The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Organizing

Tomorrow morning I'm going to get my sister's kids and bring them back to bake and decorate cookies over the weekend.  Alex has been itching all week to pick out which cutters we'll use, and finally, finally, tonight we took the boxes of cutters out and I told Alex to take them out and put them all over the dining room table while I emptied the dishwasher and washed up what was left in the sink.  (Julia wasn't interested.  She wanted to watch Frosty on DVD instead.)

As I was stacking dishes and bowls in the cupboard, I listened to Alex checking out all the cookie cutters and cookie presses and a few other assorted cutters that have nowhere else to go. 

"Santa!  A snowman!  A reindeer!  A Christmas tree!"  And so on.

After a while - and a few more boxes - he started announcing "Mommy, you have a LOT of cookie cutters."  "Mommy!  You have SO MANY cookie cutters!"

I figured since we were assembling them, we might just as well do ALL of them, regardless of the holiday. 

"You were tricking me, Mommy!" Alex stared at the additional boxes I'd placed on one of the dining room chairs.

"I wasn't tricking you, Alex.  I just thought we should put everything on the table."

At one point he flat out told me there wasn't any more room.  Shaking his head.  Crazy mommy.

But we slid things around and found the room.  The only cookie items I didn't add were my springerle molds.  But since Alex has been eating my springerle even though they are supposed to sit for a few weeks, I have a feeling I'll be making another batch or two before the holiday.  So maybe I'll take a picture of all the springerle molds at that point.

Anyway, after he'd put all the cookie cutters out on the table, I took a few pictures, and for some reason, they have disappeared from my camera.  I'm NOT happy about that.  Alex was grinning from the other side of the table and he looked pretty cute.

Before I put them away, I took pictures of them in groups, just to have a record of everything I have.  Some I've bought or they've been gifts.  Others were my mom's mother's.  And still others belonged to my late mother-in-law. 

So, um...maybe Alex is right...maybe I do have a lot of cookie cutters...what do you think?

A Springerle Recipe

2007:  I originally posted this a couple of years ago, and since this is the recipe I used again this year, I'm just going to add those in where appropriate.  I'll also keep this year's comments in bold, in case you're wondering....by the way, the black ringbinder I refer to in the paragraph below is my late mother-in-law's book of her mother's recipes, translated from the German.

This is not the handwritten recipe in the black ringbinder. I haven't attempted that one. I'm posting (for now) the recipe that we used two years ago, the time that I baked cookies with my mother-in-law. The recipe was in a 1996 copy of Yankee Magazine and was sent in by a Marian Tietz Anderson, of Fredonia, New York. At the end of the little article it says "The Yankee Cook Suggests Springerle molds from the House on the Hill" and gives an old address and phone number, and adds "It has a huge selection of deeply cut molds that make wonderfully detailed pictures."

So onto the recipe, courtesy of Marian Tietz Anderson, with notes from Elsa...

Springerle Cookies

Make these three weeks ahead if possible, then store airtight to mellow and soften.

anise seed
4 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
1 pound sifted confectioners' sugar (4 cups, per Elsa)
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

Grease cookie sheets and sprinkle with anise seeds.
Sift together flour and baking powder. Set aside.
With an electric mixer, beat eggs until light;

add sugar;

beat until mixture makes a thick ribbon when dropped from a spoon (or a spatula).

Add lemon rind,

then flour mixture.

Mix well

* this year I had a repeating issue with dough that was too dry.  I followed the recipe, but things like humidity can affect your dough, and so maybe (I don't know for sure) the dryness in the air, or in my house, was partly to blame.  It held together okay in that picture above, but later on, when I went to roll it out, the whole thing crumbled.  I fixed that by dripping a little water on the dough - VERY LITTLE - and working the dough with my hands, adding a bit more water if necessary, until I had a better consistency.  So if your dough is crumbly - just work in bits of water.

and chill.

On lightly floured board, roll to 1/2-inch thickness.  (Sorry - for some reason I neglected to take pictures of this step.  But I think you can manage without them.)

Flour springerle molds  (because if you don't, dough will stick in the little spaces like you see below, and it's a pain to dig that out.)

and press firmly into dough.  Cut cookies apart.  (or, if you're using a single cutter like this one, trim around the main picture, either with a knife or a cookie cutter, as appropriate.)

Place 1/2 inch apart on cookie sheets and leave exposed to air overnight.

Bake the next morning in a 300 degree F oven, 20 to 25 minutes or so; do not let them get brown.

Yields about 3 dozen 2-inch cookies

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Elsa had written the following across the top of the page: "Comes out high & full if baked in round cake pans rather than cookie sheets." I think this is because the cookies were surrounded by the sides of the cake pan, concentrating the heat within that circle, which probably helped give the baking powder an extra bit of oomph to help leaven the cookies. Just a guess.

Springerle molds are sometimes single pieces of wood (or a resin/wood combination) with a sort of checkerboard arrangement of lots of smaller pictures. Each picture is meant to make a single cookie, so after you've imprinted the mold on the dough, you need to carefully cut these into the smaller cookies. For straight lines, a pizza wheel works very well, as long as you're careful and the wheel doesn't get away from you.

She also noted, with regard to the length of cooking time "20 min is good" - but that will really depend on your oven. Still - check them at 20. No one wants a browned springerle!! Trust me!!

I am going to make a batch with this recipe this year (to play it safe) and a batch from Elsa's ringbinder(to be bold and brave). I also have (somewhere) a recipe that my husband's cousin, Elsa's brother's daughter, had sent to me last Christmas. I can't remember if it's an adaptation of a family recipe or something she got somewhere else, or something she developed...apparently these come out lighter and a bit easier on the teeth. The airing out can result in a rather dry, hard cookie, and time will have the same effect. I don't mind - I like to gnaw on them, actually. You can also dunk them in your coffee. Or tea. Or milk.

Update, 11/24/03
Now that I've finally made them, here are a couple of tips...

Make sure you let the dough warm back up a bit after chilling before you attempt to roll it out. This is a bad habit of mine - I start trying to roll it too cold (I do this with pie dough too) and it inevitably cracks and is very frustrating to work with. Can't really give you a length of time, but try 10-15 minutes and then figure out what's best in your kitchen.

Also - when pressing out the molds...the dough, as you press (and be prepared to exert some pressure - this is a strong dough and will push back) needs somewhere to go. It will go up into the mold, which you want, and it will go out to the sides. I found out it works best if you can cut a piece of dough just about the size of the image you're pressing, press that lightly to the mold, and flip it over and lean on it (evenly, so it doesn't come out really detailed on one side and less so on the other) that should work. I've also seen instructions to put the dough on the mold and run your rolling pin over it. I have one really big mold and I'll probably do the rolling pin thing when I get to that one. I'll be making another batch next weekend....

Always

This post is for my Mom, in a way.  It's her birthday today.  She's always been a wonderful mother, except for that time when we were little and she told us we could eat AS MUCH CANDY as we wanted.  That frightened me.  But apart from that...she's done a damn fine job.  From her I've inherited a love of books, and of cooking, and of music, and, hopefully, decent mothering abilities.  Time will tell.

Happy Birthday, Mom.  Mind how you go....Love, Jayne

Not long after my mom's father passed away, after the funeral was over, and we were supposed to start to "get back to normal", I was in my old bed at my parents' house, and I dreamt of him. 

In this dream, I was sitting on a bench in a park - I don't know where, I didn't recognize it.  And he, Grandad, came over and sat beside me.  He didn't look like he had looked toward the end - tired and gaunt and shrunken and sharply angled.  Instead, he was tall and healthy and hearty - full of "vim, vigour and vitality" as he used to say.  He looked as he had when I was younger, when I looked up at him always in awe and admiration and love and a huge desire to be with him all the time. 

I was so blessed with the lives of all of my grandparents when I was a child.  I knew each of them. I have separate and distinct memories of them.  My dad's parents moved to Arizona when I was nearly 4, and they came east once more when I was in the 6th grade.  I never saw my paternal  grandfather - Grandpa - again, but I did see my grandmother shortly after Grandpa passed away - Dad and I flew out to California, where they had moved, and we visited and I met other family members for the first time.

My mother's parents were constants in my young life, especially after I turned 7 and my grandfather had retired and the two of them moved up to Rhode Island and into a house on the same block as ours.  I was 22 when my grandfather passed away - so that's a huge chunk of my life with him in it.

Anyway. 

There I was on the park bench, and him sitting beside me.  And he was wearing a thin maroon windbreaker sort of jacket.  He used to walk down to Healy's News Store on Sunday mornings to get the paper.  He'd pick up two and drop one off at my parents' house before going home.  I can see him coming around the corner of Main street, newspapers rolled and tucked under an arm.... 

He walked at a purposeful, destination-bound pace.  He neither sauntered nor meandered, and I think this was true in most aspects of his life.  I remember sleeping over at my grandparents' house and wanting to get up to get the paper with him.  I knew I had to be up and ready to go on time, so I slept in my clothes, just to make sure he wouldn't leave without me.  I was young and small; he was larger than life.

When he sat down on the bench beside me, he spoke to me in his strong, London-laced voice.

And he said "I always love you."

It was a strange phrase.  Not "I will" or "I have...loved..." - but more of an "I do...."  Not "when I was alive" or "looking down from wherever I am now" - no - it was a constant, uninterrupted thing.

I woke up in tears. 

Days later, back at the house I shared with some college friends in CT, I told one of them - the one with the most religious upbringing - about the dream and asked if he believed that the dead can visit us in our sleep.  It had been so real...I could recall the feel of cool nylon jacket on my palms and fingers as I clung to him in a hug.  He felt solid.

My friend said no, something like that was more likely the work of the devil.

