NaNoWriMo: Day 29 -- DONE!

It's true. I really finished, one whole day EARLY (you can get up off the floor now, Mom).

By any word count, I have managed to surpass 50,000. It's interesting to note that each application adds a little bit differently:

Microsoft Word = 50, 519. This was the toughest and the one I used as my count of record this month. I figure if MS Word grudgingly admitted I'd hit my daily word count, I had it made by any other standard.

NaNoWriMo Winner Validation Engine = 50,646. Bless their hearts, they count hyphenated words individually. I've been known to indulge in an overly-hyphenated style now and then.

Google Docs = 51,570. No idea what they're doing to reach this number. The only thing I can think of is that I have an interesting minor character who stutters, especially when she's excited. Which is a lot. Google must be counting each partial word as a whole. So democratic!

Off to enjoy a much-needed hot shower and bask in the satisfaction of being done. That should last about 1 whole day before I'm itching to do some re-writes.

NaNoWriMo: Day 28

The end is in sight! Well, actually, I already know and wrote the ending to my novel a few weeks ago. That's a very different experience than I had last year, when I never actually got to the end, so I've been filling in large swaths of the middle for a couple weeks now. I'm also ahead on my word count, which is probably the first time in my entire life I've not procrastinated on a writing assignment. (Yes, mom, it's really true. You finally are witnessing your eldest child in a 100% prepared state.)

All of this feels weird, but good. I'm used to being very linear and not knowing the ending until the end, but what I've been writing has been interesting, and the gaps in plot slowly fill in -- often in ways just as surprising as if I'd been writing toward an unknown ending.

HUGE props to Moxie Sis, who became a NaNoWriMo winner yesterday with 50,002 words. I'm so proud of her!

I should cross the finish line tomorrow. You still have time, if you're behind!

NaNoWriMo: Day 26

Happy Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful for, not the least of which is that an item on my personal big goals to-do list got checked off yesterday: I wrote a piece for NPR. In the middle of NaNoWriMo. And some other chaos related to horrendously-leaking roofs and other stuff.

My point is, you can write under just about any conditions, any personal situation. Every year, the NaNoWriMo Web site features stories about people who pull off a 50,000 word count in spite of being deployed in war zones, moving house, and having babies (I can't remember that woman's name, but anyone who blast throught the last couple thousand words of NaNoWriMo in the middle of labor has my respect.)

If they can do it, so can you. So, no slacking today -- sit yourself down to really good food with friends and family, but make sure you sit yourself down for some writing, too.

NaNoWriMo: Day 22

It's been a rough writing week, and I'm a little resentful. It was supposed to be easier. I mean, I hit the halfway point in the word count -- yay! But it was also the week of applying myself, in the actual sense of "I applied my butt to my chair and forced myself to write...something."

My characters were stuck in a 5th-floor, walk up apartment for two whole (writing) days helping a friend move in. For the Iife of me, I couldn't figure out what to do with them -- they were cleaning the fridge for cripes' sake! And installing cast iron bathtubs. And eating a communal meal of cornbread, chili, and pie. It was PAIN. FULL. But then a mysterious stranger saw my heroine from a window in a neighboring apartment building, an invitation to an embassy ball was hand-delivered, and the story was off and running again.

Lesson? Don't give up. Your subconscious will find a way to dig you out of "filler content" days, and often in unusually fruitful ways. So what are you waiting for? Go apply yourself already!

NaNoWriMo: Day 15

Last week, I mentioned that I played a song on repeat for one entire writing session. Well, that's what I've been doing ever since, with a handful of songs from The Story, Bats for Lashes, Imogen Heap, and the soundtrack from Let the Right One In. I wear headphones so I don't drive the Boy Scout nuts, but it has surprised me. I've played whole albums on repeat before (most notably while making covers for our wedding program a couple years ago), but I've not focused on a single song. Since an average daily writing session is about 1.5 hours for me, that means I'm repeating one track 20-25 times.

I think it may be the writing equivalent of a physical meditation exercise. Sometimes when I'm working on a project that leaves my mind free to wander -- like baking or sewing or gardening -- time stops for me. After some initial stream-of-consciousness drivel, I don't think about anything in particular and suddenly, 3 or 5 hours have passed in a blink and I'm calm and happy.

Some folks get the same benefit from a mantra or a drone (maybe that's why I like Great Northern bagpipes so much). The song on repeat is freeing up my mind to do what it needs to do. It's been a struggle to sit down and make myself start writing these past several days, but I've been contented within 15 minutes of a session and I've a great sense of satisfaction at the end.

What gets you through something you don't want to start?

NaNoWriMo: Day 12

Sleep dep: it's what got me through 2 days of word count in 1 day today. Thank you, leaking roof that woke me at 2:15 AM this morning, triggering paranoia that buckets weren't in place and causing me to get up and check. Very special acknowledgements to the loud drip, drip, drip that kept me awake after that to the point where I just had to get up and do something...so I wrote NaNoWriMo.

I'm about 150 words ahead again after 2 days off. Tuesday was date night and I only had to write 400 words to get to the required total to date for Day 10. I blew yesterday off. I'm pretty sure that I feel much better than last year at this point in the month, when it seemed like I was constantly behind. (Getting ridiculously sick for 3 days will do that to you. Swine flu, I spit on you -- ptuhy, ptuhy, ptuhy!)

I obviously have to go to bed now :P""""""

NaNoWriMo: Day 8

This past Thursday, my co-workers and I had a little happy hour to celebrate a successful major release earlier this week and I had a lovely bottle of Guinness before I went home. Now, I don't drink alcohol much, so I stayed tipsy for a while. In fact, I rushed home because wanted to write while tipsy. I was loose, and happy, and creative, and besides -- didn't BRILLIANT writers crank out amazing prose and poetry while inebrieted?

I won't know for sure until December, but I doubt I wrote the equivalent of a new masterwork. (Remember, NaNoWriMos don't read what we've written so far except to pick up the thread for the current day's work). I do know that I wrote a term paper in college while severely sleep-deprived once, thinking that at 4:30 AM, it was the best term paper in the history of the world and realizing during a frantic edit session a half-day later -- after a 5 hour nap -- that it was dead horrid.

Whatever gets me to the daily word count. Special shout-out to Moxie Sis, who I hope is still going strong after a fire-hose-of-prose beginning. She's got to be at least 25K words by now -- after just a week. Obviously, she has something to get out of her ;)

NaNoWriMo: Day 5

Major goal for this year: try for a beginning, middle, and end.

