Alizarine

Little French Fudge Cakes

I was going to blog about the peach preserves I made a couple of weeks ago. But these little babies are so much more exciting, and I've got a few things to celebrate!

First off, Jeff and I saw my family over the weekend at my cousin Jamie's wedding, and that was wonderful. I miss them so much. More photos are at the end of the post. Also last week, two good art things happened.

1. My Mushrooms painting was accepted for Small Waters, a national juried exhibition featuring watercolors no larger than 144 square inches. The Illinois Watercolor Society puts on this show every couple of years. It will be at the Oak Park Art League during September. I put so much work into this painting, particularly the dark sticks and decaying leaves. I'm glad it's receiving some recognition!

2. Ye Olde Glasse Gemmes is going to be a mural! Back in June I entered it in Urbana's public art competition called Murals on Glass. Artists were asked to submit images that, if selected, would be printed hugely on adhesive vinyl and adhered to some of the giant windows in downtown Urbana. Mine was one of three winning entries! The murals will be installed in early August and will stay in place for a year. Mine is going to be at street level on the windows of the Urbana Business Association (across the street from the Cinema Gallery, if you're going to be in town). I really wanted to win this one and am beyond thrilled. I was interviewed about the project here if you'd like to know more about it, and the other winners can be seen here.

So not to boast, but I've been having a good couple of weeks and wanted to treat myself to some chocolate! Let's see that thing again.

This recipe is from The Splendid Table's How To Eat Supper, a cookbook I've had for a while. It has yielded some winners, a few losers, and a handful of who-caresers. So I wasn't sure if its Little French Fudge Cakes would be quite as good as their recipe's pre-ingredient hype paragraph promised ("Gooey chocolate pockets stud the cakes, while the cake itself is nearly as dense as fudge"). But I had been curious about the recipe for a long time, and it looked easy.

It was easy! And the cakes were ridiculously fudgy. I've been inhaling lots of fruits and vegetables this summer, so maybe I'm not used to eating rich food these days, but I'm telling you, last night I could barely finish mine, and it wasn't even that big! Its effect on my system was akin to this (I apologize for the language--no, I don't--Pulp Fiction is part of who I am, and if you can't take it, I feel sorry for you):

 

I took the above photo of the L.F.F.C. an hour ago, drooling over it the entire time, before putting it back in its container to save for later tonight. Not eating it nearly killed me, even though I had a backup chocolate snack to get me through the afternoon. Don't let the precious, fey name fool you: Little French Fudge Cakes are dangerous and should be considered a controlled substance.

Let's make 'em!

You're going to need one of those cupcake tins that have 6 cups instead of 12. I used a similar mini-bundt pan, and each of the bundts has a 1/2 cup capacity. The Splendid Table asks that the pan be dark, not black. If you have a silvery one, add a few minutes to the baking time. OR you could turn this into a big cake by baking it in a greased, 9-inch springform pan lined with parchment and bake it for 35 minutes.

Please know that you will have to grease the bejesus out of whatever tin you're dealing with. I thought I did so with mine, using butter as instructed, but 5/6 of the cakes were stuck in the pan. I had to run a knife around the perimeter, which was hard to do because the mini-bundts had ridges, and even then getting them out was a struggle. I found myself banging the pan against a cutting board to remove the last stragglers. So I'm not sure what to do next time: maybe butter and flour the pan? use baking spray, perhaps the kind with flour? butter and cocoa? were the ridges an unsurmountable problem here? If anyone has ideas, please comment. The majority of my cakes came out unscathed, but a couple were kind of sloppy.

Rest assured that all were more than edible. WAY TOO EDIBLE.

INGREDIENTS

• One 3.5- or 4-ounce bittersweet chocolate bar (Lindt Excellence 70%, Valrhona 71%, Scharffen Berger 70%, or Ghirardelli 70% Extra bittersweet, in order of our preference), broken up <--none of these were available; I used Ghirardelli 60%
• 1-1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, broken up
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon <--didn't use; I generally dislike cinnamon and chocolate together
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs plus 1 yolk (for a double recipe, use 5 eggs)
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• Half of a 3.5- to 4-ounce bittersweet chocolate bar, broken into bite-sized pieces <--I used 2 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter a dark metal 6-cup cupcake tin. Majorly butter it.

Combine the broken-up bittersweet and unsweetened chocolates with the butter in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl. Melt them for 2 to 3 minutes at medium-low power. Mine was melted in three 30-second bursts on high power (stirring in between). Check by stirring, as chocolate holds its shape when microwaved. Or melt it in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.

In a medium to large bowl, whisk together the cinnamon, vanilla, eggs and yolk, sugar, and salt until creamy. Stir in the flour to blend thoroughly. Then stir in the chocolate/butter mixture until smooth. Finally, blend in the bite-sized pieces of chocolate. Pour the batter into the cupcake pan, filling each three-quarters full. I'm going to say that mine were more like 2/3 full. This does not make a lot of batter.

Bake the cupcakes for 18 minutes. Timing is right on. Insert a knife into the center of a cupcake. It should come out with some streaks of thick batter. If you have any doubt about doneness, press the top of a cupcake to see if it is nearly firm. Remove them from the oven. Cool the cupcakes in the pan on a rack for 5 to 10 minutes to serve warm, or for 20 minutes to serve at room temperature.

Poof and Tyler. Poof was so fabulous that night that I started referring to her as Beyonce.

Mom and Dad. How cute are they?

Jeff and me. I bought that necklace at a record store years ago. The bottom of this dress is so much cuter than the top part--photos like this make it seem like I'm just wearing a P.E. uniform or something. And fox Jeff! I love that he smiled in this one!

Poof and my brother Ryan, a.k.a. Feep, who was hilarious all night.

Me being a goof. This is actually my homage to a pretty standard Bono pose.

La Harpe Elementary School

This is where I went to elementary school and junior high between 1974-1983. My classmates and I were bused to a middle-ish school in a neighboring town during fourth and fifth grade, but I spent the bulk of my childhood here at La Harpe Elementary. My parents and siblings went to school here, too, as did most of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and possibly even grandparents. My dad taught P.E., coached, and and was principal here for decades.

And it's going to be demolished soon.

My cousin Tyler took the photo above, and as I write this he is attempting to receive permission to show his photos of its now-damaged interior. [Edit: he got permission! I'll share more of his work as the photos arrive; two are below.] The idea that this building will not be around anymore triggered a wave of nostaglia that woke me up this morning. As I mentally walked from classroom to classroom, dozens of memories and "firsts" piled up, and I think I'm going to drive myself crazy unless I write some of them down in a series of disjointed paragraphs. I apologize if you've read any of these anecdotes before. I just wanted to see them all in one place.

