Saturday was a big baking day. Five cakes. One, a Raspberry Lemonade, from the Kiss My Bundt cookbook, required the zest of several lemons. Another, Blueberry, required the zest of one lime. Both cakes looked and smelled wonderful, but into the freezer they went in their well marked packages. Then they were logged into my little red book with notes on the glazes they will receive just before they put on their Bundt Cake Extravaganza show.
In the meantime, I had several naked citrus items. The most obvious use of the lime would, of course, be a gin and tonic. But since the juniper berry turned on me several years ago and returned my longtime dedication with a miserable case of hives, that seems to be not only the obvious, but also the most unlikely use. No, that one little lime will be added to the lemon juice for a pitcher of lemonade. Lemonade, then, is proof, that you can take the zest and still have good stuff left. Pretty good lesson for a rainy Saturday.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
To the nines
By the end of the day Thursday my throat hurt more than I imagined a throat could hurt. My eyes were watering like little face faucets and I felt generally crappy. I called in sick on Friday and agreed that book club should be canceled for Saturday. Crap. Who has time to be sick?
The worst part is that somehow over the years, being sick makes me want to start quilts. Not work on a quilt -- I'd have a few possibilities there -- start a new quilt. Showing more restraint than I thought possible, I resisted the urge only because I knew starting something new would, in the end, not make me feel better. It would simply add to my anxiety over the myriad of other things I really need to get done. Plus, I was too sick to get beyond the thinking about it stage. If I had, however, actually put my inclination to use, I would have made 9-patch blocks. 3-inch nine patch blocks of blues and golds, I think. (Still have plenty of golds and a sufficient amount of blues to get by.) My feverish vision included 9-inch blocks made of nine 3-inch nine-patch blocks arranged with alternate blocks yet to be determined. I love the simplicity of the nine-patch.
Wisely, instead of starting yet another project, I decided to trade out my quilts today. Put the wintery looking ones away and bring out the brighter ones. In the process, I gave myself a little back yard clothesline quilt show. Interestingly enough, I noticed that my exhibit (notice, too, how I've elevated myself to an artist with just one word -- or, downgraded this to a courtroom scene, depending on your point of view) was a perfect example of the versatility of my friend the 9-patch. It also stands as testimony to my quilt starting urges. On the far right is Evan's quilt, which is a 90" square made of six-inch 9-patch blocks. Started on a whim similar to the one I am currently fighting, it is one of my all time favorite quilts. At the far left is the maple syrup quilt that has the trusty 9-patches serving as the corner stones of each maple sugaring scene. Even the quilt in the middle has uneven 9-patch squares playing the background role to the stars. It's not one of my favorites, with the exception of the border, which saves the entire quilt from the mundane, but it is a reliable companion to the couch nappers all winter long. It, along with several others, will be packed away in the trunk for fall, when I'll take them all out and wonder why it is that most of my winter quilts seem to be 9-patch based. Maybe I'll have to make a summer 9-patch just to throw myself off. Maybe some golds and blues ...
The worst part is that somehow over the years, being sick makes me want to start quilts. Not work on a quilt -- I'd have a few possibilities there -- start a new quilt. Showing more restraint than I thought possible, I resisted the urge only because I knew starting something new would, in the end, not make me feel better. It would simply add to my anxiety over the myriad of other things I really need to get done. Plus, I was too sick to get beyond the thinking about it stage. If I had, however, actually put my inclination to use, I would have made 9-patch blocks. 3-inch nine patch blocks of blues and golds, I think. (Still have plenty of golds and a sufficient amount of blues to get by.) My feverish vision included 9-inch blocks made of nine 3-inch nine-patch blocks arranged with alternate blocks yet to be determined. I love the simplicity of the nine-patch.
Wisely, instead of starting yet another project, I decided to trade out my quilts today. Put the wintery looking ones away and bring out the brighter ones. In the process, I gave myself a little back yard clothesline quilt show. Interestingly enough, I noticed that my exhibit (notice, too, how I've elevated myself to an artist with just one word -- or, downgraded this to a courtroom scene, depending on your point of view) was a perfect example of the versatility of my friend the 9-patch. It also stands as testimony to my quilt starting urges. On the far right is Evan's quilt, which is a 90" square made of six-inch 9-patch blocks. Started on a whim similar to the one I am currently fighting, it is one of my all time favorite quilts. At the far left is the maple syrup quilt that has the trusty 9-patches serving as the corner stones of each maple sugaring scene. Even the quilt in the middle has uneven 9-patch squares playing the background role to the stars. It's not one of my favorites, with the exception of the border, which saves the entire quilt from the mundane, but it is a reliable companion to the couch nappers all winter long. It, along with several others, will be packed away in the trunk for fall, when I'll take them all out and wonder why it is that most of my winter quilts seem to be 9-patch based. Maybe I'll have to make a summer 9-patch just to throw myself off. Maybe some golds and blues ...
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The glass cupboard
We will be hosting a party to celebrate our oldest son's marriage over Memorial Day. The thought of that event has me traveling between excited to overwhelmed and back on a regular basis. The important thing is that I always come back to excited. This party will be a picnic on our farm for lots of people. The planning has evolved since we first made the offer to host the Wisconsin celebration of Kit and Violet and has settled happily on a manageable (I hope) level of simplicity. Simplicity, however, multiplied by over 100 becomes a little less so. It falls further out of the realm of easy when I allow myself to fall prey to good suggestions from my overachieving older sister.
