Yesterday was Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Day and, instead of marching in a parade, my dear friend Secret Server came over to our house to bake a cake. A “Berry Surprise Cake” picked by Mary Ann of “Meet Me in the Kitchen.”

(This reminds me of a Dr. MLK, Jr, Day in the past, when I took the kids bowling. The next day my composition teacher had everyone write an in-class essay about how we celebrated the holiday.)

“I have a dream of my two children, one day, being able to knock down pins without using bumper guards.”

Okay, back to baking, we whisked the flour with the baking powder and salt; whisked the warm eggs with sugar and then beat the egg mixture for five minutes. At this point our eggs should have been able to hold a ribbon for about ten seconds.

They (we?) failed.

So we beat them for a couple more minutes, then sifted half the flour mixture over the eggs, folded it in, added the melted butter, folded that in, sifted the remaining flour, folded it in, then added the cake batter to the pan.

We baked our cake in a nine inch springform pan (the recipe specified eight inch, but I was unable to find one) and estimated it would take about twenty-five minutes.

While the cake was baking we made the syrup, bringing sugar and water to a boil; we accidentally added the framboise a bit early, but it tasted fine.

After about twenty minutes I turned on the oven light and was surprised to see that our cake was dimplier than my thighs.

At twenty-five minutes we took it out. The appearance was, well, interesting. It also smelled a bit like vanillla-y scrambled eggs.

We set it aside to cool and made the filling, a delicious cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and whipped cream mixture.

Returning to our cake we decided not to follow the assembly directions due to its sunken mien. Instead we brushed the syrup on the top, followed by a thin layer of filling, sprinkled on blueberries and strawberries, covered the berries with more filling and whipped up the whipping cream and used it to frost the cake.

We decorated the top of the cake with diced strawberries and blueberries and put the cake in the fridge to sit for an hour.

While we waited we played Wii and danced to my new favorite tune, “The Naked Song.”

“We were naked in my bed
one swing, no strings
moving all around the room
chicka chicka boom boom
and then we did it on the floor, against the door
upon the sink where we did it some more
sun was hott but we were both burning red
we were naked in my bed”

Do you think the Bill Martin knows his famous children’s book title is being used in a teenage booty call song?

After embarrassing my daughter mightily with my singing (into a Wii remote, hair-brush style!) and dancing (Pee Wee Herman style), we headed back to the kitchen and made the rasberry coulis.

SS happily cut and plated the cake:

And we called the kids in, eagerly anticipating their comments.

“It’s chewy” was the predominant observation.

Extemporaneously explaining our Sponge Cake FAIL I said “Oh, it’s a sponge cake, it’s supposed to be chewy, you know, like a sponge.”

(I don’t think they believed me!)

SS and I sat down to partake in the cake, finish off the Framboise, and pose for pictures. Reagan, obligingly, took many a photo, due to my constant criticism (of my appearance, not of her photography skills!).

“Ugh, in this one I have rolls.”

My reminder of “good posture” lead to this lovely picture:

For some reason this brings to mind the old chant of “I must, I must, I must increase my bust!”

SS and her family had to head home, but later than evening Reagan and I made another go at Sponge Cake. Ours was slightly less chewy, but still not exactly right; I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I’m going to spend some time reading other TWD posts and researching “chewy sponge cake” in an effort to pinpoint the problem.

I’m determined to make a tasty sponge cake. In fact:
“I have a dream that one day even my sponge cake, a cake smelling of scrambled eggs, with the scent of vanilla, suffering from a leathery texture, will be transformed into a masterpiece of airiness and wonder.”

My dear friend SS and I signed up for “Tuesday’s with Dorie,” (TWD) a bi-weekly food blogger challange in which you make an assigned Dorie Greenspan recipe from the book “Baking: From My Home to Yours.”

I’d never actually made a tart (other than of the “Pop” variety) so I was especially excited about this recipe. I view TWD much like I view my book club, a chance to try something new, that I might not normally pick myself. In baking I have a tendency to choose recipes that are chocolate and portable (cookies). For book club I apparently pick out books with a recurring theme: “multigenerational family curses.”

