June | Rose

Hummingbird Cupcakes for Easter

Lot's going on this past week in addition to Easter. I made some pretty hummingbird cupcakes, Allegra had her wisdom teeth out and there was the royal wedding too.

A while back I was thinking about baking a Hummingbird Cake. Instead, I decided to make cupcakes for Easter brunch at my parent's house. I told my mom that I was bringing muffins and after some deep thought about the difference between muffins and cupcakes (frosting!) I went for it. I went to allrecipes.com (a great site that will adjust quantities for you) and found a recipe that had everything I wanted. I baked the cupcakes despite my oven going on the fritz and taking about an hour to bake a dozen muffins. I frosted them with the traditional cream cheese frosting and decorated them with coconut tinted green and little "robin's eggs" candies. They were adorable and oh so yummy! So glad we enjoyed a great brunch on Easter (Thanks Mom!) ~ Breakfast Strata, Fresh Strawberries, Country Potatoes and of course the cupcakes. It was only a few days later that Allegra had her wisdom teeth.

Since Allegra had her wisdom teeth out I have been doing a lot of "sympathy" eating. In other words, pudding, ice cream and jello. I felt terrible eating solid food in front of her (such a mom thing) and I was craving a vegetable. In fact, one afternoon while she was laying on the couch recuperating, I snuck into the kitchen and wolfed down a bowl of baby spinach with a bit of vinaigrette. Heaven!

Good thing that Kate and William got married on Friday, because we were going stir crazy from resting and enduring day time tv (awful). I noticed Kate had Lily-of-the-Valley in her lovely bouquet. Quite timely, since it is the flower for May. Happy May Day everyone!

 

Retirement Wishes

My friend Donna is retiring and today will be her last day at work. Finally! Donna will get to spend more time with her husband, Sid, who is a great cook and masterful maker of homemade plum jam. She can just kick-back with one of her many crocheting projects and watch the deer in her backyard. No more getting up at the crack of dawn to catch the sleepy van pool, just long lovely days filled with relaxation and the occaisonal wine cooler! Cheers Donna, I will miss you. 

Whim Wham and Hummingbird Cake

I'm a foodie in search of a compulsion and Hummingbird Cake is high on my list of possibilities. I've been known to get a bit obsessed with a dish. Deep in the recesses of my creative impulses I get the notion that a certain food captures the essence of classic cooking or recreates a personal experience. Sometimes it just a quirky name that grabs my attention.

When I was going through a Provencal period my family endured a spate of Julia Child's Salade Nicoise. Not a fan of capers, Larry was thrilled when I turned my attention to the rich wine and mushroom flavors of Jacques Pepin's Merchant Steak.

I've also tried to evoke memories of great vacations with food. Several iterations of a crisp cold wedge salad with bacon and bleu cheese crumbles took me back to a an old Rat Pack hangout in L.A. (until my family begged for mercy and perhaps a re-do of the Merchant Steak phase, please). After several weeks in Rome I came home and purchased a lug of arugula from the giant save-a-bunch warehouse store. Driven by memories of a lovely frittata with arugula salad lunch at the Piazza della Rotunda and a Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza, I tried to duplicate the contrast of the soft eggy flavor with the lemony vinaigrette and the bitter greens with salty prosciutto.

The first time I had Frangelico liqueur was on my honeymoon at the now-gone Compass Rose Room at the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco. I couldn't get enough of anything hazelnut for the longest time after that. And while a memorable experience has proven to be a rich source of motivation, nothing gets me more than a curious name. Dutch Babies, Broken Glass Cake, and Frogmore Stew have all graced our table at one time or another. I have my eye on Clafouti, Frangipane, Hot Browns, Whim Wham, Stone Cream and especially Hummingbird Cake.

The cake is a southern specialty made with pineapple and coconut and topped with pecans. There is great speculation about the origin of the name of the cake, but I say "Who cares? It's fun and sounds delish. I'm on it!"  I'll let you know how it goes.

Take care,
J.

“You know how that happens, right?”

