this recipe for “classic” fish and chips. We were hoping to replicate what you’d get in London. I think the fish turned out right, but our fries were a bit overdone. It was that last bit of broiling in the oven just before serving. I think it was too long. But they were still good.

Yes, it was all a bit bland. But that’s classic, I think. The fish tasted like fish–we went with cod. The battered coating was tasty, if not spicy. And the fried potato slices tasted like…potato.

All in all: YUM!

We used our deep fryer from T-Fal. We don’t get to do that very often. So we had a lot of fun. Makes me want to fry some more stuff.

Well, try the fish and chips (you don’t have to use a deep fryer). And if you want to try beignets, use this recipe and let me know how it turns out.

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Food & Fascism: Tipsy Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

Well, everything in the country feels upside down, inside out, and whackadoodle crazy, so let’s get drunk and make Pineapple Upside Down Cake, eh?

The Orange dirt bag got into a fake pissing war with the Ayatollah and the most terrible thing about it is that I can’t believe either one of them. I don’t believe Iran’s nuke capabilities have been “obliterated,” and I don’t believe they weren’t. I believe that both Trump and Iran knew exactly what the other was doing and that’s why Iran’s nuke stuff was no doubt trucked away before the bombing. And Trump knew all about Iran’s little piss poor attack on our base in Qatar.

You can’t believe anything out of the Trump administration. Not. One. Thing. And you certainly can’t believe anything out of Iran, or even Israel these days. You can’t believe anything at all so just relax, have a rum, and bake something.

First, I missed last week. We made Lobster Mac n Cheese. The one at Sea World’s Seven Seas Food Festival would have been served to us in a waffle cone. We decided that was silly, so we 86’d that. (Very much like we’d like to 86 Trump!)

We used this recipe from Spend with Pennies and chose to use Gruyere for our third cheese, along with the cheddar and parmesan. The recipe says it’s “extra creamy” and well, it is, to its detriment.

On the plus side, you might be surprised, but yes, half a pound of lobster meat is plenty for 16 ounces of noodles. We didn’t hold any back to put on the top, though. We wanted it all mixed in. The dish was rich and full of lobster flavor.

But on the negative side, there wasn’t any other flavor but cream. This was more like Lobster Mac n Cream. When I had some leftover, I added more cheddar cheese and some garlic salt and it was delicious! So, if I ever make this again, I’ll use cheddar and parmesan only.

Give it a try!

So, this weekend (I’m writing this on Sunday), we made the Pineapple Rum Upside Down Cake. We couldn’t be sure if Sea World used Pineapple rum, or if it was just regular rum. Since we already had some Bacardi dark rum from the rum cake, we just used that.

We modified this recipe from Creative Culinary, mostly in that we didn’t want to use our cast iron skillet. Too heavy, and too much work just getting it down from the cabinet. We’ve always had pineapple upside down cake in pans. So that’s what we used: a 13×9″ cake pan.

The other thing we changed was the pecans. Pecans are listed in the ingredients for the topping, but never mentioned again. Presumably, we were supposed to put them amongst the pineapple rings somehow. 6 pecans. I bought a bag of pecans…for six. And when it never said what exactly to do with them, and never using them in pineapple upside down cake before, we decided to just ignore them. (I’ll nibble on them as a healthy snack.)

I’d also like to note that pecans aren’t included on any of the pictures on the recipe page.

What were we supposed to do with them?

Anyway, the cake came out just like the picture. Dense. Very dense. It was sweet. I thought too sweet, hubs thought just right. But the cake part was not palatable.

So, I don’t recommend that particular recipe. I’m pretty sure I used to use the one in the Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook Tenth Edition from August 1989! Nom nom.

Well, another week ahead in Fascist USA. I wish you all luck. I suggest chocolate every day. It helps.

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Food & Fascism: Chicken Tikka Masala

Posted on June 18, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

Well, our Feckless Fart-Filled Fascist President had a no good, very bad, terrible, squeaky parade last Saturday. Then he made a complete ass of himself at the G7 Summit. So, naturally, to make himself feel strong and powerful again, he’s going to start World War 3.

MAGA has gone full Real Housewives lately. I mean, what the hell, Pus Twat Tucker Carlson was having none of Creepy Psycho Face Ted Cruz in a recent interview. It’s like, the children are screaming, the children are screaming, and Farter Fuhrer is figuring maybe he’s just going to do all the work himself.

It’s not like the ass hat listens to anyone who disagrees with him, anyway.

So, in celebration of Donald Asshole Trump being an enormous fat chicken (and because it was next on our list) we made Chicken Tikka Masala.

We’d like to think that our CTM is the same as what they served at the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival which we avoided by making all of these things at home. But who knows?

We used this recipe.

I have to say, I didn’t think I was going to like this. I chose it not realizing it qualified as a “curry.” I’m not sure anybody really knows what a curry is. It seems like it’s any dish that has a few spices that someone has deemed “curry-ish.” Nowhere in the name “tikka masala” is curry hinted at.

