Not Quite Full Bloom, but close enough.

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The magnolia is almost in full bloom.  With this warm weather, it opens more every day.
It’s delightful to look out the windows and door on the front of the house to see those blooms.
We are definitely feeling spring around here.  This past weekend was social and productive, with lots of work getting done in the yard, including the repair and re-installation of the compost spinner bins, weeds being pulled, more spring greens planted, a garden work day at Edie’s school, brunch with friends and of course, with us working in the yard and lots of folks out walking to soak up the sunshine, there were a number of little visits with neighbors.  Brian popped in Saturday to share some seeds and ponder if the tree would make it this year, without a frost.  There was a good bit of speculation about that this weekend, with everyone saying that our magnolia in bloom is the first sign of spring to them.  Us too.  
The peach tree is blooming now too. 
The greens I planted back in February are popping up. 
As Brian said the other day, all is right with the world again now that spring is upon us.
It’s true, nothing revitalizes me like spring.  I’ve been cooking up a storm, working up lots of new inspired recipes that I will share just as soon as I work out the kinks.  I’ve pulled that Amish Friendship Bread starter out of the freezer and am baking with it, only I’m determined to make it without adding pudding mix.  First batch turned out pretty okay, although, it was better with Vikki’s Salted Caramel Pear butter on it.  (Recipe please Vikki.  By the way, I made that granola recipe you told me about last week and it rocked.  Thanks.) I’m also experimenting with cutting back the sugar in that recipe.  I’m comfortable winging it in my kitchen, but not when it comes to baking.  Baking is chemistry and I was excused from participating in Chem Lab in high school because of the small fires and explosions heard from my corner of the lab each week.  Just like math, who knew I actually needed to know that stuff some day?  I thought they were just saying that. Turns out they were right.

From out of nowhere.

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Remember how I said I seemed to be missing some photos of a scarf I had knit and I suspected a certain smaller person who lives in our house that likes to play with my camera to be responsible for their going MIA?  Well, I owe her an apology.  I took some shots of the magnolia tree in our front yard yesterday, which is now opening up and gloriously pink and when I uploaded them to share here with you what came up instead were the missing shots from our Baltimore weekend.  My camera has been on the fritz lately and I’ve been worried it was the camera – I’ve been saying when this one goes, I’m moving up to a fancy camera and not another point and shoot, and quite frankly, that kind of toy is nowhere near our current budget.  But after a few different incidents, I’m starting to suspect that my memory card has gone bad, which is actually a much cheaper fix.  Phew. 

So, since they showed up from nowhere, I thought I’d share.  First up, seen on a front porch on Falls Road, near Hampden hon, in Baltimore as we ran around town one day during our visit there last month.

Yes, that’s a Christmas penguin hanging out with a member of the nativity, who is wrapped in a feather boa, with a half full (or empty, depending on how you look at things) large malt liquor beverage under his chair. 
I love Baltimore.
Also suddenly back were the pictures of the scarf I had knit my cousin’s girlfriend for her birthday.
Ginger, as we call her, is a lovely gal and has built quite a relationship with Edie.  I’ve told my cousin Mark, her boyfriend,  if it doesn’t work out with Ginger, then he is the one who has to break the news to Edie, because that is not going to go over well and he is going to suffer her wrath.  We hope it doesn’t come to that though.
I have a scarf I knit for myself a few years back in this style – just loose and freestyle, changing yarns as the whim hit me.  I thought Ginger might appreciate one, so I whipped this up for her the week before the party.
While most of the yarns were white, I did throw some pink and green eyelash yarn in for color.

I also did some cables, as I find them fun and I find when I knit cables, the process seems to go faster.
This section is in the eccentric cable pattern.  ( I used A Treasury of Knitting Patterns by Barbara G. Walker.  Which was also one of my best thrifting scores ever.)
There you can get an idea of the different yarns used – green eyelash yarn, a bulky chenille, a pink eyelash yarn with bumps of color mixed in, a boucle, a fingerweight yarn, a multicolored eyelash yarn I mixed in with the fingerweight and lastly, a worsted weight cotton.  (If you need a reference on yarn weights, look here). I kept to just a knit stitch outside of the cabled sections.