Okay, back to the tart. I faced a few obstacles in making this recipe. First, the recipe requires a food processor; I own a very nice one, (Thanks, Mom!) but I dropped the work bowl at just the right (wrong) angle and broke the handle. This was more than an inconvenience, as the handle must latch for the processor to run. I called Kitchen Aid, and the new one is on the way (and cost $50!)

Too late for my tart, though!

My second obstacle was the lack of a tart pan. The recipe specifies a 9″ one. I do own a 9″ springform pan but I was afraid the tart would not brown as well due to the higher sides. Thus, my epic search for a tart pan began. (Again, not enough time to order one online!)

SS and I met “in town” on New Year’s Day evening to search for the appropriate pan. Despite living in a metropolitan area of over a 350,000 people, we have no kitchen supply store. Thus we decided to search TJ Maxx, Marshall’s, Target, Walmart and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Guess what? A holiday, after six p.m. is not the best time to go shopping. We traversed the town but only Target and Walmart were still open. And NO tart pans at either place.

Saturday, after spin torture class, we went to BB and B, dragging along my teenage son and our non-cooking friend L. (They were really amused by our cries of “OMG, look at these cute cookie cutters!” and our lustful looks at baking implements.)

Victory!

Sort of.

They had an 11″ tart pan. They had a set of six 4″ tart pans.

I opted for the smaller tart pans, figuring I could use them for other desserts and quiches for my family.

Plus they are super cute.

I had most of the supplies in hand for the recipe but had to make a quick stop at the grocery store for blanched almonds. Next time I’ll make my own as SS sent me a link with directions.

Feeling energetic I decided to make the tart that night. Unfortunately, I decided to work on the tart at the same time I made a dinner of roasted chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes and sauteed garlicy broccoli.

Unfortunately for my dinner, not the tarts.

Luckily no one ended up with salmonella.

I made the poached pears first; I happened to have three perfectly ripe pears on hand. I combined the pears with water, sugar and lemon juice and simmered them gently for fifteen minutes.

While the pears cooled, I made the tart dough. I whirred the flour and sugar in my blender, dumped it in a bowl, and used my metal potato masher to mix in the cold butter; then I kneaded the dough very briefly on a silpat mat, pressed the dough into the tiny tart pans and popped them in the freezer. (And I mashed the potatoes and put the broccoli in the microwave.)

My blender (Motto “Now for more than just smoothies!”) was useful in grinding the almonds for the almond cream. I pulsed them until finely ground and then mixed them with butter, corn starch, vanilla, sugar and egg yolk. I refrigerated the almond cream while I cut the pears into slices. (And cut up garlic for the broccoli and took the chicken out of the oven. Too early.)

Have I mentioned that I’m uncoordinated? And that I have a hard time following directions?

My pear slices, well, they were “special.” (But delicious!)

Now I had all the components ready but had to decide on baking times. The pastry dough had to be partially baked and cooled before assembly. I feared the time in the directions, for a 9″ tart pan, would result in overcooked crusts. I halved the blind baking time and that seemed just about right. (And made gravy.)

Setting the tart crusts to cool on a wire cookie rack, I ate dinner with my family.

And (barely) lived to tell the tale.

After dinner I put the almond cream on the cooled pastry crusts, topped them with mutilated pear slices and put them in the oven to bake. Again, I worried about the baking time, but decided to set my timer for 30 minutes and to check them at that point.

I joined my daughter in watching “Little Miss Sunshine.”

I love that movie!

About 25 minutes later Reagan said “It smells like your tarts are done.”
She was right and “bravo!” to Reagan for trusting her instincts.
(Seriously, that is a lesson it took me many years to learn and she already gets it at fourteen! Plus she knows how to temper egg yolks. My daughter is a wondrous creature.)

