No, it's not because I just got married and it's the cool thing to do once you get hitched. I was inspired to write about two things I love a lot: cooking and taxes. Think Crepes of Wrath meets Stuff Accountants Like. Hopefully you'll be inspired to cook something new and learn a little about taxes. Blogging may also be genetic. My little bro blogged before blogging was trendy cool or even really a real verb. Anyone out there remember Austin Cam, circa 2000? I wish the site still existed out there in interweb land because I would love to relive the hysterical moments from middle/high school as documented from this kid's room. And now all I get to link to is a boring LinkedIn profile. Boooo.
So you may be thinking why Section 274(d)? The blog name was created by Kyle/Charles VI/IT, who is far more witty than I am. For those who don't spend a lot of time reading the Internal Revenue Code (you mean not everyone has one sitting around at home?), Section 274(d) is where the IRS disallows 50% of meals and entertainment expenses. Clever, I know. So this is the first tax tie in (or should I say tie out... sorry I couldn't help myself). This gem of a video was sent to me by a few fellow accountant friends and it made my day.
My first big cooking project worth blogging about actually happened back in December 2010. Oh you mean it was almost a year ago? Yeaaaaaa. Better late than never. My first Christmas as a Doebler requires that I attempt to bake the traditional family coffee cake, straight from the recipe box of Marilyn Doebler (wife of Charles the IV). Upon receipt of the recipe via email from Charles the V, I do a double take. Nope, I wasn't mistaken- the recipe calls for 16-20 cups of flour (read: 4-5 lbs.) and lard. I don't think I've ever cooked with lard. And carrying home 4- pounds of flour on the bus is just not fun. Getting past the ingredient list, I start to grapple with the fact that it is a yeast bread. Cooking with yeast frightens me.
Yeast breads are just so finicky and waiting for the dough to rise seems like it takes all day (I'm not the most patient person sometimes). But I manned up and tackled the Doebler Christmas Bread on Christmas Eve. Our first challenge: finding lard in San Francisco. The guy at Safeway thought we were insane when we asked for it. I mean if you can't get a plastic shopping bag in San Francisco, I guess we really shouldn't have expected to find his tasty pork fat. We settled with Crisco and hoped it would suffice.
After lugging everything home, it was time to get baking. It took almost the entire day to mix, shape, rise, punch down, re-rise, punch down again, put in the pans, rise for a third time, and then finally bake. But in the end it was worth it. And since we divided the recipe by a third, we weren't eating Christmas Bread for months.
The bread made excellent toast for our first Christmas breakfast as a married couple. Aside from the yummy layer of sugary crust on top of the loaf, what I loved most about this bread is that this is something that Doeblers have been making for generations. I'm a sucker for fun traditions, especially family food traditions. After all, the Marilyn quote at the top of the recipe says it best: "All Doeblers must have this every Christmas.... or else!!!"
Link to Doebler Christmas Coffee Cake Recipe
