Mid-February and mid-fifties! Are you kidding me? I want winter weather. I want at least one, really good snow day
when we’re all forced to stay home in our PJs, watch movies and bake
cookies. You know you want one, too.
Instead I’m watching in dismay as my daffodils bloom and my
winter urn arrangements appear incongruent in this tropical oasis. (Slight exaggeration, but it helps to
emphasize my point.) As I sit typing my
fingers to the bone (more emphasis), the 10 day forecast is predicting more of
the same. I see no snow days in my near
future.
I do see, however, some baking in my very near future. This week I will bake my first King Cake for
Fat Tuesday. We don’t really make a big
deal about Mardi Gras around the King Kompound—it usually means Pancake Supper
at Trinity Episcopal and that’s about it.
This year, however, I promised my patrons some King Cake, so I better
get busy!
Last year we went to celebrate Mardi Gras with my sister and
brother-in-law in Northern Virginia.
They host a grande fête each February and one of their guests brought a
couple dozen cupcakes, each embellished with a plastic baby figure—like the one
found inside a proper King Cake. I
absconded with at least half-a-dozen, so I am set in that regard. What I need to find, though, is a recipe. I’ll also be making Pralines for the first
time. I’m actually looking forward to it
and will let you know how I make-out.
As we’re going to run headlong into Valentine’s Day, too,
I’ve worked-out some plans for that, too.
I really want to go see “Always . . . Patsy Cline” at The Roxy, but we
are a going to have to wait until next week for that. Rather than fight the crowds to dine-out
(rest assured, we do our fair share of that), I think I’ll make a nice,
romantic dinner for the three of us (you will remember we still have one bird in
the nest). I’m going to make Coq au
Vin—it was the first “fancy” dish I ever made for Darren. I don’t think, to be honest, it was the hook
that caught him, but I remember the excitement of preparing such a special meal
very fondly!
Does cooking do that for you? Do you hold onto those memories like I
do? I can tell you the first time I made
a lot of meals. For instance, the first
time I made Stromboli I failed to remove the paper casing from the salami, so
with every bite, Darren was discreetly pulling the casing out from between
pursed lips. (That one was after we were
married, so he gave me the appropriately hard time!)
I really enjoy planning and preparing meals, which is
another aspect of my creativity that has been thwarted over the past few years. Every now a then I have bursts of culinary
creativity, but they are far too infrequent.
When we were trying to figure out what to do with some leftover ham the
other night, I told Darren that I would use it to prepare Spaghetti a la
Carbonara. His response, “But I didn’t
pick-up any of that at the commissary.”
“Harumph!” said I.
So, last Wednesday, I came home from work and immediately
set-about browning the onions and mixing
the half-and-half with some egg yolks.
Thirty minutes later, he was pleasantly surprised that I was not only
still able to cook from scratch, but that the results were rather tasty. (Added bonus, I used a lot of leftovers and
we needed nothing additional from the commissary!) I think I need to surprise him, as well as
myself, a little more frequently!
I hope this week holds pleasant surprises for
you.
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