Adventures in Baking

It's Fall Frenzy time again so I spent most of the day creating these little darlings. Mini pumpkin Jack-O'-Lantern tarts from Martha's newest pie book and two devil's food graveyard cakes with chocolate mousse frosting from good old Joy.

The pumpkin pie recipe asked for evaporated milk and not having any on the shelf, I sat down next to stove to simmer 2 and 1/4 cups of milk down to one. Took over half an hour of constant stirring; next time I'll just go to the damn store.

I used pate sucree for the dough - it has more sugar than regular pie crust, yum, but makes the dough softer and a little more challenging to work with. Martha sez cut six inch rounds to fit in the tartlet pans - I just used muffin tins - but I discovered you need to take out big 1/4 cut of the circle to fit into the pan. Just wet the edges of the cut and press them together before you fit the little cup of dough into the tin.

The cakes were baked in the two small cake pans that I bought at the Ferry Building when we were in San Fran this summer - they makes treats that are a perfect size for a small family. Four cute pieces.

Tons of frosting recipes in The Joy of Cooking and few of them are easy - except for the quick butter and powdered sugar ones that make my teeth ache with the sweet. But I had the time so I made this crazy egg-yolk chocolate mousse that required constant stirring (again with the stove stir duty) over barely simmering water until the mixture reached 160 degrees with an instant-read thermometer. Say what again? A bit of a pain the ass, trying to stir with one hand and hold the thermometer with the other. And then during the next step (I don't read the recipes ahead of time so complications can be fun, ha ha), I was using the hand mixer with the bowl in an ice bath when the phone rang and I accidentally splashed ice water into the icing that was already too drippy by half.

F word, F word.

"Hello?" It was the vet making a follow up call to check on Little Prince. Aw, how can you stay stressed over some drips when someone cares about your rodent?

I fixed the watery icing by whipping in a big dollop of butter (Butter fixes everything! Time is flying!) and jumped on my bike to get the girls at school. They helped with the final decorations - a Peeps ghost, Milano cookie-headstones with RIP in black frosting from a tube, tiny strips of fruit roll-ups for grass and crumbled gingersnaps for the overturned earth on the graves. Spooky fun!

We Call Him The Little Prince

Hello! Are you my forever family? I am your new poop machine! 

His white face markings are what sold me. Spiky white eyebrows, like J.R. Ewing's, that we like to call his crown. Surprisingly soft fur. So sweet a demeanor that it's easy to forget he's a wild animal. Once you pick him up, he stops scurrying and relaxes in your lap, often making sweet squeaks or purrs that melt our hearts.

His job is the stress reliever of the family. Nora came home sad yesterday because some Northwestern fans at school had teased her for her Nebraska cheerleader outfit (shows you how clueless I am about football - the possibility of riling up hometown fans never occurred to me) and a few minutes with Princey on her chest, she was all better. By bedtime she was a mess again after Sister spilled fluoride rinse all over the front of her red and white uniform so I sent to her take a bath, showed her 23 Easy Ways to Instantly Make Your Day Better and gave her the guinea pig to hold. L'il Prince saved the day. (And the little bruiser went to school today wearing red again. "Only if you smile," I told her, followed by a primer on "Don't dish it out if you can't take it.")

We're making plans for a photo shoot with a paper-mache planet complete with volcanoes and rose. Mia has already cut him out a felt vest and posed him riding an American Girl scooter. I've got to admit I'm looking forward to shopping at my friend's Lincolnwood pet shop, The Animal Store, for little accessories and goodies and supplies for the little guy.

Fall Fashion

Daddy got us new hats for the Nebraska game at Northwestern Saturday!

 

GO BIG RED!! Nora dressed herself this morning.

Nora's jacket is from Hand Me Downs, our favorite resale shop in Evanston. Stella McCartney for GapKids. Squeee!!

Gladness

Mia in the bathtub. "Mom, we should put a bookshelf right here." She points to the tile wall next to her head. A girl after my own heart.

Planning a Brownie meeting. The Hiker patch. The Making Friends badge. The Investiture ceremony. An oval mirror on the ground surrounded by tiny ferns into which the girls will peek after spinning three times and reciting, "Twist me and turn me and show me the elf! I look in the water and see myself!"

This video is very close, spooky close to how my children sound when I eavesdrop as they play.

The campy, crazy art of Ferdinand Hodler. Thanks, Martina!

Forty things to say before you die. "Damn, I look good." "This is who I am."  "Isn't this beautiful?" Thanks, Kristen!  How liberating a thing "I don't care" can be!

The colors of the trees this week.

Zadie Smith's ten rules for writing.

Reading Homer Price to the girls at bedtime.

Vintage children's paperbacks. Oh the memories! Oh the nostalgia!

Jack Gilbert: "We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless/ Furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil./If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,/We should give thanks that the end had magnitude./We must admit there will be music despite everything."

"I Am A Princess"

Randy cut this. I'm so proud of him. The beautiful footage was shot in South Africa.

The piece may more aspirational than reflective of Disney's actual films and products (I mean, why is it so hard for Disney to write scenarios showing female friendship? In the 75 years since Snow White, I count ONE single princess with a non-animal friend - Tiana from The Frog Prince has flibbertigibbet Charlotte La Bouff) but the images of strong and capable young women and the inspiring narration are still very moving.

And of course the editing is brilliant.

Oh, Momma

We had a snack at Starbuck's after school, then a wellness visit that dear Dr. Olson makes as fun as always. He is such a sweetheart, asking the girls questions about school and what they do for fun and he listens to their long rambling answers and laughs at their jokes and always eases my mind with his wait and see advice. Afterwards, since I had told Mia "no" yesterday when she asked if she could play at the park on the way home, and since the sky was still holding some afternoon light, I pulled off into Lovelace and I let them jump out of the car while I checked my latest chess move.

The screams sounded like a child had just met some terrible accident - I jerked my head up and saw two women across the parking lot with a toddler screaming on her tricycle. A pile of gear and a baby car seat on the pavement told me the story. The older one didn't want to go home, she was having too much fun. But oh those screams, like she had broken a limb, like she was being tortured.

They didn't subside and at the next look I saw one woman crouching down to rock and talk to the baby in its car seat while the other woman took the tantrumming child to the grass to chill. The child refused to stay put, ran toward the parking lot, toward the park. The mother picked her up and carried the thrashing child back to the grass and then again as her bloody screaming continued.

Next time I looked up the other woman had gone and most of the gear was packed in the car. Now the mother was texting as the wails continued. I remembered bad days I had had when my ears hurt with the piercing reminders of what a bad mother, what an awful person I was. I remembered the times strangers helped me. I jumped out of the car and ran across the parking lot. Both kids were in the car now but she remained outside, phone in hand, perhaps not ready to face the drive home yet.

"You're doing a great job," I launched without introducing myself. She didn't need my name or niceties.

"I can remember how hard it was when mine were little, I was tearing my hair out. Now they're seven and nine..."

I was babbling. She said nothing but her face started to crumble as my eyes filled and my tight throat caught on my next words.

"You're a super mom! Can I give you a hug!" Her white cardigan was soft.

"You're doing great! Hang in there!" And I dashed off to find my two, my easy girls who pushed me to the limit and beyond but forgave me (at least for today) for my own screams and tantrums that matched and surpassed their own.

"Mia! Nora!" and they came to me just like that, with beautiful smiles. I gave each one a hug and a kiss and we went to dinner.