Kindergarten

We had to fill out worksheets according to instructions played on a tape recorder. These were called "Listening Lessons." One of the items was a pig that we were told to color pink. Knowing that pigs were more of a peach color, I colored it peach and was deducted points. I have been a realist since the day I was born, damn it!

Across the hall was a girls' bathroom with four or five stalls. A rumor circulated among the girls: if the seat was up, that meant a boy had used it, and we should avoid it because, yuck, boys. Much later I realized that the seat was up because it had been recently cleaned by the janitors.

(I'm in the back row, far right, next to teacher aide Mrs. Yetter, blinded by the sun)

The class made a cookbook where each of us described how to make our favorite meal and were quoted verbatim in a dittoed booklet. My recipe was for spaghetti with meat sauce. I remember being interviewed for this like it was yesterday.

Kelly: Brown the hamburger...

Mrs. Y.: How much?

Kelly: The whole thing.

And so on.

First grade

I learned how to read! Our teacher Mrs. Strand must have taught us by osmosis, as I don't remember much about the process, but I do know that a whole lot of flashcards were involved. A small group of us were seated around her, and the intimidatingly big word "something" came up. None of the other kids knew what it was...but I did, and I thought to myself, I really know how to read now.

I was shy and always waited for other kids to ask me to play, except kids don't do that. They just start playing and do not issue engraved invitations. Lonely and frustrated one day, I sat on the bleachers and cried. A sweet girl named Sara (front row, green dress) sat beside me and said she would be my friend.

Teenagers fascinated many of us, and we were able to observe the high school kids during lunch in the cafeteria. We idolized the ones we recognized from swing choir, who were every bit as good as the people on the radio and were basically superstars already, and the cheerleaders when they wore their purple and gold uniforms to school. We went bananas for Judy Bradley, this blonde, sunny creature with feathered hair and a great big smile.

Second grade

I read a story called "Great Day In Ghana" and came to understand that the world was larger than I could ever imagine, and people lived in places that were vastly different from all-white, small town Illinois.

One time Mrs. Eckhardt used my name in a sentence during a spelling test. "Blue. Kelly is wearing a blue turtleneck." It has stayed with me forever and will most likely be my dying thought.

Jimmy Blue (back row, orange shirt) wrote a poem about spring that was better than mine. Then he moved away, tragically, and I decided to focus on writing poems.

Reva (front row, aqua shirt) and I decided that if we had to get married someday, we would marry each other, because yuck, boys.

Third grade

We were the favorite class of teachers. One time I overheard an exhausted-sounding Mrs. Eckhardt talking to our third grade teachers about us. "Enjoy them!" she concluded.

Mrs. Wernecke forced us to listen to tape recordings of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson every day after lunch. During this time I drew microscopic comics on folded-over, 2"x1" pieces of paper for the amusement of Sara and Michele (back row, red dress, standing by me).

Mrs. Wernecke was a tough customer who also forced us to say, "May I go to the lavatory?" None of us had ever heard of a lavatory before, and many simply called it "the laboratory."

My poetry had improved to the point that Mrs. Wernecke created handmade blank books for me. I wrote my poems inside and illustrated them, and that was terrific. But then she wanted me to read them aloud to my class and the other third grade section, and any hope I may have had of being popular flew right out the window (second floor, west side).

During an open house my art teacher, the mysterious and very old Mr. Soule, told my parents that "this one is special."

By the time my class entered fourth grade, our teacher Mrs. Smith (at our building in Terre Haute, which is pronounced, appallingly, as "terry hut") was amazed at the amount of math catch-up she had to do with us. And that was kind of understandable, what with all the nonstop poetry going on in the lower grades.

Two years later we returned to the elementary building in La Harpe for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade.

Sixth grade

Study hall, late September, Mr. Doyle's room (social studies): I was reading/devouring a Judy Blume book and paused to look out the open third floor windows. Golden afternoon light bathed the trees across the way, and out on Main Street a car drove by, blasting Late in the Evening by Paul Simon. And I felt so content, sitting there, reading my book, loving that song and feeling somehow older.

 

Dad was my P.E. teacher and coach, and he spent a lot of extra time at school after hours. Sometimes I sat at his office desk drawing cartoons, or my brother and I goofed around in the gym. I distinctly remember trying to figure out how to serve a volleyball on the day after John Lennon died, sadly thinking about his then-current song (Just Like) Starting Over.

 

It was a bad year for assassinations, and later that spring attempts were made on the lives of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul. We watched TV coverage of both in our school's big study hall, and to help us cope with the violence we were instructed to write a poem (of course) called Assassination. We had to take the letters of assassination and make each one begin a new line. This was an excercise in futility because (1) the word contains a ridiculous number of repeated letters, and (2) the word contains a ridiculous number of repeated ass-es.

Seventh grade

Dad is basically synonymous with La Harpe Elementary. The number of times he carried televisions up and down those stairs and the number of times he put Vom-Sorb on messes when janitors could not be found would boggle the mind. To be in the school with Dad as he closed the place down at night after a late ball game was always discombobulating. The cavernous black hallways creaked with scary "building settling" noises that I relive in nightmares to this day. And yet I always felt fortunate to be there at night, like I was seeing a secret side to the school that most kids never saw.

Mrs. Logan, our reading teacher for sixth and seventh grade, seemed like--heck, was and is--a perfect human being. She was kind, thoughtful, interesting, and generous. Her easy smile lit up the room, and she selected books for us that were exactly the right books. Mrs. Jones was like a dear aunt who taught us grammar via a series of handwritten dittos that I adored. She encouraged me as a writer and praised my "dry" sense of humor. She died nearly twenty years ago, and I still think about her all the time. Her room is on the left side of the hallway (photo by Tyler).

Eighth grade

I won the school spelling bee in the study hall, memorized the countries in the Middle East, was intimidated by algebra, touched a computer for the first time (a Radio Shack TRS-80)...

...read dozens of books from our library (including an account of the Salem witch trials that freaked me out for days), and was misinformed about the pronunciation of the word "duodenum" (it's this not doo-oh-DEN-um). My science teacher said it a lot, along with "uhhh." I used to keep a running tally and doodled spectacularly to stay alert. I experienced my first migraine headache and accompanying wave of nausea while taking an English test--luckily no Vom-Sorb was involved.

Our particular arrangement of teachers and sports-related activities created a pressure-cooker. I was obsessed with learning new things, even the dull stuff, and did at least two hours of homework each night. With a handful of exceptions, my relationships with my peers had become a bit shallow or competitive. Most students were friendly in a "hey how's it going" kind of way. But during my years at the top floor of this building, I could feel myself separating from the rest of the group, who most likely didn't care about the pronunciation of "duodenum" and probably weren't even listening in the first place. My differences didn't matter as much to me as they used to, and the twenty-one girls and seven boys who were born in 1969 along with me started to seem more like a group of random kids rather than the most important people in the world. I still longed for the kinds of friends I would eventually find later in life, but in the meantime I wasn't going to sit on the bleachers and cry about it. My thirst for knowledge was that voracious and overriding, and this evolution began at La Harpe Elementary.