And since I had no way to prove otherwise, I let the subject drop.  With him.  But I didn't agree.  How could that dream be an evil thing?  How?  If anything, it was...uplifting, and joyous, and beautiful.  I didn't discuss it again.  But I still think my dear, wonderful friend was full of crap that day.

Someone larger than life leaves a huge gap in the lives of his family when he is physically no longer present.  The fallout, I think, has never stopped, though the vibrations have softened.  We all handle things differently.  Sometimes wisely, sometimes not.  Regardless, time continues on, oblivious.

I don't visit the grave where both my grandparents now lay.  Well, the physical part of them.  I don't really think they are there.  I think my grandfather, wherever he is, continues to move purposefully and with some destination in mind.  I think he visits libraries, and opera houses, and small amateur boxing clubs where the fighters are there to fight and not just for spectacle or ear-biting. 

For a long time, I kept the green vinyl recliner that had been his.  I actually had it before he died - my grandmother or my mother or someone wanted to get him a new chair.  I couldn't bear the thought of them throwing this chair away, so I claimed it. He'd had the chair when they lived in New Jersey.  When we went down there to visit, my sister and I would sit on his lap on that chair, listening to the soundtracks of "Oliver!" and "My Fair Lady." 

The chair smelled faintly of pipe tobacco.  Borkum-Riff Whiskey blend.  It came in a black and white and silver tin, and there were tall-masted sailing ships on the top and sides.  Even when the chair was no longer in his house, when he hadn't smoked a pipe in many years, especially since the heart attack, I could, if I pressed my face against the vinyl in just the right spot, still smell the tobacco.  I inhaled it like a drug. 

My husband and I have now lived in our house for just over 6 years now.  The whole house had been refurbished before we bought it - so much of it was like new.  It smelled of paint for months.

A couple of times, upstairs here, I have caught a whiff of that pipe tobacco smoke.  Unannounced, unexpected, unexplained.  (I don't have the chair any more.)  I wondered at first if maybe someone in a nearby house was smoking that same pipe tobacco, and that the wind had carried a bit of it in through an open bedroom window.

But I have dismissed that idea.  It didn't last long enough to have come from anywhere outside.  There was no more of it than a fleeting olefactory glimpse.  It was an eye blink of a smell.  There and gone.  But definitely there.

So he has stopped by, I believe, to check in on things.  And I'm sorry the books aren't in better rows, spines flush with the edge of the shelf.  And that I sometimes dog-ear the pages.  But I don't think it matters much.  I think so many of the things that matter to us on a daily basis, things we worry about and obsess about and torture ourselves with and bury - as if that will make it go away when all it does is hide if for a while - I think they don't really matter at all.  They just keep us busy.  And moving.  And distracted.  And we do them anyway.  Because we must do things.

Monday night - two nights ago - I was watching TV with my husband.  The program he had been watching ended, and I took up the remote and began to scroll through the programming guide to see what else was on.  I  am weird like this: no matter what channel we are on, I need to scroll to channel 2 - to the beginning - and proceed from there.  So I did, paging back from wherever we had been until I reached the beginning.  And there, on channel 2 - "Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti in Concert."  I hit the info button - it was the 1990 concert in Rome.  I hit "Select" and settled in for the night.

My grandfather died in 1988 - two years before the concert took place.  I'm sure he was there, floating above in the night sky, eyes closed, index fingers twitching, perhaps, as he conducted along with Zubin Mehta.   He would do that.

I know the whole concert by heart.  I know some of the songs in Italian, or French, German, Spanish...and what I don't know that way, I "know" phonetically.  I even sing along with the orchestra.  I'm sure I'm quite annoying to be around, but I don't particularly care.

I thought about my grandfather while I watched and sang in my chair.  I thought about my Mom, his only child, and wondered if she knew this was on, and if she was watching.  The holiday season is tough on her, I know.  But then, the season is tough on so many people who have lost loved ones and must celebrate without them in a chair at the dinner table. 

I sat there and kind of waited to feel tearful.  I really did.  I waited for emotion to well up in me, perhaps while Domingo sang "e lucevan le stelle", and pour from my eyes.  I waited to feel them sting a bit, and for my nose to feel prickly as it does when I'm going to cry.  But none of that happened.  I just listened, and sang along softly, and groaned and rolled my eyes whenever the program was interrupted because the public television station was in the middle of their fundraising.  And I got annoyed with this one woman who kept pronouncing Pavarotti "pavarot-tay" - what is that?  Get over yourself dear, you sound ridiculous.

And while there was singing, I also wondered if, maybe, I might suddenly smell some pipe tobacco.  Of course that's asking a lot, I know.  He could be watching this from anywhere.  Actually, he could be hanging out with Luciano instead, discussing other great tenors of the past and which arias were their favorites.  But still...I wanted something to happen.   

I've been watching Lisa Williams / Life Among the Dead.  I thing she's fabulous.  First - because she seems genuine.  And because she's got a great smile and funky hair and a cute little blond son and an English accent.  And because I have always been interested in the other side.  And according to Lisa, yes, they do communicate - though not always in the ways you expect them to.  So you have to be open to it, in whatever way it comes.

Well, I sniffed the air - quietly, so my husband wouldn't wonder what my problem was - on and off for a while.  Nothing.  I physically tensed as I tried REALLY HARD to - I don't know - squeeze pipe smoke from thin air through sheer force of will.  Didn't work.   

During one of the breaks, when the smiling, unblinking, fund-raising folk returned, waving CDs and DVDs, I went upstairs to move our son out of our bed and into his own.  He falls asleep on our bed because if both kids go to bed in the room they share, neither one falls asleep.  So this is how we're doing this for now.  It can't go on forever.  My son is five and a half, and growing taller by the minute, it seems.  It's a production picking him up off of the bed - sound asleep, so he weighs twice what he weighs when he's awake.  I lean in and hug him to me and then bend my knees a bit and lean backward to shift his weight onto me instead of the bed, and then straighten up so I don't fall over backwards.  I lug him as gently as I can from our room down the short hall to the kids' bedroom, trying not to whack one of his dangling legs against the door frame in the process.  Then I heave him up so he's somehow horizontal in my arms and then gently - in theory - set him down on the bed.  Cover him with the sheet and blanket and comforter, kiss him on the cheek, whisper "I love you" in his ear.  Sometimes he stays right where I put him, other times he sits up and slowly lays back down against the pillow, rearranging himself into a more comfortable position than the one I dumped him in, or he sometimes  mumbles or babbles in his sleep. 

So I got him settled in and whispered "I love you" and kissed him and was on my way toward the door when he spoke - perfectly clearly, as if he was awake, except that his eyes were closed.

And he said "I always love you."

I was so focused on not waking him or his sister up that what he said didn't really hit me until I was sitting on the couch watching the last portion of the concert, where all three tenors are on stage for that one grand and glorious and fun medly of opera and musical theatre and folk songs. 

And then I suddenly thought - huh?  What did he say? 

He said "I always love you." 

Not "I will..." or "I have .... loved..."  - future or past...

It was more like "I do" - something constant, in the present - in the ever-present tense.  The always.

And I watched the remainder of that concert lying on the couch, snuggled under a blanket, smiling.  I felt...happy.  I didn't feel sad at all.  My nose refused to prickle; my eyes would not cry. 

And - that's a good thing, I think. 

I don't believe we are supposed to cry forever.  I think we are supposed to live our lives - really live them - not wasting a single moment if possible.  I think that is the best way to honor those we have lost.  "Every day an adventure," as Grandad was wont to say.  Our time here is precious.  It's wrong to waste a minute of it.  I think we are supposed to love and cherish those around us - hug our loved ones tightly - and work hard and play hard and laugh and yes, remember, and move purposefully toward our destinations, wherever and whatever they may be.

Sure, maybe my son saying what he said, that way, that night, was a coincidence. 

But I don't believe in coincidences.

I do, however, believe love is endless.

Always.

 

In the Cookie Jar: Pfeffernusse

Pfeffernusse translates as "pepper nuts," which is pretty much on the money.  Ground pepper is one of the ingredients, and the finished products sort of, now that I think about some of the items on my recent cookie sheet, resemble acorns.  Kind of.  Anyway, they're hard.  Like nuts.  And rocks, actually.  But nuts are a bit more biter-friendly.  And they probably taste better, too.

First, the ingredients: 

1/2 lb sugar

2 eggs

1  1/2 tsp baking soda

finely grated zest of half a lemon

4 1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp ground pepper

1/2 lb flour

brandy

You might wonder about some of the measurements.  Actually, the original recipe was a combination of pounds and grams.  My late mother-in-law, Elsa, converted grams into teaspoons.

Shall we proceed?

Stir sugar and eggs 1/2 hour.  Really, that's what it says.  I'm saying - it's an old recipe.  No hand-held mixers, no KitchenAid stand mixers, no food processing.  Just bowls and wooden spoons.  That's how you did it.  But it's okay to skip that bit of authenticity in favor of time saving measures.  So instead, beat the eggs and sugar together until light in whatever way you want to.

   

In a separate bowl, mix together all the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the brandy.  That's for later.

And then add the dry goods to the egg/sugar mixture...

...until combined.  But don't overdo it.  You're making a cookie, not a loaf of bread.  No need to get the gluten all excited.

Now you want to turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board.

Hey...what are those little things in the back there?

Oh...you mean these?

These are one-of-a-kind pfeffernusse tools.  Elsa's father made them.  In front is a little wooden matchstick sliced into a blunt point at one end and marked (on the left) at the quarter inch mark.  That's how thick you want to roll the dough.  It's hard to read, but the word "pfeffernus" is written on the stick as well.  Behind that is a part of a little tin container that held Herb-Ox bouillon in some form or other.  He cut the tin down to size and as you can see, "pfeffernus" is written on that as well.