The point being that I have tasted a curry dish at some food festival or other and I did not like it.

But, if chicken tikka masala is curry, then call me a curry lover. This dish was our best yet. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that garam masala was easy to find in the spice section of Publix.

The only things we did differently from the recipe were that we used regular old rice, not basmati. And we only had smoked paprika, so despite the recipe saying not to use that in the curry sauce, we did.

Is that why it tasted so good? Maybe.

And the naan bread was yummy–also readily available at Publix. I love that our local stores are so diverse, don’t you?

Do you remember that episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Andy ended up at several people’s houses for dinner because of Goober’s mistake and they all served spaghetti? Remember how they talked about oregano as if it were some strange foreign spice?

That’s what I was like looking for garam masala and naan.

So, would I eat this again? Well…sure. If I happen to find myself in a restaurant and chicken tikka masala sounds like the best option, I’ll go for it. But it was complicated to make so the chances of me going through all of that trouble again are slim.

But don’t let that stop you. Give it a try. It’ll take your mind of the downfall of our democracy for a while.

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Food & Fascism: The Strawberry Pouffe

Posted on June 11, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

Well, this week the United States hit the downward slope towards fascism. And I’d like to explain something to people who think that Trump supporters, the Fox News bimbos, the Mar-a-Lago Stepford Wives, etc. want fascism. It’s not that they want fascism. They don’t know what fascism is. What they want is to feel powerful and important. And they’re sick people who feel powerful and important when they can hurt other people.

MAGAts get off on chaos and violence.

Let me make this perfectly clear: ALL people of good conscience and empathy, kindness and courage, and of strong moral fabric have already turned away from Trump and this new American Fascist Party.

Anyone who still stands with what is happening here is vile and beyond reach. So stop trying to explain fascism to them. They don’t care. They’re giddy right now.

Sure, when this is all over, they’ll pretend they were never part of it, never supported it, or more likely, they’ll just crawl back under their rocks and not say anything.

This Saturday our country will suffer through Trump’s Ego Parade. Our humiliation will be complete. I don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know what’s going to happen or how we’ll get out of this, or when.

But I do know this: Donald Trump, at his core, is nothing but a Strawberry Pouffe.

This week, our pick from the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival offerings was, as you’ve guessed, the Strawberry Pouffe. I’m going to say right up front that we didn’t actually have anything like what Sea World was offering.

Here’s a picture of what they had:

So, that looks like a biscuit with some strawberries and blackberries in it, drizzled with something creamy, and with a dollop of whipped cream on top.

That’s not what we made. This is what we made:

The only recipe I could find that sounded good was on Tik Tok and it went something like this:

Frozen puff pastry, sliced into rectangles
Brush egg wash on top: 1 egg mixed with 1 tsp milk
Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes (hah!)
Let cool slightly (whatever that means)
Slice in half lengthwise

1 cup whipping cream
Add 1/4 cup powdered sugar
Whisk to stiff peaks

Spread strawberry jam on one side of puff pastry
Pipe whipped cream on top
Layer with slices of fresh strawberry
Put top of pastry on and sprinkle with powdered sugar

Clearly we added another layer of whipped topping. We did it because we only made two pouffes and had a LOT of whipped cream. And it took a good 15-20 minutes to cook the puff pastry.

So, the strawberry pouffe was mildly sweet, messy to eat, and not worth all the trouble. I’m not saying I’d never eat it again. I mean, if I had a freshly cooked puff pastry, some already sliced up strawberries and some of that whipped topping you spray from a can, sure I might slap one together for breakfast or brunch. …maybe.

Well, that was the strawberry pouffe. All fluff, no substance, very little taste, and it poops itself when under pressure. Just like that piece of shit Donald Trump.

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Food & Fascism: Boston Cream Cheesecake

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

You know that flag with the coiled snake that says “Don’t Tread on Me,” right? Well, that’s called the Gadsden Flag. Christopher Gadsden, a member of the Continental Congress, designed the flag in 1775 during the American Revolution. The flag, at that time, represented true freedom. Freedom from tyranny. Specifically the tyranny of Great Britain. The flag flew on the masts of some of our ships during the war. And for many years, the Gadsden Flag was a symbol of the Revolution.

But, did you know that all of that changed when the Southern States started using the flag during our Civil War? The Union felt that the South had “tainted” the flag. In response, they created their own banners showing snakes being stomped on or torn apart by eagles. And, being the whiny, titty babies they were, the Confederate States of America decided to adopt a different flag so they wouldn’t get their feelings hurt anymore.

Thus, the Southern Cross.

The flag that says “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

So, how do you suppose the South “tainted” the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag? Simple. For them, and for everyone who flies that stupid flag now, it means: Don’t Tread on Me, But Let Me Tread on Anyone I Want.

And, speaking of the Revolutionary War…Boston Cream Pie!

First of all, Boston Cream Pie is a cake. Not a pie. Apparently, back in the day, the words were used interchangeably because cakes and pies were baked in the same tins or some-such. Anyway, as you may know, it’s a cake with a layer of custard in the middle and topped with chocolate.

