The Universe, Baklava and Me.....

(A simmering pot of sugar, water, honey and vanilla.)

There is always the possibility that the universe is conspiring against me.
Case in point, when I lived at home my Mother NEVER told me about baklava. I never heard the word mentioned, we never ate it, it literally did not exist for me. (I suppose one could argue that was my Mother conspiring against me and not the universe though...hmmmm)
Then I meet my darling husband and he rips the fabric of my known universe wide open with a casual name dropping one day. "We should go eat at that Mediterranean place, ohhh and we should remember to have Baklava for desert."
"Bakla-what? Who? Is that a friend? Do I know this Bakla-whosit? Why are we inviting them for desert?"
Turns out Baklava was a treat that Alan said was divine and that we most definitely had to get it, even more so now then before seeing as how I'd never had it.
Enter the universe, screwing me over once more.
Turns out the Mediterranean restaurant no longer had Baklava on it's menu. So no Baklava for me. I suspect, though have yet to prove, that the restaurant on a universe inspired whim decided to stop serving the rich, honey nut desert 5 minutes before I walked through the door.
Universe - 2, Me - zip
(not that I'm keeping score.)
Well time goes by and eventually I do get to have a taste of Baklava from a neat little road side diner type place. I suspect that it wasn't anything to write home about as I can not remember any epiphanies, light bulbs going off in my head, angelic choirs of angels singing or even a return visit to the diner place for more. I remember there was baklava and that's it. It was good but not enough to confirm the descriptions I had read online though. Mouth watering tales of honey oozing, flaky pastry layered, rich, buttery nut filled baklava.
Universe - 2, Me - .5
Well years go by, I mean literally YEARS go by and suddenly it's last year. And right out of the clear blue my husband's relatives give him a GIANT platter of baklava for his birthday! I mean wow, did they have a psychic moment? Did they know how high a pedestal we'd placed this mysterious desert on? Did they know my husband considered this one of his all time favorite sweet treats? Did they know I'd had pitifully limited exposure to this honeyed treasure? Had I whined one too many times in their presence that evvvvvvvvvery one in the fricking universe got baklava but me. Maybe.

(Pouring the hot syrup over the freshly baked Baklava. Mmmm)

Anyways imagine our shock and pleasure to see this golden platter of goodness. We immediately consumed multiple pieces (I wont say how many, a lady never reveals a number) on the spot. That night after carefully carting our beauteous platter of sticky sweets back home we consumed more. Ohhhhhhhh the pleasure, finally unlimited access to a wealth of delicious, buttttttery sweeeeeeeeeeeet, flakkkkkky layers of pastry and nuts. It was so goooood.
Universe - 2, Me - 7.5
Take that Universe, in your face Universe. How do ya like me now Universe?
Then I got covered with spots. Lots of spots. Like a rash. Huh..
Ewwwww I know, who wants to go from buttery rich to a rash.
I didn't think anything of it. Who would suspect the Baklava? Not me. The Universe wasn't reallllllllllllllly conspiring against me...right? So we ate more...the rash remained. Eventually, in a Sherlock Holmes like intuitive moment, as I was serving us up yet another piece of Baklava from the never ending platter I had a notion. What the heck was causing this rash? Why was the Universe suddenly blessing me with such a pile of unsolicited Baklava after all this time? I had a thought, a horrible thought, a sneaky quick sliding, a quick fear that'd been hiding, flip to the forefront of my frontal lobe type thought.
What was IN Baklava? Exactly? I always assumed it was a super, uber complicated thing to make so never even looked at the list of ingredients. So I looked, curiosity doesn't always kill the cat, in this case it killed the rash.
CASHEWS!
DAMN YOU UNIVERSE!!!! *shakes fist at the fabric of reality*
There were cashews in the lovely platter of Birthday Baklava from last year. I unfortunately am sort of allergic to cashews. I quit eating the Baklava, rash goes away and.....
Universe - 274856, Me - 7.5
Well fine, what do I care anyways. I decide to boycott the universe and Baklava and forget about the whole damn thing. Then another year rolls around, THIS year. Another platter of birthday Baklava! Alan's joy was contagious, he really loves this stuff. We'd almost forgotten about last year...about the cashews. But my paranoid nature saved me once again as I looked at the ingredients BEFORE consuming any Baklava. Cashews again....grrrrrrrr. So Alan got Baklava and I got zip, nada, none. I had to make do with homemade chocolate chip peanut butter cookies, ice cream and iced coffee. Pbbbbtttt! Sure it was great but it wasn't Baklava.
Universe - 749739057503, Me - 7.5
I'm starting to get pretty pissed off at the Universe then. I'm also starting to think up long, complicated revenge fantasies against the Universe. But it's hard to concentrate when Alan's delighting in yet MORE birthday Baklava and I'm trying to wrap my brain around quantum mechanics so as to really be able to stick it to the Universe.
When my inner Sherlock Holmes siren went off again I almost ignored it, so wrapped up was I in sub atomic particles and string theory. But then I said to myself "No, self pay attention here. If your inner Sherlock Holmes has something to say the least you can do is pay attention."
I like to try and do as I say so I did.
Inner Sherlock Holmes whispered sweetly in my mind that I ought to look up a recipe for Baklava.
What the heck, why not.
HALLLLLLLLLLLLLELUJJJJJJAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Baklava didn't have 5 million mysterious ingredients. It didn't have a complicated preparation and cooking procedure. Hell a Baklava recipe made quantum mechanics look like....er....well...quantum mechanics.
Sugar, honey, nuts, butter, vanilla, water, cinnamon and phyllo dough.
I was in shock. I found a recipe on a site I go to often because of all it's reviews for recipes so I knew at least a few hundred people had already tried this particular Baklava recipe and had deemed worthy of 5 out of 5 stars. Baklava recipe here.
And quicker then you can build a sub atomic universe ass kicker I had homemade Baklava sitting on my kitchen counter, cooling down from it's time in the oven. Filling the air with warm fragrant honey scents.
Was it good.
*laughs softly* Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh yessssssssssssssssssssss, it was good. It was better then good. It was "where have you been all my life?" good. It was "take that, you conspiracizing Universe good"
It was gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.

