cake diva's blog

Fall has arrived.  It's been a gloomy, drizzly few days in SW Ohio.  I should really go out and finish preparing the garden for the long winter ahead. Something's holding me back, though.  Maybe I'm avoiding the feeling of melancholy that comes with pulling the last tomato plant off the ground.  No more sweltering hot days, busy bees, giant zucchinis, crisp green beans, sweet eggplants;  no more grilled Pizza Margheritas, kabobs, and sipping mojitos in the patio...  In the end, I think what I really try to deny but can't is the stark parallel that the

Off to my hometown for a big birthday party.  Must make sure I bring everything

Checklist:

1.  chocolate sourdough bread.  Check.

2. Chocolate zucchini cakes.  Check.

3. panetonne.  Check.

Over the years, many people have said to me that I have all the luck:  loving husband, respectful, bright children, fulfilling career in a fun-filled industry, health and a relatively comfortable life.  So when I took a voluntary separation package at the end of last year, it  might have seemed that my luck had stalled.  I never for a second believed that: I had been feeling so burned out at my last workplace that I felt more than half a year of paid vacation was exactly what I needed at this point in my life.

... a bowl of cherry peppers, grilled.

Every summer, my husband buys pepper plants, even though I have never had any success growing them.  Eggplants, zucchini, cucumbers, Chinese long beans- no problem, but peppers- just can't grow them.  So, this year B. says maybe you'll have better luck with cherry peppers, and proceeds to buy 3 plants.

One of the consequences of being unemployed is that you have all this free time to do whatever your heart wants to do, and my heart wants to cook and bake and spend my waking moments in the kitchen (if I'm not in front of the computer trying to look for long-lost high school classmates).  This makes my college-age daughter, home for the summer, happy as a clam for about 3-4 days, then she starts to plead with me to stop else she tips the scale more than she wants to.

My husband woke up Saturday morning to an early morning show featuring the best doughnuts in the country.  So he announces he wants doughnuts for breakfast.  Unfortunately, doughnuts are not like pancakes or waffles that you can just whip up without notice.  He had to settle for sourdough (from starter scraps) waffles with fresh raspberries and cream and of course, bacon.  And then I got off to starting the doughnuts for next day's breakfast.