That’s the basketweave cable stitch. 
I’m knitting a scarf in a similar vein for the silent auction at the annual luncheon for the Jed Foundation, using primarily blues, from the stash Kristin gave me.  February has been quite conducive to knitting, as the second sleeve on Pat’s sweater is really coming along as well.  I’m almost up to the elbow on it.  I’m even starting to kick around ideas of what my next big knitting project is going to be. 
Meanwhile, the shots I meant to show you.  What a difference a few days make!
What I call the tulip magnolia, Pat calls a saucer magnolia.  It’s the pink magnolia in the front yard.  It’s the first thing to bloom every spring and it’s starting to bloom.   Now let’s hope it gets to open up without a hard frost, which will turn the beautiful pink blooms brown.  The top is opening up, but the lower blooms have a few more days I think.  (Clicking on the image will give you a better view of the glorious pinkness.)

The peach tree is also starting to show some opening buds.
I love looking out my windows at the pink trees in the front yard.
Such a nice sight.
Hello spring. 

Breakfast of champions.

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Remember last fall when I had gotten myself all those apples and made several batches of apple butter, not just to give out as gifts, but because missthing had been on a kick for several years of daily desiring apple butter on her morning carbs and I thought that since I had so many apples and making apple butter was so easy, why not?  Also yes, there is that thing about how I love to know exactly where all our food comes from and I prefer to make from scratch as much of our food as possible. 
It never fails however, that once I realize she has a fondness for something and I lay in a good supply of my own homemade/homegrown version of it, she decides she’s done with it.  It’s been this way since she was a baby, with the exception of carrots, so this is not a new tween thing.  Of course this happened with the apple butter, now that I have a good case or so left down on my basement shelves and no one wanting to eat it every day anymore.  Short of making her hand it out to all her friends as birthday gifts, I have been trying to figure out what to do with it.
And then one day, on Food in Jars, I discovered this recipe for fruit butter granola.  It had been adapted  from another website and I adapted it down as well.  One cup fruit butter, 3/4 nuts, 2 cups oats, a sprinkle of salt and I pop it in the oven.  When it comes out, I mix in a little dried fruit, always raisins, but sometimes craisins, chopped dates, figs, what ever is on hand.  Because while a certain someone gave up fruit butter for the time being, she’s okay if I mix it in with the granola.  Although, truth be told, she prefers my friend Vikki’s French Chocolate Granola, which I have just started making myself, instead of demanding Vikki make it for me,  mashing it up with this recipe, that adds cherries to the mix.  Because chocolate and cherries are hands down my most favorite food combination, ever.  Right now, everyone seems to be good with the nonstop supply of homemade granola around here, so I’ll keep on making it, hopefully working through my supply of fruit butters, while mixing it up with new ideas.  I’ve never done much with granolas, but I feel that I’ve gotten the hang of them here lately, so maybe I will start coming up with my own recipes. 

The weekend that ran long.