Last year's effort, while fun, resulted in something like that script Ricky Gervais "finds in a treasure chest" in The Invention of Lying; while full of exciting events, they don't really hang together (e.g., humans attended a wedding on Mars during the 14th century) and the transitions were abrupt to say the least. Not that I noticed this problem with my fledging novel of 2008 until after I re-read parts of it in December to determine if it was worth crafting into a real book. Remember, editing is anathema to NaNoWriMo-ers!

Now get back to your notebook/computer/smart phone/scrap paper and crayons and finish your daily word count!

NaNoWriMo Day 2: I'm ahead!

By a whopping 300+ words. But hey, at least I'm not behind. For some reason, I felt compelled to play The Story's "Angel in the House" -- just the title track -- on repeat all through my 1.5 hour writing session tonight. It didn't even go with the scene I was writing and I only heard it for the first time last Friday. NPR Music had a Halloween stream up from its member stations and the song was in the mix. But it's got a compelling bridge (to me, anyway) in an alto-friendly key, and the kitties didn't seem to mind when I belted it out several times along the way.

Hey, whatever gets me to the day's minimum word count.

Almost NaNoWriMo 2009!

Less than four hours to go until the official start time, and I've only just now been smacked upside the head by the inspiration fairy. Moxie Sis is joining me this year, and I hear there's at least one intrepid young woman at Emma Willard (you know who you are) who has the hutzpah to take on the challenge via the Young Writer's Program. GO US! I'm full of endorphins after a day of hauling buckets of pavers off the (still) leaky roof in prep for a replacement, but I don't think the exercise fully explains the jazz hands I just spontaneously executed. Yes, jazz hands. I'm filled with cheesiness but really that excited about my basic idea. We'll see how it feels three weeks in, eh?

My posts to Mountaineer Moxie are likely to be short in November, but I do want to at least give a sense what this feels like, both to remind myself before I tackle it again in 2010 and to goose others into doing it. And hey! You can start late! Lots of folks do.... Mind you, they are generally nutters -- much like those people watching on the sidelines of a marathon who just rip off their coats and start running with the pack -- but the good news is that unlike a marathon, you don't really have to train for this. You still may puke after a couple hours, but you're not going to have a heart attack or tear your hamstring.

So what are you waiting for?! Write already!

you thought I was kidding about those mop buckets, didn't you?

prize-winning cornbread

yessiree bob, I done won 1st prize in the NPR county fair bread category for the totally kickin' buttermilk sage cornbread. Tastes amazing, looks stunning, and I have the Boy Scout to thank. He tried this out for the July 4th roof deck party we threw at our place, and guests were raving, so I thought I might have a shot. My 4-H leader would be proud.

Taken from this book:

ground cloves = caustic spice

Who knew? Keep that in mind if you're trying the spice tin solution, though. The plastic window on top melted and the tin grew strange crud on the inside corners. Not something you'd want to be sprinkling on your molasses cookies, either. We'll be keeping ground cloves in glass from here on out.

garden notes for 2010

The community and home garden are the tidiest they've been in months -- just a few squash and beans and tomatoes to harvest, though the groundcherries are only ripening now and that means one more round of making jam (well, marmalade, actually). Winter crops of fava beans, carrots, beets, radishes, and garlic are going in this weekend and then we have about 6 months of blissful time off before I start getting the itch to grow stuff again. Oh, and I did manage to plant some bitty wee crocuses, daffodils, and iris in the front tree box last weekend, and it finally is starting to look a little more civilized out there. Not a small challenge when you're trying to choose items and a design that won't tick off the on-street parkers while discouraging the dog walkers.

Anyway, here are my top 7 "what I learned this year" items that may be helpful for my fellow Zone 7 gardeners:

1. plant more groundcherries. These are awesome little fruits that look like Chinese lanterns on the outside and tiny, orange, cherry tomatoes on the inside (a.k.a., Cape Gooseberries, but it turns out those are larger cousins). Stunning as a February dessert because the husks keep it stable for months; just peel back the papery outside and dip the fruit in a little white chocolate. Tastes like...well, it's hard to describe. It tastes like rhubarb, meaning it tastes like itself. Tangy and sweet, with a tropical vibe. Anyway, we're turning most of ours into the aforementioned marmalade and likely will plant them directly in the ground next year. Containers are OK but require a lot of water, and they didn't really take off until cooler weather hit at the end of August.
2. don't plant scarlet runner beans for food. I couldn't figure out why beans weren't setting. All summer long, lots of pretty crimson flowers and happily buzzing bees, but no beans. I had extra shoots that I gave away and one novice gardener was especially nonplussed, asking me twice what she was doing wrong. Turns out, nothing. It's too hot for bean production here. I'll give the handful of dried beans I pulled to the Moxie Sis and fam to see if the mountains are a kinder climate. They are pretty, but my space is at a premium and I'm DONE with major harvesting now. Every flower in the few vines left turns into a bean now, and they are just hanging there, mocking me.
   
3. don't plant cantaloupe. Oh, they were pretty, those 'lopes, and I had 6 fat ones, but like the scarlet runners, it's too hot for them here. Insipid, pale-fleshed milquetoasts they were. Wildly disappointing, and I'll be hitting the super and farmer's market for mine from here on out. Plus, the Boy Scout is not a fan and when you have 3 ripe cantaloupe and 1 consumer, you're going to get sick of them.
4. don't plant tomatoes in the home beds. They need consistent sun for 3 months and my backyard bed exposure changes wildly between May and September. That, and I was ready to kill flocks of thieving birds and scurries of pilfering squirrels after a while. Gardening is supposed to be peaceful. The community garden may have human vegetablenappers, but at least I didn't have to watch them do it out the kitchen window while I was trying to eat breakfast.
   
5. don't plant sunflowers. So pretty, bobbing in the late July breeze. So maddening to watch the aforementioned squirrels chew through the stem, right below the head, so they fell to the ground for easier access. Don't look now, but that tree rat just created another instant smorgasbord for all his little vermin friends!
   
6. get 2-3 Roma tomatoes and compost the heck out of them. We tried a variety of tomatoes, but since our main goal was to can them, we had a clear winner. One Roma plant that we put in the section of community garden that had been well-composted by previous owners probably yielded 2/3 of our gazillion quarts of tomatoes and salsa. We're not messing with heirlooms or eating tomatoes next year; we can go to the farmers market for those.
   
