Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Supporting Actor in a Drama

Bryan Batt, "Salvatore Romano," Mad Men

Ryan Kwanten, "Jason Stackhouse," True Blood

Terry O'Quinn, "John Locke/Man in Black," Lost

Matt Ross, "Alby Grant," Big Love

Campbell Scott, "Joe Tobin," Damages

Martin Short, "Leonard Winstone," Damages

Batt has always been one of my favorite members of the Mad Men ensemble, but his work in the showcases afforded him in the show's third season were particularly outstanding. I hope he submitted the season premiere, where Batt cycles through a range of silent emotions in just moments as Sal hooks up with a bellhop while he's on the road with Don. It's hard to leave out Nelsan Ellis or Alexander Skarsgard, but the commitment Kwanten shows in displaying Jason's idiocy in all its forms makes him a standout in an excellent cast. O'Quinn was an all-star of the dual structure of Lost's final season, finding redemption for Locke in the alternate reality while expertly playing the villain on the island. This season of Big Love finally gave Ross the opportunity to plumb depths previously only hinted at in Alby, with heartbreaking results. Damages recovered its pacing in the third season, and Scott and Short were vital contributors. Short in particular impressed (as opposed to, say, Darrell Hammond's appearances in season two) in giving himself over to the darkness of the role.

Honorable Mentions: Sascha Roiz, Caprica; Tate Donovan, Damages; Fran Kranz, Dollhouse; Michael B. Jordan, Taylor Kitsch, Friday Night Lights; James Pickens, Jr., Grey's Anatomy; Nestor Carbonell, Michael Emerson, Josh Holloway, Lost; Vincent Kartheiser, John Slattery, Mad Men; Max Burkholder, Dax Shepard, Parenthood; Nelsan Ellis, Alexander Skarsgard, True Blood

I wouldn't be surprised to see: Josh Charles, Chris Noth, The Good Wife; John Noble, Fringe; Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad; it'll be interesting to see how Lost fares in this category - with so many potential nominees from the final season (and the show's male cast members traditionally doing better here than the women) they could split the vote or sweep

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Supporting Actor in a Comedy

Ty Burrell, "Phil Dunphy," Modern Family

Keir Gilchrist, "Marshall Gregson," United States of Tara

Nick Offerman, "Ron Swanson," Parks and Recreation

Chris Pratt, "Andy Dwyer," Parks and Recreation

Danny Pudi, "Abed Nadir," Community

Eric Stonestreet, "Cameron Tucker," Modern Family

The year of the ensemble comedy explosion turned this category into a series of tough choices. It's like Ivy League admissions - I could have constructed entirely another deserving group of six from the eligible performers. Burrell and Stonestreet are both scene-stealers on their show, but do so consistently without making their characters feel too cartoonish. Gilchrist (who formed a sort of "teenage boy dealing with his sexuality" triumvirate with Mark Indelicato and Chris Colfer this past season) did wonderfully quiet, subtle work as Marshall confronted the way others see him and claimed a sense of agency in shaping his own identity. I don't quite know if I can put into words the sheer excellence that is Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson. I'll just say that the last time I got a pedicure, I couldn't stop thinking about Ron moaning while he got a shoeshine and it took all the willpower I had to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter and likely weirding out the person giving me said pedicure. Pratt is an actor fully committed to his character's idiocy in a way that frees Parks and Rec to be as crazy as it needs to be. Pudi not only totally inhabits Abed's oddball personality, but makes the task of pointing out the hyper-referentiality of Community's universe seem endearing rather than heavy-handed.

Honorable Mentions: Donald Glover, Community; Josh Hopkins, Cougar Town; Chris Colfer, Glee; Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Rico Rodriguez, Modern Family; Peter Facinelli, Haaz Sleiman, Nurse Jackie; Ed Helms, John Krasinski, The Office; Aziz Ansari, Parks and Recreation; Ken Marino, Party Down; Mark Indelicato, Michael Urie, Ugly Betty; John Corbett, United States of Tara

I wouldn't be surprised to see: Jack McBrayer, Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock; Kevin Dillon, Jeremy Piven, Entourage; Cory Monteith, Glee; Ed O'Neill, Modern Family; Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men; any SNL cast member

