From My Friend Sieu- United Cheesecake Holiday

It's that time of the year again...
Time to give a big FU to exmass in all it's sickening glory.
Please join me for United Cheesecake Holiday - the time of year where
vegan and nonvegan cheesecakes come together and are honored by you and
yours.
UCH denotes no gifts, unless they are food or handmade, with focus on
eating cheesecake. It is a simple time of year...
To get you in the mood, here is a recipe that will be in my new
cookbook, which is all vegan chocolate and candy and out by summer.

Double Decker Chocolate Mint Cheesecake

1/2 c chocolate chips
1 8oz tub vegan cream cheese
3/4 c soy yogurt
1 c firm tofu
3/4 c sugar
egg replacer equivalent to 2 eggs
1/4 c flour
1 tsp vanilla
pinch salt
2 tb crushed candy cane
1/4 tsp mint extract
chocolate cookie crust (see page *)

1. Preheat oven to 325 d. Melt chocolate.
2. Blend all ingredients except candy cane, mint extract and chocolate.
3. Take out 1/3 of this mix. For the 2/3 still in the blender add the
melted chocolate and blend well.
4. Pour the chocolate into the pie crust. Mix the candy cane and mint
extract into the remaining 1/3 mixture and pour this on top of the
chocolate. Bake for 50 min.

chocolate cookie crust: 1 1/4 cup chocolate cookie crumbs, 3 tb oil -
press that into a pie pan.

Long live United Cheesecake Holiday!

Find out more about Sieu's second upcoming Vegan Desserts Recipe Book

Glogg, Pickled Herring, and a Peppermint Candy Cane Cake

Well I didn't get drunk from the Glogg this year like I did last year. My friend Berit's Birthday/pre-Christtmas party was this past Saturday. It was a blast ! It started raining as well. I stood outside on the porch and watched the storm roll in. The party was in San Pedro, CA. Anyhow,I only had one cup of Glogg this year. What's Glogg ? Well it has Scandinavian origins. Its base is hot red wine ! Here's a recipe for you:

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups red wine
1 1/2 cups ruby port wine
1 cup vodka
6 pods green cardamom
5 whole cloves
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
2 cinnamon sticks
2 ounces slivered almonds
1/2 tablespoon raisins
DIRECTIONS
Combine wine, port, and vodka in a nonreactive pot. Add cardamom, cloves, orange peel, and cinnamon, and gently warm (do not boil) over low heat. Allow to steep for at least 20 minutes (longer is better). Serve in heatproof glasses, sprinkled with almonds and raisins.

So my friend Berit saw a picture of a Peppermint Cake and well she tried to duplicate it...here's the pic on the magazine:

Here's Berit's version:

Well not exactly...but the whip cream melted...she swears upon it. I gave her an A for effort though.

Plenty of wine to go around !

Here's the birthday girl !

I found this man in red sitting by himself, so I decided to take a picture with him. Aren't we festive ?

Yeah, this is among the types of books I read at the age of 19

Some people have read books like " I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Native Son by Richard Wright, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and expressed that these books changed their lives. Well, this is one of the books that changed my life...well sort of. Although I am a big fan of D.H Lawrence's short stories and novels like Women In Love and Sons and Lovers. I can't help it by being moved by a well written book about advertising, marketing or religion. Originally Confessions of an Advertising Man was written in 1963 and then reprinted in 1988. What's really funny about this book is that its target is the housewife. Ogilvy continually writes "if you don't do this or that in advertising....the housewife will not be satisfied." LOL !

This statement is what summarized Confessions of an Advertising Man for me, Ogilvy writes " If for example it is a gasoline account, read text books, on the chemistry, geology and distribution of petroluem products. Read all the trade journals in the field. Read all the research reports and marketing plans that your agency has ever written on the product. Spend Saturday mornings in service stations, pumping gasoline and talking to motorists. Visit your clients refineries and research libraries. Study the advertising of his competitiors. At the end of your second year, you will know more about gasoline than your boss; you will then be ready to succeed him." No, I'm not going to be at gas stations pumping people's gas for them...it's the principle in this statement that applies to the overall marketing and advertising paradigm. You get it ?