The Cake

Several months ago, Darcy mentioned that she wanted her birthday cake to look like a sea star. I figured that should be doable. I had thought about farming out the task to our local fabulous cake-maker, but she was unavailable, so I went in search of a star-shaped pan. That didn't work out. Nobody wanted to sell me one and I couldn't find anyone who owned one to lend out. I did find a silicon pan that makes six small star-shaped cakes. So I decided that the plan had to become a tide pool seascape.

Let me digress for a moment. There is a blog called Cake Wrecks that pokes fun at professionally-made cakes for various crimes. Like terrible mis-spellings or bizarre themes ("Sorry I peed in your bed" anyone?). Some of the cakes are very seriously disturbing, so if you like cake and don't want to have to bleach your eyeballs in order to enjoy your next piece, just take my word for it and skip the blog.

In between having all the elements for my cake complete, but before starting to put them together, a friend happened to post a link to a Cake Wrecks post. Suddenly, I had some fear that I was about to create a Cake Wreck. While the cake didn't turn out exactly how I'd pictured it, it was not a wreck.

Here's the main cake. It's a brownie cake with blue water frosting and an ochre sea star gracing the top. I should have taken a picture once the candles went in. About five or six months ago, we saw some really cool shark candles at a toy store. Hoping that Darcy's obsession with the sea would last this long, we slid some onto the counter while she wasn't watching. Surprisingly enough, the small ones mostly asked for pieces from the other cake:

Again, the cakes are brownies frosted with cream cheese frosting and the "sand" was three kinds of crushed cookies to get the mix of colors and textures just right. One of the party guests came back for seconds of sand, so I think it was a hit.

Roast Fairy. Fairy Stew. Fairy Soup.

Before I get to the main attraction of this post -- fairy recipes -- I'd like to share an exchange Michael and Darcy had as they prepared to do battle on the CandyLand board after dinner tonight:

Michael: I'll be blue because I love you!
Darcy: I'll be red because you have a beautiful head.

She's a rhymer!

On to fairy recipes:

As I may have mentioned, we get to play fairy a lot. "Get to" has less implied mandatory-ness than really exists. "We are forced to play fairy a lot" would be more accurate. And so we do. Darcy likes to re-enact the most harrowing scenes from the three Tinkerbell movies most often. They involve a hawk chasing Tinkerbell, sprinting thistles (weeds!) chasing Tinkerbell and other fairies, a multitude of "dirty" rats chasing Tinkerbell and Terrence, and a rainy cat trying to attack Tinkerbell at the beginning of the third movie and then chasing many other fairies near the end.

In other words, we get to play the villains in the form of a hawk, weeds, rats, and a rainy cat while Darcy runs, hides, and squeals while generally trying to avoid getting caught.

But on Sunday, we discovered (or created) a new variation on this theme. We were all (ok, Michael and I were) trying to be lazy in bed. Instead of being willing to chase and catch, I suggested that I, as the hawk, wanted a change of pace and was going to roast the fairy. Darcy played along. I cut up imaginary onions, potatoes, parsnips, carrots, rutabaga, and salsify and spread them over her. Then I wrapped all of this in a blanket and rolled her back and forth chanting, "Roast the fairy. Roast the fairy. Roast the fairy." Then Michael and I enjoyed roasted fairy. Yum!

So after doing a few variations on this theme (spring veggies, winter roast), I stewed the fairy. After every iteration, Darcy would grin and say, "Let's make another fairy recipe now!"

Today, after dinner, she initiated the fairy recipes again, first being roasted and stewed herself and then making me into stew. When the fairy stew was done, she "carried a bowl" of it to Michael, saying (long before she was in his hearing), "Daddy, I have some food that I think you will find really delicious!"

In the second round of fairy stew-making, however, she decided that she did NOT need to cut up the fairy (which she did thoroughly the first time) because it was just in there for flavor. You know, like a bay leaf.

