Raspberry Charlotte

This is a picture of my first raspberry charlotte, cooling to perfection. I deviated slightly from the traditional recipes. This is 3 layers or moist pound cake soaked in home made raspberry syrup, layered with fresh raspberries and rich, creamy whipped cream. It's not much to look at though. Kind of like an upside-down trifle. I once had a wonderful world of wacky 50s recipes cook book that actually had a step-by-step guide for making a "tropical trifle". There were 3 ingredients: angel food cake - cubed, canned fruit cocktail and cool whip. This is why I love cookbooks from the 50s. The decade when the modern housewife discovered convenience food. The era of the Rolling Stones' with "what a drag it is gettin' old", etc. etc. I'll skip the food, but I'd take the drugs. Also included was a chicken recipe that was "perfect" for cocktail parties and get-togethers. Chicken bullion, hard-boiled eggs, Knox gelatin and a jello mold. They then loaded the middle of this ring of jello hell with a huge dollop of some sort of "chicken dip" (macerated chicken blended with cream cheese and pimentos) and served it with crackers. I guess you'd sort of have to be on drugs to eat or serve that. This was called chicken jello salad - perfect for summer!

Anyway, I digress, as usual - but someday I will have to do a post all about the culinary delights of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Have you ever unloaded the dishwasher and realized that those were DIRTY DISHES? That brings me to the second point of this post. Pet peeves. Here are mine in no particular order:

1. Unloading the dishwasher - hate the feel of wet dishes.
2. Dirty dishes AFTER they have touched dishwater. If they're just dirty - fine, but once they hit hot water, they automatically trigger images of vomit for me. Can not do it. I put crusty, food-laden plates directly into the dishwasher. I have watched F look on in horror as I do this. He probably thinks I am a lazy slob. Should probably explain this to him.
3. Chickeny chicken. Hate it. I have a weird relationship with meat of all kinds, but on a meat day, I can consume my own body weight in cold cuts; however, I loathe "real" chicken - if I can see the grain of the meat - I may be instantaneously disgusted and unable to abide its presence. Last night I decided to grill up some chicken tenders for dinner when all of a sudden the house was overwhelmed by the smell of chicken-ness. I had to throw it in the trash, and the rice too because it had absorbed the smell of the chicken. When F came home he smelled deeply and asked, "Yum - what's for dinner?" to which I replied "nothing". I think he thought I was crazy - I should clear that up with him.
4. Blogs without pictures. No reasonable explanation there. Every post should have a picture of something.
5. Pet food - this is a problem because I have two cats. I refuse to touch or smell their food. I pour it out of the bag at a distance and if any spills on the floor I am sure as hell NOT picking it up. It smells and it's greasy. Shudder. Anything greasy should be HOT, not room temperature. Because I hate it so much, I generally wait until the last minute to feed the cats, thus F usually beats me to it. He probably thinks I'm a lazy, irresponsible pet owner. I'll have to clear that up with him.
6. You already know about the car window/locking - I won't go into that again.


Feel free to post your own list of pet peeves - bizarre or whatever.