Most people say it was created by a chef in the Parker House Hotel in Boston. And I’ve read that the Boston Cream Doughnut was the official doughnut of Massachusetts* and that it came before the pie/cake. But I think Wikipedia says the pie/cake came first.

I prefer the doughnut, honestly.

But, enter the Boston Cream Cheesecake! The next item on our Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival list.

We used this recipe and what fun!

I have no recollection of making a cheesecake ever in my life. But I had a spring-form pan and I think maybe I have made one. But as far as I can remember, this was my first. And it was definitely my first time piping ganache! It was going really well, at first, and hubs was trying to turn the cake for me, when all of the sudden, a huge glop of ganache pooped out the top of the bag and landed all over my hand. Some of it oozed off, slid down the cabinets, and hit the floor.

Told you it was fun.

Anyway, here it is:

And here’s the slice I managed to get:

Okay, so, this was the best thing we’ve made yet. It was sweet and cheesy and a bit chocolate-y and so filling! I couldn’t finish my piece.

It has only one layer of cake and it was a bit wet. We did the aluminum foil around the pan thing for the water bath, but I think water still got in. And after a day or so, the cake texture was off from being in the fridge. I could have done without it.

Still, I’m proud of us. We made custard from scratch and ganache and the chocolate filling stuff. And it was soooo tasty!

I’m definitely going to make cheesecake again.

*You have no idea how many times I had to spell that to get it right.

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Food & Fascism: The Lobster Roll

Posted on May 28, 2025 by Dianna Dann Narciso

So, there’s this old woman who lives in my neighborhood on the main road. People use this road as a thru-way from one big road to another, sometimes. Anyway, from the time the Orange Turd rode down the elevator in 2015…16, whenever…she was all in with the cult. Her yard had a huge Trump flag with the American flag. And she also had a Catholic flag on the pole for a while. She had a string of pennant flags that, though they were small, appeared to be Trump related, hanging from her eaves, Trump, Trump, Trump. And signs in her yard: Trump/Pence and then Trump/Vance.

The woman is nuts.

One time during Trump’s first term, I drove by her house and, as I often noticed, her flags were a disgrace. Hubs slowed the car so I could snap a picture.

She must have noticed because the next day, new flags were up. She must have had them ready to go but was too lazy to change them out until she saw someone noticed. But this picture, for me, epitomizes our country under the Trump regime. A complete disaster.

Well, he got elected again because of stupid, racist, cretins like her. But after about a month in office this year, things in her yard started to change.

First, the Trump flag came down and a new one never went back up. Then the yard signs disappeared. And now the flag banners are gone.

What happened old lady? Did Trump do something to make you change your mind? All the shit he’d done up to that point was okay with you? But now, suddenly, he’s hurt something or someone YOU love.

Fuck you, lady.

So, this week we made Lobster Roll from the Sea World Seven Seas Food Festival list. I figured I would really like this one. I’ve had lobster roll before and after tasting this one, I think some of them were actually made with real lobster.

We looked in our local grocery stores for lobster and didn’t find any so we googled and found this fresh seafood market uptown. We drove through a huge rainstorm into some sunshine to find ourselves in an unfamiliar part of town. It was a bit…industrial.

But we found the shop and almost went in the wrong door. One of the employees called out to us to go around front. If we went in that door, he said, they’d put us to work. So, we managed to find the entrance and walked in to a crowded, fishy-smelling (in a good way) shop and wandered toward the back where there seemed to be a counter. We had no idea what to do.

A guy asked me what I wanted and I told him: a pound of lobster meat. He asked if I wanted tail included and I, the princess, said yes, knowing full well that would make it more expensive. Because why else would he have asked, right?

He took my name and we were left to explore all the cool stuff they had for sale. Sauces, dips, seasonings, and drinks. They had an enormous white board on one wall with every kind of fish possible on it. At one point they apparently ran out of hogfish and a dude had to run out and erase the hogfish or something. I didn’t notice exactly what he did because my name was called.

We paid $51 for a pound of frozen lobster meat! Well, they did give us a lemon, too.

It was so expensive that we decided to thaw only half of it and make two sandwiches instead of four. So this weekend, I’m going to thaw the rest and pour garlic-y melted butter on it and just eat it!

We used this recipe for our lobster rolls. We halved everything, of course. And we used regular hot dog buns that we buttered and broiled first. We made a mistake because of the way steps 2 and 3 were written. I had read the entire recipe the day before so I have no excuse, but instead of adding the ingredients into a bowl and mixing before putting in the lobster, we started dumping them right onto the lobster.

Luckily we figured it out and did our best to take the lobster out and continue the right way. When we’d finished mixing it all together, though, it just looked dry. So added a bit more mayo.

In the end, it was delicious.

Lobster is really rich, though. It made me just a touch sick to my stomach. That half pound probably could have made four sandwiches. That, and the cost of the lobster, make this something I wouldn’t make often…or maybe ever again. But this one was a winner.

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