Joy the Baker

These are pretty, right?  Hot diggity dang, I think they’re precious.  

In the middle of frosting these cupcakes I looked down at my hands.  No big deal.  I was simply looking down at the cupcake in one hand, and frosting covered knife in the other.  I had to see what I was doing, right?  When I looked down at this particular moment, I saw… my grandmother’s hands.  There they were, the worn and wrinkled hands that had absolutely fascinated me as a child… only now spotted with powdered sugar and tinted with food coloring.  

When I was a kid I would hold my grandmother’s hand in my lap and study it like it like I might study my favorite picture book.  Somehow her hands weren’t at all different from reading an intricate a story.  

So there I was, frosting a cupcake with my grandmother’s hands.  The image was so strong that I even put down the cupcake and knife and bent my left index finger with my right hand.  It ached a little.  I don’t know why.  And just like that… those hands were gone from me.  

That was simultaneously perplexing and so comforting.  I had to share that with you…  I now only hope that I live long enough for my hands to be read like a story book.  

Now let’s talk cupcakes!

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Lovely friends… hi.  Dear readers… hello.

Let’s talk about keeping it classy.  Hot dang! I try hard to keep it classy.  Holy smokes… do I ever fail sometimes.

Let’s discuss classy versus not classy, and what the heck chocolate dipped bananas have to do with anything.

Classy:  a tastefully short summer sundress.  Not class:  booty shorts that awkwardly bunch in the crotch.

Classy:  gracefully switching from wine to water at the company picnic.  Not classy:  maybe getting drunk and punching the sous chef in the face.  Oops.

Classy:  How much I love listening to public radio.  Not classy:  How much I love to watch The Real Housewives of  New Jersey.  Guilty… but why do they yell so much?

Classy: Enjoying mini chocolate dipped bananas on a summer afternoon.  Not as classy:  Trying to gnaw your way through a giant chocolate dipped banana.  It’s just not pretty friends.  Let’s try to avoid this scene this summer.  I think we all know why.

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I still write letters.

I still hand write letters in a festive card with a return address sticker.  I might even decorate the envelope with a rubbe-stamped dolphin stampede.

I still write letters and I still have pen pals.

My favorite pen pal?   My grandmother.  I call her Mommom.  She’s rad.  I don’t know how she would feel about me calling her rad.  She writes me short letters during the break she takes on her morning walk.  These letters are usually written from her favorite bagel shop.  Letters always include some sort of loving greeting, an update about her walking adventures and the bagel shop, something about an upcoming trailer trip, inquiries about my little sister, and an abrupt closing.  Short, sweet and to the point.

The best part about being pen pals with Mommom is that she will not let me slack off.  If  I haven’t written her a letter in a few weeks, I’ll get another letter urging me to, if I know what’s good for me, write my grandmother back.  If for some reason I don’t get to that letter in adequate time… well, I’m liable to hurt my grandmother’s feelings.  Hurt grandmother feelings, of course, leads to all sorts of guilt from all sorts of family members.  News of pen pal activity, or inactivity travels fast in my family.

Letter writing isn’t a chore.  It’s a nice break from simultaneously writing an email and checking my blog stats and watching stupid cat videos.   Letter writing is not technology multi-tasking.  It’s easy, breezy, simple… all about just sendin’ a little love.

Then there’s cobbler, which couldn’t be any more simple and delicious.  This easy cobbler is like letter writing, in baking form.  Spend a little time baking up a little love with this cobbler.  Sit down with a nice warm slice and write a letter to someone.  It’s supreme.

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Reason #457 why I love this warm weather, sunny spring that leads into summertime:  the ponytail.

It’s bouncy, it’s festive, it helps me look like I’m having a good time even when I’m just standing in line at the grocery store, and it makes me feel like a cheerleader… which is strangely satisfying.

The ponytail is simple and uncomplicated.  I think I’m going to make the ponytail, and the fun simplicity it represents, the theme for the lovely summer we’re working towards.

