Escape to California

I got this crazy idea to take the kids and go to California by myself.

And so I did.

(Remind me later how exhausting it was so I think twice about doing that ever again, OK?)


We stayed with my sister and her family. As you can see, Uncle Rich can jimmy rig a booster seat out of anything! Let's hear it for Canadian Scouts! (Is that a thing?)

I convinced my other sister to drive down with me, which was good, since she drove that 30 minutes somewhere between Cedar City and St. George. The kids were decent enough, I guess, although I do remember the last two times I drove down to Las Vegas as taking significantly less time and being profoundly quieter.

We ditched the Inland Empire for the beach as soon as possible. Oh, San Clemente, you're pretty good looking.

The whole point of all the rigamarole: get the kids to fall in love with the ocean so they, too, can spend half their lives pining for it.

Success, I'd say.

Let's run away to surf forever.

San Clemente is one of those tiny California beach towns that's still a little worn and sandy. Down the coast from gleaming Newport and Laguna, it trails the rest of Orange County with worn signs and narrow streets, more for beach bums than tourists. We stayed just off the beaches, south of the San Clemente Pier, and spent two days rolling in the sand and surf.

Anytime you wonder if the ten hour car trip was worth it, all you have to do is remember what it's like to dig to China. 

Watching The Great Gatsby

I've been thinking about The Great Gatsby. For me it's one of those novels that is beautifully written, achingly so, but is full of characters I dislike. Curiously enough, I love Gatsby--who doesn't love a man in love?--but everyone else? Bah.

It was Daisy Buchanan, in particular, who always bothered me. She picked a brute, she stayed with the brute. She was childish, haughty, flighty, empty, vacuous, and totally undeserving of the love Gatsby reserved for her. This isn't terribly unusual for me, I tend to pick apart the heroines of novels, in turns empathizing and scorning their actions. It probably started with Calico Captive, the wonderful Elizabeth George Spears young adult novel that saw the heroine leave a glittering life in Montreal to return to be a minister's wife on the New England frontier. Leave the furs, the parties, the jewels, the dashing young frenchman to return to plain-spun and...I dunno, milking? Why? And Jane Eyre? Don't get me started on that simpering, spineless, woman-child. Perhaps I was an adult when I realized these characters shouldn't be forced to compare themselves with modern women, but it would always be too late for poor, poor Jane Eyre.

Gatsby moved heaven, earth, and a million gallons of liquor, to create himself and find Daisy. What did Daisy ever do, besides walk around with a voice full of money? A friend leaned over after watching The Great Gatsby, and confessed her dislike of Daisy. Both of us, half in love with Gatsby, jealous of a woman made up of white clothes and type on a page, who didn't deserve his devotion. When you get right down to it, it's just a literary case of Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me.

The film wasn't good, either, which is a shame. If Baz Luhrman is going to direct The Great Gatsby, you expect the first half of the book, with its crazy parties and drunken days to overwhelm you, crush you with opulence and waste. It would be necessary, considering the second half is the implosion of it all, to balance the highs with the destruction, and that didn't happen.

I did, however, feel something for Daisy for the first time. Carey Mulligan's performance is lovely, full of regret and longing, for the life she didn't choose. Age lends you some forgiveness for such characters, knowing that you, too, have made decisions and must live with the ramifications, whether they fit or not. But there's Nick Carraway, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, who sharpens the finest point when he says, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." And you realize Fitzgerald also had mixed feelings about Daisy and her class--his class--who ruined lives that were not theirs to ruin. The tale has forever left me with a tiny hole in my heart for Gatsby, who was, after all, worth the whole damn bunch put together.

I WON the Cupcake Wars

Remember this post when I confessed I was competing in the Salt Lake Tribune Home and Garden Show's Cupcake Wars?

The prize was a shiny red KitchenAid Mixer. Now, I already have a KitchenAid mixer (a present after I blew out two Sunbeams.) I considered not participating and told my mother so.

"But...I don't have a KitchenAid," She said, with mournful eyes. That settled it.

"Then I am going to go and win you a KitchenAid."

I came up with the idea of key lime cupcakes with my secret whipped sour cream frosting. I made a basic yellow cake from scratch, added 2 tsps lime juice and added a tablespoon of lime zest. After the cupcakes baked I filled them with a cooled key lime custard using a pastry tip. I hide a fresh raspberry on top of the cake, and then piped on the whipped sour cream frosting.

