Interlude

Greetings! Sorry it's been so quiet here lately -- life has kept me BUSY since our return from the beach, and I often find myself running as fast as I can without moving an inch. Coming back from vacation stinks. But hey -- as of last Saturday, at least I'm not baking on deadline anymore...

While I get my cr@p together to post on Weeks Seven and Eight (and the vacation! and the Cabaret, which is omigod only 10 days away! and my mother's Pushcart Prize nomination!), please amuse yourselves with Garrick's latest List of Imponderable Questions. (To qualify for the List, the Questions must be posed in all earnestness and as late in the day as possible -- preferably at bed time.) In no particular order:

• Why are women's breasts private, but men's breasts aren't?
• How did our private parts become private, anyway?
• Why is underwear private, if the private parts are already covered?
• Why are women and girls allowed to wear skirts and dresses, but men and boys aren't?

If you can come up to plausible answers to all of the above within a five-minute timeframe at 10 o'clock in the PM, I salute you. I also want your cell phone number on speed-dial.

Week Six

Between my travels and Quin's ER visit, the baked offerings for Week Six were, of necessity, on the less ambitious side of the spectrum. In between rotating baking sheets and dialing Michael's cell phone on Friday night, I unfortunately did not have a hand free to take any process pictures, so this week's post will feel a little light.

Before leaving town, I had mixed and refrigerated dough for Chocolate Chip Cookies (Alton Brown, again) and Chinese Almond Cookies (Joy of Cookies). I also mixed up the dry ingredients for Banana Muffins (the new Joy of Cooking). I spent a grand total of two hours on Friday night scooping and baking dough, and mixing up the muffins and baking them off as well. I felt very pleased with my efficiency and staggered into bed at 11pm.

The Chocolate Chippers are a good, basic cookie -- definitely a crowd-pleaser. They were the first item to sell out.



The Banana Muffins are a good, basic muffin. Brown sugar and cinnamon add nice flavor notes, and I added plenty of chopped walnuts.



The Chinese Almond Cookies rely heavily on almond extract for their flavor. I think next time I will sub finely ground almonds for some of the A/P flour, and reduce the extract. It's hard to tell from my picture, but they are each topped with a whole, blanched almond, and then given a quick egg-glaze before baking. They look better in person, I promise, and they tasted great.



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Sales on Saturday started off verrrrrrrrrrrrry slowly. At 11:30am I had only sold about $7 worth of goods and was starting to panic. Then, everything seemed to happen at once. Friends, relatives, neighbors, and total strangers started to stop and purchase, many of them in quantity (bless their hearts). I had the most delightful visit with Michael's cousin's wife (got that?), her mom, and two adorable daughters. They drove out all the way from 'Jersey, and bought some of everything. Karen even bought out the few remaining baggies of dog biscuits to share at her dog's Doggy Day Care. Awww! (Karen is a terrific photographer, and had her camera out. Karen, if you're reading, are there any photos you feel like lending to the blog?)

For most of the day, I could not keep track of my brain. I found myself frequently attempting to hold three conversations simultaneously for most of the rest of the day, which was very confusing. By 1pm, I had sold every last baked item -- we cleared $116 (woo!). I staggered home and collected the kids from my mother (thanks, Mom), and tried mightily and unsuccessfully to collapse and rest for a bit.

[After all was situated in the morning, Michael left for a quick NYC visit with an old friend who was in town for a trade show. She's a jewelry designer and her stuff is swooningly gorgeous. She does not sell directly to the public, but you can see (and even buy) her stuff here, and here, and here. (Michael has been duly informed that any the big, mesh cuff bracelets would be more than welcome on my arm.) As a result of this, I was a single parent for about 30 hours. This is hard work, even when you're not already exhausted.]

Winding down the baking activities, I still have about a dozen recipes I'd like to squeeze in. Ain't gonna happen. The Sesame-Anise Melts are a must, though, as are the Caramel Toffee Crunch Bars. Garrick has his heart set on Cinnamon Squares and Milk Chocolate Mini-Cakes, and I'd like to use up some zucchini with another round of pretty Zucchini Cupcakes. I have a repeat customer requesting a rerun of the Peanut Butter & Jellies, so I must do those. Plus I have enough toffee chips to do a round of Dorie's Blondies, and I want to try her Blueberry-Orange Muffins. Such difficulties I have in my life. Anyone have any opinions on the subject?