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Supporting Actress in a Comedy

Alison Brie, "Annie Edison," Community

Rosemarie DeWitt, "Charmaine Craine," United States of Tara

Jane Lynch, "Sue Sylvester," Glee

Aubrey Plaza, "April Ludgate," Parks and Recreation

Yvonne Strahovski, "Sarah Walker," Chuck

Merritt Wever, "Zoey Barkow," Nurse Jackie

Lynch is (deservedly) a likely shoe-in for a nomination here, if not the obvious frontrunner for the win, for her dynamic performance. Lynch as Sue is vital as one of the stopgaps that keeps Glee from being too saccharine. Brie, Plaza and Wever are all standouts within their respective ensembles as young women who have found their place and blossomed within an eccentric makeshift family. DeWitt and Tara's writers both deserve credit for deepening Charmaine's character in the second season, making her less callous and more sympathetic without abandoning any of her self-absorption. An unexpected benefit of the "Intersect 2.0" storyline on Chuck was the emotional beats it gave Strahovski to play as Sarah contended with her feelings about Chuck becoming more of a "real" spy.

Honorable Mentions: Yvette Nicole Brown, Gillian Jacobs, Community; Busy Phillips, Cougar Town; Jessalyn Gilsig, Glee; Jane Adams, Hung; Julie Bowen, Sofia Vergara, Modern Family; Eve Best, Anna Deveare Smith, Nurse Jackie; Jenna Fischer, Ellie Kemper, The Office; Lizzy Caplan, Party Down; Brie Larson, United States of Tara

I wouldn't be surprised to see: an SNL cast member, most likely Kristin Wiig; Elizabeth Perkins from Weeds - it's a perennial favorite, and it's been announced that it's her last season; from the above, either actress from Modern Family and Fischer - it was a lackluster season of The Office, but she's got two great episodes to submit in the wedding and the birth

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Guest Actor in a Drama

Adam Beach, "Tommy Flute," Big Love

Henry Ian Cusick, "Desmond Hume," Lost

Zach Gilford, "Matt Saracen," Friday Night Lights

Jared Harris, "Lane Pryce," Mad Men

Allan Hyde, "Godric," True Blood

Michael O'Neill, "Gary Clark," Grey's Anatomy

Guest Actor in a Drama may be the category most subject to egregious category fraud. Beach, Cusick, Gilford and Harris all had enough screentime that they could legitimately be seen as "supporting," regardless of their contractual billing. Reassigning performers to different categories, however, is not the project at hand. Beach was the most likeable I've ever seen him in his role on Big Love, and made me wish that the show's writers had elected to focus more attention on the casino rather than Bill's implausible run for state Senate. I'm not ultimately convinced that Desmond really did know what was going on after his electromagnetic event in "Happily Ever After," but Cusick at least made me believe that Desmond believed that he knew what was going on. In my opinion, he was the highlight of the alternate reality as Desmond assumed the role of lost soul matchmaker. Gilford has rightly gotten attention (and at least one Facebook campaign) for his work in the FNL episode "The Son," where Matt deals with the death of his father. He and the FNL writers set a new high-water mark for the show's original character departure arcs with Matt's fourth season storyline. Harris did superlative work as Putnam, Powell and Lowe's middle man installed in Sterling Cooper to streamline and clean house, infusing Pryce with a spectacularly dry British humor while showing how painfully aware he always is of his place within the business' hierarchy. One mark of a great guest actor is an ability to sell a deep relationship with a series regular, which Hyde did so well with Alexander Skarsgard on True Blood. (Not really germane to the discussion at hand, but both Harris and Hyde returning in their roles this summer is terribly exciting.) O'Neill anchored one of the most emotionally resonant arcs of the best Grey's season in years - the hospital shooting spree in the season finale wouldn't have worked nearly as well if O'Neill hadn't made Clark's grief so palpable in his previous appearances.