There are more of these match sticks for the other cookies we will be baking this holiday season.  But I think my favorite item is this tiny cutter.

For those of you who don't have an old Herb-Ox tin container to trim down... the diameter is about 3/4 of an inch.  If you don't have a round cutter that small, GET ONE!  No, you can use something a little bigger - but use the smallest size you possibly can (you don't want english muffin-sized pfeffernusse...someone could break a jaw).  If you end up making them larger than the 3/4 inch size, you'll need to adjust the cooking time accordingly.

Okay, so we've got our special tools, and we've got our dough.  Now you need to roll it out until it's about a quarter inch thick...

Now you take your pfeffernusse cutter and start cutting out little circles of dough, like so:

 

Place the tiny cookies on a parchment-lined sheet pan. 

You should dip the cutter in flour every couple of circles, so the dough doesn't stick too much.  Sometimes no matter what, you just need a bit of help getting it dough to come out...

You can re-roll the dough a few times, in order to get as many little circles of dough out of that batch as possible.

Yes, it can be exhausting work...

...but keep going, you're almost done for now.

Set the pan aside in a cool place for 12-24 hours.

I let mine sit over night.

When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 300 F.

And here's where the brandy comes in.  You don't need much.  Pour a little bit into a bowl and lightly brush the tops of the cookies with the brandy.  I believe that what it does is moisten the dried top surface of the cookie, allowing the cookie to soften a bit and pop up and take on that round nut shape.  But then, I could be doing it completely wrong and maybe they're really supposed to resemble pecans.  Probably not.

Now, just pop the pan in the oven and set the timer for 25 minutes.  Besides baking them, you're also drying them out, so you want the tops to feel firm, rather than mushy, when you check them at this point.  If they need to go longer, let them.  If you're not sure, another five minutes won't harm them.

When they're done, they will look more or less like these:

I say more or less because, well, mine still don't look consistent.  Some are nicely domed, others look like that little guy in the middle there...what happened to him?  Nothing good....

These, on the other hand, look a bit better to me -

- nicely proportioned, I think.

But no matter how they look, they will all taste good.  They should be dry and crunchy and spicy little bites.   If you're a fan of gingersnaps, you'll probably like these, too.

The recipe makes about 9 dozen.  I only bake one batch and I have more than enough to give away and to keep.

Have fun!

Printable Recipe!

Do Intentions Count?

Well, I sincerely meant to write about either springerle or pfeffernusse last night, but clearly that didn't happen.  After the kids' swim class I baked off all the springerle that had been sitting out since I pressed and cut them the night before.  And they came out better than I expected, some of them.  That's pretty typical for me - I think "oh this is the worst I've ever done" and then, well, no, not yet.  Keep trying, you'll hit your worst eventually.

And then after all the cookies were baked and cooled (and a couple sampled, because, of course, you have to) and packed away, I had dinner and watched a bit of TV with my husband and then got sidetracked by what I was watching, and next thing I knew it was nearly time to go to bed.

So I do apologize.

And this morning - just not enough time to do a recipe justice, so yet again, I am putting off the writing.  Tonight I will roll out and cut AND bake the lebkuchen, so not sure if I'll get to write anything tonight, either.  But Wednesday night I will NOT be baking anything (I think) and hopefully I can catch up on all this.

In the meantime, here's a picture of a lot of pans of springerle waiting to be baked:

Well, except for the top two pans on that rack.  The top one is an experiment - two nations merging: lebkuchen biscotti.  More on that when I write about lebkuchen.  And below that - the pfeffernusse that, when I took the picture, hadn't been baked yet.  So this must have been Sunday night....

Anyway, thus began my baking.  So much more to do, and so little time because I'm stuck at work all day staring at my computer screen with very little to do now that I've trained some other people to do what I do.  I am not sure what my purpose is there, now, but apparently it is to take up space.

I do that pretty damn well.

 

It's That Time Again

Yesterday I "officially" (like that matters to anyone but me) began the Baking Of The Christmas Cookies.

I'll post more on that tonight, once I've got the rest of the pictures I want to use.

But for now...

Remember these cookies?  Well, I had some leftover dough that I wanted to bake off, since otherwise it would make its way to the back of my fridge and not be seen again until springtime.

And I'd been thinking about those stained glass window cookies you make by crushing candy (lifesavers or other similar candy) and sprinkling that in the center of a cookie outline, and baking that.  Most of the ones I've seen are simply that - an outline with a pretty color in the center.  And there's nothing wrong with that - I think they're pretty.  They don't appeal to me as a cookie, to eat, but I still think they're pretty to look at and might make a lovely ornament for your tree.

Anyway, while I was at work on Friday - yeah, Friday, wallowing in my post-turkey have-to-work misery, I had a little part of my brain busy at work with this stained glass thing.

And I thought, also, about the woman who cuts my hair.  Her name is Roberta, and she's an artist.  No, really.  She was a graphic artist, and she has recently been taking courses in stained glass work.  And the windows at the salon she co-owns are adorned with these beautiful stained glass images of fish and seahorses and starfish - in keeping with the ocean-side location.  They're gorgeous.  She designed them and made them and I keep thinking of them.

So I thought, in my copycat way, why not do something like that with cookies?  I figured I'd start small, and just do a little experiment with the rest of that gingerbread dough.  Maybe little fish bowls with little gingerbread fishies swimming around in blue jolly rancher water.

So that's what I did.  And here they are.  My stained-glass fish bowl experiments:

Kind of cute, huh? 

They were fun.  There are things I learned from the experiment, things I'd do differently next time, etc. 

As far as eating them, well, my son and the kid across the street didn't like them, but my daughter and my husband did.  I haven't tried them, actually, but I know my taste preferences, and I don't think I'd enjoy them either.  If you're gonna have candy, have candy.  If you're gonna have a cookie, have a cookie.  Plus, I'm just not really nuts about hard candy anyway. 

These hard candies, by the way, were blue jolly ranchers - THIS shade of blue, or close to it.  But in the baking process, they became greenish.  Interesting.

Anyway, I've got to go now, but I'll be writing probably tonight about the first batches of cookies I've made - namely, Pfeffernusse and Springerle.

Thursday

My sister told me she read somewhere that on Thanksgiving, people consume, on average, 5000 calories.

I think I was somewhere above that average. 

Alex was in heaven.  This year, what with studying about the Pilgrims and the Indians, and King George and turkey and cranberries and all that, AND with not one, but TWO Thanksgiving feasts this past Tuesday - one at his kindergarten class and one at daycare, not to mention all the construction paper Thanksgiving-related artwork and projects that he's been bringing home for the last week and a half, AND, his very first performance in a musical.  Okay - the kids were dressed in Pilgrim and Indian construction paper costumes, and they sang a couple of songs and then, standing in a row, recited a piece about Thanksgiving.  Alex's line was "oysters and clams, tummies growling" - and then he held up a sheet of paper with a picture of oysters and clams on it.

Bill said Alex did really well.  He was ready to go with his line, spoke up loudly and clearly.  My little boy.  I wish I'd been there, but I was at work.  Julia was there, though.  And Bill said at one point another little kid was supposed to say his line but apparently forgot it and so there was a great silence of collectively held parent breath...and Julia...Julia...well, she chose that exact moment to, um, pass gas.

Yep.  Julia punctuated the silence.

Anyway, Alex's favorite part of Thanksgiving is, if you ask him, "The Feasts!" And so he was ECSTATIC when it was time for dinner at my parents' house yesterday.  Yeah, yeah, he had fun playing with Julia and his cousins, but when it was time for The Feast, he couldn't get to the table fast enough.  Want some turkey?  "Oh yes!"  Stuffing?  "I LOVE stuffing!  It's my most favorite thing!"  No mashed potatoes though - he doesn't like them.  Green beans - okay.  Brussels sprouts sauteed with pancetta?  Okay.  The biscuits that his cousin Natalie baked (Yay Natalie!), YES!  And - the most surprising part - "can I have more of that pink stuff?"  It wasn't pink, it was red.  My mom had made a cooked cranberry relish, and Alex LOVED it. 

And then - as suddenly as he had started, he put down his shovel and said he was done.  Probably because Julia had already left the table and was playing somewhere and he didn't want to miss out on anything. 

But then dessert time rolled around, and we all rolled our bloated selves back to the table to have pie.  He had some of each, but the best part was when I asked my Dad what kind of pie he wanted - not that I needed to - and before Dad could answer, Alex hollered out "Wait!  I know what kind!  SQUASH! Because I know that's your favorite kind!"  Which, of course, it is.

So then, after sitting around groaning about the pie we'd just eaten, and talking and laughing and groaning some more, while the kids went and played or hung out outside in the back of my dad's pickup, we started gathering our things together and getting ready to head home.

And then Alex appeared again.  "Where's the pie?"  We put it away.  It's going to stay at Grammy and Papa's house.  "But...but I'm HUNGRY!" 

The whole ride home "Mommy, I'm HUNGRY....Mommy, I'm SO hungry...." and on and on.  Like he was absolutely STARVING.  Because, though he'd been enthused about dinner, he only ate a little of it (except the cranberry stuff) so he could go play.  And now, right when it was time to leave, he wanted to eat again.  He groaned in agony for half the ride home.  And once home? 

The newly traditional can of spaghettios and meatballs was opened and heated and shared by the little hungry boy and the little hungry girl. 

And they were very thankful.

Sunrise and Fog - Thanksgiving Morning 2007

 

I.Q.

Yesterday I was bored at work so I went online and took an IQ test.

I got both letters right.