---

To augment his teacher's salary, Dad spent many of his summers painting the walls, ceilings, and sometimes floors of our school, and he let me help him. He did the roller work, and I took care of the edges. We listened to the radio and worked happily in the old, hot building. Not content to simply paint a room beige, Dad figured out how to create snappy racing stripes in a variety of bright colors and patterns, making each room unique. Our work is buried under thirty years' worth of additional paint [Edit: no it is not! We painted those stripes up there!], but that summer job made me feel intimately connected with my school, and I'm sure Dad feels the same way.

La Harpe Elementary is a structure much like hundreds of other Illinois schools built during that period in a style that did not set the architectural world on fire. Vandalism and decay have set in after its doors closed for good three years ago. But like thousands of other former students who spent their sometimes-happy, sometimes-sad formative years there, I can't help but shed a tear knowing that part of my childhood will soon vanish.

Popular Searches 2

How many people out there have blogs? One, two, three...okay, ten. Well, let me ask you this: do your search stats scare you? Because every week I receive an email from Ligit, the company responsible for my search box on the right, and it tells me how people find my blog and what they look for once they're here. Most of the time I can't bring myself to read it because, let's face it, weirdos live on the Internet. While I enjoy writing and having a blog, the idea that weirdos (and non-weirdos) are finding it and searching it...man, I'd kind of rather not know about that.

One Ligit feature I'm not nuts about is the word cloud, or whatever you call it, that evolves when people do a search. Whenever you type in something like ice cream or murderer, those words pop up in the cloud. Other readers come along later and look at the cloud, see something juicy like murderer, and they click on it. Everytime they click it, it gets bigger. Every once in a while, I'll check that sidebar and be somewhat alarmed to find

MURDERER

a few inches below my photo.

(No one has searched for murderer. Yet.)

So in an attempt to help out people who are searching for information related to this blog, I'm presenting my second list of popular searches, along with explanations and/or advice. I did the first one, which you can read to find out about tampons, cookies, and my personal favorite, infertility, about a year ago.

Ugh, maybe this will have to become an annual thing...?

1. How Jeff and I met.

I've covered this several times already, but in case you're new to the blog and don't want to sift through the old stuff, we met on Match.com about four and a half years ago, fell in love quickly, and were married about six months later. Online dating: it works!

2. Sugar cookies.

The recipe you're looking for is here. I make them for Christmas, various birthdays, Bun's vets, and a couple of little girls. They are daughters of friends and have come to expect them when we stop by. They're a lot of work, make no mistake, but sometimes I'm in the mood for a project like this. Yeah, it's not a recipe. It's a project.

3. Poof/Emily.

Lots of my readers are fans of my sister Emily, whom I've called Poof for over 20 years. She has an incredibly popular YouTube channel where she reviews makeup and demonstrates how to use it. Whenever she mentions me, I get a spike in readers. Yay for the Poof Bump! I write about her all the time, and I hope her viewers find what they're looking for when they search for her here.

4. Louis C.K.

Over the past 24 hours, somebody has been searching multiple times for comedian Louis C.K. here, typing his name as many ways as he or she can, and coming up empty-handed. I'm sure I have mentioned him on at least a few occasions, but Ligit can't seem to find anything. Strange. Well, person who is looking for Louis C.K., I would just like to say that I think Louie is the funniest comedian in the business, and I am in awe of him. I love his show on FX and am on his mailing list. I gleefully purchase everything he puts out there. One day after I had a breast cancer biopsy, I watched his comedy specials, and he turned my existential terror appointment* frown upside-down. Maybe that's why I'm such a big fan.

* "Existential terror appointment" is an expression coined by my pal Melinda. She, like Louie, has red hair and is one of the funniest people walking the planet.

5. Weight diet.

Do you want to know my weight? Sorry, that ain't nobody's business but my own. The dress I'm wearing today is a size M, which suggests that I am a medium-sized woman, in case that helps.

6. Buttermilk.

Sure! I like buttermilk and get excited when it's an ingredient in a recipe. I don't really understand buttermilk, so it makes that recipe seem experimental. Everything I've put buttermilk in has turned out great, for what it's worth.

7. Altessa.

I have no idea what this is and have never written about it. Here is a picture I found while searching for Altessa on Google. It is a neighborhood in Las Vegas with tiny trees. 'Sup, Altessa?

8. Alissa Joie.

I'm clueless regarding this search as well, but here is a kinda-close image search result. Are you searching for Angelina Jolie, reader? If so, your spelling is atrocious. Angelina Jolie is a glamorous movie star with many children. I hope this helps.

9. True Blood.

Sorry, but I don't watch this show. I have no reason for this, other than the fact that I don't have HBO, am not into 21st Century vampires, and watch too many other shows already.

10. Various misspelled food items.

Hungry people who can't spell, please click on your misspelled item of choice below. It will take you to the recipe/item I think you want.

Mokey bread, chicken tetrazinne, siracha, lil smokird, fritatta.

(I've never made a frittata. I don't like the texture around the edges.)

And finally, here's the reason I decided to do another Popular Searches entry.

11. Pregnant.

As with Infertile, my readers clicked on this so many times that it became uncomfortably huge, forcing me to add it to the list of searches I don't want visible in the word cloud. I'm not pregnant, and I don't like the thought of people seeing that giant word next to my face and jumping to conclusions. It also reminds me of something I can't be and have been sad about in the past. I think I did a good job of explaining this here and here and would like to posit the idea that maybe a woman can be valued for things beyond those that come out of her uterus. I kind of like the things that come out of my hand.

Oh wait, there's one more.

12. Ugly ginger boy with blonde highlights.

My painting of little Owen turned up on someone's general Internet image search for the above. It was a number of pages down. I'm guessing that in the blog I wrote about the painting, I used the words highlights, blonde, boy, and possibly ginger somewhere, and that was good enough for Google. I will have you know that Owen is one of the most adorable little boys in the world. I met him a couple of months ago at my opening in Jacksonville. A cousin of Mabel, he's a little bigger now but still in that darling tot phase, and he tackled me with a giant hug. His hair is mesmerizingly red now. He's the kind of beautiful child people openly gape at and way cuter than the mean weirdo searching the Internet for ugly ginger boys.

Late Spring Update

This spring has been crazy. International travel, one-person show, looming medical test, backbreaking commission, exciting deck project--no wonder I've neglected my blog! So in an attempt to catch up and maybe not have to write a hundred thousand words in doing so, here's a little photo essay. While you read and look at the photos, I urge you to listen to Steal Away by Robbie Dupree, a song that has been on a constant loop in my head for two weeks, no foolin'.