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It’s been a good weekend.  One that started off being mostly kid-free thanks to the social life of my girl, who managed to spend the weekend around town with friends, but not with us.  As a result, there was quality time with friends new and old, much needed mom friend time and quality time with my dear babydaddy.  Wine as well as music was involved, with front row seats at Cowboy Junkies Saturday night at the Jefferson.
They were lovely, as always.  
They are one of my favorite bands.  This is the second time I’ve been lucky enough to have front row seats for one of their shows.  I also came home with a set list, which my friend Chris grabbed for me.  He got me the set list last time we saw them, when we also had front row seats.  He’s good like that. They did two sets – the first one was all new stuff from the 4 albums they’ve put out in the last 18 months or so,  and a second set of all older tunes including Anniversary Song.  Which always leaves me a little choked up, since it’s a Pat song. To hear it live was a treat. (Thanks to Chaz for the photo.) 
This morning, we got an unexpected holiday.  It seems the possible dusting of snow being forecast when I went to bed last night turned into a little bit more than a dusting.
When I woke up and saw snow on the skylights in our bedroom, I checked to see what the schools were doing.  A two hour delay.  I rolled over and went back to sleep, only to be woken up by Edie just before 9 am, informing us she had seen cars sliding on the hill next to the house and she hoped she was not expected to go to school in this mess.  And that is when we discovered we were having a very unexpected snow day, despite the fact that spring has been coming on strong for a few weeks now, albeit early.
The tulip magnolia in the front yard has been making strides towards blooming, so while the hints of pink in the snow are lovely on it,  I’m worried it will be a giant brown mess for the next month. 
When it blooms, it is pink and glorious, the first sign of spring that you can see for a good block, no matter what angle you come at it from.  When it blooms and gets pinched by cold weather, as happens most years, it turns brown and just looks sort of sad and then we have to wait for the dogwood to bloom for a glorious pink corner.  It’s not blooming yet, so hopefully the snow didn’t hurt it too much. 
As I walked by this morning, the pink showing through the snow was lovely.  If you click on it, you can see a bigger view, one that shows the pink more.
A snow day can really only mean one thing though.    



One of the things I love about this neighborhood is that a snow day automatically means everyone heads to the hill at Walker School to sled.   We brought the tube, although the sleds were faster on this snow. Thankfully, everyone shares and is willing to swap rides.
It was the kind of snow that was perfect for snowmen.
He later went down the hill on a sled, because snowmen need to sled too.
We may have gotten 6″, but the sledding cleared the hill of snow in no time.

There was much joy and merriment.  I managed to miss the mud puddle there at the bottom when I wiped out.  I blame the wipe out on the small child that wandered into my path as I was going down the hill and to avoid running her over, I ended up rolling.  But hey, I didn’t take a small child out.  That may be a first because I’m good at taking out small children when I sled.
There was a group of wanna-be snowboarders that kept to the smaller hill.  Although every one of the hills up there are nice and steep for good sledding.

Lucia was fearless.

Right around noon, the snow suddenly stopped, the sun came out and it started melting. 

I think the kids were tired by that point though, as evidenced by Edie & Emily sitting on the tube, eating snow.  A tube in the snow is a much better seat than a sled, that’s for sure.  
On the way home, I got some shots of early spring in the snow.  
Some fared better than others.  The hellebore was not looking as majestic in the snow.
 There you have all my little garden markers from the greens I planted a few weeks ago peeking out above the snow.  If you look closely, you can see the tiniest hint of the arugula sticking out of the snow in the back.  On a walk through the ‘hood the other day, I saw someone else’s arugula bolting.  Somehow it made me feel better about mine bolting.   We may have gotten snow today, but it’s supposed to be warm again by the end of the week, so the arugula is just going to keep bolting.  Hopefully the new seeds I planted will do something soon, so I don’t have to go without arugula. 
The peach tree is getting ready to flower too.
  If the tulip magnolia does become a brown mess, at least I captured some of it’s pinkness.
We do have quite a bit of pink blooming trees in our yard, don’t we?
 Icicles on the blueberry blossoms. I’m not sure we’ve ever noticed blueberry blossoms this early, and from the looks of it, there are bunch on there.  Last year was the first year they did anything and I noticed the other day, one of the bushes has grown about 4 feet, doubling the height of it, which means they are starting to take off.   I guess we should look up if frost is bad for the blossoms. 
When I woke up this morning, I was tallying a mental list of things that needed to happen this week.  The unexpected holiday threw that out of whack.  I went from thinking about what I want to do to the garden to realizing what we really needed today after sledding was hot cocoa and brownies, with tomato soup and grilled pimento cheese sandwiches, products of last year’s garden, for dinner.  As much as I want winter to be done, I realized today I’m not quite done with hot cups of tea and long wool skirts yet.  It was a nice surprise to end a good weekend.