7. plant LOTS more cukes. According to family lore, the Boy Scout's first word was "pickle" and there's an excellent reason for that: he adores them. I didn't realize quite how much. We made quarts and quarts of Grandma K's lime pickles this summer, but we had to raid the local markets to get enough pounds for a full recipe. I had 3 hills (2 at home, 1 at the community garden) and I'm swapping beans for pickling cucumbers next year. We need to try our hand at dills, too. Anyone got a 10-gallon pickling crock we can borrow? The plastic mop buckets we used this year can only hold so much....
   

Franch oatmeal cookies

A couple weeks ago, I was craving sugar and thought about making an eighth...no a quarter....what the heck, a whole batch of cookies. I didn't have many options without paying a visit to the Harris Teeter, soooooo far away at two whole blocks, but hey, it was raining. I think. Or it should have been. All right, so after I get home at the end of the workday, it's hard to motivate me to go out again. You want me to have a pint of Guinness with you? Better do it before I have the chance for cats to curl up all over me, with the purring and the sleepy blinking and the "pet me some more" head-butting. And did I mention the purring? Anyway, these cookies are the result of cocooning and what I had on hand that night.

Largely a recipe from the lid of the Quaker Oats Old-Fashioned Oatmeal canister, you'll need to follow the proportions and ingredients and directions *precisely* to get the crispy-chewy-thin texture. Can't emphasize that enough. If you do, you end up with a treat that's kind of like those fancy tuile cookies you sometimes see Julia Child & Co. make on TV, but with spice quirks and an American twist. (That’d be the oatmeal.) In the spirit of Better Off Dead, I've christened them “Frahnch Oatmeal Cookies.”

Dave -- have at it!

ingredients

• 1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 ¼ c firmly packed brown sugar
• ½ c granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 ¾ c all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 c old-fashioned Quaker Oats

instructions

1. Heat oven to 375º. Spread oats on cookie sheets and toast in the oven until browned. Cool to room temperature. Why bother with this step? Click here to find out.
2. While oats are toasting, beat butter until it's the consistency of thick whipped cream, then slowly add sugars until well-blended and fluffy. Do not rush this. It may take as long as 5 minutes, but when you're through, you will have the overwhelming urge to scoop up great gobs of it with your crooked index finger and pop it in your mouth, the rest of the recipe be damned. Resist. This is how you know it's time for the next step.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating in between additions. Add milk and vanilla and beat well. Your mixture should still be light, but have a little more body.
4. Combine flour, baking soda, spices, and salt; mix well. Stir in cooled oats, and mix well. It's going to be the most airy cookie dough you've ever seen in your life. Nothing like a sturdy chocolate chip, maybe not even as stiff as some batter breads. The only thing I can think of that's fluffier is meringue cookies.
5. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet about 2.5" apart. The cookies will ooze into very flat disks within a couple minutes of baking, so don't put them too close together if you're trying for perfect edges.
6. Bake 8-10 minutes for a chewy cookie or 12-13 minutes for a crisp cookie. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet, remove to wire rack as fast as you can. If the first batch sticks, use parchment paper on your cookie sheets. Cool completely; the butter and sugar content is high enough to blister your tongue if you don't wait at least 5 minutes.

Makes 4 ½-5 dozen cookies.

glutton for punishment

50,000 words in 30 days.

Wrestling with a laptop keyboard that keeps randomly popping the cursor into new spots all over the page while I’m trying to get down a sentence that falls out of my head faster than I can type it. Craving 5 teensy minutes of editing time with the dreck-filled paragraph I just wrote, and knowing that if I cave, I will not meet the daily word count. Ducking into the guest bedroom immediately after Thanksgiving dinner to smush out a few more sentences, in-laws be darn-it-all-to-hecked. (I like my in-laws.) Repeatedly wiping the tear-soaked keyboard and my streaming nose with my shirtsleeves on the last day, not because I’m almost finished, but because I’m killing off a supporting character and can’t stop writing to walk 50 feet down the hall for a box of tissues. And I don’t even *like* that stupid coon dog!

National Novel Writing Month, folks. One of the best, hardest things I’ve ever done.
www.nanowrimo.org

Join me for another round in November this year? Registration is now open – and it’s 100% FREE!

Happy Birthday, Fi!

And now it's Fiona's turn for a birthday. Everyone thinks we named her after that princess in Shrek, but that's not even remotely close. I gave her a lovely Scots-Irish name because her eyes remind me of peaty streams I saw in Northern Ireland and Scotland: a lovely, clear brown-gold. (yes, I know -- a little OTT, but it's accurate). She's much more cat-like than Roz, and is nicknamed "Sweet Fi" because -- well -- she is sweet.

Notice the red cloth chair is the same one as in Roz's birthday picture. It's a Herman Miller I got for free from an ad agency way south of the Mason-Dixon line. It had a wee bit of latex paint splashed on it, so they were about to pitch it out during a move, and I asked if I could have it. (I had zero furniture at the time, thanks to an ex who moved out and took everything. I now consider that one of many experiences that make me appreciate the Boy Scout that much more.) Anyway, it's a very comfy chair, and the kitties obviously have good taste.

Artomatic is here!

I'm sadly behind in the blogging department thanks to a blitz of DIY projects that I'll post later (I've got enough fodder for the next year already). However, I did take time to play last weekend. The Boy Scout and I hit an annual DC-based exhibition/performance space called Artomatic.

We went a couple times last year when it was a few blocks from my job and we had a great time. For about a month, a soon-to-be-interiorly-decorated office building is kitted out with a bar(s), dance floor, multiple performance spaces, and a diverse selection of craft and art. Last year was about 7 floors and this years is 9, I think. We started at the top and worked our way through 3 of them and will be attending at least once more before it's over on July 5.

Some highlights from last year and what we've seen this year so far:

• kid-friendly events and spaces -- cinema-themed Peep dioramas, anyone? Last year's Pulp Fiction recreation cracked me up, and I got a delayed reaction kick out of this year's Octomom delivery room drama (appropriately titled, "What the *#&$!? There's an 'H' in there!" for the moment they discovered the surprise #8 baby).
  
• legitimate art in the form of last-year's non-wearable dresses painstakingly constructed of wire mesh, intricate stained glass windows, and abstracts made from patterns of aerial photos. That last one is really hard to explain but is happily back again this year, along with a few other favorites. We noticed several entrants were part of a local glass school, and at the artist market (Sunday afternoons), we bought postcard versions of works by a Norwegian transplant who descibed herself as a digital painter and had many gorgeous shots of her homeland. We also now think we need to visit Norway. Oh -- and you gotta check out the girl who paints sci-fi/fairy tale "ads" for a planet called Zondor. She's slyly funny and has a great style. If she's not a comic or childrens book illustrator, she totally should be.
  
