Cake recipe

I am going to share this cake recipe partly because it's the most delicious cake I've ever eaten and partly because I want to close the document off my desktop. There's no baking but you have to leave it over night. Like all delicious things it contains unconscionable amounts of sweetened condensed milk, butter, egg yolks, an sugar:

1 can condensed milk
1/2 lb. butter
1 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 can nestle cream
1 pkg. marie biscuits
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla or rum

cover can of milk in water
boil covered for 2 hrs - do not open until ready to smother cake.
cream butter and sugar
add egg yolks
add vanilla or rum
fold in nestle cream
line a bowl with wax paper
dip biscuits in milk and layer with butter cream mix (appx 4 layers)
refrigerate overnight
invert onto platter and cover with caramel

100 more species #78: Spotted Mediterranean cockroach

Spotted Mediterranean cockroach Ectobius pallidus

Most of the time that urban people encounter cockroaches it's an upsetting experience, often for both sides. Roaches from the tropics have become some of the most persistent indoor pests. Businesses and homeowners spend millions on control efforts, usually buying temporary piece of mind before more roaches stream in from neighboring buildings not on the same control schedule. Ectobius roaches are from Europe, and they are strictly out-of-doors, as their scientific name suggests. Occasionally one or two will be found in a home, a car, or a business, but their presence is entirely accidental, and they would much rather stay outside. My own observation is that this species is increasing in the Boston area, but it could be that I'm engaged in activities that coincide with them more often (gardening, moving objects that have been outside all winter).


The individual in all these pictures is this year's nymph, identifiable by its lack of wings. These roaches are weak but able flyers when adults.


I featured Ectobius on my podcast.

3:00 snapshot #1279: Gorilla keepers

( Read more... )

Matt, who we sometimes call "Canada," watches the gorillas eat the food that he and Kirsten just scattered into there.




Mother and daughter eat, pensively, near one another.