Marzipan Recipe

I noticed I get a lot of traffic to my blog, particularly in the springtime, for a recipe I posted years ago for Marzipan Easter Eggs. Since it seems to be a popular one, I decided to illustrate it for They Draw and Cook. It turned out to be as much fun drawing and coloring the eggs as it is to roll and shape them out of edible clay!

Click on the following link to see the entire illustrated marzipan recipe.

My original blog post, with photos of the finished confections, can be seen here.

If you have any special Easter or springtime traditions, I'd love to here about them!

The Barber is In

Here we are at the beginning of a new year. It’s a relief to put the last one behind me. If last year were a hairstyle, it’d be a Mohawk: scary all around and just plain ugly in the middle.

The year wasn’t totally without highlights. There IS an upside to having your life turned upside down. You’re compelled to take personal inventories, to appreciate things differently. Nothing like being flipped hip pockets over split ends to make you sit up and take notice.

I’ve enjoyed taking classes again. After sweating out some fears in computer workshops, I took a semester length class (got an A!). I signed up for two more this coming semester. It’s surreal to be in that environment after so many years, but I like being there. How often do people take a hard look at their lives, realize their dissatisfaction, and keep on doing the exact same things? It’s like watering a dead plant every day and hoping an orchid will pop up. But who am I to talk? Without a good kick in the pants, I fall into the category of stick waterers.

Being forced to set aside writing/illustrating pursuits brought an unexpected revelation, too. Even though I enjoyed what I was doing, I had a nagging feeling I wasn’t representing myself in a very authentic way. I doubt nagging feelings lead to wild success and utter bliss, so I’m okay with letting it all simmer on the back burner for now.

That leaves me with a question -what to do with this blog? It hangs in the blogosphere and in the back of my mind. I miss the camaraderie. I just haven’t quite figured out a way to keep it up.

So, no resolutions …just faith that this year is going to be better. It’s off to a pretty good start. I’d say so far it’s more like a bowl haircut: kinda funny looking, but ready for that awkward growing-out stage.

Happy New Year. Hope it has the right amount of bounce to it.

A Small, Small World

My daughter's world history class was assigned to watch this video over the Thanksgiving break. I think it's a good way to keep things in perspective this season.



More information about the Miniature Earth project can be found on their website here.

P.S. The comments line might be pulling a disappearing act. If it's missing and you'd like to leave a comment, try clicking on the post title above. :)

Thanks

Since Thanksgiving is tomorrow, I thought it would be a good time to say thanks. Thanks for visiting and commenting. Thanks for the inspiration and encouragement, and for making me laugh, even on the days I think I might be chasing unicorns.

I thought blogging would be a good way to force myself to write and paint at least a little bit every day. I jumped into it with no particular focus in mind. As it turns out, a lack of focus is my focus. It’s worked out pretty well, because I’ve been lucky enough to connect with moms and writers and artists and travelers - all kinds of creative people who share some of my passions and are kind enough to share their ideas. I’m delighted and surprised every time you come back. I know my blog is a mixed bag. In the words of Forrest Gump, you never know what yer gonna get.

I hope you’ll keep visiting, and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

One Holiday at a Time

You might remember me mentioning the neighbors who had Halloween decorations up in early September. As I passed their house yesterday morning, I was greeted with a four foot pine wreath and Christmas lights. On November seventh. The best part is - they still have a big hanging skeleton and a witch decoration up on their front porch.

These people don’t just rush the seasons, they clump them all together. Happy Hallo-giving-mas. Or maybe Merry Hallowistmas. They could be taking the retailers’ approach and skipping over poor Thanksgiving altogether. I’m starting to see why some communities have rules about decorating.

I wonder if these neighbors take the same approach to everything. Do they skip ahead to read the last chapter of a book, but reread the same Family Circle every month? Did they potty train their kids at six months but bottle feed them ‘til first grade? Do they eat breakfast before going to bed, but stay in pajamas ‘til 3 pm?

