Family Favorite

This past weekend I had my 10 year old nephew over. Like his sister who came over in January, he also wanted to bake. His choice was an old family favorite, potato chip cookies. No pictures, I forgot to take them, but they turned out great. He did a wonderful job making them. The only thing I did was get out the ingredients and put them away and give a little elbow grease to finish off the blending. The whole scene was a bit of a flash back to when I was that age baking cookies. :)

I don’t know how many of you know have had potato chip cookies, the best way I can think to describe them is to compare them to the hard cookies you get at Chinese restaurants with your fortune cookies. They are kind of like them, but not really. I also was trying to remember how they became a family favorite. I am pretty sure I found them one day when I was trying to find something to make with the ingredients in the house. Evidently we did not have too much around (which was actually a pretty common occurrence) So I was going through my Mom’s old recipe books and found potato chip cookies. I can still tell you which book these came from and consider it one of my favorite books. It is a church book from the 60’s with good old ditch recipes. Anyway I made the cookies and they soon became a favorite. I even remember taking a cooking class as an elective in Jr High and sharing it with them.

Two Days, Two Cakes

This weekend I found myself making cakes for two different occasions. Saturday was my Mom’s birthday; she didn’t care what, if anything was on her cake, so I went with some flowers. In the picture the border and flowers look blue, but they are really dark purple, her favorite color.

Sunday I made a cake for a shower. As you can see I used the same colors, which was very nice, I almost always have a ton of colored frosting left over. Making cakes two days in a row let me use up some of the frosting.

And to report from the cookie baking last week – the cookies turned out in the end with only a few tears and pouts during the process.

Enough!

I have finally had enough with this weather. Actually it is not the weather so much as the mixture of elements that has made the roads impossible to clear. The frigid temperatures that make road salt/sand ineffective and the snow and ice on the roads that have turned every road into a skating rink. This week these conditions started on Sunday, last week was no picnic either. I am hoping the temp makes it up to 20 today so that the salt will start to work. They are forecasting a high of 30 tomorrow – which is a heat wave and it will feel like spring. I am not asking for much, just for a day or two when my normal 18 minute commute into work does not take an hour or more!

On a baking note – I am a leader for our Girls Club at church, and I have been working with some girls teaching them how to bake. Tonight is the night they make cookies on their own (with my supervision). I hope they turn out okay.

Happy Super Fat Tuesday

In the political arena today is known as Super Tuesday, the day when 24 states in one way or another take their part in voicing their opinion on who should be the next president of the United States.

In many Christian communities, today is Fat Tuesday, the day before start of the Lent season where people spend one last day indulging before the turn their focus to this Holy time.

I am not sure if these two day have every occurred simultaneously before, but it made me laugh last night when I thought of it being Super Fat Tuesday.

What significances does this have on every day life? Well it means tonight’s prime time television will be non – stop coverage of election results, much like that of the general election night. And we may or may not know who each party’s candidate is. It will definitely be interesting to see how it all turns out.
And if you live in my neighborhood, the polish Westside – it means that the grocery stores and bakeries are filled with their yearly yummy treat – Paczkis and if you stop by the local store you are apt to find a polka band performing and handing out beads. If you time it just right you might just get to meet the local Pulaski Day Queen. Fun times.

Hit Hard

Last week I was busy at work, we had a major deadline on Thursday and lots of little projects and not so little meeting all through the week. On Tuesday I was hard at work but in the span of less then an hour I went from being fine to being totally sick. It hit me like a ton of bricks and by the time I got home my temperature was 103 and that is where it stayed for 48 hours. It was not a lot of fun. Due to the above mentioned things at work, I had to come into the office for a portion of each day, even though the fever was severely inhibiting my cognitive abilities. Thankfully the fever subsided a bit late Thursday. Not so thankfully, this nasty bug took up residence in my lungs – which creates its own set of challenges and it is still staking its claim there.

So there went my grand ideas of finding something new to bake for last night Superbowl party to dazzle everyone. Instead I threw together some Congo bars yesterday afternoon after taking a nap and deciding I could try to make it until halftime. I did leave at halftime and watched the exciting finish to the game at home in bed. I am hoping I continue to get better and can make through a whole day at work today.