 

(I can't get on board with the illustration here. I just can't. I don't like the way nearly all Japanese manga illustrators draw faces.)

Anyway, that song's been driving me up the wall, and I'm sorry if it's in your head too, now. There's no getting it out, like those Star Trek bugs.

 

GAH I CAN'T EVEN WATCH THAT!

Off to a bad start, sorry. Here's my update. Bun will make it better.

Last month, completely out of nowhere, a tornado warning hit while Jeff was taking a nap and I was reading. Jeff has a new app on his phone that alerts us to severe weather with a variety of sounds, a different one for every type of warning. The phone was making some noise, but sleeping Jeff and I ignored it because honestly Jeff has about 15 other phone alarms that indicate who-knows-what every afternoon (various calendar reminders and work stuff).

We eventually decided to see what was going on--the weather gave us no indication of impending doom, just some clouds, but indeed a tornado warning had been issued. Jeff scooped up Bun, I grabbed Pache and Q, and we headed to the bathroom. During the scooping process, my phone rang, and it was Melissa calling to tell us about the storm. She was in Champaign, some ten miles west of our house, and apparently actual funnel clouds were happening and headed our way. Here's one of the many photos I saw on Facebook almost immediately, most of them taken by former students who probably should not have been out chasing storms.

We rode out the brief storm with our big-eyed cats. It didn't last long and, as usual, seemed to skip right over us.

I keep meaning to write about my show in Jacksonville! I displayed my wares at the David Strawn Art Gallery during the month of April. This involved three long, 266-mile round trips in the Mazda: one to deliver the paintings, one for the opening, and one to take the paintings home. On the day of my opening, Jeff and I were up before sunrise and drove to the gallery. I gave a 6-hour workshop (watercolor still life) in the Strawn's basement classroom. I changed and put on my makeup in a gas station bathroom, and then we had an early supper with Mom, Dad, Poof, and Tyler before my two-hour opening. After it was over, we drove all the way back home, so that made for a very long but ultimately enjoyable Saturday. I've never had so many people attend one of my art shows and even managed to sell a fair number of paintings. Who knew that Jacksonville was such an artsy town?

Thanks to all of my friends and family who came to see the show. I was thrilled to see Kendra, Rob, Melinda, Kate, Mabel, Lars, Michelle, Grace, Jay & TA, and even Karen Icenogle, my high school art teacher! I hadn't seen her in a very long time, and she looked at me and said, "I love you." It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears.

In other art news, I've finally begun work on a commissioned painting that's going to take a couple of months to complete at least. It's a wedding present from a top secret groom to his top secret bride. The wedding is in September, so I won't be able to show it to you until then, which is a shame because this painting is, in a word, bonkers. I can tell you that it includes eleven people and eleven statues, and it takes place in a gold and red art deco theater lobby. The painting is huge at nearly three feet by three feet. That was too big for my studio table, so I've moved my whole production downstairs to our bedroom where we have a large desk. I blurred the reference image on my computer there, but I think I can show you a five-inch chunk that is in fact .8 percent of the final picture.

So it's mostly that kind of thing.

Bun loves the new setup because while I work she gets to sleep on the bed and do cute things like this.

Glass Gems 3 is currently on display in Dixon, IL, at The Next Picture Show gallery as part of the Illinois Watercolor Society's national exhibition.

I've been in IWS's last three national shows. That means I'm a signature member of the Illinois Watercolor Society and can now add "IWS" to my signature on future paintings!

Jeff, who appears to be throwing down a gang sign, and my parents came to the show with me and made the day very special.

Artist and judge Donna Jill Witty presented a terrific and dramatic watercolor demonstration during the show. I am the giant black shape on the left that seems to be absorbing all light in the room--I am almost as dark as those aliens from Attack the Block.

That was such a good movie.

In case you've never seen our house, here's what it looks like. It's a American Craftsman house with big boxes added to each end and is delighfully weird. The steps in the center lead to a massive, 760 square-foot deck that we never use and is a bit warped and dated. You can see a corner of it here.

About a month and a half ago, we began taking the deck out. Parts of it were so rotten and poorly constructed that it was almost a simply-lift-with-hands-to-remove kind of situation. Soon it was gone, and now we're dealing with the fun part: figuring out what to do with all of that new space.

We're going to have a table and chairs sitting atop flagstones on the right, a fire pit on the left, dark rock filling in, and a line of lighter rock dividing the space horizontally.

Here's a shot of the Adirondack chairs and fire pit (which I spotted at Menard's, majorly on sale). We put a ring of bricks around the pit and love the way it looks.

Below that will be a rock garden that mimics a dry stream with a bird bath.

Jeff arranged a lot of that on Sunday afternoon as I was taking a shower, and when I looked at it from the living room it instantly reminded me of a brain, which was unintentionally awesome.

We'll have some black mulch and new plants down there, including a rose-of-sharon and a dwarf burning bush, along with vines, grasses, and other flowers.

Here's what it looks like so far (sorry about the bleached-out lighting situation). You can kind of see the flagstones under the table.

Jeff and I often find ourselves staring out the window at this scene multiple times per day, contemplating our next move.

I'm nuts about moss roses and have been planting lots of them. Hopefully no woodland creatures plan to eat them, such as...

Two years ago, we hosted a family of woodchucks. Last year we had foxes. This year our house has become a chipmunk sanctuary. I like to put seeds out for them, and as many as four chipmunks are eating seeds at any given time. The cats enjoy watching these little guys, especially Quixote, who gets incredibly worked up.

We also have some adorable juvie Canadian geese in the neighborhood!

On the food front, I've been trying various experiments in low-cal food that are pretty good but not great enough to merit blogging, such as:

and

And oh, my colposcopy? I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. To amuse myself during the procedure, which is essentially a super-pap, I altered Paul Simon's Kodachrome and sang it to myself with altered lyrics as Kolposcope.

 

Kolposco-o-ope! It gives us those nice bright colors, it gives us the--

You get the idea.

It was essentially no big thing and took maybe five minutes. My area of concern was miniscule, and my doctor told me everything that was happening as I looked up at the ceiling, silently humming my tune. I didn't even faint, and evidently they get a lot of fainters. The doctor told me that based on what she saw, I had nothing to worry about. Unfortunately I was instructed to have zero marital fun with Jeff for ten days afterward so I could heal properly, so that was was a complete drag.

After a few tense days, I called for my results and it turns out I'm basically in the clear. But anyone who gets any kind of abnormal pap test and has a colposcopy/biopsy at my hospital is sentenced to three additional paps during the next year, so I've got that to look forward to. But I have been assured that my test results look very good. The paps are just a precaution, and the hospital presumably has lots of big shiny equipment and snazzy waiting room furniture they need to pay for.