Is this a sign of how overstretched are we – racing through special times and letting other things slide? I’m always curious to hear how people manage the stress of the holidays. Most people I talk to don’t really seem to enjoy the pressure of all that’s expected of them. I’ve learned that even if it comes with a twinge of guilt, I enjoy things more when I scale them down.

I’ll be pondering this, while fully expecting to see jingle bells AND Easter bunnies sometime in January.

Pickled Eyeballs and Other Delights

It's November! I hope everyone had a fun Halloween. I've been too busy to think up a new blog post, so I figured I'd put up some pictures of the festivities.

We gathered a large group of trick-or-treaters together, including my brother-in-law from Mexico and his girlfriend, who'd never experienced this ritual. They arrived all decked out and ready to go, and only got a little discouraged when one Halloween Scrooge told them the candy was "just for the kids." We conviced them to jump right back in.

As for my kids' costumes, I noticed a couple of repeat themes this year. Here's a picture of them from last year, as The Joker and Amy Winehouse:

My son decided to stick to the Batman villain thing. This year he was Two-Face. We went with more of a Tommy Lee Jones inspired look, rather than the more recent burn victim Harvey Dent:

The boy has a wild side. I could've gone crazy with the make-up, but do you know how hard it is to get a 12 year old boy to sit still for hair and make-up? Overall when there's a neighborhood overflowing with candy just waiting for him?

For my daughter, however, it's all about the hair and make-up. I think she settled on Cleopatra because it's the only costume that requires EVEN MORE eye make-up than Amy Winehouse.

Here she is, the Queen of the Nile. Or in this case, the queen of the eyeliner.

While I was searching through the craft box for something for Cleopatra's necklace, I found a pack of undecorated plastic masks. They saved my husband and I from being totally costumeless:

What's black and white and ready to be dragged all over?

Here's a picture of the happy trick-or-treating couple from Mexico:

Under that archway, this looks like some bizarre alternative wedding.

We're now the proud owners of that giant double axe prop. For some reason my brother-in-law thinks it wouldn't go over well with airport security. And speaking of props, I have to give my son credit with coming up with this lovely decoration:

Pickled eyeballs.

That's it. On with November. And for those of you participating in NaNoWriMo this month, good luck!

Trick or Treat

Yeah, they work hard for the candy.

Of course, if mine bring home any dark chocolate Reese's, they'd better hide 'em.


Which treat do you love the best?

What Day Is It Again?

This morning I saw Halloween decorations. Not at the store. On somebody’s house. And not just a little fall pumpkin on one of those banners everyone around here displays.

As I was walking the dog, I rounded a corner and spotted a five-foot tall ghouly thing with rotting flesh and bad hair, hanging from an upstairs window. I thought it couldn’t be for Halloween…maybe they had a themed party coming up, or it’s their idea of home décor. I thought, wow – I bet their homeowner’s association is going to be all over them for that one. But no, a gigantic plastic jack-o-lantern on the porch confirmed that they were just rushing the season.

When I was little, we’d carve a pumpkin after school on the day of Halloween. If my mom had time to hunt for it, she’d drag a cardboard cutout of a cat out of a drawer somewhere and we’d tape it to the front door.

We’ve got a month and a half until Halloween gets here. I can’t imagine putting a Christmas tree up on November 10th…yet every year the lights and lawn decorations start showing up earlier and earlier.

But what do I know? I think it’s still summer. Oh wait…it IS still summer.

Triple Happiness

This Sunday is Mother's Day, and this year it just happens to fall on my husband's birthday. We'll be doubling up on the celebrating. It'll definitely include one of my favorite things: brunch. What better way to celebrate two events than to pig out on two meals at once! Would it be overdoing it to have two desserts, too?

One more thing making me happy this week - I won the Mother's Day Contest on Stories For Children's Families Matter Blog, for a story I wrote about my mom. And the prize for first place is a necklace. Yippee! You can find my story "A Little of This" here.