The theme of the cupcake war was "In the Garden," so besides the fruit-based cake, I decided to top the frosting with a spun sugar nest filled with green pearl "eggs" and a small Cadbury mini egg I decorated to look like a bird. I love working with spun sugar. It's not easy, but the result is so beautiful it's worth it.

We were allowed to bring an assistant, and a huge shout out to Shannon for volunteering to help me. She was so great, drumming up interest, keeping the audience engaged, and helping me at every step of the way. Tiffany met me there with the one thing I forget: THE PANS IN WHICH TO BAKE THE CUPCAKES. She and her girls help haul all my junk into the venue and helped me calm the eff down.

I could bring a set of cupcakes with me, but I had to present at least 4 cupcakes to the judges that I'd baked and completed on site. We were working with new ovens and they were off. The cupcakes cooked for 17 minutes in my home over. At 45 minutes in the new ovens they STILL weren't done. I was having a panic attack. I knew should have brought an oven thermometer, said my inner freak-out voice.

I decided to pull them out of the oven anyway, and then managed to try to cool them down. Experienced bakers know that managing the temperature of your cake after baking is imperative to properly frosting them (because there's not a baker in the world who hasn't cried giant tears once their beautiful homemade buttercream melts and slides off a rapidly collapsing cake.)

After filling, frosting, and decorating the cupcakes the audience had their turn. The turn out was bigger than expected so we ended up cutting each cupcake into six bites. We turned out 120 servings and still ran out.

Then it was time for judging. The audience choice came first...it was Lindsey with her chocolate fudge cupcake! (It was darling.)

And then it was the big one.

The judges announced my name and I freaked out! I won! I won a KitchenAid for my mom!

Special thanks to Tiffany's Ava, age 10, who took all these pictures:

Action shot!

The raspberries before I piped on the frosting

The spun sugar nests with the birds and eggs.

Shannon, being sassy, and Tiffany, who helped me load the mixer up!

Look how happy she was!

 I win best kid! Take that, other three kids!

Lies I Tell My Children

Nobody hates nuts! That's ridiculous!

What do you mean you don't like coconut? Everyone likes coconut.

YouTube doesn't work at our house.

I don't know who ate the ice cream, but it's gone now.

What? No one would eat pizza for breakfast, that's crazy.

I don't know what's wrong with the Wii.

McDonald's is closed today.

We're out of AA batteries.

Your dad ate his vegetables already.

I have no idea who sings that song so we can't download it.

If you don't put your clothes away I will throw them all in the garbage and you will have to go to school naked.

If you don't get your feet off the car seat I will pull over right here and you can walk ten miles home.

I would love to hear you play it again.

Cupcake Wars at the Salt Lake Tribune Home and Garden Festival

Do you watch Cupcake Wars?

I don't, but I guess a lot of people do. It's probably a great show! I wouldn't know, I don't have a TV*.

This Saturday I'm participating in a real life cupcake wars at the Salt Lake Tribune Home and Garden Festival at the South Towne Expo Center. March 9th, 2:00pm. We're supposed to make cupcakes for the audience and to be judged by a panel. And we have AN HOUR. Holy mackerel, that's not a lot of time.

I have an idea of what I want to do, but I am super nervous about the time constraints. I would absolutely be one of those people on a cooking show whose sauce didn't make it on the plate. I would lose the Quickfire Challenge. Being in a cupcake wars does not change my inability to manage time. This is going to be a nail biter, that's all I'm saying.

I'm also saying that you should come! The audience gets to try our cupcakes and vote for their own favorite! Wait, what if the other participants have already rallied their neighbors and friends to come down to the festival and vote for their cupcakes? I have really not thought through this strategy at all. I guess I would lose at Survivor, too.

My readers get a $4 discount on the ticket price for the festival! I'll let you know the code as soon as I know it. You don't have to vote for my cupcake if you don't think it's the best. I'll have no way of knowing if you don't--they're not handing us your name and your vote, so I won't even be able to exact culinary revenge, if that's your concern.

MARCH 8-10, 2013

SOUTH TOWNE EXPO CENTER

Cupcake War March 9th, 2:00pm

Come!  Cupcakes!





*Of course I have a TV, but don't you love how smug people sound when they don't have a TV? I didn't have a TV growing up and it turned me into an addict. So there. Not, like, a heroin addict, or a meth-head or anything, I just really like TV. Come eat a cupcake, OK?

Shamrock Marshmallow Treats

A couple weeks ago at a TodaysMama meeting, we dreamed up a Lucky Charms challenge: what could we each do with a box of that cereal to have fun for St. Patrick's Day?