Honorable Mentions: Naveen Andrews, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit; Alan Dale, Mark Pellegrino, Lost; Robert Morse, Chelcie Ross, Mad Men

I wouldn't be surprised to see: Adam Arkin, Sons of Anarchy; Alan Cumming, The Good Wife; Ted Danson, Damages; Gregory Itzin, 24; James Earl Jones, House; John Lithgow, Dexter

Someone Needs Some Cliffs Notes

I'm totally watching the USA/Ghana match, but I had to write something about this idiotic Bud Light ad, because it is driving me crazy:

I understand that as an educated young woman who considers herself a feminist, I am not part of the demographic that Budweiser is aiming for. But COME ON.

Not only are those books comically thin (my copy, in comparison, is 450 pages), but THAT'S NOT THE PLOT OF LITTLE WOMEN. I understand that whatever ad guy who created this chauvinist mess wanted some sort of stand-in for "lame chick-lit bullshit" but it's a classic of nineteenth century American fiction! Why not just make up a title? Or actually have them talk about things that are legitimately in the book? Certainly every time my sister and I watch the movie, we complain about Amy being a man-stealing ho. This just shows a sad lack of imagination. Maybe they're drinking beer during book club because they are the WORST BOOK CLUB EVER.

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Guest Actress in a Drama

Ann-Margret, "Rita Wills," Law and Order: Special Victims Unit

Allison Janney, "Mother," Lost

Sarah Paulson, "Ellis Grey," Grey's Anatomy

Kiernan Shipka, "Sally Draper," Mad Men

Sissy Spacek, "Marilyn Densham," Big Love

Lily Tomlin, "Marilyn Tobin," Damages

Ann-Margret was thrillingly over-the-top on SVU, bringing an element of camp to an episode that needed it. A lot of Lost fans were down on "Across the Sea," but I think Janney provided a necessary grounding element for the exploration of the show's mythology. The flashback episode of Grey's was somewhat hit-or-miss, but Paulson believably built upon the foundation laid by Kate Burton to play the young Ellis Grey in a way that brought her drive and intelligence into sharp focus. Shipka has become an increasingly vital player in the Mad Men ensemble since the first season, and she did a great job communicating Sally's attempts to contend with the changes both inside and outside her home in a tumultuous 1963. Spacek and Tomlin both excelled in roles that could easily have tended towards manic scenery chewing - Spacek in providing a ballsy foil for Bill Paxton in a season where much of Big Love went totally off the rails, and Tomlin in chillingly portraying the World's Worst Matriarch in Damages' riff on the Madoff scandal.

Honorable Mentions: Sarah Drew, Leven Rambin, Grey's Anatomy; Lena Olin, Sarah Paulson, Jill Scott, Sharon Stone, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit; Elizabeth Mitchell, Lost; Alison Brie, Mad Men; Ashley Jones, Dale Raoul, Evan Rachel Wood, True Blood

Mood Music XXXII

The reference to this song in the Firefly pilot (which I watched for the first time a couple of weeks ago - I may or may not discuss in the future how this month somehow turned into me going down the rabbit hole of Whedon fandom) reminded me of how much I like it. I'm not really sure why, but I find that as I've grown older, I enjoy the White Album more and more.

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Guest Actor in a Comedy

Scott Bakula, "Stephen Bartowski," Chuck

Louis C.K., "Dave Sanderson," Parks and Recreation

Steve Guttenberg, "Steve Guttenberg," Party Down

Jon Hamm, "Host," Saturday Night Live

Mike O'Malley, "Burt Hummel," Glee

Patton Oswalt, "Neil," United States of Tara

Michael Sheen, "Wesley Snipes," 30 Rock

The one category where I absolutely could not limit myself to six performers. I waffled on Oswalt, but his work in the pregnancy storyline in Tara's second season was too good not to include him. Bakula, C.K. and O'Malley all featured in some of the most emotionally resonant episodes of their respective shows this past season - O'Malley in particular shone in one of Glee's few consistently sustained story arcs. Party Down has had a number of great guest stars, but Guttenberg stands out for his willingness to poke fun at himself in a totally game performance. Hamm turned in yet another solid night on SNL this season - he seems poised to become a successor to Alec Baldwin as a semi-regular host. Finally, Sheen's turn on 30 Rock made me want to see him in a legit romantic comedy - one where he wasn't playing such an annoying character.

