Saturday, January 12, 2008

Best laid plans...

So the wife didn't get her job...we'll be staying on here for a while longer...not exactly boosting my morale but such is life. On the food front...it's Mardi Gras season here and King cake is the order of the day - one would think that purple, gold, and green (the colors of Mardi Gras) sugar would be relatively simple to locate. I'm new here and maybe I looked in the wrong spots but I could find green and gold with only minor trouble but purple (which appears on half or more of the cakes in this town) was more difficult than any needle in any haystack. Never fear...I bought purple icing color and solved my issue creatively. I'm baking this afternoon and tomorrow and will post pictures...hopefully.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Off the road...and hopefully into my own kitchen soon...

Right, back home again and back into the mix that is work and just trying to get by. Biggest event so far has been baking a scratch cake for my mother-in-law's 60th birthday. I pulled out a few stops - she wanted some lemon thing from her childhood and I glanced over the recipes that she said sounded close...buttercake, lemon curd, and buttercream icing. No sweat...well...no worries anyway. There's always sweat in my kitchen. The cake turned out very well...no one could understand why I went the scratch route (which is normal...no one much does that these days). It wasn't as visually beautiful as I would have preferred but when you're dealing with no gear you get what you get. It ate just fine.

Other notes...I inherited my grandmother's dough trough for Christmas - my wife and I had looked at these on our honeymoon and weren't really willing to part with that sort of cash - glad we waited...got a much nicer one for free...and it comes complete with value and heritage.

We may be moving into our own place soon...my job is getting a little better and the wife has a solid lead on something paying equal to mine...hopefully in a month or so we'll be moving (again) and setting up our house again. Stay tuned...