Sunday, October 23, 2005

A word of caution and then a sweet treat!

Well, the unthinkable has happened to me! Someone has found out my personal bank account info and withdrawn my funds! We found out Friday that some "company" had withdrawn 2 amounts from my checking account. The sad thing is that the bank said there wasn't anything that could be done. They said that the withdrawals were made with an electronic fund transfer and that the "checks" had all the information needed to not flag any suspicions. The "checks" have a phone number on them where you can call for information, but unfortunately it just rings continuously. Nobody's home. Nothing. Nada! Zilch! I closed my account and now am feeling really violated! I Have Been Robbed! Nothing to do but start all over. We have filed a report, but we aren't sure what will become of that. The officer said we have a case of stolen identity. Needless to say tomorrow will be a very busy day.
I hope no one else ever has to go through this. Beware of these pathetic losers who are out to ruin peoples lives!


This morning mom invited us to lunch. She made a huge pot of Menudo. It was really good. We hadn't eaten it in so long. It went perfectly with the weather outside too. It was cold outside. The Gary's have been waiting for weather like this for some time now so they could burn a fire in the fireplace. I decided that I would make a thank you gift for her and I made her an Apple Cake from the recipe book of The Moosewood Book of Desserts. It was so full of apples and moist. I thought it looked a little boring though so I thought I would try to dress it up with some powdered sugar. I think it would be a good candidate for gift giving! It would be a good idea for those Christmas goodie baskets. Enjoy!

OLD FASHIONED FRESH APPLE CAKE

1/2 Cup butter melted
1 Cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/2 Cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups peeled chopped apples,
2 tbs fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp freshly grated lemon peel

Preheat the oven to 350. Oil or butter a 9" square baking pan. Combine the melted butter and brown sugar, beating well by hand or using an electric mixture. Add the vanilla, then beat in the eggs one at a time. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Fold the flour mixture into the butter mixture. The batter will be stiff. Fold in the chopped apples, lemon juice and lemon peel.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, until the cake is golden and the knife inserted comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Source: Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts

11 comments:

sage said...

Definitely a high calorie blog you have here Michelle--I've popped in from Michelle's. I baked pies apple pies yesterday morning--your apple cake sounds real good too.

Olyal said...

Sorry to hear about that stupid person taking advantage of you. I hope Karma catches up with them. That apple cake sounds super yummy!! I'm going to have to try that very soon!! I love apple cake!!!!

Michele sent me today.

Olyal said...

P.S. I have Blogrolled you so that I can keep coming back and trying your yummy recipes. :o)

carmilevy said...

Hi Michelle. I am so sorry to hear about this. I write about this all the time - in my tech-writer world - and it's becoming increasingly common.

I find it hard to believe that the bank is simply shrugging its shoulders. Its security protocols failed. You should not have to pay the price. Call a lawyer and review your options: the only folks who should suffer should be the banks for letting you down.

If you want to talk about it further, please e-mail me (follow the link back to my blog and e-mail me from there...it's in the profile). I'd be happy to write about your case if you feel it would help.

The Mistress of the Dark said...

Yes, I hope karma comes back and bites those sorry losers on the backside.

The apple cake looks yummy.

Here via Michele.

Alanna Kellogg said...

This is NOT your responsibility though you'll likely fight it for a long time. There are many resources on identity theft, but for starters you need to be in contact NOW with credit agencies, your credit card companies, etc. It's not going to be fun. The best of luck ...

Leanne said...

Thank you for the recipe, I have been looking for a simple yet tasty apple cake recipe all weekend. It has been a weekend of baking with apples (crisp sauce and tarts this weekend).

Sorry to hear about the identity theft issue, I would be changing banks if they are not going to investigate or put security measures in place to ensure that this doesn't happen again. Carmi and I work together(in the tech world) and I am with him on this one.

Oh btw I found you by way of Carmi!

Joe said...

Sorry to hear that happened Michelle =( Hope you can get stuff recovered!

Leanne said...

Just wanted to let u knoe that I made the cake and it was awesome! I also added 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg. Delicious, thanks again!

Jocelyn:McAuliflower said...

post your banks name, because they are suppose to be helping you in this. If a business needs to be shamed into action- that says alot about their business.

Sorry that this is happening more and more frequently.

kickpleat said...

i'm glad that you got the identity theft sorted out, so scary! this cake, however, looks delicious.