Honorable Mentions: James Franco, 30 Rock; Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Glee; Reid Ewing, Fred Willard, Modern Family; Andy Buckley, The Office; Rob Lowe, Adam Scott, Parks and Recreation

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Guest Actress in a Comedy

Elizabeth Banks, "Avery Jessup," 30 Rock

Kristin Chenoweth, "April Rhodes," Glee

Viola Davis, "Lynda P. Frazier," United States of Tara

Judith Ivey, "Paula," Nurse Jackie

Megan Mullally, "Tammy Swanson," Parks and Recreation

Betty White, "Host," Saturday Night Live

The television academy should pretty much already have Betty White's name engraved on this award; I'm having trouble imagining a scenario in which the Emmys are not the capper to the 2010 America Loves Betty White Festival, especially following Rue McClanahan's death. Which is not to say that I don't think she deserves it - the decades of professionalism White brought to the proceedings resulted in what was easily the best SNL of an underwhelming season. The other women here excelled in their respective roles: bringing pathos to an often-loopy show (Ivey), representing a strong outsider perspective (Davis), and holding their own among ensembles of strong personalities (Banks, Chenoweth, Mullally).

Honorable Mentions: Jan Hooks, 30 Rock; Idina Menzel, Romy Rosemont, Glee; Margo Martindale, Hung; Elizabeth Banks, Modern Family; Swoosie Kurtz, Nurse Jackie; Kathy Bates, The Office; Kristen Bell, Party Down; Joey Lauren Adams, Pamela Reed, United States of Tara

I wouldn't be surprised to see: Julianne Moore, Elaine Stritch, 30 Rock; Taylor Swift, Saturday Night Live

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Miniseries and Movies

I never seem to watch enough of what's in contention in the Miniseries/Movie categories to construct a full ballot list - this year, the big one that I missed is The Pacific. I thought I'd offer some general observations on what I did watch and contenders I'd like to see from each.

The Special Relationship

I wouldn't be surprised to see The Special Relationship get a fair number of nominations, though I feel less than enthusiastic about the film. Among screenwriter Peter Morgan's increasing filmography of works looking at politics, politicians and persona (The Deal, The Queen, The Last King of Scotland, Frost/Nixon), I think The Special Relationship will likely stand as a lesser light. The film attempts to cover too much for an hour and forty-five minutes, and never quite makes a strong case for focusing on Blair and Clinton rather than Blair and Bush. Somewhere, there's a good project to be made that analyzes the way the Lewinsky scandal distracted from getting more important political work done, but this was too busy to do so with the attention it deserves.

The film was also harmed, in my opinion, by a performance by Dennis Quaid that never tapped into Clinton's charisma in the way it really needed to. Performances by Michael Sheen, David Morrissey, Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker and Frank Langella in the projects previously mentioned were not necessarily great impressions, but rather built upon familiar public personas to draw inferences about the figures they portrayed that felt emotionally authentic, an area where Quaid was lacking. I will say that I hope Hope Davis and Helen McCrory are nominated for their work as Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair - I frequently found myself wishing that the movie was about them instead of their husbands.

Emma

I've said before that I haven't been a big fan of Emma, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this miniseries. It would be great to see the members of the cast recognized for their work: Romola Garai was a winning Emma, selling her gregariousness without underplaying her tendencies towards selfishness or cluelessness, Jonny Lee Miller's Mr. Knightley radiates quiet affection throughout the story, and Michael Gambon's performance as Mr. Woodhouse does a wonderful job of making a character too frequently relegated to caricature both realistic and relatable.

Temple Grandin

HBO didn't really have any one movie this year as big/hyped as last year's Grey Gardens, but I wouldn't be surprised to see this film receive a decent number of nominations. It features good work by Claire Danes and Julia Ormond; Danes anchors the film as Grandin, showing skill in communicating the shifts in the way that she approached the world and found a place for herself within it.

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: Misc. Observations on Reality

I didn't watch enough reality television in the past season to construct a full ballot of competitive and observational shows, but I thought I'd discuss the genre a bit. The reality categories are some of the most stagnant of the entire Emmy slate - the competitive show category has had the same five nominees for the past three years, and The Amazing Race has won that category in each year since its 2003 inception. I wonder how different voters put together their ballots for reality programs - after a show's first season, its quality is determined more by casting and production than by innovation of premise. Even if a show's structure was novel when it began, should it still be recognized when that format has stagnated?

