Sorry about today's late post: I had to fly out of here for an appointment this morning, and the same thing will happen tomorrow, so expect even more lateness, and while you're at it you might also demand that I correct the inaccurate word fly, which should have been bump-slide-crawl-slide.

After a refreshing eight-below start to the morning, we're now basking in an eight-above heat wave, and I am parked beside the wood stove trying to pretend that I'm warm. The bread is rising at the speed of snails, and I'm afraid I'll never get it baked in time to start the first steps for Tom's tomorrow-birthday-cake. I'm hoping this cake will be an Austrian hazelnut torte but we'll see if I can manage all the complications. It's got about a million different steps, including caramelizing sugar, making a buttercream that contains three sticks of butter and a truckload of chocolate, and concocting a remarkably expensive orange-marmalade and Cointreau filling. Most daunting, it's structured with six thin cake layers that I'm supposed to bake on the bottom of turned-over cake pans. The more I think about this cake, the more I think I ought to have a backup plan. For instance, when it collapses in on itself, I could just call it North American slump.