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We're heading for the beach on Saturday right after the cookie booth closes, so there will be a brief intermission before my next blog post. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves in the meanwhile. I'm psyched to take a real break, and running on fumes trying to get ready. You know how that goes. See you next week!

Oops, P.S.

We're leaving town for a few days at the beach on Saturday, right after the cookie sale. So much for never leaving town again, but at least this time I'll have the kids where I can keep an eye on them.

Where can I find mesh beach shoes for the kids quickly in August?.......

I'm Never Leaving Town Again

It should have been a restful break from the routine, a quiet few days of early bedtimes and deep breathing. Sitting in a seminar by day, catching up on work by evening. Spending just a little time being calm and still. I had prepped for the Saturday sale earlier in the week by mixing dough and sticking it the fridge, so I would get home Friday evening and spend mere minutes baking off the cookies and still get to bed at a reasonable hour. Easy.

It didn't quite work out that way.

I landed in Washington, D.C. at about 7pm on Wednesday evening. I had made arrangements for dinner with a Maryland friend, and thanks to Amtrak was already running late. Luckily, due to a decent map of the District and our cell phones, she found me outside Union Station and we scampered off for dinner and drinks at Zaytinya, a nifty, trendy mezze restaurant that was packed to the gills with beautiful girls who were getting carded left and right ( we didn't get carded, the bastards). We were lucky to get seats at the bar fairly quickly, and sat sipping wine (me) and lemonade (her) while having a great visit and knocking back fabulous hot, puffed pita breads and yummy tapas dishes (calamari, spanikopita, and yummy fried potatoes with a yoghurty dip). Perfect amount of food for me, but I should have thought twice before the second glass of wine. When I got back to the hotel at 10:00ish, it was all I could do to flop into bed and zone out until morning.

Thursday, the first day of the seminar, was essentially uneventful but for the appearance of a mouse in the conference room. 'Nuff said.

On Thursday evening, my other Maryland-based friends picked me up and whisked me to the Washington Hotel for cocktails. Perfect mojitos and a view from the open air hotel-top bar of the top of the White House. We tracked the armed guard on the roof of the White House for a while until we started seeing black helicopters. (For the record, the guard was wearing incongruous khaki shorts with his Kevlar vest and sidearm -- it was HOT. He may well have been hot, as well -- his calves were certainly shapely, even from a distance -- but we stupidly had brought neither binoculars nor telescope with us.) We had a very serious, philosophical discussion of Men Who Wear Speedos (not my fault!), and headed elsewhere for dinner after spending a small fortune on 2 rounds of drinks. Dinner was at Burma, a small, non-descript Thai joint with phenomenal food. We ordered a few salads, a noodle dish, and an entree (details escape me), and all dug in, properly lubricated with a crisp bottle of white wine. A lovely time was had, and I staggered back to my room in the 11pm range, thoroughly wiped and ready to sleep.

The second and final day of the seminar was similar to the first, up to and including the appearance of the mouse. Some of the ladies were seriously put out by this; I only wished fleetingly that I had worn closed-toe shoes.

At the end of Friday, yet another local friend with a very tight schedule picked me up to run me over to Union Station and grab a cuppa before my train. She has been very supportive of the baking project, and had picked up some parchment and dough scoops for me at her local restaurant supply store to egg me on. Unfortunately, a case of parchment weighs about a billion pounds, so getting my baggage organized and home in one piece was a bit of a challenge. I made it, though, very pleased in my stubbornness that I did it all without the help of redcaps or baggage carts. (Why am I so stubborn? My shoulders are still charley-horsed and Not Pleased with me.)

I staggered into the house with all my junk at 8:30 Friday evening with cookies to bake for Saturday, and by 8:45 Michael was headed to the emergency room with Quin. He (Q) had had a high fever on Thursday with no other symptoms other than an angry bug bite on his leg. When he showed me his bite at 8:33, it was surrounded by a raised red patch about 4.5" in diameter, with a streak of red heading up past his knee towards his groin. Clearly infected. Michael headed out with him and I was baking by 9pm, alternately shoving pans in the oven and dialing M's cell phone, which wasn't answering.