The tarts cooled until after little Olive “kicked ass” and they were fragrant and lovely and tasted wonderful.

Even my normally chocolate-dessert loving son and husband really liked the tart.
[Much, much more than the (literally!) bloody chicken.]

Wow, and I’ve been thinking I have nothing to blog about!

Luckily this trip was highly successful. For example, I caught four large bugs.

I may be driving my friends crazy with my new bug obsession. Truth be told, I’m a big weenie chicken when it comes to bugs. Well, at least I WAS until I started helping Taylor with his freshman biology “bug project.” Now I am like the “Dog the Bounty Hunter” of bug collection.

But taller, without the bad hair, or the propensity to drop the “N” bomb.

And my tools are ziplock bags, rubbing alcohol and my super fast reflexes instead of snitches, handcuffs, and tasers.

Okay, I’ll shut up about the damn bug catching for a moment, because our vacation was a success for other reasons, too. We met one of Chad’s benefactors at the artist’s residency, Katherine, and she was very kind and told us interesting stories about her life. “Interesting” as in, how can so much bad stuff happen to one person, during one life?

We drank Boones Farm wine, a highly sophisticated “apple wine flavored beverage” and played a couple of games of drunken Scrabble. The rules of drunken Scrabble are different in that you can play misspelled words and, also, abbreviations and slang. Naughty, naughty slang.

We went to a mall theatre, that, oddly, smelled like a nursing home and saw “Mama Mia.” It was the gayest movie ever! In a good way.

Then we went to Border’s and Chad talked, several times, to a cute boy, presumably to get directions to our next destination. (An “of age” cute boy, of course).
“How do we get to Missouri Avenue?”
“It’s the street in front of the store.”

Later he had asked again, to clarify:
“How do we get to Missouri Avenue?”
“It’s the street in front of the store.”

We left Border’s and went on a scenic tour of downtown Jefferson City; 6:30 pm on a Monday night is not a bustling time in good old “Jeff City.” (As those “in the know” call it.)

We did find one restaurant open and sat outside, sipping wine and flirting conversing with the waiter, Vince.

At the end of the meal, Chad, as collected and confident as could be said, to Vince, “I’d like to give you my number.”

Wow. SS and I were impressed. He was so casual, assertive, without being overbearing.

We stopped to get gas on our way home, and I caught a bug! Just imagine-middle aged woman, baggy in hand, chasing a large, scooting bug, across a parking lot, while squealing. The other gas pumpers were amused. The one with a car engine possibly on fire, yelled “Eat it!” (Yes, while you are pumping gas hearing the words “Is it on fire?” coming from the car next to you is a bit troubling.)

The next day SS and I had to head home. We had decided to make a pit stop at a St. Louis Trader Joe’s on the way; Mapquest said it only added 14 minutes and a few of miles to our trip. Fourteen minutes turned into three hours, due to an infelicitously placed roadblock, an unfortunate detour through a crowded neighborhood, and a deplorable dearth of restaurants in the area of our destination. We finally found a Chinese restaurant, ate a forgettable meal, and made it to Trader Joe’s.

The rest of the ride to Washington was uneventful. I dropped SS off at home, and headed back to P’ville, passing through awful flashfloods in East Peoria and arriving home to “What’s for dinner?” from my daughter.

A highly successful trip, not only due to the giant cockroach, grasshopper, green shiny beetle thingy, and random smelly bug in my glove compartment, but because SS and I were able to spend a lot of time with our wonderful friend Chad.

That is the real reason I asked “What is the weirdest thing about me?”
Because Howie wanted to know.

The questions on the app made me think “Wow, I’m a shockingly boring person.” Or, alternately, “Wow, all my stories are way too adult to mention.”

For example: WHAT IS THE MOST INTERESTING JOB YOU HAVE EVER HAD? (Yes, the app does “shout” all the questions at you.)

Let me see… video store clerk? Postal employee? Nude model? Smoky the Bear at Steamboat Days? Telemarketer of funeral arrangements?