• a tattoo parlour. Seriously. The owners dressed and tricked out their space like a mashup of Clockwork Orange and repressed Victoriana. Not sure if they're back this year, but they sure lent a strange air of class to the place.
  
• really HORRIBLE amateur art -- a partially-burned stuffed armchair that was left out in the rain was particularly fragrant and disgusting. The Boy Scout doesn't remember this at all, but we haven't seen anything quite as bad this year -- so far.
  

So, all in all, it's kind of like shopping at Marshalls or Gabriel Brothers; there's more crap than stuff you'd actually want to buy, but the stuff you want to buy will often surprise and delight you.

This year it's right above the West entrance of the Navy Yard Metro. Amazing views of the baseball stadium (there was a game on last Sunday), the Capitol, and the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. GO!

details for kitchen nirvana (aka: magnetic spice rack)

Level of difficulty: easy peasy

Posts explaining the process:

1. prepping for a little corner of kitchen nirvana
2. spice tin solution
3. spice door wrap-up
   

Pros:

1. spices are easy to pull, which saves time and effort;
2. encourages creation of more interesting dishes (spices inspire);
3. spices are more likely to be used (less waste);
4. easy to see when you're running low on an item by a row-by-row scan of the tins;
5. easy to add or remove a spice -- just shift tins around;
6. results in a clean, colorful, uniform look; and
   
7. it's just cool. We open the door and guests gasp. Kid you not.
   

Cons:

1. takes a little time to pull all the materials together
2. not the cheapest project ever
   

Cost:

• magnetic sheets: $94 (two 30" x 24" sheets, including shipping)
• plexiglass: $35
• screws: $2
• tins: $65 (seventy 4 oz clear-top tins, including shipping)
• labels: $5 (for a pack of 25 sheets, 2000 labels total -- which turned out to be perfect for canning labels later)

total financial hit*: $201

* note this doesn't include the cost of the spices themselves, which was tough to estimate since we already had most of them

Recycling Ideas(or "what to do with leftover materials"):

1. clean and re-use store-bought spice jars (we make an awesome herbs d' Provence mix and give it away as presents)
2. make your own magnets by cutting leftover strips to the size of the object. Just peel and stick.

Spice List:

Allspice - berries

Allspice - ground

Basil

Bay Leaves

Caraway - seeds

Cardamom - ground

Cardamom - whole

Cayenne - powder

Cayenne - whole

Celery Seed

Chili Pepper - flakes

Chili powder

Cilantro

Cinnamon - ground

Cinnamon - stick

Cloves - ground

Cloves - whole

Coriander - seeds

Coriander - ground

Cream of Tartar

Cumin - ground

Cumin - seeds

Curry Powder

Dill Weed

Dill Seed

Fennel Seed

Garam Masala

Ginger - crystalized

Ginger - ground

Herbs d'Provence

Lavender

Lemon Verbena

Mace

Marjoram

Mustard - ground

Mustard - seeds

Nutmeg - ground

Nutmeg - whole

Onion flakes

Oregano

Paprika

Parsley

Pepper - ground

Pepper - white

Peppercorns

Peppermint

Poppyseed

Rosemary

Saffron

Sage

Savory

Sesame - black

Sesame - white

Star Anise

Thyme

Turmeric

Vanilla Bean

Wasabi

My FY 2009 Moxielist

It's that time of year again, and I think this birthday might be along the same lines of my 29th. Not pretty. There were way too many store-bought cakes with preservative-filled icing and far too few people telling me how great my 30s were going to be.

Therefore, to distract myself, I've come up with a list of 5 items to accomplish by my next birthday (hence, the Fiscal Year label in this post title). What can I say? I'm a goal-oriented girl. I tried to include a mix of things -- stuff I've been putting off, acquisition of new skills, silly but significant wishes, practical and much-needed improvements. It suits me, though it may not make sense if you don't know me well.

So, in no particular order (because I plan to get them all done), my FY 2009 Moxielist is:

1. hand-piece the rest of my scrap flying geese quilt top. I was supposed to finish this around the same time my Grandma K finished hers. That was at least 10 years ago. And she's made an amazing 9-patch quilt for my wedding since then, in spite of worsening arthritis in her hands. If I can pull this off, the FY 2010 Moxielist will include an item for quilting it. By. Hand. Good thing it's probably going to end up a standard size instead of a queen.


2. take pottery lessons. I'm probably the only woman I know who thinks the pottery scenes in Ghost weren't sexy. They were just plain dirty, and not in a good way. It's not a Patrick Swayze fetish, and I'm not sure I'm all that keen to kick a wheel for several hours. However, one of the first things I remember making when I was a kid was a small clay owl from some dirt in our garden. It didn't hold together after a few days of drying out, but while it was still whole, I knew it was a good shape. It felt right when I looked at it, and I loved holding it in my palm. I'm hoping to create a similarly pleasing utensil holder to sit on the counter next to the stove and if that goes well, flour and sugar canisters.


3. keep rhubarb alive. I love this plant, but it's one of the few I consistently kill -- no matter how much manure, sunshine, and love I give it. I'm asking the Moxie 'rents to bring me another chunk of it from The Home Place and a bucket of dried horse poo the next time they visit.


4. come up with a good eggless cookie recipe. I'm a pretty decent baker, and many of my best cookies call for eggs, which means the Boy Scout can't indulge. I'd like to make him something at least as good as my Damn Yankee Brownies. Egg replacer alone just ain't cuttin' it.


5. make built-in bookshelves for our house. We own more books than everyone we know except the local library, and one of the perks (curses?) of my relatively-recent job change is an endless supply of really good, totally free books. I do manage to return the ones that I know I won't read again, but I'm bringing home about 5 new tomes for every one I finish. You can see where this is going. We're hoping to add several tall, shallow shelving units to our media room since it has the greatest expanse of unused, unbroken wall space. This also means we'll get one of our rooms back; the aptly-named "misc room" is currently filled with boxes of books and comics and we're not sure what else.

