Things I Did Instead Of Going To BlogHer This Year.

Kidlet #1, the indubitable Jack, celebrated his 6th birthday this week.  

There were plastic Groucho glasses and stick-on mustaches (these are "villain costumes" in case you were wondering how, exactly, all this fit into the Batman theme.)  Don't try to argue with a 6-year-old determined to have mustaches at his birthday party. (Then again, why would you want to? I mean, honestly.)

These are the most delicious cupcakes I have ever made.  

They also happen to be the most delicious cupcakes I have ever tasted. They have made me more determined than ever to find a way to open my bakery, even if it takes me 20 years to get there.

I had a cake job this week for a guy's 27th birthday. He is into comics, so it seemed appropriate to do the first appearance of Superman...

So it wasn't all doom and gloom as I missed the fabulous festivities (and apparently some serious bad juju from some overly-schwag-obsessed bloggers. Seriously? Someone ELBOWED her baby. To get schwag. Ruminate on that a moment, won't you?)  Plus, BlogHer '10 has been announced, and it's going to be in NYC.  East Coast, Hollah!  And yes, I will be there.  With cupcakes!

Am I Yet Living, You Say?

Oh, internets. It has been a wild ride, these last few (blog silence) weeks. And I have all sorts of things to share with you, but - unfortunately for you - my mac charger is still broken and still unreplaced. I KNOW! The horror! (first world problems. I have them.)

So here I am down in husband's basement office to steal a few moments on his computer while the kids are otherwise occupied. Our basement is "partially finished" - which is realtor speak for "has a corner blocked off with what are technically walls and something resembling carpet, but the cats have been using this room as their Special Box whenever hubs doesn't change the litter soon enough and there are at least 3 piles of cat poop in here and I am SO not cleaning that up. Have fun, Babe.)

So ANY-who. Yeah. That's about the size of it around here and - oh! - I cut off all my hair! No, I didn't shave my head early - that's coming in March. No, I just had a wild inclination and I went with it. So now I have a burgundy pixie cut... where "pixie cut" equates to a half teaspoon of surf wax and "LOOK! Hair all done!" Messy-on-purpose suits me as a look the same way it suits me as a lifestyle choice. heh. (take that how you will.)

But I promise to be back in the saddle soon. And I'll tell you all about the exciting world of diaper changing! And Milk Blisters! and CAKEOHMYGOODNESSTHE CAKE. There is a lot of it. And in the mean time, please to be reading here and here and here ... and just meld them together in the blender of your brain, pour into a cup, consume, and you'll basically have a good summary idea of where I have been for the past few weeks. It should last you until I can get a new macbook mag charger. (Hopefully before the next ice age?)

Love and Kisses,
MeL

What Have I Been Doing?

There is a list of things that have kept me away from the internets recently.  

Ready for story time, boys and girls? Good. Then settle in and get comfy, because this could take a while.

1) Cake.  Holy Hanna Montana, CAKE.  What started with a single friend asking to hire me to do her daughter's birthday cake has sprung up into a much bigger venture than I would ever have imagined.  It rules, it really does. It's also exhausting and involves hours at a time bent over the kitchen counter with a piping bag in my hand.  That's not nearly as dirty as it sounds.

2) Soccer.  Did I mention that I'm a full-blooded soccer mom now?  Yeah, when I first realized it I actually felt myself die, just a little, on the inside.  But then I was faced with this:

and, really, how could that possibly make a person feel anything but glee?  Wookit my wittle MAN-man, all dressed up in his uniform!  GAH! The cuteness! IT BURNS! (And entirely justifies the excessive use of capital letters and exclamation points right there.)

3) Sushi!  We've started rolling our own, and now it's addicting.  Sushi is the one food that everyone in the house can agree on -- even Tobin, aka "He who has been known to refuse bananas, bread, and basically every other food or food-like product".  So I've been perfecting my craft (which is to say I have been eating lots of sushi recently because, um, research?)

4) Garden.  Okay, so I haven't actually started a garden yet, but I have had every intention of doing so.  I bought seeds and I picked out a spot in the yard with perfect sun. I even looked up how to build raised bed boxes for the perfect backyard vegetable patch.  By next year I might even get some veggies planted.  For now, though, its a lovely little kitchen garden in my mind.

5) Lists!  Lists gets an exclamation mark because I am incredibly good at making lists.  If they gave out trophies for list-making I would have a mantle full of them. (If I had a mantle.)  I am basically Queen Of Listing.  (As in writing lists, not the art of drunkenly walking at an angle. Though I have done that once or twice, but I'm not very good at it.)  When it comes to making lists, however, I totally "make them my companion".  Bonus points if you watch enough news network television to get the reference. (Also, Hi! Pardon the ADD, it's entirely genetic and totally not my fault.)

So, Lists. I have been making a lot of them.  Most notable is the list I am compiling for Things I Shall Do This Year as part of my Year Without Fear.  I'm contemplating a trapeze lesson this summer.  Not even my idea!  But I it fell across my path and I might just have to do it because it seems to fit right in with the whole "grab life by the cojones" spirit of the project.  Did I mention I'm terrified of heights? And falling?  This should be fun.

Also on "The" List for this year are things like "get dirty playing with the kids" and "make a Baked Alaska".   Yeah, I'm hoping the ideas will get better as the year comes along.