(ba-dum ching)

Happy Thankgsiving to all of you!  Have a wonderful day!

Cakes - Natalie's First Birthday - 1996

I have no notes on this one, and I'm thinking it might not even be chronologically correct in my little photo album of cakes...but oh well. 

We skip ahead a few years to my niece's first birthday.  I used a Wilton teddy bear pan that we must have borrowed from someone because I don't have it here.  I think it may have been borrowed from Beth...Beth?  That sound right?  Mere, do you remember?

Anyway, the cake pan came with pictures of suggested decorating themes...I think you could decorate the bear as a cheerleader, or, as in this case, a ballerina.  I don't remember the other choices.  My sister went with the pinkest, girliest one because, well, she had a girl!

Somewhere I have pictures of Natalie - bald little Natalie - with pink frosting on her face and her mouth and eyes wide open in surprise or delight or a sugar rush.  Very cute. 

I think the cake was chocolate...if my sister was choosing the flavor, then it was definitely chocolate.

Gee, this is a really exciting and informative post, isn't it?

That could be because I had some sort of snobby aversion to the cake pan - not just this one but any character cake pan.  I don't know - I get weird like that at times.

But anyway - there you go.  I'm looking ahead at the next couple of pictures, and one of them is DEFINITELY way out of order here.  Oh well.  I will just follow along anyway.  Even though it will bother me.  I'm so easily bothered....

Another Month

Well, apparently I'm staying until late December now, at work.  I have to say a part of me is disappointed, because I was really looking forward to having a bunch of ENTIRE days to do all the cookie baking I want to do this year.  But oh well, that ain't gonna happen.  So this weekend I need to start really cranking things out.

The race, every year, is to get everything baked in time to ship them out to the relatives in other states in plenty of time for delivery BEFORE Christmas.  There have been years where I've spent gobs of money shipping them second day air or whatever, primarily because the baking ran late.

I think last year I got it all done in plenty of time - much to my own surprise.  So I know I can do it again. 

The trick is not to get in a panic about it.  Years ago, when I was single and had way more free time than I do now, I wanted to make these fancy schmancy cookie assortments for the immediate family.  It was a lot of work, and I had probably decided to do this the week before Christmas, so I was really crunched for time.  I ended up having a full blown anxiety attack one morning, overwhelmed by the pile of pressure I'd heaped on my own head.  I think my mother drove up and collected me and took me away from my torture chamber so I could think more rationally. 

I try not to get to that point any more.  Bill tells me every year "You don't have to make ALL of the cookies.  Mom didn't make every kind every year."  And I know that, but still, I have this NEED to make them all.  Maybe it's because I'm still trying to get them all right.  I still have issues with a few of them - they just don't come out consistently perfect (okay, there's part of my problem right there - "perfect" is a tough standard to live up to all the time) and I am trying to figure out what I'm not doing right.

But anyway.  This weekend I'll make the springerle because it is supposed to age a bit before you eat it.   The rest don't have that same requirement, so I'll just fit in whatever else appeals to me.  And I'll post pictures as I go...too bad I couldn't post the smells of spices and citrus and anise and everything else...can you imagine the traffic this blog would get?

Tonight, however, I'm making pie crust dough, and tomorrow I'll bake two pies - apple and squash.  Squash, not pumpkin, because my father (he says) knows the difference, and he requests SQUASH.  So there.

And that's the update, baking-wise and job-wise.  Time to go now, and herd the children toward the bathroom so they can brush their teeth.  Have a good day! 

YES!!!!!!!

THIS is all I wanted for Christmas.

For your entertainment

Alex REALLY REALLY wanted to make gingerbread men.  Not just any - he wanted to duplicate the gingerbread man from (what else) the Shrek movies.  So last night we made a batch of gingerbread dough and cut out some cookies, and the kids decorated two each before bath time.  Here they are:

Complete with gumdrop buttons.  Alex's, that is.  Julia's...gumdrop goiters, perhaps.

Friday evening, mostly

First of all, I find it incredibly funny that someone found my site by doing a search on the phrase "frumpy pigskin." 

What else...

Well, I still don't know when my last day at work will be.  Nothing was discussed on Friday.  I'm hoping this gets sorted out tomorrow (my immediate supervisor was out sick Thurs and Fri, otherwise things would probably have been taken care of on Friday), just for my own sanity.  I don't really think they need me all that much.  They still don't have anyone hired into the dept, but it's slowing down enough that I think they can still manage the training even if I'm not around.  I'm just...I don't know.  I'm over it, I guess.  I just want to move on. 

But anyway....

On Friday I left work early and got the kids, fed them and got them dressed nicely (and myself) to go to the wake for my husband's uncle.  Bill got home shortly after we did, and by quarter to five we were all cleaned up nice and on our way.

The kids were very good.  I don't know how normal or not normal it is to be bringing the kids with us to funerals and wakes (sounds like we go to them often.  I know this year it felt like that to Bill), but that's just how it's been happening.  They are aware that living things die...after all, they've seen enough Disney movies to get that concept, not to mention the loss of a few lizards, a frog or two, and plenty of fish. 

I try to figure out what to tell them when we go.  My kids are five (and a half) and three (and a half), and I want to keep it simple and honest and caring.  So I tell them we are going to be with other people who love Uncle Don, or Auntie Diane, as the cases have been this year, and we're going to give people hugs to help them feel better. 

And that's what we go do.  Friday night we got to the funeral home and went in.  Signed the book.  Saw cousins of Bill's that originally we usually only saw at Christmas or at the family gathering in August...now we see them at funerals and wakes. 

Alex was sweet.  He was quiet and observant and generous with the hugs.  I was proud of him.  My little man.  Julia was a little overwhelmed by it all, so she played shy.  I carried her most of the time, and she would duck her head against my shoulder when people smiled at her and said "Hello, Julia Rose...such a pretty name!" 

We stayed for a little while.  We had arrived during the last hour.  While we were there, 6 older men came in and marched up to where the casket was.  They spread out, side by side, and one spoke.  I don't remember the words; I couldn't really hear him well.  What I remember was the rhythm and cadence and military spit and polish of the small assembly.  They were veterans.  Very possibly they had served aboard the Shangri-La with Uncle Don.  They looked around that age.  They were all dressed differently, ranging from suits and shined shoes to jeans and flannel.  But their hats were the same.  Actually (oh, I sound like a doofus here) - I don't know what you call them.  Okay, I found it - it's called a garrison cap, among other things.  (Other names are in the article I liked to.)  Anyway, they all wore them, all nearly covered with pins and medals.  Words were recited with pride and respect and honor.  While they stood there, seemingly oblivious to the rest of us behind them, the room gradually fell silent.  People stopped and stood respectfully, and shushed those who hadn't realized what was happening yet. 

It was a quiet moment.  A poignant moment.  There is something about a military procession - even if it only consists of 6 men - that never fails to make my eyes tear up.  And it's not just pure military - I remember five years ago at Bill's mother's wake, the endless line of boy scouts, two by two, paying their respects to the family - and I felt the same thing.  There is something powerful and breathtaking and comforting about it.  My words do not do it justice.

Anyway.  After the wake, we headed over to Bill's friend John's house.  John's wife had invited some people over for an impromptu surprise night-before-John's-birthday gathering. 

We were the first to arrive.  John met us at the door wearing a Burger King crown and carrying their nearly-three-month old baby boy.  John's wife, P, was cooking little tasty snacky things and setting them out.  Bill and John went out to the garage to pour a pitcher of beer from the keg out there, and I hung out with P. and tried to keep the kids occupied.  P offered them pizza and juice, and that worked for a bit, but Julia...Julia needed to be busy.

She wanted to go outside with Daddy and John.

She wanted to come inside.

She wanted to go back outside.

She wanted some juice.

She took the cushion off the chair.

She wanted to climb on the chair and jump on it.

She saw P. bring in a small platter of sliced, sauteed kielbasa with toothpicks and a small bowl of mustard.  "What's that?" she asked, tapping one of the kielbasa with her finger.  I ate that one.  We asked her not to touch any more of them.  Throughout the evening, she poked pieces of kielbasa with toothpicks and brought them to people.  She wanted to play hostess.

She also wanted one of those...no, didn't like it...gave it to Daddy.  Later, she wanted one of those...no, didn't like it...gave that one to Mommy.  Please don't touch anything else, Julia. 

She loved their cat.  Another guest asked Julia if she had a cat.  Yes, she does.  Oh?  What does your kitty cat look like, Julia?  Like THIS one!  she says, pointing to the huge black and white creature sitting patiently on the couch, tolerating Julia's occasionally annoying cat love.  Um...no...Blur is a tiny gray tiger...looks nothing like him.  But - both are tolerant of her.  That's something in common, at least.

Julia had to go potty.  I was holding the baby, so Bill had to bring her.  And they had to go use the upstairs bathroom because, surprise, Alex was already occupying the downstairs one.  A bit later Bill and Julia came back downstairs and Bill had a sort of "it was mighty fortunate that I jumped off the tracks just as that train was coming!" look on his face.  His eyes usually aren't opened that wide.  Apparently there was a ceiling-high panel made of sections of glass - not a door - and Julia - probably thinking it was a door, pushed on it...and the whole thing started to separate from whatever was holding it up.  Bill caught it.  No glass broken.  Heart rate elevated.  Crisis averted.

I spent a bunch of blissful time holding the baby.  He was so small!  Compared to Julia, I mean.  And the funny thing - to me - was how automatic some things are.  The slight bouncing...the rhythmic rocking from one leg to the other, with a little slow twisting to the left, to the right.  The baby dance.  I could still do it.  He fell asleep on me.  I felt it...gradually he became heavier...in baby slumber.  I smelled the top of his head.  Baby head smell.  Cute and clean and pure and...no, never mind all that.  There are no real words.  It's just...baby head smell.  And his hair...he has a good amount of soft black hair.  Silky soft hair, baby head smell.  I smiled at Bill and he froze for a moment and then looked away.  Terrified.  Hahahahahaha.