Happy birthday to me, and why don't you consider starting your own moxielist?

spice door wrap-up

Step 3 of the spice rack extravaganza involved just 1 short hour of work. I pre-drilled small holes for 3/8" flathead screws (size #6 or #8 -- I forget). Moxie Dad recommended drilling at least 1" from the edge to avoid splits, so I measured carefully twice and put holes in each corner and in the middle of each side for a total of 8 per panel. Moxiecat Roz supervised closely. The Boy Scout held the panels in place while I screwed them onto the door.

A quick alphabetizing of all the spices, and we started sticking tins to the door. As you'll see in the final shot, we arranged them in an open diamond pattern. This is not an accident or merely decorative (though it does pack a visual punch that Brits have employed for years in their black and white marble-floored foyers). Nope, we actually remembered to leave enough space for our fingers so we could pull the tins off the door without needing to move a whole row first.

We were a little worried that the weight of the panels plus the spices would be too much for the door, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, we have 4 hinges and have seen no sagging. The added heft also turned out to be a bonus; everyone who used that pantry before the spice rack tended to accidentally fling the door open and slam it shut, including the Boy Scout and me.

The Conclusion: project details and the "done" photo

spice tin solution

Part 2 of kitchen nirvana was finding some containers. The Web site where I scored the adhesive magnetic sheets was out of square tins and that's what we wanted. They are 4 oz. each, which sounds huge, but it turned out that the contents of most commercial spice jars maps best to this size.

It's always a gamble to order online, and though these tins were dirt cheap @ $0.72 each, we purchased 70 of them from this site. I promised the Boy Scout that if they weren't the right metal composition to stick to the magnetic sheets , I'd use them to hold "crafts." Mind you, I had no idea what the practical application of that concept was, but I would've figured it out eventually. Beads. Buttons. Seeds. Little tiny cookies, maybe. Anyway, it didn't matter, because they stuck like glue and they were sturdy, well-made, and aesthetically pleasing. The cats got to watch me sing and dance in the kitchen, where I unpacked to the made-up-on-the-spot tune "I Love My Spice Tins, O Yes I Do."

A quick trip to Staples for their store-brand equivalent of Avery #5667/8667 clear address laser labels (.5" x 1.75"), a Word mail merge to produce the spice list, a half hour of carefully sticking the labels on the clear-windowed lids, and we were good to go.

Now came the fun part: filling the tins. First, we cleaned house. Culling was actually kind of fun, in a Tetris-playing, clear-the-decks sort of way. We sacrificed 2 jars of wasabi powder, for example. Hey, they had expiration dates, and we had 4 jars of the stuff -- it wasn't all going to fit in that 4 oz tin, buddy, and how often does one really use wasabi powder, anyway? We also got to spend a couple days at the local health food store's bulk section stocking up on spices we'd coveted but didn't buy because up until then we weren't even able to find what we already had on hand, let alone the exotics. (Mace, anyone? And yes, I did use that recently -- I'll post the recipe eventually).

The final step was to put the whole thing together, with crucial help from Moxiecat Roz and the Boy Scout.

prepping for a little corner of kitchen nirvana

So way back in March, I hinted that we finally found a solution for something that drove me nuts for years. It was my bustin-at-the-seams spice collection, and it only got worse after I met the Boy Scout. We ended up with a 12-jar rack, a 16-jar carousel, a shelf of miscellaneous-sized items, and a paper sack full of the remainder. Every time we'd cook or bake, it was a 10-minute treasure hunt to find what we needed, and we always ended up with at least 1 too many jars of a spice because we thought we had run out. At one point, it was cardamom. I love cardamom, but we had 3 whole jars of it. I made a lot of frosting and ice cream to burn through those suckers, let me tell you what.

I found a couple web sites touting magnetic spice racks, which were intriguing, but lacked capacity. We counted what we had, figured out what we were still missing, and came up with a list of about 55 herbs and spices. A measely 20-tin rack wasn't gonna cut it.

I finally found this site, which offered some materials for a DIY version and some good, real-world examples. We have a pantry door with 1/4" inset panels and 4 sturdy hinges, so I measured and sent off for a couple rolls of industrial-glue-backed magnetic sheets and headed to my local hardware store (more about them in future posts, I'm sure, because I spent a lot of time there and even own their t-shirt.) I had them cut down their thinnest plexiglass to 2 rectangles just a little smaller than the size of the panels -- about 19" x 25" -- and waited for the magnetic sheets to arrive. It turned out the sheets ship in a tube, so I had to flatten them under several pounds of books for a few weeks (days would've been adequate, but I got side-tracked).

I then sanded down the edges of the plexiglass, peeled the backing off the magnetic sheets, and used my heavy-duty marble rolling pin to ensure the adhesive stuck. A few bubbles, but since no one would see it after it was covered with spices, who cared? Fi (snooping in the bags in the picture) certainly didn't.

Next up...tins and spice shopping.

i heart my bleeding heart

Cheesy title, but this is only the second year I've had a bleeding heart and I'm totally smitten. I expect the thing to tinkle like a windchime, it's so intricately delicate. This snap is from a several weeks ago, and it's put on several arches of hearts since then.

By July, it gets a lot of sun and I was sure I'd killed it until I saw little green stems poking up at the end of March, right next to our pet bunny statue (bought on the cheap from rockin' Smith & Hawken as a closeout last spring precisely for the purpose of marking where the plant was so we didn't lose it in a landscaping frenzy).

You should get yourself one of these. It's the girliest plant we own, but it's soooooo cool.

How to use chopsticks

My youngest nephew came to visit us in mid-April. He's four. He's a problem-solver, that boy, and you guessed it, full of moxie.

QE2 & me

Last night, I dreamed that Queen Elizabeth was stealth-auditioning me for a spot in her quilting circle. She pretended she knew nothing about sewing American quilts and had me over to tea at her palace one evening to provide a demonstration. As she nibbled her scone, she made all sorts of approving noises over my tiny stitches when hand-piecing, but I suddenly realized I'd accidentally sewn through three layers of fabric instead of two.

I tried to cover up the fact that I was frantically picking out stitches by nattering on about the need to take a backstitch at least every inch for a strong seam ("see? right here? here's a backstitch...oh, and let me undo this a little further so you can see -- there's another one....) I saw her give a knowing sidelong glance to her secretary, ostensibly taking notes on my "lesson" to Her Majesty, and I knew all was lost. I was politely shooed out with the Brit equivalent of "don't call us, we'll call you."

What was THAT about?!

"I want to wake up in the morning...."