Universe - 749739057503, Me - INFINITE to the 7th degree

I win.

( A slice of homemade Baklava.....ohhhhh...oh my...)

Because I can't leave well enough alone I am already tailoring the Baklava recipe to our own tastes. Using coconut oil instead of butter, no sugar but more honey etc. A healthier treat that will still taste decadent and be easy to make. I will add my own custom recipe on here when I've got it hammered out. It might mean making endless batches of Baklava and tasting them over and over, one right after another but...I can do it. For the good of the recipe and sharing it with friends I can end my life long dry spell of no Baklava and embrace the never ending slice of golden flaky heaven.

Feeling Raw....

If I told you I find raw cow's milk and cream udderly delicious (come on, like I could pass that up?) would you care? I mean, it's not as peculiarly earth shattering as a desire to eat only green coloured foods or drink only out of clear unfrosted glass. But it's interesting don't you think?
We live in a world where things have become over processed, over thought and over ridiculous and we hardly even notice any more. When was the last time you blinked an eye at yet another commercial for a *wonder drug* that you don't even NEED your doctor to suggest, if it looks good to you then they expect YOU to tell the person who's had years and years of experience in the medical field to order you up some.
Some times I feel weird cause I don't even get commercial whip lash any more. Another commercial for Viagra and warnings of erections that could last for over 4 hours, big deal.
I am though occasionally still shocked to find myself living in a time when the world is tipping into the insanity of the overly processed.
The most processed of it all are us humans. Dye your hair, tan your skin, wear perfume, deodorant, your teeth aren't white enough unless they could blind a small child at 20 paces, your skin isn't soft enough unless you sit on a couch and slither off if you don't brace your body. The body of course that's well toned and doesn't have an ounce of fat and God forbid you don't get your jollies off running round in circles wasting time but gaining muscle well then we can just suck the fat right out of you. Got a wrinkle? We got creams and lasers and scalpels and drugs for that. And once you have your body exactly the right amount of processed......if you're a female slather an inch of make-up on it.....bleck! It's weird. Kind of scary, what will the future people look like? I shudder at the idea. The great great grandkids of today's people might only be a quarter of an inch thick so they can run themselves through a human printer every morning to get that freshly printed, new toner smell and look that all the kids are wearing those days. Wouldn't that be lovely? Now instead of having to try so hard to keep up with every one we could just download a program and be printed out like every one else and avoid anything that even remotely seems natural. Wow............... I've heard theories before that maybe hell is actually EARTH...doesn't sound so crazy at times.
Sorry to interrupt but could you grab that little shiny thing up there, thanks. What is it? Oh that's my point, it got a little out of reach for a moment.
See my point of all this is when you become desensitized to the wackiness of the world you can actually start to see simple ordinary things as weird or even wrong. It's a world that wants unnaturally white teeth, a world that pushes drugs over a natural and usually cheaper solution like diet change, they push so many antibacterial things now a days that I suspect many people are freaked out by the idea of ANY bacterias. A toilet bowl brush you can throw away after each use is considered CLEVER (Do not get me started on those, germs my ass, who cares about the germs on your toilet bowl brush, are you going to use it to clean your teeth? No one expects you to cuddle up to it at night but just because it's a toilet bowl brush and God forbid touches the INSIDE of the toilet doesn't suddenly make it as dangerous as a ticking bomb. Those commercials lead you to believe it's BETTER to throw away needless trash and run up the expense of buying new toilet bowl brush heads over and over and over instead of using one cheapo brush that will last you forever and gets the job done and hasn't made any one sick that I know of so far?!!!?! And if some one did get sick from a toilet bowl brush they were probably sucking on it and got what they deserve. Cripes, who needs friends and relatives for turmoil I get all I can handle from the damn commercials.)