I think that summer fruit is so fun and just bursting with bright flavors.   Most need very little fuss when it comes to preparation.  Why complicate something that’s already lovely?

This Peach Brulee is just three ingredients and it’s a gorgeous way to start the day.  Make it for breakfast and top the warm peaches with thick Greek yogurt, or make enough peach halves to serve after a big dinner with friends and family.  For one or for many, this simple peach recipe shows off the best of what’s in store for us this summer.  Go forth and broil…. and please sport a ponytail this summer.  It’s rad.

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Can you do me a favor?

I cringe any time someone asks me if I can do them a favor.  I always want to say… sure, yes, of course… only to be asked to do something like… I dunno… be a bridesmaid in their wedding and wear lavender and ruffles.  Ok… so that hasn’t been a favor asked of me just yet.  The thought obviously terrifies me.

I hope when I ask you to do me this favor you won’t completely cringe.

Do me a favor and make this popcorn this weekend.

I wouldn’t ask unless it was totally important, and totally delicious.

Believe me.  If you’ve never believed me before, now would be the time to start.  Make this popcorn.  It’s perfectly sweet and perfectly salty.  Make it for dinner.  Make it and sneak it into the movie theater in your giant purse.  Make it and sit out on your patio with a glass of cheap wine.  Find the time.  Find a way.  Just do me a favor and enjoy this popcorn as soon as possible.

It’s that good.

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Here’s a fun thing to do!  Take a few minutes to close your eyes and imagine yourself as an old person.  I’m not talking about late sixties.  That’s not old yet.  I’m talking about great great grandmother old.. pushing the mid-nineties.

Sounds crazy?  Why would you spend time picturing white hair in bobby pins, shuffling feet and rocking chairs?  I feel like getting old is a luxury.  Not everyone gets to do it, so why not sit and enjoy the thought a bit?

I imagine that I’m the kind of old lady that talks to her over fed cats, and yells across the house to her practically deaf husband.  I hope I’m the kind of old lady who has a piano in the house just so my grandchildren can come over and practice their scales while I shuffle around the kitchen baking them cookies.

I want to be the kind of old lady that always thinks a glass of champagne is a good idea.

I want to be the kind of old lady who always has something out on the living room table for that unexpected guest.  Maybe it’s those soft chalky mints.  Maybe a freshly baked pie.  Maybe it’s these Sweet and Spicy Baked Almonds.  These nuts, my friends, have me daydreaming of old lady times somehow… with a smile on my face.

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Not every morning in my life is filled with Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Pancakes and Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Bread… not when things like my ten year class reunion and bathing suit season loom just around the corner.  For real friends, those are two scary things.  At least I don’t have to go to my ten year reunion in my bathing suit.  Can you imagine the horror!?   Yea… so there’s always a silver lining.

I’d like to introduce you to Low Fat Oatmeal Banana Bread.  If this bread were one of your dear friends from high school, it would be that friend who wore old lady shoes because they were the most practical, and played the trombone, and was the super smart editor of the school newspaper.  This bread would be the friend that was super sensible, and sweet and just downright made you feel good about your day.

Go ahead, think of this Low Fat Oatmeal Banana Bread as your friend… and then it eat.  No, there’s nothing weird about that.

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Things that are awesome and things that are not awesome; an incomplete list.

Things that are awesome:

Summer dresses that look great with summer ponytails.

Bathing suits + Palm Springs + Rented Summer House + Sun Screen + Giant Sun Glasses + Mojitos x Infinity = Awesome.

Big, fat bumble bees… come on, they’re precious.

Pulling this beautiful Dutch Baby out of the oven on Easter morning,  sprinkling it with orange sugar and feeling like Julia Child… that’s awesome.

Things that are NOT awesome:

Otherwise perfect vintage dresses that are half a size too small.

Bathing suit shopping… exactly no one likes that, and why on earth are my legs so white!?

Bee stings on the butt.  It happens people.  It really happens.

Not pulling this Dutch Baby out of the oven on Easter morning… that’s not awesome at all.

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