Just as I was considering heading over to the hospital myself at 10:30, Michael & Q walked in the door with a fistful of Augmentin. Ten-day course, call if the fever spikes again. Bundled Quin off to bed and finished baking by 11pm. Exhausted! That'll teach me to go out of town ever again.

Week Five

Week Five was notable for two reasons: the Co-Op's patio was hotter than the surface of the sun, and we got what I refer to (with tongue firmly in cheek) as our first catering gig.

[There are only 3 more weeks of the baking project, and I am vacillating wildly between regretful advance-nostalgia and overwhelming relief. For I have loved the baking and the selling and the community of it all, except when I haven't. The fatigue is creeping up and up and I threw out my shoulder yesterday -- almost surely a result of all the time I'm spending on my feet baking. {I have a bad back.} But but but there are still about eleventy-million recipes I still want to have an excuse to try, and old favorites I want to go back to, and I'll miss our weekly visits with the Mennonite farmers and the neighborhood kids and the retirees who gather for lunch and buy lemonade. It's very complicated, this finishing-up of it all.]

[I nearly gave Michael a coronary last week, at a moment when the advance-nostalgia was winning out over the relief, by musing aloud about finding ways to keep the baking going after August. Special orders around the holidays, maybe? Michael very gently pointed out that I bake for about 6 weeks non-stop around the holidays just for our own parties and dinners and family occasions, and he kindly did not call me crazy and point at me and laugh hysterically, which he certainly would be justified in doing, but asked whether I had taken complete leave of what remains of my senses? Ooooookay, not the December holidays. Easter, maybe? Valentine's Day? Work with me, here.]

So I'm very much in count-down mode and missing it all already, but just really didn't feel much like baking this week, so there are not a lot of process pictures. (I'm nothing if not self-contradictory.) This week's offerings included Sugar Bush Softies and Cranberry Chews (both from The Joy of Cookies), and Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops and Lenox Almond Biscotti (both from Dorie).

Now, y'all may remember the trauma of the overly-spreading molasses-ginger cookies from a few weeks back, and the resulting creation of Molasses-Ginger Lemon Buttercream Whoopie Pies. (Yum, buttercream.) In all my years of baking, I have assumed that cookies that spread too much do so for one or more of these reasons: dough being placed directly on a hot baking sheet, overly-buttery dough, too-hot oven, too soft/warm dough. Well, I learned something new last week. We've been chatting about over at CooksTalk about overly-spreading cookies, and it turns out that increasing the oven temp will actually arrest the spreading, as the edges of each cookie will set faster, preventing spreading and resulting in a nice, puffy cookie. Eureka! Check it out:

These are the Sugar Bush Softies, baked at 375* (which, to the recipe's credit, is what it calls for). It's an exceedingly soft dough, with lots of butter, toasted walnuts, and sweetened entirely by maple syrup -- no granulated or brown sugar at all. Very, very soft dough and soft resultant cookie. But look how nice and puffy! We are definitely on to something with the higher oven temp, here, and I can see this little tidbit making a huge difference in my baking.

Here are the Sugar Bush Softies with their crown of shiny glaze (simply 10x sugar, maple syrup, and milk). They have a tactile appeal that makes them hard to resist, yet are a little tooth-achingly sweet. Customers did love them, though.


I had some trouble with the Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops. These are essentially a chocolate butter drop cookie with chocolate chips and malted milk balls mixed into the very very soft batter. There is a typo in the cookbook resulting in the omission of oven temp. Since the dough is so soft, and took a guess and started at 375*. Here's what I got:

It would appear that malted milk balls will indeed melt at 375*.

I knocked the oven back to 350* for the next round, and back to 325* for the last cycle. At 325* I got decent results, but was by then gnashing my teeth and trying to muffle my curses to keep from waking the children. When Garrick saw these the next morning, he was quite definitive in his opinion that we could not sell them as Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops -- in Garrick's world, "drops" must be round, or at least oval, in shape. So, Chocolate Malted Whopper Mutants were born, and did indeed amuse the customers.


Garrick, undeterred by the mutant shape, bravely tested one for the benefit of humanity and pronounced them Good.

This is another soft cookie -- perhaps a smidge on the dry side -- with great chocolate flavor and a certain Unidentifiable Something from the addition of malted milk powder to the dough. Next time, I'll try not to melt the malted milk balls.