Now, this is a real challenge for me because I don't ever intend to eat Lucky Charms. I think I had my first and last bowl in 1987. I'm sure it's a lovely cereal, once you take out all the disgusting colored marshmallows that turn your milk that horrid shade of purple. But since I'm a Team Player, I came home from Costco with one (1) large, two-sleeved box of Lucky Charms. Joe's eyes lit up when I produced the box. "NO," I said firmly, "NO."

"Finally, you've come home with a decent cereal!"

"NO. Not until I make my thing for TodayMama. Don't even think about opening it!"

(Does anyone else feel like they are the Clair Huxtable of their family's food?)

Sure enough, I found a steady leaking of charms from my pantry to the kitchen over the next couple days. Even hiding them wasn't working, I had to come up with my contribution to the challenge and fast. I honestly had no idea what to make out of them. Finally, I figured out that I could turn them into shamrock-shaped marshmallow treats.

 

The night that I made them I was already running late and running out of light. I had to have something to photograph before sunset. My kids were circling me like vultures. I could see the marshmallow stars in their eyes. The baby was screaming at me, so I shoved a handful of Lucky Charms on her tray. She would eat the marshmallows out of the cereal and then scream at me some more. Joe suggested the family just eat Lucky Charms for dinner. "FINE," I countered, figuring I could eat something else later. I melted the butter; I melted the regular marshmallows. The baby screamed for more. I added a bag of Lucky Charms. I stirred and spread the mix onto the sheet. The baby screamed for more, and then screamed again as her brother Proximo removed his newsboy cap from her head. "That's MY hat," He yelled.

"ME MY," She sobbed back.

"Just give her the hat!"

"But it's MINE!"

"MY!"

"We're sharing, share your hat, OK?"

"SHARE!" She said, for the first time understanding the concept, and then cried for more dried sugar marshmallows.

I took a shamrock cookie cutter and cut out the shapes from the hardened treats, the metal cutting into my palm over and over. "Can I have some?"
"Here," I said to Proximo, handing him a gob of the scraps, which sent him into gales of tears.
"Buuuuut it's noooot a shhaaaaaaaape!"
"It tastes THE SAME."
"Buuuut Iiiiiii wwaaaaaant a SHAAAAAAAPE."
"No."
He crawled under the table and cried. The baby screamed.

"DINNER!" I yelled, and threw four bowls on the table. The animals scrambled to their places and poured milk onto their refined flour and sugar meal. I shivered. Disgusting.

"Hey mom," said Proximo, slurping the charms into his mouth, "What's for dessert."

"DESSERT? You're eating SUGAR for dinner! In fact, you better say thanks in your prayer that your mother ever, EVER let you have sugared cereal for dinner." Which is exactly what EG did.

And me? I put everyone to bed, got a veggie burrito from Mountain West Burrito, and met Jenny in the theater to see Silver Linings Playbook.

You can get the details on these Shamrock Marshmallow Treats over on TodaysMama, along with the rest of the Lucky Charms Challenge. Just be warned, they are sugar, wrapped in sugar, with color sugar on top. I did not eat them. You can't make me. "They look like something Buddy the Elf would eat!" exclaimed EG happily.

Indeed.

Women and Education Conference at BYU

I'm thrilled to be speaking at the Women and Education Conference at BYU this Friday, March 8th along with some great friends: Courtney Kendrick, Amy Hackworth, and Sarah Z. Wiley. 

I have a lot of energy around making sure women pursue and accomplish their educational goals. I didn't title my session, but there's certainly plenty to share around what professional and personal dreams have to do with education. 

If you know a woman attending BYU, please let them know! If you're a woman considering how a degree could fit into her life plans and will be going to college soon, there will be a lot to learn as well. It's free and no registration is required.

If you're interested in balancing family, work, and church, you should come, too (chances are you already know about the rewards and challenges and you've heard it all before, so maybe just come and take a siesta? You've earned it.)

2013 Women and Education Conference

10am Keynote Address - Courtney Jane Kendrick 3222 WSC

11am: Megan Faulkner Brown 3222 WSC, Jennifer Brinkerhoff Platt 3224 WSC, Caitlin Connolly 3220 WSC

12pm: C. Jane Kendrick 3222 WSC, Amy Hackworth 3224 WSC , Carina H. Wytiaz 3220 WSC

1pm: Katie Liljenquist 3222 WSC, Grad Student Panel 3223 WSC, Sarah Wiley 3220 WSC