Deceptively Disasterous

This week book club was at my house. I decided to use the meeting as my first opportunity to debut my new fancy china and linens. Oh what a pretty table I would have. But, if I had a special table I would have to fill the table with n extravagant table I needed I to make exceptional food. The morning of the meeting I made my menu. I was going to serve homemade brownies, and angel food cupcakes with orange zesty cream cheese frosting. I got the recipes from my Deceptively Delicious cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld. That’s the cookbook that sneaks veggies in stuff. For example the angel food cup cake recipe had carrots and sweet potato hidden in them; a wonderful light moist cupcake with a healthy surprise.


My friend Carol was nice enough to watch Alice while I shopped and baked. I made the cup cakes first. The recipe called for 5 egg whites, I know 5 egg whites to make 12 cupcakes. That’s crazy. Then I doubled the recipe to have extras for my family. That is how I came to have 10 egg whites in my mixing bowl. Yuck, then I whipped them up with the electric mixer into what looked like sea foam. Here is where I went wrong. I started to mix in the flour and noticed the fluff deflating. The more I folded in other ingredients the smaller my mixture got. I had a great idea. The electric mixer was still out on the counter, and it did such a good job at puffing up the egg whites, so I shoved the mixer back into the bowl to refluff my mixture. Those of you who know how to cook know what happened, my mixture collapsed into a puddle. I thought, ok so they won’t be fluffy, but they will still be good? Right? Wrong. I completed the instructions and ended up with heavy rubbery crap cakes. Oh, and the frosting came out the texture of runny pastry cream.

A lesser more sane chef would have crumbled and ran out to the closest bakery. Not I. I cut up the crap cakes into rubbery nuggets, chopped up a banana, and mixed them up with the pastry cream and voila, impromptu trifle. I also still had an hour before I had to pick up Alice at Carol’s. I took out my vintage copy of the Fannie Farmer cookbook and found a recipe for full fat full sugar yellow cup cakes.

To be continued.

And Tomorrow My Dear, Is another Day

My daughter is engaged! She told me that she and her beau will be married tomorrow. No she isn’t pregnant. She is four-years-old. Can you see the announcement? Both the bride and groom are students…The bride wore a pink A-line polyester Hello Kitty night gown…after a brief honeymoon at the McDonald’s playroom, the couple plans to live with their mommies. I don’t take her unyielding love for this boy too seriously as I have observed them together. Whenever she walks near him he looks terrified. As far as I know she has never talked to him. Every morning I walk her into her nursery school and we see him. I ask; “Alice are you going to say good morning to Jack?” She always answers the same way. “No I say it tomorrow.” She has been marrying this boy tomorrow for three months.
Everything with my girl is tomorrow. She’ll clean her room tomorrow, let me brush her hair tomorrow, and sleep without her blanky…tomorrow. So Sunday when she asked if she could drive the car of course I said “Sure you can drive the car tomorrow”. Right? Because that is our code for things that we will never actually do? Right? Wrong! Monday morning she skips out to the car and announces to her brother. “Today Momma say I drive da car!”

I laugh and say “Alice you drive tomorrow. Okay?” You know because she can’t read, her feet can’t see over the steering wheel, because SHE IS FOUR-YEARS-OLD! She scrunches her face up and reminds me of my promise. “Not tomorrow. Today!” You know I then wasted my time calmly listing the 459 reasons why she could not drive my car. To which she replied. “I DRIVE DA CAR!” and exploded into a tsunami of wailing and howling all over the driveway. I had to physically heave her hysterical body off of the ground and shove her and thrashing limbs into her car seat.

Alice loudly raged on as we drove, but I tuned her out. I was so scared. Not of her tantrum, but the fact that she might now actually be getting married tomorrow. I have no more time to write I have a wedding to plan!

I'm Bringing Fancy Back

Hello all. I’m back. My brain is still tired and my body hurts, but I am back at home. The estate sale is over. Well the sales part is over. My friend Jen still has to send the best stuff that didn’t sell to auction, sell the other stuff to the flea market guy, and then clean the house. I worked hard all week, but I got off easy. She still has a lot more to go. Processing estates is a lot of hard work, but she loves it and now so do I.


I loved seeing all of the beautiful and interesting antique items in the house. I was moved by how lovely and ornate everyday objects used to be; like hand painted trash cans, colorful linen dish towels, embroidered aprons. They drank tea from delicate china cups and used handmade tablecloths with fabric napkins. While we were in the house Jen and I drank tea in such cups; exquisite cream colored Wedgwood cups with gold bands. Drinking tea in these cups made the moment feel special and important. I felt like we were treating ourselves and being indulgent. I know cups are just cups, but don’t we all enjoy a little treat? For all we do for everyone else don’t we deserve to enjoy life’s little indulgences? I decided that I do. I bought the Wedgwood tea cups. I actually bought the full set fancy table cloths and matching napkins. Once a month my family is going to have a fancy dinner. I also bought a gorgeous Calyx “snack set” that is a small set of fancy hand painted tea cups, saucers, and little plates. This set is reserved for me and my friends because we are all worth it.