Our gorgeous "PJM Compacta" rhododendron is finishing up three weeks of fluffy blooms and I wanted to share it with you. Rhododendrons are the state flower of West Virginia and I tried growing some when I lived in Georgia to remind me of home. I think it was too hot; they kept dying on me. I took a chance on this variety and had my fingers crossed when we planted it last spring. Not only did it grow a foot, it put on quite a show this year.

Rhodendrons also remind me of a sweet, old-fashioned song that the Moxie 'rents taught us kids as soon as we were old enough to sing. I did a quick Google search to find it, but alas, no dice. I'm pretty sure it has more than just the one verse and anyone who attended a West Virginia 4-H camp is sure to recognize it, but here's the gist for you non-Mountaineers:

I want to wake up in the morning

where the rhododendron grows,

where the sun comes a-peepin' into where I'm a-sleepin'

and the songbirds sing hello (hello!)

I want to wander through the wildwood

and forget my worldly woes,

and drift back to West Virginia

where the rhododendron grows.

Happy 1st Birthday, Roz!

Because we adopted our cats from the local Humane Society, we're not 100% sure of when their birthdays are, but they said Rosalind's was around April 16th, so we're going with that. Extra kitty treats for everyone!

Oatmeal Molasses Bread

Moxie Sister and her family are coming from the mothermountains to visit this weekend. YAY! Everyone is vegetarian, and I like having homemade bread on hand for the ravenous Moxie Munchkins. This is one of my favorite workhorse yeast breads –- great for everything from peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to toast. I modified the recipe a bit, including using more types of flour, which makes it easier to tolerate for those of us with mild gluten issues. If you want to bake the original, it shows up as "Rabbit Hill Inn Molasses-Oatmeal Bread" in the excellent Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread: A Country Inn Cookbook by the extravagantly-named Crescent Dragonwagon. (No, I’m not making that up.)

ingredients

• 2 c boiling water, plus a cup or so extra
• 1 c old-fashioned oatmeal
• 1 ½ tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast (I like the bulk kind in the brown glass jar you keep in the fridge, but make sure you bring it to room temperature before you use it)
• ½ c lukewarm water
• ½ c darkest molasses
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 ½ c whole wheat flour
• 1 ½ c unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 c spelt flour
• 1 c dark rye flour

instructions

1. In a large bowl (I like using the KitchenAid mixer bowl), pour the 2 cups of boiling water over the oatmeal and butter. Cover and let stand 30 minutes.


2. Pour the lukewarm water into a small glass bowl, add a generous pinch of sugar and stir. Sprinkle yeast over the sugar-water mixture and let stand until dissolved, about 5-10 minutes. Make sure all the yeast gets wet; if some is still dry after a few minutes, give it a quick stir. A brief sidebar: I find watching yeast activate interesting and soothing. Sometimes it sinks to the bottom and slowly bubbles up from the middle like a sluggish volcano, sometimes it forms a foam like the head on a lovely pint of Guinness, sometimes it turns murky and barely seethes. This is a good recipe for watching yeast, but you’ll want to measure out the other ingredients ahead of time.


3. Add the yeast, molasses, and salt to the bowl of oatmeal and stir well. Crucial tip #1: you've heard the phrase "slower than molasses in January?" Take that extra cup of boiling water and put a metal 1 cup measure to soak until it's good and hot. Take out the metal cup, shake off the excess water, and immediately pour in the molasses. Let stand for 1 minute, then pour into the oatmeal mixture. The hot metal ensures almost all the molasses will drizzle out effortlessly, and the remainder only needs a quick finger-swipe to finish off.


4. Add enough flour so you can knead the dough –- or use the bitchin’ KitchenAid dough hook. If you’re old school, lightly flour a surface and keep at it until dough is elastic, about 8-10 minutes. Crucial tip #2: do not knead this bread dough on a cold counter (e.g., marble, granite) or it will take forever to rise. If you’re new school, the dough hook method will take you half the amount of time. In either case, you’re likely to need extra all-purpose flour at hand because the wheat flour will keep things sticky.


5. Butter a glass or ceramic bowl, pat the dough into a ball, drop it into the bowl and flip it so the oiled side is on top. Cover with a clean, smooth dishtowel and let rise until double, 1 ½ - 2 hours.


6. Butter two 9” x 5” bread pans. I like the dark metal kind because it cuts baking time and creates a more crisp bottom crust. Punch down the dough, divide in half, and roll the dough into loaves, still avoiding any cold countertops. Place into the pans, cover again, and let rise until double, about 45 minutes.


7. Thirty minutes into the second rise, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake the bread until crusty, about 35 minutes. Tap the top of each loaf lightly; a hollow sound indicates they are done. Turn the loaves out of the pans onto a wire rack and let cool until you can't stand it anymore and have to cut yourself a slice. Slather with real butter.
   
   Makes 2 loaves.

drip. drip.drip

I spoke too soon. The master bedroom window is still leaking, albeit less than before. *sigh* Back to trying to schedule a crew to come and fix it. Wish me luck.

Don't try this at home

Two days ago, a team of contractors finished a series of repairs in, on, and outside of our house that now essentially makes it waterproof once again. I’m game for almost any DIY –- especially if Moxie Dad is assisting –- but identifying a roof leak that caused water to stream out of a canister light and run down the walls in 3 distinct places is not something I want to take on. Not to mention the several window frames that drip-drip-dripped every time we had a light shower lasting more than 20 minutes. And the hurricane that came through the west top-most window every time we had a thunderstorm. And the sheets of water that sluiced down the back of the house in a heavy weather and tore the window screen right off the master bedroom window. Nope, I like to think I’m smart enough to know when my derriere would be kicked.

Luckily, the man who built our house was the contractor for a neighbor’s addition during these stressful times. I’m not ashamed to admit that after one particularly bad storm in November, I stood in the hallway at 11 P.M. and sobbed on the Boy Scout’s shoulder that we surely had mold growing inside the walls and the ceiling was going to cave in and we had to fix it because I was sick of it and couldn’t he do something, please-God-anything to muffle the incessant trickling of water into all those buckets and bowls?

Boy Scout sent the builder an email that night. I think my small melt-down scared him a little.

After we explained the problems, the builder felt so bad that he sent over crews to fix our soggy issues – for FREE. Did I mention he is a nice man? And that we don’t mind too much that it took 4 months and close to a dozen guys to execute the work, guys who tripped the house alarm twice while we were away at Christmas and shut one of our cats in a spare room for such a long time that we had to clean up a mess when we came home and she’s forever going to scramble pathetically for the nearest hiding place whenever several men -- loud, laughing men speaking Spanish -- come stomping up the stairs? But. It was FREE.

