Gasp!

Gasp!

I'm the mother of a high-schooler. Part of me keeps thinking "how the heck did this happen?"
The snarky/romantic side keeps answering "well, a man and a woman got together..."
This plays in my head over and over.
When Chirp chirp was just a babe, people, older ladies in particular, would constantly advise to enjoy it now, it goes by so fast. I'm a freak of nature, or something, because it hasn't felt fast at all. It just feels odd that now I'm one of those people who has high school kids--and I'm not sure how I reached this point. Wasn't there supposed to be a manual handed out or something? Shouldn't there have been an official letter in the mail? "Hey Lady--your daughter's going into the high-school!"
I don't know. I just have this discomfited feeling.
Chirp-chirp, on the other hand, is rockin' her new status and making me proud. Changes aren't her strong point, but you'd never know it to see how she's handling it all. I am SO proud of her!

This past week, I've made three fail foods. The first was zucchini frit-foo-young. That's when you try to make zucchini fritters for a crowd, but omit the flour from the mix. The second was creme bruleaky. That's creme brulee that doesn't set up, but it's your aunt's birthday and everyone at the table is dying to see what incredible treat you've made for dessert. The third fail food was coconut ice crud. That's where you take a lovely recipe for coconut ice cream and forget to put the sugar in. That was for Grandma's 89th birthday, a mere three days after the creme bruleaky incident. With the same crowd. I tired to hand over my baking crown, but no one would take it. Maybe that has to do with the crusty smears of ravioli stuffing gone awry decorating it?

Grouse season has started. This means that turkeys can be viewed at every turn in the road, but the grouse are invisible. This shouldn't be confused with turkey season, when grouse fly up from under your feet with every other step you take and turkeys don't seem to exist. Turkey season does start here in a couple of weeks, at which point I'm sure we'll see lots of something else. Of course, I don't hunt for anything else, so I'm looking forward to it!

We did see a badger the other day. Thankfully, the badger saw us and decided it was easier to melt back into the trees than to stake a claim on his territory. Also saw a couple of snakes that day engaged in a little bow-chicka-bow-bow. But no grouse, of course.

Today I'm attempting this month's Daring Bakers challenge. Hopefully my streak of bad performance in the kitchen is over and I'll meet with success. Of course, it's such a yummy challenge that I won't mind repeating it over. And over.

Neither will the resident high-schooler! (Gasp!)

FFwD: Gnocchi a la Parisienne--the outtakes!

Remember the part of this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe that calls for dropping the pate a choux into the boiling water?  The part where I said you can either use a pastry bag or a couple of spoons to shape the little dumplings before dropping them into the water to cook?

What I didn't tell you was that as I sped along, quickly snipping off bits of the "rope" as the dough came through the pastry bag, I got a little carried away.  I prefer to think of it as carried away, as it sounds a little more intriguing than does the word sloppy....

The pattern was something like snip, snip, snip, dip scissors in the boiling water to clean, snip, snip, flinch from the splash of boiling water, snip, dip, snip, snip... etc.

Until, oops!  Do you see what happened?

  I snipped off the very end of my pastry bag!  It plunged into the pot stuck fast to the little gnocchi! 

Oh, yeah, and company will be here in an hour!

Oh crap....

Bingo!  Found it! 

(It's stuck there on the right side of the gnocchi.)

Carry on, nothing more to see to here....and please don't tell the guests!

Doughnuts-redux

Practice makes poofect...

Doughnuts I've known...

My past (passed) doughnuts...

This month's Daring Bakers Challenge (real post is here) was doughnuts. Inwardly, I groaned. I tried to make doughnuts once before--back in 2004. It didn't go very well.

The attempt was documented by Mr. Boom and has been immortalized by Chirp-chirp in the retelling.

I thought I'd share the horror with you.

You're welcome.

Here. Have another!

Okay, who wants lunch!

A toast to you

It's Friday evening and I'm sitting at my desk with a glass of Beaujolais in hand, wondering why I haven't posted one. single. time. this past week.

It's been a hard week, but not that hard. No deaths, no illness, nothing over the top. But everything has been struggly this past week.

Struggly? My blog, my vocabulary!

I made some good food and some great food and some bad food for Easter at my in-laws. I took great photos during the process, but didn't get any photos of two of the three completed items. The one item I did get a "finished" shot of tasted terrible. You can't tell that from the photo, of course, but I would know. Oh, how do I know. Is there anything worse than a room full of people politely picking over the visually stunning but crappy dessert you made for Easter dinner? Yes, there is. What's worse is finding out that your mother-in-law's mother-in-law (did you follow that?) is famous (so why didn't anyone tell me this?!!!) for her version of the dessert. Mille Feuille, aka Napoleons, were my Easter Waterloo.

Let's see, this past week it has also snowed every day. I really love my job because I get to be outside a good portion of the time between April and October. But when you're lugging tractor batteries through the wilds and the snow starts falling as you're wiring up loggers and sensors and you discover your chest-waders don't seem to fit anymore (they shrank, I swear!) and now it's hailing and what else could go wrong and then you realize you forgot that one part you needed to complete the circuit and then you think you might have a tick crawling up the center of the back you might just want to start crying a little bit but you can't 'cause scientists don't cry, well, then, you might not like your job so much, just then. Just sayin'.

I did get a nice cheery note this week from my parents. They wanted to know when their granddaughter's birthday is (or was?)... Said grandchild responded to said e~mail. Said parents of mine then sent the e~mail back to said daughter with spelling corrections and asked for said daughter to please write more often.

And, it's snowing again...

More Beaujolais, please. 'Cause y'all know I need a little more "whine," right?

Company coming in the morning. Need to finish cleaning the house.

Thanks for listening.

Explotato (by Kat)

Some days are better than other days.