With all of these soft cookies flying about, at the last minute I decided we needed something crunchy, and I turned to Dorie's base recipe for almond biscotti. Dorie, as is her lovely habit, gives about a jillion ways to play with and vary the recipe, but I like to try to stick to the basics my first time out.

What is interesting about the base biscotti recipe is that it includes corn meal, which adds -- again -- a certain Unidentifiable Something in the finished product which is quite lovely. The other thing I like about her base recipe is that it results in a biscotti that you can bite into without breaking a crown. Still crunchy, still dunkable, but not a threat to your dental work. I can get behind that.

At the last minute I realized that the recipe called for sliced almonds and all I had was whole, but I went with it. It made the once-baked logs a little trickier to slice, but not impossible. They are a bit more fragile than the typical rock-hard biscotti, but I'm willing to pay that price. (Mr. I. was one of my first customers and grabbed up a handful to take home, and I got good reports from Mrs. I. on Saturday afternoon -- they don't seem to have lasted long.)

The week's final offering was Cranberry Chews. As I assembled this bar cookie, it occurred to me that it's essentially a home-made Nutri-Grain bar.

The crust is a crumbly oatmeal/brown sugar/butter affair, the center is whole cranberry sauce laced with orange marmalade and a few drops of vanilla (the recipe calls for canned sauce but I made some from scratch with cranberries from the freezer), and the topping is a bit of the reserved crust mixture with some chopped walnuts folded in. Really easy to make, and quite a delicious contrast between the buttery-sweet crust and the tart-puckery filling. My aunt Anita was here this weekend, visiting from Ann Arbor, and she claims that you'd pay $5 for one of these at her market back home.

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After last Saturday's Herculean efforts, I thought (in my innocence) that this Saturday would be easy by comparison. Ha. Did I mention it was hot? Good for lemonade sales, not so comfortable for the lemonade seller. Michael brought the kids out for a bit, and the heat just did them in, so I shooed them all back home and kept finding pretexts to go into the Co-Op and bask in the air conditioning for 15-second bursts. I think I lost about 10 pounds.

We did pretty well with sales despite the heat and general lack of foot traffic. Hey, it's August, after all, and it seems that half the town is away on vacation. But we pulled in $83 on direct sales and another $30 on our "catering" gig! A lady who has been by a few weeks in a row was having a party Saturday evening and asked whether we would make lemonade and iced tea for it, and could we bring it over (she lives 2 blocks from us) in our cool dispensers? I had no idea what to charge for this service, but figuring that we were providing 4 gallons of beverage, $20-25 sounded about right. Upon delivery, she insisted on paying $30, which was really quite lovely of her.

It was otherwise a fairly uneventful day, and I was glad to get home and unpack the car and lie down for a while with a tomato sandwich, and then to loll about at the pool with the kids and Michael in the late afternoon. This week I will be out of town for work Wednesday through Friday evening, so have made cookie doughs in advance and anticipate quite a tiring time of it baking everything off late Friday night.

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The next big push will be for the Cabaret on September 8! Have I mentioned the Cabaret? Michael is at his soul a song-and-dance man, and over the years has coordinated and hosted several wonderful (and popular) cabaret performances at our local theater, the Players Club of Swarthmore. The performances are held in the theater's intimate black box space set with small cafe tables and chairs, and audience members usually bring wine and/or snacks to augment the refreshments provided. The performers are quite expert and the entertainment ranges from favorites from old musicals to jazz standards and the occasional stand-up comedian. It's great stuff, and I have to start doing the PR for it this week. At $12 per ticket, we could net anywhere from $700 to over $1500, so I really need to get moving on it.

Sooooooooooo, if you're local and would like to come to the cabaret, email us at pkdcabaret (at) zmulls.com! Seating is limited, and we'll add a second performance that evening if the demand is high enough. There will be raffles! Surprise guest performers! Refreshments! Heart-warming speeches! Fun for all! Okay, enough with the exclamation points -- you get the idea.

If you're not local and would like to support the effort, you can still do so right here.

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It's been a tough month, with major challenges at work adding to the pressure. I have a feeling I'm due for a major crash, but I just can't find room on the calendar to schedule it. Through the magic of sitemeter.com, I can tell that you are out there reading my wild musings. But you're all so quiet! Don't be shy; leave a comment, even if only to yell at me to get some rest. Thanks.

In a Nutshell

Bob from Team Teddy Bear says it best. Check it out, and get motivated!