The list of repairs?

• caulking around at least 8 leaking windows and repairing/painting frames that started to split
• ripping out a chunk of ceiling to pinpoint the roof leak, and replastering/painting ceiling after said roof leak was addressed
• repainting damaged water-damaged walls and door frames
• pulling up our stone roof deck, plugging all holes, laying down more waterproofing fabric, and putting all the stone back – plus sweeping new sand into the cracks again
• installing 14’ of flashing along our roof deck’s gutter to address a 1.5” gap between the edge of the roof and the edge of the gutter – 40+ feet off the ground on a day with 20 mph gusts
  
  These guys rocked. I’ve heard that the hallmark of a good contractor is that he takes his shoes off before coming into the house. Every crew member did it every single time. Still, we’re really glad to be done. I still wouldn’t have wanted to do any of this myself.

best. oatmeal. cookies. ever.

I wish I could remember where I pick up some of this stuff, but half the time I don’t know. This one may have came from a PBS cooking show I watched more than a decade ago, and is incredibly easy.

To bring out the flavor of the key ingredient in oatmeal cookies, use only “old-fashioned” style oatmeal (the slow cook kind -- little ovals of flattened oats) and while the oven is pre-heating, spread the oatmeal on a cookie sheet, toasting it until it’s light brown and the kitchen smells like bread. Make sure you keep an eye on it and stir the oats with a wooden spoon every now and then to ensure even toasting. I’ve nearly burnt more than one batch because I forgot they were in the oven. You also need to completely cool the oats before adding them to the cookie mix; you don’t want to melt the butter because it will change the consistency of the cookies.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm….oaty goodness….

Garden Journal for March 21 and 22, 2009

back yard

• Swept out, removed pine garland protecting base of white climbing rose, moved protected pots away from house to get more sun and rain (bay, coral climbing rose, blueberry)
• Put new bases on 3 remaining barn siding boxes, topped up soil and covered with mulch.
• Pruned white climbing rose, retrained shoots, and raked out some mulch & dead leaves. A few leaves were dried out on the canes – removed those. New growth coming in.
• Pruned coral climbing rose. Removed leaves that were dried out. Aerated soil and added ~1/2 cup used coffee grounds + 1 banana peel cut into ½” pieces in a ring around base – about 2” deep. Loads of red, new leaves coming on.
• Pruned lavender (“fat spike”) back to base: all but 2 branches were dead
• Pulled up lavender (hidcote): pruned earlier this year back to base in hopes of saving it, but it got too cold and died?

diseases
Removed a few leaves with black spots and maybe 1 with powdery mildew (or starling poop?) from coral climbing rose.

observations

• Buds are looking good on rhododendron, and bleeding heart not up yet in front yard.
• Peony buds are popping up -- will I actually get blooms this year? If not, consider planting in a deeper pot?
• Lilac is leafing out nicely. Hope it blooms this year -- even a teensy one!
• Not sure how blueberry bush will do this year; it bloomed late last fall and started to form little berries that didn’t fall off and now look hard and dried out.
• Lettuces and a couple carrots planted late last fall are coming up like gangbusters. If we put a hoop enclosure on them this fall, we might be able to harvest greens and root vegetables all next winter (assuming winter is as mild as this last one was).

weather
Sun seems to rise due East now (stood in the middle of an east-west street this morning and it was dead center). Good light throughout the day for more than half the backyard. Sun still not hitting tree box in front, but inching closer.

planning

• Keep an eye out for succulents, drought/heat resistance plants, and interesting pots for roof deck plantings.
• Move bleeding heart so it gets more shade when sun shifts in mid-summer?
• Plant sweet woodruff against house wall in front yard? Guy at Fragers Hardware said it’s not as aggressive as mint, comes back every year, smells good in sachets, and he loves it. Grows up to 18” high and is meant as ground cover, so it could replace some mulch.
• Use dark, finer mulch in front yard this year. Red cypress isn't providing enough contrast and is tending to grow fungus in lower layers.
• Paint inner walls of steps with blackboard paint? Need to find out if it's weatherproof.
• New lemon thyme plant is probably needed – current one looks dead. Water for a few weeks and see what happens.
• May need to transfer lilac to a bigger, deeper pot. Defitely need to construct a bamboo "trainer" to keep it growing up and not out.

Music to make cookies to

I forgot to mention that while making the aforementioned shortbread cookies, I was rockin' out to a couple classic albums: U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and the lesser-known Migrations from The Duhks. Folks who know me well know I'm a bit mad for U2. I am the girl who got up at 2:55 AM one weekday to try to snag tickets online for a Dublin performance of the "Vertigo" tour. (I failed, but the Boy Scout later surprised me with tickets for Verizon Center and took me out for a pint of Guinness beforehand – definitely one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.)

The Duhks are an entirely different animal – an interesting mix of traditional Irish, zydeco, Appalachian, Acadian, gospel, blues, and thoughtful covers (be sure to check out “Mountains O’ Things,” the Tracey Chapman song from her 1990 self-titled album). I listened to Migrations twice while making those cookies, and it wasn't because my dough-covered hands prevented changing out the CD. The Duhks got a new lead singer and percussionist since I saw them live in XM’s wee live performance studio a couple years back, but if anything, their new stuff sounds tighter. Still bluesy, still full of soul and longing and quirky style.

Flaky Shortbread Cookies

I read the Wall Street Journal this weekend; the back page of Section A in this photo says it all. Baking cookies seemed like a fluffy activity in light of these recent developments, but I often do my best thinking while creating something, and I felt like spreading around a little buttery-light helping of love to my friends on this side of the Atlantic. This particular recipe was published in the Washington Post food section as "Big-Hearted Shortbread" a few years back.