Eventually I handed the baby over to another baby-hungry friend of the family, and at some point found myself in the kitchen with P and Bill - can't remember what we were talking about, but no matter.  Julia was there too.  The wall between the kitchen and the dining room is not really a wall, it is a series of glass-less window-like openings.  They've got little statues and decorative things on some of the window/shelves.  Others are empty.  Julia was kneeling on a chair in the kitchen, beside the little kitchen table, waving through one of the empty spaces to Alex in the dining room.  They got a huge kick out of this.  Then they switched places so Alex could be on the chair and Julia could be in the dining room.  And right about the time they were switching back again, P was offering Bill some olives that she had bought but forgot to put out, and Bill was eating a brined chili pepper and evaluating its heat, and P was urging us to just take the whole container home because she doesn't like olives anyway, and I said put them in the fridge - they'll last forever and Bill can eat them when he's here because we have more then enough assorted olives at home, and right about then I looked at Julia and she was moving back from the window/wall opening and her elbow hit a small statue on the table and knocked it over and next thing we knew, Julia had decapitated Jesus. 

Bill and I gasped at the same time and I picked up the head and the body and looked at the neck ends with some sort of desperate hope that maybe this had happened before, or that Jesus, like some old dolls I'd had as a kid, had a head that could  just pop back onto the neck.  Not so.  "John can probably super-glue it!" I babbled helpfully.  I was trying not tobreak into hysterical giggles.  Bill didn't bother with self control.  He laughed.  I wasn't sure how P really felt about the Jesus statues and Mary statues she's collected.  I think they're Portugese or something.  P seemed pretty calm about everything, but all I could think of was Oh Great, Julia Has Desecrated A Symbolic Rendering of The Son of God. 

John had a good laugh about it.

And we figured it was probably a good time to head on home.

I get this look a lot

Planning for Spring

Yay!  We just signed Alex up for T-ball!

Our journey into the world of parents of children who play organized sports has BEGUN!

Okay, well you should know by now I'm just goofy.

Wild Beauties.

Go here.  They are just gorgeous.

Bits and Pieces

I seem to be having some kind of blogger's block these last few days.  I could do another cake post...but I wanted to make that a once a week thing going forward.  So I can't.

My children haven't eaten anything scary since the weekend, so there's nothing to write about in that department (sorry, Beth.  hahahaha). 

My favorite line from Shrek the Third is "You, Frumpy Pigskin!" - it's Prince Charming talking to Rumplestiltskin.  I couldn't stop laughing the first time I heard it.  I picked up the DVD on Tuesday and if the kids could do without sleep they'd watch it around the clock.  And I wouldn't mind.  Much.  Hee hee hee...frumpy pigskin.  I just love that.

I need to start eating better.  Again.

I still haven't sorted out my entire shopping list of baking supplies for the cookie extravaganza.  I'll do that this weekend.

My husband's uncle passed away Tuesday.  He had been diagnosed with leukemia a year or two ago.  He was in his early eighties.  It was not unexpected, but still.  We're going to the wake tonight.  The funeral tomorrow.  Bill's playing something beautiful on guitar at the funeral.  I think - no, I know - he's getting kind of tired of playing guitar at the funerals of his family members.  His mom died five years ago this month...Thankgiving has become a bittersweet holiday. 

I still don't know when my last day at work will be.  It would be nice if they could let me know so I can let daycare know the time frame.

I have days where I forget how to cook.  Where my brain just can't come up with anything interesting or original for dinner and I stand there staring at the shelves or in the fridge, and my mind is a complete and utter blank. 

See?  that's the best I can do this morning.  Maybe I should get some whole fish again this weekend, just so I can have yet another eyeball story. 

Nah.  I need to space those out. 

Oh, this was exciting.  Bill had open house at the middle school last night and then he and a friend of his from the school were going out for a bite to eat after.  So I was home, kids were in bed, it was a little before nine.  I was watching something on TV and reading a book at the same time, and all of a sudden, all the power went out and it was pitch black in the basement.  Hm.  I waited a couple seconds, in case this was a temporary thing, but it wasn't. 

And then I hear the trickle of water.  I sat up and listened more closely.  Yup.  A trickle of water.  From under the damn fish tank.  It was the stupid filter thing.  GAA.  I went upstairs and found the flashlight and came back down and peeked under the tank and sure enough, the stupid filter thing had a trickle - but a determined trickle - of water pouring down the side into the pink plastic bin that my husband had put underneath it the last time it leaked.  Yay.  Now what.  I have purposely avoided learning much about the workings of the fish tank because I have enough other stuff I know how to do, and I'm sort of stupid like that.  So I stared at the water and watched the level rise for a foolish moment or two...cursed Bill for GETTING to work late and go out with a friend and leave me here stuck with this power outage and nothing good on TV anyway but still...and now THIS.  Then I snapped out of it and got some towels and tried to soak up the water.  And some more towels.  And I called Bill's cell phone to seek some guidance, but of course he doesn't actually ever have the cell phone ON unless he needs to make a call, so that was pointless.  So I called his friend's wife and asked if she could call HER husband and relay the message and have bill call me back.  So while I waited (in vain) for that...I looked at the stupid filter thing some more, and figured out which was the intake hose and followed that up to the tank and pulled it out of the water.  And for good measure, I pulled the other hose out too.  Eventually the trickle slowed and stopped and I could relax. 

And the power came back on in about half an hour as well...and then the stupid filter thing started making this annoyed and whiney motor sound...so I stuck the hoses back in the water, but the whining continued, so I just figured out which electric cord (among the 200 cords related in some way to the fish tank) and pulled it.  Problem solved. 

Bill finally got home and showed me how to solve the problems with less stress in the future, but I only half watched, and then I went to bed.  Stupid filter thing.

Okay, I have to go now.  I realize this was not all that entertaining or interesting, but hey, life is sometimes like that.  At least it's a Friday.  Yay.

Cakes - Jack O' Lantern Cake - 1992

This was the first, um...representational cake that I can remember making.  It's the first one I photographed, anyway.  It was for my sister's birthday, and I remember feeling rather clever as I put this together.  It's 4 layers of chocolate cake (always chocolate when it's Mere's birthday) with chocolate frosting in between.

I particularly remember how important it was to me that I achieve the CORRECT shade of orange to match the pumpkin I was copying.  I only had one of those little 4-packs of liquid food coloring, and I think I probably added red and yellow a drip at a time, stirring thoroughly after each addition before deciding what it needed more of.

The stem is an actual pumpkin stem - I think it fell off a pumpkin that I was picking up.  I know I soaked it in hot water for a while, maybe with a dash of bleach in there to kill any little germs or bugs hanging around.

It's a jack o'lantern on one side, and on the back it says "Happy Birthday Meredith."  I piped the black on top of the orange...but if I were to do it again, I would probably cover the cake with fondant instead of frosting...and I'd actually cut out the eyes and nose and mouth so there would be that 3-dimensional element that's lacking in this one.  I think I remember scooping frosting off the face of the pumpkin when I did this one.  I'd try to make the bottom of the pumpkin more rounded and realistic too.    

But still...not a bad start to my little hobby.

The Rest of the Fish Story

The same night Julia was playing "Eye Spy" with the grilled red snapper, we also had maki rolls.  I had picked up a rainbow roll and a barbecued eel roll on the way home.  After the four of us consumed the two whole fish and a lot of the noodles Bill had made, Alex was still hungry.  So Bill told Alex to sit back in his seat and just wait.  And then he brought the maki rolls in.

Alex loves him some raw fish.

He's quite the connoisseur.

Hey, I want some of that!

(Nothing can distract him at this point.)

All was blissful...

until...

Julia?  What is this?

There's still some eye goop left, Daddy!  Want some?

Yum! 

Again With the Fish Eyes

I was trying to come up with some clever title to this post that wouldn't give away what it was about.  Something that would make you (or someone) want to read more to find out what I was eventually getting at.

Nothing really worked.  So I gave up. 

We had fish last night.  I bought a couple of whole red snappers and Bill marinated them in ginger and garlic and soy sauce and rice vinegar and who knows what other wonderful stuff.

Here's how they looked while marinating:

And then he grilled them.  He also made this delicious concoction of pan fried rice noodles and spinach and shredded beef...and three different condiments for the noodles and/or the fish.

It was a fabulous meal.  I'll post recipes for the noodles and condiments some other time.  My main focus in this post is really about my daughter and her fearlessness in the face of fish eyes.

Yep.  She did it again.

Unbidden, unprovoked.  She just saw that they were there for the plucking.  And so, she went for them.

Yep.  That's the fish's head.  The body meat has been removed from the spine and consumed by the four of us.  But Julia does not believe in letting anything go to waste.

What?

Nothing left on this one.

I not eating the bones!  Bones are yucky!

After she'd scooped and slurped the eyes from one fish, Bill asked, in a voice numb with horror, "Julia, do you want the eyes from the other fish, too?"

Well of course she did!

She put the eyeless carcass back on the platter and pulled the other one toward her plate.

The Simple Things

The service was only about half an hour long. 

The pastor did a few readings, led us in prayer once at the beginning and again at the end.  She was nice - low key, personable, kind, sincere.

The oldest daughter of his four children spoke first.  She read from a couple of sheets of paper, stumbling across the words, her voice cracking every so often, but just as often, her face breaking into a smile as she shared her memories with the rest of us.