So if any of you happen to be cooking fairy any time soon, give us a call and Darcy will provide you with any number of recipes for your fairy-eating pleasure.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

So I'm starting to figure out a cooking schedule for tomorrow. We're having a grain-meat roast (I love their sausages, so I'm very excited to try the roast), stuffing, creamed spinach, salad, roasted potatoes, and cran sauce. Darcy came home from preschool today and announced that she had pumpkin pie for snack and loved it and wants one for dessert tomorrow. So now I'll be making a pumpkin pie -- my first, because I don't love it. I had planned to make a lovely cranberry/apple crisp with organic, local cranberries I bought at the Arcata Market and apples from our tree. I might still make that. It depends.

Oh, and I have a loaf of no-knead bread rising now.

What are YOU making or eating? Comments?

Cake Baking

We're heading over to our neighbors for another pizza night tonight and they again waved off our offers to bring something. We couldn't quite do that again, so Darcy and I made a very light dessert, an unfrosted pecan/cranberry cake that I had made for Thanksgiving. Darcy helped by adding the flour in batches while I added the milk and stirred.

She was very proud.

Who Loves Her Veggies?

Darcy and I hit the farmers' market on Friday before leaving Simi the next day. We bought lovely asparagus (which Darcy gobbled by the spear last night for dinner), the World's Largest Artichoke, some beets, and berries. Oh, and extremely fragrant lemons, too. Darcy had a moment of theft that the vendor wouldn't let me pay for. While admiring the artichokes, she noticed the baskets of brussels sprouts next to them. She said, "I want to try," and reached out and took one, and proceeded to start nibbling. I told her that I could cook it for her supper but she looked at it so longingly that I told her she could eat it just like it was. So she did. One great big bite:

"We Have Forks With Tines On Them!"

Specifically, Michael and I had forks with three tines, and Darcy had a fork with four tines. She counted all of them after asking what they (the tines) were called.

In other words, her vocabulary continues to grow quickly. As do her culinary borders. Tonight was baked tofu with a broccoli/mushroom/zucchini/noodle stirfry. About half-way through, she asked to eat "mama's zucchini" because hers was all gone. The spice level of both was moderate and she ate it up. It's a good feeling.

And in other news, we have new friends! Who live in the preserve! And have an almost-toddler! They live about twenty minutes south of Kelso Depot and work for the research center there. They walked into the Depot and asked to meet Michael last week because they had heard there was a couple with a toddler there. They followed up quickly with a dinner invite, which we had to decline because Michael was under the weather.

I asked Amy to come with us to a toddler playgroup in Vegas yesterday and we had a great time despite some teething crankiness. They stayed to play for a while when we got back to Cima and stopped in to see Michael today, inviting us out to their place over the weekend.

It's very, very nice. We seem to have a lot in common, besides small children and talked pretty much non-stop during the drive.

More Water Woes and Christmas Baking

So we are once more in Baker, camped out in our old house while another water issue is solved. This one is not actually AT our house, but at the source of our water, several miles away. We're unclear about the exact nature of the problem, and know only that it requires a part that is supposed to arrive tomorrow. With any luck, it will arrive very early in the day, be installed without problem, and there will be no need for elaborate testing of waters before we are allowed to go home. In the meantime, we have extremely minimal furniture in our giant former house. The upside is that it leaves me with few things to do during Darcy sleep periods, so I can go through more Christmas pictures without feeling guilty about not doing laundry or dishes or meal prep and without the temptation of television in the evenings.

One of the activities Darcy talked about before we went to NY was "painting" cookies. I had tried to explain Christmas cookie decorating to her and it left her with an excitement for painting and eating cookies. Here we are cutting the first round of cookies. Darcy's participation was minimal. Mostly, she watched. Until she got bored with watching and went to play with her trains again.

But the painting! She was so excited about doing it. She just couldn't wait. Again, until the time actually came. Then she painted the somewhat green crimped circle at the bottom right corner of the platter and stopped. That was it. Eating cookies turns out to be what she's really good at. Luckily, she can't reach very high, so her cookie consumption was able to be closely monitored. I suspect that next year will see more participation in cookie creation.

In the meantime, there's not much Darcy likes more than looking at books or being read to. Here, the cousins take advantage of the landing for a light morning read.