Wishing all my Northern Irish friends and the rest of the folks in Ulster peace and luck this St. Patrick's Day -- and beyond.

cookie ingredients

• 2 3/4 c all-purpose flour
• 1/4 c cornstarch
• 1/2 c tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 c (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 c powdered sugar

glaze ingredients

• 1 1/2 c powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 5-6 tbsp heavy whipping cream or 3-4 tbsp milk
• kelly green paste or gel food coloring
• light green sugar

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees farenheit, placing rack in center of oven. Line one large baking sheet with parchment paper if making super-huge cookies (4" or greater) or two baking sheets if regular size cookies. Both are yummy.
2. In medium bowl, sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt. Tip: if you don't have a sifter or can't be bothered, mix together thoroughly with a wire whisk.
3. In a large bowl on mixer's medium speed, beat together butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla until creamy. This may take a few minutes. Make sure you stop periodically to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture until it's all incorporated and the dough holds together when pressed. It will be more dense than a good pie crust and not as sticky. Pat dough into thirds.
5. This is the most important step in the whole recipe: use a silpat liner when rolling out the dough. You won't have to add any more flour, which means the cookies won't be hard as hockey pucks after baking. Roll dough to 1/4" thick and cut out shapes, placing on parchment-lined baking sheet ~1" apart. Keep gathering and re-rolling scraps until you can't cut out any more shapes.
6. Bake one sheet of cookies at a time until the edsges and bottoms of the cookies are lightly brown, about 20 minutes, making sure to turn the sheet around halfway through. Ovens are usually hotter in the back, and turning the sheets ensures even browning. Do not over-bake, and after removing sheet from oven, let cookies cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
7. For the glaze, mix together the powdered sugar, cream or milk, and vanilla in a small bowl, adding coloring with a toothpick until you reach the shade you want. The glaze should end up a spreading consistency, like thin peanut butter. Using a knife or frosting spatula, spread glaze on each cookie, let set for 5 minutes, and sprinkle with green sugar. Place on wire rack until icing dries completely, about 2-3 hours.

makes ~10 super-huge cookies or ~30 regular cookies

Big Doin's This Weekend

I'm cleaning up my completely-trashed craft room and working on some long-delayed home improvement projects. The components for one of the latter are almost all assembled and it's been in the making for years, y'all. Years.

You know how sometimes you have a problem, and you make do with half-hearted solutions for a while, and you keep muttering and sketching on the margins of your notes during excruciatingly boring meetings at work and puttering around with tape measures and even little cardboard models, trying to figure out how the HECK someone hasn't resolved this already because SURELY there's at least 7 other people in the sea of humanity on this planet who have your exact same problem -- and then one fine day, after months of periodically Googling it just to see if someone's come up with something new, you find the suppliers and plans and examples you need to finally, finally solve it? I'm there, thanks to a crucial suggestion from the Boy Scout, and I am absolutely posting the steps and results for that sucker.

What's that you say? You want a hint? Coriander seeds, star anise, mace, garam masala, and herbs d'Provence.

Moxiecat Roz defends the laundry

One of our cats, Rosalind (Roz) loves clean laundry so much, she will prevent its folding at all costs. She's a Mountaineer at heart, she is.

Fastest Way to Thread a Needle

This tip came from my Grandma K, another Mountaineer of Moxie, who started learning how to quilt when she was 70-something years old. This method is almost foolproof for threading the teensy eyes of quilting needles. First, make sure you cut the thread straight across with a sharp pair of scissors, then wet the eye of the needle. Put the dry thread through the needle's eye and bingo: you're set. If you wet the thread, the fibers will swell and you'll end up re-trimming and kinking and cussin' and having no fun.

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

I've made these spicy cupcakes for co-workers at two different companies, and I keep adding a little more cayenne to each successive version (I think baking must temper the spicyness somewhat). I thought I overdid the penultimate batch; my tongue went numb when I taste-tested the batter, but the gang sucked up every last one and sniffed around for crumbs.

The key is not telling anyone about the cayenne; the moxieless will think "yick" and shy away. Just tell potential consumers "they taste like hot chocolate, and everybody loves hot chocolate, right? " Well, except for the lactose intolerant. So, I guess you better tell the lactose-intolerant, moxieless folks that these are like the hot chocolate they always wished they could quaff. But warn them about the butter in the frosting so they can scrape it off -- unless you want to watch them clutch their twisted guts in agony a few hours later. Ummmmmm. Right. Not sure how I moved from yummy, finger-licking cupcakes to twisted guts, so just stick with "everybody loves hot chocolate!"

This one's for you, Hellmut.

cake ingredients

• 1 box dark chocolate cupcake mix + other stuff it calls for (e.g., oil, eggs, water)
• 1-2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 c roughly-chopped dark chocolate chips
• 1 7.5 oz jar marshmallow creme

frosting ingredients

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp cinnamon extract
• 2 pinches salt
• 2 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 5 c powdered sugar
• ¼ c + 2 tbsp milk or cream (use water if cupcakes will sit in a warm room for more than 8 hours)
• cinnamon sprinkles
• small cinnamon candies

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
instructions

1. Following directions on box, mix cupcake batter. Add 1 tsp cayenne and taste. If it seems too hot to you, it’s probably about right. If not, then keep adding cayenne. Fold in chocolate chips and spoon batter into cupcake tins lined with papers, filling no more than 2/3 full. Bake according to directions. Make sure you pay attention to that bit about whether your tins are shiny or non-stick and adjust the oven temperature accordingly. Dry, crumbly cupcakes are harder to work with.


2. Cool cupcakes completely. I like to make them one night and frost them the next. You’re going to want them to firm up a bit before this next step.


3. Cut an inverted cone in the top of each cupcake (pointing top in the middle) and cut off the bottom of the cone, so that you have a cavity with a lid.


4. Fill each cupcake with 1-2 tsps marshmallow creme. Cupcakes are fun. Stuffing them with marshmallow creme using two spoons is not. Do yourself a favor and dip your (clean) finger in a small bowl of water before you try to scrape the marshmallow off a shallow metal spoon into each cupcake. Do not dip the spoon in the water; the creme will disintegrate and ooze disgustingly. Cover marshmallow filling with cake "lid.”


5. Cream softened butter until pale and fluffy. This could take several minutes, so don’t rush it. Add vanilla and cinnamon extracts and salt. Mix until smooth. Add ground cinnamon and cardmom. Mix well, scraping down sides of bowl periodically to ensure all ingredients are blended.


6. Add a cup of powdered sugar and mix on low until the resulting choking cloud has subsided and the beater is struggling a bit, then add a few tablespoons of milk and beat on medium speed until blended. Repeat until all the powdered sugar and milk have been added, scrape down the sides and bottom well, and beat one more time. Frosting should be fluffy, sweet but not heavy, and ready to be spoon-dolloped, knife-swooped, or piped onto the cupcakes.


7. Frost each cupcake generously, then top with cinnamon sprinkles and a single cinnamon candy. After cleaning up, eat one cupcake to make sure you’re happy with result, and feel free to lick your fingers liberally. When satisfied, place cupcakes in refrigerator until 1 hour before ready to serve. They are yummiest when just below room temperature.