He was a good man. 

He enjoyed, as she said, the simple things in life.  Coming home from work, dinner with the family.  Saving all year to buy the perfect gift for his wife, the love of his life.  Children.  Grandchildren.  Cookouts.  Checkers and card games.  Family gatherings.

We lived on the same block, and our houses were diagonally opposite each other.  The youngest daughter and I went to kindergarten together and through all of our school years until we graduated from high school.  We were best friends.  We lived at each others' houses, cutting across the field in the middle of the block rather than walking the long way around.  We referred to it as "going cross-lots."

Her father left for work early in the mornings.  He was of my father's generation - "The Greatest Generation" - and, like my own father - typified so many of those "great" traits.  He worked hard - sometimes three jobs, which I didn't know until today.  He didn't go on expensive or exotic vacations.  He was thrifty.  And with four children, he had to be.  But money isn't everything.  And he, like that generation, and others scattered into generations that follow, understood that.  It's not how much you have in your pocket.  It's how much love you have for and from the people around you.

He was quiet.  If I remember correctly, he wore a hearing aid. 

He had three daughters and a son.  Girl, girl, boy, girl.  And then the grandchildren...I was 14 when the first grandson was born.  I don't like to think about that now, because he's all grown up, this cute little blond boy.  He's got a wife and two children of his own.  I saw him today and I think my jaw dropped.  I never would have recognized him.  Last time I saw him he was scrawny and blond and in his early twenties.  Today he is not a boy, his hair is darker, and he is broad-shouldered and strong.  After his mother spoke, he was the next at the podium.  And after him, one of his younger brothers spoke, and finally, my friend's son.

I don't see the family very often any more.  We don't live in the same town, and my friend and I, we've gone on with our own, different, lives.  But when my sister and I arrived at the funeral home and saw their mother, and then the daughter, daughter, son, daughter standing in line to receive hugs and handshakes and condolences, time fell away, and it was as if we had all seen each other a few days ago.

Their mother looked the same as she's always looked to me.  Her hair is gray, instead of brown, but apart from that, she looks the same.  And the two older sisters - the same.  The brother - he looks older, but still - the same face.  And my friend, the shortest of the bunch, the youngest of the family, she had not really changed in my eyes either.  I hugged her, and she was the only one crying at that time...before the service had started, and before we all shed tears and laughter together.  She said, over and over, "I want my father back.  I want my father back."  I didn't know how to respond.  I just said "I know, I know," and hugged her some more before leaving to take my seat.

My sister and I sat toward the back, over to one side, and sorted out who was who among all the grandchildren.  We hadn't seen a lot of them since they were very young.  So strange to see them as young men and teenage girls.  How can that be?  It was only yesterday that I was that age, and younger, and that my friend and my sister and I rode bikes together and climbed trees.  And now, we are not the kids in the families.  And yet, we still are, in each others' eyes.

The three grandsons spoke of many of the same things - how wonderful their grandfather was, and what a good example he'd set.  They spoke of playing checkers with him (and losing every time), or playing cards, his love of dessert, his great smile.  The spoke of him not only as their grandfather, but as a father-figure as well, and a positive influence on their lives.  Their voices broke, but they continued on without stopping, without trying to hide their emotions.  They laughed, too, at memories, and caused the rest of us to laugh with them.  They brought me to tears again and again, these little boys, grown to young men, speaking so simply and openly of this unobtrusive man.

Over and over the same messages.  He was a good man.  He appreciated the simple things.  He didn't waste time or energy bemoaning what he didn't have, or regretting opportunities that were not given to him.  He appreciated what he had - a large and loving family who absorbed the lessons he taught by example.  Children and grandchildren who spoke of him with affection and respect, sadness, and love.  And an inherited appreciation for those riches that masquerade as the simple things in life.

 

More Cake Stuff for a Moment

I've added a badge to one of my flickr sets over there on the right, under the "Gallery of Cakes" category.  I figured I'd just go one cake at a time in here and describe what I did when I made them.  I still have a ton more pictures to upload, but I figure I'll add more after I've talked about the ones that are there now.

I'll be back....

Cakes - Lemon Sponge Pizza Cake 2007

Okay, well the third of the 3 birthday cakes I did last week was actually a pie.  A Lemon Sponge Pie - actually a triple version of it.  I used puff pastry dough as the crust, but that really wasn't necessary - I'm still not exactly sure why I used that instead of just a regular pastry crust.  Sometimes my ideas just drag me along behind them and I don't ask questions.

The story behind this one really sort of begins years ago, when I used to make a lot of birthday cakes for the people at work.  Our dept manager actually paid me to do this for everyone, which was nice - nice of him and nice for me.  So I these cakes for a few years until someone (as I understand it) from some other department complained (why?  nothing better to do?  no cake for you?) and that ended the fun.

Anyway, D. had been the recipient of, I believe, 3 of my cakes over the years, and so, since I'm leaving soon and feeling kind of nostalgic, I offered to make a cake.

Why pizza?  D. had indicated that instead of the usual bagels and cream cheese, or store-boughten cakes that have been provided to birthday folk recently, he'd rather have pizza.  Or lasagne.  So another girl in the dept decided to make lasagne, and I offered to make a cake that looked like a pizza, as a surprise.  And that was how it began. 

I used a large (14") cake pan for this.  Two boxes of frozen puff pastry dough.  Triple the Lemon Sponge Pie recipe.  And I forced the family to eat pizza for dinner on Halloween just so I'd have an actual pizza box to use for presentation.  (Okay, "forced" is a bit of an exaggeration.)

Anyway, here we go...

First thing I did was to line the pan with the puff pastry dough.  I had to cut and paste (so to speak) the rectangles of dough, but it didn't take long, and two boxes was the perfect amount.  I curled the edges under to create the edge of the pizza crust, and then put the pan into the fridge to keep the dough chilled.

Next - the pie filling.

Per the instructions, I combined the butter, sugar and egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon zest, milk, salt and flour, and set them aside.

In a separate bowl, I whipped the egg whites until stiff.

And then folded them into the yolk/lemon mixture...

   

...until combined.  (You want to do this as gently as possible, so as to leave as many air bubbles as possible intact.)

And then pour it into the pie shell.

And slide that into your 375 degree oven.

Now - with puff pastry dough, you really need the oven temp to be higher than that - in the 400s - in order for the fat to melt and create enough steam quickly to puff up the layers of dough. 

But the pie recipe calls for a starting temp of 375, so that's what I went with, because I didn't know what another 50 degrees or so might do to the filling.  Maybe I'll try it some time with a single-sized pie, but I wasn't about to experiment on this one.

Anyway, I baked it at 375 for about 25 minutes - longer than the directions called for, but I figured the extra time was justified due to tripling of the recipe.  Then, per the recipe, I dropped the temp down to 300 and baked until the top was golden brown - about another hour. 

Voila!  As the pie cooled, the filling deflated a bit and dropped down til it was about level with the crust.

After it had cooled to room temperature, I put it in the fridge until it was thoroughly chilled.

In order to achieve the pizza look, I needed something to look like sauce, something to look like cheese, and some sort of topping.  I picked pepperoni - because it was the easiest thing to recreate.

I bought two boxes of raspberry FruitaBu.  After carefully selecting a round cookie cutter, each rectangle of smushed fruit provided me with two pieces of "pepperoni."

I wrapped the disks of fruit in plastic wrap so they wouldn't dry out or get stuck to anything and moved on to the sauce. 

I had picked up seedless raspberry jam for this.  I spooned some into a bowl and mashed it up with a fork until it was liquidy; then I spooned it around the edge of the pizza, where the filling met up with the crust, and randomly swirled some of it toward the center of the pizza. 

For the cheese...well, originally I was going to do some sort of brulee thing, in order to mimic the mix of yellowy cheese and darker, more well-cooked cheese on top of a pizza.  But since the lemon sponge already had that mix of shades, I just applied apricot jam all over it to make it look kind of, well, greasy.  And then I added the pepperoni, and set the pan in the box.

Will that be pick-up or delivery?   

Lactic Love

After dinner tonight, I had the kids get into their pajamas.  While I was zipping Julia's jammies, Alex came around behind me (I was sitting on the couch) and flopped onto my back, his arms around my shoulders.  I slumped forward and told him to get off of me (in my mock-grumpy mommy voice). 

He slithered off the couch and came around to hug me.  "But you're so nice and warm, Mommy!"

I hugged him to me...these little moments won't last forever. 

He continued:  "Because you're full of milk.  Because you're a mammal!"

Was That All??

Well, the other refrigerator repair person came out yesterday.  Bill and I were prepared for more headaches.  Bill has actually been saying he hates the fridge, which I think is a bit extreme for an appliance, but whatever. 

So anyway, the guy comes out and takes a look in there...(I had just brought the kids home and I was taking coats off and herding them downstairs so they wouldn't insist on helping the repair man)...and he told Bill maybe the part they'd replaced the other day was defective or something...so he starts looking in there, and - AHA. 

The wires weren't connected.

That's it.

So he connected the wires, and that was IT. 

I think what probably happened was that the guy-in-training last week had installed the baffle but hadn't connected the wires, and the teacher-guy didn't check that.  Simple oversight.

I'm so glad that's all it was.  And sure enough, once the wires were connected, the arctic air stopped pouring from the little vent thing up in the top back of the fridge, and this morning - ooh!  aah!  the kim chee isn't frozen any more!  My sister's pickled peppers aren't frozen!  The apple juice!  The leftovers!  The grapes!  The brie!  NOT FROZEN!

Bill brought the other foods and the milk and half n half up from the fridge downstairs, and yay, all is right with our little world today.  At least in the fridge.