My history of wine.

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I have gotten some very positive feedback over the last year for my monthly wine column, Beneath the Cork, for In the Kitchen magazine.  In last month’s issue, editor Rowena Morrell, announced she was giving up the monthly publication.  It has been suggested I write more about wine here in this space, and so I shall.

I came late to drinking wine for I grew up a beer drinker. My grandfather would put me to work ‘helping’ him – which mostly meant fetching him beers from about the time I could walk.  I was almost always offered a sip or I’d be allowed to share a beer, with my portion being poured into a small glass.  To this day, I love splitting a beer. I have aunts and uncles who still split them with me too. One of them actually just started letting me have my own beer – I guess she thought I wasn’t old enough to drink a whole one.  My maternal grandparents had frequent happy hours with their next door neighbors.   It was my grandfather who taught us that what time happy hour was in London, and you could drink to that. 

In college, I had a few boyfriends along the way that taught me how to drink tequila and bourbon, respectively.  I’ll admit to a vodka phase and maybe there was a short lived girly drink phase, but once I learned to shoot tequila and then appreciate bourbon, that was it for me and liquor until a neighbor reintroduced me to gin & tonics a few years ago.  Beer though, was my main drink of choice.  Until Edie came along….

I gained a good bit of weight when I was pregnant with her and while most of it came off quickly, there was a lingering (more than a) few pounds that wouldn’t come off no matter what I did.  I also found that beer filled me up quickly, so that if I had a few beers before dinner, I wouldn’t always want to eat dinner and this became more of a problem than it was when I was in college, since I was older and the morning after without dinner hurt after the age of 30 far more than they did when I was 20.  I realized that switching over to liquor wasn’t a good answer either and it was suggested I learn to drink wine. 

Over the years, I had a few friends try to educate me on wine, but I never really paid that much attention.  However, I was not about to give up alcohol and I have a hard personal rule about my belly being smaller than my boobs, except for when pregnant.  That meant finding a new drink.  I started out by drinking a ‘flavor’ a friend had recommended back in college – an nice Australian Shiraz.  I didn’t go too far out of my comfort range, sticking with Shiraz and Merlots.  Some time not long after that, during Edie’s toddler years when I realized I just wasn’t happy with my day care options, but Pat insisted I find something to do to get me out of the house, I found a job at a new wine bar opening on the Downtown Mall – Charlottesville folks might remember VaVino, the wine bar that carried only Virginia wines.  Not only did I find myself learning about wine, I was learning about Virginia wine.  Over time, they began to carry wines from all over the world, which only served to expand my wine horizons, until it was sold to a local restaurant group.  Eventually this group retooled the business to focus on Italian wines and food.  This is where I learned about Italian wines, even taking a few classes on how to speak Italian.  When Edie started school, I left the wine bar for a more traditional job, because by this point, it was hard to close a bar on Friday nights and then be up a few hours later on the soccer field. 

There is a particular characteristic that runs through my family, where we mangle any language we can get our mouths around.  It’s almost an art form.  Consequently, there are many words I mispronounce.  In addition to this (or maybe because of this), I somehow seem to be almost unable to pull off using anything past a five cent vocabulary word in conversation in any sort of credible fashion. Whenever I would attempt any sort of ‘wine speak’ my family and friends were pretty much in hysterics.  Worse, my customers at the wine bar often let me know I wasn’t pulling it off either.  Nothing like a complete stranger telling you how you sound like an idiot.  So, I tend to describe wine and food quite simply.  If I went anything past ‘dry’ or ‘fruity’, I would get strange looks from people.  I vaguely pull off using oenophile when I write, but I have no idea how to begin pronouncing it to use it in conversation.  When I took Italian lessons, my then 4 year old did a better job of grasping it than I did.  And that kid has clearly most definitely inherited the family gene for language fail. 