Let's end this on a cute note. Here's Hypatia, one of three cats who piled up on me after the colposcopy. I was recovering under the "wookiee blanket," and Pache showed a certain amount of bravery in climbing aboard, as she is afraid of the wookiee blanket.

Chicken Pot Pie

My friends, what is pie?

(Sidebar: one time I went to Germany to visit a friend, and while I was there I made a lemon meringue pie for a dinner party. One of the guests asked that same question: "What is pie?"

They don't know what pie is in Germany!

That will never cease to amaze me. I've mentioned it before.)

What is your mental image of a pie, those of you who know what one is? Close your eyes and imagine one. Dig, if you will, the picture.

Here's my idea of a pie: crust on top, some kind of filling, and crust on the bottom. Right? Right. Under no circumstances are the following two items pies:

On the left is a ramekin with filling and crust on top but not on the bottom. Probably delicious; not pie.

On the right is a baking dish with filling and let's say Grands!^® biscuits on top. Probably okay; not pie.

Call those two things something else, but stop calling them pies, please, especially if you plan to serve them to guests. Don't say, "Hey, come over! I'm making chicken pot pie!"...

 

...and present something that has no top and bottom crust. The second you mention C.P.P., people (well, me) will visualize a true pie and spend the day thinking about how great it's going to be, and when you deliver some casserole topped with a biscuit, a part of me will hate you, and I'm sorry. I just really love pie. 

Tuesday Melissa came out for supper, and I made a true chicken pot pie. I cut vent holes in the shape of an M on the top crust because who doesn't like a pie marked with their initial? All human beings who know about pie like that, but so few people ever receive a pie made in their honor. Bake a pie with a top crust and mark it with somebody's initial. Make one for yourself! HONOR PIES. It'll knock their socks off.

(Photo not available, but trust me, it was cute.)

So this pie is comfort food of the highest order. It's from The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and I've already made it twice since Christmas at Jeff's request. I love it too, and after Melissa returned to her apartment, she Facebooked the following: Now I just want endless amounts of chicken pot pie...*sigh*

The Pioneer Woman's recipe is for a top-crust-only-pie-that-is-not-a-pie, and she made it in a pie pan/casserole dish that's bigger than mine. The recipe made more filling than my pie could hold, something like two cups, but that was no big deal. I just kept it warm while the pie baked and spooned it alongside each piece (see extras in the top photo).

It's not the easiest thing in the world to make, but pie never is. You will not be a fan of the time-consuming fine chopping that's involved. Once you start making this pie, people will demand that you keep making it. 

But come on. You've got to admit that my honor pie idea intrigues you.

(Unrelated: Bun is a stern taskmistress as she supervises the painting of Glass Gems 3.)

 

INGREDIENTS

• Top and bottom pie crust <-- However you want to make it: if you go with my recipe here (scroll down), use the version with the 3 cups of flour that I've written in blue pen.
• 3 celery stalks
• 3 medium carrots, peeled
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1 large onion
• 4 tbsp butter
• 2 cups chicken, cooked, diced or shredded <-- Lately I've been buying big packages of 8-9 bone-in chicken thighs, which taste chicken-ier than breasts and are cheaper. I remove the skin, top them with 1/4 cup olive oil, juice of one lemon, and salt/pepper, and roast I them in a glass baking dish at 400 for 45 minutes. We eat some and save the rest for stuff like this.
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 chicken bouillon cube (optional) <--used it
• 1/4 cup white wine (optional) <-- used it
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp ground thyme <--used regular non-ground thyme
• 1 tsp kosher salt or more to taste
• black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 400. I went with 425 as that's how I bake any pie that has my kind of crust.

 

Begin by finely dicing the fresh vegetables, celery, carrots and onions. Melt the butter in a large pot or dutch oven. Add the onion, carrots, celery and peas. Saute until the vegetables start to soften, a few minutes (mine always seem to take longer than that). Add the chicken and stir to combine. Sprinkle the flour evenly over the vegetables and chicken and stir to combine. Cook for a couple of minutes, stirring gently.

 

 

Pour in the chicken broth, stirring constantly. Stir in the bouillon cube and wine, if using. The flour will combine with the chicken to create a delicious gravy. Pour in the cream and stir. Allow mixture to cook over low heat, thickening gradually, about 4 minutes. I went a few minutes longer to further thicken the sauce. Season with thyme, salt and pepper. Remove from the heat. Taste and adjust the seasonings as needed. Be sure it's adequately salted!

 

 

Make and roll out your top and bottom crusts (see link above). Lay the bottom pie crust in the pan and load it with the filling until it's level. Do not heap on much more than that. Roll the top crust out to 1" larger then the pan. Place the crust on top of the chicken mixture. Press the crust gently into the sides of the dish to seal. Work as quickly as you can here. The heat of the filling will make the top crust kind of hard to deal with as you seal it to the bottom crust.

 

 

Cut small slits (I.E. MAKE AN HONOR PIE WITH DECORATIVE INITIAL) in the top with a knife. You might want to work the slits into bigger gaps. I've found that skinny slits will try to seal themselves back together while the pie is baking.

 

 

Cover the outside edge of the pie with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for about 12-15 more minutes, or until the pie has a little color on top. But not too much. We're looking for "healthy glow," not "tanorexic."

 

 

Let it cool for 10-15 minutes and serve with extra filling. Some filling will inevitably ooze out after you cut into the pie. I like to tip the pan at a slight angle to encourage the ooze to get back to where it once belonged as it cools with mild success.

 

 

 

 

Cover and refrigerate the leftover pie. Individual slices (with extra filling) will reheat nicely in the microwave.

 

PS It finally snowed! I made a celebratory crazy cake and, since I didn't have any powdered sugar, I made a quick mocha ganache topping:

• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped or in chip form
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
• 5 ounces heavy cream
• tiny sprinkle of fleur de sel (decoration)
• handful of white chocolate chips (decoration)

Put chocolate and espresso powder in a smallish bowl. Heat cream in a small saucepan until simmering (small bubbles will appear along the edge of the pan). Do not boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and wait for two minutes. Whisk the mixture until you have a thick, glossy ganache. I let mine cool and thicken for about ten minutes. Pour and smooth over your cake and decorate it (or not!).

Thanks to my sister in-law Shanna for my new cake stand. I love it so much!

Poof and The Wheatman

That chubby feller up there entered my world when I was a preteen giantess with a fondness for Mad magazine and Superman II. I was also one hell of a tap dancer.