Something Different

I kept getting hints from the family that I haven’t made a favorite treat in a while. I finally made a batch last week when my son got home from sixth grade camp.

We call them Raisin Spicy Dice. I invented them when I entered a recipe contest on a whim – something I’ve never done before or since. No, they didn’t win, but they won over my raisin-loving son. Even my daughter likes them, and she’ll go out of her way to avoid a raisin.

The challenge was to come up with a recipe for raisins using no more than six ingredients. I used an unlikely combination of raisins, chocolate, and chili peppers. They taste like a spicy Tootsie Roll. If your curiosity gets the better of you, here’s the recipe:

1 cup raisins
2 T unsweetened cocoa powder
2 T light corn syrup
2 ¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
½ tsp. ground cayenne pepper

Combine raisins, cocoa powder and corn syrup in food processor until mixture forms a soft paste. Gradually add 2 ½ cups of confectioner’s sugar and process until combined.
Transfer to clean surface and knead until sugar is completely incorporated and a soft dough is formed.
In a shallow dish, mix together remaining ¼ cup sugar and cayenne pepper. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Roll each ball in spiced sugar, then pinch sides to form into cubes.

Also, speaking of contests, I found another one to distract me from anything I should be doing. Stories For Children is having a Mother’s Day writing contest on their blog, Families Matter. The deadline to enter is May 4, so there’s still time to enter. You can read about it here.

Is there any type of contest you just can't resist?

I Guess It Really Does Happen to Everyone

After I posted some of my more ridiculous moments last Friday, my husband reminded me of the following story. And what better day than April Fool’s Day to celebrate tales of foolishness:

A scientist attended a banquet in his honor. He became distracted during the dinner and started figuring equations in a notebook. He was lost in thought when the crowd stood and began applauding. His personal secretary caught his attention and motioned for him to stand.

Noticing the standing ovation, he quickly stood and enthusiastically joined in. His secretary then had to come and inform him that the applause was in fact for him. The daydreaming scientist was Albert Einstein.

That anecdote is mentioned in his biography, Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Another story describes how Einstein enjoyed taking long rambling walks. On one such occasion he phoned his institute and asked for Dr. Einstein’s address. When the person on the phone informed him that information was private, he lowered his voice and admitted that it was Dr. Einstein on the phone, and that he couldn’t remember where he lived.

At least I feel better now.

Marzipan Easter Eggs

When my daughter was six, she was diagnosed with an egg allergy that lasted the next five years. Instead of dying eggs for Easter, we made them out of marzipan.

If you’ve never played with marzipan, it’s like play dough you can eat. What could be better than that? Okay, some kids might argue that you can eat the regular kind of play dough, but I’m sure this tastes way better. And our homemade marzipan tastes much better than any commercial type I’ve tried, but maybe I’m a little generous with the sugar and corn syrup.

We didn't stop at eggs. We made other things, too, like little animals…

One year we made a whole vegetable garden out of marzipan. We made cabbages, tomatoes, carrots, watermelon, gooseneck squash…

…believe me, it’s a lot easier to convince kids to eat a marzipan squash than the real thing.

We always made extra and packed them in pretty boxes to give away, too.

If you want to give it a try, here’s the recipe:

½ pound almond paste (it comes canned – I found it at World Market)
½ pound confectioner’s sugar
6 tablespoons light corn syrup

Mix together almond paste and confectioner’s sugar in food processor by pulsing on/off until combined. Add corn syrup and pulse again until thoroughly mixed. Mixture should hold together when pressed. Knead until smooth dough forms.

To color, separate into several Ziploc bags. Add a few drops of desired color to each, and squeeze to mix color (this part is also fun for kids).

Some tips for working with it – a dusting of confectioner’s sugar keeps it from sticking to surfaces. You can press it into candy or Fimo molds, or cut shapes with tiny cookie cutters. Toothpicks are great for drawing details.