“WHAT IS THE MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT YOU THAT STRANGERS CAN’T TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT YOU?

Hmmm… does that mean “can’t tell just by looking at you.. when you are fully dressed?”

I’ll leave you to wonder about that one.

“WHAT WAS YOUR LUCKIEST MOMENT?”

This one I pondered and pondered. I couldn’t put the birth of either child, for fear of pissing off the other. I couldn’t put “both” because I believe in following the “rules” (thus no “I wish for more wishes” from Alladin’s lamp).

After much thought I put, “In second grade, my teacher, Mrs. Eaton, seated us alphabetically, resulting in my life long friendships with Katrina and MarySue. (The “luckiest moment” was in the alphabetical seating, so it doesn’t break the “rules”-I promise)

“WHAT IS THE NEXT MILESTONE IN YOUR LIFE?”

Menopause?

“TELL US AN EMBARRASSING STORY ABOUT YOURSELF? (sic)”

Wow, that’s a difficult one.

Um, how about the time in high school my boyfriend’s* dad walked in on us having sex?
(*Shit, I almost put that apostrophe in the wrong place… that would have made the story even more “interesting!”)

Or the time bending down in a combo of low-rise jeans and too short shirt caused me to 1/2 moon several of Reagan’s friends? (Memorable quote: “Mom! You’ve scarred Z. for life!”)

Or the time NHBC dedicated the Taylor Dane classic “I Touch Myself” to me at a work Christmas party?

Or, as Katie put it, “the shower story.”

“DO YOU HAVE A GOOD LUCK CHARM?”

Yep, I have on my “Welcome to Las Vegas” underpants.

SS and I drew upon all of our combined knowledge of psychology in filling out the application. “Maybe possessing a lucky charm leads a contestant to think they should go “all the way?” Thus making the show more entertaining? Time to find a lucky rock.

Maybe the applicant should have no embarrassing story, indicative of a truly outgoing nature, of someone that will jump around, lie on the ground and “whoot! whoot!” to his/her heart’s content?

Possibly the interesting thing about you (remember-”invisible,” so no bearded ladies or eleven fingered men) should be something conducive to a “theme show?” “I love to walk on burning embers!”

We’ve calling each other at random times, trying to catch the other off-guard, hoping to come up with the perfect gem of an answer. SS and I have known each other for 28 years; we should know each other’s eccentricities and oddball stories.

Of course, as my dear friend put it, “We have known each other so long that what would seem weird to others probably seems common place to each other.”

I thought “she’s probably right.” UNTIL I remembered that she loves raw (unpasteurized) milk and eggs, that she consumes large quantities of vinegar, coconut oil and fermented foods.

Weirdo.

(Coming tomorrow, the continuing adventure of our “Deal or No Deal” auditions.)

While the kids were skating, SS, Taylor and I went to run errands. First stop, Vallartas for lunch, then on to Walmart. SS needed coconut products, yes, more than one; she loves that brown fruit. In fact that’s really what she should (re)name her blog; I love that brown fruit!; I’m sure she’d get some interesting visitors via google.

Taylor and I needed the ingredients for pineapple banana smoothie cupcakes. (Yes, it’s a willful suspension of disbelief, pretending that cupcakes containing pineapple, banana and the word “smoothie” in the title are healthy!)

Checking out, SS was approached by an elderly gentleman, who started a conversation about his good health, due to eating lots of produce and having acres and acres of gardens. He was quite vehement. Luckily he didn’t notice the contents of our grocery cart. Cat food. Kitty litter. Cake mix. Two clearance sweaters (in non-baby poop colors, my new resolution!). Coconut oil. Coconut milk. No produce.

Unfortunately, Mr. Talks-a-lot-and-has-lots-of-nose-hair, joined us for the walk to the exit. He began ranting about young folks. “They just don’t like to work.” I thought he was talking to us as peers, commiserating about the sad state of young people – such as Taylor, who was with us – but SS thought the comment might have been directed towards us. Either way, at this point Tay and I decided to ditch SS with the old dude.