Alex (full name: "Dixieland Pride's Alex" according to his papers) belonged to friends of the family who were moving, and they couldn't take their basset hound along. Dad offered Alex some top-notch basement accommodations and plenty of dog food--sometimes even the kind that made its own gravy--and two gleeful kids who would proceed to love him.

[TANGENT ALERT] A few months ago I wrote to Julie Klausner, hostess of How Was Your Week, my favorite podcast. Julie loves Michael Keaton, Bette Midler, and basset hounds, so I sent her links to the following important, rare videos that she awesomely had not seen.

Back when this first aired in 1985, Mom and I laughed our heads off at "Ya shave your legs today, six months later, ya gotta do it again. Why botha?"

 

And this is strictly for Keaton completists.

 

To top off my message, I attached a photo of me cuddling with Alex.

Julie quickly wrote back:

I don't know where to begin. This is all mindblowing stuff. I can't thank you enough for sending this. The Keaton clip got me pregnant, the basset pic gave me diabetus, and Bette Midler is the only person who keeps me from staying in bed all day when I wake up in the morning. 

Then a few minutes later she asked:

Was Alex the best dog?

I dutifully shot back a list of reasons detailing why Alex was the best dog.

 

Why Alex Was the Best Dog

1. He was my first artistic muse! He would lay around the house all day, motionless, thus making him an excellent model. I created a comic strip based on him.
2. Highly tolerant of costumes.
3. An innocent: we tried to breed him with Maggie, a lady basset hound from up the road, but he didn't know what to do. I was in junior high at the time, and I remember dying of laughter and embarrassment for Alex as I watched Dad lift him onto Maggie's back. Alex just kind of stood there.
4. A gentleman: during the weekend that Maggie stayed with us, Alex gave her his bed.
5. A gourmand: on his first night in our house, Alex opened a bucket of lard we had in our basement and ate about a pound of it before getting sick.
6. A friend to creatures great and small: he had a pet toad.
7. Special: when my friends would visit me, we'd keep him in his room in the basement. He'd start barking, and his bark sounded like a teen boy impersonating a dog: WOOF. And so this made it seem like we were keeping a secret Eddington brother hidden away in our basement.

Julie responded:

Thank YOU so much for the single most wonderful and evocative list of traits I've ever read about such a great dog! And that photo? Too much. I wish I could have heard his bark!!!!! WOOF. Hahhaa Oh, you've made my day with this. Possibly my life. Much love and Lard-filled hugs. xo

See? Julie gets it. Alex was a very good boy!

Much like John the Baptist, Alex's presence in our house seemed to herald the arrival of something incredible: one Emily "Poof" Eddington.

My sister was born a few years later. She loved Alex, too, and gave him his greatest nickname. Highly verbal, baby Poof (seen above with me and our cousins Josie and Jason) learned how to speak before she could walk, and sometimes she had trouble pronouncing words. Adorably, she chirped a cheery "fuck!" every time she saw an American flag, she requested "kepshit on my ham-de-bur, " and she called Alex "Ag-owitz." Dad latched onto Ag-owitz and morphed it into "Go-Wheats" and later "Bobby Go-Wheats," finally settling on "The Wheatman," which I always thought was more distinguished, especially during his later years when I was in college.

Oh, sweet Wheatman. I miss you.

And now, some odds-and-ends photos of Poof and me.

Poof and I continued to bond even when my hair threatened to take over the western hemisphere. She never tired of hearing me read books like The Sneeches and Other Stories. We took to calling ourselves Team Eddington, and when strangers asked her if she was my daughter, we just played along.

I believe the birthday cake here was Poof's brainchild. I was home from grad school for winter break, but I had to return to the U of I a couple of weeks before my birthday, where I would probably not have a cake. Not on Poof's watch! She meticulously lined up marshmallows and sprinkles to read PUP 22. Along with Ryan and Dad, we appear to be a 20th Century version of Van Gogh's strife-ridden Potato Eaters, although I'm pretty sure we were having a bit more fun than that.

Spending time with Poof sustained me throughout grad school, which was a lonely and challenging time for me, and my first teaching job, which was a lonely and challenging time for me. She has brought me so much joy and laughter.

Above is the perfect example of little Poof at her greatest. She is sort of photobombing Mom, who has just finished sewing and stuffing twenty-plus stockings for a Christmas party for Poof's kindergarten class. Poof's obviously got something to say. Her eyes: slightly crazed. Her bangs: pulled off her forehead with a tight headband, a look that reminds me of one of Poof's top recurring comedy bits. Before a bath, Poof liked to pull her shirt, often a turtleneck, over her head without taking it competely off, creating a sort of wimple. Then she'd run around the living room like this yelling, hilariously,

"I'M A NUN, I'M A NUN, I'M A NUN-NUN-NUN!"

I'm a nun-nun-nun. Can you beat that?

Thus concludes my little tribute to Poof and The Wheatman.

Random Assortment of Old Photos

Mom gave me some old photos when Jeff and I visited at Christmas--boy was that a gift and food bonanza!--and I thought I'd share them here. My folks didn't take lots of photos of my brother and me. We were at our cutest in the 70s and are among the last generation of kids whose every waking moment was not covered with photojournalistic zeal by our parents. Mom's camera was kind of a fossil. Developing photos involved sending rolls of film in special envelopes to some faraway lab and then waiting weeks for the prints to arrive in the mail. It had to have been a pain in the ass for Mom and expensive to boot. The existing photos that do document our childhood have, by virture of their scarcity, become iconic visual aids in our family's folklore.

Case in point: the photo above. This is one of my earliest memories, and I probably remember it because Mom thought it was important enough to photograph. I was given the fun job of putting the cheese on the pizza, and I distinctly remember the pleasure of placing the cheese in the nooks and crannies created by the hamburger. (We were having Poverty Pizza, as I fondly refer to it now, which was made with a Chef Boyardee pizza kit consisting of dough mix, packet of Parm, and a tall skinny can of sauce. Hamburger sold separately.) As you can see, I'm using my left hand even though I'm right-handed. Mom was a lefty, and it looks like she set the bowl on the left because that's just the way a lefty would do it.

More culinary prep work: it's corn shuckin' time. I'm sitting on a stool that remains part of my parents' living room furniture. Note also the corrective shoes I'm wearing. Those were supposed to keep me from pointing my toes in when I walked. While they are not exactly doing anything helpful in this photo, they must have worked because I don't toe-in (as I called it) when I walk now. At least not as much. Also, wagons seemed to be key toys for children to have back then. We always had so many things to pull around!

Here's a sweaty three year-old me and my baby brother Ryan. I had just run into the house after playing outside with my cousins Scott and Jamie, and Ryan was standing up in his playpen. Baby Ryan was stupefyingly cute and happy. How could you not hug him, standing there with his little face? Mom said that people would sometimes say things like, "It's a shame to waste all that beauty on a boy" when they saw him.