But like I was saying in a world where all those sorts of things are not only acceptable but the NORM something as innocent and pure and sweet as unpasteurized milk can cause a few heads to turn, perhaps even a lady like gasp or two out of the crowd. Or how about this, be BANNED in some places because it's Dannngerrrooussssssssss. Drugs that get injected into your face to smooth out an itty bitty wrinkle are ok....but unpasteurized milk straight from a grass loving cow is not.
Now I'm not a science-tastic person, I enjoy StarGate Atlantis just like every one else but the facts and figures tend to fall out of my head. There's a lot of information out there on this subject though and the people at Organic Pastures can fill you in on all the wonderful health benefits of milk that isn't cooked to death. Not to mention inform you about the possibility of people no longer being able to legally buy RAW milk. Guns you can buy, cigarettes you can buy, alcohol you can buy, a drug store full of dubious medicines with scary side effects you can buy, RAW milk in some states (as in units of America not like in altered states of consciousness) you can't.
Doesn't that seem weird? You can not buy raw, unpasteurized milk that still has all it's living enzymes and healthful friendly bacterias, but you CAN buy what is essentially DEAD milk. Ya gotta wonder you know, if RAW milk gets the boot what's to stop them from outlawing Mother's from breast feeding their babies? It's raw milk after all....... This day and age a cow probably eats better then the average woman if it's part of an organic dairy farm.
All I know is this stuff tastes yumalicious. Seriously, I am a former Starbucks coffee frappuccino stalker. This is different then an addict as I admit to loving (at one time) the sweet caffeinated milkshake like drink but once I looked up the freaky deaky calorie info on one I was able to curb my frappuccino desires pretty darn quickly. Nothing like more then half your daily calorie intake in ONE beverage to cool the flames of desire. Anyways now I just stare at other peoples who have them and feel superior and smug whilst sipping a pure-er coffee beverage like an iced one (minus 10 lbs of sugar). Anyways my incredibly long winded point is the best part of a frappuccino was at the bottom of the glass when the milky coffee drink settled below the frozen slush, one sip of that and wooooooooooo you were in heaven. Turns out I can replicate that flavor, that intense creamy icy coffee sensation at home for 1/zillionth of the calories and 5 zillion times the flavor! I take my standard french roast coffee, sweetened with our friendly zero calorie stevia and after the ice has been added I add a dollop of heavy cream. Not just any cream but RAW heavy cream. This stuff is so thick it doesn't even mix in when I make it. It just sits there, a buttery blob of loveliness in my glass of coffee waiting for me to release it freely into the embrace of my iced coffee arms!

Also, the flavor is soooo rich and creamy it takes literally just a tablespoon or so to turn your entire beverage into that intense creamy flavor I used to get from the you know whats at the you know where!
Since we read so much neat information about the health benefits of truly RAW milk my sweetie pie doesn't even call it milk any more, he calls it nutritional. We're walking through the store and as we pass the dairy aisle he's all like "Oh darn do we need more nutritional?" heads swivel but he just grins and grabs a jug of raw whole milk and a container of raw heavy cream.
Heating the RAW milk would defeat the purpose of getting raw milk as it destroys some of the health benefits so we only enjoy our RAW milk cold, hence adding ice to the coffee first.
The world is messed up, they cancel the Dresden Files tv show and Viva Laughlin and give us more teen drama crapola. *shakes head* Some things you can't control. So many great things are just ripped away without our input and apparently RAW milk could be one of those things. It's weird, we're not the type of people to throw money around left and right for every charity that we see. Not because we're cold but cause we're not rich and chances are we know some one personally who could use a few extra bucks more then an impersonal charity. However we did donate a few dollars to the cause that will try and fight an amendment to the food and agriculture code that could mean no more sales of RAW milk. We really enjoy this stuff and I'd hate to go to the store some day and it would just be gone.
The public I'm sure would hate to see a grown couple sobbing in the dairy section getting snot and slobber all over the containers of un-RAW milk so it's really in every one's best interest to hope they don't ban RAW milk sales.
It seems pretty fricking simple to me, look at all the crazy ass stuff you can buy and then look at what they might say you can't, RAW milk.
And you know what, I'm gonna go one step further....
I'm gonna say it.
RAW MILK...........I love you.
(pssst, I love you too coffee.)