It would be nice to see the voting members of the academy recognize that the past season's offerings from American Idol and Project Runway were largely considered to be underwhelming (compared with prior glory), and introduce some new blood into the competitive category like RuPaul's Drag Race and criminally under-recognized So You Think You Can Dance. I'll also reiterate my opinion from last year that declining to recognize Cat Deeley in the Best Host category robs said category of any legitimacy.

SYTYCD usually sees its primary recognition in the Best Choreography category. I'd like to see Wade Robson's Top 20 routine from Season 6 get noticed there. It'll be interesting to see how that category plays out with the introduction of Glee, which has some truly innovative numbers ("Jump," "Safety Dance,") but also frequently cribs from familiar dance tropes and music video choreography.

Mood Music XXXI

Part of me is curious to sit down and tally how much music I've bought related to the various media enterprises that use Alexandra Patsavas as a music supervisor - the other part knows that the number is somewhere around "a whole lot" and is content to leave it there.

I liked the Florence + the Machine track on the Eclipse soundtrack so much, I felt compelled to purchase the album Lungs as well. I love an act with a decent flair for melodrama - it's a good thing this wasn't around my sophomore year of college, or I would've driven my roommates crazy using it as a soundtrack for feeling sorry for myself.

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010: The Unsubmitted

Every year, there's a number of actors who I'm sad to exclude from the Dream Emmy Ballot because they never submitted their names for consideration in the first place (at least according to the information presented by the Academy).

Ben Koldyke, "Dale Tomasson," Big Love

Koldyke's pathos-drenched turn on Big Love as Alby's tortured lover was easily the best thing about the show's unfocused fourth season.

Anna Camp, "Sarah Newlin," True Blood

Michael McMillan, "The Rev. Steve Newlin," True Blood

Jim Parrack, "Hoyt Fortenberry," True Blood

Parrack, in many ways, served to ground True Blood's crazy second season. He sells Hoyt as an overgrown puppy of a person without making the innocence of his character feel creepy. Both McMillan and Camp brought exactly the right amount of energy to their roles as the leaders of a Christian fundamentalist anti-vampire church - manic without being over the top in a way where sometimes pure craziness just gleams in their eyes.

Ryan Cutrona, "Gene Hofstadt," Mad Men

Sarah Drew, "Kitty Romano," Mad Men

Sam Page, "Dr. Greg Harris," Mad Men

Mad Men always gets awards love disproportionate to its viewership numbers, but these three did great work alongside the more prominent members of the show's ensemble. Cutrona did affecting work as the man who put the "daddy" in "Betty Draper's Epic Daddy Issues." Drew wasn't a huge presence, but deserves acclaim at least for her work in the scene where Kitty reacts to her husband reenacting the opening number of Bye Bye Birdie (with himself in the Ann-Margret role) in their bedroom. Page plays what is almost certainly the most hated character among Mad Men's ensemble of deeply flawed people, but imbues him with a sense of haplessness that makes it impossible to write him off as just evil.

Jayma Mays, "Emma Pilsbury," Glee

An understated member of an ensemble constructed of big personalities, but Mays manages to sell Emma's OCD quirks without going over the top, offering somewhat of a grounding presence that helps the show stay connected (however tenuously) to the real world.

Enver Gjokaj, "Victor/Tony," Dollhouse

Dichen Lachman, "Sierra/Priya," Dollhouse

I know nobody really watched Dollhouse and it was kind of a miracle of television that Fox aired all the episodes, so it's not really surprising that almost none of the show's actors elected to submit their names for contention. Gjokaj and Lachman often outshone the show's ostensible star, Eliza Dushku, with their flexibility in the "doll" roles. Gjokaj in particular showed a distinct skill for mimicry in his impression of costar Fran Kranz.

Mood Music XXX

As in the not-racy-at-all 30th snapshot of the songs bouncing around in my head.

One of my favorites - I loved how they used it in the Glee finale.

Dream Emmy Ballot 2010

This is probably just indicative of what a nerd I am, but I love this project. It's like the TV obsessive's equivalent of a fantasy sport. I've decided to spread things out a bit more than last year - one category at a time rather than separated out by genre so it's not so crazily text-heavy. The rules (such as they are, being entirely self-imposed): Only those performers and shows that appear on the official ballots are eligible and only in the categories in which they were submitted; I only include those shows that I watched during the eligibility period.

