Tag Archives: chocolate

Sweet surprise

Posted on July 9, 2013 | 4 comments

For me, one of the great joys of blogging has been the other people I meet through the blogosphere. The nature of these relationships is inherently paradoxical: casual and intermittent, depending on the frequency of posting and reading, while at the same time affording moments of personal revelation over an extended period of time.

For a little while now I’ve been following Jnana’s Red Barn, the blog of an interesting man who is in turn deeply interested in life. This comes across in his poetry, his photographs, the books and blogs he talks about, the comments and observations he makes about the world. I’ve come to respect him as much as I enjoy his blog, which is to say considerably. So I am greatly honored that he nominated me for the Super Sweet Blogging Award. Thank you again, Jnana!

sweet-bloggerAccording to the rules of accepting this honor, I must now answer Five Super Sweet Questions:

  • Cookies or cake? Or both? I’ve become increasingly particular about sweets in my middle age, and given the disappointing nature of an awful lot of baked goods out there, I choose door number three: pie (especially black-bottom banana pie from Missy’s!)
  • Chocolate or vanilla? I’ve also become a chocolate snob, preferring to go without if it’s not very, very dark. So unless it’s 80% cocao or better, give me vanilla.
  • Favorite sweet treat? I’m less into sweet than I am into flavor, so anything more flavorful than it is sweet gets my vote. (See note about chocolate above.)
  • When do you crave sweet things the most? When I have a good strong cup of coffee to wash it down with.
  • Sweet nickname? Mamacita, because it was bestowed on me at Epcot by Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo.

Next I must nominate a baker’s dozen other bloggers for this award. This was much more difficult than it seems, because I know of so many wonderful blogs. After several days of feckless dithering, here they are, in no particular order:

  • cozywalls, where I have discovered some of the most amazing recipes ever (not to mention some lovely photography)
  • FlourWaterYeast&Salt, where my dear friend Murphala talks about bread-baking, cheese-making, soap-caking, guitar-breaking, and dogs. Oh, and Tom Petty.
  • Baker Bettie, where I have discovered more amazing recipes and marvelous photography. (She’s really into cookies.)
  • Velveteen Rabbi, where Reb Rachel lets us run with her through motherhood, poetry, Torah, and other blessed cycles in our lives.
  • My Pajama Days, where Emily shares the trials and triumphs of parenting, plus the discoveries and difficulties of moving gracefully on from one part of life to the next.
  • Notes from Rumbly Cottage is one of my favorite sources of movie reviews and suggestions. I’ve also picked up recipes, craft ideas, gardening tips, and other bits of everyday wisdom there, too.
  • Eggton for recipes, true stories that make me laugh out loud, clever videos, and Thunder. (I came for the recipes, but I stayed for the Thunder.)
  • Shawn L. Bird for delightful poetry, thoughts/tips/ideas about writing, and occasional harp music.
  • Adventures in Beeland, where I have learned about beekeeping, kept abreast of what’s blooming in west London, and gotten to vicariously enjoy tea and cakes now and then.
  • Tarot in a Teacup, where I have discovered both lovely decks and interesting spreads, and get to see glimpses of summer in the depths of winter. (Monica blogs from New Zealand.)
  • Bridget’s Fire for eclectic spiritual exploration and thoughts on intentional living, parenting, and leaving our comfort zones, with a bit of Celtic flavor.
  • Multimedia Meditations for movie reviews, cultural commentary, and life observations that are marvelously off the beaten path.

Now I’m off to notify my nominees. I hope you enjoy reading their blogs!

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Surprise pie

Posted on July 3, 2009 | Leave a comment

My son, who is my first-born, is full of surprises. Because he is a sweet and gentle soul, they are most often joyful surprises, for which I am daily thankful.

A couple weeks ago, he surprised me by announcing that he wanted to bake a pie. It turns out he had promised a baseball teammate a pie if the team won their next game, which they did. He now had to make good on that promise and wanted to go on-line to look for a recipe.

Once the first blush of amazement wore off, I suggested that he start with the dozens of cookbooks on the kitchen shelves, several of which are devoted solely to desserts. By the next day he had found a recipe that suited his fancy and was eager to go to the grocery store for the ingredients.

“Why don’t we see what we already have?” I suggested. He read off the list of ingredients and together we located most of them in the kitchen cupboards. We made our shopping list, including some ingredients that we had but not in sufficient quantities, and headed off to the store.

Thanks to a persistent illness that I’ve been fighting for a couple months, I was worn out by the shopping expedition. (My very enthusiastic and slightly hyperactive shopping assistants no doubt contributed to my fatigue as well.) I had to take a nap. But pie stops for no man, so we did a verbal walk-through of the recipe before I lay down on the couch in order to be available for baking consultations. Thankfully, I remembered to suggest that it’s always a good idea to place a cookie sheet under the pie in case it spills over a bit during baking.

The pie-making proceeded without incident. I hazily recall being roused to near consciousness a couple times to pronounce my blessing on the pie-in-process before I finally woke to the delicious aroma of brownie pie baking. The pie had been removed from the oven and the wisdom of my protective cookie sheet advice was loudly acclaimed, as the pie had evidently spilled over. Both kids were in the kitchen munching on the overflow and exclaiming how good it was. They even brought me some to taste, and I found it very good indeed.

Sometime later, I entered the kitchen myself to see this glorious confection. Most of the pie filling had bubbled out of the shell, leaving only a layer of brownie slightly thicker than the crust. (A post-mortem of the preparation revealed that a bit too much baking powder had been used.) No wonder the kids had been so thrilled eating the overflow! I thanked whatever guardian angel had prompted me to suggest the cookie sheet beneath the pie, shuddering at the horrendous oven cleaning I had so narrowly missed. We left for vacation two days later, having cleaned up all the cooking pans and dishes.

Fast forward to today and the inspiration for this posting: the penetrating odor of burnt sugar. We turned the oven on to preheat for a quick and lazy frozen pizza lunch and opened it several minutes later to dark, acrid clouds and the wail of the kitchen smoke detector. Once the haze had cleared, we discovered that my son had placed the cookie sheet on the rack below the one that held the pie rather than directly under the pie itself, so giant globs of overflow had baked onto the wires of the top rack.

So now the oven has been thoroughly cleaned, which is a wonder in itself, and the surprises of parenting just keep unfolding.

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