Despite this though, it was decided that perhaps I could be a fresh voice writing about wine – that I could make it more accessible, since I most decidedly do not pull off wine speak.  I might not be able to speak about it in lofty terms, but I do know my wine.  After people stop laughing at my inability to use language, they are always slightly amazed to learn how much I really do understand about wine.  I love a big red, I love a nice dry white, I love a rose, I love fruity, and lately, I find myself strangely embracing Chardonnay after hating it for so many years.  Really, I’ll try anything once and usually I can find something to like about it.  I am on a constant search for the best bottle of wine under $10.  Surprisingly enough, right now my favorite wine is a ‘grocery’ store brand, often on sale for around $5.  I dismissed it for the longest time, simply because it was overly available and cheap.  Often times, that is a red flag for a lesser quality wine.  I gave into my curiosity one day though and was pleasantly surprised.  This doesn’t always happen and I do sometimes regret those $5, but I have also regretted that $10 or that $15.  If I’ve learned anything, it’s that wine doesn’t have to be expensive to be good.

Bread and Soup Season

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I love soup during the winter months.  Lately, I’ve been on an Italian leaning soup kick, having made ‘clean out the freezer/fridge/pantry’ Minestrone Saturday night and Northern Italian Spinach and Cornmeal Soup last night.  Or rather, Arugula and Cornmeal soup, as I have arugula in the garden attempting to bolt because it’s been so warm this winter.  February and the arugula is bolting.  Go figure.
The arugula was a good substitute – the peppery bite gave an otherwise mild soup a nice flavor.  The little food critic that lives in our house that generally finds this soup rather ‘boring’ gave it a two thumbs up.  
What better to go with a big pot of homemade soup than a fresh baked loaf of bread?  For years I have been on the hunt for the perfect bread recipe.  I have read with some fascination about no knead loaves, but I find when I feel like having fresh baked bread, I want it NOW and not in a few days, for fresh baked bread takes time.  A good number of the no knead recipes I’ve seen call for starting the dough at least a day ahead of time, which is well and good, but sometimes I really need immediate satisfaction.  A few months ago, I found this recipe for a no-knead olive bread.  It calls for a two hour first rise, an hour long second rise and it’s no knead.  How could I not try it?
As if that wasn’t enough, it was also an olive bread.  When I worked at a local non-profit, Tuesday was Free bread day courtesy of a grocery store chain that likes to donate their day olds to local ‘charities’ (I’ve actually heard employees of this store say that to customers).  I once grabbed a loaf of what looked to be Rosemary bread, only to find it was Rosemary Olive bread and we fell in love with it.  After that, I grabbed a few loaves every week.  I have since been unable to find this bread at said grocery store and we have missed it.  Pat kept telling me I could make the bread myself, but honestly, I’ve yet to really perfect homemade bread.
Until now. 
That is my finished loaf last night.  I have baked two loaves of this in the last three days and we have eaten them.  Both Pat & I agree, this is the best bread I’ve ever made.  I have stopped searching for the best bread recipe, because this is it.  I started the dough 3:30 Saturday afternoon and we were eating it by 7 pm Saturday evening.  It’s good.

I used what I think are Black Cerignola olives from the grocery store olive bar.  (I’ve been able to find them at both Kroger and Whole Foods.)  They are large, meaty and pitted.  I cut around the stone in a way similar to how I chop mangos.   Edie, who swears up and down she can’t stand olives, eats these without complaint.   For the most part, I followed the recipe as it is on the website, with a few exceptions:
  • Adding fresh chopped rosemary along with the olives. 
  • Sprinkling sea salt on the top before putting it in the oven
  • Omitting the cornstarch wash
  • Doubling the amount of water poured into the broiler pan
  • Making two loaves, rather than four.
I imagine this bread would be good plain as well.  In the past I’ve used leftover Rosemary Olive bread in savory vegetable bread puddings, for grilled cheese and for a different take on French Toast.  I think I’ll have to track down the original cookbook and take a gander at it for sure.