My grandparents had Shetland ponies that grazed in the pasture behind our house--how's that for enchanting?--and when I was three, a palomino named Duchess had a colt. You can see the ponies in the background, and I'm about to give them some carrots. I've got to hand it to Mom--that is the perfect outfit for a little girl to be wearing out by the pony barn.

Soon enough, it was time for me to go to school. Can you find me in this class of squinting kindergarteners? I'm on the far right in the back row, wearing a blue and red gingham dress sewn by Mom. I was one of the tallest kids in the class, along with Jimmy, the blonde boy in the orange shirt. I am thoroughly convinced that my life would have been completely different had Jimmy not moved away when we were in second grade. Standing beside me is Michele--we would become co-valedictorians in 13 years. And check out our teacher Mrs. Engle on the left, a.k.a. the most beautiful woman any of us had ever seen.

At Christmas a few months later, my brother and I scored a giant cardboard box that contained some big kitchen appliance. That night Ryan and I hid in the box and popped out at random times, jack in the box-style, screaming with glee, while our toys languished beneath the Christmas tree.

I have some more photos that were taken once Poof arrived on the scene, but I think I'll save them for a future blog. I hope those of you who celebrated Christmas had plenty of time to play in big cardboard boxes with your loved ones.

Early Christmas

Jeff's parents and Melissa came over today to celebrate Christmas a week early--my family's Christmas is on the 25th. It's just easier for everyone if we spread the two out. I found it hard to plan a cookie and dessert spectacular for only five people. You know? But it's Christmas. You can't just offer one kind of cookie, can you? People expect a variety, and by making partial batches of everything, I managed to provide four kinds of cookies and a Yule log. Lloyd, Norma, and Mel were more than happy to take home goodie bags of the leftovers.

I created a sort of woodland tableau with the the log and rocky road (recipe here) in our kitchen nook, which really isn't a nook, but I don't know what else to call it. Few things are more satisfying than arranging glitter pine cones on a cake and positioning toy animals on chunky fudge-stuff...and then dusting the whole shebang with powdered sugar. I found our tiny pine tree--still studded with tiny sparklies--and topped it with a favorite earring. Every once in a while I'll come across an item in the house that was undoubtedly part of Nicole's bellydancing paraphrenalia, and I think the diamond-looking garland that criss-crosses the tree was part of one of her costumes.

The dining room table held my usual three-tiered pie stand--I can't help it! I love it!--and two silly candy trees I put together one afternoon last week during a burst of madcap craftiness. You can find the easy instructions here. I used those green foam cones you can find in most floral departments and bought a big bag of cheap candy. A few hot glue sticks later, I had a couple of candy trees in less time than it took to listen to the She & Him Christmas album.

(Sorry so blurry! It looked good on my camera's screen!)

Treats included my usual iced sugar cookies, marbled ice box cookies (I'll blog about them soon), and peanut butter blossoms from Joy of Baking. This marked the first time that I've followed along with a video recipe as I made it, pausing as needed. The cookies are nothing out of the ordinary--so many people bake them this time of year--but the recipe is perfection. Give it a try right now!

 

Let's take another look at that Yule log (recipe here).

Chocolatey good times. Gluten-free, too! I think. (Does cocoa powder contain gluten?)

I took all of these photos before the party started. I wish we would have had Christmas during the evening instead of in broad daylight. The noonday sun, such as it is this time of year, poured in through our big windows, diminished the beauty of our pretty lights, and served only to show off dust and the occasional cat tumbleweed, as I like to call them. But that's showbiz, right Bun?

Bun made sure that she was in the kitchen at all times, ready to take advantage of any opportunity to scavenge carnitas, macaroni and cheese, and the rest of our lunch buffet. Last night a bored Jeff and I made a short film where we gave Bun an early Christmas present--a tiny parcel of the aforementioned carnitas--and taped it to the floor. Here it is for your enjoyment (contains a couple of Breaking Bad references).

 

Merry early Christmas!

Also this:

 

How Poof and I Got Our Nicknames

When my sister Emily posted her Thanksgiving video a couple of weeks ago, more than a few of her viewers wanted to know why we call each other Poof and Pup. I am pretty sure I've told this story on my blog before, but I can't remember exactly when that was, so here it is again.

Unfortunately it's not all that interesting!

Back when she was an adorable tot, my sister started calling herself Pooch around me. I'm not sure how that came to be--maybe she had seen a cartoon or storybook character with that name, or maybe she just enjoyed the sound of it. Little kids are a mystery sometimes--why do they like the majority of the things they do?

Since Pooch and I were as close as two sisters could be--nevermind the 15-year age difference--she decided that I needed a nickname to coordinate with hers, and she liked the sound of Pup.

We were Pooch and Pup until she was at least 8 years old, at which point she decided that she needed to make her name zippier and less dog-like, I'm guessing. And in the fine tradition of Eddington inexplicable nickname evolution, she became Poof, and she has stayed Poof for nearly 20 years. I had no problem remaining Pup. It sounds so cute when I hear her say it.

Even though I've lived hours away from my sister since she was eight, I've managed to be there for every major, sorta major, and even kinda minor event in her life. Since the day she was born, this has been my policy towards Poof:

 

And this is basically us when we see each other after a long time apart.

 

I love that girl as much as I would love any daughter, and when I see all she's accomplished in her young life, I like to think I had a bit of a hand in that.

 

Thanksgiving Part 1

For most of America, Thanksgiving is four days away, but for my family, Thanksgiving was last night. I'm sad it's over! Jeff and I hosted a nine-person dinner party and had a truly great time. My parents and sister Emily (a.k.a. Poof) and her husband Tyler stayed overnight and enjoyed a 24-hour nonstop food event, and Jeff's folks and Melissa came by for the big meal. My brother Ryan wanted to attend, but he was having an oven crisis at home--long story. I missed seeing him and Shanna and Ashley, but Christmas is just around the corner.

I spent yesterday in perpetual motion and was unable to take lots of photos, so I'm hoping that Dad and Poof will email me some family/food pictures within the next couple of days. In the meantime, I thought I'd share our recipes and existing photos with you in case you came here looking for some last-minute ideas. I've blogged about these recipes in the past, so what you'll get is lots of links (at the beginning of each section) along with some comments and tips.

Turkey Placecards! This year I decided to get a little crafty with the place settings for some reason. A while ago Mom gave me a stack of Martha Stewart Living magazines that were several years old, and I found a project for turkey placecards in the November 2007 issue. The part of me that could have been a grade school art teacher felt the need to make them. I didn't have the necessary brown and red card stock on hand, but I had plenty of scrap watercolor paper, so I painted my turkey pieces. To create the tail, I used some yarn we had around the house that Nicole bought years ago. (I think she planned to make a poncho with it, as I also found a "How to Make Ponchos" book while Jeff and I super-deep-cleaned the house last week. This place is SPARKLING.)