SS: “Thanks a lot.”

Quickly thinking, I said “Oh, I thought if we got ahead of you, you could say ‘I need to catch up with my friends.’”

I started the car, and SS, trying to help Taylor unload the groceries, opened the back door, not knowing Reagan had thrown all the trash from the back seat into the trunk area on our way to Peoria. I let out a little gasping scream and, in an instant, SS was enveloped in a swirling vortex of Taco Bell wrappers, expired coupons, and newspapers.

Mexican food, Walmart, littering…. not reverential to any president, but definitely American.

“Today I bought a soda at Phils (local grocery store) and it was flat. I took it back to the store to exchange it. I handed it to the cashier and she’s like ‘Oh, it smells flat.’ And I’m like WTF? So, I go get a new soda and tell the cashier, ‘Denise, can I open this here and taste it? Because it might be flat, too?’ (My friends’ eyes are glazing over about now) She’s all, like, ‘Okay.’ So I taste it and it’s flat, too! I tell Denise, hand it back to her and she opens it and TAKES A BIG DRINK of the soda. And I’m all like, OMG, she just drank a drink of soda after a customer. Isn’t that just so weird?”

My friends are all, like, “Yah, Jennifer, that’s odd.”

“Oh, and what made me think of that, my soup is good, and I thought, ‘Oh, Laura might like this soup, but I’ve only got, like, the one spoon, and if I offer her a bite, I’d have to offer her my spoon.’ And, ewwww… that’s kinda gross.”

Thinking about this exchange, I realize, One, I’m an asshole. I mean, really, Laura’s grandma died, people are offering condolences, and my contribution to the conversation is asinine. (Yes, I just totally looked up asinine, because really shouldn’t it be ASSinine? That would make more sense) Two, I still talk like a 7th grader, with a stream of consciousness, rambling style that includes way too many “likes.” Three, God, I’m BORING!

Saturday, my sister Kelly and her kids came over to celebrate my dad’s 63rd birthday. Following dinner, Reagan put the candles on the cake, writing the numbers 6 and 3 with candles, only she wrote the 3 backwards. She didn’t even realize it when we pointed it out and drew one in the air, also backwards. Is it possible to not show signs of dyslexia until the age of 12?

Kelly brought me a bag of Circus Peanuts , a gag gift, based on the fact that I once had a slip of the tongue in saying “I love to eat Circus Peanuts.” (Say circus peanuts 3 times fast and you’ll get it.)

Sunday, some of the moms’ of 8th graders threw a cook out to foster unity amongst my son’s 8th grade class. It’s a small school and the moms felt that the kids were being too clique-ish.

My son wouldn’t go because “No one cool is going.”

So we stayed home and had pressed Cuban Sandwiches and Roasted Onion Gorgonzola soup for dinner. Yum.

We had a great Labor Day weekend. I took the kids (my two, plus a friend, L.) with my friend MarySue and her brood (including long hair, purple hair, and the three nippled vampire) to Great America. The weather was great. The lines weren’t long. The kids only bitched a little bit; Long Hair wanted to crush on L. without his mother observing and one special, anti-social boy “Why did you make me come here? I’d rather even be at School!” had to vent his feelings for a short time. (Aside: Doesn’t it warm your heart when you are spending beaucoup bucks and your child is not only unappreciative, but actively complaining?)

Nevermind the minor grumbling, it was short lived and the trip really was awesome. Roller coasters, water park, more roller coasters. Oh, and oasis food! I had a mall pretzel at 9:17 am while observing women in “wench” wear and men in kilts. (Yes, it was an odd combination, I think there must have been a pirate/scottish themed wedding going on somewhere near Lake Forest)

We left Princeville at 6 am and returned the next morning at 2 am, but it was a good tiredness. It was a dose of fun that I definitely needed.

It does leave me begging the question, though, we were gone, how did my house get to be such a damn mess?