 | Rumballs Anyone?? Welcome Grace DownUnder!By Grace Downunder |
Yup, that’s right. I wasn’t merely joking when I said there were new writers enjoying the GTS clan.
Our first newbie hails all the way from Australia (if you couldn’t figure that out by her name) and is our second international to join our crazy crew.
We’re on three continents now… what, what!
There will be more to come on the elusive Grace DownUnder in the coming New Year, but for now sit back and enjoy a little sampling of her Aussie style 
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I think I was jipped on my Lesbian Starter Kit. I got the short haircut, the copy of But I’m a Cheerleader and the crazy mixed bag of anxiety, confusion and relief that comes with working out you’re actually a big old dyke, but I missed out on the Iron Chef-like cooking skills. You see, every other lesbian I know can cook. Most of them go well beyond simply “cooking” and can create culinary miracles, but at the very least, none of them would have any trouble whipping up an amazing meal to impress their date.
My skills, on the other hand, are somewhat lacking. Don’t get me wrong, I can feed myself, but my abilities don’t extend much past that. If faced with the prospect of having to make dinner for someone I was trying to impress, I’d probably just cut straight to the polite handshake and the insincere offer to catch up sometime, it would save me so much preparation time, stress and save her the hours spent curled around the toilet bowl with a bout of potential food poisoning.
I don’t know how it happened. My mother is a fairly decent cook, I did OK in Home Ec. at high school but somewhere along the line things went very, very wrong. This time of year always inspires me to get back on the horse and give the whole cooking deal another go. I don’t know if it’s the pages of flawless festive food splashed over magazines, or the foodie blogs that make a triple-decker, vegan gingerbread house look like something you can knock together in a couple of minutes before you run out the door to another party, but it ignites the little fire inside that gives me the burning desire to MAKE.
Before you assure me that things have changed and I should just give things another shot, let me share with you a little silly season misadventure I like to call the “Rum Ball* Incident”.
One fateful Christmas, during my first few years as an undergrad, I had the amazing idea to make everyone’s presents. I had a bunch of time and hardly any money, so home made gift ticked both those boxes for me. The fact I possessed nothing in the way of culinary ability did not factor into this decision, and even now my only justification of this act can be blamed solely on youthful optimism.
After preparing the dry ingredients for the rum balls without incident, something went terribly wrong when I added the condensed milk. The seemingly innocent mix of crushed biscuits, cocoa, rum and condensed milk had become something halfway between wallpaper paste and quicksand. I kept on mixing, as the recipe instructed, until the spoon was stuck in the mixture that was now set fast in the bowl. Realizing I had been defeated, I tried to scoop the contents of the bowl into the sink (if at first you don’t succeed, hide any evidence you ever tried, right?) but it wouldn’t scoop. This shit was stuck like superglue to every surface it had come in contact with. Severely disheartened and left with few other options, I opened a garbage bag and swiped everything into it and stuffed it in the bin.
Needless to say, many a loved one was presented with a nicely written card in lieu of an edible gift that year and I’ve never attempted to make rum balls again. Most importantly I learned that I should never, EVER cook for anyone I like.
*A staple Christmas food in Australia. Crushed plain cookies, cocoa, rum, condensed milk mixed together, shaped into little balls, rolled in desiccated coconut and left to set in the fridge. Absolutely impossible to get wrong….unless you are me.
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December 29th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Forget the balls, just pass me the rum.
December 29th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I have an excellent bourbon ball recipe that is absolutely failproof. I know because I’ve messed up A LOT of things but I’ve never messed up the bourbon balls.
December 29th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
p.s. Welcome to Grace the Spot, Grace DownUnder!
December 29th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Welcome Grace DownUnder!
I think as a fellow Aussie I might be able to shed some light on your rumball catastrophe…
See, any good Aussie (defined as those who aren’t heathens) knows the secret is to use crushed wheat-bix instead of biscuits for your base, any other way is just plain unAustralian and naturally, doomed to failure.