Anyway, I added my own creative touch to this: an eye. Martha didn't want me to make one, but make one I did. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.

 

Then I made the mistake of browsing through some of Martha's online collection of other Thanksgiving crafts, and happened upon a link for these...

Twig coasters. I don't know what got into me, but you've got to admit her photo is cute, and our yard is loaded with sticks and/or twigs. I went outside during last Tuesday's strange tornado watch/warning weather (75 degrees, really unstable air mass, windy, humid, rumbly) and gathered as many sticks as I could before a heavy downpour hit and kind of had a ball in doing so.

I made ten coasters, each of which consisted of 20-22 five-inch sticks. So that's a lot of measuring and cutting to say the least. Missing art supply for this craft: waxed twine. Who houses a constant supply of waxed twine, Martha? I'm going to have to embed this again.

 

My solution: dental floss. Ha! Our dentist gives us plenty of it! While not as rustic/authentic as Martha's waxed twine, our dental floss was free and in the house. I was able to make ten coasters using one package (roll?) of it, and I didn't come close to running out. If you like repetitive, mindless knot-tying, this is the craft for you. And the knots are just those easy, first-thing-you-do-when-you-tie-your-shoes knots. Each coaster took about 25 minutes to tie together. The first two are fun. The last eight are extremely tiresome. But I made them because we really needed coasters. In an attempt to make them waterproof and a bit sturdier, I hot glued each coaster to a square of the tough black plastic you can find on the cover of Mead's Five Star spiral notebooks (I threw out some of my notebooks while I cleaned out my studio.)

Nobody used them as coasters, of course, but the turkeys looked cute on them. Poof and I decided that they were turkey life rafts floating down a sea of gravy, symbolized by our brown tablecloth.

And now, some recipes!

Since my side of the family arrived six hours before supper, I felt the need to provide lots of snacks upon which they could graze throughout the afternoon. Such as...

Peanut butter hummus. This recipe makes a LOT, and I could've halved it and still had enough. I am crazy about his hummus, and it pairs nicely with carrots, celery, crackers, etc.

Li'l smokies. These made the kitchen smell fantastic and taste equally great hot and at room temperature. We picked at these all day and ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day.

Seasonally-spiced nuts. Sweet, salty, herby, and garam masala-y!

Roasted red pepper cheesecake. Put some of this on a cracker or toasted baguette slice and you've got The Perfect Bite. I love making this, even though it requires a 4-inch springform pan. Tip: use full-fat cream cheese and ricotta. I made yesterday's cheesecake with reduced fat products, and while delicious, it wasn't as firm and lost its shape as it set out in our warm kitchen nook.

The heavyset cheeseball. No family gathering is complete without it!

Spiced pumpkin cookies. I thought my appetizer buffet needed something sweet, and these were a smash. I made and froze the cookies ahead of time, uniced. Thanks to the pumpkin, these are so moist that they can stay uncovered for hours and still be fabulous.

Mom made her famous apple and cherry pies, which I placed on my trusty pie rack. I set it inside a Thanksgiving wreath, and this made an easy centerpiece alongside bowls of lemons and clementines.

Posole. Along with the appetizers, I gave my hungry, road-weary family bowls of posole (Mexican chicken soup) for lunch. My folks enjoyed the addition of hominy--an ingredient they remembered from their childhoods but hadn't eaten in years. Chickeny goodness!

So this was our menu, and Jeff put his turkey in the oven at around noon.

Jeff's Hollywood Turkey. A little more labor-intensive than your average turkey but extra-moist and beautiful to look at, Jeff's turkey was a hit with everybody. Follow the link for his step-by-step instructions and bonus commentary about It's A Wonderful Life.

While Jeff puttered around the kitchen, Poof, Dad, and I laughed our heads off while playing Angry Birds and telling stories in the living room. Poof has a hilarious llama story that you've got to read. I haven't seen Poof since our trip to New York, and while we never feel like we can spend enough time together, we try to have as much fun as possible when we do see each other. This weekend was no exception. At one point we were in the kitchen dancing stoopidly to Girl Talk and just plain having a blast. I love her so much.

Carrot cake mini-bundts. I like to give Poof fun cooking tasks that exploit her decorative flair when she comes over. Yesterday she iced these mini bundt cakes with cream cheese icing and leftover pumpkin cookie glaze. Some of the bundts contained walnuts, so she topped those with, you guessed it, walnuts.

Malted crisp tart. Poof also decorated the top of this blockbuster dessert with malted milk balls and caramelized rice crispies. I don't have a photo of her tart decoration yet, but video is coming soon! I will say this: she made those two things resemble owl faces and it was genius. I made the tart on Friday, and it's not as time-consuming as my recipe indicates. I've made it about four other times since that blog and have since become a lot more efficient. People loved this tart, and there were lots of "oh my god"s and looks of disbelief at its greatness. They were talking about it the next day, and I'm not even exaggerating.

Stuffing. With Italian sausage, apples, onions, cranberries, celery, and really good bread, this is my favorite stuffing and is a meal in and of itself. The recipe makes a truckload. Give it a try!

I also made Parmesan smashed potatoes by Ina Garten, peas and bacon by Tyler Florence, and orange cranberry sauce by Rachael Ray (I used the juice and zest of clementines instead). Hey thanks, Food Network! Sorry there are no photos, but I think you can imagine what those three might look like. We also had some nice Italian rolls.

Above: cell phone photo from Poof. You can see Jeff and me in the kitchen cooking up a storm. While I made most of the above recipes well ahead of time, I had to save the peas and potatoes for the last minute. And then it was time to eat!

Check out Tyler as he chows down on a turkey leg, Viking style. The meal was wonderful, and everybody sat around the table and told stories for what seemed like hours afterward. My side of the family stayed overnight, and it was like a big slumber party.

Apple dumplings. The next morning, I made everybody breakfast--I say apple dumplings qualify as breakfast. These received more raves than any other Thanksgiving item. Poof in particular went crazy for them. I was able to freeze/refrigerate each component days beforehand (glaze, dough, filling), so all I had to do this morning was peel and core four apples and assemble. I served them with leftover li'l smokies.

Hand pies. Finally, I popped some pre-frozen hand pies in the oven--two per person--and after they cooled a bit, I wrapped them in parchment paper. I put the cute little pies in paper bags and gave them to everybody as take-home treats to enjoy during the ride home. (Text from Poof later: Hand pies are awesome!!!!)

And then Jeff and I collapsed for several hours. We're making gentle dents in the leftovers. And this Thursday we're probably going to get some Chinese takeout.