And now, I've got to get the kids ready to go, and myself.  I had started a post about the other birthday cake I did last week, but I don't have enough time to do it properly, so that will just have to wait until tonight, I think.

Have a lovely day! 

Cakes - Calvin's Birthday 2007 - Chili Pepper

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I had several birthday cakes to do for the same date.  One of them was for my nephew, Calvin.

Now, because I'm like I am, I have to state, before I show any pictures, that I wasn't 100% happy with how this one came out, but I should really just shut up about that because they're all learning experiences, and I already know what I'd do differently if I were to do this one again.

I decided to do a chili pepper because every time Calvin and his sister, Natalie, are at our house, my husband asks Calvin if he wants to eat a chili pepper, or some sort of really really spicy fiery hot sauce or something, and because Calvin is male, he says yes.  It's become a tradition to set your mouth afire at our house, and he seems to look forward to it.  I think it's some sort of male rite of passage.  Once he eats enough chili peppers, he'll grow a full beard and his voice will drop 8 octaves.  He'll be a MAN.  Just like my husband, the MAN.  The two of them sit there and eat tiny bites of a fresh pepper from the garden and then make panting, "hoooooooo...haaaaaaaaaa" kinds of noises, and their eyes water profusely, and their faces contort in pain.  Then they take another bite.  And try to coerce me into joining their little testosterone competition and then sneer at me because I'm too sensible to join in. 

Male bonding.  It's a beautiful thing.

Anyway, to get this cake made, I took two boxes of spice cake mix and left out the oil called for and substituted a 14 oz can of pumpkin puree.  I baked this in 4 loaf pans of various sizes, and they were my raw clay, so to speak.

Actually, I only ended up using 3 of the 4 loaves. 

First, I sliced each one in half through the middle and slathered on some canned chocolate frosting.

Then I trimmed them a bit and laid them out on the pan in the basic chili pepper shape I was copying.  Here's the pepper -

And here's the cake -

I used a plastic straw to support the part that sticks up over there.  It didn't really work well, but oh well, that's one of those learning experiences I mentioned.

Next up - coloring the fondant.  I chose green over red because I'd have needed an entire little jar of red to get the right shade, and I didn't want to spend an eternity kneading the color into the fondant.

By the way, Julia wanted to help, so I gave her some green fondant and a rolling pin and let her go to town. 

I rolled out the green fondant into a long, sort of sock-shaped piece...

and draped it over the cake.  Now, the problem was that I had more fondant than I needed, and I really hadn't thought about the logistics of the end part of the pepper that curled up.  So that's where I ran into trouble.  First off, the straw poked through the fondant, so I took that out.  But that end of the cake was so fragile that I couldn't really do much else other than to wrap the lengths of fondant around it and try to form the pointy end.  And here's how it ended up:

I sort of camouflaged the wrinkled end with "Happy Birthday Calvin" - but unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it at that point.

I am, however, rather proud of the stem end:

 

And that's the story of that cake. 

Oktoberfeast - Part 5 - The Scary Stuff

I realize I kind of got away from the Oktoberfeast posts.  The first four posts -

Oktoberfeast - Part 1 - The Sauerkraut

Oktoberfeast - Part 2 - The Onion Cake

Oktoberfeast - Part 3 - The Sauerbraten

Oktoberfeast - Part 4 - The Spaetzle

were done, appropriately, in October, and then I got sidetracked by other meals and birthdays and work and kids and all that stuff.

This last post will be relatively brief.  As I'd said in my first Oktoberfeast post, we ordered meats from Bavaria Sausage, Inc. out in Wisconsin.  A variety of brats and wursts for the grill, and head cheese and beef tongue for the gross-out factor. 

Actually, the head cheese tasted an awful lot like corned beef.  It was very tasty and made for good sandwiches in the days after our dinner.  The tongue...well, here's the tongue as it looked when it arrived:

 

Frozen and wrapped in plastic and surrounded by ice packs and styrofoam packing material. 

Here it is later - thawed and set out with some other appetizers.  Left to right - the smoked tongue, the head cheese, sliced, and smoked bluefish that bill caught and smoked a few weeks prior.  Behind everything are crackers and a bowl of sour cream.

After people had arrived, Bill assembled everyone in the kitchen for the Slicing Of The Beef Tongue.  It was everything he'd hoped it would be - some people were outwardly repulsed, others were kind of curious, and others patiently awaited the slicing so they could get on with the business of eating.

And yeah, it's rather disturbing to watch.

But you know what?  It was tender and had a nice smokey flavor and a texture also like corned beef.  The main part of the tongue was nice and lean as you can see above.  The back part was marbled with streaks of fat, and not quite as good on its own.  I ended up making hash with it for breakfast one day, and it was perfect for that.

And there you go.  Not much else to report, really.  We'll probably throw this dinner party again next year.  It was fun!

Magic

I've had my nose in a book as long as I can remember.  I have stacks of books near my bed, shelves of them throughout my house, and countless books that I either gave away or sold at various low points in my life.  I'm working on replacing them.

I remember being read to when I was little...I remember my mother reading Kipling's Just So Stories to us at bedtime...I remember learning the rhymes in the Real Mother Goose book. 

I also remember - very vaguely - learning to read.  My first sentence - "I am a little gray donkey" from a book that had been my mother's - something like Fables and Fairy Tales of Long Ago or something like that.  (The book itself is upstairs, but if I attempt to get it, I know one of my sleeping kids will hear me and wake up, so the title will just have to wait.)  I don't remember a whole lot more about the learning part of it...it just seems like boom - I was off and reading.

Today I was home with Alex while Bill brought Julia to swimming class.  (Both kids are signed up, but Alex is a bit under the weather today, so he didn't go this time.)  (Gee, could I be more insecure?)  We sat together in the oversized chair in our living room and Alex, well, he read to me.  Read from these little books he and his classmates put together in kindergarten every few days.  Simple little stories, a lot of repetition...but still - he was reading.  Books.  To me. 

I can't describe how cool and amazing that was.  I mean, he's been doing it for a while - usually sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor while I make dinner.  But today we read about 14 of these little books, one after the other, and I listened and watched in utter delight as he confidently read the words he knew and carefully sounded out the ones he wasn't sure of.

And he doesn't just drone on in a monotone.  No, he's got a fabulous kindergarten teacher who reads with expression - and he's got me (I, too, read with expression.  And accents.  I do a mean Dora impersonation too, which is a little bit disturbing, but it amuses me.), and he's got my husband (who finished reading Cinderella to the kids before bed tonight) reading to him (and to Julia) often.  And he's got a great ear for the music and rhythm of the spoken word.  Alex is an excellent mimic.

Therefore - when he reads, his voice - halting and hesitant at times though it may be - rises and falls, loudly and softly, appropriately expressive.  It's unbearably cute.

My firstborn child is learning to read. 

Isn't that the coolest thing?

Pizza Making

Well, even though the repair guys from Sears came out on Thursday to fix the fridge, over the weekend, things have gotten WORSE - now in addition to random things freezing in the fridge, now things on the door are freezing too.  And supposedly everything is fixed.  HA!  And also - the water line in there is frozen (I assume) because while the icemaker is working just fine, the water won't come out now.  It was working Saturday.  It did not work on Sunday.  Bill called the repair center on Saturday to get someone out here and Wednesday was the first available appointment.  I called again this morning, because of the water line, thinking that maybe I could get someone out sooner, but NO.  Wednesday is apparently the first available date.  Lovely. 

So instead of continuing to rant and rave about that, I'm just going to put up a few pictures of the kids from when we made pizza a couple of weekends ago. 

There.  That's better than my annoying refrigerator stories.

Cakes - Meredith's Birthday 2007

My sister's birthday is on Halloween, and as I have frequently done over the years, I made her birthday cake.  We had dinner at my parents' house on Friday, and actually it was a double birthday dinner - for both Meredith and for my nephew, Calvin, who, without any regard for his mother's feelings, has turned fifteen.  He's grounded until he stops this nonsense.

So actually I did two birthday cakes for the dinner - one for Mere and one for Calvin.  I also had a cake to do for someone at work who ALSO has a Halloween birthday, but he took his birthday off and so we had his cake on Friday, too.  And I had a really fun time getting all these cakes done.  I haven't done a lot of cakes in the past few years, but maybe I'll start drifting back into it.  We'll see.

Anyway, for my sister.  I think she's my favorite cake recipient.  For one thing, she always wants chocolate, and it's nice to bake for someone with such excellent taste.  The other reason, the main other one, is that I can lead her to believe I might do some sort of creepy cake, say, about her foot.  It's fun to torture her.  She's my baby sister, after all.  I've had a lifetime of practice.

I actually did toy with the idea of doing a foot-related theme - or a missing toe-relate theme - or something along those lines.  Halloween is the perfect opportunity to make creepy or gross cakes, after all.  But then I had another idea.

She took up crocheting around a year or so ago, and she's made hats and scarves and granny squares galore.  She made herself a hat - this one:

And for some reason, this hat has become a source of humor between the two of us.  And I can't really explain why, but you'll just have to take my word for it.

So that was my plan.  To make a hat cake.

The cake was (needlessly) five layers.  I have a fear of not making ENOUGH, so I make too much.  But that's okay - Mere was happy to bring home the leftovers.  Three layers were chocolate cake - just plain ol' chocolate cake from a box mix.  I used two boxes of mix, and three round cake pans - the 6", 8" and 12" ones.  And because this cake was for my sister, I wanted it to be extra specially yummy, so I made two layers of Boca Negra - 8" and 10". 

The Boca Negra recipe calls for bourbon, but I used some strong coffee instead.  It worked just fine.  Once those two layers were nicely chilled, I started to assemble the cake.  It was actually the last one I put together, and I have to say, even though it took the longest, it was also the most fun.