Also, at least tripling the amount of rum required = mandatory! If you’re not knocked over by the fumes coming off them each time you open the container they’re in… again, unAustralian!
There are a few other secrets for massively rum-loading your balls, but before they can be shared, everyone must take a vow to use this knowledge for good and not evil… (not to mention handing over your car keys!)
So perhaps, my dear Grace, with some of these handy hints, you might like to try them again for Christmas next year. At the very least, you’re likely to end up so trashed on rum, you won’t mind/remember how it all turns out…
From one Down Under girl *cough* to another
Bob
*wanders off in search of left over rum-laden Christmas cake*
December 29th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Haha, I was just thinking earlier that being able to cook is the one lesbian trait I DO have! I’ve had a few misadventures though (one of the chefs in work looks panicked every time I offer to bake because I once added waaaay too much cocoa to shortbread cookies and he nearly choked on them) but the important thing is to keep trying til you get it right, even if you have to do it in secret so nobody realises you’re not naturally gifted.
And welcome to GTS!
December 30th, 2009 at 5:07 am
[...] a hot laptop was very unappealing. It’s not all bad though, my first piece is up over at GTS, I went on a date last night and it was super fun and there is every chance we’ll do it again [...]
December 30th, 2009 at 9:01 am
I went odd this Christmas and agreed to make all the puddings, cakes and what nots for after Christmas dinner. One problem? I got super drunk on the 23rd and spent the whole day of Christmas eve hungover. I lived in the two feet behind the toilet and the three feet on the floor of my bedroom. I started to “bake” at around 8pm and then fucked everything up! Needless to say, I shan’t be cooking again next year. Also I can’t cook so I don’t know why i said I would.
December 30th, 2009 at 10:12 am
what, lesbians can cook?
that’s not fair. I’m so good in fitting in all the things lesbians like without even knowing that these are things lesbians like and now I hear the first thing about lesbians that sounds “good”., being able to cook. — but I’m not.
So, Grace Downunder… I bet if I wanted to make those balls… something like that would happen to me, too (; you’re not alone (;
Once I had to make a cake for my class because my cellphone rang during a lesson. I decided to bake a cake with egg liqueurn (yummy (; ) . When I was nearly finished and put the dough in the baking dish I discovered it had a hole on the bottom. All my dough started to flow out. I started to panic, took the whole thing up and ran to the living room where my mum was and yelled for help, all the way dripping dough on the floor and on my hands…. it was a disaster. She ordered me to get a bigger dish and put it under it, then run to my grandma and get a new backing dish and then fill the dough into this one and bake it. I did as I was told. When the cake was safe in the oven, I had to clean the floor and the little dough-lake…. of course, I couldn’t just wipe it all away. It was too delicious so I ate as much dough as I could get. Guess what, there was a whole bottle of egg liquern in it! … got me drunk. at home. never happened before.
uh. I think this story is a little clumsy written. Sorry for that, my english-skills are leaving me… Oo
December 31st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Okay… I just made some, and I pretty much winged it. They turned out great, so here is the recipe.
SPICY RUM BALLS
Dry ingredients
- 2 cups of shortbread cookies, processed fine in a food processor (I used half Keebler regular shortbread, half Keebler cashew shortbread)
- 1.5 cups of toasted pecans (toast 10 minutes at 350 degrees, or just when the tips start to turn brown – take them out or they will burn), processed fine in a food processor
- 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
- 1 teaspoon cocoa powder
- 1/3 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (trust me… it works)
Wet ingredients
- 2 squares of Ghirardelli unsweetened chocolate, melted
- 2 tablespoons corn syrup
(You might want to combine the above two – keeps the chocolate from hardening too quickly. Do not throw in the rum. It will just make things chunky.)
- 1/2 cup rum
Combine dry ingredients. Throw in the wet ingredients. Mix. Then toss into the refrigerator for an hour. Make into balls. Roll in confectioner’s sugar.
Nom nom nom.
December 31st, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Oh yeah – rum is Barbancourt 8
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