The Feat

The husband bought me an apron for Christmas. It's a handmade, ruffled 1950's apron that ties around my waist. It's not the kind of apron on which you wipe the peanut butter off of your fingers. You wear this apron with lipstick. Maybe even a skirt. Hopefully deodorant. It's for entertaining.

Everything in relative terms, the new space looks pretty darn good. So, when the opportunity arose to host a small family gathering, in honor of my mom's 60th birthday and our many other March birthdays (June was a fertile month for my people), I volunteered. I also volunteered to serve dinner. And bake a cake. From scratch. For people to eat. Small, still-developing children, too.

As any supportive mother would, mine responded in the following manner:

Me: I'm baking the birthday cake myself.
Mom: I'm so proud of you! I'll bring an ice cream cake.

One would assume two cakes weren't necessary but a solid argument was made that the ice cream cake was just a side dish. It's like prematurely insisting she take the training wheels off of my bike and promptly slamming, eyeballs first, into Mrs. Fleener's bushes. It's frightening how mothers just seem to know when they should bring an ice cream cake.

The chosen cake? Double chocolate butter cream from Ina Garten. I enlisted the help of a friend whose qualifications extend beyond owning an apron, borrowed her super serious KitchenAid mixer and made a cake. A great cake. So great, in fact, I rode right past Mrs. Fleener's bushes, over a hill and back again. Eyeballs in tact.


I forgot to buy birthday candles and I forgot to wear the apron. I over seasoned and burned the first batch of croutons for the Caesar salad. I ran out of sauce for the lasagna and made only 1 1/2 instead of the planned 2. I served chemical-laden, frozen garlic bread. I sent the husband to the neighborhood market 406 times for forgotten items.

I realized that I can do it. But nothing tastes as good without ice cream cake. Happy birthday Mom.

Space and Thyme

The french phrase used in cooking, mise en place, means everything in place. In basic terms, it's the preparation of all ingredients, whether chopped, diced, sliced or zested, prior to cooking the meal. It's laying out your clothes the night before school, it's the elaborate outline of a thesis. It's doing the work before the work, in case the work is hard.

I like to make simple, classic Sunday dinners for us. It's no secret that I suffer from the Sunday blues, so something about closing out the weekend and preparing for the week ahead demands comforting recipes with achievable results. Tonight, I chopped, measured and placed my ingredients across what feels like a counter top the size of a football field. I now have to climb inside deep cabinets - I'm telling you, secret drug tunnel to Mexico deep - to retrieve pots and pans. We have two entrances, a parking spot that holds an actual automobile, a guest room where humans can sleep. In this space, no maintenance man to unclog the drain. It will be as functional, tidy, as beautiful as we make it. We're going to have to do the work.

The good news? Everything is in place.