I don't know whether I'll ultimately try to do a predictive ballot as well. It can be hard to gauge how the Academy's thinking will shift from one year to the next - Glee is almost certainly too big to ignore, but how will other new comedies fare? Who (if anyone) will come out on top of Modern Family's "everyone submit in supporting actor" strategy? Will the nominations reflect growing critical and fan disenchantment with shows like The Office, 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother? Will the basic cable original programming explosion manifest anywhere besides the yearly nominations for Tony Shalhoub, Kyra Sedgwick and Holly Hunter? Lost will likely see a final season nomination shower, but will Law and Order get any extra love? (For that matter - 24? Nip/Tuck? Ugly Betty?) Further thoughts as each category merits them.

Baking: Birthday Cake

A few weeks ago, I decided to make a birthday cake for myself as a personal indulgence. (I'm 24!) I love to bake, and I figured that a birthday was a good excuse - once the school year is over, it's hard to justify baking a full recipe of anything without an affiliated group of people to then eat it. I decided on chocolate cake with a raspberry frosting - I always loved putting berry frosting on the cupcakes I brought to class in for birthdays when I was a kid.

I. Cake: I decided to use a recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Cake Bible - All American Chocolate Butter Cake.

I'm really proud of how legit this parchment paper/butter/flour job looks on this pan. It's difficult to distribute the flour with any sort of finesse.

Cocoa, water, eggs and vanilla. The nice thing about Beranbaum is that she takes the time to explain why certain ingredients work for some cakes and not others. Why you use whole eggs for some cakes and just the yolks or whites for others, why water works better for chocolate cakes than milk. "Educational baking" sounds lame when I say that just now, but I guess I'm just the kind of nerd who digs that sort of thing.

Mmmm...butter.

The awesome thing about this batter was that there was a sort of intermediary step where it was flour, sugar, butter and chocolate without any eggs - that is, a delicious batter snack with minimal rationalization regarding salmonella and whatnot.

One layer after it came out of the oven. The cake ended up a little dry (I blame my terrible oven), but the chocolate flavor was really rich.

II. Raspberry Puree: An under-chronicled step, as it ended up taking most of the day and nearly all of my sanity. The process involves thawing and straining frozen raspberries to remove the liquid, and then the seeds. The hypothetically easy thawing step turned into a kitchen disaster when my spatula's handle snapped in half as I attempted to squeeze as much liquid as possible out of the berries. (You may or may not be able to see said broken spatula in the photo below.) The force of the tool breaking rocked the bowl the syrup was collecting in, sending it splattering on seemingly every surface in my kitchen. As if that wasn't enough, the seed-straining process was also a giant pain in the ass - Beranbaum recommends using a fine-setting food mill or a special Cuisanart attachment, but all I had was a fine-mesh strainer. I couldn't exert enough force with a spatula on its own, so I ended up largely using my hands to continuously push as much seedless pulp as possible through the strainer.

The measuring cup I used to reduce the juice in the microwave. Literally, a hot mess.

The aftermath. It was a trying evening. It's a good thing this stuff freezes for a year, because such a process should not be attempted with any frequency unless you have the patience of a saint.

III. Buttercream Frosting: I like to use the frosting recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. It's essentially just butter, confectioner's sugar, and cream and I don't yet have the confidence to attempt recipes that use hot corn syrup or eggs. (The whole "mix without getting the syrup on the beaters" thing really psychs me out. Maybe once I've got a stand mixer.)

Frosting with the raspberry puree added. It turned out nicely smooth and flavorful.

I tried some different photos to attempt to really capture how bright the pink is in the frosting, but I think this is the best I could do. All in all, a much better frosting job than I've done previously. I think the frosting job benefitted from the cake sitting in the fridge for a day or two after I baked it. Originally I planned to try and do something tricked-out with fresh raspberries and whipped cream accents, but the raspberry puree process was so exhausting that I just decided to leave it as is.

A slice of cake, enjoyed with a scoop of ice cream. This slice ended up being totally enormous, but really good.