What a Way to Go

8:00 am Wake up early to bake pie.

10:00 am Put pie in oven without a baking sheet underneath.

10:34 am Pie overflows.

12:30 pm Remove ruined pie and set oven to Self Clean.

2:45 pm Die from inhalation of noxious oven cleaning fumes.

2:47 pm Eaten by rabid, pie loving terrier.

Candlelit Dinner Optional

A few days ago, my husband announced that he has already picked out my birthday present and that it's a really good one. Don't be shocked and amazed by the fact that my birthday isn't until July. That James is a real catch, and he gives a good present. And since I know him to be both romantic and thoughtful (occasionally even at the same time), I immediately thought, YES!, this wonderful man is buying me a new dishwasher, one that won't spew soapy water all over the floor every third power wash cycle.

But then I thought, wait a second, James can do better than that. If this man is a true romantic, and I know that he is, then instead of a buying me a new dishwasher, he must have signed me up for appliance repair classes. Because then when my dishwasher breaks I can say to myself, sorry ma'am, can't find nothin' wrong with it, write myself a check for 500 bucks, and then mosey on down to the local Home Depot to buy myself something shiny and stainless. Teach a man to fish, right honey?

Snack Attack

I just finished a recipe for the latest issue of the Victoria Vegan. This time, instead of baking for people, I baked blueberry dog biscuits for Disco. She liked them. A lot. And it sure took a lot of them to get her to sit still for this picture.

P.S. About Portland: it was fun and it rained. The end.

P.P.S. Those dog biscuits aren't half bad!

Grouchy

The morning started out fine, except that I woke up at 5:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. Excited, I guess, about today's roadtrip. So I got up early and made coffee and got nicely caffeinated while reading the news (and by news I mean my favorite blogs). And then I packed all of my perfectly folded (to avoid wrinkles) clothes very precisely into my suitcase, a pre-trip ritual that I typically savor, a sort of obsessive-compulsive delicacy if you will. And then I did what I normally do when there are vegetables in the fridge that aren't likely to be eaten before they're past their prime: I put a huge pot of water on the stove and chucked them all in to simmer for a few hours while I got ready for work. If you're never made your own vegetable broth, you don't know what you're missing. It's so easy, so cheap, and makes use of those veggies that are on the bubble...too wilted to munch on, but still too perky to toss. So far, so good, I thought. It was shaping up to be an excellent day.

But then I couldn't fit all the dirty dishes into the dishwasher and had to HAND WASH some --horror of horrors -- which made my hands all dry and scratchy, and I think I can feel a hangnail starting to form. And then I tripped a breaker while blow drying my hair and couldn't for the life of me get the little breaker switch to stay flipped in the proper direction. And then, when I was throwing out the cooked veggies after straining off the broth, I missed the garbage can and dumped the entire pot onto my left foot, covering one of my new shoes in a mountain of sloppy vegetable mush. To their credit, the shoes cleaned up nicely, and the only reminder of the incident is the fact that one of my shoes now smells...well,vegetable infused, for lack of a better term.

Despite what you may think, I didn't come here just to gripe. I also came to ask you to pray for James today, if you do that sort of thing. Because the poor guy has to sit in a car with his grouchy, scratchy, vegetable infused wife all the way to Oregon today, and he's going to need all the help he can get. So send him patient vibes and keep him in your thoughts. Oh, and if you have thoughts to spare, I know a certain hangnail that could use a little attention...

100% Chance of Crappy

James and I are headed to Portland tomorrow for the latest installment of Since We Love Our New Car So Much, Let's See How Many Roadtrips We Can Cram Into A Single Summer. We've never been there before, but our sources -- and by sources I mean Google -- suggest that we're really going to like it. We're staying at an uber-hip hotel and have plans to visit Powell's books and the Portland vegan mini-mall (yes, it's true!), among other things. Anyway, I just logged on to check the weather forecast before I commence The Packing, and this is what we're in for:

Oh, great. Something new and different.

Meet the Sugar Sisters

I could not be happier to announce that my dear friend Cara and I are teaming up to take my -- scratch that, OUR -- cake business to a whole new level. Cara is a crazy redhead, an amazing artist, and she loves cake. In my book, those three qualities make her an excellent business partner. Oh yeah, and we have a lot of fun together. As evidence of this outrageous fun, see Exhibit A: Cara and I hanging out at the Mt. Washington pub last weekend after a long day of colliding with each other on snowboards. Nevermind the handbag-sized bottle of Fireball Whiskey, which of course was empty like that when we found it. We're good kids, honest!



Cara and I made our first cake together a few weeks ago, and by all accounts it was a great success. The cake was a birthday surprise for my triathlon buddy Bob, who was turning the big 5-5 and whose sweet wife Carolyn commissioned us to make a triathlon themed cake. Carolyn was an ideal first client because she was very open to our ideas and didn't request too many specific details. This attitude is extremely helpful when you're trying something for the first time and are bound to make last minute changes. She is also my friend, so I knew she wouldn't murder me in my sleep if the cake didn't turn out as planned. Luckily, both Bob and Carolyn were very pleased with the results and no bakers were harmed in the making of this particular cake. See it for yourself below. Oh, and in case you're wondering, it was hazelnut cake filled with chocolate-hazelnut mousse, and everything on the cake is edible and vegan. Except the orange ribbon. Which might actually be vegan, but please, don't eat ribbon.

Since Cara and I had so much fun making Bob's triathlon cake, we decided that we would try to make a real business out of our cakes. Don't worry, Mom and Dad, we're not quitting our day jobs. But we are trying to spread the word that the Sugar Sisters are the girls to call when you need a creative cake for just about any occasion. Why Sugar Sisters, you ask? Well, we tried to solicit business names from all of our friends, but Flour Power didn't quite fit us, and neither did Four Boobs and a Cake. (Thanks anyway, Frank!) So we're calling ourselves the Sugar Sisters until we think of something more clever. Or until we become so wildly popular that it would be impossible for us to change our name even if we wanted to. Like Hootie and the Blowfish, for example.