The Food of Love

Since I finally organized my pictures from my Christmas baking exploits, I figured it's time to share.

This is sort of a tale of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Since I'm all about inverting expectations, I'll cover the ugly first.

First, a back story. When I was little, every year at Christmas my great-grandmother would make this fabulous coconut cake. We're talking amazing, bakery-quality stuff. She'd crack open a real coconut, spread the icing just so, and apparently would even use tons of toothpicks to make the layers stand right. After she died, my dad's mom attempted to re-create the masterpiece. It sadly never lived up to the memory, always tending to fall on the dry side.

Well, this year I decided to try my hand at the famous cake. I will preface the following pictures to say that this cake was absolutely delicious, if a bit too sweet. I subbed coconut milk for regular which was a bit much. I'll go half and half next time. Also, I didn't use real coconut, but I'm not sure that made too much of a difference. The real problem with this cake was the absolute disaster that came from trying to get it out of the pan and standing up. Mom tried to dump it out, with little success. Still. It was not dry. This was almost more of a coconut cake soup than anything. Here's the recipe and the pictures. Look for my second go next year. I will not be defeated!

Why can I not produce baked goods for these people?

Yay, it's Jen's 21st birthday! In honor of this very special occasion, I've produced a gallery for her viewing pleasure. I can't say I found the task that unpleasant either.

And since she can officially booze it up now, here's what I would be baking her if I could: Red Wine Cupcakes. You know, if lemon makes red wine sweeter, I wonder what Lyman would do? Couldn't hurt to try!

Also, today happens to be my parents' wedding anniversary as well. Go marriage! Go Mom and Dad! I'm not sure what type of cupcakes would be appropriate; perhaps some that require a great deal of patience?

Man I'm just full of bad jokes today...

Feliz Navidad

The best parts of Christmas are the traditions.

When I was growing up, we'd always put up our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. Every year my Dad and brother would get frustrated at the Christmas lights, which every year seemed to get more and more tangled. My mom would lay out all the ornaments and start unpacking the Christmas dishes, and we'd all put ornaments on the tree for hours until the last one was crammed wherever we could find a space. It was always very interesting to see which of the handmade ornaments had fallen apart that year and whether a particular Santa ornament had lost his legs again.

In recent years, however, we finally acquired a pre-lit tree, so the lighting isn't as much of an isssue, it's a crapshoot as to who's actually at home the day after Thanksgiving, and when Nicholas and I were in Prague, we found a replacement for the legless Santa.

But it's comforting to know that some traditions live on. There are still too many ornaments for the available space, Mom was buying more red bowls the other day, so there will certainly be dishes to wash, and we will always have the sombrero on top of our Christmas tree.

...Did I not mention the sombrero? Who knows when that started, but the angel atop our tree has as long as I can remember had the spirit of our neighbors to the south in her dress.

Chocolate caliente, anyone?

Well I'm up for the post-run buffet...

My brother ran a marathon today.

26 miles. 26 miles.

I don't think I walk that much in a week, never mind running it.

For those of you like me who are not completely badass and fit, this couch to 5k program looks totally doable. I've known about it for months and still haven't started, so I can't testify to its results. It does however break things down into managable sections, so maybe I'll actually get around to doing it one of these days.

In the meantime, I'll just be over here staring in awe. 26 miles!