My original plan was to have a table of cakes. All bundt cakes (because their shape alone makes them pretty). A table of cakes requires a table of cake plates. And naturally, since cakes look prettier still on pedestals, a table of pedestal cake plates is in order. All good and all manageable. Until my sister planted the seed of a cake for every table (or as she said, a table for every cake). Baking the cakes is not the issue. I can be a baking machine, especially since I found this great blog by the Food Librarian who made a bundt cake a day for the entire month leading up to National Bundt Cake Day (Really! who could make up stuff like this?) The discovery of this woman's journey through a month of bundt cakes gave me more than enough inspiration for the baking. It's the plates.
Think about the concept behind a pedestal serving piece. It is to raise an item up for presentation, right? Well, if all items are raised to the same height, the whole idea of showcasing one item becomes moot, doesn't it? That's my thinking on it anyway. So, when imagining a table of cakes, I had to imagine each cake on its own pedestal, but the pedestal has to be as unique as the cake to make an impact. So, I started collecting glass plates and objects to use for pedestals. I have decent collection and enough for a table of cakes. (All parts will meet the miracle bonding E6000 glue just before the event. Who has enough space to store this many cake pedestals?) Now that the plan has changed a bit, I need more. And, of course, this need flies in the face of my vow to swear off thrift shops.
I found myself at Goodwill twice in the last week and found a few little gems. At this very moment I am feeling anxious over the possibility of not getting to a thrift shop at all this weekend. Even though I am fully aware of the fact that they will still be there next week, it is a bit unnerving to think the best plate yet may fall into someone else's hands. I only need a few more since I went a wee bit overboard on the first hoarding-er-collection of plates. And, it occurred to me yesterday that the number of cake servers is highly inadequate. I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to find more of those, which, of course means that swearing off thrift shops is simply inconceivable.
I'm off to a conference for work on Monday and Tuesday. Karen, my always dependable thrift shop patron saint, tells me that there are some great ones I have not yet discovered. She, in fact, called me from Goodwill this week to tell me she found a great plate, named the price, and asked if I wanted it. In addition to acting as the guiding light in my thrift shop hunts, she also taught me the valuable lesson that you buy it if you think you like it. Leaving it there while you think about it is a certain guarantee that you'll never see it again. (That lesson was learned the hard way when I left Goodwill at 8 on a Thursday night to think about the black Scottie Dog cookie jar that I really loved, plus it reminded me of Aunt Mary's bathroom black cat, called Karen at 9 the next morning to ask her to go and pick it up for me -- she is conveniently located about 5 minutes from the store --and learned it was gone. "You always buy it," she scolded. "They'll take it back and give you store credit and you can always find more junk at Goodwill.") Karen bought the plate for me and I'll see it next week sometime. In the meantime, I'll be at a conference in Wisconsin Dells this week. My way home may very well be dotted with stops in Baraboo, Portage and Wisconsin Rapids. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that people far and wide have seen fit to donate cake servers to thrift stores along my path. And, that they haven't donated too much other junk I can't refuse.
My original plan was to have a table of cakes. All bundt cakes (because their shape alone makes them pretty). A table of cakes requires a table of cake plates. And naturally, since cakes look prettier still on pedestals, a table of pedestal cake plates is in order. All good and all manageable. Until my sister planted the seed of a cake for every table (or as she said, a table for every cake). Baking the cakes is not the issue. I can be a baking machine, especially since I found this great blog by the Food Librarian who made a bundt cake a day for the entire month leading up to National Bundt Cake Day (Really! who could make up stuff like this?) The discovery of this woman's journey through a month of bundt cakes gave me more than enough inspiration for the baking. It's the plates.
Think about the concept behind a pedestal serving piece. It is to raise an item up for presentation, right? Well, if all items are raised to the same height, the whole idea of showcasing one item becomes moot, doesn't it? That's my thinking on it anyway. So, when imagining a table of cakes, I had to imagine each cake on its own pedestal, but the pedestal has to be as unique as the cake to make an impact. So, I started collecting glass plates and objects to use for pedestals. I have decent collection and enough for a table of cakes. (All parts will meet the miracle bonding E6000 glue just before the event. Who has enough space to store this many cake pedestals?) Now that the plan has changed a bit, I need more. And, of course, this need flies in the face of my vow to swear off thrift shops.I found myself at Goodwill twice in the last week and found a few little gems. At this very moment I am feeling anxious over the possibility of not getting to a thrift shop at all this weekend. Even though I am fully aware of the fact that they will still be there next week, it is a bit unnerving to think the best plate yet may fall into someone else's hands. I only need a few more since I went a wee bit overboard on the first hoarding-er-collection of plates. And, it occurred to me yesterday that the number of cake servers is highly inadequate. I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to find more of those, which, of course means that swearing off thrift shops is simply inconceivable.
I'm off to a conference for work on Monday and Tuesday. Karen, my always dependable thrift shop patron saint, tells me that there are some great ones I have not yet discovered. She, in fact, called me from Goodwill this week to tell me she found a great plate, named the price, and asked if I wanted it. In addition to acting as the guiding light in my thrift shop hunts, she also taught me the valuable lesson that you buy it if you think you like it. Leaving it there while you think about it is a certain guarantee that you'll never see it again. (That lesson was learned the hard way when I left Goodwill at 8 on a Thursday night to think about the black Scottie Dog cookie jar that I really loved, plus it reminded me of Aunt Mary's bathroom black cat, called Karen at 9 the next morning to ask her to go and pick it up for me -- she is conveniently located about 5 minutes from the store --and learned it was gone. "You always buy it," she scolded. "They'll take it back and give you store credit and you can always find more junk at Goodwill.") Karen bought the plate for me and I'll see it next week sometime. In the meantime, I'll be at a conference in Wisconsin Dells this week. My way home may very well be dotted with stops in Baraboo, Portage and Wisconsin Rapids. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that people far and wide have seen fit to donate cake servers to thrift stores along my path. And, that they haven't donated too much other junk I can't refuse.
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