Has it been another month? It has! I don't understand how this keeps happening, and yet, here we are. Time has passed, some interesting things have happened and other not-so-interesting, and life marches on, etc. I've made a number of desserts for Nerd Night this year and shared almost none of them with you because I'm a big jerk. Also because they've mostly been fine but unexciting. However! I am the sort of person who buys buttermilk for a recipe and then spends the next however-long trying to find recipes with which to use up said buttermilk, because most of the time when you Google...
In a world which no longer makes sense, at least we always have Nerd Night. Except... we DON'T always have Nerd Night, because as our nerds get older and life intervenes, Nerd Night is often canceled or moved, and while there has MOSTLY been Nerd Night, I've often baked the same treats a second time and also completely forgotten to share recipes when I didn't. It's been on-again, off-again, and I'm disorganized. But! New year! New Nerd Nights! New recipes!! (Pay no attention to our crumbling world! Look, I have sugar and butter!) I pretty much drowned my family and anyone else who came near...
After a long, harsh (not really) summer, Nerd Night has returned! Even that is a lie, sort of---there were sporadic Nerd Nights this summer, they just couldn't do it every week. And actually, the current campaign started last week, but I was too busy trying to get my child to pack for college and clean her room to share that recipe. (But: soft cherry chocolate chip cookies, in case someone feels they cannot live without that recipe. Happy to share it, if so.) Last night, though, that felt like the first "normal" Nerd Night in a while. But... Chickie wasn't here. Clearly this leaves behind a...
This weekend I Planted All The Things and Baked All The Things and also managed to burn a spectacular burn across my arm in an impossible location while I was rotating the pans in the oven for this cake. I am talented! Now on my left arm, my tattoo is busy scaling/flaking ("SOON I SHALL REVEAL MY TRUE FORM!" I keep screeching at the children, who have long suspected I am actually Cthulhu underneath all the gray hair and under-eye bags), and on my right arm, I have a 2" long blister. I'm a mess. I'm such a disaster, I never even told you to go read my latest advice column over at Alpha Mom,...
I'm not gonna lie; I'm a little verklempt today. (Spellcheck insists that verklempt is not a word. Spellcheck is now dead to me.) In just a few short weeks, my blog turns 12, which isn't all that remarkable, I suppose. But it means that when I started here, Chickadee was just 6. And today, Chickadee is 18. I once gave birth to a baby and now that baby is a full-grown adult human (theoretically) and I HAVE MANY FEELINGS TODAY. I will give you just a glimpse of some of that, in a minute, but of course we all know the important thing here is THE GOODIES. (Of course.) This morning the kids had...
Nerd Night was on hiatus for a few weeks (Easter and other scheduling issues), and lo, there was much sadness across the land. "Why aren't you baking us delicious sugary things?" lamented my spawn. It was tragic, truly. Sometimes I get a wild hair about a certain kind of recipe, and other times a recipe just sort... suggests itself to me. Like, two weeks ago, Nilla Wafers were the Penny Item the day I went grocery shopping, so I ended up with a box of those. And then a week ago, Jello Pudding mixes were B1G1. So I figured I'd make a good ol' southern banana pudding, but of course both of my...
For two weeks in a row, now, there hasn't been Nerd Night. This would be a Major Crisis, but fortunately yesterday (for Easter) we found ourselves at a gathering that included most of the Nerd Night crew. So: no official game, but at least the kids got to hang out together. Also, I baked, because it seemed like the thing to do. Specifically, I made two kinds of whoopie pies, because whoopie pies are a pain in the butt, but hey, it was Easter, after all. In case you want to make your own, the lower image is the traditional chocolate version with no changes, and then the top ones are these...
Go ahead. ASK ME IF THE BATHROOM IS DONE. Or don't, if you don't want to see me weep. (Long story short: The tile guy has been working SO HARD, and he is so nice and so earnest and he WORKED ON SATURDAY and I hate that we had to point out that the floor is uneven and the lines in the shower are not plumb. He is now upstairs grinding out the tile and presumably fantasizing about my untimely death.) Anyway. The bathroom is a special kind of sadness, right now. So I baked cookies one day and then this cake the next day, because sugar and flour fixes everything, right? I hope so. I had a bunch...
Spring Break is upon us, and on Saturday, Monkey jetted off to see his dad, Otto took Chickadee to an event at her soon-to-be college, and my lovely friend Ruth who lives too far away came to spend the weekend. Instead of spending quality time with my offspring the night before they left me, I spent quality time in Atlanta traffic gabbing endlessly with Ruth, and then we went out washed down our weight in sushi with a couple of martinis as if we were party animals. (All was forgiven because Ruth makes her own AH-MAZE-ING chocolates and she brought us a box of goodies. The kids might've...