Here's a glimpse into my world this past Thursday night...

First - a look back at a bit of the Boca Negra in production...

That's the melted chocolate and the hot coffee and sugar syrup in there, and the lumps you see are some of the butter as I stir it in. 

That's the rest of the butter, room temp, cut into chunks, waiting to join the fun.

Here's one of the two pans of Boca Negra just before I placed them in the oven...

And here's one after it baked in the water bath for about 45 minutes....

Words CANNOT describe how absolutely sublime this is.  You'll just have to go make some for yourself.

Anyway, on to the construction of the cake.

I started with the 12 inch layer of regular cake, part of the top sliced off so it would be flat...

And on that I smeared some seedless raspberry jam, because raspberry and chocolate go oh, so very nicely together...

And onto that, I unmolded the 10 inch Boca Negra.  Now, when you make the Boca Negra, you line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper to prevent the cake from sticking. 

Something else to keep in mind is that if you have refrigerated the cake most of the day, it's going to be rather difficult to unmold it.  I hadn't thought of that when I was starting to assemble the hat, so after my moment of panic, I ran a towel under really hot water and sat the pan on that for a minute or so.  Then I held the edge of the pan against the edge of the first cake layer and then - IN ONE FELL SWOOP - inverted the pan onto the cake.

And - nothing happened.  At least not immediately.  But then I felt a barely perceptible change in the weight distribution in the pan, and next thing I knew, the Boca Negra had slipped right out and onto the first cake layer, nice and neat.  PHEW!

I peeled off the parchment, and spread a layer of Nutella on top.  Because hazelnut goes oh, so very well with raspberry and chocolate.

And then the 8 inch layer of cake and some seedless raspberry jam...

And then the next layer of Boca Negra and a smear of Nutella, and finally the little 6 inch cake layer.  Once all the layers were stacked, I carved the whole thing into the shape of a very large hat:

And now, as I'm looking at it, I notice that it's sort of listing to the left...I could make some sort of joke about that being an accurate representation of the shape of my sister's head, but I won't do that because it's not, and and plus she's a black belt in karate and she'll hurt me.

On to the actual HAT part of the adventure.  I set up my laptop on a counter near the work area and pulled up the image of her hat:

And I stared at it for a while to try to figure out how in the heck I was going to recreate THAT.  I get these CLEVER ideas...and then I have to actually figure out how to execute them.  I really question my sanity at times like these.

The best thing to do in a situation like this, is to take it slow.  Stare at the picture for a while...put some cake pans away...get a glass of water...check your email...you know - important creative stuff like that.

I decided I could at least make the colors.

   

I used fondant to construct the hat - I use it on a lot of my cakes.  I actually used to make it from scratch, years ago when I had tons of free time and no children.  Then I discovered that they actually sell the stuff ALREADY MADE!  I'm so with it.

Anyway, I decided on 6 colors - two shades of pink, one each of purple, blue, green, and yellow.

   

I started with the darker pink.  I used two different versions of pink - "aster mauve" and plain ol' "pink."  I smeared a glob (technical pastry chef term - don't mean to show off but the lingo is just a part of me at this point.  Oh, and no, I'm not a pastry chef, really.) of each color onto the white fondant, and then began to work the color into the fondant.  It can be messy, especially if, like me, you use a ton of food coloring from the outset AND you don't wear gloves. 

See those stains?  They don't wash out immediately.  And anything in the red family (or black, which, in the world of food coloring, is also part of the red family - and if you don't believe me, smear some black food coloring on your hand and then rinse it off.  Told you.) will leave pink stains on your hand or your work table or your countertop.  They will eventually come out, but not right then and there.  I went to work the next day with really pretty blotches on my hands.

Anyway - I basically start the coloring process by folding the dough over onto the blobs of coloring and then pressing down on it with the heel of my hand.  Then fold again and press, and smush it together with my hands, and squeeze it - okay, there is no real simple process.  Just do your best and try to keep the coloring off your hands as much as possible.

The lighter pink was just the aster mauve.  I also used juniper green, delphinium blue, a mix of delphinium and violet for the purple, and buttercup yellow for, yes, the yellow.  I think I may have added a dash of copper to it also.   And here they are:

Next step...how the heck do I crochet with fondant?  I can't even crochet with yarn.  So I stared at the picture some more...

And some more...

And some more...

 

And more,

...until my eyes hurt.  And I still didn't really know what I was going to do...but I figured, since it would involve crocheting or at least some sort of fondant faux-crocheting, I should make strands of some sort.

So I did that.  And they looked like this:

I actually tried a number of different methods to make the hat.  I will even admit that yes, I rolled a strand out fairly thin and tried to - yes - crochet it.  It kept breaking.  And oh yeah, I sort of lied when I said I couldn't crochet.  I am able to crochet a single chain, miles and miles long if necessary.  I just have no idea how to turn that into a hat or anything else.  But I figured it's a cake - it's not expected to be an EXACT replica.  At least not by anyone else except me. 

So first I smushed strands together in pairs - blue and pink, green and the other pink, purple and yellow.  Then I just sort of started at the base of the cake and made loops and ripples and squiggles, working my way around, joining the next strand pair to the one before it.  After this set, I made more fondant ropes, and this time I smushed three colors together, and then did the same loops and ripples and squiggles around the hat again.  It still didn't look as...well, as color saturated as I thought it should.  So then I started braiding.  And that's what did it. 

I pressed the strands together in pairs first, and then braided the three resulting strands into a braid.  And THEN I smushed the whole thing together into one single multi-colored strand.  And that, visually, was the best I could do.  (At least that's what I told myself.)

And now, the moment you've been waiting for (if you're still reading) - I give you, the hats:

I just laughed every time I looked at it in the fridge.  And the family seemed to get a kick out of it as well.  Yay.  Most importantly, it tasted really, really good.

You know, now that I've recapped the process, I'm thinking I could have just used the braided strands as they were, rather than squishing them together.  But I didn't at the time because I was trying NOT to make it look like a giant braid.  It was crocheted, dammit!  It must be ACCURATE!

I'm so goofy sometimes.

My Kind of Morning

Cold and rainy and windy today.  Hurricane Noel's last hurrah.

For me - pumpernickel toast and butter and a couple of eggs over easy.

Coffee.

Something good to read.

A cozy loveseat beside the large front window.

Peace and quiet for a little while.

I'll write later. 

Mission Accomplished

I spent the majority of yesterday making birthday cakes.  Well, technically one was a pie, but it was for birthday purposes.  I'll post pictures tomorrow probably.  I haven't uploaded them yet, and right now I just want to SIT.  I need to get some kind of cushiony matt or something for the kitchen floor.  Tile just isn't all that comfy after a while.

Yesterday was also fun because I had to have Sears send someone out to figure out why items in our refrigerator were frozen solid.  Not all of them, mind you.  Which was pretty weird.  A jar of my sister's pickled peppers was frozen, but a bottle of water on the same shelf wasn't icy at all.  Weird. 

But thanks to the wonders of computer technology, the men figured out the problem, and after hacking off my left arm and right leg and giving them Alex (my firstborn), they replaced the broken part (a baffle wasn't working in the cooling thingy and so it wouldn't close when the fridge was too cold.  Just kept blowing the cold air in.) and went on their way.

So yes, it was a day of many events. 

I'm tired - forgive me if I make no sense.

Tonight is dinner at my parents' house - the double birthday dinner for my sister and her son.  Two of the cakes are for them.  I wouldn't post pictures of those today anyway, because they're surprises.

I'm so glad it's Friday. 

Halloween Pictures

Just wanted to put up a few pictures.  I'm home today - our fridge is malfunctioning (it's running too cold, in areas, so for instance, we had blocks of milk and half-n-half available for our coffee this morning, but the ketchup, thank goodness, is fine.  We thawed some half-n-half for Bill's coffee...and little dots of curdle floated to the top.  Nothing was wrong, really, other than the molecular issues caused by the freezing.  It looked oh, so tasty.  I drank mine black.) and the repair guy is coming this afternoon to expensively assess the situation.  In the meantime, I've got three birthday cakes to work on, all due tomorrow.  Some are already started.  And at some point I'll go pick up the kids from daycare.

But in the meantime, for your amusement or entertainment or something...

This was earlier in the day.  The neighborhood holds a Halloween Parade every year, and we were all assembling in front of the organizer's house.  It's a huge event.  But anyway, here is my daughter, the Fairy Princess, fighting the neighbor's Pirate kid.   Go Fairy Princess! 

And for fun, I messed around with effects this morning (because I procrastinate even when what I have to do is something I enjoy doing - like working on cakes.  I don't know what's wrong with me.)  and came up with this:

A little freaky, I know.  But I was having fun AND putting off what I was supposed to be doing, so too bad.

And here's my son, Batman, keeping an eye out for bad guys.  Thank goodness my children were on hand to keep the peace.

After dispatching the Pirate, Julia the Amazon Warrior Fairy Princess confronts Darth Vader. 
"Light Saber, Schmight Schmaber!" she tells him.  "You're no match for my Sparkly Fairy Wand with Silvery Streamers and a Star On Top!"  And at that, Darth turned and ran, sobbing, for his mommy.

Once all the bad guys were taken care of, Batman and Julia the Amazon Warrior Fairy Princess took a break, had some popcorn, and laughed about the fun they'd had beating up thugs.  It's fun to be a Super Hero.  And an Amazon Warrior Fairy Princess.

And here they are again, later that night, the trick-or-treating is done, they did well, and I forced them to sit still so I could take a few pictures before they dove into the candy.   

And now?  Off to the kitchen.