YOU Write Something Clever

Sometime back around the holidays, maybe because we were cooped up (er...home) for so many days, I started paying attention to the way my kids argue. They employ a simple technique, really. All you need to do is throw a piece of conversation back at your opponent, preceded by “you” or “you’re”. It doesn’t even have to make sense. Besides that, they’ve taken to calling each other “Fatty” even though they are both beanpoles. (It’s not like I condone it. What can I say…there might be a few flaws in their upbringing.)

Let’s say, for instance, that my son needs to get into the bathroom to shower in the morning. He might say something like, “Hey, Fatty, can you finish drying your hair in your room?”

And then my daughter will say, “YOU finish drying your hair in your room!” See, it doesn’t matter that my son’s hair is perfectly dry, and that he doesn’t even own a hair dryer.

Or let’s say my daughter is looking for something to cart some belongings in, and she asks, “Hey Fatty, don’t we have a couple of milk crates out in the garage?”

Of course her brother’s very logical response would be, “YOU’RE a couple of milk crates!”

See how easy that is? About ninety percent of their interaction takes this form, so I can only gather it must be pretty satisfying. I started wondering if I should give it a try.

Hmm…

The next time I get a dinnertime phone call asking if I’ll participate in a survey, I could yell, “YOU participate in a survey!” and then hang up.

If a snippy cashier at the fast food place tells me we only get one container of dipping sauce, I can just exclaim, “YOU’RE one container of dipping sauce!” Yeah, that should do it.

Maybe once, just for therapeutic purposes, I’ll draft a letter to an editor in response to a rejection. It could read, Dear Editor:

YOU’RE not the right fit! YOU find the right home for this!

Childish? Maybe. But I have to admit, it is kinda satisfying.

I Heart Trifle

Valentine’s Day is coming up. There will certainly be chocolate. I haven’t decided what I’ll make for dessert, but I thought of this trifle that I usually make for Christmas. It’s my favorite trifle recipe because it has a big slab of chocolate ganache on top. And it’s easy:

The cake layers are a Sara Lee pound Cake, cut into little rectangles (1 pound size).

The custard layers are vanilla instant pudding mix, prepared (the large package).

Instead of layers of raspberry jam, I mix raspberries (fresh or frozen) with a little sugar and orange juice.

To make the chocolate sauce: Heat 2/3 cup heavy cream and 1 tablespoon butter in a saucepan until simmering. Remove from heat and stir in 6 ounces semisweet chocolate and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cool 30 minutes, and then pour over other layers.

And of course, serve it smothered in whipped cream.

An Interview With Corfu, The Amazing Talking Bird

The kids are back at school today. Winter break is officially over. Everyone in the house seemed to have a pretty good holiday, except Corfu. That’s not too surprising, ‘cause he’s always a little grouchy. Don’t let that innocent look fool you. I decided to have a word with him:

Corfu, I know you stayed up late on Christmas Eve. What did you do when you heard Santa coming?

*Peep!*

You were supposed to be asleep, you know. So I’m guessing you actually saw Santa. What was your impression of him?

*Cheap!*

Now why would you say that? Tell everyone what Santa brought you.

*Squawk!*

That’s not true. What about that nice rope perch he brought you?

*Cr#p!*

Is that so? What do you plan to do with it, then?

*Chuck-it!*

That doesn’t seem very appreciative. What’s that I see on your shoulder?

*Chip!*

That’s what I thought. A big ol’ chip on your shoulder! Maybe your New Year’s resolution could be to work on your attitude…and your vocabulary?

*Bleep!*

I give up. Maybe next year.


If any part of your festivities were, um, a little sub-par… feel free to commiserate with the bird.

Holiday Highlights

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here’s a quick rundown on the holiday season at our house:

Santa brought me a new robe and fuzzy slippers. No need to get dressed.

We had frost, which is the closest we get to a white Christmas.