Recent Knitting Projects.

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My friend Kristin got rid of her stash and gave me a big bag of yarn when I saw her last summer.  I wanted to say thank you and so I knit her a scarf out of some of that yarn.  Here it is:
The ends are this are knit out of a fun chenille pom-pom type yarn, with the main body of the scarf being this very soft, almost suede-like yarn.  I got a number of compliments on it while I was knitting it.   It was very  easy to work with and did I mention soft?  A good hunk of it got knit when we were driving to Alabama to visit the in-laws over the holidays.   Nothing like 10 hours in a car, one way, to knock out some knitting projects.   I’ve started another scarf out of her gifted stash as a donation for the upcoming silent auction for The Jedediah Thomas Smith Foundation annual luncheon, which is another way to say Thank You to her.
This is one I knit for Edie for Christmas – also from Kristin’s stash.  It’s a fingerweight yarn.  I’ve knit this pattern several times over, it’s quick and easy and turns out quite cute.  I think I got it out of the Sunday paper a few years back – it’s all knit stitches, where you  increase every stitch every other row to make the ruffles.  I have two HUGE cones of this yarn and this scarf didn’t make a dent.  I’m thinking it might be a lovely shaw at some point.  It’s quite soft and well, purple.  Our favorite color next to orange. 
My friend Bonnie worked on this scarf one night, when our knitting group had gathered after a particularly tense PTO meeting at school.  In her haste to remember the wine, she had forgotten her knitting, so I lent her one of my projects, since you know, I always have a few I’m working on.  She couldn’t stop commenting on my tight little stitches.  Indeed, there are 1600 stitches in the last row of this scarf with a finished length of 32″.  I knit this on size 8 needles and wasn’t sure how the finished product would turn out.  It’s actually just the right length to wrap around a neck.  It’s quite darling on Edie. 
What intrigues me about knitting is how different yarns and needles create such different results.  I have a heck of a time with gauge.  When I knit scarves, I don’t have to worry about the final measurements as much, I just knit until it looks right.  You can’t do that with sweaters.  Speaking of sweaters….

Serious Progress has been made with Pat’s sweater.  Sleeve No. One is done.  (Okay, so it’s an inch short in that shot, but it’s much farther along than it was here.  I’ll be starting Sleeve No. Two this week and at this rate, I might be able to start putting it all together by sometime mid-summer.  Pat’s hinted it would make a fabulous Christmas gift.  It’s definitely taking me longer than I had anticipated – the yarn is on the heavy and stiff side because it still has a good bit of lanolin in it.  Which means it’s perfect for him to wear out on the river on cold days.
I also knit a really fun little scarf for my cousin’s girlfriend, but a certain little someone who likes to play with my camera may have deleted the photos.  Oh well.  It was white on white, mixing up all the white yarn I had on hand, with some pink and green fringe yarn thrown in for fun. I gave it to her without all the ends woven in (I finished it a few hours before her birthday party and realized I hadn’t brought my needle to work the ends in and didn’t feel like running out to get one.).  I threw some cables in here & there for fun and because I like knitting cables.  They seem to make the process go faster for me for some reason.  Hopefully I can get a new shot next time I see her (and work those ends in!).

Here’s the thing.