It’s been nine years since I started down the path of motherhood. Since 2003 I have either been pregnant or nursing and it has only been recently that I was able to tell myself – hey I feel like me again. While busily rushing four kids through the grocery store on a Saturday morning it’s not unusual for folks to look at me with that incredulous stare that asks; “You do know how you get pregnant, right?” In a small coastal California town I am typically not the usual mom. Most of the moms around here are mid- to late-thirties that have done the “career thing” first then prepared and had kids. As a girl and young woman I always wanted to be a mom and specifically a mother of four. I was the oldest of four girls and even though the high school years were filled with bickering I somehow managed to block it out long enough to have four babies of my own. I wanted the relationship I have with my sisters to be something my children could enjoy as adults.

Rather I jumped in with my eyes wide open and screaming --- pick me, pick me! My walk through motherhood started with a major stumble in the beginning, I had an ectopic pregnancy and it was pretty traumatic. One emergency surgery, one transfusion and three months later I found myself again with child. The first months were pretty stressful and after the second trimester was over I found myself able to breathe a little easier at night. Everything was going to be okay. Several months later I found myself holding my first child Jacob, now 7. Soon to follow were Joshua (5), Ava (4), and Madeline (15 months).

Now you may find this hard to believe, then again maybe it makes sense, but my profession is as a planner, a long-range planner to be exact. According to my plan I wanted to have all my babies before I was 35 and I wanted to have four. So the answer to the question is yes I know how this happens in fact I can usually time my ovulation down to the perfect day to get pregnant. Oddly enough my plan was to have 2 boys and 2 girls, although I don’t really take credit for any of the success of my plan, I guess in this one area my plan just happened to be the same as God’s . That long-range planner in me was watching my parents, now in their early 50’s enjoying their time together, their freedom to spend time with their daughters and grandchildren at a young age.

I would be lying if I said this has been easy. Raising 4 children under the age of 7, helping my husband run a small business and working full-time in a professional career has had its moments of insanity and chaos. In fact, as I sit here I am currently tuning out the three older ones tattle-telling to their father because they don’t want to go to bed. In many ways I guess it is a good thing I started early since I will need every ounce of energy I have to keep up with these four. In the end despite the critical stare in the grocery store, I would not have changed a thing.

Travel | Home Exchange

Last year I was knee deep in volunteering for the High School Band, working on fundraisers and helping my husband with a little museum project he's working on. In a moment of daydreaming I visited a web-site called Home Exchange. My friend Jackie told me about it. She has exchanged homes with families from Canada, Ireland, Denmark, you name it. I browsed through photos of homes in faraway places whose owners were willing to trade their's for another.  I was inspired. On a whim, I signed up for a trial membership. Not long after I received an email from a lovely Italian woman named Claudia. Claudia and her husband worked in Rome as part of a program for college students. They had previously worked at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and wanted to return for an extended visit. It seemed crazy at the time, but we decided to go for it!

I bought guide books, poured through web pages about Italy, booked flights and cleaned my house. It was all Italy, all the time. After months of planning, getting passports in order and packing our bags, we left for Rome on Allegra’s 16th birthday. It was a truly amazing trip.
 
We spent two weeks living in the historic center of Rome. We walked everywhere and experienced so much; the Vatican museums, lunch in Piazza Navona, marveling at the ancient beauty of the Pantheon, taking the high speed train to lovely Florence. Even as I write this the memories of sensory filled moments take over. After Rome, my brave Larry drove us all the way to Venice on the north east coast of Italy, then over to Cinque Terre on the west coast and down to Tuscany on the way back to Rome.

There's a story to tell about every day we were there, but it was all so overwhelming and dreamlike. I wanted to write about it, but the task was daunting. I couldn’t seem to get back to Chrysanthemum Cake.

But, I’m here now with a new outlook and ready to go. I have lots of ideas to share including some stories about our trip to Italy, like the afternoon in the Piazza della Repubblica in Florence, when, as we enjoyed a lemonade in a shaded sidewalk café, a beautifully sweet operatic voice broke out in Puccini’s O Mio Babbino Caro. (You can listen to the aria here - http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/isabel-rey-oh-mio-babbino-caro-gianni-schicchi/6f998e94b3bc194669166f998e94b3bc19466916-569308414649?q=oh%20mio%20babbino%20caro%20translation). A young woman serenaded the piazza from a stone colonnade next to a lovely antique carousel. One of those moments in life that overwhelms and stays with you. 

More to come.
Ciao!