Do you have any great ideas for things I could reasonably do this year that would be awesome and fun and not incredibly expensive (and also not incredibly dangerous because - hi! - 3 little boys expect me to be alive to tuck them in at night)?  Leave suggestions in the comments below!  (If it's something like "Dye your hair purple" you'll have to come up with a very good cause I could support by doing so.  This is about doing Good Things, people.)

So there's the sordid, somewhat partial tale of what I've been doing.  I'll maybe get around to telling you more later, but for the moment there is a cake waiting for fondant details to be constructed.

So allow me to leave you with this:

I'm telling you... the cutness! IT BURNS!

Dude.

Yes, I said "Dude".  Let it go, I do that sometimes.  I can't help it; it's the healthy dose of California in my soul.  If you understood the Tao of Mitchell Goosen, you would get it.  Also, did you know Jack Black and Seth Green were also in that movie? Way before they were famous. Weird.

Rambling today, sorry.  It's just that the sun is shining and the air is clear and it smells really good.  Today would probably be a great day to get out in the front yard and start clearing brush for the spring.  But I'm thinking the alignment of the stars could be against it, since I just tried to pull some raisins out of the cupboard and found the cabinet shelf was unhinged.  And then when I tried to fix it, some lonely, misbegotten package of Fun Dip spilled off the shelf and fell all over me.  That stuff is messy.  I fixed the shelf though. Oh, and I do realize my grammar today is even worse than usual.  *shrug*  It's Wednesday.

But all in all I have spent this week in a flurry of anxiety and apprehension.  No, it's a good thing! Really!  See, I somehow stumbled into baking cakes as a hobby.  You know - making them ever cooler and more complicated for the boys' birthdays.  I love doing it; it's like art and sculpture and .. uh... cake! all in one.  So when a friend asked to hire me to do a cake for her daughter I was all "sure, why not?" And then it turned out really awesome and my husband and my friend were all "You should so do this as a business" and I was all "meh. I'm no good at business..." but then that one cake order turned into another order, and another one.. and maybe another.  And BAM! just like that, I'm in business.  

So now in addition to the etsy shop (which is doing better off line than on) I'm booking orders for unique and awesome cakes.  And the best part? Now all those hours of "Ace of Cakes" that I watch on the Food Network can totally be rationalized as research.  heh.

Random Musings on Country Cooking.

It is safe to say that when Big Daddy and I met I was somewhat less than a whiz in the kitchen.

It is safer to say that I was basically a disaster.

Big Daddy's Mama, my mother-in-law, whom we shall now dub - for official blog purposes - "Cooking Mama"  (also a wickedly addictive game that Jack and I both play obsessively on the Nintendo DS).... anyway, Cooking Mama was horrified at the prospect that her only beloved son should face the rest of his life with a companion who had only just got as far as mastering the art of boiling water.

She decided very quickly to teach me a thing or two - or fifty hundred million - in the kitchen.  I was a slow pupil, but eventually I started to learn a few things.  I am happy to say that I have finally learned a passable imitation of the art of home cooking.

And so it is that Big Daddy returned home tonight from his week in the Czech Republic, and together we prepared a feast fit for the king's return to his castle.  He threw a couple of New York Strip steaks on the grill (after liberally seasoning with cajun spices).  Hearty rounds of salted, sliced pineapple joined the steaks over the toasty coals.  Add some fresh cobs of boiled corn, some even fresher homemade fried okra, and a big bowl of chopped heirloom tomatoes tossed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.... and it was Summer on a plate.

And see that part up there? The part where I said "Fresh Fried Okra".  THAT, my friends, is the product of having a culinarily inclined mother-in-law with an Alabama/New Orleans sensibility in the kitchen.  I FRIED FRESH OKRA.  If I had completed Maggie's challenge to write up 100 life goals?  That would totally be up there, so I'm going to go ahead and start my list just so I can cross that off.  

I'm not kidding when I tell you that before the tutelage of my kitchen mentor, the finest thing I ever cooked in the kitchen was a pot of spaghetti with a jar of ready-made sauce.  It dawned on me tonight that I've been cooking for long enough now that I didn't even think to be scared of boiling and frying okra - AND I was able to use the corn meal we bought at a local agricultural festival last fall - from a guy who we watched grind the corn fresh - corn that he had grown on his own farm and harvested with his own hands.  

Holy crap, I might be growing up to be a country girl after all... or at least a woman who can cook like one.  Next Cooking Challenge: wait for the apples on our tree to get ripe this fall so I can make an honest-to-goodness homemade apple pie from scratch.

In the mean time, the plum tree is nearly ready for fruit harvesting.  Anyone know what on earth I can do with several bushels of plums?  (Don't say can them.  Anything but that.)

...

And with that - admitting my lack of canning knowledge? - I believe I just heard my hard-fought Country Kitchen credibility shatter into a kajillion tiny pieces.  Somewhere, Paula Dean just shuddered involuntarily.  

Ah well.  The education continues.  It's not like anyone is going to be all that impressed anyway -- especially after I admit that the kids and I lived on bologna sandwiches and Papa John's pizza for most of the week that Big Daddy was away.

But. Still.  I FRIED OKRA!