I threw a fit because my husband shaved all the wax off a giant hunk of Jarslberg cheese before serving it.

When someone at a dinner party started introducing the wines, it became painfully obvious that I use the eenie-meanie-miney-mo method of wine selection.

The dog ate the Christmas cactus.

My daughter declared that our holiday light display looked like a construction zone.

Not all the gingerbread men were merry:

The day after Christmas, the salespeople at Kohl’s were a little snippy.

Among my son’s Christmas presents were balloon animals, juggling sticks, and a fedora. Santa must think he has a great future as a street performer.

I ate so much I feel like I have a whole holiday ham stuffed inside my shirt.

We saw the movie Seven Pounds, which coincidentally is the size of the holiday ham we had, and also the number of pounds I gained.

The dog’s new combination rope-and-bone toy turned out to be the equivalent of puppy nunchucks. Now we all have bruised shins.

Here’s hoping you had a great holiday season, and that the highlights didn’t include bruised shins.

Visions of Sugarplums...

Looks like it's time for a break!

Before I run off to bake cookies and wrap stuff, here's one bit of news - Angela Nickerson of Just Go is having a giveaway as part of her participation in Passports with Purpose, a fundraiser to benefit Heifer International. Angela's giveaway post goes up at 10 am Pacific time today, and you have 'til Monday to enter! To learn about a great cause, and to enter for a chance to win a little something for yourself, click here.

Happy Holidays!!

Christmas With Blurry Dog

Ho, ho, ho...


NO!!


Ho, ho, ho...


NO!!


Ho, ho, ho...


NO!!


Ho, ho, ho...


Yes, that's more like it.

Cheap and Easy Flowers

An easy way to make a contemporary looking centerpiece is to arrange flowers in rows – absolutely no design experience necessary! The arrangement in the picture was made with a $4 mixed bouquet I got from the supermarket. They are definitely not my favorite flowers, which is even better to demonstrate that this looks interesting no matter what flowers you use. The only items I added were the pinecones and berries – you could also add a row of small glass ornaments.

To make this centerpiece, line a rectangular container (I used a cookie tin) with wet floral foam and add a border by placing small pieces of greenery into the foam around the edge. Then cut all the flower stems to about 2 inches and insert them in whatever pattern you like. It’s a little like making a pattern for a rug.

Here’s another super easy arrangement that costs next to nothing. It reminds me of a frozen pond. Just add a couple of pine branches and a few berry sprigs to any tall clear vase, and fill with water (keep the branches short enough to stay under the water). To get the frozen lake effect, take a few pieces of plastic wrap and wad them up loosely to about the size of a tennis ball. Carefully insert them among the branches, shaping them a little to look more natural. Tiny air bubbles will get trapped around the plastic, giving the illusion of ice. Add a few small floating candles on top.

Mixed Message

We were out holiday shopping and ducked into a little toy store that sells quaint wooden toys, mostly for toddlers and preschoolers. Many of the toys are handcrafted. A sign up front boasts that they’ll customize anything for you.

All decked out for Christmas, the store was reminiscent of Santa’s workshop. A bigger sign on the wall in the middle of the store announced a warm sentiment of the season:



And directly underneath the sign was this display:



I know everyone has an opinion on the gun issue, and a thoughtful argument to back up it up. And yeah, I played with cap guns when I was little and my brothers played war and we turned out fine. Well, maybe fine is a relative term, but let’s say we don’t want to go around shooting anyone.

It’s just that the juxtaposition of these images totally cracked me up. Really, an AK-47 is not the first thing that pops into my mind when I think of Tidings of Great Joy. Or toddler toys, for that matter. Does anything quite say Good Will Toward Men like a 9mm in baby’s stocking?

I see a Christmas card greeting here. Peace on Earth…or in this case, Piece on Earth. Maybe the inscription could read:

I went to buy the kids some blocks;
But then I found a pair of Glocks.
Instead of spreading Christmas cheer,
The tots are popping at reindeer.