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I find I write blog posts while I’m doing other things, mostly cooking, although it’s a good time killer when you are waiting on the floor to dry after mopping or babysitting the printer (because no matter what, my printer demands I sit next to it whenever I print ANYTHING or it will somehow screw up, then becoming an hour long study in frustration as to what the heck is going on with that thing and just when I am about to go all Office Space on it, it suddenly starts working again) or to avoid doing things, like cleaning the house or laundry.  The batteries on my camera died last weekend, and I’ve been too lazy to run out to get new ones, so everything I’ve thought about blogging, like uhm, the latest scarves I’ve knitted, or what’s happening in my garden right now, has required me to run out and get camera batteries to either capture the moment or move the pictures from my camera to my computer.  And since I generally have something on the stove at the moment I’m inspired, or, it’s late at night,  I’m waiting for the big yellow angel to swing by and drop miss thing off, there’s always a reason to not drop everything and run right out.

What’s particularly sad about this is that just today, I drove not just right past the K-mart, but cut through the parking lot TWICE on my way elsewhere.  Sadder yet, I have driven by it several times this week, as it’s right next to my current frenimy, Whole Foods, which I go to at least 3 times a week, because you know, they need me to.  (Sort of like how Eloise was needed to oversee so many events at The Plaza.) Also, I have decided it’s the closest grocery store to my house, other than Reid’s, which I consider more a convenience store/butcher shop.   When one has X number of errands to complete in X amount of time, I don’t always feel like adding one. more. stop.  I am lazy like that.   So, I drive through the Kmart parking lot without stopping. 

It’s not like I’ve been that lazy all around – I’ve been cooking up some tasty morsels, sneaking in a little bit of gardening here & there despite the fact that it’s technically still winter and we got a bunch of snow while we were out of town last weekend and yes, mopping floors and doing laundry.  I moved the vacuum cleaner yesterday – AND turned it on.  Here’s a small confession – our vacuum really doesn’t have a good home that’s out of sight.  We are slightly closet challenged here, so I use my mother’s old trick of just leaving it lying out in the middle of a room, so it always appears as if I am in process of cleaning.  Of course, when it sits in that spot for 2 weeks right by the front door, it gets obvious that I’m not actually cleaning, so sometimes I just move it from room to room.  Sometimes, in that process, it actually will get plugged in, turned on and used.  Yesterday was one of those days.  Honestly, no matter how much I vacuum or not, there is always glitter all over my floor.  I think little girls off-gas it.  Seriously.  It is all over my house, even in my car.  My house breeds glitter dust.

I almost made time to grab batteries yesterday so I could take pictures of my Girl Scouts doing a craft project, but then got nervous that if I was prepared to capture moments, they’d be their usually needy selves when it comes to crafts.  Over the years I’ve learned that what the Girl Scouts say are age appropriate crafts turn out to be anything but.  Or, if they are age appropriate, it’s with a one on one adult to child ratio.  We’ve had some epic craft fail and I blame the Girl Scout Handbook for each one. It also taught me the lesson the hard way to run through every project ahead of time, especially the ones that look easy, because they are the ones that get you the most.  Yesterday was different though – I don’t know if it’s because my girls have gotten big enough to do things on their own or if it’s because the project was fairly easy (Paper Beads), but they did an outstanding job yesterday.  I probably have the only Girl Scout troop out there that avoids craft projects – honestly, I hate the kids making stuff to just bring home and clutter up the house more, just for the sake of making something.  I don’t want that stuff in my house, so I’m not going to do it.  We also don’t sell cookies.  We are sort of a slacker Girl Scout troop, but it works for us.   I make all the parents take turns helping, so we are all in agreement on how things go.  If anyone wants to see something done, then they get to be the ones to make it happen.  I feel that’s very democratic, yes?

In the immortal words of Scarlett O’ Hara, Tomorrow is another day.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll find some time to swing by and get me some camera batteries.  You know, in between all my other activities.  ‘Til then…..

Sometimes Life Hands You Mystery Citrus.

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Remember how I said all of our friends brought pretty much everything we needed for Pat’s Birthday Party?
We ended up with quite a bit of leftovers when it was all said and done, from a dozen eggs from the Royston chickens, to a package of sausage from Miss Piggy, to a case of assorted beers as well as some citrus that Eric had brought back from his recent trip to Florida.  He mentioned something about lemons in the mix, but honestly, most of the fruit appeared to be the same size and turned out to be some of the tastiest, if smallest grapefruit we’ve ever had.  There were a few pieces of fruit that had damaged skin and we couldn’t quite tell what it was.  It was the same size as the grapefruit, so we really sort of assumed that they were grapefruit as well.  
The other day, while on Tastespotting (which is my absolute favorite food porn/time suck these days), I saw this link for a grapefruit olive oil cake.  It was described as more of a ‘breakfast cake’ than a dessert cake.  Which actually sounded quite do-able, since I swore up and down I was not baking a cake the entire month of February.  But, my family does need to eat breakfast and while some of us are quite content to eat things like oatmeal and raisin bran and homemade granola with yogurt day after day, others are not.   As this member of our household loves carbs as part of her breakfast, I thought this might be a nice treat.  Reading the recipe, I saw it was made with whole wheat flour, eggs and olive oil, so really, it did look fairly healthy.  I decided to skip the glaze, as that was just added sugar and I do keep an eye on how much sugar we consume, even if I have a wicked sweet tooth and serve things like cake for breakfast.  Everything in moderation, including moderation.
I thought it would be great to try this recipe out while I had such amazing grapefruit.  Certainly this would turn out fabulously and then I would be applauded for such a wonderful breakfast treat.  The recipe called for grating the rind, but as the exterior was so damaged, I sort of skipped that part, which I do realize was probably a crucial step to the flavor and while I do know better, you wouldn’t have wanted that zest either.  I cut them open to juice them and THAT’S when I realized they were a lemon, and not a grapefruit. 
I was undeterred however in my quest for cake.  So I pressed on, thinking it was now a full blown experiment and what was the worst that would happen?  A lemon cake instead of a grapefruit cake?  They’ll still eat it, because they eat just about everything I attempt to cook and if they don’t like it, then we’ll feed it to the squirrels, who love everything we give them. 
I am sad to say the cake was slightly overbaked, despite the fact that it didn’t cook for the full 50 minutes called for in the recipe. You know how you can smell a cake starting to burn? That happened, so I pulled it out early and while it wasn’t burnt, it was definitely starting to crisp on the edges. When we cut into, I found it was indeed, dry, but not too crumbly. Flavorwise, I found it sort of meh at first, but this morning, dipped in coffee, it was just right.  Breakfast cake indeed.  Although clearly, grating the rind and combining it with the sugar is key to more flavor in this cake.
Oh, and my main reason for a baking break, that whole muffin top thing?  I am quite pleased to say that a little over a week without cake combined with some serious workouts made a visible difference in that muffin over the top of my pants.  Yes, I do realize that for a woman past 40 this is an incredible gift of genetics and that noting it here probably just helped to shorten that window of time I have left to pull this sort of thing off.  I am no where near bathing suit ready, but at least I can still fit into my pants without looking unfortunate.  I can only imagine how fantastic I’d look if I would work out like that and forgo cake all the time.  But then, everything in moderation, including moderation.

Valentines.

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That’s Edie’s Valentine this year, made with a few images she found on the internet, some Photoshop skills and Daddy’s iphone.  Personally, I think it turned out sort of brilliant, although I really didn’t know where she was going with it until I saw the finished product.  The greeting on the back was a simple “Happy Valentines Day”, in an Edwardian font.  She was quite specific about using that font.
Edie had a sleepover last weekend, so Pat & I took the opportunity to go to Beer Run for beers & nachos.  We don’t always make Valentines a big deal, but  it is special to us.  And I do love that we still celebrate with nachos and beer.  Although you’d think that after all these years, he wouldn’t be surprised at how I will eat nachos every chance I get.
Mostly what I like about Valentines Day is that it was an excuse for a boy to call a girl. And that girl still thinks that hearing his voice at the end of the day is the best way to end a day.  Every day.